The Phoenix is an egyptian Mythic age MU, provided by taking Thoth as a mythic god. It is a flying Myth Unit, with a melee combat attack, It has No upgrades and No Special Attack However, the phoenixs attack is known to cause splash damage, i will test this later on

A weird thing, is that the reboren phoenix makes no sound, no sqwaks when given orders, its silent save the sound of its fire!

To start off, lets look at the Stats and cost of the Phoenix

STATS
HP:400
Hack Armour:15%
Peirce Armour:55%
Crush Armour:80%
Speed:3.60
Hack Attack:30
Crush Attack:30

Also, a rather unique feature of our fiery winged friends, is that when killed the Phoenix lays an egg in its dying moment, this egg can be used as a 1 time production facility, for building a new Phoenix.

The new Phoenix IS CHEAPER then the Phoenix built from temples, the Phoenix from the egg costs 150 GOLD and 25 FAVOR however it costs the same POP, i guess it wud be kinda screwy if it didn't!

Phoenix Egg STATS

HP:300
Peirce Armour:55%
hack Armour:15%

COST
200 Gold
30 Favor
5 Pop spaces

Production Time:5seconds

Hmm, well thats quite favor heavy, but for a Mythic MU very cheep on gold, especially good news for Egypt since absolutley everything costs them gold!. A reasonable Peirce Armour could make it useful at getting past meatshields and hack apart archer formations and obviously the fact that its flying makes it an excellent raider, but lets see how it fares in some tests. The only drawback i can see so far is that for its stats, its VERY Pop heavy The same pop as a colossi!

ALL units use in tests have all copper, bronze and iron armoury upgrades and all Line ups but NO mythic techs

First off, lets do a standard test vs a Champion Hoplite

TEST 1:Phoenix VS Champion Hoplite

Hoplite STATS
HP:166
Hack Armour:52%
Peirce Armour:38%
Crush Armour:99%
Hack Damage:12 (Although the normal toolbar description claims it to be 13, checking the full rollover reveals the attack is 12 (8+4)...very odd...
Pop Spaces:2
Speed:4.20
Phoenix deals 15 damage in its attack, (about right accounting for the 52% hack armour), however, since its not ranged the hoplite runs away so it takes a while for the Phoenix to kill it, all in all about 40 seconds.

So, not a desperatley good infantry counter, taking a long time to do the damage and getting its attack reduced heavily by the hoplites excellent hack armour.

Lets try it vs a Champion Toxotes

TEST 2:Phoenix vs Champion Toxotes

Toxotes STATS
HP:78
Hack Armour:38%
Peirce Armour:38%
Crush Armour:99%
Peirce Damage:10 (Similar to the hoplite, although the attack is displayed on the toolbar as 9, after checking the full rollover it is in fact 10 (6+4), again...odd.
Range:15
Pop Spaces:2
Speed:4.00

Both the Phoenix and the Toxotes start off in range of each other, however as the editor takes several seconds to implement the line and tech upgrades on the toxotes, during this time i microed the phoenix away from it, in which the phoenix took 17 damage.

The Phoenix deals 20 damage on the first hit, 20 on the second and 19 on the third (this is due to the 38% armour on the toxotes, the game is rounding the damage taken and keeping the remainder until it makes up another 1 hp)

The Phoenix kills the toxotes in 4 hits, taking about 10 seconds with 337HP remaining (add on the 17 damage it took during the time the toxotes was being given its techs by the editor and this comes to 354)

The toxotes deals 5 damage to the Phoenix each hit.(ocassionally rounding to 4 damage due to the 55% Peirce armour of the Phoenix).

Overall i have seen better performances, but i have also seen worse, though im suprised that the Phoenix Peirce Armour isn't higher since the only damage its likely to take (save TA and seige) is peirce.

Okay, to even the odds for the toxotes i will put in 3 of them, amounting to a cost of 165wood 105Gold and 6Pop Spaces (Total resources 270)compared ot the Phoenixs' 200 Gold and 30 favor.

The Toxotes Deal on average 15 Damage per volley (all 3 of them hit)
The Phoenix Deals 20 Damage to the Toxote it attacks AND deals splash damage to the others The Phoenix deals 17 damage to the toxotes directly ajacent to the one it attacked (The toxotes are in a line, as if in combat formation) The Phoenix deals 6 damage to the third toxotes (the one furthest away from the attacked) The splash damage appears to vary by 1HP each attack.

Overall in this combat, The phoenix kills all 3 toxotes in 25 seconds, with 175HP remaining, i did the test again and this time the Phoenix killed all 3 toxotes with only 126HP remaining (This was due to the middle toxotes not moving into attack until a few seconds after the others, the break in formation meant there was very little splash damage been done to the others and so the combat took longer (30 seconds))
From this we can see that the formation of the enemy archers is crucial to the Phoenixs success, apparentley attacking the middle of the formation is the best plan since then splash damage is dealt to the most enemies possible.

For a final test for splash damage, i will try the Phoenix vs a large bunch of Villagers (cruel i know), the purpose being to see exactly how widespread splash damage is, the phoenix will be microed each time to attack the centre Villager.

