Disclaimer: This post is just a bit of fun, I am NOT advocating for the inclusion of fictional pantheons in Age of Mythology. It has though given me a fresh perspective to come up with some fun original mechanics, technologies, myth units and god powers, many of which I think could fit into the game really well. All ideas are my own, the images were generated using AI to make it a more interesting read.

Introduction

This is an Age of Mythology pantheon concept for the Daedric Princes, a fictional pantheon of gods from the Elder Scrolls universe, with 3 Major Gods and a 4th DLC Major God. In this post I’ll detail the basic unique mechanics of the pantheon and introduce the four Major Gods.

This is meant to be an entertaining read (not serious), if people enjoy it I’ll do a future post for the Classical, Heroic and Mythic Ages. I’ve a good idea of the whole pantheon, but I’d love some suggestions for Minor God myth units, god powers and techs.

Economy

Worker unit: Cultist. Gathers resources and constructs buildings.

Drop site: Chest. Food and gold drop site.

>Researches gathering upgrades for food and gold.

Drop site: Wagon. Mobile wood drop site.

>Can move, like the Norse Ox Cart, very useful for depleting wood lines. Researches Survival Equipment and gathering upgrades for wood.

Favor generation: Daedric Shrines. Can build +1 Daedric Shrine per Age. Up to 5 Cultists can pray for favor at each Shrine. Research Shrine Techs to unlock bonus effects from praying.

>In the Archaic Age, Cultists can build one Daedric Shrine to your chosen Major God (e.g. a Shrine of Azura). A maximum of 5 Cultists can be tasked to pray at the Shrine to generate favor.

>In each Age, you unlock a new Shrine to your chosen Minor Gods (e.g. you might unlock a Shrine of Hircine, a Shrine of Meridia and a Shrine of Boethiah), so a total of 4 is possible in the Mythic Age.

>Each Shrine can research a unique Shrine Tech, which only cost favour and are more powerful than normal myth techs. The drawback is they only provide benefits while Cultists are actively praying at the Shrine, and are less powerful when fewer than 5 Cultists are praying. Full power from all Shrines requires 20 Cultists in the Mythic Age, a huge eco sacrifice. 10 Cultists in the Classical Age is even worse for your eco. Players need to carefully manage these bonuses to get the best utility without sacrificing eco at the wrong time.

Scout Unit: Argonian Scout. Fast ranged foot soldier. Start with one, which can be upgraded to a normal Argonian in the Classical Age.

>Despite looking like a lizard man, Argonian Scouts are classified as human units. They are fast but weak ranged units with low attack, similar to the Aztec spy. In the Classical Age, you can convert the Argonian Scout into a normal Argonian. It costs the same as training an Argonian at the Bandit Camp (a Classical Age military building), but takes twice as long; this is to prevent you getting too much harassment power too soon.

Fortifications: Maximum wall strength is Stone Walls, maximum tower strength is Guard Towers.

Market and Armory: Both buildings provide all the standard technologies.

>The Daedric Caravan unit is a Khajiit trader, a humanoid cat that, despite its fantasy appearance, is not a myth unit.

Military buildings and units

Reaver Camp: Available in the Classical Age. Trains infantry, including Nords and Orsimer. Unlocks Dunmer in the Heroic Age.

>Nords are generalist melee fighters, comparable to the Murmillo. They fight with a large two-handed greatsword that gives them the range of a spearman unit.

>Orsimer are well-armored, hammer-wielding units with a strong attack but a slow reload time, which makes them vulnerable to infantry and archers. They inflict bonus damage against cavalry, which they hard counter.

>Dunmer are quite unique in having two different attacks. Like Throwing Axemen, they have a ranged attack, launching magical fire bolts that inflict hack damage and a small amount of crush damage, making Dunmer decent against buildings. If a target gets close, they’ll use their sword. The sword attack has the same hack damage as the fire bolt, but with a faster attack speed and no crush damage, making it more deadly to enemy soldiers. Dunmer have a bonus against other infantry units.

Bandit Camp: Available in the Classical Age. Trains ranged and counter-range units, including Argonians and Bosmer. Unlocks Redguards in the Heroic Age.

>Argonians are counter-archer ranged foot soldiers, comparable to Peltasts but with the speed of a Berserk.

>Bosmer are generalist archers with excellent accuracy even before Ballistics.

>Redguards are fast, lightly-armored melee cavalry units with an anti-archer and anti-siege bonus.

Outlaw Stronghold: Available in the Heroic Age. Trains siege and elite units, including Daedrams and Bretons. Unlock Altmer in the Mythic Age.

>Daedrams are melee siege units (the only Daedric siege unit). They can garrison up to five foot soldiers, which increases both speed and attack.

>Bretons are strong generalist cavalry, particularly good against other cavalry and archers.

>Altmer are building destroyers, but they do well against normal units too. They are similar to Onmyoji in that they’re foot soldiers that destroy buildings, but they aren’t as overpowered as Onmyoji. They aren’t heroes, they have a much slower rate of fire, no divine damage, and they can’t heal other units. To compensate, they have a longer range, their fire ball attacks inflict more crush damage (as well as more hack damage), and they can heal themselves when idle.

TLDR: Here’s the most similar unit: Nord = Murmillo; Orsimer = Hoplite; Dunmer = Throwing Axeman + Hypaspist; Argonian = fast Peltast; Bosmer = Toxotes; Daedram = Siege Tower; Redguard = Raiding Cavalry; Breton = Jarl + Camel; Altmer = Catapult (less hit points and armor, but heals itself)

Temple and Docks

Archaic Age Myth Units: Each Major God gets a unique myth unit in the Archaic Age.

>These unique myth units are designed to be useless for early aggression; instead, they provide some other utility, such as scouting. You get a free one when your first Temple is built, but after that they are expensive to train, equivalent to a Heroic Age myth unit. In the Heroic Age, each of these myth units has an upgrade that makes them useful in combat.

Dock: Daedric warships are trained 10% faster.

>They have the three standard combat ships (Arrow ship: Corsair, Close-combat ship: Cutter, Siege ship: Dromon), as well as fishing ships and transport ships.

Heroic Age Naval Myth Unit: Scalon. Aquatic myth unit that leaps at land targets, but then returns to the water. Good against human soldiers.

>You can only command Scalons to move to locations in water, but there’s a twist: if a land unit comes within range, the Scalon will leap out of the water to attack them. The Scalon isn’t classified as fully amphibious because, while out of the water, it can only move within a small area radius (the radius is slightly larger than its leap distance, ensuring it can return to the water). It moves very slowly in this area, and if left idle it will return to the water.

Mythic Age Naval Myth Unit: Lurker. Amphibious myth unit that hurls poisonous tentacles to slow down targets. Good against human soldiers.

>Strong and expensive. Their special cooldown attack launches poisonous tentacles, which inflicts an area effect that does a small amount of poison damage and slows down the movement speed of units for a few seconds.

Heroes

Prison: Can be constructed in the Archaic Age. Trains the three hero units available to the Daedric Pantheon: Warriors, Mages and Thieves.

>You can train one of each in the Archaic Age, then +1 of each per Age (so the hero limit is 12 in the Mythic Age). Each hero comes in four variants. These variants have identical stats, but different appearances to make them stand out as individual units. You don’t choose individual variants, they are chosen for you when you train a hero, so you can auto-queue Warriors (for example) and the Prison will train four unique Warrior units.

>Warriors are well-armored melee units with excellent attack and hack armor. Strong vs melee units, vulnerable to ranged attacks. Warrior variants: Nord, Redguard, Orsimer and Imperial.

>Mages are ranged units that launch magical shards of ice (inflicting pierce damage) and can heal allied units. Strong vs infantry, good vs ranged units, vulnerable to cavalry. Mage variants: Breton, Dunmer, Altmer, and Imperial.

>Thieves are light-armored melee units with excellent speed and pierce armor. Strong vs ranged units, vulnerable to melee attacks. Thief variants: Argonian, Bosmer, Khajiit and Imperial.

>Warriors and Thieves will use bows against flying myth units.

Major God: Azura

Focus: Dunmer and Mages.

Shrine Tech: Prophetic Visions. Dunmer and Mages receive an additional 30% hit points from your Shrine of Azura. Depletes over time; at full power, takes 120 seconds to fully deplete.

>When a Dunmer or Mage is near your Shrine of Azura, they receive a second health bar with an additional 30% hit points. Only applied if the unit is on full health and there are no enemies nearby. When they leave the Shrine, the additional health will start to deplete (and it cannot be healed).

