I know there is a complete Thor guide out there, but I think the choice of sub-gods is particularly difficult for Thor, and you can say much more concerning that than the guide does cover. So I decided to make a special guide that discusses how to make the right sub-god choices when your main god is named Thor.
Forseti is not a good choice against all Norse. He is clearly the best choice against Loki, because his ranged trolls can take out Loki's myth units without getting to melee range, where the hersirs are. Forseti is a defensive god, and in most cases it is a mistake for Norse to play defensive. Against Odin or another Thor you should go Freyja, scout with the initial Valk (burning down their forest), and make cavalry for raiding. Against Loki you need the defensive Forseti though, and against Kronos Forseti is also a valid choice.
Concerning Bragi and Skadi: I think they are equal in value. That does not mean it would not matter which one you get, however. I suggest picking the subgod from the following list (with descending priority, so if an upper rule suggests a different god from a lower rule, obey the upper rule):
Against Egypt always choose Bragi. Otherwise the Eggy can just spam elephants, and you have not a single unit that could counter them (although some newbies suggest funny choices like mass frost giants or mass TA behind a jarl meat shield. Jarls alone are also strong, but will fall to elephants. Only Bragi ulfs can do the job.) Against Loki choose Skadi! Loki has no Freyja, so his cavalry will be of limited value. Lokis mainly attack with infantry and myth units. They particularly keep bringing some hersirs because they have their bonus on them and want free MU. You in turn want to bring down the hersirs before they generate any free MU, so the +20% hack attack for your TA are really handy. They are also good against enemy TA as well as ulfs. On a sea map choose Bragi unless you have completely lost the water. Skadi's winter harvest loses too much value when you can get food through fishing. Against Poseidon, choose Bragi for obvious reasons (you want Bragi's ulfs against this cavalry god). The downside is that his Ceasefire GP will counter your Flaming weapons, so save the latter until his cease has been used, or combine it with Fimbulwinter in mythic age (Fimbulwinter blocks enemy GPs from being cast). You can also use it to claim a forward TC, which his ceasefire cannot prevent. On a food-scarce map (Oasis, Alfheim, Ghost Lake) choose Skadi. Her bonus will really help your farms, giving you a crucial economic advantage. The gods that are not covered by an earlier rule are not too strong cavalry-wise, and you want some ranged units in your army, because ranged units can still attack when your melee units cover all the melee space. (For the same reason, eggies often use some slingers even when there are no archers to counter.) Improved TA are always a good thing, and having lots of TA also helps in quickly putting up a building. Against Atlantean, go Skadi. Atlanteans use a lot of infantry. Contarii are not bad, but are not as frightening as the cavalry of other races; normal ulfs, RC, or jarls will do to beat them. You also want to still have a chance when in mythic he is bringing fanatics, against which TA are your only chance, so Skadi's Huntress Axe is useful. TA also allow you to get rid of those annoying destroyers before they can tear down your buildings. On the other maps (which are hunting-rich land maps) and against the remaining gods, either choice is valid, and your decision can be based on your opponent's style.Again, pay attention to the order of the above rules, which are sorted by priority. For instance, on a sea map you should still pick Skadi against Loki to counter his hersir/TA mix.
