Guide

Note: this is from AOM and I have updated it a little.

Zeus has often been classified as one of the weaker gods in Age of Mythology, but by utilizing some of his special bonuses he can become incredibly powerful, and extremely tough to tangle with for a player on the opposite side. How can you you utilize these bonuses you ask? Read on to find out!

Zeus Bonuses

Hoplites move 12% faster
Villagers generate favor 20% faster
Infantry do damage x1.5 to buildings
God Power: Bolt Kill a single target unit instantly.
Technology: Olympic Parent Heroes have 25% more hit points.

Heroes

Archaic Age: Jason (Infantry): The basic Greek Archaic hero. Pretty nice for stopping rushes.
Classical Age: Odysseus (Archer): Once again, a nice little aid for stopping rushes. Really packs a punch against MU's.
Heroic Age: Heracles (Infantry): Similar to Jason, not that great of a hero.
Mythic Age: Bellerephon (Cavalry hero, does jump attack): Considered by many to be the best hero in the game, Bellerephon rides Pegasus into battle and can perform jump attacks that deal a great deal of damage.

Minor Gods

Classical Age: Athena, Hermes
Heroic Age: Apollo, Dionysus
Mythic Age: Hera, Hephaestus

Archaic Age

Select your scout and control+1 it so you can select it faster.
Put your first 6-7 villagers (total) to food.
Next two villagers to wood.
Next two villagers to gold.
Next villager to build house, then to wood.
Next 4-5 villagers to food.
As you are putting villagers on to food after gold and wood, when you see your gold and wood around 100, start building your temple with 1 villager.
Next few villagers to gold. You may also want to research husbandry at this time.

When to Advance

The best time to advance is when you can afford it, depending on who your opponent is and what your resources are like.

Against Norse: You will not want to advance any later than 5:30 on a land map and 5:50 on a water map.

Against Egypt: Really depends what you feel like doing, fast attack, average approach or a slow classical boom.

Against Atlantean: Make sure to be on the constant lookout near your base, if they are going forward you will want to advance fast as well.

Economy Techs

Pickaxe: Get this during the classical transition only if you are not going before 5 minutes. This improves villager gold mining by 10% and increases carry capacity by 5.
Hand Axe: Get this also during the classical transition only if you are not going before 5 min. This improves villager wood chopping by 10% and increases carry capacity by 5.
Husbandry: A lot of herdables on your map? This is good for that. It makes your villagers carry 100% more food and gather herdable animals 20% faster.
Hunting Dogs: This is a must-have tech on hunting maps; these maps usually include watering hole, savannah and alfheim. It boosts villager hunting rate by 30%.

Water Build

I have been experimenting and this usually gives me the maximum villager count: Of your first 3 villagers, send one to build a dock, the other two to the nearest forest. Next 6-7 villagers go to food and the dock builder goes to wood when finished. Now just keep adding villagers to wood and food according to what you need. Using Bolt: Bolt is great for stopping the enemy get their dock up in archaic, or bolting hero’s that attack your myth units, or bolting your opponents strong units.

The Classical Age

Minor God Choices

Hermes was the messenger of the gods. He is the best to choose on a land map, as your army will almost always consist of cavalry in classical age, his spirited charge tech is one that you will want for your slow hippikons, it adds +10% Hack damage and + 10% speed. His god power ceasefire is great to cancel out powers like flaming weapons, frost and ancestors.

Athena was the goddes of war. She is great on water maps, restoration can turn the tide in a water battle, archer ships have huge HP, and when a lot of them are damaged, restoration can have a major effect. Hoplites are the best way to go on water, that is if you win the water, which you should with restoration. Athena is not as good on land, because hoplites only come into play late game, Hermes is a better choice on land, Athena on water.

Classical Tactics

When you reach classical age, you would want to put down 2-3 stables with some food/gold villagers, depending on what your resources are at, or their location.

If your enemy is Greek, you won’t want to make any archers, instead go all cavalry with some centaurs backing up, try and raid with Zeus, he isn’t very good in fights if the enemy has heroes.

If your enemy is Egypt, after you’re two stables, put down an archery range, that way you have a nice flow of hippikon, backed by toxotes, good for taking on the spear/slinger combo. When fighting spears/slingers, I used to take the hippikon around the spears, and get my toxotes to fight the spears; this does not work unless your army is considerably larger. Instead just fight them straight up, the hippikon take some damage from the spears, the slingers are damaging them too, but the archers with high pierce damage at back start to pick the spearmen off – plus it is a lot harder for the slingers to attack them as well.

Likewise, if your enemy is Norse, put down two stables, but instead of making an archery range, make centaurs instead. Norses’ slow hersirs should never catch your centaurs, just make sure you attack them before they attack you, centaurs special attack owns just about any unit, even if they do have high pierce. And don’t forget to be raiding.

Against atlantean you will want to boom more than spend in military, he can counter you much easier than you can counter him, so you want to get to the heroic age asap to make peltasts/hypaspist to go with your cavalry.

