You know I start at least one post a month with a seemingly tangential zoology metaphor, and I’m afraid you just hit this month’s. Because when I think about Age Of Mythology, I think of Gomphotherium. Why do I think of a weird, extinct elephant? Because it was a perfectly good ‘phant, is why, and a definite improvement on previous iterations on the theme of “Big Grey Lads”. But alas, its sister clades Elephas and Loxodonta enjoyed a combination of greater efficiency and better luck, and gave rise to the hose-nosed champions we know and love today. Similarly, Age Of Mythology was a perfectly good game, but it was a diversion from the standard formula of the Age Of… series, and as it turned out, it was the main branch that would end up surviving to the present day.