by Microsoft

Age of Mythology (commonly abbreviated to AoM), is a mythology-based, real-time strategy computer game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It was released on November 1, 2002 in North America and a week later in Europe. A spin-off from the Age of Empires series, Age of Mythology takes inspiration from the myths and legends of the Greeks, Egyptians, and Norse, rather than from actual history.

However, many gameplay elements are similar to the Age of Empires series. Its campaign follows an Atlantean admiral, Arkantos, who is forced to travel through the lands of the game's three cultures, hunting for a cyclops who is in league with Poseidon against Atlantis. Age of Mythology was commercially successful, going platinum four months after its release after selling over one million units.

The game's critical reception was generally positive: it scored 89% on both Game Rankings and Metacritic. Ensemble Studios began work on their first fully 3D engine at the same time as their development of Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. Named the BANG!Engine, this was announced in January 2001, for use in a new game, codenamed RTSIII.

RTSIII was eventually revealed as Age of Mythology. In developing Age of Mythology, Ensemble Studios decided to move away from the center of the Age of Empires series history, to avoid becoming stale and repetitive. This allowed them to work with new ideas and concepts.

Following the announcement of the game for September 2002, a trial version was released. It contained five scenarios of the game's campaign, and two random maps. In the trial version, the player can only select Zeus, but there are nine gods available in the full version of the game.

There was debate during Age of Mythology's construction concerning the unbalanced nature of god powers and how to make them "fair" while still maintaining an element of fun in them. It was concluded that the best way to make it fair for everyone was to limit the use of god powers to one a game. Age of Mythology underwent a large amount of beta-testing during its developmental phase, as Ensemble Studios attempted to create a more balanced and competitive game than its predecessors.

Greg T. Street commented that one of the reasons Age of Mythology became so popular was because the development team spent many hours working on the game through active testing, rather than just taking advice from a "faceless drone in another building". The soundtrack to Age of Mythology was released on October 22, 2002, under the record label "Sumthing Else".

The score was written by Music Director Stephen Rippy, and artist Kevin McMullan. Rippy cites musicians such as Peter Gabriel, Tuatara, Bill Laswell, Talvin Singh and Tchad Blake as inspirations for the soundtrack. The musical work done on Age of Mythology was unlike anything Rippy had done before; an example of this was "writing for a seventy-piece orchestra and then flying out to Washington to record it." Music 4 Games' reviewer, Jay Semerad, heaped Age of Mythology's soundtrack with praise.

He summarized his review by declaring: "In all, the Age of Mythology soundtrack is an experience that should not be missed. It's easily one of my favorite soundtracks from this past year." Semerad was also astonished, and appreciative, of the use of instruments such as the ney flute, tabla and toy piano, all of which he said produced "some innovative analog and synthesized electronic effects". His only critique was that at times some of the background melodies were "bound to a simple harmonization", and lacking any "real bold or innovative purpose".

Age of Mythology's AI was used by four Austrian researchers—Christoph Hermann, Helmuth Melcher, Stefan Rank and Robert Trappl—in a study into the value of emotions in real-time strategy games. According to the abstract, "We were interested whether incorporating a simple emotional model to an existing bot-script improves playing strength." The results of the study determined that of the four bots they tested, the neurotic bot was most capable of defeating Age of Mythology's default AI, followed by the aggressive one. Neither bot was defeated by the standard AI, but the neurotic bot won, on average, twenty five percent more rapidly.

Plans were made to extend the research in the future by pitting the neurotic bot against a human player. www.microsoft.com/games/ageofmythology .

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