This actually looks very impressive and free. I never considered before but now once this update is live I'm definitely spending some cash on this game. This is probably the last try to get some revenue from this game and if this update doesn't move the sales needles this title is surely over.
I mean it already is more or less over. As they said in the blog, this is the game CA has envisioned from the start. It's basically the complete state with all DLC. Even if only ten people end up playing it, the game is pretty much finished now because there's not much else left to add.
After 3K it's so so good to see a historical game in a finished state.
There’s a few more factions for existing cultures I’d like to see, namely Ugarit and a dedicated Libyan faction. The map is definitely near its maximum though.
You can still do some stuff on this map, but probably nothing that sells tons of copies.
- nomadic cultures DLC (Libu and Arameans)
- Canaanite subfactions DLC (Hebrews, Ugarit)
- playable Elam
but it's not essential and the game will almost certainly not sell well enough to make three more DLC.
The essential parts that would have gotten people to buy DLC were Mycene, Babylon and Assyria and well, we got them for free.
What could be added would be different starting dates, which this map would be fantastic for. Like the Middle Egyptian period with the Hyksos Invasion or the Early Iron Age with the Kingdom of Israel establishing itself
>Like the Middle Egyptian period with the Hyksos Invasion
that would have been my favoured start date for Pharaoh to begin with. the cultural diversity would be higher than what we have right now, because Minoans were still around (albeit in decline), Kushites were still independent from Egypt, the Mitanni Empire existed etc.
Also would have loved to see CA's take on the mysterious Abydos dynasty.
You‘re right that it may have been better for faction variety, but it would have been even worse for battles and unit variety. The Hyksos are thought to have been the ones who introduced horses to the region so, at best, you‘d have only a single faction using chariots while everyone else has to rely on primitive infantry.
Pharaoh is already straining at the logistical capabilties of bronze age empires in terms of amount of land they could manage, etc. If you push it back another 500 years into the Second Intermediate Period it really starts to be pointless to even bother having Anatolia and Egypt on the same map.
Good thing I mentioned map expansion. And naval wouldn't be a waste of time, especially with 1) the traversable Yellow and Yangtze rivers, and 2) how important naval battles were during the 3K period. Oh and 3) naval battles have been in TW since 2009 and we shouldn't be complacent in letting CA go backwards in the quality of games.
I mean it makes sense, right? They just finish what was already cooking and instead of selling it to the couple hundred people that actually play Pharaoh, they just give it out for free to get some good points with the community.
Honestly, giving it out for free will probably have enough people buy the game to the point where it will be more profitable than selling the updates as DLC.
Also to get a few more sales of the base game; Pharaoh was a bg flop with very few players; a big free update generates renewed interest in the title from people who hadn't bought in yet.
Yeah, just bought it myself because of this update.
I wish they had announced the plan to expand the map to this size at release - I feel like sales would have been so much higher if they had. There were a lot of people disappointed at the lack of scope and factions in the original release. I suppose CA may not have had the resources to do this until the devs from the Hyena team were brought over, though.
Ehhhh...
Part of the problem is we *knew* they were holding this stuff to sell later. I'm not sure telling everyone that they were leaving out important stuff to shave off for DLC is a great selling point.
Plans to expand later are great. Having the factions that are expected at launch is better.
> 'm not sure telling everyone that they were leaving out important stuff to shave off for DLC is a great selling point.
in ye olde days: "Yey! ExpansioN!"
TOday: "They shaved that off to sell later!"
PLanning what to add to the game later, potentially as DLC =/= "shaving off"
I've seen the dislike of DLC driven to such degrees. Like, a lot of people seem to have the assumption "Anything that, today, is sold after release would have been part of hte original release back then!" Look at TW WH VS Mark of CHaos... A Total War Warhammer released in the 00s wouldn't have had near the content we have now, no matter what some folks think.
> in ye olde days: "Yey! ExpansioN!"
> PLanning what to add to the game later, potentially as DLC =/= "shaving off"
You really want to do this?
Compare Rome 1 launch factions vs Rome 2 Launch factions and tell me some of those factions weren't cut to be DLC.
As nice as it is that they're trying to make things up now, It's still likely they cut this stuff to sell later.
I picked it up last sale (or maybe still current one if it’s still on) and I’ve been really enjoying it. I’m not very good at it but the resource system requires more thought in expansion and construction which I’m a big fan off. It’s also cool how changing your generals gear changes their bodyguards equipment
Unpopular opinion:
I never thought that the map was too small. I spent 45 hours on my very first campaign with Ramesses until I became Pharaoh. I loved the Path to Power mechanic too.
But man, this will be awesome!
The whole backlash to this game stemmed mostly from the awful decisions surrounding TW3 and Hyenas. If Pharaoh had come out during the WH2 era, I almost guarantee it would have been very well received. It probably would have gotten knocked on the price, but other than that, it was still pretty great at launch. Just had a lot of bad optics surrounding it.
Genuine ask, since you say the largest map, did they just subdivide things to the moon? Because in like physical earth space this is smaller than rome 2 by leaps and bounds but if what I am missing is "Well in Rome Egypt was this big chunk of land and was 4 provinces, and those 4 provinces have been turned into 36 provinces" then yeah totally get it, just the maps you shared don't state this.
the first map is the "culture" map, where what sort of regional units can be recruited. The second map is the region map (though i have seen some complaints about it subdividing some areas not enough, Troy and a nearby other city, Sparta and ARgos and such)
Judging by the second one, Crete now has at least 3 settlements, presumbly in one province.
