Godhood: Optimized Strategy Guide 2022

Hi All,

This guide is meant to help anyone who is already familiar with the game learn some optimized strategy. What does that mean? There are countless ways to play the game, but there are certain ways to be more efficient in building the strongest teams. The goal of this guide is to give ideas (and examples) of some of these solutions.

Each Commandment is different. To get the best out of each one we will be diving deep into the different Traditions, Classes, Abilities, etc. that are available.

Some things to know about this guide:

• I am NOT writing this guide to give you a play-by-play on what to do each mission.
• I am assuming you have basic knowledge of the game. If you can beat Hard, but are struggling with Impossible difficultly, or you are looking for some new ideas, then this guide is for you.
• This will mostly focus on general strategy, class selection, Tradition selection & Relic synergy.
• I will go through every Commandment individually with an example strategy on Impossible difficulty.
• This format will be used: 1st Tradition –> 2nd Tradition –> 3rd Tradition. This is indicating the order in which we select the Traditions. Order is very important.
• This is designed to help you fill the Achievements, so Free Mode will be ignored.
• I will not be explaining in depth what everything is along the way. There are already other excellent guides you can use for reference if you don’t remember a specific detail.
• Do not read this entire guide all at once. There is a lot here. Use it as reference and try to follow along on your own play-through.

Here are some general tips to optimize your play-through on Impossible Difficulty:

• Dreaming is Overpowered: The first building you should purchase is the Night Shrine. Dreams will be invaluable on the Impossible run, and will often be the deciding factor to win a Sacrament. Build it after the very first mission and Boost your Dream Points. You should ALWAYS have at least 3 dream points for every Sacrament to abuse Defy/Evasion on ALL Disciples. Boosting Ritual is a trap, boost those Dreams and try to Double Martyr every time!
• Martyr Every Chance You Get: Try to Martyr every Sacrament! A good economy Tradition will yield 1 chest per Sacrament on average. Abusing Martyr can yield 2 chests per Sacrament. Mixing Martyr with an economy Tradition is how you progress optimally. If you want, you can save the game and rework each Sacrament until you pass it with the highest Martyr possible if you are struggling to complete a run.
• Morale is Better: Choose Morale builds whenever possible. It is vastly superior to Physical in every way imaginable. The final fight in particular is especially tough for Physical builds without well rounded defensive stats.
• Early Tenet Tips: Always pick a Philosophy Tenet first. There are 3 missions between the 1st and 2nd Tenet, which equates to 75 Materials gained passively from this selection. That may not sound like much, but it is literally the cost of the gardens & the first temple. Those buildings are essentially free just from the Tenet selection. +10 Faith or +4 happiness are both wasted at this stage. You do not need to worry about selecting the 1st Tradition. You have a 50/50 chance of getting the Tradition you want from your 2nd Tenet chosen after you progress the first day. If you do not get it, simply reload the latest auto-save and try again. The Tradition you want from your 2nd Tenet chosen will eventually be available after progressing the first day.
• Island Reward Tips:
  1. After the first island, take the +4 Development Sparks. This will help you get the 2nd and 3rd Traditions much faster & is better than any of the other choices at this stage.
  2. After the 2nd and 3rd island, ALWAYS choose a Tenet Reward, DO NOT take the 6 or 8 Development Sparks. Tenets are worth 10 Sparks at this point, so you get more value by taking an available Tenet as your reward.
  3. After the 4th island you get 10 sparks, so the choice does not matter.
  4. After the 5th island you get 12 sparks, so ALWAYS take the sparks.

Here we will discuss what we are trying to achieve when we go through an individual Commandment.

In order to have a fully optimized strategy, we are going to want everything to work together.

Our Major Relic, Traditions, Classes, and Abilities should all be in sync and working towards the same goal.
For example, if our Relic gives a buff to Might, then we need our Traditions to also work with Might. And we need Classes that operate on Might. And we need to give those Classes Abilities that scale on Might.
Operating like this allows us to stay focused solely on Might (in this simple case). Keeping it simple will go a long way in staying optimal.

The Major Relics are incredibly important and are what make each Commandment unique. There are 2 available per Commandment and we will be looking into each one and finding the best strategies for each.

Our Tradition choices are not unlimited. Each Commandment has their own set Tenets available, and thus only specific Traditions are allowed at certain times. As we go though each Commandment we will discuss all of the available starting Traditions and possible strategies that we can choose from to try to find the best options.

To further the thought above, as you progress and complete an Island, you have seen that you have a choice on which Commandment to fight for the next Island. Most would pick whichever they have an advantage over, or pick one because of the prize that is offered. Those are good ways to decide, but there is another option.

The choices you get are not random. They are always the same, and the Tenet Rewards given are always the same. So we can use this to our advantage to further pick a good strategy.

Island 2

After you beat the starting Island you are always presented with fighting one of these Commandments: War, Pleasure, Generosity, and Madness.

The initial prize for choosing which to fight WILL be random, but the Tenet Rewards given after you complete Island 2 are always the same:

War

1. Order of Paladins
   • Champion of Faith
   • Marital Arts
2. Holy Training
   • Champion of Faith
   • Might Makes Right

Pleasure

1. Incense & Rose Petals
   • Alchemy
   • Idol
2. Rain God
   • Baptism
   • Animism

Generosity

1. Offer Food
   • Just New World
   • Trade Missions
2. Religious Poetry
   • Just New World
   • Heavenly Art

Madness

1. Evil Deity
   • Grand Aberration
   • Doom Prophecy
2. Master Order
   • Brainwashing
   • Cult of Silence

This is important to know, because you receive your 2nd Tradition after you receive your reward from Island 2. So all of these Traditions are available as your 2nd Tradition choice 100% of the time, as long as you choose the appropriate Island to fight.

I will not break down the Rewards for the other islands (They are different than Island 2, but also always the same) since they are not as important, but these are the choices you will always have:

Island 3: Peace, Purity, or Greed

Island 4: War or Pleasure

Island 5: Generosity or Madness

I am not going to break down all the Classes here, there is already an excellent guide available for all of the details on each Class. This section is about the broad approach we will use in choosing the Classes for each Commandment.

