Sando’s Guide to Zeus
By UKAK_Sando · vanilla
UKAK_Sando’s classic Zeus overview covers the major god’s bonuses, army choices and development through the ages.
Introduction
Since seeing films such as Jason and the Argonauts, and Clash of the Titans as a child, Greek mythology has always been of interest to me. Of all the Major Dieties in AOM, Zeus is one of the most fun to play thanks to his perchant for Myth Units, but he can also be highly competitive ingame.
This guide aims to supply a through overview of Zeus and how to use him effectively.
Zeus’ Bonuses
- Starts with 15 favour and has a favour limit of 200.
- Villagers pray for favour 20% faster.
- Hoplites move 12% faster.
- Infantry have a 1.5x multiplier against buildings.
Archaic Age:
Zeus has a very ‘plain’ flavor for the first age of the game, as he has no particular bonuses that come into immediate effect. However, like all the Greek Gods, Zeus has a solid start with an extra villager over the other two major cultures, and an excellent scout.
With any Greek you should scout aggressively, quickly find what you need at home and then immediately head for the neutral and enemy areas of the map – this way you can hopefully pick up most of the herdable animals. Since your scout has a lot of pierce armour, you don’t have to worry about babysitting him and can just set waypoints.
The map usually determines the first major decision for a Zeus startup. You essentially have four choices:
- Researching Hunting Dogs. (on maps with lots of hunting available)
- Researching Husbandry. (on maps with a lot of herdable animals)
- Building a dock and fishing. (on water maps)
- Building an early temple. (on relatively poor maps, or when you want to go with a Myth heavy strategy in classical, or want early access to Jason/Pegasus)
The real skill of a good Zeus startup is to setup your economy to fit your classical age strategy. This means distributing your villagers to give you the right resources for the types of troops you want to build.
As a Greek it’s important to remember that you will always need a large quantity of wood in classical age – due to Greece’s relatively high unit build times, you’ll need several military buildings (at 100 wood each) to produce them at an acceptable rate. You also need to factor in the extortionate 50 wood per house that you pay as a Greek player – as you will be severely disadvantaged by becoming pop capped for any length of time at this stage in the game.
Depending on the map, you’ll be farming in classical (or possibly fishing and protecting your investment with warships), which is yet another large outlay of wood. Hunting and foraging further away from your base can soften this impact, but increases the risk of losing villagers to a watchful opponent.
If you plan to use Zeus’s improved favor generation, try to build your temple as early as possible and have fewer villagers praying there for longer – this is more efficient than putting a lot on for a short time due to the way favor is collected.
| No. of Villagers Praying | Favor per second, per villager | Favor per minute, per villager | Total Favor generated, per minute |
| 1 | .150 | 9.0 | 9.0 |
| 2 | .125 | 7.5 | 16.5 |
| 3 | .097 | 5.8 | 22.3 |
| 4 | .067 | 4.2 | 26.5 |
| 5+ | .057 | 3.4 | 29.9 (+) |
As you can see, you get decreasing rates of return when you have more villagers praying at any one time – one villager praying for three minutes would generate 27 favor, compared to three villagers praying for one minute, who would generate 22.3 favor.
I usually find that even with a heavy myth strategy, one or two early favor collectors will often generate enough of a stockpile and continuing flow to meet my needs until Heroic age. Due to some collection rate bugs, it’s best to make a new temple whenever you’ll have more than 3 villagers praying per temple.
Myth unit: Pegasus (50 F 2 Fv 2 Pop)
Available to any Greek God, Pegasus can be built as soon as your temple is completed, giving you the option of having an additional, flying scout. Pegasi are excellent spotters, their ability to fly means that they can ignore obstructions, water and can only be attacked by ranged troops and buildings. Pegasi have no offensive abilities other than for targetting God Powers.
Hero unit: Jason (100 F 50 G 2 Pop)
The Argonauts were the famed crew lead by Jason in their search for the Golden Fleece. Jason is Zeus’s Archaic Age Hero, a solid melee fighter with a 7x bonus against Myth Units. Jason can be built from the Town Centre as soon as your temple is completed. Although I’ll usually wait until early Classical, it can be worthwhile to build him in Archaic under certain circumstances. Although a good fighter, Jason on his own can’t realistically take on even a small group of villagers. He can however collect relics, attack lone villagers and disrupt forward building.
Improvement: Olympic Parentage (200 F 10 Fv)
Having a deity as a parent is always beneficial to a mortal, and this benefits your heroes by increasing their hitpoints by 25%. Olympic Parentage is rarely a technology that you want or can afford to research in Archaic or Classical age (in fact, often not until Mythic Age) on anything but a water map. However, it does offer a substantial bonus to your already powerful heroes once researched.
