Meaningful Myths
What started as mostly moving around technologies and minor gods so that everything "felt" better turned into an enormous balance patch that touches almost every aspect of the game.
Some of my favorite highlights are as follows as it’s become a lot to take in all at once, while full patch notes are in the Discussions section:
– House population increased to allow for games with bigger armies – 200 population with 2 expansions.
– Titans can walk through water.
– Mythic water matters again as fishing ships gather gold instead of food later in the game.
– Towers were buffed across the board, and siege weapons were nerfed. Buildings are no longer a joke and sieging a base should feel more like AoEII.
– Hydras and trolls regenerate naturally.
– Loki can combine Skadi and Hel to get Frost Giants of Thyrm with Granite Blood.
– Isis’ Priests have increased attack, enabling a mass Priest build.
– Locust Swarm, Meteor, Gaia’s Forest, Nidhogg, and many more of the coolest yet weakest god powers got buffed.
– Athena gets Athenian Wall instead of Hera. This has to be the most feel-good change here.
Hetairoi – Increased speed to be the same as upgraded centaurs, and gain a damage bonus vs infantry and cavalry, while armor was reduced.
These were the shock troops of Macedonia, equivalent to the Marines in the modern US army.
They now hit hard and fast, as opposed to the tankier Hippikons, but must be especially wary of archer and building attacks.
Like Zeus’ and Hades’ unique units, Poseidon’s is now effective when massed against many compositions, though it does have its counters.
Avengers – Lowered cooldown of special attack so that they do it about once every third hit, and increased their pierce armor to equal their hack armor.
Avengers inspired awe in me when I first saw them. In reality, they did less damage than most other RANGED AoE myth units.
They still lose 1v1 to a Chimera, but their ommnidirectional AoE is perfect in the situation where they get surrounded by melee units.
My goal with Avengers is that when you get your free one, you want to take it for a spin, like a new Corvette, and it actually follows through with the horsepower. Avengers are now Corvettes.
Fimbulwinter – The number of wolves and duration were massively increased. In addition, they and Fenris wolves deal full damage to heroes.
Fenrir in legend was capable of maiming or slaying gods, one of the few monsters who could. This now translates into the game.
From a balance perspective, Fimbulwinter was pretty much worse than Eclipse, a Classical age power.
It now does what it was supposed to do, giving you a good amount of extra troops for an attack on the main, or taking out undefended settlements by itself. Or both!
Elite Atlanteans – Atlanteans, economically, are the race which costs double yet is twice as strong. I tried my best to let that feeling carry over to their military, specifically Fanatics, Arcus, and Contarius.
I was so disappointed once I got to Mythic Age for the first time as Atlanteans, and found their units to be about as good as everyone else’s.
The cost and power of above mentioned units are roughly doubled. Fanatics cost 2 favor as well, and have a small AoE on their attack.
The fully upgraded hero versions can get over 30-40 damage, but are also the only units in the game to take more than 5 population. Living the Atlantean dream.
Every Chinese myth unit – Well, let’s be honest, the devs copied other pantheon’s myth units and changed the model a bit, mostly using existing unused assets. Or used ones, like scaling up monkies and tigers.
Azure Dragons are now more like spellcasters than Chimeras are, with lower attack and HP but higher special.
Qilin’s spell immunity gains a purpose, as their HP was increased, while their attack was lowered.
White Tigers’ damage and leap range were doubled.
Thoughts, suggestions, questions, all welcome.
