Deathmatch is fast-paced, action packed, and pure fun. In Age of Empires I, we saw our first real deathmatch games…and we were all thrilled. As the AoE series grew, so did deathmatch, and now with Age of Mythology, deathmatch has never been better!

Now one of my favorite Deathmatch civs is Zeus. Zeus’s unique unit, the Myrmidon, is an extremely powerful infantry unit and thus one of the best units available in a deathmatch game. Start the game by building a temple. Take away three of your villagers for building ten houses. Don’t bunch the houses all together; they might fall pray to a meteor strike or an earthquake, and in Deathmatch population is the most important thing. After building the temple, advance to classical, build a blacksmith, and then advance to Heroic. When you’re in Classical, build 2 or 3 barracks and pump out 10 hoplites from each. Note: 40 hoplites will take up 80 of your population. Once you’re in heroic, build 3 or 4 archery ranges and pump out 6 toxotes from each of them. Now you have a good infantry-archer combination.

I consider cavalry to be a completely useless unit in Deathmatch games. They’re expensive, take up 3 population, and they’re not very effective. The Poseidon unique cavalry unit is probably the only deathmatch cavalry unit worth buying.

Now one mistake people always make: Building forward bases at the start. An all-out attack is great, but what about an attack from where he least expects it? As soon as you have your 40 hoplites and 20 toxotes, split them into small groups and send them to each settlement on the map. Immediately send villagers to build up those settlements. This always works for me, and in the end I’ll have a 180 pop, while the enemy would have only a 120 pop (at the most). This gives you the best advantage. Now beware, the enemy will try to take back these settlements. That’s why you shouldn’t stop there. Start pumping out and filling your whole pop with Myrmidons. Buy some siege towers. Then attack. NOW you can make that forward base. The enemy will be too busy trying to take back his settlements (don’t forget to build a few fortresses and soldiers near each settlement) and you’ll have his whole base for yourself. Proceed with its annihilation.

Here’s the Zeus army you should have:

1) Army:

-40 hoplites
-40 or more Myrmidons
-20 toxotes
-4 or 5 siege towers

2) God Powers:

1)Plenty Vault (Believe it or not, you might need to collect recourses in a DM game if it proves to be a long one. The plenty vault will help you lay off some villagers so you can get more soldiers)

2)Bolt (SAVE THE BOLT. Use it on a Nidhogg or Son of Osiris. If the enemy is Greek, at least use the bolt on an annoying hero or on a catapult that’s bringing your fortress down and that’s defended by an army).

3)Lightning Storm (A Great god power! Use it on an army approaching one of your settlements, one you can’t defend. Use it on an army when you make your final attack.)

4)Bronze (Use it when you’re desperate; on the final attack or the final defense)

This should be enough information to get you started. Have fun kicking butt. Oh, and challenge those guys who call Zeus a “newbie” civilization, yeah and kick their butts so bad.

Guardian

Blackstorm Studios