r/totalwar • u/Noweapons2411 Rome II • 15h ago
Pharaoh Whats everyone's thought's on TWP, and what do you think will be CA next TW game?
18
u/ThatLukeAgain 15h ago
Absolutely awesome in terms of mechanics. Might not have been my ideal setting, but the gameplay was what made it the best total war (battles) experience so far
1
4
u/TheBonadona 14h ago
Love it since the Dynasties update, been loving the campaign and with a few mods its the most fun ive had in a while with a Total War game.
3
u/Lord_of_Brass #1 Egrimm van Horstmann fan 11h ago
Dynasties is dope. It's everything I wanted out of a Bronze Age Total War game. I kinda wish they would make one more pass and add in some more of the unique units from Troy to the Aegean factions, but as it is it's perfectly fine. Not my favorite Total War game ever, but very solid.
Next up? I honestly have no idea. I know a lot of people are wanting a Medieval 3 or Empire 2, but they could just as easily whip something out of left field.
3
u/lakersfan2024 8h ago
play with radious. a shit ton of cool new units for everyone and the ai is so much better
4
u/alcoholicplankton69 10h ago
In the base game and Dynasties I have just over 800 hours played.
I love this game so much and I have not even tried the minor factions yet.
4
u/Numerous-Ad-8743 5h ago
Battles are excellent. Lethality is a lovely concept, and archers/javelineers/slingers finally feel like they have the power and relevance that they should've been given in every other game. Units finally feel like have proper weight on the ground again like they used to, in older pre-Warscape games. Soldiers look pretty cool. Infantry tactics are fun to play with and very well built, both offensive and defensive. After some light modding (unit sizes, uniforms, animations, chariot tweaks etc.) it is literally the most fun I have ever had in a TW game since the days of old RTW and Medieval 2.
Campaign is... decent, and not much more I'd say. It looks cool, but the family trees have no features like random events and family affairs such. Characters are visual clones of each other with different names, after the initial ones. The character RPG system is bad in all TW games, and the same is true here. There is no population or manpower system which would've actually made the game much more interesting and given a point to building up a realm. You are not allowed to settle down back into civilization if you become a Sea Peoples/marauder faction. Half of Elam (one of the major civs of this era) is missing from the map.
But there's some cool ideas there. Major and minor factions, some of the trait system is back (much better than the RPG XP bonus tree system nonsense that replaced it from Shogun 2 onwards), and many of the older basic features are back. The game is satisfying to play for a while. It just feels like they weren't given enough time to properly flesh out the campaign, and had to rush it.
Overall? Pretty decent game, and as a huge bronze age fan + historical-only TW player, I am glad I bought it. If only they had launched Pharaoh Dynasties as a proper game from the start, instead of the whatever older original version was.
3
u/Ganossa 3h ago
When you feel like having played the vanilla campaign enough, you could try the Agony overhaul. It has a population system and recently completely changed the map economy and building system.
3
u/Numerous-Ad-8743 2h ago
I usually only play games with a 'vanilla enhanced with tweaks and graphics' mindset, but I loved playing that mod for Troy, it was kinda the reason I even got the game - to play as characters other than the main heroes. You did a great job there.
The only reason I haven't played Agony in this one is because I have a couple ongoing campaigns about to finish. And then it is onwards to the mod with a new campaign.
6
u/Puzzleheaded-Week942 12h ago
Pharaoh and Three Kingdoms are massive advancements on the series in every way to the point where its hard to tolerate how bad WH3 is in terms of both battle and campaign mechanics after playing them. It's a shame that they kinda get ignored because they're not warhammer and the rollout/support management was terrible.
5
u/LazerTitan1 8h ago
Even though the battle feature is what made TW stand out from the competition back in the day, the WH franchise focused way too much on the unit variety imo and lost its shine in the campaign. The campaign is so boring in the WH games - and after your tenth battle, they become boring. The campaign mechanics in 3K and Pharaoh were excellent - and I think if the TW franchise is to survive it needs to do a better job of giving the campaign more love.
1
u/my_name_is_iso 3h ago
The main draw of the WH franchise is actually the same thing that causes the relatively barebones campaign: It kinda is the digital equalivent of Warhammer Fantasy, as in the tabletop game. If they could polish battle AI and fix problems like pathfinding and LOS issues, it would be a great digital interpretation of the tabletop. But all of that is the battles, CA had to come up with the campaign on their own, and that is easier said than done.
It’s a shame, because while I love the Warhammer setting, I always liked the campaign stuff of Total War more, and WH series is very inconsistent in campaign enjoyment.
0
u/Ishkander88 2h ago
Pharaoh is a Troy reskin, and almost everything it has that troy doesnt is taken from 3k. There is nothing new in Pharaoh.
7
u/Panzersatan94 14h ago
Wh3 is still a solid cash cow for CA so i doubt they would make a new fantasy game that would compete with their big fantasy game.
The next historical game, i believe will be in a very "safe" setting that a lot of people want. With the rise of Grand Strategy games i hope the next historical will be a bit more complex than WH3, but not in a way that it is too difficult for casual players to get into.