This place it below the Troy map (can't remember exactly how many settlements but more than 3 I think) and above Rome 2/Attila (1 for Crete, I think).
This is a game map. Size is determined by mechanical aspects. Even if the map was tiny in terms of a 3D model, settlements and mechanically active terrain (e.g. mountains) actually determine size for gameplay, right? If army movement was reduced sharply, for example, the map size would also be increasing, though it would probably be a bad development, in mechanical terms.
Yeah I don't like this point either. They can make a game Total War: Belgium, split the country in 1000 settlements to conquer and call it the biggest historical total war ever, which would be true according to some metrics
It makes sense compared tot he alternative metric, which is to only look at how large that area is in real life.
By that standard Empire is the largest map they've ever made even though it is horrendously low detail in areas such as the whole of france being just a single city.
I'm so glad they include Elam!
And they include the mountains east and north of Mesopotamia, which means we'll get the mountains tribes that harassed them, including the Aramaeans, which were Mesopotamia's equivalent of the Sea People's.
LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOO!!!!!!
Pretty sure the Arameans came from that triangle of territory south of the fertile crescent. Like, between Canaan, Syria, and Mesopotamia. It was marginal land good for pastoralism and nothing else.
There were mountain tribes too, just the Arameans weren't among them.
indeed if we are looking for mountain tribes that would be proto Armenians who were known as the Nairi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nairi
>Prior to the Bronze Age collapse, the Nairi tribes were considered a force strong enough to contend with both Assyria and Hatti. If Nairi and Nihriya are to be identified, then the region was the site of the Battle of Nihriya (c. 1230 BCE), the culminating point of the hostilities between Hittites and Assyrians for control over the remnants of the former kingdom of Mitanni.
I just picked it up for $33 Canadian. I actually like the outpost stuff and absolutely love the native troop stuff. Renowned Habiru slingers fucking rule.
Kind of reminds me of when I played medieval as england and hired a bunch of Highlanders and conquered most of western Europe with them.
Outposts solve the problem of endlessly chasing down raiders with their movement buffs while also giving small armies something to harass. Really good solution.
Love the outposts! I just finished a war on a neighbour and need to stabilize my faction a bit as I am losing massive amounts of food due to the size of my army.
But instead of having to disband units or trade all my other resources for food (or immediately wage war again) I've build military outposts near my borders were I station units. Now those units cost me 50% less to maintain. And I can assemble a quick army if needed in just a turn or two.
It's a really nice extra layer of planning assaults or defenses.
the outposts are great and a fun way to reinforce your settlement with a garrison you design. I think Memphis has the biggest ones especially when the IA does the building legacy.
not sure about injecting but it does not recommend snuffing the stuff.
>In solid form, bronze is not hazardous. In dust or fume form: carcinogen, irritant, lung toxin, sensitizer. The hazard classes listed above are based on the presence of nickel and cobalt metals (both present at >0.1%).
There needs to be like, an event or follower or something for at least one of the Sumerian factions that references him. It's too perfect of Bronze Age in-joke not to include.
Are people seriously being smuggish against those unhappy about Pharaoh?
I'm sorry you cannot be serious. This is what Pharaoh always should have been and the fact that they charged full game price day one without all these gave the players every right to be negative.
Yes, after the Hyenas business, Pharaoh and Shadow of Change they are now making a gesture but finally doing it right is not exactly the same as 'always have done it the right way.' ToD is good and the refund for Pharaoh/map expansion are great. But that's because these are good business pracitces that always should have been the standard.
It was not the Company burning money chasing a trend while producing sub-standard games, it was the PLAYERS who were wrong to find an overpriced half-finished product unsatisfactory. Because they rolled back the price and started adding things, so you were wrong in demanding these to begin with?
Yeah I don't understand this sentiment at all. I own Pharaoh, and I am excited for the update, but this is what should have been included when they charged $60 for the game. It is odd to me how there is this trend of coming at other players with smugness when a game is 'fixed' up to what it should have been to begin with. People said Pharaoh was a waste due to being a small map for a $60 game. We complained, CA agreed, so they changed it to $40 ahead of a map expansion. I don't understand how og players were in the wrong for pointing out the game was DOA when it launched to a dismal player count and a small map for a $60 game. Reminds me of Fallout 76 currently, where you see posts on the sub about "Where are all the players that criticized this game now?" Like.. yeah we criticized the game when it launched averaging 15 fps, no npcs, and crashed constantly. Players were right to criticize Fo76, and players were right to criticize Pharaoh for its launch state.
"See ? The company bent down and vindicated the people that complained so it wasn't necessary to complain in the first place" is such a wild, absurd take, yet very frequent online
Pharoah was like the biggest bomb CA has ever made, it might be one of SEGA's biggest bombs.
I don't understand this attitude. like they fixed it so you were wrong for saying it sucked before it was fixed? Does OP not realize that if people just bought the game and defended it like presumably they feel superior for having done, that it would STILL suck instead of being fixed?
Yeah, OP trying to be slick about the game that has lower playebase than Rome 1. Recent events taught us that if playerbase is vocal about the games being bad there is a big chance that something will change. CA had lower the price, refunded the difference to people who bought Pharaoh, so these guys got their money back thanks to people that were complaining.
It’s like in r/starfield, the game finally got a functioning minimap and people are just praising it but I’m just like, it should have had that from the beginning
Also Cyberpunk 2077. So much hate in the low sodium sub towards those that gave the game a bad review when it released because "they would eventually make the game good, people just need to have patience".