>The second health bar fully depletes in 20 seconds. However, if you have a Cultist praying at the Shrine of Azura, the depletion rate is slowed down and it lasts 40 seconds. Add a second Cultist, and it’s 72 seconds. A third gives 92, a fourth 108, and the max of five praying Cultists gives 120 seconds.

>Note that if you add / remove praying Cultists while the additional health bar is depleting, it will deplete slower / faster, so you need to keep Cultists praying to maintain the benefit.

Bonuses

1. Mages can spend favor to conjure myth units for 12/16/22/30 seconds (increasing with Age)

>When selecting a Mage (one of the Daedric hero units), you can conjure any myth unit available at the Temple at the Mage’s location. These “conjured” myth units have no pop space and cost 65% less favor and no food, gold or wood, but they have a set lifespan – similar to Clay Peasants or Gullinbursti – and cannot be controlled by you (though they are on your team). Mages must recharge this ability after use.

2. Temples and Shrines are 20% cheaper

>Azura is designed for early aggression, and this bonus is meant to help her reach the Classical Age faster.

3. Dunmer can be trained in the Classical Age and can gather favor at Shrines

>Shrines are still limited to 5 praying supplicants. Note that Dunmer won’t contribute to Shrine Techs (like the Prophetic Visions Shrine Tech) when praying, only Cultists can do that.

God Power: Azura’s Star. Cast on an enemy unit; if killed within 30 seconds, gain 10% of its hit points in favor.

>Villagers have 55 hit points, so killing one with this effect grants you 6 points of favour (55 / 10 = 5.5, rounded up). A Minotaur has 320 hit points, so killing that grants 32 points of favor. Note that on recasts, you’ll also receive the favor cost of the god power back if you successfully kill the target unit in the allotted time.

Myth Unit: Winged Twilight. Flying scout myth unit with a large LOS. Heroic Age upgrade enables combat abilities.

>This is a flying unit that can be tasked to auto-scout in the Archaic Age. It has no attack, but decent defence. When upgraded in the Heroic Age, the Winged Twilight becomes a combat unit. It will automatically descend (i.e. no toggle action required) to attack units with melee damage, at which point its vulnerable to ground unit attacks. It will then return to the air while moving.

Major God: Hermaeus Mora

Focus: Technology and Warriors.

Shrine Tech: Oghma Infinium. All Shrines increase the effects of technologies on nearby units. At full power, increases the fortifying range of Shrines by 200%.

>Hermaeus Mora is designed to support a booming play style. This Shrine tech allows eco techs to improve Cultist gathering rates even further, but it also allows your Armory techs to improve your military units even more when near a Shrine, improving base defence.

>One praying Cultist increases the fortifying range of Shrines by 70%. The second increases the range by 120%, then 155%, 180%, and 200% with five Cultists.

Bonuses

1. Warriors can generate resources equivalent to 20% of the cost of their last three kills on winning a battle

>Grants Warriors the Loot special ability. When activated, you gain resources equivalent to 20% of the cost of the last three units killed by the Warrior, e.g. if they killed three Hoplites (each costing 50 food and 40 gold) you’d get 30 food and 24 gold. You can only gather resources from a killed unit once. Activating the Loot power causes the Warrior to stop moving and fighting for 2 seconds, making them vulnerable to attack. They will use it automatically after winning a battle (i.e. all enemy units within their LOS are killed), but you can manually trigger it during a battle too.

2. Replaces 10%/15%/20%/25% of Breton, Redguard and Nord attack with divine damage (increasing with Age)

>This doesn’t actually increase the total damage done by these units, but it means they can partially negate the benefits of enemy armor technologies, especially useful in the late-game.

3. Can train Lurkers at the Temple in the Mythic Age

>All Daedric major gods can train Lurkers at the Dock in the Mythic Age, Hermaeus Mora can simply do so at Temples too, ensuring he always has access to them even on maps that lack water.

God Power: Dragonborn. Cast on a Warrior to increase their attack and grant them a special knock-back ability.

>Warriors affected by this power are renamed Dragonborn, and their attack improves with age (i.e. it doesn’t matter when you cast this power, Dragonborn will always be appropriately powerful for their age). Their special ability is similar to the Minotaur knock-back effect, but it inflicts additional damage and is accompanied by an audible shout from the Dragonborn.

Myth Unit: Seeker. Weak ranged myth unit that researches technologies from buildings. Heroic Age upgrade improves range, speed and defence.

>Seekers have respectable attack, firing bolts of green light that inflict pierce damage. They are very slow and weak though, and they have a short range, so although they technically can be used offensively from the beginning, they’re bad and they’ll die fast, even to villager attacks. Their utility is so useful that you’ll want to avoid that.

>Seekers can be tasked on a building, at which point they’ll open a book next to the it, and all that building’s available technologies can be researched by them. This allows you to create additional research-only production queues, so you can research multiple techs from one building at the same time. Especially useful for military buildings, which can train units while the unit upgrades are researched separately.

>In the Heroic Age, their upgrade gives them enough range, speed and defence to make them viable as a support unit in battle.

Major God: Nocturnal

Focus: Towers and Thieves.

Shrine Tech: Eye of Nocturnal. All Shrines gain +10 LOS. At full power, increases the LOS of your fortifications and Shrines by an additional +10 range.

>This increases Shrine LOS to be large, but still less than a tower. One praying Cultists provides +3 LOS on fortifications, increased to +6, then +8, then +9 and finally +10 at five praying Cultists. At full power, towers have 34 LOS; for reference, Lighthouses have 60 LOS, and Oracle Heroes have 35 LOS. Fortifications in this context include Town and Village Centers, towers and Outlaw Strongholds.

Bonuses

1. Thieves can steal up to 25/50/75/100 enemy gold by passing close to enemy units (increasing with Age)

>Thieves are your fast infantry heroes, which have a training limit of 1 in the Archaic and +1 per age up.

>If a Thief passes close to an enemy unit, then the enemy player loses gold and it’s added to the Thief’s inventory. The Thief must deposit this in a drop-site for you to get the gold. If a Thief is killed with gold in its possession, the enemy player gets their gold back.

>Different units produce different amounts of gold for Thieves. Worker units only produce 1 gold, but military units and heroes provide more. When a unit has been stolen from, a cooldown bar that only you can see appears over their head; they cannot be robbed again until this bar is depleted.

2. Towers and Prisons work 50% faster

>Towers research their upgrades faster, and Prisons can train heroes and research hero techs faster.

3. Ranged human units can attack while garrisoned in Towers, gaining +3 range and minimum range

>A really strong defensive bonus. By default, all foot soldiers garrisoned in a Watch Tower (or stronger) contribute a small amount to its attack damage. With Nocturnal, the two archer units (Argonians and Bosmer) don’t contribute to Watch Tower attack; instead, they continue firing as normal. This grants them extra range and the protection of being inside a building, sacrificing movement and gaining a minimum range.

God Power: Vanish. Cast on a group of your units to move them to your nearest Town Center.

>Think of this like a more restrictive but immediate version of Shifting Sands. Return endangered units to safety, or call back an offensive force to defend your Town Center.

Myth Unit: Shadow. Ranged myth unit that can teleport within the attack range of your fortifications, to which it is confined until its Heroic Age upgrade.

>Shadows have decent attack, providing solid defence in the early game. They cannot move outside the attack range of your fortifications. This prevents them being a useful offensive force in the early game, though if you invest in a chain of towers you can bring them to fights that way (though this is a heavy investment to reach an enemy base and probably not worth it).

>They can also teleport to any location they can reach within the shared range of your fortifications, which they’ll do automatically if you task them on a location/unit that is sufficiently far away. This gives them rapid response potential. In the Heroic Age, their upgrade allows them to move beyond the confines of fortifications, but their teleporting is still confined (and they can’t teleport back to a fortification if they’re not already within range of one).

Major God: Sheogorath

Focus: Shrines and god powers.

Shrine Tech: Lure of the Fringe. At full power, a random human unit will spawn at your Shrine of Sheogorath every 1 minute.

>With the benefit of one praying Cultist, a random human unit is spawned every 190 seconds. This is reduced to 140, 110, 80 and finally 60 seconds with additional Cultists.

>In the Archaic Age, it can spawn a Cultist, Nord, Orsimer, Bosmer or Argonian, each with equal probability (20%). In the Classical Age, there’s a 20% chance of a Cultist, 17% chance for Nords, Orsimer, Bosmer and Argonians, and 8% chance for Bretons, Redguards and Caravans. Heroic: 15% chance of a Cultist, 10% chance for Nords, Orsimer, Bosmer, Argonians, Bretons, Redguards and Caravans, 5% chance for Altmer. Mythic, each unit has an equal 10% chance.

