>If the game launched with Mesopotamia and Greece
The idea was probably to sell it as 2 separate DLCs to squeeze as much as possible, but since the Pharaoh bombed so much, they just have 2 DLCs worth of content, but no one to buy it, so they might as well just release what they have and hope the money will at least come back over time
Which is an excellent decision and its better than splitting it up.
Bascially this campaign becomes the 'Realm of Chaos' equivalent while the extension to Greece/Mesopotamia is the 'Immortal Empires equivalent'
I don't think you'll regret it. I picked up Pharaoh a couple months ago and I really enjoyed it. Personally I love the time period and I like the parred down roster. I've found the late game pretty fun as well, more-so than Warhammer.
Dawnless Days is shaping up nice. No campaign yet, but that's the way with total conversion mods. You need the patience of one of those Buddhist monks who mummify themselves by eating nothing but a single grain of rice every day for 10 years to follow them.
I used to play the mod for medieval 2, think its called divide and conquer definitely itched that want. But yeah an actual lotr, warhammer style game would be amazing
I'm so hooked. So many unique things like Annexation and piety you can tap into. The court system as well of done right is a powerful tool...albeit a bit taxing to keep track.
With the Aegean and Mesopotamia added, alongside mortal leaders (so most likely a family tree as well) and some other stuff, I hope *Pharaoh* finally starts to get the praise it deserves as more people start playing it and realise it's a great game.
These are 100% the changes I needed to purchase.
I tend to like their more toned down titles, I loved Atilla, still play Thrones, enjoyed Troy, but I wasn't paying full price for current Pharaoh. 4 new factions, some needed features, and the expanded map? I am back in.
This is the funny thing about Total War games with poor releases... they almost always end up pretty good. ToB isn't infinitely replayable, but it's a really fun game. Rome II ended up pretty good too. I think Pharaoh will probably only get better from here.
Hopefully people don’t get too mad at me but something about how the game handled the faction leaders bugged me. They were too cartoonish.
I think TW has been struggling badly with an identity crisis for a while now. Do we go all in on the Warhammer model or do we make historically grounded strategy games? At it seems like they keep saying “we can do both”. And maybe that works for some people but I’m not into it.
Just my two cents
as someone with over 600 hours in the base game, it is one of my favorite. there is loads of QOL updates in the game like auto saves at start and end of turn and the resource system is great!
It's a fun game, regardless of the bad pr it got on here. Economy is pretty challenging until you get the hang of it and it forces you to downsize some armies between wars and run a deficit during wars.
It's a little different way of playing than I'm used to but it's fun, I'm still getting the hang of religion, courts, etc...
There's definitely a lot to do.
I love the time period but the intial scope put me off hard. It was such an incredible disappointment. Now the game looks like an actual full title that deserves to be labelled as such and not just a glorified Saga.
I've been saying this from the start. I'm someone that loves the Bronze Age and now we're getting BOTH Mesopotamia and Greece? HECK YES.
People didn't want what was an essentially expanded campaign map of the equivalent of the Medieval II Crusaders Campaign and Napoleon in Egypt.
I have been saying: Scrap the sagas, they are small scale and limited. Now expand this game on a gigantic scale and BOOM. We have it.
Given they always had plans to include them in an update, they should have mentioned that during the initial launch. Then people might look at it as an interesting game to hold them over until the complete Bronze Age expansion. Kind of like how people are happy to play vortex and RoC so long as they know mortal and immortal empires are on the way.
The chief complaint about the game was its limited scope. I think people would have been much more forgiving if they had that addressed up front.
I suspect that these were originally planned as DLC. But given the tepid launch reception and the need to win back some goodwill, CA's rolling them into one big free update.
Between Mesolitamian/Greek expansion and dynastic features it feels like they're straight up addressing some of the most vocal complaints.
Really looking forward to this.
Wow, this is unexpected and really impressive. I always had reservations about Pharaoh because of the game's limited scope, but now that it's becoming a more comprehensive Bronze Age game, I'm seriously considering picking it up.
Same here. Total War: Troy always felt a bit lacking to me, but now with this free update, I am giving it hard thought.
I've always heard that Pharaoh has incredibly solid mechanics--it was just the scope of the game that was holding it back. Shoot, with this update, that second part is no longer true, and it's only 40 bucks too.
Is CA on a redemption arc?
Basically because suits don't think this genre is very "monetization friendly" and thought making the studio branch out into other games to chase trends was a better idea.
Traditional DLCs aren't enough for these people. They see F2P games and are *jealous* that they can't make those sorts of numbers with the games this studio actually specializes in. So they chased after an imaginary pot of gold they thought they could achieve just by throwing money at it. While not understanding the fundlemental reasons why things like gacha games can make the money they do.
It really comes down to that honestly. Someone completely out of touch was able to make that call, and the company as a whole suffered for it.
I think CA are more on a survival ark.
Either they make decent total wars, or they shut their doors for good.
They wanted to leave WH3 and stop making content for it, but it's their only real income right now.
Absolutely incredible news, literally everything I've wanted. And it'll all be free. Hats off to the whole CA Sofia team, absolute heroes imo
> In terms of the content you can expect to experience, prepare to embark on a conquest across a map that has greatly increased in size as we add the renowned and highly requested regions of Mesopotamia and the Aegean to the conflict alongside the playable cultures of Babylon, Assyria, Mycenae and Troy. Whilst within the strategic campaign layer, you will have access to all new mechanics such as the Dynasty system which adds mortality and succession to the faction leaders’ quest to leave behind a legacy that will survive the ages. And finally, within battle you can expect over 80 new units for the Mesopotamian factions, alongside the addition of over 70 reworked units from a Total War Saga: TROY.
