Odin
Bonuses:
1. Hunters gather 10% faster
2. Gains two Raven scouts on advancing to the Classical Age. Ravens regenerate if killed.
3. Human soldiers constantly regenerate hit points. Regeneration occurs at 0.8 HP/s when idle. (Slower when not idle.)
4. Huskarls, Portable Rams, Ballistae +20% hit points.
5. Jarls +10% hit points.
God Power: Great Hunt. Increases the number of animals in the target area.
Technology: Lone Wanderer. Ulfsarks +10% move speed.
Bonus Analysis:
1. Hunters gather 10% faster
This is an incredible bonus. In archaic your source of food is going to be hunting 90% of the time. With this bonus you gain food 10% faster. Basically while with other civs you would gain .949 food per sec per vill on hunting, youd gain 1.0439 with Odin. Thats about 1 more food every 10 seconds. When you have a lot of guys on food thats an extra 50-60 per minutes. This makes a huge difference early on. It can either allow you to advance 10% faster OR allow you to have 10% more food going into classical. Use it in these two ways interchangably. When against a rushing civ like loki use the bonus to get to classical faster. This will allow you to actually at least match his classical time. If you can do that it's hard for the loki player to beat you. This is because while once youre in classical he can build units 10% faster, you will be still getting food 10% faster. While after a while of getting units faster his eco will crumble, your eco will still be going strong and you'll be able to overpower him. On the other hand you can use it to get to classical very strong. This is best when you are against greeks or eggy. This is because both of them are very hard to rush. If you get to classical a bit later but with a stable eco you can outproduce them still but not be out of luck if the game doesn't end soon (which you would be if your eco was bad). Your attacks may come later and so be met with more of an opposition but your army will have more power and so be able to hurt them more. The only problem with this bonus is that its only for hunting so once youve exhausted that you dont have an economic advantage anymore. Thats why its important to use the time you have with this bonus well. For a while in classical you'll be able to outproduce your enemy. Use this to your advantage and put the heat on them early. While they largely wont be able to reinforce too much you will be able to since you'll have more food. This is how you produce the snowball effect. You gain the advantage through this bonus early. Then you use this to beat his army and raid his vills. Once his eco is supposed to be as good as yours you've already ravaged it and won the game. Also because it's only useful for hunting you must find all the hunting on the map. Unless its close to the opponents base then hunt it. This also begins to hurt the enemy in that you're speedily taking all his hunting. With this bonus it also means that you need to micro more since your vills will be done hunting 10% faster. Thankfully you have great hunt which makes your first batch of deer last a lot longer and ravens which will allow you to scout and find more hunting spots faster.
2. Gain 2 ravens to use as scouts once you get to classical.
I simply love this bonus probably the most out of anything that Odin has. It can be used in so many different ways. Usually when i get it i havent had too much time to scout out nearby hunting or gold areas since my ulf has had to build the temple and the houses. With his hunting bonus i will need to be finding hunting faster than usual so the ravens are very important. I use one to scout around in a load of semi circles around my base. I use the other to go near where i think my oppenent is. My first raven will find the hunting which if anything reduces my stress and sense of urgency (if i dont know where any hunting is and ive almost finished my current bit of it i get all messed up and focus on solely finding hunting which hurts me). Of course in some games it will also be crucial to me because i may actually not find any hunting otherwise which would absolutely kill me. I would probably be without food for 1 minute or two. That means no vills or units except for throwing axemen for that time. It also shows me where the gold is allowing me to stop him from controlling my gold in a more effective way. Another use of putting the raven on a semi circle is to find the town centers. Especially if Im doing a fast heroic i need to know where the tow centers are so that i can plop one down right away. On games against rushing civs it also helps quite a lot. I can usually locate his forward base right away. This means that while usually i wouldnt find it and in turn he'd be able to build up, as Odin i can attack it right away and stop it from going fully operational. In most games against a forward builder, you win if you manage to take down his FB which is easier as Odin. Another use for it is rather rare but still possible. If you find a Set players priest you can take him out before he converts as many animals as before. This hurts his rush quite a lot. My other raven is used to find various things around the enemy base. First i get it into his base and stay outside of tc range. Then i do a circle around the outskirts of his base. This can usually find 2-3 of his resource gathering sites. This is HUGELY important. It makes raiding twice as effective. This is because of a combination of things. One of them is simple that with other civs you'd probably spend a while going around his base with your raiders which would make your raiding happen later. Raiding someone 30 seconds earlier could mean the enemy getting 280 less gold before you raid him. This is hugely important as it stops his early military production sooner as well as wrecking his eco through dead villies sooner. The faster you do this, the less of a fight he will be able to put up. After you do the circle around their base and find their resource operations then you must find their gold. If you find this you can easily win a game especially against eggy. You will have most likely found his first gold mine and raided it. This means that he wont be able to mine there anymore. If you find his other nearby gold mines with your raven you can send a few rc to those mines every once and a while. You will end up finding his goldies pretty quickly and stopping them from going to that mine. You can do that over and over again until your opponent has no more mines he can go to. No mines = no gold = no military = you lose the game. Also once youve found his gold you want to find his tc's. This way you can do a few things. You can get to heroic and immediatly steal one of his tc's. This hurts him a lot because if he's on the defensive he wont be able to steal one of your tc's. This results in a 4-2 tc lead. This means you have more pop. With this extra pop and extra tc's you can boom and make your eco much better than his while still maintaining the same size army. Also if you've scouted where the tc's are you can see if he's trying to build one by looking at the color of it. If it changes color to the color of your enemy all you have to do is run over there with your army and stop them. This will stop him from getting a tc advantage while you are still in classical (vanilla). It will also stop him from booming out of more than one tc. If you are able to do that and he's not you will have a major advantage. On a water map ravens can be very useful as well. Using them you can asses whether your enemy is going for a large water battle or if hes planning on a land attack. This is by looking at the number of docks he has. If he has 3 docks its a pretty safe assumption that hes planning on an attack on water. This way you know to build up a lot of ships to stop him. If he only has one however you can bet that he is planning on a quick land attack to kill you while youre focused on water. Using this extra intelligence you can make decisions as to if you should build up on land early or not. Ive been tricked many times when i was other civs on water. Ive gone too heavy on water and lost and ive gone not heavy enough on water and lost. With ravens the chance that that will happen is minimal. Once youve done all the early scouting that you need to do you must remember to keep using the ravens. Use them to find out where buildings you want to take down are. For instance if you are going myth heavy vs eggy you want to know where his temple is so that you can take it down stopping his priest production. You also will want to knwo what units your enemy is making. You can send a raven into your opponents base and find out what units to make. For instance if im odin i will make raiding cavalry. However if my raven scouts out that my enemy is making infantry ill make a considerable amount of TA as well. As the game goes on you may have a hard time thinking of ways to utilize the ravens. I personally find that early on its not good to park your ravens over a resource gathering site. This is because towers and ranged units will kill them without moving from their base. However later on when your enemy is using a far away gold mine/hunting groud/forest he cant bring his units over to kill the raven as easily and hes also less likely to notice it. Use the ravens to keep tabs on where his villies are. This will allow you to not have to guess which gold mine he's using since youll know already. Try to be astute and when his vills move to a new gold mone or forest to move with them. Knowing where his vills are at all times allows you to raid faster and more effectively meaning he has a lesser eco and you arent without a large portion of your army (your raiding groups) for as long. Ravens can also be used to target GP's like walking woods. Another way to use ravens in the late game is to find his out of the way market. Most people dont defend their market very well and its well outside of their base so you can easily find it with your raven and attack. Taking down the market temporarily stops his gold income for a minute or two. Ravens respawn in 2-3 minutes so early on its important to not let them die so dont let them get in tc fire. Against eggy use undermine to keep your raven alive if you have to. Later on in the game a raven dying isnt gonna hurt you too much so if you want to know what units he's making but he has towers everywhere send the raven on a suicide run. The only problem with ravens is that eggy towers will take them out. So you have to stay out of range of them which reduces your chances of finding their resource operations. I still usually find that i can still see the gatherering operations since the ravens have HUGE LOS. Just never forget your ravens and find useful ways to use them and youll have an advantage.
