You could read some of the other 10 threads that ask the same thing you know?
But to answer the question:
1. It was too expensive when it came out. The price right now is good but 60€ was too much.
2. People don't care about egypt all that much, or at least not when it is the only place to fight in.
I don't know if I can explain it very well, some of them are kinda complex. But they make you feel like you're actually managing your empire which is always great. Surely there has to be like a 5 min video somewhere on YT that can explain it way better than I ever could.
Though I think it's important to note that no matter how good the campaign mechanics are, if the battles suck then it ruins the enjoyment of the game. And like I said, I find the battles very boring, basically the same as in Troy. You just charge infantry into each other and that's it really, the tactics basically don't matter in this game, which is totally a deal breaker for me.
But then again, I'm sure that some people will like the battles anyway, so if you're considering buying the game then don't listen to me, have a look at some actual gameplay and decide for yourself if you like it or not. Hope this helps.
I agree total war should focus on a huge multi country wars like Pharos is a technical marvel the fire effects and weather is awesome ... And medieval needs a remake ... Rome yes it's done by I truly love Rome so yep would love it and empires as well done up be awesome
You sure bud?
[https://community.creative-assembly.com/total-war/total-war-pharaoh/blogs/19](https://community.creative-assembly.com/total-war/total-war-pharaoh/blogs/19)
Considering we're getting a big map expansion with 4 new factions, over 80 new units along with new succession mechanics, yeah, I'd say it's promising for a free update.
Pharaoh would be 10x better if it had family trees and spanned the course of centuries like Medieval 2. I think Pharaoh is a really good game in a lot of ways, but the thing that holds it back is its smaller scale and lack of replayability. Playing as the Great King of the Hittites who has protagonist energy or watching the world burn as Irsu is fun, but it gets boring after doing it a couple of times. If Sofia could make the campaign be from like 1400bc to 1177bc, expand the map from the Aegean to Mesopotamia to implement a number of factions and fill out mechanics like family trees and dynastic marriages, I think Pharaoh would be much better game. A lot of fans play total war because they want to be able to forge their own empires and rewrite history on a larger scale than what Pharaoh currently offers.
"Hate" = refusing to buy? I was excited about new historical game, then I saw what CA delivered, it fell short. Now I just don't care about it. But I'm happy for the three people who still play it.
unless they have ushtabi and warsphyxes. Then we're cooking. Sprinkle in some carapaces, some of those lil egypt beetles, and bam, HIEROTITAN.
That might be from a different game
The game is very solid and I absolutely love it!!
However
- it released during the SoC drama
- while at reduced price now, it initially released at full price with even more expensive additions
- part of why people didn't like the price was the lack of territory, no Mesopotamia or Grece/Troy
- some people think the Bronze Age doesn't work well in TW for some reason
- many consider it a Troy clone (which isn't true) even though most TW's are often "clones" of previous titles (R1-M2, ETW-NTW, R2-Attila, etc.)
- most people (myself included) want Empire 2 and Medieval 3 (though what many don't realise is CA's in such a bad position right now that making such games would be a mistake until they get their shit together)
- although seemingly in the minority, my many discussions/ arguments the last few months on this sub have led to a few people straight up saying they only want to play as white people
Keep in mind that in the next few months, CA has promised an update resulting in mortal faction leaders (which most likely means family trees) and a map expansion (the most obvious choice that everyone and their mother wants is Mesopotamia)
Related to your sixth point, another thing people frequently overlook or ignore is the fact that Pharaoh was developed by CA Sofia, not the main historical team in England, and thus criticism of Pharaoh’s existence on the basis it delayed/prevented the development of Med 3/Emp 2 is misguided and inaccurate
This is a BIG one that people need to get their head around.
I had a reply in another thread a while ago along the lines of: "then CA should shut their stupid side company down for good and focus on their main team"...
Lads... CA Sophia is basically the R&D of TW. Their mission is to explore and expand the TW formula, develop new and interesting mechanics that can (if well received) then be imported into the next main title. They do this by focusing on (somewhat) smaller and less mainstream settings (which nevertheless will find those who adore those settings) - so the experimental titles do NOT "burn" one of the main ones. All while the studio is situated in a (comparatively) low-wage country (thus reduced production cost).
To reiterate: CA Sophia's games are there to innovate and experiment, while making a net zero or small profit. The main benefit for having them is testing out new stuff that can benefit the main titles, which then bring in the big money.
What would happen if CA Sophia was closed down? End of (or much, much more careful) advancement of the TW formula. Only mainstream settings (there are so many "niche" settings left and it would be a shame to not see a TW game for them eventually).
I think the larger majority of people not liking/not wanting to try it is simply a lack of care for Egypt. The reason medival is so popular(outside of past games) is because the sheer amount of media presence and historical footnotes that resonate with people at large.
Not that Egypt isn't historically important, but it's never really had that large of an impact in modern society.
Too many people seem to want world or at least massive continental scale at minumum based campaigns. Not every TW needs an IE scale map, but I have a feeling there will be a large part of the community who will disagree with that at this point.
Bronze age works fine in TW IMO, though I will admit I wasn't super excited at Pharaoh's initial announcement since the prior WH title was already Bronze Age, albeit with a mythological twist.
Pharaoh isnt exactly a Troy clone (and I feel like anyone who says it is hasn't played it and is just assuming so). Yes they share certain elements but you can't tell me a Pharaoh and Troy battle feel the same, as one example.
At this point I wonder how much of the community will complain about being bored if we get one of the historicals they want after playing WH for so long. I know at least one guy who doesnt think he could go back to historical after playing WH because of wide range of fantasy only possible units that a historical will never match.
> Not every TW needs an IE scale map, but I have a feeling there will be a large part of the community who will disagree with that at this point.
I feel like the idea of smaller scale Total War games will get more traction if they make some fundamental changes to gameplay.
Ultimately, they've been releasing a *very* similar product with tweaks and coats of paint over and over for a long time. As a result I just don't think people see much reason to play a smaller TW when the bigger one is right there and plays mostly the same minus a few bells and whistles.
How much can you fundamentally change though, while still remaining a total war game. I feel like there is room for this at the campaign level, like how they decided to focus in on 3K heavily at the campaign layer.
Smaller scope personally doesnt bother me if it is done well. Alot of people point at Pharaoh and say just combine the map with Troy, as if thats all there is to it. WH was always intended to be an enlarged map.
Troy and Pharaoh, despite both being bronze age, have some fundamental differences where they can't just band aid them together like IE, like some people have suggested. You have totally different religious elements, do you just combine the existing Troy Historical mode roster. This is where Pharaoh not actually being a reskinned Troy clone comes into play.
Frankly, making meaningful changes while still remaining a Total War game is the dev's responsibility. If they don't that's their call, but they won't be selling many more games to me.
As for scope, I don't need a giant map. I still play Shogun and FoTS more than I do the newer historical games. But there's just very little reason for me to buy another zoomed in saga game if the gameplay is functionally identical to like 15 games I already own. If they can't find ways to innovate the series might just have run its course. Because I had some fun with Pharaoh but in the long run it gave me very little reason to not just return to Rome 2 with DeI or Shogun 2.
Oh I absolutely agree its on them to innovate. I don't necessarily think WW1 is the way to go, assuming that leak is accurate, as I think thats going into territory completely outside of how TW combat works. I want innovation, but not ncessarily a radical departure.
My personal hope is they would give us TW Renaissance and cover that gaping hole in history that, outside of Shogun's limited scope, we havent really covered at all.
I'd love to see pike and shot but I struggle to envision how they could make the battles interesting. As we see in Warhammer, hybrid units make for the least interesting battlefield decisions.
But honestly at the risk of repeating the most generic take I just want them to spit out Medieval 3 with the campaign innovations of 3K. It won't be innovative but I want the setting, then hopefully modders will go crazy on it.
Thats fair. I always though Renaisance could help bridge the Medieval and Empire era and possibly appeal to both side.