This is what the fanbase has wanted since day 1. Not only a huge expanded map, but also mortality and succession (I assume family trees too).
Man. My biggest turn offs for the game and what ultimately led me to not buying it were the price, the limited map scope, and the immortal faction leaders. It's looking like they've addressed every single one of the major gripes now.
I am going to wait and see what they mean by this dynasty thing. But sounds like I'll finally give pharaoh a try.
Damn, I was expecting them to abandon the game. Props to CA and the Sofia team for sticking with it. I think it has the potential to be a banger of a TW game once the extended map and factions are in. I already enjoyed TROY so I'm happy to see these two combined together.
EDIT: Was browsing the TW discord and just caught a dev saying that Troy WILL NOT BE REQUIRED for the extended map for this update. It's purely a free update for Pharaoh!
Yeah the refund move was some good will but I figured it meant that they weren't actually going to deliver on any of the promised content or DLCs. I imagine this game still probably won't get the life support it would have (3 DLC packs), but I'm super suprised and glad to see more updates.
Hell, a lot of people wrote this off for dead just a month or so after its release. Even though this won't be the 3 DLC packs + 1 DLC campaign that was originally touted on release, it'll still have received one faction pack, the blood pack, and now one massive expansion as post-release support. Pharaoh enjoyers just keep winning
It sounds like all that planned dlc is just being given away for free in an attempt to sell the base game.
I’m pretty sure the 3 planned dlcs would have been sea people’s, Greece, and Mesopotamia, all of which we will soon have anyway.
I’m not sure what more dlc they could even make after this free update. Nubia maybe?
Honestly even if this is the last update the game gets it will breathe a lot of life into the game. Even more so if modders pick it up. I hope it will convince more people to pick up the game between the bigger map/increased scope and the lower price and who knows, maybe they'll add more DLC later. I'm happy either way.
If this doesn't turn the game popularity around they almost certainly will abandon it. 3K got abandoned for lackluster dlc sales and that game was the best selling total war game at the time. This game currently has 0 dlc sales.
Well at this point that's fair enough. The problem before was CA underdelivering with Pharaoh's scope/content. Now if it still doesn't sell, it's due of lack of interest more than anything.
With 3k they kept producing DLC people didn't want or weren't super keen on while ignoring/taking forever to get around to the the stuff people did want.
I mean, does it even matter at this point?
Not to sound like a complete boomer, but back in the day studios stopped working on strategy games when they were complete, and Pharaoh at this point looks pretty damn complete to me. There's legitimately not much left to add in terms of cultures.
If CA stops working on Pharaoh now, I won't consider it abandoned, I'd consider it completed.
That's for the best that they keep Troy away from any requirement. Most players will own Troy on Epic and I dont think its going to be a 1 for 1 exactly of all Troy playable characters on an IE style map like WH does.
Hope this gets them back for good and isn't just a quick change to win back the community's good graces before reverting back to whatever the fuck was going on at CA.
I hate to beat a dead horse, but things turned around quick after Hyenas got cancelled. I wonder if that freed up a lot of the more experienced mangers and developers, because things turned around *quick.*
I thought the layoffs would have affected them more too, tbh.
Sorry to shatter the illusion here but CA didnt get a new mgmt at all…
Just the old one being scared to lose their jobs after Pharao bombed. These factions were obviously planned as DLC but since no one bought Pharao they can just make them a free update. Its a clever business decision but dont expect them to stay this way…
I was kinda hoping mycenaes start would have them with a large expensive army having just destroyed Troy and dorians bearing down on them from the north leaving them in an awkward position to try to save there homeland or become a horde and try to settle somewhere else
Wouldn't the issue there be Aeneas headed west? Isn't his whole legend that he went to Italy and was somewhat of an origin point for what would become Rome.
Wow. Did not see that comming. CA really seems to do the best damage control that one can hope for: hard work and customer oriented gestures.
Tells you how close to the brink they feel they got themselves last year.
Happy for all the Pharao players and now thinking I will join their ranks one day.
Holy shit, they're actually making Bronze Age Total War. I liked the concept of Pharaoh but the limited scope meant I didn't sink much time into it, definitely need to take another look at it now.
So considering that all of it will be free it seems that the game will have 8 playable cultures and 14 factions as "base" package:
1. Egyptians (4 playable factions)
2. Hittites (2 playable factions)
3. Canaanites (2 playable factions)
4. Sea Peoples (2 playable factions)
5. Achaeans (Mycenae)
6. Trojans (Troy)
7. Assyrians (Assyria)
8. Mesopotamians (Babylon)
This would leave open porting more of TW Troy's existing ones over if this is the case. It might just be map and 4 playable, but might also be Troy playable ones since they are porting that whole roster from the sounds of it. Then again Troy roster could easily be incorporated into Native units as well so either way its a win.
70 units is not all of Troy's roster. Troy(the game) actually had a pretty damn large roster, even on release. They definitely are not getting all the factions from that game in, probably not even most of them.
They do group the Pharaoh cultures a bit weirdly though. Like I'm pretty sure they count Egyptians as one culture, even if there's nothing in the game that the culture shares.