For any given Commandment, we don’t necessarily want to look at the two stats that go with the Class. Really only one matters. When we pick our Relic, that Relic will only work with 1 stat. It is most important that we focus in on the one stat and find Classes that have abilities that also work with that stat.

This will naturally keep our usable Classes for any given strategy low. This is good. You want to be more focused on 2-3 classes rather than going all over the place and using 5-6 different ones.

Now lets get to the first Commandment.

I guess we’ll go in order, so lets get War out of the way.

The pure Physical Commandment. I think this is less straight-forward than the game wants you to believe. Physical is never simple, since it always requires you to focus on more stats to be successful.

Possible 1st Traditions available for the War Commandment:

Burials. Cannibalism, Champion of Faith, God of Thieves, Human Sacrifice, Just New World, Martial Arts, Might Makes Right, Reincarnation, and War Slaves

• Martial Arts / Reincarnation / Just New World / Wars Slaves / God of Thieves are not viable and should be avoided as a starting Tradition. They are all pretty useless in the early game.
• Champion of Faith –> Burials is fine to go with, but reversing the order is usually better.
• Human Sacrifice could possibly work, but only giving yourself Rage Prophet, Chieftain, and Smitesword as class options is pretty handicapping.
  There is an option for Human Sacrifice –> Turn the Other Cheek with a full Morale build, but that is just forcing it, and it has no synergy with any Relic.
• If you really want to go Morale, you can do Burials –> Champion of Faith –> Hermit Pilgrimage. Use the Guardian & Harbinger with Eternal Shield and abuse the Wall ability. This is overpowered once you get out of the early game.
• Might Makes Right looks better on paper then it really is. It’s a medium economy boost with a single Faith boost and other Faith drops. Not the best, but it works with the Voice Thresher if you want to use this.
• Cannibalism is always good to start with. It is versatile by giving you an option to go with either Relic, so there are a lot of options open for the 2nd Tradition. Just be careful with Faith and you will be fine.

So what do we pick? As hinted at earlier, the best starting choice is Burials, which is what we will use in our example below. This will focus on a Health based build with the Eternal Shield. Champion of Faith will be chosen 2nd for a massive economy boost. We’ll also focus on Overpower abilities and grab Martial Arts as our 3rd Tradition to round it all out.

The Voice Thresher is better than it sounds and does help quite a bit with Morale enemies. It is more useful when choosing Might Makes Right or Cannibalism as your first tradition, when Might is more the focus.

We will be taking the Eternal Shield, which scales damage to Physical Armor. Our strategy will fully revolve around Health, so our Disciples will get stronger with more Health (from the Relic), Champion of Faith will give us more Materials with more Health, and Burials will increase our Health further (plus bonus chests). This is the simplicity we are looking for.

Nothing too complicated here. What we want are Classes that have Physical Overpower abilities that scale on Health.

*Note we are solely focusing on our chosen strategy.

1. Executioner – Might + Health (Physical) – Overpower, Overpower/Fear, Sorcery
2. Rage Prophet – Might + Health (Physical) – Overpower, Fear, Sorcery
3. Guardian – Health + Cunning (Mixed) – Grace, Overpower, Sorcery

The Executioner / Rage Prophet combo is all we need. Guardians are fine, but you can ignore them if you want.

Our focus will be on Overpower abilities that scale on Health.

1. Executioner – War Wind / Rend
2. Rage Prophet – Concussion
3. Guardian – Shield Bash / Wall

War Wind and Rend are both fine since they scale with Health. Rend is the Overpower ability, so it is better in the late game to work with Martial Arts.

Concussion is element-less, so it does not do greater damage to Life. It is also the weakest of the Rage Prophet abilities. But is does provide some utility with 20% stun chance. With that said, it is the only Health scaling ability on the Rage Prophet, and it is Overpower, so it is the only choice for our strategy.

Wall may seem weird here, but it increases Physical Armor, so it boosts overall power with our Relic. It is better in the late game, so you’ll want to stick with Shield Bash most of the time. Or just ignore the Guardian altogether.

With our setup: Remember that more Health brings more materials, more physical defence, and stronger attacks. So stay focused on Health and pick new disciples with Health bonuses.

A simple setup for Rituals:

• Fight: Might – Pair with Health & Knowledge
• Bulk: Health – Pair with Cunning & Knowledge
• Hunt: Cunning – Pair with Might & Health
• Pray: Devotion – Pair with Might & Health

For Physical builds we really need to round out all the stats for the endgame. Charisma is not necessary, but we’ll need everything else pretty decent on our Disciples.

1st add Health to Fight. 2nd add Cunning to Bulk. Add might to Hunt before Pray.

Hunt will be the most important to finish first. Might/Health/Cunning is our main goal to abuse on ALL disciples in the mid-game.

The other 3 are set to round out all the stats for the endgame.

Tenets
You can choose whatever Tenets you wish, but you’ll probably want to take Code of Honor first.

The important Tenets for the traditions we will choose are:

• Code of Honor
• Official Greeting
• No Pain No Gain

*Need Vow of Chastity if you want Hermit Pilgrimage

Traditions
1st: Burials – This is chosen first for the Health boost. The chests don’t help early, but help a ton when our disciples start dying.

2nd: Champion of Faith – Higher Health from Burials accelerates our materials, plus bonus chests and an armor boost (boosting more damage). This also gives our champion a very good Life Physical ability that scales on Health (And is Overpower). Great synergy with our Health based build.

3rd: Martial Arts – This is mainly for the passive – Overpower Abilities debuff 50% of the enemies Physical Armor (Rend, Concussion, and Shield Bash are all Overpower). Also nice offerings Boost.

Alternative 3rd: Hermit Pilgrimage – Always viable to stack abilities for the late game. Just make sure you have the knowledge for it if you choose this.