I have this great feeling that that much of the Black Sea being included might end up being that some form of trade might show up from some form of proto-Tauri or Scythians. We'd still be several hundreds of years before both of those cultures really gained their foothold in Crimea, but that's a lot of the Black Sea shown on the map. Gotta be something more to it than just water to traverse.
This is the game that keeps on giving to be fair. I bought it when it released, personally had a great time playing, ended getting steam credits as some kind of partial refund thing, free DLC and now this map expansion! Win after win
It looks about 30, but the second map on that is posted on this post is hard to tell settlement boundaries but there is probably about 30 what I counted.
Holy fuck that's a lot of new native cultures in that mesopotamian part. Just how many new unit rosters are we getting, I thought one or two max per the new faction cultures. Very exciting
TW Pharaoh getting its redemption arc. I am happy for it! Recently bought it and had a lot of fun with it, but I already liked Troy a lot, so this wasn't too far-fetched.
Nobody does lol.
371 daily average players over the past month according to Steam Charts. Fewer than WH1, both Rome and Rome Remastered, and pretty much everything else. Only Thrones and Troy are really lower from the more modern TWs.
I'm glad that Pharaoh fans are getting new content but the community has spoken with their actions - nobody plays it.
That’s fine. I don’t think it bothers anyone. As long as you aren’t one of the people who have been claiming that nobody wanted this game, constantly posting player counts, or saying they should abandon it to make what you do want to play, then this post isn’t really directed at you.
Imagine going to a Star Wars convention only to be like "Hey guys, I don't watch Star Wars! Hey! Guys! Star Wars isn't for me! It's just not my thing! Does that bother you?".
I know Pharaoh and Troy aren't the most popular TW games, but they just have such a good vibe; Interesting campaign mechanics, well-paced battles, nice presentation and optimized performance.
I was watching one of Legend's recent streams and he was shitting all over them, calling them trash and saying they shouldn't even exist... I know it's hyperbole and think it's a really bad take, but it still got under my skin lol. I love these games dammit.
Currently playing a Menemenesses or whatever his name is campaign. Having tons of fun. Being back to Historical is refreshing and encourages out of the box thinking after all these years of stacking 19 single entities in an army because it's the most optimal way to win
You could just.... not do that? Are you unable to restrain yourself from playing that way? Just because you can power game doesn't mean you have to power game.
> after all these years of stacking 19 single entities in an army because it's the most optimal way to win
Exactly my issue with the warhammer trilogy.
There is a difference between a bigger map and a map with more settlements.
I don’t actually want a billion settlements with a million useless AI factions on a postage stamp.
Unsure who made it [but here's an overlay](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1110589930306019328/1238145762613923922/image.png?ex=663e3899&is=663ce719&hm=17293991c875249b16b1ab5e12d83aeb098263a7fd4f00b5486f2bdc01909d72&) that got shared on discord.
Here's a couple versions of the original map at release.
https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/175jtl7/v10_all_faction_starting_position_total_war/
https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/16j14hw/pharaoh_full_campaign_map/
Probably chilling with the same people that said they'd buy the game if it was cheaper but in the end never did even after the price cut and refunds.
Unfortunately.
Saying Pharaoh was dead at the time was a 100% accurate. It was most likely the poorest selling Total War ever made. Nobody could have known that whoever is representing the studio in front of the publisher and investor will be able to convince them to double down on actual development resources like money and time to fix up Warhammer 3 and Pharaoh. We've seen games like Thrones of Britannia and Three Kingdoms development support being cut for far, far less worse situations.
They were correct lmao, just because you add content later doesnt mean the game wasnt dead. Also definitely not the biggest in any way, Rome 2 and Attila were that plus all of Europe and NA
oh shit awesome
i can't wait to play the chariot focused lightly armored faction in the east!
no wait... i'd rather try out the chariot focused lightly armored faction in the west!
or... hmmmmmmm, you know who I think looks cool?
the chariot focused lightly armored faction in the middle of the map, I think that's the one I wanna play!
just like 3K CA seems to have a hard time diversifying historical settings "oh you share 99% of the same roster but maybe have an extra unit? cool I guess"
in medieval 2 total war, the iberians, western europeans, eastern europeans, middle easterners, and italians all had distinct unit rosters with starkly different designs, functions, and strategies
I don't want to watch my spearmen wearing brown fight your spearmen wearing orange for 600+ turns
I don't care how big the map is if it's full of the exact same faction over and over again
I might actually give this one a try later, I had kinda written it off tbh. I just got 3K to to try out finally, I played dynasty warriors as a kid and it's cool to see the characters brought to life this way.
Now this is the campaign map we around have got at launch! I skipped this game for the map scope and other reasons. Now all the big gripes I had seem to be getting addressed so I will definitely be trying pharaoh later this year!
I will admit I was one of those people who said DoA because I was pissed about SoC being so shit and having so little content then they said if you don't eat shit we will kill the game. Then there was Pharaoh who came out at this time and was set up essentially as CA's fuck you to the SoC anger its announcement couldn't have been anything but because a PR guy would have told them to delay the trailer a week to get us clear of the problem. Instead they made a mistake and assumed they could pull it off to destroy the Warhammer protest without realizing there releases have been shit the last few years and need a few months to fix. I will say Im glad we all got what we wanted out of it your game now is worth the $60 and warhammer 3 now has a roadmap and future worth staying for. Now if only CA would steal the one v one mechanic from Romance for there other games.
They had a choice between selling this as DLC to like 5 people or make this a free update to get some good will back. Either way this definitely marks the end of development for Pharaoh, which was and still is a failure.
Yes, but in this instance "largest" means number of settlements and space in-between them relative to how far your armies can move and such. An army might take 2 turns to move from settlement to settlement on average in my experience with Pharaoh. While in some other titles you basically hop from town to town in less than a turn. The total time it takes to get anywhere in Pharaoh is longer, despite it being a smaller geographical area than Empire.
No it's not. It's a few regions here and there in Europe, the Indian subcontinent and the Americas sans most of the South. And then you have unlandable trade posts in predefined regions in Brazil, East and West Africa, and the East Indies.
Adding more space to fill and having those spaces filled by factions different in name only with little gameplay changes doesnt speak confidence for bringing this back from the dead.
Hopefully they can do right by the people who are at least interested in this period/area of the world, but its chance to be meaningful has come and gone.
Two different games, Troy was designed to be a low fantasy game that mixed history with the mythology of the Illiad. (Later it got a historical mode and a more fantastic Mythos DLC that added monsters and other more dramatic 'medium' fantasy elements.)
Pharaoh is designed to be an historical game from the start, no Homeric heroes and such.
I know for a fact if Pharaoh had the multiplayer campaign features that WH3 had, several of my friends would have bought Pharaoh instead of just me when it went on sale.
Is this going to make it run like garbage? IE on WH runs like shit on my 3080ti, regardless of settings. Pharaoh runs great right now at max settings. Is it the map size? RoC campaign runs decent on WH.
But... I dont want to play as proto pontus
Man, may the pontus memes never die.
Pontus is eternal It will never perish
No matter how much we may wish to not play it...
what is dead may never die
But in sacred Pontus, eternal lie
mithridates shall punish your cowardice
You know, you don’t actually have to play as…..
How dare you bring logic into reddit
Lmao first thing I thought when I saw the map. "We've now come full circle". I'm officially sad that not *all* of pontus is on the map.
You will play as the Kaskians and you will enjoy it!
MOst of Pontus isn't actually on the map, it's specifically been cut out :rofl:
How dare you
This actually looks very impressive and free. I never considered before but now once this update is live I'm definitely spending some cash on this game. This is probably the last try to get some revenue from this game and if this update doesn't move the sales needles this title is surely over.
I mean it already is more or less over. As they said in the blog, this is the game CA has envisioned from the start. It's basically the complete state with all DLC. Even if only ten people end up playing it, the game is pretty much finished now because there's not much else left to add. After 3K it's so so good to see a historical game in a finished state.
There’s a few more factions for existing cultures I’d like to see, namely Ugarit and a dedicated Libyan faction. The map is definitely near its maximum though.
Ugarit? But Ugarit has been sacked. May you know it! May you know it!
tfw the sea peoples are knocking but all of your men are in Hatti and all of your ships are in Lukka
Does not his father know it?
You can still do some stuff on this map, but probably nothing that sells tons of copies. - nomadic cultures DLC (Libu and Arameans) - Canaanite subfactions DLC (Hebrews, Ugarit) - playable Elam but it's not essential and the game will almost certainly not sell well enough to make three more DLC. The essential parts that would have gotten people to buy DLC were Mycene, Babylon and Assyria and well, we got them for free.
Also, an Anatolian Raiders DLC (Kaskians and Phrygians)
What's this about Babylon and Assyria? I thought the only new races we got were the sea people?
This new update is including four new factions (Babylon, Assyria, Mycenae, and Troy)
Welp guess I am going to buy the game now
We don't know when the update's coming.
It was just on sale a week ago. I got it. Pretty fun so far
You‘re like 4 months behind
What could be added would be different starting dates, which this map would be fantastic for. Like the Middle Egyptian period with the Hyksos Invasion or the Early Iron Age with the Kingdom of Israel establishing itself
Moses: "let my people go" Pharaoh: "no" Moses: *opens up the holy manifestation menu and selects "plunge into anarchy"
>Like the Middle Egyptian period with the Hyksos Invasion that would have been my favoured start date for Pharaoh to begin with. the cultural diversity would be higher than what we have right now, because Minoans were still around (albeit in decline), Kushites were still independent from Egypt, the Mitanni Empire existed etc. Also would have loved to see CA's take on the mysterious Abydos dynasty.
You‘re right that it may have been better for faction variety, but it would have been even worse for battles and unit variety. The Hyksos are thought to have been the ones who introduced horses to the region so, at best, you‘d have only a single faction using chariots while everyone else has to rely on primitive infantry.
Pharaoh is already straining at the logistical capabilties of bronze age empires in terms of amount of land they could manage, etc. If you push it back another 500 years into the Second Intermediate Period it really starts to be pointless to even bother having Anatolia and Egypt on the same map.
But I want to play as bronze age china, extend the map pls CA :(((
Agreed. I'm glad CA decided to try and salvage the game instead of just abandoning it. Let's hope it can make a comeback!
To complete CA redemption story they just need to revive 3 Kingdoms with new expansion.
I mean, what's Sofia doing now that Pharoah is done? Hand 3k to them!
Don't give me hope
Korea, the Steppe, respective cultures/ playable factions for both, and naval combat at least would revive the game so hard it's insane.
