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Glazius posted:Do enemies get one god power per Age, same as you? Or can they just spam out half a dozen of them on later maps? Typically even in the most skimish-esque mission, enemy civs don't get god powers. Not as freely used, at-their-discretion ones anyway. Because of the story arc of the campaign, pretty much all god power use is scripted in some way or another. Most of them don't even get attributed to an enemy civ, just being fired off as a mission trigger. And in later missions, sometimes they're fired off... well, a fuckton. AoM has, for my money, one of the finest story RTS campaigns ever, even better than WC3 (fight me). But as a result of that, you never really just sit down and duke it out with a hands-off AI. The second mission of the
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Jan 2, 2017 14:39
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Orv posted:Typically even in the most skimish-esque mission, enemy civs don't get god powers. Not as freely used, at-their-discretion ones anyway. Because of the story arc of the campaign, pretty much all god power use is scripted in some way or another. Most of them don't even get attributed to an enemy civ, just being fired off as a mission trigger. And in later missions, sometimes they're fired off... well, a fuckton. AoM has, for my money, one of the finest story RTS campaigns ever, even better than WC3 (fight me). But as a result of that, you never really just sit down and duke it out with a hands-off AI. The second mission of the I'm not sure about the finest, but it's certainly a really good story that benefits from its choice of setting well. We're about to embark on the longer, drunker brother of the Odyssey and Aeneid.
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Jan 2, 2017 14:46
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It gets so wonderfully, scenery-chewingly stupid that I forgive many of its very large flaws.
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Jan 2, 2017 14:47
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Glazius posted:Do enemies get one god power per Age, same as you? Or can they just spam out half a dozen of them on later maps? Depends on the god power. Also, in a lot of missions, they aren't god powers per se, but just scripted events.
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Jan 2, 2017 14:59
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Orv posted:It gets so wonderfully, scenery-chewingly stupid that I forgive many of its very large flaws. Light story spoilers: meathead Ajax, a poetry-reciting cyclops, and the most sanitized version of the resurrection of Osiris. What's not to love? Thank you for pointing out that Atlantis was a Platonic thought experiment! Smiling Knight fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 16:07
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When you get there, will you show off the spectacularly cheesy strategy for the last titans expansion mission that doesn't require user input for most of it's duration in a (sped up) side video?
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Jan 2, 2017 16:33
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Poil posted:You could have showed off the kraken's special ability against normal soldiers. But there will be more chances. I'm trying to avoid casualties since I'm trying to show very good play, so you'll probably never see me let a Kraken get one of my humans. But there's at least one mission in the bonus campaign where I'll be using Krakens, so you might see me throw some screaming people there. And of course there are Cyclops in the meantime, which do something similar. Yep! Armor upgrades actually benefit heroes more. A 15% reduction in your vulnerability instead of 10%. This is really good stuff for the campaign heroes in particular and is a major part of my strategy really. Glazius posted:Do enemies get one god power per Age, same as you? Or can they just spam out half a dozen of them on later maps? Yes. First of all, as a minor note, my own god powers in this mission were a bunch of nonsense. I mean, I had Rain -which is Ra's power from a whole other civilization- and then Restoration which is Athena's, but Athena isn't even available to Poseidon. And the enemy wasn't even mythic age this time and were Egyptian but they used Locust Swarm (heroic age Egyptian) and Lightning Storm (mythic age Greek, exclusive to Zeus). That they would have a Zeus-exclusive power makes no sense any way you look at it. Later missions generally will have like 80% of my god powers actually come from my minor god choices and the major god they gave me, but there are still plenty of exceptions and bonus powers and so forth. Typically, the enemy will have some of the god powers plausibly available to them based on their age, but numerous others will just happen as story events or be reusable by them or all kinds of things. Next level, for example, the enemy will be Egyptians worshiping Ra and Anubis, so they will use Plague of Serpents. Which is indeed Anubis's power. But they'll use it twice, which is cheating. Emperordaein posted:Oh man. This game and the rest of the series was a big part of my childhood. I loved playing the series. There's so much I remember about the workings of the Campaign. On this mission of course the enemy doesn't really have an age or a techtree and uses special units like Pirate Ships or ones from other civilizations like Krakens. So it's not exactly a rules-based army. As a general rule though, enemies in Titan difficulty will start off at or reach higher ages quicker and upgrade their soldiers accordingly. And on predeployed missions they'll be more numerous or more upgraded. Yeah, I was going to talk about it later, but I just think it's really cool and nice that so many of the upgrades in this game actually change the unit's appearance. Even