Age of Mythology - TV Tropes

• Many male gods who are traditionally described as youthful and handsome instead appear old and grey.
• An odd case with Athena. Her 3D model appears to be a young beautiful woman, but her portrait depicts her as someone less attractive, as well as different from her model. Retold averts this, making Athena’s portrait resemble her in game model.

• The After-Action Villain Analysis midway through Fall of the Trident reveals that Poseidon has been corrupted by Kronos into working to free him and the other titans from Tartarus.
• The Greeks' Titan unit is Cerberus, and its role in the The New Atlantis campaign is a mission where it's wreaking havoc in Egypt on behalf of Kronos. This is a far cry from its mythological characterization, where it's the only one of its monstrous kin to not be evil, and as the guard dog of the Underworld, Cerberus would have been one of the main parties trying to stop the Titans from getting out.
• Also in The New Atlantis, Prometheus, normally one of the more benevolent titans, is portrayed as a generic antagonist who wants to wreak havoc on mankind. Though this is explained as taking vengeance on the Olympians who unjustly imprisoned him, it's a bit jarring. May also be an example of Being Tortured Makes You Evil.

• Gargarensis is shown quoting lines from the poem Lepanto, countless generations before G. K. Chesterton, though any Christian or Islamic references aren't mentioned.
• Emperor Yao ruled over China from 2333 BC to 2234 BC, but the Tale of the Dragon campaign is set at the same time as The New Atlantis campaign from the Titans expansion, which took place 10 years after the Trojan War (approximately 1240-1170 BC).

• Amanra's and the Anubites' Leap Attack can lead to them leaping over an enemy wall and into their base, without any support. Or get stuck midway through unwalkable terrain, with the only hope of getting unstuck being enemies getting close enough to leap at them. It's slightly aleviated in Retold, since the ability can now be manually triggered, allowing the player to get the units unstuck.
• If you build a Wonder, the AI is set to Attack! Attack! Attack! constantly on said Wonder from the moment it's built... even when Wonder victories aren't enabled in this specific game. This leads to them leaving their own towns unprotected.
• The game's unit pathfinding is... messed up. For example, Caravans cannot distinguish walls from gates, leading to them crashing down on walls on a wall which has gates to begin with.
• Like previous games, the AI will avoid walls as much as possible, allowing you to deliberately make a hole, which has dozens of watch towers defending it, shredding the invaders with little damage to themselves.
• The AI has a major habit of targeting farms and villagers rather than military units, which can result in The Benny Hill Show-esque chases that result in the AI being defeated with a few villagers dead at most.
• If you have a large number of military units attacking the AI's base, they may use a God Power like Tornado or Meteor on their own base in an attempt to kill them.

• The pterosaur-like Phoenix is classified in the eagle genus Aquila. This is fixed in Retold, where the Phoenix's model has been changed to that of an eagle.
• The Roc, a flying transport, is classified in the extinct flightless genus Aepyornis. This is actually a Mythology Gag as some scholars believe that the roc legend derives from distorted accounts of Aepyornithids.
• The Stymphalian Bird is classified in the genus Eudocimus which would make it an Ibis, despite using a repurposed falcon model.

• The Titans in the original game. While it's fun to watch your opponent squirm, the time and resources spent summoning one could easily go into fighting the enemy with normal units. Speaking of which, the pathing of this massive unit can be obstructed by common troops, leaving them vulnerable to Death by a Thousand Cuts. Additionally, prior to Retold, their inability to load onto transport units effectively renders them useless on Island maps.
• Myth units are quite an aversion; the game's manual itself proclaims that they are more powerful than human units on a cost basis. They are very devastating if not handled intelligently with heroes.
• The Norse Ragnarok power that's available late-game turns all your laborers into potent "Heroes of Ragnarok." But this comes at the cost of putting your economy on a complete standstill.
• Promoting Atlantean units into Hero units. Being able to beat Myth Units and having Citizens and Oracles able to defend themselves are nice and all, but each upgrade is costly and they add up to the population limit, even with the Prometheus-exclusive "Heart of the Titans" tech. The God Power Valor doesn't help with how randomized who gets affected and who doesn't unless you separate off the desired targets making it unreliable in a fight. In Retold, it is still the case: while the added population cost is removed and Prometheus God Power Valor is no longer randomized, the latter only promote only one unit at the time (but it fully heals it now) and has a significant cooldown; promoting units to heroes is no longer instant, requiring several seconds to do so (which can be reduced with Prometheus' "Heart of the Titans" tech); and it is still costly.
• For standard multiplayer games, one of the possible win conditions in the original is building a Wonder much as in Age of Empires II and keeping it in one piece for long enough to secure victory. In practice, Wonders are insanely expensive (5,000 Wood, Gold, and Stone), everyone is notified when you build one from the moment the foundations are laid, and there is an in-game counter to let everyone know how much time they have left until they lose (or win). Retold, however, changes the last point such that completing a Wonder instead transitions the player into the Wonder Age, which dramatically reduces the favor cost of god powers, bolsters myth units and makes it much easier to summon Titans.
• The Omniscience technology allows you to see what all enemies do and costs gold equal to 100 times the total population cost of all enemy units. While the advantage is massive, the cost is more than enough to raise a sizable army, restricting the tech's utility to getting a rough idea of the enemy's numbers, or when your opponent is trying to artificially prolong an already-decided game.

• When witnessing the rebirth of Osiris.
• After Thor seals the gate to Tartarus right before his nose.
• Right before he gets skewered by the collapsing Poseidon statue's trident.

• Fall of the Trident concludes with Atlantis being destroyed and sinking into the sea, keeping Kronos from escaping Tartarus in the process, and Odysseus laments its loss, but Amanra consoles him by saying that only the city is gone and most of the Atlanteans themselves have been saved. Meanwhile, Arkantos dies in the effort to stop Gargarensis, but Athena comes to his body washed up on the shore and he's brought back to life, now granted godhood as a reward for his actions.
• The New Atlantis ends in much of the known world being devastated by the Titans’ onslaught and the Atlanteans being more or less back where they started at the beginning of the campaign. On the other hand, Kronos is defeated with the help of Gaia, the Atlanteans are once more united, and Kastor is made King of Atlantis by the deified Arkantos to lead them as they rebuild anew.

• In a similar way, the opening cinematic ends with Athena calling, "Arkantos... awaken." The final line of the game has Athena repeating her call, but this time to raise Arkantos to godhood.
• The second mission in the expansion's campaign has Kastor conquering an island for the Titans as his people's new home. The penultimate mission has Kastor and his forces returning to the island, now fully built-up as New Atlantis, to not only stop Krios/Kronny from wiping out the surviving Atlanteans with his army of Automata but also lead them all to safety.

• Any sort of healing, either Apollo's research that allow Greek temples to heal units, Egyptian Priests, Norse Valkyries, Atlantean Caladrias, etc. In the game where units have no health regeneration (except heroes), that's very much needed.
• Hephaestus' power, Plenty. It creates a vault that generates 15 food, wood and gold every 5 seconds, and while it can be captured by enemy units, it's still a good advantage: free resources are always useful.

• In 28 (out of 31) missions of the Fall of the Trident campaign, all missions in The Golden Gift and Tale of the Dragon, and the mythical battle Reginleif's Rally, your enemy represents the same civilisation as the one you're currently playing, albeit worshipping another major god.
• The New Atlantis usually makes sure that you and your foes would be of different civilisations, but there are few cases of mirror matchup. Rampage (9) is another Norse vs Norse scenario, while the last three scenarios have both you and your opponents playing as Atlanteans with the latter serving Krios/Kronny and by extension, Kronos.

• Cyclopes appear as Myth Units if you progress to Classical Age with Ares.
• Another cyclops, Gargarensis, is the main antagonist.

• Played Straight in the Extended Edition as of the 2.0 Tale of the Dragon update, rather than the AI being smart enough to learn from its mistakes of poor build order, and learn from fighting with you, it now has the miraculous ability to automatically detect what units you are training, and trains the counters to your units even if it hasn't scouted you out. Funnily enough this can result in a case of Artificial Stupidity if your army is too mixed, the AI may end up refusing to invade you anymore.
• The Titan difficulty AI in the original game gains double the resources from all returning workers, to make up for its lack of skills. This is changed in Retold where the Titan AI plays with fair rules but with much better skills.
• In the Egyptian part of the campaign, it's not rare for the AI to have more monuments than is possible to build. At lower difficulty this has no impact, as the AI purposefully curtails its productions. At higher difficulty, especially in Retold, the AI will make full use of all that favor income.

"You need to build more houses!"

• The Egyptian Lighthouse provides massive line of sight, but can't defend itself or do anything else for that matter.
• Counter units have heavy attack and defense bonuses against the unit type they target, meaning they will often win against those even if they're outnumbered or behind in upgrades. Which is just as well, since without those bonuses they are usually weak for their cost compared to more basic troops of their type.

Arkantos: A giant fortress in the middle of the countryside, protecting a huge pit which leads... here... and a cyclops that rains fire on us from the skies... I'm starting to think this might not be a 'bandit' we're dealing with, Chiron.

• The Atlantean civilization in the expansion can get Fanatics, which dual-wield swords. They will beat any human soldiers they get in melee range with, and when upgraded as heroes to do bonus damage against myth units, can pretty much beat anything on the ground. One-on-one though, since upgrading them as heroes will easily cause them to get horribly outnumbered.
• Kastor (in the Expansion) wields two swords as well, though it is never stated he is of the Fanatic cult.
• Two Egyptian myth units, Anubis' Anubites and Horus' Avengers, also dual-wield their weapons.
• There's also the Norse Einherjar, who dual-wield axes.

• In Retold, during the "Light Sleeper" mission, if the player picks Sobek as one of their minor gods, one can use the free Roc to carry the sword bearers to the Guardian, bypassing the fortress and soldiers along the way, as the guardian has almost no towers or air units defending it.
• In the same mission, the enemy AI doesn't activate until the villagers reach the allied town. You can thus leave them behind and use your starting army and heroes to raid the enemy base, using the heroes regenerations to recover as needed, and cripple the base before the mission and Kemsyt's army even spawns.
• In "Isis, Hear My Plea!" in Retold, you now can manually trigger Amanra's jumping ability. Using this you can just run her around the map and jump the wall to the harbor, allowing her to gain the fleet needed to instantly end the mission.
• In both the original release of the game and Retold, in Beneath the Surface. Gargarensis' surface army starts with no forces and uses the skirmish mode AI. If you take your 5 heroes out of the underworld and rush the base north, you can cripple him before he ever gets started.

• Most of the myth units, which are often large monsters, are ruthless, brutish, and generally antagonistic. In the Norse campaign, the player must defend human tribes from attacks by giants.
• Nearly all Titan units are bad in the Titans campaign, except for Gaia, who the player must summon in the last mission to defeat Kronos. Of note is that she's visibly shorter than Kronos, or pretty much any other Titan for that matter.

• Played straight in "Fall of the Trident", where each pantheon's "evil god" is working with Gargarensis and his quest to unleash Kronos. Set carries out his plan to kill Osiris out of jealousy, Loki assists in triggering Ragnarok by smashing Thor's hammer, and in the Greek Pantheon Poseidon sends Arkantos to fight in Troy to get him out of the picture, ultimately destroying his own worshippers' homeland of Atlantis, all to get back at Zeus for taking the top spot.
• Played With in "The New Atlantis". Oranos helps Kronos's initial plans to trick the Atlanteans into worshipping them, attacking the religious sites of other civilizations and warps an unwitting Kastor to Mount Olympus only to then aid the same Atlanteans when Kronos throws them under the bus. In other regions, Loki is the same as before, aiding Ymir in his rampage across Midgard but in Egypt, the player's Major God is Set of all beings, suggesting an uneasy alliance between Set and Osiris to fight Cerberus.^note 
• Averted in "Immortal Pillars" where the antagonists all vye for the top spot in the Celestial Court and backstab or plan to backstab each other. When the chaos of the Chinese Heavens falling merges the underworlds, several antagonists take the stones needed to fix the problem but this is just out of simple greed with no great plan.