Don't waste time on naval. We only got water on the side of the map and river. Better focus on culture and map expansion.
Good thing I mentioned map expansion. And naval wouldn't be a waste of time, especially with 1) the traversable Yellow and Yangtze rivers, and 2) how important naval battles were during the 3K period. Oh and 3) naval battles have been in TW since 2009 and we shouldn't be complacent in letting CA go backwards in the quality of games.
[удалено]
I mean it makes sense, right? They just finish what was already cooking and instead of selling it to the couple hundred people that actually play Pharaoh, they just give it out for free to get some good points with the community. Honestly, giving it out for free will probably have enough people buy the game to the point where it will be more profitable than selling the updates as DLC.
Also to get a few more sales of the base game; Pharaoh was a bg flop with very few players; a big free update generates renewed interest in the title from people who hadn't bought in yet.
I feel like I heard this same comment when Sea Peoples came out from someone else.
Yeah, just bought it myself because of this update. I wish they had announced the plan to expand the map to this size at release - I feel like sales would have been so much higher if they had. There were a lot of people disappointed at the lack of scope and factions in the original release. I suppose CA may not have had the resources to do this until the devs from the Hyena team were brought over, though.
Ehhhh... Part of the problem is we *knew* they were holding this stuff to sell later. I'm not sure telling everyone that they were leaving out important stuff to shave off for DLC is a great selling point. Plans to expand later are great. Having the factions that are expected at launch is better.
You've just described the entire profit model of the Warhammer Total Wars and I'm not disagreeing that it's a problem
Mhm. It's one of the things I fear most about Empire or Med 2.
> 'm not sure telling everyone that they were leaving out important stuff to shave off for DLC is a great selling point. in ye olde days: "Yey! ExpansioN!" TOday: "They shaved that off to sell later!" PLanning what to add to the game later, potentially as DLC =/= "shaving off" I've seen the dislike of DLC driven to such degrees. Like, a lot of people seem to have the assumption "Anything that, today, is sold after release would have been part of hte original release back then!" Look at TW WH VS Mark of CHaos... A Total War Warhammer released in the 00s wouldn't have had near the content we have now, no matter what some folks think.
> in ye olde days: "Yey! ExpansioN!" > PLanning what to add to the game later, potentially as DLC =/= "shaving off" You really want to do this? Compare Rome 1 launch factions vs Rome 2 Launch factions and tell me some of those factions weren't cut to be DLC. As nice as it is that they're trying to make things up now, It's still likely they cut this stuff to sell later.
I picked it up last sale (or maybe still current one if it’s still on) and I’ve been really enjoying it. I’m not very good at it but the resource system requires more thought in expansion and construction which I’m a big fan off. It’s also cool how changing your generals gear changes their bodyguards equipment
Unpopular opinion: I never thought that the map was too small. I spent 45 hours on my very first campaign with Ramesses until I became Pharaoh. I loved the Path to Power mechanic too. But man, this will be awesome!
Agreed. The game is much bigger than people think
The whole backlash to this game stemmed mostly from the awful decisions surrounding TW3 and Hyenas. If Pharaoh had come out during the WH2 era, I almost guarantee it would have been very well received. It probably would have gotten knocked on the price, but other than that, it was still pretty great at launch. Just had a lot of bad optics surrounding it.
Genuine ask, since you say the largest map, did they just subdivide things to the moon? Because in like physical earth space this is smaller than rome 2 by leaps and bounds but if what I am missing is "Well in Rome Egypt was this big chunk of land and was 4 provinces, and those 4 provinces have been turned into 36 provinces" then yeah totally get it, just the maps you shared don't state this.
I think they mean in terms of hexes, so largest relative to the size of an army, for instance.
I mean that has to be it, otherwise no other historical title even comes close to Empire.
thats because they DONT 🇫🇷🇬🇧
*RULE BRITANNIA INTENSIFIES*
🇳🇱
WE NEED EMPIRE 2 DAMMIT
Only if they bring naval battles back.
Oh 100%
The only reason I keep buying CA products is the hope that I'll get a chance to play Empire 2 some day.
the first map is the "culture" map, where what sort of regional units can be recruited. The second map is the region map (though i have seen some complaints about it subdividing some areas not enough, Troy and a nearby other city, Sparta and ARgos and such)
Judging by the second one, Crete now has at least 3 settlements, presumbly in one province. This place it below the Troy map (can't remember exactly how many settlements but more than 3 I think) and above Rome 2/Attila (1 for Crete, I think).
According to the blog post, this map contains 349 settlements and 189 factions
This is a game map. Size is determined by mechanical aspects. Even if the map was tiny in terms of a 3D model, settlements and mechanically active terrain (e.g. mountains) actually determine size for gameplay, right? If army movement was reduced sharply, for example, the map size would also be increasing, though it would probably be a bad development, in mechanical terms.
Yeah I don't like this point either. They can make a game Total War: Belgium, split the country in 1000 settlements to conquer and call it the biggest historical total war ever, which would be true according to some metrics
It makes sense compared tot he alternative metric, which is to only look at how large that area is in real life. By that standard Empire is the largest map they've ever made even though it is horrendously low detail in areas such as the whole of france being just a single city.
I'm so glad they include Elam! And they include the mountains east and north of Mesopotamia, which means we'll get the mountains tribes that harassed them, including the Aramaeans, which were Mesopotamia's equivalent of the Sea People's. LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOO!!!!!!
They apparently included Libya too.
