Greek Major gods have 4 unique heroes and a unique unit.
Poseidon and Hades even have a unique game mechanic (Milita and Shades)
Atlantean Major Gods have the most unique game mechanics in the game overall.
Egyptian Major Gods are less unique then the other ones but they each have a unique mechanic for each the Pharao, Priests and Monuments.
I might make another thread for them too if I come up with some interesting ideas.
For the Norse the most unique one is Freyr but he gets most of the uniqueness by having 3 exclusive Minor Gods. Also he is the only God added to the game in 20 years (since Chinese got removed).
Thor has a unique building at least.
The differences between the Major gods are basically just numbers.
For high level players a bonus of 10% faster food gather rate changes timings and build orders but for an average player that bonus is practically unnoticeable.
My ideas
I mostly want changes that make them feel different and not impact the balance too much.
One idea is to give all of them a unique skin for the Hersir without changing the stats.
Odin
Bonuses unchanged
Hersir uses a Spear
He is the leader of the Norse pantheon so he should be the base line.
Thor
Can only build Dwarfs and no Gatherers
Berserk are always Dwarfs too (skin that needs to be added anyway)
Hersir uses a Hammer like now
Doubling down on his Dwarf identity.
Loki
Berserk replaced by Ulfsark
Ulfsark have lower base stats but they get stronger in Groups (Like Fenris Wolf Brood)
Hersir uses a Sword
As father of Fenrir he certainly has some association with Wolfs, a good excuse to bring Ulfsarks back for him. Makes him more unique and gives a little bit of Nostalgia.
Freyr
Gatherers replaces by Elves
Elves cost Wood instead of Food and they make Trees last twice as long (no collection speed bonus)
Hersir uses an Axe
Freyr is the ruler of Alfheim so why not give him Elves as units?
Norse are my favorite civilization in AoM and I would hate to have Thor only making Dwarves (like in the Golden Gift) and Freyr only making Elves which cost Wood (reminds me of India from AoE III) especially when already used to them having access to Gatherers. If they had originally designed that way I wouldn’t hate it as much but I would still not of been a fan of that choice.
I love the idea of different weapons for Hersir based on what Major God your followers of.
So here’s the thing, Wolves, Bears, and Boars are associated with Odin, Thor, and Freyr (really Vanir in general) respectively.
So if there’s any change to be done there, it should be that Odin gets Ulfsarks, Thor gets Berserks, Freyr gets Boar Warriors (the name is not really known on these guys), and Loki gets his own thing. Animals associated with Loki are snakes, spiders, and fleas/flies. So maybe a serpent warrior with a giant snake skin. Or a dragon skin. Since serpents and dragons are vaguely the same thing in mythology.
Norse were already most fun before retold, and even better now with the changes: New units, building and villagers building. My biggest issue is how they only have 2 techs in mythic age outside Freyr (Vidar).
i kinda agree with that. at least regarding baldr and ragnarok.
about the ideas: i think creative new ideas are always welcome.
more unique hersirs sounds nice. reminds me of that hacknslay game wolfs of midgard where your hero starts with mentioned dedicated weapons for each god.
but i personally was never a fan of hersirs. norse military should generate favour. hersirs not extra and there should be more unique heroes for norse (even i think new godi looks great and is one of the best designed military units style wise). why not one well known valkyrie for as a hero for each god like sigrun, brunhilde and so on.
at best remove baldr GP and add heroes of ragnarok as main heroes like pharaoh with unique names like hersir etc. but not spammable heroes less but stronger. maybe 5 - 10 recruitable.
i also think it would be cool to add unique pelts for each berserker which stand out a bit more.
a feather cloak for odin with a raven head
a wolf cloak with wolf head for loki
a bear cloak with bear head for thor
a boar cloak with bore head for freyr
i personally like berserk more than ulfsark (but thats just a personal taste)
for loki in particular it would be cool to let them transform into sort of werewolves.
Dwarves now only cost 50 Gold for Thor (60 for the others) so they are pretty affordable.
Thor would need some other buff to equal that out though but it seems there has to be done some rebalancing anyway.
Freyr could still make Dwarves.
Giving him 3 different villages would be a little too much.
The Elves would fit nice into his defensive gameplay for multiple reasons:
You don’t need to go out to hunt as much making it easier to keep your eco save
The starting forest lasts longer so you also don’t need to risk getting out to find more trees
Wood is required for all buildings so building and buildings are kinda his thing
My reasoning was:
Loki has a bonus for Berserks, he is somewhat associated with Wolfs and it would be nice to get Ulfsarks back.
Maybe making them a unique unit of Odin would be more fitting.
I don’t want to give all Major gods a unique Berserk because they already get unique Hersir skins.
Norse are my favourite too. I don’t think Norse themselves are boring or badly designed at all.
It’s just that the Major Gods feel too similar.
A lot of people dislike that Greeks have the monopole on unique heroes.
Every mythology has a lot of cool unique heroes!
Not even the campaign really gives us nice Norse Heroes. We have Reginleif which is cool but the other 2 heroes we have are practically villagers.
Egyptians and Atlanteans aren’t much better either but at last the Egpytians get 2 unique antagonist heroes (Kemsyt and Theris).
It would be really cool to have a Norse Infantry campaign hero that can actually build buildings.
