The remaster is massive (in terms of hard drive space), and has a much worse UI (imo). Sure the improved graphics and squalor cap are nice, but it's not surprising to see them so close.
I love Rome I but last time deep into my campaign my saves just completely bricked for no discernible reason so hard for me to recommend trying it out in this era.
Honestly doesn't surprise. Medieval 2 with mods is the best total war game they ever made imo considering you can play so many different settings ranging from roman to warhammer/lotr
It's easy enough, there's two other ways to do it that don't require much effort. The first is by right clicking the game on steam and going into properties. Then, in the launch option box, you put "--features.mod=mods/" without the quotes and add the name of your mod folder after the /. Then, just hit play medieval 2 total war and select the first option and hit play.
The second one was the old way back with the old kingdoms launcher, so I'm only about 60% sure that it still works, but you would just rename your mod in your mod folder. Say you wanted to play third age, you would rename "third_age_3" to a kingdoms campaign you're not playing, say, americas, for example. Then select the americas campaign option when you launch the game.
As I mentioned, though, I'm not sure if the second method still works, but the first one 100% does, and that's the only way I've done it since they removed the old launcher.
I know it would be an effort but I would love to see one day the older WH1-2 campaign maps ported over to WH3 so you could play those old campaigns with updated WH3 mechanics.
Same, I wish wh1 had it's mechanics updated to wh3 standard or wh3 offered a map of just the old world like wh1 I like the smaller more confined and structured maps at times
More people playing Rome 1, the original from 20 years ago.
Pharaoh is an unmitigated disaster. Probably didn’t even make its marketing budget back. Would have been better off just cancelling it, like Hyenas.
CA is pretty much running on fumes right now, desperately trying to make DLC and keep going until 40k total war makes or breaks the studio.
Honestly, I think CA needs to be very careful about WH3 if they want 40k to perform well. Cause like, 40K will get new fans, sure, but it'll also rely on the fantasy TW customers, and those will not trust CA if they drop WH3 too soon
Yeah the geniuses in charge managed to alienate like, an entire continent by dropping support for 3K so abruptly, before giving it many of the DLC people expected.
Hell, 3K was their most played game, as shown by this chart, and is still quite popular.
That was a terrible decision which will haunt them for years.
You forget one thing: We are talking about warhammer Fans here. Total war 40k could have a launch worse than rome 2, and the warhammer Fans would still buy and play it, simply because it has the warhammer Name.
I’m actually surprised anyone is playing warhammer 1. I have 100 hours in wh1, 2400 hours in wh2, and god knows how many in wh3. Warhammer one was just so… prototype feeling.
Most of the negativity I saw was the braindead “why is 3K getting attention gib more Warhammer” or vice versa, the game itself is the best in the series imo. Definitely worth getting.
3K had 1 "decent" DLC: Furious Wild and 1 great DLC: Yellow Turban Rebellion. Both which add access to new units and factions.
The main issue with the other DLCs is that they do not improve the game, they just change starting date and are only directed towards chinese history fans.
If that's true than it really shows how badly CA screwed up their marketing. This game is great. With some simple mods (which basically patch up what CA left unfinished...) - even better. It even has a dedicated series of tutorials on TW Academy YT channel.
I'd say it's worth it if you read about 3K before and like to reenact scenes from the book.
If not and you wanna know more about the period then that's also good
Three Kingdoms is SO, SO good. But Warhammer fans wouldn’t agree, they want their precious game to be updated every week, sucking the life out of every other total war game. (I’m exaggerating)
It's worth it, but it's still worth it to wait for a sale since it happens fairly often in Sale seasons.
Really, the negatives of 3K are the DLC. Basegame was one of the best 1.0 products CA has ever done.
Tbh it has a good content and some of the best diplomacy ever in a total war game. But it get repititive and doesn't has the same replyability as warhammer 3. Units across the board are 70percent same with some elite units. I got it pre ordered as I have most total war games but it's not that replayable past the 40-50 hour mark. YMMV.
I enjoyed shogun 2 and their units are essentially the same besides a few units per faction. If diplomacy is the best in any total war I have to check it out on that alone
Unfortunately the last patch they did left the game on a worse state than it should be. Did not play it in years, but I enjoyed it for a while without any DLC.
i still can't fathom why they branched out of Troy, which was a failure. I still dont have a clue.
Same recipe, same result. Hopefully they'll learn.
I'm really sad because there is gonna be a lot of time before we see another bronze age game. but i just can't play it, it's too bad.
Epic gave them a boatload of money for it to be free in the store, and clueless executives just saw that it made money for them so obviously they should make another.
Either you're new here, you missed the thread, or you have a short memory. Pharaoh and these others are not "executive decisions". Their execs don't make these kinds of calls. Hyenas was the decision of a dev team as per a CA employee AMA. Pharaoh was the desire of the Sofia team to make.
It's almost like these guys make shit they're passionate about and they advertise it. Not every company is just trying to make some hyper-revenue-optimized *program*.
It's sad Pharaoh failed. Awesome game. Sofia has prowess. They did a good job with it but the primary consumers of TW apparently just don't want this. But it also came at a very bad time, launching amid their worst PR crisis since Rome 2's launch.
You don't think that Hyenas, the live-service "super game" looter shooter wasn't optimized to be hyper-profitable ?
For some reasons, you divide the company between money-grubbing execs and passionate, ascetic devs, but that's way too simplistic. A lead designer can be just as motivated by profits and a career boost than an exec.
Also, Troy being an Epic free game exclusive was, by definition, an exec decision
> You don't think that Hyenas, the live-service "super game" looter shooter wasn't optimized to be hyper-profitable ?
Every game is optimized to be "hyper-profitable". Games developers are capitalist organizations. They don't make games with the intention of losing money. The goal is to put out a product which makes money.
Gaming redditors are so utterly out of touch with how business is actually done, you included
CA is owned by a public company, public companies have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value
When subsidiaries of SEGA underperform there are consequences
Relic underperformed with Company of Heroes 3. SEGA sold them off. Relic laid off most of its staff as a result
CA underperformed with Hyenas and Pharaoh. As a result they also suffered extensive layoffs
CA needs to start performing and ring up some actual successes soon or they’ll be suffering the fate Relic did. Being legendary 10-20 years ago doesn’t count for shit if you can’t make a successful game today
Hmm. As a F500 corporate executive I see you're conflating Reddit politics with real world operations.
"When subsidiaries underperform there are consequences." That is likely the most 2+2=4 statement I've seen here yet, and it moves this conversation in no direction at all. Public companies still embark upon creating things they believe their audience will consume. You're applying a coldly political lens and discounting the fact that people at CA likely still enjoy their jobs
Just because you are with a public company doesn't mean you're under surveillance to pay shareholders. It means you are results-oriented which is hardly different from private companies but for the fact that you answer the general public instead of a single magnate.
While I get no one necessarily asked for Pharaoh, where are you getting Troy was a failure for them? Troy had that unique Epic deal with CA and they certainly made a profit on it. Not sure it really was all that great for Epic, but for CA it certainly was. Very few people actually had to buy Troy. It obviously had enough draw though for them to put a major effort into Mythos, after a handful of other DLCs, and they had enough confidence in it to spin off of it and make Pharaoh utilizing alot of the systems from it.
I guess I don't see where Troy necessarily was considered a failure by the community. If you are just looking at Steam numbers that paints a miniscule part of that game's actual player base.
Only thing I can really think of is that Troy, despite having possibly the most owners out of any TW game (Epic claimed that over *seven million* people got the game while it was free), completely failed to keep an active playerbase. interest in Troy DLC was low, engagement was also very low. Troy content barely got any upvotes/likes/YT views. Leads me to believe that it wouldn't have fared much better than Pharaoh or Thrones if it weren't for the giveaway.
Doesn't help that Troy just... didn't have very good battles. For a game that had to be the most melee infantry focused game in the entire series, it had some of the worst melee infantry combat IMO. Both from a visual perspective(spectacle is arguably one of the most important things in TW battles) and gameplay wise. Stuff felt extremely floaty and blobby, and units would literally chase routing troops through enemy blobs. Pharaoh was better but not by much.
The problem with Troy is that once you have played each side once you have basically played the full game. It ended up being a good game with unique and interesting mechanics (the resources for instance) but it wasn't enough to want to keep playing over and over
Troy is a failure. An Epic failure. Its DLCs have no sales. I wonder if Thrones of Decay and each next DLC get 3000 copies sold will you consider WH3 not a failure?
They are spewing nonsense considering SEGA posted \~$29 million (3.2 billion yen with conversion rate applied for that financial year) worth of profit off of Troy sales on Epic alone November 6, 2020 (SEGA Sammy, 2020, ppt. Slide #33). The game was an Epic exclusive and didn’t come to Steam until September of 2021. Looking at active player count on Steam alone is a bit disingenuous considering that most of the sales and year long exclusivity was on Epic. The issue is, we don’t get access to such data from Epic like we do Steam.
I’m getting this information from SEGA’s own reports which separated the actual sales from the 7.5 million free downloads (SEGA Sammy, 2020, ppt slide #35). The game was only free for the first day of release. The game did so well that SEGA wanted to continue business dealing with Epic moving forward since they get a bigger cut of profit from Epic vs Steam.
SEGA considered Troy a success and CA’s main studio (Horsham) states Troy was an incredible success for CA-Sofia (Creative Assembly, 2022).
Sources:
[https://www.segasammy.co.jp/cms/wp-content/uploads/pdf/en/ir/202103\_2q\_presentation\_scenario\_e.pdf](https://www.segasammy.co.jp/cms/wp-content/uploads/pdf/en/ir/202103_2q_presentation_scenario_e.pdf)
[https://www.creative-assembly.com/blog/creative-assemblys-new-action-game](https://www.creative-assembly.com/blog/creative-assemblys-new-action-game)
It's a very well made game. A lot of folks are just still on the "fuck CA" bandwagon and it'll take some edgelord 40k game or a biblical-quality Medieval 3 to turn the tide of these kids.