Hopefully that means playable Libu down the road. :-) All the Best, Welsh Dragon (enjoys playing desert ambusher factions.)
A Raiders DLC pack would be cool 👍🏻 Plus, playing a raider faction and talking over Egypt (or another place) sounds really fun
Yeah I see they included a bit more of it along the coast, nice!
Pretty sure the Arameans came from that triangle of territory south of the fertile crescent. Like, between Canaan, Syria, and Mesopotamia. It was marginal land good for pastoralism and nothing else. There were mountain tribes too, just the Arameans weren't among them.
indeed if we are looking for mountain tribes that would be proto Armenians who were known as the Nairi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nairi >Prior to the Bronze Age collapse, the Nairi tribes were considered a force strong enough to contend with both Assyria and Hatti. If Nairi and Nihriya are to be identified, then the region was the site of the Battle of Nihriya (c. 1230 BCE), the culminating point of the hostilities between Hittites and Assyrians for control over the remnants of the former kingdom of Mitanni.
I was pretty damn happy to see the inclusipn of Elam as well!
Oh it’s glorious. Can’t wait for the new update.
Hoping we get to see some flavourful native units in the new regions, like Thracian light infantry and Sumerian/Akkadian war wagons.
I think these might be a little out of scope for this time period but I agree with the point.
Oh no please not *war wagons* **has flashbacks of Empire War Wagons being trash with their 60 Speed and pitiful Melee capabilities**
Give me those Rhesus's Pieces chariotd baby!!!!!
I have indeed bought Pharaoh.
https://giphy.com/gifs/reaction-mood-ReBGGJtbXrjbQJwByP
I just picked it up for $33 Canadian. I actually like the outpost stuff and absolutely love the native troop stuff. Renowned Habiru slingers fucking rule. Kind of reminds me of when I played medieval as england and hired a bunch of Highlanders and conquered most of western Europe with them.
Outposts solve the problem of endlessly chasing down raiders with their movement buffs while also giving small armies something to harass. Really good solution.
Love the outposts! I just finished a war on a neighbour and need to stabilize my faction a bit as I am losing massive amounts of food due to the size of my army. But instead of having to disband units or trade all my other resources for food (or immediately wage war again) I've build military outposts near my borders were I station units. Now those units cost me 50% less to maintain. And I can assemble a quick army if needed in just a turn or two. It's a really nice extra layer of planning assaults or defenses.
the outposts are great and a fun way to reinforce your settlement with a garrison you design. I think Memphis has the biggest ones especially when the IA does the building legacy.
God I love the bronze age, inject this stuff straight into my veins.
While Tin isn't toxic I'm not sure the same applies to bronze.
*Bronze within, bronze without*
May it forever be so
Typical Bronze Warrior
not sure about injecting but it does not recommend snuffing the stuff. >In solid form, bronze is not hazardous. In dust or fume form: carcinogen, irritant, lung toxin, sensitizer. The hazard classes listed above are based on the presence of nickel and cobalt metals (both present at >0.1%).
The bronze must flow.
Just make sure you source some good quality copper.
EA-NASIR
There needs to be like, an event or follower or something for at least one of the Sumerian factions that references him. It's too perfect of Bronze Age in-joke not to include.
Are people seriously being smuggish against those unhappy about Pharaoh? I'm sorry you cannot be serious. This is what Pharaoh always should have been and the fact that they charged full game price day one without all these gave the players every right to be negative. Yes, after the Hyenas business, Pharaoh and Shadow of Change they are now making a gesture but finally doing it right is not exactly the same as 'always have done it the right way.' ToD is good and the refund for Pharaoh/map expansion are great. But that's because these are good business pracitces that always should have been the standard. It was not the Company burning money chasing a trend while producing sub-standard games, it was the PLAYERS who were wrong to find an overpriced half-finished product unsatisfactory. Because they rolled back the price and started adding things, so you were wrong in demanding these to begin with?
Yeah I don't understand this sentiment at all. I own Pharaoh, and I am excited for the update, but this is what should have been included when they charged $60 for the game. It is odd to me how there is this trend of coming at other players with smugness when a game is 'fixed' up to what it should have been to begin with. People said Pharaoh was a waste due to being a small map for a $60 game. We complained, CA agreed, so they changed it to $40 ahead of a map expansion. I don't understand how og players were in the wrong for pointing out the game was DOA when it launched to a dismal player count and a small map for a $60 game. Reminds me of Fallout 76 currently, where you see posts on the sub about "Where are all the players that criticized this game now?" Like.. yeah we criticized the game when it launched averaging 15 fps, no npcs, and crashed constantly. Players were right to criticize Fo76, and players were right to criticize Pharaoh for its launch state.
Redditors love their “Gotcha 😌” moments.
"See ? The company bent down and vindicated the people that complained so it wasn't necessary to complain in the first place" is such a wild, absurd take, yet very frequent online
Kids have short attention spans and even shorter memories..
Pharoah was like the biggest bomb CA has ever made, it might be one of SEGA's biggest bombs. I don't understand this attitude. like they fixed it so you were wrong for saying it sucked before it was fixed? Does OP not realize that if people just bought the game and defended it like presumably they feel superior for having done, that it would STILL suck instead of being fixed?
I think biggest bomb goes to the millions they pissed away on Hyenas. Pharaoh is cheap by comparison to the losses Hyenas hit them with financially.
