My ideas for AoM2

Age of Mythology Discussion
1

I have a bunch of ideas for a potential AoM2.
The developers might be already working on it so it might be to late for them to read them but maybe I have the chance to give them some ideas.

Age up

The Age up is a mix between AoM and AoE4.
You Age up by building a Temple (or equivalent for the culture) for a specific god.
For Example Temple of Zeus unlocks the lighting bolt Godpower.

What options you have depend on civilisation.
It could be 2/3 different gods for every age up (Like in AoM or AoE4) or 4/5 gods in total that you can choose from beginning at the first age (Like Native Americans or Asians in AoE3 all well as Abbasides in AoE4).
Or maybe you keep the gods you don’t choose as an option but a new one is added each Age up (Like Africans in AoE3).

I think Gods should only be an ingame choice and there should be now Major gods to choose from in the lobby.

Favour

Favour is more like other resources as in there is more than one way to collect it and you can also store more of it.
In AoM 3 out of 5 civilisations just gain favour from building certain buildings and that is boring.
Every god you choose either improves one way of favour collection or introduces a new one.

Some possible methods to gain favour:

  • Sacrificing livestock (Most Civilisations)
  • Artefacts (like in AOE1) (All Civilisations)
  • Controlling Sacred Sights (more on that later)
  • Fighting (Norse or gods like Ares) Can be limited to certain units like only Cavalry or only Ships.
  • Killing enemy units (Aztecs) The difference to fighting is that units like villagers that die quickly give the same as heavy soldiers.
  • Destroying Buildings
  • Your own units dying in battle (Odin)
  • From certain types of resource collection (Hunt for Artemis or Demeter for farms)
  • For converting enemy units
  • For training certain units (Villagers for Isis or ships for Poseidon)
  • For idle villagers (Dionysus)
  • For researching technologies (Favour from Blacksmith upgrades for Hephaestus)

Pantheon

The Pantheon works a bit like an AoE3 homecity but it only depends on which gods you chose. But unlike the AoE3 homecity they all have individual costs.

All gods give you at last one of each of those:

  • Technology (1x)
  • Mythological unit (infinitely)
  • God power (can be infinitely)
  • Large number of mythological units (1x) (Can be different units)

There can be multiple technologies or Mythological units.
The selected units appear at a chosen Temple or Town Centre.

Old mythological units don’t get cheaper or stronger when you age up but collecting favour gets easier every time so they practically get cheaper.

Sacred Sights

They are a mix of the same mechanic from AoE4 and Native Settlements form AoE3.
Each Sacred Sight belongs to one god (that is not available for age up for any civilisation) and you can build a shrine on it to unlock technologies and (mythological) units.
It also trickles favour.
If you control all of them a victory countdown starts.

Those are a perfect way to include smaller cultures or cults in the game.
Because they represent cultures they not only give mythological technologies and units but they can also give human units like for example “Cretan Archers” that don’t cost favour.

The units and technologies appear at the Pantheon and can be trained at every temple.

Ages

I would orientate the game on the first Age of Empires. The Age names in AoM weren’t good in my opinion.
The unit visuals also didn’t match up with the technologies.
“Bronze” Armour upgrades where in the same age that gave units silver/iron looking armour while “Iron” upgrades were in the age that gave units golden armour.

Stone Age

Only basic military units are available like spearman.

Copper Age

Equivalent of the Tool Age from AoE1. Like in AoE1 and AoE4 most units available don’t cost gold.
There is no cavalry yet (for most civilisations)
Allows to build a second Town Centre and basic defence.

Bronze Age

Introduces most gold units including the expensive chariots (it’s stupid that they are trash units in AoE1) but cavalry is only available of a few civilisations and there isn’t much siege.
There is no “Castle/Keep” building like in AoE2/4 because it’s not medieval.

Iron Age

Now cavalry and real siege units become available to everyone.

Age of Gods

Very expensive Age up.
Doesn’t unlock any new regular units or buildings.
It gives you an additional god and some very strong late game upgrades.
Is there to help players to end games that did become an stalemate.
Also allows you to build a wonder.

Wonder

A wonder doesn’t directly win the game but reduces the Secret Sight requirements for you by one. Can be build multiple times. So it is possible to win by just building wonders.
Each wonder as a unique strong bonus (Comparable to Empire Earth) like revealing the location of every enemy building or passive health regeneration for all units.

