The thing I like most about Age of Mythology is how different each Civ plays. It would have been nice to add at the end how different the civs are, but I get why you didn't. Economically, each civ plays differently. Greeks are your typical RTS, not favoring one resource over the others, and economically pretty balanced. They gain favor at the temple. Egyptians are heavily gold focused, with some buildings costing gold instead of wood. Farms are an example of this. They gain favor by building monuments that generate favor passively (up to 4) Norse have 3 economic units, regular villager that isn't as good at mining, dwarves that are fantastic at mining but bad at everything else, and their drop off points are mobile. They gain favor through battle, making them a more aggressive pantheon. If you actually go into depth with Age of Mythology, you could breathe some more life into this game. It's one of my favorites along with AoE 2 and Rise of Nations.
Good of you to mention Rise of Nations, it's one of my favourites too. It's a shame that it does not seem like it will ever get any more developer attention.
Yeah agreed. I love how different the civs play in AoE, and I think it would have been good to mention beyond the major/minor gods trees. No need to go crazy in depth on this video, but it's worth mentioning how the differences between civs is much greater than just the tech tree. They've got completely different playstyles.
I liked the game, but I was never a fan of the low pop cap. I know that you can get it a little higher with town centers, but that's kinda part of the problem, how it punishes defensive gameplay. I want to fight big battles too, where I can see how huge armies with all the special points this game has to offer. Also, it hurts my beauty builder soul to be capped on houses.
Age of mythology has the best campaign ever in an rts. The missions feel so creative, and not a single one is a straight up “defeat all your enemies”. The closest you get is “fight your way to the X” or destroy all military buildings but you never need to destroy all enemies to win. And there’s plenty of humour as well and a good epic story that references the myths
It's crazy to think how the creators of the Chinese Expansion, despite having all these great Campaigns for inspirations and all the tools of the Scenario Editor, *still ended up making THE WORST POSSIBLE JOB with the Campaign they created!* 😑 Like, no joke, it is so ABHORRENT that it doesn't feel like it belongs in AoM at all. Really skeptical on how the team Forgotten Empires plans to fix that mess for the DLC, but I'll try to keep a cautiously optimistic expectation. Who knows? Maybe they can pull off some magic.
@@MrDibara The original Forgotten campaigns were also a hot mess, and with the worst of them all, the El Dorado one, they threw their hands up and made something completely different. Wouldn't be at all surprised if they did the same for Tales of the Dragon.
Unless Retold ditches it, it is worth noting there's an elaborate in-game help function available if you click on a unit's icon. Beyond flavor text and any historical/mythological basis, it shows most of their stats, tells you what bonus damage they might inflict, and keeps track of what upgrades that player currently has for them - sometimes even showing the exact numeric increases. There's also a few cheeky ones if you go through the campaign.
@@EhurtAfy Same! I read *so much* lore. It would take me hours to finish a random map or campaign mission because I had to read every new lore entry I could find.
@@EhurtAfy Funfact: You CAN manually EDIT those! I did that for Amanra where I added a line at the end of her Bio in regular Mythology where it says "She later becomes the Queen of Nubia."
Still one of the coolest features in age of mythology is that your troops appearance changes based on all the upgrades from the armory and recruitment building.
Some differences in gameplay I would like to add: 1. AoE villagers die way too quickly to raids compared to AoM vills (e.g. 2 knights in a wood line can kill a LOT of villagers, 2 raiding cavalry can easily be dealt with) 2. Blocking with buildings is much harder in AoM compared to AoE in which you can basically quickwall with houses. 3. You start with 4 towers in AoM that you need to upgrade (unless eggy), making defending rushes relatively easier than AoE 4. AoM is not meant to be balanced like AoE, some civs are really good early game (e.g. atlantean), some civs have power spikes (e.g. norse, eggy) and the greeks straight up rule the lategame. 5. In AoM you have a maximum amount of villagers, which usually is enough and you only need to get rid of them for more pop when you researched everything. 6. Each civ in AoM has different villager gather rates and building costs, which also changes how good eco upgrades are for each civ. 7. Fish in AoM is also an infinite resource, just like farms. Fully upgraded fishing ships close to a dock are the most efficient food source in the game. 8. Sheep, pigs and cows in AoM fatten over time, so its better to eat them after hunt/berries but before the expensive transition to farms. 9. In AoM, many destructive god powers have a damage cap, so for example earthquake can be mitigated if you upgrades building HP or build more buildings around a town center. You have to sort of predict enemy god powers in these cases. 10. Trade has a 50% bonus if its with an ally instead of with yourself, you should always trade with your team in team games. Edit: bonus corrected from 100 to 50%
point 10 he mentioned jsut not in this detail and point 9 is not a difference since AoE has no god powers at all. But I would add: Towncenters fire without garrison units (if I remember correctly)
2. You still block with buildings in Aom, but you do it to your towers as Boiling Oil is a very bad upgrade to deal with melee units, quickwalling doesn't exist as wall is not that tanky and can easily be destroyed even by the Classical Age units. 3. Depends if you walled and how walled your towers are, Krush is very lethal in Aom and it doesn't care for your towers when it has deconstruction available to stop your aging up or remove one of your towers. 4. Aom is an Asymmetric RTS(unless they hyper-inflate and bloat the Retold game with new Pantheons that remove the identity of the existing pantheons), Aoe2 is a symmetrical rts. 5. This is true but not because of researching everything, but due to replacing the gold miners with trade caravan which are more efficient and give more gold by the game length than a regular gold mine, and by the Heroic age most of the gold mines in a 1v1 map would be drained. I agree with the rest, good job :D
Good additions! Small correction to #10: The ally bonus is only +50%, not +100%. The biggest difference IMO: *AoM never balanced multiplayer!* a. There is only a 10% tax on tributes, which you can remove completely in the 3rd age via Ambassadors tech. *Slinging is back on the menu, boys!* b. The gold-per-distance formula for Caravans favors long routes heavily. A Caravan costs 100 food, a Villager 50 food. The Caravan in 1v1 generates slightly more gold than a gold mining Villager (depending on map size and upgrades), so no issue. A Caravan in 4v4 equals *six* gold mining Villagers. Who cares about building Town Centers? *Go Heroic Age, build a Market, ???, profit!* c. There is a build limit for Villagers, but not for Caravans.
Also AOM focussed a lot more in “having fun” and “cool stuff” then balance which allows for a lot more asymmetric stuff, aka the mythological creatures, gather rates and god powers
I would add: There is no campagin per civilisation, but one bigger campaign with chapters featuring all 3 main civs. Atlantean got an own campaign since it is an add on civilisation.
Are you sure that he is gonna make more videos on the game when his Aoe4 phase lasted for like 4 months and he made a video apologizing and discontinuing his ideas to continue making content for aoe4?
7:20 I'm actually a fan of the settlement system. The limit on housing forces you to go for more settlements. The settlements being limited themselves provides a clear focus for map control. The settlements become natural locations for battles and fortifications, with whoever playing the settlement game better having a clear advantage. Other areas of the map are still valuable though, particularly gold mines and trade caravans. So flanking and raids are still very important. I do think the housing limit could be raised. Maybe to 150 or so. I think the previous limit was because of the hardware at the time, similar to how AoE was originally intended to have low pop counts.
True. But AoM made that weakness to its best strength! If they increase the pop limit, the game will feel very different. (1) You reach the pop limit pretty fast, at which point pop-efficient units beat the others. Fast-trained units have an advantage in the earlygame, until this player hits his pop limit first - at that point the opponent catches up and it will be even again (or his stronger units might win). To improve the quality of your army "above" the starting pop limit, you have to research upgrades or increase your pop limit via town centers, and both these options are MUCH more expensive than your opponent adding some more units. So it is not only a *strategy of timing* but also a *catch-up* mechanic against snowballing. (2) Maps spawn with two neutral settlements per player. If you stop the enemy from building a town center, it's a 3 vs 2 situation (160 vs 140 pop) which might be enough to build it yourself for a 4 vs 2 situation (180 vs 140 pop). That way every game as clear *win condition* and every civilization offers multiple options (such as god powers) to break out of that situation... Whereas the player ahead will try to predict such strategies and hold the situation. The whole balance of civilizations (units, god powers, upgrades, timings) is based on these numbers. Retold will change the pop limit, and hence break the entire system. Let's hope they rebalance it again.
