China expansion should have been a mythologized version of Three Kingdoms, then the AoE2 China expansion should have been a proper Sinosphere thing instead of just Three Kingdoms again.
Look me dead in the eye and tell me you don't think Lu Bu fighting minotaurs and shit would be cool as fuck.

>>2327703
I would love to discuss AoE2 with you fellow ledditor. How's your ranked ladder coming along and who is your favorite streamer for it?

>>2327709
Wouldn't that be too far ahead for the faction time period-wise?

>>2328225
Japan and Aztecs clearly aren't.

>>2328225
Yes, it would. But he's retarded so there's that.

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So who would you like as the 4th egyptian major god and minors?

Atum with Geb and Nut to fill out the Ennead?
Amun with his wife Mut and son Khonsu to have at least one member of the Ogdoad as well as the most important deity of the New Kingdom?
Hathor with the likes of Maat, Seshat (Thot's waifu and daughter) and Khnum to complete the zoo?
Meme picks like Medjed, Khepri, Heqet or Kek just for the fun of it?

>>2327703
Another set of Mystery Achievements have been added.
Probably for Demeter and Arena of the Gods, assuming that they haven't abandoned it.

>>2328314
I'd really like to see Aten implemented somehow. I think it would be funny.

They should add the Semites, but theyre too cowardly for that.

>>2327709
No more of three kingdoms please. (and monkey king who's ripped off from hinduism)

It's the same tier as Sengoku Japan which got the same treatment in folk legends. (not like shit like Nuwa)

they should add roman gods so I can play as zeus fighting jupiter

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>>2328314
The Winged Dragon of Ra. Bring in some real Egyption mythology.

On a more serious note, any of those could work, but what myth unit and techs would even go with them that isn't filled out by other gods?

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>>2328442
No idea about techs but Egypt is so starved of myth units they'll probably get whatever they can scrape by, or just invent them like in the original (I guess borrowing from the canaanites and mesopotamians is no longer an option if they want to implement them eventually).

That said they still have:
>Apep who by all means should be a god power like Nidhogg (he's a world ending eldritch horror I swear)
>the griffin who is shared with other cultures
>the set beast who is just a skinny weird dog
And Serpopard and Akhekh who, while also weird literally who creatures, are probably the best candidates.

Beyond that there's only funny looking gods that could work as myth units just like Wadjet and Horus (avenger):
>Nekhbet, Wadjet vulture friend
>Bennu, a bird with a cool hat
>Ammit, a chimeric cocodrile who eats souls
>Taweret, a fat hippo woman
>Bes, a funny midget
>Medjed, a japanese meme
>Apis, a nice looking cow
And... Kneph (who the fuck came up with this)

Take your pick. I think Ammit, Nekhbet and serpopard would be the coolest.

>>2328738
>Apep who by all means should be a god power like Nidhogg
Apep should be a Minor God for the Mythic Age.

We do have ten new hidden achievements so hopefully we're getting content soon
>>2327709
I'd settle for having Three Kingdoms era Mythical Battles, you could get some scenarios out of that
>Fighting Yellow Turban sorcery
>Stone Sentinel Maze battle
>Red Cliffs with actual god powers
>Chasing Zuo Ci around while he dunks on Cao Cao over and over
Of course you could do plenty of scenarios with other parts of Chinese history/mythos but it could be fun

>>2328738
Medjed would be a good cheat/scenario unit
>Model is rigged so that it's always staring at the player camera

What sort of stuff will Aztecs have?

>>2328810
generic human sacrifices but I hope they remembered the purpose of them were to fight the tzitzimitl and not for the hell of it

>>2328911
It might not be mentioned outside of a campaign. Either way, it easily lends itself to a cool and unique way to get favor, which is what it will probably be. A favor generation mechanic.

>>2328408
More like it's just a shite idea in general. Utterly boring mythology compared to ones we don't have yet like Celts, Mayans and Sumerians. Virtually no-one would even buy the DLC and it would be a waste of time/resources.

>>2329158
Are Mayans different enough from the Aztecs to warrant an entire faction next to them?

>>2329158
I think most people are enamored with the concept of "judeo-christians fight and conquer all pagans" in whatever form that would have to take to fit with AoM, and that to me does sound like a fun campaign concept even if it doesn't work as a civ
But I'd also prefer Sumerians and Mayans and Hindu, if we're talking civs that will never ever ever happen
>>2329171
Some similarities but they're different enough
A campaign that focused on the hero twins could be a lot of fun, if they can figure out how to make functional Mayan basketball mechanics in the game engine

>>2329261
Indians aren't as sensitive to their mythology as muslims (who literally kill you for it) so hinduism should be ok.

New Demeter info dropped
>Demeter, the goddess of harvest and terrain mastery, as a major goddess
>Three new minor gods Pan, Hestia, and Persephone
>New fully voiced Mythical Battle titled Silent Sanctuary, starring Chiron and Orpheus
>New ways to disrupt economies, convert enemies, revive armies, and halt attacks
>New myth units Harpies, Lykaons, Hamadryads, and Sirens

>Demeter gets Wither (nothing grows in an area) and Harpies (picks up units and drops them)
>Pan gets Arcadian Meadow (localised Ceasefire) and Lykaon (disguises as a villager until it attacks)
>Hestia gets Communal Hearth (defense/resource bonuses in an area, converts enemy units) and Hamadryads (disguises as a tree when idle, can steal resources?)
>Persephone gets Underworld Invasion (last 100 killed units resurrect as eidolons, destroys your TCs (Flemish Revolution meets The Sorrow)) and Sirens (lures enemies out of position)

We're also getting Orpheus and Icarus (or Daedalus but he looks kinda young) as heroes, too
Pretty cool

>>2329261
Hindu DLC discussion would be impossible

>>2329171
If they can do both Chinese and Japanese mythology, they can definitely do both Aztec and Mayan mythology

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>>2329284
Looking good.

>>2329261
>judeo-christians
To be fair, commanding biblically accurate angels would be pretty cool. Major gods could be the Holy Trinity and minor gods could be the apostoles. Units could be mostly late-Roman to early-medieval.

>>2329261
>judeo-christians
don't use goyterms, it's Abrahamic

>>2329376
sorry liberal but we must arbitrarily exclude muslims from the table

>>2329171
Not really no. While their myths are different they'd both end with similar mechanics surrounding ritual sacrifices, techs/god powers involving calendars, floods and jaguars, the same feathered serpent as a major god and the same rain god as either major or minor while competing for the same myth units from that region. And all while having almost indistinguishable human units, architecture and aesthetics (if people bitched about china and japan, two distinct civilizations being too similar, imagine that but with two neighboring cultures from the same fucking country)

You'd get more unique stuff out of the various celts (gauls/irish/arthurian), the romans without the greek part or just going for the Incas than the Mayans.

>>2329300
Not even close.

>>2329284
The myth units are kinda meh. Bird woman #1 (ugly), bird woman #2 (pretty), dryads again and werewolves. Their gimmicks might be fun tho

>>2329464
>romans
Honestly, I dont think the Romans could work. We already got the Atlanteans, who also use Greek mythology with the titans. Romans have bootleg greek gods and a lot of Atlantean units do resemble Romans in some regards. I just don't think they would be an interesting choice.

Celts wold be the obvious pick after Aztecs, I feel. Maybe slavs or Phoenicians?

>>2329548
>Celts, Slavs
same problem but with Norse, there are bootleg versions of same gods
Dagda.and Perun respectively, that being said myth units could be cool

>>2329643
>bootleg versions of same gods
If you really get down to it, aren't they all the same? (even Zeus and Odin)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_mythology

>>2329548
I think there are still fun things they could do with Romans. Like yeah if they wanted to be accurate their major gods would have to be the ones they share with the greeks (specially Jupiter and Mars), but they still have their own, somewhat iconic gods that could work too like Quirinus, Janus and Fortuna.

But they could also use the Roman's love of syncretism as a feature, like having foreign minor gods in the mythic era with exclusive human units from those cultures (such as the anatolian Cybele, the gaulish Epona, the ptolemaic Serapis or the persian Mithras) as a way to reflect Roman conquest, expansionism and subsequent religious syncretism. Or they could have the option to worship a minor god from another player, or the ability to adopt a myth unit and few techs from a conquered enemy (by destroying their temple or something).

>a lot of Atlantean units do resemble Romans
Oh right I forgot Atlanteans have a bunch or roman units. Such a mess of a faction.
I still think Romans have a lot of potential though.

>>2329327
>>2329548

In my opinion the Romans should be the Abrahamic faction. Mostly because incorporating a monotheistic belief system into a game with a polytheistic game format doesn't exactly work.
If anything this should be a mechanic akin to revolutions from AoE3.
Basically you get the standard Roman pantheon and myth units until age 3. On reaching age 4 you are offered 2 choices no matter what initial god you chose.
>Sol Invictus
Acts like your standard minor diety unique myth unit new technologies and minor power nothing too different.

>Chi Rho
Basically an all in faction switch. You lose the access to your previous myth units and those you already have are getting killed with a portion of their faith cost refunded. Your myth powers are getting replaced with a set of new ones. Your titan also gets replaced from a previous land unit to a flying biblically accurate angel unit.

For abilities you'd get:

>Parting the sea
An ability that allows you (for a small faith upkeep) to divide a body of water into two allowing land units to cross it while at the same time preventing sea units from moving between the two.

>Fire and Salt
Every unit killed by this ability turns into a pilar of salt that blocks construction and needs to be removed by workers.

>Bread and Fish
Doubles your stored food.

>Revelations
Less of a single ability and more like a cyclical ability with mapwide debuffs that change each time you recast it. It has 4 debuffs to fit with the 4 horsemen.

For myth units not much different from what you could expect except for one:

>Chi Rho Standard
A support unit that grants additional damage against myth units to surrounding friendly units and grants a small amount of faith for each enemy myth unit killed in its area of effect.

The Campaign would just be a mythologised retelling of Constantine's rise to power.

>>2329718
I dunno if that could work. Would the Abrahamic powers and myth units be stronger then the normal ones?

Any place where I can find good guides for this game? Anywhere I go its all outdated stuff.

>>2329718
>In my opinion the Romans should be the Abrahamic faction
Better yet, keep Abrahamism out of a game with cool and interesting pantheons.

>>2329376
>>2329376

Making the three major gods YHWE, Jesus and Allah would indeed be kino, but sadly would never happen

>>2330303
It will just be YHVH since he's in Shin Megami Tensei

>>2330345
But he's probably be benevolent (no Old Testament stuff)

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>>2329158
>he doesn't want to summon a biblically accurate angel as his civ's titan

Would Mongols with the Tengri religion work as a faction?

