[Game Journal] (Playing Age of Mythology: Retold, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia) On the Origin of Genres

Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 15/32: Let's Go

Now, we have to actually get the Osiris Piece Cart back and escape Abydos. We start off with our heroes, plus a new priest hero named Setna. He's loosely based off a real person named Khaemweset, a son of Ramesses II, who was actually alive during the 13th century BCE, and his in-game description's age of 61 lets us pin down an exact year that Fall of the Trident takes place: 1220 BCE. This is roughly on-par with some older dates of the Trojan War, so going by those, Setna could actually have been around at this time, unlike Ajax or Chiron. (That being said, modern archeology would place it as more likely being during the 12th century BCE, at which point Setna had died of natural causes.)

Khaemweset was considered "the first Egyptologist" for leading efforts to identify and restore Egyptian buildings from older eras, and he was a subject of ancient Egyptian fiction in the Hellenistic period under the name "Setne", from where the game gets "Setna". That being said, he doesn't do much of importance in this campaign, only appearing in two missions and not having much of a role in the plot.

In any case, part of the map is shared with the end of last mission, but we do not keep Amanra's massive myth unit army or her base, just our heroes, some Axemen, a War Turtle, and a pair of Avengers that we can't replace because Isis has Osiris and Thoth as Her Mythic Age minor gods, not Horus. We fought off a couple transports of troops, then got some naval reinforcements that I used to take our army to a friendly base in the southwest, where we started in the Heroic Age with Isis->Anubis->Nepthys. Our base is very resource-rich, with lots of food from fishing and gold from mining especially, but we had to move fast because the Osiris Piece Cart was scheduled to be moved to a more secure area soon. There were two opponents: Kemsyt's Army, in the eastern landmass of Abydos, who worship Set; and Kamos's Pirates, on our home base's landmass and also an island to the north, who worship Ra as their major god. I do not know either of their minor god choices.

You may recall we fought Kamos all the way back in the game's second mission. He ended up here, working for Gargarensis alongside Kemsyt. This means that, in almost every scenario in Egypt, we're directly fighting Gargarensis or his vassals, unlike the Greek campaign, where we only fight him at the very end after the Trojan War, where he's excavating the Greek gate and not much else. In the upcoming Norse section of the campaign, we'll have one brief skirmish with him at the very beginning, then he'll beat us to the Norse gate and fortify it, and we'll fight four battles in its immediate vicinity. But Egypt is the only place where Gargarensis has followers that aren't near a gate or heading to one. In short, Egypt is his primary power base. Its where he recruits most of his soldiers from, it's where he actually fortifies bases that aren't focused on trying to open a gate to Tartarus, and odds are it's also where his cause is popular among the people. In Egypt, Arkantos's party are frequently the underdogs in a way they aren't in other regions (excluding conflicts that don't involve Gargarensis like the Trojan War), and Gargarensis is a greater conventional threat than a "oh no he might open a Tartarus gate" threat.

And although we could destroy the enemy bases here (which I've done with an army of Phoenixes in my last trip through this mission), it's much easier to just rush the Osiris Piece Cart to take it out of the city as soon as possible. I captured it in the initial spot with my starting units and the Plague of Serpents and Ancestors god powers, then teched up to the Mythic Age and picked Thoth.

Both of Isis's Mythic Age major gods are very good, but for this mission, due to the large oceans, I picked Thoth for Phoenixes, aerial myth units that breath fire and deal lots of damage to buildings, and reincarnate from fragile eggs if killed in battle. Thoth's god power is Meteor, which blasts an area with deadly, but inaccurate meteors that do lots of damage to buildings; it's devastating if cast in the center of an enemy base. Thoth's technologies increase Laborer gather rates for all resources, allow empowered Barracks and Migdol Strongholds to double-produce their units for the cost of one, at a slightly increased training time, increase War Elephant attack, and decrease War Elephant population and resource costs.

I used Meteor to destroy Kamos's Lighthouse, fulfilling an optional objective and preventing his ships from the north from raiding me, then built some Phoenixes to raze a path to the southwest beyond the city gates, and bypassed the moderately-guarded gates to sneak the Osiris Piece Cart out of the city, winning the scenario. We will return here eventually, once we have the other three pieces of Osiris.

Spoiler: Our troops make a prison break. We will soon sail to the friendly cyan village.
 
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Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land
Normal Mode

I played through most of this game on my Steam Deck during my recent power outage, and finished the last few levels tonight. For a remake of Kirby's Adventure, it doesn't really add much to it aside from the new Meta Knightmare mode, which I don't personally have any interest in playing since it doesn't have in-game saves and I don't like using Sword in the first place. I also don't plan on playing Extra Mode, necessary to unlock Meta Knightmare, since it doesn't do anything but make you replay the game with half HP. The graphics are... different, and I think the original NES graphics fit the level design better than the updated GBA graphics do, even though I normally really like GBA graphics. Still, if you haven't played Kirby's Adventure before, it's still a decent platformer and not that long or hard to beat.
 
Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 16/32: Good Advice

After the flight from Abydos, Arkantos decided to take a nap at an oasis. While sleeping, he received a vision from Athena in a dream, which is what this mission actually is. A dream where Arkantos fights things and Athena gives exposition about the plot. First off, Arkantos and his son Kastor bring a relic to a temple, then fights and kills Gargarensis with the aid of several Zeus statues that shoot lightning bolts. Then, Arkantos finds the other party members, plus Odysseus, and they kill a bunch of Chimaeras.

Arkantos then gets sent to the underworld, where Athena explains Gargarensis' motive for opening the Gate to Tartarus. As anyone even slightly familiar with Greek Mythology would expect, Gargarensis is trying to release the Titans. Or, in his case, one specific titan, Kronos, who has promised immortality to Gargarensis if he frees Him from Tartarus. Athena also reveals that Poseidon is working with Gargarensis to release Kronos, because He's unhappy that He didn't get to be king of the Olympian Gods, and Kronos has promised Him power if He was released. And it seems Poseidon is willing to overlook the time that Kronos ate Him in his infancy to avoid being overthrown. Zeus can't interfere directly or it will start a war among the gods, but neither can Poseidon, hence why They're working through Arkantos and Gargarensis to keep the gates shut or open one, respectively.