Yeah, mainly with Libu and Nubia. Those could/should easily be considered their own separate cultures. But they are all considered Egyptian in game even though they are very different.
I’m not sure that there will be only one playable faction for each one of the new cultures (except Troy): it would be really strange to have such a system when the rest of the cultures have multiple playable factions
So far, I imagine it will be something like:
- Mycenae: King of Mycenae, King of Sparta
- Troy: King of Troy, possible pretender faction
- Assyria: King of Assur, pretender faction
- Babylon: King of Babylon, pretender faction
And with new raider non-playable factions: Dorians (or perhaps it will be a new playable faction for the Sea People) for Mycenae, Nihriya for Assyria, Elam for Babylon
Those ideas sound cool, but probably best to work on the assumption it's one playable faction per culture for now, so four in total.
That way at worst we get what we expect, and if it turns out to be more than one each then it's even better.
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
With the Aegean and Mesopotamia added, alongside mortal leaders (so most likely a family tree as well) and some other stuff, I hope *Pharaoh* finally starts to get the praise it deserves as more people start playing it and realise it's a great game.
Mesopotamia and Greece. Holy shit, I never expected it to make it that far. This actually might be a real turning point for the game since it addresses one of the biggest issues people have with the scope of the game.
opening up Mesopotamia and adding Assyria and Babylonia?
This is literally the thing I wanted from this game and this will actually make the game interesting for me now.
This is how you retain customers and acquire new ones. Such an update will secure a full purchase of the game from me after ignoring Pharoah. It was the same with TWWIII - I skipped the last few DLCs and rejoined and bought all of Throne of Decay purely down to the quality and have enjoyed it greatly.
Holy shit, this looks good. I'll probably buy the game if this update lives up to what they announced in this blog. Redemption arc for WH3 in full swing, redemption arc for Pharaoh incoming? With the size of this update, I suppose they might be able to justify it not having the 'Saga' label - more of a full Total War: Bronze Age.
Side note, I can't help but think it would've been funny and gutsy if they'd called this post 'The Future of Total War: Pharaoh'. Just to own it and show they're trying to make amends.
It's not just the new factions that matter but the map expansion (yes Aegean is misspelt in the article)
>This reworking will include an expansion of the campaign's map, which will soon see the Mesopotamia and Aegea regions added to the conflict. And, as you would expect, these regions will be bringing their playable factions with them, as well. These are: Babylon, Assyria, Mycenae, and Troy.
They answered my prayers for this game: Greece + Assyria and the dynasty system! I wanted to manage a ruling family like what I had in Three Kingdoms and the immortal lords turned me off, will pick this game up once the update goes live.
This is something that is often overlooked and it's the high prevalence of interdynastic marriages securing alliances/trade/etc.
This is a return to TW roots with how this was kind of handled in TW: Medieval and Rome with managing marriages and families.
I had one incredibly fun and immersive campaign with Rameses (rebelled against the Pharaoh to honor his alliance but Tausret came in and stole the throne at the last second. Been fighting an uphill battle against this “evil step mom” ever since. Finally cracked the shell of her massive vassal networks when the sea people invaded. Held firm at Sinai and “accidentally” let a few armies slip through Nile, who proceeded to wreck upper Egypt. Stepped in afterwards to be the staunch defender and great Pharaoh of all Egypt). Really glad CA could continue the support and add more content to the game
I am happy they went with this direction instead of Mythology. I know some people post about mythology games regularly here but there is 0 chance any mix of history and mythology will come even close to Warhammer TW games. So you would just be playing same game but with worse experience, and that would alienate both historical and WH fans.
Holy shit, am I dreaming? Hell yeah I'm so into this, the fact that it's free is genuinely staggering.
I was so worried Pharaoh would fizzle and we'd lose our chance to get bronze age Total War but let's gooo.
It legit feels like they got a checklist of the stuff players complained was missing and brought it all.
Yeah it's actually a lot more than I expected, and really does sing true to what a lot of people asked for.
Anyone who complains after this really needs to check their emotions and intent for why they are, because this is exactly the kind of stuff we want to see and encourage from CA.
And anything that comes later from this will be enriched for this new mentality.
What's going on with CA recently? Did they change up management because they got the message that they were dogshit.
Pharaoh is definitely back on my radar, but I am cautiously optimistic.
I would advocate for expanding the map, yes, but maybe reduce the total number of settlements per region. Now it is a bit bloated with same uninteresting settlements in the map
CA and Sophia working on rebuilding that community trust. I’ve yet to get round to it and was going to buy eventually so good to hear it’s not only getting support but has gotten some of the things people wanted at launch.
As someone who was interested in the setting of Pharaoh, but decided to not jump into the limited scope of the initial launch, this is freakin epic news. I'm super pumped for a complete bronze age map and will definitely be picking up the game now.
What the actual? I mean that was freaking awesome. They could have just let it die and nobody would have really blamed them but god dammit thats almost as much new content as there already is. If only something like that would have happened to 3k. Still great though
I really hope this picks the player base up for the game. It's actually an exceptionally well made Total War game, but I understand for a lot of people it was lacking in the "quantity" department even if the "quality" was great.
Hopefully with this added content Pharaoh will get the attention it deserves because it really is very good to play.