• Taking into account the Titans and Tale of the Dragon expansions:
  Greeks (Balanced)
  Egyptians, (Subversive)
  Norse (Cannon)
  Atlanteans (Powerhouse)
  Chinese (Horde)
• Alternatively, each faction has an area of specialty:
  Greeks — Balanced
  Egyptians — Human Soldiers
  Norse — Myth Units
  Atlanteans — Heroes
  Chinese — Economy

• Erebus, though justified somewhat in Fall of the Trident due to what Arkantos sees being in close proximity to Tartartus (the part where the Titans are imprisoned). Tartarus itself is never shown, but presumably it's much the same.
• Interestingly, the original release shows Niflheim as one, which in actual myth was more like a Frost And Icicles Hell. This was corrected in Retold. ^note 
• From what's seen in Pillars of the Gods after Yan Feifeng arrives into the merged underworld the Atlantean afterlife is referred to as the "Drowned Lands," resembling a marshy, waterlogged version of Elysium strewn with strange coral.

• During the original game's opening cutscene, when the temple begins collapsing, it is Poseidon's trident that breaks from his statue and almost crushes the protagonist. When you first encounter Gargarensis in the campaign, his Major God is Poseidon.
• The fact that creatures of the deep seen are attacking Atlantis alongside Kamos' pirates at the beginning of Fall of the Trident is taken as proof of Poseidon's displeasure, which would be sated by Arkantos sailing for Troy to relieve Agamemnon. This is an early hint that Poseidon plans on sacrificing the Atlanteans who view him as their patron god if it means getting more power through Kronos.
• The "Good Advice" scenario, a Dream Sequence wherein Athena and Hades warn Arkantos of the true enemies he's facing, culminates in the destruction of a suspiciously familiar city, with the Retold version having an earthquake being triggered the moment the enemy's Wonder is toppled. Not only is this a warning for what would happen should Kronos break free, but it's almost exactly what plays out after Gargarensis is defeated at the end, with Poseidon destroying Atlantis with an earthquake just to take down the divinely-empowered Arkantos.
  • During the same scenario, Arkantos getting help at one point from Ajax, Chiron and Amanra as well as Odysseus who's been absent since the Troy arc hints at which campaign heroes will help Arkantos the most. Also, several Tartarus Gates are shown when Athena reveals what they are. The Retold version of that scene in particular shows four gates, and it's ultimately revealed there are Gates not only in Greece, Egypt and the Norselands, but one more in Atlantis as well.
• In "A Long Way From Home", Chiron encounters a party of Norsemen pursuing Gargarensis, who then join him in retrieving the piece of Osiris hidden underneath an ancient tamarisk tree. Not only does this give an early taste of the later missions by introducing Norse gameplay mechanics, but also hints at just how far-reaching Poseidon and Kronos' gamble through Gargarensis' scheme truly is.

• The Qiongqi is a Classical Age myth unit available to worshipers of Houtu. Here it appears as a winged tiger with a single horn, able to engage in close combat on the ground and then taking to the air to move quickly.
• The Taotie is a Heroic Age myth unit available to worshipers of Nuba. Here it appears as a horned, eyeless beast that can eat enemy units to power up its Breath Weapon, which weakens after every use.
• The Taowu is a Heroic Age myth unit available to worshipers of Goumang. Here it appears as a human-faced, four-legged creature with dog-like fur and a long tail, making it resemble a long-tailed baboon. It serves as a slow, powerful assault unit similar to the Egyptian Scarab or Atlantean Behemoth.
• The Hundun is a Mythic Age myth unit available to worshipers of Huangdi. Here it is a faceless, six-legged, four-winged creature that can make enemies flee in different directions, or temporarily banish a group of enemies that then return having taken damage from unseen forces.

• The Major God your civilization is currently under is always important to the story. For example, when the group is being deceived by Skult the God is Loki and Arkantos, despite worshiping Poseidon personally, is under Zeus for most of the Greek missions. This is because Poseidon is planning to unleash the Titans himself and Zeus is using Arkantos as his champion to stop him.
• While the vast majority of units and structures have detailed encyclopedic descriptions (complete with scientific names even for myth units), Titans are simply described as deities that defy classification.

• The in-game encyclopedia describes Medusa and other gorgons accurately to the mythology as a Winged Humanoid but the model for the Medusa unit is a wingless Snake Person in the tradition of modern depictions inspired by Clash of the Titans.
• The same encyclopedia makes mention of the ring of barking dogs around Scylla's waist that show up in most traditional descriptions and depictions. The Scylla model, however, merely resembles a sort of two-flippered plesiosaur. Understandable as the dogs do look rather silly.
• Although dwarves are mythical creatures in Norse mythology, the dwarves in-game are not classified as myth units but gatherers.
• The original game's intro has a Greek army fighting off an army composed of cyclopes, centaurs, and minotaurs. As these are the respective units of the three minor gods a Greek player can choose to advance to the Classical Age, having them all part of the same army is impossible.
• A few examples in the campaign:
  • In the first mission, Krakens' presence in a pirate fleet is taken as a sign that said pirates have Poseidon's favor (which is true). In gameplay, however, Krakens are a Nordic myth unit.
  • In a campaign mission set in Egypt, Amanra mentions that Set has summoned many War Turtles to protect Kemsyt's island base. War Turtles (in the original version) are a myth unit of Thoth, not Set (altough Thoth is one of the gods available to Set in the Mythic Age).
  • In the last mission, Zeus will reward you with a charge Meteor for every temple of Poseidon you destroy. Again, the Meteor is Thoth's god power, not Zeus'.

