When starting AoM for the first time, you're met with a great intro video with great graphics that quickly get you interested in the game. And when you're at the main menu of AoM you have some few but cool options to choose from. First get yourself into the game and try playing the campaign where you learn what AoM is about. Here you learn about myth units, how to gather food, wood, gold, and favor. You also learn how to move a unit and how to create units. The basic of the game is also described here, how to build your empire and show all the foes which one of the gods are the most powerful one. There are several ways to win, either hold of a certain point on the map for the longest time, build a wonder (a fancy building unique to your god to show all the others that your god is the most powerful one), there are many other ways to win but the most popular one is by conquest. Killing all enemies until they are defeated or they resign.

AoM is just like the other AoE games in some ways, but very new in other ways. On one hand you still have the great gameplay, the basic resources (but not with stone this time, a new one added instead), how to build things and how to upgrade stuff, how you advance trough the ages. Unfortunately also a AI that looks a bit as the old Age of Kings AI. On the other hand we have no civs, but we have gods, there are nine differerent "main" gods with different minor gods to choose from for every age you advance. Each god has it's own god power, myth unit and special technologies (minor gods included). The main gods also have a free special bonus (like archer have more attack etc.).

As I mentioned a new resource is added, it's called favor. It's used for creating myth units and research unique technologies, the unique technologies is a technology that is unique to that god (minor gods included). The Norse gathers favor by fighting, the Egyptians by building Monuments, by the Greeks to get villagers to pray at the temple. Except for Zeuz all the gods have a maximum favor limit of 100.

There are as in the old AoE games, four different ages in AoM. Archaic, Olympic, Heroic and Mythic. To get to the next age (which you want to do since in the nect age there are more technologies, buildnings, and units to choose from) you have to build a buildning from the age you're in (f.eks a Tempel when you're in Archaic age) and then have to pay a fee to start the research to the next age. When you have built the buildning needed and gathered the resources needed, you can start the next age research. When you start the research you get to choose which god you want to worship the next age. There are 2 choises each time you advance. This is what makes AoM so uniqe, every minor god has different uniqe technologies, myth units and god powers, this makes AoM have a lot of choises when it comes to having a uniqe "civ", if you want to study the different bonuses head over to ensemblestudios

There are as I said nine different main gods, 3 main gods from each civilisations. The three civilisations are the Norse, the Greeks and the Egyptians.

The Greeks

The Greeks is the civ that is the closest to what we know from gameplay from the AoE series of games. Like in AoE, with Greek you start with a scout, 3 villagers, a town centre and a new thing that the Norse and the Egyptians also have, 4 towers around your base that can't attack but can be upgraded into towers that can attack later in the ages. You build and gather resources with your villagers and you have almost the exact same buildings (stable, archery range, stable, and so on) and the same basic units (cavalry, archers, infantry, siege weapons). Except for the fact that the Greeks have gotten god powers and myth units, they are very alike the Age of Kings civ, this is why I personally don't like the Greeks that much. To counter myth units, the Greeks have some heroes to be created. The Greeks have very strong heroes, but only one can be created at a time. When that hero is dead, you can create him again. There is one hero available for every age, so there is a max number of 4 heroes that can be used at a time. The myth units that the Greeks can create is everything from the slow and strong colossus to the faster and weaker centaurs.
The Greeks is what I think a boring civ, but by all means not a weak one.
The three Greek main gods are as follows; Zeuz - god of the sky, Poseidon - god of the sea and Hades - god of the underworld.

Poseidon is not as it may seem superior at sea maps, but he has very good cavalry (Poseidon was also the god of horses). Poseidon’s bonuses are a cheaper market (cheaper fee at the market when selling and buying resources) and that cavalry is cheaper to produce (cost less). His god power is what I think one of the best Gp's early in the game, you summon a stone that lasts quite a while that lures animals to it, so you can hunt them. This is a great start bonus to get you ahead of your opponents. One of Poseidon’s strong military bonuses is not only that the horses are cheaper, but militias appear at destroyed buildings. Early in the game if a enemy is rushing you, when a building is damaged you get 2-6 militias depending on the building that was destroyed. The militias are strong and you get them without any kind of fee.

