Preface, I have never written a review like this, but after pouring way too much time into this, I feel like my day off has been wasted. Here goes my fit of rage;

THIS GAME IS PISSING ME OFF!!
Thank god I only spent $9.99 on this crap.
No amount of victories or conquest will ever give you enough food to feed a single full decent army. I mean, when I play Total war, I want to conquer the world, not effing trade with my ***** *** neighbor while I get ****** by someone else. You'll need to trade with 10 other tribes or whatever to be have enough food to feed your troops. The same GARBAGE from troy, copy and paste. Good luck owning more than 1 army and trying to expand.
THEN you have these incessant little stupid auto spawn sea tribe garbage that comes in and never stops RAILING YOU OUT, and they get stronger and stronger. Like, who has a never ending population they can just throw at you for all of eternity?! So unrealistic.
Tried out Ramses or however you spell it, doesn't matter, your weak AF and god forbid you piss off the Pharoh and start getting army after army shoved down your throat. I mean, the guy cant die in battle when you kill him?? Fat chance guys.
I put like, 10 hours into one game and finally get this city i've been gunning for after like, a hundred turns just for some RANDOM sea tribe army that hates me for no reason and that I have NEVER seen in that area (been there for a hundred turns) just decides to show up. I had a full garrison, full army AND a half army reinforcement, GUESS WHO WON?! yup!!!! the stupid sea people army. I HAD DOUBLE their strength!
As you progress you start to realize you can leave your big cities unattended no problem. . . NOPE! Your garrison is the same size as the attacking army and all decent units but the power balance scale shows you as a tiny little **** NUGGET!
Stop making crap games and just make Empire 2 already!!!!!
Alright. Jesus Christ. I think i'm gonna go back to Rome 2 for now, cause this is just straight booty, whoever did the balancing in this game is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ moron, this game is not fun. The concepts seem cool at first, but after a little while it gets bad.

.

🎓⚔️ Peer-Reviewed Verdict: 10 / 10 — A Pharaonic Triumph!
Stepping into Total War: PHARAOH after the DYNASTIES overhaul feels like auditing a well-funded Bronze-Age history seminar…only with flaming javelins and Nile floods thrown in for good measure. Creative Assembly Sofia took a niche epoch—the Late Bronze-Age Collapse (c. 1200 BC)—and stuffed it with crunchy systemic detail: shifting rainfall cycles, sea-people raids, even a dynamic price shock when tin shipments dry up. ⚱️🌊

Campaign & Meta-Game 📜👑
The new Dynasties system turns court life into a living doctoral thesis on patrimonial politics: heirs acquire traits from both parents, governors plot mini-coups, and rival houses can literally “go extinct” if you nudge succession laws just right. Crucially, every rebellion, famine, or diplomatic slight nudges a hidden “Collapse” meter toward systemic breakdown—mirroring real-world historiography of the era. 🏺📈

Battlefield Ecology 🌬️🔥
Combat is less about 300-style hero charges and more an anthropological study in metallurgy fatigue. Bronze weapons snap, shields splinter, and morale wobbles as dust storms or sudden Nile downpours cloak the lines. The weather engine isn’t cosmetic: one badly timed sirocco can erase missile accuracy, while brushfires spread across dry savanna tiles, charring both wheat and wavering Hoplites. 🌪️🔥

AI & Quality-of-Life Upgrades 🤖✨
Patch 2.0.x re-scripted city-garrison behavior (no more lemming-like sallies) and halved end-turn processing. On a mid-tier RTX 3060 rig I cruise at 60 FPS; the community also reports a perfectly serviceable 30 FPS lock on Steam Deck with minimal tinkering. 💻🎮

Lingering Quirks (Why It’s Still a “10”) 🎯

Yes, late-game coffers can inflate faster than the Hittite bureaucracy—CA has acknowledged future tuning for inflationary grain surpluses. 🪙

Family-tree actions lack the baroque depth of Attila (fewer assassination shenanigans), but the active trait-inheritance model offsets this with tangible gameplay dividends. 🧬
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These quibbles feel more like post-defense revisions than fatal flaws—nothing that undermines the holistic, historian-approved immersion on display.

🏆 Conclusion
Whether you’re a seminar-room Egyptologist, a numbers-driven grand-strategy nerd, or simply here for the “🔥Chariots vs. Sea Peoples🔥” spectacle, Total War: PHARAOH (with DYNASTIES & 2.0 patches) now stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the franchise’s greats. I laughed, I wept, I rewrote an entire lineage to stave off the end of an age—then did it again because academia demands replication.

Final grade: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 10 — Buy it, build pyramids, and watch the Bronze Age burn (responsibly).