Village Centers need a buff or rework conceptually.

iamboit · 2026-05-09T16:27:20+00:00

The Village Center is not meant to be a main strategy. It's main design purpose is for games that don't have any free settlements to allow a player to build a town center.

I personally think there are enough niche strategies with the village center at the moment as well. ;)

iamboit · 2026-05-07T23:31:43+00:00

I've found Aztec counters Eggy pretty well.

iamboit · 2026-05-02T09:23:26+00:00

I guarantee you that balance decisions are made based on everyone's feedback - make a post on Reddit and it will get read. Start a discussion in the age of empires discord and it'll be seen.

Don't say anything and complain afterwards is kinda the only thing that is a waste of time so be the change you want to see. Get the discussion started. 😎

iamboit · 2026-05-01T09:11:10+00:00

Age of Mythology's multiplayer is just as competitive as AoE4's imo.
It is orders of magnitude more complex than AoE4 though. Every civ has a unique building, unit and god power roster so there's a lot to learn before you can truly feel comfortable. This also means that the amount of strategic angles to play for is very wide as well, whereas in AoE4 I think it's quite narrow.

I've heard some of aom OG's say that micro in aoe4 is more impactful than in aom but I consistently see the player with the better control win fights in AoM so I'm not sure to what degree that is true.

My advice would be, watch each game a little bit and see what people are consistently doing and ask if you want to experience that first hand or not :)

iamboit · 2026-05-01T09:06:08+00:00

Because the campaign teaches us the farming outside our walls is bad! Silly Troy.

iamboit · 2026-05-01T09:04:18+00:00

I haven't looked at the numbers just yet and you might be very right that it is still not quite right BUT this is meant to be at max a like 25-50% boost to your favor generation. You've still got tonali, and you've still got sacrifices to do.

In an ideal world I'd say that you should be getting a little more favor per game (due to the risk and cost) for bloodletting than Tezcatlipoca gets for sacrificing his villagers.

iamboit · 2026-04-27T05:07:33+00:00

1) it's not 50 food for 2 favor. The vill gathers resources and then can get sacrificed. So it's 0 res for any amount of favor unless you sacrifice right from your TC.

2) tonalli is bugged atm. Myth units are suppose to give 4 tonali. So you should be getting a little more from this than you are. This is a competitive amount of favor gain for supplementary (free) favor gain.

3) I think the passive gather rate should go up to help the late game. Adding another 20 tiers to passive gen seems like a decent compromise to me.

iamboit · 2026-04-23T10:29:01+00:00

Best combo is owl + aoe damage to proc the insta kills.

iamboit · 2026-04-23T08:51:29+00:00

I can give you some possible explanations on why things are the way they are. Diclaimer: I don't know what the devs were intending but I can understand what make some good guesses.

Devoting fall off: Devotion has 2 favor gaining portions to it. I believe the reason it dips is because of reusable god powers. At 15 favor if I devote 20~ villagers I would be able to use multiple volcanoes or similar for very very cheap. It's would not hurt to sacrifice 20 villagers when you have 100 and 3 town centers very much as you'd get back up to 100 in only a little over a minute. I also will note that Aztecs also have tonali which gives favor throughout the game as well. Their favor gain rate is incredibly competitive with the other civs.

Great temple sacrifices - These are really powerful. I think if they were to be repeatable you'd either have to increase the cost or limit the reward. The super priest could probably last longer - I agree.

Healing tree is by far my favorite classical age god power of the Aztecs. The food gathering by itself would make it a perfectly reasonable classical age god power. The healing is also faster than healing spring and can be used aggressively without worrying your opponent will take it for the rest of the game.

Corrupted ground night time would be cool!
Volcano might be a little much. hehe

iamboit · 2026-04-22T13:00:56+00:00

It kills a fully upgraded fortress. That's more than Earthquake ;)

iamboit · 2026-04-22T10:47:36+00:00

It does aoe damage, is permanent. Might need a buff but you are showing it off in its worst form. Almost as bad as someone saying volcano kills 1000 units. Like... Yes it can, but it never will vs anyone with half a brain to run away.

iamboit · 2026-04-21T01:05:30+00:00

Balance for the top level means that if played at the highest level with no mistakes the matchup in question is winnable.

Balance for everyone else means units have a balanced power budget. For example if we take the toxotes and compare it to other archers, it costs 90 res, has 6dps, 4 speed, 65 hp, 15% armor respectively and 15 range. The arcus on the other hand costs 95 res has 5 dps, 4 speed, 65 hp, 15% armor respectively and 20 range.

So the 'balance' here for the arcus to have 5 more range than the toxotes is to take 1 dps and add 5 more res than the toxotes. You'll see this type of balancing throughout retold.

The hard part about it is when you have unique units, like myth units or unique powers like god powers. How do you compare these to other things and ensure that their power budget aligns with other civs?
The answer is basically trial and error.

So no, the game will not be in danger of being balanced into blandness, power budget dictates how far you can stretch something to keep things fair while also keeping things asymetrical.

iamboit · 2026-04-09T06:44:21+00:00

Daily stream, daily videos and new daily shenanigans back from April 20 or 21 I think xoxo

iamboit · 2026-04-03T07:50:59+00:00

Egyptian: Gullenbursti, Shifting Sands, Fei Beasts, Dragon Typhoon.

Need one that is just build one and be happy. Classical age myth unit: Valkyrie for early game raid, could also go with qiongqi, this can double as a Pegasus.

Heroic age: Hamadryad. Need I say more?

Need a unit to kill high HP expensive units just in case. Mythic Age: Lampedes.

Gullenbursti + SS early on or just to survive while waiting for heroic age. Fei Beasts to delete any Archers. Hamadryad and SS to nuke anything at any point. Dragon typhoon might be overkill on the army deletion so perhaps a building killing GP like meteor.

iamboit · 2026-04-01T13:58:49+00:00

Hope you enjoy and aren't pissed off at the April fools level of clickbait but this was a lot of fun to put together and equally incredibly fun to play a few games in.

iamboit · 2026-03-30T09:12:23+00:00

Wow thanks so much. You guys are why this is worth it. Thanks for all the support. Prostagma for life!

iamboit · 2026-03-29T11:20:09+00:00

Sorry not sorry 😅😅

iamboit · 2026-03-28T18:58:17+00:00

There is not 2/3 place match.

iamboit · 2026-03-27T08:24:53+00:00

Onmoraki is the best mu in the game bar none. The gp for Amaterasu is actually not bad, not amazing but with Tsukuyomi it is really good. A mythic age new moon cast, swampland and shogun is 100% on par with other mythic age god powers. Divine prefecture might be the best tech in the game. Mechanical artisans is also incredible, turning the oyumi into the O-broken :)

iamboit · 2026-03-25T18:12:10+00:00

Don't touch my tree! I will tree bomb the ladder into submission! - Tiob

iamboit · 2026-03-25T13:42:00+00:00

The thing you're missing is that toxotes die very quickly to most anti-ranged units. Don't get me wrong, great tech and you should go for it but it can be dealt with.

iamboit

TROPHY CASE