God power: Bolt
Bolt is one of the best Archaic Age Powers available to any God, and has a range of uses depending on the stage in the game when you invoke it. Bolt works best for taking out a dangerous unit when you need to most, or to counter an enemy god power. For this reason you shouldn’t use Bolt lightly, as you may regret it later on. Also remember to only target stationary units in a laggy game – there’s nothing worse than going to zap that annoying Son of Osiris and hitting the guy next to him!
In the Archaic Age good targets for Bolt are early enemy villagers (the sooner you can kill one, the more resources it will cost your opponent) and Ulfsarks for the Norse – especially when they’re part way through building a house, dock or temple.
In Classical Age your primary targets are Myth Units and Heroes – using Bolt on a human soldier is somewhat wasteful, and unlikely to have any major impact on the game. Loaded Transport boats are also a target on water maps.
In Heroic Age if I use Bolt, it tends to be on a powerful Myth Unit or Siege Weapon – especially early on, the destruction of a single siege engine can be important to the flow of a game.
Using Bolt effectively in Mythic Age can be tricky, by this stage the loss of a single unit is not usually all that important – zapping an expensive Myth Unit or particularly irritating siege weapon is the best use, although frying a siege-carrying Roc is one of the most satisfying experiences in AOM. 😉
Personally, my choice of when to use Bolt depends very much on the Major God that my opponent has chosen. Against Loki, Ra and Isis players, I’ll always hold on to bolt until the Mythic Age unless I have dire need of it earlier. This is because they have access to the dreaded Nidhogg and Son of Osiris – both of whom wilt instantly to Bolt.
The Classical Age
Classical Age is one of Greece’s strongest times thanks to their powerful offensive units and the high quality of their troops. All Greek troops tend to have the highest attack and hit points for their unit type, although this is balanced by their increased cost and build time.
With all your best attacking units available before the other cultures have access to theirs, it’s important to take the fight to your opponent and put them on the defensive. It’s also important to note that once both you and your opponent are at the 115 classical pop limit, the quality of your troops gives you an advantage.
The downside to be aware of with the Greeks is that you will have more difficulty adapting to your opponent’s troops than he does to yours – this is because each of your unit lines is produced at a separate building, while the Egyptians and Norse can create all of their troops from the Barracks and Longhouse respectively. Each of your troop lines also requires a separate upgrade and quite different resources to produce. This is yet more reason to be aggressive and try to set the agenda.
Classical age strategy presents a lot of different options for the Zeus player, as you can feasibly use any of your unit lines, and add heroes and Myth Units to the mix. Zeus’s Hoplites are marginally better than the other Greek’s thanks to their increased speed and damage to buildings. However, due to their high food cost, low speed and low pierce armour, Hoplites do not make particularly good offensive units aside from their ability to quickly demolish buildings.
Zeus’s Hippikons and Toxotes are much better offensive units, with good killing power, although they lack the bonuses of Poseidon and Hades. However, this also makes it harder for your opponent to guess which troop types you will use.
Also worthy of a mention at this point are Zeus’s heroes – Jason and Odysseus. Produced from the Town Centre, both are potent units that should be included in any Greek army. Not only do they counter Myth Units, their impressive combat stats make them superior to Human Units and excellent value for population space.
Minor God choices are very important to Zeus, as his bonuses favor a myth heavy strategy. Hence, your choice of Gods will determine which types of unit you will have available for each game. Also, choosing different Deities gives you further upgrade options for your different troop lines.
Hermes: The Messenger of the Gods is a solid choice for any Greek player, with a very useful set of bonuses, and a potentially game saving God Power. Hermes favors mobile warfare by providing a boost for your cavalry, and Centaur myth units.
Improvement: Winged Messenger (50 G 10 Fv)
This technology eliminates the food cost of Pegasus entirely (they only cost 2 favor), speeds their training by 50%, and increases their LOS by 6. This is very useful if you plan to make multiple pegasi, but irrelevent if you aren’t. Keep in mind if you get this tech Pegasi are basically free, and very useful for keeping tabs on enemy activities.
Improvement: Spirited Charge (250 F 35 Fv)
This technology increases the speed and attack of cavalry by 10% each, greatly helping their effectiveness, especially for raiding. This is obviously only useful if you’re using large numbers of Hippikons, and is usually only affordable if you’re not making Myth units. Under these conditions it can be considered a high priority.
Improvement: Sylvan Lore (300 W 20 Fv)
This upgrade improves Centaurs to Polemarch Centaurs, who have 25% more hit points, and move 30% faster. This affordable upgrade helps toughen up this relatively vulnerable unit and makes it yet more manoeuverable. Well worth the price once you have several centaurs and have arrived at the population limit.
Myth unit: Centaur (200 W 15 Fv 3 Pop)
Half man, half horse, Centaurs are a very effective unit for Greece, combining speed, resilience and a powerful ranged attack. Their special attack is a 100% accurate, double damage shot with their bow.