>>2330364
It would be cool

>>2330362
Correct, it's boring and lame.

Why they ever add African Mythology?

>>2330512
*Will

>>2330512
Does it have a large enough pantheon and myth units to make it? If so, it could work.

>>2330518
I played Dominions before so they could probably fill out a faction

You only need like 8 normal units then like 6 myth units

>>2329284
I'm just worried about it being freakishly overpowered in multiplayer.

>>2330636
I'm not really big on multiplayer myself but all the disguise mechanics make me wonder how the AI will handle things
The werewolves are straight forward enough, they're still units, but will I be able to park a Hamadryad next to a forward settlement without the AI realising something is off?
How "CnC Mirage Tank" can things get?

>>2330636
Honestly, it doesn't seem that OP.

Baal should make it since he's worshiped by carthage and they're rome nemesis.

>>2330803
Phoenicians would be cool.

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were the laser crocodiles always called Petsuchos or is there a conspiracy here?

>>2330861
Petsuchos were always Petsuchos, so sayeth Sobek
What else would they have been called

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>>2330861

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>>2330863
>>2330916
alright, I'll accept it this time

>>2330512
We already have Egypt

>>2327703
I still have artwork from this game hung up in the house. Amazing title.

>>2331603
What do you have?

>>2327703
How fucked is the modding scene atm? Last I checked shit was broken, zero, guides, and devs ghosting.

>>2331919
not too great

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Do you) think they will revert the Norse eco nerf/ Japan favor buff?

>>2330303
Those wouldnt be the majors.

Allah *is* Yaweh and Jesus is only Yaweh according to Christians, otherwise he's not even a god. Thats all too recent anyway, after Yaweh's cult dominated the Israelites - Yaweh would be a major, but he'd be there alongside the rest of the pantheon. El and Baal are the other two most obvious candidates to be majors. You could definitely implement Yaweh having a monotheistic cult in some manner though - you could, say, have a 'reverse' god selection on age up where his followers pretend that god isnt a real god but a demon, as they eventually did to the entire rest of the pantheon. Your *opponent* then gets the powers of the god you choose to demonize and in exchange you get some new set of extremely powerful counters to it from Yaweh. Basically, Yaweh wpuld have the most powerful abulities, upgrades and units in the game but its balanced out by also expanding his opponents toolbox to fight him with by essentially doublibg the amount of minor gods they have.

>>2327703
ok guys hear me out: what about new Titans for each major god as DLC?
Norse: Odin keeps Ymir, Loki gets Fenrir, Thor gets Surtr
Atlantean: Chronos gets himself, Gaia gets herself, Ouranos keeps the og atlantean titan.
Egypt: Ra keeps himself, Isis gets Horus, Seth gets Apophis/Apep
Greek: Zeus gets Prometheus, Hades keeps his pup, Poseidon could get the statue from the campaign
Chinese: Fu Xi keeps the og titan, Nuwa gets Pangu and promote Chiyou as Shennong's titan
dunno who could be for the japanese

>>2332758
>dunno who could be for the japanese
godzilla

>>2332758
Ultraman
Also I think someone made a mod that does pretty much all this, but I don't know if it's up to date

>>2327703
Sex with Gaia

>>2332758
>dunno who could be for the japanese
Gashadokuro and Daidarabotchi are their colossal giants.

So in the Japanese campaign, the villain tries to trap Amaterasu to block out the sunlight, which apparently works.

But what about Ra then? Or any of the gods that deal with the Sun? Why should it matter if Amaterasu is gone when Ra can also take care of it. Do different Sun gods handle different aspects of it? Does Ra make it move while Amaterasu makes it glow?

What about the seas? There's like, 3 ocean gods in the game. Who actually commands the seas? Do Poseidon and Susano ever fight over this?

>>2333020
One controls Japan and the other one controls Egypt

>>2333097
OK but its still on the same planet, shared by one Sun.

>>2333098
The Sun isn't shining equally on all parts of the world
Bast's Eclipses are probably only fucking over the general area and not everywhere every two minutes
>Do Poseidon and Susano ever fight
That's the point of the game, isn't it

>>2333020
the game already stablishes the gods are stronger on the regions they're worshipped, outside of that their blessings/powers are weaker
also Kastor's fuck up in the atlantean campaign heavily weakened the Norse, Greek and Egyptian pantheons so much it allowed the Titans to regain their strenght to their prime so it's not strange to think this made other pantheons different from the main 3 get stronger as well

I wonder what the Aztec campaign be about. I hope it'll let us visit and fight/fight alongside other factions. That is something that was mostly missing from the Asian campaigns.

How hard is micromanaging workers in Age of Mythology? I always hated economy micromanagement, I much prefer the Rise of Nations system where you just assign the worker to a building so you can focus on war. But the appeal of playing a game about pagan mythology is too irresistible to me, so I feel like I must buy this game.

>>2334698
You'll be happy to know that Retold has a new system where you can assign a percentage of villagers to gather resources automatically
I switched it off almost immediately but it might work for you, though for some civs you'll still need to pay attention to favour generation (Norse get theirs through combat, meanwhile Egyptians get theirs through build-and-forget monuments)
But in general it's not so bad if you compared it to AoE2
In AoM:
>Farms don't require reseeding
>Caravans can gather gold from your own TCs
>Atlantean villagers don't need dropoffs for any resources
>Economic god powers are better now that you can cast them over and over (Plenty Vaults for infinite resources, Dwarven Mines for gold, etc.,)
>Both Asian civs have techs for infinite trees
There's a lot of variety in the macro alone, it's worth playing around with

Will Pan have ability to have sex with female villagers and heroes and impregnate them?

