This guide is intended for both newer and more experienced players. First we are going to explain the basics about Zeus and then we are going to follow up on more advanced stuff like matchups and build orders. The advanced part of this guide you can attribute to Lunatic_Kingdom, a very high elo player with deep understanding of the game.
Strenghts of Zeus
Weaknesses of Zeus
Zeus Bonuses
Zeus God Power: Bolt - Kills a single target unit instantly (Except Titans, who receive 1250 damage instead).
Zeus Technology: Olympic Parentage - Heroes have 25% more hit points.
Zeus Heroes
Archaic Age - Jason (Infrantry):
Strong unit good against Myth units. Jason is critical in Zeus's strategy at early game, it's very good for stopping rushes.
Classical Age - Odysseus (Archer):
Odysseus has the same role as Jason, he knocks down Myth units and stops rushes. This time in an Archer form.
Heroic Age - Heracles (Infantry):
As any greek hero Heracles is strong against Myth units, but mediocre against normal units.
Mythic Age - Bellerephon (Cavalry):
Bellerephon rides Pegasus into battle, thus is able to jump and deal great damage. His normal attacks are very strong too. Considered one of the best heroes in the game.
Build Orders: Land maps
Build Order 1:
First 5 villagers to food, build granary, get hunting dogsNext 3 villagers to Wood, build StorehouseNext 2 villagers to Gold, build StorehouseNew villagers go to food on a new hunt spot. Put as many villagers to food as you need so you can advance at 4:30; this number will depend on the map, but you will typically stop at around 10 villagers on food or so. After that, allocate villagers to wood/gold accordingly depending on what you intend to do in the classical age (Classic fight/Centaur raid/instant 2nd tc/Heroes into 2nd tc etc).
Don’t forget your house, build it with a wood villager when you are at 14/15 population or earlier.Build Order 2:
First 4 villagers to food, build granary, get hunting dogsNext 2 villagers to Wood, build StorehouseNext 1 villager to Gold, build StorehouseNext 3 villagers to food, new hunt spotNext villager builds a house then goes to wood/goldNext villager gold/wood (whatever the other villager didnt go to)Put however many new villagers to food you need so you can advance at 4:30. After that, allocate villagers to wood/gold accordingly depending on what you intend to do in the classical age
Build Order 3:
First 3 villagers to food, build granary, get hunting dogsNext 2 villagers to Wood, build StorehouseNext 1 villager to Gold, build StorehouseNext 5 villagers to food, new hunt spotNext villager builds a house then goes to wood/goldNext villager gold/wood.(whatever the other villager didn't go to)Put however many new villagers to food you need so you can advance at 4:30. After that, allocate villagers to wood/gold accordingly depending on what you intend to do in the classical age
So when should you use each build order? There is actually not that much different between the build orders, but I use build order 3 on most maps because that lets my starting hunt last longer and allows me to work on the unsafe hunt outside my base earlier so I can get more of it before my opponent goes classical and is able to push me off it. However, on some maps where your starting hunt is a tough animal like a boar, you will want to put more than 3 villagers on it so you can take it down while taking less damage on your villagers. While advancing, you will want to move some of your villagers on food to wood/gold depending on your goals in classical age, but this makes a lot of walking-time if your villagers are hunting outside your base, which is inefficient. That’s another reason why I prefer build order 3 in most situations, I can let my starting hunt last longer, so after I send my 5 hunters outside I can send new villagers to hunt at home, which lets me retask them quickly while I advance to the classical age.
Note that you generally want to leave at least 5 villagers on food while advancing to make sure you can afford to continue making villagers in classical age and still have some leftover for Jason/Handaxe/2nd Town Center. If you plan on making Hoplites/Hippikons in the classical age, this number will be a bit higher.
Build Orders: Water maps
Aggressive Water Fight build order:
At the start of the game, immediately send 1 of your villagers to build a dock, and the other 2 to make a granary on food, or to straggler trees near your tc if you are going to be relying on Herdables to age up (which you usually will on Mediterranean). Send your herdables to your town center then send the villagers cutting the straggler trees onto the herdables once they reach the town center. Send the next 2 villagers that come out of your town center onto food, so you have 4 on food. After your first villager finishes the dock, immediately start queueing fishing ships and send him to wood.
Send your next 4 villagers to wood, so that you have 5 on wood, continuing to make fishing ships. You should build a house after your 2nd fishing ship with a wood villager if you built a granary for your food income, or after your 3rd fishing ship if everything is running smoothly and you are relying on herdables under your town center for food.Send new villagers to food until you age up at 4:30, while continuing to make fishing ships.
Make sure you start making your temple before 2:52, since it takes about 37 seconds to build and you want to advance at 3:30.
While advancing, switch your food villagers to wood and gold, with 5 going onto gold, 1 going to make a 2nd dock and house, and the rest going to wood on a new woodline (not your initial woodline, or that would get too crowded).
Grab hand axe while aging up and immediately start queueing triremes from both docks upon advancing.This should be your go-to build order on Mediterranean, using mainly pigs to age up, but you can do variants of this on the other water maps for surprise aggression. You need to be really on top of things to keep your town center working the whole time and advance at 4:30 sharp without any hiccups. Your scout should be moving as soon as the game starts and finding pigs immediately to send to your base, since it is very easy to run out of pigs on this map which will delay you. Instead of scouting a full circle around the water, it is recommended that you scout one side of the map first, then switch to the other side so you collect pigs closer to your base that will reach your villagers in time. Make sure you micro your pigs so when one finishes the villagers can immediately gather the next pig without having to walk around your town center. Aim to put 4 villagers on each pig, since you need to strike a balance between overcrowding around 1 pig and killing all too early and running out of pigs before you can age up.Fish Boom build order:
First villager builds a dock, other 2 you start with go to food, granary if needed.(Go for your boars on anatolia, and berries on midgard if there are a good number of them, otherwise gather them without a granary until you find hunt if it is a low berry spawn)2 more to food (4 total)6 wood + the villager that builds a dock (7 total). Don’t forget the house, build it after 2 fishing ships.
New villager builds a 2nd dock - on the opposite side if it’s on anatolia, on a place where you scouted a fish trio if it’s midgard. Don’t be afraid to use a fishing ship to scout for your 2nd dock location on midgard, it is important that you build it near fish.4 wood, new woodline. Continue to loop fishing ships from your docks until you use up all the nearby fishing spots. Build a 3rd dock when you've found another good location for it and have the wood. And don’t get housed again, your population will go up quickly since you're potentially training fishing ships from 2 docks on top of regular villager production, so keep an eye out.Rest to food until age up. Temple at or before 3:30. Aim to advance at 5:12 or 5:28. Allocate villagers while advancing depending on your game-plan. Make sure to get Pursene once you aged up, since you will have so many fishing ships it is definitely worth it.This is my main build order on Anatolia and Midgard. You will get a very nice economy doing this and have plenty of resources to support whatever you try to do whether it is amassing a big classical army, going heroic quickly or grabbing a 2nd town center quickly, while advancing just quick enough that you won't die to a rush and can fend off any aggression on water. Don’t do this build on Mediteranean though, it is never good on that map.
Main Strategies
Centaur Raids
Characterized by getting 2 heroes out and a 2nd centaur immediately after advancing, then getting the Centaur Polemarch upgrade and continuing to loop Centaurs to wreak havoc throughout the classical age.
To do this strategy, use one of the land build orders above to advance at 430, and while advancing switch your economy to 5 food 9 wood 2 gold 2 favor. Unless your food economy is really struggling, you should grab the Hand Axe upgrade asap while advancing, and use 2 seperate woodlines for gathering wood to be as efficient as possible. If you are playing on the 2.7 version you will have to move a villager from either wood or gold to favor halfway through advancing to make up for the fact you only start with 10 favor. After advancing, you should set yourself a secondary goal, which would generally either to be an all in classic fight with centaurs, typical against Thor, Odin or Atlantean, or to grab a 2nd town center, which I recommend against Greeks and in team games.
If your goal is to grab a second town center, you should send new villagers on gold after advancing until you have 6 villagers on gold, then grab your 2nd town center using 4-5 gold villagers as soon as you have 300 gold. You will then get a huge villager lead from your 2 town center booming and picking off your opponents villagers with raids, and win the game eventually from your economical advantage.
If you are going for a classical fight with centaurs against Atlantean, you should build your first military building at about 5:30, which will be either a Military Academy or a Stable. Academy is my preference most of the time since hoplites have much better fighting power than hippikons, but you can go for stable if the map is low food and your opponent is going heavy on hippikons.You will need to put new villagers on food to support your new military production of hoplites/hippikons, 5 for hoplites and 4 for hippikons, and have 3 villagers on gold for continuous hoplite production, 4 for hippikons. Once your economy can fully support this you can add in another military building and add villagers to support their production accordingly, or decide to opt for another town center. Against Thor/Odin I prefer going for Hoplites + Toxotes for their raw fighting power and ability to demolish hersirs, so I can go for a gold starve on their 2nd Gold Mine. When classic fighting hard with centaurs, you should put 1-2 extra villagers to favor at some point to further increase your centaur production.
The upside to this strategy is you can really do a crazy amount of economical damage with the centaurs and just win the game or secure a big lead if you raid well and/or your opponent doesn’t defend the raids well. The centaurs are very mobile and impossible to catch if you are on top of managing them, but die very quickly if you do not pay attention. Because of this, you need to have good multitasking skills to pay attention to your centaurs and economy at the same time, and this takes a lot of practice. When you first try this strategy expect to be constantly housed, losing centaurs for no reason left and right or having your economy become completely imbalanced because you focused too much on the centaurs and not on your economy.
The main downside to this strategy is that you are paying 300 wood 20 favor for the centaur polemarch upgrade, and centaurs become obsolete later on in the game when you unlock bigger myth units so if you don’t do a good amount of damage with them you will just be behind.Do not use this strategy against Loki, Ra, Isis and Set, since they can deal with centaurs much more easily than other civilizations.Athena Classic Fight
Use one of the land build orders, with 7 Wood 4 Gold while advancing. After advancing, get out 2 heroes and 2 military buildings and autoqueue soldiers after advancing, then allocate your villagers to whatever resources you need for constant villager + army production.Wait until you have a decent sized army (~90 population), then grab medium upgrades, push out of your base and start putting tremendous pressure, trying to force a fight that you will win with restoration (usually on his 2nd gold mine). You can add more military buildings or grab a 2nd town center once your economy is ready for it.
Which units should you make? It mostly depends on the opponent’s God, and a little bit on the map.
VS Greek - I recommend not doing this strategy.VS Egyptian - Hoplites + Toxotes or Hoplites + Hoplites if you want to be really aggressive and go after killing buildings, Hippikons + Toxotes if you want to go for a fast gold starve.
VS Norse - Hoplites + Toxotes, just about always.VS Atlantean - Hoplites + Hippikons
One mistake I often see players make is using restoration too early when panicked. Restoration heals everything in a big area, and the more units you use it on the more value you get out of it, so you should use it on a big fight with a lot of units rather than a small skirmish early on. This also means you have to wait for your opportunity to fight rather than just blindly trying to be aggressive all the time, which is why I rather call this a classic fight than a “rush”, since calling this a rush gives people the wrong idea.
Another problem with this strategy is that sometimes you can’t force a fight, if they have a safe second gold mine then you often have no good place to attack. That is why it is important to scout to make sure the map is good for this strategy before going for it.Some variations of this may be to advance later and go for a larger number of military buildings; but if there is hunt to contest it is better to advance at 4:30.Fast 2 TC
Put 6 villagers on wood and 5-6 villagers on gold while advancing. After advancing, immediately grab a 2nd Town Center with ~5 villagers, and re-distribute your economy to be heavier on food so you can sustain villager production from 2 town centers. You can go both Athena and Hermes with this.
After that, you need to assess the situation. If your plan is to outboom the opponent and they also take a town center, then you might want to take a 3rd town center. If the map is open and raidable, then you may want to make some stables to get some hippikon production going, or even transition into a bit of a centaur build. If you have a safe gold mine and not much reason to try to contest the rest of the map, you can wall up and go for a fast mythic play with underworld.The big downside to this is you forfeit map control to a player that goes for a 1 TC or slower 2 TC. This means all the hunt in the middle of the map goes to your opponent, and you can also run into problems later if you don’t have a safe gold mine after your starting gold mine runs out. On the 2.6 version of the game it is very common for a 2nd town center to protect a gold mine, so this is often a strong play.