3. Units regenerate at a rate of 0.8 hp per second when idle
This bonus is usually underestimated quite a lot. Its main use is to increase the effectiveness of raiding. Say i raid a guys wood. He has a tower there though. The tower takes off 30 hp from one of my raiding cavalry. Normally with any other civ i would have to just accept that 30hp loss as the cost of raiding. However with Odin that raiding cavalry can stay still for 37.5 seconds and be at full health again. That may seem like a long time and indeed it is. Your raiders shouldnt be idle for 37.5 seconds in any game. However when you raid that same tower isnt going to aim at the same unit. So if your first rc goes on the first raid loses 30hp waits 15 sec then goes on another raid, then waits another 15 seconds, he will be at full health again ( i realize that that only added up to 30 seconds but you have to realize that they do gain health very slowly when they move). This means that you can probably save having to make at least 2 or 3 extra rc from raiding that you normally would have lost. Also after a battle a lot of times i still have guys left but they arent at full health. What can i do? its stupid to delete them, and with a lot of other civs i wont have an effective manner of healing. With odin you just keep your units in place for 1 minute and theyll gain back about 50 hp. If your enemy attacks again with units that havent been healed and your units that were hurt all have 50 more hp you will win the battle easily. Basically as Odin your units will last a significant bit longer resulting in more resources to us for other things like upgrades. Its important to note that this works very well when you use ulfsarks. They have not too much health so will gain back their full health when they were wounded rather fast. Also they are very easy to mass and the more units you have that are healing themselves the more you are using this bonus. Another thing is that odin can get his myth tech so that ulfs can run away from units as heal just as easily as raiding cavalry. Its also useful with units like jarls that have a huge amount of hp. This means that they will be very hard to actually destroy if the odin player takes care of them. Ive developed a little strategy around this bonus. When you have a lot of units split them into a few groups. Then take one group and attack the enemy army. Before they can surround you retreat. Do the same with the next group and the next group until you get back to the first group. By that time your first group will have full health. You end up slowly whittling the enemy army down while your army doesnt lose any health. Once he has a lot of units with half health (which wont take too long if you are attacking him constantly) you attack using your whole army. You should be able to beat him since a lot of his units will go down faster than usual. This is best used against greek since they really have no effective healing method. This is also a great way to provoke the guy into a fight he shouldnt go into. If he knows that your guys are healing and his guys are dying he will attack you. You can sometimes end up killing a lot of units under tower fire by provoking them like that. Another use for this bonus is if your army is being followed after you were losing a battle by the enemy army while you retreat into your base. What you do is scatter your guys so that he cant follow your whole army. Then while he tries to find your guys your guys will heal themselves and get reinforced from your base. Then you use your new army to crush him. This is a good way to get yourself out of a danger of losing your entire army while at the same time not having an army of all almost dead guys. Of course the guy would just go and try to ravage your base while you do that but if he does that then you use the fact that your army is scattered to be able to send some guys to raid him and then hit his army from all sides and surround them. I have actually used this strategy before and the guy ran after a group of 3 rc while the rest of my rc were healing. It really got me out of the deep hole that i was in. Because of the healing its important as Odin to retreat if you are losing a battle. This is because after a while units that would be dead if you hadnt retreated will become good as new. Most people dont notice the bonus which is why they dont respect it but behind the scenes this bonus is always helping.
4. Huskarls, portable rams, and ballista have +20% hp
This is another huge bonus for Odin. It gives huskarls 23 more hp, rams 43 more, and ballista 17 more. It is important to realize that this doesnt mean that 10 odin huskarls will beat 12 of another civs huskarls. In that situation the 12 huskarls have the same hp as the 10 odin huskarls BUT they have 20% more attack. In my tests it has been shown that 10 normal husks vs 10 odin husks gives a win for odin with 5-6 husks left. However 12 normal husks vs 10 odin husks gives a win to the normal ones with 4-5 left. When 11 normal husks fought 10 odin husks the odin husks won with 2-3 left. So the 20% hp increase probably makes the unit an all around 12% better. The hp increase can really make a difference though. If there was a close fight for instance 1 hipp vs 1 husk the 20% could put the husk over the limit where he'd win that fight. Then he'd go and help another one of your units kill the opponents units. The opponent will most likely not realize that that husk is almost dead so wont attack him. This creates a snowball effect where you end up doouble and tripple teaming all his guys with your own guys that are alsmot dead So at the end of a battle you'll end up with a lot of guys with only a small bit of health. This is where Odins regenerating comes in. More husks are going to live but a lot of them will have little health. However they will regenerate a lot of their health and become full health units. This is important since many times as many as twice as many odin husks will live as compared to other husks. But as stated before a lot of them will have not too much health. But after a while they will regain the health and you will have had to have payed WAY less for replacements.
Dont misunderstand me though having 20% more hp will result in having a larger army after a battle. For instance 10 odin husks vs 11 spearmen results in having anywhere from 2-4 more husks (couting ones with half health as only half a unit) left then regular huskarls. This alone saves you up to 520 resources just in that small battle. Magnified to a larger scale it will save you literally bucket loads of resources over the course of the game. As for rams having 43 more hp. That makes Odin have some of the best seige in the game. If it is being attacked by one regular unit that has 9 attack it will do an extra 300-350 damage to that building. A lot of the time that means the difference between taking down a building and it staying up. And if you get down one crucial building it can win you the game. Of course if you are attacking the ram with a lot of units it will only do maybe 50 more damage to the building. But if you are attacking the ram that means that you arent attacking the odin players other units which results in a win for the odin player. A lot of times 1 or 2 more rams will live through the game making you not have to replace them. This saves you a lot of resources and makes your attack more efficient. If you are replacing your dead ram as another civ it will take it a while to get to the front while the odin ram will still be taking down buildings. It also worth noting that under a lot of tower fire over time rams will die. With the extra 43hp the rams will live quite a bit longer under arrow fire. All in all it just makes an odin players attack on your base far more efficient than another civs attack. Ballista having 17 more hp isnt as useful however. This is because ballista arent meant to be attacked and when they are they arent gonna do much good because of their minimum range. You're supposed to protect your ballista. I suppose if you were retreating your ballista and a few guys were running after you it could save a ballista or two by having that extra hp. Also if you were having your ballista flanked they could survive longer until your army killed all the attackers While its a welcome bonus, ballista are dead meat once attacked anyways so having a bit more hp wont make much of a difference. Having these great hill fort units makes Odin a very viable god in later ages.