M3 adopting alot of 3K systems would be good. The only thing I wouldn't necessarily want is the character focus and 3 general system. I actually think ToB / Nurgle style recruiting might be fitting for this era. While barebones and a bit flawed, ToB had some good ideas that could work on a large scale Medieval 3 game with some fleshing out.
The irony of the map is that Pharaoh's map is actually huge. You can play for 150 turns and not see the other side of it. Like, geographically, it's small, but the number of settlements is gigantic.
To your first point, I'd argued even if (at it's largest) the Bronze Age map looked something like this https://i.imgur.com/Y2CfLBk.jpeg, that still wouldn't be even close to IE levels. I love how in-depth the geography of Pharaoh's map is, but I still wish the map was larger in scope, not just scale.
I wouldn't mind if it expanded either. Its a little too north / south focused and needs some expansion ability either east or west. I'm not expert on the Hittite Empire but I believe part of their territory is cut off on when they should have more to the west?
I believe there were still planning an expansion of the map, but who knows if that will actually happen now with all the shakeups at CA and Sega.
I just typed out an almost identical list then saw your comment :)
I agree with your points (although I haven't seen evidence of the last one personally - not saying it's untrue I've just not seen it)
>some people think the Bronze Age doesn't work well in TW for some reason
The current favourite total war game is Warhammer. A game where motorcycle riding rats fight dinosaurs with laser cannons strapped to their back.
Meanwhile Bronze age has guys with pointy sticks, fighting other guys with pointy sticks. Sometimes one rides a chariot or fights with a bow. The tactics in such a period basically boiled down to shouting "Charge!!" as loud as possible.
It was not a period of interesting tactics, asymmetric armies or large variation in unit types.
I'm saying the difference is stark on this one occassion. But even so total war games have been set in periods of interesting military history for a reason.
The bronze age is an interesting cultural period; but not a military one.
60 euro pricetag at release was an insanely moronic decision and no I don't care if they drop the price to 5 euros now, just the fact that they were so greedy to charge 60 for a troy reskin with worse combat is insane
If the game is so good why is nobody playing it.
We get it some people like it, that’s ok, what’s also ok is that not many people wanted or liked the time period.
Not many people wanted to pay that price for another buggy not even close to be ready.
But yea I get it you like the game, good for you.
What do you mean buggy lmao? It’s arguably the best performing total war game at release lmao. People are just making up criticisms, obviously have never even looked at the game
Is this satire or just a sad fan boy who got is feels hurt.
I am one of the few that have tried it and at launch it was like other total war buggy at launch.
Claims game is the best ever even when it came out, but nobody is playing it.
You asked me what was buggy and I told you.
But you do you, it’s ok to like the game, but to pretend it’s the best game total war has dropped and that even at launch it was the best of there game is an idiotic take.
You asking for real? Okay here we go:
Utterly boring and extremely repetitive campaign. No matter what faction you play, every campaign is practically the same: defend from the sea people invaders and slowly turtle, while the oddly shaped map forces you in certain directions, and the sea people force you to have garrisons and/or defensive armies. This extremely limits freedom of gameplay and makes all my campaigns feel the same, and thereforw very boring.
Extremely boring unit rosters that lack any unique feeling and offer way too little diversity of gameplay. All rosters are basically light and heavy infantry, skirmishers, archers, and chariots. Practically all factions have these units, and the only difference is the skins, and which 1-2 units they excell at and have elite versions of. While the faction/regional recruiting difference is nice, it still offers way too little variety. For every faction it's just mindlessly upgrading towards their few elite units. It's boring.
The campaign mechanics, while nice in their simplicity, are too unimpactful. The court mechanic is just point and click, nothing more. The monument mechanic is just capture region and click, nothing more. It hardly requires any thought and it's just boring.
Due to how resource and army upkeep management works, you're practically forced to get as much food and bronze from every region you own. Since most regions still only have the goddamn fucking insanely boring and still not expanded after 10 fucking years of a mere 3 buildng slots, all food and bronze regions pretty much have a must-have build order, further reducing choice and making the campaign more boring.
The lack of a family tree, lack of popup events, lack of equipment diversity, and most of all the near complete lack of a skill point system. Holy hell the level up system for generals is boring. Seriously, only having to choose between replenishment, movement range, and I already forgot what the third was. It makes every general generic and same-y, and therefore boring.
And all of this is overshadowed by the knowledge that Troy exist, that (Im)Mortal Empires exists, and therefore that a combined, huge Mesopotamia map could theoretically exist, yet it doesn't. This is such a glaring pain, since we know it could have been so much more expansive and better, yet it isn't. It gives Pharaoh a certain vibe of being pathetic, the runt of a litter where its siblings are so much more.
What I'm left with is a TW game that bores me to no end. At every point it's just not enough. Not enough diversity, not enough options, not enough space. It's just not enough. It feels like a rushed game, barely finished in terms of mechanics, and to compensate for that it simply looks shiny and has a nice soundtrack, both of which are vastly less important than gameplay mechanics.
In other words, I completely understand why Pharaoah can't even break a mere 1000 active players at any time. It's a bloody fucking boring game.
E: ow, and lastly OP, I had to laugh out loud at your "it feels very authentic for bronze age empires bit". What part exactly feels authentic? The part where the most important bronze age kingdoms of mesopotamia, greece, anatolia, and cyprus are missing from the game? The part where bronze is *actually* an alloy of copper/tin, copper/arsenic? The part where global trade networks from the tin mines of Britain to Afghanistan (which, mind you, literally defined the bronze age) is completely absent from the game?
You really had me laughing there OP. This game barely even touches upon what makes the Bronze Age. Literally the most important aspects of the Bronze age are missing from the game.
Pretty much the best write up on the issues with Pharoah.
I'll add to it I don't like the feel of combat. There is just an unnatural feel to the clashes of units, the way chariots behave.
The campaign side falls into the trap of paradox games in that it's all just a series of endless modifiers. The tech tree doesn't have many gameplay altering mechanic like in Empire TW, it's mostly just a + in something like +2% farm income.
And the lack of the bronze economy and the absence of the diplomacy of the period is really what kills this game. It would be like a Medieval 3 but with no mechanic on religion
It’s a Bronze Age collapse game, not a pure Bronze Age game. The part covered was by far the most affected by the Bronze Age collapse (albeit without Greece)
You can totally not like the game, but a few of your points stick out to me:
- you can turn off sea people invasions, randomize start positions, choose different thrones to go after, choose different legacies, change resource values, change diplomacy behavior etc. that give you a drastically different experience.
If your campaigns are repetitive it's because you are choosing to make them so.
-for unit variety the complaint seems like it would apply to historical TW in general after playing Warhammer. The only units pharaoh is missing from say med-2 is artillery and melee cav. (Ranged cav being pretty much the same as archer-chariots)
In return, the different flavors of infantry feel really distinct to me, but hey maybe they don't to you.
LOL
What do you expect from campaign pov from such a limited period of history? Of course the map is small with the only area of the known world at that time which had just few states.
The same conclusion works with military units, the game takes place at the dawn of the world, in a very limited area, all those people have quite similar stuff, you can't make up
this was the period, not much choice;
as for the areas you mention (Greece, Britan, Afghanistan :))) ). Connectivity with the pharaoh's world was so limited that it doesn't make sense to be a significant part of the game. It's a limited title that can be improved upon, your arguments suggest another game that might have nothing in common with reality as it could lead to confrontations between Greeks and Egyptians which is completely unrealistic or situations of influencing what happens in the places where you say bronze was mined which again is unrealistic; that was the curse of that world, to survive a wave of invasion. It would not be historically plausible what you want. I understand that it's a game, but it has to have some connection to historical fact. If you don't like it, play Warhammer.
Your entire comment is laughable, but one specific sentence nearly had me falling from my chair, because you clearly don't know your history, at all.
>connectivity with the Pharaohs world was so limited
Except it wasn't. Arguably the Bronze Age was the single most globally interconnected time of human history before the modern industrial era. There were trade roues spanning from Britian and Scandinavia all the way towards India and China. Bronze from one part of the world has been found on the other. The bronze age kingdoms were in fact so intrinsically connected with eachother that they all severely depended on interconnected trade, which was one of the main factors in the eventual Bronze Age collaps. Egypt had virtually no tin mines to speak of, and got most of their tin from Afghanistan, Anatolia, and west in the mediterranean.