The next part of the mission, we get a large Egyptian army and have to fight our way out of the underworld, which has four Tartarus Gates in it, indicating that this is a metaphor for Tartarus itself, and forshadowing that there are four different Gates that lead to Tartarus. We fought our way out quite easily, then we move to the next part of the scenario, which is technically a different map altogether, the only scenario that's on multiple maps, a mechanical constraint made necessary by the fact that we switch Major Gods away from Zeus.

We arrive at an island overlooking a navy, and lightning flashes, turning our unit color from blue (which it's been all campaign), to red, the usual enemy color. Our major god changes to Hades, we have several Black Sail pirate ships (campaign-only arrow ships used by Kamos), and, when ungarrisoning our transport ships, we have Gargarensis, Kamos, and Kemsyt as controllable heroes alongside Arkantos and Kastor. Our enemy, called simply "Evil Empire", are Poseidon-worshipers whose base closely resembles Atlantis, in the Mythic Age. We play as Hades, also in the Mythic Age, with Ares, Aphrodite, and Artemis as our Major Gods. The enemy has a Wonder that we need to destroy to win the scenario.

Hades is a more defensive major god that focuses on archery. His god power, Sentinel, summons five archer statues around a Town Center that shoot arrows at enemies, like towers. His human soldiers have a 20% chance of spawning a Shade (a weak melee Myth Unit) at a temple when they are killed, and His unique technology gives two free gold per second for the entire game. His heroes, which we can't build this scenario, are Ajax, Achilles, Chiron, and Perseus. Finally, his unique unit is the Gastraphetoros, which is an anti-building archer. Hades is my main major god in Skirmish, so I'm disappointed that we don't get to play as Him in the campaign apart from this mission. Hopefully, this is corrected in future DLCs.

I also don't think I explained these specific minor gods' technologies, like I should have, apart from their myth units. Ares gives Hoplites, Prodromoi, Militia, Toxotai, and Hypaspists extra attack, and lets Hypaspists be built in the Classical Age. His god power, Pestilence, slows down military unit production and stops buildings from attacking in its area of effect. For reference, his myth unit is the Cyclops, a melee unit.

Aphrodite gets Curse to turn enemy human soldiers into Pigs, which can be herded and eaten for food, as Her god power. Aphrodite's villagers gather Favor faster, move faster, build faster, and carry more resources. Her myth unit is the Nemean Lion. And finally, Aphrodite gets a unique naval hero, the Argo.

Artemis gets Earthquake as Her god power, dealing massive damage to buildings in an area, and Her myth unit is the Chimera, a fire-breathing monster. Her archers do extra attack, and Her heroes do even more extra attack to myth units.

To beat this scenario, I mostly trained Gastraphetoroi, since I love them and I'm not going to get another chance to train them this campaign. I also had a large myth unit army from the beginning to back up and protect the Gastraphetoroi, and we destroyed the Wonder to win the scenario. As an aside, I do think this scenario should've had a Titan Gate (a mechanic that post-dates this mission's release date) available to the player in the remake. Nowhere else in the campaign uses the mechanic, for plot reasons, and this dream would've been the perfect place for it.

At the victory cutscene, Athena told us that if Kronos escapes, Atlantis will be destroyed just like the city in this dream was. Then, Arkantos wakes up, and Amanra and Setna explain that there are three other pieces of Osiris, and that if we bring them all back to Abydos, which has a gate to the underworld under Osiris's Pyramid, He will live again. The party splits up, with Arkantos, Amanra, and Chiron going after three different Osiris Pieces. Ajax goes with Arkantos. As far as I can tell, Setna doesn't do anything. We aren't going to find this out until later, but Gargarensis, Kamos, and Kemsyt also split up, Kemsyt going for the same piece as Amanra, Gargarensis to face Chiron, and Kamos to face Arkantos and Ajax.

Spoiler: Arkantos's red army marches through the streets of the dream's blue Atlantis.
 
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Quake
The Offering

This is an old "boomer shooter" by the creators of the first two Doom games, and, if you enjoyed classic Doom, you'll have a great time with this game too. That being said, I do think Doom 2 is the superior game, at least going by Quake 1's base game. The graphic design, which I played mostly with original settings, has not aged quite as well as Doom's 2D sprites, and the lack of an in-game map made the levels confusing at times. Enemy design was still pretty good, better than Doom 1's, but not quite as good as Doom 2's. The Ogres and their grenade launchers were quite fun to fight against, in particular.

That being said, weapon design was lackluster. There was rarely if ever a reason to use the Shotgun, Nailgun, or Grenade Launcher unless you didn't have the other, better weapon that used the same ammo type. The Rocket Launcher was overpowered and could be relied on against basically any enemy except the ones that jumped at you, which were better off fought with the Super Nailgun due to splash damage. The Thunderbolt was strong, but used up ammo way too quickly to ever rely on. I don't think I ever used the melee axe for anything but opening doors.

In terms of plot, there isn't much. You go to alternate dimensions with medieval aesthetics to fight lovecraftian horrors that are plotting to invade Earth, but that's kind of it. The levels aren't as interesting to look at as Doom's techbases and hell levels, and feel more empty because there are many less decorations and stuff, just stone corridors a lot of the time.

I plan to play the expansion packs as well, and make one update for each of them, but I don't expect to get into Quake modding as much as I got into Doom modding.
 
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DLC Quest

I bought this since it was cheap and short, and a supported game for Archipelago, but it honestly isn't that good. It's basically just a short 2D platformer collectathon with only two levels, one of which has no threats or hazards whatsoever, and the comedy isn't that funny nowadays since it's very reliant on early '10s references and memes. Comedy rarely ages well, and this is no exception, even if I was around in the 10s to understand most of the things they were referencing. That being said, its reliance on "DLC" upgrades makes it work like a metroidvania in terms of progression, just a very short and easy one, so it might work well in Archipelago alongside a bunch of other games.