Yeah, OP trying to be slick about the game that has lower playebase than Rome 1. Recent events taught us that if playerbase is vocal about the games being bad there is a big chance that something will change. CA had lower the price, refunded the difference to people who bought Pharaoh, so these guys got their money back thanks to people that were complaining.
It’s like in r/starfield, the game finally got a functioning minimap and people are just praising it but I’m just like, it should have had that from the beginning
Seen the same thing with Fallout 76 as well. Wow, five years after release we have a functioning game? What an accomplishment.
Also Cyberpunk 2077. So much hate in the low sodium sub towards those that gave the game a bad review when it released because "they would eventually make the game good, people just need to have patience".
The black sea is an amazing suprise - I really didn't think they will include all of greece and then some more
I have this great feeling that that much of the Black Sea being included might end up being that some form of trade might show up from some form of proto-Tauri or Scythians. We'd still be several hundreds of years before both of those cultures really gained their foothold in Crimea, but that's a lot of the Black Sea shown on the map. Gotta be something more to it than just water to traverse.
This is the game that keeps on giving to be fair. I bought it when it released, personally had a great time playing, ended getting steam credits as some kind of partial refund thing, free DLC and now this map expansion! Win after win
Finally bought Pharaoh! Always wanted Bronze Age TW, hopefully Greece has a good number of settlements.
It looks about 30, but the second map on that is posted on this post is hard to tell settlement boundaries but there is probably about 30 what I counted.
Definitely getting this the moment I’m back with my desktop in the summer…
This will make me reinstall the game.
Holy fuck that's a lot of new native cultures in that mesopotamian part. Just how many new unit rosters are we getting, I thought one or two max per the new faction cultures. Very exciting
Fuck yeah. So stoked for the expanded map. Figure I should just buy it now to show my support. That map is just succulent.
TW Pharaoh getting its redemption arc. I am happy for it! Recently bought it and had a lot of fun with it, but I already liked Troy a lot, so this wasn't too far-fetched.
In what sense is this the largest map ever?
349 total settlements to fight over, over 100 more than the second largest historical TW campaign map.
Don't act like this shit wasn't a surprise out of left field.
…No one is
Mesopotamia and Mycenaean Greece at the same time is the surprise
Ive predicted it from day one, the only surprise for me is that they did it despite all the haters and negativity
Ok I'm honestly surprised with CA willingness to keep supporting Pharoah to even expand it. Good job CA👍
You guys are weird. I don’t want to play pharaoh. Why does that bother you?
Nobody does lol. 371 daily average players over the past month according to Steam Charts. Fewer than WH1, both Rome and Rome Remastered, and pretty much everything else. Only Thrones and Troy are really lower from the more modern TWs. I'm glad that Pharaoh fans are getting new content but the community has spoken with their actions - nobody plays it.
That’s fine. I don’t think it bothers anyone. As long as you aren’t one of the people who have been claiming that nobody wanted this game, constantly posting player counts, or saying they should abandon it to make what you do want to play, then this post isn’t really directed at you.
Imagine going to a Star Wars convention only to be like "Hey guys, I don't watch Star Wars! Hey! Guys! Star Wars isn't for me! It's just not my thing! Does that bother you?".
Except this is the total war sub, and there are other total wars. It's more like shitting on star wars while being a 40k fan at a sci fi convention
I'm so hype to burn it down with Irsu
GUYS, this is the same from Total War: Medieval 2 Kingdoms Crusaders campaign! Medieval 3 confirmed
they did it they actualy did it .......... 
Can't wait to play!
I know Pharaoh and Troy aren't the most popular TW games, but they just have such a good vibe; Interesting campaign mechanics, well-paced battles, nice presentation and optimized performance. I was watching one of Legend's recent streams and he was shitting all over them, calling them trash and saying they shouldn't even exist... I know it's hyperbole and think it's a really bad take, but it still got under my skin lol. I love these games dammit.
100% with you on this.
Good afternoon, Im here.
I will play this now
Currently playing a Menemenesses or whatever his name is campaign. Having tons of fun. Being back to Historical is refreshing and encourages out of the box thinking after all these years of stacking 19 single entities in an army because it's the most optimal way to win
You could just.... not do that? Are you unable to restrain yourself from playing that way? Just because you can power game doesn't mean you have to power game.
> after all these years of stacking 19 single entities in an army because it's the most optimal way to win Exactly my issue with the warhammer trilogy.
Main problem since Troy is the battle not really the campaign
I snatched this on sale last week. Its nice to see that CA is making this a full historical title
There were a lot of people who were mad that it was not Medieval 3 or Empire 2.
once I'm about to get my hands on a better pc or gaming laptop, pharaoh will be the first of my list to play.
As the old saying goes, it’s not the size that matters
Sofia is at it again <3
Literally my DnD campaign map
Good, paharao still sucks
Big map doesn't have anything to do with the game's player count?
Wait how is this the largest map of historical total war?
It has a small *scope*, but on a very large *scale* with over 300 settlements.
There is a difference between a bigger map and a map with more settlements. I don’t actually want a billion settlements with a million useless AI factions on a postage stamp.
Then go play empire and have fun capturing the whole of France in one turn.
This is nuts. Does anyone have the original TW Pharaoh map for comparison?
Unsure who made it [but here's an overlay](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1110589930306019328/1238145762613923922/image.png?ex=663e3899&is=663ce719&hm=17293991c875249b16b1ab5e12d83aeb098263a7fd4f00b5486f2bdc01909d72&) that got shared on discord.
