Introduction:
Odin is the least popular Norse god behind the supposedly superior Thor, and Loki the rusher’s favorite. He has one of the lowest winning percentages across all rates. He is rarely played at expert level (1850+). Odin was much feared when age of Mythology was first released in 0ctober 2002. He was number 1 being played by Vni_Salska, but soon after that many of he bonuses where nerfed. It signaled the end of the Odin’s popularity.
Odin’s Bonuses are:
Regeneration: .80 hit points a second for human units (While not moving, slower when)
Scout: Two free respawning no pop costing ravens
Hit Points: 20% Balista, Huskarl, Portable Ram; 10% Jarl
Hunting: 10% higher hunting rate
* The in game rollover help says 20% faster hunting I am not sure which one is right.
As you can see Odin main strength is in his Heroic Age units. Even his hunting bonus aids greatly if you want to fast heroic and great hunt gives you free animals so you can avoid walking time. Which can be done under 7 minutes on any map that you have 6:00 minutes worth of hunting or any water map. I highly suggest when playing him you either FH or QH. AOM:TT is a different game than vanilla. With the ability to build town centers in Classical Age players are fair less aggressive than in vanilla. Players would rather 2-3 town center boom that attack in early to middle classical. You can get a Hillfort up at 7:40. Unless you know your opponent will rush. You will be safe more often than not. You can also use your heroic age god powers (Frost/ Walking Woods) to help protect you if you are attacked before 8 minutes in to the game.
FU Odin Jarl (Thundering Hooves/Ring Giver/Odin Hit Point Bonus)
Hit Points: 342
Hack Armor: 41%
Pierce Armor:52%
Hack Attack: 14
Cost: 50/80
The true power of Odin is his Jarl. His FU “Uber Jarl” is the second most formidable unit in the game. Because of its high hit point per pop ratio it beats almost every other unit in the game. The Odin Jarl only looses to Bragi Ulfs, Horus Spears, Camelry, Prodromos, and Katapeltas. It owns every other unit in the game that is not a hard cavalry counter, If you FH most of those units wont be available to your opponent since he is still in classical age. Even the base Jarl with no upgrades beats most non-Calvary counters in the game. Along with Odin Huskarl he is unstoppable in Heroic Age for Atlanteans. They will eat a Turma/Prom/Cherio combo. The other civilizations have better counters, but they wont be available until Heroic Age or later. The main criticisms against Odin is that he doesn’t have a effective counter to cavalry, but when you have the best cavalry in the game you don’t really need one. If your opponent spams cavalry then you can spam Jarls and your superior unit will win every time. The other criticisms is that he is just a weaker version of Thor, and that will be addressed in the next section.
Odin vs. Thor:
Common thinking is the AOM community is that Odin is not exactly weak but is just a weaker version of Thor. This is not true. Here are the top 5 reasons.
1.Odin’s Hunting is the best in the game. Odin hunting is 10% faster than every other civilization. Twenty-five Seconds into the game Odin will be hunting at 120%. Actually Odin can forgo hunting dogs (although this is not recommended) and still hunt as fast as every one else. This ability can be used to pull off a Loki style rush advancing through Heimdall even faster than Loki. Thor can match Odin’s hunting with Pig Sticker but it costs 100 gold very early in the game and most likely wont be able to be researched until 45 seconds into the game. It will finish researching at approx 1:30.
2.Odin can advance through Heimdall, which gives him an advantage against Loki rushers and Atlantean rushers. With Odin hunting bonus he can advance earlier and have a far better chance of beating a rush than Thor. This leads back to a better set of classical minor guides, but Thor has better heroic god choices.
3.With Odin’s ravens he has the best scouting in the game. Even though a case can be made for Set (Vision/Hyena scout/converted animals). You can make case that scouting is one of the most important “resources” in archaic and early classical. Odin ravens are great scouts. The ability to fly makes sure no black corners are left. I cant even count how many expert games I have watched when they lost when they ran out of gold, but they had a safe unseen gold mind in a hard to scout corner of a map. They can be used to find villagers to raid. The can act a sentries to protect your villagers. They can be placed over strategic areas such as settlements and goldmines. This can help stop some of the two-three town center boomers. Thor has no scouting bonus.
4.Odin has superior Hill Fort Units. The Odin’s Jarl is the second most “Uber” unit in the game behind Thoth War Elephants. Odin FU Jarl beats the Thor FU Jarl by quite a bit even with 3 more armory upgrades. Thor’s FU Huskarl basically ties Odin FU Huskarl with 3 more armory upgrades because of regeneration. Bragi Ulfsarks rape Jarls, and RC fair well against Jarls by pop though.
5.Odin’s Human units regenerate. This is a great bonus. Who would turn down free healing? This can be used to heal raiders, and Odin Ulfsark beat Thor Ulfsark even if it gets the first hit because of regeneration. This is most useful on water maps if your Ulfsark is surprised. Not knowing this little known fact would lead the Thor player to think that he will win and he will lose his starting Ulfsark in the process.
Build Orders:
Playing with Odin you have six basic choices. Water, Water FH, Rush, Regular, Defensive, or FH build order. Fast Mythic and Fast Titan are lame and not advised. First and foremost get Hunting Dogs ASAP on land maps with hunting. It is one of Odin greatest strengths.
Ulfsark Bleed: Rush Strategy
Rush: The goal of this strategy is to advancing to classical age way earlier than you opponent and using the Ulfsark fast training time to out mass and overwhelm your opponent.
I never use this strategy there fore I no very little about it. There is a great Odin guide on AOM Heaven Strategy Forum, which has a BO and many details on how to accomplish it I suggest you head over and take a look.
Regular: Advance to Classical age at approximately 5:00-5:30
The goal with strategy is to get to Classical in good time and using your hunting bonus and ravens to raid your opponent to death.
The build order is as follows:
Research Hunting Dogs
Starting villagers and ox cart to food (preferably hunting)
Send any domestic animals (goats, pigs, cows) to your starting hunting.
Cast Great Hunt on your hunting and domestic animals.
Starting Ulf build house and scout (Start Temple a approx 3:30)
Villagers to gold
Cart to gold
Villager to wood
Villager to food
Dwarf to gold
Villager to food
Villager to food
Villager to food
Dwarf to gold
Villager to food
Villager to food
Dwarf to gold
Dwarf to gold
Move villagers on gold to wood
Cart to wood
Villager to wood
Villager to wood
Villager to wood
Dwarf to gold
Dwarf to gold
Advance to Classical age through Freyja. If done correctly you should hit classical at approx 5:25-5:30. You should have 8 on food, 6 on gold, and 5 on wood. You can take away 1 gold and 1 wood and advance at 5:00.
You should make at least 2 Hensir and build 3 houses in transition. Immediately upon hitting classical you should make 3 long houses and start making Raiding Calvary. You also should make good use of your free Valk raiding and scouting. First use your ravens to find his food and use your RC to push him off of it. The go for his gold if it is outside his starting base. Continue to raid his villagers in his base if possible until he upgrades his towers, and gets crenellations. After that it is up to you to choose your next move.
I recommend this strategy against Odin, Thor, and Feisty Poseidon players. They will probably do some thing similar so remember to protect your own villagers.
Fast Heroic: Advance to Heroic Age 7:00-7:30
The goal of this strategy is to advance to Heroic age quickly in order to use its superior units and technologies to over power your opponent.
The build order is as follows.
Research Hunting Dogs
Starting villagers and cart to food (preferably hunting)
Send any domestic animals (goats, pigs, cows) to your starting hunting.
Cast Great Hunt on your hunting and domestic animals.
Starting Ulf build house and scout (Start Temple at approx 3:30)
Villagers to gold
Cart to gold
Villager to wood
Villager to food
Dwarf to gold
Villager to food
Villager to food
Villager to food
Dwarf to gold
Villager to food
Villager to food
Dwarf to gold
Dwarf to gold
Move villagers on gold to wood
Villager to food
Villager to food
Villager to wood
Cart to wood
Dwarf to gold
Dwarf to gold
Advance to classical age through Freyja. If done correctly you should have 10 on food, 6 on gold, and 3 on wood.
