Alyssea's Complete guide to the Phoenix MU (and Thoth).


The Phoenix is a flexible Myth unit. It files, which is extremly strong when countering norse, and it can also travel across water with no hassle. The egg is a nice bonus too, in stead of brining a new Phoenix into battle, you have one there almost instantly fighting again.

The Phoenix is especially strong against norse with their lack of decent ranged units, but this has been made harder in titans where the new uprade helps throwing axemen.

First, lets have a look a Thoth and why you should choose him anyway.



Thoth was the god of infinite wisdom, the mediator in struggles among the gods, and cousel for those with problems.

Technologies:

* Valley of the Kings Migdol Stronghold units train 66% faster

This is an amazing tech. 66% faster can turn the tide of any battle. This is very useful, especially with the Tusks of Apedemak where you can get super strong cavalry super fast. AoM and winning in it is all about speed. Villager rushing, Fast Classical, Fast Heroic, its all about the speed. 66% faster, and couped with a pharoah empowering (with the bonus of better attack from the stronghold), your units can train at an incredible rate. Chariot archers, which train fast normally are practically instant, and if you have both Levi and Conscript soldiers reasearched, you will be unstoppable.

* Tusks of Apedemak War Elephants +20% HP, +10% attack

This tech is equally amazing and feared by your enemys. War elephants, even barely upgraded are strong. Period. A fleet of them can flatten a enemys town to the ground if they don't counteract with decent cavalry counters fast enough. Even then they have a hard time. Fully armory upgraded, champion thoth elephants are one of the strongest units in the game. They are good against practacally anything, and the incresed hitpoints make it even harder for even the best cavalry counters to win. Bottom line is, this is a must get tech.

* Book of Thoth Villagers gather gold, wood and food from farms 10% faster

This tech isn't as good as the two others, as you should have a decent economy going by the time you get to Mythic anyway, but it can help. Spamming Thoth elephants is expensive, and this tech can certaily help. Upgraded with Huspandry, Plow, Irrigation, Flood control and Sacred cats (If you went with Isis and went with bast), farming can be so fast food shouldn't be a worry. Wood isn't as important, but again if you went with bast, it can help your chariot spam, and the gold is important. If you are playing Isis and on the rare occasion you havn't used Prosperity yet, coupled with all the gold mining upgrades, you can easily get a huge huge leap towards Omniscience or Elephant spam. To sum it up, this tech isn't as important as the others as you should have a good economy by now, but if you are struggling I suggest reasearching it. Even if you do have a good economy, it can be worth your while. In most games I would get it.


Myth Unit:

War Turtle - A very tough naval myth unit, good against archer and siege ships. The turtle's special attack is flinging nearby ships out of the water, doing extra damage.

This isn't such a great myth unit, as most water battles have ended by late game, but it still has its advantages. It can help protect transport ships on water maps, flinging ships away to clear a way through. It can be handy is some games, as it is strong against archer ships which are the most basic ships, it is good against siege ships which can be handy taking out those pesky water sieges, but in most games i wouldn't use it.

God Power:

Meteor - Causes meteors to rain down on the target area randomly, meaning they can also hit your units as well as the enemy.

This isn't on of the greatest god powers out there, but it can be handy. Let me explian.
Imagine you are are siging a base. You just reach their town center, and you cast meteor on their town center, and fall back with your army.
The first meteor will always hit where you cast it, doing a decent amount of damage to their Town Center, then the torrent comes. Meteors will rain around randomly destroying houses and farms in one hit, taking out a few military buildings and maybe a tower or two if you are lucky. You wait till its done then send your army back in. Their damaged town center is now much easier to bring down, their lack of houses means a smaller counter army, and the farms that are now gone means less army anyway. It can be very powerful when used well in condensed citys, but not so great against units and tough buildings like wonders and fortresses. Using it on titan gates can be effective when the meteors hit in the right place, it can damage the gate and maybe wipe out a few villagers, but i wouldn't reccoment using it in this situation.

And now on to the Phoenix.



Cost: 200 30
Population: 5
Hack Damage: 30
Crush Damage: 30
Damage x0.5 vs Heroes
Range: 4 meters
HP: 400
Hack Armor: 15%
Pierce Armor: 55%
Crush Armor: 80%
Speed: 3.6 meters/second
Line of sight: 20 meters
Training time: 20 seconds

The Phoenix is a flying unit with a powerful splash damage attack. Because it is a flying unit, it can only be attacked by enemy ranged units and so is very effective against armies composed of melee units. When killed, a Phoenix egg is created on the battlefield. Unless the enemy destroys this egg, the player can retrain the Phoenix almost instantly from that location.

The first obvious feature is that it flies. Flying myth units are one of the strongest, against melee units anyway. Its quite funny getting 5 or so Phoenixs in your army and attacking the melee units of the opponent. They are especially weak against archers and terrible against the Gastaphetes of Hades, as they are one of the most powerful archers there are, with a range so great that they could almost take out your Phoenix's before you can get to them.
Even just Phoenix's can take out an invading army quite well with their splash damage.

This is how I would reccomend to use Phoenix's against each god.

Zeus - The Phoenixs are powerful against Zeus. His main focus is infantry which is what the Phoenix's are good at. The way i counter Zeus with Phoenix's can vary of the player, but usually their armys are mainly composed of infantry. With Zues's Myrmidons composing a fair bit of their Mythic armys, Phoenix's are incredibly powerful. The Myrmidons and boosted hoplites will be the majority of their armys, and while they work on your foot army, your Phoenix's and their specialised splash damage can wipe them out quickly. Zeus lacks strong archers, and doesn't use them much, which with your Phoenix's will give you the upper hand on any Mythic Zeus army.

Hades - This is the worst god to take on with Phoenix's. His bonus's give the most strong archers, and even stronger if he follows the right god path. His Mythic armys will be mostly archers, which is very very bad for you and your Phoenix's. The Phoenix's even are terrible at being part of your invading army. His buildings have 25% more hitpoints which makes them harder to destroy with your Phoenix's, and they have 20% more attack. In other words, your Phoenix's will fall like stones to hades, and i reccomend not using them at all. Sometimes the occasional one or two Phoenixs might help, but its rare. I wouldn't waste the reasources.

Posideon - Again, this is an easy god to take on with Phoenix's. Posideon fococus a ot on cavalry, and there is no ranged cavalry. Basically countering Possy is the same as countering Zeus, except when they want to run away, they can do it a lot faster. Posideon has lack of archers too, and his buildings gain no special bonus's, which is why Phoenix's shine with countring him. The only problem with Possy, is that when your Phoenix dies, his super strong cavalry can easily rush in and take out your egg, rendering your army ore vulverable for the time it takes to get another Phoenix from the closest temple.

Greeks in all - I would say greeks are one of the easyest to counter in all with Phoenixs. Except Hades for the reasons mentioned above. The main reson this is, is because Greek gods focus on one type of solier most of all, and two of the three have no ranged attack, rendering them highly vulnerable to Phoenix attack. Placing a Phoenix or two into any greek-but-not-hades-countering army will be a good invesment.


Ra - Ra isn't two hard to counter with the Phoenixs, but he can be difficult if the player knows how to use his bonus's right.
First of all, his Chariot archers gain 10% more hitpoints. This makes them take a little longer to kill, and there fore they have a little longer to kill your Phoenix's. When they reach Mythic too, if they go with Osiris, you are in trouble. The Son of Osiris can take out Phoenix's like the pink panther stepping on ants. He will do it quickly and it will be funny for him, as it was no resistance. His chain lightnig can also take out more than one at a time, which can make his almost as diffucult as hades at times.

Isis - Isis can be a tricky one. First of all, Most Isis players will go with the Bast-Nephthys stratergy, (I know I do), And this will grant them highly powerful priests. They will cost less for them, meaning more, they have higher attack against myth units, and the Pharoah, which is strong normally, will agin an extra 30% HP. Isis is not nice when using Phoenix's, but it is possible by avoiding priests. As described earlier too, if the player goes with Thoth, they get super fast training chariots, which is bad, and if they do with Osiris, they get Son of Osiris. Isis is the trickiest Eggie god to counter with Phoenixs.

Set - Set is also very tricky. First, he gets faster training chariots. As i have said, this is not good, and whats more, he can get Thoth too. The rate of chariot training them is incredible, they could have 10-20 on you in seconds. Second, Set gets Nephthys too, which is just as bad for the reason described above, and third, Set's slingers are stronger. All in all, Set is a tough god to counter with his archer upgrades, as well as super fast training archers when going with Thoth.

Egyptians in all - Eggies are by far the hardest Civ to counter with Phoenix's. Every god has at least one thing that will take out your Phoenix's easily, and for that, i would avoid using the Phoenix to much when fighting another eggie. There are better ways to counter Eggies anyway.

Odin - Odin is barely a threat at all. The only bonus on anything that can hurt Phoenix's are that Ballistae gain 20% more hit points, and Ballistae are fairly terrible against Phoenix's anyway. So this shoudln't be a problem. The only threat with odin against your Phoenix's is if in Mythic, he advances with Baldr, and ains fire giants. These are ranged, strong and high hitpointed myth units that can easily pose a threat to your Phoenix's when in mass. Luckily norse find it hard to gain favor easily, so this shouldn't be a big worry.

Thor - Really, Thor can be as easy as Odin. In fact, almost easier. Again, the only threat is if a Thor player goes with Baldr and gets Fire giants. Otherwise Thor has no other decent ranged unit that can do a decent damage to your Phoenix's. Trolls are the only other threat with Thor, and really, Myth unit vs Myth unit isn't that wonderous. By Mythic, trolls are a rare occasion anyway, so Thor should be another easy god to defeat.

Loki - Loki is the hardest Norse god to counter. First, he gets trolls, which are strong archers, but as I have said before, they are a rare appearence in Mythic, and he gets Hel. Hel is a very powerful norse god, gaining almost instant Fire giants. For the reasons mentioned before, fire giants can pose a threat to your Phoenix's, especially when they can be trained instantly and therefore can come at you in Mass's.

Norse in all - All in all, Nose is by far the easiest Civ to counter. Their lack of strong ranged units is a big fall back for them, and most of their bonus's from various gods are melee based. When fighting a norse, I would definaltely invest in a few Phoenix's. They will shine.

Afterword - Phoenix's are a highly versitile and flexible Myth unit. Their favor cost can be a bit of a fall back, but it is better than the Norse's Fire giant, and it has the bonus of flight. 200 gold isn't much either, especially with the book of thoth and Isis's Prosperity. The egg special power can come in very handy in big, far-from-home fights, and the eggs even have a large amount of HP.
All in all, the Phoenix is a very good Myth unit, and one that can, and should, be your main Mythic MU.

Well, i hope you enjoyed my first guide.

/alyssea

[This message has been edited by Alyssea (edited 03-29-2008 @ 09:43 PM).]