Bonuses

1. Shrines have -1 praying capacity, but constantly receive the benefit of 1 praying Cultist

>This plays as a strong bonus for the Daedra given that the drawback of the powerful Shrine Techs is the sacrifice of economy. Sheogorath has to sacrifice less eco than the other Major Gods for the benefits, and receive a trickle of favor from Shrines even without having Cultists pray.

2. God powers recharge +20% faster per Age over the Age they were first available

>So in the Heroic Age, for example, an Archaic Age god power recharges 40% faster, a Classical Age god power recharges 20% faster, and Heroic Age powers have no bonus. Encourages prolific Wabbajacking in the late-game (see god power). In the Wonder Age, Sheogorath’s Archaic Age god power is capped at 90% faster recharging.

3. Start with 2 dairy cows, gain +1 per Age up

>Dairy cows are similar to other cows in that they can be moved around and claimed by opponents, but they have completely different gather mechanics. They have the same gather rate as other livestock animals, but they provide infinite food and are limited to one worker unit gathering from them at any one time. Think of them as free, portable farms with improved gather rates.

God Power: Wabbajack. Cast on any unit to transform it into a random unit for 20 seconds.

>Can be cast on your units or the enemy’s. The difficulty is that it’s a gamble, you might be increasing or decreasing the unit’s power. Possible transformations include: chickens, goats, baboons, elephants, Hoplites, Throwing Axemen, Peltasts, Valkyrie, Mummies, and Colossi, to name a few. Cannot transform into amphibious units or units capable of flight.

Myth Unit: Golden Saint. Proud myth unit that cannot be controlled until its Heroic Age upgrade is researched.

>Golden Saints are solid melee fighters with no special ability, but with a unique auto-guard function. Similar to auto-scouting, the Saint will behave independently in this state. It will identify your most vulnerable Cultists, usually those gathering resources furthest from the Town Center, and stand by them to guard them. In the early game, they are locked into this functionality and cannot be controlled in any way. In the Heroic Age, this lock is removed and must be toggled on for newly trained Saints.

Recently I made this post a 4th Atlantean DLC God focusing on a turtle strategy, Pontus.

I did loads of research into the titans for this and had some fun ideas for other Titan gods and myth units, and my previous two attempts at Nyx and Pontus both had issues, so for your reading pleasure here is my last attempt (promise) at an Atlantean 4th DLC god: Iapetus

Why Iapetus? Well, unlike Nyx and Pontus, he is actually part of the Titan lineage. Imprisoned next to Kronos, there's a hint that he was a second-in-command of sorts, and may have been as revered among the Titans as Poseidon or Demeter were among the Olympians.

Note: all these ideas are my own, but I’ve added some AI-generated icons and god portraits to make it a more entertaining overview.

If you enjoy this let me know, I’ve really enjoyed all your comments on my last few posts.

# Major god: Iapetus

***Focus: Population***

Iapetus is designed to support a booming playstyle, with bonuses that come into fruition in the late-game to support a more robust economy and military production, provided you can establish a strong economy to support unit production. In the Archaic Age, improved scouting potential helps you identify Settlements for claiming in the Classical Age, which can be reached sooner with a god power and myth tech that improve early food gathering.

**God Power: Devour.** Cast on a food source to passively gather from it.

>*Effectively like having an extra Citizen gathering food in complete safety.*

>*Nuwa’s Creation gives better gathering power, but Devour’s advantages over Creation are 1) there’s no citizen’s for the enemy to harass, so the gathering can’t be interrupted; 2) it can be cast on food sources inaccessible to normal citizens, like fish and farms in use; 3) its two-minute max duration in the Archaic increases as you age up.*

**Unique Unit: Hoplomachus** Infantry unit. Good against cavalry.

>*This unit is Iapetus’s unique identifier, like Oranos’s Sky Passages, Kronos’s time-shifting and Gaia’s Lush. Like other Atlantean human soldiers, can be promoted to a hero.*

>*The Hoplomachus is an exceptional generalist infantry unit with an anti-cavalry bonus, comparable to a Hoplite. It's unique in taking 1.5 pop space; this means one Hoplomachus takes 2 pop-space, but two of them take 3 pop-space. In practice, this allows you to train 33% more Hoplochami than Murmillos for the same pop space. They will lose to Murmillo and Hoplites 1v1, but they will win with pop-space. Pop-space could be increased to 1.75 if this proved too unbalanced.*

**Bonuses**

**1.** Hoplomachus replace Murmillo

>*This means Hoplomachus are trained at the Military Barracks instead of Murmillo.*

>*Given that Hoplomachus has a counter-cavalry bonus, why replace Murmillo instead of Katapeltes? Because the Hoplomachus is also an excellent generalist infantry, similar in design to the Greek Hoplite. Katepeltes are still more effective against cavalry, so the Hoplomachus fits better in the Murmillo’s niche than the Katapeltes’.*

**2.** Starts with a Turma Scout

>*The Turma Scout looks just like a Turma, only without the shield on the horse’s haunch. It takes -1 population space, is +0.5 faster, has +2 LOS, and -4 attack (offset by +5 attack against animals). It can be tasked to scout. It cannot be upgraded to a hero. If it is killed, there is no way to train additional Turma Scouts.*

>*In the Classical Age, the Turma Scout will be converted to a regular Turma, though it will retain its scouting ability.*

>*Improved scouting in the Archaic Age should help in securing resources an a second TC in the Classical. It also synergises well with the Devour god power; use the Turma Scout to find distant food sources and bring down huntables. If you’re feeling brave, you could even use the Turma Scout and Devour combo to steal some food from your enemy, a very strong move in the Archaic.*

**3.** Fortified Town Center is researched instantly and for free in the Heroic Age, and provides +50% population

>*By default, Town Centers provide +10 pop-capacity with this tech; for Iapetus, it’s +15.*

>*While this sounds like a defensive boost, I think of it more as an incentive to be a bit aggressive and claim more TCs in the Classical Age; you can risk more in taking additional TCs if you know they’ll get a defensive boost when you age up.*

**4.** Citizen training time: Citizen training time: -5% for every empty citizen pop-space below the maximum you have achieved. Same for military units, but -2%

>*This takes some explaining. TLDR: doesn’t help you build population in the early game, but offers easier economic recovery after raids, and in the late game offers rapid economic recovery and helps to ensure that you can quickly deploy small to medium armies.*

>*Say you have trained 10 Citizens and 3 Oracles. Citizens have a pop-space of 2, so your Citizen pop-space in 20 (the Oracles don’t contribute to your Citizen pop-space). You lose three Citizens, so your Citizen pop-space goes down by 6 to 14. This grants you -30% training time for the next trained citizen (6 x -5%), -20% for the one after that, then -10% before returning to normal. The cap is -90%, for which you’d have to have lost at least 9 citizens.*

>*The military pop-space count is handled separately. The cap for military units is -70%.*

**Unique Tech: Bounty of Epimetheus** Replaces livestock near your Town Center with boars worth 25% more food.

>*Livestock increase their food over time, boars don't, and they fight back when attacked. But boars do also provide better gather rates. This tech sacrifices long-term food supply for short-term gains, which can be beneficial but should be used with caution.*

>*If there are no livestock animals near your TC, you receive no benefit from this tech, and you essentially waste the resources used to research it. Given Epimetheus is the Titan of short-sightedness and poor planning, I think this is quite fitting.*

# Minor god: Phoebe

***Focus: Vision.*** In the Classical Age, Iapetus’s goal is to create lots of Citizens.

Prometheus approaches this economically, making it easier to upgrade your Citizens to heroes and improve their work rate. If Iapetus’s Turma Scout survives into the Classical Age, it will become a Turma and can be instantly promoted to a hero with the Valor power, giving you early access to a useful raiding unit, and helping your economy stay ahead.

Phoebe offers improved favor generation, but no other eco bonus to help with Citizen production. Her support for booming comes from map control. Her god power supports armies in defence and offence, she has access to an extremely fast myth unit to allow engagements all over the map, and she can provide improved scouting and modest regeneration to help identify and hold Settlements.

