What’s new with Divine Will in TROY: MYTHOS?

Welcome back to TotalWar.com, we hope you’re all enjoying TROY and the MYTHOS expansion from last week. As more and more people get to grips with the game and its systems, we wanted to give an overview of one of TROY’s unique systems, and how we changed it for MYTHOS. Divine Will is your direct connection to the Gods, and the more Mythical your game, the more powerful that can be. 

Divine Will represents the relations between the mortal people and the gods they worshipped, created for TROY. It gives the player the opportunity to interact with the gods that played a major role in everyday life for the people of the Bronze Age. Our initial focus was on those gods of the ancient Greek Pantheon that played a major role within the Trojan war: Hera, Zeus, Ares, Apollo, Athena, Poseidon, Aphrodite, and, added later, Artemis and Hephaestus. The gods are not physically present in the campaign – it is more the impact they had on the populace who believed they were helping them in different spheres of life. 

Essentially, the Divine Will system allows you to spend resources to gain favour with each god. At the beginning of the game all gods start with zero favour, which means their cults are at the neglected level. As the player develops their economy, builds cults, and spends money on lavish rituals and sacrifices, the god’s influence through society grows to respected, celebrated and finally to worshipped.  Once a god’s favour has reached the worshipped status, unique mythical units and agents can be recruited in the special recruitment panel.  

The more time and resources a player dedicates to a certain god, the more benefits and buffs they will get. However, religion requires constant attention, and as a reminder of that you will lose a certain amount of favour automatically every turn. To fully develop a cult, you should start by building and upgrading a temple. Once it is built, continue worshipping the god via hecatombs or recruiting a priestess.  

A priestess is an agent that can perform the ritual practices action on settlements with a temple, gaining favour with the god the temple belongs to. You can only have three priestesses, so choose their actions carefully. Hecatombs grant a boost in favour at the cost of few economic resources but can only be performed every few turns.  

Gods can also be prayed to. Performing a prayer involves offering some food and gold, receiving some temporary effect in exchange, lasting for a small period and starting on the following turn. The more a cult is respected, the stronger the prayer would be. 

There is no limit to how many gods can be worshipped if the player has the building space and resources to do so. Every god has their own focus, and some heroes may have an affinity or synergy with one god in particular. Increasing favour with Hera, Zeus, and Aphrodite helps with managing provinces, population, and production, while following the gods of war and strategy like Ares, Athena and Artemis yield improvements in battle and command. Hephaestus, the god of blacksmiths, equips units with new armour and grants melee buffs. Apollo and Poseidon complete the circle with their domains covering more intricate aspects of the game such as religion, agents, research, and travel.  

You can appease more than one god at a time, but it is a balancing act. Similarly, some gods may become hostile depending on the player’s actions. If you change your mind, you can re-dedicate a temple, however, de-construction of a temple reduces favour with the god that the temple belonged to – Zeus and company are not known for their forgiving nature. 

Divine Boons are army abilities granted by the gods and are a unique feature of the Mythological mode added in TROY: MYTHOS. These abilities add more mythological elements to the Divine Will system as the gods lend their power to heroes that honour them. 

For example, the cult of Aphrodite grants Disarming Beauty, which prevents an enemy unit (excluding heroes) from moving, attacking, or using abilities for a medium duration, however, being attacked cancels this effect. The cult of Artemis grants The Wild Hunt, increasing movement speed and granting strider to ally units in a small area for a medium duration. Zeus grants Zeus’ Thunderbolt which can be aimed at a desired area and deal a huge amount of damage within a close radius. Poseidon grants a Tidal Wave, which deals damage along a wide line – and so on.

The Divine Boons are usable in campaign, custom, and multiplayer battles. A player can bring only one ability in battle, but they are not attached to a specific unit so they can be used at any time, anywhere on the map. In campaign, Divine Boons are unlocked for the duration of a prayer with a specific god once their cult is at the respected level. Each prayer tier gives more charges for the ability. If more than one prayer is active at a time the player will be able to choose which ability to use in the pre-battle screen. In custom and multiplayer battles, Divine Boons are available to all factions and players will be able to choose and buy one of them for the battle. 

We’re super proud of the Divine Will system and the expanded features that came with MYTHOS and our various DLC packs and patches. The favour of the gods was always relevant to ancient societies and important for us to include to represent the period in both an accurate and fun way. We hope you’re enjoying TROY!