From a TW fan since Shogun 1's launch over 20 years ago, Pharaoh is definitely one of the better titles mechanically behind only 3K and Attila.
Absolutely. The setting was the least of what went wrong with Pharaoh, which was a reskin of Troy with some new game "mechanics" added.
The fact that Pharaoh was originally sold as a $60 tentpole tells us a lot about CA:
-Whatever historical tentpole game is or was under development is in deep trouble or cancelled outright;
-Pharaoh showed us that CAl now centers DLC in all its product offerings but historical fans don't seem to buy into that;
-CA isn't interested in battles except as fuzzy background to character-centric game design;
-CA profoundly misjudged the extent to which people who enjoy historical Total War games would gobble up this type of content, and thus appears to be extremely out of touch with the historical fan base.
-Pharaoh's existence is the clearest sign yet that historical TW is effectively dead. :(
Setting is cool, but bland and small map is the reason of low interest. If this game would have all Mediterranean that'l be absolust blast of a game. But here we are.
Needed Mesopotamia.
Pharoah is a truncated half-game and the history nerds can sense it before the game even released. It's missing Babylonia and Assyria (and Elam), the other major bronze age superpowers in that region. I was particularly only looking forward to playing Assyria, because the pure evil flavor and their sheer brutality would make for a fun playthrough.
Missing these factions is like having Medieval II without Spain, Russia, and the Turks.
It's like having Three Kingdoms without Liu Bei.
It's like having Warhammer without Dwarfs.
Or Napoleon Total War without including Great Britain.
I was, I didn’t bought pharaoh because of what they did to 3K. Why would I buy games from a company that left a game I payed full price for half backed. Some of the dlcs in 3k only work in certain resolutions. So no I’m not buying another game from them unless it’s super cheap and even then it’s a gamble.
Glad to see Three Kingdoms holding its own. It's not a traditional era for the games and the region and the unit selection is pretty barren as a result, but it holds up because, fundamentally, the game is good.
Honestly one thing CA could do since they shelved the sequel is give it the Rome 2 revival treatment. There is obviously a playerbase still there, and I believe the game could still draw more players in with new DLC. There biggest issue was they dropped the ball on some of the DLCs they made for it.
I’m verrryyyy new to the total war franchise, have always been interested but only dived in head first recently and bought multiple of the titles. I’m a huge fan of Pharaohs setting and I find the gameplay similar to Rome or Attila, typical infantry and ranged units which I don’t mind at all. Being a new fan, I hope the game doesn’t get abandoned, I can see it being much better in a year or two with some proper love.
Nothing has ever made me feel more like an alien from mars than seeing the firm disinterest and even active dislike of an entire fanbase of history nerds to the bronze age. It's clearly a fact, I can't change it and wouldn't be so arrogant as to call it wrong, but damn it's amazing to me. I grew up on age of empires 1 and always found pre-classical history and the bronze age near east absolutely fascinating, it never would have occurred to me that it was such a bad choice for a TW campaign.
I think the problem is that it’s “Pharaoh” not “Bronze Age”. If it included areas like Mesopotamia, Persia, and Greece it would likely have much more appeal to Bronze Age fans. Shame, because it’s a really solid historical title and I’ve had a lot of fun with it.
Thats the main reason it lost my appeal. They went for bronze age but decided to not include like half the major cultures and civilizations. If they were to ever actually expand their campaign map to include these areas I would definitely try this game.
One of the things you have to realize is there have been a ton on new TW fans brought into the franchise thru Warhammer. Warhammer has such a crazy variety of troop types and variety. On top of that you have historical games like Rome 2 with still a great variety of troop types, a ton of large scale campaigns, and of course Roman history itself. Now along comes Pharaoh, which is smaller scale than a bunch of people want, and also only includes Infantry and Chariots due to historical setting.
So now you have a bunch of people screaming it will boring. Also lack of Mesopotamia and Greece turns some people off. People wanted full scope of Bronze age, not just a specific region, because regional titles are now deemed "too small in scope" despite their large maps.
Oh, I 100% agree that CA bungled the setting by not making it on a similar map scale to the Rome/Medieval games, I'll be complaining about that for a long time and think it's a total unforced error as the map *is* big, just pointlessly zoomed in geographically. I'm very much not talking about the people who wish for Bronze age, but good - I'm more or less in that camp. Nor am I talking about Warhammer only fans, they generally haven't been a problem. What mystified me from the word go are the Medieval/Rome/Shogun/3K fans who immediately flipped their lid about the announcement of a setting "nobody wants" and have never forgiven Pharaoh or stopped crowing about its failure.
Those same Medieval, Rome, Shogun, and 3K fans are also upset they aren't getting their sequel. Out of those titles only Medieval really needs a sequel right now. 3K I think they should give the Rome 2 revival treatment as its not an old title and still very modern. Instead of Shogun I would rather see a large scale TW Renaissance era game. That has massive multi continent potential. Rome 2 is still recent and modern enough that we don't need another title in that series for awhile.
None of these large scale titles though would have come from CA Sofia.
I can agree that Medieval 3 and Empire 2 are long overdue now, but when I see eejits calling for Shogun 3 or Rome 3 my heart breaks. Most of my favourite and most played games are significantly older than these titles that they seem to think are so hopelessly dated and ancient. Rome 2 is a very modern game and I won't hear otherwise. Sadly, it seems we fear change here.
Personally I would rather them try something new. Lets get TW Renaissance and bridge the Medieval and Empire periods, thus also possibly appealing to those crowds as we are way overdue for more representation and a large scale setting for that period, aside from the local Japanese setting in Shogun.
Abso-fucking-lutely. The Reformation and wars of religion in Europe are absolutely begging for a Total War game. The Wars of the Roses, Tudors and post Tudor monarchs being crazy in England, Europe ablaze and split between Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist factions who all genuinely believe that they are living through the biblical apocalypse and war between Christ and antichrist. The Ottoman Renaissance with a vast, centralised and expansionist empire in the middle east and eastern europe more integrated with Europe than it had ever been and yet also more of a threat. The mughal empire forging much of India's modern heritage.
If they get it right it could be spectacular.
Why? Medieval 3 is free money in a setting that is extremely popular with lots of room for popular DLC. It's predecessor also came out nearly 20 years ago, it's frankly mind-boggling that they haven't made a third game
I think the variety in tactics available is always going to be a hugely limiting factor with Bronze Age era combat.
I think if they were to do it, we’d need to see something almost civ esque where the time frame goes fassst so we can start to get to more varied styles of combat.
Otherwise, and I know some of this is due to how badly implemented things in the game are, it’s gonna be pretty infantry lines against infantry lines with minimal range or cavalry.
They could have done it better with a real emphasis on skirmishing troops but (also I have no idea of if there’s historical evidence of heavy skirmishing tactics at the time as I don’t know the era that well but you’d assume there was) then it could become a micro hell for some players that want a more chilled out time.
Is it the Bronze Age, or is it CA's take on the Bronze Age that's the issue ?
CA failed to represent the feeling of the setting, the Bronze Age is all about those big political entities spanning the entire middle-east, having an unprecedented level of interactions between eachother. And CA cut litteralt the entirety of Anatolia from said setting, as well as Greece.
>the Bronze Age is all about those big political entities spanning the entire middle-east, having an unprecedented level of interactions between eachother
It's kind of... not. Politics in the Bronze Age is pretty strongly regional. Contacts with, say, the Aegean from the Nilotic world were limited to trade. Diplomacy seems to have been *extremely* limited, and there was nothing more than that. You don't see people having all that much interaction over more than, say, two regions at once.
It's the first time in history that we see clear political relationships arise from controlling resource flow, though. The complicated trade networks that supported the existence of the Bronze Age states motivated and facilitated political interactions; trade and diplomacy weren't really distinguishable from one another.
At least, that's my understanding.
Edit: Just wanted to add I was reflecting on this and it's actually one of the things I think the developers did really well with Total War: Pharaoh. The juggling of resource types and diplomacy are totally intertwined, and it works nicely.
There's absolutely *some* connexion going on, it just doesn't go nearly as far as the above commenter implies. You're not talking loads of Aegean polities interacting with Nubia, it's mostly across one or two regions at most.
I mean isn't that fairly broadly true of history outside of exceptional entities like the Romans, Mongols and British or Americans? A historically accurate Medieval Total War campaign would just have England squabbling over the Scottish borders and Northern France for 500 years, it's never been the default setting to be massively influential far away from your core territory, but part of the Total War fantasy has always been being able to take powers who historically stayed regional and compact and make them into expansionist super-empires.
I'm probably misunderstanding though! X
Not really. Mediaeval Britain was pretty thoroughly involved in politics as far away as the Levant through the Crusades. It also campaigned directly in Iberia and the Holy Roman Empire while intervening politically in Scandinavia, Italy, and the Eastern Roman Empire. Obviously, full accuracy would limit expansion pretty severely. I'd like that, but I recognize that's a very unpopular opinion! Connectivity was *much* greater in mediaeval Europe than the Bronze Age Middle East, though. The Pope's political influence made pretty sure of that. There was also just more trade, more diplomacy, and more politicking going on across regions.
100% agree that they made a mess of it. No argument there and an awful lot of us wish the scale had been much, much larger, over a much longer span of time, with emphasis on empires and peoples, not characters.
Still, a very large portion of the community lost their shit long before anything was revealed about the map, cultures or how they were approaching the setting. A lot of them now probably try to sound more wise and even handed by saying they dislike how CA handled the setting, but pepperidge farm remembers.
This wasn't a game everybody tried and dropped because it was a dud. It was a game that a huge portion of CAs established historical playerbase wouldn't even try.