**God Power: Prophecy.** Target a location to grant your units a second, non-healable health bar.

>*The new health bar is meant to mimic a unit having seen a vision of a single fight in the future, and thus be prepared to defend against it. In gameplay, the second health bar cannot regenerate, but it is permanent until destroyed. It must be completely destroyed before their regular health bar starts to take damage.*

>*The new health bars are worth a total of 100 hit points (this could easily by modified for rebalances), e.g. if you cast Prophecy over 5 units, they’ll each receive 20 hit points; if you cast on one unit, they’ll receive the full 100 hit points. This would increase in later ages.*

**Myth Unit: Python.** Myth unit that can burrow underground to move faster. Good against human soldiers.

>*The Python is a melee unit that moves slowly similar to the Wadjet, with its head reared up. It is larger than the Wadjet, however, with more health and good hack armor. It can be toggled to burrow underground at any time, and then toggled to resurface; both these processes take time, during which the Python is vulnerable to attack.*

>*A mound of earth appears over the Python while it is underground, moving with it to show its location. While underground, the Python is impervious to damage, and moves extremely quickly. It cannot cross water or cliffs, but it can move under walls, buildings and trees (though it cannot resurface while under them).*

**Tech: Earth Dragon.** Upgrades Pythons to Delphynes, which burrows and resurfaces from the ground much faster, and can rapidly strike from underground.

>*Normally if you task a Python to attack a unit while its underground, it has to slowly resurface. When a Delphyne is underground, however, it can attack enemies to resurface instantly and inflict additional damage. It still takes time to burrow underground.*

**Unique Unit: Delphic Oracle.** Hero Oracle that generates favor 10% faster and can move her LOS to remote locations. Max limit: 1

>*Trained at the Temple. Does not contribute to your Oracle max limit, essentially granting one additional Oracle with 10% faster favour generation. More expensive, more pop space and longer training time than an Oracle, but is created as a hero (i.e. there’s no non-hero version).*

>*Her special ability, Far Sight, moves her vision to a location of your choice at a cost of 5 favor. This reduces her local LOS to 0, and the chosen location has half her usual LOS, so it’s quite small (and therefore produces less favor). It must also grow, like normal Oracle LOS. There is a cooldown for moving her vision, and if she moves her remote vision is broken, causing her local vision to start expanding as normal.*

**Tech: Sacred Light.** Oracles regenerate the health of units within their LOS.

>*The healing rate does not stack with overlapping Oracle LOS. I imagine this would be quite a small amount of healing, increased to more when units are idle.*

>*The Delphic Oracle’s healing would be more than other Oracles, and it does apply to the Delphic Oracle when using her Far Sight ability. So you can choose between setting up a healing spot for your units, or get better intel on your enemies.*

# Minor god: Coeus

***Focus: Trade and Technology.*** In the Heroic Age, it’s time to start researching military techs and set up a trade route for late-game gold.

Hyperion enables this by emphasising the use of military power to secure map control with a strong offensive god power, strong heroes and a strong myth unit. Furthermore, regenerating heroes can be exceptionally powerful in Iapetus’s Mythic Age, so Hyperion gives you the strongest long-term army.

But if you’re map control’s already in a good place, you might consider Coeus for a more robust trade route and a much more powerful research potential to ensure a strong late-game economy. Your late-game army won’t be as powerful, but you can reach it sooner and maintain it for longer.

**God Power: Secret Knowledge.** Transforms an Economic Guild into a Research Guild, which can research all available technologies 40% faster, and can research additional eco techs in the Mythic Age.

>*To be clear, everything can be researched here (including armory upgrades, military unit upgrades, dock upgrades and so on) except for age advancement, Secrets of the Titans, and Omniscience. The limiting factor is that it only researches one tech at a time and you’ll usually only have one Research Guild, so it might be quicker to also research additional technologies from other buildings where possible.*

>*For comparison, Heimdall’s Classical Age tech Rigsthula improves research rates by 20% across all buildings, the Mythic Age tech Divine Prefecture improves research rates by 60%, and the Dwarven Armory researches armory techs 33% faster in the Heroic Age and 50% faster in the Mythic. So I think this is balanced.*

>*Similar to how the Dwarven Armory provides additional armor techs in the Mythic Age, the Research Guild provides additional eco techs. These are NOT classified as myth techs.*

**Tech: Secrets of Ourea.** Citizens: +15% gold gather rate. Requires Quarry.

**Tech: Secrets of Pontus.** Citizens and Fishing Ships: +10% food gather rate. Requires Flood Control.

**Tech: Secrets of Gaia.** Citizens: +15% wood gather rate. Requires Carpenters.

>*In terms of balance, my sense is the availability of these techs doesn’t make Coeus overpowered because they’re not available immediately, and they provide only a late-game eco boost (by which time the gold tech in particular might be completely unnecessary).*

**Myth Unit: Griffin.** Myth unit with a special leap attack that stuns a target and knocks back nearby foes. Good against human soldiers.

>*The Griffin is a land-based unit, not a flying unit. Its wings are used for its special attack in which it leaps into the air (powered by its wings) and descends on a target, which it stuns. All its nearby allies are knocked back with wind from the Griffin’s wings (similar to the Minotaur attack), allowing the Griffin to attack its stunned target in peace.*

**Myth Unit: Hippogriff.** Flying caravan myth unit created at Markets that collects gold from Town Centers and returns it to your Market..

>*Compared to the Chinese Pixiu, the Hippogriff is more expensive, doesn’t generate gold faster than normal caravans, and doesn’t have any bonuses to generate food and wood. But on the plus side, it can fly. That means protection from raids, and it isn’t slowed down by geography or buildings.*

**Tech: Golden Talons.** Upgrades Griffins to High Griffins, which have +25% attack.

**Tech: Shoulders of Giants.** Non-myth techs cost 0.5% less for each one previously researched.

>*I’ve run the numbers. Bear in mind Isis gives a flat -10% on all technology costs, including Myth techs (which aren’t covered by this). A perfect research strategy in which you research the cheapest techs first and the most expensive last would result in a saving of 20%. But you’re not researching all the techs in any game, and you’re definitely not doing it perfectly. The worst saving possible, where you research the most expensive techs first, results in a 10% saving; ordering randomly gives about 15%, which I think is the most likely figure you’d hit.*

**Tech: Greek Fire.** Unlocks Fire Siphons; Fire Ships and Fire Siphons +20% movement speed.

>*Not the strongest boost, but potentially useful in pushing the enemy off a TC if you need to boom harder.*

# Minor god: Mnemosyne

***Focus: Heroes and Human Soldiers.*** In the Mythic Age, it’s time to start pumping out large armies.

Hekate’ offers powerful myth units and synergises very well with Iapetus’s other minor gods. Use the Delphic Oracle’s Far Sight to drop a Tartarian Gate in the enemy base, research Mythic Rejuvenation for regenerating Griffins, and improve the gather rate of your Hippogriffs with Celerity.

Conversely, Mnemosyne offers powerful heroes (with a particularly large power-spike for Iapetus’s unique unit, the Hoplomachus), supported by a sturdy myth unit and a dangerous god power. If you’re fighting an opponent that easily counters myth units, this might be the better choice.

**God Power: Story of Typhon.** Summons Typhon, a titan who will attack everything near him for 30 seconds.

>*Typhon is a neutral and aggressive Titan. As well as attacking enemies, he will attack your units as well. When Typhon first appears he will impact that ground, causing damage to units. He cannot be summoned on top of a building, he needs open ground. He cannot be killed, but he only last for 30 seconds before departing.*

**Myth Unit: Amalthea.** Myth unit that is almost completely invulnerable to pierce damage. Good against human soldiers.

>*A fairly standard melee myth unit with respectable attack whose unique selling point is pierce resistance, making it a useful additional to infantry-heavy armies.*

**Tech: Horn of Amalthea.** Upgrades Amaltheas to Amalthea Aixes, which heal nearby friendly units as they attack enemies.

>*Similar to the life-steal effect of Poseidon’s Thracian Horses tech, except the Amalthea regenerates the health of its allies rather than its own health. The Amalthea is good defensively, but this tech makes it a support specialist for your heroes.*

**Tech: Gigantomachy.** Hero infantry have 3 veterency levels, growing in size and power.

>*Affects Hoplomachus, Katapeltes, Fanatic and Destroyer heroes.*

>*Veterency ranks are increased by inflicting damage. Any damage inflicted by a unit before it becomes a hero also contributes to their veterency as a hero.*

>*With each veterency rank, the unit’s size increases slightly, as does their range. Their health and attack both increase by 10%, and they gain +1 / +2 / +3 points of crush damage (so +6 at full veterency).*

>*By comparison, Vidar’s Avenging Spirit tech increases Hersir attack by 20% with every veterency level. The attack boost is lower for this tech because it affects a wider variety of units and also affects range and health.*

**Tech: Remember the Fallen.** Heroes grant +0.1 divine damage to all nearby human soldiers on death.

>*This is a permanent boost to all nearby human soldiers. The hero must be killed by an enemy (deleting your own units does nothing). Maxes out at +1.5 divine damage (this could be increased or nerfed for balanc). This tech is particularly valuable for groups of Hoplomachi since their decreased pop-cap means you can field more of them than other heroes, so there's more available to die.*

**Tech: Cult of the Piercer.** Hoplomachi and Turma have +20% attack and -20% hack vulnerability, and cost 50% less favor to promote to heroes.