Some variations of this may be to go heavier on wood, and produce 2 heroes immediately after advancing, which will delay your 2nd TC a bit but make it safer to get it and allow you to gain some map control, or to delay your advance by ~30 seconds - 1 minute so you can grab two town centers very quickly at the same time for a 3 TC boom.
The Mid and Late game
Apollo or Dionysus?
Both are viable in different situations. On water maps, Dionysus is your go-to choice, because getting a free Scylla is a pretty big deal (unless you already won water and have no use for the free Scylla). On land however, you need to read the situation to decide which you want to pick.
Apollo’s God Power, the Underworld Passage, is generally not very useful in the Heroic Age but can be an incredible tool in the mythic age. Unlike most heroic god powers, it doesn’t offer any raw fighting power to help you win a fight, which in some games is something you absolutely need. Thus, Apollo is better in slower-paced, boomy games, where both players will probably make it to late game and your underworld passage can really shine. The Manticore is a great Myth Unit and is excellent against groups of Archers and Infantry, and it has high pierce armor relative to its hack armor which means ranged heroes don’t kill it too quickly. It is a great Myth Unit and generally worth making in a lot of situations. His technologies are decent technologies in the late game, but are almost never the reason you pick him.Dionysus’s God Power is bronze, which beefs your army up to help you win one fight, but most other Heroic God powers like flaming weapons, frost, ancestors are much better than Bronze at doing that. Nonetheless, sometimes it is extremely important to have a heroic God power that actually helps in a fight, (such as when you need to do a push on a gold mine or town center) and in those situations Underworld Passage is useless. Thus despite this God Power being underwhelming, Dionysus is still the way to go in those situations. The Hydra boasts excellent stats, being quite tanky and able to dish out a lot of damage, and is quite good as a free myth unit, but the high food cost means that you generally don’t make them unless you have a huge food economy, such as on a water map where you have a massive fish boom, since food is the most valuable resource. Dionysus’ offers a good Cavalry HP Technology in Thracian Horses, which is very helpful if you intend to spam cavalry into the late game, but despite this, Dionysus' lategame will always be inferior to an Apollo lategame with Underworld Passage, so don’t pick Dionysus thinking that this technology will make up for not having underworld passage, cause it doesn’t.Hephaestus or Hera?
Hephaestus is your choice if you feel the game is going to drag out, which is generally the case when both players have safe access to gold, and you are not in danger of being annihilated by a strong push. He has very good value with Plenty Vault being worth ~10 extra villagers, and Forge of Olympus lets you get strong armory upgrades, but it takes a long time to kick into effect, and Plenty Vault also gets you a lot of long-term value, but has no immediate impact. Hephaestus also works very well with Apollo, as Colossus and Underworld Passage make an excellent combo.
Hera is a useful God if you desperately need her to survive, or if you can close out the game with her, usually in a struggle over gold. She is usually a safer pick than Hephaestus because she gives you immediate value after going mythic, whereas Hephaestus creates a window of vulnerability right when you hit mythic since your God Power doesn’t help you immediately, and spending all those resources to go Mythic and having no God Power to help you defend can be at times very risky. She is also very good at countering Flaming Weapons and helping weaken Ragnarok. She is also very useful when you aim to make a Titan or have a very large number of manticores as her Monstrous Rage upgrade makes your Myth Units much better.
Mid/Lategame Army composition
VS Greek, you will want to go for Hoplites and Toxotes. Hoplites act as good siege for underworld passage, while Toxotes are good for filling up your army without spending food, and are great in big fights. Do not make Myrmidons against Greek, since they do not do any bonus damage against them and are always worse than Hoplites.
VS Egyptian, you will want to be making a lot of Hippikon, mixing in Prodromos to counter War Elephants and Siege Towers. Toxotes are good if they are making Spearmen, and Peltasts are useful against Chariots although they get outranged and require micro to make sure they are shooting at Chariots and not other units. Myrmidons are excellent lategame, and Colossus are good because of their high pierce armor if they are not answered by mummies.