• Phoenixes can make a short work of anything without ranged attacks with their area-damaging fire breath, but once they're confronted by some archers they won't last long. Though the fact they can revive themselves if their eggs are protected can help overcome this.
• Fire Giants' can devastate pretty much anything with their fireballs, but they can barely stand up to regular units let alone heroes.
• The Chinese's Fire Lances are a deadly mix of human and siege weapon, they have the compactness and speed of the former and the incredible building-destroying power of the latter. This is kept in balance by a stiff breeze being able to kill them.

• Favor is a resource you acquire through worship. Greek gods are worshiped in temples, Egyptian and Chinese gods are worshiped by constructing monuments and gardens respectively, Norse gods are worshipped by fighting, and Atlantean gods by controlling town centers.
• If you play with the Major Greek God Zeus you start out with half of your max favor already waiting, which is the max you can get for the other gods.
• There are also upgrades you can purchase to gain Favor faster.
• This shows up in the story of The New Atlantis, as well. At one point, our plucky hero causes Mount Olympus to collapse without even trying (too hard) because there's not enough belief floating around. It's also why the seal on the Titans' prisons is weakening.

• Kronos, and the rest of the Titans apart from Gaia, who actively helps the heroes, and Oranos, who is never directly against them..
• In the first game, Poseidon becomes this due to siding with Kronos.
• The gods of choice of your Egyptian and Norse enemies; Set and Loki.
• Averted with Hades, however, who even lends a hand in helping the protagonists.
• Also averted with the Chinese, as all three of their major gods are benevolent.

• Each civilization has their own unique mechanic when it comes to recruiting heroes.
  • The Greeks get one hero per age for a total of four, and each major god has their own distinct lineup of heroes who are all famous names from Classical Mythology (e.g., Zeus gets Jason, Odysseus, Herakles, and Bellerophon).
  • The Egyptians have the Pharaoh, a respawning one-of-a-kind hero who can bolster economic production who they start off each game with, and the Priest, a weaker version of the Pharaoh meant to scout around and counter myth units. If the player worships Osiris, then not only can the Pharaoh be upgraded into a Son of Osiris (a much powerful version with a Chain Lightning attack), but a second Pharaoh can be summoned through researching the New Kingdom technology.
  • The Norse have the Hersir, a hammer-wielding hero that unlike other examples can be amassed like any other unit but is somewhat weaker in comparison. Retold introduces the Godar, a Javelin Thrower hero meant to counter flying myth units.
  • The Atlanteans promote human soldiers into heroes.
  • The Chinese have the eight Immortals.
• Unlike regular heroes, campaign versions of heroes merely lie wounded when they are felled, and can be resuscitated if they have regenerated enough health and no enemy units are nearby.
• In the DS version, the player only gets one hero unit (two if playing the Greeks once they reach the Heroic Age) that is pre-selected before the game. Like the Greeks from the base game, these are often famous names from their respective mythologies or cultures (e.g., Perseus and Herakles for the Greeks, Hatshepsut and Ramses The Great for the Egyptians, Sigurd and Brynhild for the Norse) with the few exceptions being the Original Generation campaign antagonists and Nahkt.

• First, the Atlanteans believe the questionable advice of the now-possessed Krios with no question, and just go along with everything he says. It's handwaved, however, by how they feel themselves to have been abandoned by the Olympians, though Krios' tone is oddly assertive, and conveniently dreams of where to go next and finds Sky Passages. Almost like he has an agenda.
• Second, after the Atlanteans are strangely attacked by two Greek scouts when they first set up camp in what would become New Atlantis, Castor responds by defeating the Greeks in the area in retaliation, which escalates to Egypt and Scandinavia, inadvertently allowing some of the Titans to escape. At no point do the Atlanteans consider that the Greeks may have attacked them because they were repairing temples to the Titans; which one Atlantean soldier even remarked was forbidden barely ten seconds before the Greeks attacked.
  • The initial Greeks themselves get this: when told Castor is coming with a small force, they immediately attack rather than allow Castor to discuss matters with them, turning Castor against them completely.
• Third, when arriving in a new land the Atlanteans automatically make the worst decision imaginable. Just arrived in Egypt? Let's take all their relics! Visiting the Norselands? We'll topple their tower to Odin! Accidentally wound up on the slopes of Mount Olympus? Let's attack it to prove our superiority! These are ultimately revealed to be the result of Krios/Kronny purposefully goading Kastor's (and the Atlanteans') Rage Against the Heavens to full effect, exploiting his perceived slights to achieve Kronos' goals.

• The example from the Trojan War is depicted as well, with a twist. Arkantos suggests faking out the Trojans by conceding defeat in the Atlantean tradition (turning over the defeated general's personal horse to the enemy) and retreating, only to then come back and attack when they have the element of surprise again. Odysseus is then inspired to take that plan to the next level: constructing the Trojan Horse, smuggling themselves into the city in it, and throwing open the gates for the surprise attack.
• Loki and Gargarensis order to Arkantos' forces to surrender in exchange for a quick death. Cue Ajax impaling the herald with a ballista dart and shouting "We surrender! Come a little closer!"

Mountain Giant: Awww... you broke him! Now we need to find another one.

• It is of note that Mountain Giants have a special attack that only works against Dwarves, in which they kick the small beings far away from them.

• What allows Kronos to deceive the Atlanteans with his servant.
• More literally, the seals on the Hades Gates being on the verge of breaking is shown by Tartarus's demonic energy leaking through the crack in the gate.

