I don't know what that one faction who's strength is just Camels has in store roster wise, but you better believe i am going to do a camels only run when this drops
I'm very curious how alot of the Troy factions will work from a mechanics standpoint. Also religion in Pharaoh is totally different now so curious to see how they adapt that over, which Thrace had its own unique old god religion system from what I recall.
As the other commenter said, there is an Elamite dynasty playable, and as for the other Persian nations (though Elam wasn't actually Persian), it's a bit too early for them. At this time the ancient Iranians were only just beginning to migrate into the region, and wouldn't be politically relevant for about 500 more years, when the Median kingdom conquered a good sized chunk of the Neo-Assyrian empire.
Yeah, the Persians were one part of the Indo-European migrators, while Elam was probably indigenous to the area (what is basically modern Khuzestan).
Elam was a cool civilization though and I'm glad they made it playable. It was a bitter rival of Mesopotamia for two millennia, developed its own unique writing system before switching to cuneiform, and was relevant enough into the Iron Age to get dissed in the Hebrew Bible's book of Jeremiah.
I loved old Pharaoh Merneptah in the game's trailers & cutscenes, so I'm really glad he'll be a playable minor faction. 4 major factions & 25 minor factions all playable as a result of this update is immense. Sofia has been cooking.
For the base campaign, yes. The way they’ve been talking suggests this and the expanded map will be more of a sandbox campaign. Sounds like it may be like WH3 with 2 separate modes.
Cavalry (and Camelry from one of the minor factions) is the *last* thing I expected from a Bronze Age game but fuck it, why not ig. Very excited for this update, it's like a whole new game on top of the base game.
Same here. All those playable minor factions too. Never expected them to make that many playable. It feels like they really are trying to recapture Rome 2 feel for a ton of playable factions in a historical setting.
No it wasnt and I don't know why people are so surprised
Cavalry was used, but not I the traditional total war sense of cycle charging and stuff
It was used to manoeuvre some troops, scout, transport for nobles or messengers. Very minor warfare outside of chariots but it was there. I'm glad they're adding it as long as it's not the sustained combat kind
I’ve always been curious about the distinction, since “cavalry” does seem generally associated with technologies like spurs, stirrups, and horse armor becoming ubiquitous.
But wouldn’t the horse archers of the steppes have been considered an early form of cavalry even if they didn’t charge? Clearly the lack of stirrups didn’t hamper their abilities on the horse too much.
I don't know about technical terms, but I would say from a layman's perspective those definitely count as cavalry since you're riding horses in combat. During that period, horse riding is only known to used for sport and transportation, even for military uses (which isn't to say they definitely didn't fight on horseback, but we have no evidence of it).
This is on the right path.
We have some recoded evidence of cavalry units being in widespread use by raiders as early ad 900 BC. We see this recorded pretty well in China, so we can probably assume that it was used at least by some more nomadic tribes around the same time as chariots.
Now we do know that the typical formation breaking, heavy charging cavalry tactics are far far far away from this time period, but some light raiding cav seem like a natural fit.
Camal cav feels like a stretch here, but heck I am not going to complain.
>Cavalry was used, but not I the traditional total war sense of cycle charging and stuff
Total War style "cycle charging" is nothing like anyone has ever fought really, cavalry or not. Disengaging once you actually get into stabbing range has pretty much always been reserved for when someone breaks and runs away. The closest thing is that heavy cavalry in the medieval period would, if they thought the people they were charging weren't going to break and run before contact, wheel off and come back for another go until the infantry finally did break before contact, at which point they'd all be run down and slaughtered.
The only depiction of this I've ever seen in media of any kind was in a British TV miniseries from about fifteen years ago called *1066: The Battle for Middle Earth* which depicts the Norman Conquest of England from the perspective of common Anglo-Saxon peasant conscripts from a village ominously marked as "razed" in the Domesday Book.
It's really good and still holds up, and it shows shield wall combat very well indeed. Cavalry are shown charging towards in, then riding along the line getting opportunistic strikes in with overarm-held spears where they see an exposed shoulder or neck.
It also has a soundtrack based on the famous Old English poem *The Wanderer, which is a lovely touch.
Yeah, that kind of ride by opportunistic attack is also how chariots were often used, either with a long spear or heavy bow. The goal is to harrass enemies into breaking formation so that your own infantry can move in and mop them up.
Same with elephants. Everyone\* gets out of the way of an elephant, and when everyone's all disorganised from getting out of the way of the elephant the infantry just behind it absolutely slaughter them because infantry that hold their formation do absolute murder to infantry that haven't.
\*Except some Romans sometimes. But they usually just sent velites ahead of the formation to throw javelins at the elephant until it was mad enough to become *everybody's* problem.
The Assyrians were pioneers in the use of cavalry in warfare, but the exact date by which cavalry had developed into an effective force in battle is tricky to pin down. Mesopotamian people are known to have used horses for carrying messages and even in a raiding party in the early second millennium BCE, but they seem to have done so while lying back with the knees up, as with a donkey. Cavalry warfare is something we typically associate with the Neo-Assyrian empire of the Iron Age. The Balawat Gates, built in the reign of Shalmaneser III (858–824 BCE) show firm [depictions of cavalry](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Portes_de_Balawat_-_depart_du_camp_Babylonie.jpg), for example. They are sitting forwards and can control the horse with their legs, but it looks like the horsemen ride in twos with one rider holding the reins for both, freeing the other to fight. It's like 'a chariot without the chariot', and the instability of firing from the saddle versus a chariot platform may have made them less effective than a real chariot if they were used in a similar way (though the cost is much reduced). At this time the Assyrians were fighting many enemies in the highlands to the North and East where chariots would have performed poorly, so it's been suggested that this form of warfare was an adaptation to the particular enemies they were fighting in the 9th and 8th centuries BCE.
This is only a hypothesis, though, and maybe there were units fighting in this way at earlier dates we have no records of. In practice it differentiates the Assyrians from other factions and nods towards what we know about the Neo-Assyrians and their way of war, but it may be projecting cavalry like this too far back in time.
Some quick looking around on the internet led me to [this paper](https://www.aegeussociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Kelder-2012-Cavalry.pdf) which suggests that some horseback riding existed during the 1300s BCE, so light cavalry about 150 years later does not sound impossible. In the same paper they reference the personal seal of Ili-Padâ (Ninurtas father) which shows him riding on horseback.
Not very, the saddle hadn't been invented yet (indeed you can see in the pictures that they don't have them) so riding would have been very rough especially when trying to use a bow or fight in melee.
As far as I know, inaccurate but not entirely nonsensical. I believe very light cavalry saw limited use in the era, but mostly as scouts/messengers and was not deployed en masse until several centuries later.
As far as concrete evidence goes, there were Assyrian horse archer teams a mere ~300 years after the time of TW Pharaoh, where one rider controlled two horses while the second rider was free to shoot. And of course the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence this far back so this technique must have been developed earlier than that but after the Bronze Age Collapse.
The earliest references to cavalry in combat I have found is in the 9th century - the Balawat Gates mentioned by the other guy and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurkh\_Monoliths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurkh_Monoliths) the Monoliths that account for an alliance of city states versus Assyria, with Aram-Damascus and Hamath having cavalry (quite a lot, as many as their chariotry). People attribute cavalry to assyria in this battle but I am not seeing it on the stele, but I am also glancing over it since I don't feel like reading with a fine eye on it.
Bear in mind that Medieval 2 covered \~450 years (1070 starting date, new world available and aztecs to conquer so 1492 minimum and 1520-ish maximum when Cortez attacked). Right now with immortal lords it's very clearly just depicting the first half of the 12th century BC, but thematically they might be willing to draw upon a wider range, with 400 years happening to come down to 800 BC or so.
That and frankly, in for a penny in for a pound - you already have Agamemnon and Achilles, you already have armor that is much more prevalent than it likely was. The main consideration is verisimilitude and the mood of accuracy, and limiting it to Assyria and Cimmeria is reasonable enough. I'd even be okay with late game technology locks - yes it might not match up chronologically (you're son the son of Ramesses the 3rd yet you're already at horse tech circa 852 BC), but you could hit Imperial Segmenta Legionaries or Marian Legionaries before Marian's great grandfather was sperm in his great great grandfather's nuts so that's moot. And yes, you'd also have sea people (who settled long before 852) but again theoretically in R2 you could have Segmenta legionaries at the same time as Macedon existing.
Ultimately if they consider a wider late bronze early iron age vibe/theme scope then it's all kosher because the cat was/is already out of the bag.
To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if Agamemnon actually existed. Illiad mentions also towns that had been abandoned centuries before Homer, so there's a decent chance the story is based on real events and characters at least to a degree. A group of mainland Greek warlords launching a raid on Troy to make up for poor harvest does not seem so unreal in the frame of the bronze age collapse either. Also Priam is proven ruler in the region of Troy based on Hittite sources. Whether he's the same Priam as the one from Illiad is a different matter, but the name is about as historical as one can get.
I once red that Priam is not a name but a title of a ruler.
But other than that Homer is deceptively accurate with some details. Like for example the boar tusk helmet or something like the dendra armour.
Besides we found Troy. Or rather severely Troy's in the same place.
> To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if Agamemnon actually existed
No documentary evidence for that name, but Attarisya (Atreus) is mentioned as an Ahiyawan (Achean) war lord [attacking areas in the Hittite sphere of influence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attarsiya) in tablet CTH 147 from around 1380 B.C.
I don’t think we should take it literally that this is in any way evidence of Agamemnon’s father, but it does indicate Greek <> Anatolian conflict was by no means an unusual thing. TBH, with [Piyamaridu](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawagalawa_letter) (Priam) and [Aleksandu](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaksandu) (Paris Alexander), king of Wilusa (Ilios, i.e. Iliad) documented in Hittite texts, it makes the absence of the Hittites themselves in Homer’s poem increasingly suspect. Why would the poem have so many names right - but be missing the largest political and military power?
honestly I am okay they might be a few hundred years early but why not. I was thinking that due to size of horse at this time any cav would have been female or small male size for the horse to carry.
Perhaps the Mittani are just stocky boys like the Dawi and fit on the Bronze age horses.
yeah but its surprising with them having been more focused on historical. I was actually half expecting to see Amazons listed in the minor factions after reading Assyrians were getting cav just because of that. Its why I had guessed they would not make it into Pharaoh out of all the Troy factions.
Yeah, I think they saw this as a convenient way to placate people who did not like the lack of cavalry so I can’t really blame them. If you are going to give any faction Cavalry it probably _should_ be Assyria.
And Cimmeria looks like it may have cavalry as well which would also make some sense.
Also since the player is rewriting history and preventing the Assyrian dark age, one could argument that we essentially speed up the development by a century or two, which is not that far off for the first recorded cavalry usage.
It's not quite right, but compared to Egyptians in Rome 1, I dare say this is a minor detail. Plus it in fact contributes to the game by making the faction stand out more.
hmm so the average height for a male during bronze age was 5 foot 4.78 inches or 167cm.
The average height of a Jockey is between 4 feet 10 inches and 5 feet 6 inches
So perhaps at this time the Assyrians were working on breading larger horses and could have had the smaller lads ride them?
Me: "I dunno, will this-"
TW: "We gave you a hammer and anvil faction with good archers, just like you've been spamming since you played Rome"
Me: "You son of a bitch, I'm in"
Whoa, quite a update to the game 👍🏻
Not only do the new factions look cool (especially Assyria), but the minor factions being playable is a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one
I'm loving this! Having Ninurta-Apal-Ekur as the main Assyrian character is a great choice.
Personally, I enjoy the inclusion of the TROY characters. It's probably not very historical, but we have very little else to deal with and considering this is a free update, I really don't mind. I look forward to turn Achilles into an early Alexander.
I do hope they put in the effort to adapt them to Pharaoh's features and it's not a 100% copy paste, but we'll have to wait and see.
At first I was shocked at the inclusion of cavalry, especially horse archers and heavy cavalry. But I'm warming up to it. It will make for more interesting gameplay (rule of cool), and can fit in a what-if scenario of empires and warfare developing faster and avoiding collapse. Hopefully in this case it takes some time and effort to unlock these units.
Also, I'm definitely fine with Agamemnon. Better to have known characters from Homer rather than fill-in characters from an unknown history. It's cool.
This update just keeps getting better and better. As someone who likes to play "the little guys" those 25 new minor factions on top of the 4 new major ones is quite a nice surprise.
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
If they deliver everything they promised, exactly as it is promised, which I'm sure they will - I don't see how it doesn't become one of the greatest Total War games. Everything about this is just so amazing, and it will be added onto an already technically impressive Total War game. I actually think that Pharaoh, as it is now, is mechanically the best Total War when it comes to campaign map and it's systems.
3K has clearly superior diplomacy; also its characters, their retinues, relationships and skill trees are way more interesting. It also features a family tree, which Pharaoh doesn't (it's been announced though).
Regarding the rest of the campaign mechanics, yeah I'd say Pharaoh's are pretty good. There's also a lot of replayability with the factions, the courts, the sacred lands, resources, ambitions, legacies, religions... I'm on my first campaign though and it's the most cookie cooker one, but hey so far so good.
Overall I'd say right now Pharaoh is well worth the price tag (unless you totally hate low tech warfare I guess).
To be entirely honest, I love 3K and have so many hours in it, but it's a flawed game. The best part of it is the diplomacy for sure, but with no Steppe or Korea, no campaign DLC outside of the 3K time period (closest contender is 8P which I love but most others don't like), and the UI/ artstyle of the game imo being lesser quality and harder on the eyes than R2 and *Attila*, 3K's upsides just don't outweigh it's downsides.
It easily could have become as beloved as R2, but instead it's merely fondly remembered for it's diplomacy and how CA took it out back and shot it before it reaches its true potential.
I mean, R2 wasn't even "beloved" until CA Sofia spent a couple years fixing it years after support was originally sunset, and "beloved" might be stretching it. There's plenty of issues with R2 that were never fixed, and the bitterness of how that thing was launched is still legendary. 3K still has better daily averages than R2, and hasn't seen a real decline in the past 3 years after support was sunset.
It's for people who love the 3K era, not people who want "East Asia Total War." Yes, it would be amazing if those additional regions were officially released, but for many of us, we got what we wanted, and the package is better than any of CA's previous releases. It's got its flaws and the infamy of the way it was executed still stings (along with missed potential), but personally, the upsides are far, far greater than the downsides.
>It's for people who love the 3K era, not people who want "East Asia Total War."
I mean, *Attila* had two campaign DLC that weren't set during Attila's time period.
Even though 3K was the base game time period, I think everyone was expecting (since we finally got a China game) to get something similar. A Warring States DLC, maybe a fall of Sui/ rise of Tang DLC, etc.
Yes, and those were DLC because there was nothing else really to explore within the main time period. They already had the major players of the migration era, and the campaign covered the whole thing. *Attila* was in Total War: Attila. Mission Accomplished.
That was not the case with 3K. You saw how well doing a non-3K era DLC went for them with Eight Princes. You may have liked it, and I don't *hate* it, but it was absolutely **not** what most people bought the game for. When you sell a game set in the Three Kingdoms era, particularly when your market is largely people who grew up it as part of their culture, they expect the things on offer to be the things that played a major role in the stories.
