Total War: PHARAOH

[Lacrymas]

While they are greedy for money, the decision to make this a separate game and not DLC for Troy is because Troy wasn't well received. Also, this was found in Pharaoh's files -

 

[copebot]

I never understood TW fans’ megalomania towards maps sizes. Huge maps can’t improve the stale nothing burger which is total war’s gameplay. Quite the contrary actually.

Oh, so it’s a dlc to Troy, lol. And they charge full tww3 price for it! My, fucking greedy bastards are desperate for money aren’t they.

If one actually plays this game you will immediately see why it would be dogshit to merge it with the Aegean map. It has totally different campaign mechanics. The campaign mechanics involving the Sea Peoples / collapse would not work in a combined map. The native troops / faction troops setup makes no sense if the map was combined. The existing map is actually pretty huge, with a lot of the province being bigger than Troy / WH provinces. The Troy map was honestly too large with too many dumb minor factions. The tech tree and religion mechanics are totally different from Troy. It would just not make sense to merge the maps even though the time period is the same.

If this were Rome III or Alexander, yes, absolutely, it should have a big map. But just tacking on the Greeks and Trojans with a lazy hack would be a total waste of dev time.

 

[Lacrymas]

The Greeks and Trojans have their own mechanics and more could be added to improve the historical mode. There's no reason for every faction to have the same mechanics. I'd argue Troy's faction have much more diverse mechanics than Pharaoh's whose factions share everything between themselves.

 

[Gerrard]

Sega is doing with Total War what Activision did with Guitar Hero.

 

[copebot]

I'm playing Canaan and liking almost everything except for the battle AI. I attacked Damascus outnumbered about 2:1 by attacking a small stack outside the city, with a a balance of power about 1:9, and won pretty easily just because they blob up their archers, never shoot, and are always on skirmish mode by default. One thing I really like is how they did the Title system. You get all kinds of abilities that you can swap in and out (like "enemy cannot retreat when attacked") to customize your general. It's like the Ogre Big Name system except actually useful.

 

[oscar]

I never understood TW fans’ megalomania towards maps sizes. Huge maps can’t improve the stale nothing burger which is total war’s gameplay. Quite the contrary actually.

Oh, so it’s a dlc to Troy, lol. And they charge full tww3 price for it! My, fucking greedy bastards are desperate for money aren’t they.

The TW system works best with smaller, more focused settings too. Why Shogun was awesome. Helps the army sizes feel more plausible too.

 

[Deflowerer]

The combination of tactical battles and "grand" strategy layer they have tried to develop never made much sense once the more abstract strategic layer was left behind. Can't really trust their ability to develop a decent AI, but a total war game where you are a military commander who is constrained by the decisions of the political class / ruler would be much more interesting. So that your prowess on the battlefield was more important.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

This shit looks terrible, one of the worst art designs for an UI I have ever seen.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Also fuck myth and magic shenanigans.

I mean I'm not against the idea of exclusively a myth and magic RTT game but to shove it into what is meant to be a historical game is annoying I do agree.

 

[JarlFrank]

If this were Rome III or Alexander, yes, absolutely, it should have a big map. But just tacking on the Greeks and Trojans with a lazy hack would be a total waste of dev time.

This is a bronze age game so the biggest failing is to not implement Mesopotamia.

Egypt and Hatti were backwaters compared to Sumer and Akkad. The Egyptians and Hittites both used Akkadian as their diplomatic language, their educated men (and even some noble women!) learned how to read and write cuneiform.

And yet that most important and influential region of the bronze age world is left out.

 

[Beans00]

There hasn't been a good total war game since 2006 or 2007 how do people even still buy these games?

 

[Gromoer]

There hasn't been a good total war game since 2006 or 2007 how do people even still buy these games?

Because there’re no alternatives

 

[fizzelopeguss]

I never understood TW fans’ megalomania towards maps sizes. Huge maps can’t improve the stale nothing burger which is total war’s gameplay. Quite the contrary actually.

Oh, so it’s a dlc to Troy, lol. And they charge full tww3 price for it! My, fucking greedy bastards are desperate for money aren’t they.

Map size and spectacle is all we got bro now that the battles are glorified spreadsheet vs spreadsheet rather than physics, momentum, unit cohesion based etc.

