While Age Of Mythology is a hugely strategic game that requires a lot of knowledge about how various units and defenses work, there are some aspects of the game that can help players pick up victories that are overlooked.
Relics are items that can be lifted by heroes and stored in temples in the game to give a player an advantage of some kind for the rest of the game. While many relics aren’t that helpful, some can make a huge difference to resources or unit stats, and if players happen across one they’re better off bringing it back to their base if they can.
Arrows Of The Alfar
Especially for defensive players, the Arrows of the Alfar can be a huge bonus. This relic gives towers, fortresses, Migdol strongholds, hill forts, palaces, and town centers an extra 20% more damage when attacking enemy units.
Players who know the game well know that these sorts of buildings aiding the defense of your civilization can make it brutal for enemies trying to invade, and extremely costly. Using buildings for this type of defense is a great strategy, and it is far easier to do with this relic in tow.
Dwarven Calipers
The Dwarven Calipers relic is a simpler one which can be hugely useful in some specific situations. It reduces the cost of all siege weapons by 20%, which doesn’t sound like a huge bonus but can be intensely useful for players looking to demolish large civilizations which contain a lot of buildings.
Siege weapons are some of the most costly units in the game, and so being able to purchase more of them on tight resource budgets can turn the tide of a match completely.
Sistrum Of Bast
The Sistrum of Bast is a complete game-changer of a relic, but only in the more specific situation that it is found early in the match. This relic makes worker units cost 10% less, and while that isn’t a massive discount it is hugely effective if the player gets the relic in their temple early and can get a huge jump start on their opponents.
Villagers in large numbers early in the match make the entire process of leveling up and building a large civilization easier, players that manage to get this relic anywhere near the beginning of the game are truly fortunate. However, capturing the relic later in the game isn’t that useful, hence it not being higher on the list.
Ankh Of Ra
The Ankh Of Ra is the first of several relics on this list that give resource bonuses. Since resources are the crux of advancing in the game, they are the greatest part of the game that relics can help with. The Ankh Of Ra gives a permanent small trickle of favor, at a rate of 2.4 per minute.
This can be greatly helpful, especially while playing the Norse who don’t generally gain much favor early in the match. Favor can be difficult to gain, and this relic makes it much easier to keep a consistent volume of this resource.
Ship Of Fingernails
The Ship of Fingernails is another relic that gives a resource boost. While relics can do everything from giving new units to boosting the armor of certain types of units, most of the relics generally considered the best by the Age Of Mythology community are the ones that give resource bonuses.
The Ship of Fingernails gives a small permanent trickle of food, similar to the Ankh Of Ra with favor. While this small trickle isn’t a game changer for resources, it is only 24 food per minute, it effectively gives players an extra villager working on food at this rate and lasts forever. This is a huge boost, particularly on maps where food resources are sparser, such as Norse maps where farms aren’t as effective.
Bow Of Artemis
The Bow of Artemis is a different sort of relic, one which again gives a discount on a certain type of unit being trained. However, in this case, the Bow gives a 15% discount on all archer units. This is one of the broader terms used for relics and is a massively wide blanket to throw since archer units are a full third of the units used in-game.
From more generic archer figures like toxotes to cavalry-archer mixes and even fire giants, the term archer is huge and gives a massive discount to players trying to build armies on limited resources. The Bow of Artemis can change games instantaneously.
Ring Of The Nibelung
Other resource relics are excellent but ones targeting gold are considered the most useful across the board. While food and wood are both valuable commodities, and favor can be hard to come by at times, gold is the most valuable resource in the game. The Ring Of Nibelung gives a slow income of gold at the rate of 18 per minute.
If you are working in the gold-loving Egyptian race, then this relic could be a huge boost. However, no matter which race the player is with, gold is a hugely valuable commodity and the Ring will add a solid volume to their resources.
Blue Crystal Shard
While the very best of the relics in Age Of Mythology is still resource-based, it isn’t as much about directly giving the player resources as it is about increasing their own ability to gather them. More resources mean more units, and more units make it incredibly hard to bring down a civilization so whether a player can gather resources faster can completely change the course of the game without them even realizing it.
The Blue Crystal Shard gives a 5% extra gather rate to villagers for both gold and wood. While this doesn’t sound like a huge increase, it builds over time, and the longer the game goes on, the better off a position this player will be in terms of resources.
Black Lotus
The Black Lotus relic acts similarly. While relics like this may not seem to help in as direct a manner as some others, they can be a huge part of how the game shapes up over time. Instead of wood or gold, the Black Lotus relic increases villagers' farming rate by 10%.
This is a large increase and will always be a huge help. If the player is on a Norse map, it is possible that farming won’t be the primary source of food and the Black Lotus will be less effective, but generally, it is a huge increase in resource gathering rate.
Harmonia’s Necklace
Finally, Harmonia’s Necklace gives a boost to the gold gather rate. As mentioned before with the Ring Of The Nibelung, gold is generally the most valuable commodity in the game, particularly with the Egyptian race. This means if the player can gather gold quicker, they highly increase their overall chances in the game.
Harmonia’s Necklace gives a 10% increase to the gold gathering rate. Villagers that are able to produce this much gold quickly make the early game, in particular, a quick ride. While players more often use caravans for gold in the late game, getting to that stage faster is vital to success.
Age of Mythology: Extended Version is available on PC.