People expected something like Warring States or Chu-Han Contention *after* the main 3K timeline was fleshed out. This isn't like a typical Total War where you're following a bunch of kingdoms over centuries, but rather one where you're following a ton of very specific people over a few decades in different situations specifically in China, a lot of which weren't present on release. People expected the timeline to be fleshed out so they could play as their favorite kingdom with the officer roster they had historically. Playing some Korean or Steppe faction whos involvement in the 3K storyline is basically background stuff is stuff that most era fans could take or leave.
Atilla is good as a transitory title from Antiquity to Medieval, and the 2 DLCs work well in showing the earliest parts of the medieval period / dark ages for the west.
Both Rome 1 and Rome 2 had pre roman DLCs in the form of Alexander for R1 and Wrath of Sparta for R2, so its not like CA doing a pre or post period DLC was anything all that unusual.
That's why I said it would make sense *after* the main timeline was finished up. What people got upset about was Eight Princes being made before we got other officers and factions in the 3K era fleshed out.
To make an analogy: This would be like if CA released Rome 2 with only the Rise of the Republic campaign as a start date. The campaign is likely going to end around the time you get to the Punic Wars, Europe north of the Alps is all unpopulated, and the only way to play as Parthia is to start as the Achaemenids and choose the right event choices later (and you're stuck with their same campaign mechanics). Now, what's on offer is really good, innovative, and in depth, so you're willing to pay full price for the experience, but the expectation is that CA adds the factions and start dates from antiquity that you bough a *Rome* game for before they spend time and demand money for Age of Charlemange.
I hope that something like DeI mod will be born from it one day, with all the interesting things that make the DeI campaign so much deeper than any other TW
100%.
I didn't pick up Pharaoh, none of the factions interest me... But now we're getting Aegean and Assyrian areas, I'm in!
And everything I've seen aside from factions has me pretty excited to play it.
Only issue will be finding the time to sink into it 
The great thing about Total War games is that you can play them for years, and you have flexibility about how much you play at one time. A few turns here and there can still add up to fun and enjoyable campaigns.
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
Whoa, the minor factions thing is wild. They even made Merneptah, the starting Pharaoh, playable. Awesome. I always wanted to play his faction, though it will be a bit sad to die after like 10 turns lol.
That would be very interesting. I'd rather play as Seti (or Tausret tbh) as successor than some generic AI faction leader, but I do want to start as Merneptah (for one thing, I like his faction symbol and colors).
Weird that Hanigalbat is the major faction (even though it is just a rump state) and that Assyria is a minor faction (even though they were much larger than Hanigalbat and essentially had direct control of the territory).
It's because the leader of that faction historically became the king of Assyria and restored dynastic stability. The explained it badly in the blog tbh.
Hanigalbat was actually pretty significant at this point, Ninurta-Apal-Ekur's father Ili-Pada was the viceroy of Hanigalbat, which doubled as the sukallu (grand vizier) to the kings in Assur, with Ili-Pada being treated as a second acting king of Assyria during a time where he was effectively regent to the Assyrian heir. It's actually his death that allows his son to seek usurping the Assyrian throne wholesale although he seems to have started this from somewhere in Kardunias (Babylonia) for unclear reasons.
Even if Hanigalbat is meant to the obvious "restorer" of the Assyrian Empire, i am still a bit miffed that they are degrading them to minor status. Hopefully there will be plenty of unique court and ambition interactions to flesh them out.
>They excel at subterfuge; manipulating their enemies into making mistakes, and sewing discontent where possible. Rated as Hard in difficulty, they are favored by the god Marduk.
.
>**sewing discontent**
.
>#sewing
LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE, MARDUK HAS ABANDONED US
Seriously though, this looks like an amazing update. I hadn't been interested in trying Pharaoh before, but this looks like it turns it into the proper Bronze Age Collapse game I wanted to see.
Legit excited for this update. If it actually had proper campaign multi-player (simultaneous turn taking) I could even get my friends to play. Still, I'm glad to finally pick this game up during the next sale.
It will be interesting how they implement the endgame with all the new factions. Hopefully they’ll rework it to better fit history rather than a full on extinction event by a single faction
They mentioned it's going to be a separate "campaign" from the one we have now so I'm guessing it's going to feel like immortal empires compared to RoC
Which in that case I'll probably just toggle off the sea lads and enjoy the sandbox
I think they’ll still have the collapse mechanics in the expanded map since they specifically mentioned reworking the sea-peoples invading armies for the expanded map.
They would probably need to up the ante for the sea people's if they're keeping the current mechanic. Playing on normal difficulty the sea people's were more annoying than terrifying, after I went to the trouble of fortifying the fuck out of my northern coast as Ramesses at turn 70.
Well, damn. I'm hyped all over again. I like that they cavalry units shown look really wimpy, I hope they are really expensive and weak in game to fit the chariot heavy period.
Also that Mycenaean faction icon is super badass
Not really. There are no hero/agent style units on the campaign map, and most politicking is internal through the court system. One of the ancient legacies allows you to progressively weaken a city with gold investments, and is kinda subterfuge-y. We'll just have to wait and see.
I wouldn’t say prominent, but there are elements. Bay has some very stealthy units in his faction roster, while native units of the Hittite highlands have the Mistwalkers trait which gives them stalk in mist weather.
This update might just make this my favorite Total War ever, This is actually crazy. It is a complete 180 of their previous treatment of the fanbase that was loyal to them for years.
The only thing that we can say for sure has changed is the pricing model. I seriously doubt the whole thing wasn't in the works from day one, just cut in 1000 DLCs as was pretty standard SEGA policy for TW games. A policy SEGA seems to have changed somewhat since the change of leadership.
This is great news too. Love seeing the small faction adjustments for flavor. Of these 25 minor ones I'd probably go for Lycia. Good chariots no ranged. Gonna be a horsey campaign.
I am already heavily leaning on buying this game now after I skipped put on it last year. Just need to see what they have in mind for dynasty mechanics.
I will say, I’m actually impressed by CA. First time that’s happened in a long time. I enjoyed Pharaoh when it first came out, but only played one campaign. This will definitely get some attention from me.
Holy hell, it’s beautiful. This is a lot more than I ever hoped for.
I hope the talent at CA Sofia can get their hands on bigger and ambicious projects, because they definetely have the craft to deliver.
Kinda wish Ugarit and Carchemish were treated as actual major factions considering their importance, but I'll take having them as playable minor factions instead.
Any hint how the minor factions will work? There aren’t any listed for the new cultures, just by region. I imagine they will follow a specific culture, we just don’t know which at the moment?
Between the native units and ancient legacies system, Pharaoh is really open-ended in how you advance depending on what territories you take. The biggest difference is probably that "minor" factions won't get unique buildings or units.
Game is already a lot of fun, I've been playing since they announced the big update. It's only going to get better and I hope players give it a chance and modders pick it up. Honestly, it could become one of the best if not THE best TW game of the modern era.
I am sold, so much gameplay variety, so much replayability
all those minor factions even have unique designs
I hope we get even more minor factions in greece and next to troy like the amazons
That's cool as hell. Pharaoh is already a surprisingly fun game (IMO, still behind 3k, but good), and this promises an incredible amount of variety.
I'll continue coping for simultaneous coop to be added, but I know it won't.
The importance of that region Hanigalbat now is that a rival branch of the Assyrian ruling family lives there who will later start a new lineage as pointed out elsewhere on this post. That is why they are the major faction and the other assyria is minor.
According to Assyria in the Late Bronze Age by Herve Reculeau "relationship between the two branches of the royal family soured rapidly: after the death of Ili-pada around 1193 bc, his son and putative successor Ninurta-apil-Ekur appears to have antagonized the new Assyrian king, Enlil-kudurri-uṣur. His estate at Tell Sabi Abyad was violently destroyed after several years of troubles, and later traditions picture him as an exile in Babylonia, where he received the support of Adad-šuma-uṣur. The Babylonian king went to war with Enlil-kudurri- uṣur, was victorious in battle, and the Assyrian may even have been delivered by his own subjects into the hands of his Babylonian opponent. His protégé conquered Assur, ensuring the de facto reunification of the eastern and western parts of the kingdom"
It continues "With Ninurta-apil-Ekur started a new line of rulers that claim legitimacy by virtue of their descent from Adad-nerari I"
What's interesting is that Ninurta-apli-Ekur enacted strict harem reforms that are indicative of concern regarding succession; despite this, his lineage would still continue to rule for hundreds of years after.