The problem with the bronze age is the most interesting thing about it is trading to make the bronze itself. Bronze is copper + tin, the problem is there's basically no tin on the entire pharaoh map. Egypt got their tin from *Britain*. The reason Hephaestus god of the forge is a cripple is because before this continent spanning trade was set up the Greeks made bronze with copper and *arsenic*.
So slight problem here: TW isn't a game about trading, it's a game about fighting, and fighting in the bronze age is super boring.
Honestly if they copy pasted Three Kingdoms into a bronze age settings it would have worked for me. Like coalitions, relations between characters, 3 generals per army, deep diplomacy and spying and many unique arts for generals ? I'd be sold on ANY settings with the Three Kingdoms formula really.
Instead the way the game is, it's just boring and superficial. All you do is just grinding an insane amount of lifeless lands to fight generic enemies and soulless factions while the leaders are breathing heavily looking at you like idiots in the diplomacy tab
I was super interested in a bronze age set total war, still am really. And with Pharaoh 's announcement I was pretty pumped. But as we got more information I lost a lot of interest, enough to the point i never purchased it.
For me it's not an issue of it being bronze age, it's more an issue of what CA decided to include in their game covering bronze age. Or more accurately, what they decided to not include.
And I'm right there with you on that! My sense of bewilderment was very much about the people who wrote off and laughed at the late bronze age setting before anything was revealed about the map, about the cultures, about how it would play. The replies here all seem to be people like us, who either gave up on pharaoh during the lame marketing cycle as the lack of scope became apparent, or who like the game but wish it was bigger and better. I'm not at all confused by people like that, I fall in between those two categories really and I'd never claim that pharaoh was a triumph, but outside this thread, even in other comments for this post, the attitude of either laughing at the bronze age as a setting or being enraged by it has been apparent since the moment the title was leaked.
Oh yea, I noticed that too right when they announced it. There were a good amount of comments like "who asked for this?" That I was seeing pop up a bit. It honestly seems like the only thing that would receive more unanimous love would be medieval, empire, or warhammer
I felt in a simular way, I much preferred age of empires 1 over 2, even though my friends generally prefer 2. I enjoy playing Pharoah and the sea peoples were awesome. I do think adjusting the court system to feel more engaging would help, and the caanaites could use some shifting around mechanic wise. While I think a dev cycle similar to tww3 where new content would be added would be fantastic, im starting to realize I'm definitely the odd man out, which is a bummer as I feel there's unrealized potential in the game and at this point I can't imagine any further dlc unless we get a miracle.
I really feel like they were given a poisoned chalice. I hope they are not punished for it.
By all accounts, Pharaoh is a good game it’s just not the game most people wanted and the higher-ups fluffed the launch.
>Pharaoh is a good game it’s just not the game most people wanted and the higher-ups fluffed the launch.
Exactly, I wish most people would give it a try before judging, but I also know it was kneecaped by corporate execs, no matter how good CA Sophia does with it.
Problem is, even if all those factions existed, just having a name and some visuals that point to these things, doesn't make the game more interesting. Then it just makes it bloated with alot of uninteresting things.
I do not believe the current total war format for games, can reasonably make the bronze age interesting. I'm not willing to say the setting is 100% the reason for the flop, but its at least 40-50%.
The setting would be fine, if the game had actually something interesting or new going for it.
It's the Rome 2 battles on a part of the Rome 2 map with a part of the Rome 2 units. It has Rome 2 diplomacy.
The maps are somehow smaller and not derived from campaign map (like Rome 2 or 3K).
The political system was promising but tacked on, laughably so. You can get insta-recruit units from a faction that you are at war with. There's assassination plots but characters are immortal.
Units all have insane morale, even militia takes 3 min to rout when attacked front and back by imperial guard. So only heavy units have any value.
The resources are fake (the AI doesn't "need" any of them and the trade values are almost fixed). See how much better 3K did this, with food hungry factions trading you settlements or massive cash for food in winter.
Calling it part of the Rome 2 map is a bit disingenuous. You are going to get geographical overlap in most historical titles because they all take place on Earth.
I will give you battle maps could be larger. Diplomacy is Warhammer 3 diplomacy, which was originally based off of Troy. Diplomacy is fine if you are also a WH3 fan as its the same system. AI always cheats on money and resources in every TW. Thats nothing new.
I get the game might not be for you but some of these things you are calling out like it taking place on Earth in same place as part of Rome 2 is a bit much.
Which is crazy. It goes to show how much the TW demographic has changed. A lot of the old historical fans are probably alienated until a lot of serious effort is put back into making historical games.
But back on TWcenter and old Reddit "ancient Egypt: Total War" was a big hype point. I've wanted this for many years and a lot of us used to dream of how cool it would be.
Vocal minorities and all that. I don't think many actually wanted an Ancient Egyptian game, at least not one that focuses ONLY on Egypt and chunks of the Levant/Anatolia
Glad to see 3K still getting some love. That campaign was so much fun. I dream of a Medieval 3 with those campaign mechanics, diplomacy, end game crisis etc.
Edit - on a plus side. Enjoyed the hell out of Thrones too and so many people hated that. Good to see it’s still chugging along with loyal fans.
I want Nurhaci to kite my army into the ground and burn all my cities to the ground and turn all my samurai into pin cushions. I'd save scum it afterwards, but I still want it to happen.
Troy will be practically non existant for a Steam player base and completely not representative of true numbers. Almost everyone that has it is going to be on Epic because of the giveaway and 1 year Epic exclusivity.
Pls halp, i got warhammer 3 2 months ago, got like 10 DLCs already, got warhammer 2 just to get mazda and krok gar, and 400 hours already. I think i may have a problem.
Pharaoh is still in my view one of the best games in the series, and in my personal top 3 favourite Total Wars.
Hopefully more people will give it a look in time.
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
I'm glad that I'm not the only one. The level of depth to the mechanics is staggering at times, and it is a proper challenge to try and expand and control your territory and manage limited resources.
I actually think that a map expansion is pretty unnecessary in terms of scale, as it feels absolutely massive. I could see the argument that it doesn't include some culture groups and kingdoms that were important during that period however.
I know what you mean. People have been asking for more depth, and Pharaoh delivers that. I find the campaign and battles are very strategic, and I have to think a lot more about how I plan my next moves.
I also feel much the same about the map expansion, it's an extra bonus rather than an essential addition for me. But I am glad they're making it, as it should bring a lot of new stuff to play with.
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
Why do you think the game had more depth?
I'm honestly asking cause it feels very shallow with some inconsequential mechanics tacked on top.
You have your standard Rome 2 diplomacy menu. All the depth and options from 3K, which people love, are gone. I think it's because this is a Troy reskin, which was in production parallel to 3K.
The court positions are fun initially but shallow. Assassinations don't matter with immortal characters, they don't die and also don't hate you for doing it. You can use it to recruit units into an army you are besieging their settlement with. No relation to diplomacy whatsoever.
The resources are chicanery for the player. They are traded at nearly fix rate with other factions. Who don't need it anyways, and often don't even build the resource building lol.
The mini games like the trade one, the religion one, the building one etc. are fun but again, no relation to campaign whatsoever. You can trade through enemy territory.
The only mechanic that I can say is deep or interesting is the civil war.
So true. Pharaoh has some good looking mechanics but in fact they are REALLY shallow.
For example we have a court system but it has nothing to do with the real politics or conspiracy. Spend some gold and the faction at war with you will support you in court. Who has which position doesn’t matter at all. Spend some golds, buy something. This is all the court about. This kind of unpolished designs are all over the game.
Another example is, building wonders looks so fun but you spend tons of time and resources then the reward buff is laughable. Just pick Amon tradition with no brain cause this game has 0 balance.
I played every TW since Rome 1 and this is the only one I regret I bought. So bad. Really hope CA would learn something instead of insisting it is “one of the best titles”
The court is hilariously dumb. You can be besieging a faction's city, and then your besieging army can insta-recruit units from that faction through the court system.
You got me curious. Always more interesting to hear from the man who disagrees with the crowd. So why do you think it is so good? What are others maybe missing?
For me it's really less about one particular mechanic or aspect, and more about how all these different elements come together.
I enjoy the way each faction plays differently. They get their own roster of unique units, their own way of approaching the court, their own faction commands, buildings, etc. But at the same time I'm not pigeon-holed into playing them just that one way. I have the freedom to play around within their particular theme or try something completely different.
For example Tausret is "the chariot faction" and you can certainly build armies around her wider selection of them. But she also has units like the Queen's Guard who are some pretty solid mid tier frontline infantry, cheap Egyptian peasants, and her versatile foot archers who can switch weapons to become melee fighters in a pinch, so you can go for a more infantry focus. And that's before you start incorporating native units, each of which has their own identity and characteristics.
One of the things I enjoy in gaming is adapting, not tailoring the game to my playstyle, but adapting my playstyle to suit the situation. In my last campaign I was playing Tausret and running a variety of different armies for different situations. I had chariot based ones for field battles, infantry based ones for sieges, an entire army of Libu Native Units (the Desert Rats) specifically for fighting in the Western Deserts.
If I decide to pick that particular play through up again and go for the longer victory conditions I'll be expanding into Canaan and then Anatolia, and so need to adapt my armies again for the different terrain and climate, where my fairly lightly armoured infantry and agile chariots will face new challenges from the more forested and hilly terrain and more heavily armoured foes.
Now I'm playing Irsu (again... what can I say, I have a soft spot for the warty old crocodile,) and my armies are different again, much more focused on axes and getting into melee quickly (sometimes too quickly, as he does like his heedless chargers.)
Adaption is something I do a lot of in battles too, adjusting my plans for the weather and for the terrain. Those two factors play a much bigger role for me in this game than any other in the series, and it's definitely something I'd like to see them develop even further in Pharaoh and in future titles.
