Your choice of god in Age of Mythology: Retold will significantly affect how you play the game. Each pantheon, let alone the gods within, have their own quirks, strategies, and playstyles that you'll need to adapt to if you want to be an optimal, efficient player.
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PostsAs you might think thanks to their historic image as Viking raiders, the Norse are a particularly aggressive culture. Their buildings are constructed by military units and they earn godly Favor by attacking foes. Odin is the ruler of the pantheon, and his focuses are truly great at showing off these qualities.
Odin Overview
Odin is a god that focuses mainly on the Great Hall building and its units, which is effectively a focus on two particular Hero units and Cavalry.
Gatherers and Dwarves gather food 10% faster from animals and berry bushes
This is a great ability for rushing to Classical Age and makes hunting a very good early-game choice.
Great Hall units generate more Favor in battle
This further accentuates the value of the Great Hall and its units when making an army,
Humans and Hero units regenerate health every second
This is a generic and general buff that will be plenty useful, especially in long games with protracted battles.
2 Ravens spawn when the first Temple is built
Ravens make for fantastic scouts, even if they come a little late compared to other cultures' scouts.
Odin also has a unique technology that improves Berserks, which makes defending yourself from very early rushes far easier.
Odin's god power is Great Hunt, which greatly improves how much food you can get from a group of wild animals. It can also be used to create wild animals if there are none within the casting circle.
Great Hunt gets more powerful with each age that passes, but in most situations, it's best used at the beginning to help rush to Classical Age and establish a decent Food economy. Recasting the power costs only 25 Favor to begin with, though, so it's definitely affordable later in the game.
If you are a veteran of the original Age of Mythology, it is important to point out that Great Hunt will now only work on wild animals. Any herd animals such as sheep will not be affected by the power.
Minor God Choices
Odin's best god choices will improve his favoured units, but there are good cases throughout the game for all gods.
Freyja
While Valkyries are fantastic Myth Units, they can be quite expensive in terms of recruitment and the technologies they require to work at optimal efficiency. Whether you consider their healing power a boost to Odin's standard healing or whether it's inconsequential as a result is debatable. That said, the other technology that comes with Freyja, Thundering Hooves, is really wonderful if you're going for a Cavalry-heavy army composition, which is easy with Odin. Forest Fire is also a particularly good offensive god power for a rush against an early to mid-game town.
Heimdall
Heimdall is a far more defensive god than Freyja, and in games where a good defence is key, he's a good pick. His Myth Unit is decent, but the best benefit to picking Heimdall is the Rigsthula tech, which will increase your recruitment speed. In the late-game, where you're constantly supplying and resupplying your army, this is invaluable.
Skadi
Skadi is a very good god thanks to her Winter Harvest tech, which vastly improves your Food economy. This is wonderful when paired with gods who unlock powerful units recruited with Food, namely Freyja's Valkyries and Tyr's Wolf Broods. Frost Giants are also a very good unit to keep in your army - freezing foes gives your units a chance to take less damage and recover some hitpoints, and they're a good way to spend Gold. They're costly in population units, but not a bad choice at all.
Njord
Njord is also a competitive Heroic Age choice. Mountain Giants lack the Frost Giants' freeze ability, but are recruited with Food, which is often something Odin excels in (depending on the map), and makes for a great Heroic Age siege alternative. Ring Giver is also a very good technology for improving Jarls, which are also tougher for Odin.
Baldr
Ragnarok is one of the stronger god powers to use when you're ready to make a final push against your foes - turning all of your Gatherers and Dwarves into viable military units is a wonderful way to immediately bulk up your army. It's risky, though. Fire Giants are also a draw, especially since their strong splash damage make them excellent villager killers, but the other big plus to picking Baldr is Sons of Sleipnir, which greatly increases the usability of your Raiding Cavalry.
Tyr
For Odin, Tyr's main benefits are a Food-based Mythic Unit in the Fenris Wolf Brood, a further buff to Berserks (which isn't saying a whole lot, to be true), and the very nice Fimbulwinter god power. If you're not focusing on Cavalry as Odin, Tyr makes a decent alternative to Baldr.
- In Classical Age, you'll likely want to pick Freyja for the wonderful Myth Unit and a great buff to your Cavalry units, which are already buffed by Odin's boost to the Great Hall. Heimdall isn't a bad god, but he's situational and more geared towards defensiveness.
- In Heroic Age, the choice is a bit more complex. If you're going very heavy on the Cavalry, Njord is the easy pick thanks to Ring Giver - with Freyja's buff, this turns Jarls into fantastic units. Skadi is more useful if you find you need a stronger Food economy or you value her Frost power to be used either offensively or defensively.
- In Mythic Age, Baldr is usually the best choice. He has a boost to Cavalry units and Ragnarok is almost the Norse's signature god power - and for a good reason.
General Tips
Hersir Make For Great Relic Collectors
Once you have your Temple up and running, you'll be gifted two Ravens. These should immediately be used to scout out the map.
It's also a good idea to immediately recruit two Hersirs (at least two, anyway!). These should then be used to make a beeline for any Relics that your Ravens discover during their scouting. Thanks to how quick and effective Ravens are at scouting (second only to an efficient Set player), you have a very good chance of snapping up all the good Relics before you foe ever discovers them.
Raiding Is Important
Since the Norse only get Favor from combat and many of Odin's crucial technologies (not to mention some really fantastic Myth Units) require it, it's important that you're sending raiding parties towards your foes very regularly. Without these, you'll only ever receive a very minor trickle of Favor from villagers who go hunting.
It's a good idea that your raiding parties do not include any Myth Units unless you are:
- Confident in your Favor generation to be able to make a significant profit using their power.
- Willing to turn a raiding party into a full push for the enemy so they aren't wasted.
- Confident that they'll survive the raid, for example if you've identified a group of Villagers far away from the foe's military base.
Use Your Ravens Wisely
Once you've scouted out the map, it's a good idea to use your Ravens to keep an eye on key locations. Since they can only be targeted by ranged units, Ravens can easily stay safe on the outskirts of you foe's base, allowing you to easily see when they're making a forward push, where their Villagers are heading for resources, and when new buildings crop up.
Ravens will automatically get revived a while after dying, so don't worry about losing them.
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