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 Between the time when the vikings sacked Carthage and the rise of the breton dragonborn there was an Age of Mythology! And unto this, Melth, destined to finish the expansion campaign after a long hiatus. It is I, Melth himself, who alone can finish that let's play. Let me tell you of the days of real time strategy! About this Let's Play: For those who didn't read the original thread with the first part of the game, here is a brief introduction: I'm doing a challenge run of Age of Mythology's campaign on its hardest difficulty (called "Titan"). This isn't strictly a speedrun, although I'll complete many chapters very fast. Instead, what I'll do is show what I think is the most interesting or fun approach to each chapter. That will often include challenges like finishing it very fast or taking 0 casualties or other special goals. One rule I always stick to is that I must complete all mission objectives in order, no sequence breaking or skipping things. Along the way, I'll talk about a lot of the game's nitty-gritty mechanics, praise or critique the story and level-design, talk about the mythology the game is based on, and so forth. As before, I'll be playing the 'Extended Edition' re-release of the game. This made the game playable on modern computers, but I slowly discovered during the previous thread that it also altered some campaign missions in big, unintentional ways. The enemy AI on a lot of missions broke dramatically, making them either much easier or much harder. Sadly, my very favorite mission is a lot less interesting in the new version. After several years of trying to find a way to get the AI back to the original version, I've decided to just show the new game as it is. The expansion campaign remains one of the best RTS campaigns ever made. Some missions aren't as good now, but on the other hand some are even better than before. I'll be coming up with new approaches and discovering new things along the way, I'm sure! Table of Contents: Tutorials Redone: Hunt for a Killer, Pleasing the Gods, Uninvited Guests The New Atlantis 1: A Lost People The New Atlantis 2: Atlantis Reborn The New Atlantis 3: Greetings From Greece The New Atlantis 4: Odin's Tower The New Atlantis 5: The Ancient Relics The New Atlantis 6: Mount Olympus The New Atlantis 7: Betrayal at Sikyos The New Atlantis 8: Cerberus The New Atlantis 9: Rampage The New Atlantis 10: Making Amends The New Atlantis 11: Atlantis Betrayed The New Atlantis 12: War of the Titans The Golden Gift Mission 4: Fight at the Forge Tale of the Dragon 1: Rising Waters Tale of the Dragon 2: To the West Tale of the Dragon 3: From Below Tale of the Dragon 4: Trapped! (The Wuwei Way!) Tale of the Dragon 4: Trapped! (I'm not trapped in here with them, they're trapped in here with me) Tale of the Dragon 5: Confrontation Melth fucked around with this message at 19:08 on May 28, 2023 |
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Aug 16, 2021 05:30
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Oh, this is wonderful  I had pretty much given up all hope that this would return. Looking forward to being extremely impressed again.
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Aug 16, 2021 12:42
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Super psyched to see this back.
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Aug 16, 2021 15:08
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Ahh, good memories of watching you break this game over your knee and making it beg for mercy.
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Aug 16, 2021 22:10
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I just decided on my strategy for mission 3 and notched my first win with it. I'm going to make my first go at recording the approach this evening.
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Aug 17, 2021 05:46
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I'm hoping to build up a buffer so I can keep up more of a schedule this time than last time. So far so good at least. I'm looking forward to showing my approach for both of these upcoming chapters since I came up with unique strategies for each.
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Aug 20, 2021 05:34
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Sounds exciting. 
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Aug 20, 2021 08:11
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The new episode is up today: The New Atlantis 2: Atlantis Reborn I used a secret which I don't think I've ever seen in anyone else's videos of this mission.
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Aug 22, 2021 20:08
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If there's no other way up that cliff except through the enemy base, does that imply that what you did is the intended way to reach that Sky Passage? 