This combination of abilities makes Centaurs easily the best classical age raiding unit available to any civilization, able to pick off villagers and effectively employ hit and run tactics. Especially with Zeus’s increased favor collection, Centaurs are relatively easy to mass compared to most MU’s and can often form a significant part of your army.
God power: Ceasefire
Ceasefire is one of the most useful and versatile powers in the game, preventing any combat from taking place on the map for a full minute. Ceasefire also prevents towers and fortresses from being built whilst it is in effect. Ceasefire has three main uses in most games.
The first and primary use is to help you when you’re in trouble – preventing combat for a minute gives you time to retreat your army, produce reinforcements, delay a rush or simply have a time-out to regroup. Used correctly, Ceasefire can change the momentum of a game at a stroke.
The second use is as a counter to enemy God Powers – many such as Bronze, Frost, Ancestors and Blazing Weapons have a limited duration which can be waited out using Ceasefire. You can also cast Ceasefire as a partial counter to some of the highly destructive powers such as Tornado, Earthquake and Meteors – this will give you time to repair most of the damage before they have a chance to follow it up.
The third use of Ceasefire is an offensive tool. While towers and fortresses cannot be built, walls, settlements and military buildings can. This can give you time to forward build or claim a settlement unmolested, and can be combined with the various transportation powers to appear suddenly at the enemy’s gate.
Ceasefire allows you to play more aggressively whilst it’s available – you can march towards your opponent’s base, safe in the knowledge that if you run into a large enemy force, double or come under heavy attack at home, that you’ll have time to respond before major damage is done.
Athena: The Greek Goddess of War and Wisdom gives a much more focused set of bonuses than Hermes, further increasing the effectiveness of Zeus’s Infantry units.
Improvement: Aegis Shield (200 W 25 Fv)
This technology decreases the pierce vulnerability of infantry units by 10% – effectively the same amount as researching Copper Shields. Due to it’s cost, and cross-line benefits, Copper Shields is your priority, but Aegis shield does add substantially to the resilience of your infantry to missile fire.
Improvement: Sarissa (200 W 20 Fv)
The Sarissa was a longer version of the Hoplite’s spear, first developed by the Macedonians. The Sarissa reduces the hack vulnerability of your Hoplites by 10% – effectively the same amount as researching Copper Armour. Again, Sarissa only benefits a single line compared to all your human troops, so is a lower priority.
Improvement: Labyrinth of Minos (250 W 20 Fv)
The original home of the Minotaur, the labyrinth upgrade is an essential technology for a player wishing to utilize them heavily. It upgrades your Minotaurs to Bull Minotaurs, improving their hit points by 40%, and also reducing their cost by 50 food. This means that ideally you want to research Labyrinth before making Minotaurs, which is relatively easy as it costs wood rather than food, and you then receive the benefits of a better unit for a lower price.
Myth unit: Minotaur (200 F 16 Fv 4 Pop)
With the body of a man and the head of a bull, Minotaurs are fearsomely tough and aggressive foot troops. Combining high armour values, attack and hit points, they’re very difficult for human troops and shooting buildings to bring down. Their Achilles heel is their sluggish speed, which unlike the Centaur makes it more difficult for them to avoid Heroes.
The Minotaur’s special attack is a head butt that inflicts 60/80 extra damage and sends the enemy unit flying through the air. With the Bull upgrade and Zeus’s improved favour collection, massing Minotaurs is quite possible, especially on food heavy and water maps.
God power: Restoration
This power lasts only for a few seconds, but will quickly heal all friendly units (and buildings) within its area of effect. The most important thing to note about restoration is that like all healing, its effects are considerably greater on idle units than fighting ones. So, as good an idea as it may seem to use this during combat, it’s far more effective when used afterwards.
Restoration particularly favors units with a lot of hit points, as these are the ones most likely to survive a battle, and gain the most from complete healing. The ideal time to use restoration is after an intense skirmish, followed by a withdrawal by one side before there’s a lot of casualties. Restoration allows you to return your army to full strength and immediately renew your attack before your opponent has a chance to recover.
Units
There are three main military land units available to Zeus in the classical age. Unlike as the Norse and Egyptians, you need to think ahead about what you will use since they come from different structures. In addition, you also get a new hero from the Town Center.
Hero unit: Odysseus (200 W 2 Fv 2 Pop)
The Hero from Homer’s epic, The Illiad, Odysseus sailed around most of the known world and had many adventures. Famous for using his brains as much as his brawn, Odysseus fights using a bow in AOM.
Like most Greek Heroes, Odysseus has a 7x damage multiplier against Myth units, and his ranged attack allows him to hunt them down effectively, even in the chaos of a pitched battle. His bow also allows him to attack flying Myth Units such as Phoenix and Nidhogg.
