Greeks (Age of Mythology)

This article is about the civilization in Age of Mythology. For the civilization featured in Age of Empires, see Greeks (Age of Empires).

Civilization	Technology tree	Strategy

“	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[]

Civilian unit: Villager
Resource drop-off sites: Granary - food, Storehouse - wood and gold
Villagers can pray at a Temple to generate favor.
Heroes are generally limited to one per Age and vary with the choice of the major god.
Start with three Villagers and a Kataskopos.
Starting resources: 250 food, 255 wood, 100 gold

Major gods[]

Zeus: Allows a maximum of 200 favor instead of 100. Villagers generate +37.5% favor. Benefits infantry and heroes.
Poseidon: Grants the Lure power, which attracts animals. Militia emerge from destroyed buildings. Benefits cavalry.
Hades: Buildings are 25% stronger with 20% more attack power. 20% chance for Hades Shades to appear at a Temple when human units are killed. Benefits buildings and archers.

Minor gods[]

The minor gods available to the civilization, their focuses, and the major gods through which they can be accessed are:

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 Greeks are:

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
- Hippikon: 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[]

Main article: Hero (Age of Mythology)#Greeks

Town Center
- Hippocrates: Healer hero which can pick up Relics

Excluding Hippocrates, 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 Poseidon from the Heroic Age onwards.

Myth units[]

Main article: Myth unit#Greeks

The following myth unit is available to all Greeks:

Temple
- Pegasus: Flying myth unit with no attack, used for scouting.

Ships[]

Trireme: Longer range than other arrow ships.
Pentekonter: Same as Egyptian and Norse hammer ships.
Juggernaut: Same as Chinese and Norse siege ships.

Titan[]

The Greek Titan in the The Titans expansion is the three-headed dog Cerberus.

Favor[]

Greek Villagers praying at a Temple

The Greeks gather favor like other resources. Their villagers pray at Temples, and the more villagers praying there are, the faster the favor rate. This makes regulating favor simple but takes up population space that could be dedicated somewhere else.

Starting conditions[]

Each of Age of Mythology's five civilizations has different starting conditions in a normal game. The Greeks start out with a Town Center, three 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 Poseidon, who allows building a hero ship, The Argo).

Changelog[]

Extended Edition[]

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, who is a Hero unit with a build limit of 1.

In-game dialogue language[]

Where different, Ancient Greek transliteration is given in small letters.

Common

Select 1 Ἕτοιμος/Ἑτοῖμος [hetoimos] (etimos) (m), ἑτοίμη [hetoimē] (etimi) (f) - ready/willing
Select 2 Πρόσταγμα; [prostagma] (prostaghma?) - Order/command?
Select 3 Λέγε [lege] (leye) - Speak or collect (archaic)
Move 1 Ναί [nai] (ne) - yes
Move 2 Ἔστω [estō] (esto) - let it be / so be it
Move 3 Βούλομαι [boulomai] (vulome) - I will/I want
Attack Εἰσβολή [eisbolē] (isvoli) - invasion!

Villager-exclusive

Select Πρόσεχε (prosekhe!) - Be careful!
Move Μάλιστα (malista) - of course/absolutely (lit. most)
Mine Μεταλλεύς [metalleus] (metalefs) - metal worker
Hunt Θηρευτής [thēreutēs] (thireftis) - hunter/predator
Forage Βουφορβός [bouphorbos] (vouforvos) - ox herder (when collecting berries)*
Chop Δρυτόμος [drytomos] (dhritomos) - timber, woodcutter (lit. oak cutter)

Military-exclusive

Move 1 Όρθῶς [orthōs] (orthos) - correctly
Move 2 Πάμε (pame!) - Let's go!
Attack 1 Εἰς μάχην [eis makhēn] (is makhin) - to battle
Attack 2 Καλός [kalōs] (kalos) - good, well
Attack 3 Πόρρω [porrō] (porro) - forward!

Others

Πανύ [pany] (pani) - very well (lit. much/ at a great degree)

Notes[]

The dialogue is a combination of Ancient Greek written words with Modern Greek pronunciation. Ancient Greek language had a more complex vowel phonology and a simpler consonant phonology. It also featured pitch accent, not unlike certain European languages like Swedish and Norwegian. Written Greek more closely reflects Ancient pronunciation.
Βουφορβός is a wrong choice, as depending on the context, it means either ox herder or shepherd. A more correct word would be καρποσυλλέκτης (karposyllektēs), fruit collector.

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

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 Alpha 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, Hetairoi, 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).

Gallery[]

Civilizations in Age of Mythology
Age of Mythology			The Titans	Tale of the Dragon
Greeks	Egyptians	Norse	Atlanteans	Chinese