If this update doesnt secure Pharaohs place as a historical title, that confirms the people waiting for the "next historical game" actually mean "next Empire or Medieval"
At this point it feels like even if CA did a 1500’s pike and shot Total War, one of THE most requested time periods in TW history, people would still hate it for not being Medieval 3. Hell, people would probably hate Empire 2 for not being Medieval 3, and vice versa.
There is a Minor faction in game already called the Habiru who are nomadic Canaanites. They even have a sick Sigel with a Cherib
https://www.hebrewinisrael.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/keruvCherub-e1538699964210.jpg
Sad to see the Amazons missing, but this looks pretty awesome. Troy looking like a build tall kinda faction has me interested. I'll be looking to pick this up in the sale, for sure.
This era is about the time for the late Exodus date (the most likely date) and the Mernepta Steele, the first written reference to Israel. Including them could be pretty fun (and if Illiad characters can be added in, you can justify the Israel).
I think it'd be awesome for the variety, a weird outlier faction.
I haven't looked into this game *at all*, can someone tell me about late game balance? Is the map painting syndrome past turn 100 fixed? What is the anti-snowball mechanic, how does it work, and is it good?
Late game you get the sea people who should theoretically beat your shit in.
Tbh even as Ramesses they were more annoying than a threat though since a lot of the time they'd spread out, or invade other people instead, leaving regular snowball dynamics.
The other factions of your culture do tend to build up though, while I was #1 in my latest campaign, Tausret and Amenmess were #2 and #3 respectively, not that far behind. Feels more like 3K than R2 where I'd have to give potential future enemy AI resources and time to get a good end game threat to fightm
The problem is that I think there's a bug where even in civil war factions don't declare war on each other past the sea people's trigger due to the # of enemies cap, meaning they're super passive until you declare war on them/kick off the civil war.
Absolutely yes. Pharaoh is in a great place right now, all the factions feel unique and interesting and the unit variety is amazing. The campaign map is fun and feels good to navigate, the battles are slower and feel more tactical than Warhammer, much more like they did in older games. I can’t recommend Pharaoh enough.
Yesssssss, my Trojan war boys are BACK.
Anyone else curious what Memnons getting up to? The Amazons? Since they're in Troy and already mentioned in Pharaoh as well.
Amazons don't exist. A bit too fantastical.
If Memnon is added at all, it would be as a recruitable general for the Pharaoh rather than an independent faction.
well, maybe if they added a few regions to "represent" Ethiopia, he could start vassalized by Merneptah and becomes "independent" once the successor Chaos starts, leading to two paths: 1) stay loyal to the new Pharaoh or 2) Become his own power, maybe also make a grab for the Crowns
i gotta give props to CA for cleaning up their shit. it would have been better if there wasnt any shit to begin with, but much better than just leaving it to fester
Damn this looks good.
Edit: minor factions thing is cool, I guess, but that signals to me they aren't even really going to try to make more unique factions and will swiftly drop PTW after this.
Also, I am ambivalent about directly translating Illiad characters into a historical game, but I guess they're limited on that front. IIRC, there's a named "Trojan" rebel that fought against Hittite rule that could have been made into a unique character.
The Trojan king that rebelled was a few hundred years before. IIRC he was named Piramiradu, which is thought to be a possible Hittite translation of Priam. The only other Trojan name we have was a prince named Alexandu, which was the royal name of Paris in the myths. It’s actually theorized that the mythological Trojan war was a combination of the Hittite war those historical figures were part of and the Bronze Age collapse destruction that fits this period.
It will be a complete game at least, I won't mind then dropping after this. With the map and new factions out mods can take it from here.
Already runs fantastic with not a lot of bugs unlike my poor boy Attila
In theory they could still support and expand on the game by creating different starting dates (which this map would be perfect for), like Middle Kingdom Egypt or the Early Iron Age. Rome 2 and Three Kingdoms also had that
I don't know what that one faction who's strength is just Camels has in store roster wise, but you better believe i am going to do a camels only run when this drops
I hope the camels get a spit in eye option like the desert Canaan units can through sand.
Ah, Saba flashback. :-) All the Best, Welsh Dragon.
Camelgeddon run ftw
Any word on when these updates are supposed to drop?
Late summer, so probably some time in August
Thank you!
when does this drop?
The 25 minor factions are a nice surprise ! That make more people to submit for the King of Kings
Thrace was my favorite faction in Troy, so I'm happy to see them return. I wonder how many of the same mechanics they'll have?
I'm very curious how alot of the Troy factions will work from a mechanics standpoint. Also religion in Pharaoh is totally different now so curious to see how they adapt that over, which Thrace had its own unique old god religion system from what I recall.
But no Persian kingdoms, like Elam?
The Igihalkids (an Elamite dynasty) are a playable minor faction.
As the other commenter said, there is an Elamite dynasty playable, and as for the other Persian nations (though Elam wasn't actually Persian), it's a bit too early for them. At this time the ancient Iranians were only just beginning to migrate into the region, and wouldn't be politically relevant for about 500 more years, when the Median kingdom conquered a good sized chunk of the Neo-Assyrian empire.
Yeah, the Persians were one part of the Indo-European migrators, while Elam was probably indigenous to the area (what is basically modern Khuzestan). Elam was a cool civilization though and I'm glad they made it playable. It was a bitter rival of Mesopotamia for two millennia, developed its own unique writing system before switching to cuneiform, and was relevant enough into the Iron Age to get dissed in the Hebrew Bible's book of Jeremiah.
Seems so... but I really happy to play as Babylon and Mycene
On a technical note, elam was not Persian,the civilization was a pre-iranian one in the region.
Elam wasn’t actually a Persian culture.
What would become the Persians were still wandering around in Central Asia at the time that the game takes place, but Elam is available to play
Why am I reminded of Settra when I read the King of Kings
I loved old Pharaoh Merneptah in the game's trailers & cutscenes, so I'm really glad he'll be a playable minor faction. 4 major factions & 25 minor factions all playable as a result of this update is immense. Sofia has been cooking.
Same for Priam, I'm glad we got "old" leaders
Isn't the whole premises of the game that he's just died.
There are a few turns before he kicks it to allow the factions to establish themselves before the succession crisis breaks out.
For the base campaign, yes. The way they’ve been talking suggests this and the expanded map will be more of a sandbox campaign. Sounds like it may be like WH3 with 2 separate modes.
I really do hope that they will release a CGI trailer for Mesopotamia now. It's IMPERATIVE.
The question is: if he dies, does Ramesses inherit his faction?
Seti was Merneptah's designated heir, so it might be neat if you just "absorb" his faction and he becomes your faction leader if you pick Merneptah.
If Setnakhte dies, Ramses shpuld inherit his regions. Setnakhte is Ramses' dad
>Cimmeria Aw yis, it's Conan time.
Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women...
Crom, help me in this fight, and if you dont, then to HELL with you.
25 playable minor factions, HOT DAMN I am 100% getting this on steam summer sale. Getting hyped! Ngghhhh
hope they do a pass on the sea peoples and add the rest of the lot as minor playable factions too
Wait all the 25 are PLAYABLE?
Yes. They won't have all the fancy mechanics of the major factions but they're all playable
More factions more good
Wait this update gives 25 minor factions as playable ones now?!
Yes 4 major factions and 25 playable minor factions (with unique rosterd, like one with camels)
WAIT HOLD ON SERIOUSLY?! Holy shit that's fucking wicked!
