Here is my contribution. I hope you find these helpful.
ROMANS
Jupiter - God of the Sky and Thunder
Mars - God of War
Quirinus - God of Civic Duties
Janus - God of Duality
Juno - Goddess of Love and Marriage
Minerva - Goddess of Wisdom, Justice, and Victory
Roman Bestiary:
Achlis - A large creature that looks like an elk but with strange characteristics. It was said its upper lip was so large that it had to graze backwards to avoid its lip falling over its mouth. (Pliny the Elder’s creatures)
Antipode - Humans whose legs and feet are reversed but can still run at frightening speeds. (Pliny the Elder’s creatures)
Basilisk - They are the dreaded serpents of the mythical world. Their deadly gaze kills even the bravest warriors, despite their small size.
Blemmyae - “Headless men” with two types: eyes on the chest or eyes on the shoulders. Either way, the face is on the body itself. (Pliny the Elder’s creatures)
Caladrius - Mythical birds that are snow-white. These magnificent creatures possess feathers of ethereal luminescence and are capable of purifying ailments.
Catoblepas - Similar to the Basilisk in nature, these monstrous cow-like creatures can kill anyone with their cursed gaze.
Cynocephalus - Creatures with a human body but the head of a dog. (Pliny the Elder’s creatures)
Faun - Very similar to the Satyrs but are more classy. For AoM’s sake and comedic purposes, let’s just say they find the Satyrs to be uncivilized and disgusting.
Genius loci - They are protective spirits of a place and are usually depicted in religious iconography as figures holding attributes such as a cornucopia, patera (libation bowl), or snakes. I see them as “support” units, giving them buffs.
Gryps - Basically Griffins. They are born from the union of mighty lions and majestic eagles. The Gryps embody unmatched ferocity and protection. Many examples of Roman architecture feature their symbols. Gryps harbor an unbridled hatred towards dragons.
Hippopodes - They are beings with lower bodies of horses and upper bodies of men. They are capable of outrunning wild animals and are said to have an insatiable greed for treasures. (Pliny the Elder’s creatures)
Jaculus - Small yet formidable, the Jaculus are flying serpents/dragons that attack with speed. Its name comes from Latin and denotes a dart or a javelin. I can see these units being spammed and used to “pepper” the stronger foes.
Lemures - Basically like shades. They are cloaked in shadows and wreathed in the ethereal mist and the realms of the living and the dead. They are often seen whispering haunting laments of forgotten souls. Don’t let them touch you!
Monoceros - These ethereal beings roam the enchanted forests. Basically unicorns. They have a body of a horse, the head of a stag without the antlers, the feet of an elephant, a tail of a wild boar, and has 1 meter black horn in the middle of their heads. Practically impossible to capture alive.
Neades - Legendary and savage creatures of gigantic size. Their voices were said to be so loud that it is capable of causing earthquakes. (Claudius ########## creatures)
Onocentaurus - Part-human part-donkey. Unlike a centaur, which is portrayed with four legs, the onocentauruses are portrayed with only two legs of a donkey. For comedic purposes, let’s just say they are extremely jealous of their Greek foes, the Centaurs.
Ophiotaurus - A massive creature that has the back body of a serpent and the front body of a bull. Burning the mystical being’s innards is the key to defeating the gods. (Publius Ovidius Naso’s creatures)
Panotti - a mythical race of people, described as possessing large ears. Their ears are so big that they can use them as blankets against the cold. Maybe they can be used to “scout” or reveal a large part of the map. (Pliny the Elder’s creatures)
Striges - Large vampiric owls whose haunting cries pierce the night. They are feared as harbingers of doom or ill-omen and the embodiments of fearsome darkness and nocturnal terror.
Titan: Cacus - A fire-breathing terror whose gigantic size towered over the biggest creatures, his thunderous steps reverberated through the earth and made it tremble. His fiery breath burned the sky and could blacken and choke the life from the strongest of beings. He could crush massive boulders like sand and was said to impale the heads of his once mighty victims outside of his cave.
Human Unit Suggestion:
Bacchae - Female worshippers of Bacchus. They can go into a frenzy state with wine.
Scissor - One of the gladiator types but its a favorite of mine. I hope they are added along with the rest of the gladiator types.
I’m not sure I understand your idea with the vestal flame. You mean the vestals would simply gather favors from it?