I didn't notice until you said this though that the medium/heavy/champion upgrades don't give units shields, the shield upgrades do! And that every hoplite upgrade level has a different shield style for every shield upgrade level. Man, that is cool. Even neater, as far as I can see, campaign hoplites sometimes use a custom shield design that is never available in normal games. They look like heavies with fully upgraded shields but they have this triple lightning bolt design on them. Having just checked, normal heavies with full shield upgrades look a little bit like that but their shield doesn't actually have lightning. I believe the reason that they change back to their in-game models is just so that they suffer appropriately high casualties for the weak, unupgraded ones you'll actually have to play the mission with. Cythereal posted:I'm not sure about the finest, but it's certainly a really good story that benefits from its choice of setting well. We're about to embark on the longer, drunker brother of the Odyssey and Aeneid. But with competent and likable characters who sometimes succeed at things without divine intervention! Asehujiko posted:When you get there, will you show off the spectacularly cheesy strategy for the last titans expansion mission that doesn't require user input for most of it's duration in a (sped up) side video? Not sure which one you mean; there are a LOT of ways to trivialize the final level hard enough that you can wreck Kronos's base if you want to. Melth fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 19:46
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One thing I really wish they implemented given all the stupid hidden values is heroes having bonus damage against the mythological beasties they've slain in their stories. I mean, it would probably make the endangered species butcher-in-chief Heracles a tad OP but it'd fit the game perfectly.
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Jan 2, 2017 20:45
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Asehujiko posted:When you get there, will you show off the spectacularly cheesy strategy for the last titans expansion mission that doesn't require user input for most of it's duration in a (sped up) side video? That reminds of that one Titans mission where you can cheese it by building two specific units and then completely nullifying the mission's gimmick. [Note: may be more than one mission where this is possible]
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Jan 2, 2017 21:09
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anilEhilated posted:One thing I really wish they implemented given all the stupid hidden values is heroes having bonus damage against the mythological beasties they've slain in their stories. I mean, it would probably make the endangered species butcher-in-chief Heracles a tad OP but it'd fit the game perfectly. Eh... Nemian lions, hydras, and karkinos are all in this game, but Heracles can't actually attack stymphalian birds. 
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Jan 2, 2017 21:10
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Melth posted:Not sure which one you mean; there are a LOT of ways to trivialize the final level hard enough that you can wreck Kronos's base if you want to.
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Jan 2, 2017 21:18
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Mr.Morgenstern posted:That reminds of that one Titans mission where you can cheese it by building two specific units and then completely nullifying the mission's gimmick. [Note: may be more than one mission where this is possible]
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Jan 2, 2017 21:38
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You didn't know about the delete unit function? That means you missed out on the joy of selecting your entire army and mashing delete when the victory screen came up.
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Jan 2, 2017 21:51
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Asehujiko posted:Nothing that would require good micro or skill at the game, you can just wall off one of the trees with the forest god power and there's nothing red team can do against it. Oh there's some even easier options. Poil posted:The easiest mission you don't even need to make any units at all beyond what the mission objectives say, but if really you to want one type is more than enough even on titan. The difficulty is all over the place. Hmmm, we might be thinking of the same mission. You need two bird cages. Yeah, the difficulty is all over. There's stuff that some people think is literally impossible to win with a frontal assault and then there's Priests: the Movie where you can't lose. SirSamVimes posted:You didn't know about the delete unit function? That means you missed out on the joy of selecting your entire army and mashing delete when the victory screen came up. It's worse than that! Like there's a 'kill this unit' option in the unit commands you can bring up for military units. I knew you could kill those guys. But that isn't available for buildings or peasants or the like. I assumed that was deliberate, like you were not supposed to be able to take back and replace things like Fortresses and towers that have a defined maximum allowed. My false notion that you couldn't get rid of and replace those things shaped my whole strategy for some missions.
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Jan 2, 2017 22:22
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Poil posted:The easiest mission you don't even need to make any units at all beyond what the mission objectives say, but if really you to want one type is more than enough even on titan. The difficulty is all over the place. Hmmm, we might be thinking of the same mission. You need two bird cages. We are in fact thinking of the same mission. Not sure how QA missed that one.
