Age of Mythology

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Age of Mythology
Developer(s)	Ensemble Studios
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Game Studios
Version	1.10
Platform(s)	Windows (XP, 2000, ME, and 98),[1] Mac OS X.[2]
Release date	NA October 30, 2002[3] EU November 11, 2002[3]
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: Teen (T)[4] PEGI: 12+[5]
Media	2 CD-ROMs
System requirements	450 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, 1.5 GB hard disk space, 16 MB GPU, 56k modem for multiplayer[4]
Input methods	Keyboard and mouse

Age of Mythology (commonly abbreviated as AoM), is a mythology-based, real-time strategy computer game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It was released on November 1, 2002 in North America and a week later in Europe.^[3]

Age of Mythology focuses less on historical accuracy than previous games in the Age of Empires series, but instead centers upon the myths and legends of the Greeks, Egyptians, and Norse.^[6] Its campaign follows an Atlantean admiral, Arkantos, who is forced to travel through the lands of the three civilizations in the game, hunting for a cyclops who has turned Poseidon against Atlantis.^[7]

Four months after its release, Age of Mythology went platinum, selling over 1 million units.^[8]

[edit] Gameplay

Like many other real-time strategy games, Age of Mythology is based on building towns, gathering resources, creating armies, and ultimately destroying enemy units and buildings. In this way, players are able to defeat and conquer rival towns and civilizations. Players advance their tribe through four "Ages": starting in the Archaic Age, the player may upgrade to the Classical Age, the Heroic Age, and finally, the Mythic Age. Each upgrade to a higher Age unlocks new units and technologies for the player, which strengthens their settlement. Conversely, upgrading requires a sum of resources to be paid, and certain buildings to be built.^[9]

In this screenshot, an Egyptian town under attack by the Norse, defending itself using the meteor god power.

There are three playable civilizations in Age of Mythology: the Greeks, Egyptians, and Norse. Each civilization has three "major gods"—deities; they are: Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Isis, Ra, Set, Thor, Odin, and Loki. The player chooses their major god before the game begins. Every time a player advances to the next age, a "minor god" is selected. Minor gods are slightly less significant historically than their major counterparts. Some minor gods include Bast and Aphrodite.^[10] All gods grant to the player unique technologies, myth units, and a unique god power—a special ability which can either benefit the user or damage his/her opponent.^[11]

There are four major resources in Age of Mythology: food, wood, gold, and favor; unlike previous games by Ensemble Studios, this game does not include the stone resource. Resources can be used to train units, construct buildings, and research technologies, among other things. Civilian units—namely, the Greek villagers, Norse gatherers and dwarfs, the Egyptian laborers, and fishing boats—are used to gather resources. Hunting animals, gathering berries, harvesting livestock, farming, and fishing are all methods by which food can be gathered. Wood is gathered only by chopping down trees, and gold is gathered from either gold mines or from trade. Each civilization can purchase upgrades that increase the rate of gathering these resources. Favor is acquired in different ways by different civilizations: Greek players gain it by having villagers pray at temples; Egyptian players earn it by building monuments; and Norse players receive it by fighting or by possessing heroes.^[12] Resources can be exchanged at a player's market.

[edit] Units

Main article: List of units in the Age of Mythology series

The bulk of each civilization's army is made of human soldiers. Each player has a maximum "population", although the player does not start with the ability to use this entire "population". Building additional houses or Town Centers—the main building in a player's town—increases the population capacity. Each unit takes up a different number of population slots: civilians take one, whilst some myth units can take up to five.^[13] Most units can be upgraded, making them better at certain tasks.^[14]

Units can be classified into seven categories; infantry, archers, cavalry,—the three of which are broadly classified as human units—siege weaponry, naval units, heroes, and myth units.^[15] The rock-paper-scissors model governs most units in battle. For example, infantry do additional damage to cavalry, cavalry do additional damage to archers, and archers do additional damage to infantry. The same rock-paper-scissors formation exists in the three different types of naval units—arrow ships, siege ships, and hammer ships. Siege units are generally exempt from the rock-paper-scissors model, but are instead able to destroy buildings easily, while being vulnerable to cavalry attacks. Heroes are extremely effective against myth units, which in turn do large amounts of damage against human units.^[16] Heroes are also able to collect relics, which grant the player additional economic or military bonuses when deposited in a player’s temple.^[17]