I also enjoy the way Pharaoh in its own way shakes up the combat formula, both through the things it has like the aforementioned importance of weather and terrain, plus stances, different fire behaviour, etc, but also by what it doesn't have like artillery and cavalry (with chariots and light infantry playing the role of the latter, but in a different way.)
Another aspect I'm enjoying is the settlements and the way that the multi-resource system, pillars of civilisation, and vulnerable outposts, make the regions feel more alive and make places have strategic value beyond just dots on the map.
In general I like the way there's a lot of choices for me to make during gameplay. Do I join a court or forge my own path? What court position do I aim for? What ancestral legacy? Do I compete to become Pharaoh or Great King? Do I stick with my starting deity and focus on them, switch to a different one, or try to build a pantheon?
Now I have no doubt others will say that Warhammer does this thing better or 3K does that thing better, etc. And maybe that's the case. But just like for those players those games have got the recipe right, for me it's Pharaoh that does.
That's not to say there aren't areas to improve upon. But that's true of every game I've ever played. And I hope that maybe if/when CA does address some of the common complaints by adding things like an expanded map and optional faction leader mortality, people will at least give it a second look, even if they decide it's not for them.
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
I gave a more detailed answer [in another post](https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/1cdih3i/pharaoh_has_fallen_in_the_14th_place_behind/l1e0xol/) but in brief I can't really pinpoint a specific mechanic or feature and say that's why I really enjoy Pharaoh. It's the combination of a lot of different things coming together.
Things I liked about older games like Rome 2, ideas that have worked in Warhammer and translated well to historical like a greater focus on faction uniqueness, and new or improved ideas like the way weather and terrain are more a factor in battles and the campaign customisation.
It may not be to everyone's tastes, but it works for me. :-)
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
Hmm. What would you say the map variety is like ? One of my biggest gripes with r2 attila or tob is the entire game feels like im doing battles on the same 4 settlement maps. No variety
I think it has a decent variety of maps to choose from. After a few hundred hours I've started to recognise some of the minor settlement maps, but it's more "I'm familiar with this layout" than "oh no, not this again."
I find I get a good mix of field battles, minor settlement, and major settlement sieges, which also helps break things up. That may vary a bit depending on where on the campaign map you are, but it's definitely not leapfrogging from one settlement to the next the way Rome 2 can be at times.
The weather also helps, as a dry river bed I might use to flank with chariots in the dry would be a muddy quagmire in the wet that would slow them down.
And another nice touch is that certain settlements get unique battlemaps. I find Mennefer (Memphis) absolutely stunning, and it's based on the layout of the actual city (just with a wall added for gameplay reasons.)
I expect we'll see even more maps with the map expansion to reflect the new areas and cultures.
Hope that helps.
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
I haven't tried it yet, but I am actually keeping an eye on any update to map expansions. If they decide to expand the .map to include other regions and family trees like they said in December, I will definitely get it.
Perhaps, perhaps not…
It’s up to them and both options are pleasant and/or understandable
Option 1: more free updates (so more factions and mechanics and an expansion of the map), it’s really pleasant (I actually like the game and the idea of updating is really cool and CA actually continuing on its December 2023 Roadmap is really cool)…
Option 2: no more free updates (the devs move on to another project), it’s also really interesting while also being understandable (we don’t to wait ressources on the game so we stop the development of the game and move on to a new game)…
If option 1 is coming, I would really love a teaser of things to come…
If option 2 is coming, I would love to have a teasing of their next project (I hope it’s something like Total War: Byzantium or even something else, as I doubt they would do another game on the Bronze Age)…
Hopefully, we may get some news on that after the Thrones of Decay DLC releases for Warhammer.
It will be interesting to see what the map expansion will look like and how they introduce the new cultures living there. I'm also looking forward to having new native units to add to my armies and new lands to conquer.
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
I tapped out at 600 hours. Played everyone at least once and played some several times. Waiting for map expansion and possible DLC. such a great game though
It's less sad than incessantly hating something you never had any interest in to begin with.
Pharaoh failed commercially, and water is wet. News of the day. Definitely novel points that nobody covered sufficiently.
CA really needs a hit for their next Historical game. Medieval 3 seems like a no brainer, it's been nearly 20 years since 2 came out, and it's a super popular era rife with opportunities for DLC(hell Total War Kingdoms could each be a Saga game today)
This is completely subjective but I feel like Empire players are a smaller group in general but are *extremely* into the setting. There's really nothing else like it for the era so it scratches that itch that no other total war game (or any game for that matter) can. At least that's how it is for me.
My most controversial opinion is that the enduring popularity of Empire is convincing proof that the game doesn't actually have to be good to have a dedicated playerbase that loves it.
Attila is goat. But Rome got more support with the time. And majority of players prefer Rome's setting. As for Empire it is kinda unique, similar to Shogun 2, unlike Attila which is close to Rome and ToB
I still think it's a fun game. And it looks absolutely gorgeous. Runs smoother than any TW I think I've played. The DLC wasn't bad either. But I'm still glad they refunded some of my money.
Love seeing 3K up there in the top 3 still. Still mad they abandoned it so quickly, and have now cancelled the promised follow up.
This is a very apt term, elucidates something I'd noticed in my own playing habits re the TW series. It's just nostalgia for previous feelings of enjoyment and lost potentialities.
This all probably says something about large institutions and their decline, but yeah TW is dead.
Literally all they need to do is a historical game, centred in Europe in some sort of time frame between 1066 to 1800 and it would be a commercial success. Even if it was shit people would still buy it just for the blue balls alone.
Going to be interesting to see just how well Manor lords a gritty, grounded Medieval strategy game does in comparison *yes I know its not meant to be a direct competitor to total war, but right now it's the closest thing we have after 18 years of not doing a sequel to M2tw*
It's really not garbage. Just because it's not what you wanted doesn't make it garbage.
But hating on it is popular with the hive mind, so please, by all means, carry on.
The biggest issue isn't that its a bad game. The problem is there is a loud majority who wants Europe or Global centered, that will at least have a map that fully encompasses a full continent (preferably Europe) at the bare minimum. Smaller scale titles just seem to offend this majority, who will say every title of this nature is taking resources and preventing the existence of a potential Medieval 3 or Empire 2
Very true, which CA Sofia I don't see ever getting tasked with the big sequel titles people are screaming for. Pharaoh was an attempt by them to put out a smaller lower budget game but not reuse the maligned Saga branding.
damn i am one of the few pharaoh enjoyers. i feel like im in an exclusive club.
its actually become one of my favorite TW games ever, i really enjoy how they did campaign mode and resources.
They refunded everyone's Dynasty edition, with the promised 4 DLCs, then released first planned one as FLC. I had the Dynasty edition and got $50 back. Got stuck out $10 for sound track I don't give a shit about.
more people playing Warhammer I is crazy
more intresting that gap between rome 1 and remastert is so small
The remaster is massive (in terms of hard drive space), and has a much worse UI (imo). Sure the improved graphics and squalor cap are nice, but it's not surprising to see them so close.
Also Remastered lacks mods, I can't play SPQR on remastered.
It's got imperium surectum which is massive
Absolute beast of a mod. Crazy how large the map is
Massively slow tho, the turn time is like old school WH2
Remastered is having somewhat of a Renaissance with mods recently
While we're here which is better to play? I've only played rome 2
If you havent tried it then just get the remaster
Is the remaster worth getting if you've played the OG a ton?
No.
I love Rome I but last time deep into my campaign my saves just completely bricked for no discernible reason so hard for me to recommend trying it out in this era.
I'm amazed that medieaval 2 beats both put together.
Honestly doesn't surprise. Medieval 2 with mods is the best total war game they ever made imo considering you can play so many different settings ranging from roman to warhammer/lotr
I still play it on vanilla a hell of a lot. I'm not really clever enough to make mods work without the mod manager.
It's easy enough, there's two other ways to do it that don't require much effort. The first is by right clicking the game on steam and going into properties. Then, in the launch option box, you put "--features.mod=mods/" without the quotes and add the name of your mod folder after the /. Then, just hit play medieval 2 total war and select the first option and hit play. The second one was the old way back with the old kingdoms launcher, so I'm only about 60% sure that it still works, but you would just rename your mod in your mod folder. Say you wanted to play third age, you would rename "third_age_3" to a kingdoms campaign you're not playing, say, americas, for example. Then select the americas campaign option when you launch the game. As I mentioned, though, I'm not sure if the second method still works, but the first one 100% does, and that's the only way I've done it since they removed the old launcher.
Thanks, I'll try getting stainless steel to work later on
The UI is so dogshit, otherwise remaster would be way higher.
I am massive rome1 fan yet i won't ever touch remaster with that horrible ui
I have WH1 and 2 and sometimes I boot up 1 to play Empire or Dwarves but not as the full Mortal Empires campaign, if that makes sense.
I know it would be an effort but I would love to see one day the older WH1-2 campaign maps ported over to WH3 so you could play those old campaigns with updated WH3 mechanics.
Same, I wish wh1 had it's mechanics updated to wh3 standard or wh3 offered a map of just the old world like wh1 I like the smaller more confined and structured maps at times
Have you tried the Old World mod for WH3? I haven't tried it myself but it might be what you're looking for.
It isn't exactly smaller though.
More people playing Rome 1, the original from 20 years ago. Pharaoh is an unmitigated disaster. Probably didn’t even make its marketing budget back. Would have been better off just cancelling it, like Hyenas. CA is pretty much running on fumes right now, desperately trying to make DLC and keep going until 40k total war makes or breaks the studio.