A few additional remarks to the Bragi/Skadi choice:
I do not believe that Skadi is an automatic choice against Zeus. She is definitely a valid choice, but many Zeus players go heavy hippikon raiding with Hermes as subgod. Ceasefire counters both Bragi's and Skadi's GP. When you are facing myrmidons later, you will definitely be glad to have improved TA. No other unit in your arsenal can effectively fight myrmidons (not even myth units once the myrms have the Beast Slayer improvement). Against an enemy Norse who goes Bragi, go Skadi! Both Frost and Flaming Weapons can win you a battle, but Frost counters Flaming Weapons and not vice versa, so if your main army clashes into his in a decisive battle, your GP is better. Both Frost Giants and Battle Boars are excellent myth units, but Battle Boars are faster and will not slow down your army (plus Bragi gives you a speed upgrade for all your MU on top of that if you are prepared to spend some wood and favor on it, an arguable investition). The god path to the ultimate ulfsarks is Forseti - Bragi - Tyr. However, your opponent knows that as well. What will he do? Invest heavily in infantry counters (and perhaps choose a subgod of his own that strengthens his inf counters)! Even the best upgraded ulf stands no chance against hypaspists, fanatics (or cheiros with meat shield), axemen (or chariot archers with their range, speed, and high hack armor), or massed throwing axemen. Normally, when you see that your enemy makes counter units against a certain unit type, you will switch to other units. Well, which unit do you plan on resorting to in this case if all your god bonuses are focused on ulfsarks? You will lose your flexibility, and the game along with it, if you go all ulf. If you have Freyja for your cavalry, Skadi for your TA, and Tyr for your ulfs and huskarls, then you can flexibly adopt to the enemy unit composition. I mean, there is nothing wrong with boosting your ulfsarks, but focusing on uber-ulfs is less smart (and less powerful) than their reputation.Finally, there is the Baldr/Tyr choice, and again, it is not an easy one. People like to reduce it to the choice of God Powers: Ragnarok or Fimbulwinter. So let us start with these first.
Ragnarok is known as a game ender, and that is so for a reason. It is also a titan-ender, so if you see that your opponent is getting a titan, and you cannot prevent it, you can try welcoming the titan with Ragnarok (the titan is a myth unit after all, and Ragnarok heroes are heroes). However, that alone will not save you if the enemy has a healthy econ and a strong army along with his titan. The combo Flaming Weapons/Ragnarok is famous and strong, but I have also witnessed it being beaten back. Do not expect it to win the game for you without investing some brain. Also remember that this requires you to save your heroic GP for mythic age and combine it with your mythic GP. For comparison, the notorious ancestors/eclipse combo only requires the GP from classical and heroic age. Less famous, but also very strong, is the Flaming Weapons/Fimbulwinter combo. While he is microing his troops against your invading uber-forces (due to Flaming weapons), his economy in the rear is dying. The alternative is that he goes back and tries to save as much of his econ as he can (mainly by ringing town bells), but in the meantime, you slay his unmicroed force and tear down his front buildings or TCs. This combo is also safe from counters, because no GP can be cast while Fimbulwinter is in effect (imagine attacking with Ragnarok/Flaming Weapons and the enemy just casts Ceasefire). Fimbulwinter will end earlier than Flaming Weapons, so he can use his counter-GP afterwards, but then he just blocks one half heroic GP with his full classical GP (or whatever he is using). Ceasefire might even be useful for you: You just tore down his TC during Fimbulwinter, but the area is not yet secure. Now he casts Cease, and you use that to erect your own TC there! 
However, Baldr and Tyr have more to offer than just their GPs. The main question is how you plan to fight the enemy.
