The Tutorial They Didn't Give You: Age of Mythology Retold

[@melonswag420]

Its been a long time since you've played AoM Melth, fighting old battles again?

[@Melth]

@@melonswag420 I face feeble goblins now!

[@JustDeOrange]

love this

[@Melth]

@@JustDeOrange thanks!

[@jdatin770]

Op comment

[@Blazieth]

To note: While I am only a very casual player, I do feel like there are times when searching far and wide for alternative sources of food in order to avoid resorting to farming will simply result in you having no food because you've spent five minutes searching for more deer and as a result, not collecting any food. Farming is not something to be avoided at all costs, but all other _reasonably available_ methods should be exhausted first. If you're walking your villagers halfway across the map to collect a herd of 5 deer... just make farms instead.

[@TYR1139]

You should be searching for new sources of food way before you run out of your current ones. Most versus maps have obvious spots for food that would last most of the match unless you are really staling

[@RandomMagus]

Farming is also faster than berries after a single upgrade. Berries don't cost a whole bunch of wood, but again, not worth necessarily walking all your vills halfway across the map to grab some berries if you're already floating enough wood/gold to make safe farms under your TC

[@Melth]

Yes, scouting to find new food before you need it is a key part of the game. Farming almost always represents a serious misplay of either not scouting well early enough, or not being able to protect and claim a food source from the opponent

[@ConscriptDavid]

Also Arkanto's VA is the best because... he is the old VA, redubbing his lines :D Annubites are part of this game that is heavily inspired by Brandon Fraser's Mummy. The undead Egyptian anubis esque warriors that are fought in the 2nd movie are iconic, and so the game emulates a version of them, and honestly, the idea was cool in The Mummy, it is cool here,

[@Melth]

@@ConscriptDavid really?! But in that case why does he put the emphasis on weird syllables sometimes? Did he not play the game 100 times and memorize exactly how every line was 'supposed' to sound? 😂

[@grogmadman522]

Im pretty sure the scorpion man is also inspired by that movie, man the early 2000s had something going

[@Melth]

@@grogmadman522 I think that's right about the scorpion man and anubites coming from those mummy movies I really hated that second mummy movie though!

[@grogmadman522]

@@Melth Hate leads to the dark side, free yourself of it Also I'll build farms

[@rheiagreenland4714]

@@Melth I think they were trying to have their accents sound more Greek than American so maybe he was directed to emphasize certain syllables to that effect? They originally had a different VA for Arkantos but they got the old one to redub his lines after people were mad about how bad the new voice acting was in general. I think they forgot to give one of the God Arkantos units the new voicelines though, unless they patched that.

[@adamjezierski1391]

A great news to see that you will be going over retold campaign. Can't wait for the videos :)

[@Melth]

Glad to hear people are excited about them. I'm making the mission 3 deathless one today

[@Cetnam]

so true i freaked when i found out they skipped the original tutorial its like a little lore just ripped out

[@Melth]

I'll bet most returning players didn't look for it since we don't really NEED a tutorial, but it's weird to remove it since new players need to know it

[@Cetnam]

@@Melth your mic sound is like youre in a huge empty room just thought id let you know

[@Melth]

@@Cetnam ugh, it seems like the mic has a different weird sound in every video lately

[@sk4dic]

OH MY GOD WE ARE SO BACK!

[@JoeFalchetto92]

Happy to see you back.

[@NoLifeBrine]

Seeing this video is such a throwback after binging through your campaign playthroughs from earlier. I haven't watched enough PvP matches, but there has been a lot of changes especially with how God Power usage works.

[@Melth]

Yeah, god power reusability seems like it would be massively important in PvP. All the various changes that make myth units more powerful also seem very inpactful

[@CharlyBannana]

This was a great tutorial for beginners like me. Thank you. I knew that farming was the last option to use since it was the slowest, but what you are saying is that in late game, instead of starting to build farms when all food resources like chicken, hunts etc are gone, we should build fishing boats?