Units

Unlike AoM not all units are completely unique but like AoE4 they have unique visuals.
But unlike AoE4 there are more than just 1-2 unique units for each civilisation.
The focus is on Infantry and not Cavalry. Cavalry is relatively weak and only available late for most civilisations. In contrast to AoE4.

Barracks

Spearman

  • Available of everyone
  • Starting in the Stone Age
  • They are a generally strong unit and not just anti cavalry

Shock Infantry

  • Available to most
  • Starting in the Copper Age
  • Anti Archer
  • Useful as scout

Counter Infantry

  • Available to some
  • Starting in the Bronze Age
  • Usually equipped with a Axe or Sword.
  • Good against other Infantry

Archery Range

Archer

  • Available to almost all civilisations
  • Starting from Dark or Copper Age
  • Good against light Infantry (Not Shock Infantry)

Javelin

  • Available to most civilisations
  • Starting from Dark or Copper Age
  • Decent against other Archers especially Cavalry Archers
  • Useful as scout

Slinger

  • Available to many civilisations
  • Starting from Copper Age
  • Slowing down Heavy Infantry

Academy

Hoplite

  • Available to some civilisations
  • Starting in Bronze or Iron Age
  • Strong piercing armour but slow
  • Good against most units in melee

Chariot

  • Available to some civilisations
  • Starting in Bronze
  • Strong but expensive
  • No upgrades in Iron Age
  • Can be equipped with different weapons (Spear, Javelin, Bow) or commander units that buff nearby Infantry

Stable

Horseman

  • Available to most civilisations
  • Starting in Bronze or Iron Age
  • Faster and cheaper than Chariot
  • Strong against Archers

Cavalry Archer

  • Available to some civilisations
  • Starting in Iron Age
  • Faster and cheaper than Chariot

Camel Rider

  • Available to some civilisations
  • Starting in Iron Age
  • Debuffs enemy Cavalry and Chariots

War Elephant

  • Available to some civilisations
  • Starting in Iron Age
  • Very strong but very expensive
  • Faster than Infantry but slower than Cavalry or Chariots
  • Can be equipped with different weapons (Spear, Javelin, Bow) or commander units that buff nearby Infantry

Siege Weapons

  • Build by Infantry
  • Mythological units might be better for this job

Ram

  • Available to everyone in Bronze Age
  • Strong against walls

Siege Tower

  • Available to most in Bronte Age
  • Get on top of enemy walls

Catapult

  • Available to most in Iron Age
  • Good against towers
  • Not so good against units because it has to be packed and unpacked

Ballista

  • Available to most in Iron Age
  • Counter Siege
  • Decent against units because it packs and unpacks faster

Unique units

They can be a entirely new unit or more often replace one of the existing units.
Some units like Spearman are less likely to be replaced while others like Counter Infantry are very different between civilisations, an Axe is not the same as a sword and swords were all but standardised back than.
But generally there isn’t a hard distinction between unique and standard. Some units are more or less different between civilisations but they don’t have to be.

Heroes

Heroes can be very different between the different civilisations, most civilisations will have access to both named heroes and generic hero units.
The named heroes act like AoE3 Explorers and can be rescued when they die (With some exceptions like the Egyptian Pharaoh thar respawns).
Generic heroes are usually something like a priest unit.
Some heroes might buff nearby troops against mythological units instead if fighting them directly. Some heroes might help the economy too like the Egyptian Pharaoh.

Resources

The game should have all 4 classic resources plus Favour.
Stone is needed to balance defence in my opinion.
For some civilisation that didn’t have any stone fortifications (Any civilisation from the Steps or North American Natives) should have alternative usages for Stone like the Mongols form AoE4.

Livestock should work like in AoE3 (they can be produced and fatten over time) because with a sacrifice mechanic they can offer either food or favour.
Maybe some animals like sheep could also give gold for their wool.

Trade should just work like in AoE4 but naval trade should be stronger.

God Powers

God powers have to be bought to be used. You can store up to 5 (in a menu at the top of the screen). Some gods have more than one god power that you can buy. Some can be bought once others multiple times.
Some god powers might always be available in the Age of Gods that can help you end a game that reached a stalemate.

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2

Interesting ideas, but I really don’t know how I feel about many of them.
I like the way Aging Up by one specific god automatically ends the access to the other minor god’s techs, MU and GP as and the fact that most GPs can just be used once, because this makes each decision making more important and bad strats costing and hurting the most…
Not sure about 5 kinds of resources as well, but if stone and favour are not required too much, I think I’m ok with 5 res…

As for units, I really love AoM unique units per civ, just think they could be a bit more ballanced so classic ulf are not that underused…

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They should hire you.

