Myth-informed (Age Of Mythology (PC))

Member Name: MGirl

Product:	Age Of Mythology (PC)
Date:	04/03/05 (207 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Totally addictive

Disadvantages: I want my life back!

I lost hours, nay days of my life to Age of Empires II. My parents got it free with a computer years ago but the whole series are timeless classics. When I recently bought a computer (hence my return to the world of Dooyoo), the next day I bought “Age of Mythology” for £13 from Game (which surprizingly is cheaper than Play who are currently sold out and over £10 cheaper than Amazon).

What’s it all about? In the series of “Age of…” games you are a Godlike figure who controls combat and non combat units. You can either go through a series of scenarios or go for a random map against one (or more opponents).

Your non combat villagers are the people who collect resources for you. In Age of Empires II, these include gold, food, stone and wood. In Age of Mythology, stone isn’t a resource anymore but that’s a minor difference. Villagers (generally, see below) also build things for you. Combat units obviously fight!

**** Developments from the original games – villagers ****

Food can be gathered from almost any animal (a good tip is to get firing towers or town centres to kill the animal rather than your villager as certain animals will fight back)

Farms no longer have a finite lifespan (which was really annoying in the original game)

Each mythology has different ways of doing things and in some this means you have mobile “drop points” for resources rather than fixed buildings

**** Developments from the original games – buildings ****

In the Norse mythology, infantry build rather than villagers which can be useful and annoying depending on the situation

You’re limited on town centres – new ones can only be built on deserted or demolished town centres, which makes expanding your society more interesting (= difficult!)

You’re limited on the number of buildings you can build. If, like me you like building towers and castles, you may find you get to the point where you can’t build any more.

**** Developments from the original games – combat units ****

Heros, mythological units and more variety is the key to this game. There was some variety in the old game but not as much. You are limited in the number of Heros you can have in 2 of the mythologies but they are really effective and often regenerate (or allow you to recreate them).

Priests can’t convert units and buildings any more which is a bit of a shame. I loved sending in a mission of priests to convert a city.

**** Developments from the original games – other! ****

To progress you’ll also need “favour” from the gods. Depending on the god will depend on how you have to act to gain favour. Greeks need villagers praying at the temple, Egyptians earn favour with monuments (and some of them help protect against God powers, see later…) Norse society gain favour by kicking a$$! A good way to get that going is do get your guys hunting.

As you develop through the ages and become more technologically advanced, you will be asked to chose a minor God. Depending on which God you chose will give you different God powers and different ways to advance your technology.

God powers. This is a big difference from Age of Empires II. Most God powers require line of sight but you can be sneaky with that especially if you have scout units. One of my favourite (although not completely effective) is the walking woods power. Try it, it’s hilarious.

**** Cheats ****

There are some fun ones here as well as the really cheaty ones:

ATM OF EREBUS 1000 gold
BAWK BAWK BOOM Chickens fall from sky (as an attack god power, really cool)
ENGINEERED GRAIN Fat herd animals (i.e. cows, sheep) so you get max food level
JUNK FOOD NIGHT Gives you 1000 food
L33T SUPA H4X0R Fast build and training
LAY OF THE LAND Reveals the map, but not fog of war
O CANADA Lazer bear (with cape!)
PANDORAS BOX Several random god powers
SET ASCENDANT Reveal all animals on map and herd animals become yours
TINES OF POWER A forkboy
TROJAN HORSE FOR SALE 1000 wood
WUV WOO Flying purple hippo

Type them in (they need to be in capitals) on the chat option.

Well that’s it, try the Titans expansion pack too. You can also play online but I’ve never tried it (that’s taking the addiction too far).

Summary: