Terrain (Age of Empires: Mythologies)

This page contains information about the types of terrain in Age of Empires: Mythologies, and how they affect the player in-game.

Overview
Being a turn-based strategy game on square grid maps, similar to the Advance Wars series of handheld games, terrain and building tiles play an important role in-game, as they provide bonuses to units that are placed on top of these.

Some provide improved cover that boosts the defence of the units, whereas other types of tiles provide faster movement and/or cover. Others are impassable (and unbuildable).

Units can move onto all of their player's buildings and most of the terrain tiles. Its important to use the terrain to one's advantage. Units can't move or attack diagonally. Even ranged attacks have their distance calculated in right angles. One can make movable walls with front line troops to protect more vulnerable units behind them.

Buildable tiles
Any of the below mentioned tiles could have a Settlement, Food or Gold on them, that allow a player to build Town Centers, Mills and Mines, respectively:


 * Plains: no defense bonus, three movement points required
 * Roads: -10% defense bonus, two movement points required
 * Hills: +10% defense bonus, four movement points required, +1 sight, +1 range for ranged units
 * Forests: +20% defense bonus, four movement points required, can hide units.

Unbuildable tiles

 * Ruins: +10% defense bonus, four movement points required
 * Bridges: +10% defense bonus, two movement points required
 * Deserts: no defense bonus, three movement points required
 * Mountains: cannot be entered by a unit, blocks sight
 * Water: cannot be entered by a unit, extends sight

Forests
As long as the Fog of War is present in the map, the player must master the cover of Forests. While hidden, a player's unit can only be seen by an adjacent enemy, preventing thus attacks until seen.

This is especially useful for Archers because they can attack other Archers without the fear of counterattack.

During the enemy's turn, they can only move towards the hidden unit then stop because the Fog of War is only cleared after their action is done. This can save a player from moving into the enemy's Sight and being vulnerable during their turn. If the opponent is Loki, beware of his Eyes of the Forest research because it breaks these rules.

Hills
While exploring the maps, units gain +1 Sight if they stop on a Hill. Units cannot attack what they cannot see, so if a unit has a longer Sight range than the enemy, it can charge them and attack while they can't. Archers also gain +1 Range while on a Hill; if they attack another Archer with a shorter range, they avoid a counterattack.

Temple
Temples are special, as if they are both terrain and a building. The movement cost and defense bonus depends on the tile under it. They can't be destroyed like a building but they can be captured.

If a player controls a Temple, the enemy can still enter it if there is no unit to block them. While captured, they count as their building, so the movement cost becomes 2 and they earn 10 Favor per turn.

Their role is to be captured in order for a player to score a type of victory similar to building a Wonder in the PC games. Ten Temple Days are required per player to win a Temple victory, with each controlled Temple earning the player a Temple Day. If one loses control of a Temple, the loss forfeits all the Temple Days the Temple accumulated. Also, if one control all the Temples on the map for a single day, they win.