AoM: Retold Build Order (AI experiment)

THIS WHOLE PAGE WAS WRITTEN BY AI (still, i made the build order) AS AN EXPERIMENT, CORRECTIONS CAN BE FOUND IN ITALLICS AND IN PARENTHESIS

Why this build?

Age of Mythology has been one of my favorite RTS games for years, and the Retold remake brought back the autistic spark in me that demands i optimize every minute of a match (debatable). The Aztecs in particular feel like the most fun civ to micro, and Quetzalcoatl is, in my opinion, the most rewarding major god in the entire roster if you can get to him fast enough. (AI just rambled a lil around here, thats not quite my opinion. I just came up with this because i tought it would be fun.)

This is a build order to rush Mythic Age with Quetzalcoatl as fast as humanly possible. The whole point is getting to Tlaloques, the Mythic Age tech, which delivers every single economy upgrade in the game for cheap and in under a minute and a half. After that, your economy snowballs to a degree most opponents wont be able to match.

The build assumes a standard map with hunt and gold nearby. If your map is weird, adjust accordingly, nothing here is sacred.

Archaic Age

Send 3 starting villagers to wood, 1 to food.
Build separate calpullis per resource, each with their own additions.
Queue villagers from the town center until you have 4 on food, then 2 to gold, then continue rallying to food until 8. After that, send everything to gold.
Once all 3 calpullis and their additions are placed, pull one food villager off to build a house.
Force drop wood when you have enough gold to build a temple. Use two wood villagers to build it.
Age up with Patecatl. Split your gold and food villagers in two groups.
During the age up, train 6 priests, send them to collect relics, then have them farm favor at the temple.

Classical Age

As soon as you hit Classical, build a blacksmith.
Rally to food until 14, then to gold until 8.
Develop the food ritual tech as soon as you can afford it. Needless to say, keep the ritual going with your starting herdables, the ones you get from the food calpulli and the ones your scout finds and you bring back to your base. » this is the most important tech in the build, the bonus is too good to let lapse, keep full uptime from here on out
Once chickens are depleted, transition to agave bloom. Once that runs out, move to nearest deer patch (preferably) or berries.
Age up to Heroic with Coyolxauhqui. » keep the food ritual running through the age up

Heroic Age

Build a Great Temple as soon as possible with wood villagers but be sure to have enough houses and leftover wood for any calpullis you might need to make. » remember to keep full uptime on the food ritual
Age up to Mythic with Tlaloc.
During the age up, remacro most of your villagers to wood, keeping 8 villagers on gold and 8 on food. » dont let the food ritual lapse during the remacro
Build another town center and queue 15 Quimitchin spies inside the great temple.
Build another temple and 2 nobles huts during this transition.
Start amassing army from the great temple and nobles hut. » keep full uptime on the food ritual

Mythic Age

Immediately research Tlaloques, this is the whole reason we are here. Follow it up with every economy tech in the game.
Do a farm transition. Your wood pile should be enough to support it after the remacro. » keep full uptime on the food ritual, your farms will benefit from it
Put all 6 priests inside the great temple in case you need to summon Quetz.
Start amassing your army, jaguar riders, shorn ones and eagle warriors + warrior priest, tzitzimitl and ahuizotl are the staples. » food ritual still needs full uptime
Use the exchange at the great temple to convert your war quimitchin spies into myth units.
Get blacksmith upgrades once you have a healthy army size and all nobles hut and great temple upgrades researched. » seriously, never let the food ritual lapse

Additional notes

This build is greedy. If your opponent is rushing you in Classical with raiders or toxotes, you are going to suffer. Always scout early to know if the eco rush is even viable, otherwise switch to a more defensive minor god lineup.

If executed properly though, hitting Mythic before the 10 minute mark with Tlaloques researched is genuinely one of the most satisfying feelings in the game. Your eco will be miles ahead of anything your opponent has, and from there you can pretty much dictate the pace of the match.

Quetz himself is a panic button. Dont summon him just because you can, save him for moments when you genuinely need to wipe a deathball or counter an enemy titan. His cooldown hurts. (Quetz does not have a cooldown, its a single use unit and once his time is over you dont get to use him again)

Place the Great Temple mindfully. Drop it on top of your gold pile or over any exposed food source you cant afford to lose, its footprint and HP make it a natural shield against raids while you race up the ages. A poorly placed temple is just an expensive building, a well placed one guarantees you actually reach the Mythic age with your economy intact.

If you are facing aggression early on, you can extend on Heroic and defend using the Great Temple + Starfall + your warrior priests and the free myth units you get along the way. Start amassing troops from the Great Temple, hold the line, and once the pressure clears, continue the build as normal. The delay hurts but a dead villager count hurts more.

Remember to use your god powers to gain insane advantage against your enemy during your tempo attack after the end of the build. You will be sitting on a fully upgraded economy and an unspent god power arsenal, dont hoard them, dump them on the engagement that wins you the game. Stack them with your army push and the match is usually over right there.

As you can see, the feat the ai made in this site is quite impressive, especially considering all i handed it was this notion exported html file here. Its quite impressive that Claude managed to style and fill the rest of the page with whatever ramblings it came up while keeping it cohesive and effective. I will surely be using more AI in the future to assist with the headache that is styling, while focusing on the writing part.