For the Vikings featured in Age of Empires II, see here.

The Norse are a civilization featured in both Age of Mythology and The Titans expansion.

Gods Edit

The Major Gods for the Norse are:

• Thor
• Odin
• Loki

Resource GatheringEdit

The Norse are unique from other civilizations in the way that that they have two villager units: gatherers and dwarves. Gatherers gather all resources at nearly the same rate the Greek villagers, the only difference being that they can only build farms (Norse infantry build all other buildings). Dwarves, trained from the town center just like gatherers, mine for gold much faster than normal gatherers in exchange for gathering food and wood much more slowly. The only exception to this are the dwarves of Thor who gather food and wood only slightly slower than gatherers and retain their fast mining speed.

Also unlike the Greeks and Egyptians who have to build resource specific buildings for their villagers to deposit the resources they gather, the Norse have the Ox Cart, a mobile resource drop off. The ox carts can simply follow the gatherers and dwarves wherever they go, reducing the time it takes to gather resources and deposit them into the player’s reserves. All upgrades related to resource gathering can also be made through the carts rather than through any specific building. Norse players start with one ox cart at the beginning and additional carts can be trained through the town center.

Heroes Edit

Like the Egyptians, the Norse possess a specific hero class: Hersirs, which can be trained indefinitely. Like priests they are powerful against myth units but weak against human soldiers. By worshipping the minor god Baldr, the Norse can also use the Ragnarok god power to permanently turn all their gatherers and dwarves into Heroes of Ragnarök which are essentially Hersirs with stronger statistics.

In the campaign, the Norse possess three unique heroes: The hermit Skult, the Valkyrie Reginleif, and in the Titans expansion, the Frost Giant, Folstag.

FavorEdit

The Norse gain favor through battle; the more human units engaging the enemy, the faster favor is generated. Hersirs also passively generate a small amount of favor over time, and gain more favor through battle than any other unit. A small amount of favor can also be gained by attacking huntable animals.

Raiding is an effective way to gain favor without losing too many soldiers in the process.

Titan Edit

The Norse Titan unit is a titanic Frost Giant loosely resembling Ymir, the ancestor of the Norse giants.

Units Edit

The majority of the Norse military is composed of infantry which, instead of villagers, create buildings. This unique characteristic allows Norse players to use part of their attacking force to build a forward base near (or even directly within) their opponent’s base and quickly create more units nearby to attack. While the infantry of the other civilizations primarily target cavalry, certain Norse infantry units specialize against other types of units. For example, the Throwing Axemen is a short ranged infantry unit that deals bonus damage against other infantry units and the Huskarl gains a bonus against archers.

Norse have no archers (the anti-infantry rôle is taken by Throwing Axeman and Ballista), so one should not train any anti-archer units when fighting against them. Due to the fact that there are no ranged heroes in the Norse military, they are particularly vulnerable against flying myth units. Fortunately, the Norse have an upgrade that allows Throwing Axemen to deal extra damage to flying units.

The Norse also do not have a dedicated ranged siege unit such as the Greek Petrobolos and the Egyptian Catapult. Instead, they have the Portable Ram, a cheap mêlée siege unit that can be vulnerable to infantry and cavalry as they walk up to buildings to attack, and the Ballista, a ranged unit that does respectable damage to buildings but is much more effective against infantry. It is important to note that many of the Norse myth units also deal crush damage, so they can also serve as durable building destroyers.