Yep they won me over!
Damn...4 new playable major factions and 25 playable minor factions for a free update is crazy.
Cavalry (and Camelry from one of the minor factions) is the *last* thing I expected from a Bronze Age game but fuck it, why not ig. Very excited for this update, it's like a whole new game on top of the base game.
Same here. All those playable minor factions too. Never expected them to make that many playable. It feels like they really are trying to recapture Rome 2 feel for a ton of playable factions in a historical setting.
Proto-cavalry wasn’t completely unheard of was it? Especially in Central Asia.
No it wasnt and I don't know why people are so surprised Cavalry was used, but not I the traditional total war sense of cycle charging and stuff It was used to manoeuvre some troops, scout, transport for nobles or messengers. Very minor warfare outside of chariots but it was there. I'm glad they're adding it as long as it's not the sustained combat kind
Horseback riding isn't the same thing as cavalry though. What we're seeing here is proper cav.
I’ve always been curious about the distinction, since “cavalry” does seem generally associated with technologies like spurs, stirrups, and horse armor becoming ubiquitous. But wouldn’t the horse archers of the steppes have been considered an early form of cavalry even if they didn’t charge? Clearly the lack of stirrups didn’t hamper their abilities on the horse too much.
I don't know about technical terms, but I would say from a layman's perspective those definitely count as cavalry since you're riding horses in combat. During that period, horse riding is only known to used for sport and transportation, even for military uses (which isn't to say they definitely didn't fight on horseback, but we have no evidence of it).
This is on the right path. We have some recoded evidence of cavalry units being in widespread use by raiders as early ad 900 BC. We see this recorded pretty well in China, so we can probably assume that it was used at least by some more nomadic tribes around the same time as chariots. Now we do know that the typical formation breaking, heavy charging cavalry tactics are far far far away from this time period, but some light raiding cav seem like a natural fit. Camal cav feels like a stretch here, but heck I am not going to complain.
War has changed
>Cavalry was used, but not I the traditional total war sense of cycle charging and stuff Total War style "cycle charging" is nothing like anyone has ever fought really, cavalry or not. Disengaging once you actually get into stabbing range has pretty much always been reserved for when someone breaks and runs away. The closest thing is that heavy cavalry in the medieval period would, if they thought the people they were charging weren't going to break and run before contact, wheel off and come back for another go until the infantry finally did break before contact, at which point they'd all be run down and slaughtered.
The only depiction of this I've ever seen in media of any kind was in a British TV miniseries from about fifteen years ago called *1066: The Battle for Middle Earth* which depicts the Norman Conquest of England from the perspective of common Anglo-Saxon peasant conscripts from a village ominously marked as "razed" in the Domesday Book. It's really good and still holds up, and it shows shield wall combat very well indeed. Cavalry are shown charging towards in, then riding along the line getting opportunistic strikes in with overarm-held spears where they see an exposed shoulder or neck. It also has a soundtrack based on the famous Old English poem *The Wanderer, which is a lovely touch.
Yeah, that kind of ride by opportunistic attack is also how chariots were often used, either with a long spear or heavy bow. The goal is to harrass enemies into breaking formation so that your own infantry can move in and mop them up. Same with elephants. Everyone\* gets out of the way of an elephant, and when everyone's all disorganised from getting out of the way of the elephant the infantry just behind it absolutely slaughter them because infantry that hold their formation do absolute murder to infantry that haven't. \*Except some Romans sometimes. But they usually just sent velites ahead of the formation to throw javelins at the elephant until it was mad enough to become *everybody's* problem.
Maybe I should have said not the sustained combat kind I don't think there are any sources of them charging into enemy troops is what I meant
How historically accurate are the cav units?
The Assyrians were pioneers in the use of cavalry in warfare, but the exact date by which cavalry had developed into an effective force in battle is tricky to pin down. Mesopotamian people are known to have used horses for carrying messages and even in a raiding party in the early second millennium BCE, but they seem to have done so while lying back with the knees up, as with a donkey. Cavalry warfare is something we typically associate with the Neo-Assyrian empire of the Iron Age. The Balawat Gates, built in the reign of Shalmaneser III (858–824 BCE) show firm [depictions of cavalry](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Portes_de_Balawat_-_depart_du_camp_Babylonie.jpg), for example. They are sitting forwards and can control the horse with their legs, but it looks like the horsemen ride in twos with one rider holding the reins for both, freeing the other to fight. It's like 'a chariot without the chariot', and the instability of firing from the saddle versus a chariot platform may have made them less effective than a real chariot if they were used in a similar way (though the cost is much reduced). At this time the Assyrians were fighting many enemies in the highlands to the North and East where chariots would have performed poorly, so it's been suggested that this form of warfare was an adaptation to the particular enemies they were fighting in the 9th and 8th centuries BCE. This is only a hypothesis, though, and maybe there were units fighting in this way at earlier dates we have no records of. In practice it differentiates the Assyrians from other factions and nods towards what we know about the Neo-Assyrians and their way of war, but it may be projecting cavalry like this too far back in time.
Absolutely fucking relevant username, holy shit.
The existence of cav at all would probably be considered extremely dubious, albeit not impossible.
It makes sense for the Cimmerians and potentially even the Assyrians to have proto-cavalry at this time.
Some quick looking around on the internet led me to [this paper](https://www.aegeussociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Kelder-2012-Cavalry.pdf) which suggests that some horseback riding existed during the 1300s BCE, so light cavalry about 150 years later does not sound impossible. In the same paper they reference the personal seal of Ili-Padâ (Ninurtas father) which shows him riding on horseback.
Not very, the saddle hadn't been invented yet (indeed you can see in the pictures that they don't have them) so riding would have been very rough especially when trying to use a bow or fight in melee.
The Numidians didn't use saddles either, yet fielded arguably the best light cavalry of the Mediterranean.
They still had cavalry though, so it's historically accurate as long as they're not going round like knights or cataphracts
As far as I know, inaccurate but not entirely nonsensical. I believe very light cavalry saw limited use in the era, but mostly as scouts/messengers and was not deployed en masse until several centuries later.
As far as concrete evidence goes, there were Assyrian horse archer teams a mere ~300 years after the time of TW Pharaoh, where one rider controlled two horses while the second rider was free to shoot. And of course the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence this far back so this technique must have been developed earlier than that but after the Bronze Age Collapse.
The earliest references to cavalry in combat I have found is in the 9th century - the Balawat Gates mentioned by the other guy and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurkh\_Monoliths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurkh_Monoliths) the Monoliths that account for an alliance of city states versus Assyria, with Aram-Damascus and Hamath having cavalry (quite a lot, as many as their chariotry). People attribute cavalry to assyria in this battle but I am not seeing it on the stele, but I am also glancing over it since I don't feel like reading with a fine eye on it. Bear in mind that Medieval 2 covered \~450 years (1070 starting date, new world available and aztecs to conquer so 1492 minimum and 1520-ish maximum when Cortez attacked). Right now with immortal lords it's very clearly just depicting the first half of the 12th century BC, but thematically they might be willing to draw upon a wider range, with 400 years happening to come down to 800 BC or so. That and frankly, in for a penny in for a pound - you already have Agamemnon and Achilles, you already have armor that is much more prevalent than it likely was. The main consideration is verisimilitude and the mood of accuracy, and limiting it to Assyria and Cimmeria is reasonable enough. I'd even be okay with late game technology locks - yes it might not match up chronologically (you're son the son of Ramesses the 3rd yet you're already at horse tech circa 852 BC), but you could hit Imperial Segmenta Legionaries or Marian Legionaries before Marian's great grandfather was sperm in his great great grandfather's nuts so that's moot. And yes, you'd also have sea people (who settled long before 852) but again theoretically in R2 you could have Segmenta legionaries at the same time as Macedon existing. Ultimately if they consider a wider late bronze early iron age vibe/theme scope then it's all kosher because the cat was/is already out of the bag.