You should make 2 Hensir and build 3(four all together) houses in transition. Upon hitting classical send two villagers to wood. Use your two Hensir and one Ulfsark to build an armory. Send your ravens to scout along with your Valkyrie. Advance to Heroic Age at 5:55-6:00 if done correctly. Train addition Hensir if you want (3 max), and build two more houses. Research hand axe, but not pickaxe yet. You should advance at approx. 7:00. If you notice you have just enough resources to build a Hillfort. It is the most important thing upon hitting heroic. Make it your top priority. Depending on the amount of builders it will take 40-60 seconds to complete. So while it is being built you should make 4 dwarves to gold. After it is complete start spamming Jarls 5-10 and then some Huskarls when you have to wood to do so. After that the next move it yours. You can be aggressive and attack. I would recommend playing defensive don’t start a battle, but be prepared for one.
The proper placement of your starting Hillfort is very important. It should be placed at the front of your base near some trees so you can cast Walking Woods if necessary. It should not be place terribly far from your town center, but not to close either. It is a judgment call.
For the FH strategy I would recommend advancing through Njord. There are many reasons why. First if you are attacked while you are building your Hillfort you can cast walking woods to chase you opponent away. He has the very important Ring-Giver technology, and his Mountain Giant can be used to delay and knock down town centers if your opponent tries a take on of your forward town centers. I recommend placing your ravens over the two forward town centers in the middle of the map to prevent this. If your opponent tries to steal you can cast Walking woods to chase his villagers away and send your mountain giant to kill the half built TC.
Skadi is also a viable choice. You can use frost if you are attacked before your Hillfort is built. The Winter Harvest Tech can help your eco once you switch over to farming. The Frost Giant can be used to neutralize dangerous myth units, and Huntress Axe makes TA almost a decent unit.
It is very important that you have ZERO idle villager time during this strategy, because not having enough wood to build your armory or not having enough food to go to Heroic Age can really slow down your Heroic Age time.
I recommend this strategy against Set, Isis, Ra, Hades and Gaia.
Defensive: The goal of this strategy is to defend well enough to survive an early rush until you are able to launch a counter offensive.
Hunting dogs
Starting villagers and cart to food (preferably hunting)
Send any domestic animals (goats, pigs, cows) to your starting hunting.
Cast Great Hunt on your hunting and domestic animals.
Starting Ulf build house and scout (Start Temple at approx 2:30)
Villager to gold
Ox Cart to gold
Villager to wood
Villager to food
Dwarf to gold
Villager to wood
Villager to gold
Villager to food
Villager to food
Villager to food
Villager to food
Ox Cart to wood
Dwarf to gold
Dwarf to gold
Dwarf to gold
Move the two Villagers on Gold to wood
Advance through Heimdall
If done correctly you should have 7 on food, 4 on gold, and 4 on wood. You should advance at 3:30.
Build 3-4 more houses and train Hensir from your temple. If you see a good place for a wall, put one their. Make sure you don’t go crazy you don’t have a lot of gold and walls are no replacement for an army.
Upon hitting classical age build 3 long houses as fast as possible. I suggest putting 6 more dwarves on gold then 6 more villagers on wood and then after that villagers should go to food. I advise against upgrading you walls if you have some until later the upgrade will really heart your economy. Start making Hensir from your three long houses. Make some Einherjar if you have the resources. Make 12-14 Hensir then start making Throwing Axemen. After that it is up to you to decide your next move. Remember if you beat the rush remember its not over yet and you need to stay aggressive.
I recommend this strategy against Kronos, Oranos, Loki, and feisty Zeus players.
When Woods Attack: A Water FH Strategy
Water FH: The goal of this strategy is to advance to Heroic age as fast as possible to use heroic age ships and god powers to overwhelm your opponent. 6:45-7:00
This is a self-developed strategy. I have watched hundreds of expert recorded games and have never seen it before. This strategy is very nasty. I’m sure some will even call it lame. It is very difficult to pull of and will take much practice. You will have to follow the build plan EXACTLY! The goal is to at advance a 6:45 and hit you opponent with forest fire and walking woods instantaneously to devastate his wood economy, allowing your heroic ships to take control of the water. It is harder than it sounds trust me!
First find your Domesticated animals (goats/cows/pigs) and cast Great Hunt and move near your TC.
Then sent your two starting villagers to the closest tree near your town center. When they have collected 10 wood each let them drop it off and send them to harvest your domestic animals.
Send your starting Ulfsark to build a dock and two houses. Start building fishing ships.
Send your starting ox cart to the nearest forest.
