Age Of Mythology Invades Atlantis

Thanks to GameSpot for their hands-on preview of Age Of Mythology: The Titans, the expansion pack to the popular RTS which "chronicles how the surviving Atlanteans were able to rebuild their civilization." One of the big selling points for this add-on seems to be, well, the Titans themselves: "Each of the game's four civilizations has one unique titan. All the titans are massive melee combat units that move slowly and inflict incredible damage, and they can also take a lot of punishment, as each one has 7,000 health. That's almost six times as many hit points as the closest comparable unit from the original game, the colossus." There's also an impressive-looking set of screenshots for the Ensemble-developed expansion, which is due out in October.

Comments

I'm speechless

[Henry V .009]

Wow 7,000! Imagine how hard they must have worked to pack that many hit-points in. This game will rule. Unless, of course, another game comes out where the creatures have 70,000 hitpoints. Don't know what they'd do then.

Re:I'm speechless

[ceejayoz]

Sounds like Final Fantasy...

Re:I'm speechless

[Deflagro]

No kidding. I just beat FFX and thought it was so funny to see my guys hit for 99,999. It's sad when you have to hit a monster that hard over a dozen times to kill it tho. Loved that game but i want Origins!

Just my 2 cents.

ATLiens

[Dot Com Drew]

Sweet! They finally got Outkast into that game. I can't decide if I want to be Big Boi or Andre 3000. Maybe I'll be someone from the DF. I bet Cee-Lo has this crazy ass power where he does something super funky and all the bad guys can't help but get down.

or maybe I didn't read the article.

The MS Office Team helping them out?

[cbuskirk]

A $30? expantion pack and All I get are the same features exploded way out of porportion?

Re:The MS Office Team helping them out?

[Daetrin]

*pssst* i bet you could download an editor and create/edit your own titans for a lot less than $30.

Re:The MS Office Team helping them out?

[gorgon_123]

... and 20 hours later you would have something that still isn't up to the standard of quality of the expansion pack. An expansion pack that includes an entire new campaign. Which you won't be able to replicate without a team of programmers and artists working for months on end. $30 ... what a ripoff ;)

Re:The MS Office Team helping them out?

[Daetrin]

Hmmm, i bought a copy of Age of Empires and tried out the campaign. I got bored less than halfway through. So yeah, unless they've gotten a lot better more of the same for $30 would be a real ripoff.

Re:The MS Office Team helping them out?

[Suppafly]

They must be taking a hint from the Sims franchise which has managed to get people to pay $30 for 6 different expansions to the same games. Most of the expansions just add features that should have been in the original game in the first place.

Doesn't Exist?!? Wha?

[JasonMaggini]

Damn, there go my vacation plans. Curse Expedia, they already charged my credit card for three nights at the Atlantis Hilton...

Rehash

[DrWho520]

Yet another example of rehashing a game. Yes, I know its an expansion. Yes, I know everyone does it. But Age of Mythology is basically Age of Empires with lightning bolts and now Titans. Woo-hoo. I think I will go read a book.

Re:Rehash

[Quill_28]

Why is this a troll?

He makes a good point, I have AOM but little desire for this expansion, all it has is bigger units from what I can tell.

On another note when it is there going to be a RTS that requires strategy and not quick clicking and knowing the build "route".

It seems that there is too much micro-managing in these games.

For instance, why do I have to tell my scout to scout? Maybe with different aggresiveness settings?

Tell a raiding party to knock off laborers if a army comes to thump you, then RUN!

I could go on.

Re:Rehash

[bitrott]

I've heard this sentiment before. It's a little daft. If you're looking for a NEW experience, get a NEW game. If you're already enjoying a game experience and want to have more fun in the same world with new units, etc, get an expansion pack. There's a market for both. Yes it is much like AOE, but for those of us who appreciate detail, it's different in enough ways as to make it worth our time. Really people, you make it sound like every game on the shelf needs to be mind-fuckingly original. Why is modding such a huge sensation, if people don't enjoy fun in the same context. Now the price IS a little steep, but that's a different matter.

Re:Rehash

[rodgerd]

It seems an awful lot like an unholy combination of "RTS for dummies" modifications, along with "l33t unit" syndrome.

Re:Rehash

[tfreport]

Take a look at Rise of Nations. It was designed by Brian Reynolds (the man that made Civilization 2) and his talented staff at Big Huge Games. It has many of the things you seem to be looking for.

One click has your scout scouting the map looking for resources and your enemy. You are forced to make choices on what path you research. You build cities that are the base of all of your unit gathering powers. Your citizens find the resource that should be gathered in each city. And many other innovative features that take much of the repetitious micromanagement out of the game.

Let me know what you think and maybe we can play a game or two after you get some experience.

Re:Rehash

[bitrott]

Honestly, I think RTS critics are never happy. Not that there isn't room for growth. See my reply to grandparent thread. Your "innovations" aren't much more than macros. Since you're advocating getting rid of micro-management and adding macro functionality, maybe you'd be happier playing something else. RTS is clearly not for you.

Re:Rehash

[Quill_28]

No what I am saying is that many units are useless because they are brainless.

For instance take StarCraft, many units would/could be quite powerful, but you have to control every thing you do.

The ghosts are dead before you can get to them and fire off a couple rounds.
I should be able to say queen parasite any thing you see, queen broodling any tank you see. Wonder around until you see something if attacked flee.

Instead you just end up with mass rushes because it is the most efficent way to do things. Thus becoming a click fest.

Take you click-fest I just want some strategy in my RTS.

Groovy.

[BadmanX]

Age of Mythology was a great game that I thoroughly enjoyed, and it looks like this expansion is going to make it richer, more energetic, easier to play and prettier. Can't wait; just hope my box can keep up.