[edit] Buildings

Buildings in Age of Mythology can generally be split into three categories; economic buildings, military buildings, and defensive structures. The most important economic building is the Town Center, which is similar to the building of the same name in the Age of Empires series games. All civilian units are trained at the Town Center, as are some technologies. Most importantly, players advance Age via the building. The Town Center provides fifteen population slots, and building additional houses will earn the player ten additional slots per house.^[13] Other economic buildings include the farm and market.

Buildings are able to research technologies and upgrades, as well as provide resources for the player.^[13] All units except civilians are trained at military buildings. These buildings differ in name and usage between civilization, but all are able to train similar units. Military buildings are also used to research military specific technologies, such as armor upgrades, and attack improvements.^[13]

Walls and towers are defensive structures, which are not able to train units, and are used only for the purposes of defense. They are able to research some upgrades, although these are generally only useful to the building performing the research.^[13] Another type of building available to players, is a Wonder: a grand building that represents an architectural achievement of the civilization. In certain game modes, once a player builds a wonder, a ten minute countdown begins. If the wonder is still standing after the countdown ends, the player who built the wonder wins.^[13]

[edit] Multiplayer

Multiplayer is a highly popular aspect of Age of Mythology. Most multiplayer games are played through Ensemble Studios Online (ESO), or via a direct LAN or IP connection.

Age of Mythology includes one free multiplayer account on ESO. Similar in function to Blizzard Entertainment's Battle.net, ESO allows players to play matches, as well as chat with other players.^[18]

In multiplayer games, there are seven different game types available, all of which are provided as standard with the game:^[19] Supremacy—the standard game mode—includes randomly generated map and all gameplay aspects; Conquest is similar to Supremacy, but victory is only possible by defeating all other players; in Deathmatch players begin the game with high resources, but the game is otherwise the same as Supremacy; in Lightning, the gameplay is identical to Supremacy, but the game plays at twice the normal speed; in Nomad mode, players start with one civilian unit, and no Town Center, and must build up on a settlement; the goal of King of the Hill is to control a monument in the center of the map for a set period of time; and in Sudden Death, a player loses if their Town Center is destroyed, and they fail to rebuild it within a set period of time.

Multiplayer tournaments and LAN parties are popular throughout the world, with many players visiting to computer gaming lounges to participate.^[20]

The Age of Mythology scenario editor: visible is a large statue surrounded by deep water and the "rotate camera angle" controls, which allow for construction of more complex custom scenarios.

[edit] Scenario editor

The Age of Mythology editor is far more advanced than that of its predecessor, the Age of Empires II scenario editor.^[2] As well as standard unit placement facilities, the editor allows units to be overlapped, and it facilitates for large mountains, and steep terrain.^[21] Triggers, a popular aspect of scenario design in Age of Empires II, are also present in Age of Mythology’s editor, as well as cinematics and other special effects.^[22]

[edit] Campaign

Unlike the campaign modes in Age of Empires and Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, Age of Mythology only has one central campaign. The campaign is significantly longer than campaigns in previous games, however, with a total of 36 scenarios.^[5]

Age of Mythology’s campaign is entitled Fall of the Trident, and tells the story of Arkantos, an Atlantean admiral who is sent on a quest with the goal of regaining favor from Poseidon, God of the Atlantean people.^[7]

Arkantos’ quest takes him to the Trojan War, where he meets Ajax, Agamemnon, and Odysseus. After assisting them in winning the war, he continues in his travels and meets Chiron. Chiron advises him to follow the cyclops, Gargarensis, a follower of Poseidon.^[23] Arkantos, Ajax, and Chiron travel through the Underworld in their search for Gargarensis, and end up in Egypt.