@@ikosaeder20 You're right, but I don't think it will be that bad. If they let you build 5 more houses for 50 pop, that's only 25 foot soldiers. Less if you cavalry, myths, etc. You're still going to hit the cap fast, there's just a little wiggle room. And I don't think a little wiggle room will bring the whole system down. Now, if they do more than 50 pop, then things will probably start breaking.
Personally, it is hard for big map were there are more neutral settlement. If you play against titan AI, you can't play defensive as you'll be quickly overrun by the pop difference. Myth unit being strong against buildings and humains, it is also more difficult to play defensive.
I like settlement ideem, but I dislike a lot the house limit, the pop limit is just too low :c I hope Retold will change that, from 10 to 20 houses or something like that
mix of additional differences and some infos to add to what people have already pointed out - To age up you need specific building built (not any 2 building from the age you're in) Temple for Classical Age, Armory for Heroic Age and Market for Mythic Age - When you age up it is announced in the game all chat which minor god was chosen so you got to be quick to take advantage of any surprise effect you were counting on (like a myth unit timing attack for example) - Norses generate favor when their units are in combat, it means that the norse generate a ressource by fighting which means norse players always get a little bit more out of a fight. So if you pick your fights based on cost-efficiency you need to be mindfull of that. - Egyptians have very cheap buildings, some straight up free and their fishing ships can build obelisks for vision on coasts (think aoe 2 observation post) but their villagers, while being cheaper also work and collect slower than other civs - Atlantean villagers are their own deposit points and they cost (in ressources and pop) 3 times what other civs do but they also build and collect 3x faster - AoM doesn't work on a grid for buildings so it's very easy to have gaps between buildings, but the segment walls can be build quicker than aoe2 - There is a single way to convert a unit and it's with an atlantean god power (that heroes and titans are immune to) - Egyptians town centers can quickly build costly mercenary units which have a timer after which they die but make attacking egyptian TCs a whole ordeal if they have the gold - All the civs have a different approach to heroes, Atlanteans pay to convert regular units into heroes giving them a slight stat boost, greeks have 4 unique heroes (decided by the major god) that are some of the strongest units in-game but they can only be 1 of each so you can stretch a greek player thin, Egyptian and Norse have generic heroes they can mass but are weaker (the egyptian also have the pharaoh which is stronger than a priest their generic hero unit) - There is usually no fighting in the first age due to the lack of barracks and the only units available are heroes (gotta be carefull about the greek heroes they can push you around but they have only 1 but they also gave up around a 100 food) - The siege tower is here for egyptian and greeks have a similar unit but they work like rams, garrisoning units allows the egyptian siege tower to fire arrows and the greek helepolis to increase its short-range attack - Hammer ships are usually individually better against water myth units than siege or arrows - Titans generate an area of vision through the fog of war visible to EVERYONE, being the only unit in age serie that I can think of doing that, don't move your titan around your base if you have something to hide to your opponent (like where your trade line is) All 4 civs follow a different style for unit production buildings - Greeks have 1 building per unit type (barracks, range and stable) which build their generalist soft-counters in classical age then a hard counter in heroic age (hoplite generalist/cavalry soft-counter then hypapist counter-infantry in barracks) then the fortress (castle equivalent) builds both their heroes (available in TC too), their major god unique unit and their siege - Egyptians build only 1 military production in the classical age that builds 3 hard counters (2 infantry that counter cavarly and infantry respectively and an anti-archer archer) cheaper but more situational, in heroic age their migdoll (castle equivalent) produces 3 more generalist units (2 cavalries and an archer that doesn't count as cavalry for countering but is ona chariot so still mobile) and they have the siege workshop for their siege (elephants at the migdoll are also good against buildings), they produce heroes at the TC and Temple - Atlanteans build 1 generalist infantry at the barracks and 3 hard counter at the counter-barracks (anti-cavalry infantry, anti-archer cavalry and anti-infantry siege), in the heroic age they then get a genalist archer and generalist cavalry at the barracks, their palace (castle equivalent) builds anti-building units (one infantry and a siege) plus an anti-human infantry they have no dedicated heroes - Norses have some units AoE2 players will recognise they have a generalist infantry, the throwing-axemen as anti-infantry, a fast counter-archer cavalry and a hero at their barracks (and Temple), then at the Hillfort (castle equivalent) they build the huscarls as anti-archers and a generalist cavalry who is also strong against myth units and siege - If the units added to the 4civs in Tales of the Dragon are removed each civs have pretty glaring weakness which I think were better left open, the egyptians got a quick raiding infantry with a bonus against villagers since they didn't have non-myth units raiding options, norses got an archer good against flying myth units that they had no answer apart from mass of axe throwers and ballistas, greeks got easy access to a healing units when they had very limited access to healing for their quality above quantity units and atlanteans got ranged siege which they lacked but had different approach to siege with a massed infantry
7:49 I get why one might dislike this mechanic, but I find it interesting that it rewards map control and gives a benefit for having a bigger area to protect.
8:45 Also on Gates, in AOE2, if one of your units hold the gate open, your opponent can rush through into your base. In AOM, gates are only passable by your own units, and not by opponents, which means your melee units can attack enemies through an open gate without letting them in, although they still take damage if the enemies hit back.
Very good video ! I think you could've talk about the fishing ship tho : - There is no shore fish - fish are infinite (like farm) - you cannot put more than ONE fishing ship per fish
You also talk about the hero collecting the relic, but could've talk about the inexistence of monks in the game. And you could've talk about the siege units which works quite differently in AOM
I always thought they could have just merged Stone with Wood into a general Materials resource. Like Food has animals, berry bushes, and farms. Stone quarries could maybe be infinite, but slower to mine. Then if trees run out, there's still an option to fight over.
@@ZS-rw4qq Hmm. Reusable powers seems to be a good way to increase potential for balancing, with number of uses and cool down times connected to power of the effect. Infinite faith seems like it must be compensated for with other changes, but like most development choices, it could be implemented in both good and bad ways :) They have every possibility to make both changes good, som I hope for the best.
@DonCorleone964 I wonder how they will balance re-usable godpowers. Being able to re-use Poseidon's Lure won't be very useful once most the huntables have already been killed, whereas Oranos Shockwave will always be useful, and being able to reuse gaia forest makes her the only faction to have infinite wood.
I'm optimistic about the god power change. Striking down your enemies with god powers has always been a huge selling point of the game but in practice you only did it rarely - getting to do it more will make the game more cinematic and more appealing to new players. And by making them cost faith, you're linking them into the wider economy and creating the opportunity for trade-offs: do you build more myth units or do you save up for a power? It might take a few balance passes to get right but I think it has a lot of potential.
Perfect comparation. As a player of both games I think AOM matches are more unpredictable, you can expect more turn arounds and different moves and strategies, while on AOE2 an small advantage tends easily to snowball the game.
I still don't know why I watch these videos, I'm a Company of Heroes 2 player, but they're just so good, I love stats and such behind the scenes in RTS, and you're amazing at communicating those things.
I can think a couple of reasons. We don’t have a Spirit of the Law equivalent for CoH 1, 2 and 3 (would be nice to have one). Heck not even Age 3 or 4 or 1 have one. Another reason is the frankly awful state in which Company of Heroes is after 3 turned out to be a debacle like DoW 3 Those are my thoughts
@@SuperCrazf I mean Tighrtope is the closest person we have to SotL, but yeah. And hey, maybe 3 will be good at some point, it is getting better. Until then I'll stick to modding 2.
The neutral TC sites also have the effect that map control becomes critical far sooner than it does in AoE2. As someone who plays 4x more often than RTS, I found this intrinsically appealing. Add in Atlantean Favor generation, and now you've got a game.
Thanks @Spirit of the Law! Honestly, I have been playing AoM for 20 years, and never knew that attack values were per second, how armor percentages work, or even weapon upgrades are visible on the unit model. What else can I say but PROSTAGMA and VULOME!
Interesting comparison, thanks. I played a lot of AoE 2 and 3 growing up but never had AoM, and I find myself interested in this version of it (hopefully AoM's Definitive Edition moment?). Watching this it's interesting to see where a lot of AoE 3's ideas came from (which come much more out of the blue if you go straight from AoE 2 to 3): choosable bonuses at age up, infinite farms, units costing more than 1 pop space, the walls/gates, etc., etc.. So at least I'll have that familiarity to fall back on.