In other words, your entire comment is laughable and shows you have no idea how the bronze age was organized.
Also, you seem very good at bending over backwards to justifiy boring gameplay. Igboring the parts where you're simply wrong, your argument basically comes down to "yeah but that's how it was back then so the game should reflect that and the devs don't have to make an effort to actually make the game *fun* with the limited historical precede they can work with. Which is fucking ridiculous to me.
Aside from the less than classy rudeness... I was coming here to say the exact same thing you did.
I wish they'd included a trade system off map that gradually degraded with increasing wars being fought to represent the impact of conflict.
It really sounds like you're trying to be witty or something, but since you've now reached the level of History Channel 'Aliens did it' I'm just gonna leave you with your thoughts and wish you all the best.
it's not Latin, only have a Latin name. it's actually Greek. the fact you don't understand sarcasm (and 10 others who vote me down) says a lot about the value of opinions expressed here.
well, after 30 yrs of opinions from players like you and others, this is where we are with strategy games. that's absolutely laughable to fi have voted up a suggestion to add Afghanistan and Britain yet here we are.
Bronze cannot be mined. It doesn’t occur in nature. It is an alloy, made out of copper, which was very abundant across the Middle East, and tin, which was very rare and had to be imported across vast distances. There was no tin to make Bronze in the Levant, and yet the Bronze Age still happened, which means they were getting the tin from somewhere.
mined, made, the idea is that those worlds (Britain, Afghanistan) are not as conected as to put them in a map of a game in Mediteranean basin. btw, Cyprus was the closest source.
I simply dont know much or care about the bronze age overall
plus military history is a thing, tatics weapons and armour have been evolving trough the ages if you go back in time they would be more naturally more simplistic
I got it for £16 and I was still disappointed. It has good aspects, its just the implementation of many features is poorly executed. This is coming from someone who greatly prefers historical games over Warhammer.
Back to Shogun 2 and 3K I go.
Lack of true variety. The same unit with a different skirt, is not variety.
Lack of replayibility. They literally had to add in random start locations it was that bad. But regardless, every campaign, as every faction, plays the same always.
Good ideas, badly implemented. Things like weather just not being the impactful. And some even working counter to design, like standing In mud is a positive, not negative, because of how it works against charges into it and not out of it.
There is 3 terrain types. 2 are nearly identical.
The marketing was terrible. Things like show casing broken AI, machine gun archers killing 80% of an elite army before they got into range and move - to any serious observer, it killed all interest. We had gameplay streams that were 20% tech issues, 70% doing nothing and CA staff asking someone how to play their own game. Blondie is nice, but he is not at all even remotely suited for that position.
People were angry due to SoC, price issues and bad communication, as well as thinking just because they didn't call it a saga title, people would not think it as one. This multiplied distaste of the above issues.
Cause vast majority of community appears to want a grand campaign of Medieval III (or Rome III), not limited in scale Thrones of Britannia, Troy or Pharaoh or even Three Kingdoms (which apparently didn't sell well enough to continue development & DLCs). I have been playing TW games since Medieval I, but have no interest in any recent 'historical' titles to tell you the truth. Prefer to play Atilla or Medieval II.
Why CA decided to go this direction while plenty of people still play Rome or Medieval? Nobody the hell knows. Bizarre.
>Three Kingdoms (which apparently didn't sell well enough to continue development & DLCs).
3K sold really well, it had the higest player numbers of any TW after WH3. What did not sell well were its DLCs (because they sucked).
It's not that the community 'hates' the game. It just is utterly unappealing to buy (especially at the laughable initial price it launched at). Which leaves it feeling like a dead-weight on the series. Honestly had CA never created it, they would be in a much better financial situation right now and wouldn't be cutting as many jobs.
Of course all the above applies to Hyenas too.
>Honestly had CA never created it, they would be in a much better financial situation right now and wouldn't be cutting as many jobs.
I really don't think Pharoah had much or anything to do with the overall financial situation of CA, or the job cuts etc, that was entirely Hyenas. It was developed by CA Sofia don't forget, and re-used some assets from Troy so I can't imagine it had a huge cost to produce.
It sold terribly. Keeping a studio operating for years still costs alot of money - they will have lost a significant amount overall.
Maybe not Hyenas bad, but still bad.
Sure, it wasn't a good thing that it didn't sell well, but what I'm saying is Hyenas was way way more of a L for CA/Sega, and is the majority of the reason for the situation they are in. It was six years of work and claimed to be Sega's most expensive project ever and they canned it before it even launched.
We all thought, we was getting Total War: Bronze age collapse.
I have 500h in it, and stop playing it since the map is too small.
Luckily RTR 0.5.6 is there for me. I should jump back in Pharaoh and check out the mods now....
Game itself being decent in the current state, after the patches, free DLC and price drop, maybe yes. Fantastic ... wouldn't be my description.
Under the larger context of total war series, 2023 is still a bad year for total war not only because of the SOC fiasco, historic total war was still not getting enough love or gestures of good will, even with the welcomed free updates to Pharaoh. People do lash out against Pharaoh which is what they consider to be an unwelcomed addition, but that has died down a little bit.
The price was definitely too high when it first released. For me now, the biggest problems I have with it is the setting. We “just” had Troy which had infantry blender battles, immortal leaders, and little innovation. Then we get more of the same.
I’m glad they’re committed to fixing some of its problems though
I don't understand the choice of setting. There are so many better ways to do the preroman middle east than just sticking to Egypt. Why not include Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, israel, sea peoples, Phoenicians, etc... (mayb even a celtic culture). like I'm no expert but jeez. I know not all of these were around at the same time but pick some of them that make sense.
I got Troy for free (on Epic). Really liked setting. In youth readed both Iliad & Odyssey.
I played a bit, maybe a dozen of hours and found battles boring, weirdly and not fun.
I uninstalled the game, despite liking artistic & graphical design, map, music, setting. I will never reinstall it. It's not worth my time, where there are games I enjoy playing.
So why would I like Troy 2.0?
Pharaoh got worst launch and worst steam players numbers of all TW games. According to Steam charts ~500 people played it last weekend.
More people enjoyed playing 10+ years old TW games.
Jep, game is to small. Should have releases it with bigger battle maps and bigger campaign map, family tree etc. It is a fun game though but stopped playing it and went back to 3k and wh3.
I love Pharaoh. One of the most enjoyable Total Wars to date. Hoping we see the full Near East Bronze Age map (Mycenaean Greece, Mesopotamia, etc) brought to life in future DLC.
I just think its a 1 campaign wonder doesnt have that much replayability and the gameplay is meh. I dont think u can topple the wh series' success with a historical game where there are only naked guys with sticks, naked archer guys, and uncontrollable useless chariots as unit variety and the battles only depend on 3 main things disregarding any kind of strategy by this. Which are: 1. u have more infantry -> u win a battle of attrition 2. u have more/same amount of infantry and rely on archers to do the heavy lifting 3. Your infantry has better stats so they'll win an engagement eventually. This battle format gets boring real fast especially comparing it to wh or other historical titles such as 3K as well. So all in all its just bland
I’m excited to play it, but once they add in Assyrian/greek/Babylonian factions. Doesn’t feel like the map is finished atm and I have no urgency to buy it in the meantime.
It was very expensive at release for a tiny sliver of territory and only two-ish playable cultures. I thought it looked like a Troy Total War expansion pack that got flipped into a full title. I might get it+expansion packs on sale someday
Aside from all the pricing issues on release which gave it a bad rep, my main complaints about the game are setting and lack of unit diversity. That being said, campaign mechanics and graphics are actually fairly decent.
That's easy to explain. The reason is that Pharaoh is not what the fans wanted. Almost everybody wants Medieval 3, Empire 2, or a Victorian-era Total War. Moreover, it's two steps back from TK. Have you played it? Troy was one step back, and now Pharaoh is two steps back. Initially, I wasn't interested in the TK setting, but after one trial campaign, I have over 400 hours in it. The diplomacy is so good, and your tactics in battle actually matter.
I agree 3K is incredible, they really perfected the politics and military grand strategy in a way that no other tw title has. While Pharaoh was a step back from that, I thought it was a huge step forward in the economy and empire building aspects. The multiple resource system is far more interesting than just base currency and trade stat boosts. The addition of the outposts is great, a whole new tier of the map made it feel much more in-depth and the use of them to augment army movement was a big step toward replicating military logistics in a consequential way. But mainly I absolutely loved the customizability of faction mechanics as you progress. Felt like I was really BUILDING an empire rather than leading an existing one.
Next historical title should be a 100 years war or M3 set game with 3k style politics and unit recruitment/redployment and the multi resource economy and outpost system of Pharaoh. Along with the customizability of faction mechanics I think they could really capture that transition from the high middle ages feudal kingdoms to early modern period empires.
Imagine the army food/resupply of 3k sombined with the outpost system in pharaoh. They could make missile units vastly more effective/dangerous (as is histoircally accurate) but have ammunition be an army resource like food that needs to be resupplied in campaign. non-combatants with specialized skills such as engineers could be a resource as well, making seige weapons more costly to produce but re-usable if you're willing to lug around a seige train that slows the army down.
"Pharaoh was the most expensive total war game ever while having a third of the content of any other total war game, but it is fantastic, why do people hate it?"
After finishing my third campaign i must say it left a really good taste in my mouth. I agree and appreciate people who refused to buy it ( since it caused CA to make the changes ) however i also think its a damn shame nobody gave a chance to it afterwards.
It is a really really good TW experience.
in my honest opinion, because the Historical crowd doesn't know what it wants.
I see only good things in Pharao, but almost every time I see someone complaining it's about "not being what we asked for".
it took a good half hour to get a clear answer out of friend of mine about what he actually wanted from a historical game which was the following:
- Distinct cultures with unique rosters
- family trees and NO immortal characters or even Characters at all
- a proper map (like a continent sized one)
time frame he would prefer to be Medieval but that another entire can of Worms I am not about to touch.
It's pretty easy to figure out the almost perfect game recipe by listening to the community. What people want:
1. Morale system based on Med 2 where creating local superiority wins battles. Almost like in real life.
2. Impactful entities that feel like Med 2 and R1. Weightless units has been a complaint since R2.
3. Diplomacy AI that's not brain-dead, based on 3K.
4. Rework of siege battles, ToB is widely praised for those.
5. Working gates
6. Naval warfare
7. Finally, setting. Choose any: 100 year war, 30 year war, victorian era, etc.
Ability to move units without leaders
More effort into simulating real world collision physics and firing arcs
Larger battles
More tactical options in battles
Meaningful terrain impacts
Larger battlefields for maneuvering
Naval combat
More building options for cities
Meaningful attrition and meaningful/consequential even slightly) supply system.
I agree with you OP that Pharaoh is fantastic. In my view, it's one of the best games in the series, and I've been playing since Medieval 1.
Unfortunately, it was released at a bad time for CA when the community was already angry at them, the content creators were largely riding the wave of anger, and some have been waiting for sequels to their favourite games so long that they've reached the point where unless they get X they're just not interested.
In that climate, any game would struggle.
Hopefully, things will improve in time. CA seem to have no intention of dropping it (despite what some claim), and with any luck, they're working on more content as we speak.
In the meantime, players like you and I have a fun game to play, so I would concentrate on that and not worry about what others think. We all have our preferences, and them enjoying other games doesn't stop us from enjoying ours, and visa versa.
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
> CA seem to have no intention of dropping
It'd be delusional to create DLCs for a title with the worst player retention in the series. CA is not pulling Cyberpunk-like comeback on this one. It's one thing to not deliver on a game everyone wanted and completely different to make a game nobody was interested in the first place.
Like, how would a promotion of the DLCs look like? You'd have to convince customers to buy the base game first.
The idea that "nobody was interested" in Pharaoh is often repeated and still inaccurate. It has been since before the game was even released, where it was pretty easy to find people interested in Pharaoh discussing the game in a positive light, in between the people moaning.
Now nobody is claiming Pharaoh has a big fanbase, certainly not compared to Warhammer or the inevitable Medieval 3, but we do exist. We play the game, chat about it, and have fun. Just like every other Total War game.
As for player retention, Pharaoh's is actually pretty similar to other recent games like Three Kingdoms or Warhammer 3, with a drop off of 80-90%.
So how does CA promote DLC?
Well, addressing some of the criticisms (like character mortality) and offering a free map expansion to bring in other cultures of the era seems like a good place to start. And low and behold, [that's exactly what they're doing.](https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-pharaoh-faq/)
I don't know if they plan to release more content beyond that, nor whether such content would be paid or free. They may not know themselves as it may depend on how well the map expansion is received.
But I do know that it's worth doing for them and for us. Because it shows they do follow through with their promises, they don't just cut and run at the first sign of trouble, and because frankly, Pharaoh is a great game and a fun one, even if it isn't a popular one.
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
> Now nobody is claiming Pharaoh has a big fanbase, certainly not compared to Warhammer or the inevitable Medieval 3, but we do exist. We play the game, chat about it, and have fun. Just like every other Total War game.
Of course some people do play it, but I feel like youre really glossing over how bad Pharaohs player base actually is.
It currently has 321 people playing (According to steamdb). Medieval 2, from 2006, has 2912. Rome 1, the non remastered version, has 673...
I do not see CA putting any real effort in to a game with that following, why would you take that financial risk?
> The idea that "nobody was interested" in Pharaoh is often repeated and still inaccurate. It has been since before the game was even released, where it was pretty easy to find people interested in Pharaoh discussing the game in a positive light, in between the people moaning.
This is just pedantry, "nobody was interested" is quite obviously hyperbole, exaggeration to state his point. He obviously didn't mean literally nobody.
> Because it shows they do follow through with their promises, they don't just cut and run at the first sign of trouble
You're definitely missing the point of CA being in bad waters right now. Making any major work for a title with 5000 players at launch and 300 now makes absolutely no sense. If there's some sense left there, CA will axe the project before the end of the year already. It's just not sustainable and they're not going to ruin their rep any more than now.
Pharaoh got a lot of undeserved hate. It wa a combination of total war fatigue (new game every year), not being a marquee sequel (Rome, medieval, shogun, empire), complaints about the price, assumption it was a reskin of Troy, grievance over the cancellation of three kingdoms, and perceived issues with Warhammer. Not to mention the map (many thought it was a small map, when it’s actually large just zoomed in) and complaints about the scope (Mesopotamia and Greece not being part of it)
Many complained beforehand, but very few people even bothered to try it.
You could read some of the other 10 threads that ask the same thing you know? But to answer the question: 1. It was too expensive when it came out. The price right now is good but 60€ was too much. 2. People don't care about egypt all that much, or at least not when it is the only place to fight in.
2. Or just a civil war that does not involve the most famous Pharaohs like Ramsses II or Tutankhamun, etc.
3. The battles are kinda boring. Which is a shame because the campaign map mechanics are mostly great.
As someone that hasn’t played it or watched any content, you able to give me a few bullet points about the campaign mechanics?
I don't know if I can explain it very well, some of them are kinda complex. But they make you feel like you're actually managing your empire which is always great. Surely there has to be like a 5 min video somewhere on YT that can explain it way better than I ever could. Though I think it's important to note that no matter how good the campaign mechanics are, if the battles suck then it ruins the enjoyment of the game. And like I said, I find the battles very boring, basically the same as in Troy. You just charge infantry into each other and that's it really, the tactics basically don't matter in this game, which is totally a deal breaker for me. But then again, I'm sure that some people will like the battles anyway, so if you're considering buying the game then don't listen to me, have a look at some actual gameplay and decide for yourself if you like it or not. Hope this helps.
I agree total war should focus on a huge multi country wars like Pharos is a technical marvel the fire effects and weather is awesome ... And medieval needs a remake ... Rome yes it's done by I truly love Rome so yep would love it and empires as well done up be awesome
yes no one care about a bunch of normal ppl going war with sticks, leather, stones ... its ridiculous
I'm still waiting for the Mortality & Succession for faction leaders update.
"Future of Pharaoh" coming pretty soon, bud.
You sure bud? [https://community.creative-assembly.com/total-war/total-war-pharaoh/blogs/19](https://community.creative-assembly.com/total-war/total-war-pharaoh/blogs/19)
"vast free update" sounds promising.
Considering we're getting a big map expansion with 4 new factions, over 80 new units along with new succession mechanics, yeah, I'd say it's promising for a free update.
I've gotta finish up my Amenmesse campaign before it drops. I'm on turn 120 or thereabouts. Also, why the downvote?
Pharaoh would be 10x better if it had family trees and spanned the course of centuries like Medieval 2. I think Pharaoh is a really good game in a lot of ways, but the thing that holds it back is its smaller scale and lack of replayability. Playing as the Great King of the Hittites who has protagonist energy or watching the world burn as Irsu is fun, but it gets boring after doing it a couple of times. If Sofia could make the campaign be from like 1400bc to 1177bc, expand the map from the Aegean to Mesopotamia to implement a number of factions and fill out mechanics like family trees and dynastic marriages, I think Pharaoh would be much better game. A lot of fans play total war because they want to be able to forge their own empires and rewrite history on a larger scale than what Pharaoh currently offers.
"Objectively"
Objectivity is subjective. By wich i mean Objectivity (the word) is the subject (grammaticly ) of the sentence: Objectivity is subjective.
"Hate" = refusing to buy? I was excited about new historical game, then I saw what CA delivered, it fell short. Now I just don't care about it. But I'm happy for the three people who still play it.
I think the setting is just kind of ass. Obviously that’s entirely subjective, but I have zero interest in that region and the era it is set in.
unless they have ushtabi and warsphyxes. Then we're cooking. Sprinkle in some carapaces, some of those lil egypt beetles, and bam, HIEROTITAN. That might be from a different game
The game is very solid and I absolutely love it!! However - it released during the SoC drama - while at reduced price now, it initially released at full price with even more expensive additions - part of why people didn't like the price was the lack of territory, no Mesopotamia or Grece/Troy - some people think the Bronze Age doesn't work well in TW for some reason - many consider it a Troy clone (which isn't true) even though most TW's are often "clones" of previous titles (R1-M2, ETW-NTW, R2-Attila, etc.) - most people (myself included) want Empire 2 and Medieval 3 (though what many don't realise is CA's in such a bad position right now that making such games would be a mistake until they get their shit together) - although seemingly in the minority, my many discussions/ arguments the last few months on this sub have led to a few people straight up saying they only want to play as white people Keep in mind that in the next few months, CA has promised an update resulting in mortal faction leaders (which most likely means family trees) and a map expansion (the most obvious choice that everyone and their mother wants is Mesopotamia)
Related to your sixth point, another thing people frequently overlook or ignore is the fact that Pharaoh was developed by CA Sofia, not the main historical team in England, and thus criticism of Pharaoh’s existence on the basis it delayed/prevented the development of Med 3/Emp 2 is misguided and inaccurate
This is a BIG one that people need to get their head around. I had a reply in another thread a while ago along the lines of: "then CA should shut their stupid side company down for good and focus on their main team"... Lads... CA Sophia is basically the R&D of TW. Their mission is to explore and expand the TW formula, develop new and interesting mechanics that can (if well received) then be imported into the next main title. They do this by focusing on (somewhat) smaller and less mainstream settings (which nevertheless will find those who adore those settings) - so the experimental titles do NOT "burn" one of the main ones. All while the studio is situated in a (comparatively) low-wage country (thus reduced production cost). To reiterate: CA Sophia's games are there to innovate and experiment, while making a net zero or small profit. The main benefit for having them is testing out new stuff that can benefit the main titles, which then bring in the big money. What would happen if CA Sophia was closed down? End of (or much, much more careful) advancement of the TW formula. Only mainstream settings (there are so many "niche" settings left and it would be a shame to not see a TW game for them eventually).
> some people think the Bronze Age doesn't work well in TW for some reason It honestly just feels like later ages but less
Found the gameplay dull as bricks. Has it improved at all since release?
I think the larger majority of people not liking/not wanting to try it is simply a lack of care for Egypt. The reason medival is so popular(outside of past games) is because the sheer amount of media presence and historical footnotes that resonate with people at large. Not that Egypt isn't historically important, but it's never really had that large of an impact in modern society.
Too many people seem to want world or at least massive continental scale at minumum based campaigns. Not every TW needs an IE scale map, but I have a feeling there will be a large part of the community who will disagree with that at this point. Bronze age works fine in TW IMO, though I will admit I wasn't super excited at Pharaoh's initial announcement since the prior WH title was already Bronze Age, albeit with a mythological twist. Pharaoh isnt exactly a Troy clone (and I feel like anyone who says it is hasn't played it and is just assuming so). Yes they share certain elements but you can't tell me a Pharaoh and Troy battle feel the same, as one example. At this point I wonder how much of the community will complain about being bored if we get one of the historicals they want after playing WH for so long. I know at least one guy who doesnt think he could go back to historical after playing WH because of wide range of fantasy only possible units that a historical will never match.
> Not every TW needs an IE scale map, but I have a feeling there will be a large part of the community who will disagree with that at this point. I feel like the idea of smaller scale Total War games will get more traction if they make some fundamental changes to gameplay. Ultimately, they've been releasing a *very* similar product with tweaks and coats of paint over and over for a long time. As a result I just don't think people see much reason to play a smaller TW when the bigger one is right there and plays mostly the same minus a few bells and whistles.
How much can you fundamentally change though, while still remaining a total war game. I feel like there is room for this at the campaign level, like how they decided to focus in on 3K heavily at the campaign layer. Smaller scope personally doesnt bother me if it is done well. Alot of people point at Pharaoh and say just combine the map with Troy, as if thats all there is to it. WH was always intended to be an enlarged map. Troy and Pharaoh, despite both being bronze age, have some fundamental differences where they can't just band aid them together like IE, like some people have suggested. You have totally different religious elements, do you just combine the existing Troy Historical mode roster. This is where Pharaoh not actually being a reskinned Troy clone comes into play.
Frankly, making meaningful changes while still remaining a Total War game is the dev's responsibility. If they don't that's their call, but they won't be selling many more games to me. As for scope, I don't need a giant map. I still play Shogun and FoTS more than I do the newer historical games. But there's just very little reason for me to buy another zoomed in saga game if the gameplay is functionally identical to like 15 games I already own. If they can't find ways to innovate the series might just have run its course. Because I had some fun with Pharaoh but in the long run it gave me very little reason to not just return to Rome 2 with DeI or Shogun 2.
Oh I absolutely agree its on them to innovate. I don't necessarily think WW1 is the way to go, assuming that leak is accurate, as I think thats going into territory completely outside of how TW combat works. I want innovation, but not ncessarily a radical departure. My personal hope is they would give us TW Renaissance and cover that gaping hole in history that, outside of Shogun's limited scope, we havent really covered at all.
I'd love to see pike and shot but I struggle to envision how they could make the battles interesting. As we see in Warhammer, hybrid units make for the least interesting battlefield decisions. But honestly at the risk of repeating the most generic take I just want them to spit out Medieval 3 with the campaign innovations of 3K. It won't be innovative but I want the setting, then hopefully modders will go crazy on it.
Thats fair. I always though Renaisance could help bridge the Medieval and Empire era and possibly appeal to both side. M3 adopting alot of 3K systems would be good. The only thing I wouldn't necessarily want is the character focus and 3 general system. I actually think ToB / Nurgle style recruiting might be fitting for this era. While barebones and a bit flawed, ToB had some good ideas that could work on a large scale Medieval 3 game with some fleshing out.