 

[JarlFrank]

I never understood TW fans’ megalomania towards maps sizes. Huge maps can’t improve the stale nothing burger which is total war’s gameplay. Quite the contrary actually.

Oh, so it’s a dlc to Troy, lol. And they charge full tww3 price for it! My, fucking greedy bastards are desperate for money aren’t they.

Map size and spectacle is all we got bro now that the battles are glorified spreadsheet vs spreadsheet rather than physics, momentum, unit cohesion based etc.

This is why I stopped caring about the series.

The only thing I would care about is a Medieval 2 Remaster in the same way as Rome Remastered.
Rome Remastered may have had a disappointing launch but Feral (the developer that made it, it wasn't done by CA themselves) kept patching it and listened to fan demands. They removed a lot of hardcoded limits, unlocking great things for modders.

Mods for Rome 1 and Medieval 2 is the only new TW content I care about.

 

[Hace El Oso]

The only thing I would care about is a Medieval 2 Remaster in the same way as Rome Remastered.
Rome Remastered may have had a disappointing launch but Feral (the developer that made it, it wasn't done by CA themselves) kept patching it and listened to fan demands. They removed a lot of hardcoded limits, unlocking great things for modders.

Mods for Rome 1 and Medieval 2 is the only new TW content I care about.

I only wish they had included a multiplayer campaign - it is possible, modders added one to Empire. I've found it's the best solution to unlosable battles with poor AI post Medieval 1, not to play cooperatively but to play battles as the AI for one another.

 

[Lacrymas]

Reviews are out and they are overwhelmingly negative. Which is a thing I don't get, they are critical of stuff the entire franchise has done very badly since Rome 2. I guess it's socially acceptable to be dissatisfied now. Not that I'm saying it's secretly good, this entire franchise has been bad since Rome 2 and the only entry which has been even remotely playable since then is Troy.

 

[Gromoer]

Troy

You can’t just miss a chance to mention it, can you?
Look, Troy is OKAY, nothing revolutionary. Some good ideas slapped on the stale concept. Weak setting visually copying the Hollywood movie and confusion regarding its own identity. Attila was okay on a similar level. But the problem is neither moved the franchise considerably forward — a critique I started hearing as far back as the Fall of the Samurai (arguably one of the most forward thinking Total Wars). And apparently people have become tired of it.

Imo apart from developing TW series on gameplay level, CA really have only one joker up their sleeve — it is to use their beaten up gameplay in an appealing fantasy wrappings. Even though, they’ll have to try harder now when the tiredness is palpable. The times when TW junkies were buying whatever they’ve slapped together are gone, I hope.

 

[Lacrymas]

Troy is neither confused nor simply ok. It's the best contemporary TW game since Rome 2.

 

[Hace El Oso]

Attila is far better than Rome 2 or anything that came after.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Honestly considering how poor strategic AI has been in modern TW games, moving back to "board and chesspiece" style Strategic Map ala Medieval 1 is probably a good thing.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Honestly considering how poor strategic AI has been in modern TW games, moving back to "board and chesspiece" style Strategic Map ala Medieval 1 is probably a good thing.

I like free movement in my TW games. Just like it was in the best part of the series, Rome:Total War.

 

[Tyrr]

I saw they even hired Cohhcarnage, the biggest shill on earth, to stream the game. Things must be looking very bad.

 

[Nutmeg]

While Rome 1 was a fun game, especially at the time, and it had a vibrant modding community, it was, objectively speaking, a decline from Shogun 1 and Medieval 1.

 

[Lord_Potato]

While Rome 1 was a fun game, especially at the time, and it had a vibrant modding community, it was, objectively speaking, a decline from Shogun 1 and Medieval 1.

I see you are wrong not only on matters of politics, but on general gaming too

 

[Gromoer]

Troy is neither confused nor simply ok. It's the best contemporary TW game since Rome 2.

I am yet to hear any meaningful reasoning of this.

While Rome 1 was a fun game, especially at the time, and it had a vibrant modding community, it was, objectively speaking, a decline from Shogun 1 and Medieval 1.

Lame take. Shogun 1 was a very simplistic proof of concept. Imo the series developed steadily up until Rome 2.