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Jan 2, 2017 22:55
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This thread made me dig out my discs for the first time in years, and I forgot terrain deformation is a thing. I'm not sure if it's possible for Heka Gigantes to turn terrain downright impassible, but they're building a heck of a mountain at the key chokepoint leading to my wonder. 
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Jan 3, 2017 03:06
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Just reinstalled to play a 2v2 against the AI with Astroclassicist, but the game crashed before the Decisive Battle. Sad! (also the loving Atlantean god power that summons barracks in the middle of your base is real fuckin' annoying )
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Jan 3, 2017 03:21
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Cythereal posted:This thread made me dig out my discs for the first time in years, and I forgot terrain deformation is a thing. I'm not sure if it's possible for Heka Gigantes to turn terrain downright impassible, but they're building a heck of a mountain at the key chokepoint leading to my wonder. One thing I do know about Heka Gigantes is that all their terrain deformations can be instantly undone by building something on or near the spot. HannibalBarca posted:Just reinstalled to play a 2v2 against the AI with Astroclassicist, but the game crashed before the Decisive Battle. Sad! That's actually not a god power, it's just a perk of Kronos. Quite useful though definitely! You'll see me do some of that later. For the record, his god power actually un-builds YOUR barracks (or fortress or whatever). It's amazing in multiplayer and singleplayer both because you can basically just delete any two buildings that aren't a town center or a wonder. The person gets their money back, but it's still a huge advantage that can easily win the whole match- or force the opponent to double build anything important. Later on the Atlanteans have some really weak god powers, but their archaic age stuff is sweet. Oh and I haven't ever played co-op multiplayer (just supremacy matches in the original) so I don't actually know how it's done in the extended edition or whatever, but I'd be up for multiplayer co-op if people want.
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Jan 3, 2017 03:53
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Ah, okay. I don't think I've ever played Atlantis in Multiplayer (and never actually played the Titans campaign beyond the first few missions). So I'm looking forward to your playthrough of that campaign then!
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Jan 3, 2017 03:58
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Melth posted:One thing I do know about Heka Gigantes is that all their terrain deformations can be instantly undone by building something on or near the spot. Good to know! The friendly AI in this game is also surprisingly robust, once I finished my wonder my two AI teammates started sending troops to help defend it while the enemy team AI locked its attention on the wonder. Shame Oranos' wonder is so lame and doesn't seem to be anything from history or myth.
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Jan 3, 2017 04:19
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I would love a reason to play this again, sadly the EE didn't get the same MP revival AoE2HD did.
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Jan 3, 2017 04:29
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Cythereal posted:Good to know! The friendly AI in this game is also surprisingly robust, once I finished my wonder my two AI teammates started sending troops to help defend it while the enemy team AI locked its attention on the wonder. Wonders I think I can identify: Zeus: Temple of Zeus at Olympia, one of the original 7 wonders of the world. Poseidon: Hades: the Mausoleum probably, also one of the original 7 wonders and where we get our word 'mausoleum' from. Ra: Great Pyramid, one of the original 7 wonders of the world Isis: Great Sphinx (not exactly to scale with the pyramid) Set: Credit to Orv, it's Abu Simbel. All I knew was it was some famous temple way up the Nile. Odin: Credit to Orv, it's probably Valhalla. I agree that it bears no actual resemblance whatsoever to the mythological original. Thor: Some kind of giant tree that's maybe Yggdrassil? Not that that scale makes any sense, but why would that stop them? Loki: I think probably Naglfar, the ship made of the fingernails of the dead which Loki was going to sail to Ragnarok, bringing all the giants. Kronos: Oranos: Gaia: Fu Xi: Forbidden City Nu Wa: Shennong: Melth fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Jan 3, 2017 |
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Jan 3, 2017 04:37
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Set is Abu Simbel, a pair of temples in southern Egypt that show up in basically every Egypt-related movie, because they sort of exemplify hilarious overconstruction without showing the pyramids. Odin is the most piteous representation of Valhalla ever.
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Jan 3, 2017 05:02
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Google reveals all. http://ageofempires.wikia.com/wiki/Wonder_(Age_of_Mythology) Apparently the Atlantean wonders are just some nonsense that vaguely makes sense for the gods. Kronos, god of time! Kind of a clock nerd.  An evil clock nerd.