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Aug 24, 2021 09:23
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Carpator Diei posted:If there's no other way up that cliff except through the enemy base, does that imply that what you did is the intended way to reach that Sky Passage? It's a mystery! I can think of these possible explanations: 1) In an earlier version of the map you COULD train myth units from temples. Flying units like Caladria or Stymphalian Birds would be available and could easily find that sky passage. 2) In an earlier version of the map, there was another path up the cliff. The AI sometimes seems to act as though they know an attack could be coming from that direction and will do weird things like build a fortress there. 3) The coolest map design ever: The map for Mission 11 is quite similar to the map for this one, including having a sky passage in that same place. Maybe you were supposed to reach the end of the campaign, notice that the map is similar, wonder "Hm. I wonder if there was a sky passage there in mission 2 too", find out that there really was, and then be able to replay mission 2 with this new strategy as a reward for your attention to detail and creative thinking. 4) The silliest map design ever: What I did was the intended solution. The designers really did hope that we would take an archer, research the normally useless vision range upgrade, station that archer next to that useless cliff face where there would be no reason to put him, start wondering what is at the top of that cliff (even though everything we can see looks useless and empty except for a few trees), scout around and realize there is absolutely no way up and no way to get flying units, think of the possibility of getting a Hesperides tree up there to deploy dryads to explore it, find the one tiny spot where we CAN place a Hesperides tree, waste one of our irreplaceable trees (which are capturable by the enemy) up there, and then find the sky passage.
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Aug 24, 2021 22:37
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5) You are supposed to run past the town center to claim it to open a second approach.  6) A dev thought it would be neat to just place one there or because a manager said that part of the map looked too empty at a quick glance.
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Aug 24, 2021 22:53
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The new episode is out today: The New Atlantis 3: Greetings From Greece It's a new, more aggressive strategy to this normally defensive chapter. I think I'm also the first person I've seen manage to get every single plenty vault in such a short time.
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Sep 5, 2021 20:11
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Okay, I hate this mission. It has even soured me on Plenty since I never realized the vaults in this one were weaker. On retrospect, it's probably caused by the fact I always just turtled at the start and never really relied on cavalry. Gotta say fortifying the middle of the map like that was impressive as hell, especially that first fight around the palaces.
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Sep 5, 2021 21:32
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Glad to see that this LP is going again!
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Sep 5, 2021 22:45
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anilEhilated posted:Okay, I hate this mission. It has even soured me on Plenty since I never realized the vaults in this one were weaker. On retrospect, it's probably caused by the fact I always just turtled at the start and never really relied on cavalry. Yeah, I definitely had more fun doing things in such a tough way compared to the boring slow buildup approach which is normally the only option. I think I love or hate different things about that mission. Love the voice acting, hate the story. Love the idea. Hate the constant nuisance of needing to move your villagers every 3 seconds. I think they should have given you only 1-2 villagers, made resources even more scarce, but doubled down and made the plenty vaults actually useful so that there's a more substantial reward for claiming them.
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Sep 6, 2021 16:31
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Not a fan of another random mission fighting Greeks. At least bring in some Norse or Egyptian raiders for some variety.
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Sep 6, 2021 16:38
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Cythereal posted:Not a fan of another random mission fighting Greeks. At least bring in some Norse or Egyptian raiders for some variety. Fair point, they were already breaking credulity by having the Norse and Egyptians show up so fast anyway. I do think though that they use some Greek units on this mission that we don't fight a lot of in the rest of the campaign. Using every single hero for example, or having masses of counter units. Plus each of the enemy forces having a different AI and making different forces adds a bit of a twist too. I agree all in all, but I do think that the Greeks on this mission are more interesting than most of the vs-Greek missions in the campaign.
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Sep 8, 2021 05:39
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Ha, I had thought something was different about the pathing AI in this mission, that would cause it to destroy certain walls instead of getting funneled. Glad to see that wasn't just my imagination.
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Sep 8, 2021 22:18
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Smiling Knight posted:Ha, I had thought something was different about the pathing AI in this mission, that would cause it to destroy certain walls instead of getting funneled. Glad to see that wasn't just my imagination. I'm very curious what the difference actually is!
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Sep 16, 2021 06:17
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The new video's out today: The New Atlantis 4: Odin's Tower For my next trick, I will make Odin's Tower disappear!
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Sep 19, 2021 19:10
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You absolute maniac. So, do you have those speedrun times recorded somewhere? Is there even a community speedrunning RTS games?