Zeus is a strong infantry civ with very strong hoplites. The Zeus hoplites do more damage to buildings and are faster then normal Greek hoplites. Zeus' god power is a lightening bolt, it can kill any unit in the game. It is a very good GP to have if the enemy has one very strong single unit (like the Nidhogg, Son of Osiris, bellorphon, etc). Since Zeus was the supreme god of the Greeks, he is very good at favor. He starts with 25 favor and has a maximum favor limit of 200. His praying villagers gathers favor faster as well.

Hades the god of death has good archers and strong buildings. His archers have more attack, and all of his buildings have more hit points. His god power in the first age is Sentinel. When summoned on your Town Centre four stone guardians that cannot move, but attack are summoned around your Town Centre. They have great armor and great range. The guardians is in your Town centre’s range of fire, so the guardians are very hard to kill. Hades is a great god for defensive players, because of the sentinels.

The Egyptians

The Egyptians is a great mythic civ with strange creatures and scary god powers. I really like this civ, they are different from the aok civs, but not too much. Egyptians have strong buildnings, everything costs gold, but many buildnings are free of cost (!). Granary, houses, wood dropsite, and gold dropsites are all free of any cost. This may sound great, but they all take forever to build. barackses and bigger buildnings cost some gold. To compensate for the slowness of buildning buildnings, the greeks have a pharaoh. The pharaoh can empower buildnings (only one buildning at the time though). If the pharaoh is set on a construction site the buildning will be built faster. If he is set on your town center, villagers will be built faster. In other words, the gather rate and creation rate of the buildning is increased. When starting the egyptians you start with 3 villagers, a pharaoh and a priest. Why you start with a priest is a mystery to me, he has a poor LOS (line of sight) and what he is good at is countering myth units and healing units (you don't have to heal units or counter mythic units early in the game so what's the point?). I hate playing against the Egyptians (damn you KoN_Berserk! hehe), they have a counter for everything and have very strong GP's.
The three Egyptian main gods are the following; Ra - god of the sun, Set - god of chaos and Isis - god of protection.

Ra has a better pharaoh, he is 20% better at empowering things, and also, Ra's priests can empower, not as good as the pharaoh, but they can empower. Another great bonus Ra has, is that chariots and camels have more hit points and move faster. The final bonus is also a good one, building monuments (which gain favor for you) are cheaper and stronger then monuments from the other gods. Ra's god power makes all villagers on the map collect food from farms faster. This is a great god power to have if you know the enemy has a stronger economy then you.

Set the god of chaos is a interesting god, his priests can convert animals to your command. Although converting an animal takes forever, a strong rhino can kill a few unprotected villagers, so underestimate this bonus. Every age, a set of animals will spawn at your temple, the later the age the stronger the animals you get are. Not only do you get free animals at the temple and your priest can convert animals, you pharaoh can quickly spawn animals for you (these animals do, however, cost some favor). You can't win a game by only attacking with animals so Set do have other bonuses as well. The bonuses are military bonuses, slingers and chariot archers train faster and Barracks, Chariot Works, and Siege Camp cost less.

