My thoughts on Demeter

Age of Mythology: Retold Discussion
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I wanted to make a post about Demeter, my thoughts on the new Goddess, my issues with her, the way I think she was designed to be played and where the devs in my opinion missed the mark in a lot of ways. I’m probably going to go over every single new addition separately.

  • The overall Goddess design: I think this Goddess was designed with a turtling playstyle in mind, you have a small base with VC’s around goldmines, you have zoning tools like Pan’s godpower, Hestia’s godpower and the hamadryad, you have anti-raiding walls and villagers, you have a tech that heals your villagers, you have several farm bonuses so you don’t have to spread yourself around on the map looking for hunt, you are in a lot of ways persuaded to build VC’s because of the bonuses and the fact that Persephone’s godpower destroys your TC’s, I think that’s why Hestia has the population tech, to compensate for building VC’s instead of TC’s

  • Where they missed the mark: I will go into more details later, but I think Lykaons are too clunky to be used in the way they were intended, a lot of the myth units have their functionality locked behind expensive techs and it doesn’t feel great to make them as a result, things like the Hamadryad and the Harpy are very niche in the way they’re used and so it often feels like you don’t have a myth unit, Sirens need support to function well, it all feels very overdesigned, playing Demeter with the new minor gods almost makes me wish I could just have a normal myth unit that’s good without all the bells and whistles. I wish you had a normal unique unit like the other Greek gods. The VC bonuses don’t really make you want to build VC’s, some extra HP and attack does not matter at all, the only bonus that helps you with VC play is the extra build speed around goldmines.

Pan and the classical age:

  • The design: I think this minor God was designed to have a very defensive playstyle, very beginner friendly as well. You have extra villagers that can quickly turn themselves into anti-raid tools, you have a godpower that can create a no-fight zone for a very long time, you have an upgrade for your walls that can quickly dissuade any raiding party from attacking your walls. I think the idea with Lykaons was to have a unit that could function as a villager until a big fight happens where you can then turn them into myth units that you can heal up later with the Demeter unique tech.

  • My issues: Lykaons are very clunky in the way they behave, you can lose them very quickly to a hero or myth unit, there are instances of them dying before they get to turn into a werewolf, I think a good solution would be to make them automatically turn with 25% remaining once they hit 0 hp in their villager form. I don’t like how once they’ve turned you need an expensive upgrade to turn them back and make them functional. The way they turn back into villagers doesn’t feel smooth, you have to idle them → press Q → wait for the animation → move to a resource. It would feel SO MUCH better if you could just (when out of combat) click the lykaon → send to resource and it would just turn automatically. My biggest issue with Pan honestly comes from these lykaons, they need some QoL. They’re also not necessarily a great anti-raid tool because of how slow they are, if they get hit by a cav unit they turn and they’re effectively not a villager anymore, so a lot of the functionality is again hidden behind a tech that’s very expensive, I would make the tech cheaper and bake the functionality of the tech into the myth unit itself. I think Arcadian Meadow lasts way too long.

Hestia and the heroic age:

  • The design: I think Hestia was designed to have a zoning playstyle, the godpower dissuades enemies from attacking and Hamadryads can be a powerful zoning tool, this allows you to expand to your second goldmine in the midgame, I think the design of this minor god has the goal of helping you transition into the lategame, you have very powerful lategame techs in Gracious Hospitality and Fated Arrows with a godpower and myth unit that help you zone the enemy until you get there.

  • My issues: Way too much of the Hamadryads power is locked behind the special, which is locked behind a tech. Again I want the special to be usable right away, take away some of the power of the special and bake it into the stats of the unit itself, it’s laughably weak. Also, a cool thing you could do is make the tech ‘‘Fated Arrows’’ work on the basic attack of the Hamadryad, that way the unit has more cohesion with the rest of the minor god. I think ‘‘Gracious Hospitality’’ is too strong, getting 10 pop per TC is unheard of in terms of power, Demeter as a whole is not doing great, but this tech makes her lategame way too powerful, imagine if all of the issues with Demeter get resolved and she’d have a higher winrate, this tech would ensure she would auto-win the lategame, I would make it 1 farm per towncenter (+5pop). Fated Arrows is a very powerful tech, but I think it’s balanced by the fact that Demeter as a whole doesn’t have a whole lot of military techs.