Well, I suppose you get what you pay for, sometimes, and I barely paid anything for this game.
 
Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 17/32: The Jackal's Stronghold

Back to Age of Mythology. Amanra's forces are up first, to seize a Piece of Osiris from Kemsyt's island stronghold. We reached some buildings on the east bank of the Nile, and they all flipped from neutral Green to our Blue once Amanra visited each building. I did build all my Houses first, though, so I got some extra population capacity, not that I needed it. We secured the entire east bank, and got ten different Relics for our Temples. Most of these only gave minor bonuses, but one, the campaign-exclusive Reed of Nekhbet, doubled the attack of all naval myth units (i.e. Leviathans and War Turtles) for the whole mission.

Kemsyt, commanding the enemy army, had a heavily-fortified island, which in turn had a hill with only one entry point, and both of us started in the Heroic Age. We were playing Ra, started with Bast and Sekhmet, and picked Osiris as our final minor god instead of Horus. Kemsyt was playing Set, had Anubis and Nepthys at start, and advanced to the Mythic Age after the naval battles but before the landing, picking Horus instead of Thoth.

Osiris, as a minor god, focuses on the Pharaoh. His god power, Son of Osiris, turns a Pharaoh into a much more powerful unit, named a Son of Osiris after the god power is cast. A Son of Osiris can do everything a Pharaoh can, like Empower, and his attack is a devastating lightning bolt that does tons of damage to everything it hits. He even doesn't count as a Pharaoh for the purpose of your limit, meaning you spawn another free Pharaoh after creating your Son of Osiris. The only drawback is that a Son of Osiris cannot be healed.

Osiris's techs give you yet another additional Pharaoh, spawning two (not counting Sons of Osiris), and increases Camel Rider attack, speed, and HP. Osiris's myth unit is the Mummy, which is a ranged myth unit that can curse enemy human soldiers and land myth units. When a cursed enemy dies, it becomes a Minion, just like the ones from the Ancestors god power. I only trained two of these this scenario, to spawn some Minions when my human soldiers killed things, since most of my favor would be spent on naval myth units.

To win control of the Nile, we built several Leviathans and War Turtles to be the melee heavy hitters on the sea, thanks to the Reed of Nekhbet, and backed them up with a lot of War Barges to hit coastal towers and Kebenits. We managed to clear the island's coastline of enemy docks and blockade the place, so Kemsyt couldn't attack our base.

I then trained up a medium-size army of fully-upgraded Camel Riders, Chariot Archers, and a few War Elephants, and landed them on the island to destroy everything. Once most of it was cleared off, I sent some Villagers there to build a Migdol Stronghold and Siege Works to train long-range siege weapons to destroy the last few things. Finally, once Kemsyt's base was wiped off the map, I sent Amanra in to claim the Osiris Piece and win the mission, whereupon a cutscene played and Kemsyt escaped back to Abydos on a Roc. His troops were not so lucky, and this mission is a total victory for us.

Next up, Chiron's army will face Gargarensis on the Sinai Peninsula, for the third of the four Osiris Pieces.

Spoiler: Kemsyt's Island Base
 
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Quake
Scourge of Armagon

The first expansion pack for Quake 1 had somewhat improved level design compared to the original, in my opinion. It helps that the human enemies are used throughout the game rather than in just the first levels, giving more opportunities for level designers to add weaker cannon fodder, and gave more spotlight to the techbase texture set compared to the base game's episodes. It added a couple new weapons, with the Laser Cannon being a great addition that helps use cells for something except the Thunderbolt, but the Proximity Launcher and Mjolnir were too situational to be useful. Of the new enemies, the Gremlin is a great addition to the game, and the Centroid is mostly good but suffers from a too-short hitbox. Unfortunately, the Spike Mine, the third enemy, does way too much damage, and though I like it in concept, it needs to have its damage decreased dramatically to be balanced. Thankfully, on easy difficulty, they didn't appear outside the third episode.

Overall, if you liked Quake 1, you'll like this.
 
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

This was December's Gaming Challenge game, which I picked for the Action-Adventure theme, but in practice it feels more like a platformer. It takes the grinding mechanic from the Sonic series and builds an entire game around it as the most important movement mechanics, and has lots of stuff to collect all over its wide-open levels. That being said, though the platforming was interesting, there were a few significant flaws.

First off, the tutorials for this game aren't great, and I had to look up guides for a few things. Second, much of the soundtrack is... not to my tastes, and it's in a playlist where you can't turn off songs. One of said songs is a gross and misogynistic song called "Precious Thing", with lyrics that would be rulebreakingly NSFW if posted here, and many more were just plain annoying. I ended up muting the game's soundtrack entirely and putting on the PMD: Explorers of Sky soundtrack in the background instead, and I rarely if ever find a game's music annoying enough to do this. Third, apart from scripted battles, there's little to no reason to ever engage with the game's combat mechanics, which is a shame because the combat is actually fun once you understand it. Fighting off the police just raises your wanted level further, and sends even stronger enemies to attack you, and there's no reward for fighting them apart from a handful of items that require you to use 2-star police turrets as platforms.

That being said, "flawed gem" also includes the word "gem" and this game was absolutely still worth playing. The platforming was great, the graphics and storyline were great, and overall I still enjoyed my experience with this game. But not enough so to want to replay it at any point, excluding possibly an Archipelago run.
 
Lego Star Wars (GBA)

I played through this relatively-short game as a test of my new OLED Steam Deck, since it's another game from my childhood that I never beat, and also very short. It's not really that good, though. The controls are awkward, the gameplay is repetitive, and there isn't much to do but find a handful of collectibles. It doesn't really resemble the console Lego Star Wars games that much, too. The character balance isn't good either; you only get one non-story character in Free Play, and in every level except one (where you need an astromech droid), the character to pick is Darth Maul, who can do anything that doesn't require an astromech droid.