Hoplite (60 F 35 G 2 Pop)
The Hoplite (Heavy Spearman) was historically the mainstay of Greek armies and arguably the most effective unit on the ancient battlefield. Armed with a 14-foot spear, they were armoured with a round shield, breastplate, helmet and leggings. They were grouped into densely packed formations called Phalanx. Unless their formation was disrupted, Phalanx were very difficult to engage effectively in close combat, as rank upon rank of overlapping spears bristled from them like a porcupine.
In AoM, Classical Age Hoplites are strong melee fighters with good hack armour and attack, but generally have a fairly limited role in most Greek armies. There is a combination of factors that cause this, but the primary one is that there is no real reason to build Hoplites over Hippikons.
Hippikons have better attack, pierce armor, hit points and speed – making them a far more versatile fighter and an effective raiding unit. Hoplites only real advantages are their lower gold and population costs, and their high effectiveness against buildings. (when Zeus)
As the game progresses past classical age, Hoplites become more appealing due to their low costs and fighting ability.
Hippikon (40 F 80 G 3 Pop)
Aside from Myth Units, Hippikons are the Kings of the classical battlefield, able to outfight or at least outrun any other human unit. Hippikons have very high attack and hit points, plus quite reasonable pierce armour and a 1.3x bonus against archer units.
Hippikons are technically countered by Spearmen, Hoplites and Ulfsarks, however this is more about cost effectiveness than raw fighting power – and you can expect Hippikons to win a fight against a similar number of any human unit in classical age. However, to get the best out of your expensive Hippikons, they’re best used for raiding and flanking manuevers.
Later in the game Hippikons are still a strong, if expensive, unit, although they never really achieve their classical age domination again once the Norse and Egyptian heavy cavalry units become available.
Toxotes (55 W 35 G 2 Pop)
Toxotes are the only ‘traditional’ foot archer unit in the game, offering a lot of firepower once massed. Massing Toxotes is relatively easy due to their cheap wood/gold cost, and they make an excellent complement to any other Greek Classical unit. They excel at taking down units such as Ulfsarks and Axemen – making Hippikons a good choice against Norse players, and Hoplites a good choice against Egyptians.
However, Toxotes are relatively vulnerable in combat, with little armour, speed and hit points. This makes it doubly important to combine them with another unit that can absorb damage more easily.
The Heroic Age
Advancing to Heroic Age is both a blessing and a curse for Greek players. It allows you to create counter units and siege, plus the option to build fortresses and new Town Centers, however Greece’s enemies now have much stronger troops available to them.
Gaining access to counter units increases your adaptability, as you can now produce both the main unit, and it’s counter from the same building – and both also share the same upgrades. However, bear in mind that Greek counters units are only effective against their target unit, and distinctly ineffective against units they don’t counter directly.
Utilize your strong army, ranged siege and powerful fortresses to establish control and try to engage in a positional war against Norse and Egyptian opponents. Ranged siege is your primary advantage at this stage of the game, and you should attempt to make it as large a factor as possible.
Choosing a Heroic Age God with Zeus can be tricky, as both Apollo and Dionysus offer powerful but diverse strengths. Although this choice is most influenced by the ingame situation, your choice of Classical Age God is a factor:
- Hermes offers advantages to your cavalry, and this advantage can be further amplified by choosing Dionysus – giving you some of the best cavalry in the game. Their myth units also complement each other well, with the wood costing, ranged Centaur and the food costing, melee Hydra.
- Athena and Apollo offer a similar complement to each other’s strengths. Apollo’s Underworld Passage helps a great deal with the slow speed of a Hoplite army, and his Sun Ray benefits their supporting missile troops. Likewise, the Food costing, melee Minotaur complements the Wood costing, ranged Manticore.
Having your myth units cost different resources is extremely useful for a favor heavy civilisation like Zeus, as it allows you to produce a myth unit for whichever kind of resource you have an excess of.
Apollo: Worshipped by many Greeks as the God of Archery, Apollo also had abilities that allowed him to see the future and heal the sick. These skills are reflected in his mythic technologies.
Improvement: Oracle (200 W 10 Fv)
This upgrade gives a +6 LOS to all your units and buildings, removing more of the fog of war and making intelligence gathering easier. This is a difficult technology to assess the benefits of, as it tends to help you indirectly, providing additional information for you to make decisions with. However, it does not provide you with any direct, mathematical boost to your unit stats. For the relatively low cost it is well worth researching in any game where your resources are not under too much pressure.
Improvement: Temple of Healing (150 G 20 Fv)
This technology provides fast healing for a single unit at a time per temple, and is the only sustained method by which a Greek player can heal their units.
Temple of Healing combines well with Zeus as you’ll tend to have more temples around than any other civilization, plus lots of high hit point units to heal. Once into Mythic Age, try to build some forward temples for Myth Unit production and healing, whilst keeping the majority of your favor collection in a safer area.
