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Pharaoh: A New Era - remake of 1999 city builder

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
https://www.pharaoh.game




https://af.gog.com/game/pharaoh_a_new_era?as=1649904300

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Includes Cleopatra expansion. Seems more like hi-res remaster but eh.

Developed by Triskell Interactive, the studio made a steampunk city builder Lethis. Published by DotEmu.

Immerse yourself in the history of Ancient Egypt with 50 missions and over 100 gameplay hours in Pharaoh: A New Era, a remake of Pharaoh (and the expansion Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile), one of the best city builders from the golden age of Sierra Entertainment. Stone by stone, build your city and manage all aspects of its development to ensure it prospers and makes you a powerful and revered Pharaoh.
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Develop your city by cultivating the fertile lands along the banks of the Nile valley. Erect the iconic monuments of Ancient Egypt, including the pyramids, the Sphinx and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Build temples and mausoleums to help manage all aspects of your city's health and culture as well as the predominant polytheistic religion of the time.

Ensure your city is prosperous enough to deal with economic or political crises, or even plundering by enemies. A Pharaoh takes care of its people and does whatever it can to earn the favour of the gods.

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Pharaoh: A New Era celebrates 20 years since the release of the famous franchise with a complete remake, including more than 50 playable missions and over 100 hours of gameplay. Rediscover the map and mission editor mode that allows you to shape your very own Egypt over thousands of years.

The "Campaign" mode teaches you the game basics while allowing you to experience a unique story in the heart of Ancient Egypt and explore all aspects of life in a thriving city.

You have everything at your disposal to build an entire city and manage all its fundamental elements to ensure it flourishes: the economy, internal and external trade, culture, health, agriculture, education, etc. To help you monitor your progress, various indicators show you the overall well-being of your city and its residents.
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The journey back in time is really brought to life with this Ultra HD remake, which upgrades the gameplay mechanics to modern standards and completely redesigns the captivating soundtrack and gorgeous isometric 2D graphics.

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● Rediscover the classic city builder Pharaoh and its expansion, Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile, in an all-new remake
● Explore Ancient Egypt and its 4,000 years of history across 50 missions
● Marvel at Ancient Egypt's most iconic and beautiful monuments with completely overhauled Ultra HD graphics
● Erect the Egypt of your dreams with the map editor mode
 
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FeelTheRads

Arcane
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Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
Huh, at first glance it doesn't seem to be decline.

Kids will cry if they don't add an option for global workforce, though.
 

jebsmoker

Arcane
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Messages
2,578
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In I helped put crap in Monomyth
whoa wait what. when did Triskell buy the rights to Impressions' old intellectual properties?
 

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
Isn't it more likely that they were hired as a sweatshop?

Whichever it is, hopefully they know how to copy paste and it won't end up with the shit UI and broken English of Lethis. Although these days it's way more likely that they'll just change what simply doesn't need to be changed just so they can say they did something.
 
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Curious_Tongue

Larpfest
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Codex 2012 Codex 2013 Serpent in the Staglands Codex USB, 2014
I think there was one mission in the later game that always made me rage-quit.

All the resources were on one side of the map, past three rivers, and all the arable land on the other.
 

Nyx

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I always though Zeus: Master of Olympus was the superior game tbqh, I hope this sells well so we get a remake of that too.
 

Theodora

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I always though Zeus: Master of Olympus was the superior game tbqh, I hope this sells well so we get a remake of that too.

What was different about it? I played Caesar, Emperor, and Pharoah, but I'd never even heard about Zeus/Poseidon until seeing it on GOG much more recently.
 

BrotherFrank

Nouveau Riche
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Tbh i think the original still looks fine as it is, the visuals here are clearer but it’s not that much of an upgrade and feel a remaster is unnecessary.

I always though Zeus: Master of Olympus was the superior game tbqh, I hope this sells well so we get a remake of that too.

What was different about it? I played Caesar, Emperor, and Pharoah, but I'd never even heard about Zeus/Poseidon until seeing it on GOG much more recently.

Besides having heroes and monsters due to theme, was the first to introduce gods who were physically present (emperor had this too but gods were more impactful in zeus not least because they freely walked around the city without being limited by blockers). Campaign missions were divided into sets of themed linked missions (ex:theseus versus the minotaur or 12 labors) where you build up the main city over several levels whilst occasionaly doing one off colony missions to acquire new rare resources needed by your capital for the next part.

The real series deviation in terms of unique mechanics though is your military came exclusively from your nobility and was a reflection of your city’s prosperity rather then a separate element if that makes sense. In most sierra citybuilders getting troops is just a matter of recruiting peasants and providing them with basic gear but in zeus military was a big upfront investment and you will keenly feel the loss of everyone of your hoplites.

The poseidon expansion was also pretty beefy, the atlanteans played quite a bit differently from the greeks according to my nostalgic memory.
 
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FeelTheRads

Arcane
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Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
Zeus is boring as fuck. Easily the worst of the series. I don't remember if Poseidon is better, but the Zeus mechanics are really dumbed down so most likely not.
 

Israfael

Arcane
Joined
Sep 21, 2012
Messages
3,580
The game still runs decently even on Windows 10, after some patches and compatibility settings on, I still play it occasionally (haven't finished the game in 20 years or so, classic)

So I'd say it only needs a in-built fix for wide-screen displays, patching in some bugs (like the hole in pyramid that borks it if you put burial supplies before the monument is finished (or the other way around, don't remember) and maybe re-doing some core mechanics (aging population should be reworked as it incentivises the player to periodically Auschwitz/COVID-19 almost all population of the city to replace the boomers with capable workforce), as well as getting more variety on the military side of the game.

I always dreamed sending my armies to the other cities Zeus style (which was probably the only redeeming feature of that game, I agree with FeelTheRads that it was too streamlined and dumbed down as compared to the other Impressions games titles), so it might be a welcome addition to the formula.
 

RobotSquirrel

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Developer
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Adelaide
They actually did it. The madmen. They actually made a game I'm interested in.
Little annoyed that the trailer didn't use the original Pharaoh theme for extra nostalgia tingles.
 
Unwanted

Horvatii

Unwanted
Joined
Dec 15, 2019
Messages
563
First game is about slavery and 'one day you will rule egypt, my son!'
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[current_year] cash-in is butterflies and flowers, little girls putting lillies into rivers
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Trailer was nice though. Who made it?
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Unwanted

Horvatii

Unwanted
Joined
Dec 15, 2019
Messages
563
If they just copy the Original campaigns, I aint even gonna pirate it...

Its gonna be shit
There was no source code available, which is a problem shared by a lot of older games. We’re making everything from scratch, based on our knowledge of the original. Sometimes we feel a bit like archeologists, which is both super exciting and deeply meta! But we’re also game developers, that means a couple things are going to change, a couple systems are going to be adjusted, the UI and UX are going to be different. So, do not expect a remaster where nothing changes, this is a remake. Some things that we did in the late 90’s are unthinkable today, and we work as hard as possible to stay true to the Pharaoh experience, while making it so new people can get in and enjoy the game.

Trailer by player-two.tv
https://player-two.tv/video-category/trailers/
Doesnt look like they are cheap. Dotemu dropping some dimes for promo.

The other devs, who usually port indie shit to consoles. But now they list themselves as devs too.
Sega victim -> iggy bin.
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Guvide

Educated
Joined
Aug 28, 2020
Messages
60
Yeah, I wonder what 'modern standards' even means. I'm curious what changes they will make to the gameplay. They will probably add global worker pool, and other such mechanics that post-Pharaoh games had. Augustus, the Caesar 3 mod, adds a ton of gameplay options for the original, however they are all toggable, but I doubt that these devs are going to bother implementing such a feature.

Also, am I the only one who thinks this looks worse than the original? Pharaoh had a more grainy, gritty look. The interface especially was gorgeous. This one is using this newfangled 'painted' look that modern titles use. Meh.

The worst thing about Pharaoh were the numerous bugs and glitches. Naval warfare in particular was FUBAR, and controlling ships was a complete nightmare. Often times you could lose battles simply by not being able to click on the boat that you wanted or it getting stuck somewhere.. it was a nightmare. If it's one aspect that need to be fixed it's this one. Widescreen fixes already exist so who cares.

What was different about it? I played Caesar, Emperor, and Pharoah, but I'd never even heard about Zeus/Poseidon until seeing it on GOG much more recently.

It streamlined the game considerably. The biggest change was the 'global worker pool' mechanic which meant that industries could be built far away from your housing blocks. It meant that you were more flexible in how you built your city, but at a loss of challenge. Speaking of which, the city ratings were also removed completely. Now your goals were changed to target population, gathering a certain number of resources, building a monument, slaying a monster, etc. The monuments however where nowhere near as impressive as those in Pharaoh. They were easily built and did not give the same sense of satisfaction at the end. That feeling of building something truly exceptional was lost. It's not a bad game, but it's certainly inferior in many aspects to its predecessors. It's worth a shot, just don't play it for long periods of time because it can get really boring and samey.
 

Guvide

Educated
Joined
Aug 28, 2020
Messages
60
The poseidon expansion was also pretty beefy, the atlanteans played quite a bit differently from the greeks according to my nostalgic memory.
I don't remember them playing that differently. They had 'science' buildings instead of 'entertainment', but really it was the same thing. They grew different crops that the greeks didn't have (such as oranges and urchins). They had a new type of mineral, named orichalc, which was used for monument building. There might have been a couple more cosmetic differences but that's it. The biggest difference was the fact that you could build a hippodrome, which consisted of multiple pieces that you connected together like Lego blocks. But at least they redid all of the building graphics so atlantic cities ended up looking different from greek ones.
 

Tavar

Cipher
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RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
I liked Pharaoh back in the day, but I'm not excited for this. You can still play the GoG version of the original game just fine and I don't expect them to improve the game in any meaningful way. I like that they stick to the original look, but I don't think I'll buy this.
 

RobotSquirrel

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Developer
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Aug 9, 2020
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Adelaide
There was no source code available
Are they not aware of Open Caesar 3 or something? I mean a HD version of that engine existed already. Could they have not just taken a peak at the code and made their own based off of it?
Its not as if coding a game like this is doing it in the dark and the visuals already held up well in the modern era a simple upscale would suffice.
UI definitely needs fixing though. Pharaohs UI wasn't made for function it was made for visual reasons to sell the look and feel of Egypt. Functionally its flawed though Children of the Niles is far far worse.

But yeah I don't buy this whole having to work from nothing. You have plenty of examples you must not have been looking hard enough developers. That comment has me a little worried.
Also here's hoping they fix the walker bugs.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
Actually it's interesting Activision game them a license, even it's a fairly minor IP by now.

Maybe someone can take Arcanum license :cool:
 

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