Pharaoh enjoyer enjoying Pharaoh.

[Andra]

Nobody asked for this thread.

but this is the most complete and rich experience i ever had in a TW or any strategy game.
At first when the game drops you in, you don't know how small you are yet. We're used to being thrust into these games as the leader of a nation or faction, like most the previous historical TW's or for example the WH series.
In Pharaoh you don't - sure you can pick between contenders for that crown, but you can't start with it (Not in egypt, anyway).
After a few different starts of trying out different character selections and custom settings,
i've landed on playing Tausret in a no-autoresolve no-retreat campaign. That's at least what i'm playing now while discovering this new feeling of playing TW.

So what do i mean? Well as earlier stated, you start as one out of many contendors for the crown of Pharaoh, but that's long-term. Short term it's rebels, warlords and invasions while gobbling up more and more territory, slowly but surely.
When your territory starts to grow however, you start to realise what it's going to take to rule all of egypt. Libu raiders,Sea peoples and other aggressors come to sack&raze anything they come across, and to hold any of your territory you better have a plan for defending it.
The larger my territory gets, the harder i need to work to defend it.
It's the first time in a total war game i feel like im earning the right to rule, knowing that if not for me and the armies i put together, the farms and infrastructure i optimised to be able to support it all and so on, would be razed. I didn't conquer and forget, like in earlier games - i have to protect it with tooth and nail.

When i took the crown of Pharaoh it felt like a new layer of strategy was unveiled.
The court intrigue and seasons of Shemsu-♥♥♥ previously felt like a business of kniving and exploitation, trying to get the most out of every action to further my own legitimacy. Now that i was pharaoh however, i wasn't fighting my way to the top anymore but looking down at basically, the "family tree" feature of earlier TW games.
They've previously been a bit of an exercise in nepotism, but i found myself now in absolute power, being able to replace my former rivals with my own commanders.
Instead of the former experience of rubbing shoulders with the vizier, bribing the first commander, discrediting the high priest etc - i now had all loyal followers in these positions doing what i needed them to do.
Lower egypt is next on the list, and once all of egypt is unified, i'll have a new challenge in my neighbours the Caananites - then the Hittites, though i have tried to maintain a trading relationship with Suppiluliuma, because i'm not quite sure how i'm going to handle those heavy armies yet. At least those in turn are very poorly adapted to the heat and sand, so i'll always have the upper hand in defending home territory. Probably.

This game is dope

[Welsh Dragon]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Khalifa:

Nobody asked for this thread.

but this is the most complete and rich experience i ever had in a TW or any strategy game.
At first when the game drops you in, you don't know how small you are yet. We're used to being thrust into these games as the leader of a nation or faction, like most the previous historical TW's or for example the WH series.
In Pharaoh you don't - sure you can pick between contenders for that crown, but you can't start with it (Not in egypt, anyway).
After a few different starts of trying out different character selections and custom settings,
i've landed on playing Tausret in a no-autoresolve no-retreat campaign. That's at least what i'm playing now while discovering this new feeling of playing TW.

So what do i mean? Well as earlier stated, you start as one out of many contendors for the crown of Pharaoh, but that's long-term. Short term it's rebels, warlords and invasions while gobbling up more and more territory, slowly but surely.
When your territory starts to grow however, you start to realise what it's going to take to rule all of egypt. Libu raiders,Sea peoples and other aggressors come to sack&raze anything they come across, and to hold any of your territory you better have a plan for defending it.
The larger my territory gets, the harder i need to work to defend it.
It's the first time in a total war game i feel like im earning the right to rule, knowing that if not for me and the armies i put together, the farms and infrastructure i optimised to be able to support it all and so on, would be razed. I didn't conquer and forget, like in earlier games - i have to protect it with tooth and nail.

When i took the crown of Pharaoh it felt like a new layer of strategy was unveiled.
The court intrigue and seasons of Shemsu-♥♥♥ previously felt like a business of kniving and exploitation, trying to get the most out of every action to further my own legitimacy. Now that i was pharaoh however, i wasn't fighting my way to the top anymore but looking down at basically, the "family tree" feature of earlier TW games.
They've previously been a bit of an exercise in nepotism, but i found myself now in absolute power, being able to replace my former rivals with my own commanders.
Instead of the former experience of rubbing shoulders with the vizier, bribing the first commander, discrediting the high priest etc - i now had all loyal followers in these positions doing what i needed them to do.
Lower egypt is next on the list, and once all of egypt is unified, i'll have a new challenge in my neighbours the Caananites - then the Hittites, though i have tried to maintain a trading relationship with Suppiluliuma, because i'm not quite sure how i'm going to handle those heavy armies yet. At least those in turn are very poorly adapted to the heat and sand, so i'll always have the upper hand in defending home territory. Probably.