Age of Mythology is a lot of fun, and I recommend it for anyone who is interested. I also recommend starting with the Greeks first, as they play just like a AoE civ but with the AoM unique mechanics added in. The other civs shake things up even more, and are a lot of fun, but might be overwhelming to someone jumping in from AoE.
I'm a massive fan of basic units that are shared across all playable civs having different skins depending on the civ you're playing. My biggest pet peeve in AoE2 will always be that I have to use Crossbowmen when playing as any american civ for example. The counter argument always being "it's better for clarity" which is super easily refuted by just making these visuals optional by making them togglable for each player.
I've been an Age of Empires fan since 1997, playing each game on release, and I've got to say that Age of Mythology DESERVES this remaster and attention from the wider community that it never seemed to get. It was incredible at the time, and to this day contains the best campaign of any Age of Empires game. The fact that AOE1, AOM and AOE3 have been undermined by AOE2 players who were never even there for AOE2's release has always grinded my gears. The hype for Age of Kings was real, and Conquerors was good, but AOM became THE GAME for me in those days. Please give it a try this fall
AOM was my favorite RTS as a kid. I replayed it as an adult and it holds up, so I highly recommend trying it if you enjoy RTS's. It's got one of those most fun campaigns and worth clearing the whole thijng
From all the footage that I saw here's what I understood about how the rechargeable God powers will work: The favor you gain in the original game has a cap of 100 (unless you're playing Zeus which goes to 200), with it you can purchase myth units and buy special upgrades. In the retold it will likely function similarly except it will not have a maximum cap and you will use God powers using favor (for example 50 favor for a heroic era God power), each time you use a God power the next use will be a bit more expensive in favor. In one of the gameplay sections they showed, the meteor God power had a number next to it like 250 and then when it was used it went up to 300 and there was a new symbol for the favor currency which went freely up, this is why I believe all of the above will function like so.
Interesting, I thought it's gonna be a cooldown timer. So the idea is that you can invest your Favor either into units and upgrades, or a short-term bombastic effect.
Neutral Town Center locations you need to "Capture" are great for adding complexity and challenge... to the campaign scenarios, where they can deliberately create focal points for conflict and areas where resources or trade routes can be secured that you as a player must manage. In multiplayer matches played on random maps they're, well, random, meaning some settlements provide absolutely no defensive value/become weak points of your base you need to defend and other opponents may get more convenient settlement locations than you. It also becomes really easy to guess where settlements have spawned on some maps and lets you capitalize on it. I really hope they can make random maps better with the settlement system somehow, probably by overhauling how random maps are designed/generated.
the settlement locations I think were made random to punish defensive play in aom. With resources mostly becoming infinite it would have been a problem if you could hole up in your base and then leave with an upgraded army while your opponent wasn't playing sim city
My favorite part of the fixed TC locations was that it means you don't have to hunt people down, you know where you have to fight to win. You can of course still build functional bases elsewhere (especially atlanteans who don't use resource collection hubs at all) but it prevents a game from dragging out once you've already "won" without forcing you to just build a wonder and afk. Definitely agreed that it's way, way better when the TC locations are well designed, either by hand or with an effective algorithm that sets up choke points or deliberately open areas with loads of resources. Overall, AoM is deliberately restrictive in many places in a way I really enjoyed, but I can also potentially see it getting frustrating to people who play multiplayer all the time and want to try more wacky ideas that aren't really supported. We'll see how it pans out, fingers crossed this beloved game gets a great rebirth!
I haven't played Age of Mythology, but I have played the other Age of Empires games and this video really helps put into perspective how AoM is in a lot of ways a hybrid between AOE2 and AoE3 with a lot of similar mechanics and design philosophies that would be revisited in AOE3 again, such as minor gods becoming different "governors" to go with for age-up bonuses, etc.
Age of Mythology was my favorite as a kid. I don't know why. It had such a sick campaign, too. Really made you feel like Arkantos. I won't spoil it, but one cutscene in particular broke my heart as a child. When I saw an ad for Age of Mythology (I think it was an xbox ad?) on TV today I was so stoked it's finally getting a remake. It's been neglected way too long. I still play it from time to time.
Great video as always! Pop limit seems to have been increased (by Xbox gameplay) with more houses and reduction on units pop cost. This is gonna change the meta from Extender Edition and The Titans. TC and limited settlements are a great feature in AoM. Once people from other franchise games get to know better the game and civs, they will get it. Free placing would be too unbalanced for some civs and their bonuses and meta. This also gives a huge importance to early scout and decision making.
AoM remains my most played computer game to this date. And I hope to play even more in Retold. I hope you make civ/pantheon overviews of this game as well!
9:39 I remember spending hours upon hours going to the map editor just to see how units would change with each upgrade. Oh, the early 2000s. What a great time to be alive.
Hey Spirit ! I use not to love the pop system until I played my first multiplayer game 1vs1vs1vs1. Making an offensive against a player meant not being able to defend against another one. So diplomacy was very much increased. Plus you want to take that 10 pop advantage by taking the risk to take this town center in the middle of the map so there are a lot of skirmishes, sometimes huge fights but it makes the game more dynamic in my opinion (even if I'd like a few more pops stills ^^)
Some people are in fact joking (though they might be correct) that population is the most valuable resource of Age of Mythology. I do hope Retold at least doubles the limit for houses and Manors, racing for Town Centers is not my favourite part of gameplay. Of course, as "filthy casual" and die-hard "empire-builder" over "meta-chaser", I'm a bit startled from all those mentions of e-sport focus, "Age of..." francise was for me first and foremost sandbox, so I hope Retold will be so as well, may Set and Hades have mercy!
Maybe house/manor limit can be a tunable setting when starting a game, like total pop limit was? I personally like how the TC scramble forces you to reach beyond your grasp and not just slowly turtle, especially with more or less infinite resources decreasing the necessity of spreading out for economic reasons, but turtling is its own kind of fun and I feel like it would be very easy to implement that kind of feature for people who want it.
About the god powers, people should really take a look at the game populous the beginning. You had a constant flow of mana and had to chose which powers that mana flows into, so you can either reload all powers or just a few powers but faster. There was a shaman type unit that each player had one of, who had to get in range to cast the powers, so you can't just snipe the enemy town center with a scout, the shaman had a bit of combat ability but if it's killed, the killing player receives a lot of extra mana and he needs a bit of time to respawn. I always enjoyed that magic system.
In terms of new Civs I think the coolest and most different options to what's in current AoM would be either the Indian pantheon which opens up so many god options to choose from and the Japanese pantheon (which also has a long list of mythical creatures which can be used as units). Honourable mentions going out to the Meso-American civilisations, Mesopotamians and maybe even potential for a Polynesian civ. Two I'd pretty much rule out at least from early DLC are Roman and Germanic pantheons due to their similarities to both Greek and Norse Pantheon's respectively.
@@gregoryhayes7569 Makes sense. They had a weird tradition were they would "steal" a conquered city's patron deity by telling him that Rome is way cooler XD
I personally always viewed the titans as a more interesting interpretation of what a wonder could be gameplaywise. A titan doesn't just automatically win the after some time, but it's such a strong unit that it should optimally guarantee you a win by fighting... unless you're playing on a water map, because titans can neither swim, nor sit in boats.Hopefully that part about them changes in retold. I would find it soo cool if they could just walk through water. They are supposed to be gigantic after all
Age of mythology was my absolute favourite game as a kid im so excited for the remake and im so excited to replay the campaign in all it's newfound graphical glory. Seriously, Retold looks gorgeous.
@@Nathran13 Nah man we're going with the full on Mommy Squad as Atlanteans with Gaia(Major Goddess), Leto(Classical Minor Goddess), Rheia(Heroic Minor Goddess) and Hekate(Mythic Minor Goddess) to create an army of Automatons where Favor is gained faster with Rheia and then -40% Train time with another +2 HP/Second Regen for a total of +3 HP/Second Regen for Warrior Automata.
They made Gaia a Marvel character (she's straight up female Groot now). I hate it. Having to pay extra to keep the real Gaia is really disrespectful, so I will wait for modding (assuming it will be even possible since they are selling portraits).
I had no idea that the age-up mechanic of picking between sub-heroes and the unique skin upgrades on units came from AoM, not AoEIII! Then again, I never played AoM as a kid. I'm excited to try it now as a big kid that pays bills!
I dare say AoE3 is much more closely related to AoM than AoE2, using the same engine and further expanding on every new mechanic (besides the myth stuff, of course).
Are you going to cover any of AoM Retold? I jammed the OG tons back in the day, that campaign goes hard. A change that they are making in Retold regarding the Titans is that they can now swim, you couldn't put them on a transport before so if you played islands they were a bit crap, now you can build one on your island and then they can swim to the opponents island
Cant wait I always loved Mythology more than the main like age of empires games. Unpopular opinion I know but I just loved this game and i can't wait until this is new version is out
It's strange that so few rts games use autoqueue. I didn't know that Age of Mythology uses it. I first saw it in Dawn of War and have never seen it anywhere else.
The games in the lineage of Total Anihilation (games like Supreme Commander, Planetary Anihilation or Beyond All Reason for example) all have autoqueue because they all work on bigger scale.
I played age of Myth for the campaign. Very good campaigns, cool units and triggers. I really like the time period more than AOE2. I don't know much about it competitively because it bad optimized for LAN and Internet at the time. I hope will see some low-key competitive play come out of this remake.
The Town Center and population mechanic was done that way to replicate city-states, as that was how civilizations worked back in the ancient, pre-Roman times of the bronze age.
Aztecs would also be fun. Giant bats and winged serpents everywhere. I guess they'd gain Favor through a sacrifice mechanic, with turkey farms that can be set to either produce food or Favor, and of course the ability to "trade in" units for Favor.
I hope the game does well and we get a continuous stream of high-quality new civs for the AoM. The options I am most excited for are a Mesoamerican option, Celtic or Babylonian. But, any new civ would be cool. Given how distinct they are I think I am more excited for new additions to AoM than AoE2.
I think the biggest shock for someone coming from AoE2 or pretty much any other standard RTS will be the sheer power level of some of the god powers. A number of them can effectively "I win buttons" for fights, or strong enough to force pushes into heavily defended positions.
I really appreciated this vid- when I was doing AOE as a kid, some of my friends talked about AOM, but I never played it. It seems to be like the medieval form of a starcarft/warcraft baby- fewer, civs but they vastly different from each other, predetermined TC spots, different units contribute different amounts to pop limit, hero units and more emphasis on micro. Quick question- do your opponents know which main god you chose at start and are their “civ wins” - like if i chose Greek infantry God and my opponent chose Greek archer God am i at a big disadvantage?
You do see the major god, as _they_ are effectively your civ. And the the matchup isn't that bad. Probably the major drawback is that Zeus' unique unit is the Myrmidon, whose gimmick (bonus damage against non-Greek units) won't help you here. But you can make it work. Zeus' Hoplites are faster than normal (and base Hoplites are already a bit faster than archers), and if you pick Athena on your first age up you can improve their pierce armor. Alternatively you can pick Hermes to focus on cavalry instead. Or you just say screw it and produce Peltasts (aka Skirmishers)
I have played Age of Mythology since it came out. One other big difference from Age of Empires 2 is that infantry, cavalry, and archers are all much closer balanced.
Me who I was playing AoE1 + 2 but got crazy with AoM when I was teen, I found now in my thirties SOTL, talking about AOE2 with soooo much detail for everything and loved it, but I hadn't this for AoM.. 😢
One thing I noticed years ago (which may no longer be the case) is that when you are playing a skirmish game against the computer (as opposed to campaigns), the computer was a lot harder for me to defeat in AOM. I used to be able to easily defeat the AI in AOE2 with relative ease but the AI in AOM always seemed to beat me no matter what I did even on easy settings.
damage per second instead of damage per hit seems nice, it feels like attack rate is another stat you have to memorize that can really change how much damage a unit is doing.
I always felt that AoM was the better game between the two tbh, and the way that stats like armor and bonus damage works is SO much more intuitive and understandable.
to add some clarify to Myth units. They always cost two types of resources. Favour and one of the major resource - Food, Gold and Wood. Early myth units cost highter but also you can avoid gold cost if you pick these early type of myth units. Also depending with Civ you play - Greek has the best anti-myth units cause of hight damage against them but you can only have limited number of Heroes. Rest of civ can produce many of anti-myth units but they effectivness are little better than average human units.
God please let this be the beginning of Spirit of the Law posting Age of Mythology videos
Which god tho
@@tombraiderstrums09 Any and All, except Kronos, Set, Loki and Poseidon, they're kinda dicks.
@@tombraiderstrums09 My brother from another mother, you and I had the exact same thought!
@@yohanbeck8172 "My brother from another mother!" LMAO 🤣
That's a great one! I'mma use that in the future!
Zeus* please.
You forgot to mention how hard the music slaps
and its dynamic, you have chill music when nothing critical happens but when shit goes down then it becomes epic.
A Cat named Mittens SLAPS, awesome but short track
@@clem-hk2di Those epic music only occurs when you decide to send your army to attack either an enemy town center or a fortress.
best thing about aom music is the names
TBF, AOM2 music also slaps. So it wouldn't be a difference between the two games huashuahs
The thing I like most about Age of Mythology is how different each Civ plays. It would have been nice to add at the end how different the civs are, but I get why you didn't.
Economically, each civ plays differently.
Greeks are your typical RTS, not favoring one resource over the others, and economically pretty balanced. They gain favor at the temple.
Egyptians are heavily gold focused, with some buildings costing gold instead of wood. Farms are an example of this. They gain favor by building monuments that generate favor passively (up to 4)
Norse have 3 economic units, regular villager that isn't as good at mining, dwarves that are fantastic at mining but bad at everything else, and their drop off points are mobile. They gain favor through battle, making them a more aggressive pantheon.
If you actually go into depth with Age of Mythology, you could breathe some more life into this game. It's one of my favorites along with AoE 2 and Rise of Nations.
Good of you to mention Rise of Nations, it's one of my favourites too. It's a shame that it does not seem like it will ever get any more developer attention.
Yeah agreed. I love how different the civs play in AoE, and I think it would have been good to mention beyond the major/minor gods trees. No need to go crazy in depth on this video, but it's worth mentioning how the differences between civs is much greater than just the tech tree. They've got completely different playstyles.
@@ryanocallaghan8833The spin-off called RoN Rise of Legends was good too
I liked the game, but I was never a fan of the low pop cap. I know that you can get it a little higher with town centers, but that's kinda part of the problem, how it punishes defensive gameplay. I want to fight big battles too, where I can see how huge armies with all the special points this game has to offer.
Also, it hurts my beauty builder soul to be capped on houses.
And then Atlantians play almost like a mini RPG faction with easy drop off and the ability to upgrade any unit into a hero.
What can we say exept Prostagma
Vulome!
Etimos
You eye ear
Etimos
Procheché
Age of mythology has the best campaign ever in an rts. The missions feel so creative, and not a single one is a straight up “defeat all your enemies”. The closest you get is “fight your way to the X” or destroy all military buildings but you never need to destroy all enemies to win. And there’s plenty of humour as well and a good epic story that references the myths
Definitely, and the best scenario editor
“We surrender. Move a little closer.”
Not the Chinese though, that was one of the worst campaign I ever played (including mods).
It's crazy to think how the creators of the Chinese Expansion, despite having all these great Campaigns for inspirations and all the tools of the Scenario Editor, *still ended up making THE WORST POSSIBLE JOB with the Campaign they created!* 😑
Like, no joke, it is so ABHORRENT that it doesn't feel like it belongs in AoM at all.
Really skeptical on how the team Forgotten Empires plans to fix that mess for the DLC, but I'll try to keep a cautiously optimistic expectation. Who knows? Maybe they can pull off some magic.
@@MrDibara The original Forgotten campaigns were also a hot mess, and with the worst of them all, the El Dorado one, they threw their hands up and made something completely different. Wouldn't be at all surprised if they did the same for Tales of the Dragon.
Unless Retold ditches it, it is worth noting there's an elaborate in-game help function available if you click on a unit's icon. Beyond flavor text and any historical/mythological basis, it shows most of their stats, tells you what bonus damage they might inflict, and keeps track of what upgrades that player currently has for them - sometimes even showing the exact numeric increases.
There's also a few cheeky ones if you go through the campaign.
Yep lol, I spent half my time reading lore about units growing up
@@EhurtAfy Same! I read *so much* lore. It would take me hours to finish a random map or campaign mission because I had to read every new lore entry I could find.
I would assume a lot of the upgrades will get moved to the unit card when selected, makes gameplay less clunky
@@EhurtAfy Funfact: You CAN manually EDIT those! I did that for Amanra where I added a line at the end of her Bio in regular Mythology where it says "She later becomes the Queen of Nubia."
Fun fact: even cheat units have trivia about them, and show them where to upgrade them n all stuff
Still one of the coolest features in age of mythology is that your troops appearance changes based on all the upgrades from the armory and recruitment building.
Some differences in gameplay I would like to add:
1. AoE villagers die way too quickly to raids compared to AoM vills (e.g. 2 knights in a wood line can kill a LOT of villagers, 2 raiding cavalry can easily be dealt with)
2. Blocking with buildings is much harder in AoM compared to AoE in which you can basically quickwall with houses.
3. You start with 4 towers in AoM that you need to upgrade (unless eggy), making defending rushes relatively easier than AoE
4. AoM is not meant to be balanced like AoE, some civs are really good early game (e.g. atlantean), some civs have power spikes (e.g. norse, eggy) and the greeks straight up rule the lategame.
5. In AoM you have a maximum amount of villagers, which usually is enough and you only need to get rid of them for more pop when you researched everything.
6. Each civ in AoM has different villager gather rates and building costs, which also changes how good eco upgrades are for each civ.
7. Fish in AoM is also an infinite resource, just like farms. Fully upgraded fishing ships close to a dock are the most efficient food source in the game.
8. Sheep, pigs and cows in AoM fatten over time, so its better to eat them after hunt/berries but before the expensive transition to farms.
9. In AoM, many destructive god powers have a damage cap, so for example earthquake can be mitigated if you upgrades building HP or build more buildings around a town center. You have to sort of predict enemy god powers in these cases.
10. Trade has a 50% bonus if its with an ally instead of with yourself, you should always trade with your team in team games.
Edit: bonus corrected from 100 to 50%
point 10 he mentioned jsut not in this detail and point 9 is not a difference since AoE has no god powers at all.
But I would add: Towncenters fire without garrison units (if I remember correctly)
2. You still block with buildings in Aom, but you do it to your towers as Boiling Oil is a very bad upgrade to deal with melee units, quickwalling doesn't exist as wall is not that tanky and can easily be destroyed even by the Classical Age units.
3. Depends if you walled and how walled your towers are, Krush is very lethal in Aom and it doesn't care for your towers when it has deconstruction available to stop your aging up or remove one of your towers.
4. Aom is an Asymmetric RTS(unless they hyper-inflate and bloat the Retold game with new Pantheons that remove the identity of the existing pantheons), Aoe2 is a symmetrical rts.
5. This is true but not because of researching everything, but due to replacing the gold miners with trade caravan which are more efficient and give more gold by the game length than a regular gold mine, and by the Heroic age most of the gold mines in a 1v1 map would be drained.
I agree with the rest, good job :D
Good additions! Small correction to #10: The ally bonus is only +50%, not +100%.
The biggest difference IMO: *AoM never balanced multiplayer!*
a. There is only a 10% tax on tributes, which you can remove completely in the 3rd age via Ambassadors tech. *Slinging is back on the menu, boys!*
b. The gold-per-distance formula for Caravans favors long routes heavily. A Caravan costs 100 food, a Villager 50 food. The Caravan in 1v1 generates slightly more gold than a gold mining Villager (depending on map size and upgrades), so no issue. A Caravan in 4v4 equals *six* gold mining Villagers. Who cares about building Town Centers? *Go Heroic Age, build a Market, ???, profit!*
c. There is a build limit for Villagers, but not for Caravans.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but walling is easier in AoM
Also AOM focussed a lot more in “having fun” and “cool stuff” then balance which allows for a lot more asymmetric stuff, aka the mythological creatures, gather rates and god powers
I would add:
There is no campagin per civilisation, but one bigger campaign with chapters featuring all 3 main civs.
Atlantean got an own campaign since it is an add on civilisation.
Age of Mythology have the best campaign in the series. Its Starcraft level of cinematography and volume, true delight
there also 4 videos explaining how each civ works
@@AtticusKarpenter And they made all those scenes using the in-game editor.
Atlantean is also a civ where the developers could get really creative since the others had to use some historical backing.
I am so excited for the new wave of math from Spirit of the Law that's going to come with Age of Mythology Retold. Spirit of the Ra?
oh boy, oh rilli boy
@@LeftJoystick calm down loberboy
Wouldnt spirit of the toth be more fitting?
@@anonvideo738 That doesn't pun as well, though. Perhaps Spirit of the Lore?
Are you sure that he is gonna make more videos on the game when his Aoe4 phase lasted for like 4 months and he made a video apologizing and discontinuing his ideas to continue making content for aoe4?
7:20 I'm actually a fan of the settlement system. The limit on housing forces you to go for more settlements. The settlements being limited themselves provides a clear focus for map control. The settlements become natural locations for battles and fortifications, with whoever playing the settlement game better having a clear advantage.
Other areas of the map are still valuable though, particularly gold mines and trade caravans. So flanking and raids are still very important.
I do think the housing limit could be raised. Maybe to 150 or so. I think the previous limit was because of the hardware at the time, similar to how AoE was originally intended to have low pop counts.
True. But AoM made that weakness to its best strength! If they increase the pop limit, the game will feel very different.
(1) You reach the pop limit pretty fast, at which point pop-efficient units beat the others. Fast-trained units have an advantage in the earlygame, until this player hits his pop limit first - at that point the opponent catches up and it will be even again (or his stronger units might win). To improve the quality of your army "above" the starting pop limit, you have to research upgrades or increase your pop limit via town centers, and both these options are MUCH more expensive than your opponent adding some more units. So it is not only a *strategy of timing* but also a *catch-up* mechanic against snowballing.
(2) Maps spawn with two neutral settlements per player. If you stop the enemy from building a town center, it's a 3 vs 2 situation (160 vs 140 pop) which might be enough to build it yourself for a 4 vs 2 situation (180 vs 140 pop). That way every game as clear *win condition* and every civilization offers multiple options (such as god powers) to break out of that situation... Whereas the player ahead will try to predict such strategies and hold the situation. The whole balance of civilizations (units, god powers, upgrades, timings) is based on these numbers.
Retold will change the pop limit, and hence break the entire system. Let's hope they rebalance it again.
@@ikosaeder20 You're right, but I don't think it will be that bad.
If they let you build 5 more houses for 50 pop, that's only 25 foot soldiers. Less if you cavalry, myths, etc. You're still going to hit the cap fast, there's just a little wiggle room. And I don't think a little wiggle room will bring the whole system down.
Now, if they do more than 50 pop, then things will probably start breaking.
Personally, it is hard for big map were there are more neutral settlement.
If you play against titan AI, you can't play defensive as you'll be quickly overrun by the pop difference.
Myth unit being strong against buildings and humains, it is also more difficult to play defensive.
I like settlement ideem, but I dislike a lot the house limit, the pop limit is just too low :c
I hope Retold will change that, from 10 to 20 houses or something like that
@@pokefuranku devs confirmed the pop limit will be raised
mix of additional differences and some infos to add to what people have already pointed out
- To age up you need specific building built (not any 2 building from the age you're in) Temple for Classical Age, Armory for Heroic Age and Market for Mythic Age
- When you age up it is announced in the game all chat which minor god was chosen so you got to be quick to take advantage of any surprise effect you were counting on (like a myth unit timing attack for example)
- Norses generate favor when their units are in combat, it means that the norse generate a ressource by fighting which means norse players always get a little bit more out of a fight. So if you pick your fights based on cost-efficiency you need to be mindfull of that.