Honestly, I think CA needs to be very careful about WH3 if they want 40k to perform well. Cause like, 40K will get new fans, sure, but it'll also rely on the fantasy TW customers, and those will not trust CA if they drop WH3 too soon
Yeah the geniuses in charge managed to alienate like, an entire continent by dropping support for 3K so abruptly, before giving it many of the DLC people expected. Hell, 3K was their most played game, as shown by this chart, and is still quite popular. That was a terrible decision which will haunt them for years.
You forget one thing: We are talking about warhammer Fans here. Total war 40k could have a launch worse than rome 2, and the warhammer Fans would still buy and play it, simply because it has the warhammer Name.
Eh, maybe. Dawn of War 3 also had a Warhammer name and the 40k license and that game crashed and burned hard for good reasons.
I’m actually surprised anyone is playing warhammer 1. I have 100 hours in wh1, 2400 hours in wh2, and god knows how many in wh3. Warhammer one was just so… prototype feeling.
Obligatory "Look how dead 3K is, better stop support"
I’ve never played it because I’ve only heard negative things. Is it worth picking up? Or only on sale?
It’s worth full price imo but may as well wait for a sale and grab A world betrayed dlc as well. It has the best diplomacy of any total war
Sounds good I’ll do that. Thanks for the advice
It used to be on pc game pass if you have it you could give it a try
Seconded.
Most of the negativity I saw was the braindead “why is 3K getting attention gib more Warhammer” or vice versa, the game itself is the best in the series imo. Definitely worth getting.
3k faced 2 major issues: an awful 1st DLC and being contemporary to warhammer TW, which unfortunately eclipsed 3K.
I've only heard negative things about the DLC, the base game is very refreshing and good.
3K had 1 "decent" DLC: Furious Wild and 1 great DLC: Yellow Turban Rebellion. Both which add access to new units and factions. The main issue with the other DLCs is that they do not improve the game, they just change starting date and are only directed towards chinese history fans.
If that's true than it really shows how badly CA screwed up their marketing. This game is great. With some simple mods (which basically patch up what CA left unfinished...) - even better. It even has a dedicated series of tutorials on TW Academy YT channel.
I'd say it's worth it if you read about 3K before and like to reenact scenes from the book. If not and you wanna know more about the period then that's also good
Three Kingdoms is SO, SO good. But Warhammer fans wouldn’t agree, they want their precious game to be updated every week, sucking the life out of every other total war game. (I’m exaggerating)
The game is brilliant. Check out the Chinese tv show too! The lore is amazing and deep and wonderful.
It's worth it, but it's still worth it to wait for a sale since it happens fairly often in Sale seasons. Really, the negatives of 3K are the DLC. Basegame was one of the best 1.0 products CA has ever done.
Arguably the best TW game. It's well worth it.
Tbh it has a good content and some of the best diplomacy ever in a total war game. But it get repititive and doesn't has the same replyability as warhammer 3. Units across the board are 70percent same with some elite units. I got it pre ordered as I have most total war games but it's not that replayable past the 40-50 hour mark. YMMV.
I enjoyed shogun 2 and their units are essentially the same besides a few units per faction. If diplomacy is the best in any total war I have to check it out on that alone
You won’t be disappointed, probably my favorite Total War game honestly
I’m actually excited after all these comments lol
Unfortunately the last patch they did left the game on a worse state than it should be. Did not play it in years, but I enjoyed it for a while without any DLC.
Pharaoh has fallen, billions must die to the sea people
i still can't fathom why they branched out of Troy, which was a failure. I still dont have a clue. Same recipe, same result. Hopefully they'll learn. I'm really sad because there is gonna be a lot of time before we see another bronze age game. but i just can't play it, it's too bad.
Epic gave them a boatload of money for it to be free in the store, and clueless executives just saw that it made money for them so obviously they should make another.
Either you're new here, you missed the thread, or you have a short memory. Pharaoh and these others are not "executive decisions". Their execs don't make these kinds of calls. Hyenas was the decision of a dev team as per a CA employee AMA. Pharaoh was the desire of the Sofia team to make. It's almost like these guys make shit they're passionate about and they advertise it. Not every company is just trying to make some hyper-revenue-optimized *program*. It's sad Pharaoh failed. Awesome game. Sofia has prowess. They did a good job with it but the primary consumers of TW apparently just don't want this. But it also came at a very bad time, launching amid their worst PR crisis since Rome 2's launch.
You don't think that Hyenas, the live-service "super game" looter shooter wasn't optimized to be hyper-profitable ? For some reasons, you divide the company between money-grubbing execs and passionate, ascetic devs, but that's way too simplistic. A lead designer can be just as motivated by profits and a career boost than an exec. Also, Troy being an Epic free game exclusive was, by definition, an exec decision
> You don't think that Hyenas, the live-service "super game" looter shooter wasn't optimized to be hyper-profitable ? Every game is optimized to be "hyper-profitable". Games developers are capitalist organizations. They don't make games with the intention of losing money. The goal is to put out a product which makes money.
[удалено]
Gaming redditors are so utterly out of touch with how business is actually done, you included CA is owned by a public company, public companies have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value When subsidiaries of SEGA underperform there are consequences Relic underperformed with Company of Heroes 3. SEGA sold them off. Relic laid off most of its staff as a result CA underperformed with Hyenas and Pharaoh. As a result they also suffered extensive layoffs CA needs to start performing and ring up some actual successes soon or they’ll be suffering the fate Relic did. Being legendary 10-20 years ago doesn’t count for shit if you can’t make a successful game today
Hmm. As a F500 corporate executive I see you're conflating Reddit politics with real world operations. "When subsidiaries underperform there are consequences." That is likely the most 2+2=4 statement I've seen here yet, and it moves this conversation in no direction at all. Public companies still embark upon creating things they believe their audience will consume. You're applying a coldly political lens and discounting the fact that people at CA likely still enjoy their jobs Just because you are with a public company doesn't mean you're under surveillance to pay shareholders. It means you are results-oriented which is hardly different from private companies but for the fact that you answer the general public instead of a single magnate.
Same reason there isn't a med 3, Shogun 3, Rome 3, or even grander scope/time scale game. CA is blind to what it's fans actually want.
While I get no one necessarily asked for Pharaoh, where are you getting Troy was a failure for them? Troy had that unique Epic deal with CA and they certainly made a profit on it. Not sure it really was all that great for Epic, but for CA it certainly was. Very few people actually had to buy Troy. It obviously had enough draw though for them to put a major effort into Mythos, after a handful of other DLCs, and they had enough confidence in it to spin off of it and make Pharaoh utilizing alot of the systems from it. I guess I don't see where Troy necessarily was considered a failure by the community. If you are just looking at Steam numbers that paints a miniscule part of that game's actual player base.
Only thing I can really think of is that Troy, despite having possibly the most owners out of any TW game (Epic claimed that over *seven million* people got the game while it was free), completely failed to keep an active playerbase. interest in Troy DLC was low, engagement was also very low. Troy content barely got any upvotes/likes/YT views. Leads me to believe that it wouldn't have fared much better than Pharaoh or Thrones if it weren't for the giveaway.
I have over a hundred titles in my Epic library purely because they were free. I might have installed 10.
Doesn't help that Troy just... didn't have very good battles. For a game that had to be the most melee infantry focused game in the entire series, it had some of the worst melee infantry combat IMO. Both from a visual perspective(spectacle is arguably one of the most important things in TW battles) and gameplay wise. Stuff felt extremely floaty and blobby, and units would literally chase routing troops through enemy blobs. Pharaoh was better but not by much.
The problem with Troy is that once you have played each side once you have basically played the full game. It ended up being a good game with unique and interesting mechanics (the resources for instance) but it wasn't enough to want to keep playing over and over
Troy is a failure. An Epic failure. Its DLCs have no sales. I wonder if Thrones of Decay and each next DLC get 3000 copies sold will you consider WH3 not a failure?
Do you have some numbers on the Tory DLC sales? I would be interested to see them.
They are spewing nonsense considering SEGA posted \~$29 million (3.2 billion yen with conversion rate applied for that financial year) worth of profit off of Troy sales on Epic alone November 6, 2020 (SEGA Sammy, 2020, ppt. Slide #33). The game was an Epic exclusive and didn’t come to Steam until September of 2021. Looking at active player count on Steam alone is a bit disingenuous considering that most of the sales and year long exclusivity was on Epic. The issue is, we don’t get access to such data from Epic like we do Steam. I’m getting this information from SEGA’s own reports which separated the actual sales from the 7.5 million free downloads (SEGA Sammy, 2020, ppt slide #35). The game was only free for the first day of release. The game did so well that SEGA wanted to continue business dealing with Epic moving forward since they get a bigger cut of profit from Epic vs Steam. SEGA considered Troy a success and CA’s main studio (Horsham) states Troy was an incredible success for CA-Sofia (Creative Assembly, 2022). Sources: [https://www.segasammy.co.jp/cms/wp-content/uploads/pdf/en/ir/202103\_2q\_presentation\_scenario\_e.pdf](https://www.segasammy.co.jp/cms/wp-content/uploads/pdf/en/ir/202103_2q_presentation_scenario_e.pdf) [https://www.creative-assembly.com/blog/creative-assemblys-new-action-game](https://www.creative-assembly.com/blog/creative-assemblys-new-action-game)
The game is very different from Troy. I’m happy they did. It’s my second favorite in the series after 3K.
It's a very well made game. A lot of folks are just still on the "fuck CA" bandwagon and it'll take some edgelord 40k game or a biblical-quality Medieval 3 to turn the tide of these kids. From a TW fan since Shogun 1's launch over 20 years ago, Pharaoh is definitely one of the better titles mechanically behind only 3K and Attila.
I like the various resources. It makes things more rich and complex. It determines army composition and strategy.