>>2333020
You are clearly an underaged normalfag. Read more mythology and philosophy.

>>2335761
What are you talking about?

I've been an OG-exclusive fag for a really long time (played the original since launch pretty much and have been carrying around an .iso of Gold edition + patches on an USB stick for over a decade at this point) but I got Retold during the winter sales because I wanted to try it out even if a lot of what I've seen wasn't that appealing. I'll be listing every good or bad change I can think of.
Good:
>No titans mode
>More zoom levels
>Water myth units available for all (although it feels kind of lame and I would've just made universal water heroes instead)
>New Norse Gods and units
>Japan (don't really like Japanese aesthetics but they have neat designs, though I've heard they're OP in MP and I already assumed that while playing them in their campaign)
>New hydra design
Meh:
>Chinese (can't tell their units apart and their campaign blows)
>Random level redesigns to the original campaign
>No blonde Atlanteans
>Lighting changes (some of it looks great, some of it looks awful and I can't see shit because of it)
>Less saturated look overall with no option to change that
>Reusable God powers (maybe MP people asked for it for a long time)
Wtf:
>Heavy hoplite helmet (now it's just like the Champion but grey, lame and we don't get the iconic one anywhere else)
>Atalanta and Hyppolita swapping places (balance probably)
>Gaia redesign
>Most new God portraits (why do they all have glowing eyes and lighting coming out of their asses)
>Flanderized Ajax in Chinese campaign (he gets better in the Japanese one)
>New voice lines for existing civs kinda crap
>Those shitty VN portraits in cutscenes I disabled instantly
>The villager autoassign thing (thankfully you can just not use it)

>>2336024
Forgot to mention Hathor and horned vikings, both go into meh changes because Crocodileman is cooler but outright replacing Gods feels like revisionism better fit for a sequel and idk why they would make random human units less historical
Biggest pet peeve is how the less saturated colours, new lighting and random misc clutter on the maps hurt readability and I can't overstate how much I hate the glowy shit (like in new Gods portraits or those Chinese campaign pillars). One time I turned off all of the random vegetation and got very confused in Fall of the Trident mission 3 as I tried to build a wall and couldn't in some random places, turns out those have random bushes normally so thank you for the jank.
Anyway, devs seem to be getting better at actually making new content so hopefully Demeter and Aztecs keep the Japan level of quality rather than launch/ China one (which feels subpar)

>>2336024
>>No blonde Atlanteans
What do you mean by this? Multiple Atlantean god portraits are blonde.

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now that the dust has settled, what's the consensus on Heavenly Spear?

I really love the Japanese, they quickly became my favourites
other than the finnicky shrine building favor generation they're perfect, I love their myth units I love their human units I love their god powers and I love their aesthetic in general

>>2336024
DESU I like the Chinese. While their human units aren't too interesting design-wise, I like the way they gain favor as it does slightly change up how they build bases, and the Koufu is an interesting addition to how their peasants work. Makes the eco more unique.

>>2336090
The campaign was fun, even if the story was nothing special. I wish it had more interactions with the other factions. The gameplay for the japs is pretty cool. Their gods and myth units are flavorful and I do like the samurais, even if they are a bit too "modern" compared to the rest of the faction's units. I really love the way they gather favor.

>>2336029
I am still kinda annoyed they renamed the ulfsark with berserk for no reason
this unit which either run alone scouting the map alone or locks shield to act as infantry and you decided to change its name ulfsark (ulf = wolf) to berserk (ber = bear)

>>2336070
The citizens
>>2336095
To be fair, I like the Chinese overall, but they are easily my least favorite pantheon so far and I consider them to have the most flaws design wise.
Both their human units and myth units feel samey in terms of appearance and between the favor generation, pioneers and Kuafu they feel like Temu Atlanteans somewhat.
>>2336090
I'd rank it above Titans (controversial, I know). I like the Atlanteans a lot more in terms of everything but the Japanese campaign is straight up better and their design is solid enough even for an anti-weeb like me. My only criticism is that they still feel conceptually too modern and I have to suspend my disbelief a lot when I see Samurais next to Hoplites.

>>2336106
>My only criticism is that they still feel conceptually too modern and I have to suspend my disbelief a lot when I see Samurais next to Hoplites
The Norse units were already pulled heavily from the Viking Age which was contemporary with the samurai. Huskarls actually showed up a few centuries later than samurai first did.

>>2336090
I still dont udnerstand why they made Inari a minor God when she is just a servant of Amaterasu. There were so many other Kami more suited for the role of minor diety.

>>2336110
I am afraid I am not that familiar with Japanese armor and can't date the in-game one (if it's fully based on historical armor). I know the Norse are anachronistic but due to their "low tech" aesthetic they fit a tiny bit better than any contemporary "civilized" nation would.

>>2336090
honestly, makes my hyped for Obsidian Mirror.

