I made a roman civ concept some time ago and it didn’t feel greek or atlantean at all. Even though most myth units were from greek mythology, it had a very unique feel to it. And for those who say atlanteans are basically romans this isn’t true at all. Their units are roman in name only, except maybe for the murmillo.
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Thracian/Getae/Dacian mythology
Can you please name 10+ unique Roman monsters that weren’t borrowed over from the Greeks?
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Ok. If you want, i will list some. Yes there will be greek associated creatures in this list of examples
but i will explain that later
- Faun (later associated with the greek satyr. they are the nature spirits of gods like faunus and ##################
- Lemures (something like shades)
- Lares (guardian spirits. also reffered to as some kind of minor deities)
- Caladrius (magic bird associated with healing)
- Striges (something like vampire owls)
- Ophiolatrous (Bull-serpent-hybrid)
- Caucus (Cacus) (fire-breathing giant)
- Griffin (appearing in many mythologies, not only roman, but would fit good for roman aesthetics i guess)
same would work for unicorns and basilisks. all multi-mythology based but prominent in ancient roman mythology.
in fact many medieval ######## beasts had roman influences - Harpeia (basically harpyie from greek mythology but very prominent in roman mythology and not used for greeks in the game)
- Lion-headed men (creatures associated with the sun god mithras)
- Calopus or Aeternae (a deer with saw-toothed horns)
- Jaculus ( a flying snake with a spear-like head)
- Pyrallis (a large fly born in flames and associated with fire)
the roman empire was known for their integration of many cultures and mythologies because of their conquesting nature.
In fact many deities and creatures for example had some kind of greek, persian or indo-germanic origin.
But there is also a rich mythology before this era to explore about the roman culture.
So yes. Many (but by far not all) of this creatures have greek origins (or from other cultures). But thats
how bigger ancient mythologies often worked through influence and migration (persian mythology is another
big example for this). Even the egyptians have the phoenix in the game.
Just to clarify that there’s a very own origin in roman mythology
despite the fact of multicultural influence and integration, here are some of the (important) roman deities
without greek origin:
- Janus (god of the beginnings, endings and transitions > would btw make a great major god in the game)
- Quirinus (roman god of war. he’s basically the real origin of mars and the reason why ares and
mars are not directly the same in every aspect > also a nice choice for a major god, but i think
the name mars is just more popular despite the fact that he’s often associated with ares nowadays) - Dis Pater (god of minerals and other goods from the earth. later associated with the underworld and merged with the greek god hades to become pluto)
- Orcus (god of death and also a god of the underworld and afterlife
fun fact: he was tolkiens inspiration for the orcs) - Mithras (the already mentioned sun god. Mithras origins can be found in early persian culture)
- Liber (god of men, adulthood and harvest)
- Libera (basically the female counterpart to Liber)
- Tellus (personification of earth. later merged with the greek titan gaia under the name tera)
- ######## (god of the woods and fields like his father faunus. they were both later associated with the greek god pan despite the fact that they are not the same)
- Terminus (god of boundary marks and protection)
- Bellona (goddess of war, destruction and bloodlust)
- Pomona (goddess of fruit trees and garden. Way later associated with demeter despite the fact that
she has clearly no greek origin)
there are way more but i think it’s enough for now
I hope i could give some people here a better insight into roman mythology.
I also hope it helps some people to understand, that romans had a rich
and very own mythology before they fall in love with greek mythology 
I understand people’s opinions about roman myth and greek myth are too similar for this game.
But i will never share this opinon and i think i gave a good little presentation why haha 
have a nice day
IMPORTANT: I’m not a professional mythologist or historian. My post is based on things i read about in the internet because i love those things. There may be errors or misinterpretations.
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Great post. Thank you for your research.
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My feeling tells me that it’s not that unlikely that they will add the Aztecs to AoMR.
They are probably the easiest to advertise and are a old fan favourite in the AoE franchise.
I’d love to geographically fill the gap between China and Egypt/Greek though.
Every civilisation on the list would be an amazing choice though.
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Yes, considering that they put an Asian mythology in TotD, now it will be time to put an American or African mythology…
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It’s a bit of a fork road for me.
On one hand, I would love to play another civilization in Retold but on the other, I would also like to be pleasantly surprised to play a new one in AoMII.
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Really think a Lovecraftian like mythology would so freaking cool to be added here. I think a Slavic one also has potential with myth units like vampires/werewolves (maybe this is too cliche though) or some other examples but Slavic mythology itself is very poorly known about so Im unsure about that one. A Celtic or Irish mythology as well as a Mesoamerican one (preferably Aztec for me) on top of a Western African one would be good I think. As China is already in the game I think I want to focus on other mythologies. Also seeing as this a game around mythology, more pantheons not based in historical mythologies known about e.g. around mythological cities/places that existed I think is fair game. We already have the Atlantean faction for example. Idk much about Persian Mythology myself but it also seems a good faction to add.
Lovecraftian stuff would be cool, but I don’t think it would fit the game which is all about culturally significant mythologies trough history, also, what would the non-myth units be? Insmouth fish people? lol
The most accurate thing to Lovecraft’s work would be tons of racists stereotypes including against rural white people of the Appalachians because Lovecraft was a weird guy even by the standards of his time, so I guess the best course of action would be an exclusively myth units civ xD
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Perhaps and it being culturally significant is definitely what AoM is about (Lovecraft is very recent). Maybe that should be restricted to mods and the like.
Romans could be represent with cristianism
Christianism will unfortunately never be represented. But it it were, it should come as a culture separated from roman. Abrahamic culture could include christianism, islam and judaism.
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Only can be polytheistic mythologies, monotheism cannot be applied in AoM because there are not so many gods…
I kinda like the idea of a faction called “The Knights” which kinda represents the medieval knightly orders.
They would have saints instead of gods.
They would kinda be the AoE2/4 faction in AoM.
It would definitely fit into the gameplay but it would not fit into the story.
They would be historically pretty close to the Norse considering that those orders were founded like 100 years after the end if the Viking Age.
depends on how you see it. Abrahamic civ could advance in ages with angels/demons or like skadidesu just wrote, even saints could be a thing. Mechanicaly, this doesn’t change anything.
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Yes, it can be… It is valid…
I do think every culture should be represented by their oldest known mythology.
Most of what we know from Norse mythology is like from around 1100-1200 AD Iceland for example.
During this time Egypt was mostly Islamic (after being mostly Christina before) but we probably all agree that they should be represented by their old Bronze Age mythology.
So Rome would not be Imperial Rome with a Pantheon that looks mostly like the Greek one with a few Persian end Egyptian gods mixed in but it would be instead the old Roman mythology before it got to heavily influenced by the Greeks.
But then again, that’s not really what people expect from Rome.
But there are a lot more interesting mythologies out there in the world that should be added first anyway.
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Yes, I think they will put more exotic civs, Celtic Europe (Western Europe) and then Slavic Europe (Eastern Europe)…then maybe Middle East (Persians), America (Aztecs and Incas) even Africa (Hausa and Aksum)…