>*With all of Mnemosyne’s techs researched, the unit that benefits the most is the Hoplomachus Hero. As a baseline, they train faster (thanks to the Iapetus bonus), can be trained in high numbers, they may regenerate (if you chose Hyperion in the Heroic Age), and have +20% attack, -20% hack vulnerability. Individually, they can also reach +1.5 divine damage (via Remember the Fallen) and another +30% attack, health and additional range at full veterency (via Gigantomachy).*

>*By comparison, Norse Hersir have 65% more base health, more speed, much better pierce armor, and do about 20% more damage than the Hoplomachus. With Freyr, they can have an additional +20% health, +20% attack, and +10% movement speed. Individually, they can achieve another +60% attack (via Avenging Spirit). So stats-wise, the Hersir can be far superior. The Hoplomachus are also countered much harder by anti-infantry units, with their lower pierce armor. Their edge over Hersirs is their faster training times and their numbers on the battlefield.*

>*So overall, the fully upgraded Iapetus Hoplomachus is extremely powerful, but not so much so that they’re unbalanced next to other strong infantry builds.*

Recently I made this post for a 4th Egyptian DLC God focusing on a rush-boom strategy, Neith.

After some kind feedback, I wanted to try again with the Atlanteans (I’d previously tried creating a Nyx civ that was deemed overpowered and boring).

Atlanteans have two rush gods (Kronos and Oranos) and a boom-turtle (Gaia), so I wanted to design a pure turtle god. I took some inspiration from Hades in this, but wanted to focus more on buildings and walls, aiming for construction of a strong early-game base, followed by a fast and powerful Mythic Age. And most importantly, I didn’t want to design another boring Nyx god concept.

So here is my concept for a turtling Atlantean Major God: Pontus

Note: all these ideas are my own, but I’ve added some AI-generated icons and god portraits to make it a more entertaining overview. Also, after coming up with this concept, I did find another concept for Pontus with some similar ideas to my own (in particular, we both came up with the concept of using coral to express building fortifications). Here is a link to that if you’re interested.

If you enjoy this let me know, I’ve really enjoyed researching these concepts and would love to do more if they’re appreciated.

Major god: Pontus

Focus: Defences The current turtle-king of AOM is Hades with his archers. Pontus’s main focus is buildings, but a big part of his turtle strength is also based on regeneration, with several of his bonuses and all but one of his minor god choices having some regeneration abilities.

God Power: Fabrication. Increases the construction progress of a building, adding buttresses when complete.

>Can be cast on a new foundation or a building under construction. In the Archaic Age, it improves construction progress by 75 resource points. Cannot be cast on walls, Town Centers, Village Centers, Titan Gates or Wonders.

>Once a building that has had Fabrication cast on it is complete, it will receive coral buttresses. If cast on a building that’s already completed, it will still add buttresses. Buttresses give extra defence, described in the Bonuses section below.

>In later ages, the resource points contributed by Fabrication increases to 125, 200, 300, and finally 450 in the Wonder Age (equivalent to 75% of a Palace).

Unique Building: Coral Wall Identical stats to the Stone Wall. Regenerates hit points.

>Coral Walls have three upgrades (one per Classical, Heroic and Mythic Age) that increase their regeneration rate and increase their stats to match Bronze, Iron and Orichalcum Walls, respectively: Bronze Coral, Silver Coral, and Golden Coral. These techs also change the color of Coral Walls, and will affect buttressed buildings (see below).

Bonuses
Pontus’s bonuses are geared around defence.

1. Coral Walls replace Walls

>Apart from the regen bonus, this also means Pontus has access to walls of Stone strength in the Archaic Age, a great early game boost to encourage walling.

2. Citizens gather Wood 10% faster

>Wood is probably the least important resource long-term, but in the early game this is a very strong bonus. More resources for building defences and archers. Also makes ship-building easier, which makes thematic sense.

3. Buildings can be buttressed, increasing their hit points and protecting them from god powers

>You can think of buttressing as heroizing buildings. Each building (except walls, Town Centers, Village Centers and Titan Gates) have a buttress button that increases their hit points by 10% in exchange for wood, gold and favor.

>The buttresses are visual supports made of coral. Buttressed buildings can all research the same coral improvement techs as walls. Each of these three coral improvements increases the hit point bonus from 10% to 15%, then 20%, and finally 25%. As with walls, the buttresses change colour with each of these upgrades.

>Buttressed buildings are also protected from god powers. For damaging powers like Earthquake, this simply reduces damage. Undermine still damages towers, but not enough to destroy them in one. Deconstruction has no effect.

>The cost of buttressing a building is 75% of it the building’s wood and gold cost, similar to heroizing a soldier. However, the favor cost is much more expensive: 10 for Archaic Age buildings, 15 for Classical, 25 for Heroic, 35 for Mythic, and 200 for Wonders.

4. The first human unit created from a building after it has been buttressed is immediately promoted to a hero for free

>For example, buttress a Military Barracks and auto-queue Murmillo creation; the first Murmillo will be a hero, all others will be normal Murmillos.

Unique Tech: Resilience of the Reef Buttressed buildings regenerate hit points, and Coral Walls regenerate faster.

>All the regenerate rates, including those of base Coral Walls, can be adjusted for balance reasons, but generally speaking I don’t think building regeneration is too strong a tech, so this seems easy to balance.

Minor god: Selene

Focus: Towers and ranged units. Oceanus offers a compromise between defence and offence, with healing myth units and strong infantry. Selene offers a more defence-oriented approach. Her god power and myth unit are both extremely powerful for the Classical Age, but can backfire if used aggressively.

God Power: Moonrise. For 60 seconds, weakened units will become stunned or chaotic, and Oracles generate favor 50% faster.

>Like Eclipse, casting it would change the lighting of the whole map. During its effect, weakened villager units on low health will be stunned until the effect runs out or they are healed. Weakened military units will become chaotic, attacking everyone. These effects would affect your units too.

>Like Eclipse, it also improves favor generation (only for all Atlantean players rather than Egyptians). This is important for Pontus because map-control is sacrificed as part of the turtle strategy, and Atlanteans need map-control to generate favor.

Myth Unit: Ophiotaurus. Powerful, acid-spitting myth unit that inflicts area damage. Grants favor to its slayer. Good against human soldiers.

>Atlantean Classical Age myth units are cheaper and quite underwhelming. The Ophiotaurus is the complete opposite. It has a powerful ranged attack with an excellent area effect that inflicts hack damage. It also has high health and good defences, to the point where it more resembles a Heroic Age myth unit.

>But there are drawbacks. It is expensive, and has the highest pop of any Classical myth unit. It is slow moving, and its acid attacks are terrible against enemy buildings. Worst of all, it grants 15 points of favor to the player that kills it (similar the Fafnir’s donating gold on death).

>Put together, the Ophiotaurus is fantastic for defending fortified positions, not ideal for supporting army assaults, and appalling at raiding. It is best to have healing on-hand for it.

Unique Building: Moonstone Tower. Tower that fires rays of moonlight at friendly targets, restoring their hit points.

>An excellent healer, but only for one unit at a time within a fairly small range. In the Classical Age you can build two of these. Two more can be built in Heroic, and one more in Mythic. It is also expensive to buttress, with the same buttressing favor cost as a Mythic Age building.

Tech: Chariot of the Moon. Cheiroballista cost -20% gold to train and heroize, and use -1 pop space.

Tech: Youth of Endymion. Archers have +20% hit points and reload 8% (15% for heroes) faster.

>Note that this doesn’t affect Cheiroballista, only Turma and Arcus.

Tech: Pan’s Gift. A one-time gift from Pan that is more valuable the later it is researched.

