Some thoughs on norse and atlanteans

Age of Mythology: Retold Discussion
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This is largely unsorted feedback and thoughts I have so far, from position of wooden league.

Gaia - currently considered the worst god in comp. I feel her lush doesn’t spread well, not does it provide any real value. Atlanteans aren’t short on healing options, and 15% bonus speed on something that barely spreads is a joke.

I’d like to suggest idling oracles to be able to spread lush. This would give it offensive functionality similar to creep in SC2, and I feel would introduce some fun gameplay to the civ variant.

Caladrias - are an absolute travesty when Ai is involved. When sent to attack-move, they will fly head-first to the point selected, ahead of the rest of the army, ignoring enemies, ignoring allies in need of heal, and just kinda die there. The solution is obviously to not a-move with them, but AI does the same stuff too. When they send an opening attack wave with caladrias, the birbs will arrive waaaaaaay ahead of the rest of the army and just chill right above your town center, doing nothing at all and getting shot.

Caladria’s innate AI needs to be reworked for her to move in synch with army, to acquire targets along the way and react to them. Even if technically she lacks an attack, she does have an offensive action.

Norse overall - I feel that entire civilization lacks favor gen compared to the other 3. While the speed of upgrading and sprinkling myth units is somewhat in line with other civs, there is never a surplus or any kind of stockpile - every bit earned goes into something immediately, and losing myth units feels way more devastating than on other civs. I also feel that norse never get to recast their god powers because of the cost.

For the only civ that doesn’t gather favor passively, I feel they really don’t get enough from their raids. The whole civ also feels like a bad case of “win harder” due to it - you either get good engagements with kills to build up favor and prepare even better for the next engagement, or you run completely dry.

Freyr in particular - where other norse in my opinion struggles with favor gen, Freyr is flat out garbage with it. Thor has better hersir generation, Odin has better generation from cavalry, Loki just spawns myth units for free. Freyr has no compensatory mechanic like that.

His theme also feels redundant. I appreciate the slight focus on siege weapons and hersir, but otherwise he’s an infantry god with research and weird economy buffs - which is precisely the role Thor holds already. Who also supports hersir. Even their “non-infantry” minor gods overlap for 2 out of 3 ages. They both offer strong combination of berserker buffs - except Freyr’s idle berserkers looks like a meme. I can’t imagine scenario where that upgrade would be practical.

I’d really appreciate Freyr getting both an increased favor mechanism like the rest of the norse, and his theme reworked away from infantry into something more unique and interesting, not just “Thor but slightly different”. His ballista specialization is unique among norse. His other unique themes could be actual defensive focus (not just his one-time pig) and further hero support that would cover the godforsaken godis. Godi as a unit just gets no love whatsoever, and proudly sits at 0 unique upgrades available.

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well said
the favor thing is really a issue for the norse
and if favor will still be a issue
I think everything should be cheaper
as the TC and other building dont have anti-siege upgrades
I think the egyptians civ has the more number of building defense upgrade?

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I think Lush should appear from any building, not just economic ones, and instead slow enemy movement and attack speed by 15%. That would make it more useful as a defensive network.

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Norse actually have excellent favor generation. You just have to keep attacking. I remember in pre-retold, I was getting about 100 favor every 5 minutes in Mythic age from all the raiding I was doing. Besides, the Norse (besides Freyr) are already very strong. They don’t need any more bonuses.

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I like how the new Lush works it’s just too weak.
1HP/Second is just twice what Odin gets for all units and 1HP/Second is barely anything for buildings. A building with 1200 HP (like a Military Barracks) would take 20 minutes to fully heal.
10x as much would still be 2 minutes for a normal building.

I would suggest 2HP/Second for units and 5HP/Second for buildings.
Movement boost could be 20% maybe or instead -15% for enemies.

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This is not the case in 1vs1. You barely get any because the favor is used on upgrades. It is really only into the mid to late game you can afford getting myth units when armies start to get bigger.

To compare this with greeks. I literally got rushed with 5+ minotaurs in the classical age. Not saying norse should be able to do the same. But there is certaintly less generation for the norse. Even if you keep fighting. The passive favor income from hersir practically non existent as well.

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That’s because Greeks are able to get favor too easily.

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Egypt gets 0.6 favor from all monuments built, unempowered, unupgraded, without population cost to support it. That’s 0.1 per each monument except the last one, which is 0.2.

Atlanteans get 0.08 per heroic Oracle, unupgraded, unsupported by TCs.

A single greek worker (without Zeus buff) at temple starts at 0.1 rate, but the number keeps diminishing with each new worker added. 4 workers generate at 0.08, evening out with 4 oracles.10 workers go down to 0.06 individually, while landing at Egypt final 0.6.

At the same population cost of 10 Atlanteans will generate 0.8 favor, though with bigger resource investment and required spread. They will keep outpacing greeks per population cost since 5 population, where they break even.

So yes, while greeks do have easier generation, and probably should fall off harder past 10 workers, they aren’t as much of an outlier. Atlanteans can generally reach higher generation with comparable opportunity costs, especially with upgrades to oracle generation/TC generation. Egypt is hardcapped, but 0.6 is still quite a solid number for absolutely passive gen, and it goes higher with Anubis and empowerment.

Just for reference, that 0.6 number is 60 unupgraded hersirs worth of passive generation. Not exactly relevant, because combat favor obviously is a factor, but still.

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Technically with hero oracles, the max favor generation per oracle is 0.1. Also, high favor generation as Atlanteans requires oracles to be stationary, and if the opponent keeps disturbing them and killing them, favor can be difficult to obtain.

Egyptians still have a high price to pay for the two final monuments, and it’s not always optimal to make them, in case of constant raids from the opponent.

Norse heroes aren’t even supposed to generate that much favor. The Norse are supposed to raid as often as possible. That’s why their infantry constructs buildings; it allows them to make forward bases without endangering villagers. The more you attack, the more favor you get. With an offensive position, favor is easy to gain which helps to get fire giants in late game, and Ragnarok just makes it even easier to gain favor.

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