A full 100% playthrough of all the levels doesn't provide enough money to unlock everything, either. I still have six characters left to purchase, and don't see a reason to grind out money for hours for characters, when Darth Maul, Jango Fett, and R2D2 render them all obsolete.
 
Quake
Dissolution of Eternity

Quake's second mission pack had really good level design, with a lot of variety including Egyptian, Mesoamerican, and Greco-Roman themed levels in the second half. It also had lots of fun boss battles that the last two games largely lacked. Despite this, the non-boss enemies didn't add that much apart from the Wrath, which works as basically a weaker, flying Vore. The weapon balance was also thrown off completely by the new ammo types, with Lava Nails and Multi-Rockets more or less obsoleting their original versions once you got them, and being incredibly overpowered. The Plasma Cells are weaker, but aren't much different than the regular Rocket Launcher. I missed the Laser Cannon and enemies from Scourge of Armagon, which did not appear here, but I can't say I'll miss much from this mission pack when I move on to the next two expansions, which only include weapons and enemies from the original Quake.
 
Quake
Dimension of the Past

This level pack was somewhat subpar compared to the previous levels. The level designs were repetitive, nearly all having two side wings you had to access in order to open a central door in the starting area, and there weren't any new enemies or items to take note of. It also didn't use anything from the other two previous expansions, leaving it as a subpar homage to the original without the level designs that made it interesting. Only the second secret level, The House of Doom, was interesting, with a wide-open set of corridors and a pit to a crater full of lava at the end.
 
Quake
Dimension of the Machine

I played most of the Quake levels on graphics settings similar to the original, with the enhancements turned off. But for this, the final official expansion, I turned them all on since it was designed for the remaster from the ground up. And the levels here were gorgeous. There weren't any new weapons or items, and no new enemies aside from the final boss, but everything here was amazing. Each level had unique designs that stood out really well, and the levels here are my favorite out of all the Quake levels I've played. The levels are also in very short two-map episodes, which makes them much better-balanced since you aren't quite as overpowered from starting with several maps worth of ammo, and they were the best Quake levels I've played so far.

I'm going to play through the official add-ons (basically mods included with the game) as well, but I don't think I'll post about them here, aside from the one total conversion, since there's not much for me to write about that I haven't already said.
 
Quake
Slave Zero X - Episode Enyo

Speaking of that one Total Conversion, this is actually a prequel to a game called Slave Zero X, which I haven't played. In it, you play as Enyo, an assassin with a completely different arsenal from Ranger, and the setting is a cyberpunk city instead of the gothic castles of regular Quake. The graphics are good, but the enemies, as cool as they are, are mostly palette swaps of original Quake monsters, and most of them are not as distinct; being various humans in blue power armor. The maps also had a nasty habit of spawning in enemies when you got near them instead of pre-placing them, leading to annoying ambushes that shouldn't have been possible.

Despite this, I quite like Enyo's arsenal. Her weapons are honestly more fun to use than the default weapons. I found myself switching between them way more than usual, with the Plasma Rifle in particular being a great use for Cells compared to Quake's Thunderbolt. And at the very end you get some wings that you can use to fly around, which was really fun for the short amount of time you can do it. I wish this was available in more levels because it was amazing.

And I think that's it for Quake's entries. I do plan to play some more user-made levels, but they don't have many gameplay differences and I don't have much else to say for them.
 
Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 18/32: A Long Way From Home

Time to finally get back to Age of Mythology. We last left off with two of the four Osiris Pieces, leaving Chiron to get the third. This time, the piece was trapped in a massive Tamarisk Tree in the Sinai Peninsula, and we would have to chop it down to get the piece. Unfortunately, Gargarensis's army arrived first and fortified across the river, including by the tree. We also met some Norsemen under a man named Niordsir, who was following Gargarensis after the events of the prequel scenario. He gave us a few Jarls and Raiding Cavalry (both cavalry units I'll explain in more detail once we play the Norse), but more importantly, two Ox Carts. These are mobile drop-off sites that we can use to drop off any resource. Since we're still the Egyptians, and not actual Norse, we can't replace them, so I had to keep them safe. They were very helpful since this map has very little wood compared to other resources.

I started off in the Classical Age as Ra -> Bast, and went Sobek in the Heroic Age since Petsobeks are the only accessible ranged land unit that requires no wood. When I aged up to the Mythic Age, I went Horus for infantry improvements and Tornado, and a Myth Unit that doesn't require wood, even though Horus shouldn't exist yet. Gargarensis started an age ahead of me, as Set->Anubis->Nepthys, and also went Horus in the Mythic Age. I explored the map, destroying three Temples that would've spawned Mummies to attack both me and Gargarensis if left alone, and got some resources from them. (Mission-specific mechanic, Temples don't normally give you resources). While doing so, I fortified the western and central river crossings, and occasionally had to fight off raids from the east against my gold miners.

Then, I built up an army, of mostly Petsobeks, Camel Riders, Axemen, Sphinxes, and a few Spearmen and Avengers. I swept through the eastern base on my side of the river, then used a Tornado to destroy the fortifications on the eastern crossing to Gargarensis's main base. I didn't get there fast enough to hit Gargarensis before he reached the Mythic Age, and he advanced mid-battle and heavily damaged my own main base with a Tornado. Thankfully, with his army occupied, I was able to repair with minimal losses, and then I finished off his base, doubled back to the center island, and cleared that off too. Once that was done, all I had to do was send my Laborers to go chop down the tree for a minute, and I won the mission.

Attached is a photo of my base at the end. I don't have screenshots for the earlier missions, but better late than never, I guess. We still have missions for pictures of at least one base for each civilization, and they aren't that different between Major Gods besides swapped-out statues. (Aside from the Atlanteans, anyway, but we haven't played them yet.) It, and most other screenshots, will be spoiler-blocked due to their size.