After your Ulfsark has finished building your second house the most important task is to scout and find more pigs to send to your town center. Pigs are not hard to come by on this map you will have 4 villages harvesting them at your TC and they need a steady supply. The original pigs you start with have not fattened very much at all and they will be consumed very quickly.
Start building your temple at 3:30 near your first dock followed by three houses.
The Build Order is as follows:
Villager to wood (where you have placed your oxcart, and near a hunt able animal (ox/boar) if you can this is very important for later on)
Villager to wood
Villager to wood
Villager to wood
Villager to wood
Dwarf to gold
Cart to gold
Dwarf to gold
Villager to food
Dwarf to gold
Villager to food
Dwarf to gold
Villager to wood
Villager to wood
Villager to wood
Dwarf to gold
Dwarf to gold
If you are running low on domestic animals build an Ox cart in order to send your 4 food villagers to another food source.
If done correctly you should have 8 on wood, 6 on gold,16-17 fishing ships and 4 villagers on food. The advance time should be 4:20-4:30.
Advance to Classical Age through Freyja. Make two villagers to send to wood. When you have collected exactly 150 wood switch your wood villager over to hunting. When they are done hunting 1 animal put the villagers back on wood. You should stop making fishing ships when you have 16-17. Train two Hensir to help build your houses. As soon as you hit classical build an Armory Then build a second dock. Send your two raven scout to opposite borders of where your opponent’s base should be. Also send your Valkyrie to run through their base. Scout their base well and note where you want to cast Walking Woods and Forest Fire. Walking woods should be cast on a forest closest to their base. Forest Fire should be cased wherever his lumber lacks are. Train one longboat. Advance through Njord at 6:45-7:00 if done correctly
Upon hitting heroic cast Walking Woods and Forest fire. Make some villagers to go to gold or wood if you need them there. Then garrison your free mountain giant in your longboat. (Yes you can do this) send it to un garrison near your opponents dock along with your kraken. Start massing Dragon ships. Attack the dock with your mountain giant. Use your Valkyrie to harass his lumberjacks or you can attack your opponent’s dock with it.
After that it is up to you to decide your next move. I recommend securing the sea first then preparing for a possible attack on land. I recommend this strategy against everyone except Isis, which has monuments that block god powers. This strategy can be attempted versus other Norse but it is risky because they would already have Hensir ready to kill your trees.
Freezer Burn: Alternative Strategy.
An alternative to this strategy is to advance through Skadi and cast Frost on your opponents lumberjacks then set the trees they where chopping on Fire. You have a chance to kill all his villagers at once all but assuring victory on water. You can also freeze your opponents navy.
Water: The goal of this strategy is to get to classical in good time and out mass your opponent’s navy. 5:25-5:30
First find your Domesticated animals (goats/cows/pigs) and cast Great Hunt and move near your TC.
Then sent your two starting villagers to the closest tree near your town center. When they have collected 10 wood each let them drop it off and send them to harvest your domestic animals.
Send your starting Ulfsark to build a dock and two houses. Start building fishing ships.
Send your starting ox cart to the nearest forest.
Start building your temple at 3:30 near your first dock followed by three houses.
Villager to wood (where you have placed your oxcart)
Villager to wood
Villager to wood
Villager to wood
Villager to wood
Dwarf to gold
Cart to gold
Dwarf to gold
Villager to food
Dwarf to gold
Villager to food
Dwarf to gold
Villager to wood
Villager to wood
Villager to wood
Dwarf to gold
Dwarf to gold
If you are running low on domestic animals build an Ox Cart in order to send your 4 food villagers to another food source.
If done correctly you should have 8 on wood, 6 on gold, 16-17 fishing ships and 4 villagers on food. The advance time should be 4:20-4:30.Advance through Freyja.
Train two Hensir and build two more docks for a total of three and a few houses. Research hand axe and maybe pickaxe if you have the wood available. Continue making fishing ships if there are spots left until you reach Classical Age
When you hit Classical Age. Start massing long boats. Send your Valkryie to set fire to his forest, and place your ravens over some trees near his base in preparation for casting Walking Woods later in the game when you reach heroic. Start making villagers to put on gold. Be sure not to get “housed”. After that is up to you.
God Powers:
God powers are an important part of AOM:TT. They can win you the game, but wasting then can cost you the game. In this section I will help you get the most out of your god powers available as Odin.
