Age of Mythology

Developer: Ensemble
Publisher: Microsoft
Estimated Release: October 2002
Age of Mythology official home page: http://www.ensemblestudios.com/aom/index.html

Mixing new and old

The newest game in Ensemble’s celebrated RTS line is Age of Mythology. Unlike previous Age titles, AOM does not base its setting and units around real historical timeframes. Instead, it borrows from the literature and mythology of three ancient civilizations – the Norse, the Greeks, and the Egyptians. AoM also features a fully 3D engine. Unlike Blizzard’s foray into 3D, Ensemble’s AoM very much retains the same look and feel of its previous Age titles, with dozens to hundreds of units on the map, large, extensive towns, and its pulled back, isometric view of the battlefield.

Three cultures, nine gods

Overall there are nine “races” in Age of Mythology – you pick a race by first choosing which culture you want to play and then choosing one of that culture’s three gods. Depending on which god you pick, you’ll be given certain bonuses to units and buildings, specific technologies and upgrades that are unique to that god, and a god power. As you upgrade your civ from age to age, you’ll not just unlock new buildings and units as in previous games – you are given choices of demi-gods from which your civilization can gain different bonuses, new mythological units, and a new god power. So even if two players choose to play as Greek – Poseidon, their choices of demi-gods as they upgrade from age to age can result in two rather different armies and strategy types on the field of battle! You can get an idea of the variety available between the nine gods by peeking at AOM’s Gods page

Mythical 'Animal Magnet' power

Big showdown

Looks like Ben Hur

Favor

One of the key differences between AoM and previous Age games is a new resource called favor. The way the three cultures gather favor differs. The Greeks need to use peasants to pray at the temple – this means that the Greeks will probably need to build more villagers than other cultures because peasants that are praying are obviously not doing other useful tasks like farming, gathering, and mining. The Egyptians gain favor by building more monuments. This means that Egyptian towns are going to be a lot larger and more complex than other cultures’ towns (especially the nomadic Norse who only use one type of gathering structure, the mobile ox cart). To balance this out, Egyptian buildings require no resources but take a long time to build. Hey, the pyramids weren’t built in a day! The Norse, being a raider culture, gain favor simply by killing units in battle. If you like battles and like rushing, the Norse might be for you.

So what’s favor good for anyway? You need favor in order to build mythological units like the Greek Minotaur (with its devastating gore attack that causes enemies to fly out of the way like a small forward standing in front of Shaquille O’Neal on a dunk), or the Norse Frost Giant that can freeze enemies with its breath. You also need favor to build certain structures and research mythological technology, like the Egyptian Skin of the Rhino, which gives peasants more armor and a better attack.

Meteor strike!

Naval encounters

Elephant crossing

Race differentiation

Aside from obvious differences in mythological units, god powers, and technologies, the races differ from one another in more basic ways. The Norse for example, don’t use peasants to build structures. Peasants only gather – and they do gather from multipurpose, mobile ox carts. Unlike other races that need lumber yards to get wood, granaries for food, mining camps for minerals ,etc. the Norse only have to build an ox cart. And as the resource supply dwindles from one area, they can move those ox carts to other areas to make gathering more efficient! Forest receding from your clear cutting? Just move the cart closer to the tree line. Their structures are built by the military, so putting unit producing buildings up close to the front lines of battle is definitely part of the agenda. Over the course of a game, you might see a Norse player spread out all over the place with ox carts here, some barracks over there, etc. To reduce the risk of offensive tower cheese, the Norse towers are very weak compared to other races, especially the Egyptians, whose walls and towers are the strongest of the three.

The Egyptians feature a Pharoah unit that is unique. He has the ability to empower any building, but only one building at a time. If he blesses a barracks, than that structure will train infantry faster than normal. Bless another building and the research will go faster. Bless a gathering site, and you’ll gain resources from that site faster and more efficiently. Empower a defensive structure and it will fight with more ferocity. The Pharoah cannot be killed permanently. If he dies, he eventually respawns. If you choose the Ra god as Egyptian, then even priests can empower buildings, although not as well as the Pharoah.

Greek town

Norse village

Although on the surface Age of Mythology looks just like Age of Empires with a slick 3D engine, and mythological monsters fighting alongside pikemen, archers, and cavalry, there’s a lot more to the game beneath the surface. The great amount of differentiation that’s possible with the choice in gods and demigods should give a lot of strategic depth to the game, assuming it can be balanced properly. When it comes out in October, AoM should give WarCraft III a run for its money as the RTS of choice.