Improvement: Sun Ray (200 G 40 Fv)
This technology is the only one available to Zeus to improve his archery lines, adding +10% to the damage inflicted by archers, centaurs and manticores. However, it is quite expensive and does not benefit your melee troops, unlike the bronze weapons upgrade. Usually I would advance to Mythic Age before acquiring this technology, although if you’re using Toxotes heavily in Heroic and have the spare favor, there’s no reason to wait.
Myth unit: Manticore (300 W 28 Fv 5 Pop)
The Manticore is creature with a lion’s body, a human face and ears, three rows of sharp teeth in both jaws, and carrying poisoned spines in its tail that could shoot out. The manticore is best described as an anti-archer unit. Although it’s stats are relatively unimpressive compared to other Greek Heroic myth units, and it is all but useless against heroes, the Manticore has a lot of pierce armor, and boasts splash damage.
This area effect attack is really the key to getting the most out of Manticores – their paltry 11 attack may not seem like much, but multiplies up quickly against densely packed units since it deals out three attacks at once. A pack of manticores with a ‘meat shield’ is extremely dangerous to your opponents.
God power: Underworld Passage
This God Power allows you to permanently open two portals anywhere within your LOS – any units entering one portal are instantly transported to the other, and vice-versa. If either portal is destroyed by enemy action, both will disappear.
Underworld Passage has many possible uses, both defensive and offensive. In 1v1 games Passage is usually used to attack with – by using your Scout or Pegasus it’s possible to get a LOS close to your opponent and launch a surprise attack. This is particularly effective on maps where your opponent is not expecting to be attacked by land yet, or thinks he’s safely walled you out. (Although when he sees you’ve advanced under Apollo, he should take a guess at what you plan.) An important point to note when using this power offensively is to forward build around the portal incase it is destroyed and your supply line cut.
Defensively you can use the portal to quickly move troops between two parts of your empire – this allows you to keep all your forces together and have a major mobility advantage over your opponent. This is especially useful in team games when the ability to instantly move between two places on a large map allows for excellent co-ordination and concentration of force. Whenever using Passage defensively, be sure to place it behind your military buildings where it is afforded a degree of protection, and quickly allows for reinforcement deployment.
Dionysis: The God of Wine and Revelry is a popular (almost automatic) choice for many Poseidon players thanks to his cavalry improvement, powerful myth unit and handy God Power. Dionysus is also appealing to a Zeus player for slightly different reasons. His mythic technologies are as follows:
Improvement: Thracian Horses (400 F 30 Fv)
This improvement increases cavalry hit points by 20%, considerably adding to their survivability in combat and raiding. Combined with Hermes’s Spirited Charge, this technology makes Zeus and Poseidon’s Hippikons one of the best cavalry units in the game.
Get this upgrade as soon as possible when making heavy use of cavalry.
Improvement: Bacchanalia (300 W 20 Fv)
This technology gives all of your units an additional 5% hit points. While this is a small increase per unit, the overall effect is quite pronounced over an extended period of time. Although this upgrade is not top priority, you should certainly attempt to have researched it by mid-mythic age.
Improvement: Anastrophe (300 F 20 Fv)
This technology improves your ramming ships – granting them +20 hack attack, +10% speed and training them 25% faster. Combined with the Scylla this upgrade can help you establish control of the sea.
Myth unit: Hydra (250 F 20 Fv 5 Pop)
The Hydra is a reptile juggernaut that grows further heads as it makes more kills. (One head per three kills. You can kill animals or buildings too.) There’s no doubting that the Hydra is a very strong and cost effective Myth Unit, sporting 800 hit points, good armor and additional crush damage. Hydras can grow additional heads if they make sufficient kills – and each head grants it a multiplication of damage. A hydra with two heads does twice as much damage.
The only real disadvantages of the Hydra are that it has no special attack, that its large size makes it easy to target in a crowded battlefield, and that it has no regular method for regaining hit points. (Without allied help.) Hence it can be difficult to keep your elite multi-headed hydra alive for very long. Despite these minor drawbacks, the Hydra is still an excellent and cost effective unit.
Myth unit: Scylla (200 G 15 Fv 5 Pop)
The Scylla is essentially a naval version of the Hydra, sharing very similar attributes, but with increased pierce armor and decreased hack armour. Scyllas are hugely effective on water, as there is a lack of naval heroes to counter them; your opponent has to rely on ramming ships. (And lots of them.) Only other naval myth units can effectively counter them for the population space.
God power: Bronze
Dionysus’s power is quite straightforward – it armors all non-hero, non-mythic allied units within its target area with Bronze – increasing both hack and pierce armor for its duration. Bronze lasts for a full minute and a half, and is usually enough to swing a reasonably close battle in your favour.
Bronze is best used just as the melee troops collide in a large battle – this way you’ll get maximum effect and your opponent will not be able to disengage without taking additional casualties. Be aware that although Bronze is enough to swing a close fought battle, many people over-estimate its effect – it’s still vital to micromanage your troops in the normal way.