• While trapped in Erebus, Arkantos, Ajax, and Chiron must fend off myth units within Hades's realm. Fortunately for the heroes, the Shades of the underworld serve as guides to the mortals, allowing them to leave the Underworld safely.
• Gargarensis, aware of potential danger from the passage to the Underworld in Egypt, requests an army in advance from Kemyst so that when the slaves are finished digging, they'll be ready for the monsters ahead. This actually serves as a soft time limit to the mission, as once the digging is complete, a bunch of Chimeras will spawn from the dig site and guard the flags, making the mission more difficult to complete.
• Hekate's god power, Tartarian Gate, summons a portal to the underworld that spawns neutral Tartarian Spawn that attacks anything within their range.

• The Statue of Poseidon during the final mission of the original campaign.
• The Guardian in both Fall of the Trident and The New Atlantis is a powerful living monument that's implied to be an avatar of Anubis.
• Hades's Sentinels god power creates four statues around the town center to defend them from enemies.
• Leto's Automata from the expansion.
• The Colossus unit is not living, like the Automata, but follows this anyway.
• Tale of the Dragon adds Huang Di's Terracota Warriors.

Arkantos: A giant fortress in the middle of the countryside, protecting a huge pit which leads... here... and a cyclops that rains fire on us from the skies... I'm starting to think this might not be a 'bandit' we're dealing with, Chiron.

• The Norse pack animal is a Musk Ox which went extinct in Europe 9,000 years ago, long before the Norse people existed. Originally Ensemble originally intended to use a Draft Horse (based on the North Swedish Horse) but changed it to a Musk Ox for reasons unknown.
• A common huntable on Norse maps is the elk. As in the animal called elk in North America. It's stated to be the same species as the red deer (as was thought at the time of the game's release) but it's clearly modeled after the American elk. They do appear in the one American map "Vinland" (before The Titans introduced "Tundra") but are still misplaced as elk are not found in the vicinity of Newfoundland! Ironic since the more accurate caribou who appear in other Norse maps are nowhere to be seen.
• Said Vinland map also features brown bears and wild boar, neither of which are native to Canada's east coast (boars aren't native to anywhere in America, making them a particularly egregious case).
• The aforementioned Tundra map features herds of aurochs roaming the arctic. The map was most likely going to include Musk Oxen but they were cut for unknown reasons.
• The Titans reintroduced the popular "Highland" map from Age of Kings to the game. Huntables include water Buffalo (despite Aurochs being a better choice) and Crowned cranes (probably used as a stand-in for the Common crane) alongside brown bears, boar and elk despite it's European aesthetic and terrain.
• The gazelles and baboons found in Egyptian maps are Thompson's gazelles and mandrills, both species found excusively in Sub-Saharan Africa. Their encyclopedia entry confirms that the developers were aware of what baboon species did live in ancient Egypt (mentioning Olive and Hamadryas baboons) but likely went with mandrills anyway for their iconic facial colouration.
• The Atlanteans have llamas for their caravan unit, despite llamas being from the Pacific coast of South America^note .

• In the original tale, the Greeks built the Trojan Horse because the symbol of Troy was a horse. In the game, they do it because surrendering your horse is how Atlantean generals admit defeat.
• The resurrection of Osiris, in the original Ancient Egyptian texts, was done to save both gods and men from Set's tyrannical grasp. In the game, much the same is true, only this time it's also to foil Set's deal with Gargarensis to open Tartarus in Egypt.

• Kronos not only breaks free towards the end of The New Atlantis but seems on the verge of finishing his war on the Olympian gods, if not for Gaia stopping him.
• Huang Zhaowu in Pillars of the Gods comes close more than once to his goal of not only defying the Chinese deities, but seizing the Celestial Court even at the risk of destroying reality.

• Changes from previous games:
  • In Age of Empires II, heavy cavalry completely outclassed the basic infantry, are strong against many things and their counters can be easily dispatched by a group of archers. Mythology not only makes them cost 1 more pop than infantry and archers (3 instead of 2) but the "Crenellations" tech makes building arrows more effective against them.
  • The first two Age of Empires titles have siege units that are excellent in wiping out both units and buildings. Not the case here, as they now deal Scratch Damage on units. Another one in The Titans expansion where villagers deal extra damage to siege units.
• Changes in Retold:
  • The Atlanteans no longer gain favor by passively gathering them from their Town Centers (though researching "Horns of Consecration" from Rheia can bring back their initial effect). Instead, they must gather favor through their scout unit, Oracles, who gain more favor based on their sight. Since Oracles are not very durable and will be spread out to scout the map, their favor generation can be easily disrupted. In addition, their human units have to wait a few seconds to promote into a hero unit, meaning that they cannot instantly promote them to deal with myth units.
  • Some bonuses, god powers, and technologies were changed where they are notably weaker than the original game. For example, Prometheus's god power can instantly promote at least three human units into hero units, and one of his technology can decrease the cost of promoting them. However, in Retold, his god power can only promote one human unit into a hero unit (though he is fully healed) and his technology decreases the time required to promote a human unit, with the original cost reduction tech divided into different techs and bonuses given to different Gods (Oceanus for infantry, Theia for cavalry and Gaia for citizens but none for ranged units).
  • Many of the myth unit's special ability that can One-Hit Kill doesn't do it anymore. For example, Cyclops throw do not instantly kill the thrown unit. Medusa and Perseus's petrification ability are a downplayed example, they disable enemy units for a few seconds and inflicting high damage, leaving only the most durable units able to survive the petrification (like War Elephants or Mythic Age Myth Units) while still instantly killing most targets.
  • Some god powers, like Bast's Eclipse and Tyr's Fimbulwinter, can prevent other players from invoking god powers. However, in Retold, it is no longer the case, which allows the other player to counter those god powers, like Hermes's Ceasefire.

• The mainland in Vinlandsaga (which players will have to migrate to after running out of resources on the starting island) is filled with neutral Skraelings in the original version. Unlike wild animals, they don't yield food, are not visible under the fog of war, and attack all units on sight.
• In Valley of Kings, all gold mines (other than those near players' start position) are guarded by Bandit Migdols, which function like Egyptian Migdol Strongholds that attack all player-controlled units that get in their range. Since they come with pre-researched Boiling Oil, they can easily fend off melee attackers and require investment in siege engines to be taken down.

