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This article is about the campaign scenario. For the Titan, see Titan#Greeks. |
Cerberus is the eighth scenario of The New Atlantis campaign in Age of Mythology: The Titans. The main objective is to defeat the Titan attacking Egypt.
Summary[]
The Titan Cerberus has arrived in an Egyptian City and begins to wreak havoc. By casting meteors onto a pyramid, it reveals a gate to the Underworld from which numerous Myth Units begin to spawn under its command. Meanwhile, Amanra, Ajax, and Kastor find a Son of Osiris working on reviving the Guardian who should be able to defeat the Titan.
Objectives[]
- Build up your forces and protect the Son of Osiris while he recharges the dormant Guardian. (Keep the Son of Osiris near the dormant Guardian. He will automatically recharge (heal) it if he is not under attack. Construct defenses and build an army to defend yourself against the Atlantean followers of Kronos and the creatures spawning from the Underworld.)
- Use your Guardian to destroy the Titan Cerberus.
- (Optional) Find stray Camel Caravans. (Scout to find stray Camel Caravans scattered across the map and task them to your ally's Town Center to generate Gold as they complete trade routes.)
Players[]
Player[]
- Forces of Amanra (
Set) - Starts in the Heroic Age worshipping Anubis and Nephthys. Their starting units include Amanra, Ajax, and Kastor as well as a handful of units within and around a decent-sized town. The player cannot train their own Camel Caravans.
Neutral[]
- Camel Caravan ( Ra) – these stranded Camel Caravans will wait at six locations for the player to find them. Once found, they will convert to the player's colors but will become vulnerable to attacks.
- Egyptian City ( Ra) – Consists of a city being destroyed by Cerberus. Possibly due to an error, the developers could not set this player to Ally or Neutral towards the player. In fact, their Towers will attack the player's units on sight and vice versa. This was fixed in Retold, where both the player and the Egyptian City are now neutral to each other.
Enemies[]
- Followers of Kronos ( Kronos) (Followers of Oranos, Oranos before Retold) – Begins in the Archaic Age but will be able to train Atlantean soldiers regardless of the age they're available in. They have a Town Center and Citizens that gather resources to fund their soldiers. They behave similarly to a Random Map Atlantean AI.
- On Titan difficulty, they will begin at the Heroic Age with Prometheus and Hyperion worshipped and will always attempt to advance to the Mythic Age through Helios.
- Followers of Kronos (Followers of Oranos before Retold) ( Hades)- consists of armies of Murmillo and Arci with Iron upgrades from the Armory. Their armies spawn near the enemy Oranos Town Center. Will actively attack the player at the start of the game. However, their army will stall near their spawning point from middle to late game and only attack unless provoked during those times
- On Titan difficulty their armies will consist of Arcus (Hero) instead of the regular ones.
- Underworld Spawn ( Oranos) – Consists of the many myth units that will appear from the fiery pit leading to the Underworld. Those will initially consist of Tartarian Spawns but can include other myth units from various civilizations. This player has also un-upgraded Contarius guarding the enemy walls.
- Cerberus ( Hades) – Consists solely of the Titan that is destroying the Egyptian City. Its hit points have been slightly boosted for this scenario, but its position remains visible to the player at all times. This Titan also has some increased attack against the campaign Heroes on this scenario. It will not stray too far from the destroyed Egyptian city; however, it will head towards the Guardian's direction if the latter is almost empowered.
Allies[]
- Sebennytos ( Ra) – Begins in the Archaic Age and is the nearby allied town where Camel Caravans can be sent to trade with. Will otherwise do little to help the player.
- Dormant Guardian ( Ra) - consists solely of the Guardian that the player's Son of Osiris needs to empower. Once the Guardian has been completely empowered, he will come under the player's control.
Strategy[]
This guide is applied to hard difficulty. It is, of course, also applicable for the other grades of difficulty.