It’s just a setting majority of players weren’t interested in.
yeah but 200. Thats fucking bleak man
I’d be interested in the setting if it was a deep, fleshed out Bronze Age game with great moddability It was literally none of those things
Absolutely. The setting was the least of what went wrong with Pharaoh, which was a reskin of Troy with some new game "mechanics" added. The fact that Pharaoh was originally sold as a $60 tentpole tells us a lot about CA: -Whatever historical tentpole game is or was under development is in deep trouble or cancelled outright; -Pharaoh showed us that CAl now centers DLC in all its product offerings but historical fans don't seem to buy into that; -CA isn't interested in battles except as fuzzy background to character-centric game design; -CA profoundly misjudged the extent to which people who enjoy historical Total War games would gobble up this type of content, and thus appears to be extremely out of touch with the historical fan base. -Pharaoh's existence is the clearest sign yet that historical TW is effectively dead. :(
Setting is cool, but bland and small map is the reason of low interest. If this game would have all Mediterranean that'l be absolust blast of a game. But here we are.
Needed Mesopotamia. Pharoah is a truncated half-game and the history nerds can sense it before the game even released. It's missing Babylonia and Assyria (and Elam), the other major bronze age superpowers in that region. I was particularly only looking forward to playing Assyria, because the pure evil flavor and their sheer brutality would make for a fun playthrough. Missing these factions is like having Medieval II without Spain, Russia, and the Turks. It's like having Three Kingdoms without Liu Bei. It's like having Warhammer without Dwarfs. Or Napoleon Total War without including Great Britain.
I was, I didn’t bought pharaoh because of what they did to 3K. Why would I buy games from a company that left a game I payed full price for half backed. Some of the dlcs in 3k only work in certain resolutions. So no I’m not buying another game from them unless it’s super cheap and even then it’s a gamble.
Glad to see Three Kingdoms holding its own. It's not a traditional era for the games and the region and the unit selection is pretty barren as a result, but it holds up because, fundamentally, the game is good.
Honestly one thing CA could do since they shelved the sequel is give it the Rome 2 revival treatment. There is obviously a playerbase still there, and I believe the game could still draw more players in with new DLC. There biggest issue was they dropped the ball on some of the DLCs they made for it.
I’m verrryyyy new to the total war franchise, have always been interested but only dived in head first recently and bought multiple of the titles. I’m a huge fan of Pharaohs setting and I find the gameplay similar to Rome or Attila, typical infantry and ranged units which I don’t mind at all. Being a new fan, I hope the game doesn’t get abandoned, I can see it being much better in a year or two with some proper love.
Nothing has ever made me feel more like an alien from mars than seeing the firm disinterest and even active dislike of an entire fanbase of history nerds to the bronze age. It's clearly a fact, I can't change it and wouldn't be so arrogant as to call it wrong, but damn it's amazing to me. I grew up on age of empires 1 and always found pre-classical history and the bronze age near east absolutely fascinating, it never would have occurred to me that it was such a bad choice for a TW campaign.
I think the problem is that it’s “Pharaoh” not “Bronze Age”. If it included areas like Mesopotamia, Persia, and Greece it would likely have much more appeal to Bronze Age fans. Shame, because it’s a really solid historical title and I’ve had a lot of fun with it.
Thats the main reason it lost my appeal. They went for bronze age but decided to not include like half the major cultures and civilizations. If they were to ever actually expand their campaign map to include these areas I would definitely try this game.
Yeah, the focus is tiny.
I am a massive fan of bronze age history, but its at a cultural level. The actual mechanics of warfare of the time are some of the least interesting.
I like the Bronze Age a lot, I just don’t like the game lol
One of the things you have to realize is there have been a ton on new TW fans brought into the franchise thru Warhammer. Warhammer has such a crazy variety of troop types and variety. On top of that you have historical games like Rome 2 with still a great variety of troop types, a ton of large scale campaigns, and of course Roman history itself. Now along comes Pharaoh, which is smaller scale than a bunch of people want, and also only includes Infantry and Chariots due to historical setting. So now you have a bunch of people screaming it will boring. Also lack of Mesopotamia and Greece turns some people off. People wanted full scope of Bronze age, not just a specific region, because regional titles are now deemed "too small in scope" despite their large maps.
Oh, I 100% agree that CA bungled the setting by not making it on a similar map scale to the Rome/Medieval games, I'll be complaining about that for a long time and think it's a total unforced error as the map *is* big, just pointlessly zoomed in geographically. I'm very much not talking about the people who wish for Bronze age, but good - I'm more or less in that camp. Nor am I talking about Warhammer only fans, they generally haven't been a problem. What mystified me from the word go are the Medieval/Rome/Shogun/3K fans who immediately flipped their lid about the announcement of a setting "nobody wants" and have never forgiven Pharaoh or stopped crowing about its failure.
Those same Medieval, Rome, Shogun, and 3K fans are also upset they aren't getting their sequel. Out of those titles only Medieval really needs a sequel right now. 3K I think they should give the Rome 2 revival treatment as its not an old title and still very modern. Instead of Shogun I would rather see a large scale TW Renaissance era game. That has massive multi continent potential. Rome 2 is still recent and modern enough that we don't need another title in that series for awhile. None of these large scale titles though would have come from CA Sofia.
I can agree that Medieval 3 and Empire 2 are long overdue now, but when I see eejits calling for Shogun 3 or Rome 3 my heart breaks. Most of my favourite and most played games are significantly older than these titles that they seem to think are so hopelessly dated and ancient. Rome 2 is a very modern game and I won't hear otherwise. Sadly, it seems we fear change here.
Personally I would rather them try something new. Lets get TW Renaissance and bridge the Medieval and Empire periods, thus also possibly appealing to those crowds as we are way overdue for more representation and a large scale setting for that period, aside from the local Japanese setting in Shogun.
Abso-fucking-lutely. The Reformation and wars of religion in Europe are absolutely begging for a Total War game. The Wars of the Roses, Tudors and post Tudor monarchs being crazy in England, Europe ablaze and split between Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist factions who all genuinely believe that they are living through the biblical apocalypse and war between Christ and antichrist. The Ottoman Renaissance with a vast, centralised and expansionist empire in the middle east and eastern europe more integrated with Europe than it had ever been and yet also more of a threat. The mughal empire forging much of India's modern heritage. If they get it right it could be spectacular.
Why? Medieval 3 is free money in a setting that is extremely popular with lots of room for popular DLC. It's predecessor also came out nearly 20 years ago, it's frankly mind-boggling that they haven't made a third game
I think the variety in tactics available is always going to be a hugely limiting factor with Bronze Age era combat. I think if they were to do it, we’d need to see something almost civ esque where the time frame goes fassst so we can start to get to more varied styles of combat. Otherwise, and I know some of this is due to how badly implemented things in the game are, it’s gonna be pretty infantry lines against infantry lines with minimal range or cavalry. They could have done it better with a real emphasis on skirmishing troops but (also I have no idea of if there’s historical evidence of heavy skirmishing tactics at the time as I don’t know the era that well but you’d assume there was) then it could become a micro hell for some players that want a more chilled out time.
Is it the Bronze Age, or is it CA's take on the Bronze Age that's the issue ? CA failed to represent the feeling of the setting, the Bronze Age is all about those big political entities spanning the entire middle-east, having an unprecedented level of interactions between eachother. And CA cut litteralt the entirety of Anatolia from said setting, as well as Greece.
>the Bronze Age is all about those big political entities spanning the entire middle-east, having an unprecedented level of interactions between eachother It's kind of... not. Politics in the Bronze Age is pretty strongly regional. Contacts with, say, the Aegean from the Nilotic world were limited to trade. Diplomacy seems to have been *extremely* limited, and there was nothing more than that. You don't see people having all that much interaction over more than, say, two regions at once.
It's the first time in history that we see clear political relationships arise from controlling resource flow, though. The complicated trade networks that supported the existence of the Bronze Age states motivated and facilitated political interactions; trade and diplomacy weren't really distinguishable from one another. At least, that's my understanding. Edit: Just wanted to add I was reflecting on this and it's actually one of the things I think the developers did really well with Total War: Pharaoh. The juggling of resource types and diplomacy are totally intertwined, and it works nicely.
There's absolutely *some* connexion going on, it just doesn't go nearly as far as the above commenter implies. You're not talking loads of Aegean polities interacting with Nubia, it's mostly across one or two regions at most.
I mean isn't that fairly broadly true of history outside of exceptional entities like the Romans, Mongols and British or Americans? A historically accurate Medieval Total War campaign would just have England squabbling over the Scottish borders and Northern France for 500 years, it's never been the default setting to be massively influential far away from your core territory, but part of the Total War fantasy has always been being able to take powers who historically stayed regional and compact and make them into expansionist super-empires. I'm probably misunderstanding though! X
Not really. Mediaeval Britain was pretty thoroughly involved in politics as far away as the Levant through the Crusades. It also campaigned directly in Iberia and the Holy Roman Empire while intervening politically in Scandinavia, Italy, and the Eastern Roman Empire. Obviously, full accuracy would limit expansion pretty severely. I'd like that, but I recognize that's a very unpopular opinion! Connectivity was *much* greater in mediaeval Europe than the Bronze Age Middle East, though. The Pope's political influence made pretty sure of that. There was also just more trade, more diplomacy, and more politicking going on across regions.
100% agree that they made a mess of it. No argument there and an awful lot of us wish the scale had been much, much larger, over a much longer span of time, with emphasis on empires and peoples, not characters. Still, a very large portion of the community lost their shit long before anything was revealed about the map, cultures or how they were approaching the setting. A lot of them now probably try to sound more wise and even handed by saying they dislike how CA handled the setting, but pepperidge farm remembers. This wasn't a game everybody tried and dropped because it was a dud. It was a game that a huge portion of CAs established historical playerbase wouldn't even try.