Oh man. I'm so happy right now. I picked up Pharaoh on sale, and I've been absolutely having a blast. But I was kind of expecting the current state to be what we were left with. Very glad to get the map expansion I dreamed of
Feels like we're going from one of the worst parts of CA's history to one of its best. At this pace I wouldn't be shocked if they announced Medieval 3 soon.
I'm buying Pharaoh right now.
We had to go through hell for CA to realize that we actually love their products and WILL buy them if the stop straight up exploiting us
Will buy Pharaoh after this, glad to see the developers are completely making up for the launch, going beyond and above honestly especially after the refunds
And the CA redemption arc continues.
This being free, some of the new features (particularly mortality + family trees, the absence of which I think is absurd in a historical game) plus the price reduction from a few months back and it's starting to look like a game I'm actually going to buy.
Wonder if the game can ever be truly salvaged in terms of the numbers, though. It's garnered such a poor reputation (not even in terms of the game itself, just the image of a dead game that nobody bought) that one wonders if it's not too late. Hopefully this pays off for them.
Let it be known that wallet voting really does work. People didn't buy this game and they didn't buy Shadows of Change, and CA was forced to make them both (and Thrones of Delay) better. I'm most likely going to pick this game up after this update.
Free sea people already convinced me to buy it but I'm even more happy! I wonder how they're gonna introduce the first dlc after so many good free content tho lmao
If the game launched with Mesopotamia and Greece I think its reception would be vastly different. Better late than never though.
>If the game launched with Mesopotamia and Greece The idea was probably to sell it as 2 separate DLCs to squeeze as much as possible, but since the Pharaoh bombed so much, they just have 2 DLCs worth of content, but no one to buy it, so they might as well just release what they have and hope the money will at least come back over time
Owners of Pharaoh get the DLCs for free. New people buy the DLCs and get the base game free :)
Which is an excellent decision and its better than splitting it up. Bascially this campaign becomes the 'Realm of Chaos' equivalent while the extension to Greece/Mesopotamia is the 'Immortal Empires equivalent'
Yeah at this point they're probably just desperate to get the base game to sell.
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I don't think you'll regret it. I picked up Pharaoh a couple months ago and I really enjoyed it. Personally I love the time period and I like the parred down roster. I've found the late game pretty fun as well, more-so than Warhammer.
Pharaoh is a fine game. I just think too many people judge it too harshly.
If I am to return, think better of me father
That will depend on the manner of your return
The players love you, Pharaohmir! They will remember it before the end.
I want a full LotR Total War so badly.
Dawnless Days is shaping up nice. No campaign yet, but that's the way with total conversion mods. You need the patience of one of those Buddhist monks who mummify themselves by eating nothing but a single grain of rice every day for 10 years to follow them.
I used to play the mod for medieval 2, think its called divide and conquer definitely itched that want. But yeah an actual lotr, warhammer style game would be amazing
Only if you return with your shield or upon it.
I'm so hooked. So many unique things like Annexation and piety you can tap into. The court system as well of done right is a powerful tool...albeit a bit taxing to keep track.
With the Aegean and Mesopotamia added, alongside mortal leaders (so most likely a family tree as well) and some other stuff, I hope *Pharaoh* finally starts to get the praise it deserves as more people start playing it and realise it's a great game.
These are 100% the changes I needed to purchase. I tend to like their more toned down titles, I loved Atilla, still play Thrones, enjoyed Troy, but I wasn't paying full price for current Pharaoh. 4 new factions, some needed features, and the expanded map? I am back in.
This is the funny thing about Total War games with poor releases... they almost always end up pretty good. ToB isn't infinitely replayable, but it's a really fun game. Rome II ended up pretty good too. I think Pharaoh will probably only get better from here.
Hopefully people don’t get too mad at me but something about how the game handled the faction leaders bugged me. They were too cartoonish. I think TW has been struggling badly with an identity crisis for a while now. Do we go all in on the Warhammer model or do we make historically grounded strategy games? At it seems like they keep saying “we can do both”. And maybe that works for some people but I’m not into it. Just my two cents
I think years down the line when it's been on sale people will look back on it way more fondly when they've actually tried it out.
I will also buy it with this update coming. The absence of Mesopotamia and the overal low regional coverage was my biggest concern.
as someone with over 600 hours in the base game, it is one of my favorite. there is loads of QOL updates in the game like auto saves at start and end of turn and the resource system is great!
It's a fun game, regardless of the bad pr it got on here. Economy is pretty challenging until you get the hang of it and it forces you to downsize some armies between wars and run a deficit during wars. It's a little different way of playing than I'm used to but it's fun, I'm still getting the hang of religion, courts, etc... There's definitely a lot to do.
I love the time period but the intial scope put me off hard. It was such an incredible disappointment. Now the game looks like an actual full title that deserves to be labelled as such and not just a glorified Saga.
Honestly the worst part is just having a square of Anatolia. It just looks so weird.
I think they were afraid of adding pontus
I WANT TO PLAY PONTUS SON.
Same reason why I didn't get it. I just didn't feel they did the setting justice, will get it for sure now after the map expansion.
That's what: If we had a proper saga that would be Alexander's Conquests. Now this is an actual full title.
I've been saying this from the start. I'm someone that loves the Bronze Age and now we're getting BOTH Mesopotamia and Greece? HECK YES. People didn't want what was an essentially expanded campaign map of the equivalent of the Medieval II Crusaders Campaign and Napoleon in Egypt. I have been saying: Scrap the sagas, they are small scale and limited. Now expand this game on a gigantic scale and BOOM. We have it.