In Egypt, Arkantos meets Amanra, a mercenary queen, who asks for his assistance in domestic issues. He obliges and assists her in defeating an ally of Gargarensis, Kemsyt. While in Egypt, Arkantos learns the true story about Gargarensis: He hopes to gain immortality by freeing the Titan Kronos from Tartarus.^[15] He continues North, still in search of Gargarensis.

In the Norse lands, Arkantos meets Reginleif, a valkyrie, and together they attempt to prevent Ragnarök from taking place. They encounter Gargarensis again in the underworld where dwarves Brokk and Eitri rebuild the hammer of Thor to seal the Tartarus Gate once more. After his failure, Gargarensis traps the heroes in a small valley with no escape in sight. In this valley, they must survive onslaughts from Gargarensis' forces while waiting for aid from Odysseus.^[24]

Whilst the heroes are fighting Gargarensis' armies, he establishes himself in Atlantis, locking up its former leaders. To conclude the campaign, Arkantos and his allies march on Atlantis, and Zeus bestows his blessing upon Arkantos, giving him the power to defeat Poseidon and Gargarensis. After killing Poseidon's living statue, the statue falls on Gargarensis killing him as well. Arkantos falls in exhaustion, and is then immortalized by Athena, becoming a god.

A new official campaign, entitled The Golden Gift and developed by Ensemble Studios, was also released to download from Microsoft's website. The campaign followed new adventures of Brokk and Eitri, the same two dwarves who appeared in the initial campaign. The two dwarves quest to make the golden boar before Loki interferes by tricking each other to fight while he steals it. After the dwarves unite they get the boar back. ^[25]

[edit] Development

Ensemble Studios began work on their first fully 3D engine in parallel to their development of Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. Christened the BANG! Engine, this was announced in January 2001, for use in a new game, codenamed RTSIII. RTSIII would eventually be revealed to be Age of Mythology.^[26]

This shows the start of a random map game for a Greek player. The Town Center can be seen on the left, three villagers in the center, and a scout moving south. There are also two sentry towers visible.

In developing Age of Mythology, Ensemble Studios decided to move away from the center of the Age of Empires series, history, to avoid becoming stale and repetitive. This allowed them to work with new ideas and concepts.^[27]

Following the announcement of the game for September 2002,^[28] a trial version was released.^[29] It contained five scenarios of the game's campaign, and two random maps. In the trial version, the player could only select Zeus, but there are nine gods available in the full version of the game.^[29]

Age of Mythology underwent a large amount of play-testing during its developmental phase, as Ensemble Studios attempted to create a more balanced and competitive game than its predecessors. Greg T. Street commented that one of the reasons Age of Mythology became so popular was because the development team spent many hours working on the game through active testing, rather than just taking advice from a "faceless drone in another building."^[30]

There was much debate during Age of Mythology's construction concerning the unbalanced nature of god powers and how to make them "fair" while still maintaining an element of fun in them. It was concluded that the best way to make it fair for everyone was to limit the use of god powers to one a game.^[31]

[edit] Expansion

Main article: Age of Mythology: The Titans

Age of Mythology: The Titans, an expansion to Age of Mythology, was released on 21 October 2003.^[32] The expansion added a new civilization, the Atlanteans, as well as several new units, including the titans. Critics and fans received the expansion with enthusiasm, although its ratings were not as high as that of the original version.^[33]

[edit] Soundtrack

The soundtrack to Age of Mythology was released on October 22, 2002, under the record label "Sumthing Else".^[34] The score was written by Music Director Stephen Rippy, and artist Kevin McMullan. Rippy cites musicians such as Peter Gabriel, Tuatara, Bill Laswell, Talvin Singh, and Tchad Blake as inspirations for the soundtrack. The musical work done on Age of Mythology was unlike anything Rippy had done before; an example of this was "writing for a seventy-piece orchestra and then flying out to Washington to record it."^[35]