Spoiler:
 
Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 19/32: Watch That First Step

Next up, we're traveling to Canaan (now known as Israel and Palestine, but part of Egypt in the Late Bronze Age when this game takes place), to recover the final Osiris Piece from Kamos the Minotaur Pirate. This map is very much a water map, with two landmasses separated with a very large river, connected to a large lake in the east. I'm not exactly sure where in Caanan this map is supposed to be, though. The original Age of Mythology put the map marker in what's now the Gaza Strip, which has no comparable rivers to sail across and definitely no eastern lakes. The remake put it in on the west coast of the Dead Sea, somewhere far-south enough to put it on what's now the Israeli side of the border, but not much more precise than that. But this map's river and lake have lots of fish. The Dead Sea is... named the Dead Sea for a reason. There are no fish there.

We start off with Arkantos, Ajax, and a couple dozen Spearmen. In the original version, we had fully-upgraded Greek Hoplites that we couldn't replace, something I'm kinda sad to see gone. We went east to clear out some of Kamos's soldiers in the eastern half of the south island, where they're oppressing a tiny Greek village with a temple to Hephaestus, forcing them to make Colossi for Kamos. We freed them, and in return, they agreed to make Colossi for us occasionally. Kamos still has a couple Colossi in his main base, though. We then grabbed two Pirate Ships and sailed them, stealthily, past Kamos's fleet and heavily-fortified river, and made it to a hidden Egyptian village in the western half of the south island that supports us.

We had a dozen minutes or so to build up a base and gather resources before Kamos spotted us, and I made the most of it. We started off in the Heroic Age, playing Isis, with Bast and Sobek as our major gods, which is great since Sobek gives us Rocs, a flying aerial transport. I sent my Villagers back south to the completely-unguarded south island and built all my non-military buildings there, and gathered resources to age up to the Mythic Age, picking Osiris, and training a fleet of fully-upgraded War Barges to sink Kamos's Arrow Ships. I also fortified the land chokepoint to my base. Kamos also started in the Heroic Age, as Ra with Ptah and Sekhmet as minor gods, but he never advanced to the Mythic Age because I destroyed his Town Center too fast.

Once the timer ended, I sent my War Barges to sink the nearby towers and ships, finished building my fleet, then sank anything on the water and razed anything nearby the water, hard-countering the ships that Kamos had built and his towers. Then, I sent in a ground force of mostly Spearmen and Camel Riders, backed up by my free Colossi and some Hieracosphinxes for siege, and two Sons of Osiris to take on Myth Units. Since I'm on the lowest difficulty, we easily swept through them, and took down Kamos. Arkantos killed him in a cutscene and we took the final Osiris Piece. We need only to reunite them at Abydos, and we'll win the Egyptian segment of Fall of the Trident.

No base screenshot this time; I accidentally beat the scenario by injuring Kamos too much before I could take a photo. In lieu of that, I'll post a photo of Kamos's base. I'll also go back and upload a screenshot of something in each other map tomorrow.

Spoiler:
 
Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 20/32: Where They Belong

I have now, finally, beaten the last Egyptian mission in Fall of the Trident. We return to Abydos, with two bases and three Osiris Piece Carts, and Amanra and Chiron each commanding one base. To beat the mission, we had to bring all four Osiris Piece Carts to Osiris's Pyramid so He can be revived, but there is a slight problem... Arkantos and Ajax are late. We can't win the mission until they arrive with the last Piece of Osiris. I started off in the Heroic Age worshiping Isis->Bast->Nepthys, while Kemsyt, occupying most of Abydos, started an age behind me worshiping Isis and Bast as well, for some reason. He would also pick Nepthys as his Heroic Age major god as well, but never made it to Mythic.

Thankfully, unlike the last split-base mission, all we need to do to link up our two bases is chop down some trees, and we have plenty of wood on top of that. We also were able to knock down some towers with our starting units and start fishing in a lake just north of Amanra's base, giving us lots of food. We might be able to get gold faster because I'm playing Isis and can use Prosperity, but because there was less gold in our own territory it ended up being our limiting factor this mission, so I picked Osiris for our Mythic Age minor god, since his Mummies cost wood, our most abundant resource. The Son of Osiris we got was also very good, and Thoth's Meteor wouldn't have been useful given all the Isis monuments in Abydos, which would've blocked it.

I fairly easily wiped out everything outside of Abydos's walls while waiting for Arkantos, then took down much of Abydos itself with my starting units, my Son of Osiris, and an army of Camel Riders, Scorpion Men, Mummy Viziers, and Hieracosphinxes. Arkantos arrived with the last piece just as I was bringing the other three to the objective, but I held it back a little so I could wipe out all of Kemsyt's units and buildings, and still got it there on time before the Underworld Passage could be opened, which I believe spawns hostile myth units if not done in time.

Once I brought the last piece over, Osiris returned to life and wiped out Gargarensis's massive Egyptian army in a cutscene, then Gargarensis and Kemsyt retreated and headed north to the Norselands gate, hoping to open that one instead. We followed in pursuit of him, but we have one stop to make in Greece before arriving in Scandinavia.

Spoiler: I built most of my buildings in Amanra's base. Chiron's western base only had resource gathering buildings and the starting Temple.
 
Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 21/32: Where They Belong

On our way to the Norselands, we stopped at the island of Aeaea, as Arkantos and Ajax spotted Odysseus's ship wrecked along the coastline, with four pigs standing near the wreckage. Arkantos and Ajax went ashore, alone, looking for him, and were turned into boars by Circe, the island's ruler. The pigs told us that they were humans who were transformed, and our heroes fought and killed a villager that was trying to kill our pigs and gather food.

We then traveled throughout villages, busting open fences to rescue pigs and fighting off the occasional villager, and then walked through the main enemy base without being attacked. We then made it to an abandoned Temple of Zeus, which transformed all our pigs back into humans. We got mostly Hoplites, Peltasts, and Villagers, plus a few Centaur Polemarchs, which we can't train, and a single Egyptian Priest, who we lost early on and can't rebuild. We went northeast to take the northern corner of Aeaea for our base, starting in the Classical Age under Zeus and Athena. Circe started in the Heroic Age, worshiping Poseidon, Hermes, and Aphrodite, but didn't make it to Mythic.

We advanced to the Heroic Age under Apollo for a ranged Myth Unit and to the Mythic Age under Hephaestus for Colossi, and used our remaining population space (of which we did not have much) to build both of these myth units and some Bull Minotaurs. There were also some more pigs on the west coast that we raided for, but didn't transform back until we hit our population cap so we could go over it a little bit. Then, we destroyed all of Circe's bases, starting with a quick raid on her Stables near her Fortress, which we left alone even though we could destroy it because it'd auto-win the mission, then to the walled-in main base. We then went south and finished off the farming villages we traveled through, and then to a base in the northeast that had some docks, which we also destroyed with a Scylla, a Carcinos, and some Juggernauts.

Then we doubled back and destroyed all the static defenses, tearing down every single wall piece on the map, and only then did we finally go after the objective Fortress. Said Fortress was easily-taken down, and we could've even bypassed its defenses by putting an Underground Passage on the other side where Circe's units can't get to us. Circe herself exited the fortress to fight us, with a pair of Nemean Lions at her side, but on the wrong side of the Fortress from us thanks to the Underground Passage. Our units then rushed through and probably would've killed Circe, the one remaining Nemean Lion, and the Militia, but the mission ended before we could do so. Odysseus turned out to be a pig hidden behind the fortress, and thanked us for rescuing him, so we gave him and his crew a replacement ship to get home.

This mission is not really consistent with the events in the Odyssey. In that source, Odysseus was never turned into a pig in the first place, though some of his crew were temporarily transformed. He fell in love with Circe and stayed on the isle for a while, having multiple children with her. Circe also didn't command a small army, but that error is more forgivable as this game is a real-time strategy game and fighting a single unit would not be very fun.

Spoiler: My base.You can see the locations Circe's units and buildings in orange on the minimap, in the lower-right corner. I use the Clear Skies cheat for pictures, which makes this all visible for you.
 
Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 22/32: North

This is going to be a long update since it's the first Norse scenario and I have to explain everything the Norse have up to the Heroic Age, excluding dock units since this level is landlocked. I'll write the description first, then on to the actual scenario. The Norse are a more aggressive civilization, focused on offense with poor defensive capabilities. They generate favor through battle, with ships and myth units giving 1 favor for every 160 damage, and everything else gives 1 favor for every 80 damage. Each Norse hero also give a point of favor every hundred seconds. God powers, including units created by god powers, do not give favor.

The Norse have two types of worker units, Gatherers, which are better at gathering food and wood, and Dwarves, which are better at gathering gold. Both can only build Houses, Farms, and Ox Carts, which are a mobile drop site unit that the Norse drop off all three of their gathered resources at.

All other Norse buildings are built by infantry units or heroes. In the early game, these will usually be Berserks, one of only two military units available in the Archaic Age. These axe-wielders can be trained from the Town Center, or, starting from the Classical Age, the Longhouse. Gatherers and Dwarves can also be transformed into Berserks for a resource cost, but the process is one-way and they can't turn back to go gather resources. Berserks are a regular infantry unit, and are strong against cavalry units. They can get very strong if the right minor gods are chosen, since they have lots of upgrades.

From the Longhouse, the Norse also have the Throwing Axeman and Hirdman. The Throwing Axeman is, oddly enough, considered an infantry unit even though it's ranged; the Norse have no archer human soldiers. Throwing Axemen specialize in fighting other infantry units. The Hirdman wields a spear and is a counter-cavalry infantry unit. It's actually new to this remake, one of two Norse units to be added in it. The Longhouse and both its new units are available starting in the Classical Age.

The remake also added a new structure for the Norse, the Great Hall, also buildable in the Classical Age. This building builds the Norse cavalry units and hero units. Both heroes can be trained without limit, like Priests, and both slowly generate favor at the same rate.

The first Great Hall unit, the Hersir, is an infantry hero. Before the remake, Hersirs were trainable in the Temple, and unlike the Norse cavalry units, they're still trainable there. Hersirs wield large hammers and are great against myth units, but mediocre against other units, though they're not nearly as bad against them as Priests are. They also do more damage as you age up, but are nearly-useless in Archaic Age combat. The other hero is the Godi, which is a ranged spear-thrower available in the Heroic Age. Godis are great against flying myth units and ranged myth units that Hersirs have a hard time reaching, but are otherwise less efficient than Throwing Axemen at ranged damage. The Godi is the other new unit in the remake; it didn't appear in the original AoM.

The Norse cavalry units are the Raiding Cavalry and the Jarl. Before Retold, Raiding Cavalry were built in the Longhouse and Jarls were built in the Hill Fort, and both are no longer available there. The Raiding Cavalry is a cavalry unit specialized in fighting Archers, and is available in the Classical Age. As all but one of our Norse scenarios is against other Norse, who only have Godi as archers, we won't make use of them much this campaign. Jarls are a well-rounded heavy cavalry unit that's decent against anything that doesn't specifically counter cavalry, and they're available starting in the Heroic Age.

Our final building is the Hill Fort, the Norse fort. It is the second-cheapest fort, but also the fort with the lowest HP, and it trains Huskarls and siege weapons. Like other forts, the Hill Fort is available starting in the Heroic Age. Huskarls are an infantry unit with a sword and shield that specializes in fighting archers. As we won't face many archers as the Norse in this campaign, I do not expect to train many. The other unit we can train at the Hill Fort right now is the Portable Ram, a melee siege weapon and the cheapest of all siege weapons. However, they're fragile and bad against everything that's not a building. The Norse have a more traditional siege weapon, the Ballista, but it isn't available until the Mythic Age and will be explained then.

Now to explain how Thor differs from the Norse baseline. Thor is a specialist in Dwarves and Armory improvements. He starts with Dwarves instead of Gatherers, His Dwarves are cheaper, and they gather food and wood almost as fast as Gatherers do. Thor also gets a free Dwarf every time an upgrade is researched at the Dwarven Armory. Thor's unique tech gives Hersirs more damage and doubles their passive favor generation, and His god power, Dwarven Mine, creates a gold mine with a higher amount of gold for every additional age.