Isn’t he already named Heracles? I play in french and he has the right name. I don’t know for the english version though.
Very good list! I’d also add the griffin and of course the she-wolf! Even though some may argue that it’s only an ordinary wolf, it’s still technically a mythical creature, since there is no way to prove the historicity of the story of Romulus and Remus. In order to make it visually unique compared to the ordinary wolf and the fenris wolf brood, it could be designed to look like the capitoline wolf statue:
I think the she-wolf / lupa could be a classic myth unit with some kind of deflection ability or increased stats when close to a forum. This would be a way to represent both its maternal instinct and the propagation of the wolf symbol across roman colonies.
Yup the Griffins are added and renamed as “Gryps” (#10).
Lupa is a good choice! Good suggestion. Lupa is an interesting and important choice for the Roman civilization. She can even replace Cacus as the Roman titan. Cacus and his sister, Caca, can then be “downgraded” to regular mythical units if need be.
An interesting mechanic could involve summoning Lupa from the titan gate. Initially, she appears like the Capitoline statue, a bit bare, bland, and weaker than the other titans. However, once you train, hire, and reunite / megazorded Romulus and Remus with Lupa, she dons more armor and becomes more savage-looking with her furs contorting in all directions. Additionally, the adult sons will ride the titan while she is on all fours. While it might seem goofy for her two adult children to sit on her back, I think it adds a unique and awesome twist.
In the mod Divine Edition there 's a Roman phanteon and they steal other gods myth units. I think that a good way to gain favor will be making games in the coliseum , this could be a unique building where you send villagers and when there are 2 or more the games start and you gain favor, after the games end you gain a powerfull gladiator that has bonus against myth units. Depending on the number of villagers you send to the coliseum it will give you a more powerfull gladiator and more favor.
Villagers can pick up the construction at any time and the cost is then reduced by the percentage the building is already build
Can collect wood but no other resource
Build limit is 2 (+1 for every age up)
If you want to you can get a free wonder but it’ll take many hours to build with those 5 architects you have.
Legionary
What if they had a turtle/shieldwall feature that makes them a little slower but increases their Pierce Armour?
Or would that be too many features in one unit?
Gladiator fights where not really a religious thing. They where pure entertainment.
I don’t think that would be fitting as a game mechanic.
Also the Atlanteans already have gladiator themed units so their would be some confusion there too.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Why would someone want to “downgrade” his titan?
I wouldn’t make La Lupa a ###an unit, to be honest. She never was described as bigger then other wolves, so she should be a regular myth unit. Of course for readability, she would need to be bigger than the regular wolf, but smaller than the fenris wolf brood.
If they decide that they want a different titan. Though, it is a bit hard to find any other Roman creature on par with him. So he might just be the titan afterall.
Perhaps the devs will have some creative liberties and make an exception for Lupa since her sons founded Rome.
However if she remains a mythical unit then I wonder if they go with the minotaur path where there will be multiple Lupas or will they go with the Fenrir brood path where they have Lupa broods instead.
I know that I am in a minority here who would rather want to see other pantheons first that do not share many similarities with current pantheons in the game.
While a Roman pantheon would be cool, it is going to be hard for the developers to make it stand out from the Greek, as they borrowed heavily from Greek mythology.
I would want to see them added in the future, but before that, I would like to see pantheons like the Celts or an Indian pantheon, which would be interesting and cool ideas.
Anyway, great discussion regardless, with a lot of ideas.
Honestly, I think Cacus is the best option for the roman titan.
In my opinion, the fenris wolf brood and jormund elver only exist because both parents are supposed to be much bigger than what we see in the game, even though the same could be said for many other myth units. But this isn’t the case of La Lupa, so I’d say there could be multiple Lupas.
I understand your opinion, but I’ll repeat what I said in my first post: this isn’t a debate. The purpose of this thread is to share ideas in order to create an interesting and unique roman civ. If you’ve read the precedent posts, then you know it’s possible to not overlap with greek and atlantean civs.
I don’t think that you are the minority here.