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>>2336112
>she is just a servant of Amaterasu
really?
because she's only available to Susanoo and Tsukuyomi, Amaterasu completely misses out on her

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>>2336110
>which was contemporary with the samurai.
No, it was not.
AoMR Japanese feature samurai as people know them. That is 16th-17th century guys, buildings and arms.
The "samurai" who existed during the Viking Age would not be recognized as samurai neither by you or any general player.
It's more or less like saying knights existed during the Roman Republic. They did... technically... as the nobility paid for better armor and posts as cavalry and they were called "the noble cavalry" in Latin just like knights would centuries later.
But surely you understand claiming knights are Roman ergo Roman Republic fits shoulder-to-shouler with the soldiers of the Hundred Years War is not acceptable.

We're talking about the military mandarins of 5th and 6th rank under the Tang Dynasty's Imperial Law... Ritsuryou. Guys who wore light red or dark green clothes as the sign of their position and strove to look like this, straying from it only if they couldn't afford or source the correct shit for their post:

These dudes are the samurai contemporary to the Viking Age and have nothing to do with AoMR's Japanese.

>>2336106
how upset will you be when you see 15th/16th century Jaguar warriors in the game later this year?

>>2336124
Minecraft pickaxe

>>2336139
Not much, Aztecs are just like the Norse for me.
Anachronistic, but low tech enough to not make it as jarring.
Basically I use Atlanteans as the bar by which I judge civs and if they fit or not. If their human units have armor that looks more advanced or if their architecture is way more complex it's going to be jarring to me.

>>2336124
Now that I think about it, you are right, she isn't even available to Amaterasu. It is really weird.

>>2336173
norse do at least gesture a little bit towards representing bronze/iron age scandinavia rather than medieval vikings (even if they don’t commit to it and it’s mostly in flavor text)
the japanese still bug me. they should be using straight-edged swords instead of katana, at the least.

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>Defeat 600 enemy units

>>2329718
Then don't make it Abrahamic, make it Semitic. There's an entire Semitic pantheon, the Abrahamic larpers can just pick Yaweh as their major every time.

>>2337151
>the Abrahamic larpers can just pick Yaweh as their major every time.
They rejected God, and chose Moloch.

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DLC tomorrow
how we feeling Demeterbros?

>>2336759
Yea, the worst part of the dlc is that they tried to appeal to normalfags by using the sengoku aesthethics instead of actual Kofun or heian aesthethic.

>>2337487
They should have made the portait more depressed to properly capture her endless suffering.

You guys think its worth buying the season pass?

>>2337487
she's got that derpface going on

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>>2337512
I bought it because I'm an autistic retard who plays this shit almost every week so it's worth it for me, but if you're thinking of just picking it up once and dropping then it might not be worth it

>>2336090
I'm autistically bothered by a few things desu, like generic heroes instead of named ones like the greeks, buddhist shit (Hachiman, asuras) in an otherwise pure shinto pantheon and Sengoku japan again (seemingly just to have samurai and ninjas in the game) instead of Jomon-Heian where the myths take place (also contemporary to the other civs).

I don't get why they went full historical accuracy with China sticking to a Han dynasty source rather than the far more well known ones from the Ming dynasty only to immediatly go back to rule of cool mash-up with Japan. Like, samurai didn't even worship most of these shinto dudes outside of maybe Inari and Amaterasu, instead they were all over Bishamonten which is nowhere to be seen.

They really need to decide if they want to stick to the sources like with the chinese or norse (for the most part) or go full pop culture like the egyptians and atlanteans.

>>2337487
Damn bitch looks like she hasn't skipped a single Olympic game.

No but seriously her art is off, as in her neck is off center.

>>2337593
>buddhist shit (Hachiman, asuras)
Miko, Izanagi and Izanami, Raijin, battle of Susanoo and Orochi, temples, torii gates, Nihon Shoki and Kojiki (the books themselves are Buddhist scriptures, though the contents are thoroughly Taoist, go figure), any form of worship by non-Imperial family, etc.
Hachiman is actually a genuine local diety, he was simply introduced by a Buddhist emperor to fuck over what little OG cultists from Iga still existed in his time.

Remember that Shintoism is Tao-Buddhism with a lick of Christianity. There is absolutely fuck all pre-Buddhist shit left in it.
Ryukyuan religion serves as the sanity check for any people with delusions about its origin. Ryukyuans didn't adopt religion from mainland until Ming dynasty so if you're looking for the religion of pre-literate Japanese, it has to have a systematic parallel in their rites and culture.
And there's absolutely fuck all. Like a literal zero overlap with anything in Kojiki or Shoki.

So yeah, the next time you wonder how come Shinto has a serpent slayer story in Orochi that is exactly like the Indo-European ones (and we have long ago proven Indo-Europeans themselves got the story from an Afro-Asiatic source)... it's because it's the exact story. The whole thing is just their retelling of the Buddhist story that traveled to them via India, for instance.

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>>2337593
I prefer generic heroes over the Greek system, dealing with enemy myth units as the Greeks is such a pain when you only have 4 dedicated anti-myth heroes max
that said I think the Chinese having a named hero unique to each major god that you can supplement with generic heroes is the best approach

I want to make Sphinxes as Set...
Why does the major god that can print out animals for food have the farm cost reduction minor god?