TEST 3: Splash Damage

Villager STATS

HP:65
Hack Armour:25%
Crush Armour:99%
Peirce Armour:34%
(All else is not relevant)

The Phoenix deals 22 damage to the attacked villager, 16 the one next to her, 10 to the next and 4 to the 4th out, after this there is no damage taken.

Hmm, so the Phoenixs splash damage penetrates upto 4 ranks across, quite substantial, though the damage lessens the further out it goes. Contrary to the graphic, the phoenix does not inflict damage across a linear line, the splash area is circular.

Some MUs have been known to have multipliers vs Myth units, so now i will test the Phoenix vs a Caladria (the 10% Hack Amour doesnt leave a remainder)

Phoenix deals 28 Damage on its first attack, and continues to do so till the caladria is dead. Hmm apaprentley no multiplier vs Myth units, i tried it vs a Wadjet but again no bonus damage for the Phoenix. (The scary thing is the Wadjet won!)

To be blunt so far I'm not too dissapointed with the Phoenix, the Splash Damage is nice and the standard attack is far from shabby, but frankly, compared to other Mythic MU's, the Phoenixs doesnt have much going for it, no Special Attack, No upgrades, Quite slow and Pop heavy, plus it seems to get trashed by other MUs as well as heroes...

Does anyone remember the Crush attack the phoenix has? Well, this hints that it might be useful as a seige weapon, so lets bring it up against a Zeus house shall we (House has both architects and Masons upgrade)

TEST 4:Phoenix VS House

HOUSE STATS
HP:585
Peirce Armour:95%
Hack Armour:30%
Crush Armour:14%

Phoenix deals 47 damage to the house and makes a nice crunching sound, this damage seems consistent as it continued to do 47 damage till the house is dead (after 35 seconds)

Well, its could be used as seige, but to be honest, compared with other seige MUs (Scarab behemoth and Mountain Giants and Colossi), thats pretty pathetic.

Lets try it vs something that shoots back, A Greek (Zeus) Fortress perhaps (With crennelations upgrade and masons and architects plus the copper, bronze and iron armoury upgrades)

TEST 5:Phoenix VS Fortress

FORTRESS STATS
HP:2730
Hack Armour:30%
Peirce Armour:95%
Crush Armour:14%
Range:20
Peirce Attack:22

Bearing in mind the fortress costs a whopping 600 resources and 10 favor (300 wood 300 gold) i expect the Phoenix to lose, but lets see.

Phoenix atatcks fortress dealing yup, you guessed it, 47 damage. For each volley it returns fire with the Fortress deals 5 damage (interestingly, the fortress ALWAYS hits with 1 arrow and ALWAYS misses with 2 out of the 3 fired...rather odd)

The Fortress kills the Phoenix in 53seconds of combat with 2075 HP remaining...Not a very good performance for the Phoenix.

However, all being fair, I will put in 3 Phoenixs, now its 600 resources per side, plus 90 favor for the phoenixs and 10 for the fortress (Very large favor difference but this late on egypt will probably have ample favor due to 5 monuments.

YAY, the Phoenixs win with 2 remaining (one on 160HP, the other on full). Hmm, so they are OK when massed as seige, but that was just one fortress i dont think they r practical as base killers.

SO overall, the phoenix appears to be a somewhat undecided MU, from what i can see it doesnt have high enough peirce armour to be a Seige Myth Unit, and doesnt have a good enough multiplier vs buildings...
As for combat vs troops, its hack armour is appaling ( TA would eat it for breakfast and Stymphalian Bird wins a 1v1 by a horrifying margin)however, it has a reasonable attack and Peirce armour to match. I guess its best use is to deal with archer formations, the splash damage would eat their low armour and HP and the fact that its an aireal unit means that any meatshiled is bypassed...The major special trhing about it is it can rebuild itself from the Phoenix Egg it drops when killed, this does not take much time and if yo have the resources gives you a fresh Phoenix right where the last one fell, quite handy if your on the front line fof a battle, but be quick about it, the Egg doesnt have great armour or HP.

VS NORSE: Its a possibility, useful for tearing up weak buildings and doing raids on Villagers but if he has TA with the upgrade that gives bonus damage vs flying units...your screwed. (Cant remember upgrades name).

VS EGYPTIAN: Probably the best idea to stear away from these fiery birdies, Preists and especially Pharoahs will eat them alive and your not likely to be able to mass enough to take down those though egyptian buildings, however weak slingers will fall easily to these airial fireballs.

VS ATLANTEANS</b>: It really does depend on the situation, atlanteans have very weak buildings so Phoenixs might be practical as a Sege Unit, however all it takes is a couple of hero arcus and they are gone, useful to raid though...

VS GREEK: Hmm, reasonable buildings with a high attack are bad news (especially with hades) however the tests show that when massed Phoenixs are more then a match for fortress fire and would be nice raiders, as for front line duty they would be useful, just watchout for Hypollyta and Oddysius.

Thankyou for reading, feel free to comment...

EDIT: Ive been looking at what specials effect the Phoenix and its actually immune to quite a lot, as a rule, its only effected by the specials of units that NORMALLY have a ranged attack...So the Mdeusa Stone gaze doesnt effect Phoenixs, neither does Perseus', however Chiron and Centaurs both get their special vs Phoenixs, as do Mummys...

[This message has been edited by phoenix141 (edited 03-22-2004 @ 12:56 PM).]