>Grants you X Goats and Y Satyrs, where X = game duration in seconds / 100, rounded down, and Y = X / 3, rounded down. For example, at 4 minutes, you receive 2 Goats (240 seconds / 100 = 2.4) and 0 Satyrs. At 8 minutes, you receive 4 Goats and 1 Satyr. The maximum number occurs at 25 minutes, when you’ll receive 15 goats and 5 Saty

Minor god: Themis

Focus: Economy and expansion. In the Heroic Age, you will need to start booming to quickly reach a decisive Mythic Age victory. This will usually require you to start claiming Settlements. If the enemy has taken most of them already, Rheia’s Behemoths and strong infantry provide a means to quickly destroy the more vulnerable enemy Town Centers so you can claim them. But if there are sufficient Settlements available, Themis provides a safer means of claiming them while supporting a much stronger economy, guaranteeing a much faster Mythic.

God Power: Imprison. Cast on a Tower / Palace to imprison 2 / 5 nearby enemy humans soldiers. The Tower / Palace must be destroyed to release imprisoned units.

>Imprisoned units can’t be commanded or seen by the enemy player, but they still contribute to the enemy’s pop limit. Enemy players will see a garrison flag of their own colour on the building imprisoning their units. May need to be rebalanced by reducing Palace imprisons from 5 to 4 as this is quite strong.

Myth Unit: Lithogenes. Stone warriors with high pierce armor that can construct fortifications. Good against human soldiers.

>These units are trained 50/50 as male/female versions, which are named Deucalids and Pyrrids respectively (based on the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha). They fight with a Hasta, a spear used by Roman gladiators. They are resistant to pierce attacks but are vulnerable to crush damage. A solid fighting unit.

>They can construct Coral Walls, Towers and Palaces. If available, they can also construct Moonstone Towers and Mirror Towers. They build fast, at a similar rate to Kuafu.

Tech: Bones of the Mother. Lithogenes move 10% faster, and can construct Town and Village Centers.

Tech: Children of Pontus. Naval myth units cost -3 favor.

Tech: Hospitium. Town Centers, Village Centers and Manors have +20% hit points and passively heal nearby units.

>The healing rate applied would be similar to that from the Feasts of Renown tech. This tech doesn’t have the same attack-enforcing power, but it’s much more useful for securing Town Centers while you boom.

Tech: Horn of Plenty. Economic Guilds have +100% hit points, can garrison 3 citizens, and act as drop-off sites for nearby citizens, who gather resources faster.

>This would only affect citizens for which the Guild could provide at least a 5% gather bonus.

>Here’s an example of how this would work. You place an Economic Guild on a wood line and task your citizens to gather there. Being near the Guild, the citizens have boosted gather rates of about 15%. They start collecting resources in bulk and then drop them off at the Guild. Although the gather boost is 15%, they now have walking time, so the actual boost would be closer to 10%. As the wood line is pushed back, the increased walking time starts to diminish the positive gathering effect, to the point their actual gather rate becomes 5%. Once the wood line is pushed beyond this point, the citizens are too far from the Guild to effectively grant a 5% gather bonus, and they revert back to their normal gathering style (i.e. no drop-offs, trickle resource increase).

Minor god: Tethys

Focus: Cavalry. Once you reach Mythic Age, the turtle strategy mainly involves building armies behind fortifications and then launching them at the foe. To be as effective as possible, your armies neat to reach the enemy quickly. Helios is great for this. He has the added benefit of further fortifying your base with Mirror Towers, and if you picked Selene, the Arcus becomes a power-house unit. His armies can also move fast with Vortex, but that risks becoming expensive with repeated use. Tethys offers an alternative, highly versatile approach that is hard to predict, with a defensive god power and fast-moving armies of powerful cavalry and myth units.

God Power: Sacred Spring. Shields against enemy god powers. Spawns up to 3 Naiads to defend itself.

>This is a placeable object that requires clear land, like the Plenty Vault or Hesperides Tree. Its god power blocking is similar to Isis’s monuments, but the Spring cannot be destroyed, only claimed by opponents if all your units are cleared out.

>To prevent the Spring being claimed, it spawns a Naiad when created, and will automatically train Naiads up to a maximum of three. Naiads will defend the Spring with jets of water that deal divine damage, and will also heal your units. They cost nothing and take no population space. Melee units can’t reach Naiads in the Spring, so much like flying units, ranged attacks are required to kill them.

>The Naiads in the Spring can be controlled like normal myth units and tasked to attack specific foes or heal specific units. They cannot be trained at docks, they are purely tied to their Sacred Springs.

Myth Unit: Cetus. Powerful amphibious myth unit with three upgrades to choose from. Good against human soldiers.

>The Cetus is a huge, dragon-like creature with a lot of hit points. It’s attack and speed are also excellent, slightly better than that of the Aztec Ahuizotl, though without the added benefit of a special attack.

>The Cetus is unique in that it has three possible upgrades, each specialising the Cetus for a specific role. Choosing an upgrade will remove the ability to choose one of the other two upgrades, so once you’ve made your choice, you’re locked in.

Cetus upgrade tech option 1: Doom of Aethiopia. Upgrades Cetus to Wrath of Pontus, which is larger, has more health, and inflicts additional crush damage.

>In reference to the myth of Cetus being unleashed on the city of Aethiopia, this tech specialises the Cetus as an anti-building unit. Visually, the Cetus, will become larger and its eyes will become golden.

Cetus upgrade tech option 2: Warriors of Thetis. Upgrades Cetus to Nereid Cavalry, which inflicts additional hack damage and has a special attack against myth units.

>Specialises the Cetus as an anti-soldier unit, increasing its damage output. Similar to Nereids, it also has a special attack that it uses exclusively against other myth units, dealing massive attack against them. Visually, a Nereid will appear on the back of the Cetus, riding it.

Cetus upgrade tech option 3. Upgrades Cetus to Naiad Guardians, which can regenerate hit points and heal allied units.

>Specialises the Cetus to provide additional support and longevity. Visually, a Naiad will appear on the back of the Cetus, riding it.

Tech: Death-Defying Charge. Contarius Heroes inflict +1 divine damage. When reduced to 0 hit points, instead of dying they revert back to normal Contarius with 50% hit points.

>To clarify, a normal Contarius created from a hero in this way has half its health missing (as opposed to its maximum health being 50% less). You can always re-heroize these units immediately, but that’s usually not a good idea since their attacker is likely still present and promoting heroes takes time. The main benefit this provides is to mitigate lost damage output as your army takes damage, similar to the unmounted form of the Tiger Cavalry, though more powerful (and, less good, with the same counters). And should your army prevail, there’s an economic benefit in healing your Contarius rather than needing to train new ones.

Tech: Anguilliform Arms. Contarius +1 range; Turma +2 range.

>Whilst the additional range of Turmas is nice (and will pair well with Selene’s archer tech if you’ve researched it), the true power here is the Contarius range. Having a ranged melee attack makes it possible for several Contarius to gang up on one unit (possibly killing it before its even reached your cavalry), which makes them extremely effective against other melee units.

Recently I made this post creating a concept for a 4th Atlantean DLC God, Nyx. The feedback I got was that it was overpowered and that Nyx was overdone.

So I wanted to try again with Egypt.

They have a boomer (Ra), a turtle (Isis) and a rusher (Set), so there’s no obvious missing playstyle for Egypt. The DLCs are boomer (Demeter) and turtle-boomer (Freyr), so we’re missing a rusher DLC god. So to avoid overlap with Set, I’ve tried to design a boomer-rusher hybrid. I took inspiration from Poseidon and Oranos in this, aiming for a strong rush in the early game that allows economic advancement at home for a classic crushing Egyptian end game.

So here is my concept for a boom-rush Egyptian Major God: Neith

Note: I’ve struggled to keep things balanced AND interesting (I think the DLC gods need to be interesting), so I’ve left notes re balance below where I felt they could be useful.

Let me know if you enjoy this, and if you think it's OP tell me what you think could be nerfed without making things boring.

Major god: Neith

Focus: Mobility

God Power: Sacred Shrouds. Cast on 2 / 3 / 5 / 8 (increases with age) units. When killed, a replacement will be trained for free at their training site.

>Useful in minimising impact from losing villagers of priests to keep your early game on track, the obvious use-case is replacing raiding units. To prevent too much harassment power, this GP trains units at half the normal speed. It doesn’t block up the queue however, like Myrmidon training for free at Fortresses. The exception is pharaohs, which will respawn in 60 seconds rather than 90 if under the effect of Sacred Shrouds.

Bonuses
Neith only gets three bonuses since her main power spike comes from her monuments:

1. Huntable animals don’t decay and provide 25% more food

>Strong food bonus for reaching a fast Classical Age, on par with Ra but probably not as good as Odin.

2. Can train and upgrade Bowmen from the Barracks (anti-cavalry archer)

>Neith is goddess of bows, she has to have a bow-firing unit! Neith was also associated with protection from Raids, so an anti-cavalry archer seems like a cool and unique fit. I don’t see it being a hard-counter, however; these units would be weak and only good at one thing, like slingers. They’d also have low armor and be hard-countered by ranged attacks from buildings and all kinds of archer unit.

3. In each age (starting Classical), the first chosen human soldier upgrade is researched 50% faster and returns 50% of its cost when complete

>I could have just made the first soldier upgrade 50% cheaper, but this way forces players to gather the full resources first, which I find is half the challenge in the early game. So this is more an incentive to prioritise a unit upgrade when you can afford it

Monument Empowerment Bonus: Pursuers All units of a particular type receive +5% movement speed, and those nearby receive +10%.

Unit types:
- Villagers: Laborers
- Soldiers: Barracks units
- Priests: Heroes
- Pharaohs: Migdol Stronghold units
- Gods: Temple myth units

>You can only empower one monument, so you have to choose between movement bonuses. 10% faster laborers may sound OP, but I suspect the economic advantages are less that just empowering a drop sight, and in the early game I tend to find gold more important, so I’d stick a pharaoh on that.

>Then during raids if you switch to Soldiers, the 5% bonus (you won’t get the 10% out of your base, unless you build a forward Monument) is equivalent to Sets, so again, not OP.

>When you reach a booming economy you can switch back 5% villager movement buff for a stronger economy, or keep the pressure on raids.

Unique Tech: Mistress of Bows Decreases the reload time of Slingers, Bowmen and Chariot Archers by 5%.

>A good military myth bonus but not the strongest, definitely inferior to Poseidon’s Lord of Horses, Demeter’s Divine Labor, etc.

Classical minor god: Wepwawet

Focus: Scouting and vision. Ptah is great for rushing with his powerful Barracks units and Shifting Sands GP, but Wepwawet offers an alternative rushing strategy with more regular raids, better scouting for identifying targets, and the opportunity to establish some map control.

God Power: Solar Barge. Summons a Solar Barge (ship unit), a fast, land-based transport ship that can garrison 3 / 5 / 6 units (increasing with age).

>Travels at the same speed as raiding cavalry. Useful for transporting foot soldiers to raids, villagers to resources and settlements, or priests to their next obelisk site. In later ages, useful for transporting slower units like siege.

>To prevent OP usage, it can carry a very limited number of units, and it can’t fight. If it gets destroyed, the units within are killed too. I imagine it wouldn’t have much more health than a normal transport ship, so quite brittle. I imagine it can cross water, but if it needed further nerfing it could be a land-only unit.

Myth Unit: Serpopard. Long-range melee myth unit that extends its neck while idle to increase its LOS. Good against human soldiers.

>Similar to a Sphinx stats-wise, but it has no upgrades and no special attack. It does have a slightly longer melee range though, similar to the effect of the Sarissa tech. Its real utility is in its LOS extension, making it an excellent scout unit.

Unique tech: Royal Guards. Priests and Pharaohs receive +10% pierce armor.

Unique tech: Tamarisk Bows. Bowmen have +2 LOS and +1 range.

Unique tech: Lycopolis. Obelisks spawn a Desert Wolf to guard them. Respawns if killed.

>This tech isn’t going to be hugely helpful as the Desert Wolf is not a strong unit at all, but it does mean there’s a small cost for the enemy to destroying an obelisk, so they may think twice.

Unique tech: Prow of the Mandjet. Can train Solar Barges at Lighthouses in the Mythic Age (train limit: 1).

>This can provide a significant movement boost to armies in the late game, which I find are often slowed by siege units. Solar Barge’s can alleviate that. To prevent over-use though, you can only train one at a time. I also imagine there would be a gold/favour cost that could be balanced to reflect its usefulness. Barge’s created from Lighthouses will contribute to population cap.

Heroic minor god: Hathor

Focus: Trade and herdable animals. If your raiding is going poorly, consider Sobek for improved defence and better camels to improve raiding capabilities. But if it’s going well, consider Hathor for an economic boom, setting you up for a strong late game.

God Power: Sacred Cow. Spawns a Sacred Cow, which generates a trickle of 1 food and 1 gold per second. Cannot be killed but can be captured by enemies.

>By comparison, Plenty Vaults in the Mythic Age also generate wood and at 3.5 per second, so this isn’t nearly as good as that. But it’s a very helpful boost. The obvious drawback is it can be captured and then taken back to the enemies base, so mismanagement could permanently benefit your opponent.

Myth Unit: Nekhbet. Myth unit that will take flight when tasked with a long journey to travel faster. Good against human soldiers.

>By default, this is a land-based unit with a modest speed, attack and defence. They will walk while moving short distances. You can’t toggle a flight state like you can with Qiongqi; instead, when you task a Nekhbet to move, if the chosen rally point is far away it will take flight automatically, giving it a speed boost. It will descend when it reaches its destination or enters combat to fight with its beak.

>They also won’t fly if moving as part of an army, and will walk with them instead. But on their own, they make excellent raiding units (provided you avoid arrow fire) and can be a useful first response to defend your trade line.

Unique tech: Encircling Wings. Nekhbets can be tasked to enter a patrol state, taking flight and circling their position. Stuns groups of enemies when attacking from this state.

>In this patrol state, the Nekhbet will attack anything entering the circle it is patrolling. This allows Nekhbets to also play a defensive role, and is deliberately evocative of their role in mythology.

>Tasking the Nekhbet on any other action (including attacking an enemy), will force them to exit a patrol state, so the only way to trigger the stun attack is to let them encounter an enemy during a patrol. Useful for guarding settlements, but also great for protecting trade routes.

>If this proves OP, it could be rebalanced by shrinking the patrol circle or adding a favor cost to initiating the patrol.

Unique tech: Mother of Amethysts. +10% gold from trade caravans.

>Hathor is a strong choice for Heroic! But this does rely on you having a well-protected trade route with map control to be useful.

Unique tech: Nourishing Land. Cows can be purchased at Markets. Herdable animals fatten 50% faster.

>Cows start with 75 food and cost 20% more than the current market price of 100 food. The baseline market price is 130 gold, so a cow costs 156 gold. This is a bad trade, until you let the cow fatten. So this plays more like a long-term investment in food rather than an immediate food bonus. Given the Egyptian reliance on gold this won’t always be worth it, but it can be very useful in food-short situations.

>Fattening bonus could be removed if OP.

Unique tech: Stars of the Nile. Ramming Galleys inflict +1 divine damage.

>I wanted Hathor’s last tech to feel less powerful than the other Heroic Age ship bonuses simply because Hathor is so strong already. I don’t think this is a particularly powerful tech, but I like it.

Mythic minor god: Khnum

Focus: Favor and Human Soldiers. Neith also gets Thoth, an amazing Mythic Age god with his super elephants, super eco and powerful GP. Khnum is designed to be a powerhouse that can rival Thoth (water to his fire), but from a more favor-driven approach.

God Power: Confluence. Creates an Obelisk of Confluence. All newly trained units will spawn next to it while active. Can be toggled between an active and inactive state. Cannot be repaired.

>I love this GP. It relies on you having a good eco, at which point it could win wars of attrition by bringing your reinforcements to the front line. Or be sneaky and scout the enemy flank to build a new army there as your first army is destroyed.

>It’s great for Egyptians in particular because they don’t have Underworld Passages or Sky Passages to rely upon for instant travel. One drawback is once the units arrive on the frontline, you can’t quickly return them to your base like you could with an Underworld Passage or a Sky Passage.

>The Obelisk would also be destroyable, so enemies could target it to end its usefulness before it even begins. For this reason, you’ll want a large army to defend it, but this limits its ability to spawn new units. But only a little.

>If it’s OP, only allow it to transport a set number of units before it is destroyed.

Myth Unit: Ammit. Amphibious myth unit that eats human soldiers with less than 20% health. Good against human soldiers.

>The devour ability is comparable to the Taotie in that it instantly kills a foe. On the downside, the Ammit’s version only works on foes with >20% health, and it doesn’t provide any bonuses to the Ammit’s stats. But on the plus side, it’s not a special ability with a cooldown, Ammits can use it any time they encounter a weakened human unit.

>In practice, this is similar to reducing the health of all human soldiers that Ammits fight by 20%, hence the reason this figure isn’t larger. In practice, it should mean Ammit’s kill most soldiers with one less hit.