5. Jarls have +10% hp
This bonus used to be +20% hp but was nerfed. However it is still useful in that it adds 18hp to jarls. While this doesnt seem like much it usually means that 2-3 more jarls are alive after a battle. Over the course of a game this saves you a lot of resources and allows you to keep attacking the enemy since you still have military. The best part of this bonus in my opinion is that it allows you to pop effectively beat camelry. With regular jarls vs camelry whoever gets the first hit wins. With Odin jarls the jarl wins with 11 or so hp left. This means that there really isnt much eggy can do to beat your jarls short of massing elephants. With Ring Giver for your jarls even spearmen dont do a very good job (2 odin jarls with ring giver beat 3 spearmen with each jarl having half health). Of course this is also great to make jarls uber meatshields. With the extra hp they truly have a huge amount of health and when backed by massed throwing axemen will be hard to stop. Also they can be great MU killers. The problem with hersirs as MU killers is that they get killed before they do much to the MU's. Well jarls and especially odins jarls wont have that problem because they have a large amount of health. This means that odin and loki are pretty much tied when it comes to MU killing. Jarls are not very good raiders or scouts but they are great units in battle and odins jarls are quite unstoppable and should be massed as quickly as possible. They are especially good against eggy. Against greek they are less good since promodos murder them. Without bragi ulfs norse is also pretty helpless vs odin jarls. Against attie jarls are ok but not the best way to go. As odin try to phase out a lot of your rc with jarls as soon as possible to make use of this valuable bonus.
God Power: Great Hunt
Causes the amount of animals in the target area to multiply.
Basically this god power creates up to 750 extra food when cast. This means that you want to cast it on the smaller huntables rather than the large ones. This is because you can get 5 extra elk (150 food each) but only one extra rhinocerous (500 food each). With the deer you end up with more extra food created. Also you want to use great hunt on herdables to get the most out of it. Simply get all your nearby herdables to the area and you'll gain even more food to gather from. This means that you can prolong farming for even longer with the extra herdables as well as keep your +20% hunting speed bonus for longer. This bonus is very good for many reasons. The main one is that it complements Odins hunting bonus VERY well. It makes for more hunting and makes it so that the extra hunting speed doesnt create more micromanagement (you dont have to move the hunting spot more than anyone else). This also really helps you get a fast classical. I cant tell you how many times ive had something like 360 food and then had to move hunting spots to some far away area. With great hunt your nearby food will definetly last you into classical. This means that you can get to classical in a smoother manner and not always be worried if your food will last you. Dont always use it on the nearest bit of hunting though. If you only have 3 deer near you wait until you find a bit of at least 5 deer before you cast it. On low hunting maps like oasis scout a lot and find a load of herdables and once the chickens and berries are done use great hunt on your huge amount of herdables. This gives you more time to get the resources for farms and allows you to do it more gradually. Another tactic that can be used is to go to far hunting early on. Use that up so that if youre against a raiding civ you can great hunt the hunting near your base once you get to classical to stop him from raiding your hunters. One last thing to note is to never cast great hunt on elephants because it wont make a new one.
Myth Tech: Lone Wanderer. Ulfsarks +10% move speed.
Many people (including me until i really thought it out) dont think this tech has any use. However added speed is definetly on par with added hp or attack. This is for a few reasons.
1. If your base or one of your settlements is attacked you can get back there to defend a lot faster. With this particular bonus it can mean anywhere from 5-10 seconds faster. This means that they dont get to wreck your base as much as they normally would (usually will save you a building or two). This is very important because while you are flooding someone with ulfs and their army is inferior to yours their only option is to attack your eco. With this bonus you dont have to fear that as much. Also if you are hitting your enemy on one side then on the other you can achieve this much faster.
2. This is also very good vs archer. For instance 15 ulfs vs 15 toxotes. The normal outcome is about 6 toxotes left, best case scenario for the ulfs. With Lone Wanderer the best case scenario for the ulfs is 6 ulfs ALIVE. Now to test this against a regular bonus i gave ulfs the copper weapons upgrade. With this (and no lone wanderer) best case scenario is 2 tox alive. I attribute this to the fact that ulfs with this higher speed are actually not hit by arrows. Two to three regular ulfs will usually die before they even close in. Most of the time the fast ulfs werent even hit by the arrows while they closed in. Once ulfs close in they will win unless they have been weakened enough. With slower speed they will be weakened to a number that cant compare to the tox even in close combat. Another factor is a result of the bad pathing. A lot of the time your units will run around the enemy army or some other stupidity and as a result not be fighting. Its hard to micro this and stop it. If you can great but with lone wanderer your units will be able move to wherever stupid place they choose to attack faster. This is twofold. On the surface they just get there faster and get more attacks in. But if you dig deeper youll realize that while they are running around they will be harder to hit so while regular ulfs will die if they have bad pathing before they get any attack in, the faster ulfs will easily live to get to their target. I realize that tox vs ulfs without a meatshield does not represent any real battle but still with a meatshield less ulfs will die while they charge so it does represent the situation mainly. Also i would like to note that this really helps ulfs beat archers, and so become impervious to soft counters.
3. If you decide to not make a forward base this allows you to get your army down to their base faster and so attack that much earlier. The earlier the better so this is very welcome. Also if you are reinforcing your army from a non FB then your ulfs will get to fight 10 seconds earlier.
4. There are likely to be battles you realize you dont want to fight at the very last second. With this bonus you can run away and outrun every unit except cavalry which are the units you counter.
5. In general its just a big help in battle. Against melee units you will want to have all your ulfs fighting. However the fights form in long lines so some of your units will have to run around to get to the flanks and be able to fight. Lone Wanderer makes this happen faster. It may not seem like much but ive had times where a few of my units dont even get into the fight because of that. Thats really frustrating since you could have an equal army but if hes got a smaller amount of melee units and a force of ranged units then all his melee units will be able to fight right away and engage your guys. On the other hand your ulfs will have to run all the way around his melee units. This causes you to lose since for at least half the battle only half of your guys are fighting. Lone wanderer makes your ulfs get around them that little bit faster than can make a difference. I find that it saves at least one or two ulfs in that kind of battle. Of course you could just take some of your ulfs and tell them to charge the ranged units instead of run all the way around his melee units right? Wrong. When you charge ranged units they will without micro attack you. As previoulsy stated slow ulfs get ripped apart while they charge. With lone wanderer your guys will close in and kill the ranged units. Using that tactic you can actually win rather easily. This also allows an ulfark user to beat someone who has stuck a load of archers in his army to beat your ulfs.
6. Its possible to do ulfark raiding with this. This is for a few reasons. First of all the more guys you have raiding the more vills youll kill and the more youll hurt his eco. Secondly the earlier you raid the less resources he'll get safely. Third if ulfsarks were raiding then getting crenellations wouldnt stop them. Fourth is that while ulfs get hurt by towers a lot, thats only if they hit the ulfs. These uber fast ulfs wont be hit by towers too much. And if they are they will just be set back and regenerate. Basically you can hit an opponent with raids with more guys 30 seconds earlier than you could could with rc. For instance i can hit someone with at least 12 ulfs by 6 minutes. With rc the best i could hope for is 10 rc by 6:30. This is a HUGE difference. Then as that early shock wears off your enemy then wont have to option to get crennelations and stop your raiding as he would if you were using cavalry. All in all i think that this makes ulfs with lone wanderer actually better at raiding than rc.
Minor Gods
Freyja:
Technologies:
1. Aurora Borealis Valkyrie +50% hack damage, +20% crush damage, +33% healing rate
This tech is very useful with odin. As odin you will be raiding a lot. because of that you will have a lot of valks to heal and to bolster your LOS Its very important to be able to retreat and heal very fast. Get this tech if you have at least 4 valkyries. If you have less than 4 then the healing rate wont be better than if you had just gotten another valk. This tech also simply makes valks better combat units. This is also important since if you use them to raid you will eventually fight with them.