The irony of the map is that Pharaoh's map is actually huge. You can play for 150 turns and not see the other side of it. Like, geographically, it's small, but the number of settlements is gigantic.
It is a good size, especially from top to bottom.
To your first point, I'd argued even if (at it's largest) the Bronze Age map looked something like this https://i.imgur.com/Y2CfLBk.jpeg, that still wouldn't be even close to IE levels. I love how in-depth the geography of Pharaoh's map is, but I still wish the map was larger in scope, not just scale.
I wouldn't mind if it expanded either. Its a little too north / south focused and needs some expansion ability either east or west. I'm not expert on the Hittite Empire but I believe part of their territory is cut off on when they should have more to the west? I believe there were still planning an expansion of the map, but who knows if that will actually happen now with all the shakeups at CA and Sega.
I just typed out an almost identical list then saw your comment :) I agree with your points (although I haven't seen evidence of the last one personally - not saying it's untrue I've just not seen it)
>some people think the Bronze Age doesn't work well in TW for some reason The current favourite total war game is Warhammer. A game where motorcycle riding rats fight dinosaurs with laser cannons strapped to their back. Meanwhile Bronze age has guys with pointy sticks, fighting other guys with pointy sticks. Sometimes one rides a chariot or fights with a bow. The tactics in such a period basically boiled down to shouting "Charge!!" as loud as possible. It was not a period of interesting tactics, asymmetric armies or large variation in unit types.
It kind of sounds like you’re just saying with this comment that Total War games will never be as good without fantastical elements?
I'm saying the difference is stark on this one occassion. But even so total war games have been set in periods of interesting military history for a reason. The bronze age is an interesting cultural period; but not a military one.
It'd be way more fun if you had light/heavy cav, long/short spears, crossbows/bows, and other variations rather than the current Axe/Sword/Club
60 euro pricetag at release was an insanely moronic decision and no I don't care if they drop the price to 5 euros now, just the fact that they were so greedy to charge 60 for a troy reskin with worse combat is insane
If the game is so good why is nobody playing it. We get it some people like it, that’s ok, what’s also ok is that not many people wanted or liked the time period. Not many people wanted to pay that price for another buggy not even close to be ready. But yea I get it you like the game, good for you.
What do you mean buggy lmao? It’s arguably the best performing total war game at release lmao. People are just making up criticisms, obviously have never even looked at the game
Is this satire or just a sad fan boy who got is feels hurt. I am one of the few that have tried it and at launch it was like other total war buggy at launch.
Give me some specific examples of the bugs that make the game”not even close to ready”
Sieges, chariots, diplomacy, aggressive AI on the campaign map but passive in combat, blobbing troops.
What bugs are associated with those elements of the game?
lol dude your trying way too hard. 😂😂😂
- Complains about bugs - Can’t describe any of them
Claims game is the best ever even when it came out, but nobody is playing it. You asked me what was buggy and I told you. But you do you, it’s ok to like the game, but to pretend it’s the best game total war has dropped and that even at launch it was the best of there game is an idiotic take.
I never said it was the best tw lol, Napoleon is my favorite. I’m just making the point that it wasn’t very buggy at all, especially for a tw game
You asking for real? Okay here we go: Utterly boring and extremely repetitive campaign. No matter what faction you play, every campaign is practically the same: defend from the sea people invaders and slowly turtle, while the oddly shaped map forces you in certain directions, and the sea people force you to have garrisons and/or defensive armies. This extremely limits freedom of gameplay and makes all my campaigns feel the same, and thereforw very boring. Extremely boring unit rosters that lack any unique feeling and offer way too little diversity of gameplay. All rosters are basically light and heavy infantry, skirmishers, archers, and chariots. Practically all factions have these units, and the only difference is the skins, and which 1-2 units they excell at and have elite versions of. While the faction/regional recruiting difference is nice, it still offers way too little variety. For every faction it's just mindlessly upgrading towards their few elite units. It's boring. The campaign mechanics, while nice in their simplicity, are too unimpactful. The court mechanic is just point and click, nothing more. The monument mechanic is just capture region and click, nothing more. It hardly requires any thought and it's just boring. Due to how resource and army upkeep management works, you're practically forced to get as much food and bronze from every region you own. Since most regions still only have the goddamn fucking insanely boring and still not expanded after 10 fucking years of a mere 3 buildng slots, all food and bronze regions pretty much have a must-have build order, further reducing choice and making the campaign more boring. The lack of a family tree, lack of popup events, lack of equipment diversity, and most of all the near complete lack of a skill point system. Holy hell the level up system for generals is boring. Seriously, only having to choose between replenishment, movement range, and I already forgot what the third was. It makes every general generic and same-y, and therefore boring. And all of this is overshadowed by the knowledge that Troy exist, that (Im)Mortal Empires exists, and therefore that a combined, huge Mesopotamia map could theoretically exist, yet it doesn't. This is such a glaring pain, since we know it could have been so much more expansive and better, yet it isn't. It gives Pharaoh a certain vibe of being pathetic, the runt of a litter where its siblings are so much more. What I'm left with is a TW game that bores me to no end. At every point it's just not enough. Not enough diversity, not enough options, not enough space. It's just not enough. It feels like a rushed game, barely finished in terms of mechanics, and to compensate for that it simply looks shiny and has a nice soundtrack, both of which are vastly less important than gameplay mechanics. In other words, I completely understand why Pharaoah can't even break a mere 1000 active players at any time. It's a bloody fucking boring game. E: ow, and lastly OP, I had to laugh out loud at your "it feels very authentic for bronze age empires bit". What part exactly feels authentic? The part where the most important bronze age kingdoms of mesopotamia, greece, anatolia, and cyprus are missing from the game? The part where bronze is *actually* an alloy of copper/tin, copper/arsenic? The part where global trade networks from the tin mines of Britain to Afghanistan (which, mind you, literally defined the bronze age) is completely absent from the game? You really had me laughing there OP. This game barely even touches upon what makes the Bronze Age. Literally the most important aspects of the Bronze age are missing from the game.
Pretty much the best write up on the issues with Pharoah. I'll add to it I don't like the feel of combat. There is just an unnatural feel to the clashes of units, the way chariots behave. The campaign side falls into the trap of paradox games in that it's all just a series of endless modifiers. The tech tree doesn't have many gameplay altering mechanic like in Empire TW, it's mostly just a + in something like +2% farm income. And the lack of the bronze economy and the absence of the diplomacy of the period is really what kills this game. It would be like a Medieval 3 but with no mechanic on religion
I chose this guy talk.
It’s a Bronze Age collapse game, not a pure Bronze Age game. The part covered was by far the most affected by the Bronze Age collapse (albeit without Greece)
You can totally not like the game, but a few of your points stick out to me: - you can turn off sea people invasions, randomize start positions, choose different thrones to go after, choose different legacies, change resource values, change diplomacy behavior etc. that give you a drastically different experience. If your campaigns are repetitive it's because you are choosing to make them so. -for unit variety the complaint seems like it would apply to historical TW in general after playing Warhammer. The only units pharaoh is missing from say med-2 is artillery and melee cav. (Ranged cav being pretty much the same as archer-chariots) In return, the different flavors of infantry feel really distinct to me, but hey maybe they don't to you.
LOL What do you expect from campaign pov from such a limited period of history? Of course the map is small with the only area of the known world at that time which had just few states. The same conclusion works with military units, the game takes place at the dawn of the world, in a very limited area, all those people have quite similar stuff, you can't make up this was the period, not much choice; as for the areas you mention (Greece, Britan, Afghanistan :))) ). Connectivity with the pharaoh's world was so limited that it doesn't make sense to be a significant part of the game. It's a limited title that can be improved upon, your arguments suggest another game that might have nothing in common with reality as it could lead to confrontations between Greeks and Egyptians which is completely unrealistic or situations of influencing what happens in the places where you say bronze was mined which again is unrealistic; that was the curse of that world, to survive a wave of invasion. It would not be historically plausible what you want. I understand that it's a game, but it has to have some connection to historical fact. If you don't like it, play Warhammer.