Isis the god of protection, is not the strongest god when it comes to military bonuses, but she has a great economical bonuses. Her monuments guard your cities from god powers, this is one of the greatest bonuses in the game. If let's say your enemy has a meteor shower at hand, he has a unit in your base so he could usually set the meteor shower in the middle of your base destroying everything, and you would probably loose the game. With Isis, however, if you have built a few monuments around your city, this will no work, the enemy will not be able to set our god power within the range of the monuments. He can however destroy all your monuments and then set his god power on you, but your enemy would probably waste a lot of units trying too. Another great bonus is that all her improvements are cheaper, this makes it easier for you to upgrade your units to the max without too much a cost. In AoM, getting a high population is fairly hard, a house supports 10 in population, but you can only have 10 houses at the same time. However, a town centre can be built and a town centre supports 15 in population. But thee is a downside again. Town centres can only be built on settlements, and only a few settlements are available (depending on the map size). Horses and bigger units (like myth units) take a higher pop limit, let's say, a Minotaur takes 4 pop slots on it's own. With Isis, you get 3 more pop limit for every Town Centre you create, since a player fairly often can get 3-4 Town centres in late game, you get 12 more pop space. This is a very handy bonus in late game. The final bonus of Isis is that Obelisks (small statues that have great LOS and can be summoned by your priest) are cheaper and faster to summon.

The Norse

The final civilisation is the Norse. The Norse is my favourite civilisation to use. They are the one civ that is the most different from what we know of the civs from AoE and AoK. First of all, you build things with infantry units. Norse buildings are fairly cheap, but very weak. Norse don't use multiple dropsites, they only have a mobile oxcart. I really like the fact you don't have to build new dropsites all the time, just follow your villagers with your oxcart. This makes Norse a nomad civilisation that quickly can rebuild. The oxcart can be created at the Town centre. Since the infantry do all the building, the villagers only gather, that's why they are called gatherers. A gatherer can, however, build one "building", a farm. The Norse can also create dwarfs, these are slower at gathering wood and food, but are faster on gold. Norse have no archers, the closest thing they have to a archer are throwing axemen. The Norse do know how to counter archers, norse have fast paced cavalry and strong pierced armored huskarls to stop them archers. Norse myth units is based on giants (fire giant, frost giant, etc), but some other myth units are also available, like the naval unit, kraken (a gigantic squid).

The three Norse main gods are as following; Thor- the god of thunder, Odin- the god of war, poetry, wisdom and death, and Loki- the god of fire (and mischief).


Thor was good friends with the dwarfs, so Thor has faster working and cheaper dwarves. His dwarfs gather food and wood almost at the same speed as a normal gatherer, but they are even faster then normal dwarves at gathering gold. This makes Thor has a great economical advantage. Another bonus Thor has is the Dwarfen armory that can be built in the first age. Not only can you start researching technologies in the first age, but with the dwarfen armory you get to research for example mythic technologies in the Archaic age. This can create interesting battles in ages were the enemy does not have the same technologies available as the Thor player has. His first god power is a dwarfen mine, it has more gold if you summon it in the later ages. Very handy in long games when the map has no more gold to offer.

Odin the god of many things, is a god focusing on the military aspects of the game. First of all his human units regenerate health. If you're in a battle and find all your men almost dead, after a while they will all be at full health again. Odin gets two ravens at his temple, these looks like ordinary birds and are great for scouting. Gatherers hunt 10% faster and his early god power ' Great hunt' (doubles hunting in a area) is a great combination and gives you a great head start on your opponents. Odin's hillfort units also have more health. The final bonus is that hill fort units have more hit points. Odin is a strong rusher because of his good early hunting bonuses.

Loki the trickster god teamed up with the giants in ragnarok. Because of his friendship with the giants, Loki is strong on myth units. Norse's hero is a hersir, a hersir has a bonus attack vs myth units but is not very strong, the good thing with the hersir is that the hersir can be mass-produced. Loki's bonus is that hersirs summon myth units on their own in combat, not too often, but sometimes they do. A really great bonus in close battles, suddenly you win easy cause you got a extra myth unit. Myth units are also cheaper. Loki is not only good at myth units, his longhouses produce units faster and he has cheaper and faster oxcarts. The oxcarts are, however, weaker then the other Norse gods oxcarts. His first god power is "spy", set this god power on a enemy unit or just a animal, too see what it sees. Very great god power if you want to find out what units the enemy is making. We hope you found our introduction to AoM interesting and that it made you want to play this great game. Drop in at our website later to get more great info on AoM.