2. Thundering Hooves Cavalry +10% speed, +10% HP. Valkyrie +20% speed, +10% HP
This tech is why people go Freyja. This basically just makes your odin raiding which is already the best even better. You rc are less likely to die because of the more hp and more speed. This means that the regeneration of hp will take effect better. Also their speed is bolstered meaning that they can hit one side of the guys base then the other much faster. Valkyries having more speed and hp keeps them alive which keeps your units being healed more. It also gives +10% hp and speed to jarls. This gives jarls enough speed to be able to be power raiders as well as simply make odin jarls even more unstoppable with an extra 18 hp. Always get this tech if you are raiding a lot or if you are fast heroicing and getting jarls.
Myth Unit: Valkyrie
A powerful and fast cavalry unit that can heal other units. This is an extremely powerful raiding unit. Once you get to classical pump out another valk and start raiding with the two of them. When you retreat they will heal eachother. Once you have enough rc to raid with them then bring the valks along. Not only does this bring a lot of extra power to your raiding force it also gives you extra line of sight. This is hugely important when raiding because raiding depends completely on finding their resource gathering. Since cavalry have pitiful LOS you need valks to help them find the vills. Once youve raided then retreat and let the valks heal your raiders. This is a great unit and i usually make 2-3 of them a game when i play as Odin.
God Power: Forest Fire
Another great raiding tool. Find their wood operation then cast this while you trap their vills in with your rc. The fire hurts the vills and can usually kill 6-8 of them. Try to use this as early as possible since the earlier you cripple their eco the better. Also make sure its their main wood operation before you cast it since you want to get the optimum effect. This god power is best vs greek since they are so wood dependant and worst against eggy since they dont need wood. A tip to using this is that after you use it he wont have much wood. Use this to your advantage by pumping out the unit that his unit thats made of wood counters. For instance if youre against another norse and you take out his wood supply he wont be able to make throwing axemen for a while. Capitalize on this by queueing up a lot of ulfs. For a while they will be uncountered in the battlefield.
Heimdall:
Technologies:
1. Eldhrimnir Kettle Einherjar have +6 hack damage and +10% HP
This is a decent tech but i usually dont get it. Its only useful when you have 5 or so einherjars. Only get it later in the game or if you are massing einherjars.
2. Safeguard Walls and Towers have double HP, Towers cost 25% less
Great tech. Good for stopping tough rushes by making your towers super tough and also great for strangulation. It allows you to tower spam with cheaper and more effective towers. This means that especially against eggy you can easily tower off all his gold and not really have to worry much about if he can take down the tower with his vils or not. Get this if you are choosing to put more than one tower in your forward base too. However if you arent rushed and you arent planning on making new towers dont get this tech. Of course as norse its always good to do a bit of tower spamming so youll find yourself getting this tech a lot. Make sure you get this tech before you make the towers since it makes them cheaper.
3. Arctic Wind Longboats have +10% speed and attack
If you are faced with a long classical naval fight this is a great tech. However its probably better to get the actual longboat upgrade first. As for armory upgrades this tech is probably better to get for your fortunes on water but if you feel that the water fight is about to end get the armory upgrades instead since once the fight for water is over this tech is useless
Myth Unit: Einherjar
One of the best MU's in the game. Its a tank of a unit that is good at taking down buildings. In battle it uses its special which raises the attack of your units around it (the closest units getting the most extra attack) for a short period of time. With a few einherjars you can constantly be having the horns blowing and so constantly be having an army with a much higher attack. They are just a great all purpose unit. If you plan on raiding however you might be tight on gold so you might not want to get them just yet. Once you decide to actually attack the guys base you'll definetly want a few of them guys as they really make your army better since they are not just powerful units their special can win you early battles easily. 4-5 of them can take down a tc and they take down other buildings in no time. I cant stress enough how good this MU is. You must always have a few of them in ANY battle.
God Power: Undermine
Basically it either takes down a tower immediatetly, takes down a section of wall or helps down a tc. Great to rush in against a turtler who thinks he has time to react while you try to take down walls. Its main use however is against towers. If you found a great raiding spot but an enemy tower is endangering your rc then just undermine it and you have the perfect raiding spot. Also early on against eggy if you plan on rushing then taking down and eggy tower can open the door to the rest of their base rather well. Try to take down the tower nearest to their gold since thats the resource you want to be cutting off against eggy. Against hades take down the tower nearest to his wood gatherering operation. That will open the door for your raids there. If you make and early rush and the enemy isnt eggy then chances are he wont have upgraded towers. You can either still take one out just in case or use it to take down his tc with minimal losses. Using undermine against a norse tc can take off a good 1000hp off of it. Backed by a few einherjar and 10 rc youll have his tc down in no time. Once a guys tc is down you can build over it. At that point most anyone would resign. Of course without undermine you couldnt try to take down the tc that early since your army would die trying. Mainly just use it to take down towers to help your raiding but if hes a turtle then take down his towers and if you hit him very early use it on his tc.
The choice: Against eggy go heimdall because undermine rocks vs them and forest fire sucks vs eggy. Otherwise its just a matter of your playstyle. If you like rushing go heimdall and if you like raiding go freyja.
Skadi
Technologies:
1. Huntress Axe Throwing Axeman have 20% more attack
This adds one attack to your throwing axemen. This is VERY good if you plan on going husk/ta. Because they get the multiplier this adds 2.25 attack to what ta do to infantry. This has the ability to transform TA from a useless unit into a great unit. Ive started using husk/ta and i find that with huntress axe for my ta there really isnt anything that will beat that combo. Of course they can pump out anti infantry but my TA will rip them up while my husks hold out as a meatshield with their 20% higher hp. Then i queue up jarls which will kill their remaining anti infantry easily. Basically if you are going rc/ta, jarl/ta or husk/ta then get this tech. It makes it so that ta actually counter intantry like they should.
2. Winter Harvest Farmers gather food from farms 20% faster
I love this tech. It makes you gather from farms at .794 food per second per villager. This is about as fast as odin hunting without hunting dogs. Although it undoubtedly is going to be slower than your hunting when you start farming this tech eases the process a bit and i really like it. I can just take a few of my wood vills and transfer them to food to get the same income as i did when i was hunting. You can use it to keep up odins food bonus in that he will first hunt faster than your opponent then he will farm faster because of this tech. Very useful for maps like oasis where there isnt much food so you'll have to hunt rather early. On watering hole its obviously not gonna be as useful because you can usually hunt throughout the game. Its been pointed out that this costs food when youre researching it to get food. For this reason I advise that you get it the second you start farming and not when you need food since its not going to help in fact it will hurt you if you need food fast.
3. Rime Frost Giants have 33% more HP, 20% more attack, and special attack recharges 25% faster
In my opinion the best MU tech. With this the frost giants will be freezing units left and right. That is the main bonus of frost giants and since this tech capitalizes on that its quite useful. Get it once you have 3 frost giants. Combined together this bonus can make 2 frost giants with this bonus almost as good as 3 without it. Frost giants with this will freeze powerful units like MU's and use their extra attack to kill them without retaliation from the unit once its unfrozen. Then he'll just freeze another one right afterwards. A few frost giants of thrym in an army can change the tide of a battle in ways that regular frost giants just cant.
Myth Unit: Frost Giant
Good MU because of his special of freezing units. Basically aim for it to freeze powerful units like myth units. This will stop the MU's from ever getting to attack and since the frost giant has a 3x bonus vs MU's he will most likely kill the MU before its unfrozen. Its also great vs seige. Frost the siege to stop it from wrecking your base then use the hack attack to kill it very fast. Frost giants are very slow though so dont aim to get ranged MU's with them. Also because of bad pathing you want to avoid having them at the back of your column since they will never get into the fight. Put them in the front and try to aim for enemy MU's. If you cant get to them dont worry about it since frost giants are still great units. They are especially good against fellow norse whose heroes are not ranged, who make more MU's for the frost giant to freeze and who dont have ranged siege so its easier for the frost giant to kill the seige. Frost giants are also great vs zeus players who mass hydras. Frost giants rip hydras to pieces.
God Power: Frost
Ok there are three main ways to use this gp but ive thought of another way that could possibly be devastating
1. If your enemy attacks your base while your army is away. Frost their army and get your army back there. Its also a sort of ceasefire in that you can use that time to build up your army. The frosted army may have 99% armor but you can still take off some hp so its not going to hurt to have some units take a few hacks at them before its over.
2. If your enemy has decided hes going to build a tc. You will usually realize this because of the excellent raven scouting. Go over to where hes making the tc and freeze his army thats likely to be guarding it. Then take down the tc and put your own over it. Dont use this if he doesnt have an army guarding it since its a waste.
3. Run into his base and freeze his army. While his army is frozen you ravage his base. First take out his military buildings since you dont want him to get reinforcements once hes unfrozen. Then kill all his vills. After that do whatever you want although i wouldnt advise taking out the tc as its much more useful to take out all the other buildings he has.
4. Now i just thought of this idea and its a sort of eco killer. Save your forest fire until heroic. Then run in and forest fire all his vills. At the same time freeze all his gold vills. This will stop his income of wood for a while as well as stop his gold income for a minute. During this time you can run in and he wont be able to get many (if any at all) reinforcements. To capitalize completely on this you should make the right units. He wont have wood or gold so make the unit that his unit that is made from wood counters. For instance if against a greek player thats still in classical he wont be able to make tox. Because of that you should make ulfs. If against a FHing eggy player that has a load of migdols up you will want to make TA and ulfs since those are the units that his CA counter and he wont be able to make CA becuase he will have no wood. If you really want a game winner then combine this with fimbulwinter as well. Forest fire will kill all his wood vills frost will stop him from getting any gold, and fimbulwinter will kill a good portion of his food vills as well as make the rest have to garrison. This means that he will have basically no resources coming in for quite a while so attack him. Im also experimenting to see if its possible to kill any of the gold vils while they are frozen. If it is then you could probably kill a good 30 vills with this combo. Of course you could probably kill all those gold vills from raiding anyways but most smart players will have a few anti cav guys there to stop you. Now if you get lucky you do an even better combo. Attack his gold vills with your army. His army will come to try to stop you. So you freeze his army as well as the gold vills. Then you use forest fire and fimbulwinter. He will not only have no eco he will have no army to stop you from wrecking his base.
Njord:
Technologies:
1. Ring Giver Jarls have +25% HP
One of the best techs in the game. It gives jarls 45 extra hp. With this tech really only promodos and bragi ulfs counter jarls effectively. When against eggy your jarls will beat up on his camels and spearmen cost and pop effectively. With this tech it is quite possible to mass odin jarls and win the game because there isnt any effective counter most of the time. This also makes jarls the most effective meatshield there is. With 243 hp (without any other upgrades) theres nothing much that can get through them while your throwing axemen or ballista are killing the opponents units. If you got thundering hooves it also gonna be hard to flank your army since jarls become rather fast. This tech costs a lot expecially in favor but if you plan on making at least 10 jarls then its a must have tech.
2. Long Serpent Longboats have +20% attack and -20% crush damage vulnerability
I personally like this tech a lot. Basically as njord if there is still a water battle you want to be massing krakens. The problem with that is that they are countered by ramming ships. So as a result you should have some longboats to counter the ramming ships. This tech not only makes them rip through ramming ships it also lowers their vulnerability towards seige ships, allowing them to live long enough to kill the ramming ships while your krakens take the seige ships.
3. Wrath of the Deep Krakens have +200 HP
This is a decent tech. Krakens are already very powerful but if you are going mainly kraken in an attempt to win back the water this tech is a must. This truly makes krakens tanks that will take ages to kill. The extra 200 hp will probably allow them time to instant kill 1 or 2 more units and kill another 1 or 2 more with their regular attack. If youve made a few krakens this tech will quickly pay for itself. However dont get it unless you have or plan on making at least 4 krakens.
Myth Unit: Mountain Giant
This unit is a mixed bag. It is very powerful against buildings and is the definition of a tank in battle. However its slow speed will hinder your armies ability to hit the enemy in a lot of places and its bad pathing cause it to not do too much in battle besides attract archer arrows. This is how they should be used. Use them as a sort of seige that will kill units as well. For instance you can take down a ram with a couple of villies. However you cant do that with mountain giants as they will kill the villies in a matter of seconds. However the mountain giant could also ignore the villies completely because a couple of vills have almost no hope of killing a mountain giant before their whole base is down. Even against hero fire a mountain giant could take down a building or two before its demise. This is due to its special. Its special does 120 crush damage to buildings. To put that into perspective it can usually take down 1/5 to 1/2 of a buildings hp in just that hit. It recharges every 15 seconds so it can probably use it once on every building you choose to take down. With this incredible unit that really can only be taken down in an effective manner by heroes (and even then takes a long time) you can attract a load of their fire away from your army which is great when you are taking down a base. To put it simply the mountain giant is the best siege unit in the game. You just have to know how to use him. You must let him be at the front of your column during battle to allow him to actually fight. You also must keep him with a couple of guys around him when you are taking down a base. This is especially effective against norse where those couple of units will kill his herirs or jarls that come at you in no time. Also make sure you dont let him get surrounded by units as it wont be able to get to the buildings if it is surrounded. Mountain giants are most effective against norse because they have no ranged heroes but are also incredible tanks vs greek and eggy since priests and the ranged hero will still take ages to destroy one. Against attie it all depends on what units he decides to make heroes but normally it will take them a while too.
Myth Unit: Kraken
This is in my opinion the best naval MU in the game. This is solely because of its special attack. It instantly kills a unit and the special recharges ever 16 seconds. This means that if you have a couple krakens in your army you can immediately take down a couple enemy boats right away. While without the special its not very powerful in battle the special makes it invaluable. It also does crush damage so try to use it to down docks. Since it can instantly kill one unit it is best used against seige ships. This is because siege ships cost the most and therefore instantly killing one is far more useful than instantly killing a longboat. Try to keep your krakens from being surrounded by ramming ships. The best way to do this is to mass longboats to take out the ramming ships. While they do that your krakens will down all the seige ships that would otherwise have killed all your longboats. Its also important to note that krakens can kill land units with their instant kill. So if you are on medit and your enemy has guy near the coast make sure you try to kill a few with you krakens.
God Power: Walking Woods
When used on forests It makes a couple of walking woods seige units that you cant control but will kill the enemy army. They are very powerful against buildings and can take them down very quickly. The only problem with them is that you can lure them away from your base rather easily with some micro. This is why its best to attack while you use this. When you attack they wont have units to spare to lure the walking woods away and they wont have time to do all that micro. Walking woods are myth units so heroes will do a great job killing them. For this reason you want to have a few myth units in your attacking army as well. This way they will have to split up the heroes fire to your MU's and the walking woods. This can allow your walking woods to do significantly more damage than they would otherwise. Also if you plan on getting this GP then dont forest fire their only nearby forest because the walking woods wont find the enemy base to kill if it is cast too far away. Another use for WW is to cast it near an enemy tc that hes not guarding. At the same time you can attack his base which will stop him from getting his units down there to kill your WW. A thing to note is that ravens are great for targeting walking woods. Overall this is a good GP but it must be backed with an assault by your army to do any damage. The only time this isnt true is if you are trying to buy yourself time when you do a fast heroic.
THE CHOICE: Go njord if you want to win back the water or if you suspect your enemy will try to (basically go njord on medit). On low food maps like Oasis go skadi for the farm upgrade. Against norse i would go njord since jarls are hard to counter without bragi, mountain giants are great vs norse (but then so are frost giants), and walking woods can down a huge amount of norse buildings. Against a fast heroicing eggy player go njord since upgraded jarls beat all migdol units rather well (besides eles but whose gonna mass them). Against a regular eggy play go skadi since frost is more useful than WW because of priests. Against greek and attie go skadi if you plan on making longhouse units and go njord if you are gonna phase into hill fort unit rather quickly (which as odin you probably should).
Baldr
Technologies:
1. Sons of Sleipnir Raiding Cavalry have their bonus damage increased to x3.25 vs Archers and x 3.75 vs Throwing Axemen.
Not the best tech for an Odin player. While its useful if you are still making longhouse units, when youre odin that should not be the case. You should have huskarls to deal with archers and jarls to deal with TA. As Odin only get this tech if hes stopped you from getting your hill forts up or if your enemy has massed TA.
2. Dwarven Auger Portable Rams train 50% faster, have +20% attack and speed
This tech is great for Odin. Added to his 20% hp bonus you have an incredible siege weapon. Keep up the pressure with your army while you pump out a large number of these uber rams. The best way to use this is to go to the middle of your enemies base and start fighting his army. Have your rams behind you army taking out whateven is on the outskirts of the base. These powerful and easily massed rams will take out a base in no time.
3. Arctic Gale Dragon Boats +20% speed, -30% hack vulnerability
I dont find much point in this tech. It basically makes them able to combat ramming ships a bit better. Since they still lose to them you shouldnt make dragon ships if the other guy is massing ramming ships. If he only has a few of them then this tech isnt worth while.
Myth Unit: Fire Giant
A great myth unit. A few of them will severely hurt your opponent. They are great vs units and buildings alike. In battle they do 15 hack attack and their special releases 3 fireballs that do 25 attack to every unit they hit. A lot of times youll end up doing more than 150 damage with just that special. If you have 3 fire giants in battle you start out with 3 specials that youll hopefully release before his column is fully broken up into a battle line. If you can get the special to hit them while their army is still a column, you will deal damage to at least 5 people per fireball. If you do that with 3 fire giants you can kill the equivalent of 2-4 units before the battle begins. After that initial attack which will take some micro but is worth it you must aim the fire giants so that they are aiming for a unit that is not in front of it but diagonal to it. This is so that when it does its special again it will hit more than one unit. Fire giants may be slow but that makes not difference since they are ranged. One thing to note is that they arent MU killers like other ranged MU. They dont get any bonus versus other myth units so aim on normal units instead. Fire giants also do 10 crush damage with every single fireball. This may not seem like that much but combined with their 15 hack damage fire giants are very good ranged siege. They do cost a lot of gold though so if you plan on making them you might want to get some market trade up.
God Power: Ragnorok
This is a very good GP but loses its value when its not combined with flaming weapons. Basically if its not combined with another gp the enemys army and defenses (which he'll have in mythic) will whittle down your army and you wont be able to reinforce since youll have no villagers. Because of this its very good to combine with frost. Simply frost his army then use your HUGE army to ravage his whole base. This is a great combo and if you still have frost and you went baldr use it with ragnorok. Also its important to realize that you want to have fishing and market trade up before you cast ragnorok as well as a load of vills queued up in case ragnorok fails. Also you must get to full pop before you cast this to get the most out of it (the whole bonus is that you can get over max pop so you want to get as far over it as possible). As odin only use this gp as a last ditch effort either to throw them out of your base or to make that last push that you need to win the game. Its especially effective against norse whose defenses wont be able to kill as many ragnorok heroes.
Tyr:
Technologies:
1. Berserkergang Ulfsarks have 20% more HP and 10% more attack
A very good tech but not so useful as Odin. This is because he really has no real reason to make ulfsarks. If you decided to mass ulfs early on in the game however and you still have a decent amount of them left then this is a good tech. Otherwise dont get it.
2. Bravery Huskarls have +20% attack and do damage x1.5 vs buildings.
Incredible tech. Basically odin huskarls already have 20% more hp. With this they get 20% more attack as well and it makes them great siege weapons also since tower fire wont even make a dent in their hp. I love to use this for the extra attack vs buildings but i have realized that odin huskarls with this are incredible units. Hoplites are a counter to huskarls. And they do that rather well, having around 30 hp left after they kill a husk. Well with odins hp bonus and this extra attack huskarls beat hoplites, ulfsarks, and spearmen pop effectively. This means a lot because now they beat everything except hard counters. With a few jarls and MU's to kill the hpyapists and axemen you have an ustoppable army in battle. With the extra bonus vs buildings they also become unstoppable in battle. This tech is a must get when you are odin.
Myth Unit: Fenris Wolf Brood
These are basically the power of a classical MU but when in mass their speed and attack are raised drastically. Dont get these in small groups. If you are going to get any get a lot (6-8). In that size of a group they are the best raiders in the game as well as some of the best building killers. In battle use them for flanking manoevers to keep them near eachother. If you are getting hero fire on you then run away using your incredible speed. Once you have a decent number of them they are unstoppable (as was shown in deathmatch) but you need a lot of gold to do that. As a result you should only consider massing them if you have market trade at full power.
Myth Unit: Jormund Elver
Great naval MU and probably the only one that can rival the kraken. They are incredibly cheap for an MU, only use up 3 pop and are made in 5 seconds. Because of this they are easily massable. Being a naval MU they are supposed to be countered by ramming ships. However ramming ships are easily taken out by jormund elvers. This is because jormunds do pierce attack and ramming ships have very little pierce armor. Jormunds are also ranged which means that it takes ramming ships a few seconds to get to the them. This makes it very hard to figure out what to use against these little guys. Remember when you use them to use them like archers. Focus fire on one unit. If you have enough of them you can easily kill 1 ship every second. With that type of firepower its extremely hard to beat a navy with these guys in it. A tactic i use is when my dock is being destroyed i pump out jormunds. I make a gathereing point that is inside where all their units are. Jormunds are so small that its actually very hard to target them so putting them inside an enemy formation can effectively kill a lot of ships without retaliation.
God Power: Fimbulwinter
Basically this is solely an eco wrecker. Cast this and you will kill 5-10 of your enemys villies easily. But the only problem is that your enemy can just garrison their villies right as its cast. Because of this and the fact that you cant cast a gp during fimbulwinter you want to cast it during a battle. You enemy will have to choose whether to micro the battle or his eco. Most of the time he'll choose his eco. So heres my tactic to get the most out of it. I have my units run away. Since hes not microing them they will run after me in single file. This will allow me to kill his army piecemeal. Its important to also realize that market trade units cant garrison. This means that if youre lucky fimbulwinter will kill all his caravans stopping his gold income until he gains enough other resources to make all of them again. This can really set your enemy back.
THE CHOICE: Go tyr 90% of the time for bravery. The only time you would go baldr is if youre convinced that one push from ragnorok would win you the game. Otherwise tyr is better on water and on land.
Odin Strategies
1. Odin Fast Heroic
This strat basically involves getting to heroic before 8 minutes using the hunting bonus to get all the food. Then you put up a couple of hill forts and pump out jarls or huskarls. When you put up your hill fort you should put it near one of your tcs or near a gold pile to secure one of them. Hill forts are cheap so you should put one more up soon afterwards. If you are massing jarls then get ring giver ASAP. With your powerful army you then repel his attacks. With your mega powerful odin thundering hooves ring giver jarls you should win the battles pretty easily. You will probably be attacked before you get to heroic. To repel these attacks make 5-10 TA before you heroic. They may not be much but if you use them right and place them behind buildings when you are attacked they can stop your enemy from killing you before you get to heroic. Use your free valk to heal your limited number of TA and to repel raiders. If you are on a good hunting map like watering hole you can probably get to heroic well before 7 minutes and still be able to pump out jarls and husks constantly out of your hill fort. In that case you dont need the throwing axemen because you wont be attacked before you reach heroic. Still your enemy will have an army so use your raven to target walking woods at their base right as you get to heroic. This will give you time to build up while he is still beating them back. Once you are in heroic take your free valk and use forest fire. This will make him have to do more micro to his eco than he would have to again stopping him from stopping your build up. If your opponent has a lot of guys then you also may want to bring your mountain giant to his base. They take a while to take down and you cant just ignore them. Once youve got a large force of jarls and huskarls attack. You should have gotten enough favor to have gotten thundering hoves for your jarls and have gotten the medium upgrade for your jarls. Mix in a couple of rams. If your eco was especially good then you may want to have gotten a second tc (preferably one of his) and boomed out of it. Attack them early from your semi forward base (once you have like 10 jarls) to get enough favor because you want to get ring giver. Keep attacking them and just push and take out their base with your rams using your mega hp jarls as a meatshield. Eventually the tide of the game will turn because youll keep producing a jarl every 9 seconds and he wont be able to kill them that fast because of their monster hp. Keep upgrading your jarls. If you have to then retreat and get to mythic while taking all the tc's and towering gold. Go as tyr and start massing bravery huskarls as well. With all uber units your enemy wont be able to compete with you. Remember to make at least 3 or 4 hersirs before you get to heroic so that youll be able to put up the hill fort fast. The key to this strategy is to use your gp's to delay him while you build up an uber army. An army of jarls that has decided to destroy your base is extremely hard to stop since it will take you a very long time to kill them and by then youll have no buildings.
Best against: Gaia, Norse, Set
COUNTER: Attack them early. Dont let the hill fort get up. When you are walking wooded just leave your heroes behind to kill them while your army seeks out their hill fort and destroys it before its built.
COUNTER TO THE COUNTER: Wall off where you plan to build your hill fort.
2. Odin Raiding
Get to classical rather early (5 minutes) but with a very good eco from your hunting. Put up a forward base with 3 longhouses. Pump out raiding cavalry. Your ravens should already have found his gathering operations. Attack them right away and kill his villies. If they run away follow them unless they go into tc range. A good way to kill more vills when they run away is to use your speed to get ahead of them then you can get a load of hacks on them instead of once every time you catch up with them. When you have enough rc split them up and put a valk with each group. Raid their wood and trap their vills in while you use forest fire. Hit them on one side and have their army come over to you. Then hit them with your other group on the other side of their base. This will allow you at least one side with no opposition and easy vill killing. Continue to use your ravens to find his vills. If your rc have lost any health from fighting then retreat and let them heal themselves and get healed by the valk. Remember to get thundering hooves. This makes your rc able to hit him much faster and get out much faster. It also allows less rc to die because of the hp which allows you to set out a low hp rc and let him heal away from battle. If you find that they are building a building then harass the builder. Against eggy take down teh towers early so that they dont get crenellations. Once you have 12-15 rc start making throwing axemen as well. After youve successfully ravaged his eco then attack his army but not before. If he still beats you back then get to heroic and start phasing into heroic units. Also with a FB you are in danger of getting raided yourself. So unless you are against eggy then put some infantry back at your base. If you find that your enemy has put anti cavalry near a gathering site then just take half of your group and lure them out while the other half kills the vills. While you are raiding make sure you tower up gold.
Best against: eggy, greek
COUNTER: Raid him heavily. Try to get by his ravens to get to other gathering sites outside your base.
COUNTER TO THE COUNTER: Get crenellations and put your ravens on patrol between all the gold sites.
3. Balanced Odin Build
This strat involves raiding your enemy then getting a rather timely heroic time and pumping out his uber heroic units. Basically use the same raiding strategies as above except that you may not want to make a forward base unless youre against eggy. This is because before you go to heroic you are only going to make 12-15 rc just to raid. This means that you wont really have an army to defend your FB Then once you get to heroic youre going to spam hill forts. From those hill forts you should make jarls and/or huskarls depending on your resource situation and your enemy civ. For instance if your enemy civ is ra make more huskarls since husks beat all migdol units and ra gets bonuses to those units. If you make husks you will have cancelled out one of his big bonuses. Also use your 3 longhouses to start producing throwing axemen. Both of your main hill fort units are killed by infantry so it doesnt matter what youre making you still need TA. Because of this its pretty much at your discretion whether to go skadi or njord. I will go skadi if i have a lot of extra wood and gold to make rams and to make uber TA. This is so that if i mass rams i can frost his army then take down all his buildings and my TA will effectively counter his infantry. However if i percieve that the game will last longer i will go njord since the jarl tech is awesome in the long run. Slowly but surely i will replace my rc with either husks or jarls (husks if against Ra, Hades Possy or Oranus and a mix of the two vs Set. Otherwise i go mainly jarls). Once that happens my uber units will kill him. Usually i am hoping it wont get to that stage in the game however since my raiding should have crippled him completely.
Best Against: all
COUNTER: get crenellations and mass infantry
COUNTER TO THE COUNTER: heal your raiders a lot with the valks/regen and go skadi for huntress axe.
4. Ulfsark Strangle
Basically this strategy revolves around a few things. First is that most people will make anti cavalry to stop odin raids. The second is that odins myth tech can make ulfs very fast. The third is that ulfsarks are made extremely fast. The fourth is that heimdall is a great minor god. The fifth one is that crenellations dont work vs infantry. Basically you advance well before 5 minutes because of the hunting and pump out ulfsarks extremely quickly. This can be done again because of the uber amount of food. Now you should have at least 5 favor from hunting and 175 wood because you havent used wood for anything besides longhouses. Research odins tech. While you do this your ravens are going to find his gathering sites as usual. Now what you do is you run about 10 ulfsarks to the closest gathering site. They will be just as devastating as rc. Your enemy probably wont have much of an army right now since you can advance quicker than him and pump out ulfs faster than he can pump out his units. If he does have an army its going to be anti cavalry to stop your rc raids. Your ulfs should be able to beat them because anti cav doesnt counter ulfs. Now your enemy will start making anti infantry. Thats all well and good but your ulfs are very fast because of lone wanderer. This means that only cavalry can catch up to them. Well ulfsarks counter cavalry so that wont be a problem. Keep attacking his vills and running away from the anti infantry. At first they wont have many of them so youll raid easily because youve already destroyed their army and ravaged their eco so they are hard pressed for res. After a while though they will start guarding all of their gathering sites with them. If they only put say 3 axemen there though its very safe to just take out the axemen with your far superior army. Ulfs dont have very good pierce armor so if there is a tower guarding a gathering site undermine it. Once you have 2 groups of 10 or so ulfs start making rc (to counter the anit infantry) as well as pumping out a lot of einherjars. Since you have so many ulfs you can put up cheap safeguard towers everywhere in your FB as well as gold sites. This will stop their anti infantry from taking down your FB since anti infantry has pitiful pierce armor. Remember to put houses around the towers. Now once you get to full pop which wont take too long with ulfs attack their base. Keep your rc as a screen to take on all the anti infantry while your ulfs and einherjars take down his base. This strat works very well since you can raid him extremely early and they wont be able to counter you with an effective amount of units until way later. Dont use this against greek however since toxotes will rip through your ulfs
Heres a decent build order that can get you to classical incredibly quickly and allow you to have many ulfs very early.