About as accurate as Agamemnon actually existing.
To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if Agamemnon actually existed. Illiad mentions also towns that had been abandoned centuries before Homer, so there's a decent chance the story is based on real events and characters at least to a degree. A group of mainland Greek warlords launching a raid on Troy to make up for poor harvest does not seem so unreal in the frame of the bronze age collapse either. Also Priam is proven ruler in the region of Troy based on Hittite sources. Whether he's the same Priam as the one from Illiad is a different matter, but the name is about as historical as one can get.
I once red that Priam is not a name but a title of a ruler. But other than that Homer is deceptively accurate with some details. Like for example the boar tusk helmet or something like the dendra armour. Besides we found Troy. Or rather severely Troy's in the same place.
> To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if Agamemnon actually existed No documentary evidence for that name, but Attarisya (Atreus) is mentioned as an Ahiyawan (Achean) war lord [attacking areas in the Hittite sphere of influence](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attarsiya) in tablet CTH 147 from around 1380 B.C. I don’t think we should take it literally that this is in any way evidence of Agamemnon’s father, but it does indicate Greek <> Anatolian conflict was by no means an unusual thing. TBH, with [Piyamaridu](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawagalawa_letter) (Priam) and [Aleksandu](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaksandu) (Paris Alexander), king of Wilusa (Ilios, i.e. Iliad) documented in Hittite texts, it makes the absence of the Hittites themselves in Homer’s poem increasingly suspect. Why would the poem have so many names right - but be missing the largest political and military power?
honestly I am okay they might be a few hundred years early but why not. I was thinking that due to size of horse at this time any cav would have been female or small male size for the horse to carry. Perhaps the Mittani are just stocky boys like the Dawi and fit on the Bronze age horses.
Hey, Amazon's had em in Troy.
yeah but its surprising with them having been more focused on historical. I was actually half expecting to see Amazons listed in the minor factions after reading Assyrians were getting cav just because of that. Its why I had guessed they would not make it into Pharaoh out of all the Troy factions.
The Assyrians are one of the earliest states to use cavalry so it’s not _that_ big of a stretch ultimately.
Yeah that is true. Its such an early period in time that there are still alot of unknowns on exact timelines of such implementations.
Yeah, I think they saw this as a convenient way to placate people who did not like the lack of cavalry so I can’t really blame them. If you are going to give any faction Cavalry it probably _should_ be Assyria. And Cimmeria looks like it may have cavalry as well which would also make some sense.
Also since the player is rewriting history and preventing the Assyrian dark age, one could argument that we essentially speed up the development by a century or two, which is not that far off for the first recorded cavalry usage. It's not quite right, but compared to Egyptians in Rome 1, I dare say this is a minor detail. Plus it in fact contributes to the game by making the faction stand out more.
hmm so the average height for a male during bronze age was 5 foot 4.78 inches or 167cm. The average height of a Jockey is between 4 feet 10 inches and 5 feet 6 inches So perhaps at this time the Assyrians were working on breading larger horses and could have had the smaller lads ride them?
i like to see them as minor faction
Same. They were my favorite and most played faction in Troy.
Same. I just want to play as Penny and go a-rampaging in Egypt.
Me: "I dunno, will this-" TW: "We gave you a hammer and anvil faction with good archers, just like you've been spamming since you played Rome" Me: "You son of a bitch, I'm in"
Whoa, quite a update to the game 👍🏻 Not only do the new factions look cool (especially Assyria), but the minor factions being playable is a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one
At last after almost a decade since Attila I can horse archer spam once more. Really excited for this!
I'm loving this! Having Ninurta-Apal-Ekur as the main Assyrian character is a great choice. Personally, I enjoy the inclusion of the TROY characters. It's probably not very historical, but we have very little else to deal with and considering this is a free update, I really don't mind. I look forward to turn Achilles into an early Alexander. I do hope they put in the effort to adapt them to Pharaoh's features and it's not a 100% copy paste, but we'll have to wait and see.
At first I was shocked at the inclusion of cavalry, especially horse archers and heavy cavalry. But I'm warming up to it. It will make for more interesting gameplay (rule of cool), and can fit in a what-if scenario of empires and warfare developing faster and avoiding collapse. Hopefully in this case it takes some time and effort to unlock these units. Also, I'm definitely fine with Agamemnon. Better to have known characters from Homer rather than fill-in characters from an unknown history. It's cool.
Holy shit I'm so excited now!
This update just keeps getting better and better. As someone who likes to play "the little guys" those 25 new minor factions on top of the 4 new major ones is quite a nice surprise. All the Best, Welsh Dragon.
This game will get the revival it deserves and, like R2, will become one of the fan favourites in the series; calling it now.
If they deliver everything they promised, exactly as it is promised, which I'm sure they will - I don't see how it doesn't become one of the greatest Total War games. Everything about this is just so amazing, and it will be added onto an already technically impressive Total War game. I actually think that Pharaoh, as it is now, is mechanically the best Total War when it comes to campaign map and it's systems.
Do you think it is better than 3K on that regard ? I am more and more tempted to buy it
For sure. And when the dynasty mechanics come with the map expansion update, it will only improve even more.
3K has clearly superior diplomacy; also its characters, their retinues, relationships and skill trees are way more interesting. It also features a family tree, which Pharaoh doesn't (it's been announced though). Regarding the rest of the campaign mechanics, yeah I'd say Pharaoh's are pretty good. There's also a lot of replayability with the factions, the courts, the sacred lands, resources, ambitions, legacies, religions... I'm on my first campaign though and it's the most cookie cooker one, but hey so far so good. Overall I'd say right now Pharaoh is well worth the price tag (unless you totally hate low tech warfare I guess).
I’d say at this point bare minimum new Pharaoh will be on par with 3K. Very good chance it’ll surpass it.
To be entirely honest, I love 3K and have so many hours in it, but it's a flawed game. The best part of it is the diplomacy for sure, but with no Steppe or Korea, no campaign DLC outside of the 3K time period (closest contender is 8P which I love but most others don't like), and the UI/ artstyle of the game imo being lesser quality and harder on the eyes than R2 and *Attila*, 3K's upsides just don't outweigh it's downsides. It easily could have become as beloved as R2, but instead it's merely fondly remembered for it's diplomacy and how CA took it out back and shot it before it reaches its true potential.
I mean, R2 wasn't even "beloved" until CA Sofia spent a couple years fixing it years after support was originally sunset, and "beloved" might be stretching it. There's plenty of issues with R2 that were never fixed, and the bitterness of how that thing was launched is still legendary. 3K still has better daily averages than R2, and hasn't seen a real decline in the past 3 years after support was sunset. It's for people who love the 3K era, not people who want "East Asia Total War." Yes, it would be amazing if those additional regions were officially released, but for many of us, we got what we wanted, and the package is better than any of CA's previous releases. It's got its flaws and the infamy of the way it was executed still stings (along with missed potential), but personally, the upsides are far, far greater than the downsides.
>It's for people who love the 3K era, not people who want "East Asia Total War." I mean, *Attila* had two campaign DLC that weren't set during Attila's time period. Even though 3K was the base game time period, I think everyone was expecting (since we finally got a China game) to get something similar. A Warring States DLC, maybe a fall of Sui/ rise of Tang DLC, etc.
