Good post - I'm surprised at how much it demonstrates the Manticore as a cost effective unit. The 5 pop cost doesn't lend it much for being an attractive option when you consider how the other 5 pop MU's tend to be more imposing.

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This is irrelevant, but I can't help but point out two Centaurs easily beat a Manticore, leaving one with half health. Due to the fact that Centaurs have a x3 vs MU's and Manticores don't.

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Thank you very much for the compliment.

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Indeed, you are right, my apologies. I wanted to point out in some way that manticores were better than centaurs, and this was one of the best ways to do it. Because why use up your wood for centaurs in classical when you can wait until Heroic to create much better MU's.

And excuse me for not being about of the centaur's x3 bonus. I also over looked the special attacks--I stated that somewhere. If centaurs and manticores didn't have special attacks, then it would take three centaurs to kill a manticore. That's what I was trying to say, but oh well, you're right, it's irrelevant.

Thanks again.

Manticores have special attacks as well.
Manticores have one of the greatest firepower (behind walls and pounding on attacking hoplites... hehe), but it is not suited for raiding, and far less versatile then centaurs. It is a much stronger unit in fire support though (behind walls and pounding on attacking hoplites... hehe)

Well this is great stuff.
I normally take dionysus but apollo could be my more often choice now.

This should get rid of all those people saying manticores are rubbish.

You are comparing a myth unit with normal units. Even the suckiest mu is better pop/cost effectively than all human units. Sure manticores are better than toxotes but you cant mass them as easily as you can mass toxotes, and they die faster to their counters(heroes). Both of these 2 disadvantages are common among all mus.

Manticores are decent as a mu but it has 1 big disadvantage, is spreads its dmg. Non concetrated dmg is a bad thing cause it enables your enemy to maintain his firepower even if you are doin dmg. Concetrated fire on the other hand, enables you to kill enemy units faster thus reducing enemy firepower which ultimately leads to victory.

I would be interested to see a comparison of petsuchos and manticores. They are pretty similar units but petsuchos can concetrate their fire thus being more effective. So microed petsuchos are more effective than microed manticores.

Concetrating fire is really important and manticores cant do this. But they are an ok mu which can support your army pretty good.

good post... but i agree i would like to see petsuchos vs manticores to see concentrated dmg vs non-concentrated dmg... Hey i dont see petsuchos in my games anymore it is a pity that most go for ancestors and not so many play Ra

Nice guide you got there Halo.

I still prefer Petsuchos to Manticores though

And another point is that the manticores werent fighting with a meatshield (which in a normal battle they are) so all of the 3 barbs hit (3x11 pierce) with a meatshield the distances are greater and the manticores accuracy suck at longer ranges and so a lot will miss making them less effective.

At 3x11 pierce Manticores are cost and even pop effective when only 1 or 2 barbs hit then the manticores stop being pop and cost effective.

I do however really like manticores but when you enemy has pierce armour upgrades the accuracy really lets them down.

Thank you for your post, I agree that manticore are very under-rated. Your emphasis on manticore needing to be in pairs or 3 to be highly effective I have found to be very true. This is a guide that will be linked in the future every time someone goes about bashing manticore, or this god path in general.

Wanting to compare petsuchos to manticores is a wasted effort. Manticores can make up a battle line of a zeus army, petsuchos CANNOT make up a battle line of an egyptian army, although they may work fine as a support unit (however petsuchos don't do nearly the damage they are listed at). The comparison is not valid because everyone would love to have an army of valkrye classical, but only zeus can make an army of centaur/minotaur.

The manticore is not that inaccurate, and if you listen to the advice of the original poster, you'd see that they are to be used in heroic sized battles and in multiples. All the barbs hit something when the armies are massed the way they are in heroic, and they especially do well against the nicely lined up archers.

I would like to add this piece of strategy. Manticore are an excellent second line when you are facing alot of counter units. They shred massed peltasts and they shred hypapists, even without a meat shield.

So, if as is often the case, your facing a critical mass of enemy slingers/toxotes/peltasts rather than spending a fortune on cavalry, go for the favor and wood to shut down any of those armies that would otherwise be unstoppable.

When used properly, manticore are a very balanced, useful core battle unit, something that cannot be said of many myth units.

The manticore is not worth your time or investment.

In heroic you want to have your wood for town centers and fortresses (a lot of wood). Manticores aren't effective at all unless you have 3 of them and that's 900w that you could put towards tcs and forts.

Centaurs, imo, are a much better support unit because they get bonus dmg vs. MUs, can be broken off to raid enemy econ, and can do a good special attack vs. a threatening enemy unit.

Not to mention that centaurs are cheaper on wood, favour, and pop leaving you more resources to have an army.

If manticores were 1 less pop they would be much more attractive. I find the hydra is much easier to get onto the battlefield since food is plentiful in heroic and wood is scarce.

If you're going apollo, stick with your centaurs, upgrade them and continue raiding throughout the game.

There's a game on ks_josey_wales site where ks_general uses manticores and finds how un-pop-effective they are.

As a counter-archer unit the manticore is good, making them not a bad choice vs. eggy for taking out slingers. Against eggy centaur raiding is likely not to be effective. In this case I would say the manticore is an ok choice since melee units will be easily shredded by priest fire.

Against norse/greek stick with centaurs or hydras.

imo.

fh

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I know, did you read the thread yet?

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I never said they were apt for raiding, but yes I did compare them to centaurs.

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Well, as I have stated before, the manticore is strictly a support unit for your melee units. You shouldn't be mircoing them, and you shouldn't have to.

One thing I forgot to put in this thread was to NEVER target an enemy unit with a manticore. Let the manticore auto-fire whenever an enemy units comes within his line of sight. I'm serious. Try simulating a basic 20 hoplite + 10 toxotes versus 22 hoplites + 3 manticores. There is a BIG difference in outcome if you target your manticores to attack. The reason for that is because they do a spread effect, which means if you don't target for them, then it is possible for all of the enemy units to be taking damage at one time, which is also why more manticores are better.

To me, this is more effective than the petsuchos. Especially since they have a higher rate of fire that the petsuchos.

I will compare the two and update this thread after work today.

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I am going to research this inference as well.

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I've already tested this and I discovered that if you start on wood early, as if you were playing on a water map, then you should have plenty of wood to build TC's and fortresses in Heroic, as well as creating manticores, but this also means, don't risk manticores on water maps.

[This message has been edited by Halo (edited 09-03-2003 @ 09:32 AM).]

Unfortunately, your analysis has some major flaws, Halo.

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This is the first thing that is inappropiate. With both Zeus and Hades you will rarely get to heroic age without having medium toxotes researched. You normally use toxotes as early as classical age and get the upgrade before you even start advancing to heroic. As the consequence, medium archers is an upgrade that you do already have when the question arises whether to build manticores instead of toxotes. This upgrade won't cause you any additional costs in heroic age. So if you want your analysis to reflect a real game situation, you need to factor in medium archers as a free upgrade. If you assume that you will be using a significant amount of toxotes in addition to the manticores (quite the usual case for Hades, because he doesn't have that much favor, but has a bonus on toxotes), then you might even factor in heavy archers, because you will need that upgrade anyway for the toxote part of your army. With that upgrade being researched, you have to think again if it is better to spend your resources on manticores or on toxotes. Manticores can also be upgraded, but only if you plan on building enough of them. You can do without manticores, but you cannot do without archers in a normal game (particularly not if you are Hades).

As Hades you also have the Hades bonus on the toxotes. You should wonder whether manticores are worth not making use of your main god bonus by building them instead of toxotes. In other words, when you do your unit comparisons from the Hades point of view, you need to factor in the stronger toxote attack. It is simply a fact that Hades' toxotes are stronger, while his manticores aren't.

If you went Ares in classical age, you might even have Enyo's Bow of Horror researched in classical age (or research it later). Again, when you reach heroic age and wonder if you should build manticores instead of toxotes, you should keep in mind that toxotes would have that bonus, with no costs that you haven't already paid.

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That would assume that you are facing a Zeus player who doesn't even have medium infantry in mythic age. Such tests are so far from a real game situation that they can safely called completely useless for actual ingame decisions. Not even should you assume that a Zeus has at least heavy infantry, but you also have to factor in the armory upgrades that the average player has when the game has gone to mythic age. The cost of these armory upgrades must not be factored in, because you need these upgrades anyway. Unless you can prove that you can rely so totally on manticores (or other myth units) that armory upgrades become unnecessary, you must assume that these must be researched, whether you go manticores or not. As the consequence, you must pay for the costs for armory upgrades with or without manticores, so they cannot be counted as costs a manticore user would not have to face. Producing manticores just means making less use of the armory upgrades you already researched.

In heroic age comparisons, it sounds adequate to me that a good player would (in average) have 2 copper upgrades and one bronze upgrade. In mythic, it should be all bronze or one iron and two bronzes. Give that plus the line upgrades to the toxotes, and then run your tests again to get results that can be used to evaluate actual game situations.

It is also not adequate to compare manticores with centaurs, because these are totally different units. Their only common traits are that they are ranged myth units that cost wood. However, the centaur is a classical age unit, while the manticore is a heroic age unit. Moreover, the centaur is a fast unit (extremely fast if he got the polemarch upgrade), and it is designed for raiding using a hit-and-run-manner, while the manticore is a slow artillery unit for main battles that is useless for raiding mainly because of its pathetic speed. Two centaurs can appear in the enemy's rear out of the dark, kill an enemy villager with one single special shot, and vanish without taking the slightest damage (or stay and do more damage until the enemy has drawn defenders near). Manticores cannot be used in such a way. You compared centaurs and manticores in head-to-head combat, which is rather a main battle situation and therefore favors the manticore.

Finally, you should keep in mind that in order to get manticores, you need to pick Apollo, and Apollo has the major drawback that he sucks. I believe the main reason why manticores are so rarely seen on the battlefield is because nobody chooses Apollo, and that is so for a reason. Underground Passage may be useful in certain situations, but both Curse and Bronze are way more valuable god powers. Aphrodite will give you excellent economic boni on top of that, while Dionysus greatly benefits your cavalry with Thracian horses, gives you baccanalia for all your units, provides you with an outstanding water myth unit and has a very good land myth unit as well. His Anastrophe ship upgrade usually isn't much of a factor, but hey, you get it on top of the rest if you pick him.

Apollo, however, can only add some healing capabilities to your temple. I can hardly remember ever having seen this being used. Usually, your temple will be far from the action where your units are being damaged. Of course you can build additional temples near the front, each costing you 100g/100w plus the villager seconds to erect them (and you need to have villagers near the front), but in heroic age, I'd rather spend that money on TCs and fortresses. Apollo also provides you with an upgrade that makes your buildings look further, big deal. Before getting that you should check if you even have researched signal fires at your towers, an upgrade that you can get as early as classical age and that will only cost you 150 wood. (Few people even have that, because the vision range of buildings is just too unimportant. I do not say that it might not pay having such an upgrade, but it is nothing in comparison to what Aphrodite and Dionysus offer.)

Apollo's third upgrade will give you 10% more attack for your archers. This is the best upgrade he has, but I'd rather have 20% more hp for my cavalry or Aphrodite's excellent economy boosters.

Summary: Manticores are way worse than your tests make them look, because in real game you will always have a bunch of already completed upgrades for your toxotes when it comes to heroic age. In order to get the manticores, you also have to pick the worst heroic age subgod, while the better subgods would have provided you with good heroic age myth units, too. As the consequence, it can be stated that manticores are not used on the battlefield very often for a good reason.

Thank you, DeathAndPain.

There are still some tests that I need to run before my final conclusion is made clear.

I will also be testing upgraded toxotes, Hades toxotes, sun ray, and bow of horror.

My tests on the comparison between the manticores and the petsuchos is really interesting. I can't wait to share! (I'll do that after I get off work.)

they rock look at there high pirce armor slinger bashers

DeathandPain,

I mostly agree with you, but I think you are being a little hard on Apollo. Sun Ray is a good tech. Underworld passage has many creative uses, and I think its a very good power in team games. I've been playing Zeus in team games recently and I like using Apollo.

Thracian horses is good, yes, but also pretty pricey compared to apollo techs.

Oracle is not a complete joke either. If you have already gotten the other LOS upgrades you get up to +18 LOS. Now if you have a fortress near your battle front it goes from 30 LOS to 48 LOS. Almost a lighthouse, and it can be nice to know what your opponent is doing.

I have to disagree about apollo. Dionysus is the one who sucks, unless its a water map of course. Dionysus might be a decent option for posieden, but not zues. If you don't like underworld passage, then you just have never used it correctly or have had it used against you. Healing temple in theory may seem weak, but every water map I play, i sure as heck miss that temple healing; as well, ask any centaur raider what the most useful heroic tech is, and they'll tell you healing temple. Hydra are simply not as good as minotaur. And sure bronze is nice for a head to head clash of full armies, but curse sucks in that scenario.

The manticore is THE unit that I need at the point when I get him. By the time I snatch up my 2 TCers and one fortress, I usually have wood coming out my butt and gold, well, there's never enough of that in heroic, so that decreases my archer utility. 5 peltasts or one manticore?!? hmm, i wonder which I should choose. 300 wood sounds like an aweful lot, but manitcore are not a light unit, they have hefty HPs and decent armor. Forget about your centaurs for 5 secs and they are dead.

The point is that they function in the same regard as the second line archers, to be a support unit to the main battle line of hoplites. They are just there to cut down the counter infantry that comes after the hoplites, and at that they perform exceedingly cost effectively.

Halo good post but I want to sa something. Manticores are good but you mustn't compare them with human units as they are myth units. Compare them with other heroic MUs. Also I must add that nowadays I usually choose Aphrodite over Apollo because of a good myth unit[can be weaker then Manticore I don't know but IMO they are good] and good technologies. Good post though.But a little long

First off Halo - thanks for the work on the manticore. I hate to poke at your analsys but - it is hard enough to play greek well, without misinformation.

The first problem with manticores is the god path to get them. In 90% of 1v1 to 2v2 games it is the weakest choice. I have seen UP used well in a few 3v3 games, but rarely.

To mass a wood MU in heroic is a sure way to lose a game. The goal of greeks in heroic should be - get to mythic asap, while not losing to much map control. Even Vs eggie 2-4 centaurs are effevtive, but in classical when your "low" resource is food, not wood. By heroic you are fine on food, but gold and wood are needed for TC and fortress(s), and spamming military buildings.

Especially Zues. Zues needs about 140 favor to be unstopable vs. Norse/Eggie (60 = HF, 20 = WOT, rest to Forts/ Heros)

That is the same favor cost as about 5 maintcores, so you must more than double your commitment to favor (1 long / 3 short ect).

Manticores could be used late mythic if you are short on gold, but even then I would rather sell 300 wood for 18 gold and get one more super FU Myrmidon.

DeathAndPain,Thracian horses is useless, since cavarly is useless in heroic. Who wants a 3 pop unit on heroic that costs a ton of gold. I rather expend the food & favor for a couple of pop/cost effective minotaurs.

Bachanalia costs a whole lot of wood for what little use is, 5% more HP is nothing. The only real reason to go Dyonissus as Zeus is by doing a fh & pump out scyllas to win the water on maps like medit.

Apollo's god power is no better than Dyonissus, but it doens't suck, you can use it to do a surprise attack to his main tc, among other uses

As far as I know, Oracle gives your units more LOS, not buildings. With pelt of argus relic, you got on every unit a movile lighthouse, yet it's not an amazing tech-

Manticores are no good pop effective though, I rather have a Hydra, or a Minotaur on the battlefield, than a Manticore.

They only got 30% hack armor, & a not so good range, those are reasons enough not to make one. They are also favor heavy for what good they are.

Even a fully upgraded Manticore(Going Hera), only does a 15 pierce damage per barb, & it's accuracy it's awful.

Myth units are supposed to be meatshields, not need a meatshields themselves

Oracle gives all units and buildings +6 LOS I find it only useful to extend the range of the healing temple.

ps a fully upgraded Manticore has 3x14.9 pierce attack

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I said that the maximum number of manticores needed is five or six. Sure it's better to have more battle-wise, but it's just not a good idea for your population.

Five manticores = 25 pop and 1500 wood.

Just imagine the damage these beasts can deal. They have spread attack, and if you're firing into a group of fighting melee units, you can definately be assured that you'll win the battle. Especially since almost all of the units will receive damage.

Manticores have shotgun effect. So the further the target is, the more the spread occurs. This means that manticores appear extremely inaccurate if they're fighting from their maximum range, but the benefits of this will only appeal to you if the target has lots of other enemy units around it. If this is so, then it is likely that all nearby units will take damage.

Versus a petsuchos, the same theory applies. Manticores can beat petsuchos if the petsuchos are close together, but if they are far apart and the manticore is firing from its maximum range, then you will not win.

Here are some test results:

1 Manticore vs 1 Petsuchos
One Petsuchos survives with 73/480 hitpoints.

3 Manticores vs 3 Petsuchos
Petsuchos attack first, resulting in one surviving petsuchos with 366/480 hitpoints.

3 Manticores vs 3 Petsuchos
Manticores attack first, resulting in one surviving manticore with 60/420 hitpoints.

5 Manticores vs 5 Petsuchos
Two Manticores survive with the following hitpoints:
84/420
12/420

These test results proove that Petsuchos are actually better than manticores, but they have a few flaws. (They're extremely expensive (200 gold). They train every 20 seconds. They are relatively slow. Heroes can kill them much faster than manticores. They have a slow rate of fire.)

The Petsuchos has the edge over the manticore because of a few things:
1) 4 pop slots instead of 5
2) Deals crush damage
3) Has a much longer range
4) Has 100% accuracy
5) Cost 8 favor cheaper

So sure, petsuchos are much better than manticores, and much better as far as cost is concerned, but are they really more efficient than manticores? No, they aren't.

In a few tests that I have conducted, manticores have been able to kill off armies much faster than the petsuchos. The manticores prove to be the better support unit still. And this time I tested each of them with meat shields.

The bottom line is that manticores are more efficient as support units that petsuchos are, which is probably why manticores require an extra pop slot.

It takes 5 petsuchos to match the population of 4 manticores. With a few tests, the 4 manticores did a better job at ending the battle than the petsuchoes did. They not only ended the battle faster, but they also saved casualties.

[This message has been edited by Halo (edited 09-03-2003 @ 03:54 PM).]

I always have problems to get enough manticores. Even one manticore is too expensive for me... my economy really sucks. And I love Aphrodite.

I am going to make this short.

For a Hades player, it is literally impossible to use favor on even 2 Manticores and Hades already has 30~ support units anyway. I rather spend my favor on the pierce attack upgrades that they offer (Ares and Apollo) and/or Forts, and Cylops.

The Manticore is really only useful for Zeus in some situations. First of all, they don't come till Heroic, so the Manticore will only be produced one at a time as you can't afford 900 wood on top of building settlements, military buildings and forts as stated above. The manticore die rather easy with providing very little if any fire power at all. I think your tests are so screwed up because you didn't get any Heavy uprades which is like an automatic for players that reach Heroic. Four or more of them is nice, which requires two or more temples to produce them fast enough and that is still too much effort when I could get more effects with a Hydra in the battle or just upgrading to Heavy for Toxotes. The Manticore is so weak I rather save my favor so it reaches right under 200 so I could build a couple Collosus or Medussa.

Well, for Zeus, going Dionysus would be a much wiser choice. Massing 5-6 Hydras would be better and would win you many more battles against any civ over the Manticore. Bronze also goes well with your Hippikon Classical Age army and Hoplites from your newly built army from more pop from your TCs. Hippikon are still useful because of their high HP with the techs and their speed. I would only plan getting the tech though if you plan to contuine to build Hippikon which is most likely not true with a Zeus player. Still Hydra are just so much better and 5% health is always good (thats almost 20+ hp for the Hoplite).

I am not saying Apollo is useless though. If you find yourself with a lot of slow units in Classical Age, like Hoplites / Toxotes, then going Apollo is probably better. The Healing Temple tech is good for healing Myth units so you could use that for your Minotaur or Centaur. The sight tech is cheap (like 200 wood and 10 favor) so I ussually add that in because it gives sight to all units. Other then that, I find that Manticore to be the only thing to use out of Apollo so if you have the resources, go ahead. The archer tech is only worth it if you plan to have Toxotes like 80% of your army, because then it is just better to get the weapons upgrade in the armory because it goes with all units. You won't find Zeus using more then 50% Toxotes in Heroic since Hoplites begin to shine then.

Manticore are only good if you have the extra resources and can afford many of them. Hydras are better to keep control of the battle field cause their high HP. It also depends what you build in Classical, which determines my Heroic choice.

[This message has been edited by Jk_Realn (edited 09-04-2003 @ 01:29 AM).]

Manticores are great, they're like scorpions of aok. They're special attack is exellent against masses of units.

Quoted from Halo:

They may be interesting, but they are not really useful, because the initial question was which units to build, and while as Zeus or Hades you can choose either toxotes or manticores, you cannot pick petsuchos over manticores for that would require a different main god.

Quoted from Grimnir:

Well, that may be. I am a dedicated 1v1 player, and I can say for sure that in this case underground passage is of rather little value. Sure it can be of some use, but then again, the benefit is not nearly what Bronze or Curse have to offer. In 2v2 or even 3v3 team games things may be different.

Quoted from Grimnir:

Since we are talking heroic age, the 400 food for Thracian Horses do not hurt too much. Gold is more valuable in heroic, and Sun Ray costs 200 gold. In addition, the 40 favor cost of Sun Ray is extortional.

Quoted from Grimnir:

So you pay 150 wood for signal fires, 400 wood for pigeons, and another 200 wood 10 favor for oracle, all to get buildings with a better sight range that is still worse than a lighthouse? If you can afford spending so many resources on techs without combat or economic value in heroic age, you must really have a weak opponent.

I also like to get those techs, but I do so in mythic age when I have carpenters and am swimming in resources.

Correct is also that oracle also improves the sight range of your units. Again I say: not useless, but not an overwhelming improvement either. Certainly nothing like moving lighthouses, for these have a sight range way beyond what oracle will give you.

Quoted from Thegl:

Yes, for some reason I seem never to have had it used... well... efficiently against me. What might be the reason of this...? (Again, I admit that it might be useful in team games, but I am a dedicated 1v1 player.)

Quoted from Thegl:

Actually, I never heard such a thing being said before...

Quoted from Thegl:

I believe their value is comparable. The minotaur is cheaper, but remember that the minotaur doesn't have even half of the hitpoints a hydra can offer. In order to make minotaurs efficient, you need to get the bull minotaur upgrade, while hydras can be used with no additional cost. The special attack of the minotaur is awesome (since it can be used against other myth units), but even with one head, the hydra does 33% more damage than the minotaur, and once it grows additional heads its firepower grows into unbelievable areas.

The minotaur also requires you to pick Athene, whose upgrades have excessively high costs and only benefit hoplites, which are of rather little use in classical age despite 1.06. You also need to research both Athene upgrades to have a benefit for your hoplites against all possible enemies. Dionysus' Thracian horses, however, are:

more effective than an Athene upgrade against a single opponent (20% more hp will let you survive longer than 10% more armor)

effective against every kind of attacker, while each of Athene's two upgrades only helps you against only one type of enemy, so you need to research both to have the full effect, paying two high prices instead of only one

effective for all your cavalry, not only your hippikons. Athene's upgrades, however, will only benefit your hoplites, not your other infantry.

As the consequence, Athene's upgrades pretty much suck, and while restoration is not bad, ceasefire is usually more valuable. This is certainly the main reason why most Zeus players pick Hermes over Athene, although Zeus is a hoplite god and Athene benefits hoplites.

Quoted from Thegl:

And sure bronze is nice for a head to head clash of full armies, but curse sucks in that scenario.

Unless the enemy army contains a lot of ranged units. These normally have few hp, so target them, and you will convert a lot of enemy units (Curse always converts a certain number of hitpoints, so weak units are more vulnerable to it).

You could also use it to convert a nice bunch of enemy gatherers and hurt the enemy econ (although in heroic, he might be able to quickly replace them using multiple TC - provided he already has those).

Quoted from Thegl:

The manticore is THE unit that I need at the point when I get him. By the time I snatch up my 2 TCers and one fortress, I usually have wood coming out my butt

Then you should balance your econ better so that it produces what you need. Gold is more valuable since gold mines are limited, but in heroic age there are still enough mines left, and there is no reason to task less villagers on them than you need to cover your gold expenses.