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>>2337636
There's a pretty big gap between "it's hard to separate japanese indigenous religion from its buddhist influence after thousand years of syncretism" and "let's put this dude that never shows up in the stories the others are involved in, as his full Bodhisattva self, sitting on a lotus with his halo of enlightenment while wearing his buddhist monk garb and holding his buddhist staff and prayer beads, all while Amaterasu is dressed like a Yamatai shaman queen and Okuni is full jomon." It's jarring, like putting a statue of ptolemaic Serapis next to the flat reliefs of old egyptian gods and calling them the same. Or like having the goddess Brigid dressed as Saint Brigid because they both were syncretized in folk cult and everything we know about pagan legends comes from the christian monks that wrote it down anyway.
At that point why not just put big names like Bishamoten, Enma and the seven gods of luck instead of minor shinto kami?

What bothers me is that a buddhist god was not needed when they still had Izanagi/nami, Ninigi, Konohana, Kushinada, etc. available. Same with indian Asuras who are present in multiple asian countries when they still had locals like the nue, the yama-uba, the yuki-onna, the bake-danuki and so on to pick from. So again I don't get why they overcorrected with China to the point of removing famous JttW deities like Chang'e and Xi Wangmu who are still old as dirt, just to do this salad with Japan.

>>2337669
They could have kept mikos and some other as generics and give us Abe no Seimei and Tomoe Gozen as unique instead of name droping them. It feels like a waste when they have so many unique heroes. Imagine if they were to do the same in the future with the celts, and we get "irish spearman hero" instead of CuChu or Finn McCool.

>>2337823
>"it's hard to separate japanese indigenous religion from its buddhist influence after thousand years of syncretism" and "let's put this dude that never shows up in the stories the others are involved in, as his full Bodhisattva self, sitting on a lotus with his halo of enlightenment while wearing his buddhist monk garb and holding his buddhist staff and prayer beads, all while Amaterasu is dressed like a Yamatai shaman queen and Okuni is full jomon."
It's just a nod to his involvement with Buddhism.
Again, I think you missed this important part, Hachiman is a legitimate diety from Kyushu. He has no Buddhist origin.
Unlike Izanagi and Izanami. Those are male (-ki) and female (-mi) avatars of Iśana hidden behind modern Japanese sound changes.

For Japanese heroes they could've at least done what the Norse heroes do and give them a list of names to pull from
Though I guess you'd probably run out of Onna-musha pretty quickly

>>2337823
>Imagine if they were to do the same in the future with the celts, and we get "irish spearman hero" instead of CuChu or Finn McCool.
Celts will have warrior lodges that you dedicate to specific heroes in order to increase the stats of your Irish Spearman Heroes in particular directions. Screenshot this post.

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New achievement details are in
Mostly just Mythical Battle achievements, though this does give us the Hamadryad's ability name and a mechanic where you put herdables into a temple, probably similar to what we've gotten in AoE2 with Gurjaras (and every faction in Galactic Battlegrounds)

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>>2338683
>Lupine Lethality

Content just dropped, restart Steam

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>may convert defeated enemy units into gold mines

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Heroes are Orpheus (buffs units to be more effective against myth units), Iolaus, Icarus (flying) and King Midas (turns people into gold mines)
>>2339011
We had the exact same thought at the same time

>>2339016
>Hera remains Zeus-exclusive
What a loyal wife she is

>>2339016
Wait a minute... why the fuck is Demeter a major god on the level of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades? This is DEI work at its finest... if anything, Hera (the goddess, not the shitskin) should get her own faction, not fucking Demeter whose greatest achievement was birthing Hades' wife

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Iolaus
>>2339030
Being in charge of the seasons is a pretty important job

how big is the gold mine?

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>>2339051
The Cyclops, Shade and Manticore I transmuted were worth 500 each, but maybe non-myth units have different values

Important tip: You cast Persephone's power by clicking on a town center
That would have been an embarrassing loss
Also Orpheus strums the game theme, he's neat

Harpies dropping bodies with no animation bothers me

>>2339030
>nearly wipes out humanity
>forces zeus to go back on his decision
>central to the eleusinian mysteries
>in charge of the cycle of life and death
it would have been neat to get hera as a major god and let her have zeus as a minor god in the mythic age

Demeter is pretty cool so far. She gets a lot of fun stuff.

>>2339206
I would say she's unique for sure but she doesn't feel that strong.

>>2339250
I don't know, her eco game seems pretty good.

It turns out Persephone ressurect your unit both ALSO the enemy unit, all on your side
Your 2 TC not being buildable doesn't matter cause you can take the other four lol
Also bring back siege unit

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>>2339016
>>2339036
>Iolaus
Why this literally who instead of gigachad Diomedes, univerally beloved Hector or argonaut Asclepius who would fit Demeter the best?
Is it cause he's gay and they want representation? I can't think of any other reason for picking him.

>>2339030
Yeah by all means it should have been Hera but they missed the chance to had her replaced with someone else when they did so with Hathor.
While pretty irrelevant in the myths, Demeter was the next obvious candidate as she was not in the game and is perfect for an obvious economic playstyle in a combo with Hestia who was also missing. I guess her feud with Hades gives her enough reason to go to war.

>>2339377
>I can't think of any other reason for picking him.
he's got a chariot, which is fun

>>2339016
I'm assuming they made it that "Olympian Weapons" affect Harpies as well?

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>>2339036
it's bad enough he has the same haircut as Fred in Scooby-Doo 2, after witnessing his depiction in total war where he's a schizoid cult leader trying to burn down civilization I really can't take this dude seriously

is it just me or is pan>hestia>persephone kind of not a great combo? it doesn't feel like you have any real power units and while meadow+hearth is kinda funny if you're at the point where you can spam it you would probably be better off just spamming strong myth units
>>2339427
yeah

>>2339377
I guess he comes with a chariot, that's kind of cool (and different)
>>2339427
Harpies get their own upgrade tech and are trained at the fortress

>>2339502
This is precisely what I meant with >>2339250.
Strong eco and decent units but no real power units. It feels like you only get situational stuff and no core "comp" if that makes sense.

