Greeks (Age of Mythology)

This article is about the civilization in Age of Mythology. For other uses, see Greeks.

Civilization	Technology tree	Strategy	Dialogue lines

“	Greeks are good at scouting, as they start with a Kataskopos on land and can train flying Pegasi at the Temple. Worshipers of Poseidon are also granted a Hippocampus once they construct a Dock. Greek soldiers tend to be stronger and more expensive than those of other civilizations. Greeks can only train a handful of Heroes at a time, but they are all exceptionally strong. Greek heroes also train faster and have increased damage towards myth units in later ages. They gain Favor by praying at Temples.	”
—In-game compendium section

“	Greeks are good at scouting, as they start with a Kataskopos on land and can train flying Pegasi at the Temple. Worshipers of Poseidon are also granted a Hippocampus once they construct a Dock. Greek soldiers tend to be stronger and more expensive than those of other civilizations. Greeks can only train a handful of Heroes at a time, but they are all exceptionally strong. They gain Favor by praying at Temples.	”
—In-game compendium section

“	Greeks are good at scouting, as they start with a Kataskopos on land, and also have a Pegasus in the air and Poseidon has a Hippocampus as well. Greek soldiers tend to be stronger and more expensive than Norse or Egyptian units. Greeks can only have 4 Heroes at a time. They gain Favor by praying at Temples.	”
—In-game description

The Greeks are a civilization in Age of Mythology, based on the ancient Greek city-states and the Hellenic religion and mythology. It is the first civilization the players controls and encounters in the game's campaign.

Overview[]

Worker unit: Villager
Resource drop-off sites: Granary - food, Storehouse - wood and gold
Start with four Villagers and a Kataskopos.
Starting resources: 200 food, 250 wood, 50 gold
Villagers can pray at a Temple to generate favor.
Heroes are limited to one per Age and vary with the choice of the major god.
The choice of major god also determines the unique unit at the Fortress in the Mythic Age.
Warships have +10% hit points.

Major gods[]

Zeus[]

Starts with 10 favor
Gains favor 20% faster.
Myth units cost 1 less population*.
Infantry do +50% damage to buildings.
Hoplites move 15% faster.

Unique units

Jason - Archaic Age hero
Heracles - Classical Age hero
Odysseus - Heroic Age hero
Bellerophon - Mythic Age hero
Myrmidon - Mythic Age infantry

Hades[]

20% chance for fallen humans to return as Shades of Hades.
Myth units +15% hit points.
Ranged soldiers and heroes^{[note 1]} +1 Line of Sight and range.
Ranged fortifications +2 range.
Ballistics and Burning Pitch are researched instantly for free in their respective ages.

Unique units

Ajax - Archaic Age hero
Achilles - Classical Age hero
Chiron - Heroic Age hero
Perseus - Mythic Age hero
Gastraphetoros - Mythic Age archer

Poseidon[]

Militia spawn from razed buildings.
Cavalry, Caravans, and myth units +0.4 speed.
Stables and Markets are 30% cheaper.
Market exchange rates improved by 15%.
A free Hippocampus respawns at the first Dock.

Unique units

Theseus - Archaic Age hero
Atalanta - Classical Age hero
Hippolyta - Heroic Age hero
Polyphemus - Mythic Age hero
Hetairos - Mythic Age cavalry

Minor gods[]

Classical Age[]

Athena (Zeus and Hades) - Infantry, defense
Hermes (Zeus and Poseidon) - Cavalry
Ares (Hades and Poseidon) - Attack of human soldiers

Heroic Age[]

Apollo (Hades and Zeus) - Archers
Dionysus (Zeus and Poseidon) - Cavalry
Aphrodite (Hades and Poseidon) - Villagers

Mythic Age[]

Hera (Zeus) - Buildings and myth units
Hephaestus (All) - Human soldier armor and weapons
Artemis (Hades and Poseidon) - Archers

Units[]

The generic units unique to all Greek gods are:

Civilians[]

Villager: Gathers all resources and builds buildings.

Human soldiers[]

Military Academy:
- Hoplite: Classical Age infantry, good against cavalry units.
- Hypaspist: Heroic Age infantry, good only against other infantry.
Archery Range:
- Toxotes: Classical Age archers, good against infantry units.
- Peltast: Heroic Age archers, good only against other archers.
Stable:
- Hippeus: Classical Age cavalry, good against archer units.
- Prodromos: Heroic Age cavalry, good only against other cavalry.
Others
- Kataskopos: Starting scout unit which is weak in combat, more cannot be trained.

Siege weapons[]

Fortress:
- Petrobolos: Long-ranged Heroic Age siege weapon good against buildings.
- Helepolis: Mythic Age siege weapon which can transport foot units and fires bolts at close range.

Heroes[]

The Greeks have a different Hero for each major god and each Age. Unlike heroes of other civilizations, they are strong against small numbers of human soldiers in addition to myth units, but they cannot be mass-produced. The Argo is the only naval Hero and the only one trainable at the Dock, available to worshippers of Aphrodite from the Heroic Age onwards.

Ships[]

Greek warships have more hit points compared to the other civilizations.

Myth units[]

AoMR Titan Titanic Walk — The Greek Titan, Cerberus

Temple:
- Pegasus: Flying myth unit with no attack, used for scouting.
Dock:
- Scylla: Strong melee unit which grows more heads as it deals damage.
- Carcinos: Strong melee unit which explodes on death dealing large area damage.
Titan: The Greek Titan since The Titans is the three-headed dog Cerberus.

Favor[]

Overview2 — Greek Villagers praying at a Temple

Greeks earn favor by praying to their gods. They do this simply by sending their Villagers to a Temple. The first Villager praying generates 6.0 favor per minute. The more Villagers pray, the more favor is earned, though this is on a scale of diminishing returns. Most of the time, having more than 8 Villagers praying is excessive.