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Not sure what you mean.
If you chose a god you directly get access to mythological units, technologies and god powers for favour.
I don’t like that in AoM you always get one free mythological unit and one god power directly.
It would be nice if that’s different between gods. Some god might give you multiple free mythological units, some might directly give you a bonus and others give you a free god power. Similar to AoE3 age up options.

I think AoM over did it in some ways. It is strange that Norse don’t have a Spearman unit and originally no Archer unit just to be more different.
Should the Norse and Egyptian Spearman have different stats? I don’t think so.
Should the Norse (Ulfsark) and Egyptian Axeman have different stats? That makes more sense.

Thanks.

5

Maybe I misunderstood this part: “maybe you keep the gods you don’t choose as an option but a new one is added each Age up”.

What I meant about aging up was that I like the fact you make a choice and can’t come back to grab other god’s bonuses.

Anyway, it’s great to see people really interested on AoM DE /II, let’s hope they give us something almost as great as what we have already.

Hope they listen to you and the others with good ideas!

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I thought of it like the Africans from AoE3 (you might not know them as they are completely new).
They have 5 alliances to chose from when aging up.
The 4 they did not chose are available the next time they age up again plus another new one so they always have 5 choices.

I think it would be nice if the gods would be arranged differently for different civilisations.

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I love that we are talking about AoM2.

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AOM is my personal favorite in the series and I think trying to move AOM2 closer to the AOE games will lose what makes it unique and interesting.

One suggestion which I find very hard to get on board with is the Pantheon. I personally think AOE3 is the worst in the series and the homecity was one of the aspect I particularly didn’t like. Whilst I also like how AOE /AOM have a more complex economy than other RTS games, I think adding stone to AOM would make the economy a bit too complicated. In any event, it is good that you are trying to raise some interest and provide suggestions for the game.

I like the suggestion that god power should be brought to be used. God powers are such a powerful feature that you should have to sacrifice resources to use them. I think making god powers cost favour would with the favor cost scaling up for each age would be a nice touch. This could also be a way to add more balance into the game with the more significant god powers costing more than the less significant ones.

My suggestions:

The main thing I want out of a new AOM game or a DE edition is new civilizations and enhancements to the existing civs.

New Civs

I think the following would make interesting civs:

  • Celtic
  • Slavic
  • Shinto
  • Aztec (to your point on unique ways of raising favour. I think sacrificing units would be a good element for the Aztecs. The more valuable the unit, the more favour)
  • And maybe native American mythology.

Enhancing existing civs

In term of enhancing the existing god, I think there is delicate balance between maintaining their existing features whilst adding new features. I put thought into it and I think one way of achieving this would be to increase the choice of minor gods for each age from 2 to 3 with the new gods having new powers and myth units. This will allow each god to retain their current minor gods (for the purists) while giving a choice of an extra gods (for those who want something different).

As an example, if we take Thor, we could have the following:
Classical Age: Freyja | Forsetti | + Idun (goddess of rejuvenation)
Heroic Age: Skadi | Bragi | + Freyr (god of fertility)
Mythic: Baldr | Tyr | + Sif (Thor’s wife)

There is enough mythology in the case of the Greeks, Atlantians (which is drawn from greek mythology), and Norse to provide each of these gods with new units, tech, and god powers. My only concern would be for the Egyptians where lore is harder to find and, of course, you’d need to do this for the new civs as well. The thing that is great about AOM is the mythology, so I think the more the better.

I do admit, however, that this could create more issues with balancing as it would significantly increase the complexity of the game.

Changes to the Titans
One feature I don’t particularly like in AOM is the titan unit. The titan unit is simply too powerful in my view. Not sure exactly how to deal with the issue - whether you omit them completely or tone them down.

Campaigns

I really enjoyed the campaigns in AOM, and I personally liked the Arkantos/ Kastor story line. It provided the right mix of fantasy whilst trying still trying to incorporate the actual mythology into the game. So I’d be happy with another sequel if they could keep it fresh. If not, something along those lines would be good. In addition, if they were to have addition campaigns for each of the civs which deals with their own individual mythologies that would also be cool.

Those are just some of my thoughts.

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I think every new game in the series should look back to all other instalments to see where it can get ideas from.
For AoM2 you’d first look at AoM1 of course, like they first looked at AoE2 when they made AoE4 (because of the same setting).
But I think AoM2 should take inspiration from all previous AoE games including AoEO when designing mechanics and especially Civilisations. I never played AoEO myself but it’s obvious that some of the civilisations there would make a lot of sense for AoM2.