I always find Physical to be bad, but this run was not too painful. The economy setup is amazing. I was able to purchase absolutely everything with thousands of Materials stocked at the end. That is not something that happens often.

Peace is probably the most straight-forward Commandant. By focusing on Morale and taking advantage of the better classes in the game, this leads to an easy path to victory.

However, it is not without fault, as the available early Traditions leave a lot to be desired and it doesn’t do anything unique.

Possible 1st Traditions available for the Peace Commandment:

Alchemy, Carnival, Community Elder, Heavenly Art, Holy Judge, Holy Marriage, Just New World, Reincarnation, Revelations, School of Philosophy, Turn the Other Cheek

• Alchemy / Heavenly Art / Just New World / Reincarnation / Revelations are not viable and should be avoided as a 1st Tradition.
• Turn the Other Cheek is pretty redundant. It isn’t the best Tradition in the first place because of the Grace abilities, and you already have an easy setup for a Morale build. Best to avoid this.
• Holy Marriage sounds better than it is. It is a very powerful Tradition, but it only boosts a single disciple. Disciples die a lot on impossible. You can use this with Halo if you want, but it works better as a 3rd Tradition.
• Community Elder is fine, but it’s better with Generosity. Faith can become a big problem with this here, but you can easily win with it.
• School of Philosophy –> Holy Judge is totally fine. The knowledge boost doesn’t help much, as we would rather have Charisma, but Reason synergy is always good.
• That leaves our final available Tradition, and really the only obvious choice, Carnival. This boosts Charisma and Happiness (more repeatable missions). This will be what we use in our example.
  We will take Idol 2nd to turn all the Charisma directly into Materials. Then round it out with School of Philosophy as our 3rd Tradition to take advantage of all the nice Reason abilities we will focus on. Those traditions paired with The First Word and Classes that have Reason abilities that scale with Charisma, gives us our full strategy.

There really isn’t a choice here. Halo isn’t good. It emphasizes Devotion, the XP boost doesn’t do a whole lot in the early game, and you don’t need it by the end game.

The First Word adds 50% of Charisma to Initiative. So high Charisma will allow us to go first more often. This is very powerful and makes Martyr much easier, so we will go with this.

Now we are solely focusing on our chosen strategy, we will be going with the following Classes:

1. Ambassador – Charisma + Devotion (Morale) – Reason, Reason/Grace, Sorcery
2. Songsmith – Charisma + Cunning (Morale) – Overpower, Reason, Grace

The Ambassador is awesome, and will be just as deadly as the Songsmith with our setup.

The Songsmith is the best Morale class in the game, and with the Ambassador’s AoE passive, both of these classes become ridiculous Morale damage dealers.

*The Weaver & Zealot can be used to round out your team in the early game if you want, but stick to the Ambassador/Songsmith as much as you can.

Our focus will be on Reason abilities that scale on Charisma.

1. Ambassabor: Peace Offer
2. Songsmith: Classic Song

Peace offer is Reason and scales on Charisma. Get the passive that turns Peace Offer into an AoE attack and don’t look back.

The Songsmith is always deadly, and Classic Song is AoE, Reason, and Charisma scaling.

*Weaver uses Condemn and Zealot uses Question. But these are not necessary.

With our setup: Remember that more Charisma brings more Materials, more initiative, and stronger attacks. So stay focused on Charisma and pick new disciples with Charisma bonuses.

A simple setup for Rituals:

• Tell Stories: Charisma – Pair with Cunning & Knowledge
• Pray: Devotion – Pair with Charisma & Knowledge
• Care: Knowledge – Pair with Charisma & Health
• Work Lands: Health – Pair with Charisma & Cunning

1st add Cunning to Tell Stories to unlock Cunning upgrades. This helps the Songsmiths and all initiative growth. You will be using this most of the time for all Disciples. Devotion is not very important on the Ambassador in this setup.

2nd add Charisma to Pray. 3rd Charisma to Care, then Charisma to Work Lands.

Finish Tell Stories ASAP and spam Charisma/Cunning/Knowledge on all disciples in the mid-game.

The rest round the stats for the end-game.

Tenets
You can choose whatever Tenets you wish, but take a Philosophy Tenet first.

The important Tenets for the traditions we will choose are:

• Joyful Sermons
• Zero Commitment
• Study Scriptures

*Need Singing Circles for Baptism and Adore Llamas for Hermit Pilgrimage

Traditions
1st: Carnival – This is the best Charisma booster in the game, even though it is unreliable to boost a specific disciple. The extra happiness for repeatable missions is nice too.

2nd: Idol – Lots of materials from your high Charisma Idol. Pretty standard.

3rd: School of Philosophy – We have Reason abilities. This gives a nice passive Boost to Reason abilities and enables us to get more Reason abilities. Not much more to it.

Alternative 3rd: Baptism – If Faith is an issue, you can go with this instead if you want

Alternative 3rd: Hermit Pilgrimage – This is worse than School of Philosophy in this circumstance because it lacks the Reason buff, but it is still fine to pick if you want more abilities. Just make sure you have enough Knowledge if you want to pick this.

This run is very straight forward. It is a very good one to try as your first attempt at Impossible difficulty.

Pleasure is said to be complex because it encourages a hybrid build. Hybrid builds are useless for Impossible. They tend to bring out the worst of both Physical and Morale. However, if you decide to go full Morale, Pleasure is by far the easiest Commandment to use. It is ridiculously overpowered and requires very little thought.

This is the basis for my Speedrun[www.speedrun.com] of the game where I beat the game (On Easy, but it is a speedrun) in 27 minutes and 9 seconds (As of this writing).

