My review of Age of Mythology

Recommended.

Age of Mythology (AOM) is, in my opinion, the best game in the Age of Empires series. The idea to syncretize ancient civilizations with their gods intervening with their powers and mythological units was brilliant. The human soldiers being grabbed by a cyclops, legs desperatly moving in the air, and then being tossed back into his friends while knocking down trees gives a sentiment of helplessness against the superhuman forces of the mythic creatures in place in this universe. The gods also help the humans, providing healing or thicker armor; acting in favor of their economies by providing a prosperous harvest, rain or even attacking the enemy's economy with locust swarms that eat every farm on their sight (and even the villagers on their way).

The gameplay is fairly dynamic, with battles being fought with large armies quite quickly instead of a long and protracted building phase as in older RTS games. This almost straight to action approach, with buildings being destroyed by the troops way faster than in earlier games in the series (with the also fast capacity for rebuilding them) gives Age of Mythology a more dramatic and fast-paced gameplay. Buildings aren't all powerful fortified obstacles that can only be breached by siege weapons (they do help, but are not essential) but they can form a fortified position when mutually supported by troops. The human soldiers fight in rock-paper-scissors counters: infantry with lances beat cavalry, who beats archers, that in turn beat infantry; plus specialized troops augmenting or changing such roles (archers beat infantry, but the fast running Huskarl will close-in fast and kill them). The mythological units are powerful but there are heroes in the game that will counter them. The same principle applies to naval warfare.

On the economic field, you have food, wood, gold and favour. While the first three are self-explanatory, favour is especific to this game and plays a great role: it is the protection your civilization receive from the gods. Each faction has a different way of gaining favour: the Greeks pray at the temple while the Egyptians build monuments. Each civilization has three major gods that will affect it in a particular way. At each Age you have to choose a minor god to advance, granting you a special power and a different myth unit. Gods also provide different research improvements and almost all of them cost favor. The game revolves around building and mantaining city centers, that not only provide the training of villagers, but also increase your population count and need to be built in especific and limited places; making it an strategic objective in-game.

The game has five campaigns but only the original one is good. The community does not allow discussions and is very weak in guides. Strategies, build orders... all of this must be researched outside Steam. Another problem is the lack of balance. The first expansion added the Atlanteans, that are awfully overpowered. They do not need to build resource depots (the mark of lazy design), they do not need to build any especific building for gaining favour (their city centers automatically generate favour), their buildings are stronger than everybody's and their villagers are small tanks with far more hitpoints - any of their units can become heroes... The Norse are the only ones to build heroes in unlimited numbers already on the Archaic Age and this leads to very cheap early rushes. The major god Loki summons myth units for Norse heroes fighting, so it is no surprise so many players pick this god. The Chinese, while not a bad faction, had such a lazy campaign, with boring missions and awfully crude cinematics (worse than the ones on the AOM original release)! Worse, the Chinese expansion changes the menu presentation and the theme music - which I hated - and does not provide an option for the traditional menu.

With those problems aside (like few people still playing the game), AOM is a great experience and I still to this day get a smile when I listen to the songs and sounds of this game (Prostagma?). The original campaign is a Tour de Force following the hero Arkantos and his friends through the myths of the ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Norse; with you fighting the Trojan War with Ajax and the like under the guidance of Athena. The visuals are great, with the gods of AOM being among the best portrayals of those mythical figures that I have ever seen. Playing this game with friends, even against the AI, is always garanteed fun. Highly recommended.

I wrote this review on Steam, if you like it give me a thumbs up there. Thank you.