Building defenses and locating Camels[]
Every first few second counts in this scenario so players should first pull back the Son of Osiris for the time being in spite of Amanra's protests ("The Son of Osiris must be tasked back onto the Guardian!"), as the scenario will be failed if he dies. Instead, the campaign heroes, the Oracle hero, the Axemen, the Hyena of Set (Baboon of Set in Retold), and Priests should be brought to the Guardian's position to push back the imminent enemy attacks (the Son of Osiris can still attack but must stay out of reach). Amanra will quickly note that there is no Gold to mine so they will need to locate Camel Caravans around the map and send them to Sebennytos' Town Center. The fast-moving Chariot Archers can be sent to quickly locate the Camel Caravans at the following six locations:
- Three Caravans east of the Town Center in a shaded area.
- Two Caravans northeast of the center of the map by some farms.
- Two Caravans on a cliff located southwest of the player's temple.
- Four Caravans northeast of the west corner of the map.
- Two Caravans southwest of the Guardian.
- Two Caravans north of the gates to Sebennytos' city.
Kronos' Followers will mostly send a variety of human soldiers while the Underworld Spawn player will send myth units to the Guardian's location. Additional Priests can be trained from the Town Center and Temples to defend against both types of attacks as they deal bonus damage to Myth Units and the human soldiers have low defenses. Kastor and Ajax should stand in front as their special attacks are enough to instantly kill un-upgraded human soldiers (including the horseback riding Turma). At the same time, more Laborers should be trained to maintain the economy and construct buildings. Both enemies will attempt to sneak into the player's base via the paths between the cliffs located between the bases of Amanra's forces and Sebennytos. While searching for the Camels, Laborers must build Walls in the passes leading to the base to slow down the attacks (while making sure to create gates to enable the Camels to enter the city). As soon as they are finished, the Laborers must pull back as they risk being attacked by Tartarian Spawns who can leap over Walls. If one of the Walls is breached, Plague of Serpents or Ancestors can be cast to stall the enemy until heroes can be sent to defend. Once the passes are walled off, they can be upgraded to Stone Walls and even further if resources permit. Once a good defense has been established, players can queue production of Priest and send them by the Guardian while the Son of Osiris resumes reawakening it. Other Priests should be trained to guard the walled passes.
Awakening the Guardian[]
Monuments must be built to generate Favor needed to research Nephthys' technologies that strengthen Priests. Also, a Migdol Stronghold must be constructed near the Guardian for protection as the attacks will continue throughout the scenario. While the myth unit attacks will gradually become less frequent, Kronos' followers will begin sending larger armies of soldiers. Before Retold, what makes this enemy especially dangerous is that they receive a 10% movement speed boost thanks to Oranos' bonuses. They can also cast the Shockwave god power to scatter and stun the player's units.
The player can save resources needed to advance to the Mythic Age; if they do, either minor god can be worshipped but Thoth does provide the Book of Thoth technology that will allow Laborers to gather resources faster. They can then cast Vision on the Followers of Oranos' base and cast either Meteor or Tornado (if Horus was picked instead) on their unit production buildings to slow down their attacks (in the original game, this may not be possible if they choose to worship Theia as they can cast Hesperides to block God Powers). Advancing will also enable the player to research Coinage at the Market which will increase the speed of the Caravans. Once Kronos' Followers advance to the Heroic Age, they will begin training armies of Contarius. Players may choose to build Barracks to train Spearmen, who are cheap and will do bonus damage against them (especially if Horus was picked for the Mythic Age) or even Camel Rider and War Elephants from the Migdol Stronghold they already built. The aforementioned War Elephants are stronger under Thoth thanks to his Tusks of Apedemak technology. However, Priests can just as easily handle them as they can constantly heal one another and Contarius have very low defenses. The Animals of Set who appeared at the Temple and/or were summoned by the Pharaoh can be sent to assist the Priests in defending the Son of Osiris.