5-6 gatherers to food (6 if there isnt much hunting)
2 gold villies
1 Ox cart to gold
1 gatherer to straggler tree
1 dwarf to gold
2 gatherer to wood.
2 gatherers gold
2 dwarves to gold,
Build your temple ( start building it at about 2:40)
Switch 1 gatherer from wood to your hunting party.
take all gatherers off gold, and move to wood (keep the dwarves on gold, Once you've queued up your last third dwarf
6 gatherers to food
3 Dwarves on gold
5 gatherers on wood
With this build even if you get lone wanderer you may have some extra wood so consider towering up his gold quickly.
Best against: eggy, norse
COUNTER: Move your vils to far away places while you build up a lot of anti infantry
COUNTER TO THE COUNTER: Simply find the vills with your ravens and in the mean time take out their buildings instead. In battle just make sure you get your rc to block the anti infantry. Most of the time though you can actually take out his small anti cav army early then take down his barracks before he can get any counters.
5. Raid/semi fast mythic
Basically this involves the same raiding strat of getting about 15 rc and then getting to heroic (in this strat by skadi). However you want to then as quickly as possible get to mythic while still pumping out longhouse units (preferably throwing axemen to save the food to complement your rc and because of huntress axe). Once you get to mythic you use this killer god power combo, Forest Fire/Frost/Fimbulwinter. Basically you have already hurt his eco with your raids. Then you will still be making TA so that by the time you get to mythic (16 minutes maybe) you will hopefully be at full pop so you wont actually have any vulnerable time. You will however be low on resources so dont get in battle with his army. Also with this strat dont make a forward base and make sure you upgrade your towers so that if your opponent does attack you he'll get whithering tower fire in return. Because you will rely on towers if he attacks you you want to put houses around the towers. After you get to mythic its pretty simple. You split up your army, one side raids their gold and once their army comes you frost their army and their gold vills. At the same time trap their wood vills in with the other half of your army and use forest fire. After that use fimbulwinter. If youve stopped him from expanding by attacking his vills every time they try to make a tc then fimbulwinter should be concentrated on only one tc. Basically with this combo you can probably kill at least half of his villagers, probably more. Then when his vills are garrisoned in the tc just take down the tc and kill them all too. With no villies really even left your opponent should lose. Another great thing is that this strat largely cant be cancelled by ceasefire like other gp combos.
Best against: eggy, greek
COUNTER: hit them early and force a battle
COUNTER TO THE COUNTER: build walls around your base to prolong any battles
What strat is best to use vs which god
1. Zeus: Do regular raiding then get to heroic. Definetly go skadi to combat his hoplites.
2. Poseidon: Basically raid then get to heroic. However he will be raiding too so dont make a FB, get crenellations and pump out some ulfs and put them at your gathering sites
3. Hades: Do the semi fast mythic and use forest fire/frost/fimbulwinter. He most likely will be waiting for an attack so youll be safe. Also he'll probably mass toxotes so if you make walls he wont be able to stop you if he does realize you are going for a fast mythic.
4. Thor: Thor players tend to not go very fast so do the fast heroic and he wont have attacked you usually and he'll have a problem with your walking woods because hersirs arent very good
5. Loki: Get to classical before him because of hunting and pump out ulfs from longhouses at the back of your base. Get a few rc out and raid him a lot too. Use your ravens to find his FB early and destroy it.
6. Odin: Expect a lot of raiding so get crenellations. A lot of rc means that his army wil be away from his FB a lot. Use this to your advantage and take it down quickly while hes away. Also obviously raid him a lot too
7. Set: Either ulfsarks strangle him using your hersirs to kill his animals or fast heroic and take out his slingers with your huskarls. If its a high food map then do the FH otherwise stick to the ulfs.
8. Isis: Hit her with the ulfsark strangle. take control of the gold with your uber towers. Make sure that she never gets that armory up or else your gonna get eclipse/ancestored. Against isis make sure you have quite a few hersirs to deal with that and as bring your einherjars up to kill the ancestors too.
9. Ra: Fast heroic and get husks if you think hes gonna fast heroic. Otherwise just put the pressure on him through constant raiding
10. Oranos: Make hersirs to deal with turmas. Also just get thundering hooves valks and rc to chase them away.
11. Kronos: Wall up your base and use your ravens to find his FB. Even with things being timeshifted still try to take it down.
12. Gaia: Do the odin fast heroic. Shes very defensive so she wont attack you before you get there. You walking woods actually are extremely powerful vs her since she has no effective hero system. Because of this the WW will end up ravaging her base while you build up your army and finish her off.
Odin on Water:
To play on water its very important to know if your enemy is going for a fast land attack or going for a water battle. Thats where the ravens come in. Use the ravens to see how many docks hes made and if hes made a lot then get ready for a water battle but if hes only made one dock then get ready for a land battle. If they attack you on land then just put down walls to stop their attack. While they are trying to get through your walls you will build the counter to wahtever units are taking down the wall. At the same time raid their wood and use forest fire. Keep raiding the wood and never stop. This way you will definetly win the water battle because he will have no wood. When he finally gets through the wall you will have built counters and combined with a better eco because of winning the water you will beat his army back. Now if your enemy isnt norse and you see that they are going for a water battle then youre norse and because you have dwarves and can build docks with your ulf you should beat him. Still make sure that you build a couple of rc and raid his wood and use forest fire as this really does help. Only build the longhouse when you have a safe amount of wood. If your opponent is norse then you dont have the advantage. If hes going heavy on water just fast heroic. Build up krakens and siege ships and garrison them inside your docks. Once your force is powerful enough ungarrison them and watch his navy die. Now that you have control of the water your eco will be better and you should conduct heavy raiding to further your advantage.
Random Odin Notes
1. Odin is the only civ that gets a bonus in every major catagory (military, economy and scouting). This means that there is little way to better an odin player in any distinct way.
2. In my opinion Odin gets the best classical minor gods. Use this advantage to cripple your opponent
3. Everyone is going to do defensive against an Odin player, expecting heavy raiding. Use this to your advantage and take map control
4. Your opponent does not have the advantage in any age. This is because in classical you have uber raiding and in heroic/mythic you have uber units. This means that its easier to adapt to a situation as Odin.
Ok there it is. You guys voted for it. Anyhow ill put pictures in and fix spelling errors later.
[This message has been edited by lessthanjakeman9 (edited 04-26-2004 @ 06:47 PM).]