[@Melth]

@@CharlyBannana I'm glad to hear my guide is helpful! For fishing, I would say: start fishing as early in the game as you can, and use fishing along with hunting, chickens, etc. Fishing gets even better in the late game because the fishing upgrades are massively powerful, but fishing is a really strong way to out-economy your opponent in the early game too. Farming should be the absolute last resort. In normal games, you will not need to farm at all. Most games end long before all food on the map is used up. Farming should only be used in rare, very long games where you have used up all other food (and you've scouted the map to make sure you didn't miss any).

[@CharlyBannana]

@@Melth great tip! Thanks again

[@Gasliker]

Aw hell yeah I was waiting for you to get on this! I'm almost through the Greek campaign on titan, mostly thanks to watching your OG hardcore series.

[@Melth]

I'm glad that helped! I've been playing through slowly, trying to do a deathless run. Not sure if it'll be possible, but I've got 3 deathless videos so far

[@Gasliker]

@@Melth Having struggled on Hard on remastered to having it fairly breezy on Titan, do you think Retold is easier or just more accesible wrt to UI and other changes?

[@Melth]

@@Gasliker some chapters are easier, some are harder. Most likely the biggest factor is that you have more experience

[@DiabeticNecromancer]

As always another excellent, well documented and thorough video

[@Melth]

@@DiabeticNecromancer thank you!

[@hashtagWORTH]

Extremely informative video. I just started playing aom and the most daunting thing to wrap my head around has definitely been the economy, so this came in clutch.

[@Melth]

@@hashtagWORTH glad to hear it was helpful!

[@hashtagWORTH]

@@Melth when you run out of content ideas please consider making a build order video if you can 🥰

[@Melth]

@@hashtagWORTH that's something I can't help with because I only really play campaign

[@ChoppercandleHD]

I've waited patiently for this!

[@Thales_CM]

Insta liked when I saw you were playing Retold. I finished the campaign on Titan difficulty and I'm eager to see your videos on how you approach them. Specifically Mission 18 of the OG campaign, Mission 4 of New Atlantis, and Mission 4 of the Golden Gift. Loved your old AoM videos, Cheers Melth edit: Also, watching the video now. I also miss the old tutorials. AoM is very economy focused, but the tutorial about it was removed?! Why!?

[@Melth]

Sounds like you really got through the campaign fast, nicely done! I'm taking my time and playing it deathless so far.

[@Jaakkoism]

Damn its been years since i played AoM, your play through of the original was excellent, really looking forward to this, might try to play along with your uploads too.

[@Melth]

Thanks, I hope it's a fun series! So far I think the game is off to a good start

[@kallelindblad4000]

Super excited youre doing the retold campaign, i enjoy your original playthrough immensly!

[@Melth]

@@kallelindblad4000 thank you! I'll bet this one will be even better since the game is hopefully fixed, and my microphone is no longer from the archaic age

[@Randoman590]

As much as I dislike farming, I still have to at least appreciate it as a backup option when you either run out of other sources or can't access them safely. And just converting your 10k wood into farms in the late game when you run out of food from spamming troops is a handy fallback to have when market trade rates plummet. I'm skeptical of any blanket phrases like "always" or "never", but I get the sentiment you're going for. Good to teach new players to prioritise other sources wherever possible.

[@Melth]

There's certainly an exception to every rule! That was meant to be implicit when I phrased it as "If you're ever wondering 'should I farm', the answer is no!" If there's a situation where farming is so obviously the right choice that you aren't even wondering about other possibilities (for example, no other food left on the map), then yeah that's the time to farm. But if there's *any* alternative, farming is the wrong choice. Heck, even if there was no other food on the map, I would consider just giving up on food entirely and making an army purely of wood and gold units if feasible.

[@binaryflawgic5713]

Important to note that since first week, if I'm not mistaken, there have been at least 2-3 population mods available. Also some food mods, more food from animals mainly, I believe.