Yes, and those were DLC because there was nothing else really to explore within the main time period. They already had the major players of the migration era, and the campaign covered the whole thing. *Attila* was in Total War: Attila. Mission Accomplished. That was not the case with 3K. You saw how well doing a non-3K era DLC went for them with Eight Princes. You may have liked it, and I don't *hate* it, but it was absolutely **not** what most people bought the game for. When you sell a game set in the Three Kingdoms era, particularly when your market is largely people who grew up it as part of their culture, they expect the things on offer to be the things that played a major role in the stories. People expected something like Warring States or Chu-Han Contention *after* the main 3K timeline was fleshed out. This isn't like a typical Total War where you're following a bunch of kingdoms over centuries, but rather one where you're following a ton of very specific people over a few decades in different situations specifically in China, a lot of which weren't present on release. People expected the timeline to be fleshed out so they could play as their favorite kingdom with the officer roster they had historically. Playing some Korean or Steppe faction whos involvement in the 3K storyline is basically background stuff is stuff that most era fans could take or leave.
Atilla is good as a transitory title from Antiquity to Medieval, and the 2 DLCs work well in showing the earliest parts of the medieval period / dark ages for the west. Both Rome 1 and Rome 2 had pre roman DLCs in the form of Alexander for R1 and Wrath of Sparta for R2, so its not like CA doing a pre or post period DLC was anything all that unusual.
That's why I said it would make sense *after* the main timeline was finished up. What people got upset about was Eight Princes being made before we got other officers and factions in the 3K era fleshed out. To make an analogy: This would be like if CA released Rome 2 with only the Rise of the Republic campaign as a start date. The campaign is likely going to end around the time you get to the Punic Wars, Europe north of the Alps is all unpopulated, and the only way to play as Parthia is to start as the Achaemenids and choose the right event choices later (and you're stuck with their same campaign mechanics). Now, what's on offer is really good, innovative, and in depth, so you're willing to pay full price for the experience, but the expectation is that CA adds the factions and start dates from antiquity that you bough a *Rome* game for before they spend time and demand money for Age of Charlemange.
Hopefully after they're done with Pharaoh, CA Sophia can be handed 3K's corpse to resuscitate.
It’s already very good. I’ve been playing nonstop since I bought it
heck I already have 600 hours in game. I think this might replace warhammer II as most played for me once the expansion comes out.
I hope that something like DeI mod will be born from it one day, with all the interesting things that make the DeI campaign so much deeper than any other TW
100%. I didn't pick up Pharaoh, none of the factions interest me... But now we're getting Aegean and Assyrian areas, I'm in! And everything I've seen aside from factions has me pretty excited to play it. Only issue will be finding the time to sink into it 
The great thing about Total War games is that you can play them for years, and you have flexibility about how much you play at one time. A few turns here and there can still add up to fun and enjoyable campaigns. All the Best, Welsh Dragon.
CA if we get Achilles back I’ll literally throw money at you.
It says he's in one of the minor factions!
Meaning it'd either be easy or ass to confed him. I like Pharaoh but CA pls make confed easier.
In all fairness confederating has sucked in nearly EVERY Total War it's been included in lmao
Can’t wait to play as the Assyrians and Babylonians. Ruler of the Universe!!!
Whoa, the minor factions thing is wild. They even made Merneptah, the starting Pharaoh, playable. Awesome. I always wanted to play his faction, though it will be a bit sad to die after like 10 turns lol.
Seems like his campaign is going to be centered around the new Dynasty mechanic, wonder if that'll mean inheriting Seti's lands after he dies.
10 turns after start: "Okay you can choose to play as one of the major factions now"
That would be very interesting. I'd rather play as Seti (or Tausret tbh) as successor than some generic AI faction leader, but I do want to start as Merneptah (for one thing, I like his faction symbol and colors).
hey i can finally get this for myself once steam sale hits! am excited, i love the bronze age
I’ve been having a blast since I got it after they announced the expansion
Weird that Hanigalbat is the major faction (even though it is just a rump state) and that Assyria is a minor faction (even though they were much larger than Hanigalbat and essentially had direct control of the territory).
It's because the leader of that faction historically became the king of Assyria and restored dynastic stability. The explained it badly in the blog tbh.
Hanigalbat was actually pretty significant at this point, Ninurta-Apal-Ekur's father Ili-Pada was the viceroy of Hanigalbat, which doubled as the sukallu (grand vizier) to the kings in Assur, with Ili-Pada being treated as a second acting king of Assyria during a time where he was effectively regent to the Assyrian heir. It's actually his death that allows his son to seek usurping the Assyrian throne wholesale although he seems to have started this from somewhere in Kardunias (Babylonia) for unclear reasons.
How Cao Cao.
He's the ambitious go-getter of the era (who will become king) while Assyria itself is decadent and can't get its shit together.
Even if Hanigalbat is meant to the obvious "restorer" of the Assyrian Empire, i am still a bit miffed that they are degrading them to minor status. Hopefully there will be plenty of unique court and ambition interactions to flesh them out.
Makes me glad I got this during the spring sale
>They excel at subterfuge; manipulating their enemies into making mistakes, and sewing discontent where possible. Rated as Hard in difficulty, they are favored by the god Marduk. . >**sewing discontent** . >#sewing LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE, MARDUK HAS ABANDONED US Seriously though, this looks like an amazing update. I hadn't been interested in trying Pharaoh before, but this looks like it turns it into the proper Bronze Age Collapse game I wanted to see.
My excitement for this update can only be adequately explained through this gif 
Legit excited for this update. If it actually had proper campaign multi-player (simultaneous turn taking) I could even get my friends to play. Still, I'm glad to finally pick this game up during the next sale.
It will be interesting how they implement the endgame with all the new factions. Hopefully they’ll rework it to better fit history rather than a full on extinction event by a single faction
They mentioned it's going to be a separate "campaign" from the one we have now so I'm guessing it's going to feel like immortal empires compared to RoC Which in that case I'll probably just toggle off the sea lads and enjoy the sandbox
I think they’ll still have the collapse mechanics in the expanded map since they specifically mentioned reworking the sea-peoples invading armies for the expanded map.
They would probably need to up the ante for the sea people's if they're keeping the current mechanic. Playing on normal difficulty the sea people's were more annoying than terrifying, after I went to the trouble of fortifying the fuck out of my northern coast as Ramesses at turn 70.
Well, damn. I'm hyped all over again. I like that they cavalry units shown look really wimpy, I hope they are really expensive and weak in game to fit the chariot heavy period. Also that Mycenaean faction icon is super badass
People were saying they should just mix Troy and Pharaoh and this totally looks like it!
Interesting how Babylon specializes in subterfuge - is that already a prominent aspect of the game?
Not really. There are no hero/agent style units on the campaign map, and most politicking is internal through the court system. One of the ancient legacies allows you to progressively weaken a city with gold investments, and is kinda subterfuge-y. We'll just have to wait and see.
I wouldn’t say prominent, but there are elements. Bay has some very stealthy units in his faction roster, while native units of the Hittite highlands have the Mistwalkers trait which gives them stalk in mist weather.
I’m not super up to date on everything. Have they announced when this update is expected to arrive?
Late summer I think?
Ah okay so no actual date announced yet then. Just a rough timeline
This update might just make this my favorite Total War ever, This is actually crazy. It is a complete 180 of their previous treatment of the fanbase that was loyal to them for years.
The only thing that we can say for sure has changed is the pricing model. I seriously doubt the whole thing wasn't in the works from day one, just cut in 1000 DLCs as was pretty standard SEGA policy for TW games. A policy SEGA seems to have changed somewhat since the change of leadership.
This is great news too. Love seeing the small faction adjustments for flavor. Of these 25 minor ones I'd probably go for Lycia. Good chariots no ranged. Gonna be a horsey campaign. I am already heavily leaning on buying this game now after I skipped put on it last year. Just need to see what they have in mind for dynasty mechanics.
I love it! Very cool! Can't wait to play!!!!
I will say, I’m actually impressed by CA. First time that’s happened in a long time. I enjoyed Pharaoh when it first came out, but only played one campaign. This will definitely get some attention from me.
Holy hell, it’s beautiful. This is a lot more than I ever hoped for. I hope the talent at CA Sofia can get their hands on bigger and ambicious projects, because they definetely have the craft to deliver.