VS Norse, Hoplites, Hypaspists and Toxotes are your go to units. When against Ragnorok or a lot of Loki Heroes, Hypaspists really shine and it is definitely worth making extra farms to make sure you have the food to be able to make them.
VS Atlantean, Hoplites, Hypaspists, Toxotes and Peltasts are my go-to options. Hippikons fall off against Atlantean since they tend to have large murmillo armies in the mid game, and Hypaspists work well against both Murmillos and Destroyers, while Peltasts counter the inevitable arcus spam. Hoplites are just an all round solid unit against Atlantean, and Toxotes are very good later on once Turma start falling off, but they do lose to Arcus due to their shorter range. Once mythic, Myrmidons are exceptional because of Atty’s poor anti-infantry options.
Siege: If you manage to build your fortress close to where you want to Siege, Petrobolos protected by walls and perhaps towers should be your choice, even if you are mythic and can make Helepolis. Well protected Petrobolos firing at a huge range are much more difficult to deal with than Helepolis which needs to get in close range to deal damage and gets destroyed quickly by villagers. However, Helepolis are very good at tanking damage, and very pop efficient units. If you just need a general siege unit to help tank arrow fire, you should be making as many of those as you can, or if your fortress is not close to the building that it needs to take down. Helepolis is also better with underworld passage because it is much more durable, but unlike Colossus they always need army support to take down buildings because villagers destroy them very fast.
Matchups (on land)Zeus
Always go Hermes. Centaur raiding into 2 or 3 TCs is usually the way to go in this matchup. Keep in mind that Centaurs are excellent at killing other Centaurs, since their specials are one of the few things that can hit an upgraded running centaur. This also means they are excellent defenders against raids from your opponent, since when you “catch” the raid you are guaranteed to do some damage to the enemy centaurs, as opposed to odysseus who can just chase the other centaurs off without doing damage. Bolt should usually be used on an enemy centaur in this matchup to make sure you have the advantage in centaur numbers which is crucial when it comes to doing and defending raids; however Odysseus is also a good Bolt target if it allows you to get a villager kill or force the opponent off of hunt.
Hades/Poseidon
Always go Hermes also. Then, around the time when you just start advancing, you should scout what your opponent is doing. If they are walling themselves in, prepare to go for a big 2 or 3 TC boom. If they are not, then prepare to go centaur raiding. Either way, you should be able to secure a sizeable economic advantage from either killing villagers with centaurs or just booming better because you didn’t invest in making walls and be in an advantageous position, hitting mythic at a good timing and then using underworld with helepolis and colossus to take down one of their town centers and push for the win. Poseidon is a bit harder than Hades because he has more potential to counter raid you and ceasefire can help him secure his town center, but both of these are favourable matchups for you.If going centaur raiding, bolt should be saved for his age 2 hero. Otherwise, you can save it for a big myth unit such as the Nemean Lion/Chimera or one of their Heroes in a key fight later on to ensure good centaur value.
Ra
The hardest matchup on the 2.6 version of the game, but it is a little bit more manageable on the 2.7 version. You are not meant to win against an equally skilled Ra player, only a Ra player much less skilled than yourself.
Typically, he will go for Ptah, grab 2 town centers quickly, make a load of cheap farms, rain and go heroic and use Locust along with his very strong migdol units to win the game. On the 2.6 version, it is very hard to stop him from doing this, because his 2nd Town Center will usually secure a gold mine, and if you try to stop him from taking it he can just shift your units into his base and kill them and take his 2nd town center without any problem. Still, I think it is a good idea to try to delay him at his 2nd town centaur with 2 heroes and minotaur/centaur to force him to use shifting sands or slow him down so you don’t have to worry about it later. Bolt the pharaoh empowering the town center or it will go up far too fast to prevent.
Because of the safe gold mines on the 2.6 version, I find that playing aggressive is quite difficult, so I would recommend a 3 tc boom with lots and lots of walling. Locust is a real pain and a good Locust can be instantly game over, and there is nothing you can do about it a lot of the time if he gets lucky with it, but where possible you should try to split your villagers on different gather spots so you don’t have too many on one gather spot. If he still hasn’t won the game by then, once he is Mythic through Osiris, Son of Osiris can single handedly carry a game for him. That guy is very nasty and hard to kill if he micros it, and there is not much you can do about it other than try to chase after him with Bellerophon.
