Title: Demeter Rework Concept – Clear Identity, Chosen Minor Gods, Amazon Focus (Feedback)

Age of Mythology: Retold Discussion
1

Hi everyone,

I wanted to refine my previous concept and make it more concrete.
This version keeps specific existing Greek minor gods from Age of Mythology: Retold and combines them with three new minor gods designed specifically for Demeter.

The goal is to give her:

  • A clear territorial identity

  • Strong Amazon synergy

  • Fun, interactive god powers

  • Real differentiation from Zeus / Poseidon / Hades

Demeter’s Identity (Quick Summary)

Demeter is the territorial sustain Greek god.

She wins by:

  • Preparing ground

  • Fighting on sanctified territory

  • Outlasting opponents

  • Empowering elite Amazons in late game

She loses if:

  • Forced into constant mobility

  • Denied map control

  • Overwhelmed early

Her core mechanic remains:

Sacred Ground

Buildings slowly sanctify nearby terrain.

Units fighting on Sacred Ground gain:

  • Bonus HP

  • Minor regeneration out of combat

  • Small favor gain from combat

This makes positioning matter.

Minor God Structure (Finalized)

Demeter keeps 1 old minor per age and gains 1 new minor per age after Archaic.

This keeps her grounded in the existing Greek roster while giving her a unique direction.

ARCHAIC AGE

:small_blue_diamond: Hestia (Existing)

Theme: Stability & hearth

Why Hestia?

  • Encourages defensive early expansion.

  • Supports sustain identity.

  • Smooth early game without rush identity.

This sets up Demeter as stable, not aggressive.

CLASSICAL AGE

:small_blue_diamond: Athena (Existing)

Theme: Infantry strength

Why Athena?

  • Encourages infantry core before Amazons arrive.

  • Keeps early Greek military identity recognizable.

  • Supports transition into Amazon-based play.

Athena gives Demeter a clean infantry backbone.

NEW: Aristaeus – God of Rural Industry

Theme: War economy & battlefield supply.

God Power: Golden Harvest

  • Large burst of food.

  • Farms temporarily indestructible.

  • Units near farms gain minor lifesteal.

This enables:

  • Mid-game power spikes.

  • Sustained pressure.

  • Safe defensive farming.

Myth Unit: Ram Guardian

  • Anti-cavalry charger.

  • Gains bonuses on Sacred Ground.

Tech Focus

  • Expands Sacred Ground radius.

  • Infantry move faster between sanctified areas.

Aristaeus makes Demeter’s midgame feel prepared and funded.

HEROIC AGE

:small_blue_diamond: Artemis (Existing)

Theme: Precision & ranged strength

Why Artemis?

  • Gives Demeter ranged options to support Amazons.

  • Synergizes with Amazon hybrid playstyle.

  • Supports anti-myth combat.

This reinforces her “controlled battlefield” feel.

NEW: Cybele – Wild Dominion

Theme: Terrain control & battlefield manipulation.

God Power: Living Wilderness

  • Roots push enemies outward.

  • Temporary forest walls appear.

  • Leaves Sacred Ground behind.

This allows:

  • Trapping cavalry

  • Splitting armies

  • Controlling choke points

Myth Unit: Oread Huntress

  • Archer spirit

  • Camouflaged on Sacred Ground

  • Bonus vs myth units

Tech

  • Sacred Ground slows enemies slightly.

  • Amazons deal bonus damage near forests.

This is where Demeter becomes truly oppressive territorially.

MYTHIC AGE

:small_blue_diamond: Hephaestus (Existing)

Theme: Upgrades & elite scaling

Why Hephaestus?

  • Makes Amazons scale harder.

  • Supports elite late-game army.

  • Reinforces long-war identity.

Hephaestus gives Demeter inevitability.

NEW: Despoina – Hidden Rites

Theme: Rebirth & spiritual warfare.

God Power: Veil of Renewal

  • Fallen allied units resurrect once as spectral warriors.

  • Spectral units create Sacred Ground on death.

  • Enemy myth units take damage inside the zone.

This creates:

  • Dramatic comeback fights.

  • Late-game war swings.

  • True attrition dominance.

Myth Unit: Melinoe

  • Phasing spirit assassin

  • Anti-hero specialist

  • Drains small favor on hit

Tech

  • Amazons gain magic resistance.

