The Divine Will mechanic in Total War Saga: Troy lets you commune with the gods and goddesses of the Greek pantheon. You’ll be able to obtain their boons and blessings to help you on the campaign map and during battles. Here’s our Total War Saga: Troy Divine Will guide to help you out.

Note: For more information, check out our Total War Saga: Troy guides and features hub.

Total War Saga: Troy – The Divine Will of the gods and goddesses

How exactly does the Divine Will mechanic work in Total War Saga: Troy? For starters, you’ll want to look at the Divine Will panel on the campaign HUD. Here, you’ll find seven Greek gods and goddesses and you can check the different buffs they provide depending on the level of their “cult.”

There are four cult levels or tiers, and you can rank up by acquiring more favor points from a specific god. Here are the tiers:

  • Neglected: 0 to 49
  • Respected: 50 to 299
  • Celebrated: 300 to 599
  • Worshiped: 600 and above

Next, here are the passive buffs you get depending upon the tier (the “Neglected” tier, obviously, means that the god also neglects to give you boons):

Below, you can see the blessings that are active when you fight battles (these are dependent on the cult tier of the deity):

Gaining favor

Having multiple tier 3/”Worshiped” bonuses provided by the gods and goddesses sounds awesome, right? Sadly, you also lose 10 favor each turn for all gods and goddesses until you’re back down to zero. Our goal to master the Divine Will mechanic, therefore, is to boost our favor gains to reach some semblance of stability when it comes to a particular god.

There are a few means to increase favor:

  • Building a temple dedicated to a god. This costs wood and, later, stone and gold.
  • Rededicating a temple to a new god. This costs gold and the new temple will be of the same level as the previous one (sort of like building conversion).
  • Initiating a hecatomb—a sacrifice of 100 cattle—to a deity. This costs food and can only be initiated every five turns.
  • Priestess (agent) and seer (epic agent) rituals in a settlement with a temple. The former costs food and can only be done every three turns.
  • Special buildings in specific settlements. Examples include the Oracle of Apollo in Elateia (Ozolia province) and the Gorgoneion Cave in Volissos (Ophioussa province).
  • Certain events as you play Total War Saga: Troy‘s campaign. Aeneas’ mechanics are even closely tied with the favor of the gods and the Divine Will mechanic.

Prayers and temples

Temples to the gods and goddesses not only net you with more favor for Total War Saga: Troy‘s Divine Will mechanic, but they also have additional province-wide effects where they’re built. Temples also increase the number of priestess agents that can be recruited (up to a maximum of three for your faction). Likewise, all the temples you’ve built regardless of the deity will increase the food cost of hecatomb sacrifices. On the bright side, they’ll also increase the amount of favor you obtain.

Next up are prayers. Prayers cost food and gold to activate, and the boons will be improved depending on the god’s cult level too.

While hecatomb sacrifices can only be done every five turns, you can pray to different deities each turn to gain their buffs. The buffs last four turns and will take effect on your next turn. But, you can’t pray to the same deity again until the buff has run its course. Still, you could do something like: pray to Athena -> gain her buff next turn; pray to Apollo -> gain his buff next turn while Athena’s buff is still active; pray to a different god, and so on.

In any case, here are the effects you gain from temples and prayers:

Priestesses and the Ritual of Exultation

Another concept we have to take note of when it comes to Total War Saga: Troy‘s Divine Will mechanic would be the “Ritual of Exultation” action initiated by your priestesses (agents) on settlements with a temple dedicated to a specific god or goddess. As mentioned, these only cost a few hundred units of food, but the favor gains are extremely helpful if you want to offset the “-10 favor per turn” malus.

Note: If the settlement you perform the Ritual of Exultation in has no temple, then you’ll gain the favor of a random god, but the amount will be slightly lower.

Priestesses, like other regular agents, can be leveled up. In fact, some of their perks provide them with “increased critical success chance” (they could go from +20 favor to +40 favor if they crit). Similarly, you can select perks that let them focus on a specific god or goddess so you can “farm” favor for that divine being.

Remember that the “Ritual of Exultation” can only be done every four turns, so you’ll want to time it right with other means to maximize your favor gains. Since you can only field a maximum of three priestesses faction-wide, you should have specific agents that are predominantly focused on a specific deity while you’re spending resources on hecatombs and temples for other gods.

Additional Total War Saga: Troy Divine Will tips

Lastly, the best tips I can give you — if you really want to focus on Total War Saga: Troy‘s Divine Will mechanic — are these:

  • Pop a hecatomb to Athena and pray to her immediately. You should have extra recruitment slots next turn to muster troops that have leveled up. This is only if you want to get a headstart when it comes to conquests.
  • If you do need to cross the sea and invade the Greek or Trojan mainlands, don’t forget to pray to Poseidon. Even at “Neglected” rank, your troops will still be immune to deep-sea attrition.
  • If you need extra diplomatic evaluation for barters, you can’t go wrong with prayers dedicated to Zeus. The bonus values allow you to propose ridiculously lopsided trades especially if the AI already likes you beforehand.
  • Build a temple to Apollo in your capital and focus on upgrading it (or initiate a hecatomb sacrifice). At tier 1/”Respected,” you should get +3 ranks for priestesses and an additional +6 ranks if the temple is maxed out. The extra levels will let you grab happiness, critical success, and favor perks for your priestesses from the get-go. If you obtain extra priestesses from events (or the “gratitude” mechanic), they’ll also be at a higher level since they’ll spawn in your capital.
  • Once the Cult of Apollo reaches the “Worshipped” tier, you can recruit the seer (epic agent) every 10 turns in any settlement. The seer instantly maxes out the cult level of a deity if she enacts a ritual in a settlement’s temple. She’s basically the Bronze Age’s version of a popular influencer, minus the “will tell my followers about your restaurant if you let me eat for free” schtick.

Note: If you’d like to learn more about the seer, gorgon, minotaur, and others, you can head over to our mythological creatures and epic agents guide.

Total War Saga: Troy is available via the Epic Games Store. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.