In the rare cases where he doesn’t have a superb Gold mine, you can go for an Athena rush against him, or a fake Athena rush by quickly making ~6 hoplites from 2 academies after advancing with your 2 heroes + minotaur, charging at his houses and towers and taking them down without losing too many units, then immediately grabbing town centers. This will hopefully make him invest in Axemen and Wadjets and delay his economy more than you delayed yourself by making the few hoplites. You can also go for a 2 TC hippikon build and stop him from securing his next gold mine and win the game off of it, since Locust doesn’t help him secure his gold mine.Isis
The 2nd hardest matchup for you on the 2.6 version, right after Ra. Typically, he will go for a 1 tc fast heroic, and at around the 11-12 minute mark he will have a massive army of siege towers, chariot archers, multiple scorpion men, some elephants/spearmen/camelry, priests and Pharaoh right in your base, cast ancestors and eclipse and destroy everything and win, though this is not his only way to play the match up.To fight this strategy, you want to advance quickly (4:30) and use two heroes + your free myth unit to stop him hunting, then immediately grab a 2nd town center after that. At about the 6 minute mark, you should have 2 stables auto-queueing hippikon on top of your 2nd town center, destroying all his obelisks to deny him vision so he doesn’t know where your army is.
He will usually hit Heroic at around 7:30 - 8:00, or roughly when his prosperity ends, where he will try to build a migdol on top of his 2nd gold mine to protect it - but if you already have a decent sized army there, it will severely mess things up for him and force him to go back to his base with his pharaoh and all his villagers while losing some, or make him use ancestors and eclipse to force your army back, which will mean his attack later on is a lot less threatening.
Here, you should use restoration to give you the best possible attack on the gold mine, or ceasefire when he is halfway done with his migdol to delay him getting out his migdol units while you flood more army into the area. You need to be on top of your micro with your Odysseus, constantly attacking scorpion men as soon as they come into contact with your army, otherwise your army will be absolutely shredded by them. If he makes spearmen or you are struggling with food, mixing in some toxotes into your army is an excellent option as well.
Always make sure to keep a tab on his army, do not let his army walk up to your base, because then he will cast ancestors and eclipse in your base and you will be in trouble. Instead constantly try to pick a fight with him on the way, so that he either has to trade most of his army, fall back, or cast Ancestors and Eclipse in the middle of the map where it won’t do as much damage as it would if casted in your base.
Sometimes it is not possible to pressure his 2nd gold mind if he has a nice map spawn. In this case, you should go for a 2/3 town center boom, and spam walls everywhere to slow him down, but you should still make army to make sure his army can’t just walk up to your base for free.
In some cases, he will go for a more boomy play grabbing town centers instead of going for that 1 town center fast heroic big push. In this case, you should try to grab 3 TCs and still continue to make army: The same rule about not letting him just walk up to your base and cast Ancestors and Eclipse still applies. Your late game economy will be better than his if he goes Osiris due to your better gather rates as Greek, and Underworld Passage can also win you the game in the late game.Bolt should usually be used on a Scorpion man, but bolting the Pharaoh if it means you can stop a migdol/tc should always be done. If he gets a good raid on you with the Sphinx, you should also just bolt it, to get rid of it, but it is not your best bolt target.Set
A fairly even matchup that can go either way. Against Set you want to find his priest as early as possible, and either bolt it or constantly attack it so he can’t convert animals freely, which is a big part of how Set gets his advantage. Pay attention to the score so you know when he advances (when he starts advancing his score will drop significantly, and it will take 1 minute to advance), and make sure your villagers are not too exposed when he hits classical age so shifting sands won’t do too much damage. Split your herdables as well so he can’t shift them back. If he does do an aggressive shifting sands on you, that typically means he will shift all his priests forward too so your centaur will be able to harass him for free. Use bolt on the wadjet if he shifts on top of you to protect your villagers, and don’t freak out and use ceasefire unless he has at least 5 priests, since you will need it to counter ancestors. And always go Hermes against Set, ceasefire is too important here.
After the initial harassment with shifting sands, he will often take town centers, which you usually won’t be able to stop. You should then take your own Town Centers, taking 2 if you still wish to contest the map and 3 if you wish to go for a boom. From there on you’ll be playing defensive/raiding and trying to outboom him until mythic, where better gather rates, Colossus and Underworld passage should give you the edge.Thor/Odin
Both of these Gods are fairly similar, but I consider Thor to be an advantageous matchup for Zeus, and Odin to be fairly even because Odin’s early classical age is stronger. Often, Odin will be able to easily push you off hunt back into your base early in the classical age, whereas Thor is not able to do so, only being able to hold onto his own hunt. Both of these Gods share a common weakness, which is that they aren’t very good at dealing with Myth units in the classic age because their Hersirs aren’t very good. Because of this, going Centaurs or Minotaur/Toxotes are both strong options against them, and eventually you will be able to force a fight where you pick off their slow and fragile hersirs before they do much damage and win it with your myth units and Proceed to Gold Starve. There is also the option to do an Athena classical fight against them with Hoplites/Toxotes and try to win using restoration to gold block them.
However, if you aren’t able to secure an early game advantage against them, you will have problems when they hit the heroic age as it is easy to get overwhelmed by their Myth spam, and you can also get crushed by Ragnarok. Hypaspists and tower spam is the best way to survive Ragnarok, and take special care to make sure you hide your villagers well so they don’t get slaughtered.
Another thing you have to worry about against these Gods is their raids. Make sure to build in such a way that protects your villagers, since they will typically skirt around your base with raiding cavalry all the time and you will have a lot of problems if you don’t build your buildings in good spots that protect your wood/gold villagers. You should make a wall with your buildings to protect villagers, leaving gaps against forests that you fill in with a short wall, to make sure you don’t lose expensive buildings to forest fire.
Bolt should usually be used on the Valkyrie.
Loki
A fairly even matchup. If you advance at 4:30 and immediately start making army, you can kick him off hunt which is very advantageous. Like Odin and Thor he will constantly try to raid you, so build your buildings in good spots and don’t let villagers gather outside your base without protection.
The general strategy against Loki is to go Athena with Hoplites and Toxotes, and beat him on his 2nd Gold Mine with restoration, with a back up plan in case he has safe gold to go Hermes, play conservatively and keep ceasefire for flaming weapons. You don’t want to be too greedy grabbing TCs since Loki can punish you extremely hard for that, and you usually want to go through Dionysus/Hera as bronze and lightning storm are very good in this match up.
If you manage to get map control at any point in the game, make sure to start making walls, these can allow an overextended army to escape flaming weapons without losses and together with toxotes can make very good defensive outposts.
Bolt should usually be used on a Hersir early on.
Kronos/Oranos
I’d say these matchups favor Zeus on the current 2.6 version, and are roughly even in the 2.7 version, but these are significantly easier to play for the Atlantean so at lower ratings it may seem massively Atlantean favored. The main strategy for Zeus is to go Centaur spamming, mixing in hoplites/hippikons while doing so, but this is neither the easiest strategy or the only strategy you can do. Going for an Athena classic fight with hoplites/hippikons and relying on restoration to win a critical fight is an easier way to play this match up, since Centaurs require you to constantly pay attention and micro them or else they die very quickly.
While you should open with Hoplites/Hippikons to prevent him from getting good value out of his turma in fights, later on you at about ~9 minutes should start adding toxotes once armies become bigger, since turma start to fall off in the mid game and going toxotes will let you save up precious food.
If you have safe gold, 2 tc Fast Mythic while turtling is a very safe option that is very hard for the atlantean to stop, and is my go to choice whenever I have a safe gold mine.Bolt should usually be used on the a Hero Murmillo if you are playing aggressive, if you are booming and turtling saving it for a Stymphalian Bird/Behemoth/Satyr is also a good option.
Gaia
A favorable matchup for Zeus. Her lack of Prometheus makes her very vulnerable to Myth Units, so going Centaur raiding can shut her down easily, or alternatively simply Athena rushing and making an extra minotaur with your starting favor can also be very brutal. Classic fighting with Centaurs her the same way you would against Oranos/Kronos will yield great results.