[@williamwakefield1017]

Good tutorial! One minor point in defense of farms is that they're set and forget. Micro managing your food collection takes mental bandwidth, and the worse you are at the game the less of that you're going to have. So personally I think that hunt gets better the better you are at the game, but I do still find farming helpful to allow me to focus on other aspects as I myself am not very good.

[@Melth]

@@williamwakefield1017 that's definitely the one advantage it has- but there's a disadvantage too: any time you want to add more villagers to food you have to go through a process of selecting the new villager, clicking or hoykeying farm, then choosing a location (and it's hard to pack them in efficiently enough!). And sometimes you have to wait to make sure you actually have enough wood to even do that! That requires way more mental bandwidth and more clicks than just having your town center right click a deer to send all new villagers to hunt there

[@leftwardglobe1643]

@@Melth I disagree with this take for three reasons. First, setting up efficient farms is usually a single timesink vs the constant oversight hunt usually requires to remain efficient. Second, it's neither difficult nor really all that time consuming if you practice enough at it, even moreso now that autofarming is a thing (hold shift over a town center or granary and it will automatically sort out farm placement). This is made easier with the abundance of wood and the fact that transitioning lumberjacks into farmers is a logical and efficient process that lets you easily locate new workers and lay off setting new TC rally points all that frequently. Third, and this is really several features contributing to the same idea but it's incredibly important, farms are an infinite and easily defensible food source that you can place wherever you want. That means you can work them into an existing base layout rather than having to expose your vils on risky hunting expeditions, often in Nowhere, Somewhere, Confederation of We're Lost. Even into late game, the vast majority of villager kills happen on poorly defended hunt or far reaching gold deposits for very good reason. That's at any skill level, even up to professional tournaments. In fact I'd argue it happens more the better the players are. Losing villagers is much worse overall than taking a marginal hit to gather rates. That's time off collecting, a resource sink to recover (which is made harder in this case as you lost your access to food), and lost TC production time. Triple gut punch right in the finances. Farming is a mid to late game thing, but it's absolutely something you want to take advantage of whenever you have the time and resources to do so. Especially in those rare longer games that extend into mythic or in team games.

[@FractalityX]

Omg I’m right there with you. Been grinding this campaign for the last week

[@Melth]

I'm going through trying to do a deathless run, slow and steady. Just recorded mission 3 that way.

[@lukemichael4166]

Let's go he's back!!!

[@Melth]

The Chinese campaign might have killed me, but this remake brought an allied unit nearby and I got back up!

[@louishealy2696]

YES!! Thank you!

[@Melth]

@@louishealy2696 you're welcome!

[@TYR1139]

The lack of a propér tutorial for the economy is already bad enough (the food sources specially for an AoE2 player for example), but none for the new auto assingment for resources is just bizarre, no matter how you feel about the feature itself... Maybe they should add an Art of War from AoE2 type of tutorial

[@Melth]

I am still learning about the new features myself. For now I'm still in the archaic age as it were, playing things the old way and just studying how the mechanics compare

[@matercheff]

Played as a kid and now have around 20-30 games in ranked didn’t know half the info you said thanks!

[@Melth]

@@matercheff glad it was helpful! The original age of mythology really hid this stuff, so I didn't learn it as a kid either until I started testing things to try to optimize I appreciate that this game provides more info about things like gather rates, but they still keep construction speed and whatnot secret

[@BrunoCiaciare]

I can’t believe my eyes. The GOAT is here.

[@Melth]

A kataskopos rode by and led me back here!

[@ConscriptDavid]

HE IS BACK!

[@Melth]

Just like Kronos!

[@vade5308]

Finally!

[@brunopereiracabral2392]

Great game! Hoping there will be some more AoM Retold videos!!🙏🏻

[@Melth]

Yep! Yesterday I finished my deathless run of mission 3.