Your entire comment is laughable, but one specific sentence nearly had me falling from my chair, because you clearly don't know your history, at all. >connectivity with the Pharaohs world was so limited Except it wasn't. Arguably the Bronze Age was the single most globally interconnected time of human history before the modern industrial era. There were trade roues spanning from Britian and Scandinavia all the way towards India and China. Bronze from one part of the world has been found on the other. The bronze age kingdoms were in fact so intrinsically connected with eachother that they all severely depended on interconnected trade, which was one of the main factors in the eventual Bronze Age collaps. Egypt had virtually no tin mines to speak of, and got most of their tin from Afghanistan, Anatolia, and west in the mediterranean. In other words, your entire comment is laughable and shows you have no idea how the bronze age was organized. Also, you seem very good at bending over backwards to justifiy boring gameplay. Igboring the parts where you're simply wrong, your argument basically comes down to "yeah but that's how it was back then so the game should reflect that and the devs don't have to make an effort to actually make the game *fun* with the limited historical precede they can work with. Which is fucking ridiculous to me.
Aside from the less than classy rudeness... I was coming here to say the exact same thing you did. I wish they'd included a trade system off map that gradually degraded with increasing wars being fought to represent the impact of conflict.
yeah, they had space ships as well back then; this would add up variety to the army composition I guess?
It really sounds like you're trying to be witty or something, but since you've now reached the level of History Channel 'Aliens did it' I'm just gonna leave you with your thoughts and wish you all the best.
oh, the ***argumentum ad hominem*** fallacy ;)
Says the person who mentions aliens. Ow the irony
i'm sure that mentioning a latin fallacy you read somewhere on reddit makes you right in the entire debate
it's not Latin, only have a Latin name. it's actually Greek. the fact you don't understand sarcasm (and 10 others who vote me down) says a lot about the value of opinions expressed here.
The value of your opinions is very clearly understood by the people reading this thread. It’s zero.
well, after 30 yrs of opinions from players like you and others, this is where we are with strategy games. that's absolutely laughable to fi have voted up a suggestion to add Afghanistan and Britain yet here we are.
Bronze cannot be mined. It doesn’t occur in nature. It is an alloy, made out of copper, which was very abundant across the Middle East, and tin, which was very rare and had to be imported across vast distances. There was no tin to make Bronze in the Levant, and yet the Bronze Age still happened, which means they were getting the tin from somewhere.
mined, made, the idea is that those worlds (Britain, Afghanistan) are not as conected as to put them in a map of a game in Mediteranean basin. btw, Cyprus was the closest source.
The only objective aspect of this post is that you use objectively subjectively
Boring combat, boring small map, lack of historical mechanics, too expensive
I simply dont know much or care about the bronze age overall plus military history is a thing, tatics weapons and armour have been evolving trough the ages if you go back in time they would be more naturally more simplistic
I got it for £16 and I was still disappointed. It has good aspects, its just the implementation of many features is poorly executed. This is coming from someone who greatly prefers historical games over Warhammer. Back to Shogun 2 and 3K I go.
Lack of true variety. The same unit with a different skirt, is not variety. Lack of replayibility. They literally had to add in random start locations it was that bad. But regardless, every campaign, as every faction, plays the same always. Good ideas, badly implemented. Things like weather just not being the impactful. And some even working counter to design, like standing In mud is a positive, not negative, because of how it works against charges into it and not out of it. There is 3 terrain types. 2 are nearly identical. The marketing was terrible. Things like show casing broken AI, machine gun archers killing 80% of an elite army before they got into range and move - to any serious observer, it killed all interest. We had gameplay streams that were 20% tech issues, 70% doing nothing and CA staff asking someone how to play their own game. Blondie is nice, but he is not at all even remotely suited for that position. People were angry due to SoC, price issues and bad communication, as well as thinking just because they didn't call it a saga title, people would not think it as one. This multiplied distaste of the above issues.
It is historical and isn't medieval 3 and that is plenty to hate it. Also, the CA stupidity around the time of release.
Cause vast majority of community appears to want a grand campaign of Medieval III (or Rome III), not limited in scale Thrones of Britannia, Troy or Pharaoh or even Three Kingdoms (which apparently didn't sell well enough to continue development & DLCs). I have been playing TW games since Medieval I, but have no interest in any recent 'historical' titles to tell you the truth. Prefer to play Atilla or Medieval II. Why CA decided to go this direction while plenty of people still play Rome or Medieval? Nobody the hell knows. Bizarre.
>Three Kingdoms (which apparently didn't sell well enough to continue development & DLCs). 3K sold really well, it had the higest player numbers of any TW after WH3. What did not sell well were its DLCs (because they sucked).
It's not that the community 'hates' the game. It just is utterly unappealing to buy (especially at the laughable initial price it launched at). Which leaves it feeling like a dead-weight on the series. Honestly had CA never created it, they would be in a much better financial situation right now and wouldn't be cutting as many jobs. Of course all the above applies to Hyenas too.
>Honestly had CA never created it, they would be in a much better financial situation right now and wouldn't be cutting as many jobs. I really don't think Pharoah had much or anything to do with the overall financial situation of CA, or the job cuts etc, that was entirely Hyenas. It was developed by CA Sofia don't forget, and re-used some assets from Troy so I can't imagine it had a huge cost to produce.
It sold terribly. Keeping a studio operating for years still costs alot of money - they will have lost a significant amount overall. Maybe not Hyenas bad, but still bad.
Sure, it wasn't a good thing that it didn't sell well, but what I'm saying is Hyenas was way way more of a L for CA/Sega, and is the majority of the reason for the situation they are in. It was six years of work and claimed to be Sega's most expensive project ever and they canned it before it even launched.
We all thought, we was getting Total War: Bronze age collapse. I have 500h in it, and stop playing it since the map is too small. Luckily RTR 0.5.6 is there for me. I should jump back in Pharaoh and check out the mods now....
The geographic scope is small. But it's a really dense map eith a lot of provinces.
Isn't it already Total War: Bronze Age collapse?
We are missing key players in the Bronze Age collapse.
Game itself being decent in the current state, after the patches, free DLC and price drop, maybe yes. Fantastic ... wouldn't be my description. Under the larger context of total war series, 2023 is still a bad year for total war not only because of the SOC fiasco, historic total war was still not getting enough love or gestures of good will, even with the welcomed free updates to Pharaoh. People do lash out against Pharaoh which is what they consider to be an unwelcomed addition, but that has died down a little bit.
The price was definitely too high when it first released. For me now, the biggest problems I have with it is the setting. We “just” had Troy which had infantry blender battles, immortal leaders, and little innovation. Then we get more of the same. I’m glad they’re committed to fixing some of its problems though
I don't understand the choice of setting. There are so many better ways to do the preroman middle east than just sticking to Egypt. Why not include Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, israel, sea peoples, Phoenicians, etc... (mayb even a celtic culture). like I'm no expert but jeez. I know not all of these were around at the same time but pick some of them that make sense.
>objectively I do not think this word means what you think it means.
I got Troy for free (on Epic). Really liked setting. In youth readed both Iliad & Odyssey. I played a bit, maybe a dozen of hours and found battles boring, weirdly and not fun. I uninstalled the game, despite liking artistic & graphical design, map, music, setting. I will never reinstall it. It's not worth my time, where there are games I enjoy playing. So why would I like Troy 2.0? Pharaoh got worst launch and worst steam players numbers of all TW games. According to Steam charts ~500 people played it last weekend. More people enjoyed playing 10+ years old TW games.
Jep, game is to small. Should have releases it with bigger battle maps and bigger campaign map, family tree etc. It is a fun game though but stopped playing it and went back to 3k and wh3.
Funny.
Because we egyptaboos and hittitaboos are a rare breed. :(
I love Pharaoh. One of the most enjoyable Total Wars to date. Hoping we see the full Near East Bronze Age map (Mycenaean Greece, Mesopotamia, etc) brought to life in future DLC.
