[Game Journal] (Playing Age of Mythology: Retold, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia) On the Origin of Genres

Explorer of Time

Explorer of Time

Advocate of Ideals
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    I've enjoyed reading through other peoples' game journals, so I thought I'd make one of my own.

    This game journal is mostly going to focus on retro gaming, since it's what most interests me, and I rarely if ever play games released within five years. I usually play 3-5 games at a time and alternate between them in sessions, so games I'm playing may be scattered between posts rather than in a clean order of one set of posts per game. I'm not going to put everything here, since my Pokemon games are all updated in various Challenges posts and some games are things I've replayed, and don't feel they mention a full update.

    I suppose I should explain my game-playing schedule. I normally play a single Pokemon game, a non-Pokemon party-based RPG, a strategy game, an action-based game like a shooter or platformer where I control a single character, and sometimes a miscellaneous game, that could be doubled up on one of the other categories. (It is often a space sim, though.) I pick which one to play based on what genre I'm in the mood for, sometimes I want to manage a big empire, sometimes I want to turn my brain off and play something with a simple real-time combat system, sometimes I want something in the middle by managing a party of adventurers. I usually play everything on my PC or Steam Deck, emulated if necessary, unless otherwise noted.

    Current Games

    Pokemon*:     Pokemon Sapphire [Mono-Water] (Phone)
    Strategy: Age of Mythology Retold
    Action-RPG: Assassin's Creed Odyssey**
    FPS: Quake 1
    3D Platformer: A Hat in Time

    *Pokemon games will not be updated in this thread. They will usually be in a thread in Challenges, but may be in Travel Journals if I am not doing a self-imposed challenge for a game, most commonly for spin-offs.
    **Assassin's Creed Odyssey was started before this game journal began and will not be written about here.


    Feel free to comment, I don't mind other peoples' posts in-between mine and I'd love to have conversations here.
     
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    Index:

    Pokemon Games:
    Spoiler:


    Action-Adventure:
    Spoiler:


    First-Person Shooters:
    Spoiler:


    Metroidvanias:
    Spoiler:


    Platformers (2D):
    Spoiler:


    Platformers (3D):
    Spoiler:


    RPGs:
    Spoiler:


    Real-Time Strategy Games:
    Spoiler:




    Notes:
    Spoiler:
     
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    Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line
    Update 1 (Midenhall Castle -> Pillar of Winds)

    This is my September Game Challenge game, but I've been busy with Archipelago so I'm going to have to rush through it. This is only my second or third day of actually playing it.

    On the first day or two, I went to Leftwyne, Cannock, and the Wellspring of the Hero with Leofric, my Prince of Midenhall, to find Caradoc, my Prince of Cannock, and recruited him. I had a close call with poison in the overworld and no Antidotal Herb early on, prior to recruiting Caradoc, but otherwise hadn't come close to dying. I also explored the Lake Cave and found the Silver Key.

    Today, I went south through Gwaelin's Gate to Moonahan, travelled to the destroyed town of Moonbrooke, and then found Ra's Mirror to turn Elaine, my Princess of Moonbrooke, back into a human. She's still underleveled, but I had them travel to the Pillar of Winds and got the Cloak of Wind. I also killed two or three Metal Slimes and got lucky enough to find an early Iron Helmet for Leofric, which is nice.

    Spoiler: Party
     
    Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line
    Update 2 (Dragon's Horn -> Dragonlord's Castle)

    Today, my party of three traveled to the town of Rippleport, did a lot of grinding for money here, then used the ship to get the Gold Key from Zahan and find all the items behind all the gold doors that we now have access too. This included a lot of Teleportals that also sent us to Dirkandor, where we bought a bunch of new equipment. We also got the Moon Sigil from Dirkandor, the Sun Sigil from a Teleportal, and the Soul Sigil from Tantegel, leaving us with three of the five we need. We then went to the Dragonlord's Castle for some treasure, and cleared it without much trouble.

    I've been giving every Seed I have to the Princess of Moonbrooke, since she's a Mage who has most stats pretty low by default, and is several levels lower than the rest of the party to boot. That being said, I was able to finally give her some proper equipment starting at Rippleport. This game has oddly-limited equipment, especially for anything she can equip, or for anything that's not a weapon or armor. There's a grand total of three helmets in the game and only the Prince of Midenhall can equip two of them. Only one accessory, the Banishing Bell. Only five shields, and one of them is a cursed item that shouldn't ever be used. Even for weapons and armor, the Princess of Moonbrook can only equip four of each, and one of each is her crappy starting equipment.

    Speaking of equipment, Leofric has his best Shield and Helmet, and everyone has the Banishing Bell accessory. Elaine has gotten much better now that she's not stuck with her awful starter gear, and everyone's weapon and armor is significantly better, though not the best in the game yet. For spells, Caradoc now has Midheal to make him as good at healing as the Princess of Moonbrooke, for now. Elaine has Fullheal, but nobody has enough HP for it to matter except Leofric, who is only barely above Midheal's healing in his max HP. She does have Kasap now, to decrease enemy defense, which would have been useful if this game had any proper boss battles before the final dungeon.