The remainder of the scenario consists of playing on the defensive until the Guardian awakens. It is best to keep queuing units until the population limit is reached. Houses should also be built to increase that limit while an Armory will be needed to improve all existing units. If the Titan begins moving towards Amanra's Forces before the Guardian is awake, players can send lone Priests to distract it or lure it away. When the Guardian does wake up, he can simply be sent straight to the Titan to attack it. Once the Titan is dead, the player will be rewarded with victory.
Additional Tips[]
- The Son of Osiris can be healed and lacks the ability to heal other units, unlike the normal Son of Osiris.
- Oranos' Followers will attempt to send Citizens to build Sky Passages near the player's Town. The vicinity should be scouted to detect and kill them.
- To complicate matters further, the enemy will make three attempts to sneak their units into the player's base via Rocs. Even more Priests and possibly a Watch Tower should be placed near the Temple closest to the player's Town Center to thwart that attempt.
- Towers should not be built by the walled passes until the players has at least upgraded their walls once and has Priests standing by to protect their Laborers from attacks. Laborers build very slowly so they will not be able to finish a Watch Tower before the enemy arrives.
- After researching Hands of the Pharaoh, players may task one of their Priests to collect the few Relics located around the map. The technology is useful regardless as it increases Priest range.
- The enemy will rebuild their unit production buildings if they are destroyed. However, the Tartarian Gate in the ruined pyramid can be permanently destroyed with a Tornado or Meteor, greatly reducing the number of Tartarian Spawn produced.
Loopholes[]
- It is possible to win the scenario without using the Guardian. Players may ignore the Guardian altogether and focus on their defenses and economy. As Cerberus lacks the ability to regenerate at high speed, it can simply be defeated by a large army of Priests (though they should still be wary of other enemy soldiers who will intervene). As long as the Titan has been eliminated, the player will win the game even if the Guardian has not yet been revived.
- The player can avoid fighting most of the enemy forces by abandoning their base and moving their Laborers and Camel Caravans into the allied town. Ample resources can be obtained there by farming and building a Market in the southern corner, creating a short trade route to the allied Town Center. Even on Titan difficulty, most of the enemy forces will amass around the initial Town Center in the north without threatening the player's new base or the area around the Guardian. Some myth units and Arcus will attack the allied area, but this will conveniently cease after around 20 minutes.
Trivia[]
- This scenario is one of two where the Guardian appears, the first being Light Sleeper from the Fall of the Trident campaign.
- Since the city of Sebennytos is featured, this scenario is set in the Nile Delta. The larger city that is destroyed is probably Sais.
- Despite Amanra noting that there is no Gold to mine, there are actually three gold mines within the Egyptian city.
- The developers may have overlooked the triggers which prevent the player to train additional Camel Caravans on this scenario. If the player manages to eliminate most of the underworld spawn, notice that Camel Caravans are available to be trained from the market.
- The developers are known to assign Hades for the Underworld players in the campaign, and it would make more sense if Followers of Oranos would use Oranos as a major god. In this scenario, it is the other way around.
- The reason for the latter is because during the cinematic, Cerberus is briefly controlled by the Hades Followers of Oranos, due to their neutral status with the Egyptian city.
- When playing on Moderate difficulty, Medium upgrades from the Barracks and Copper upgrades from the Armory are not yet researched. However, when playing on Hard difficulty, those aforementioned technologies are researched already.
- Despite fighting his forces for so long in Fall of the Trident, Amanra worships Set in this scenario.
- This was likely a decision made by the creators simply to prevent the player from creating a second Son of Osiris. Of note is that if the Son of Osiris god power is obtained via cheats and then used on the Son of Osiris himself, he will permanently lose the abilities to rejuvenate the Guardian and to be healed, thus making the scenario virtually impossible to complete.
- When the player's wall is attacked, Kastor will comment "The Atlanteans of Kronos are attacking our city. Force them back!" despite facing the Followers of Oranos.
- This was fixed in Retold by renaming the Followers of Oranos to Followers of Kronos and changing their major god to Kronos accordingly.
Gallery[]