Persephone and the mythic age:

  • The design: I think the idea behind the godpower destroying your TCs is that you have mostly used VCs up until this point, you use the godpower to get a huge army, you build the TCs you haven’t contructed yet and that way Persephone synergizes with the devs wanting you to build VCs. I honestly don’t know what the design goal with ‘‘Sacred Land’’ is, it’s an incredibly weak tech that serves no purpose imo. Pious Sacrifice sounds really strong, incredibly strong, but it doesn’t work currently. I think the design is that you get this tech to buff your ‘‘ragnarok’’ army, but yeah it doesn’t work currently. Sirens are cool, they lure enemies into your army, into your ‘‘Communal Hearth’’ into your harpies etc.

  • My issues: I like Persephone for the most part, I think her design is cool, obviously that one tech doesn’t work currently, but the overall design of the god is cool. I think ‘‘Sacred Land’’ needs to be replaced with a tech that actual does something, this tech is beyond useless, it serves no purpose at all, especially in the mythic age. I think Harpies are clunky to use, they have a melee special as a ranged unit, they’re squishy so by the time they get to use their special they will probably already be dead, I can really only see them as a raiding unit, but they only come online in the mythic age so idk, I haven’t seen anyone really use this unit to great effect. I think with Pious Sacrifice working this god will probably be a really strong alternative to Hepheastus, however if you’re in a game where you’ve already established map control and you’re already on 3 TCs for example, I think you’re better off going Hepheastus every time.

The heroes:

  • Orpheus: Is there any reason why this unit has full attack in the archaic age? This seems ripe for abuse, I would normalize this unit with the rest of the Greek heroes. I also think his aura might be a little too strong, giving a ton of units x5 vs myth units means that things like ancestors and fei beasts will just instantly die when used on army. I would honestly nerf the aura by quite a bit and just boost Orpheus’ stats a little.

  • Iolaus: Pretty standard age 2 hero, he’s very fast so he’s good for early game harass and chasing down myth units. His Chariot design always makes me think he’s weak to anti-cav tho haha.

  • Icarus: This hero is a bit too strong I feel, very powerful at harassing gold mines, very good at damaging armies from the air, at this point in the game(heroic) not a lot of civs have an answer to a flying hero unit, let alone one that has decent attack and area of effect. I think the devs should remove the area of effect portion and maybe buff up the multiplier a little.

  • Midas: Cool design, I think this unit should have an active ability though. The goldmines are very cool, but they rarely serve a purpose, part of me thinks he should just generate a little bit of gold when attacking or the goldmines should slowly provide gold to the Demeter player (while still being able to be mined). So the goldmine depletes slowly passively.

The bugs:

Golden apples (Aphrodite tech) doesn’t work
Pious Sacrifice (Persephone tech) doesn’t work
Demeter starts with 10 favor (not sure if intended)

there are probably more, but these are the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

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Agree on many points here.

But I want to point out that playing her is like playing generic Greek with no clear strengths/bonuses and without the unique unit in the fortress, with some broken things mixed in.

Is she a farm focused god? Or a wood/gold one? Essentially, her innate bonus makes farms 50% cheaper, but her tech and her other innate bonus boost wood and gold income and speed up construction near goldmine, respectively. Lots of contradictions right here.

Having herdables close to temple for more favor income means less food overall in base because you can’t use them as food source and the opponent can simply kill them. In my opinion, farms should boost favor instead.

The text says that she is focused on “expansion” but her classical age Pan forces you to stay in base like a mouse and just boom.

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I really appreciate that the Devs tried to do something different with Demeter, giving her unusual myth units, economy-centric bonuses, and mechanics that actually feel tied to her deity theme instead of just reusing Zeus/Hades stuff. But honestly, right now she feels rushed and not properly balanced, and it shows in a few key areas.