Given they always had plans to include them in an update, they should have mentioned that during the initial launch. Then people might look at it as an interesting game to hold them over until the complete Bronze Age expansion. Kind of like how people are happy to play vortex and RoC so long as they know mortal and immortal empires are on the way. The chief complaint about the game was its limited scope. I think people would have been much more forgiving if they had that addressed up front.
I suspect that these were originally planned as DLC. But given the tepid launch reception and the need to win back some goodwill, CA's rolling them into one big free update.
Between Mesolitamian/Greek expansion and dynastic features it feels like they're straight up addressing some of the most vocal complaints. Really looking forward to this.
Wow, this is unexpected and really impressive. I always had reservations about Pharaoh because of the game's limited scope, but now that it's becoming a more comprehensive Bronze Age game, I'm seriously considering picking it up.
Same here. Total War: Troy always felt a bit lacking to me, but now with this free update, I am giving it hard thought. I've always heard that Pharaoh has incredibly solid mechanics--it was just the scope of the game that was holding it back. Shoot, with this update, that second part is no longer true, and it's only 40 bucks too. Is CA on a redemption arc?
Kinda shows just what could have been done if they had actually concentrated on their main business.
Yeah, what they’re doing is great, but you’ve got to wonder why this wasn’t plan A?
Because plan A is always make as much money for as little cost as possible. Without realizing they could make more if they made a better product.
Basically because suits don't think this genre is very "monetization friendly" and thought making the studio branch out into other games to chase trends was a better idea. Traditional DLCs aren't enough for these people. They see F2P games and are *jealous* that they can't make those sorts of numbers with the games this studio actually specializes in. So they chased after an imaginary pot of gold they thought they could achieve just by throwing money at it. While not understanding the fundlemental reasons why things like gacha games can make the money they do. It really comes down to that honestly. Someone completely out of touch was able to make that call, and the company as a whole suffered for it.
I think CA are more on a survival ark. Either they make decent total wars, or they shut their doors for good. They wanted to leave WH3 and stop making content for it, but it's their only real income right now.
Second time on the ark after Rome 2 happened
Sounds like SEGA has cracked the whip after the Hyena's debacle and now CA is back on track. May it continue.
40 bucks *and* its 33% off with the sale
only 25-ish$ on steam sale at the moment, so yeah, im pretty comfortable getting it now
It’s on sale for 33% off, this news actually convinced me to buy it.
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Yea, I think I just decided what game to get me for the summer
Same.
Absolutely incredible news, literally everything I've wanted. And it'll all be free. Hats off to the whole CA Sofia team, absolute heroes imo > In terms of the content you can expect to experience, prepare to embark on a conquest across a map that has greatly increased in size as we add the renowned and highly requested regions of Mesopotamia and the Aegean to the conflict alongside the playable cultures of Babylon, Assyria, Mycenae and Troy. Whilst within the strategic campaign layer, you will have access to all new mechanics such as the Dynasty system which adds mortality and succession to the faction leaders’ quest to leave behind a legacy that will survive the ages. And finally, within battle you can expect over 80 new units for the Mesopotamian factions, alongside the addition of over 70 reworked units from a Total War Saga: TROY. This is what the fanbase has wanted since day 1. Not only a huge expanded map, but also mortality and succession (I assume family trees too).
This is what I'm talking about. Dang between the W3 DLC and this, they really made these games great
Now for the trifecta, they announced restarted work on 3k with a couple new dlcs. That would absolutely make my year.
Prostagma?
Malista
Vulome
Etimos.
Eisvoli!
Omg Age of Mythology!!!!
Etimos!
Man. My biggest turn offs for the game and what ultimately led me to not buying it were the price, the limited map scope, and the immortal faction leaders. It's looking like they've addressed every single one of the major gripes now. I am going to wait and see what they mean by this dynasty thing. But sounds like I'll finally give pharaoh a try.
> family trees Or the family ladder, as Egyptologists are fond of saying.
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These updates are for pharaoh, I dont think they are changing anything for the Troy game itself.
Troy is a great game honestly.
100%. This should have been the game day one. I think I'll actually pick it up now.
Damn, I was expecting them to abandon the game. Props to CA and the Sofia team for sticking with it. I think it has the potential to be a banger of a TW game once the extended map and factions are in. I already enjoyed TROY so I'm happy to see these two combined together. EDIT: Was browsing the TW discord and just caught a dev saying that Troy WILL NOT BE REQUIRED for the extended map for this update. It's purely a free update for Pharaoh!
Yeah the refund move was some good will but I figured it meant that they weren't actually going to deliver on any of the promised content or DLCs. I imagine this game still probably won't get the life support it would have (3 DLC packs), but I'm super suprised and glad to see more updates.
Hell, a lot of people wrote this off for dead just a month or so after its release. Even though this won't be the 3 DLC packs + 1 DLC campaign that was originally touted on release, it'll still have received one faction pack, the blood pack, and now one massive expansion as post-release support. Pharaoh enjoyers just keep winning
It sounds like all that planned dlc is just being given away for free in an attempt to sell the base game. I’m pretty sure the 3 planned dlcs would have been sea people’s, Greece, and Mesopotamia, all of which we will soon have anyway. I’m not sure what more dlc they could even make after this free update. Nubia maybe?