Possible 1st Traditions available for the Pleasure Commandment:

Animism, Burials, Cannibalism, Carnival, Ecstatic Salvation, God of Thieves, Human Sacrifice, Idol, Reincarnation, Revelations

• Animism / Burials / God of Thieves / Idol / Reincarnation / Revelations are not viable and should be avoided as a 1st Tradition.
• More of a fun note, but this is the only Commandment where Revelations –> Burials is possible. The idea is to age your disciples faster and then get the rewards from Burials when they die. The problem is you need Devotion to get the most out of Revelations and Health to get the most out of Burials. Too bad you can’t have fun with this using Purity.
• Human Sacrifice is an option if you want to run Chieftain/Zealot with the Holy Rose.
• Cannibalism –> God of Thieves works okay for a Physical build based around Cunning, but Cannibalism is just outclassed by Ecstatic Salvation here for a Cunning focus. Further, a Health build with Cannibalism –> Burials doesn’t work well with any Relics.
• Carnival –> Idol is available, just like with Peace, and works fine when paired with the Holy Rose.
• Finally, our strategy that will start with the Ecstatic Salvation. Paired with the Anklet of Joy, the idea is to raise Cunning to huge levels and abuse Evasion scaling. We then add God of Thieves as the 2nd Tradition to turn our high Cunning into tons of Materials. We will be using only Lust Priest and Songsmith as our classes, so we take Animism as our 3rd Tradition.
  *Note: This same Tradition order is just as good if you want to do a Cunning based Physical build.

Holy Rose is a good Relic. It gives Charisma abilities a 33% chance to Infatuate. If you go for a more standard Charisma build, then this is good. But we are not doing that.

Our focus is going to be building a bunch of glass cannons with high Cunning and the Anklet of Joy. We plan to double martyr every fight and win on the first turn before the enemy can even attack.
Since we are going to be building Cunning to ridiculous levels, Evasion scaling makes our Disciples crazy strong.

Now we are solely focusing on our chosen strategy, we will be going with the following Classes:

1. Lust Priest – Charisma + Cunning (Mixed) – Grace/Sorcery, Grace, Overpower
2. Songsmith – Charisma + Cunning (Morale) – Overpower, Reason, Grace

These are both hard hitting AoE Morale classes. Not much more to say. The Anklet of Joy already gives us access to the Songsmith, so we are good to go.

Our focus will be on AoE abilities for maximum damage.

1. Lust Priest: Alluring Body
2. Songsmith: Classic Song

Both are AOE attacks that will just rip through the enemy. They both scale on Charisma (and Evasion with our Relic). So increasing Charisma and Cunning will get both of these to ridiculous strength.

Since we are boosting Charisma so high, you do NOT need the accuracy Passive on the Songsmith.

With our setup: Remember that more Cunning brings more Materials, more initiative, more evasion, and stronger attacks (With our Relic). So stay focused on Cunning and pick new disciples with Cunning bonuses.

A simple setup for Rituals:

• Dance: Cunning – Pair with Charisma & Knowledge
• Work Out: Might – Pair with whatever (Not Useful)
• Kiss: Charisma – Pair with Devotion & Cunning
• Court: Health – Pair with Charisma & Cunning

When you get your first temple, put Charisma on Dance and don’t look back.

Knowledge added to Dance helps build Defy to help in the off chance you don’t win on turn 1.

Kiss and Court are used in this way to round out your Defenses for the late game if you want, but Dance with Cunning / Charisma / Knowledge is really all you need here for the entire run.

Work Out is wasted space.

Tenets
You can choose whatever Tenets you wish, but take a Philosophy Tenet first.

The important Tenets for the traditions we will choose are:

• Night Prayer
• Worship Cats

*Need Adore Llamas for Hermit Pilgrimage

Traditions
1st: Ecstatic Salvation – Boosts Cunning! The Faith boost and Materials are just a bonus. However, you can use the Faith boost in a pinch in the late game if a disciple needs some extra Faith, so it is very useful the whole game.

2nd: God of Thieves – Remember all that cunning we got? Now we get to turn it into mountains of materials. You should have an A-rated cunning disciple immediately upon getting this tradition to take advantage of the 4 chests every 2 missions.

3rd: Animism – Perfect for our class selection. Offerings boost, Faith boost, Individual fight boost, and Ferver boost to help with God of Thieves. Literally everything you want in your 3rd tradition.

Alternative 3rd: Hermit Pilgrimage – Even though the synergy with Animism is perfect, the best Tradition in the game cannot be ignored as a viable 3rd choice. This makes sure all your disciples have the right abilities for the endgame. Just prepare for the knowledge requirement if you choose this.

There’s not much to say here. This is the most overpowered strategy in the game. Go ahead and double Martyr on the final boss with no problems.

Purity is surprisingly versatile, and the defensive focus offers a ton of easy Martyr chances.

Purity’s available starting Traditions offer a ton of viable options. The developers really gave this one all the love when it comes to variety.

Possible 1st Traditions available for the Purity Commandment:

Animism, Baptism, Bribery, Burials, Doom Prophecy, Hermit Pilgrimage, Holy Judge, Holy Marriage, Human Sacrifice, Martial Arts, Monastery of Miracles, Reincarnation