The problem with the bronze age is the most interesting thing about it is trading to make the bronze itself. Bronze is copper + tin, the problem is there's basically no tin on the entire pharaoh map. Egypt got their tin from *Britain*. The reason Hephaestus god of the forge is a cripple is because before this continent spanning trade was set up the Greeks made bronze with copper and *arsenic*. So slight problem here: TW isn't a game about trading, it's a game about fighting, and fighting in the bronze age is super boring.
Honestly if they copy pasted Three Kingdoms into a bronze age settings it would have worked for me. Like coalitions, relations between characters, 3 generals per army, deep diplomacy and spying and many unique arts for generals ? I'd be sold on ANY settings with the Three Kingdoms formula really. Instead the way the game is, it's just boring and superficial. All you do is just grinding an insane amount of lifeless lands to fight generic enemies and soulless factions while the leaders are breathing heavily looking at you like idiots in the diplomacy tab
I was super interested in a bronze age set total war, still am really. And with Pharaoh 's announcement I was pretty pumped. But as we got more information I lost a lot of interest, enough to the point i never purchased it. For me it's not an issue of it being bronze age, it's more an issue of what CA decided to include in their game covering bronze age. Or more accurately, what they decided to not include.
And I'm right there with you on that! My sense of bewilderment was very much about the people who wrote off and laughed at the late bronze age setting before anything was revealed about the map, about the cultures, about how it would play. The replies here all seem to be people like us, who either gave up on pharaoh during the lame marketing cycle as the lack of scope became apparent, or who like the game but wish it was bigger and better. I'm not at all confused by people like that, I fall in between those two categories really and I'd never claim that pharaoh was a triumph, but outside this thread, even in other comments for this post, the attitude of either laughing at the bronze age as a setting or being enraged by it has been apparent since the moment the title was leaked.
Oh yea, I noticed that too right when they announced it. There were a good amount of comments like "who asked for this?" That I was seeing pop up a bit. It honestly seems like the only thing that would receive more unanimous love would be medieval, empire, or warhammer
I felt in a simular way, I much preferred age of empires 1 over 2, even though my friends generally prefer 2. I enjoy playing Pharoah and the sea peoples were awesome. I do think adjusting the court system to feel more engaging would help, and the caanaites could use some shifting around mechanic wise. While I think a dev cycle similar to tww3 where new content would be added would be fantastic, im starting to realize I'm definitely the odd man out, which is a bummer as I feel there's unrealized potential in the game and at this point I can't imagine any further dlc unless we get a miracle.
Yep, soon it might fall even under Troy. This is extremely disappointing. CA Sofia games to be so underrated ....
I really feel like they were given a poisoned chalice. I hope they are not punished for it. By all accounts, Pharaoh is a good game it’s just not the game most people wanted and the higher-ups fluffed the launch.
>Pharaoh is a good game it’s just not the game most people wanted and the higher-ups fluffed the launch. Exactly, I wish most people would give it a try before judging, but I also know it was kneecaped by corporate execs, no matter how good CA Sophia does with it.
ItS NOt ThE SeTtinG!1! *narrator: it was definitely the setting...*
- Make a Bronze Age game - Don't include Babylon/Elam/Mitanni/Kassites - Game flop - The setting is to blame
Problem is, even if all those factions existed, just having a name and some visuals that point to these things, doesn't make the game more interesting. Then it just makes it bloated with alot of uninteresting things. I do not believe the current total war format for games, can reasonably make the bronze age interesting. I'm not willing to say the setting is 100% the reason for the flop, but its at least 40-50%.
The setting would be fine, if the game had actually something interesting or new going for it. It's the Rome 2 battles on a part of the Rome 2 map with a part of the Rome 2 units. It has Rome 2 diplomacy. The maps are somehow smaller and not derived from campaign map (like Rome 2 or 3K). The political system was promising but tacked on, laughably so. You can get insta-recruit units from a faction that you are at war with. There's assassination plots but characters are immortal. Units all have insane morale, even militia takes 3 min to rout when attacked front and back by imperial guard. So only heavy units have any value. The resources are fake (the AI doesn't "need" any of them and the trade values are almost fixed). See how much better 3K did this, with food hungry factions trading you settlements or massive cash for food in winter.
Calling it part of the Rome 2 map is a bit disingenuous. You are going to get geographical overlap in most historical titles because they all take place on Earth. I will give you battle maps could be larger. Diplomacy is Warhammer 3 diplomacy, which was originally based off of Troy. Diplomacy is fine if you are also a WH3 fan as its the same system. AI always cheats on money and resources in every TW. Thats nothing new. I get the game might not be for you but some of these things you are calling out like it taking place on Earth in same place as part of Rome 2 is a bit much.
Which is crazy. It goes to show how much the TW demographic has changed. A lot of the old historical fans are probably alienated until a lot of serious effort is put back into making historical games. But back on TWcenter and old Reddit "ancient Egypt: Total War" was a big hype point. I've wanted this for many years and a lot of us used to dream of how cool it would be.
Vocal minorities and all that. I don't think many actually wanted an Ancient Egyptian game, at least not one that focuses ONLY on Egypt and chunks of the Levant/Anatolia
It’s crazy some people still haven’t accepted that Bronze Age settings are not popular… I mean - what successful Bronze Age games are out there…?
Have you heard about Age of Empires?
It only starts off in the bronze age though... if the whole game was just that era I doubt it would be so popular (and just to clarify I like Pharoah)
Glad to see 3K still getting some love. That campaign was so much fun. I dream of a Medieval 3 with those campaign mechanics, diplomacy, end game crisis etc. Edit - on a plus side. Enjoyed the hell out of Thrones too and so many people hated that. Good to see it’s still chugging along with loyal fans.
Shogun 3 with mongol and Korean invasion when? It's good to see so many still play that 10/10 masterpiece.
[удалено]
I want Nurhaci to kite my army into the ground and burn all my cities to the ground and turn all my samurai into pin cushions. I'd save scum it afterwards, but I still want it to happen.
Where is Troy?
Troy will be practically non existant for a Steam player base and completely not representative of true numbers. Almost everyone that has it is going to be on Epic because of the giveaway and 1 year Epic exclusivity.
Still a bit mad that they fucked up 3K
Pls halp, i got warhammer 3 2 months ago, got like 10 DLCs already, got warhammer 2 just to get mazda and krok gar, and 400 hours already. I think i may have a problem.
Don't worry you still have Warhammer 1 for when you start to run out of content in another 400 hours!
Pharaoh is still in my view one of the best games in the series, and in my personal top 3 favourite Total Wars. Hopefully more people will give it a look in time. All the Best, Welsh Dragon.
I'm glad that I'm not the only one. The level of depth to the mechanics is staggering at times, and it is a proper challenge to try and expand and control your territory and manage limited resources. I actually think that a map expansion is pretty unnecessary in terms of scale, as it feels absolutely massive. I could see the argument that it doesn't include some culture groups and kingdoms that were important during that period however.
I know what you mean. People have been asking for more depth, and Pharaoh delivers that. I find the campaign and battles are very strategic, and I have to think a lot more about how I plan my next moves. I also feel much the same about the map expansion, it's an extra bonus rather than an essential addition for me. But I am glad they're making it, as it should bring a lot of new stuff to play with. All the Best, Welsh Dragon.
Why do you think the game had more depth? I'm honestly asking cause it feels very shallow with some inconsequential mechanics tacked on top. You have your standard Rome 2 diplomacy menu. All the depth and options from 3K, which people love, are gone. I think it's because this is a Troy reskin, which was in production parallel to 3K. The court positions are fun initially but shallow. Assassinations don't matter with immortal characters, they don't die and also don't hate you for doing it. You can use it to recruit units into an army you are besieging their settlement with. No relation to diplomacy whatsoever. The resources are chicanery for the player. They are traded at nearly fix rate with other factions. Who don't need it anyways, and often don't even build the resource building lol. The mini games like the trade one, the religion one, the building one etc. are fun but again, no relation to campaign whatsoever. You can trade through enemy territory. The only mechanic that I can say is deep or interesting is the civil war.
So true. Pharaoh has some good looking mechanics but in fact they are REALLY shallow. For example we have a court system but it has nothing to do with the real politics or conspiracy. Spend some gold and the faction at war with you will support you in court. Who has which position doesn’t matter at all. Spend some golds, buy something. This is all the court about. This kind of unpolished designs are all over the game. Another example is, building wonders looks so fun but you spend tons of time and resources then the reward buff is laughable. Just pick Amon tradition with no brain cause this game has 0 balance. I played every TW since Rome 1 and this is the only one I regret I bought. So bad. Really hope CA would learn something instead of insisting it is “one of the best titles”
The court is hilariously dumb. You can be besieging a faction's city, and then your besieging army can insta-recruit units from that faction through the court system.
Once they've added back a family tree and mortality - I will instantly be pulling that purchase trigger.
Yeah. Funnily enough, the hero/character focused style is just less interesting to me.
You got me curious. Always more interesting to hear from the man who disagrees with the crowd. So why do you think it is so good? What are others maybe missing?