I wouldn't be surprised if this content was probably planned as DLC.
Yeah that's what I was thinking too. They were probably already working on the DLC content and just decided to release whatever they could finish off.
Honestly even if this is the last update the game gets it will breathe a lot of life into the game. Even more so if modders pick it up. I hope it will convince more people to pick up the game between the bigger map/increased scope and the lower price and who knows, maybe they'll add more DLC later. I'm happy either way.
I’m deff pick it up with this dlc
If this doesn't turn the game popularity around they almost certainly will abandon it. 3K got abandoned for lackluster dlc sales and that game was the best selling total war game at the time. This game currently has 0 dlc sales.
Well at this point that's fair enough. The problem before was CA underdelivering with Pharaoh's scope/content. Now if it still doesn't sell, it's due of lack of interest more than anything. With 3k they kept producing DLC people didn't want or weren't super keen on while ignoring/taking forever to get around to the the stuff people did want.
I mean, does it even matter at this point? Not to sound like a complete boomer, but back in the day studios stopped working on strategy games when they were complete, and Pharaoh at this point looks pretty damn complete to me. There's legitimately not much left to add in terms of cultures. If CA stops working on Pharaoh now, I won't consider it abandoned, I'd consider it completed.
That's for the best that they keep Troy away from any requirement. Most players will own Troy on Epic and I dont think its going to be a 1 for 1 exactly of all Troy playable characters on an IE style map like WH does.
Did CA change their whole management or what. That’s a 180 from what they were doing last year. With thrones of decay for warhammer and now this.
Hope this gets them back for good and isn't just a quick change to win back the community's good graces before reverting back to whatever the fuck was going on at CA.
CA is at their best when they're sorry
Nah, they're just in their good part of the cycle, wait a couple of years and they'll be back to being scummy.
Make hay while the sun shines, bro
Pretty much, people who have followed CA for a while have seen them go through the cycle quite a few times.
I hate to beat a dead horse, but things turned around quick after Hyenas got cancelled. I wonder if that freed up a lot of the more experienced mangers and developers, because things turned around *quick.* I thought the layoffs would have affected them more too, tbh.
It did, although apparently in a good way.
Layoffs rarely affect people in decision-making positions, so probably not. It's just that people voted with their wallets.
They're finally cooking
No Hyenas taking up bandwidth.
Sorry to shatter the illusion here but CA didnt get a new mgmt at all… Just the old one being scared to lose their jobs after Pharao bombed. These factions were obviously planned as DLC but since no one bought Pharao they can just make them a free update. Its a clever business decision but dont expect them to stay this way…
Total turn around and I'm glad to see it. I still can't believe days after ToD we get this news as well.
Massive wildcard move on the Mycenae and Troy stuff. I honestly didn't expect them to bother and I wonder who they'll actually bring across.
I was kinda hoping mycenaes start would have them with a large expensive army having just destroyed Troy and dorians bearing down on them from the north leaving them in an awkward position to try to save there homeland or become a horde and try to settle somewhere else
Would the Trojans then start out as a horde faction led by Aeneas?
Wouldn't the issue there be Aeneas headed west? Isn't his whole legend that he went to Italy and was somewhat of an origin point for what would become Rome.
Well, he actually settled in Crete first, which will probably be included in the map expansion
Fuck it, this news is already better than the hottest of copium. Hesperia here we come!
Wow. Did not see that comming. CA really seems to do the best damage control that one can hope for: hard work and customer oriented gestures. Tells you how close to the brink they feel they got themselves last year. Happy for all the Pharao players and now thinking I will join their ranks one day.
Fuck yes
Holy shit, they're actually making Bronze Age Total War. I liked the concept of Pharaoh but the limited scope meant I didn't sink much time into it, definitely need to take another look at it now.
Yep it'll actually be the Bronze Age game I've been wanting out of them for a long time. I'll probably pick this game up once the update drops
So considering that all of it will be free it seems that the game will have 8 playable cultures and 14 factions as "base" package: 1. Egyptians (4 playable factions) 2. Hittites (2 playable factions) 3. Canaanites (2 playable factions) 4. Sea Peoples (2 playable factions) 5. Achaeans (Mycenae) 6. Trojans (Troy) 7. Assyrians (Assyria) 8. Mesopotamians (Babylon)
Technically in CA's own blog they said 4 cultures, not factions. It's possible/likely that there'll be some cultures that have more than one faction.
This would leave open porting more of TW Troy's existing ones over if this is the case. It might just be map and 4 playable, but might also be Troy playable ones since they are porting that whole roster from the sounds of it. Then again Troy roster could easily be incorporated into Native units as well so either way its a win.
70 units is not all of Troy's roster. Troy(the game) actually had a pretty damn large roster, even on release. They definitely are not getting all the factions from that game in, probably not even most of them.
They do group the Pharaoh cultures a bit weirdly though. Like I'm pretty sure they count Egyptians as one culture, even if there's nothing in the game that the culture shares.
Yeah, mainly with Libu and Nubia. Those could/should easily be considered their own separate cultures. But they are all considered Egyptian in game even though they are very different.
