Nitpicking Greek hero choices and assignments

Age of Mythology: Retold Discussion
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It’s probably too late to change the current AOM but these should be considered if there will be AOM2.

I think a good formula for hero assignments are like the below both lore-wise and gameplay-wise, following retold’s swapping of age 2 and 3 heroes:
Age 1: “lesser” heroes (eg Ajax) and heroes not known for their combat skills (eg Jason), with the same stats and no special ability
Age 2: great warriors (eg Achilles is of course a great hero but he’s deeds are more on fighting humans than monsters) and heroes known for their speed (eg Atalanta, also Achilles)
Age 3: ranged heroes
Age 4: great monster slayers with special abilities

Age 2-3 heroes are more for balancing and gameplay so their tiers do not reflect their significance.

So my problems with the current roster are:

  1. Heracles is probably the greatest among the monster slayers, or even among all Greek heroes. But in the game he is just an unimpressive generic hero (in fact in many modern entertainment Heracles is some generic warrior secondary boss boasting only strength and eventually defeated by the MC’s wits, which is rather disappointing). Especially considering the other two major Greek monster slayers are top tier heroes with special abilities, I think Heracles should too.
  2. On the other hand, Polyphemus is by no means known for his heroic deeds. I get that he looks unique, but there are a lot of other great hero choices I’d pick before him. Also him being a cyclops but not a myth unit is rather inconsistent.
  3. Bellerophon is more related to Poseidon (he’s Poseidon’s son) and also fits better to Poseidon’s cavalry focus.

So I think if we were to do minimal changes to the hero roster, I’d propose:
Poseidon Age 4: Bellerophon
Zeus Age 4: Heracles, which can just take Polyphemus’ stats and ability (Heracles is a club-wielder too), or be more creative (like a charged AOE ranged attack).
Zeus Age 2: there are actually many choices. For example, Cadmus, Aeneas, Memnon, etc. You can also put Atalanta here and give back Polyphemus as Poseidon Age 2 hero. But I think it will be the most fun to place Hector here against Achilles.

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