  • Units dying on Sacred Ground refund small food cost.

This cements Demeter as the attrition queen.

Amazons – The Core Payoff

With Athena + Artemis + Hephaestus + Despoina tech synergy:

Amazons become:

  • Durable

  • Flexible (stance-based)

  • Strong vs cavalry

  • Strong vs myth

  • Strong in prepared territory

But still weak if:

  • Forced into open mobility

  • Caught outside Sacred Ground

  • Outpaced early

That creates counterplay.

Demeter’s 4 Unique Heroes

Demeter does not follow the standard Greek “burst anti-myth hero” model.
Where Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades rely on strong frontline hero damage spikes, Demeter’s heroes are designed around:

  • Sustain

  • Territory control

  • Army empowerment

  • Attrition

They are force multipliers, not solo carries.

Archaic Age Hero

Triptolemus – The Sower of Nations

Role: Economic & sustain support hero

Abilities:

  • Seed of Renewal (Active): Target unit or small area regenerates health over time.

  • Harvest Inspiration (Passive): Nearby villagers gather faster.

  • Strong vs myth units (standard hero scaling).

What makes him different?

  • He is not an early rush hero like Zeus’ pressure style.

  • He strengthens economy and survivability instead of enabling aggression.

  • He reinforces Demeter’s “stabilize and prepare” early game.

He’s about setup, not domination.

Classical Age Hero

Iasion – The Blessed Consort

Role: Infantry commander

Abilities:

  • Sacred Phalanx (Aura): Infantry near him gain bonus armor.

  • Tithe of War (Passive): Infantry kills generate small food income.

  • Bonus damage vs myth units.

What makes him different?

  • Instead of high personal damage like other Greek heroes,
    he empowers infantry lines.

  • Encourages formation fighting on Sacred Ground.

  • Rewards prolonged engagements.

He scales your army, not himself.

Heroic Age Hero

Hippolyta – Queen of the Amazons

Role: Amazon war leader

Abilities:

  • War Cry of the Hunt (Active): Amazons gain attack speed and slight movement speed.

  • Queen’s Authority (Passive): Amazons gain bonus pierce armor.

  • Strong anti-myth combat stats.

What makes her different?

  • She directly scales a specific unit (Amazons).

  • She’s less about raw hero dueling and more about army synergy.

  • She defines Demeter’s Heroic power spike.

She turns Amazons into an elite core, not just a support unit.

Mythic Age Hero

Persephone – The Returning Queen

Role: Attrition & battlefield control

Abilities:

  • Cycle of Seasons (Active): Revives a small number of recently fallen units once.

  • Underworld Chill (Aura): Slightly slows enemies nearby.

  • High myth unit damage.

What makes her different?

  • She is not a pure combat hero.

  • She changes how late-game battles resolve.

  • Encourages commitment to long fights instead of quick wipes.

She makes Demeter the hardest Greek god to finish off in a big battle.

Overall Difference From Other Greek Heroes

Other Greek major gods:

  • Lean into burst hero damage.

  • Use heroes as myth-killers first.

  • Scale heroes individually.

Demeter’s heroes:

  • Scale the army.

  • Strengthen Sacred Ground play.

  • Encourage long, prepared fights.

  • Synergize directly with Amazons.

They are commanders and sustain engines, not assassins.

That’s what makes her feel fundamentally different.

Final Identity Compared to Other Greeks

Zeus
→ Burst hero aggression

Poseidon
→ Cavalry raids & mobility

Hades
→ Defensive ranged play

Demeter
→ Territorial sustain & elite Amazon warfare

She reshapes terrain.
She prepares battlefields.
She wins long wars.

Why This Feels Cohesive

  • Existing minor gods are preserved.

  • New minor gods reinforce her identity instead of replacing it.

  • Amazons become central, not secondary.

  • Sacred Ground interacts with almost every choice.

  • She has clear strengths AND weaknesses.

I’d love feedback on:

  • Are Athena / Artemis the right old minors for her?

  • Is Hephaestus too strong for her late game?

  • Should Sacred Ground be weaker but larger?

  • Are Amazons too flexible?

2

Imo seems messy. Dunno what hestia in archaic means, her god power? Her upgrades?