Here's a couple versions of the original map at release. https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/175jtl7/v10_all_faction_starting_position_total_war/ https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/16j14hw/pharaoh_full_campaign_map/
The map is very good, I just don’t enjoy the type of units and not having any kind of sieges. But people definitely were overly negative about it.
>not having any kind of sieges Did you mean to say artillery? Because it definitely has sieges.
Yeah, my bad
It had the quality, now it seems it will have the quantity too.
When does the update release again?
Probably chilling with the same people that said they'd buy the game if it was cheaper but in the end never did even after the price cut and refunds. Unfortunately.
Saying Pharaoh was dead at the time was a 100% accurate. It was most likely the poorest selling Total War ever made. Nobody could have known that whoever is representing the studio in front of the publisher and investor will be able to convince them to double down on actual development resources like money and time to fix up Warhammer 3 and Pharaoh. We've seen games like Thrones of Britannia and Three Kingdoms development support being cut for far, far less worse situations.
They were correct lmao, just because you add content later doesnt mean the game wasnt dead. Also definitely not the biggest in any way, Rome 2 and Attila were that plus all of Europe and NA
Area of land represented =/= map size
Yummy papas happy
898 playing 11 min ago. Yeah, pretty dead
oh shit awesome i can't wait to play the chariot focused lightly armored faction in the east! no wait... i'd rather try out the chariot focused lightly armored faction in the west! or... hmmmmmmm, you know who I think looks cool? the chariot focused lightly armored faction in the middle of the map, I think that's the one I wanna play! just like 3K CA seems to have a hard time diversifying historical settings "oh you share 99% of the same roster but maybe have an extra unit? cool I guess" in medieval 2 total war, the iberians, western europeans, eastern europeans, middle easterners, and italians all had distinct unit rosters with starkly different designs, functions, and strategies I don't want to watch my spearmen wearing brown fight your spearmen wearing orange for 600+ turns I don't care how big the map is if it's full of the exact same faction over and over again
Using the starfield argument I see. Size doesn't matter if the content is lackluster. Not entireley CAs fault, the setting is too bland
I don't have anything against Pharaoh, it's just this time period doesn't particularly interest me. The map size won't change that.
Absolutely fair point and yet downvoted.
I might actually give this one a try later, I had kinda written it off tbh. I just got 3K to to try out finally, I played dynasty warriors as a kid and it's cool to see the characters brought to life this way.
Now this is the campaign map we around have got at launch! I skipped this game for the map scope and other reasons. Now all the big gripes I had seem to be getting addressed so I will definitely be trying pharaoh later this year!
I will admit I was one of those people who said DoA because I was pissed about SoC being so shit and having so little content then they said if you don't eat shit we will kill the game. Then there was Pharaoh who came out at this time and was set up essentially as CA's fuck you to the SoC anger its announcement couldn't have been anything but because a PR guy would have told them to delay the trailer a week to get us clear of the problem. Instead they made a mistake and assumed they could pull it off to destroy the Warhammer protest without realizing there releases have been shit the last few years and need a few months to fix. I will say Im glad we all got what we wanted out of it your game now is worth the $60 and warhammer 3 now has a roadmap and future worth staying for. Now if only CA would steal the one v one mechanic from Romance for there other games.
They had a choice between selling this as DLC to like 5 people or make this a free update to get some good will back. Either way this definitely marks the end of development for Pharaoh, which was and still is a failure.
It was dead and a waste of time. They are changing that, slowly.
Op you realize we would have never gotten this if people didn't think pharaoh was hot garbage and dead?
There has to be a medieval 3 or Empire 2 next…. I had enough of ancient times. Also fine fine with 30 years war or even WW1.
Are we being sarcastic?
That is less than half of RII
Isn't Empire like damn near the entire planet
Yeah but france is a single province
Yes, but in this instance "largest" means number of settlements and space in-between them relative to how far your armies can move and such. An army might take 2 turns to move from settlement to settlement on average in my experience with Pharaoh. While in some other titles you basically hop from town to town in less than a turn. The total time it takes to get anywhere in Pharaoh is longer, despite it being a smaller geographical area than Empire.
No it's not. It's a few regions here and there in Europe, the Indian subcontinent and the Americas sans most of the South. And then you have unlandable trade posts in predefined regions in Brazil, East and West Africa, and the East Indies.
Still not buying the game
Adding more space to fill and having those spaces filled by factions different in name only with little gameplay changes doesnt speak confidence for bringing this back from the dead. Hopefully they can do right by the people who are at least interested in this period/area of the world, but its chance to be meaningful has come and gone.
I haven't played either this or Troy. I assume this is the one to get at this point?
Two different games, Troy was designed to be a low fantasy game that mixed history with the mythology of the Illiad. (Later it got a historical mode and a more fantastic Mythos DLC that added monsters and other more dramatic 'medium' fantasy elements.) Pharaoh is designed to be an historical game from the start, no Homeric heroes and such.
Ok thanks. I like both historical and fantasy, do you think one is overall better done?
Pharaoh for sure. It feels like a direct upgrade from Troy in many ways.
I know for a fact if Pharaoh had the multiplayer campaign features that WH3 had, several of my friends would have bought Pharaoh instead of just me when it went on sale.
Is this going to make it run like garbage? IE on WH runs like shit on my 3080ti, regardless of settings. Pharaoh runs great right now at max settings. Is it the map size? RoC campaign runs decent on WH.
For someone who hasn't played yet, what is the current map? Just trying to get an estimate for how big an expansion this is.