When you actually read her in-game description, techs, minor god options and playstyle, a lot of it contradicts itself. Demeter is supposed to be an expansionist, economy-focused major god, yet a bunch of her minor gods are far more defensive or utility-oriented than aggressive. That lack of a clear identity makes it feel like no one was 100 % sure what she should be when designing her. A lot of players on the official forums say literally that she feels the weakest Greek god at decent Elo, partly because her military simply doesn’t hold up unless you make a bunch of concessions to your game plan.

The myth units are a perfect example. The Harpy at Fortress age is… there, and it’s a cool idea, but it doesn’t hold a line or scale into a proper army core like Myrmidons or Hetairoi do, it just lifts units and kinda messes things up. Similarly, Lykaons and Hamadryads from Pan and Hestia are fun flavour units but they feel too situational and underwhelming on the battlefield without heavy micro and even then they’re easy to counter or ignore if your opponent knows what they’re doing.

A lot of forum feedback echoes this: Harpies need better animations, Demeter should have a real human unique unit rather than just a flying myth unit, and some minor god combos feel like last-minute choices rather than coherent design. Competent players often end up not picking her new minors because they simply feel weaker than classic options, which shouldn’t be happening in a paid expansion.

And in the Mythic Age, things like Persephone’s Underworld Invasion are thematic on paper but in practice they don’t really end games unless you’re already winning, meaning you’re often just sacrificing your own infrastructure for an underwhelming payoff.

All of this adds up to a Demeter that is awkward to play, hard to win with on even footing, and strangely inconsistent in design. I want to like her, I do. But right now it feels more like she was thrown together and shipped rather than carefully iterated and balanced with competitive play in mind.

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very well thought out i really like how you wrote what the playstyle/intensions might were and try to remain but expand or change it a bit and your critcism is very constructive. i see you put much effort into this and i appreciate it.

same opinion for me. very confusing and a bit contradicting. like pan is more “turtle style”. hamadryad can be more expansion style but is more a trap unit and siren is - in my opinion - currently a totally defensive unit which is cool on paper but boring and fragile ingame… i see the expansion identity mostly with Hestia and a bit with Persephone.

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Yes, the most “viable” strat that I’ve ever seen so far is a fast village center near a goldmine to take advantage of the building speed. This strat is extremely passive and village center + lycaon spam don’t usually pays off because the village center trains vills so slowly and the opponent can just take 1 or 2 additional towncenters on his own and outboom you or simply raiding here and there and taking map control.

Additionally, you have to choose whether to use herdables for favor to make lycaons or for food. There are just too many clunky and unintuitive mechanics.

If Demeter’s village centers trained vills at same rate of normal towncenters this strat would’ve been much more viable, obviously.

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I think the problem with Demeter is that she doesn’t have a clear role compared to the other Greek gods.

With Zeus, you rely on myth units and timing pressure. Poseidon emphasizes mobility and cavalry. Hades is defensive with strong ranged scaling. With Demeter, once you reach Heroic or Mythic, it’s unclear what you’re supposed to do.

Her economy doesn’t clearly outscale the others, her myth units are mostly situational and often require upgrades to be effective, her god powers don’t provide a clear timing window, and apart from Icarus, her heroes don’t feel particularly impactful.

It even feels like the design itself isn’t cohesive. Some bonuses push for expansion and economy, while minor gods like Pan or certain myth units encourage defensive or situational play. These elements don’t reinforce each other, so it’s unclear whether she’s meant to be expansionist, defensive, or something else entirely.

I’m not asking for flat buffs, she just needs a clearer direction. Right now she feels like a mix of different ideas without a defining playstyle, which makes picking her less satisfying.

Edit: Checked AoMStats for 1v1 Ranked Supremacy, she’s at 37.96% win rate, the lowest in the game. Considering she’s the newest Greek god, that’s really disappointing.