- Egyptians have very cheap buildings, some straight up free and their fishing ships can build obelisks for vision on coasts (think aoe 2 observation post) but their villagers, while being cheaper also work and collect slower than other civs
- Atlantean villagers are their own deposit points and they cost (in ressources and pop) 3 times what other civs do but they also build and collect 3x faster
- AoM doesn't work on a grid for buildings so it's very easy to have gaps between buildings, but the segment walls can be build quicker than aoe2
- There is a single way to convert a unit and it's with an atlantean god power (that heroes and titans are immune to)
- Egyptians town centers can quickly build costly mercenary units which have a timer after which they die but make attacking egyptian TCs a whole ordeal if they have the gold
- All the civs have a different approach to heroes, Atlanteans pay to convert regular units into heroes giving them a slight stat boost, greeks have 4 unique heroes (decided by the major god) that are some of the strongest units in-game but they can only be 1 of each so you can stretch a greek player thin, Egyptian and Norse have generic heroes they can mass but are weaker (the egyptian also have the pharaoh which is stronger than a priest their generic hero unit)
- There is usually no fighting in the first age due to the lack of barracks and the only units available are heroes (gotta be carefull about the greek heroes they can push you around but they have only 1 but they also gave up around a 100 food)
- The siege tower is here for egyptian and greeks have a similar unit but they work like rams, garrisoning units allows the egyptian siege tower to fire arrows and the greek helepolis to increase its short-range attack
- Hammer ships are usually individually better against water myth units than siege or arrows
- Titans generate an area of vision through the fog of war visible to EVERYONE, being the only unit in age serie that I can think of doing that, don't move your titan around your base if you have something to hide to your opponent (like where your trade line is)
All 4 civs follow a different style for unit production buildings
- Greeks have 1 building per unit type (barracks, range and stable) which build their generalist soft-counters in classical age then a hard counter in heroic age (hoplite generalist/cavalry soft-counter then hypapist counter-infantry in barracks) then the fortress (castle equivalent) builds both their heroes (available in TC too), their major god unique unit and their siege
- Egyptians build only 1 military production in the classical age that builds 3 hard counters (2 infantry that counter cavarly and infantry respectively and an anti-archer archer) cheaper but more situational, in heroic age their migdoll (castle equivalent) produces 3 more generalist units (2 cavalries and an archer that doesn't count as cavalry for countering but is ona chariot so still mobile) and they have the siege workshop for their siege (elephants at the migdoll are also good against buildings), they produce heroes at the TC and Temple
- Atlanteans build 1 generalist infantry at the barracks and 3 hard counter at the counter-barracks (anti-cavalry infantry, anti-archer cavalry and anti-infantry siege), in the heroic age they then get a genalist archer and generalist cavalry at the barracks, their palace (castle equivalent) builds anti-building units (one infantry and a siege) plus an anti-human infantry they have no dedicated heroes
- Norses have some units AoE2 players will recognise they have a generalist infantry, the throwing-axemen as anti-infantry, a fast counter-archer cavalry and a hero at their barracks (and Temple), then at the Hillfort (castle equivalent) they build the huscarls as anti-archers and a generalist cavalry who is also strong against myth units and siege
- If the units added to the 4civs in Tales of the Dragon are removed each civs have pretty glaring weakness which I think were better left open, the egyptians got a quick raiding infantry with a bonus against villagers since they didn't have non-myth units raiding options, norses got an archer good against flying myth units that they had no answer apart from mass of axe throwers and ballistas, greeks got easy access to a healing units when they had very limited access to healing for their quality above quantity units and atlanteans got ranged siege which they lacked but had different approach to siege with a massed infantry
7:49
I get why one might dislike this mechanic, but I find it interesting that it rewards map control and gives a benefit for having a bigger area to protect.
As a player that prefers AoM over any other Age of series - I'm very happy to see AoM related content and the channel ^^
8:45 Also on Gates, in AOE2, if one of your units hold the gate open, your opponent can rush through into your base. In AOM, gates are only passable by your own units, and not by opponents, which means your melee units can attack enemies through an open gate without letting them in, although they still take damage if the enemies hit back.
Very good video ! I think you could've talk about the fishing ship tho :
- There is no shore fish
- fish are infinite (like farm)
- you cannot put more than ONE fishing ship per fish
You also talk about the hero collecting the relic, but could've talk about the inexistence of monks in the game. And you could've talk about the siege units which works quite differently in AOM
As a kid, learning that Age of Mythology didn’t have stone blew my mind
I always thought they could have just merged Stone with Wood into a general Materials resource. Like Food has animals, berry bushes, and farms. Stone quarries could maybe be infinite, but slower to mine. Then if trees run out, there's still an option to fight over.
As an adult that recently played AoE4, learning that Age of Empires has stone blew my mind
I used to play both AoE 2 and Aom, and it certaintly felt like something was wrong.
That's one thing that appealed to me about Empire Earth back in the day. Instead of just stone, it also has iron!
@@theotherguyyyyhahaha got you
7:22 coming back to AoM after switching to Aoe2 I think I liked this feature the most.
Forces you to play quality over quantity
That was perhaps my favorite aspect as well.
@@DonCorleone964 Glad I'm not alone! Do you have the same bad feeling about reusable god powers and unlimited favour?
@@ZS-rw4qq Hmm. Reusable powers seems to be a good way to increase potential for balancing, with number of uses and cool down times connected to power of the effect.
Infinite faith seems like it must be compensated for with other changes, but like most development choices, it could be implemented in both good and bad ways :)
They have every possibility to make both changes good, som I hope for the best.
@DonCorleone964 I wonder how they will balance re-usable godpowers. Being able to re-use Poseidon's Lure won't be very useful once most the huntables have already been killed, whereas Oranos Shockwave will always be useful, and being able to reuse gaia forest makes her the only faction to have infinite wood.
I'm optimistic about the god power change. Striking down your enemies with god powers has always been a huge selling point of the game but in practice you only did it rarely - getting to do it more will make the game more cinematic and more appealing to new players. And by making them cost faith, you're linking them into the wider economy and creating the opportunity for trade-offs: do you build more myth units or do you save up for a power? It might take a few balance passes to get right but I think it has a lot of potential.
Perfect comparation. As a player of both games I think AOM matches are more unpredictable, you can expect more turn arounds and different moves and strategies, while on AOE2 an small advantage tends easily to snowball the game.
the pre-set TC locations are an amazing aspect of the game creating strategically important areas on the map to fight over.
Great! Now I can finally start playing AoE 2! Prostagma
I still don't know why I watch these videos, I'm a Company of Heroes 2 player, but they're just so good, I love stats and such behind the scenes in RTS, and you're amazing at communicating those things.
I can think a couple of reasons. We don’t have a Spirit of the Law equivalent for CoH 1, 2 and 3 (would be nice to have one). Heck not even Age 3 or 4 or 1 have one.
Another reason is the frankly awful state in which Company of Heroes is after 3 turned out to be a debacle like DoW 3
Those are my thoughts
@@SuperCrazf I mean Tighrtope is the closest person we have to SotL, but yeah. And hey, maybe 3 will be good at some point, it is getting better. Until then I'll stick to modding 2.
@@spinosaurusiii7027I hope so
The neutral TC sites also have the effect that map control becomes critical far sooner than it does in AoE2. As someone who plays 4x more often than RTS, I found this intrinsically appealing. Add in Atlantean Favor generation, and now you've got a game.
I always like the idea of unit visual upgrades to be implemented for AOE 2
Thanks @Spirit of the Law! Honestly, I have been playing AoM for 20 years, and never knew that attack values were per second, how armor percentages work, or even weapon upgrades are visible on the unit model. What else can I say but PROSTAGMA and VULOME!
Much like how AoE 2 sparked my childhood love of history; AoM sparked my love of mythology. I’m elated that it’s still getting so much love today.
Interesting comparison, thanks. I played a lot of AoE 2 and 3 growing up but never had AoM, and I find myself interested in this version of it (hopefully AoM's Definitive Edition moment?). Watching this it's interesting to see where a lot of AoE 3's ideas came from (which come much more out of the blue if you go straight from AoE 2 to 3): choosable bonuses at age up, infinite farms, units costing more than 1 pop space, the walls/gates, etc., etc.. So at least I'll have that familiarity to fall back on.
Age of Mythology is a lot of fun, and I recommend it for anyone who is interested. I also recommend starting with the Greeks first, as they play just like a AoE civ but with the AoM unique mechanics added in. The other civs shake things up even more, and are a lot of fun, but might be overwhelming to someone jumping in from AoE.