• Animism / Baptism / Doom Prophecy / Holy Judge / Martial Arts / Reincarnation are not viable and should be avoided as a 1st Tradition.
• Bribery –> Burials could be fine with the Cleansing Apple. But this is a Health focused Commandment, so use Bribery as a 3rd Tradition on a Physical team if you use it at all. You should not be focused on Might early here.
• Monastery of Miracles –> Burials is doable with the Cleansing Apple and a Physical build. The Harbinger, Guardian, Rage Prophet and Druid can take advantage of the Sorcery Ability passive boost, but the Ascetic can’t.
• Holy Marriage is more viable on Purity then any other commandment. Devotion is very important here and this is the strongest stat booster in the game. The Ascetic also gets extra Fervor to compliment the need to use the same Disciple a lot. It also pairs well with Holy Water. I just think it works better as a 2nd Tradition after taking Human Sacrifice.
• Human Sacrifice is a very solid choice. It is very versatile, works with both Relics, and has a ton of options to choose from for the 2nd and 3rd Tradition.
• Burials is an interesting start with the Cleansing Apple and Ascetic / Guardian going full Morale. Champion of Faith is available 2nd to super boost your economy, or you can go with Hermit Pilgrimage to fix the ability problem. This is difficult early game, but becomes really strong after the 2nd Island.
• Finally we get to Hermit Pilgrimage:
  • Hermit Pilgrimage –> Brainwashing works with a Physical build. The Ascetic has Purge, an overpower Physical ability. You will need to fight Madness on the 2nd Island to get Master Order to make this possible.
  • Hermit Pilgrimage –> Burials –> Martial Arts with the Cleansing Apple offers a playable Physical build emphasizing overpower abilities.
  • Hermit Pilgrimage –> Grand Aberration is possible if you want to do a Morale build with Druid & Weaver, and sacrifice the Ascetic.
  • Hermit Pilgrimage –> Cult of Silence –> War Slaves is available with Holy Water. Since Divine disciples can learn Silence, it is viable. The Ascetic also has a fear ability that scales on Devotion, so it works as a fun Ascetic only run with Holy Water. The trouble is shoehorning in Knowledge to make use out of the Silence ability, but you can just ignore it until the late game.
  • Hermit Pilgrimage –> Holy Judge –> School of Philosophy is the best you can do with Reason synergy, and gives a great economy. This is what we will be going with in our example below.
  Relics

  Holy Water, or the Morale Bomb, is much better for Devotion based teams. It is very powerful and allows us to not focus so much on offense in the early game

  Tip: Holy Water activates on the TOP slot. Use the disciple with the best Devotion scaling abilities in the TOP slot for the strongest Holy Water Attack.

  Cleansing Apple helps a lot with defense. You don’t need to focus on Devotion because Defy increases with Health. It is not useful for our strategy, but it is better with any Health based strategy.

  Classes

  Now we are solely focusing on our chosen strategy, we will be going with the following Classes:

  1. Ascetic – Devotion + Health (Mixed) – Fear/Reason, Grace, Overpower
  2. Druid – Knowledge + Devotion (Mixed) – Reason, Grace, Sorcery

  Obviously we are going to revolve around the Ascetic, which is a great class. The Washing passive basically negates Martyring against Physical enemies. You can easily do this play-through with only Ascetics.

  Druids work as a secondary class for added offense since they have a Devotion scaling morale Reason ability.
  *Note: The Smitesword does too, but it’s redundant with the Ascetic.

  Abilities

  Our focus will be on Reason abilities that scale on Devotion.

  1. Ascetic: Shame
  2. Druid: Wisdom

  We want Reason abilities and Devotion scaling. Ascetic & Druid give us that.

  *The Weaver & Songsmith can be added late game when you get good Charisma scaling for some more offensive presence (All of their Reason abilities scale on Charisma), but you’ll mainly want to stick to the Devotion classes.

  Rituals

  With our setup: Remember that more Devotion brings stronger attacks and increases the power of Holy Water. So stay focused on Devotion and pick new disciples with Devotion bonuses.

  A simple setup for Rituals:

  • Wash: Health – Pair with Devotion & Charisma
  • Eat Well: Might – Pair with Devotion & Charisma
  • Focus: Devotion – Pair with Charisma & Cunning
  • Chastise: Knowledge – Pair with Devotion & Health

  Start with the Devotion Temple and add Charisma to Focus. 2nd build the Charisma temple and add Devotion to Chastise. 3rd add Devotion to Wash

  Finish Wash first, then Chastise to help with Hermit Pilgrimage, Then Focus to start getting a little Initiative (and maybe a Songsmith)

  Eat Well is only for Smiteswords if you use them.

  Tenets & Traditions

  Tenets
  You can choose whatever Tenets you wish, but take a Philosophy Tenet first. Rain God is a good choice if you decide you want Baptism later.

  The important Tenets for the traditions we will choose are:

  • Meditation
  • Stern Sermons
  • Free Speech

  *Need Rain God for Baptism

  Traditions
  1st: Hermit Pilgrimage – The best tradition in the game. Extremely versatile. Goal is get a lot of Reason abilities on a single disciple for our 2nd tradition.

  2nd: Holy Judge – The purpose for the reason abilities. Pick your Reason boosted disciple to be the judge. With enough Reason abilities, this is the best Economy Tradition in the game. You also get to use Judge Violence, an Ancestral Reason ability that scales with Devotion, so it is very good bonus to this awesome Tradition.

  3rd: School of Philosophy – Seems redundant with Hermit Pilgrimage, but is does guarantee a new ability, so it is better to give to disciples that need more Ability Points to upgrade in the late game. With that said, this is mainly picked for the passive boost to all of our Reason abilities.

  Alternative 3rd: Baptism – If you don’t like having Reason abilities on all your disciples, then you can go with Baptism. It gives a big permanent Faith boost, a big Devotion boost, and offerings. A solid choice if you want to run different abilities.

  Final Thoughts

  This is a really strong strategy. I had no issues using double Martyr through pretty much the whole thing. The amount of chests you receive from Holy Judge is insane. There should be no reason to ever have less than 12 Reason abilities on your Judge (14 most of the time).

For optimized play, Generosity doesn’t have a lot of variety because of the uneven the Relic choices. One is very good and the other is essentially useless in comparison. However, when picking the correct Relic, Generosity compares to Peace – but has a better Relic, better Traditions options, and a worse Special Class.