Great Hunt
This god power creates up to 750 free food. Use it on low food animals such as deer. Don’t use it on Hippos or Rhinos unless you don’t have any other choice. Remember you can use this on Domestic and Hunt. So combine them if possible before you cast it. Great hunt can be used on set’s animals in team games.
Forest Fire
The best way to use this is two deny your opponent wood in early game especially on fishing maps. You can also set Gaia’s Forest on fire in team games. Try it near a TC and watch it burn to the ground.
Use it to set villagers or soldiers on fire. You can trap some villagers with some raiding cavalry and set them on fire. You can also wall them in with your Ulfsark and set them on fire that way. If you are very observant when an enemy army passes very close to some woods you can damage most of them if only slightly. In a battle you can kill some ranged troops at the back of his army if they are close to the trees. (I have killed many Cherio Balista this way.)
Use it to destroy building placed near woods.
Undermine
The only way you can use this power is on town centers, towers, and castles. I suggest using it on a tower while rushing or on a town center to help finish it off. Also undermine can kill more than one building if lined up properly.
Walking Woods
Make sure you cast this on enough trees to make all 8 walking woods. It should always be used with an attack. Since you cant control the trees they will only cause minor damage before they are destroyed. You can use it to help you win a battle, or when you engage the enemy you can cast it at their home base to disrupt their economy and make then have to choose what to do. It can also be used to chase off raiders during a FH. You can’t use Walking Woods on Gaia’s Forest.
Frost
This should be used in combination with an attack. Make sure you don’t bother fighting frozen troops because they have 99% armor. Before you case it you might want to mass some siege in order to take down some building while you troops kill off newly created military and villagers. If you see a whole bunch of villagers in one area you can freeze them to slow down his economy, and if they are near some trees you can set them on fire and kill them with Forest Fire.
Rangnarok
This is probably the hardest to use correctly god power in the game but it is probably the strongest. The key is to make at least 80 villagers first. Norse limit is 40 dwarves, and 80 villagers for a total of 120. Before you cast make sure you drop of resources. You need to get good trade going or fishing ships will work also. You need some type on income because you will lose all of your regular villagers. You need to be very aggressive with this god power. I recommend going for your opponent’s town centers. Concentrate more on destroying important buildings and less on fighting you opponent’s army after you kill the first one. They is no retreating a Ragnarok Army. If you do you have almost certainly lost. This is also a good opportunity to build a Titan or a Wonder if you have the resources.
Fimbulwinter
This is more useful when used with an attack, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be used to block other god powers, or delay Titan Gates. It will absolutely destroy trade routes so you might want to wait until he starts trade to use it. One way to use it is mass about 4 rams to attack a relatively undefended town center. When the villagers come to kill your rams cast Fimbulwinter so they will either die from the wolves while killing your rams or garrison in the town center allowing the rams to kill it.
God Path:
The god path you chose should reflect the strategy you are going to use. Try to build strategies off of god powers. Some minor gods seem to compliment each other such as Njord and Freyja. They allow you to get “uber” cavalry. So keep this in mind when choosing your god path. Remember to be flexible and choose which god power the situation dictates.
Classical
If you don’t plan to rush I would advise you to go Freyja for you classical god powers. Mainly because of Thundering Hooves, and Valkyries. Heimdall techs and bonuses can help greatly against a rush and help you if you are rushing.
Heroic
Unless you are in big trouble and you need frost, or you opponent is massing infantry, or on a low food mad such as Oasis when Winter Harvest might be big help I suggest advance through Njord. Because he has the Ring-giver technology which greatly increases the hit points of your Jarls. If you opponent is massing heavy myth units or siege you might want to choose Skadi for Frost Giants.
Mythic
I prefer Tyr because you can always use his god power unlike Baldr, and you get Bravery, which makes Odin’s Huskarls even better. If you are losing or you want to spam rams you might want to choose Baldr.
Conclusion:
It is my personal belief that Odin is the strongest Norse god in the game until Thor gets his forth level of armory upgrades. Odin might possibly be the most powerful god in heroic age in the game. You can’t play Odin like you play Thor. With Odin you don’t have time to play around in classical age because his military bonuses don’t kick in until Heroic age. Thor is more about finesse, Odin is more about overpower/overwhelming your opponent. After reading this guide hopefully the power is now yours.
ThePlatinumKnight