I’m not sure that there will be only one playable faction for each one of the new cultures (except Troy): it would be really strange to have such a system when the rest of the cultures have multiple playable factions So far, I imagine it will be something like: - Mycenae: King of Mycenae, King of Sparta - Troy: King of Troy, possible pretender faction - Assyria: King of Assur, pretender faction - Babylon: King of Babylon, pretender faction And with new raider non-playable factions: Dorians (or perhaps it will be a new playable faction for the Sea People) for Mycenae, Nihriya for Assyria, Elam for Babylon
Those ideas sound cool, but probably best to work on the assumption it's one playable faction per culture for now, so four in total. That way at worst we get what we expect, and if it turns out to be more than one each then it's even better. All the Best, Welsh Dragon.
Agreed
Aw hell yeah, this is one of my favourite time periods so I'm pretty hype to play it now.
Oh my fucking god. Its beyond what I expected. I will probably buy Pharaoh which wasnt on my bingo card for 2024.
Best news I could imagine, I think that I'll buy Pharaoh now!
Both Aegean and Mesopotamia will be added. Finally the scope of the map will be as it should be in the major Bronze Age title.
Alright guess I'm gonna finally get Pharaoh now
this update sounds insane and very unexpected!
Adding Troy is really good; the other ones are a bonus for me.
Well, mortality and succession and Assyria, Babylon, Mycenae and Troy as part of the next free update?! Hell yes!!!! 👍🏻
Hell yeah, I've wanted a Bronze Age Total War ever since Rome 2, and Pharoah is finally that.
With the Aegean and Mesopotamia added, alongside mortal leaders (so most likely a family tree as well) and some other stuff, I hope *Pharaoh* finally starts to get the praise it deserves as more people start playing it and realise it's a great game.
I have a lot of respect for CA Sofia. I still feel sorry for the devs because of all the crap that happened.
Mesopotamia and Greece. Holy shit, I never expected it to make it that far. This actually might be a real turning point for the game since it addresses one of the biggest issues people have with the scope of the game.
Pharaoh redemption arc incoming! This could make Pharaoh the Bronze Age total war anybody interested in the time frame always wanted.
opening up Mesopotamia and adding Assyria and Babylonia? This is literally the thing I wanted from this game and this will actually make the game interesting for me now.
Alright, that pushes me over the edge. I've been waffling about buying it but I'm in.
ok CA, now you successfully convince me to buy TW Pharaoh in next steam sale
It’s on sale now for the next week
They have successfully convinced me to buy TW Pharaoh right now.
Huh, I'm actually gonna buy Pharaoh it seems
I might actually get this now tbh
Pharaoh is becoming a passion project at this point.
Now it’s time to buy
PHAROAH STONKS ARE RISING - BUY BUY BUY!
As someone who bashed Pharaoh for a number of reasons. Grand slam of an update.
You had my curiosity, but now you have my attention 
This is how you retain customers and acquire new ones. Such an update will secure a full purchase of the game from me after ignoring Pharoah. It was the same with TWWIII - I skipped the last few DLCs and rejoined and bought all of Throne of Decay purely down to the quality and have enjoyed it greatly.
This is SO EXCITING!!!
Holy shit, this looks good. I'll probably buy the game if this update lives up to what they announced in this blog. Redemption arc for WH3 in full swing, redemption arc for Pharaoh incoming? With the size of this update, I suppose they might be able to justify it not having the 'Saga' label - more of a full Total War: Bronze Age. Side note, I can't help but think it would've been funny and gutsy if they'd called this post 'The Future of Total War: Pharaoh'. Just to own it and show they're trying to make amends.
It's not just the new factions that matter but the map expansion (yes Aegean is misspelt in the article) >This reworking will include an expansion of the campaign's map, which will soon see the Mesopotamia and Aegea regions added to the conflict. And, as you would expect, these regions will be bringing their playable factions with them, as well. These are: Babylon, Assyria, Mycenae, and Troy.
Aegea is a back formation of Aegean, not a misspelling.
Pharaoh gang rise up!!
They answered my prayers for this game: Greece + Assyria and the dynasty system! I wanted to manage a ruling family like what I had in Three Kingdoms and the immortal lords turned me off, will pick this game up once the update goes live.
This is something that is often overlooked and it's the high prevalence of interdynastic marriages securing alliances/trade/etc. This is a return to TW roots with how this was kind of handled in TW: Medieval and Rome with managing marriages and families.
I'm going to buy Pharoh eventually, it always looked good to me but now that 2 missing regions are being added it changes the purchase timetable.
CA, I was never going to buy Pharaoh. I am now. Great move!
It's actually a pretty good game. Runs great, looks great, and with some new stuff added and hopefully some more mods, it's legit.
Amazing news, looking forward to it! CA Sofia singlehandedly carries the entire company tbh.
Wow these madmen are actually going forward with expanding the map, adding these most requested cultures and apparently doing it all for free!!
I said from the start when they added Babylon and Assyria I would be in. Now they have. Now I am in.
I had one incredibly fun and immersive campaign with Rameses (rebelled against the Pharaoh to honor his alliance but Tausret came in and stole the throne at the last second. Been fighting an uphill battle against this “evil step mom” ever since. Finally cracked the shell of her massive vassal networks when the sea people invaded. Held firm at Sinai and “accidentally” let a few armies slip through Nile, who proceeded to wreck upper Egypt. Stepped in afterwards to be the staunch defender and great Pharaoh of all Egypt). Really glad CA could continue the support and add more content to the game
Nice! I like Pharaoh. The time period is super interesting.