    Spoiler: Party
     
    Normally I'm not too interested in game journals, but after reading through all those progress update posts you did for the archipelago, I wanted to read more of your stuff, so I'll be following along. (to the best of my ability lol, I don't know a thing about this game, for example, but from what you've written about it, it sounds cool :p)
     
    Alex_Among_Foxes said:
    Normally I'm not too interested in game journals, but after reading through all those progress update posts you did for the archipelago, I wanted to read more of your stuff, so I'll be following along. (to the best of my ability lol, I don't know a thing about this game, for example, but from what you've written about it, it sounds cool :p)
    Click to expand...
    Wow, thanks! I'm not putting too much effort into explaining DQ2 since it's a short game and the mechanics are nearly identical to any other Dragon Quest game, but I'll try and explain things a bit more for other games.
     
    Explorer of Time said:
    Wow, thanks! I'm not putting too much effort into explaining DQ2 since it's a short game and the mechanics are nearly identical to any other Dragon Quest game, but I'll try and explain things a bit more for other games.
    Click to expand...

    That's awesome to hear! ^^ But I hope that what I said didn't come off as a critique of your style or anything of the sort, because all I meant that I knew absolutely nothing about the game, so things like character or location names are lost on me, but that I enjoyed the way you write so much that I'm reading those updates anyway because it's entertaining enough even without having foreknowledge of the subject game.
     
    Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line
    Update 3 (Lighthouse -> Sea Cave)

    For this update, I explored the whole southern area of the map, starting with the town of Burrowell, where we got the Jailor's Key. Then we traveled back to everywhere where we could use it, starting with Middenhall, where we fought a Wrecktor. We nearly lost this battle since I didn't know I was too underleveled, and it quickly killed both Caradoc and Elaine with powerful magic and left Leofric at 2 HP. Thankfully, it spent four consecutive turns casting defense-raising spells on itself or defense-lowering spells on Leofric, and Leofric just hit it several times until we were victorious. I had to use my Yggdrasil Leaf to raise Caradoc back from the dead and cast Safe Passage so I wouldn't be killed by the damaging floor, then went to the Church to raise Elaine from the dead and travelled back south for another Yggdrasil Leaf. Once that was done, I gave her the Lightning Staff the Wrecktor dropped, which is her strongest weapon.

    I then got the Water Sigil from a cell in Moonahan. Next, I traveled to Beran, where Caradoc got sick again and I had to use my Yggdrasil Leaf again, then went and got a new one from the island it's from. I then moved on to Slewse, the last town to visit, and explored it. First, I gave a couple items I had collected to a weaver to create the Flowing Dress, the ultimate armor for either Caradoc or Elaine. I gave it to the latter because her other defensive equipment is weaker and she needs it more. There was a Floodgate I opened to unlock the Tower of the Moon dungeon, but I didn't go there yet because my next destination was the Lighthouse, where I found the Star Sigil.

    All five Sigils obtained, I sailed to the Shrine of Rubiss, the goddess of this land, and was gifted the Eye of Rubiss, a key item that dispells illusions and one of the two items I need for the final two dungeons. Then, I doubled back to Slewse and the Tower of the Moon, which got me the Moonshard, which unlocked the Sea Cave. This dungeon, contrary to its name, was actually a lava cave that was named after its geographic location rather than its contents. The Sea Cave, at its bottom, had a False Idol of Malroth, the god of destruction, and the other key item we need for the final two dungeons.

    I also bought Aurora Blades for Leofric and Caradoc, boosting their attack, and a Power Shield for Caradoc, boosting his defense since he's been stuck with the Leather Shield since the start of the game. Caradoc learned a bunch of spells that make him more useful, Sizzle for damage to a group of monsters, Kabuff for increasing defense, and Kazing for resurrecting party members. Also Thwack, which is basically a super-inaccurate 1HKO move like Horn Drill, in a game where all the bosses have Sturdy. Elaine only learned one new spell of note, but Kaboom is, for now, a crazy-strong attack spell that hits every single enemy in the battle.

    There are only two dungeons left, so I should be done with this game starting next update. For equipment I have yet to get, I still need the Thunderbolt Blade and Erdrick's Armor for Leofric, which I can find both of in the Cave to Rendarak, the second-last dungeon. For Caradoc, since he's not the one with the Flowing Dress, I need to buy the Mink Mantle from Burrowell, which is an exorbinant 65000G, and I currently only have 8000G. It will be his best armor. I'd also like Falcon Blades for both of them once I have the Mink Mantle, since even though they're weaker, they hit twice, which is really good for hunting Liquid Metal Slimes (a very high EXP enemy with only 5 HP and ludicrously-high defenses).

    Another reason to hunt Liquid Metal Slimes, apart from the EXP, is that they drop the Mad Cap, which is the only headgear that Caradoc and Elaine can wear. I can pick up one in the Cave to Rendarak but I'll need another from a random drop to complete my equipment setup. As a bit of trivia, the Mad Cap is what inspired Pokemon Trading. When playing Dragon Quest 2, Satoshi Tajiri was extremely frustrated he couldn't get one to drop from a Tyrranodactyl at a 1/128 drop rate (Liquid Metal Slimes not dropping Mad Caps in the original NES version), but Ken Sugimori had been lucky enough to get two on the same save file. Sugimori wanted to give the extra Mad Cap to Tajiri, but they had no way of doing so, and that sparked the idea for trading Pokemon! The Pokemon franchise might look very different today if not for this one item.

    Spoiler: Party
     
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    Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line
    Update 4 (Cave to Rendarak -> Hall of Hargon)

    This is my fourth and final update to Dragon Quest II. I went through the Cave to Rendarak, picking up Erdrick's Armor and a Thunderbolt Blade for Leofric, a Mad Cap for Elaine, and enough money for a Mink Mantle for Caradoc. Once safely through, I went to the final dungeon, did a lot of grinding to reach the level cap since I was already quite close, and killed a ton of Liquid Metal Slimes to find a second Mad Cap for Caradoc. Once I could afford it, I switched Caradoc's weapon, then Leofric's, for Falcon Blades, which have a lower attack, but hit twice. This was originally planned for Liquid Metal Slime hunting but ended up being more powerful than their original weapons against any monsters here. Nobody was killed this update except Caradoc, who was killed mid-battle by a Gigantes during Liquid Metal Slime grinding, but Elaine raised him mid-battle with Kazing.

    Speaking of Kazing, Elaine learning it was the only useful new spell I got. Kamikazee is useless because using it kills Caradoc, and anything worth using it on is immune. Hocus Pocus has a bunch of random effects and is too unpredictable to use. And Click is useless so long as I have all three keys, which I already do.

    Once the level cap was hit, I saved my game, then went back to the Hall of Hargon and slew Hargon himself, who hit hard with spells but didn't have many hit points. Hargon's death awakened the god he worshiped, Malroth, and we fought him too. He wasn't offensively as dangerous as Hargon since he didn't use his multi-damage Inferno that often, giving me more openings to heal with my two healers. He could buff his defense or debuff ours, but that consumed his entire turn and I only needed one of my three characters to undo it. It was a simple matter to slay him, and once he was slain we returned back to Midenhall, where the old king decided to retire, and Prince Leofric was crowned the new King of Midenhall. And then the credits rolled.

    Final thoughts: This game was one of the earliest JRPGs, and, though it shows its age, I'd say there's still enough gameplay there for it to be enjoyable for modern audiences, unlike the glorified tech demo that was Dragon Quest I. That being said, it's not one of the RPG greats, merely adequate in what it set out to do, and it's quite short. The storyline is also generic and cliche, with no plot twists except the existence of Malroth as the final boss. It also has little character customization beyond who to equip first and give stat-boosting Seeds to, and by the endgame there's a very well-defined "best equipment" set where the only choice you have to make is "who gets the Flowing Dress and who gets the Mink Mantle". I'd recommend it to dedicated Dragon Quest fans, which is more than I can say for its predecessor, but if you just want a fun JRPG, there are many other better options. Even then, you may want to wait for next year's HD-2D remake.

    Spoiler: Party
     
    Age of Mythology: Retold
    Mythical Battle 1: Regenleif's Rally

    I'm not that far into Retold's campaign yet, so I figured I'd just replay the this scenario and the first half of Fall of the Trident for the purposes of this game journal rather than start halfway through. Age of Mythology was one of my favorite games a child, so naturally I was extremely excited about the remake. This is a relatively traditional RTS game, so I'm going to assume some form of familiarity with genre conventions as a whole, and only explain the concepts exclusive to this game or the Age of Empires series.

    This game has four resources. First off is Food, which you can either hunt and gather for (faster, but limited), farm for (slower, but unlimited), or fish for (in-between, and unlimited, but limited by fishing spots). Second is Wood, which you can only gather by cutting down trees, of which most maps have a lot. Third, is Gold, which you can either mine for, or use Trade Caravans between Town Centers to obtain, though mining is much faster and should be done wherever possible. You can also buy Food and Wood by spending Gold at a Market, once you construct one, or sell Food or Wood to gain some Gold, but it'll be much less efficient than just gathering the right resource in the first place.

    Finally, you have Favor, which each civilization gathers in a different manner, and can't be bought or sold at the Market, which is used for Myth Units, Mythological Upgrades, and recasting God Powers. The Greeks gain favor by tasking Villagers to worship at Temples, the Egyptians gain it by building Monuments, the Norse gain it by either fighting, or slowly getting it by building lots of Heroes, and the Atlanteans gain it by building Oracles and spreading them across the map.

    Most resources can only be gathered by your civilization's worker units, and have to be dropped off at buildings, and your worker units also construct all buildings. There are a couple exceptions: Fishing is always done by Fishing Boats, Atlanteans don't need dropoff points, and Norse use mobile dropoff points called Ox Carts. Norse also have two different worker units, Gatherers that specialize in Food and Wood, and Dwarves that are specialized in mining Gold. They can both gather all three resources, but gather the "wrong ones" at a penalty. Norse also build with their infantry units rather than their builder units.

    Next, I should explain the units. In general, there are three unit type counter triangles. First, generally speaking, Infantry counter Cavalry, Cavalry counter Archers, and Archers counter Infantry. Second, Human Soldiers counter Myth Units, Myth Units counter Heroes, and Heroes counter Human Soldiers. Generally, Human Soldiers are easy to mass in great numbers, which will usually render them the bulk of your army outside the lategame. Myth Units are things like Giants, Hydras, Sphinxes, et cetera, which are individually powerful but cost the scarce Favor resource. Finally, Heroes are better at countering Myth Units, but are either expensive and not cost-effective (Atlanteans and Norse), limited to a small number (Greeks), or just plain suck at fighting Human Soldiers (Egyptians).

    Finally, we have the Gods. Each civilization has several Major Gods that serve as subfactions, and each of these Major Gods gives you different bonuses and sometimes unique units. Each Major God also has a choice between two different Minor Gods whenever you age up to a new age, with each granting a new God Power, at least one new myth unit, and several technologies you can research to upgrade your troops. The two Minor Gods for each age are mutually-exclusive; researching one locks off the other, and you keep them throughout the game, giving you three Minor Gods once you reach the Mythic Age. Advancing to a new age also gives you access to many more non-mythical units and buildings and technologies regardless of which Minor God you pick. There are four ages (technically five, but the Wonder Age only appears in one scenario and doesn't work like the other four, so I'm ignoring it for now.), first the Archaic Age, then the Classical Age, then the Heroic Age, and finally the Mythic Age.

    On to the first mission I played. This is technically a prequel mission, and the first mission added to Retold that wasn't in the original Age of Mythology. Here, we're playing as the Valkyrie hero Reginleif, fighting an army of Giants that attacked Alfheim, led by Gargarensis, the main villain of the Fall of the Trident campaign, and I'll explain more about him once we meet him there. We also fought Folstag (who will also show up later) and his Frost Giants, and Halogi and his Fire Giants, who don't show up in any other scenarios. Halogi is a minor jotun from Norse mythology who once beat Loki in an eating contest, and Reginleif is an obscure valkyrie, but Gargarensis and Folstag were made up entirely for this game. All three of our enemies are Norse who worshipped Loki as their major god, and Gargarensis went Loki -> Forseti -> Njord, but I don't know who the other two picked for Minor Gods, if anyone. Since this is the only Norse scenario for a very long time, and this update is already running quite long as it is, I'm going to wait to explain most details about the Norse until then.

    I, myself, also played Norse, and had Freyr as my major god. We only use Freyr in this scenario since He was added to the game after the release of the original campaigns. Freyr allows us to research technologies for half the normal Food, Wood and Gold, and buffs our Hill Fort and Hill Fort units' damage by 10%. He also allows our Gatherers and Dwarves to repair any building (normally only Norse Infantry can repair most Norse buildings), and all our repairs are free. His unique Technology is Freyr's Gift, which gives all our units +10% HP, but it has an exorbinant favor cost that lowers with each technology we research. His god power is Gullinbursti, which summons said golden boar to defend one of our Town Centers.

    I quickly teched up to the Mythic Age, worshipping the minor god Ullr, who gave us the Asgardian Bastion power to create an Asgardian Hill Fort (basically a castle), Aegir mostly for the Nine Waves technology to boost my Hersirs' damage and speed, and finally Hel, the Norse goddess of the underworld. Hel is one of my favorite minor gods to use, but She's not available to anyone except Loki and Freyr, and there's only one other scenario where you can use her outside a Skirmish game. She gets Mountain, Frost, and Fire Giants available to us and one of Her technologies decreases myth unit training time to nearly nothing. Her god power also gives us a Nidhogg, an incredibly powerful flying dragon myth unit.

    I built up an army of Hersirs (Norse infantry heroes) to counter my enemies' Giants, and supplemented them with as many Fire Giants as I could construct, plus my starting units a couple Frost and Mountain Giants, the Nidhogg, and the Draugur and Rock Giant I got from aging up. We crushed Folstag's base first, mostly with Hersirs to get us favor to build a lot of Fire Giants, and then hit Halogi with Fire Giants of our own, many more than he could muster. Then, we hit Gargarensis, who still had not advanced to the Mythic Age and was crushed by us.

    Now, it's time to go on to the main campaign, Fall of the Trident. I'm going to try and get through the first 16 scenarios quickly, so I'm going to beeline objectives rather than take my time to wipe out enemy bases like I usually do.
     