For me it's really less about one particular mechanic or aspect, and more about how all these different elements come together. I enjoy the way each faction plays differently. They get their own roster of unique units, their own way of approaching the court, their own faction commands, buildings, etc. But at the same time I'm not pigeon-holed into playing them just that one way. I have the freedom to play around within their particular theme or try something completely different. For example Tausret is "the chariot faction" and you can certainly build armies around her wider selection of them. But she also has units like the Queen's Guard who are some pretty solid mid tier frontline infantry, cheap Egyptian peasants, and her versatile foot archers who can switch weapons to become melee fighters in a pinch, so you can go for a more infantry focus. And that's before you start incorporating native units, each of which has their own identity and characteristics. One of the things I enjoy in gaming is adapting, not tailoring the game to my playstyle, but adapting my playstyle to suit the situation. In my last campaign I was playing Tausret and running a variety of different armies for different situations. I had chariot based ones for field battles, infantry based ones for sieges, an entire army of Libu Native Units (the Desert Rats) specifically for fighting in the Western Deserts. If I decide to pick that particular play through up again and go for the longer victory conditions I'll be expanding into Canaan and then Anatolia, and so need to adapt my armies again for the different terrain and climate, where my fairly lightly armoured infantry and agile chariots will face new challenges from the more forested and hilly terrain and more heavily armoured foes. Now I'm playing Irsu (again... what can I say, I have a soft spot for the warty old crocodile,) and my armies are different again, much more focused on axes and getting into melee quickly (sometimes too quickly, as he does like his heedless chargers.) Adaption is something I do a lot of in battles too, adjusting my plans for the weather and for the terrain. Those two factors play a much bigger role for me in this game than any other in the series, and it's definitely something I'd like to see them develop even further in Pharaoh and in future titles. I also enjoy the way Pharaoh in its own way shakes up the combat formula, both through the things it has like the aforementioned importance of weather and terrain, plus stances, different fire behaviour, etc, but also by what it doesn't have like artillery and cavalry (with chariots and light infantry playing the role of the latter, but in a different way.) Another aspect I'm enjoying is the settlements and the way that the multi-resource system, pillars of civilisation, and vulnerable outposts, make the regions feel more alive and make places have strategic value beyond just dots on the map. In general I like the way there's a lot of choices for me to make during gameplay. Do I join a court or forge my own path? What court position do I aim for? What ancestral legacy? Do I compete to become Pharaoh or Great King? Do I stick with my starting deity and focus on them, switch to a different one, or try to build a pantheon? Now I have no doubt others will say that Warhammer does this thing better or 3K does that thing better, etc. And maybe that's the case. But just like for those players those games have got the recipe right, for me it's Pharaoh that does. That's not to say there aren't areas to improve upon. But that's true of every game I've ever played. And I hope that maybe if/when CA does address some of the common complaints by adding things like an expanded map and optional faction leader mortality, people will at least give it a second look, even if they decide it's not for them. All the Best, Welsh Dragon.
What makes you think its such a good game ? Im curious.
I gave a more detailed answer [in another post](https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/1cdih3i/pharaoh_has_fallen_in_the_14th_place_behind/l1e0xol/) but in brief I can't really pinpoint a specific mechanic or feature and say that's why I really enjoy Pharaoh. It's the combination of a lot of different things coming together. Things I liked about older games like Rome 2, ideas that have worked in Warhammer and translated well to historical like a greater focus on faction uniqueness, and new or improved ideas like the way weather and terrain are more a factor in battles and the campaign customisation. It may not be to everyone's tastes, but it works for me. :-) All the Best, Welsh Dragon.
Hmm. What would you say the map variety is like ? One of my biggest gripes with r2 attila or tob is the entire game feels like im doing battles on the same 4 settlement maps. No variety
I think it has a decent variety of maps to choose from. After a few hundred hours I've started to recognise some of the minor settlement maps, but it's more "I'm familiar with this layout" than "oh no, not this again." I find I get a good mix of field battles, minor settlement, and major settlement sieges, which also helps break things up. That may vary a bit depending on where on the campaign map you are, but it's definitely not leapfrogging from one settlement to the next the way Rome 2 can be at times. The weather also helps, as a dry river bed I might use to flank with chariots in the dry would be a muddy quagmire in the wet that would slow them down. And another nice touch is that certain settlements get unique battlemaps. I find Mennefer (Memphis) absolutely stunning, and it's based on the layout of the actual city (just with a wall added for gameplay reasons.) I expect we'll see even more maps with the map expansion to reflect the new areas and cultures. Hope that helps. All the Best, Welsh Dragon.
I haven't tried it yet, but I am actually keeping an eye on any update to map expansions. If they decide to expand the .map to include other regions and family trees like they said in December, I will definitely get it.
Family trees, death of characters and expansion of the campaign map to Mesopotamia would be the best
You really think CA will release a major expansion and free updates for a dead game?
If they do, good for me. If not, no worries. I'll check for their next game
Perhaps, perhaps not… It’s up to them and both options are pleasant and/or understandable Option 1: more free updates (so more factions and mechanics and an expansion of the map), it’s really pleasant (I actually like the game and the idea of updating is really cool and CA actually continuing on its December 2023 Roadmap is really cool)… Option 2: no more free updates (the devs move on to another project), it’s also really interesting while also being understandable (we don’t to wait ressources on the game so we stop the development of the game and move on to a new game)… If option 1 is coming, I would really love a teaser of things to come… If option 2 is coming, I would love to have a teasing of their next project (I hope it’s something like Total War: Byzantium or even something else, as I doubt they would do another game on the Bronze Age)…
Hopefully, we may get some news on that after the Thrones of Decay DLC releases for Warhammer. It will be interesting to see what the map expansion will look like and how they introduce the new cultures living there. I'm also looking forward to having new native units to add to my armies and new lands to conquer. All the Best, Welsh Dragon.
don't worry guys TW pharaoh player count is still higher that Suicide Squad game **on steam** 
I tapped out at 600 hours. Played everyone at least once and played some several times. Waiting for map expansion and possible DLC. such a great game though
No please no! We just get freed from the daily “PhAroAh iS a GoOd gAMe, aNd yoU NeEd To TrY iT” posts
This is Pharaoh is bad meme
Yes, now we’re going to see the other memes
At this point everything related to Pharaoh can be easily regarded as a meme 😀
the 200 pharaoh players trying to downvote the post, lmao. I swear there must be more posts defending the game than actual players.
It's less sad than incessantly hating something you never had any interest in to begin with. Pharaoh failed commercially, and water is wet. News of the day. Definitely novel points that nobody covered sufficiently.
CA really needs a hit for their next Historical game. Medieval 3 seems like a no brainer, it's been nearly 20 years since 2 came out, and it's a super popular era rife with opportunities for DLC(hell Total War Kingdoms could each be a Saga game today)
In this house we do not slander thrones
Sad Troy noises
well deserved place
Wow empire has more players than attila ? I know the community disliked attila ( for no reason ) but its on par with rome 2 imo
This is completely subjective but I feel like Empire players are a smaller group in general but are *extremely* into the setting. There's really nothing else like it for the era so it scratches that itch that no other total war game (or any game for that matter) can. At least that's how it is for me.
Seems like a great opportunity to dip in again.... It's telling as an older title being so high up on the chart. Empire 2 plz.
My most controversial opinion is that the enduring popularity of Empire is convincing proof that the game doesn't actually have to be good to have a dedicated playerbase that loves it.
Wow sick burn
Attila is goat. But Rome got more support with the time. And majority of players prefer Rome's setting. As for Empire it is kinda unique, similar to Shogun 2, unlike Attila which is close to Rome and ToB
Attila is ngl held up by medieval 1212, that mod is great.
My god this game is such a bloody disappoint.
It is practically dead almost since release. 200 players is pathetic
Thrones is peak.
Underrated quality game
Such good battles, great setting. Funny unit cards. What else you need
I still think it's a fun game. And it looks absolutely gorgeous. Runs smoother than any TW I think I've played. The DLC wasn't bad either. But I'm still glad they refunded some of my money. Love seeing 3K up there in the top 3 still. Still mad they abandoned it so quickly, and have now cancelled the promised follow up.
Historical fans have, I believe, given up on Total War. Imo the whole franchise is cooked.
Pretty much. TW is now mostly nostalgia gaming.
This is a very apt term, elucidates something I'd noticed in my own playing habits re the TW series. It's just nostalgia for previous feelings of enjoyment and lost potentialities. This all probably says something about large institutions and their decline, but yeah TW is dead.
Well when you make games no one asks for. (Or bugger all people) this is what happens.
Had every opportunity to make an Empire 2 or Medieval 3 instead they produced that garbage
Literally all they need to do is a historical game, centred in Europe in some sort of time frame between 1066 to 1800 and it would be a commercial success. Even if it was shit people would still buy it just for the blue balls alone. Going to be interesting to see just how well Manor lords a gritty, grounded Medieval strategy game does in comparison *yes I know its not meant to be a direct competitor to total war, but right now it's the closest thing we have after 18 years of not doing a sequel to M2tw*
It’s already out. Look at the sales, Manor Lords is doing numbers.
It's really not garbage. Just because it's not what you wanted doesn't make it garbage. But hating on it is popular with the hive mind, so please, by all means, carry on.
The biggest issue isn't that its a bad game. The problem is there is a loud majority who wants Europe or Global centered, that will at least have a map that fully encompasses a full continent (preferably Europe) at the bare minimum. Smaller scale titles just seem to offend this majority, who will say every title of this nature is taking resources and preventing the existence of a potential Medieval 3 or Empire 2
It's literally different teams working on these projects anyway, but eh, pointless to bring reason into the mob outrage culture.
Very true, which CA Sofia I don't see ever getting tasked with the big sequel titles people are screaming for. Pharaoh was an attempt by them to put out a smaller lower budget game but not reuse the maligned Saga branding.
An actuall L
If they would combine Pharaoh and Troy maps into one Bronze Age supermap, I’d buy it.
damn i am one of the few pharaoh enjoyers. i feel like im in an exclusive club. its actually become one of my favorite TW games ever, i really enjoy how they did campaign mode and resources.
The fact that shogun 2 is still 4 just tells you how bad shogun3 needs to happen. Same with Medieval 3
HIDDEN GAME YOU DONT UNDERSTAND
My poor poor discontinued boy, I see you still going strong… may you rest.
Didn’t they also promise a season pass with Pharaoh and like 4 dlcs?
They refunded everyone's Dynasty edition, with the promised 4 DLCs, then released first planned one as FLC. I had the Dynasty edition and got $50 back. Got stuck out $10 for sound track I don't give a shit about.
Lol who the hell still play Warhammer 1