Unique tech: Devourer of the Dead. When devouring a soldier, Ammits generate favor based on the devoured unit’s kill count and the damage they have inflicted (min: 1, max: 15).

>Favor generation would work perfectly as a bonus for Khnum’s myth unit. Ammit ate the souls of the wicked in mythology, so linking the favor generation to the target’s deeds (i.e. how many units they killed and the damage they inflicted) works thematically. Exactly how this would be calculated, I’m not sure, but I’m sure it could be tweaked and rebalanced.

Unique tech: Wheel of the Potter. When favor is available, soldiers from empowered Barracks and Migdol Strongholds cost 25% less, but cost +1 points of favor (+2 for Migdol units).

>This is the counterpart to Thoth’s Valley of the Kings. Unlike VoK, it doesn’t slow unit production, so on balance WotP produces more units over longer time frames for slightly less value. It also relies on favor (which you should have more of as Khnum) and you don’t have super elephants, so overall I think they’re on a similar level, if anything VoK is slightly better.

Unique tech: Monument to Sailors. Can build a Monument to Sailors.

>Same cost and favor generation as the Monument to Soldiers. When empowered, increases the speed of ships and naval myth units.

>Must be built after the Monument to the Gods. With all Monuments standing, the additional monument equates to a 15% increase in favor generation, a more powerful version of the Anubis favor generation tech. I think that’s a fitting increase for the Mythic Age, especially given the need to maintain another Monument, but it could be nerfed.

Unique tech: Arrival of Hapi. Granary technologies are 75% cheaper and research almost instantly.

>Similar to Hephaestus’s Armory, if you plan ahead and avoid farming (which Hathor can help with) this can be a big saving, but most of the time it will just help Flood Control get researched. You final economy isn't as good as Thoth's, but you get there sooner.

I was inspired by this recent post to create a concept for a Nyx major god DLC. Was really fun making it and I love how it's come together. Let me know if you get a kick out of it and if you have any thoughts or feedback.

I've seen other concepts of Nyx as a turtling god, so I've aimed for something a bit more adapted to a fast-boom, technology-based playstyle with a strong late-game, with an element of unpredictability.

I've added the concept to the gallery above, with some additional context below.

Major god: Nyx

Focus on Oracles and god power

God Power: Veil of Night. Makes friendly units invisible as long as they remain within a 15 area radius for 20 seconds.

Enemies can't attack see the veil or attack your units while they're inside it, but your units can attack them, so this is a versatile GP. Save citizens from raids, drop it on siege to protect them while they kill a Fortress, prepare an ambush. All sorts of use cases.

Unique Tech: Primordial Magic. Grants you a single cast of a random god power of your current age from any pantheon. More expensive in later ages.

So for example, you research in the Classical Age and your current God Power will be replaced with a random Classical Age GP from any pantheon, such as Restoration or Forest Fire. Once you've used that, you'll receive your minor god's god power again. This is meant to bring some unpredictability to Nyx.

Bonuses:

• Receives +1 additional free-use of each Minor God Power.
• Can cast God Powers in any explored location without direct LOS.
• Buildings within the LOS of an Oracle or Oracle Hero train military units and research technologies 10% or 15% faster (effect stacks, 40% max).
• Maximum number of Oracles is increased by 5.

In essence, Nyx's Oracles become similar to Priests of Ra, though not as powerful. You'll have to choose between gathering more favor and scouting by spreading them out, or clustering them in your base to boost your booming capabilities

Classical Age god: Hypnos

Focus on ranged units and healing

Atlanteans feel somewhat lacking in Classical Age archer options, so Hypnos is designed to alleviate that issue.

God Power: Dreaming Oracle. Cast on an Oracle Hero to upgrade them to a Dreaming Oracle, which gains +5 LOS, reduces enemy LOS, and improves building work rate by +20% (increasing maximum work rate to 50%), but cannot move.

For players choosing the booming route, this provides an even bigger boost to your technology researching skills within your base. The risk is that the Dreaming Oracle is vulnerable to raids, so it's not hard for a rushing foe to negate the effect of this GP if you're not careful.

Myth Unit: Oneiroi. Hovering myth unit with a ranged attack that damages without a visible projectile. Creates illusory copies of nearby friendly soldiers – which act like regular soldiers but inflict no damage – to distract your enemies.

When a Oneiroi get close to one of your soldiers, it creates a clone of it. The clone has all the stats and appearance of the original soldier, but the player can see an aura on the unit that shows it's fake. The clone inflicts no damage, but opponents will waste time attacking it and may overestimate your army size, leading to retreats, all while your Oneiroi attacks from afar. The clone dies when the original dies, the Oneiroi dies, the distance between the clone and Oneiroi gets too large, or they're killed by an enemy.

Unique techs:

• Sons of Nyx. Upgrades Oneirois to Sons of Nyx, which have +3 range and can sustain a second illusory copy at any one time.
• Incubation Ritual. Temples can garrison up to 10 human units, who receive +3 HP regen per second and can have their maximum health increased by 10%.
• Bow of Aura. Arci become available in the Classical Age, and their attacks slow enemy movement.

Heroic Age god: Selene

Focus on myth units and citizens

God Power: Possession. All soldiers and heroes (including enemies) within 30 area become possessed by spirits for 30 seconds, increasing attack speed and granting them myth unit status.

With the myth unit status, human soldiers / heroes will inflict bonus damage against human soldiers, receive less bonus damage from myth units, and more bonus damage from heroes. Your units will also receive myth-unit bonuses, like faster movement if you have Hekate's Celerity, or boosts from the Eclipse power if that is used.

The main use-case is to boost the power of your own army, but if you have an army of heroes then you may want to use it one the opponents army to inflict bonus damage against them.

Myth Unit: Khalkotauroi. Fire-breathing bronze bull, with strong armor and a charge attack that knocks back enemy units. Good against human soldiers.

Combines the charge attack of the Taowu with the impact of the Minotaur. This is the solid melee myth unit that was previously missing from the Atlantean Heroic Age.

Unique techs:

• Guardians of Colchis. Upgrades Khalkotauroi to Guardians of Colchis, adding an aura effect that burns nearby enemies and improves gather rates on friendly farms.
• Blessed Mules. Adds the option to upgrade Citizen Heroes with white Blessed Mules for an additional 150 Food and 3 Favor. These Citizens have +50 HP, construct and repair buildings twice as fast, and move 5% faster.
• Crescent Moon. Adds +2 divine damage to all myth unit attacks.
• Blood Tide. Bireme’s gain a cooldown ability that summons a special attack from a Nereid.

Mythic Age god: Thanatos

Focus on defences and counter units

God Power: Miasma. Target a location to release a noxious fog that is deadly to humans. Less effective against myth units, ships and siege, and causes no damage to buildings.

This another army-destroying GP like Lightning Bolt or Meteor. The best part is you can use it in your own base defensively if need be, since it won't damage any buildings.

Myth Unit: Keres. Fast flying myth unit that must descend to a hover state when attacking. Inflicts additional damage against weakened targets. Good against human soldiers.

I imagine these units would be bad on their own, inflicting not much damage. They need allies to soften up targets, at which point they inflict huge bonus damage for rapidly finishing off targets. This makes them great with targets that inflict area damage, like Cheiroballistas, or...

Myth Unit: Fury. Extremely strong flying myth unit that fires a volley of spikes from its scourge. Special attack spawns serpents for a short time. Resistant to hero attacks.

Their attacks would work a lot like the Manticore, with a wide area of effect. These are late-game powerhouse units that wreck human soldiers, on par with units like Nidhogg or Gullinbursti. They are limited in several ways though: you can only ever have 3 at a time, and you can't train them at the temple. You need the Retribution tech to get them.

Unique tech: Retribution. Summons a Fury at your temple. New Furies are summoned after 70 of your human units are killed by the enemy (max Furies: 3).

Furies summoned after the initial summon will spawn at the location your unit died. If you have 3 Furies and one of them dies, the count of killed humans starts from 0 at the moment they died.

Other unique techs:

• Divinated Strategies. Counter Barracks units are 35% cheaper and upgrade to heroes for free. Adds a projectile attack to the Counter Barracks.
• Relentless March. Destroyers have +10% speed and can be trained at the Counter Barracks.
• Tears of Erinyes. Towers and Palaces have perfect accuracy and inflict poison damage. Oracles / Oracle Heroes increase the range of Towers and Palaces in their LOS by +1 / +1.5 (this effect stacks with a maximum of 6).