[@kaimuu]

Been waiting for this, I'm in love with Retold and the many new and improved features. I do agree that the tutorial was definitely a downgrade especially since the end is like an ad for the campaign even though you already paid for the game anyway lol

[@Melth]

@@kaimuu the original game's pre-tutorial intro cinematic also had a very weird part that sounded like an advertisement for a game you're already playing I'm not sure what the point of it was in either the original or here in Retold!

[@blazingskrubs_]

Omg an unexpected challenge run but a welcome one

[@Melth]

Thank you!

[@lekhakaananta5864]

The biggest unknown for me is trade with caravans. In the original game you get more gold by trading with an ally TC, assuming identical distances. Is it still the case in this game? Because the game no longer says that (I couldn't find anything that said "caravans collect more gold from allied TCs"). It also kind of makes sense from a game design perspective if they buffed self-trading since 1v1s that run out of gold in AoM is very unplayable since unlike AoE we don't have goldless units. So I wonder if the devs wanted to balance it so that you are supposed to trade with your own TC in a 1v1 late game.

[@Melth]

I've just tested it. It looks like you get 10% more gold for trading with an allied town center. So a very small bonus, and not worth it if the distance is smaller or the route is hard to defend or whatever. The biggest factor by far is maximizing the straight-line distance and minimizing the number of terrain obstacles in the way of the path that decrease your effective speed but don't increase your reward.

[@lekhakaananta5864]

@@Melth Great work!

[@NPCplace]

This is very helpful. Kind of funny how many top tier RTS KZbinrs immediately start farming. Was making my very concerned that the mechanics had changed in a big way.

[@Melth]

Yeah, no, as far as I can tell farming is worse than ever and it was already so horrible that there was only 1 mission in the entire campaign where you should do it (because there's no other food on the map!)

[@King_Alistair6723]

Non of the top tier AOM players use farms, since hunt across all maps has been increased, and a small amount of games go past heroic. I have been top 15 in voobly for 5-6 yeas, and I am 17-3 so fae in Retold, and have built farms twice. I suggest watching only Boit and Viper for AOM. Melth is pretty much spot on in this video.

[@leftwardglobe1643]

@@King_Alistair6723 I mean, Viper and Boit do use farms, usually by the 10-15 minute mark after the first couple hunt patches and berries dry up. It's not particularly fast, but it is incredibly safe and you're not having to worry about picking up and moving unless pressured and there's really no extra micro involved in keeping it smooth after the initial setup. That's fewer vils lost to raids and more bandwidth for other tasks. You don't need to really worry about investing in it early, but you want to put some down at some point.

[@King_Alistair6723]

@@leftwardglobe1643 Depends on the map. I use farms around 20-25 minute if I must, and by that time 95% of the games I have played so far are long over. The earlier market is by far the most significant change in the game, makes every game easier if you exploit it correctly, and makes farms even more obsolete than before.

[@MatNightmare]

I saw someone mention that norse villagers are slightly better than every other villager at gathering food from hunting, can anyone verify that?

[@Melth]

No, that's false unfortunately. Norse gatherers suck at hunting, same as at everything else. *Odin's* Gatherer's in particular have a 10% hunting speed bonus... which makes them barely better than average. A shame because they used to be 20% better than average, and Odin was considered a bad god then!

[@MatNightmare]

@@Melth Thanks a lot for clarifying that!

[@jass7846]

i think you can be aged down if you lose a wonder (the reason i don't know for sure was because i was experimenting with changing major god mid game). its also possible to do it with an event in a scenario, things get weird, but i wouldn't say never ever.

[@TARDISES]

You indeed do revert to Mythic Age if you lose a wonder. This is the only time in standard, skirmish gameplay where you can age down.

[@Melth]

The wonder 'age' isn't really an age in anything but name though. That's a whoooole other mechanic

[@jakobandersen3210]

I was really hoping you would do something on this. Found you originally because of your playthrough of the original.

[@Melth]

That was back in the Archaic Age, 7 years ago!