Might be a bit out of the loop, is this for a mod? Why artemis on heroic?

But they arent, you changed and shuffled all of them

Amazon sounds like a unit with no weakness if the only weakness is to fight in your territory. Since theres little to now reason not to be able to do that.

Doesnt make positioning matter, it makes her a nightmare to fight against imo. You are giving greeks universal healing Just because, which is one of the things that balances out the good quality units they have. For example pos heals calv, not his whole army. Bonus hp to the units and norse favor for some reason.

You create a god that has the Best late game option in heph and now you are giving it an incentive for turtling in her base and having bonuses to do so.

What are this units? A unique unit akin to myrmidon? Something you get earlier of?

Weak against “open mobility” means they are slow?

“caught outside of sacred ground” means they have bad stats baseline and the bonus carries them into being strong? Or it Just means they are great overall but not overwhelming?

Does it? It seems it adds up to the dynamic that a god that wqs already tailored so that you could not fight her on equal terms in her base now has twice the army volume fue ti them reviving.

This whole chat GPT concept idea seems messy imo. What does magic resistance even work as in age of mythology?

Again if this is some rpg mod or something else i am not being aware off my bad.

3

I would make the amazon an archer replacement for peltast (from fortress, replaces harpy), with 16 range and bonus damage against archers, while keeping a somewhat high base damage so they aren’t completely useless against infantry either (but no bonus damage). Give them really low hack armor (like 5%) but high speed. Think of it as a hybrid between chariot and peltast.

4

Counter archer thats also a generalist and has acess to ricochet arrows? Dunno what could possibly stop such unit.

Im assuming the charioit archer part doesnt i clue giving them 5.0 movement speed, i hope. So at least.

5

To give full on stats:

70HP

4.5 speed.

5% hack armor

25% pierce armor

16 range

10 base damage (pierce)

1.2 attack speed

2x vs archer. Benefits from hepha upgrade which grants bonus vs MU.

tagged as ranged unit.

60W, 40G cost

generalist? maybe. but it does 10 damage vs infantry (slightly more than a toxotes but not by a lot) and 20 vs archers (same as peltast per hit, slightly bigger DPS). Slightly better range. Will replace toxtoes? yep. Will be uncounterable? nope. All units that counter a toxotes still counter an amazon. It will also be dominated by the longer range archers without micro (hence the extra speed).

With 5% hack armor it will die to cav the moment connection is achieved. Fast moving infantry can also decimate them.

Also it will be outranged by all counter archer units.

Realistically the ricochet is the only mythic upgrade that affects them and it is not a direct damage increase. Ares upgrade just gives projectile speed, not increased damage directly, just like gastras.

6

Ohh ok, from that more detailed info.

Generalist? For sure x2 is a very minot multiplier to be considered a hard counter unit, will it replace tox? Definately, will it replace peltast? Depends if the range increases with line upgrades like counter archers do, if so, definately. Will it be uncounterable? It entirely depends on how the techs it gets, and 100% so if this is in tune with the proposal of the one that made this post.

Im being flexible with the whole uncounterable part not like “invincible” just that theres no comp that trades well into them, like earlier hetairoi.

As for you counter units that would outrange them, theres only peltast that get that far tbh. Norse specially is screwed, tuma also are a poor match, java and slingers would struggle getting there in later stages of the game.

Greek having access to the best counter archer in the game in peltast usually allows them to be the only one able to keep a mass of archers. even if the amazon doesnt translate into replacing peltast completely it still has an edge in being massable due to the later back up.

7

No range increases after upgrades. Forgot to mention that.

Damage output can be fixed with attack speed adjustments. This is obviously just an example of how a special unit for demeter can work that’s not as clunky as the Harpy. Numbers can be modified.

1 Like
8

Yea, definately, personally i find it interesting aobut having the unique greek unit be a myth unit, so its not a repeat and becomes a better gastra of some sorts. That said, the current one could def recieve improvement

9

I mean if it has to be a MU it can stay a MU, the Amazons surely qualify as mythical beings. But the pick up ability is just weird and feels completely out of place with the rest of the Demeter composition. Aside from the fact that we need fewer flying MU, not more.