Transition to Heroic

You want your economy is this kind of shape: 12-16 on food, 16-18 on gold, 8-12 on wood. This is because you can usually make hippikons while advancing, due to their low food cost, you don’t need many on food. This also prepares you for taking settlements

Heroic Age

Minor God Choices

Dionysus was god of revelry and wine. This is the general god to use, his powerful bronze GP and his Thracian horse tech can be a very powerful combo, along with hydras and a +5% boost to all unit HP, he is an excellent choice.

God Power: Bronze Increases the hack armor and pierce armor of all friendly human units in a small area for one and a half minutes.

Deciding when to use Bronze is pretty simple. Use it during a critical battle to increase the armor of your units - thus giving them a better chance of surviving. Bronze also has a rather long duration, so not only can it let you win a critical battle, but can give you the edge to press your advantage and take out enemy fortifications like fortresses and TC's that you might ordinarily take unacceptable losses in attempting to destroy.

Be sure to co-ordinate with your allies the use of bronze to get the most benefit out of it.

Apollo was the god of archery. He is a lot weaker, if your enemy has a lot of walls and their base is well fortified, he may be the choice, likewise if it is a water map with two sides, he may be able to get you there fast with the underworld passage. If you are concentrating on archers, he is the one to choose, but is generally not the best choice in most circumstances.

God Power: Underworld Passage Creates two tunnel portals between any locations on the map. Units entering one are instantly transported to the other. The portals can be destroyed by enemy units.

While this can be very strategically powerful, it's not very flexible, and won't have a good use in all games. Don't be surprised if you end a game and find you haven't used Underworld Passage.

The obvious use of this GP is to bypass obstacles to attack from an unexpected quarter. Such things as walls, mountains, bodies of water etc that the enemy counts on to keep you out can be bypassed quickly, and allow your army to pour in and attack from an undefended side. Alternately, if you need to get your army somewhere quickly, it helps as well. Perhaps your ally is under attack and by the time you get there, he'll have taken a huge amount of damage. Perhaps your own town is under attack and your army is on the other side of the map.

Underworld passages cannot be repaired, so protect it carefully. Also, like regular buildings, they are very vulnerable to siege weapons and Myth Units who deal crush damage.

Upon Advancing

As soon as you advance, you will want to take as many settlements as possible, preferably your enemy’s first. What units to make? – Hypaspists, Toxotes and Podromos is a good combo against Norse.
Greek – Hippikon, Hoplites/Hypaspist, Toxotes/Peltast.
Egypt – Peltast, Hypaspist, Hippikon.
Atlantean - Peltast, Hippikon, Hypaspist.

Expanding Your Economy

This term is most commonly known as booming, it is using all of your TC’s to make a lot more villagers so that your economy can support your now higher pop cap. It’s not too hard, just get your 3 TC’s pumping villagers to gold, wood, and to farms.

When to get Upgrades

I find it better to heroic before getting any upgrades other than unit line, eg medium, heavy. Or unless your opponent is heavily using archers, pierce armor is good as it doesn’t use any food, allowing for a decent heroic time.

Once you are heroic and have a good economy going, then is the best time to get upgrades.

Mythic Age

Minor God Choices

Hera was the queen of the Olympian gods. If you (or even your enemy) are investing heavily in myth units and need some killer myth unit killers, or some killer myth units yourself, Hera is a great choice.

God Power: Lightning Storm Deals significant amounts of damage to enemy units in the target area. The more units there are in the area, the more damage is done. Does not harm friendly units, deals almost no damage to buildings. Lightning Storm is the best unit killing GP in the game. It does huge amounts of damage, can't be avoided easily, and can be safely cast over your own units. Lightning storm is also slightly random however, so to get more out of it, wait for a big concentration of enemy units. The more units there are in the area, the more units that will get damaged by lightning storm. Use Lightning Storm when your units are committed in a major battle - this way the enemy has no chance of running away, which they could if you simply cast it over their forward base. Have no fear that the bolts will hit the units of you or your allies!

Hephaestus was the god of the forge. If don’t have many armory upgrades yet, Hephaestus is a great choices for his Forge of Olympus tech which reduces armory upgrades by 75%.

God Power: Plenty Creates a vault that generates 15 food, wood and gold every 5 seconds. The vault can be captured by enemy units – it is controlled by whoever has the most units in the area.

The resource generation rate of Plenty is quite substantial - more than four villagers gathering each resource type. You're not just getting free resources, but you're saving the pop slots spent on villagers, as well as the management necessary to keep them working efficiently. This extra edge can make all the difference in late game, but still don't hold the illusion that this can make up for skimping out on economy.

Be sure to cast Plenty somewhere safe. In the middle of your starting town is usually a good idea, since if the enemy has managed to get a sizeable number of units there, you're usually dead anyway. Some players may send a handful of units to capture the vault - be sure to recapture it if they do, don't forget about it. Giving free resources to your opponent is always a bad idea.

Hopefully you learn't something from this smile.gif,

Zeke (Hope).