Total War Saga: Troy – Agamemnon guide

Total War Saga: Troy – Campaign progression

Tips when playing as Agamemnon

You’ve got several Greek pals surrounding you. There’s your brother Menelaus, wise Odysseus, Diomedes, Ajax, Ajax the Lesser, Ajax’s mom, Ajax’s grandpa Jimmy Jack Ajax with the glass eye, and so on.

Basically, Agamemnon has a lot of friends in Total War Saga: Troy‘s campaign. Heck, you even have Troizen as your vassal already. So, the goal for the early-game is to build up your diplomatic ties with everyone who’s receptive (NAPs/military access and some barter deals to boot).

Agamemnon also starts with two resource techs (+20 gold per turn and +80 stone per turn), so you might need to focus on food next. Similarly, because some epic mission and victory conditions require him to have high influence in provinces, you should consider recruiting an envoy agent. Later, if you’ve committed heresy — I mean, if you’ve built temples to Apollo — your newly-recruited agents will have higher ranks.

Note: Should you wish to get better diplo deals later, consider farming favor with Zeus via the Divine Will mechanic. You could also check out our Divine Will guide and mythological creatures and agents guide if you need help.

Regrettably, Agamemnon’s Total War Saga: Troy campaign will have you encounter a few malakas too such as Tiryns, the Corinthians, and Athens (the last two will probably become allies in a few turns). You’ll likely take out Tiryns’ nearby armies and territory, and then Menelaus and Akis (a minor faction that’s also at war with them) will capture their island settlements.

That just means your expansion will be: Tirynthia -> Mycenaeca (versus Corinth) -> Attica and Megaris (versus Athens). Ajax controls Salamis and he’ll be very friendly with Agamemnon, allowing you to enlist his aid versus the Athenians. From there, you’d swing west to eliminate any Greek who doesn’t want to be buddies with the King of Men.

Note: While you’re conquering your neighbors, you’ll notice that Agamemnon has the option to vassalize factions once you capture their last settlement.

As you’re progressing through Total War Saga: Troy‘s campaign — and perhaps because you’ve vassalized a few Greek factions already — you could end up in a war versus the Trojans well before any epic mission related to your rivals has popped up.

In my case, one of my vassals got attacked by Methymna, a minor faction that was allied with Hector. The prince was allied with Troy, his brother Paris, and his cousin Aeneas. Likewise, the hero of Virgil’s Aeneid was friends with some of the Thracian tribes.

It does remind you of the diplomatic wranglings in Total War: Three Kingdoms or maybe World War I because of how the conflict snowballed. Instead of the Greeks launching a thousand ships to sack Asia Minor’s riches, the Trojans were the ones who invaded Achaea.

The good thing is that you can beat the Trojan invaders by rallying your Greek allies. Heck, Legolas even decided to make Helen travel to a nearby settlement (Marathon) — which I promptly captured — ending lover boy’s romance before he reached the finish line.

Note: For the sake of clarity, I doubt that giving Menelaus the settlement that has Helen would automatically lead to a “secret” campaign victory where peace is declared throughout the land and Hector just punches Paris in the face for causing all that trouble. Even then, it’d require Menelaus to control adjacent settlements before you can exchange the one that has Helen. But, hey, a man can dream.

What happened after this point in my playthrough? Well, I consolidated my forces and eventually sailed across the sea. First, I conquered Hector’s and Paris’ lands. Even Legolas started offering lembas bread in peace deals.

The critical target, though, was the city of Troy. It’s protected by two full-stack armies with high-tier units. Even my mid-tier units (at the time) would be no match for them.

Rather than pushing my luck, I just went into ambush stance to waylay the patrolling army (i.e., the one that’s not garrisoned). With its elimination, it made conquering Troy a lot easier.

Keep in mind that the city of Troy also has the following unique features:

• maxed-out settlement buildings and walls (the Poseidon’s wrath/earthquake event can damage these)
• rapid replenishment of casualties
• auto-resolving the battle is not allowed
• agents cannot damage the settlement

Note: As cited in our beginner’s guide, you can wait for the Poseidon’s earthquake event to trigger. This will demolish Troy’s walls and buildings, as well as severely depleting its garrison forces. However, if you truly want a battle for the ages, then you’d want to break the walls down yourself without relying on the event.

Agamemnon’s epic missions

To be frank, I didn’t bother too much with Agamemnon’s epic missions in Total War Saga: Troy. Firstly, as mentioned in our official review, I encountered a weird bug related to the barter and resource system. At the time, I genuinely thought that the bug prevented epic missions from popping up.

As it turns out, epic missions, in general, seem a little odd. I’m still uncertain what causes them to appear and when those instances would be. Unlike Three Kingdoms‘ or Warhammer II‘s mission systems, Total War Saga: Troy doesn’t necessarily follow the “complete task X to make task Y appear immediately after that.”

Sometimes I had to wait for five, 10, or maybe over a dozen turns to see the next step. In some cases, I had already progressed past a certain point that it made those epic missions moot or redundant.

Divine Ire was actually the last epic mission I completed as Agamemnon in Total War Saga: Troy. I completed that at around turn 47. It was very strange since, even after an additional 40 turns, I still haven’t gotten another epic mission. So, I just decided to conquer Troy and additional territories.

I’ve been told that epic mission triggers and steps should be fixed in time for the game’s release. If ever you discover the additional steps, do inform me.

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