Which faction do you feel you are best with?

[Rhalius]

Just asking out of curiosity.

I feel like I'm best with Odin.
Building with military units makes all that a bit easier and the ox carts are handy too when moving gatherers around.
and for Odin specific, the ravens are great for scouting any map and his great hunt power is a pretty useful age 1 power too for extra meat.
Stronger Hill fort units is nice too, and Odin has a great selection of minor gods.
I tend to grab Freya first for healing, then Njord for the hill giants though the Krakens are great too at sea and I tend to end with Tyr to further boost hill fort units and I find the winter god power more useful than ragnarok.

As a bonus, I'd say I am probably the worst with any Atlantean civ because they work so differently.

[Rex Goodwin]

I work best with Shennong without mods. Lots ways to boost gathering wood and a full slew of water gods. With mods I work best with Quetzalcoatl from Return of the Gods due playing similar to Shennong and Odin, but with a full slew of gods that boost farming. Those Quetzal Birds scout on their own and the Aztecs are a strong civ.

[Gray Fox]

I used to like Egyptian, but they went out of their way to destroy them in modernization patches and now you can't even try to be defensive anymore.

[The Apache Kid]

I used to main greeks back in the day in vanilla aom. Today I'm trying to master Gaia so I pretty much spamming Gaia every game

[Devang]

Has to be Zeus

[CheeseLord]

Gaia, her economy buffs combined with the civilians she has that don't need gather stations are great for someone like me who plays defensive, builds up an army, then attacks with all my troops at once, brute forcing my way to victory.

[Central]

i love playing as Gaia but i am better with Oranos.
his ability to build sky passages allows you to gather all over the map, whenever the enemy comes near you can pull back villagers and send out a force to intercept the enemy army before they destroy your passage. it also really helps with maintaining control of the town centers that i need for favor.

with Oranos i usually favor Prometheus and Hyperion. they have a good synergy.
Prometheus allows me to make it cheaper to make hero units, and Hyperion allows those units to regenerate. this is means that my expensive atlantean units become a bit more durable
the final age depends on the situation. Helios allows me to do a quick counter attack with the vortex, Hecate allows me to set up better for the long game since she allows myth units to regen. With Hyperion and Hecate both hero's and myth units regenerate, that makes for quite a durable army.

With Gaia i go Oceanus an Theia and atlas, they are in my opinion the best gods she can choose for a defensive playstyle.
Oceanus allows me to heal my army. Gaia does not have access to Hyperion so Oceanus is the only access i get to healing. considering that the atlantean army can be quite expensive i feel that healing is a worthy investment. his god power also helps dealing with early raids.
Theia and the tree which blocks enemy god powers, which is a real help when playing defensively. the bird she provides also really helps with scouting.
finally atlas makes my buildings more durable which means that my defensive playstyle gets boosted even more.

while i love their mythology and gods the most my worst civ are the norse. i just have a very defensive oriented mindset, having to fight all the time for favor really annoys me. dont get me wrong, i like the idea of it from a gameplay perspective, it is just not for me.

it is probably worth mentioning that i do not consider myself a good player, i only play online games with friends, friends that also only play online with our own group. none of us play competitively. so it is quite possible that i make choices that pro players would consider highly questionable. it works in games with my friends though.

[Rhalius]

Oh I am no good player either, I have played with one real life friend some games online, mostly teamed up against the AI but a few against each other too. I did always beat him but it was always close, there was always a moment he nearly got me but then I bounced back.
I think the most we ever defeated was three moderate AI's while teamed up together.

Norse certainly are defensively the weakest, but I do like how they make it easier to put early walls up an construct, while the villagers just keep gathering. And also claim new town centres after destroying them without having to bring in villagers.
The extra population can then be used to train more troops back home in case a counter attack is launched while your main army is on the move.

Also harder to truly take out the Norse because even without villagers and town centres they can rebuild. Just need a single infantry unit to live, and if it's a villager it can become an ulfsark.

Will say though it was a strong combination with my friend who mainly played Hades. I'd have an army earlier to defend him, put up early walls later he can build stronger defences later, I could have my troops build up some defences at his camp too.

Greeks do have a big benefit in Haephestus, once that plenty vault is up it's a great economic boon and armoury upgrades being cheaper helps a lot too. Collosus is a strong unit as well. He's probably the best minor deity in the game.
While I tend to like the Greeks most, I am better with Norse.

[Central]

yeah i can def see the appeal of the Norse, like i said though, i am just not good at playing them. you mention being able to rebuild towncenters that you destroy, i get that, but whenever i play them that thought just does not occur to me.
in my mind civilians are for building and military units are for fighting. anything else and my mind goes: "does not compute". maybe i just do not have enough practice with them.

the bouncing back from the brink of destruction is generally not a thing which i consider. when playing against my friends they have generally already won if they destroy one of us (we play 2v2 at most). as for games against the AI, i feel that i might as well give up if the ai destroys my base and army to the point where i have only a few units left. i usually get some drinks and snacks for everyone (when we play together we usually do an old style lan party, all people bring laptops and we sit in the same room).

the plenty vault is a great economic boon indeed, i am just way to set in the ways of a booming economy. it always feels like a waste to have villagers praying at the temple, i know its necessary but Egyptian monuments, Atlantean town centers or Chinese gardens just feel better for my economy.
for that reason i prefer Zeus over Hades, who has a faster favor generation, which allows me to put more villagers on normal resources.
the Colossus is indeed a great unit.

generally my preferences are : Atlantean (Oranos > Gaia) > Egypian (Isis > Ra) > Chinese (Nu Wa) > Greeks (Zeus) > Norse

[Rhalius]

True, it does require a switch in mind set since it's very different to build with soldiers. But it can feel like an extra step in efficiency over not having to have villagers praying at temples.
Though generating favour is probably harder for them than other factions since they must fight. Really hurts them in a treaty game.

The benefit the Greeks do have with the temple is that they can generate a lot of favour faster and early on if need be, by assigning more villagers. I never tend to assign many but it could be a tactic if you really want to focus on myth units.
Other factions either have to fight for that or put in a much bigger investment in buildings or securing town centres.

Bouncing back is certainly something that often may not happen, but once it did happen that against three AI's I played as Ra and my friend got destroyed the first time he played chinese. We played against three easy but agressive AI's, my friend lost all villagers to their attack and only was able to move a few military units behind my walls. Took me a while to get properly walled in, Egyptians have a slow start and the enemies kept attacking from all sides, my forces where divided and I had to invest a lot in soldiers.
If he played Norse he could have rebuild.
Somehow I did still win that game, once properly walled up with good defences I pushed through to defeat my nearest enemy, build a titan and was somehow able to turn it into a win.

But other than bouncing back it also allows for quickly building up a forward base or maybe a second camp. Like claim a town center, build up the buildings and train some villagers to get to work there. Now two camps need to be destroyed to take you out.

And it is an advantage when opening a titan gate or building a wonder. It won't stop your economy and you'd want troops to guard there anyway.

Atlanteans do have a big advantage against titans though, lots of archers turned hero counter a titan way better than hersirs or any melee hero can.

[Central]

yeah, the hero's are a real plus for Atlantis, it is one of the many reasons why i love them.
i also really like the fact that i can upgrade some citizens to become hero's. with Hyperions renewal they can regenerate which helps when sending them out in the world. their increased gather rate means you can extract resources quite quickly.

you do make some good arguments for the norse soldiers building instead of villagers. it can really help with the early game economy if you do not need villagers to build, and easily building forward bases allows you to keep the pressure up.
i might give them another go this weekend :)

[Rhalius]

The super villagers is why I tend to struggle with the Atlanteans more than with other civs, for who I tend to have a better idea how many villagers to assign to a resource because that resource gathering is the same for all other civs their villagers.
I can sort of work it out, but it feels a bit odd and different. So I do get what you mean with the Norse feeling unnatural with the building part.

Good luck with the Norse, Odin is my favourite. Free respawning flying scouts, a good god power giving extra meat early on, and he gets access to both valkyrie and mountain giants.
I tend to go with Tyr for the final god, to improve Hill fort units and I prefer the winter god power to disrupt enemy economy over Ragnarok. I like to keep my villagers.
Odin also has better Hill Fort units.

Thor does have the extra upgrades but that costs resources too and I don't see much benefit in dwarves being a bit better yet still worse at gathering other stuff than gold. He also lacks mountain giants. The dwarf goldmine is a good power but a later benefit than early extra food resource before farms which I'd rather have.

And Loki's benefits are a bit all over, can be handy and does get exclusive access to Hell, but I rather have my human units improved more. Spy power is also pretty weak compared to Odin's Ravens that keep respawning and gives no economy boost like the other Norse major gods.
Also Loki does not get Valkyrie, which I find handier than a healing spring to take care of healing.

[Central]

yeah ragnarok sounds more like a double edged blade, it can win you the game but if you cannot capitalize on your military advantage than you are out. although it also reminds me of the revolution in age of empires 3.

generally speaking i do like the idea of a gold mine more than extra food, the start will be a bit slower but you can get food in plenty of ways, and with farms you can pretty much safeguard your settlers anyway. gold mines however run dry and you will be forced to send out villagers into risky situations.

i to think that the spy power is a bit weak, for me the main selling point for loki is that he can go all in on myth units.
his myth units cost less favor, combine it with Bragi for faster movement for myth units and hell for faster recruitment of myth units.

i think i will go with thor, the gold mine suits my play style a bit more. he also has access to Freyja and her valkyrie's, he does not have access to mountain giants but the battle boars that Bragi provides are still good.
in the end it will all depend on the game though, there are plenty of ganes where i will move away from my favored minor gods if the game calls for it.

[CheeseLord]

Honestly, i don't even use anyone BUT Gaia, maybe Hades here and there but her super civs that let you prioritise your military instead of sacrificing all your pop limit and resources on civs is a great combo with her eco buffs and the generally defensive playstyle that atlantean gods can be played in, you can simply build up good eco, spam watchtowers, build cheap units to keep your enemy at bay, then spam walls, more towers, tons of archers, and other stuff, then build up a huge army and destroy your enemy with overwhelming force.

[jonoliveira12]

Gaia Atlanteans, by far. Economy on steroids, faster than Isis, and you still get decent units, which you can actually afford, not to mention your base is safe from Fortress drops.

[Vin362]

I'm torn between picking either Ra or Gaia; Ra grants priests the empowering ability that pharaohs have so this can lead to having a priest on each starting resource location to speed up your economy and if possible get some military out faster in the Classical Age.

Gaia as others have mentioned has the economic bonuses which when combined with the Atlanteans not requiring drop off points plus being able to turn into heroes makes Gaia a nearly overpowered god if you can get a good build order,