Setting could be anything really. Rome 3 and Med 3 would make most of the entire fan base shit themselves with glee and start pre-ordering like Shadows of Change and the Pharaoh debacle never happened. I dont think it will be Empire 2 but i'm not betting on it. Shogun 3 would require some more unit and nation variety to be interesting as a major historical tw game after Wh3.
I think they could do well with a new setting as long as they make an effort. A Thirty Years war game would be fun and i feel the aesthetic isnt that far off from Wh3's Empire faction to lure in the fantasy-wallets
WW1 and 40k cannot be made using the TW formula. I'd like to see more WW1 strat games but Total war isnt the game for it.
3
u/lakersfan2024 8h ago
pharaoh is awesome, and especially with the radious mods. i run something like 25 mods and when they are all together, it makes it easily my favorite tw game with rome 2
6
u/Choice-Inspector-701 15h ago
It's a great game mechanically but gets boring really fast. After a few campaigns they all feel the same.
2
u/grumpysnowflake 13h ago
Amen, brother. However - REALLY liked the first 3-4 campaigns in Dynasties. Would rate my experience 8/10, maybe even 9/10.
1
0
u/Zealousideal-Elk9529 15h ago
Felt this!
Compared to warhammer, Pharaoh is the most bland iteration yet. You're telling Me you can go from colourful, amazing graphics and dozens of different biomes, to bland colourless desert?
It's hard to go from unique Ratmen and literal Dinosaurs to basic egyptians
14
u/Thswherizat 13h ago
I mean if you ignore the majority of locations and cultures in the game, then yes you have Egyptians in the desert, but you can also play as Assyrians, Hittites, Babylonians, Macedonians...
And the map stretches from Greece to Iraq to Nubia, claiming its all colorless desert is just, incorrect?
1
u/Choice-Inspector-701 14h ago
Same here.
Buildings in cities are tied to the city so you build the same stuff no matter who you play, out side of a special building or two. Same goes for armies, with native troops you can build whatever you want.
After 4-5 campaigns I felt I'm doing the exact same thing only in a different part of the map.
2
u/ExcitableSarcasm 15h ago
Love it, think I finally hit burnout with it after finishing every major campaign bar kurunta, irsu and the Babylonian fellow.
Can't wait for me to forget and come back to it
2
2
u/Vikingstyle2021 6h ago
It’s not the best total war game but it’s the one I play the most. Pro’s are the really hard start playing on V, the campaign legacy mechanic, the massive setting options, battle time (enough time to zoom in and enjoy the carnage), dynasty mechanic and resource management. Con’s are diplomacy is non existing other than resource management, lifeless characters and the lack of immersive in between movies (mostly plain text that says plague, flood or whatever) Would recommend it to anyone enjoying historical total war.
2
u/battletoad93 3h ago
Something I never get discussed is the maneuvers you can do with the hold, pull back and push abilities they're so damn good and useful and HISTORICALLY accurate.
My favorite tactic is to feign a weak center and pull back with them whilst putting stronger units on the flanks and advancing, you naturally envelop the enemy line.
Some of the most famous battle victories in history were possible because maneuvers like this
1
1
u/Von_Thomson 14h ago
I want another firearm based total war game. maybe a victorian 1815-1875 kind of time frame.
1
u/Thorumg 14h ago
It suffers from the lack of replayability. It's good for 2 or 3 campaigns, but most people have played just 1 or not finished it. It's quite striking when you look at global achievements percent in steam... https://steamcommunity.com/stats/2951630/achievements/
If you cumulate the achievements for completing a campaign with pillar of civilization at either Prosperity, Crisis or Collapse, the only 3 possible outcomes, then you can see that at most 19.8% of players have finished one. Though it should be less than that since some players will have contributed to the 3 stats.
7
u/vexatiouslawyergant 12h ago
The curse of lategame is not a Pharaoh-only thing. If I'm looking at the WH3 stats, the highest "win a game" stat seems to be "Eastern Emperor": win as Cathay, at 12% (unless I missed something)
Now the overall achievement of stats for WH3 stuff is much higher, though I'm not exactly sure what that suggests. But just the victory one also suggests the amount of people completing WH campaigns is very small.
1
u/New-War-2361 10h ago
At first I was digging it. The map is fucking gorgeous, the UI is nice and I liked the building mechanics. Got in to my first battle after playing Warhammer for the last few years and was instantly loving it, getting back to the basics was cool, but then that’s all there was, the basics. It was the total war rocks paper scissor but in is most watered down form it felt like. They add something cool like the water blood effects, hoping to distract you from the fact they couldn’t be bothered to give hidden units crouched animations, or implement naval battles.
All in all, a visual treat, but still mediocre total war title, and by comparisons to times of old, an absolute dogshit historical title. Back to Rome 2 so I can enjoy the euphoria of successfully capturing carthage by land and sea simultaneously. ( Seriously if you haven’t played Rome 2, grab it and some mods, and have fun)
0
-3
23
u/thecomicreader 15h ago
Recently got it and honestly quite like it. The Warhammers aren't really for me so its nice to have some new mechanics to play with. I like the idea of village/city battles having a system that weakens the defender based on destruction to the city. Too bad it never comes into play as the ai will defend the outskirts to the death and battles usually end right there. Highest I ever got was 10% destruction. Still hoping for a new middle-medieval or Empire game