Thor's unique building, the Dwarven Armory, replaces the regular Armory. It can research all generic Armory techs in any age, and also has a unique fourth tier of upgrades that nobody else has. The Dwarven Armory starts off slower than a regular army but becomes equally-fast in the Classical Age, researches in 2/3rds the time in the Heroic Age, and researches at double-speed in the Mythic Age.

Thor's minor god choices for the Classical Age are Freyja and Forseti, and I picked Forseti for His god power, Healing Spring. This god power creates a magical spring that heals any nearby unit, but it can be captured by enemies if they take over the area where it was cast. Forseti's myth unit is the Troll, which can be upgraded to the two-headed Cave Troll, a strong archer unit that throws rocks at enemies. Forseti's techs increase infantry and hero movement speed, and improve the hack armor of Berserks and Hirdmen.

Thor's Heroic Age minor gods are Skadi and Bragi, and I picked Skadi for Her myth unit, the Frost Giant, which can be upgraded to the Frost Giant of Thrym. Frost Giants are a very strong, tough melee unit that does great damage to both human soldiers and buildings, and they can also freeze a unit to immobilize them. Skadi also has a strong god power, Frost, which immobilizes an entire area of units this way for a minute-long duration, but also makes them nearly-invincible for the duration. Skadi's techs also increase food gather rates, especially for Farms, and increase Throwing Axeman range and accuracy. Her Dreki (Norse Hammer Ships) also gain the ability to slow, then freeze their targets, but we can't research this tech without a dock.

~

Now, for the actual scenario. We arrived in Scandinavia along the west coast of Sweden, near what's now Göteborg, but Gargarensis scattered our army with an avalanche. Our troops and Gatherers maneuvered to the south to build a Town Center, and started to build a base. We are playing with Thor as our major god, and we started in the Archaic Age with no minor gods picked.

We advanced to the Heroic Age, picking Forseti for Healing Spring and Skadi for Frost Giants, and found out we needed to destroy Three temples, one from the Lost Souls in purple, producing Einherjar, and one from the Dwarf Eaters in green, producing Frost and Mountain Giant. Neither of these two are a full civilization, just a temple and a defensive building behind some walls. The third Temple, though, was in the hands of Gargarensis, in red, who started in the Heroic Age under Loki, Heimdall, and Njord, and he had a full base.

We fortified the south and started off by taking the Lost Souls down once we built up some Frost Giants of Thrym and Hersirs, along with a few Godi and our starting Throwing Axemen. Next up, we took down the Dwarf Eaters, who fell without much issue. We then waited some more, built more Frost Giants, and hit Gargarensis with a full assault on his base in the north. We froze most of his army with Frost and razed his Town Center, Longhouse, and Great Hall while they were helpless, then encircled and destroyed them when they thawed. Then, there wasn't much left to destroy apart from one Hill Fort, some miscellaneous houses and other non-threatening buildings, and finally the Temple itself.

We found out that the passway we need to reach the underworld had been sealed off by yet another avalanche, and Gargarensis had already passed through it. We need to find an alternate route, and Amanra has spotted that the party is being watched, but that won't be revealed until the beginning of next scenario.

Spoiler: Our first Norse base of the campaign.
 
Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 23/32: The Dwarven Forge

In this scenario's opening cutscene, Amanra catches two dwarves, Brokk and Eitri, watching the party, and they ask for our help in clearing out some Giants in the Dwarven Forge in this region's caves. Arkantos asks them about a passage to Midgard, which... technically they should already be in, considering that Midgard in Norse cosmology is Earth. Unless they wandered into Jotunheim somehow, I guess, but that is unlikely considering how the map shows us in the area around modern Uppsala. Brokk and Eitri were in the myths as the forgers of Mjolnir, which will be important later. In any case, we built up to the Mythic Age without much interference as the Giants don't launch a full-scale assault until we actually reach the forge.

We started off as Thor again, in the Classical Age with Freyja preselected as our Minor God. Freyja's myth unit is the Valkyrie, a horse-riding melee unit that can also heal other units, and can be upgraded to the Shieldmaiden Valkyrie. Her techs also increase cavalry movement speed, and the HP of both cavalry and heroes. Her god power is Forest Fire, which sets a group of trees on fire, potentially clearing a path, destroying a source of wood for one's enemies, and/or doing damage to adjacent units and buildings. However, oddly enough, we have Heimdall's god power this mission, Undermine, which instantly destroys wass and towers in an area and also damages other buildings nearby.

For our Heroic Age minor god, we selected Bragi this time instead of Skadi. Bragi's myth unit is the Battle Boar, a metal boar that can stun enemy units in melee. His god power is Flaming Weapons, which significantly boosts the attack of everything that's not a myth unit for roughly a minute. Bragi has a lot of different techs, with His Berserks getting more HP and giving a point of favor if they are killed by an enemy, His Hirdmen getting more damage and dealing double damage to cavalry, His myth units getting slow HP regeneration and better movement speed. The last of Bragi's techs gives Longboats more arrows per attack and more HP if they do more damage, similar to how Greek Hydras and Scyllas get buffed.

Speaking of Longboats, we can finally build a dock as the Norse! There's only a single Norse naval combat scenario in the current campaigns, and it's not in Fall of the Trident, but we do have a river to fish in here and fight a couple units in. The Norse archer ship is the Longboat, the Norse hammer ship is the Dreki, and the Norse siege ship is the Dragon Ship. Where Greek ships are more durable, and Egyptian ships are cheaper, Norse ships have stronger attacks.

The Norse also have the Kraken as their Heroic Age naval myth unit, which is a giant octopus with powerful melee attacks that can instakill one ship every 30 seconds. The other naval myth unit the Norse have is the Jormun Elver, an acid-spitting giant eel with strong attacks, but weak armor for a naval myth unit. It can be trained in the Mythic Age.