Do you want to march into his base with your core army and destroy everything by melee force? Then you need Tyr's bravery, which will give your huskarls a Zeus-like bonus against buildings. You also get an ulf boost on top of that. You should then focus mainly on huskarls, because you will also rely on these in order to fight enemy archers. Use accompanying TA to deal with enemy non-archer infantry counters (and RC against Cheiros). But before going Tyr, you should always ask yourself what kind of infantry counters you can expect to encounter. Against Norse, Huskarls are a bad choice (because he has no archers), but he will have TA, which destroy your infantry from range. Tyr is not the god to go for against Norse. Do you want to attack from the distance? Use Baldr then! This is usually the better idea when the enemy has lots of defensive buildings. If he has two fortresses around his fully-upgraded TC, then you do not want to march your TA there to support your huskarls against the enemy hypaspists. Ballistae are the answer in this case. Unless the enemy is Atlantean, he will be bringing ranged siege of his own, however. Particularly Greek (but also Atlantean) will also have lots of archers. You do not have the bravery upgrade for your huskarls, and you need your wood/gold and hill fort capacity for ballistae anyway. So how will you deal with the enemy archers and siege? The answer is simple: Use RC! Many people do not know that RC get a 2x bonus against siege units (including Cheiros), and with Baldr's Sons of Sleipnir your RC will do way better against his archers than your huskarls could ever hope to. Of course your RC have less pierce armor than husks, so getting Thor's Dragonscale Shields in the armory is a must. Effectively your style will be to attack his units or buildings from range with ballistae, guarded by your main army. Meanwhile you have a Freyja-empowered RC force the father of which is named Sleipnir and that rides into the rear of the enemy forces, taking out the enemy siege and archers alike.And the mythic age MUs? Well, Tyr's Fenris wolves pretty much suck in Supremacy (they may be worth their money in DM, but that is outside my scope here). They have a slow train time along with high pop space consumption, and you need many of them to be effective. In order to use them, you would need several temples to get them within a reasonable time frame, along with a significant reduction of your core army to free pop space for the wolves and a large chunk of gold and favor.
Baldr's Fire Giants are very famous for their reportedly great power. However, having a closer look at them I found that they are not that good as well. To be more precise, they stink in comparison to a classical age myth unit: Trolls! I will compare them to (upgraded) Hammarrtrolls though, because I think I can safely assume you will have that upgrade if you plan on using trolls as late as mythic age.
Fire Giants do 15 hack damage, Hammarrtrolls do 15.6 pierce damage, so the Hammarrtroll is slightly stronger. On top of that, pierce damage is more valuable for a Norse army because all other Norse land units (except Ballistae) do hack damage, and you can use the trolls to take out units that are vulnerable to pierce. Hammarrtrolls also get a 3x bonus against other myth units. Fire Giants do not. And if that was not enough, Hammarrtrolls have the greater range.
Hammarrtrolls also train faster, have the greater sight range, and the greater speed. Not by a great margin, but the small advantages sum up.
Ok, the Fire Giant has 2.4x the hp of a Hammarrtroll, along with better hack and pierce armor, which is a big one for him. (Then again, you do not want a ranged unit to fight in the first row anyway.) He consumes 25% more pop space than the troll (so that you get plenty of hp, but significantly less attack power per population slot). I can myself remember using fire giants and wondering how little effect they had. I then took a closer look at their stats and noticed their pathetic attack damage.
But finally, let us look at the cost.
The Hammarrtroll costs 150 wood 15 favor, while the fire giant consumes a whopping 300 gold 35 favor! After the above comparisons, which only had armor and hp going for the giant, this price is extortional! With a maxed out favor supply of 100 favor you cannot even make 3 fire giants! Also remember that gold is the most valuable resource in mythic age, and the fire giants will cost a lot of it. On the other hand, with those 100 favor you could make 6 trolls, with only wood as accompanying cost (wood cost is not really much of a factor in mythic age). Even when you assume that wood = gold in value, then a troll does not even cost half of a giant while doing more damage and getting a 3x bonus vs myth!
Fire Giants have one good use though: With their crush damage they can take down buildings quickly. Whether that justifies making them for that price can be discussed - I would rather stick with ballistae for ranged siege and use the favor for other myth units (Battle Boars are also very good against buildings).
As the consequence we see that Fire Giants do not stand up to their reputation. Even against titans, against which they are also said to be good, Trolls would be better. Ok, Titans have a way better pierce armor than hack armor, but that cannot make up for the fact that trolls get a 3x bonus against MU and fire giants do not.
In real games, you will normally have chosen Freyja, so trolls are no alternative for you in mythic age. But with regard to their price, I would rather make Battle Boars or Frost Giants of Thyrm than spend so much money, favor, and pop slots on a unit that gives you so little bang for the buck.
posted 12 July 2004 09:22 AM EDT (US)