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Jan 3, 2017 07:06
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Orv posted:Google reveals all. The Chinese wonders, on the other hand, are all based on actual buildings in Beijing... Every single one of which was built about 2000 years after any time period in which this game's story could conceivably take place
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Jan 3, 2017 10:32
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Anachronisms are the least of the brain melting offenses to logic and reason the campaign of AoM makes, don't worry about it.
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Jan 3, 2017 11:25
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Orv posted:Anachronisms are the least of the brain melting offenses to logic and reason the campaign of AoM makes, don't worry about it.
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Jan 3, 2017 18:02
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anilEhilated posted:Yeah, the campaign gets pretty wild as it goes on. It's a shame they didn't frame it that way - I can imagine Arkantos pulling a Baudolino and just telling someone about all the awesome poo poo he might have or might not have done over a beer somewhere. This way, someone who takes their history or mythology seriously miiiight pop a couple veins. Eh, I think it's pretty clearly set up from the word go as a mythical tale. This is the legend of Arkantos and his journey, even if it's not explicitly presented as such.
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Jan 3, 2017 18:13
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I was thinking more along the lines of setting Arkantos up as an unreliable narrator would help deal with all the mythological inconsistencies he stumbles into.
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Jan 3, 2017 18:18
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Oh. I'm preferring to think this is Arkantos' son or some such telling the story.
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Jan 3, 2017 18:19
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I'm always impressed by the way you manage to take the worst situations and blow through them. That FE7 LP was mindblowing for me as someone who loves that game but is very bad at it. Looking forward to the rest of this playthrough, this is a game I always thought looked cool but never got around to playing.
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Jan 3, 2017 19:17
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LordHippoman posted:I'm always impressed by the way you manage to take the worst situations and blow through them. That FE7 LP was mindblowing for me as someone who loves that game but is very bad at it. Thanks, I quite appreciate that! anilEhilated posted:I was thinking more along the lines of setting Arkantos up as an unreliable narrator would help deal with all the mythological inconsistencies he stumbles into. I don't think we really need any kind of unreliable narrator explanation here. They're just trying to tell a fun story with a few familiar characters having an ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny because lots of people have thoughts about whether Odin could take Zeus in a fight even though the question makes less than no sense to begin with. This is clearly not meant to be set on Earth or to bear anything but superficial resemblance to any Earth mythologies. I mean, the world maps aren't actually accurate, there's these giant Atlantis islands, etc. It's also not even trying to make sense. You can have vikings slug it out with Egyptian laser crocodiles on the banks of Chinese rivers with no attempt at explaining how they might have existed in the same time, let alone the same place, let alone a place 4000 miles away from both of their homelands. (This is unlike, say, Warcraft or Starcraft which often go out of their way to create story scenarios to explain why factions of every race could be fighting every race including themselves on just about every continent/planet). And besides the addition of original characters and the merging of several directly and completely incompatible pantheons, many of the mythologically-derived characters make no attempt to be similar to the original versions. And this is pretty much acknowledged with, for example, the notes about how Prometheus was totally a swell guy in the original myths, but this game's Prometheus just wants revenge. Within its own ad hoc setting, events and characters generally make sense and are consistent though so that's fine with me. For that matter, it is NOT like there was any sort of rigorously defined canon to the original Greek, Egyptian, Norse, or Chinese mythologies. The Chinese couldn't even make up their mind about who was included in the Three Emperors and Five Sovereigns were. Ancient Egypt existed for about 3000 years in which their religion changed numerous times. Gods were added, gods were forgotten, gods were re-characterized, gods were merged with each other at random. Several of the gods in this game were not worshiped at the same time. The Greek mythological timeline makes less than no sense, even in terms of whether whole eras like the 'golden age' and 'silver age' actually happened in any particular myth. And people like Herodotus just wrote their own fanfics in which the events of the stories were totally different, while Plato claimed that all the Greek gods existed but every myth about them was clearly false because they portrayed the gods as whimsical and bad whereas he knew for a fact that they were wise and good. And even individual stories were often told several ways to begin with. So there's not really a 'correct' version of the mythologies as a whole to get wrong in the first place.
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Jan 3, 2017 19:56
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Don't forget the time that the Pharaoh randomly decided they were going to do monotheism based on an previously obscure sub-deity!