The Greeks therefore gather favor like they do other resources. This method is far more flexible than the other civilizations' methods, is safe, consumes no resources, and can be used to get the fastest favor generation rates – if the player is willing to commit that many Villagers. On the other hand, praying ties up Villagers that could be used on other tasks.

For more details, see this section on the Villager page.

Starting conditions[]

Each civilization has different starting conditions in a normal game. The Greeks start out with a Town Center, four Villagers and a Kataskopos. The Kataskopos is a scout unit and is useful early on, though they can be replaced by Pegasi fairly quickly. Further Kastaskopi cannot be trained.

Other attributes[]

The Greeks are very versatile and play similarly to civilizations from Age of Empires II, so they are the easiest to start out with. Their military for example is created the same way. Greeks also possess the strongest heroes in the game but they cannot be mass-produced, with a maximum of four (five with the minor goddess Aphrodite, who allows building a hero ship, The Argo).

Changelog[]

Age of Mythology[]

Start with three Villagers and 250 food, 255 wood, 100 gold.
Warships have the regular amount of hit points.
With patch 1.7, their Docks cost -20% compared to generic.

Tale of the Dragon[]

Since patch 2.0, a generic human unit Physician is available at the Town Center since the Classical Age.
Since patch 2.8, the Physician is reworked as Hippocrates as a hero unit with a build limit of 1.

Retold[]

Hippocrates is removed.
Start with four Villagers and 200 food, 250 wood, 50 gold.
Warships have +10% hit points.
Their Docks have no cost reduction.

Campaign appearances[]

They are playable in scenarios 1–10, 16, 21, 31, and 32 in the Fall of the Trident campaign. They are also playable in the Tutorial scenario in Retold, which replaces their three more appearances in the scenarios of Learn to Play before Retold. In Retold, they appear as AI players in every campaign except The New Atlantis, including Pillars of the Gods, where they appear in Shattered Underworlds and Duel of the Deathless.

In-game dialogue language[]

Main article: /Dialogue lines

AI player names[]

All Versions[]

Athens - A major city of the world which has been continuously inhabited for at least 5,000 years, it is often referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy.
Corinth - An ancient and important city of Greece, it gave its name to the distinctive classical Greek helmet, the Corinthian helmet.
Eretria
Knossos - First settled around 7000 BC, it was a major city of the Minoans.
Megara
Mycenaea - An ancient Greek city, it gave its name to the civilization which first arose as a distinct Greek culture, Mycenaean Greece.
Rhodes - The name of an island and its capital in Greece, it was first a Minoan settlement before the Greeks captured it. It is famous for the giant statue Colossus of Rhodes, which collapsed into the sea due to an earthquake.
Sparta - A highly militiarised and dominant city-state of ancient Greece, legendary for the last stand of its King Leonidas and his forces against the Persian ruler Xerxes' army at the Battle of Thermopylae.
Thasos
Troy - An ancient city which was destroyed and rebuilt many times, and had been under control of various peoples throughout history, and is most famous for its purported presence in the Trojan War in Homer's Iliad.

Vanilla and the Extended Edition[]

These names only appear on AI players following the Big Boomer or the Aggressive Rusher AI.

Epirus - A region between Greece and Albania, it was an ancient Greek kingdom, and later republic. It became a powerful state under King Pyrrhus of Epirus.
Laconia
Macedonia - A powerful ancient kingdom on the northern periphery of ancient Greece, it subdued Greece under Philip II, and under his son Alexander II, became a vast empire stretching from the Mediterranean to India.
Peloponnesus
Syracuse - A 2,700 year old city in Sicily, it was founded by Corinthians and Teneans and contains a great amount of Greek, Carthaginian, and Roman history.
Thessaly - An ancient Greek region and kingdom, and is also mentioned in Homer's Odyssey.

Vanilla only[]

These names only appear on AI players following the Balanced or the Vanilla Random AI.

Cyclades
Cythera
Delphi - An ancient sacred site, it contained the oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world, and was believed by Greeks to be the centre of the world.
Ephesus
Melos

Retold only[]

Ithaca - An island in the Ionian Sea, identified by Homer as the home of Odysseus.

Cut content[]

Oxybeles - Greek variant of the Ballista, conceptually merged with the Siege Tower to create the Helepolis.
Cataphract - Mythic Age cavalry originally planned to be the unique unit for Hades, good against infantry, archers, and siege weapons.
Golem - Supplanted by the Colossus.
Griffon - Its statistics match a Minotaur, while its roar ability is like a Nemean Lion.

Trivia[]

In the Alphas of Age of Mythology, the Greeks' architecture set originally was more historically accurate. The buildings all had whiter textures and bright red tile roofs, the human units were also more accurate to the Hellenic Era in which they are portrayed.
- The Greeks also had several additional units: the Griffon, Cataphract, War Turtle, Harpy, Oxybeles (a Greek Ballista), and Misenus, the original Campaign hero.
The Greeks mainly draw influence from Hellenistic-era Greece, especially from the kingdom of Macedonia, attested from the presence of Helepoli, Hetairos, Hypaspists, Prodromi, and the Sarissa upgrade. Triremes' sails also depict the Vergina Sun, also known as the Star of Vergina.
- However, they also draw their influence from Classical Greece, particularly Athens, as attested from some myth technologies (most notably Trierarch and Athenian Wall), and the presence of Hoplites and Toxotes.
Two of their units are also influenced from non-Greek civilizations; the Peltast unit is of Thracian origin, whereas the Toxotes are based on an Athenian police/safeguarding force, composed of Scythian slaves, armed with a "toxon" (τόξον: bow, a word of Indo-Iranian origin).