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    Age of Mythology: Retold
    Fall of the Trident 1/32: Omens

    Now, for the proper beginning of the main campaign. We start off in Atlantis, where the island's Theocrat, Krios (unrelated to the titan of the same name, who doesn't appear in this game) is busy ordering our main character, Arkantos, to take a fleet and sail to assist the Greeks in the Trojan War. Almost everything in this game involving Atlantis was created specifically for this game, and lacks a mythological basis, and this includes Arkantos and all other Atlantean characters. I don't mind this because Atlantis was sparsely detailed in the original myths, so what has been done for Atlantean worldbuilding here mostly involves giving more details to a place that didn't have many in the first place. The Atlanteans get their own civilization and tech tree, but not in this campaign, because Fall of the Trident was released before the expansion pack that added them, so here they're represented as regular Poseidon-worshipping Greeks, and this was not changed for the remake.

    Right after being told to join the Trojan War, Pirates under the Black Sails attacked Atlantis with transport ships bringing Egyptian infantry and slingers, as well as Krakens for some reason, even though Krakens are a Norse naval myth unit. Right now, we had to defend against them, being restricted to the Classical Age with no minor gods, and we could only build Hoplites (Greek infantry), and Toxotes (Greek archers). Since we already had lots of Toxotes, I used the rest of my population cap to build Hoplites. We also got a few Petroboloi (Greek anti-building catapults) as reinforcements halfway through the mission, and when we were attacked by the final wave of pirates, the Atlantean army arrived with a lot of Hypaspists, a Greek infantry unit that specializes in countering other infantry units.

    Once we fought them off, with the help of a Lightning Storm god power, we found out that the pirates had stolen a trident from a statue of Poseidon. To avert His wrath, Arkantos will take the Atlantean fleet to go get it from the pirates' base in the Balearic Islands for our next mission, before joining the Trojan War.

    Spoiler: Arkantos leads the defense of the Atlantean harbor.
     
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    Age of Mythology: Retold
    Fall of the Trident 2/32: Consequences

    We arrived at a small island in the Balearic archipelago, where Kamos's pirates have set up their base. They're represented as Egyptians who worship Set, though this group of pirates has no Monuments or Pharaoh, and thus no favor or god powers, and none of Set's bonuses aside from barracks unit speed. They did have some preplaced Anubites for myth units, though. To beat the scenario, we have to destroy their town center.

    I played this mission as Poseidon, and like last mission we were restricted to the classical age, and we also couldn't construct a stable or train cavalry units. Unlike the last mission, however, we could build up a proper base for our age (aside from the lack of stables), and pick a classical age minor god. Poseidon's bonuses mostly focus on cavalry, which are useless in this mission, and our economy. If any of our buildings are destroyed, we get Militia, a weak infantry unit, from the ashes to fight whoever destroyed them. Our cavalry, caravans, and myth units are all faster, and our stables and markets are 30% cheaper. Our market exchange rates are improved by 15%, and we get a free Hippocampus with our first dock to scout the seas for us. His god power is Lure, which erects a monolith that draws animals to it for us to hunt, and his unique technology allows our cavalry to regenerate.

    Poseidon's minor god choices for the Classical Age are Hermes and Ares. Since Hermes is focused on cavalry, which we can't build yet, and because we can't advance to the Heroic Age, I picked Ares. His myth unit, the Cyclops, is a strong melee unit that works as a substitute for siege weapons since we don't have any in this age, and His upgrades increase the damage of our foot soldiers. His god power, Pestilence, slows enemy building's unit production and stops them from shooting at us, which is helpful since the building we need to destroy can shoot at us.

    Since we now have the ability to build a dock, I'm going to explain ships now, including the third counter triangle now. Each civilization has seven types of ships. First off, we have the civilian ships, the fishing boat, which gathers food, and the transport ship, which brings troops across the water. Neither of these can attack. Next, each civilization has two naval myth units available to every god in that civilization, one in the heroic age, and one in the mythic age. I'm going to skip these for now and get around to them when we can train them.

    But most importantly, we have the arrow ships, hammer ships, and siege ships. Each civilization has one of each, arrow ships and siege ships being ranged, and hammer ships being melee. Arrow ships are strong against hammer ships, hammer ships are strong against siege ships, and siege ships are strong against arrow ships. The Greek arrow ship is the Trireme, the Greek hammer ship is the Pentekonter, and the Greek siege ship is the Juggernaut.

    The Greeks also have the fewest available heroes. Each Greek major god has one hero per age, which means we could only build two this scenario, plus our starting hero Arkantos. Poseidon's first two are Theseus and Atalanta, and in future scenarios we'll also have the opportunity to train Hippolyta and Polyphemus.

    I took my starting triremes, plus a couple juggernauts, and destroyed the enemy dock and blockaded the pirates by sea early on, then built a small army of mostly Cyclopes with some Toxotes and Hoplites for backup, and destroyed the small pirate base. Honestly, this update took longer than the mission itself because of how much explaining I did. Future Greek updates will be shorter now that I've gotten the most important stuff out of the way.

    Spoiler: Kamos's pirates have a small base in the east.
     
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    Age of Mythology: Retold
    Fall of the Trident 3/32: Scratching the Surface

    Arkantos and the Atlantean army have finally arrived to reinforce the Greeks at Troy, where we meet two more heroes, Ajax (the son of Telamon, not Ajax the Lesser, son of Oileus, who isn't important enough to appear in this game) and Agamemnon, both of whom were mythical heroes of the Trojan War. We do not meet Achilles, who exists in-game as a Hades hero unit, since he's dead at this stage of the Trojan War. We also don't meet Odysseus until the next mission. Still playing Poseidon, we moved our troops to the southwest and built a Town Center, and received our goal, to destroy two Trojan docks to win the mission. We advanced to the Heroic Age quickly, picking Hermes for our classical age minor god, and Aphrodite for our heroic age minor god. We ignored building up an army, in favor of building several juggernauts for our navy, since the Trojans (who are Hades-worshipping Greeks) were using only triremes for naval defense. We also get a free myth unit each time we age up. Hermes gave us a Centaur, which is a really fast myth unit horse archer, and Aphrodite gave us a Nemean Lion, a melee myth unit that can do area-of-effect damage with its roar.

    Advancing to the heroic age also gave us our first naval myth unit, the Scylla. The original developers did not make a very accurate Scylla, with the design just being basically an aquatic Hydra, not the nymph with a sea monster tail and dog heads around her waist from the original Greek myths, and Retold kept the inaccurate design. In any case, it's a strong melee naval unit that gets stronger as it deals damage, growing more heads the more damage it deals. We took it, and our juggernauts, and destroyed the first dock, bringing our land troops nearby to distract the Trojan guards. Since we didn't have enough land troops to beat the Trojan guards, I used Aphrodite's god power, Curse, to turn nine of the Trojan soldiers into pigs.

    When the dock was destroyed, Agamemnon landed his troops, giving us a proper land army. Although we still can't construct a stable, he had a lot of both of the main Greek cavalry units, first Prodromoi, which counter other cavalry, and Hippeis, which are regular cavalry that counter archers and are weak to infantry. When we got to the Heroic Age, we also gained the ability to construct Fortresses, large defensive structures that can construct Greek siege weapons and heroes, and we can now build petroboloi of our own. We can also build Peltists, spear-throwing archers only good against other archers, starting in the heroic age, but we didn't build any since our current forces were sufficient for the job. By now, the Trojans had advanced to the heroic age themselves, worshiping Aphrodite like us, and had fortified their other dock more when I destroyed the first one. So, I sent my land army as a distraction, hit their walls, and crushed the other dock with my juggernauts and Scylla while the Trojans were too busy fighting on land. And that won me the mission.

    Spoiler: The docks have much weaker defenses than the main Trojan base
     
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    Age of Mythology: Retold
    Fall of the Trident 4/32: A Fine Plan

    We continue our siege of Troy, and this mission we are given the objective of destroying one of the gates to the city. We finally have the ability to construct stables, and start with one, and have a large starting army of Hippei to boot. We also start in the Classical Age, with Hermes as our preselected Major God, and can advance to the Mythic Age at last. This gives us a few new units, the melee naval myth unit Carcinos, which is basically a giant crab, the Helepolis, which is a siege tower constructed by the Fortress, and Poseidon's unique unit, the Hetairos. Hetairoi are cavalry units that deal area-of-effect damage to nearby enemies when they attack, and they're excellent against weaker units. We also got Chimaeras, a melee area-of-effect myth unit, from our mythic age minor god choice this mission, but I don't expect to use them again for quite a while.

    For the actual mission, I started out without a gold mine, so I raided the Trojans (Hades) to take some of theirs, and took down their market quickly and retreated before they could retaliate. I also built some juggernauts to win control of the coast from Troy's ally, Cyzicus, destroy their docks, and take all the fish for myself. I then teched up to the Mythic Age, picking Aphrodite again for Her economic upgrades, and then Artemis since Her chimaeras cost food instead of the gold that I'd need for Hephaestus's myth unit, and I had lots of food available from fishing. That being said, I won the match before I got my economy into full gear to produce chimaeras, and I managed to take down Cyzicus and then the Trojan gate mostly through training and upgrading Hetairoi. Cyzicus was pretty easy since they only built archers and we focused on cavalry, which counter archers, and Troy went down easily as well, since we hit them with both an Earthquake from Artemis and a Curse from Aphrodite to turn their troops into pigs.

    However, we won't be able to take advantage of our new opening into Troy's walls... but that's a tale for next mission.

    Spoiler: Troy's unit-production structures are safe behind the Gate.
     
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    Doom 3
    Mission 1/27: Mars City

    To start off this month's gaming challenge, I played through the first map of Doom 3. I started off as a nameless male marine who just signed on with the Union Aerospace Corporation to help them guard Mars City, a research lab on Mars. This protagonist doesn't have a name, nor any details about himself apart from his model being a generic-looking white guy. Therefore, it's up to me to write one.