10

Dunno if it has to be, its just what i would prefer tbh so its not a repeat of the others but better. Its not like demeter has a myth unit focus either way, its mostly on raw eco, and that works for anything.

11

I think Moonshadow is right that raw stats alone don’t automatically make something broken. On paper the unit still has cavalry counters, still gets outranged by proper archers, and without scaling it’s not some infinite late-game monster.

At the same time, I understand Cajocu’s concern more now. If the Amazon ends up replacing toxotes or covering too many roles at once, then that’s not healthy design, even if it’s technically counterable. That was never the goal.

With Sacred Ground for example, the intention wasn’t to give Greeks universal healing or make her impossible to push in base. If that part reads as overtuned or unclear, that’s on me, it was meant to reward positioning slightly, not create an unbreakable turtle situation, especially combined with Hephaestus.

Same with “magic resistance”, I meant myth-unit armor interaction, not some new RPG stat. That’s just wording.

My core idea is still that Demeter should win through territory and sustain identity, not by having a do everything ranged unit. If Amazons blur roles too much, then they need a clearer niche. I’m not married to exact numbers, just to the overall direction.

These are just ideas, and they obviously need refinement. I just wanted to explore something that feels more cohesive than what we got.

12

i dont think he said that, and either way i do think that idea is wrong. A very easy scenario would be lets make an archer that does 100 divine damage, 1.0 rate of fire, is massable and 6.0 speed for the sake of it. We can def just looking at those stats see that maybe its a bit too strong. Either way numbers can always be tunned.

Since its a unit bound to mythic age, and not earlier on in the game, the game state when it shows up is not “i walk calv, calv hit it, they die” Specially taking into account forts and your actual frontline. Archers get a point in the game where once the mass gets going they have an easier time vs their melee counters. Specially if they have access to current demeters techs (which i specified)

Thats most archers range, so not really, and those that did would die to peltast either way as i pointed out.

Im thinking of the concept of sacred ground as akin to china favor mechanic, where theres a glowing land mass that expands. Or something akin to lush given how it heals the units.

Theres not specific armor for the damage myth units deal. The way aom works is not that hoplites have damage reduction or amplification for the damage it takes from a unit. Is the unit that deals the damage that has the bonus or hindrance vs it. And this is done via unit tags. Villager-Siege-infantry-calv-archer-hero-myth unit- titan- ship -building. For the myth unit resistance the unit would either need a brand new special tag no other unit has and give all myth units a negative multiplier vs it or be branded a hero which would make it a greek massable hero.

Adding the things you mention, an archer unit that outscaless all the other generalist archers, also doubles as a soft counter to archer units, also a soft counter to myth units (with heph upgrade) that also resists their damage that also has greater benefits from the gods own mechanic (this sacre land) is bound to be overtunned when usefull imo. You are making a unit that is close to doing it all.

Yea ofc. Numbers wise you can always modify things, its the design aspect of what you are proviiding with what you already have as a baseline (the greek pantheon) that would cause issues imo.

Giving things the other greek gods dont have will without a doubt separate demeter from there. But you cant easily disregard the reason why they dont have those things in the first place (global healing or massable heroes).

Comparing to freyr if we were to redesign him. You could just give him a unique archer unit since norse dont have those and it would no doubt be unique and different from the 3 other norse mayor gods. But that disregards the core design of the pantheon.

1 Like
13

Man, I knew a lot of people wanted a rework as soon as I could play with Demeter, feels kinda tasteless and uneffective in everything that is proposed for this major god.
As soon as i watched the focus and tried to play it that way, Demeter does not get benefit for “expansion“ or “Resource Gathering“ especificaclly
The main problem I notice is when you reach mythic age and the fortress elite unit is not a human (spamable) elite unit.

14

Unfortunately Moonshadow does not agree. In fact, Moonshadow believes that stats alone make a unit broken or not, and you can turn a unit from useless to OP by simple and subtle modification of stats. Stats include direct unit attributes like hp, speed, attack, range etc as well as indirect, like training time. Very rarely do non-stat attributes make a unit OP (like abilities) and even then stats can compensate and bring the unit in line to balance.

Even the current clunky and chessy design of Demeter can be compensated by simple stat adjustments and this is probably what the Devs will do in the next patch. Major reworks are unlikely.