[@jakobandersen3210]

@Melth I am truly one of the OG people. I think you were on like Mission 12 or something

[@maestro0798]

He is back bois

[@Melth]

An allied unit walked by and revived me

[@maestro0798]

@@Melth The hero we needed. You know the game as well as mithology so well which makes you uniquely qualified to make these videos. Looking forward to your playthrough ;)

[@Melth]

@@maestro0798 thank you!

[@Cyber_Cheese]

Jeez I feel like I haven't seen your stuff in months! Did the deathless advance wars 2 finale happen? AoM retold HYPEEEEEE

[@Melth]

@@Cyber_Cheese check out that deathless finale, it was absolutely epic!

[@Outpost67]

Thank you for this, I was wondering if the villagers did lose resources when switching.

[@Melth]

@@Outpost67 I'm glad that was helpful

[@aGuy2412]

New Melth AOM Content! ;D

[@Melth]

Yep! I'll be working on mission 3 today. I'm also considering finishing the last few Chinese campaign missions, but they're so bad that I really don't want to

[@aGuy2412]

@@Melth Yeah, on the other side of the screen I am also not interested in the Chinese Campaign. 😅

[@aniruddhbhatkal1834]

Very interesting video, thanks. I had one question about the multiple builders. Laborers are very slow at building, so i thought it was almost mandatory to have several on one foundation, plus the Pharoah, if it's something like the Migdol or a TC. Was I wrong?

[@Melth]

@@aniruddhbhatkal1834 laborers are indeed slow at building because laborers are bad at everything. But two laborers working together are even less efficient than two laborers working separately, just like for Greeks, etc. So my advice is: it's most efficient to only have one villager/laborer building anything, try to do that whenever possible. But if there's a project where you REALLY need one building done quickly such as a town center or migdol, then it can be a necessary evil to have multiple villagers/laborers work on it at once

[@aniruddhbhatkal1834]

@@Melth great. Thanks!

[@Tosnoob]

Hah, GGG said that AoM deathless is impossible, can't wait for you to prove him wrong. I'd prefer no facecam as it adds little to your amazing gameplay imo, but I know how the KZbin gods go.

[@Melth]

We'll see if he's right and it's impossible! It's certainly very difficult, more so than SC or WC3 in my experience.

[@Angels-Haven]

nice video

[@Melth]

@@Angels-Haven thanks, I'm glad you liked it

[@hiimAigis]

Yesyesyes

[@kalacs32]

I like your beard.

[@Melth]

Thanks!

[@Isvoor]

Norse gatherers are probably worse because they don't need to do most buildings?

[@Melth]

@@Isvoor maybe? But that used to be one of the few real perks the Norse had. I think it's a shame to lose it

[@Nedzizzle]

Why are they giving you meteor and fight a son of Osiris in the tutorial? So much for humble beginnings...

[@Melth]

Fighting a son of Osiris is particularly weird lore wise. We do inexplicably fight a son of Osiris at one point in the original campaign despite being on the side of Osiris though, so I can't fault the tutorial for that The original game's tutorial ended with using Meteor too. It's the game's iconic god power and they show it off every single time they can. I do think that having the player use an extremely powerful god power in the tutorial is a fine idea so that new players will know how strong they can be though

[@potatoesstarch2376]

Athena, Ajax, and Gargarensis are the only new VA's I can't stand. All the others are fine, some I like more than others. But those three all have the same problem. They're just too goofy.

[@Melth]

@@potatoesstarch2376 I haven't heard Gargarensis yet and just met Ajax, but he seemed ok to me so far

[@suhaibhanini8027]

Good luck.. Work on the way you talk with us

[@H4NGM4NDVD]

4:00 thank you for including this bit, i hate seeing it

[@Melth]

@@H4NGM4NDVD yeah, the idea of losing resources is pretty horrifying, even if it's just 1 wood or something.

[@RhoVabien]

I see 🤔 Thank you very much I didn’t know a lot of those stuff

[@Melth]

Glad it was helpful!