The Egyptians are for those who enjoy building bases and accumulating resources.  They incur favor through building monuments, and have specialized collection points for each type of resource.  Egyptians enjoy a lot of bonuses and miracles related to production, and have a special Pharaoh unit that can be used to bless a structure and boost its output.  The Egyptians are also adept at keeping an eye on other civilizations, and can build monuments that watch over parts of the map.  The Egyptians are well-suited to teamwork in a multiplayer game as they can concentrate on building resources to feed their allies' war machines while also keeping an eye on the enemy.

The Greeks are the more balanced of the civilizations.  They are not mobile like the Norse, and must build temples and assign villagers to pray there to accumulate favor.  They do enjoy the most diverse set of military units, though, and have the strongest infantry in the game.  Go Greek if you like building up a large diverse army and then steamrolling the competition.

The three civilizations are further diversified by the selection of which gods you will worship.  Like Age of Empires, your civilization can advance though several ages, gaining new units and technologies with each advance.  Before moving to a new age, you are asked to select a god for your civilization to worship.  The selection of a god determines which miracle you are awarded and which myth units and bonus technologies will be available. 

Miracles are special one-use powers that you are awarded each time your civilization advances to a new age.  They can be offensive, such as meteor storms and tornados, defensive, with stone guardians or ghostly defenders, or they may grant some type of production bonus.  Miracles can be a great help when you are in a bind, but you'll need to choose the moment that you invoke them carefully.

Age of Mythology includes two new classes of units: myth units and heroes.  Both of these types of units are unique to each civilization and are drawn from their respective mythologies.  The Greeks can call upon cyclops and minotaurs, the Egyptians have their anubites and scorpion men, and the Norse have frost and fire giants.  The myth units are far more powerful than regular units, and each have their own unique special attacks.  For example, the Greek medusa can turn enemies into stone. Heroes are powerful units that are especially effective against myth units.

Gameplay in Age of Mythology is just as good as in the other games in the series.  You never feel bogged down by micromanagement and can concentrate on military action.  The AI in the game is as challenging as ever, and the second to lowest AI setting will give a lot of players a run for their money.  The lowest AI setting seems to take the fight out of the computer, so it would have been nice if another level had been added between the bottom two.

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