Possible 1st Traditions available for the Generosity Commandment:

Animism, Carnival, Champion of Faith, Community Elder, God of Thieves, Heavenly Art, Human Sacrifice, Just New World, Reincarnation, Trade Missions, Turn the Other Cheek

• Animism / God of Thieves / Champion of Faith / Just New World / Heavenly Art / Reincarnation are not viable and should be avoided as a 1st Tradition.
• Human Sacrifice can work with a Charisma based build with the Fire Heart using Zealot / Chieftain. This is not the best, since Godly Recipe is far superior to the Fire Heart.
• Carnival is similar to Human Sacrifice with needing a Charisma based build with the Fire Heart. This is a better than HS because you can at least bring in the Cook and Songsmith to help, but the Fire Heart is just worse than Godly Recipe, and Peace does this better.
• Turn the Other Cheek –> Trade Missions –> Hermit Pilgrimage is usable. You can’t take full advantage of the Economy of Turn the Other Cheek until late game, but it makes sure you are only doing Morale attacks. Devout also scales with Devotion, so it isn’t the best when we want Knowledge scaling. The Druid is better here, since it has a Knowledge scaling Grace Morale ability. Not the most optimized strategy, but it works.
• Trade Missions is very strong to boost Knowledge. When taken 1st it leaves the door open for plenty of options for a 2nd Tradition when paired with Godly Recipe. This is very good to play around with.
• Community Elder –> Trade Missions abuses the Faith boost from Godly Recipe and gives us an excellent economy and Knowledge boost. This is everything we want out of this Commandment and is the strategy we will be using for our example.

There is no choice here. Godly Recipe is insanely good. 100% of a disciple’s Knowledge gets added to Faith. You never have to worry about Faith at all in this run. And we have an awesome Tradition that will take advantage of this.

Fire Heart gives physical armor to 50% Charisma…boooooo!

Now we are solely focusing on our chosen strategy, we will be going with the following Classes:

1. Cook – Knowledge + Charisma (Morale) – Reason, Sorcery, Grace
2. Harbinger – Health + Knowledge (Mixed) – Reason, Fear, Sorcery\
3. Weaver – Knowledge + Charisma (Morale) – Overpower, Reason, Sorcery/Fear
4. Songsmith – Charisma + Cunning (Morale) – Overpower, Reason, Grace

Here we have the good Knowledge scaling classes (plus the Songsmith).

The Cook is a decent class with some good passives. It is better early game because of its default Morale ability.

The Harbinger comes with Godly Recipe, and has an awesome passive that lowers enemy Morale armor. It is not the best in the early game because of its default Physical ability, but is much better when you can control the abilities.

The Weaver replaces the Harbinger in the early game so you can use Morale attacks.

The Songsmith can be used later in the game for greater offensive help when you can scale Cunning and Charisma.

*The Druid can also be used here, but it is mostly redundant to the cook.

Our focus will be on Morale abilities that scale on Knowledge.

1. Cook: Miracle Bounty / Split Meal
2. Harbinger: Mortify
3. Weaver: Nightmare
4. Songsmith – Classic Song

Either ability is fine with the Cook. It depends if you want more offense or defense. Miracle Bounty is better in most situations, but Split Meal helps a lot in Martyr.

Mortify is the go-to choice here on the Harbinger. It is stronger and you already get a Morale Armor debuff from the Harbinger passive, so Demoralize can be redundant.

Nightmare is the only Knowledge scaling ability on the Weaver.

Classic Song on the Songsmith provides all the nice offensive support and class coverage to round it out.

*If you want to go with the Druid instead of the Cook, then Use Marvel of Growth.

With our setup: Remember that more Knowledge brings stronger attacks, more Faith, more Materials, better Targeting, and increased Defy. So stay focused on Knowledge and pick new disciples with Devotion bonuses.

A simple setup for Rituals:

• Help – Charisma – Pair with Cunning & Knowledge
• Count Crops – Knowledge – Pair with Charisma & Health
• Suffer – Devotion – Pair with Knowledge & Charisma
• Organize Meals – Health – Pair with Knowledge & Devotion

1st add Charisma to Count Crops. 2nd add Knowledge to Organize Meals. 3rd add Cunning to Help. 4th add Knowledge to Suffer.

Count Crops should be finished first for all of your disciples. Next finish Help to get some Cunning.

Finish Suffer 3rd, and finally Organize Meals if you want.

Tenets
You can choose whatever Tenets you wish, but take a Philosophy Tenet first.

The important Tenets for the traditions we will choose are:

• Venerate Dogs
• Offer Food
• Adore Llamas

*Need: Power of the Market for School of Philosophy, Religious Poetry for Heavenly Art, and Evil Deity for Doom Prophecy (Must fight Madness on Island 2 to get this).

Traditions
1st: Community Elder – This is just tailor-made to go with Godly Recipe. On it’s own, this is the strongest economy tradition in the game (Others can give more chests, but they need the help of other traditions, like Holy Judge needing Hermit Pilgrimage). Faith is fully managed by Godly Recipe and you are free to farm repeatable missions all day with the extra happiness.

2nd: Trade Missions – Further boosting Knowledge, and thus Faith, to the whole team. More materials is a fun bonus, but not really needed.

3rd: Hermit Pilgrimage – It’s always good.

Alternative 3rd: Heavenly Art – Can you handle the Truth? This will give massive follower counts and an easier path to Truth Rank with the amount of Knowledge we have. But it mainly makes our Future disciples much stronger for the late game. This is a good choice if you have saved a bunch of happiness and want to train a super team for the end just for fun. That extra ability is pretty good too.

Alternative 3rd: School of Philosophy – If you wanted to use all Reason abilities for the late game this is a fine choice. All of our chosen classes get Reason abilities to make this happen.
Reason abilities available with our classes:

• Cook – Split Meal
• Harbinger – Demoralize
• Weaver – Condemn/Scold
• Songsmith – Classic Song

Alternative 3rd: Doom Prophecy – Boosts Charisma & Knowledge, and gives extra offerings based on Knowledge. This definitely sounds the best on paper, but you really don’t need the extra Offerings with Community Elder, so it loses most of its use. However, if you somehow still need Offerings, this should be your first choice.

This is a very straight-forward run. Disciples get strong very quickly due to the high Faith, so there were never any issues.

Madness might be the most interesting Commandment of all.

This is really the one where you can have fun, as there are a lot of viable strategies here.

