More actions
"The Atlanteans scout by using their Oracle. Atlantean soldiers are fairly expensive, but each one of them can be turned into Heroes. In later ages, units can be trained from the Palace are their most powerful. Atlantean Citizens gather resources and construct buildings. Citizens are slow, expensive units that do not require a drop site to collect resources. The Atlanteans gain Favor by stationing Oracles around the map to commune with the gods."
In-game description
The Atlanteans are a civilization in Age of Mythology. They are based on the people of the fictional/mythological island called Atlantis mentioned in the ancient Greek philosopher Plato's works "Timaeus" and "Critias", but with some modified lore.
Overview
- Civilian: Citizen.
- Oracles and Oracle Heroes generate favor depending on the sum of the areas under their vision.
- Can transform any human unit to its hero counterpart for a price.
- Houses replaced by Manors, which have a lower build limit, but provide more population space and allow two Citizens to garrison for safety.
- Economic technologies are researched at the Economic Guild.
- Each wall section costs 5 gold.
- Each Farm costs 150 wood and has +200 hit points.
- Archer ships (Biremes) cost 20% less, siege ships (Siege Biremes) cost -10 gold.
- Transport Shipss have 190 hit points, a movement speed of 5.33, and a garrison space of 12.
- Start with two Citizens and three Oracles (spawning at the 5, 10, and 15 second mark), and 275 food, 250 wood, 75 gold.
- Docks cost 125 wood.
Major Gods
Kronos
- Can time-shift buildings to new locations (towers and Palaces cost 50% of their price to shift, others are free).
- Buildings are constructed 25% faster per nearby Manor.
- Receive 2 free myth units instead of 1 when advancing to the next age.
- Lost siege and myth units return 20% of their resource cost.
Gaia
- Start with Hero Citizens and promoting Citizens to heroes costs -25%.
- Economic Guilds cost -40%. Economic Guild upgrades cost -40% and can be researched an age early.
- Economic buildings (Town Centers, Manors, Economic Guilds, and Markets) grow Lush.
- Lush heals friendly units and buildings (1 hit point per second).
Oranos
- Can build a new Sky Passage each age.
- Units can enter Sky Passages to instantly travel between them.
- All units have +4 Line of Sight.
- Oracles generate +25% Favor at full Line of Sight.
- Damaged enemy units remain visible for 25 seconds.
Minor Gods
File:Infobox-age2.png Classical Age
| Name | Major Gods | Focus |
|---|---|---|
 Prometheus |
Kronos and Oranos | Heroes |
 Leto |
Gaia and Kronos | Automatons |
 Oceanus |
Gaia and Oranos | Infantry |
File:Infobox-age3.png Heroic Age
| Name | Major Gods | Focus |
|---|---|---|
 Hyperion |
Kronos and Oranos | Heroes |
 Rheia |
Gaia and Kronos | Favor generation |
 Theia |
Gaia and Oranos | Cavalry |
File:Infobox-age4.png Mythic Age
| Name | Major Gods | Focus |
|---|---|---|
 Helios |
Kronos and Oranos | Siege Weapons |
 Atlas |
Gaia and Kronos | Buildings |
 Hekate |
Gaia and Oranos | Myth Units |
Units
Civilians
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
 Citizen |
Gathers all resources (except favor) and builds buildings. Does not require a drop site |
 Oracle |
Scout unit with no attack whose Line of Sight grows when standing still. Generates favor based on its current Line of Sight, but the generation rate is reduced if multiple Oracles' Lines of Sight overlap |
Human Soldiers
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
 Murmillo |
Classical Age general infantry unit, it is strong against cavalry and decent against other infantry making it a fairly well-rounded unit |
 Contarius |
Heroic Age general cavalry unit; armed with a spear and fairly hefty armor. It has a decent speed and a high attack |
 Arcus |
Heroic Age archer. It is strong against infantry and weak against cavalry |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
 Katapeltes |
Classical Age infantry, it is the main Atlantean infantry counter against cavalry |
 Turma |
Classical Age mounted archer, the Turma is a cavalry archer only good against other archers. It is very much like the Egyptian Slinger, though far more mobile. Their mobility could in theory be useful for raiding, as it can be; however, the Turma has such low hack armor and attack that using them for that purpose isn't very effective. |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