This game is dope :TWP_Egyptians:

A very well written review. And I have to agree, Pharaoh's really offering something interesting and different, not just "paint the map simulator 2023 edition."

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[easytarget]

Khalifa you're such a try hard in this steam forum. The never ending white-knighting is mildly amusing to watch but begs a really obvious question you really should answer for yourself:

If you do in fact enjoy this game so much, why don't you simply go and enjoy the game rather than spend endless cycles participating in threads or creating ones like this trying to convince others of something that they either agree with or disagree with where no amount of your posting is ever going to change?

You're a modern day steam forum Sisyphus. Stop pushing the rock up the hill and just go enjoy your big beautiful rock.

[Aluminum Elite Master]

TW:Pharaoh is a pretty solid game, yes.

1) Technical stability/optimization is excellent
2) Game mechanics are well thought out for the most part
3) Balancing is mostly good, too.

However, the UI is horrendous (campaign map is a massive problem for me in how it zooms and doesn't show stacks in settlements on the upper zoom levels).

And the balance is good partly because it's down to melee inf, ranged inf, and melee and ranged versions of chariots. So it is well balanced but somewhat by default... TW:WH is way harder to balance because of flying units, artillery, heroes, etc. etc. Even TW:R2 had balance issues because of ballistas and artillery, which this does away with entirely.

Pharaoh is a decent game, yes.

But 'the most complete and rich experience i ever had in a TW or any strategy game.' feels a bit like hyperbole. Even in just TW alone, I felt AoC for Attila, and S2/FotS had richer gameplay. Even N:TW, for as flawed as it really was, had meaningful naval combat, forts to build, and so forth.

So, decent game, but it's not a top TW game for me. Each their own, I guess, but I wouldn't say this is the richest TW experience by any means.

[Andra]

Opprinnelig skrevet av easytarget:

Khalifa you're such a try hard in this steam forum. The never ending white-knighting is mildly amusing to watch but begs a really obvious question you really should answer for yourself:

If you do in fact enjoy this game so much, why don't you simply go and enjoy the game rather than spend endless cycles participating in threads or creating ones like this trying to convince others of something that they either agree with or disagree with where no amount of your posting is ever going to change?

You're a modern day steam forum Sisyphus. Stop pushing the rock up the hill and just go enjoy your big beautiful rock.

who are you and what are you doing here?

[Andra]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Aluminum Elite Master:

However, the UI is horrendous (campaign map is a massive problem for me in how it zooms and doesn't show stacks in settlements on the upper zoom levels).

very much agree on that, i wish the commander portraits remained on the map all the way zoomed out. Once you get to a certain size of kingdom you kinda need to make sure you have your security evenly spread out for the most part, thats at least where im at currently.

[Hugh de Salle]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Khalifa:

Opprinnelig skrevet av easytarget:

Khalifa you're such a try hard in this steam forum. The never ending white-knighting is mildly amusing to watch but begs a really obvious question you really should answer for yourself:

If you do in fact enjoy this game so much, why don't you simply go and enjoy the game rather than spend endless cycles participating in threads or creating ones like this trying to convince others of something that they either agree with or disagree with where no amount of your posting is ever going to change?

You're a modern day steam forum Sisyphus. Stop pushing the rock up the hill and just go enjoy your big beautiful rock.

:WH3_greasus_rofl:
who are you and what are you doing here?

Its obvious to me you have no modding experience if you think Pharaoh is a great game.

What makes TW games different from Paradox paint the map games is the Battles and unfortunately Pharaoh has trash battles with a trash engine.

MTW 2 craps all over this game and that game is 17 years old let me know when Pharaoh reaches 96% on Steam.

My opinion of course.

[PERICLES1789]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Khalifa:

Nobody asked for this thread.

but this is the most complete and rich experience i ever had in a TW or any strategy game.
At first when the game drops you in, you don't know how small you are yet. We're used to being thrust into these games as the leader of a nation or faction, like most the previous historical TW's or for example the WH series.
In Pharaoh you don't - sure you can pick between contenders for that crown, but you can't start with it (Not in egypt, anyway).
After a few different starts of trying out different character selections and custom settings,
i've landed on playing Tausret in a no-autoresolve no-retreat campaign. That's at least what i'm playing now while discovering this new feeling of playing TW.

So what do i mean? Well as earlier stated, you start as one out of many contendors for the crown of Pharaoh, but that's long-term. Short term it's rebels, warlords and invasions while gobbling up more and more territory, slowly but surely.
When your territory starts to grow however, you start to realise what it's going to take to rule all of egypt. Libu raiders,Sea peoples and other aggressors come to sack&raze anything they come across, and to hold any of your territory you better have a plan for defending it.
The larger my territory gets, the harder i need to work to defend it.
It's the first time in a total war game i feel like im earning the right to rule, knowing that if not for me and the armies i put together, the farms and infrastructure i optimised to be able to support it all and so on, would be razed. I didn't conquer and forget, like in earlier games - i have to protect it with tooth and nail.

When i took the crown of Pharaoh it felt like a new layer of strategy was unveiled.
The court intrigue and seasons of Shemsu-♥♥♥ previously felt like a business of kniving and exploitation, trying to get the most out of every action to further my own legitimacy. Now that i was pharaoh however, i wasn't fighting my way to the top anymore but looking down at basically, the "family tree" feature of earlier TW games.
They've previously been a bit of an exercise in nepotism, but i found myself now in absolute power, being able to replace my former rivals with my own commanders.
Instead of the former experience of rubbing shoulders with the vizier, bribing the first commander, discrediting the high priest etc - i now had all loyal followers in these positions doing what i needed them to do.
Lower egypt is next on the list, and once all of egypt is unified, i'll have a new challenge in my neighbours the Caananites - then the Hittites, though i have tried to maintain a trading relationship with Suppiluliuma, because i'm not quite sure how i'm going to handle those heavy armies yet. At least those in turn are very poorly adapted to the heat and sand, so i'll always have the upper hand in defending home territory. Probably.

This game is dope :TWP_Egyptians:

Interesting review. Pharaoh is a good game that is unfairly maligned and unjustly disparaged. If there are any criticisms to be made, it's with CA's marketing department, not CA Sophia's developers.

[Kendji]

I agree with OP, think I have a thread out there where I outline the procesd of becoming Pharaoh as very rewarding.

Wonder why the trolls take such an offence at a positive article that has nothing to do with them. Just here to issue insults and derail threads, again why? No troll ever properly awnsers this.

[Andra]

Isn't it funny that the people that are overly negative about the game are the ones who haven't played it?

[Berserk Belta]

Good for you. I've no interest in crapping on people who are actually enjoying a game - I hate it when people do that.

I think CA has made massive mistakes with the history games, allowed the battle engine to decline and languish, ignored feedback and generally brought about the current numbers issues, but that is no reflection on anyone enjoying it.

[easytarget]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Khalifa:

Isn't it funny that the people that are overly negative about the game are the ones who haven't played it?

I'm sure if you squint your eyes really hard you can make this look positive:

[img]https://i.imgur.com/r5Nj7NX.jpg[/img]

To my eyes that are more accustomed to reality it says "mixed".

[Hugh de Salle]

Opprinnelig skrevet av easytarget:

Opprinnelig skrevet av Khalifa:

Isn't it funny that the people that are overly negative about the game are the ones who haven't played it?

I'm sure if you squint your eyes really hard you can make this look positive:

[img]https://i.imgur.com/r5Nj7NX.jpg[/img]

To my eyes that are more accustomed to reality it says "mixed".

Exactly not just that but we get people posting how great Pharaoh is like trying to reassure people its a really good game , These people btw are oblivious to the CCs who have condemned the game not to mention the vast majority community but here they are never the less trying to stick their own positive spin on a dying game nobody wanted.

If you enjoy the game fair play you cant stop people inflicting pain on themselves.

[TheOrangeBox]

Opprinnelig skrevet av easytarget:

Khalifa you're such a try hard in this steam forum. The never ending white-knighting is mildly amusing to watch but begs a really obvious question you really should answer for yourself:

If you do in fact enjoy this game so much, why don't you simply go and enjoy the game rather than spend endless cycles participating in threads or creating ones like this trying to convince others of something that they either agree with or disagree with where no amount of your posting is ever going to change?

You're a modern day steam forum Sisyphus. Stop pushing the rock up the hill and just go enjoy your big beautiful rock.

Maybe some dudes are interested to hear others opinion outside the Cultist storm - you know just a fresh breath air after all the caustic

[normative]

Opprinnelig skrevet av Khalifa:

Nobody asked for this thread.

but this is the most complete and rich experience i ever had in a TW or any strategy game.

Ah, to be young and naive again.

[Andra]

Its funny because as im discovering what a deep campaign this actually is, i've been thinking how this formula would actually be amazing for many diff eras and conflicts. If we're lucky, we'll get a followup focused around the whole campaign around agincourt or something, so all these people who are miffed about not being knights&peasants get to be told how their favourite new mechanics and innovations were in Pharaoh. Maybe it ruins all future enjoyment for them, since being right on the internet is more important than enjoying a new TW game! That means all future reskins are off the table automatically!