I'm a massive fan of basic units that are shared across all playable civs having different skins depending on the civ you're playing. My biggest pet peeve in AoE2 will always be that I have to use Crossbowmen when playing as any american civ for example. The counter argument always being "it's better for clarity" which is super easily refuted by just making these visuals optional by making them togglable for each player.
You can really see how certain mechanics were later incorporated by Ensemble into AoE3 and even Halo Wars (ie the fixed base locations).
I've been an Age of Empires fan since 1997, playing each game on release, and I've got to say that Age of Mythology DESERVES this remaster and attention from the wider community that it never seemed to get. It was incredible at the time, and to this day contains the best campaign of any Age of Empires game. The fact that AOE1, AOM and AOE3 have been undermined by AOE2 players who were never even there for AOE2's release has always grinded my gears. The hype for Age of Kings was real, and Conquerors was good, but AOM became THE GAME for me in those days. Please give it a try this fall
AOM was my favorite RTS as a kid. I replayed it as an adult and it holds up, so I highly recommend trying it if you enjoy RTS's. It's got one of those most fun campaigns and worth clearing the whole thijng
Do you play on Voobly
Ah, there we go. Spirit is never late, nor is he early; he arrives precisely when he means to. Let's go AoM hype! 🤩
From all the footage that I saw here's what I understood about how the rechargeable God powers will work:
The favor you gain in the original game has a cap of 100 (unless you're playing Zeus which goes to 200), with it you can purchase myth units and buy special upgrades. In the retold it will likely function similarly except it will not have a maximum cap and you will use God powers using favor (for example 50 favor for a heroic era God power), each time you use a God power the next use will be a bit more expensive in favor. In one of the gameplay sections they showed, the meteor God power had a number next to it like 250 and then when it was used it went up to 300 and there was a new symbol for the favor currency which went freely up, this is why I believe all of the above will function like so.
Interesting, I thought it's gonna be a cooldown timer.
So the idea is that you can invest your Favor either into units and upgrades, or a short-term bombastic effect.
Neutral Town Center locations you need to "Capture" are great for adding complexity and challenge... to the campaign scenarios, where they can deliberately create focal points for conflict and areas where resources or trade routes can be secured that you as a player must manage. In multiplayer matches played on random maps they're, well, random, meaning some settlements provide absolutely no defensive value/become weak points of your base you need to defend and other opponents may get more convenient settlement locations than you. It also becomes really easy to guess where settlements have spawned on some maps and lets you capitalize on it. I really hope they can make random maps better with the settlement system somehow, probably by overhauling how random maps are designed/generated.
the settlement locations I think were made random to punish defensive play in aom. With resources mostly becoming infinite it would have been a problem if you could hole up in your base and then leave with an upgraded army while your opponent wasn't playing sim city
My favorite part of the fixed TC locations was that it means you don't have to hunt people down, you know where you have to fight to win. You can of course still build functional bases elsewhere (especially atlanteans who don't use resource collection hubs at all) but it prevents a game from dragging out once you've already "won" without forcing you to just build a wonder and afk.
Definitely agreed that it's way, way better when the TC locations are well designed, either by hand or with an effective algorithm that sets up choke points or deliberately open areas with loads of resources.
Overall, AoM is deliberately restrictive in many places in a way I really enjoyed, but I can also potentially see it getting frustrating to people who play multiplayer all the time and want to try more wacky ideas that aren't really supported. We'll see how it pans out, fingers crossed this beloved game gets a great rebirth!
I haven't played Age of Mythology, but I have played the other Age of Empires games and this video really helps put into perspective how AoM is in a lot of ways a hybrid between AOE2 and AoE3 with a lot of similar mechanics and design philosophies that would be revisited in AOE3 again, such as minor gods becoming different "governors" to go with for age-up bonuses, etc.
Also with the Atlantean villagers not needing any drop off sites
@@FloosWorld_AoE Also with factions from different cultures (European/American/Asian/...) generally being _a lot_ more different from each other.
Age of Mythology was my favorite as a kid. I don't know why. It had such a sick campaign, too. Really made you feel like Arkantos. I won't spoil it, but one cutscene in particular broke my heart as a child. When I saw an ad for Age of Mythology (I think it was an xbox ad?) on TV today I was so stoked it's finally getting a remake. It's been neglected way too long. I still play it from time to time.
Great video as always! Pop limit seems to have been increased (by Xbox gameplay) with more houses and reduction on units pop cost. This is gonna change the meta from Extender Edition and The Titans. TC and limited settlements are a great feature in AoM. Once people from other franchise games get to know better the game and civs, they will get it. Free placing would be too unbalanced for some civs and their bonuses and meta. This also gives a huge importance to early scout and decision making.
10:30 I think the best comparison for Titans & AOE2 mechanics is to think of them as "Offensive Wonders".
The best kind of wonder IMO
I would love for you to cover more Age of Mythology ❤
AoM remains my most played computer game to this date. And I hope to play even more in Retold. I hope you make civ/pantheon overviews of this game as well!
9:39 I remember spending hours upon hours going to the map editor just to see how units would change with each upgrade. Oh, the early 2000s. What a great time to be alive.
Good comparison. I'd forgotten some of the smaller differences. Can't wait for AOM:R!
Hey Spirit ! I use not to love the pop system until I played my first multiplayer game 1vs1vs1vs1. Making an offensive against a player meant not being able to defend against another one. So diplomacy was very much increased. Plus you want to take that 10 pop advantage by taking the risk to take this town center in the middle of the map so there are a lot of skirmishes, sometimes huge fights but it makes the game more dynamic in my opinion (even if I'd like a few more pops stills ^^)
Much more similar to 3 than 2. Eager to re-experience this!
I never heard spirit of the law so excited! Great aom videos coming up
Can't wait for AoM: Retold. Expecting it to be THE BEST rts ever ;D
Some people are in fact joking (though they might be correct) that population is the most valuable resource of Age of Mythology. I do hope Retold at least doubles the limit for houses and Manors, racing for Town Centers is not my favourite part of gameplay. Of course, as "filthy casual" and die-hard "empire-builder" over "meta-chaser", I'm a bit startled from all those mentions of e-sport focus, "Age of..." francise was for me first and foremost sandbox, so I hope Retold will be so as well, may Set and Hades have mercy!
I agree with you, and you put it far better than I could.
Maybe house/manor limit can be a tunable setting when starting a game, like total pop limit was? I personally like how the TC scramble forces you to reach beyond your grasp and not just slowly turtle, especially with more or less infinite resources decreasing the necessity of spreading out for economic reasons, but turtling is its own kind of fun and I feel like it would be very easy to implement that kind of feature for people who want it.
@@SparkSovereign Well met fellow turtler then
It's really surprising for me to see how many things from AoM were later used in AoE3 and AoE Online. 😮
Thank you SOTL for always keeping us updated in the word of aoe! I'd be such a Pleb without you, well, more of a pleb.
About the god powers, people should really take a look at the game populous the beginning.
You had a constant flow of mana and had to chose which powers that mana flows into, so you can either reload all powers or just a few powers but faster. There was a shaman type unit that each player had one of, who had to get in range to cast the powers, so you can't just snipe the enemy town center with a scout, the shaman had a bit of combat ability but if it's killed, the killing player receives a lot of extra mana and he needs a bit of time to respawn. I always enjoyed that magic system.
I have never played Age of Mythology but hope to someday. Thank you for the context!
In terms of new Civs I think the coolest and most different options to what's in current AoM would be either the Indian pantheon which opens up so many god options to choose from and the Japanese pantheon (which also has a long list of mythical creatures which can be used as units). Honourable mentions going out to the Meso-American civilisations, Mesopotamians and maybe even potential for a Polynesian civ. Two I'd pretty much rule out at least from early DLC are Roman and Germanic pantheons due to their similarities to both Greek and Norse Pantheon's respectively.
There is _a lot_ of fun stuff they could include in the game. Let's hope it'll be popular enough to justify making them a reality.
There's a mod for AoM that adds Romans, and they steal other civs' mythologies. I thought that was pretty great.
@@gregoryhayes7569 Makes sense. They had a weird tradition were they would "steal" a conquered city's patron deity by telling him that Rome is way cooler XD
@@EvilDoresh I'm not familiar with that custom, but it does sound like something the Romans would do.