Units
The three new counter units become available in the Heroic age, but there is also the mighty Greek Petrobolos and another new hero.
Hero unit: Heracles (350 F 4 Fv 3 Pop)
More commonly known by the Roman name ‘Hercules’, Heracles was a son of Zeus by a human woman. Heracles was famed for his massive strength (and if the TV series is to be believed, his dodgy haircut and Pro-Wrestling moves) and was involved in many adventures, including his legendary 12 labors.
Heracles is essentially a stronger version of Jason, with increased attack, armor and hit points. However, he is more expensive and also requires more population space.
Hypaspist (60 F 25 G 2 Pop)
The Hypaspist (Shield-bearing Guard) was historically a lightly armored version of the Hoplite, charged with protecting the flanks of the unmanoeuverable Phalanx formations. Their exact weaponry is unknown, although in AoM they have been equipped with short swords similar to the Roman Gladius.
Hypaspists specialize in countering other infantry units, and receive a 4.3x damage bonus against infantry units (including Throwing Axemen) and Hersirs. However, their relatively low attack is not particularly effective against other kinds of unit.
Hypaspists benefit from any infantry upgrades that you buy for Hoplites, and are also built from the Academy. Hypaspists tend to be most useful against Norse players, as they counter Ulfsarks, Huskarls and Hersirs, plus receive their damage bonus against Throwing Axemen.
Prodromos (70 F 40 G 3 Pop)
Wearing light armor and carrying spears, Promodos are a fast moving anti-cavalry unit, boasting a 3x damage bonus against other mounted units. (They also beat the Egyptian Camelry due to their larger bonus.) This mixture of extra damage and speed makes Promodos far more flexible than Hoplites in dealing with raiders, although they lack the Hoplite’s raw fighting ability against anything but cavalry.
Promodos have poor pierce armor and are not terribly effective at fighting mainline archer units. They’re built from the stable, and benefit from upgrades to the Hippikon line.
Peltast (60 W 20 G 2 Pop)
Peltasts were named after the small, round shield (Pelta) that they utilized. Their other equipment included a short sword, short javelins and some light armor. They were employed as light infantry and skirmishers, being particularly effective over steep or broken ground where Phalanx struggled to manuever.
Peltasts are an anti-archer unit, boasting a small attack, but a large damage bonus against archery units (4x vs Archers, 2x vs Throwing Axemen). This makes them very effective against their counter units, but very weak against anything else. Also remember that unlike previous Age games, Peltasts do not have strong pierce armor, just a very effective anti-archer attack – so they’re no better at surviving missile fire, just dealing with the source of it.
Peltasts only tend to come into heavy use against other Greek players using Toxotes, Egyptian players using Chariot Archers or Norse with a large number of Throwing Axemen. They are produced from the Archery Range, and benefit from any upgrades to the Toxotes line.
Petrobolos (200 G 150 W 2 Pop)
An early form of catapult, the Petrobolos is a long-range siege weapon ideally suited to siege warfare. Built from the Fortress, the Petrobolos offers several advantages to the Greeks over the other cultures, as it is the only ranged siege weapon available in the Heroic Age. This means that a Greek can attack enemy fortifications from outside their range, forcing them to either attack your position, or lose their buildings.
The downside of the Petrobolos is that it lacks the sheer power and toughness of the melee siege weapons, although this is a relatively small price to pay. Also note that Petrobolos receive a 2.5x damage bonus against Ships.
The Mythic Age
Mythic Age is usually a time for Zeus to reveal his full power, as no other god is capable of collecting as much favor. This means that provided your economy is strong, you should be able to produce more tough myth units than your opponent, and hence have a decisive advantage on the battlefield.
It’s important to remember that even with Zeus’s advantages, making just myth units is usually a mistake, especially against Norse players. The best combination is usually of myth units, siege weapons and a human unit that excels at killing enemy heroes. Against the Norse, Promodros are your first choice against the tough Jarls, against Egypt, Toxotes or Hippikons can quickly deal with Priests.
If for whatever reason you can’t move to a myth heavy strategy, Zeus does have several other strings to his bow. The first and probably best is his Infantry. Depending on your minor god choices, it’s possible for Zeus to have very tough Infantry, and you also have access to the very effective Myrmidon.
Your final age minor God choice is between Hera and Hephaestus – both offering quite different strengths. Hera offers the potential for a single, devastating attack, plus improvements to your Myth units, and the Medusa, which specialises in killing powerful enemy units. Hephaestus is suited to a more attritional style, offering an exceptionally strong Myth unit, cheaper armoury improvements and a continous source of income.
Their Myth units offer a similar choice, the Medusa has a deadly special attack, but is weak otherwise, while the Colossus is a juggernaut siege weapon and great at taking out MU’s also. Both cost gold, so if you’ve already picked a matched pair of minor gods, you can use any resource (plus favor) to produce myth units.