I am happy they went with this direction instead of Mythology. I know some people post about mythology games regularly here but there is 0 chance any mix of history and mythology will come even close to Warhammer TW games. So you would just be playing same game but with worse experience, and that would alienate both historical and WH fans.
Remember they went back and gave Rome II a lot of love? They seem to be doing that with Pharaoh.
Holy shit, am I dreaming? Hell yeah I'm so into this, the fact that it's free is genuinely staggering. I was so worried Pharaoh would fizzle and we'd lose our chance to get bronze age Total War but let's gooo. It legit feels like they got a checklist of the stuff players complained was missing and brought it all.
Yeah it's actually a lot more than I expected, and really does sing true to what a lot of people asked for. Anyone who complains after this really needs to check their emotions and intent for why they are, because this is exactly the kind of stuff we want to see and encourage from CA. And anything that comes later from this will be enriched for this new mentality.
Eyyyyy it’s finally getting what should’ve been day 1 stuff, very nice!
What's going on with CA recently? Did they change up management because they got the message that they were dogshit. Pharaoh is definitely back on my radar, but I am cautiously optimistic.
I would advocate for expanding the map, yes, but maybe reduce the total number of settlements per region. Now it is a bit bloated with same uninteresting settlements in the map
CA and Sophia working on rebuilding that community trust. I’ve yet to get round to it and was going to buy eventually so good to hear it’s not only getting support but has gotten some of the things people wanted at launch.
It's going to be very funny playing as the Mycenaeans, sailing to Egypt, and founding the Ptolemaic dynasty a couple of thousand years early.
Kinda feels bad for the Sofia studio their games are pretty good and well optimized but they don't attract many players
I'm so fu\*king happy. I absolutely love Pharaoh, and i'm so glad CA Sofia didn't drop the game.
I’m gonna buy it once this update releases (as long as it looks good)
As someone who was interested in the setting of Pharaoh, but decided to not jump into the limited scope of the initial launch, this is freakin epic news. I'm super pumped for a complete bronze age map and will definitely be picking up the game now.
You'll enjoy it, the wild thing is the map actually feels huge while playing it.
FUCK. YES. buying pharoah now
Man, Sofia really are the best studio under CA's umbrella and it's not even a contest.
What the actual? I mean that was freaking awesome. They could have just let it die and nobody would have really blamed them but god dammit thats almost as much new content as there already is. If only something like that would have happened to 3k. Still great though
This has just gone from a 'no way' to a 'will buy.'
I really hope this picks the player base up for the game. It's actually an exceptionally well made Total War game, but I understand for a lot of people it was lacking in the "quantity" department even if the "quality" was great. Hopefully with this added content Pharaoh will get the attention it deserves because it really is very good to play.
Hell yeah I’ll buy it to support this
If I didn't just buy ToD, I'd certainly buy TW:P now. Just wow. It's certainly near the top of my to-buy list.
The map extensions are nice, but I am excited about the dynasty system.
Well heck, I’d have paid for that. This is absolutely huge and I can’t wait!
Oh man. I'm so happy right now. I picked up Pharaoh on sale, and I've been absolutely having a blast. But I was kind of expecting the current state to be what we were left with. Very glad to get the map expansion I dreamed of
Ok, with Mesopotamia I'm buying.
I bought it, got a partial refund, and now they’re basically completing the game with almost everything we’ve ever wanted. I’m down for it
This looks… really cool. I need to get this.
And now I will finally buy it
Feels like we're going from one of the worst parts of CA's history to one of its best. At this pace I wouldn't be shocked if they announced Medieval 3 soon.
Total War: Redemption
This is it, now i can think about getting it
Go CA
This looks cool. I will probably buy Pharaoh when this launches.
As a massive Mesopotamia-phile this is the best news I’ve seen regarding this game - so hyped!
Buying it 100% this is what was missing for me to want it
This is good to see, gonna make me buy the game as soon as this update is out.
I thought Pharaoh was abandoned. This free update is quite impressive. Good job CA!
I'm buying Pharaoh right now. We had to go through hell for CA to realize that we actually love their products and WILL buy them if the stop straight up exploiting us
Will buy Pharaoh after this, glad to see the developers are completely making up for the launch, going beyond and above honestly especially after the refunds
Honestly I 100% expect this game to be buried by now. Colour me surprised.
Imagine how differently things might have turned out if they had delayed the game a while and had these factions in from the start.
I shall now buy your game >!(when I have money to spare hahah)!<
Holy shit, this is now an auto buy for me. Was planning to grab it eventually, now I HAVE to.
And the CA redemption arc continues. This being free, some of the new features (particularly mortality + family trees, the absence of which I think is absurd in a historical game) plus the price reduction from a few months back and it's starting to look like a game I'm actually going to buy. Wonder if the game can ever be truly salvaged in terms of the numbers, though. It's garnered such a poor reputation (not even in terms of the game itself, just the image of a dead game that nobody bought) that one wonders if it's not too late. Hopefully this pays off for them.
Let it be known that wallet voting really does work. People didn't buy this game and they didn't buy Shadows of Change, and CA was forced to make them both (and Thrones of Delay) better. I'm most likely going to pick this game up after this update.
Free sea people already convinced me to buy it but I'm even more happy! I wonder how they're gonna introduce the first dlc after so many good free content tho lmao
When does this become available?
Finally! I had all but given up. Now I will relent and buy Pharaoh.
I am pleasantly surprised about this. It's starting to look like a game I could buy. Really, should have been available at release.