 Destroyer |
Heroic Age infantry, an anti-building unit that has high pierce armor but is weak against other infantry |
 Fanatic |
Mythic Age infantry, it fights very well against both infantry and cavalry due to their attack bonus against human soldiers, but are quite susceptible to archer fire |
Siege Weapons
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
 Cheiroballista |
Heroic Age ranged soldier and siege unit which is excellent against ships and infantry, but weak against cavalry and buildings |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
 Fire Siphon |
Mythic Age siege unit with very high pierce armor and a very high attack, but almost no hack armor. It shoots fire and is very strong against buildings |
Heroes
Atlanteans cannot train heroes specifically, but convert their human units to hero status. These hero units are:
• 
Citizen Hero • 
Cheiroballista Hero
• 
Oracle Hero • 
Arcus Hero
• 
Murmillo Hero • 
Contarius Hero
• 
Katapeltes Hero • 
Destroyer Hero
• 
Turma Hero • 
Fanatic Hero
Ships
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
 Longboat |
Greater attack than other archer ships and has transport capacity of 5, but is slower |
 Dreki |
Same as Greek and Egyptian close-combat ships |
 Dragon Ship |
Same as Greek siege ships |
Myth Units
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
 Kraken |
A melee unit which can use its tentacles to drown and destroy enemy ships |
 Jormun Elver |
A ranged unit which can thrash its tail to flip over enemy ships in front of it |
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
 Titan |
The Norse Titan unit is a gargantuan hammer-wielding Frost Giant loosely resembling Ymir, the ancestor of the Norse Giants |
Resource Gathering
Unlike the other civilizations, the Norse have two villager units: Gatherers and Dwarves. Gatherers gather resources at the same rate as Greek Villagers and are very similar to them in most respects. Dwarves, meanwhile, cost gold to train instead of food, mine gold 20% faster than Gatherers and gather food and wood 20% slower. However, Thor's Dwarves gather food and wood only slightly slower than Gatherers. Neither Gatherers nor Dwarves can build any buildings except Farms; the other buildings are built by Norse infantry.
While other civilizations build resource-specific drop-off buildings, the Norse have the Ox Cart, a unit and mobile resource drop-off site. Ox Carts can simply follow gatherers and Dwarves wherever they go, saving building time. All resource-related technologies are researched at Ox Carts. Norse players start the game with one Ox Cart and can train additional ones at the Town Center.
Norse Heroes
Similarly to the Egyptians, the Norse have a specific hero class: Hersirs, which can be trained in any number. They are powerful against myth units but only modestly effective against human soldiers. By worshiping the minor god Baldr, the Norse can use the Ragnarok god power to instantly turn all their Gatherers and Dwarves into Heroes of Ragnarok, which are essentially stronger versions of the Hersir.
In the campaign, the Norse have five unique heroes: The hermit Skult, the Valkyrie Reginleif, the two dwarven heroes Eitri and Brokk and, in The Titans, the Frost Giant King Folstag.
Favor
The Norse gain favor while engaging in combat. The generation system in Retold is very different from the original game. Instead of favor bounties depending on each individual target, the favor generation rate depends on the attacker and the amount of damage they have dealt, as well as multipliers of the combat favor rate for certain targets.
Like in the original, the trainable Norse heroes, i.e. Hersir and Godi, also trickle 0.01 favor per second simply by existing. The myth technology Hammer of Thunder granted by Thor doubles the Hersir's passive generation to 0.02 favor per second.
Attacks from different unit types generate favor at different rates:
- Human soldiers, Heroes, Gatherers, and Dwarves: 1 per 80 damage dealt.
- Ships: 1 per 160 damage dealt.
- Odin's Great Hall units (Hersir, Jarls, Godi, Raiding Cavalry): 1 per 64 damage dealt.
- Norse myth units that are trained from Temples and Docks, as well as the Nidhogg: 1 per 160 damage dealt.
Buildings, unmentioned units (Walking Woods, Fimbulwinter Wolves), and damage dealt by god powers do not generate any favor.
Certain target types also have their own multipliers when damaged:
- Huntables - animals that contain food (does not include Serpents, even though villagers use bows against them): 2×
- Herdable animals: 10×
- Chickens ("NonConvertableHerdable"): 10×
- Buildings that shoot (Sentry Towers do not count until upgraded): 0.5×
- Wall pieces and Gates: 0×
- Other buildings: 0.1×
Additionally, once 100 total favor from combat has been gathered, the rate of gain begins to slow down. This reduction increases linearly between 100 and 300 total favor gathered, reducing the rate to 0.5x upon gathering 300 favor from combat. This reduction happens regardless of whether the gained favor was spent or left in the stockpile. This reduction applies only to favor gain from combat.
Military
The Norse military is dominated by infantry. These units can also build buildings, allowing Norse players to use part of their attacking force to build a forward base near their opponent's town, quickly create more units nearby then attack. While many of the infantry of the other civilizations target cavalry, certain Norse infantry units counter other types of units. The Throwing Axeman is a short-ranged infantry unit that deals bonus damage to other infantry units and the Huskarl gains a bonus against archers.
Originally, the Norse had no ranged soldiers (the anti-infantry role was taken by Throwing Axemen and Ballistae), so there was no need to train anti-archer units when fighting them. As the Norse have no ranged heroes, they were particularly vulnerable to flying myth units.
The Norse also don't have a dedicated ranged anti-building siege unit such as the Greek Petrobolos and the Egyptian Catapult. Instead, they have the Portable Ram, a cheap melee siege unit that can be vulnerable to infantry and cavalry as it lumbers up to the buildings it attacks, and the Ballista, a ranged unit that does respectable damage to buildings but is much better against infantry and archers. To compensate for this, many Norse myth units also deal crush damage, particularly the Mountain Giant.
Starting Conditions
Each of Age of Mythology's civilizations has different starting conditions in a standard game. The Norse start out with a Town Center, a Berserk, an Ox Cart, and two Gatherers (Odin and Loki) or two Dwarves (Thor).
Trivia
- The names of the three Norse warships all refer to the exact same ship. Longboat is another name for Longship, which is the English name for the typical Norse exploration and warship, while the Norse name for such a ship is Drakkar. Dragon Ship is the literal English translation of the word Drakkar. Thus, all three Norse ship names refer to a typical-length Longship.
- A more suitable name for the current Drakkar would have been Snekke, which was used for smaller longships. A more suitable name for the current Dragon Ship would have been Skeid (skeið), which referred to a large or splendid oceangoing warship. Skeid is currently used as a prefix for upgraded Dragon Ships.
- While primarily influenced from the namesake Norsemen, there are also references to other Germanic peoples too:
- The Throwing Axeman's history files refer to the Franks, Germanic peoples who would go on to conquer the bulk of Roman Gaul and eventually become Kingdom of France as their culture adopted more Roman customs.
- The Jarl's history files refer to the Saxons, a tribe from northern Germania who were influenced by Norse culture since their tribe lived near the Jutland Peninsula (in modern-day Denmark) prior to migrating to and conquering Roman Britannia along with the Angles, their Low German cousins, and the Jutes, who were the Norsemen living in the Jutland peninsula. Huskarls (or "Housecarls" after the Battle of Hastings in 1066) were also present as a warrior class in Anglo-Saxon England, serving as the elite guards for the Jarls.
- Hill Forts, which resemble motte-and-bailey castles, were introduced into most of Northern Europe by the Normans, who were Danish and Norwegian Vikings who settled in France and adopted French culture and customs in exchange for land, wealth, and an end to raids against the Kingdom of France.
- The shields of several upgrade unit lines are kite shields, which spread in Europe around 1000 AD and were popularised by the Normans during their conquest of England and Sicily.
- The name of the Thurisaz Rune technology also derives from Proto-Germanic, rather than Old Norse.
- Some of the AI players' names are related to Norse colonies: Faeros, Greenland, Helluland, Markland, and Novgorod. The first four are/were in North America, and the fifth is a major city in modern-day Russia; it was also one of the two major Viking settlements settled near the Volga River in Eurasia, the other being Kiev, which is the capital of modern-day Ukraine.