So this game is basically about bronze age collapse?

[The Last Unicorn]

As in title ;p Is that right ? If so that sounds like a cool setting, do you guys like it ?

[The Last Unicorn]

Originally posted by Yews:

I view Troy and Pharaoh as mac and cheese. I only wish the devs finally mixed them into a single dish.

Troy is more like a legendary, romanticized setting and Pharaoh is more of a grounded in history and reality, I dont think they would ever mix the two.

[Kendji]

In TWP there is a mod that unlocks you the monsters of Troy from the existing game files and Marion the faction on Cyprus western tip sometimes spawns an op Troy hero as general. Don't know if these have been fixed for 1.2.

[The Last Unicorn]

Originally posted by Yews:

Not to mention that this is the first time in aeons when you actually have to construct the most basic siege equipment such as ladders separately and your units cannot magically pull it out their arses the moment they approach the walls. This game is possibly the most grounded experience Total War has ever delivered.

I wonder whether they even had such stuff as siege equipment during that age, I think I watched someone talk about bronze age battles once and he said that there was hug amounts of people involved compared to later periods and I think he said the would build a ramp to get onto the wall I dont know what he meant by a ramp exactly, but would that mean they wouldn't use siege ladders for some reason back then ?

[Yews]

The ladders in the game are basically the ones from actual Egyptian art from 4400 years ago. The first siege towers are also attested around the time the game takes place, there is a hypothesis that the so-called Trojan Horse was one, based on its description as well as the fact that all the ancient war engines had names such as the crow, the scorpion etc., so you can use siege towers in the game as well, but they are very resource-hungry.

[Kendji]

It's impressive how well much of the art and graphics follow the historical depictions

[Aluminum Elite Master]

It's only a small section of the bronze age collapse, really.

The Aegean area is left out... you get periodic random spawns of Phrygians but without any land that they actually own for the most part. The map leaves out the western areas where some of the Sea Peoples likely came from, so the focus is mostly just Egypt and the Hittites. You can at least play as two Sea Peoples characters now, so there's that, but when you face them as other factions, they are just spawned waves.

Canaanites are included, but I feel like they are only 60-70% implemented. They have few unique mechanics and mostly rely on either choosing Egyptian or Hittite mechanics, other than having their own rosters.

It's a rather good game in some ways (optimization and stability are excellent).

But it suffers dramatically at times from being too narrowly focused (fairly narrow faction rosters that have to rely on generic local units frequently, and like stated before, you only really have two complete factions, with a sort-of finished Canaan and two Sea Peoples hordes).

[The Last Unicorn]

Originally posted by Yews:

The ladders in the game are basically the ones from actual Egyptian art from 4400 years ago. The first siege towers are also attested around the time the game takes place, there is a hypothesis that the so-called Trojan Horse was one, based on its description as well as the fact that all the ancient war engines had names such as the crow, the scorpion etc., so you can use siege towers in the game as well, but they are very resource-hungry.

Haha it would be hilarious if it turned out historians used to have all these sophisticated assumptions about bronze age collapse reasons, climate change, earthquakes, sea peoples, global trade issues, rebellions, etc and in the end it would turn out its because someone invented a siege tower and attackers could go over the wall to give government what they deserve ;p and it just went viral ;p

[Yews]

I wouldn’t be surprised. The actual reason was probably not to give a government what that government deserved but rather to bypass this ‘wall’ thing people who didn’t want to be pillaged came up with. Which is more or less what happens in Homer by the way.

Originally posted by Aluminum Elite Master:

But it suffers dramatically at times from being too narrowly focused (fairly narrow faction rosters that have to rely on generic local units frequently, and like stated before, you only really have two complete factions, with a sort-of finished Canaan and two Sea Peoples hordes).

There’s no way the Aegean isn’t coming to this game in an even more corporeal form than the occasional Aegean raiders we’ve got at the moment.

[The Last Unicorn]

Originally posted by Yews:

I wouldn’t be surprised. The actual reason was probably not to give a government what that government deserved but rather to bypass this ‘wall’ thing people who didn’t want to be pillaged came up with. Which is more or less what happens in Homer by the way.

I think I heard about a theory where Trojan Horse was some huge ass earthquake that broke down the wall, since Poseidon was the god of that kinda stuff and the horse was his symbol.

[The Last Unicorn]

Wow I just realized this game is doing terribly poor in a financial sense, if I got it right it was released only on steam and the numbers dont look good, there is lil interest in it and alot of ppl are not happy about the game at all. I am glad to see a game set during the bronze age collapse, but its not a very popular setting over all I think. Its weird tho, I would have thought in 2023 corpos can predict how to appeal to a wide audience and wouldnt release a game unless they knew it would be popular. I just hope it wont get canceled, I am quite hyped for this now ;/

[Defmonkey]

Originally posted by The Last Unicorn:

Wow I just realized this game is doing terribly poor in a financial sense, if I got it right it was released only on steam and the numbers dont look good, there is lil interest in it and alot of ppl are not happy about the game at all. I am glad to see a game set during the bronze age collapse, but is not a very popular setting over all I think. Its weird tho, I would have thought in 2023 corpos can predict how to appeal to a wide audience and wouldnt release a game unless they knew it would be popular. I just hope it wont get canceled, I am quite hyped for this now ;/

The game was very badly handled. It released at a very bad time, with other major releases, it was overpriced, there was massive unrest with the Warhammer 3 DLC release and following other PR errors and yes the theme and age does not appeal to many gamers, personally i find it a fascinating era.

It didn't help that it followed Troy, now i think Pharaoh is a better game than Troy and its tried to be more realistic and has bought back many of the things we wanted for a historical title. The game without does use alot of Troys foundations and assets but its not Troy and you cant simply just stick Troys map on with different themes, mechanics, scaling and assets.

I think a lot of peoples complaints re unit variety is flat out wrong. They have been spoiled with the so called unit types that break games and many just don't understand battlefield tactics or even to read unit cards. In Pharaoh there are terrain penalties based on unit type, the terrain changes dynamically with weather, weather changes, unit formations, unit attack and ordered retreat commands, night raids and ambush battles, morale systems such as burning down a city whilst in a battle, fire spread.

You have infantry types light, medium, heavy all with different purposes and formations, you have ranged for different purposes, Slingers, Archers, Javeliners, Chariot Archers all with distinct functions unlike most TW games where its just difference in range or a better version of each other. and the list goes on....

[Da_Higg]

Part of the problem was that a vocal minority is determined to kill off any game that isn't their preferred time period/setting. The aggressive negativity then leads to a bandwagon effect where others parrot the hate and it discouraged a lot of people who would probably enjoy Pharaoh from buying it.

[The Last Unicorn]

Originally posted by Da_Higg:

Part of the problem was that a vocal minority is determined to kill off any game that isn't their preferred time period/setting. The aggressive negativity then leads to a bandwagon effect where others parrot the hate and it discouraged a lot of people who would probably enjoy Pharaoh from buying it.

Yeah I seen the Total War Youtubers I used to watch, just straight out crossed the game off before it even launched, they commented on the dev video, saying oh its clone of troy, oh there is no cavalry, this game is a disaster, its a game noone wanted, where is medieval 3 XD

Its crazy cause they didnt even get to try the game. To be honest I didnt like the idea of pharaoh either before I learned the game is about bronze age collapse, maybe its not a very popular era, but I think PR team also messed up on marketing side of things.

PS I wonder if people would have liked it more if they could download a denuovo free version from the dark side of the web and find out its a fun game ;p

[Da_Higg]

That would require them to change their stance on the game and we all know how unwilling content creators are to admit mistakes

[Seti]

my user name & profile picture suggest that i am biased, so i should not comment.

(by the way, there is physical edition if you live in Europe/ UK, which is not affected by online sales, Amazon etc might sometimes sell it lower price)