Hera: Zeus’s wife and Queen of the Gods, Hera was the Goddess of Hearth, Home and Childbirth. Forced into marrying Zeus, she often plotted against him in revenge for his numerous affairs. Fortunately in AOM, these marital difficulties have been put to one side, and Hera is uniquely available as a Mythic Age choice for Zeus. Hera offers a further boost to the strength of Zeus’s myth units, plus an extremely effective Myth Unit and a deadly anti-personnel God Power.
Hera is an ideal choice when you have your opponent on the ropes, or when you have a good economy/map control already and plan to mass-produce myth units. Hera can also quickly turn a game situation around by devastating an enemy army, but be aware that if this gambit fails you’ll have nothing to fall back on.
Improvement: Monstrous Rage (250 F 25 Fv)
This upgrade is a priority for any player making moderate to heavy use of Myth units – and combines well with your faster favour generation to make Zeus the premier civilisation choice for Myth units. Rage increases the hack, pierce and crush damage of Myth units by 25% – making already impressive attack stats even more so, especially for units that inflict crush damage in addition to their standard attack.
Improvement: Athenian Wall (400 W 30 Fv)
Athens was famed for its strong fortifications, and this technology boosts the hit points of your walls and buildings by 10% to reflect this. Although this upgrade is useful for boosting the resilience of your buildings and is worthwhile if you have a lot of spare resources, in most games it is a low priority – with the possible exception of games involving Wonders.
Improvement: Face of the Gorgon (400 W 30 Fv)
This technology upgrades Medusas to Medusa Matriachs, increasing their hit points by 33% from 360 to approximately 480. This helps to compensate for the Medusa’s relative lack of hit points for a mythic age unit and is worthwhile to purchase once you have several Medusas already in use, or no available population space and excess favour.
Myth unit: Medusa (250 G 40 Fv 5 Pop)
The original Medusa was extremely beautiful mortal before she angered Athena, who struck her down with a terrible curse. Medusa became part snake, and so ugly that merely looking at her could turn people to stone. In AoM Medusas retain this ability with a special attack that instantly turns any unit other than heroes, siege or flying units to stone, killing them instantly. Medusas also carry a bow that they use to moderate effect with until their special attack recharges. They also inflict a little additional crush damage with their ranged attack.
Medusas have good armor, but relatively low hit points and attack, and it’s their special ability that truly makes them a worthwhile unit. Medusa’s excel against other myth units and also against tough units such as Mercenaries. Micromanage them carefully to target their special attacks and avoid Heroes.
God power: Lightning Storm
Hera’s wrath briefly summons a storm that shoots out bolts of lightning over a wide area, killing enemy units and inflicting moderate damage to buildings. Lightning Storm is easy to argue as the strongest anti-unit power in the game, able to reduce proud armies into a ragtag mob of survivors, and easily swing a battle in your favour.
However, it is fairly ineffective against buildings and a smart opponent will use this to his advantage by garrisoning his army when this power is invoked, so draw your opponent out and pick the right moment to let loose. Also be sure to use it on as large a concentration of enemy troops as possible to get maximum effect.
Hephaestus was the God of Forge and Fire. He was the smith and armorer of the Gods, excelling at forging powerful artifacts (such as Zeus’s thunderbolt), and weapons for those mortals deemed worthy. In AOM Hephaestus reflects this by providing a range of armory upgrades that benefit human troops, as well as the Mighty Collosus and an economic God Power.
Hephaestus is a safer choice than Hera, but lacks her cutting edge. Hephaestus is an excellent choice for long or undecided games as his god power continues to help you throughout. This especially useful when your opponent has superior map control and is denying you settlements and/or gold.
Improvement: Weapon of the Titans (400 G 20 Fv)
The Titans were the original creatures that ruled the world before the Gods overthrew them. The Weapon of the Titans upgrade benefits the unique unit of each major Greek god produced at the Fortress – in the case of Zeus, the Myrmidon. This upgrade adds 20% to the hack attack of the Myrmidon, and allows them to be produced 50% faster.
If you have several fortresses up, and the battlefield situation will support a switch from the Greek Barracks line to the Myrmidon, it is worthwhile to get this upgrade and use them, as they are arguably the best infantry unit in the game.
Improvement: Forge of Olympus (300 G 60 Fv)
This technology reduces the cost of all armory improvements by 75%, greatly reducing the cost of fully upgrading your troops. Considering the mythic (Iron) upgrades cost a combined 3100 resources, this is a very worthwhile upgrade. However, it can often be difficult to save up the necessary favor in a real game situation when using MU’s to bolster your army. You also have to spend resources now, in order to (hopefully) save them later. This can be difficult in a competitive RTS game.
