Total war pharaoh - coming October

Gusington · January 28, 2024, 12:00:52 PM

CA's modability varies from title to title. For older titles like Medieval 2, Shogun 2, and Attila, there is en embarrassment of modding riches. Enough historical gaming to last several lifetimes. Modding is arguably the lifeblood of CA and is a major force keeping the community alive.

I don't wish ill on CA at all. The past year or even longer has been piss poor for them from a PR perspective, a community perspective, and a financial perspective. I want to see them learn from this and not be permanently damaged like so many other companies that grew into ungovernable monsters and lost touch with their customers and their roots.

Tamas · January 28, 2024, 01:03:59 PM

I unfortunately purchased Pharaoh not long after it came out and it left me very cold (didn't seem like a bad game, just nothing I haven't played a gazillion times in the other TW games). I might try this new patch at some point but for now sure cannot really recommend it to anyone but the biggest fans of the era depicted, unless you are new to the TW format. It seemed a thoroughly "meh" game.

But also, I have extremely little patience for the TW fan community or at least its vocal quarters. I remember when the hate on Rome 2 was just intense just so it now be held up as one of the great releases CA should strive to replicate. And more generally every time I visited the TWCenter forums (haven't been for a while to be fair) there'd be people hating on whatever was the latest game in the series, yet seemingly playing nothing else. So "influencers" like Terminator, handle them with a pinch of salt.

MengJiao · January 28, 2024, 03:24:55 PM

Quote from: Tamas on January 28, 2024, 01:03:59 PMI unfortunately purchased Pharaoh not long after it came out and it left me very cold (didn't seem like a bad game, just nothing I haven't played a gazillion times in the other TW games). I might try this new patch at some point but for now sure cannot really recommend it to anyone but the biggest fans of the era depicted, unless you are new to the TW format. It seemed a thoroughly "meh" game.

But also, I have extremely little patience for the TW fan community or at least its vocal quarters. I remember when the hate on Rome 2 was just intense just so it now be held up as one of the great releases CA should strive to replicate. And more generally every time I visited the TWCenter forums (haven't been for a while to be fair) there'd be people hating on whatever was the latest game in the series, yet seemingly playing nothing else. So "influencers" like Terminator, handle them with a pinch of salt.

I agree, the hate for Rome 2 was very odd and definitely wrecked the credibility of its haters.

On the other hand the problems with Pharoah are so twisted as to suggest some kind of internal struggle or just plain giving up in the middle of assembling it.

Gusington · February 01, 2024, 06:19:00 AM

^Like I said above - this era for CA is by far the worst for the company for its entire existence.

jamus34 · February 01, 2024, 10:50:45 AM

Quote from: Gusington on February 01, 2024, 06:19:00 AM^Like I said above - this era for CA is by far the worst for the company for its entire existence.

I feel like you can say that about a lot of developers. Bungie, Bethesda are not what they once were. Blizzard is now a warmed over corpse of customer exploitation. Paradox has its issues and CDPR is letting the bean counters control / make too many decisions.

Gusington · February 01, 2024, 12:26:17 PM

'Warmed over corpse'

JasonPratt · May 06, 2024, 07:08:53 PM

I'm not gonna say that CA needs to just give up and go home...

...but Rome 2 modders already are giving us a great Bronze Age game.

Destraex · May 06, 2024, 08:37:49 PM

It seems it's almost suicide for a game dev to allow mods if all it is going to do is regurgitate the same mechanics with a skinjob. Kind of sad that professional devs with full control of their engine are outdone by part time enthusiasts from small modding teams.

Jarhead0331 · May 06, 2024, 08:42:58 PM

Looks fantastic. Although I do wish there were more than the two playable factions.

Tanaka · May 06, 2024, 09:16:53 PM

This is interesting...When they do this I will definitely consider buying...

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1937780/view/4195742629899155743

Hello, Total War Community!

We hope the valiant Montu has brought victories to those of you who braved the battlefields of Ancient Egypt, Anatolia and the Levant, while the wisdom of Toth will bolster the decisiveness of those who are yet to thread those ancient fields of destruction.

In January we launched the High Tide Update for Total War: PHARAOH, welcoming the harbingers of the Bronze-Age Collapse, the Sea Peoples, as a new playable culture alongside their two dedicated factions, bringing the core roster up to ten. We were delighted to see your positive reception to this free update which was part of our post-launch ambitions to create a vast Bronze-Age strategy experience.

As mentioned in our Leadership Message back in December, the vision for Total War: PHARAOH since the outset of the project has been to increase the size of the campaign map and introduce even more cultures and ways of engaging in glorious strategic conquest. Today, we're excited to announce that this will come courtesy of a vast free update that significantly reworks the existing campaign mode already available in PHARAOH's base-game. This update will usher in a host of exciting new additions whilst also implementing some familiar content from its Bronze-Age brother, A Total War Saga: TROY. We want to improve your experience of this most iconic age, and we're working hard to deliver it later this year.

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.

Given that this update will make some big changes to the way in which Total War: PHARAOH plays, we will be taking steps to ensure that you still have the choice to experience the original campaign should you wish to. We'll reveal more information on how this will be achieved in a later instalment.

On another note, we've made it clear that we're keen to improve the level of transparency we exhibit across all our products to ensure that you have a better understanding of what we're working on, as well as how and why we make certain design decisions. With this in mind, we want you to come on this Bronze-Age journey with us to help us begin to find the right path to a greater developer-community collaboration.

Starting next week, we'll be kicking off a series of conversations around the creation of this update, starting with a deep dive looking into the expanded campaign map and how we're aiming to bring this long-lost world to life, before inviting you all to send us your questions for a Q&A session the following week.

Every couple of weeks, we'll have a new topic featuring a variety of voices from across the project, first detailing how we're approaching the work, and inviting you to share your thoughts and feedback on that vision. We'll then come back to you the week after to dive into more detail on the topic over on the official Total War Discord - so make sure you join today and keep an eye out for new channels to post your hotly anticipated questions.

Thanks again for your support, and for your candid feedback - we want Total War: PHARAOH to be an incredible experience for everyone!

—The Total War Team

Destraex · May 06, 2024, 10:35:33 PM

As usual nothing about battle mechanics. More unit reskins and campaign abstraction.

JasonPratt · Reply #161 - Re: Total war pharaoh - coming October

Hm, did I make a bet with myself that Sega would expand their saga to include previously developed Troy assets in Pharaoh a Totally Saga War? Can't recall, but seems plausible in hindsight.

Sarcasm aside, I appreciate that they're trying to recover from treating a playable alpha as a triple-A full launch title -- even Koei doesn't do that! (I think?) I also appreciate that modern costs going into modern gaming can lead companies to try releasing content piecemeal in order to aim for what they think they actually need to be paid for a proper profit from their efforts.

But as much as I simply want CA to produce a nice Bronze Age game, I still don't know why I would pay for the current offering rather than put tips in the jar (if possible) for the Age of Bronze modders on a game I already own.

They've kind of entered a floating death spiral of producing a modder base product instead of competing with the modders in quality. I'm kind of sympathetic with the dilemmas which led to this, as a practical matter, but nevertheless here we are. And aside from recoding their games to disallow mod support -- including retroactively! -- I don't know how they pull out of the spiral.