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I think going Pan -> Hestia -> Hephaestus might actually be the play here
strong defense and econ all around with the option to shit out Colossi and Mythic

>>2337846
>It's just a nod to his involvement with Buddhism.
>Again, I think you missed this important part, Hachiman is a legitimate diety from Kyushu. He has no Buddhist origin.
>Unlike Izanagi and Izanami. Those are male (-ki) and female (-mi) avatars of Iśana hidden behind modern Japanese sound changes.
That is wrong. Izanagi, Izanami are very clearly gods of the Yayoi people, you literally dont even know basic myths about the Conquest of the Land. If you read it you would know this. It could not be more obvious.

>>2339805
Ok, but why make Persephone exclusive to Demeter then?
Overall the new units feel janky to me.
I guess the intended playstyle is to rush some forward eco with werewolves and dryads and later on harass the enemy eco with Sirens and Harpies while a decent but somewhat mediocre human army snowballs through the other base.

>>2339864
Same reason other Greek gods get picks other than Hephaestus, flavor > meta
Though Hades getting access to Persephone would be cool, I need to check if the "access all minor gods" mod is up to date

>>2339864
>Ok, but why make Persephone exclusive to Demeter then?
Because she was only added to the game with Demeter, and Hades, who was in the game well before that, already had his own set of minor gods.

>>2328314
now harder question , 4th god for the atlanteans and its 3 minors ?

>>2339915
major: arkantos (or maybe tartarus/chaos, idk)
minors: phoebe, asteria, mnemosyne
hey how come most of the male titans did fuck all except lose in the titanomachy

>>2339915
>4th god
from the major titans Pontus is the only one remaining, even tho there's nothing much about him other than being the personification of the sea. unless they do a Cheeky and upgrade Prometheus to major god (since, patron Titan of mankind and all that)
the minor titans to fill the tree seem a little harder since there's a lot of variety, but I'd go with something like:
Classic: Oceanus <> Styx
Heroic: Theia <> Perses
Mythic: Hekate <> Selene
god powers are the hardest, and unique myth units are kinda nearly spent

>>2339905
Yes, I know.
I was asking why not make Persephone replace Artemis for Hades and give Artemis to Demeter instead of Hephaestus.
Idk how many people choose Hephaestus as Hades right now since Artemis seems to be the obvious pick for me, but making this change will give both Demeter and Hades an actual choice rather than picking only one god 99% of the time

>>2339966
>tartarus/chaos
In-game they did basically integrate those under Kronos in how he is portrayed.
Phoebe or Asteria sound most likely to me.

>>2339977
I don't play Hades often, but it's 50/50 on whether I go Artemis or Hephaestus, just all depending on the match up. Archer tech and earthquake if I wanna strengthen my army further and am actively trying to end the game quickly, and Hades eco tech is decenty strong, with the cheaper armoury & plenty vault boosting that even more.

Honestly looking at Persephone, outside Underworld Invasion, nothing really works there for Hades. Replacing either Artemis or Hephaestus with Persephone would feel like a massive nerf for Hades. Granted she's only really been out for a day, and people are still figuring out Demeter as a whole, so maybe there could have been something there, who knows.

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>>2339975
But I don't want to play as Pontus

>>2340116
give hades the bouncing arrow tech from hestia :)

>>2340116
I can think of a few strats.
Using sirens to pull cav away from archers/ pull enemy army into archer fire.
Using dead units to boost archer rof and revive them with Persephone's GP while keeping control of sentinel'd settlements.

>>2340143
You will play as Pontus and you will like it

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>>2340143
I genuinely don't get that crashout
Pontus was genuinely one of the most interesting factions in R2, they had an excellent roster that combined Greek style pikemen with excellent cavalry and chariotry and good ranged infantry choices, and their start location with greeks and romans to the west, scythians to the north and seleucids and persians to the east meant you always fought a good variety of factions

actually Demeter going Ares > Hestia > Hephaestus might actually be the superior combo
imagine them archers...

demeter status?

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>>2340790
Because Antigabros wanted elephants, phalanx, and companion cavalry on day 1 instead of 1 month later (they were afraid it was going to be 3 years later)
It's like Byzanbozos whining about more content in Paradox games

>>2340816
But is it better than Sun Ray and Shafts of Plague on Hades?

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>>2337593
yeah, it would've been neat, but limited due to how little archeological evidence remains
giving a call out to emishi as japanese horse archers would've been a swell bit about that early history that people don't know about, even when it's also rare to learn that the samurai were horse archers (to counter the emishi) before swordsmen

To return to the previous discussion about Rome, perhaps it could be a good idea to go with the theme of the Deification of Caesars?

So you'd get Caesar Augustus or Trajan as the classic pagan Rome, with all the roman distinctives, Aurelian maybe for Late Empire mystery cults and St. Constantine for the Christians, with god choices being saints instead.

>>2342564
So like, their leaders being minor gods?

>>2342954
What do you mean?