Music 4 Games' reviewer, Jay Semerad, heaped Age of Mythology's soundtrack with praise. He summarized his review by declaring: "In all, the Age of Mythology soundtrack is an experience that should not be missed. It's easily one of my favorite soundtracks from this past year." Semerad was also astonished, and appreciative, of the use of instruments such as the ney flute, tabla and toy piano, all of which he said produced "some innovative analog and synthesized electronic effects". His only critique was that at times some of the background melodies were "bound to a simple harmonization," and lacking any "real bold or innovative purpose."^[36]

[edit] Reception

Age of Mythology was well-received by the public, reaching an estimated one million units sold within five months of its release.^[8]

The game was nominated for the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' Interactive Achievement Awards for Computer Game of the Year and strategy computer game of the year.^[43]

Age of Mythology's graphics was also praised by the majority of reviewers. IGN reviewer Steve Butts stated that "some fantastic effects and believable animations make this one a joy to watch. The differences between the armies and environments are awesome." As such, he gave the graphics a rating of 9 out of 10.^[44] Meanwhile, GameSpot reviewer Greg Kasavin also rated the graphics 9 out of 10, stating in his review that "Age of Mythology is a great-looking game, filled with bright colors and carefully detailed animations."^[45] Game Revolution also appreciated Age of Mythology's graphics, stating in their review that the "new 3D landscape looks good," and including graphics as one of the positives in the review summary.^[40] PC Gamer reviewer William Harms admired the graphics, "The environments, units, and buildings are packed with detail," and excitedly commented on the effects: "What really impressed me, though, were the game’s animations. When a Minotaur smacks a dude with his club, the schmoe goes flying, skids on the ground, and then bounces back into the air."^[38]

The game's sound was also approved of by reviewers, although several commented that it was repetitive and predictable at times. IGN in particular described it as "great, if repetitive, music,"^[44] whilst Game Revolution declared that the sound "really showcases Ensemble's continued attention to detail," before going on to praise the audio snippets in various languages.^[40]

IGN was particularly pleased with Age of Mythology's campaign, and was not bothered by its length. Instead they stated that "the meaningful and engaging single player campaign provides a nearly flawless experience."^[44] However, GameSpot was slightly critical of it, claiming that "while some of the campaign missions do feature some unusual circumstances or objectives that change, the game's story isn't incredibly engaging." This was compromised by stating that Age of Empires fans wouldn't expect an amazing campaign; they would "make a beeline for the game's random map mode, anyway."^[45] PC Gamer elaborated more on the campaign however, saying: "many of the missions are extremely well-crafted," and that "sprinkled throughout these encounters are moments of genuine comedy — a truly delightful surprise." However, they still found reasons to criticize: "Regrettably, most of AoM’s missions suffer from one recurring, frustrating problem: a severe case of “build base-itis." The reviewer elaborated: "I know base-building is inherent to the genre, but even the most ardent fan will be put off by just how much there is. What’s most disappointing is that AoM’s setting really lends itself to imaginative mission design — and I don’t think the designers took full advantage of the backdrop, which is a shame."^[38]

Review comments were generally positive, with only minor issues concerning repetitiveness or length. Overall, the opinions of reviewers seem to have been summed up by Greg Kasavin, when in his review summary he stated: "Of course, what's most important is that Age of Mythology plays remarkably well. Featuring lots of interesting, inventive design decisions, plenty of fun-to-use units, and tons of variety, Age of Mythology is the last real-time strategy game you'll need for a long time."^[45]

[edit] Use in scientific studies

Age of Mythology's AI was used by four Austrian researchers—Christoph Hermann, Helmuth Melcher, Stefan Rank, and Robert Trappl—in a study into the value of emotions in real-time strategy games. According to the abstract, "We were interested whether incorporating a simple emotional model to an existing bot-script improves playing strength."^[46] The results of the study determined that of the four bots they tested, the neurotic bot was most capable of defeating Age of Mythology's default AI, followed by the aggressive one. Neither bot was defeated by the standard AI, but the neurotic bot won, on average, twenty five percent more rapidly.^[47] Plans were made to extend the research in the future by pitting the neurotic bot against a human player.^[48]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Microsoft Age of Mythology website
• Official Ensemble Studios Age of Mythology website