Thor's early economy, combined with the generally higher attack of Norse longboats, are what makes him so strong on water. Thor can use his early Thor mine and dwarves on gold to set up an awesome econ as early as early archaic age. The longer training time of the dwarves on wood is more than compensated by the fact that he gets more fishing boats at an earlier time thanks to the added wood income. His cheaper dwarves and two initial dwarves also help in this respect. He can make gatherers later in the game, using the food from the sea, and over time replace the wood dwarves with gatherers, relocating the dwarves to gold.
Meanwhile, Odin's GP is near useless on Mediterranean. Odin is also less flexible with his vill production, and pays more for the gold dwarves that he does get. In classical age, the added hp from Arctic Winds are not more than the first pierce armor upgrade that Thor gets for a measly 100w/100g. But if Odin picks Heimdall in order to get access to Arctic Winds, then he has no Forest Fire. Thor's valkyrie will burn Odin's forest, further delaying his arrow ship production, and occasionally killing a vill or two.
Odin has the option to FH for krakens, but the Heroic Fleet upgrade solves this problem nicely for Thor. Thor can also get some hack/crush armor upgrades for his arrow ships at low cost in the armory.
Colossus88, it is true that sea battles play much less of a role in mythic age. By mythic age, one player has typically won the water for good. Occasionally his opponent will try to make a few docks and reclaim the water, but most of the mythic age fighting takes place on land even on Mediterranean. Heroic Fleet is more than easy to have by mythic age. For that reason, the jormund brood, a water myth that Thor can get, plays hardly a role, and I would prefer Baldr over Tyr anytime.
Quoted from LightmareNikita:
And at this point, i think i truly am a 1700 Poseidon. I may have gotten my 1703 rating thorugh 2v2 play
You definitely are no true 1700 Poseidon. Nobody is worth his max rate, and you surely do not win 50% of your games against 1700 opponents. And I already pointed out to you that nobody here will respect a rating that was obtained by means of 2v2.
The funny thing is that you say yourself that you are only good in 1v1. Well, if 1v1 is your strong side, and you achieved 1700 in 2v2, then how hard can it be for you to beat up some 1700 players in 1v1? I do not think that you can do that though. Nothing has changed; you are still bragging about a skill that you do not have. Congratulations on having a good ally.Quoted from LightmareNikita:
I've been told by dang clan members that my play is definetly 1700+.
It is absolutely unimportant what others say about you. Achieve the rating in serious 1v1 games if you think that you are worth it. You keep attempting to substitute achievements with mere words. You should have noticed by now that nobody will respect you for words, or the performance of your ally.Quoted from LightmareNikita:
Anyway, those 2 15 sec games, both times, the 2 guys resgined. The first time some 1680's didn't stand a chance
... which they realized after 15 seconds into the game. I am really puzzled how you can actually believe anyone will buy crap like that!?!Quoted from LightmareNikita:
I don't Cheat.
Someone gave me a replay which he thought proved that you map hack. I will not relay it, nor mention who it was, but I can tell that I watched it and came to the conclusion that you did not cheat. The weird thing about it was that you did quite a good start, but as the game progressed into heroic age suddenly appeared to have no clue how to go on. You spammed vills and caravans beyond every measure, occupying heaps of pop space, and then mindlessly spammed defensive buildings all over your base while your opponent actually attacked and won the game for you. Hell, for minutes I even had the impression that you had left your computer!
Etendorf, you are not used to naval battles in heroic age because you play vanilla, where there are no shooting docks, and where heroic water myth is more than hard to counter, so the battle for sea is decided quickly most of the times. You are wrong to generalize this to the TT expansion though. Thor's armory upgrades play a huge role in naval combat, although not right at its beginning. I like to play players that try to FH for siege vessels and water myth. Against those I attempt to accumulate enough upgrades so that I can fight both their siege and water myth effectively with my arrow ships. With the help of Burning Bitches and a couple hack/crush armor upgrades, this is well possible, especially since arrow ships train much faster than siege vessels. When I follow into heroic age, I typically get arrow ship cladding, making the arrow ships even better. Making siege and ramming ships sure makes sense for Thor, too, but basically, he can do pretty much all naval fighting with longboats alone.Quoted from Etendorf:
Siege ships are actually the worst water unit because of their slow firing rate and are more fragile in general.
Unless you have Baldr's Arctic Gale researched. Naval combat typically plays not much of a role in mythic age, but when it does occur, I will rather want to have that upgrade than the jormund elver water myth.
Darkness is a state of mind
Valor is the contempt of Death and Pain. (Tacitus)
Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back. (Piet Hein)