At last you can effectively turn Units into Campaign heroes with the right triggers now.
The Norse in Retold are poorly designed. Instead of improving, they got worse. Gaining favor is frustratingly difficult, while other civilizations can easily spam myth abilities and units. Norse players, on the other hand, struggle to field decent myth units, putting them at a significant disadvantage on the battlefield.
he following changes could be made to improve their balance and gameplay experience:
Increase Favor Generation Options: The Norse should have more reliable ways to generate favor. This could include passive favor generation tied to their economy, or increased favor gain from existing methods like battles or map control.
Reduce Favor Cost for Myth Units: Lower the favor costs of Norse myth units, allowing players to access them more easily, similar to other civilizations. This would make them more competitive in battles and reduce the gap between Norse and other civs.
Buff Myth Units and Abilities: Improve the stats or abilities of Norse myth units so that they have a stronger presence on the battlefield. This could include increasing their attack, defense, or utility, making them more impactful when deployed.
Introduce Favor-Generating Structures: Add buildings or temples that generate favor over time, much like how other civilizations gain resources passively. This would give Norse players more flexibility and control over their favor economy.
Revise God Power Usage: Allow Norse god powers to either regenerate favor or provide immediate boosts to favor generation. This would give Norse players tactical options to generate more favor in critical moments.
Myth Unit Rebalance: Improve the speed and training time of myth units, so Norse players can field them more efficiently in response to threats or opportunities on the battlefield. This would also reduce the struggle in getting them out in time.
Bit of a weird post considering your answer in another thread: “Norse have been like that for over 20 years. Also Hersir and Godi passively generate some favour too and so does hunting. So you have some other ways to generate favour. We could tweak the number but we shouldn’t just remove the identity of the Norse.”
The identity of the norse isn’t removed by making their major gods more unique, but it is removed by COMPLETELY REPLACING THEIR FAVOR GENERATION MECHANIC.
Aha, swap one thing out but not the other. The identity of something seems very non-identical. Interesting take, thx for the enlightenment. Very very interesting…
Pretty sure the Norse are essentially meant to be the most difficult of the four cultures present to play. They have a lot of aggressive tools at their disposal that other civs don’t, and they’re easily the strongest in early ages if your goal is to be super aggressive.
Not sure I agree like at all.
First off, current stats show the Norse pantheon as one of the strongest in terms of win-rate.
Second, I personally have not had any issue generating favour, especially now with the passive bonus provided by the Hersir and Godi. Norse are probably my worst and least played civ because I’ve always just struggled with them both in legacy and retold, but I’ve never struggled with favour generation tbh. I’ve always been able to field healthy amounts of myth and now in retold been able to balance that with God Power reuse. When playing as the Norse just play aggressively.
Also their MU’s are very strong so they really don’t need tweaking. Mass Fenrirs and fire giants are devastating.
You have to think about if differently:
Norse don’t have to invest any resources in Favour generation.
Norse don’t have to sacrifice any resource collection to build buildings.
You just build the units you would build anyway and the the thing you would do anyway (fighting) and you get favour on top of it.
You are always in an advantage in every fight because the enemy can only lose resources, they can never gain anything in a fight, while you always get favour out of it.
Hero units are vital for your combat and they also help in construction like any other Infantry unit. You basically get free favour from them.
Greek villagers have the same resource collection rate as Norse villagers but they have to stop collecting resources to construct buildings or pray at temples.
Norse villagers can constantly collect resources with very little brakes for constructing Ox Carts, and Ox Carts also make your economy more efficient and more flexible.
Egyptian villagers are even worse and need a Pharao to keep up with other civilisations.
Atlanteans even need to micro a vulnerable unit around to get favour.
I don’t want to change the identity of the Norse, I want to increase the difference between Major gods.
The core underlying civilisation is not changed.
The same way the Egyptians got new unique bonuses for their Monuments (Isis bonus is old though).
The statistics aren’t really good yet plus people are still experimenting.
Set goes from below average to Nr1 if you filter for 1300+ Elo.
Odin is top while Thor is bottom Tier, so Norse are neither OP nor weak.
All pantheons have gods in the top and the bottom so it’s the different bonuses that are important and not the underlying civilisation.
Only Atlanteans are consistently bad at higher ELOs.
Great ideas! I agree that the Norse Major Gods could use more distinctiveness. Unique Hersir skins are a cool touch. Thor’s focus on Dwarfs, Loki’s Ulfsarks, and Freyr’s Elves would definitely make the gods feel more unique. Thanks for sharing these thoughts!
Gold is hugely important in this game with all military units except some Myth units costing Gold and if you made Thor only able to make Dwarves that will cause issues so you would have to do something drastic like make Dwarven Armory generate a trickle of Gold and limit how many you can make to get things to be fine but that would make Thor become Dutch from AoE III which I would hate. I don’t want to see Gatherers removed from Thor I will always be 100% against such a thing.
You still need to go out for Food to train some food costing military units and techs because it wouldn’t be easy to make Farms when your spending wood on Elves, some military units and other buildings.
If you give Elves then they need to gather Wood faster.
I have been thinking about it and having Freyr be the ultimate eco balancing civ with Gatherers for Food, Dwarves for Gold and Elves for Wood I would actually love that so having all 3 wouldn’t be too much. I wouldn’t like removing Gatherers for him because he had them from day 1.