Possible 1st Traditions available for the Generosity Commandment:

Animism, Cannibalism, Community Elder, Cult of Silence, Doom Prophecy, God of Thieves, Grand Aberration, Hermit Pilgrimage, Holy Judge, Human Sacrifice, Idol, Monastery of Miracles

• Animism / Cult of Silence / Doom Prophecy /God of Thieves / Holy Judge / Idol are not viable and should be avoided as a 1st Tradition.
• Monastery of Miracles is pretty underwhelming since it is just outclassed by Hermit Pilgrimage, but it can be fine.
• Human Sacrifice –> Turn the Other Cheek with the Sacred Infant is a pretty funny strategy here. Leads to a Might based strategy with all Smiteswords with the Judgement ability. Other than that, Human sacrifice is pretty useless, since Grand Aberration is is just better in any other situation.
• Grand Aberration is finally acceptable here with the Secret Pyramid. Cultist / Weaver / Druid works well for a Knowledge based Morale Build. Can’t go wrong with this choice.
• Cannibalism with a Might based physical build with the Sacred Infant works just fine, but is pretty generic.
• Community Elder with a Knowledge based Morale build with the Secret Pyramid is doable, but again, its generic and better with Generosity anyway,
• And we get to Hermit Pilgrimage. Like with Purity, this leads to many options:
  • Hermit Pilgrimage –> Holy Judge. This works just as well as it did on Purity.
  • Hermit Pilgrimage –> Cult of Silence is probably best used here since Cultists and Weavers get a Knowledge scaling Fear ability to pair with Silence.
  • Hermit Pilgrimage –> Turn the Other Cheek using the same all Smitesword strategy as mentioned above with Human Sacrifice is probably the better version of the idea.

So what are we picking for our example run? In the spirit of this commandment, I will do something different and fun. For this run, I will use a Tradition that is not usually available for Madness as a 2nd Tradition: Brainwashing

To get Brainwashing, we will need the Master Order Tenet. So we will need to choose the Madness Island for the 2nd Island, and take Master Order as the Reward to have Brainwashing in time for our 2nd Tradition.

Using Hermit Pilgrimage –> Brainwashing –> Martial Arts, we will use the Sacred Infant and a Might based Physical build to take advantage of full Overpower synergy.

Secret Pyramid is better for Knowledge based strategies. But sadly the Overpower abilities we will need for Brainwashing do not scale with Knowledge, so it is useless to us.

Sacred Infant Increases Critical with High Might, so we will be doing a Might based Physical Build.

Now we are solely focusing on our chosen strategy, we will be going with the following Classes:

1. Cultist – Knowledge + Might (Mixed) – Sorcery, Fear, Overpower/Sorcery
2. Chieftain – Charisma + Might (Mixed) – Grace, Overpower, Fear
3. Smitesword – Might + Devotion (Mixed) – Reason, Overpower, Grace

The Cultist gets a pretty cool passive in Perfect Fodder. You never get broken faith or lose converts when A cultist is in play. Very useful for a squishy physical play-through like this.

The Chieftain / Smitesword get Might scaling Overpower Abilities. It’s good to see them get some love.

Our focus will be on Physical Overpower abilities that scale on Might.

1. Cultist: Aberrant Growth
2. Chieftain: Totem Slam
3. Smitesword: Smite

All of these abilities scale on Might, so our critical hit rates are pretty good with Sacred Infant. We are also using only Overpower abilities to take advantage of Brainwashing. Pretty straight-forward.

Remember that, Might brings stronger attacks, more accuracy, and a higher Crit chance so it is important that you focus on Might and get new Disciples with Might bonuses.

A simple setup for Rituals:

• Occult – Knowledge – Pair with Cunning & Health
• Scream – Charisma – Pair with Might & Knowledge
• Punish – Might – Pair with Knowledge & Cunning
• Stalk – Cunning – Pair with Might & Devotion

Start with adding Knowledge to Punish for targeting and Defy. Next Might to Scream. Then add Might to Stalk.

Goal is getting Might/Cunning/Knowledge on Punish ASAP for all disciples. This will give us decent defense-by-avoidance, strong attacks, good targeting, and passable initiative.

Finish Occult 2nd. The rest of the rituals are set in this way to round out the rest of the stats, and to get some Charisma on the Chieftains. Devotion on Stalk is the least important.

*I highly recommend that you invest in Health for the final fight. Evasion/Defy as your only defense for the final fight is not enough.

Tenets
You can choose whatever Tenets you wish, but take a Philosophy Tenet first.

The important Tenets for the traditions we will choose are:

• Reclusion
• Master Order
• Blood Sport

*Need: Arranged Marriages for Bribery, Evil God for Doom Prophecy, and Sabbath for Reincarnation.

Traditions
1st: Hermit Pilgrimage – Need to get lots of Overpower abilities.

2nd: Brainwashing – Lots of chests because…Overpower abilities. The Knowledge hit is negligible as we build it up.

3rd: Martial Arts – Did I mention we had Overpower abilities? This rounds out the synergy! Awesome passive buff to those abilities we got, and an Offerings downpour with high Might. What more could you want?

Alternative 3rd: Bribery – If you’d rather boost Faith and Might, and have some Happiness to spare. Knock yourself out.

Alternative 3rd: Doom Prophecy – Similar to Martial Arts, swap the Overpower Passive buff for extra Knowledge Development. An objectively worse choice, but still fine.

Alternative 3rd: Reincarnation – Not a good choice, but really not that much worse than the other alternatives, so why not? This is the fun run.

Runs like this just remind me how much better Morale is than Physical. The beginning is slow, but it does get much easier through the rest of the run. The Final battle is kind of ridiculous if you do not have some decent health.

And finally we get to the Tradition Tier List for reference and for fun. If you have read this entire guide, then some of these will not be a surprise.

Alphabetical order within the Tiers:

S Tier

• Hermit Pilgrimage: Easily the best Tradition in the game. 8 XP and 2 Ability Points available EVERY MISSION. It is the cornerstone for making every ability based Tradition work, as well as being top-tier on its own. Nothing compares.

