Total War: Troy lays out the Greek and Trojan heroes in detailed videos

(Image credit: Sega)

Creative Assembly's next strategy game is A Total War Saga: Troy, and we've heard a lot about it at this point, but the consummate strategy enthusiast always hungers for more. To that end, Creative Assembly has released a couple new videos highlighting the unique campaign mechanics for playing as the heroes on both the Greek and Trojan sides. A key part of differentiating the factions in the small theatre of this focused Total War game is the heroes: They give flavor to your army, have unique mechanics, and dictate what units you can recruit.

Here are the Greeks:

Achilles is all about fighting other heroes to prove he's the greatest warrior ever (he is), and can never lose a duel. Agamemnon is about gathering up vassals and tributaries to pump up his overall claim to Greek kingship. Odysseus can establish outposts in others' settlements, allowing him to recruit even in enemy territory, and is stronger in coastal settlements. Finally Menelaus, the guy famous for losing his wife and starting this whole Trojan War mess, can recruit units from any faction he's allied with, taking advantage of others' tech trees and uniques.

And the Trojans:

Hector and Paris both share special rules: They fight over who's a better son to their father Priam, King of Troy, with the winner getting territory as spoils. Hector also gets bonuses based on how much territory his allies own, rather than territory he owns directly. Paris has a mechanic based on keeping his kidnapped wife, Helen, happy—visiting her often and ensuring she has interesting celebrations to attend. Meanwhile, cousin Aeneas can perform Omens to please different gods, or spirit-journey to the underworld and commune with the dead to gain their advice. Finally, Trojan ally Sarpedon is a consummate trader, gaining influence and power by trading with other factions and looking for unique resources only he can gather.

We had a bit of hands-on time with these characters earlier this year. "One of the trickiest tasks the team set itself was finding a way to present all the Hellenic and Trojan factions as distinct, and it settled on the heroes," we said at the time. "Every faction uses its primary hero as a foundation, so Achilles' Achaean armies are full of fast, aggressive units that have a penchant for charging. Hector's Trojan troops, on the other hand, are heavily armored and focused on defense, just like the prince."  You can read our entire preview about how the heroes affect the combat, and the game's changes to the Total War formula, right here.

You can read more about Total War: Troy on our roundup or parse the individual articles here

Contributor

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.

Latest in Strategy
Tzarina Katarin Bokha, the Ice Queen of Kislev
Total War: Warhammer 3 rolls out a cool Kislev overhaul, changes befitting Tzeench’s magic, new projectile units and creakier skeletal horses
Civilization 7 Great Britain - Modern Civ art (via YouTube)
As Civilization 7 struggles to keep up with Civ 5 player counts, a new patch is coming tomorrow with still more UI changes and gameplay tweaks
Battle Brothers
Nearly 2 years after its last update, the excellent Battle Brothers gets 'a bucket load of fixes' and free new content
King wielding his axe against would-be assassins in Norland.
Medieval colony sim Norland is getting a 'damn big update' that completely overhauls the game's mechanics: 'We're rolling out some radical changes to the core gameplay'
Age of Empires 2
Former Age of Empires 2 dev claims Microsoft demanded its first expansion should have a Korean faction, because 'StarCraft sold 3 million copies in Korea'
Endless Legend 2 Kin faction reveal
It's turtle time: Endless Legend 2's first faction is the fortification-loving Kin of Sheredyn
Latest in News
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened