I really wanted to like this game. The location and era could have been something really good, but it is shallow and not engaging compared to previous titles. They do this often, where they make niche small filler games so they can prepare for their next really large one, so I am not surprised. The game has a few neat mechanics, but overall is bland.

This game is excellent. If you enjoy Bronze age history in the Cradle of Civilization around the time of the Bible well this game is it. It has been very thoughtfully created with great attention to detail and humorous lines from the various generals and soldiers. I particularly like Kuruntas saying of "I need murderers!" when recruiting soldiers. The Total War people stuck to formula that has garnered them success and fans and added more interesting excellence to their consistent lineup of great games in the Total War series.

Played it a bit, do I recommend it? No not really, its decent in a way that it is not a complete travesty but at the end of the day it falls flat doesn't matter if you like fantasy or history more. You see the problem is kind of Warhammer Total War has very OP units but you can sort of counter that with either your Lords power, through magic abilities or using monsters. Now why do I mention that? Strip away all these things I just mentioned, slap on a egyptian aesthetic and voila you got Total War Pharaoh.
Now what does that mean? The Campaign map is basically most of the game now. The winner is usually not who has the better tactics in battle, its all about strategy on the campaign map while the battles themselves are basically just cinema movies now. You know how older titles used to have hard counters? They used to have them because they made sense.
Say axe warriors in Attila Total War, no matter how developed they were had a disadvantage against cavalry because of course what are you supposed to do with a tiny axe against a man with a spear on horseback or in the case of Total War Pharaoh on a Chariot. Now Pharaoh has none of that basically.
All battles are decided by the rank of your warriors and nothing else. Cavalry charge on the back? Does nothing. Peppered by bow and arrow? Does only marginally help, it chips away maybe 5-10 men before they hit your frontline. Melee units? Whelp, again. Only rank matters.
Which leads me to the next big issue the sea people. Now the sea people are a historically accurate addition to the game but they're horribly implemented. They for the most part only target the player, they usually just bee-line it to you, ignoring everyone else and just take the game hostage. They spawn with massive armies and later in the game with full stack armies of the highest ranks out of the blue.
Is that fun? Mmmmmmm.... nah.
They're basically unbeatable in regular battle, you have to autoresolve everything unless you manage to field multiple full rank 5 armies yourself or overwhelm them with numbers.
Such a terrible invasion, surely egypt will unite and face these invaders together like they in fact did historically. Hahah fella, not gonna happen. The AI never comes to your aid or anything like that.
You know how in fact they managed to beat the sea people? Via sea battles because the Egyptians had a much more elaborate marine the sea people were better in land battles but horrible at sea battles.
So just do some naval battles... oh wait nevermind. CA was too busy developing the cult hit video game that conquered all of Steam in a matter of days Hyenas to add that to the game.
Which leads me to another problem with the sea people, you defeat them, guess what? Game over. That was the game. Once you managed to defeat the extremely powerful stacks of the sea people, you have no enemies left. Since nobody can match you now.
So its really more like Pharaoh: Total Turtle, since most of the game you just turtle around the vicinity of your place and wait for the sea people to invade you.
Which is extremely boring lemme tell you and once they hit you're destined to lose several settlements and some armies with nothing out of it.

A good start but a solid "meh."

A lot of what's there is interesting but the depth is so shallow it feels more like a demo than an actual game or like a DLC for some other game. Had this come out around the same time that the original Rome: Total War did I think it would have hit a lot different but there's just not a lot here.

If you're really into Egyptology or a series collector, it might be worth at a sale price but the lack of depth in the game means it runs dry pretty quickly if you want a solid RTS.

Negative reviews are outdated. Astounding fanservice from CA --- for once! The price decrease paired with a near DOUBLING of the map size (now including Mesopotamia and Greece), doubling of the factions and rework of existing systems -- all done for free -- is incredible. Bravo!

I enjoyed the game, but didn't purchase it from the beginning. I think with the new updates it could reach it's true potential, but it is a pretty good game already.

I purchased Pharoah when it first came out. beat the Hittite campaign in 50 turns never played it till a week ago when i saw reptilicus playing it and decided to give it another shot. haven't been able to stop playing this game for one big reason, customization. it really makes it unique with total war game series.

you can play the campaign any way you like it and still get a victory which i really appreciate. the battles feel a lot better since launch, especially if you enjoy the period. and while you have a limited main roster you can unlock different units as you expand and conquer the world. travel anywhere you want with any of the factions and set up shop in the 3 main regions each with there own challenges to handle. the court mode gives you a fun little minigame that can be ignored if you want but reward those who play it.

there are some cons though, currently the map is way too small. it feels like such a teaser of the bronze age world. court can be repetitive sometimes especially in the hittite court. i really wish there was more options other than just gossip for free to help break up the repetition. hopefully these issues will be fixed with the release of the big map expansion.

A hidden gem that was hated because CAs decision. Cultures and factions all feels very different from each other. would recommend

It just feels very weird and overly complex. I can not enjoy this game, feels like mess with strange game mechanics, especially that Court sytem. If you liked Troy and Britannia, maybe you will like this one too. But if you liked Total War Rome II which is the best Total War game in my opinion, I don't think you will enjoy Pharaoh.

the graphics and story is amazing!