I personally always viewed the titans as a more interesting interpretation of what a wonder could be gameplaywise. A titan doesn't just automatically win the after some time, but it's such a strong unit that it should optimally guarantee you a win by fighting... unless you're playing on a water map, because titans can neither swim, nor sit in boats.Hopefully that part about them changes in retold. I would find it soo cool if they could just walk through water. They are supposed to be gigantic after all
They _will_ be able to swim in Retold, don't you worry about that.
Age of mythology was my absolute favourite game as a kid im so excited for the remake and im so excited to replay the campaign in all it's newfound graphical glory. Seriously, Retold looks gorgeous.
You forgot that fish like farms also never run out in AOM.
Wow, even SOTL making videos about it. Truly a beloved game
The only sad part about AoM:R is Gaia is no longer mommy material.
Its Freya
@@Nathran13 Nah man we're going with the full on Mommy Squad as Atlanteans with Gaia(Major Goddess), Leto(Classical Minor Goddess), Rheia(Heroic Minor Goddess) and Hekate(Mythic Minor Goddess) to create an army of Automatons where Favor is gained faster with Rheia and then -40% Train time with another +2 HP/Second Regen for a total of +3 HP/Second Regen for Warrior Automata.
they did show on the steam page that there will be legacy portraits for the gods, so maybe not all is lost
@@GBlockbreaker It's AI generated garbage. Not even worth it.
They made Gaia a Marvel character (she's straight up female Groot now). I hate it.
Having to pay extra to keep the real Gaia is really disrespectful, so I will wait for modding (assuming it will be even possible since they are selling portraits).
I had no idea that the age-up mechanic of picking between sub-heroes and the unique skin upgrades on units came from AoM, not AoEIII! Then again, I never played AoM as a kid. I'm excited to try it now as a big kid that pays bills!
I dare say AoE3 is much more closely related to AoM than AoE2, using the same engine and further expanding on every new mechanic (besides the myth stuff, of course).
One you missed:
In AOM Arkantos says 'It's Prostagming Time' and then all Atlantians start Prostagming around!
Are you going to cover any of AoM Retold? I jammed the OG tons back in the day, that campaign goes hard.
A change that they are making in Retold regarding the Titans is that they can now swim, you couldn't put them on a transport before so if you played islands they were a bit crap, now you can build one on your island and then they can swim to the opponents island
Man age of mythology was a favorite of mine growing up. Can't wait for this release.
infinite farms we're such a blessing, always hated reseeding.
Cant wait I always loved Mythology more than the main like age of empires games. Unpopular opinion I know but I just loved this game and i can't wait until this is new version is out
It's strange that so few rts games use autoqueue. I didn't know that Age of Mythology uses it. I first saw it in Dawn of War and have never seen it anywhere else.
The games in the lineage of Total Anihilation (games like Supreme Commander, Planetary Anihilation or Beyond All Reason for example) all have autoqueue because they all work on bigger scale.
Rise of Nations also has Infinite Queue. RoN is on my top 5 RTS games list.
I played age of Myth for the campaign. Very good campaigns, cool units and triggers. I really like the time period more than AOE2. I don't know much about it competitively because it bad optimized for LAN and Internet at the time. I hope will see some low-key competitive play come out of this remake.
Bit out of topic, but Egyptian goddess Bast or Basted is probably the first depiction of cat girl in human history
The Town Center and population mechanic was done that way to replicate city-states, as that was how civilizations worked back in the ancient, pre-Roman times of the bronze age.
India or mesoamerican dlc would be AWESOME. Both are distinct mythologies with huge player bases
I hope it this will happen. It'd be glorious.
6:14 Return of Rome ship roster should be revamped according to this.
Seeing Krishna in the chariot for the new pantheon, Hindu. Imagine Lord Shiva and his third eye. That would be freaking great.
Aztecs would also be fun. Giant bats and winged serpents everywhere.
I guess they'd gain Favor through a sacrifice mechanic, with turkey farms that can be set to either produce food or Favor, and of course the ability to "trade in" units for Favor.
This approach to mechanics design is so nostalgic and reminds me of old games like Ragnarok Online and their damage calculations
I'm really looking forward to AoM Retold. Loved playing the original back in the day. :D
I hope the game does well and we get a continuous stream of high-quality new civs for the AoM. The options I am most excited for are a Mesoamerican option, Celtic or Babylonian. But, any new civ would be cool. Given how distinct they are I think I am more excited for new additions to AoM than AoE2.
A while back, I released a steam mod that changes a lot of the technology text into AOE2 versions, in AoM. Could still help newbies!
I think the biggest shock for someone coming from AoE2 or pretty much any other standard RTS will be the sheer power level of some of the god powers. A number of them can effectively "I win buttons" for fights, or strong enough to force pushes into heavily defended positions.
actually cannot wait for Prostagma
Awesome video as always. Thanks for the explanations
I really appreciated this vid- when I was doing AOE as a kid, some of my friends talked about AOM, but I never played it. It seems to be like the medieval form of a starcarft/warcraft baby- fewer, civs but they vastly different from each other, predetermined TC spots, different units contribute different amounts to pop limit, hero units and more emphasis on micro. Quick question- do your opponents know which main god you chose at start and are their “civ wins” - like if i chose Greek infantry God and my opponent chose Greek archer God am i at a big disadvantage?
You do see the major god, as _they_ are effectively your civ.
And the the matchup isn't that bad. Probably the major drawback is that Zeus' unique unit is the Myrmidon, whose gimmick (bonus damage against non-Greek units) won't help you here.
But you can make it work. Zeus' Hoplites are faster than normal (and base Hoplites are already a bit faster than archers), and if you pick Athena on your first age up you can improve their pierce armor.
Alternatively you can pick Hermes to focus on cavalry instead.
Or you just say screw it and produce Peltasts (aka Skirmishers)
I want to correct you on Poseidon, he doesn't focus on Cav nor the Navi. He focuses on infinite resources! 😉
Can't wait for the game to come out!
It is good to hear that they are indeed reworking all the civilisations and campaigns.
I have played Age of Mythology since it came out. One other big difference from Age of Empires 2 is that infantry, cavalry, and archers are all much closer balanced.
Spirit of the law for AOM ! Nice.
I love both AOE2 and AOM :)
I'm *glad* you are talking about AoM!
I always wanted to compare the two games
Thanks
No matter what happens with the game i will be buying and playing the game as much as I can. Have to support my childhood game 💪🏽
I read MOM vs AOE2. I was excited :(
I never played AoM, but, especially now that I've been obsessed with Hades and the current Hades 2 early access, I'm definitely checking it out.
9:42 highly suggest the addons called 'Myth Unit Upgrade Pack' and 'Human Units Visible Upgrades' for this on the workshop
Me who I was playing AoE1 + 2 but got crazy with AoM when I was teen, I found now in my thirties SOTL, talking about AOE2 with soooo much detail for everything and loved it, but I hadn't this for AoM.. 😢
One thing I noticed years ago (which may no longer be the case) is that when you are playing a skirmish game against the computer (as opposed to campaigns), the computer was a lot harder for me to defeat in AOM. I used to be able to easily defeat the AI in AOE2 with relative ease but the AI in AOM always seemed to beat me no matter what I did even on easy settings.
The Minor Gods thing feels like it'll be pretty familiar to me for my main AoE game having been OG 3
damage per second instead of damage per hit seems nice, it feels like attack rate is another stat you have to memorize that can really change how much damage a unit is doing.
I think theyre increasing the pop limit in AoM:Retold so at least there's that. We'll be seeing more huge armies!
aoe: i sleep, aom: fully awake
I always felt that AoM was the better game between the two tbh, and the way that stats like armor and bonus damage works is SO much more intuitive and understandable.
to add some clarify to Myth units. They always cost two types of resources. Favour and one of the major resource - Food, Gold and Wood. Early myth units cost highter but also you can avoid gold cost if you pick these early type of myth units. Also depending with Civ you play - Greek has the best anti-myth units cause of hight damage against them but you can only have limited number of Heroes. Rest of civ can produce many of anti-myth units but they effectivness are little better than average human units.
We need you at AoM SoTL 😎🔥 Many players will migrate to it if its launched correctly
I can hardly wait for this game to come out!
Regarding TCs, another big difference is that they don't need garrison to shoot arrows.
Their arrows do get stronger with units inside, through