• The "Ancestors" god power, which temporarily raises either a small army of undead soldiers if used on land or a small fleet of ghost ships if used on water. Also, the mechanic whereby the Hades-worshiping Greeks randomly recieve free "shade" units (exempt from the Arbitrary Head Count Limit) whenever they lose a normal soldier.
• The Egyptians can create Mummies, who themselves can turn enemies into skeletal minions. Plus the Vikings' Einherjar and Draugar myth units are dead warriors returned from Valhalla and the spirits of fallen warriors respectively.

• All of the Titans in the expansion pack look like humans (Barring Oceanus who is a Fishman, but look at the name) except Kronos who looks like a giant rock demon.
• The minor Norse gods are drawn using a different more cartoony art style.
• The minor Chinese goddess Chang’e is drawn in a much more stylized and simplified style than any other god in the game.
• For a minor example, regular Minotaurs have hooves instead of feet. Kamos however has regular human feet instead of hooves.

• In the mission "Light Sleeper", Rocs are banned to prevent players from just flying the sword bearers over the walls, and a conveniently placed Isis monument prevents the player from using Shifting Sands to teleport them there, even though Kemsyt is loyal to Set.
• All is Not Lost is a massive Hold the Line mission where has 10 minutes to prepare for Gargarensis' retaliation. Except that the timer only starts counting down as soon as the Town Center is built. This means that players can simply send their gatherers to turtle and accumulate as much resources as possible to train units before constructing the Town Center with more than enough armies to prepare against his troops. Come Retold, the timer will now start 6 minutes in even if the player did not build a TC beforehand.

• The Greeks have the Cyclops, a one-eyed giant humanoid who can instantly kill human units by hurling them at others. There are even hero versions of the Cyclops; worshippers of Poseidon can recruit his son Polyphemus as their Mythic Age hero, while the main antagonist of the campaign is another cyclops, Gargarensis.
• The Norse are very fond of this trope. They have three giant types; Mountain Giants, Frost Giants, and Fire Giants. The Mythic Age minor god Hel can train all three of them. Retold even adds a fourth type, Rock Giants.
• The Atlanteans have access to the Heka Gigantes/Centimanus, a four-armed giant with the ability to Shockwave Stomp.
• The reworked Chinese in Immortal Pillars have Xing Tian, a headless giant who wields an axe and shield.
• And all civilizations can, of course, summon a titan which towers over all of the above.

• The Greeks have the Nemean Lion, a Dire Beast with a near-impenetrable hide, the Manticore, a human-headed winged lion with a stinger tail, and the Chimera, a fire-breathing lion/goat/serpent hybrid.
• The Egyptians have the Sphinx, a human/ram/bird-headed lion.
• The Chinese have the White Tiger/Baihu, one of The Four Gods which is a supernatural tiger with a leaping attack. Immortal Pillars also gives them the Qiongqi, one of the Four Perils which is a winged lion/tiger hybrid.

• Athena, Osiris, Zeus, Gaia, Thor and the other Olympian/Egyptian/Norse gods. Arkantos becomes one after his ascent to godhood.
• Manifesting physically, only Osiris in Fall of the Trident, Gaia and Kronos in The New Atlantis, and Arkantos.
• The Egyptian Titan is revealed to be Ra himself.

• The Big Bad does this in order to free Kronos, and it's up to the heroes to stop him. Meanwhile, in The New Atlantis, Kronos exploits the surviving Atlanteans' perceived grievances against the Olympians and the other pantheons for his own ends. This is especially in effect when Kastor, through Krios/Kronny's machinations, is sent to Mount Olympus and proceeds to destroy it with Atlantean armies and Myth Units from all cultures.
• When Huang Zhaowu approached the Chinese gods to resurrect his wife Xiaoli, he was told "All must find peace with the mandate of heaven". Unwilling to accept their answer, he sought to defy fate itself, setting the plot for Pillars of the Gods into motion.

• It is common to disrupt the enemy's economy by killing their villagers and burning their houses. Of course, the Norse is encouraged to aggressively raid the enemy as they generate favor through fighting, and their Raiding Cavalry has strong pierce armor and speed that allows them to pick off villagers while shrugging off arrows of towers and town centers.
• The early part of the campaign features the sacking of Troy.

• Unlike other sources of food, Farms and fish never run out, but only one Villager or Fishing Ship may work a Farm or fishing ground at a time. Since Farms cost resources and yield food more slowly than animals and berry bushes, they are usually not built until these sources are depleted.
• Caravans travel to a friendly Town Center, generating gold in the process, then deposit it at their owner's Market or Dock. Though slower than mining, trade is unlimited and especially valuable when gold mines run out.
• All sources of Favor (praying at the Temple for the Greeks, building Monuments for the Egyptians, fighting for the Norse, owning Oracles for the Atlanteans, controlling Favored Land by building structures for the Chinese) never run out. In the original version, Favor has a maximum resource limit (200 for Zeus, 100 for everyone else); in Retold, the more Favor you have, the more slowly it's gathered.
• The Plenty Vault generates a constant trickle of gold, food and wood for the owner. Since it's not built but is instead summoned by Hephaestus' god power, the only way to own more than one is to capture them from enemy players who also worship Hephaestus.
• Relics that produce a constant trickle of resources when placed in a Temple include the Ship of Fingernails (food), Ring of the Nibelung (gold), Feather of Jingwei (wood) and Ankh of Ra (favor). They cannot deplete or be destroyed but are not even guaranteed to appear in any given multiplayer game, and the amount of resources provided, though certainly useful, is unlikely to be game-changing.