Maybe I shouldn’t have made this comparison.
The Pantheon just means that all mythological units (and technologies) are available at all temples not just the ones for the god they are from. And also at the town centre and maybe some other special buildings.
Because unlike AoM I don’t want to have a generic Temple building, each Temple is always dedicated to a certain god.

Me too but I left the Civilisation discussion to other threads.
I mean I made a thread for AoM2 civilisations myself:
If AoM2 was a thing which Civilisations should be in it?

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I think every new game in the series should look back to all other instalments to see where it can get ideas from.

Yes, I agree that they should incorporate certain elements that work from the other games, but it is important that the unique characteristics of the AOM are maintained. I don’t think we are in any disagreement here. The Pantheon suggestions sounds better when you put it that way.

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I think a lot more inspiration should come from other games when designing civilisations.
If you design the Aztecs or Inca look at AoE3.
If you design the Celts look at AoEO
etc.

I think the major inspiration outside AoM should be AoE1 and AoEO because of the Setting.

My main problem with AoM is that the units look to “modern”.
When I think of the Trojan war I think of Mycenaean Greek and not Hellenistic Greek from nearly 1000 years later. I want nice Bronze Age looking units in Age 3.
While the Norse were very medieval looking. The full upgraded units look like 1000 AD Anglo-Saxon.

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I am bit torn on this. I like things to be historically accurate, but at the same time, this is a game and I think I can live with some anachronisms if the game still trying to be in the spirit of history. I think its more about having the right mix between fantasy, mythology and history.

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I’d like to see both Bronze Age and Iron Age units but in different ages.
AoM is like Stone → Iron/Silver → Gold
I’d like Stone → Copper/Early Bronze → Bronze → Iron
So Iron Age Greeks could look like the Greek units with the “Heavy” upgrades.
Maybe the “Age of Gods” could have some special upgrades that turns the units golden.
Something like “Armour of Hephaestus” → 25% resistance against Mythological units.

One of the major strengths of the first AoE that none other could replicate yet is that the Ages actually feel like history progression and not just like the same units getting more fancy. AoE3 is the worst at this.
You want to make a Scenario during the Trojan war or Egypt before it got conquered by Persians/Greeks/Romans?
Just limit it to Bronze Age.
I think it’s nice when the 4th Age gives you multiple new units. In some AoE games the 4th Age only gives you like 1-2 new units and often they are just siege units. Unlike AoE1 (Cavalry Archers and War Elephants are only Iron Age).

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Yes, that is something I agree with. In AOM it often feels that the only reward for progressing through ages is the new myth unit and god powers. It would be more of an experience / more historically accurate if certain non-myth units were locked until you reached a particular age.

That said, I do wonder how this would affect balance. I’m no expert on this because I don’t play competitively, but I could see that economy-heavy gods could become too powerful because they would be able to progress through the age more quickly and access more advanced units earlier. In addition, this could also contribute to the issue of classical age myth units feeling too weak in the late game. I imagine that for these changes to work, the earlier game myth units would have to be nerfed so they match the early game non-myth units, which would compound the issue. Though I may be ignorant of how these balancing issues work/ can be overcome.

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One of the Problems I had with AoM is that old Mythological units feel too weak because they don’t get any upgrades.
I think there should be at last some generic Mythological unit upgrades.
But my idea was to give the players more ways to gain Favour every time they chose another god so you have more Favour in the late game and old mythological units practically get cheaper.

The game has to be made from scratch to the balance would be from scratch too.

I think it’s less important in AoM2 that every human unit has a strong counter because Mythological units always counter human ones.

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Didn’t get what you meant

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now

I wanted to write “no”

You don’t choose between Zeus, Poseidon and Hades in the lobby, you can only choose the Greeks.
You can have to build a temple for either of those ingame.

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I really like the way you’ve planned it out, and I may put some time into building a hypothetical Seven Fires nation based on this planning.

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Here’s an idea- when a player allies with a native civ, they can instead of aging up with one of their own civ’s gods, instead use one of the native civ’s gods to age up instead.

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I don’t think that would be a good idea for two reasons:

  1. The “Natives” would have to be a lot better than the normal gods to be worth replacing one
  2. This way there is no punishment for losing the “settlement”.

My idea is that they are equal in value to any god you choose to age up but you have it on top. So it’s always a bonus.
You get one or more additional god powers, technologies and mythological units.
If you loose access to the “settlement” you keep the technologies you already researched and of course the units you already trained.

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