Re:Groovy.

[HunterCat]

I have to disagree with this. This expansion package is just making AoM a fighter game. That is fine if that is what you are looking for, but I have always expected more for the Age of franchise. I wanted to have to think about my society and plan military and society upgrades. Now it is getting to be just an attack game where you "city" is nothing more than a glorified base. It just seems to be the upping the action by dumbing down the game. I got tired of this demo quickly and went back to the Conquerors game which I found much more enjoyable. Online Game Fan? Test Your Skills Here

RTS? Nah, it's an RTBOMPHCV

[gorgon_123]

I really enjoyed the Age of Kings series and was happy enough when AoM first came out. But let's be honest here, the two aren't very different. From the Gamespot article:

"Instead of creating another history-themed real-time strategy game, the developer opted to use a setting based on ancient mythology--a setting that allowed it to draw upon classic Greek, Egyptian, and Norse lore and bring legendary heroes and monsters to life onscreen. The game also gave players the ability to customize their strategies by choosing to worship different minor gods, which would give them different bonuses and different special abilities known as 'god powers.' "

Fine, there are god powers. Fine, the civs are more different from each other than in AoK. But get real, despite these tweaks the gameplay is the same. If you've played AoK there is ZERO learning curve going into AoM.

I didn't bother finishing the single player campaign in AoM, but played a good deal of multiplayer. My biggest gripe is that whoever has memorized the "perfect" build order for their civ and can click the fastest will win every single time. I say rename Real-Time-Strategy genre to Real-Time-Build-Order-Memorization-Plus-Hyper-Clic king-Skillz, or RTBOMPHCV. Put that acronymn in your pipe and smoke it.

I won't be getting the expansion pack.

Re:RTS? Nah, it's an RTBOMPHCV

[yasth]

The single player campaign is actually kind of fun, you should finish it. And just because they didn't mess anyone up doesn't mean that they didn't add things. I mean the villagers are a bit smarter, and there are some other tweaks. The addition of myth units does add even more things to the countering strategy (almost too many). The terrain is more varied too, though that doens't seem to be used.

Besides the new graphics are so purty :-P

An off-topic post on Age of Mythology...

[MBraynard]

Am I alone in thinking that graphics, aside from water, got worse when they went from sprites to full 3d? I think AoK looks so much better than AoM.

Paper, Rock, Scissors

[nobodyman]

One thing that has started to really bother me with the current crop of RTS games is the "Paper, Rock, Scissors" element ( Archers kill swordsmen, swordsmen kill infantry, infantry kill archers, etc. etc.). There was always some of that in the the older games such as Starcraft and AoM, but you also had units that were mostly "general purpose". For example, a terran marine dealt out an equal amount of damage to all it's enemies. In AoM, you could spend a huge amount of money on myth units... only to watch them get slaughtered by the cheapest hero unit (which have a 7x damage multiplier against myth units) available.

have amplified Personally, I hate micro-managing large scale battles. I think I'm in the minority though, as newer games have seemed to play up this aspect. The RTS games of the past seemed to favor players that were good mayors, whereas the rts of today favor good generals. Oh well.

Re:Paper, Rock, Scissors

[Prien715]

I definitely agree. Even Blizzard (through Warcraft 3) has done this to some extent and I think it's necessary. If there's one all-purpose unit, people will simply crank that unit out exclusively.

However, battle micro in starcraft I felt was under-stressed. Having watched my brother and other high ranked people play SC, I quickly noticed no one payed any attention to combat whatsoever, making caster type units (templars, ghosts, queens) pretty ineffective.

I like warcraft 3's balance. Many units have auto-cast, so you don't have to micro casters and battle has been considerably slowed compared to production rate, so it's now possible to be somewhat skillful in battle without knowing all the hotkeys. The unit cap makes it so there are seldom any battles on the scaled of starcraft, which many people have canned, but I honestly think that this's the best feature as it allows you room to control things.

My 2 cents.

Re:Paper, Rock, Scissors

[PainKilleR-CE]

I think the reason most RTS games have been moving towards PRS-style units is simply because the previous incarnations (mostly due to C&C and Warcraft) had become too much of a get(resources)-build(uber-unit)-send(wave of units) affair. Even with StarCraft there are a couple of units in each race that you can do this with, assuming you can hold out against the early rush. You don't need to pay attention to battle because you're just doing the get-build-send cycle, and once they're sent they either win or lose, but if you can get-build-send some more the backup will finish the job.

Re:Paper, Rock, Scissors

[Will2k_is_here]

Of course, it is the ability to get-build-send simultaneously (or micro-manage) that makes players so good and makes such games so popular.

I think the AGE OF... series sports a different style of strategy then Warcraft or Starcraft did. It placed more emphasis on the get-build-send which many gamers have mastered and enjoyed. The amount of practice that goes into accomplishing this has made the game enjoyable for many gamers. Think about those who calculate build times and the ideal build orders. This is why they do it, to better accomplish their get-build-send strategy.

Warcraft and Starcraft were not based on this strategy. They draw their audiences because they are simpler. They both emphasized the ability to expand territory to accomplish the "get" phase. Battles are not as directly based on the get phase and the get is not as directly based on the build-send phase. They both strive to overwhelm the opponent by cutting them off from supplies and simply massing up your number1 melee, (sometimes) your number1 ranged for support, and your number1 siege for a quick destruction. Rock-Paper-Scissors approach makes cutting off your opponent to difficult to accomplish because it is too easily countered.

Nice while it lasted.

[JT131]

Step aside, Rise Of Nations rules...