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>>2342564
if they go down the route of letting just normal dudes be faction leaders just because they got mythologised instead of a bunch of romancucks they should just make Camelot a faction with Arthur, Merlin and Morgan as the playable characters with knights and dragons and shit

>>2343312
>archaic age you field late roman troops
>by the mythic age you’ve upgraded to early knights and shit
could be kino

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>>2343312
Does that mean we can get the Lovecraft mythos if we go the smite route?

>>2343485
>Major Gods:
>Cthulhu
>Niggerman
>Yog-Sothoth

>>2342564
Nah, Caesars should be heroic units.

>>2343312
That would be kino too

>>2343503
That is fair, the idea is my attempt at having a Rome that isn't just greek reskin, and getting some of the more interesting later Roman faiths in.

>>2343535
I think the Roman gods should be based on the Aenead. And the pre-republic myths or the Roman origin.

>>2343312
Guan Yu soon?

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>>2343830
3K would fit Mythology better than it does 2

>>2343830
People always forgot when Guan Yu got deified there's legend of him slaying demons, even one where he beats Chi You.

>>2343543
The Aenead is literally a fanfic of homer, that would be a Greek reskin. Though could be fun as a subfaction for them, Romulus was deified, after all.

That said, the Numina (Pre-hellenization Roman deities) are really boring, a very practical system of divinity.

Imperial Rome is where there is something distinct from the Greeks already in the game.

Age of Mythology is GOAT. I hope they release a Celtic Pantheon.

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>>2343312
>Arthur, Merlin and Morgan as the Majors
>minor gods are a mix magical beings like Nimue and the Green Knight, Round Table members like Gawain, Galahad and Lancelot and associated stuff from Welsh folklore like The Red Dragon/Y Ddraig Goch or Rhitta Gawr the Giant King
>each major starts with a named hero who gets stronger with each age(Arthur gets Sir Gawain for example)
>myth units include witches, fae spirits, giants, afancs, wyverns
>Britons recruit peasant units from mustering grounds(basic levy spearmen, longbowmen and billmen) and noble and siege units from the Caer(heavy knights, generic hero questing knights and traction trebuchets)
>favor generation comes from doing "Chivalric deeds" like slaying enemy heroes and myth units, destroying major structures like town centers or Fortress equivalents, taking and holding relics(higher passive trickle)
>Titan is a giant building sized Questing Beast

I'll take it over Romans

>>2343926
it's genuinely a cool faction concept, but it doesn't fit the theme of the game. It belongs in its own game that has picts and saxons and franks and so on in the wildly anachronistic style of Mallory

fun fact: you can just destroy all your TCs except the one closest to the enemy, cast Underworld Invasion and then rebuild all your TCs
there is literally nothing stopping you

>>2345807
can you even delete a tc

>first ranked match
>get rekt by a controller player
>wants to humiliate me by sending me an invite for another game after

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>>2327703

>>2348931
It's just a samurai that deals less damage, and much less against infantry.

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she cute

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>>2348931
>adding common trope in Japanese stories to the Japanese mythology DLC is... le bad!
ok homo

>>2349117
stop poking holes in the culture war, you should be seething about women having cooties instead

>>2348931
oh no woman! incel repellant!

>>2349116
Is she the most consistently good civ?

It was a great game indeed, I have lots of fond memories of it before StarCraft

>>2349605
I thought Kronos had the highest Win rate pretty consistently

>>2349691
Kronos is based like that. I was mostly an egyptian main because I enjoy economic games but the Atlantian expansion was so fun

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I really had a hardon for Cleopatra back in the day. I think she may have been my awakening as a horny teenager

sir this is the age of mythology thread

>>2350554
And then you learn that she was an ugly whore, and you have to wonder what did Caesar and Antonius ever saw in her (political influence).

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>>2350579
Cleopatra was a genuinely intelligent woman, the fact she actually tried reforming Egypt's backwards ass economy and was the first pharaoh of her dynasty to actually speak fluent Egyptian tells you she was evidently a cut above the rest if her inbred family, so she might have been genuinely charismatic
or maybe she just sucked dick like a vacuum cleaner, who knows the ancient authors didn't write that down and they were biased Octavianfags anyway

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>>2350554
>other games get big titty Cleo
>we get an ugly nubian
we got cucked

>>2348931
They could have had an ability like the militia from AoE3 and had them been women.

>>2350579
>she was an ugly whore
she was just plain looking
>you have to wonder what did Caesar and Antonius ever saw in her
she was a clever and charming conversationalist to an allegedly ridiculous degree, powerful men just liked talking to her

>>2327703
Demeter Review:

Lykaon: Probably the easiest unit to use just hard to track where they are. If your opponent cannot see the tails, chances are neither can you unless you zoom in

The Trees: Could probably work even on auto. Like a lot of the time I just have units lying around so it can easily get to 10 seconds on it's own.

Harpies: Sounds finnicky but with easily an asset near water

Siren: Like harpies but worse. Why?

>>2350579
>what did Caesar and Antonius ever saw in her
unironically her personality

>>2350579
well you know remember back then women couldn't afford makeup and revealing clothes and a fit body and all the women hacks so they had to cope somewhat with their personalities

Is the extended edition with playing at all at this point

>>2353394
What's the point now? Retold practically functions as a sequel with Ajax returning to the new campaigns. It has the better Chinese faction and one new pantheon and another on way.

>>2353394
I think the Chinese campaign is worth a playthrough. It's better to think of it as a cool fanmade thing rather than something official.

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>>2339915