A+ Tier

• Holy Judge: When used correctly, it gives more chests then any other tradition (8 chests every 3 missions). On top of that, it operates around Reason abilities, which are some of the best Morale attacks in the game. It is not in S-tier because this is strictly a 2nd Tradition that requires Hermit Pilgrimage or School of Philosophy first to be as effective as possible. But this gives a top tier economy, has no penalties, has a bonus ability that is awesome, and is viable with a lot of strategies, so it sits above the rest.

A Tier

• Burials: Offers a big Health boost with almost no penalty, and a large chest bonus when a disciple dies. If Health is important, this is mandatory.
• Carnival: The best Charisma booster in the game & gives Happiness with only a small Faith penalty. A hybrid Tradition that is incredibly strong at both power and economy (Through repeatable missions). What holds it back slightly is the randomness.

• Community Elder: The strongest economy Tradition in the game on it’s own. It belongs in A tier because it is S on Generosity and B+ outside of it, due to Faith issues. It is also isolated, meaning it doesn’t make any other Tradition stronger.

A- Tier

• Animism: Awesome as a 3rd Tradition. It does have a specific use, but if you have a full Nature/Life team (Pleasure & Greed) then this really can’t be beat.
• Baptism: Here because of its versatility. It is essentially usable as a 3rd Tradition with any Commandment, which only Hermit Pilgrimage can match. It is a great Faith and Offerings booster, which works even if you don’t care about the Devotion Boost. There is usually a better choice, but if you need Faith and Offerings, this is never a bad 3rd selection.
• Ecstatic Salvation: The best Tradition for boosting Cunning. No penalties, big Cunning boost, extra Faith, and a small Materials boost. Great at what it does.

B+ Tier

• Cannibalism: The best pure power Tradition for Physical builds. Low cool-down, boosts important stats, and can stack on the same disciple. But the high Faith cost brings it down a notch.
• God of Thieves: When paired with high Cunning, this is an amazing economy booster. Taken 2nd after Ecstatic Salvation or Cannibalism is powerful. But it is specialized with limited use, and just bad without a Tradition that boosts Cunning.
• School of Philosophy: Great for a specific purpose – 3rd Tradition to boost Reason abilities. As an XP and Ability booster, it is severely outclassed by Hermit Pilgrimage, but still usable.
• Trade Missions: Awesome at boosting Knowledge. However, the negligible Material gain, long cool-down, and 2 mission length hold it back from being great.

B Tier

• Champion of Faith: It has a good ability and is amazing when paired with Burials. Scales Materials like crazy with high Health!
• Doom Prophecy: Solid as a 3rd Tradition for extra Offerings if you have high Knowledge. The power boost can help too.
• Idol: This gives tons of Materials with high Charisma. The Faith penalty hurts, and it would be better if Carnival was more reliable at boosting a single Disciple.
• Martial Arts: Very similar to Doom Prophecy. Great as a 3rd Tradition if you need Offerings and have high Might & lots of Overpower Abilities. Amazing synergy with Brainwashing.

B- Tier

• Brainwashing: Would be better if Overpower abilities were not only Physical. It also requires Hermit Pilgrimage to work properly, but Hermit Pilgrimage –> Brainwashing is not available with any Commandment normally. However, it is possible to do (On both Madness & Purity) if you fight Madness on Island 2 and take Master Order as a reward. It does give a lot of chests.
• Grand Aberration / Human Sacrifice: These are always decent choices for a starting Tradition; they just handicap you with Class selection, so there is usually something better to pick.

C+ Tier

• Bribery: Strong power Tradition for Physical builds. It has a very low cool-down and can stack on the same disciple multiple times, but the Happiness cost really hurts. Disciples die faster on Impossible, so it really only works as a 3rd Tradition if you have some spare Happiness and need extra Might.
• Holy Marriage: Very strong power Tradition that only benefits one disciple. Same issue as Bribery because disciples die faster on Impossible. Works better as a 3rd Tradition to boost for the end.

C Tier

• Heavenly Art: Better than it sounds. Makes your future disciples very strong. It really needs to be taken 2nd to be the most effective, it’s just hard to justify taking it that early. It does work as a 3rd Tradition, but it’s not optimal.

C- Tier

• Might Makes Right: Gives less than 1 chest per mission, big Faith boost to 1 disciple while lowering Faith on other disciples. Not good, but passable.
• War Slaves: Gives a lot of Materials. Useless early. If you happen to be in a situation where you need a late economy Tradition, then this is the one to pick. But most of the time you won’t need this by the time it’s useful.

D Tier

• Cult of Silence: The Silence ability is good, but that’s about it. Getting the 4th Tradition sounds good on paper, but isn’t in practice. Also needs Hermit Pilgrimage to stack Fear abilities.
• Monastery of Miracles: 1 Chest per mission is fine and it boosts Sorcery abilities. However, there is no other way to take advantage of Sorcery, so it is essentially an isolated economy Tradition that is outclassed as an XP booster by Hermit Pilgrimage.
• Turn the Other Cheek: Sounds so much better on paper, but Grace abilities leave a lot to be desired. Needs Hermit Pilgrimage for the economy to be effective. Devout scales on Devotion and the only Grace ability that naturally scales on Devotion is…Physical (Smitesword). It does still work, it’s just not at all viable to optimize, so you are better off picking something else.

F Tier

• Alchemy: Battle buff is not great. Only benefits 1 disciple. Must be Physical. Useless God power. There is never any justification to choose this, it is terrible.
• Just New World: So disappointing. The way-too-long cool-down kills any usefulness it has outside of the super late 4th Tradition you get when using Cult of Silence.
• Reincarnation: Adds a Miracle to one of your disciples and a chest or 2 with a cool-down that is way too long for no reason. Only benefits 1 disciple and lasts until the disciple dies. Pair it with Revelations so your disciples die faster to end up in a perpetual loop of uselessness.
• Revelations: Seems like fun if you could take Burials 2nd, but that is only possible with Pleasure (Cunning/Charisma). Also, Revelations likes Devotion, and Burials likes Health. Doesn’t work. Could have been fun on Purity, but would have probably still ended up here.

By Espo_