When you’re building your power in ancient Greece, and the times of the Iliad, you’re going to need allies. You can’t really conquer the glorious ancient world all on your own, you can try, but you will fail on your own. That’s why alliances in A Total War Saga: Troy are so important. You will often have to take on more powerful city-states than your own, especially in the early game. And that means you can’t always go it alone.
A lot of the minutia of securing alliances in A Total War Saga: Troy is all about diplomacy and power. Because it all ties into the same gameplay system, you need to know how to wrangle each of the different factions — and each faction has their own goals, aspirations, and desires — and managing all this won’t be easy. It all starts with building positive relations.
To create an alliance, you need to develop a positive relationship with another leader. You can see how another faction’s leader views you by going into the Known Factions tab and clicking through the various factions in the world. Each one has their own relations with your empire. And it’s through this diplomacy screen that most of your effort will be spent making nice with various enemies and temporary allies.
You can find the necessary screen next to the map icon on the lower right of the UI. Go into the menu and hover your mouse over each faction icon to see the breakdown of their feelings toward you. From here, you will have to work with them to get them to like you enough to give your faction an alliance. Pay attention to their own wars and alliances. Making nice with their allies, while also declaring war on their enemies, will make a faction more receptive to you.
On this screen, you will see current treaties, past ones, past actions you’ve done against or for them, various states of war, and plenty of other useful information.
How to create an alliance
When you have a positive relationship go to the diplomacy page by clicking the 7 key on your keyboard. Scroll down to the faction you want to speak with to start the negotiations. There are multiple types of agreements you can enter into from this point. If you wish, you can learn about each type of basic agreement down below.
- A non-aggression pact: Your two factions have chosen not to go to war with one another. This isn’t a guarantee that they never will, but the faction that breaks a NAP will suffer a penalty as a truce-breaker.
- Trade partners: Each faction in this type of parternship will allow traders to move between the two empires freely. You can access the resource stockpiles of an ally to alleviate shortfalls with this kind of agreement.
- Military access partners: This is the most direct form of cooperation for military action short of a full military agreement. Armies can move freely between the two faction’s territory, and will be able to take various actions within. This is vital for exploration.
Beyond these three types of agreements, you can enter into full alliances in A Total War Saga: Troy. There are two distinct alliances you make with them: a defensive alliance and a military alliance.
A defensive alliance is a basic agreement that stipulates that two factions will defend each other in case of attack. Any ally with this agreement will declare war on any faction that attacks their partner. Although if relations are poor, one faction in the partnership can choose not to honor their arrangement.
A military alliance is similar to a defensive alliance, except that it requires both parties to defend each other. This is the hardest alliance to get, and thus requires very high relations with an AI faction to obtain. If you or an ally in this type of agreement is attacked, there’s no way to opt-out of war.
It’s vital that you balance their attitude and get alliances where you can, especially when trying to conquer new territory. Having allies nearby to new holdings will help make sure your enemies aren’t about to waltz in and take your new settlements.