    (This paragraph is completely non-canon backstory):     Our hero, Dominic Carbonneau, was born in Moncton, New Brunswick, to a working-class family on October 1st, 2113, and remained there for most of his childhood. He graduated high school with mediocre grades, and went to trade school to train as a mechanic rather than go to college. However, he never finished trade school because of the outbreak of the Canadian Civil War in 2133, where he was drafted into the Canadian army, and shipped off to the western front lines in Alberta. Carbonneau was, by all accounts, a decent soldier, with nine confirmed kills to his name before his unit's surrender to North Cascadian forces in 2134, and is not recorded as having committed any war crimes. As North Cascadia began losing the war in 2136, Carbonneau took the opportunity to escape, and not wanting to be drafted again, he fled south to the Houston Spaceport and took a rocket to Luna, where he signed up with the UAC as a security guard. Carbonneau remained at the UAC's lunar Beta Labs facility for seven years, then transferred to the Deimos Labs in orbit of Mars from 2142 to 2145, when he requested a transfer to Mars City... where our real story begins.

    This mission is basically a tutorial, no combat happens here. I reported to the receptionist, recieved a PDA, and overheard a few conversations. First off, the UAC's board of directors sent Counselor Elliot Swann to oversee some sort of experiments, while Dr. Malcom Bertruger is quite unhappy about the new oversight. There have also been complaints about something seeming... off about the labs, with one worker allegedly hearing whispering in one lab when logs showed that nobody was actually there. I arrived at the Marine HQ and received a request to head underground and find a missing scientist, Jonathan Ishii. There were no enemies or weapons here, and no items except two clips of bullets I found in a locker, which I can't use yet since I still don't have a gun.

    Next mission, the game proper kicks off.
     
    Doom 3
    Mission 2/27: Mars City Underground: Union Aerospace Subsystems

    I headed down to the Mars City Underground in pursuit of Jonathan Ishii, who I found out was hiding in an old communications building just outside the main base. I collected my gear, a Pistol, a set of security armor, and some ammo, and headed to the base to find him. After a very short trip outdoors (my suit having barely enough oxygen to last a minute due to a manufacturing defect), I quickly ran into the comm building and found Ishii. There, he made some cryptic comments about needing to send a warning, the Mars base was hit by a massive attack of... something coming out of a portal. Hordes of transparent skull-like monsters possessed most of the guards and turned them into zombies, including Ishii himself, who was my first kill of the game*, and started rampaging throughout the base.

    *technically I had to kill two NPCs to get their PDAs, for some bizarre reason. They turn into zombies you have to kill anyway but a glitch stops them from dropping their PDAs. This happens to two other NPCs later on and I'm not going to treat murdering them as canonical for the purposes of this run. The PDAs are optional, but I want them for the sake of completionism.

    I backtracked across the labs, fighting more zombies, including Z-sec (zombified security guards with weapons, mostly pistols and shotguns for now), and at one point went down an elevator to get a Shotgun, my second weapon. This game's shotgun is nowhere near as strong as the one in the classic Doom games or even the new ones; the protagonists of this game and its expansions are very much not the same guy as the Doom Slayer, and they're much weaker and more fragile. Enemy counts are, likewise, lower. I continued onward, taking a detour through Engineering, where I found this game's first non-Zombie enemy, the Imp. These are humanoid demons that can throw fireballs, and are on the weaker side but, like the zombies, also tougher than in other Doom games. I made it back to the elevator room, where I was able to unlock the other locker, which got me my third gun, the Machine Gun. I was only able to use this against one enemy, and I don't have much ammo for it now, so I can't say how useful it is just yet. Heading back in the elevator, I went back to Mars City and finished this level.

    EDIT: Added a couple sentences about Imps.
     
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    Doom 3
    Mission 3/27: Mars City: Union Aerospace Corporate Division

    We return now to Mars City, the same place we visited in the introductory tutorial level. Unlike last time, Mars City has been completely overrun by Zombies, plus a few Imps. The Z-Sec Zombies are now often armed with machine guns, not just pistols and shotguns, so they're a bit harder to fight, but I still didn't have much trouble. I made my way up to the ventilation shaft, where I encountered a survivor named Roland, who probably made a smart decision to just hide upstairs since he's the only survivor in this level apart from myself, but he wasn't much help. I moved across the map, fighting my way to Marine HQ, and established a communication link with my commanding officer, Sergeant Kelly, who's trapped in the Delta Complex. I was ordered to link up with Bravo Team in the Alpha Labs. I found a surviving Sentry Bot to help escort me through the rest of the level, and for the most part hid behind it and let it kill enemies and take shots. It shut down when it cleared the exit room, which will take me to the last uncleared place in Mars City, the Administration level.
     
    Doom 3
    Mission 4/27: Administration: Union Aerospace Corporate Division

    I went up to the Administration level, and immediately overheard a conversation between Swann and Dr. Betruger, who had both survived the invasion. Swann decided that the massive demonic invasion of the Martian base was proof that things had gone out of control and that the UAC higher-ups needed to take over, but Dr. Betruger disagreed vehemently. I wasn't able to talk with either of them since Swann was only audible through a ventilation shaft and Betruger was communicating remotely from Delta Labs. I headed to the exit, killing more Zombies and Imps along the way, but couldn't head directly out of it as I lacked the passkey for the exit door. I did find some grenades in a safe nearby, though, which give me another new weapon, though I only used one this level. I also found a dying marine who informed me that there were other squads of marine survivors out there.

    Heading east to the Data Library, I opened a door and was promptly attacked by a new type of demon, called the, uhhh... Demon. Since it'd get confusing otherwise, I'm going to call this type of demon the Pinky, after its name in Doom 4 and Doom Eternal. In any case, it charged into my small room and killed me the first time I tried fighting it, so I had to reload, but the second time I used the machine gun and won the fight with only minor wounds. I went upstairs, and found a new, powerful Chaingun in another safe, but not enough ammo to rely on it much this level. All I used it for was killing the third Pinky of the level. I arrived at the Executive Office, got the keycard, and was attacked by teleporting Imps that heavily wounded me, but I backtracked and made it to the health station safely. From there, it was an easy trip to the Transfer Bay to Alpha Labs, which ends this level.
     
    Age of Mythology: Retold
    Fall of the Trident 5/32: Just Enough Rope

    Now, to return to Age of Mythology. Last time we left off, we had just breached Troy's gate. Unfortunately for us, we had to retreat because Ajax had been attacked, and we had to fall back and defend him. We took our starting army of Arkantos, Odysseus, and some Hoplites and Hippeis, and fought off some Trojan soldiers attacking Ajax and his army. We retreated to his base, and gained control of it. This time, instead of Poseidon, our major god is Zeus. Whereas Poseidon focuses on cavalry, Zeus focuses on infantry and myth units. We gain favor 20% faster than the other Greek major gods, and our Myth Units cost one less population. Our Hoplites move 15% faster and our Infantry do 50% more damage to buildings. His god power is Bolt, which instantly kills any unit it's used on, aside from a couple immune super-units like the Nidhogg. Zeus's heroes are Jason, Heracles, Odysseus, and Bellerophon, though we can't use the trainable version of Odysseus in the campaign because he's a character in the storyline, and leaves our party after the Trojan War is over.

    We also start in the Heroic Age in this mission, with the minor gods Athena and Dionysus already picked for us. Athena's god power is Restoration, which heals all our units in an area, and Dionysus's god power is Bronze, which turns our units' skin to bronze temporarily in an area, which increases their defenses while it's active. Athena also gives us Minotaurs, which are a melee myth unit, and a couple infantry upgrades for us which were already researched at the start of the scenario. Dionysus gives us another melee myth unit, the Hydra, which grows more heads that increase its attack power, and has techs to let our Hydrai and Scyllai regenerate HP, as well as giving our cavalry life-draining attacks. His last upgrade gives all of our units a small HP boost. Zeus's other minor god for the Classical Age is Hermes, who I've already picked, and his other Heroic Age minor god is Apollo, who I'll explain when I first pick him in a few missions.

    We received our objective after getting Ajax's base, to completely destroy the Trojan forward base, which now worships Poseidon as their major god instead of Hades. I attempted an early rush to take out their Town Center and stop them from advancing to the Mythic Age, healing my troops with Restoration and buffing them with Bronze, but I failed to take down the Town Center and had to retreat. I did keep most of my starting Hoplites intact, but lost my cavalry units. Since I had a lot of wood and food was my lowest resource, I focused on building Toxotes and teching up to the Mythic Age. Troy advanced to Mythic before me and picked Hephaestus, building a couple colossi, but I didn't follow the same path.

    Since I already had two melee myth units, and a large wood surplus, I picked Hera, whose myth unit is the Medusa, which can turn enemies to stone and shoot them with arrows from a distance. Her god power, Lighting Storm, would also be quite effective against the enemy base, and Her upgrades would increase my myth unit attack speed and get me free Myrmidons from my Fortress(es). Myrmidons, by coincidence, are Zeus's unique unit*, and they are infantry units that bypass all armor with their attacks. I trained a few of them, and got some free ones, but the bulk of my army was still heavily-upgraded Toxotes, plus a few myth units, heroes, and surviving Hoplites from the beginning.

    *Technically, Medusae are also unique to Zeus since Poseidon and Hades don't get Hera, but it's possible She might be available to other major gods in future DLC. It happened to Hel, who was exclusive to Loki before Retold and is now also available to Freyr.

    Once my army was built up, I marched them into the Trojan base, using Lightning Storm to help slay their defenders, and razed it to the ground. It was pretty simple since they didn't have much in the way of static defenses apart from their Town Center and Fortress left, and I easily won the scenario. However, the Trojans had struck my allies again while I was fighting here, hitting Agamemnon's base, and I again had to retreat. But next scenario, we will finally defeat the Trojans once and for all!

    Spoiler: This undefended valley allows easy access to the Trojan base
     
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