• The Flavor Text for the Dragonscale Shields upgrade identifies Grendel as a dragon. Retold corrects this by instead referring to a nameless dragon, which was the final monster slain by Beowulf and was indeed nameless.
• A few of the myth units are in mythologies where they don't belong. The scorpion men do seem fittingly Egyptian, but are in fact from Babylonian myth. Both Leviathan and Behemoth are from the Bible, but here the former is Egyptian and the latter is Atlantean. The Roc is a creature in Middle Eastern folklore, but is an Egyptian myth unit.
• Though they are indeed from Greek myths, Helios and Hecate were just regular gods and not titans. Similarly, Gaia and Oranos are not actually titans, but of an even older race of gods, the protogenoi.
• When Tale of the Dragon was first released, Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor) was conflated with Yu Di (the Jade Emperor), who is a different mythological figure entirely, in his description in the in-game encyclopedia. This was corrected in a later patch.
• Bellerophon is one of Zeus' heroes when he was Poseidon's son and Zeus punished him.
• Poseidon is portrayed as having a fish tail, a trait that actually belongs to his son Triton.
• Athena claims humankind suffered under the rule of Kronos. It was actually a Golden Age for humanity, where humans lived without the need for toil, disease, or war. Of course, Athena could be an Unreliable Narrator or Kronos a Villain with Good Publicity.

• The Greeks can summon Carcinos, a huge crab that can fling units with its claws and causes huge damage when it dies.
• Scylla is a giant long-necked sea reptile which can grow up to five heads if it keeps eating ships.
• The Kraken and Leviathan are usable by the Norse and the Egyptians, respectively; the former is a giant octopus-like creature that can toss human units and sink ships with its tentacles, while the latter is a durable whale-like unit that can transport troops across water.
• The Jormund Elver and Sea Snakes, though snake-like creatures, may also count as "Leviathans" due their large size. The former is a Norse venom-spitting offspring of the mythical Jormugandr and the latter can be summoned by an Egyptian player through Anubis's god power. Retold upscales the Jormund Elver into a truly massive Sea Serpent.
• The Atlanteans have the Nereid, a trident-wielding sea maiden riding a huge shark that can defeat any other water myth unit in single combat, and the Man of War, a giant jellyfish that fires lightning bolts at enemy ships.
• Egyptians can also summon the War Turtle, which can, like the Carcinos, fling ships across the water.
• The Chinese get the War Salamander, the Azure Dragon and the Dragon Turtle. Of note is that the Dragon Turtle is the only purely aquatic unit for the Chinese; the other two are amphibious. In Retold, the Dragon Turtle is changed into the Truer to the Text Black Tortoise which does have amphibious capabilities.
• The Walrus can be hunted for food, but you'll need a lot of villagers to take it down as it's highly aggressive and dangerous.

• When you play as the Egyptians, you might get a pharaoh named Bubbahotep.
• If you check the text files of the units you'll find out that the Carnivora's file is listed as Audrey.
• The poem verses Gargarensis utters are from Lepanto of G. K. Chesterton.

• Everything, from the trees, to the cows, to the rocks, to the Cyclops have optional descriptions for you to read. You can even access the in-game encyclopedia from the main menu just for some information. The city of Atlantis, for instance, is shown as built on a hill, divided into tiers with fountains between them, accurate to the original myth but often overlooked.
• Osiris' words upon being revived are lifted straight from the Book of the Dead, though they're originally attributed to the creator god Tmu/Atum.

"I have come upon the Earth and with my two feet taken possession!"

• The Greeks have the Petrobolos, a catapult, and the Helepolis, a siege tower that fires ballista bolts.
• The Egyptian siege weapons echo those of the Greeks; they also have a Catapult and Siege Tower, albeit the latter attacks buildings in melee using a ram unlike the Helepolis.
• The Norse have the Portable Ram, a handheld ram carried by soldiers, and the Ballista.
• The Atlanteans have the Fire Siphon, a Fire-Breathing Weapon, and the Cheiroballista, a field artillery piece wheeled around by a soldier (the latter being classified as a human unit).
• The Chinese in Tale of the Dragon have the Sitting Tiger, a trebuchet, and the Fire Lance, an anachronistic gunpowder unit who fires rockets (who like the Cheiroballista is classified as a human unit). Their rework in Immortal Pillars gives them the Falcon Cart, a melee siege weapon, and the Siege Crossbow, a ballista equivalent.
• All civilizations have access to a siege ship that fire ballista bolts at long range.

• The Greeks are playable in the largest number of campaign missions in the first game (in the expansion's campaign, they are the only ones not to have a mission played as their town, but instead the rather 'extra-Greek' Atlanteans have the overwhelming majority of missions).
• The Atlantean faction is based off of unused Greek Gods from the first game.
• Four of the recurring story heroes are Greek / Atlantean while Amanra is the only Egyptian Hero to be playable in more than one level.
• The main focus of the story is preventing Kronos from escaping Tartarus.
• The Norse heroes (Reginlief, Brokk and Eitri) are not playable outside their campaign (though Brokk and Eitri did get a prequel mini-campaign of their own). Amanra is the only non-greek hero to be playable outside her campaign.

• Unlike in other games in the series, Town Centers cannot be placed everywhere. Instead, every random map features a number of neutral Settlements (three times the number of players), which cannot be attacked or destroyed; each Town Center must be built over a Settlement. In Retold, without a Settlement, it is only possible to build a Village Center, which is weaker, produces workers 25% slower, cannot attack when not garrisoned and does not provide population.
• Three god powers create buildings (Hephaestus' Plenty Vault, Forseti's Healing Spring and Theia's Hesperides Tree) that cannot be attacked or destroyed, but can be captured by enemies if the owner has no nearby units. This means they should not be placed too near the front line, where they can easily be captured. The King of the Hill random map features a Plenty Vault at the centre guarded by neutral Shades, as the main objective of the game. In addition to its normal functions, holding this Plenty Vault for 8 minutes ends the game in victory.