Essentially Forge of Olympus looks excellent on paper, but must be judged against the game situation. If the game looks like it will last for a fair while longer and/or you can afford the cost fairly easily, go ahead and get it. On the other hand, if the fight is very close, or is going against you, then spending resources on a technology with no easily recouped benefits is a mistake.
Also be careful about putting off the earlier armory upgrades for too long in the hope of getting them at a discount in Mythic age. The armory upgrades are vital to your troop’s performance in battle, and there’s no point losing thousands of resources now in an effort to save hundreds later. Of course if you’re in a good position to get away with delaying them, then go right ahead.
Improvement: Hand of Talos (300 W 20 Fv)
Talos was the infamous ‘Man of Bronze’ who menaced Jason and his Argonauts during their quest for the Golden Fleece. Researching Hand of Talos upgrades your Colossi to Silver Colossi, who have +100 hit points.
Although this upgrade offers a relatively small 9% increase in hit points, it’s relatively cheap and allows the much better Shoulder of Talos to be researched. Make sure you can continue Colossi production before following this research path.
Improvement: Shoulder of Talos (300 G 20 Fv, Requires Hand of Talos)
Researching Shoulder of Talos further upgrades your Colossi to Gold Colossi, who are even tougher with another 200 hit points, and -20% hack vulnerability. (Giving a total 60% Hack Armor and 1400 hit points)
Shoulder of Talos is relatively cheap compared to the price of producing Colossi, and should be researched on you have a few already on the battlefield.
Myth unit: Colossus (300 G 40 Fv 5 Pop)
The original Colossus was a giant bronze statue that stood astride the habor at Rhodes, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. The Colossi found in AoM closely resemble Talos, a giant made of bronze and impervious to normal weapons. Although not impervious to mortal troops, Colossi have massive hit points, armor and a fair attack, making them incredibly tough to take down with anything but Hero units or God Powers.
Colossi also have the ability to eat both trees and gold mines to restore their health – and a wily player can exploit this as an unusual way of denying their opponent gold. The drawbacks of Collosi are their high cost, slow speed and lack of special attack.
God power: Plenty
Plenty Vault is unusual as one of the few Greek god powers that offers an economic benefit, and is not to be under-estimated. Once cast, Plenty Vault is a permanent feature of the map that cannot be destroyed, although it can be captured by the enemy if not properly defended. Whoever controls the plenty vault receives 15 each of food, wood and gold every 5 seconds.
Although this may only seem to be worth approximately 6 extra villagers, the effects seem to far outshine this – especially the extremely welcome gold income.
The longer the game continues, the more benefits you will get from plenty vault, giving you a much stronger economy than your opponent, or allowing you to delete some of your villagers and free up some population space for more military.
Units
The three new counter units become available in the Heroic age, but there is also the mighty Greek Petrobolos and another new hero.
Hero unit: Bellerophon (400 G 5 Fv 4 Pop)
Bellerophon was famous for his series of adventures around Greece, most notably his taming of Pegasus and forging of a lead lance that he then used to kill the ferocious Chimera.
Riding a Pegasus and armed with his lance, Bellerophon is one of the most potent units in the game, with his speed and jump attack making him extremely good at reaching the right opponent at the right time, and with his large attack, swiftly dispatching them. This makes him particularly useful against ranged units, siege weapons and of course Myth units, who quickly wilt before him. Make good use of his jump attack which takes only 5 seconds to recharge and does 100 hack damage. Target him on a unit more than 5 meters away for him to use it.
Myrmidon (70 F 50 G 2 Pop)
Myrmidons were members of a warlike Thessalian people who were ruled by Achilles and followed him on the expedition against Troy. They were famed for their loyalty. Myrmidons are Zeus’s unique unit, and can be produced from the Fortress once you reach Mythic Age. They receive the benefits of the usual Hoplite/Hypaspist line upgrades.
Myrmidons are superior melee troops with impressive all-round combat statistics and also a 1.5x damage modifier against any non-Greek troops. Once you have a sufficiently strong economy not to worry about costs, and have enough fortresses to meet your production needs, Myrmidons are extremely effective and should make up the bulk of your human army against non-Greek opponents.
Helepolis (300 W 200 G 4 Pop)
Helepolis are short ranged siege towers capable of both inflicting and absorbing vast quantities of damage. Helepolis are a great unit to provide cutting edge to your attack, rapidly destroying buildings and soaking up missile fire from enemy troops.
The downsides of the Helepolis are its relative vulnerability to melee attacks, its cost and its tactical inflexibility when compared to the Petrobolos.
I generally use the rule of the thumb that against a relatively vulnerable or unprepared opponent, Helepolis are the best choice, against a well dug-in opponent, Petrobolos can be more effective.
Well, that’s it. I hope this has sufficiently covered all you need to know about Zeus!
-UKAK_Sando
Source: UKAK_Sando · HeavenGames