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Jan 3, 2017 21:14
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One mythologically accurate note I do love about this game, though, is Hades. Hades in modern media tends to be more or less Satan in a toga, but while a Greek god is one of the primary antagonists behind the scenes in this game, it's not Hades. Sure, hostile Greek factions tend to worship him, but that's nothing on Hades himself. Like in Greek myth, Hades is essentially a neutral, dutiful god who never shirks his responsibilities. The actual antagonistic Greek god is likewise one with a well established track record of being a major dick in Greek myth.
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Jan 3, 2017 21:17
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Cythereal posted:The actual antagonistic Greek god is likewise one with a well established track record of being a major dick in Greek myth. That's basically all of them.
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Jan 3, 2017 22:07
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Mzbundifund posted:That's basically all of them. Poseidon really is constantly awful though. I don't think anyone but Hera is more consistently petty, mean-spirited, vengeful, and murderous. Cythereal posted:One mythologically accurate note I do love about this game, though, is Hades. Hades in modern media tends to be more or less Satan in a toga, but while a Greek god is one of the primary antagonists behind the scenes in this game, it's not Hades. Sure, hostile Greek factions tend to worship him, but that's nothing on Hades himself. Like in Greek myth, Hades is essentially a neutral, dutiful god who never shirks his responsibilities. The actual antagonistic Greek god is likewise one with a well established track record of being a major dick in Greek myth. I do like their treatment of Hades, though I can't agree that the original Hades was dutiful or never shirked his responsibilities. He was a total softie who let just about anyone traipse in or out of the underworld. Or borrow his giant three headed dog. Or tie death up and stuff him in a closet.
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Jan 3, 2017 22:29
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Honestly, the only gods I can think of that weren't complete dicks were Hades, Hephaestus and maybe Athena (whom I only really recall messing with Arachne but she really had it coming).
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Jan 3, 2017 23:00
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anilEhilated posted:Honestly, the only gods I can think of that weren't complete dicks were Hades, Hephaestus and maybe Athena (whom I only really recall messing with Arachne but she really had it coming). Athena is definitely a dick. Just look at her loving with Odysseus in Book 13 of the Odyssey, simply because she can.
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Jan 3, 2017 23:41
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anilEhilated posted:Honestly, the only gods I can think of that weren't complete dicks were Hades, Hephaestus and maybe Athena (whom I only really recall messing with Arachne but she really had it coming). Hestia was one of the original 6 Olympians with Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus and she was basially the goddess of family and everyday decency. At every sacrifice she was usually given the first portion since she was the oldest. All the myths about her are her being determinedly reasonable and conciliatory. I think you're right about Hephaestus as far as I can remember. Hades was somewhere between a kidnapper and a rapist, but admittedly only the one time so he does look good compared to every other god. And he did seem to treat Persephone respectfully in all later myths. Athena is actually pretty nasty. I mean, she's as nutty as Hera about wanting to massacre everyone in Troy for exactly the same stupid reason (and she was just as venal in trying to bribe Paris/Alexander). And then she assaults several other gods directly or tells Diomedes to. And then she switches sides to massacre random Greeks to punish them for not killing mini-Ajax even though the reason they didn't kill him was that they were afraid of offending her by killing him in her temple- and even though they made that choice based on her favorite Diomedes's instructions about what she'd want. She didn't do anything to Diomedes or mini-Ajax himself though. Throughout the Odyssey she's pointlessly a jerk to random people or helps Odysseus be one. There was Arachne and also Medusa in cases of petty vengeance and murder too. Melth fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jan 3, 2017 |
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Jan 3, 2017 23:43
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Greek mythology comes up in all kinds of (un)expected places:quote:Meet Colette, a young doctor. Since she's the only doctor in town, she has to attend to everything, and quite honestly, she thinks she needs a break. One day, she's so frazzled that she jumps into a well. But, she didn't die? Instead, she finds herself in the underworld, where she encounters Lord Hades. Somehow or the other, she becomes Hades' doctor. Follow Colette in her new (though still busy) life, now with Hades thrown into the picture!  But regardless, if you're familiar with the Heroes of Might and Magic series you'll know that a lot of creatures you can out in your army are based on Greek stuff (big surprise, like in all those other millions of games) but there are both gorgons and medusae in the game. And they are completely different. The medusa are the regular snake lady with bow you could probably expect but the gorgons are big weirdly colored bulls who live in a swamp. It's kinda strange. They do have a good death stare ability however. 
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Jan 4, 2017 00:03
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