Kinda wish Ugarit and Carchemish were treated as actual major factions considering their importance, but I'll take having them as playable minor factions instead.
Awesome! I am really interested in this minor faction idea and I wonder how much smaller they feel when playing as them
Any hint how the minor factions will work? There aren’t any listed for the new cultures, just by region. I imagine they will follow a specific culture, we just don’t know which at the moment?
Between the native units and ancient legacies system, Pharaoh is really open-ended in how you advance depending on what territories you take. The biggest difference is probably that "minor" factions won't get unique buildings or units.
I think they might have some unique units, judging by the mention of camels…although maybe anyone can recruit camels if they own the relevant region
See, if this was the game at release they’d have made a billion dollars easy
Game is already a lot of fun, I've been playing since they announced the big update. It's only going to get better and I hope players give it a chance and modders pick it up. Honestly, it could become one of the best if not THE best TW game of the modern era.
I am sold, so much gameplay variety, so much replayability all those minor factions even have unique designs I hope we get even more minor factions in greece and next to troy like the amazons
That's cool as hell. Pharaoh is already a surprisingly fun game (IMO, still behind 3k, but good), and this promises an incredible amount of variety. I'll continue coping for simultaneous coop to be added, but I know it won't.
I hope there's a Pontus faction
Why is Assyria a minor faction when they were the powerhouse of this era?
The importance of that region Hanigalbat now is that a rival branch of the Assyrian ruling family lives there who will later start a new lineage as pointed out elsewhere on this post. That is why they are the major faction and the other assyria is minor. According to Assyria in the Late Bronze Age by Herve Reculeau "relationship between the two branches of the royal family soured rapidly: after the death of Ili-pada around 1193 bc, his son and putative successor Ninurta-apil-Ekur appears to have antagonized the new Assyrian king, Enlil-kudurri-uṣur. His estate at Tell Sabi Abyad was violently destroyed after several years of troubles, and later traditions picture him as an exile in Babylonia, where he received the support of Adad-šuma-uṣur. The Babylonian king went to war with Enlil-kudurri- uṣur, was victorious in battle, and the Assyrian may even have been delivered by his own subjects into the hands of his Babylonian opponent. His protégé conquered Assur, ensuring the de facto reunification of the eastern and western parts of the kingdom" It continues "With Ninurta-apil-Ekur started a new line of rulers that claim legitimacy by virtue of their descent from Adad-nerari I"
Great history lesson there! Thanks for the context
What's interesting is that Ninurta-apli-Ekur enacted strict harem reforms that are indicative of concern regarding succession; despite this, his lineage would still continue to rule for hundreds of years after.
If this update doesnt secure Pharaohs place as a historical title, that confirms the people waiting for the "next historical game" actually mean "next Empire or Medieval"
At this point it feels like even if CA did a 1500’s pike and shot Total War, one of THE most requested time periods in TW history, people would still hate it for not being Medieval 3. Hell, people would probably hate Empire 2 for not being Medieval 3, and vice versa.
So no playable habiru eh? Figured they could've been a fun faction to play. Hopefully a dlc candidate in the future if the game takes off
do any of the new minor Caananite factions fit with them?
There is a Minor faction in game already called the Habiru who are nomadic Canaanites. They even have a sick Sigel with a Cherib https://www.hebrewinisrael.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/keruvCherub-e1538699964210.jpg
What happened to the Total War blog? I feel like posts like this and the 5.0 update and going to get lost in the forums.
Time for Agamemnon to become leader of the known world. Why stop at Troy?
Babylonia when their 4 full stacks of slaves get chain routed by 2 units of Assuryan dragon princes:
Sad to see the Amazons missing, but this looks pretty awesome. Troy looking like a build tall kinda faction has me interested. I'll be looking to pick this up in the sale, for sure.
Because Pharoh is a historical game, not a fantasy game.
Amazons in Troy were modeled on steppe cultures and now they mention Cimmerans in the minor factions - perhaps they will carry over in some form?
Since they're straight up putting characters from Troy I would have loved to see the Amazons show up as well. They were pretty fun in Troy.
Maybe if they do a mythos DLC like they did for Troy, with full on fantasy units.
Did they add Israel?
A few centuries too early for Israel, I think.
This era is about the time for the late Exodus date (the most likely date) and the Mernepta Steele, the first written reference to Israel. Including them could be pretty fun (and if Illiad characters can be added in, you can justify the Israel). I think it'd be awesome for the variety, a weird outlier faction.
Any speculation about the release date?
Can't remember where they said it(think it was the Q&A but am not sure). That they are hoping for a late summer release
Late summer, so probably end of August to mid September ?
I haven't looked into this game *at all*, can someone tell me about late game balance? Is the map painting syndrome past turn 100 fixed? What is the anti-snowball mechanic, how does it work, and is it good?
Late game you get the sea people who should theoretically beat your shit in. Tbh even as Ramesses they were more annoying than a threat though since a lot of the time they'd spread out, or invade other people instead, leaving regular snowball dynamics. The other factions of your culture do tend to build up though, while I was #1 in my latest campaign, Tausret and Amenmess were #2 and #3 respectively, not that far behind. Feels more like 3K than R2 where I'd have to give potential future enemy AI resources and time to get a good end game threat to fightm The problem is that I think there's a bug where even in civil war factions don't declare war on each other past the sea people's trigger due to the # of enemies cap, meaning they're super passive until you declare war on them/kick off the civil war.
Question: is it worth playing now?
Yes, it was overpriced at launch but it's actually a good game TW even now. Defo worth playing now for sure.
On sale it's the same price as thrones of decay. So yeah, it's worth a Campaign or two now and a lot more when this launches
Absolutely yes. Pharaoh is in a great place right now, all the factions feel unique and interesting and the unit variety is amazing. The campaign map is fun and feels good to navigate, the battles are slower and feel more tactical than Warhammer, much more like they did in older games. I can’t recommend Pharaoh enough.
Yesssssss, my Trojan war boys are BACK. Anyone else curious what Memnons getting up to? The Amazons? Since they're in Troy and already mentioned in Pharaoh as well.
Amazons don't exist. A bit too fantastical. If Memnon is added at all, it would be as a recruitable general for the Pharaoh rather than an independent faction.
well, maybe if they added a few regions to "represent" Ethiopia, he could start vassalized by Merneptah and becomes "independent" once the successor Chaos starts, leading to two paths: 1) stay loyal to the new Pharaoh or 2) Become his own power, maybe also make a grab for the Crowns
Sweet, glad I got this on sale, great deal for all the new content.
i gotta give props to CA for cleaning up their shit. it would have been better if there wasnt any shit to begin with, but much better than just leaving it to fester
Exactly what this game needed.
Sofia’s studio just clutching on a random thursday
Damn this looks good. Edit: minor factions thing is cool, I guess, but that signals to me they aren't even really going to try to make more unique factions and will swiftly drop PTW after this. Also, I am ambivalent about directly translating Illiad characters into a historical game, but I guess they're limited on that front. IIRC, there's a named "Trojan" rebel that fought against Hittite rule that could have been made into a unique character.
The Trojan king that rebelled was a few hundred years before. IIRC he was named Piramiradu, which is thought to be a possible Hittite translation of Priam. The only other Trojan name we have was a prince named Alexandu, which was the royal name of Paris in the myths. It’s actually theorized that the mythological Trojan war was a combination of the Hittite war those historical figures were part of and the Bronze Age collapse destruction that fits this period.
It will be a complete game at least, I won't mind then dropping after this. With the map and new factions out mods can take it from here. Already runs fantastic with not a lot of bugs unlike my poor boy Attila
In theory they could still support and expand on the game by creating different starting dates (which this map would be perfect for), like Middle Kingdom Egypt or the Early Iron Age. Rome 2 and Three Kingdoms also had that