Quoted from Thegl:

The point is that they function in the same regard as the second line archers, to be a support unit to the main battle line of hoplites. They are just there to cut down the counter infantry that comes after the hoplites, and at that they perform exceedingly cost effectively.

I agree on that. Manticores may actually be useful. All I said is that their god sucks, and that they are not as good as Halo's test reports indicates, because he has neglected the usual unit upgrades.

Quoted from tvurt:

Especially Zues. Zues needs about 140 favor to be unstopable vs. Norse/Eggie (60 = HF, 20 = WOT, rest to Forts/ Heros)

Umm... what are HF and WOT? Not that I think that Zeus can be unstoppable at all against a Norse or Eggie that reacts appropiately (unless perhaps if the Zeus masses myrmidons).

Quoted from Creso:

DeathAndPain,Thracian horses is useless, since cavarly is useless in heroic. Who wants a 3 pop unit on heroic that costs a ton of gold.

Umm... perhaps someone that wants to raid those remote gold miners but not grow a long beard while his troops are getting there?

Or someone that is confronted by RC, camels, or jarls? Remember that Prodromos are cavalry, so they profit from the Thracian Horses as well (unlike Athene's upgrades, which benefit neither hypaspists nor myrmidons).

While the importance of infantry increases over the various ages, cavalry always remains useful. Go fully without cavalry in heroic or mythic as Zeus, and I will swamp you with tons of hypaspists and peltasts and still raid you better while you cannot quickly hurt my rear economy.

Quoted from Creso:

Bachanalia costs a whole lot of wood for what little use is, 5% more HP is nothing.

Well, let's see. Heavy infantry gives your troops 15% more hp, which is considered useful. However, it does not benefit your archers, your cavalry, your myth units, or anything else you have. Baccanalia gives your infantry only 5%. However, it also gives your cavalry 5%, your archers 5%, your myth units 5%, even your siege units get 5% more hp! Concerning the total hp increase of your army, baccanalia is more valuable than a heavy upgrade! In addition, your villagers get more hp as well, which means that they will survive raids better.

In order to be more effective, a hp increasing bonus can either provide a high percentage of bonus hp, or apply to more units. The line upgrades do the former. Baccanalia does the latter.

Quoted from Creso:

As far as I know, Oracle gives your units more LOS, not buildings.

The truth is that both are affected by the upgrade.

With pelt of argus relic, you got on every unit a movile lighthouse

You cannot research the pelt of argus relic. It is a rare luck if you can get hold of a specific relic in an actual game (because most times, it won't be there at all). This has no impact on the oracle upgrade. You could also combine the relic with Dionysus. But even with both the relic and oracle, the vision range of your units will still be way shorter than what a lighthouse has.

Quoted from Creso:

Manticores are no good pop effective though, I rather have a Hydra, or a Minotaur on the battlefield, than a Manticore.

They only got 30% hack armor, & a not so good range, those are reasons enough not to make one.

No, they are not. Hydras or minotaurs are melee myth units, so they need the high hack armor. Manticores can be considered as archer myth units and have their strengths set accordingly. They have 60% pierce armor, which is more than both the hydra and the minotaur have, so they are pretty resistant to enemy archers. They are also resistant to counter-archers (such as slingers), because they count as myth units, not as archers. For that reason, they are a very good choice against an enemy army that contains a lot of toxotes, slingers, or peltasts. Halo even proved that they are not helpless against priests, their direct counters. And they do sort of splash damage, which is very useful against a close enemy battle formation. So I do believe that they are a nice archer unit in the toxote section of your army. They aren't suitable for both raiding and melee fighting purposes, so they should not be compared to centaurs, minotaurs, or hydras.

The fact remains that the manticore god Apollo sucks.

Quoted from Creso:

Myth units are supposed to be meatshields, not need a meatshields themselves

Where is that rule written? Why should there not be an archer type myth unit? Manticores just have an archer job in your army, and they are very good at it.

Quoted from Jk_Realn:

I am going to make this short.

Who cares? Such announcements only give the impression that you consider yourself highly important.