I was also able to age up to the Mythic Age this scenario, but as the Norse this only unlocks Jormun Elvers and one other generic unit, the Ballista. This is a siege weapon that's not quite as strong against buildings as other siege weapons, but is somewhat decent against human soldiers, though still slow and fragile.

When advancing to Mythic, I picked Baldr for His god power, Ragnarok. This transforms every Gatherer and Dwarf into a special Hero of Ragnarok, which is basically a Hersir but slightly weaker and without passive favor generation. Since Gatherers and Dwarves are the Norse resource-gatherers, Ragnarok gives its user a massive army of heroes while simultaneously crippling their economy. Baldr's myth unit is the Fire Giant, which is a fireball-throwing giant made of magma who are excellent against any non-hero unit as well as doing lots of damage to buildings. Baldr's techs make Raiding Cavalry do more damage, especially against archers, and make Portable Rams faster to train, faster to move, and better at dealing damage.

Once we aged up, I used Ragnarok to get a couple dozen heroes, rebuilt my economy, and started exploring the caverns in earnest. We found, oddly enough, a shrine with three Egyptian mummies guarding three relics, which we killed. We then made our way to the Forge itself, where the Giants were guarding it, and we slew them to take control of it. The Giants were Loki-worshipers unaffiliated with Gargarensis, and they picked Heimdall and Njord as their Classical Age and Heroic Age minor gods, but didn't reach Mythic before I destroyed their Town Center. They also had some human soldiers too, but the bulk of their army was made of myth units that my heroes countered.

After taking the Dwarven Forge in the caverns, a countdown appeared for us to defend it. The forge also had three technologies unique to this scenario, quadrupling all our damage to myth units, increasing all our non-myth units' hack armor, and shielding our units from Fire Giant attacks. With these techs, we were able to take the whole Giant army down and raze their base before they could land a scratch on it, ending the countdown early and winning the mission.

Brokk and Eitri then brought us to the cavern exit, and told us that the underworld gate we seek is in Niflheim. They don't know where the passage to Niflheim is, but they decided to follow us in secret to try and find it. Then we had a cut to Gargarensis and Kemsyt, who are now well ahead of Arkantos, discussing that Loki smashed Thor's hammer, stopping Him from being able to reseal the Tartarus gate if opened.

Spoiler: A photo of my base this mission. We can't build in the caverns to the north.
 
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Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 24/32: Not From Around Here

Having exited the caverns, we came across an old man named Skult, who informed us that this region of Midgard (somewhere in modern Värmland) was full of giants, and that the Norse here were busy fighting each other. He suggested flying the flag of Folstag, a frost giant king who we fought in the prequel scenario, to get them to stop fighting. To do so, we have to escort Skult and the Folstag Flag Bearer across a canyon full of giants, and we made it to the middle with a Settlement for us to build a base.

We are playing Loki in this scenario, but we're restricted to the Heroic Age. We also don't have Loki's god power, Spy, which lets us share a specific enemy unit's line of sight, but we do have Thor's Dwarven Gold Mine even though He isn't out major god this scenario. Loki's buildings are constructed slightly faster, His Ox Carts are half-cost, and it also costs half as much for Loki's Villagers and Dwarves to be transformed into Berserks. His military units deal extra damage to the units they counter, and they also have a chance to spawn free myth units when fighting. Hersirs, but not other heroes, are much faster at this, but we still need to have free population space for them. This ability can potentially summon myth units of other Norse minor gods, but it's still limited by our age. Loki's unique tech causes any animal or natural object near one of our units to reveal the area around it, basically boosting its line of sight if the terrain isn't wide-open.

Loki has Forseti and Heimdall as His minor gods for the Classical Age, but we're locked into Forseti this scenario. His Heroic Age minor gods are Bragi and Njord, and I picked the latter for His god power, Walking Woods. This scenario doesn't give us a lot of houses or population space, but Walking Woods transforms several trees into melee myth units that are excellent against buildings, but mediocre at fighting units, and they take up zero population space. Njord's myth unit is the Mountain Giant, upgradable to the Jotun, which is a melee unit that's excellent against buildings and has lots of hit points. Njord's techs cause Raiding Cavalry to generate gold by dealing damage, give more HP to Jarls, and make Jarls do more damage to myth units. Njord can also upgrade Krakens to Trench Krakens, with more HP and a shorter cooldown, but we can't build a dock in this scenario, so that tech is irrelevant.

Once we built our base and advanced to the Heroic Age, we discovered that the way for us to pass was blocked by a large Boulder Wall. We're also in the middle of a three-way canyon, and though the south end was cleared out on our way here, the Canyon Giants still possessed many Temples that produced Frost Giants and Mountain Giants to fight us. I built up an army entirely of Hersirs to counter them, cast Walking Woods for siege, and razed the western Temples first, then moved on to the eastern Temples, then finally had my Walking Woods take down the Boulder Wall without interference. After researching all the techs with favor costs, I also dumped all my favor into more Walking Woods casts since Hersir were better against Giants than either of my myth units.

When the Boulder Wall was almost knocked down, a massive army of Frost and Mountain Giants spawned at the exits of the three canyons, marching directly at our base. Arkantos said there were too many to fight, but I knew better, having trained an all-Hersir army for exactly this moment. The Hersirs were in position to immediately take down the western Giants, then rushed back to our base while the Walking Woods stalled them, fighting and taking down the southern Giant army before it could damage any buildings, though the Market was damaged, and then finished off the eastern Giants that the Walking Woods had successfully stalled.

Then the Canyon Giants casted an Earthquake on my Town Center, destroying a few houses, but I rebuilt and repaired, then finished off the last giants and brought Skult and the Folstag Flag over to the endpoint. This turned out to be a dead end, but the gods froze the river in front of us and gave us a route forward, winning the scenario. There's still no sign of Gargarensis, and we need to rush forward to have a chance at catching him.

Spoiler: My base, at the very center of the canyon crossroads.
 
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