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Sep 19, 2021 20:23
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Video was over before it even started this time 
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Sep 19, 2021 21:52
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Slaan posted:Video was over before it even started this time I saw it in my recommended while checking youtube on my break at work and I saw the video length and refused to believe it. "No way. That can't POSSIBLY be right."
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Sep 19, 2021 23:30
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Oh Melth is back to his shenanigans! Hooray
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Sep 20, 2021 03:13
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anilEhilated posted:You absolute maniac. There is apparently! Speedrun.com I only found out about them when someone commented on a previous video that I'd broken a speedrun record, and linked to a site I could post it on. I didn't actually do that at the time, but I'd been thinking about it. It seems to be pretty active. There was actually at least one time when I said on a video that I'd just beaten a speedrun record- but in the interim between me recording the video and posting it, someone else had beaten the record.
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Sep 20, 2021 04:52
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The new episode is out today: The New Atlantis 5: The Ancient Relics I quite liked how this one turned out.
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Oct 3, 2021 20:00
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I just started on Cerberus this evening, and remembered partway through that four years ago I had come up with a new strategy for it. As it turns out, I had made a bunch of diagram notes for myself with screenshots of the minimap and little arrows showing what to move and where! That was right before I started this LP.
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Oct 13, 2021 06:59
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My strategy in RTS games tends to rely heavily on defending and booming, so seeing these incredibly quick plays is very neat.
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Oct 13, 2021 16:39
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Yeah, that never ceases to amaze me.
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Oct 13, 2021 17:34
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You still haven't really explained the Atlantis race yet.
Klaus88 fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 17:48
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Klaus88 posted:You still haven't really explained the Atlantis race yet. True! I've explained little bits and pieces but not the entirety. My thinking is that I can do that on mission 10 or 11 most likely since those are relatively straightforward missions where one plays as the Atlanteans.
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Oct 13, 2021 22:27
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Just got a recording of beating Cerberus!
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Oct 15, 2021 06:09
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The New Atlantis 6: Mount Olympus It is said that in Olympus the rules are different. The only way to get down a mountain is to climb to the top.
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Oct 17, 2021 21:15
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I like this mission a lot, all the options make for an extremely welcome change from the linear snorefests that was the non-building missions in the base game. Cyclops/Valkyrie/Hydra was my usual army composition for this, nice to see it done with manticores.
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Oct 17, 2021 21:38
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anilEhilated posted:I like this mission a lot, all the options make for an extremely welcome change from the linear snorefests that was the non-building missions in the base game. If only I'd thought of doing it with chimaeras!
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Oct 18, 2021 18:12
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If only castor could see cut scene camera angles. My dude you are standing heroically atop a hill with your old man advisor down beneath you in the pits as he suggests you personally lead the charge through this mystery passage. This can only end one way!
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Oct 19, 2021 19:59
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I liked feeding walls and stuff to my hydras in that mission and knowing I’d be able to heal them to full as I did it, unlike the other times you can play Dionysus. Not the most efficient strategy though.
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Oct 19, 2021 20:15
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Dr Christmas posted:I liked feeding walls and stuff to my hydras in that mission and knowing I’d be able to heal them to full as I did it, unlike the other times you can play Dionysus. Not the most efficient strategy though. I liked doing that too! It was very tempting this time, but I thought it would slow things down too much, particularly since the map is almost over by that point. FoolyCharged posted:If only castor could see cut scene camera angles. My dude you are standing heroically atop a hill with your old man advisor down beneath you in the pits as he suggests you personally lead the charge through this mystery passage. This can only end one way! Or hear the music!
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Oct 20, 2021 00:55
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If the goal of each mission was to lose, this one would be brutally difficult! The New Atlantis 7: Betrayal at Sikyos Let's have a moment of silence in honor of those brave, stupid, stupid prometheans.
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Oct 31, 2021 19:23
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Well, some quick googling tells me Ibn Battuta wrote his name as أبو عبد الله محمد ابن عبد الله اللواتيا لطنجي ابن بطوطة which seems to translate to "Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Abdullah Al Lawati Al Tanji Ibn Battuta" which seems to be more of a set of identifiers than a name; then again, in the Middle Ages people quite often identified themselves by the place where there from and what their ancestors were up to. And a splendid episode, as always.
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Oct 31, 2021 20:15
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