• Infantry > Cavalry > Archers > Infantry. The explicitness of this varies, with many baseline units beating their opponents due to statistical superiority against them (melee infantry easily outnumber cavalry, archers can effectively thin down melee infantry before they can get close, cavalry are fast enough to reach archers to nullify their ranged advantage), while dedicated counter units tend to have low stats and only beat their desired targets due to doing bonus damage against them. Many units exist defy this system, the Norse in particular screw things up royally: until Tale of the Dragon they have no archers at all, instead they have a ranged unit that is considered infantry, on top of that their anti-archer unit is also infantry. Basically, whatever you build the Norse can always counter with some form of infantry.
• On a grander scheme: Myth Units > Normal Units > Hero Units > Myth Units. Myth units can easily hold their own and frequently have powerful special abilities against human units; heroes are immune to such abilities and deal more and take less damage when fighting myth units; and soldiers easily outnumber heroes.
• Titan > Everything. Technically, Titans count as normal myth units and do have a negative damage multiplier against heroes and siege weapons. It just does so much damage that multipliers matter little. Spamming heroes is the suggested way to defeat a Titan in a random map. When cheating, spam other titans or a single Lazer Bear (because Bears Are Bad News) and send in other units at you leisure. Flying units will cause an insane amount of damage over time due to the fact that other than a plot cutscene with Prometheus and a Roc, it is impossible for the majority of stronger units to attack them due to the fact they are flying, and can redirect the dumber of A.I.s into your gigantic trap fortification.
• On the water it's Arrow Ships > Hammer Ships > Siege Ships > Arrow Ships and buildings. Naval myth units are only countered by the Argo (the only hero ship in the game, available to Poseidon worshippers), and Nereids for Atlanteans who worship Oceanus.
• It's a bit more explicit in the board game; certain units get extra hit dice against other types of units according to their classification.

• Cyclopes have furry legs, hooves, and a single horn as in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.
• Medusa fights with a bow and arrow, and has a snake body below the waist as in Clash of the Titans.
• The Colossus looks similar to Talos from Jason and the Argonauts.

• The New Atlantis, the campaign for The Titans expansion, is set ten years after the Fall of the Trident campaign.
• Pillars of the Gods, the campaign for the Immortal Pillars DLC, is set an unspecified number of years after the events of The New Atlantis. Long enough for Ajax, Setna, Folstagg, Brokk and Eitri to have died, as Chinese protagonist Yan Feifeng finds out upon entering the underworld.

• In the first scenario of the Fall of the Trident campaign, "Omens", Krios tells Arkantos not to the ignore the omens heralding Poseidon's displeasure.
• In "More Bandits", the old man at Ioklos' port cries out the title words when he mistakes Arkantos and Ajax for bandits.
• In "Strangers", Chiron remarks that as strangers to Erebus, the heroes need the Shades' help to get out of there.
• The title of "Isis, Hear My Plea" is the beginning of Amanra's prayer for her patron deity after the other heroes are captured by Kemsyt.
• "All Is Not Lost" begins with Gargarensis telling those words to Kemsyt when all the Hades Gates except for the one in Atlantis are closed.

• Some units taken from real history have had their names changed to be more accurate, such as the Hippikon becoming the Hippeus.
• Overtly silly relics were given new, mythologically relevant names.
• All references to mithril, a Tolkien invention, have been removed.
• Certain campaign missions are redesigned to more accurately portray the cultures and mythologies they take inspiration from, such as Niflheim in Fall of the Trident being a frigid wasteland as opposed to the Fire and Brimstone Hell seen in the original game.

Arkantos: If our cyclops friends wants it opened, I think we want it to stay closed.

"There are several places where one can enter Tartarus, but Zeus sealed them all wi-what the f*** is he talking about, adamantine doors, I mean who wrote this, is he twelve? No, I've had it.

• The Norse seem based around this strategy. They can make their basic soldier unit from town centers, this tactic can cripple an opponent early in the game by wiping out his villagers. Their buildings are weak so they rely on rush tactics to gain and keep an early advantage in the game. And their infantry are the ones that actually build buildings. So you can rush your troops in, throw down some training centers outside the enemy's base, and have a steady stream of soldiers rushing them. You also gain Favor from Norse fighting, so attacking with a steady stream of sacrificial lambs is a surefire way to get a massive army of fire-giants relatively quick behind. Oh, and if that wasn't great enough, Loki's decently cheap heroes can randomly summon myth units in battle, which can lead to an early victory just due to luck.
• Egyptians to an extent, as they have the cheapest and weakest base units. The main god Set even provides you with free animal allies to bolster your forces. Quite a few of the minor gods support that kind of tactic as well. Additionally, Egyptians can pay gold at any Town Center to pump out short-duration Mercenary units (up to their population cap), meaning that not only can they Zerg Rush, they can *counter* a Zerg Rush!
• Leto's Automata in the expansion campaign being the most memorable. They are relatively cheap and fairly resistant to pierce damage, but their biggest asset is the ability to repair each other when out of battle, including raising dead Automata as long as their body hasn't disappeared yet.
• The Tartarian Spawns created by the Tartarian Gate God Power are a really deadly version of this; they will spawn a certain number of them and if one is killed, the gate will spawn another. The only way to stop them is to destroy the gate, which can be difficult with the spawn constantly attacking. The only disadvantage is that they are neutral mooks, meaning not only that the player doesn't control them, but that they may actually attack the player's own units; however, the gate itself counts as the summoning player's building, which means they can destroy it instantly anytime they wish.
• Averted with the tabletop game. There's (usually) a set number of units that each side can bring to a battle.
• The Chinese in Tale of the Dragon, especially under Nüwa, can crank out heaps of individually weak but swift Scout Cavalry before the other players' economies are off the ground. They can do the same with crossbow units or Terracotta Warriors. Even better, Terracotta Warriors spit out a cloud of damaging dust upon death, as well as refunding a bit of the resources used to build them!