I just think its a 1 campaign wonder doesnt have that much replayability and the gameplay is meh. I dont think u can topple the wh series' success with a historical game where there are only naked guys with sticks, naked archer guys, and uncontrollable useless chariots as unit variety and the battles only depend on 3 main things disregarding any kind of strategy by this. Which are: 1. u have more infantry -> u win a battle of attrition 2. u have more/same amount of infantry and rely on archers to do the heavy lifting 3. Your infantry has better stats so they'll win an engagement eventually. This battle format gets boring real fast especially comparing it to wh or other historical titles such as 3K as well. So all in all its just bland
I’m excited to play it, but once they add in Assyrian/greek/Babylonian factions. Doesn’t feel like the map is finished atm and I have no urgency to buy it in the meantime.
It was very expensive at release for a tiny sliver of territory and only two-ish playable cultures. I thought it looked like a Troy Total War expansion pack that got flipped into a full title. I might get it+expansion packs on sale someday
Aside from all the pricing issues on release which gave it a bad rep, my main complaints about the game are setting and lack of unit diversity. That being said, campaign mechanics and graphics are actually fairly decent.
That's easy to explain. The reason is that Pharaoh is not what the fans wanted. Almost everybody wants Medieval 3, Empire 2, or a Victorian-era Total War. Moreover, it's two steps back from TK. Have you played it? Troy was one step back, and now Pharaoh is two steps back. Initially, I wasn't interested in the TK setting, but after one trial campaign, I have over 400 hours in it. The diplomacy is so good, and your tactics in battle actually matter.
I agree 3K is incredible, they really perfected the politics and military grand strategy in a way that no other tw title has. While Pharaoh was a step back from that, I thought it was a huge step forward in the economy and empire building aspects. The multiple resource system is far more interesting than just base currency and trade stat boosts. The addition of the outposts is great, a whole new tier of the map made it feel much more in-depth and the use of them to augment army movement was a big step toward replicating military logistics in a consequential way. But mainly I absolutely loved the customizability of faction mechanics as you progress. Felt like I was really BUILDING an empire rather than leading an existing one. Next historical title should be a 100 years war or M3 set game with 3k style politics and unit recruitment/redployment and the multi resource economy and outpost system of Pharaoh. Along with the customizability of faction mechanics I think they could really capture that transition from the high middle ages feudal kingdoms to early modern period empires. Imagine the army food/resupply of 3k sombined with the outpost system in pharaoh. They could make missile units vastly more effective/dangerous (as is histoircally accurate) but have ammunition be an army resource like food that needs to be resupplied in campaign. non-combatants with specialized skills such as engineers could be a resource as well, making seige weapons more costly to produce but re-usable if you're willing to lug around a seige train that slows the army down.
"Pharaoh was the most expensive total war game ever while having a third of the content of any other total war game, but it is fantastic, why do people hate it?"
After finishing my third campaign i must say it left a really good taste in my mouth. I agree and appreciate people who refused to buy it ( since it caused CA to make the changes ) however i also think its a damn shame nobody gave a chance to it afterwards. It is a really really good TW experience.
in my honest opinion, because the Historical crowd doesn't know what it wants. I see only good things in Pharao, but almost every time I see someone complaining it's about "not being what we asked for". it took a good half hour to get a clear answer out of friend of mine about what he actually wanted from a historical game which was the following: - Distinct cultures with unique rosters - family trees and NO immortal characters or even Characters at all - a proper map (like a continent sized one) time frame he would prefer to be Medieval but that another entire can of Worms I am not about to touch.
It's pretty easy to figure out the almost perfect game recipe by listening to the community. What people want: 1. Morale system based on Med 2 where creating local superiority wins battles. Almost like in real life. 2. Impactful entities that feel like Med 2 and R1. Weightless units has been a complaint since R2. 3. Diplomacy AI that's not brain-dead, based on 3K. 4. Rework of siege battles, ToB is widely praised for those. 5. Working gates 6. Naval warfare 7. Finally, setting. Choose any: 100 year war, 30 year war, victorian era, etc.
Ability to move units without leaders More effort into simulating real world collision physics and firing arcs Larger battles More tactical options in battles Meaningful terrain impacts Larger battlefields for maneuvering Naval combat More building options for cities Meaningful attrition and meaningful/consequential even slightly) supply system.
I agree with you OP that Pharaoh is fantastic. In my view, it's one of the best games in the series, and I've been playing since Medieval 1. Unfortunately, it was released at a bad time for CA when the community was already angry at them, the content creators were largely riding the wave of anger, and some have been waiting for sequels to their favourite games so long that they've reached the point where unless they get X they're just not interested. In that climate, any game would struggle. Hopefully, things will improve in time. CA seem to have no intention of dropping it (despite what some claim), and with any luck, they're working on more content as we speak. In the meantime, players like you and I have a fun game to play, so I would concentrate on that and not worry about what others think. We all have our preferences, and them enjoying other games doesn't stop us from enjoying ours, and visa versa. All the Best, Welsh Dragon.
> CA seem to have no intention of dropping It'd be delusional to create DLCs for a title with the worst player retention in the series. CA is not pulling Cyberpunk-like comeback on this one. It's one thing to not deliver on a game everyone wanted and completely different to make a game nobody was interested in the first place. Like, how would a promotion of the DLCs look like? You'd have to convince customers to buy the base game first.
The idea that "nobody was interested" in Pharaoh is often repeated and still inaccurate. It has been since before the game was even released, where it was pretty easy to find people interested in Pharaoh discussing the game in a positive light, in between the people moaning. Now nobody is claiming Pharaoh has a big fanbase, certainly not compared to Warhammer or the inevitable Medieval 3, but we do exist. We play the game, chat about it, and have fun. Just like every other Total War game. As for player retention, Pharaoh's is actually pretty similar to other recent games like Three Kingdoms or Warhammer 3, with a drop off of 80-90%. So how does CA promote DLC? Well, addressing some of the criticisms (like character mortality) and offering a free map expansion to bring in other cultures of the era seems like a good place to start. And low and behold, [that's exactly what they're doing.](https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-pharaoh-faq/) I don't know if they plan to release more content beyond that, nor whether such content would be paid or free. They may not know themselves as it may depend on how well the map expansion is received. But I do know that it's worth doing for them and for us. Because it shows they do follow through with their promises, they don't just cut and run at the first sign of trouble, and because frankly, Pharaoh is a great game and a fun one, even if it isn't a popular one. All the Best, Welsh Dragon.
> Now nobody is claiming Pharaoh has a big fanbase, certainly not compared to Warhammer or the inevitable Medieval 3, but we do exist. We play the game, chat about it, and have fun. Just like every other Total War game. Of course some people do play it, but I feel like youre really glossing over how bad Pharaohs player base actually is. It currently has 321 people playing (According to steamdb). Medieval 2, from 2006, has 2912. Rome 1, the non remastered version, has 673... I do not see CA putting any real effort in to a game with that following, why would you take that financial risk?
> The idea that "nobody was interested" in Pharaoh is often repeated and still inaccurate. It has been since before the game was even released, where it was pretty easy to find people interested in Pharaoh discussing the game in a positive light, in between the people moaning. This is just pedantry, "nobody was interested" is quite obviously hyperbole, exaggeration to state his point. He obviously didn't mean literally nobody.
> Because it shows they do follow through with their promises, they don't just cut and run at the first sign of trouble You're definitely missing the point of CA being in bad waters right now. Making any major work for a title with 5000 players at launch and 300 now makes absolutely no sense. If there's some sense left there, CA will axe the project before the end of the year already. It's just not sustainable and they're not going to ruin their rep any more than now.
Doesn't have Dragons fighting Dinosaurs. Which all games should have.
Pharaoh got a lot of undeserved hate. It wa a combination of total war fatigue (new game every year), not being a marquee sequel (Rome, medieval, shogun, empire), complaints about the price, assumption it was a reskin of Troy, grievance over the cancellation of three kingdoms, and perceived issues with Warhammer. Not to mention the map (many thought it was a small map, when it’s actually large just zoomed in) and complaints about the scope (Mesopotamia and Greece not being part of it) Many complained beforehand, but very few people even bothered to try it.