I personally think that the Romans should be held back for a long time because I think one of their core features should be being able to train units and worship gods from other civilisations. Those civilisations therefore have to be added first, especially the Celts are absolutely necessary for the Romans to work.
i hardly never contradict with your ideas but i absolutely don’t like that idea to be honest. No civ in the game should have access to stuff from other civs and every civ should have the full volume of their own stuff in my opinion. I see where you came from but really, a feature like that for the romans would be sad for me personally. For me it feels far to off from the original game/civ design and would make things overlap and stuff. That’s the one thing i would try to avoid.
I agree with you. However, the cult of Isis for example was well widespread across the Empire, so she’d be an obvious choice for the romans as an assimilable godess. I wouldn’t mind her giving access to one already existing egyptian myth unit. I’d like her to have a unique portrait variant for the Romans though. But yeah, most assimilated gods should have a roman name and not be copy-pasted from other cultures.
I agree with you here that I wouldn’t want to see this being added to AoM, as it doesn’t fit into the game. Also, this will create a balancing nightmare for the developers to maintain. If the Romans are added, I want to see them be their own standalone pantheon that is unique in how it is played compared to any other pantheon in the game.
I agree because of the asymmetrical design. The Romans already share many similarities with the Greeks. Assimilating Isis into their pantheon would feel like a slap in the face to Egyptian players, even if it did happen in history. This is why the developers have more creative liberties since the game is based on a mythological setting and not real-life history. The Roman gods and goddesses are plentiful and not lacking. It would be disappointing if players felt the Romans were just a copy or clone of other civilizations.
That being said, instead of assimilating and training other cultures’ monsters from their own military buildings, the Romans or a specific religious unit could convert a group of enemy mythological units to fight for their side, similar to what the Dark Archons can do in Starcraft. This way, the Romans retain their “homegrown” mythical units without having to sacrifice their unique monsters for Greek (har har, I know…), Egyptian, Norse, Chinese, and Atlantean units.
I don’t think they should be able to train myth units of other civilisations.
I was mostly thinking about human units.
Worshipping foreign gods would give them bonuses but not unlock new myth units.
The auxiliary troops would be modified version of other civilisations units.
Similar to how the consulate works in AoE3(DE) or how the mercenaries work for the Byzantines in AoE4.
The argument that AoM didn’t do something like that before is kinda pointless since AoM only has 4 (+1) civilisation so far and each of them always did something that no other civilisation did.
AoM has to “brake” it’s rules for new civilisations if it doesn’t want to keep copying mechanics.
It will have to start copying mechanics at some point though, there are only so many ways you can lay out the drop of buildings for 3 resources and only so many possible ways to generate Favour.
I understand where you’re coming from, but in my opinion, I think that they should only add new Pantheons to this game if they feel they can make them unique from the other Pantheons in the game.
I don’t want them to add just for the sake of adding a new Pantheon, but then it gives nothing new or unique in terms of playstyle. I’d rather have fewer Pantheons in total but more consistent quality that makes each Pantheon feel unique and stand out from all other Pantheons in the game.
I’m not saying they should add new Pantheons with no new features.
I’m saying that some features will have to be reused.
Some new civilisation will use the same set of drop off buildings as an already existing civilisation. There is only so many ways you can combine those 3 resources.
No drop off and drop off unit have also already been used.
Combinations of no drop off, drop off unit and different drop off buildings depending on resource sounds confusing.
Like imagine a civ that has a building for gold, a unit for wood and doesn’t need a drop of for food. That would be kinda strange.
Favour will be difficult to.
Egyptians, Atlanteans and Chinese (before the rework) all 3 generate favour passively from buildings.
That’s 3/5 civilisations already.
This seems to be one of the biggest challenges for civ creation in AoM.
New way of generating favour have to be:
Unique
Fitting to the culture
Be balanced
A lot of religions have similar practices like animal sacrifice, praying or building monuments.
The Greek praying mechanic would probably fit almost all civs.
It depends on how it is implemented. Isis for the Romans doesn’t have to be copy-pasted. She could have her own unique portrait and unique techs exclusively for the Romans.
On this I agree. This could be an ability for their flamen unit.
Have you read my first post? I’ve suggested a potential unit roster for the romans and even though the auxiliaries are inspired from existing units, the Romans still have a different composition from other civs.
That’s right. The only original new ways I can think of for gaining favor are:
Resource offerings (basically lombards from aoe3)
Livestock sacrifice (if they allow to train livestock in retold)
Human sacrifice (like in the return of the gods mod)
By assimilating gods (as I’ve mentionned in my first post)
