The Toxotes is the main archer used by the Greeks in Age of Mythology. They can be trained at the Archery Range once the Classical Age is reached. They are one of four true foot archers in the game, the others being the Norse Bogsveigir, the Atlantean Arcus, and the Chinese Chu Ko Nu. Despite being an archer unit, in large numbers, combined with their small hitbox, they are able to overwhelm cavalry units.
Attack bonuses[]
- Raiding Cavalry: -10%
Strengths and weaknesses[]
Strong against | Weak against |
---|---|
God bonuses and upgrades[]
Specific[]
- Enyo's Bow of Horror (Ares) increases attack by 10%.
General[]
Hades increases archers' attack by 10%.
- Medium Archers, Heavy Archers, and Champion Archers all increase LOS by 1, attack by 10%, and hit points by 10%.
- Levy Archers and Conscript Archers decrease training time by 20%.
- Copper Weapons, Bronze Weapons, and Iron Weapons increase attack by 10%.
- Copper Mail, Bronze Mail, and Iron Mail decrease hack vulnerability by 10%.
- Copper Shields, Bronze Shields, and Iron Shields decrease pierce vulnerability by 10%.
- Burning Pitch increases attack against buildings by ×3 and against ships by 50%.
- Sun Ray (Apollo) increases attack by 10%.
- Oracle (Apollo) increases LOS by 6.
- Bacchanalia (Dionysus) increases hit points by 5%.
- Shafts of Plague (Artemis) increases attack by 15%.
Strategy[]
Toxotes are good against infantry and in groups can tear into an enemy army. Overall they provide effective ranged support for Greek armies. As ranged units they should be used at a distance as they are fragile and have little armor. They have a fairly short range compared to their counterparts in the Egyptian and Atlantean armies so they are slightly vulnerable to their respective units. As with other archers they are weak against cavalry as they can quickly close the gap with the fragile archer. Counter-archers such as the Huskarl or Slinger will also defeat them.
Trivia[]
- The word Toxon (Tόξον: bow), from which Toxotes (Τοξότης) is derived, is of Scythian origin. As for the Toxotes (plural: Toxotai, Tοξόται) themselves, they were slaves of Scythian ethnicity, armed with bows. They were found in Athens, and had safekeeping duties.
- Toxotes in Greek society were viewed with prejudice, as they were often seen as cowardly due the lack of courage of facing death or injury in the frontlines as opposed to the hoplites. As such, many toxotes were often from lower classes of Greek society (i.e. slaves, peasants, or "barbarian" tribes like the Scythians).
- Although primarily based upon the Scythian slave peacekeeping force of Athens, the Toxotes in Age of Mythology also represent the famed archers of Crete, due to the presence of the Toxotes' small shield.
- The in-game description states that the Greeks did not traditionally practice archery. This may explain why the Greeks in Age of Empires have no archer unit other than the Bowman.
History[]
“ | After centuries of warfare that was decided by Hoplite battle, the Greeks began using a variety of units after the superiority of combined arms was demonstrated convincingly by Philip's Macedonian army. The Greeks added light troops, mainly Peltasts and cavalry. They were slower to add archers, whom they called Toxotes, because they did not have the long tradition of archery practice that created bowmen of sufficient quality for the battlefield. | ” |
—In-game history section |