A New Era Of Pharaoh Begins | Everything You Need To Know! [AD]

[@GamerZakh]

So what do you think? Support the channel by clicking *THIS* link: streaml.ink/pneg-yt-gamerzakh It goes straight to the *Steam* page, so click it and look at the game. Wishlisting and buying helps too. Thanks to Dotemu and Pharaoh: A New Era for sponsoring! If you only buy from *GOG* here's a referral link for that: af.gog.com/en/game/pharaoh_a_new_era?as=1715648857

[@michaelmacdonell4834]

"...a puddle of inexperience..." My how I laughed. Don't ask... I'd say there's something special about the dude that put this together. Not everyone will understand what devs are trying to achieve, and then try to play that way! I guess if you are a lightning rod for, ahem, "features, does this make you a lightning bug?

[@samhwu5233]

They literally made the military system like moblie game, there's always have better option for replacing that, but they decided to pick the worst option for fix it. Huge disappointment for me.

[@mattjames6349]

The thing is I've never played any of them but your videos are making me more and more curious! :)

[@Rex1987]

overall i really like it - but i think the Military in Pharaoh a new era should be something that you toggle on or off. Make the player have the freedom to play how they want.

[@SxSxG666]

I don't like the kid friendly mobile phone game graphics at all. I doubt they are the targeted group, so I ask myself why. The zoo building looks particularly bad. Especially those anachronistic metal bars that are clearly not made of copper.

[@emilsoderman3691]

The main problem with the new military system is that it completely removes defensive planning as part of your actual city building. Like what part of your city you enclose within a wall, or have defended and such.

[@derigin]

Hmm, I wonder if one solution or compromise on that with this new system might be if the developers could let you wall in/defend areas of the city that wouldn't be impacted as much or at all by building destruction or other punitive actions if you were to lose a battle? It would at least encourage the construction of defensive structures, and give them purpose.

[@ribspqd]

YEs the walls have become useless

[@szut88]

Yes, and why would you even care for your troops ? The tense of seeing the enemy at the gates and praying that the men comes early enough is now gone. Surely they could have improved that aspect of the game (having an advisor giving you probable attack locations ? Bigger maps but you cannot build beyond an area ?) rather than taking it completely out of the player hands... After all the battle happening on the same map as the city was one of Caesar III big features ! It seems a really strange design decision even as I try to put myself in the game designer shoes. On one side they put little options to let people play it exactly as the original, and at the same time they force a rather large change on an important aspect of the game (since a bit of micromanagement can recover you a lot of time !!). And let's be honest, as a kid the Caesar III battles were half of my motives to play those games ! The formations made it look more realistic than in AoE and the number of units was higher in Caesar III... Whoever had its city saved thanks to a well set-up network of gladiator schools, amphitheaters, coliseums and lion trainer or defeated Caesar legions knows what I mean. And finally, those bits of fighting break a bit the "build/wait/adjust" loop of the game. I did not play a lot of Cleopatra though, so perhaps the military side was indeed too broken on this one.

[@filipstamate1564]

Yeah, don't really like it. I think everyone is aware of the issues in the original game, but that doesn't mean the only solution is completely stripping down the military. A lot of the issues (like the controls) could have been fixed instead. Oh yeah, and the loses for enemies looked like they're always the full amount of soldiers they had. Probably a bug? Anyway, thanks for video Zakh, I'll keep watching if you continue because I like to see you play, but I see no reason to play this one myself. I'm fine with the original.

[@thegamingwolf8755]

There are some who are reporting that mini map is not added in. I do hope that the mini map will be added in.

[@jesseleesamples]

Your channel was the first thing that came to my mind when I went to watch something on KZbin while downloading the game. I loved this game as a kid SO MUCH but I never knew a single other person who even knew it existed. I was so happy when I found your channel to see someone else who has so much love and nostalgia for this game like I do. I will have your videos on while playing the new version and I want to thank you for making more people aware of this great game and for showing love for it. I feel like it never got the love/attention it deserved.

[@GamerZakh]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate your kind words. I didn't think people knew these games either. When I did my first Caesar 3 playthrough there wasn't another playthrough on all of KZbin. Turns out there's a lot of us now haha.

[@DmytroBogdan]

@@GamerZakh we're mostly quiet crowd who just enjoy playing and don't talk too much, he-he

[@jerrykirchoff8412]

Best line... Completion is not necessary for adoration.

[@GamerZakh]

I think most people never finished the games back in the day.

[@melkor_of_utumno]

​@GamerZakh Most people probably played them as kids as well, and may have found later missions to be too complicated. I played Caesar 3 as young as 6, but never finished until I was 13.

[@fenrirgg]

​@@GamerZakh as a kid I had the game in English but I didn't know English, every discovery I made was very exciting 😂

[@Agimam]

Big maps is gonna be hell without a minimap

[@RaineAsteria]

This game came on my Homeworld CD. I can't tell you how many times I replayed the two missions they give you access to. This game's just plain addicting.

[@Mrblackmystery]

I remember looking through your old vids of this game. Watching you play the remade game is so nostalgic and brings me great joy!

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! I'm really glad you enjoyed them.

[@TSpoon823]

Ooooooh man, I'm beyond excited for this play through Zakh! Haven't been able to be around the channel much lately, but I'm certainly going to follow along for this one. Edit: I don't know if anyone else hears it, but I think there's an Easter Egg from Caesar 3 in the audio. Maybe someone has already mentioned it in previous videos, but it sounds like they are using different crowd sound effects and voices from C3 when you place houses and when people start to immigrate. You can hear it really strong at 42:50 If so, that's a cool little nod to fans of the series. Or maybe those were in the original Pharaoh?

[@GamerZakh]

Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it!

[@delapool1518]

The new art style can be a little hard to adapt but im glad that this game still alive! I grew up building the ugliest cities but having fun with this game.

[@davidromeroblaya7920]

It looks good. I expect that they remaster the intro but keeping the original voice over. For me, Pharaoh has the greatest intro in the Impression's city building series.

[@davidtye4232]

These games were fun and easy to learn and play. Plus nothing more satisfying than completing those monuments :)😀

[@PhoonBucgeneMY]

"History will be the judge, and me... I'll judge it too" LOL cracks me up.

[@mdonnel7]

Totally agree with you on the military. Could the original military mechanics be improved? Definitely. Are these the changes I was hoping for? Not really. The new military looks less frustrating, but also less fun. Not a dealbreaker for me, but certainly a let down.

[@GamerZakh]

Yeah the way I'm thinking about it is they basically removed all the bad things about the original military but didn't put anything new in, so it's mostly just stripped down.

[@LordDamo]

​@@GamerZakh I hope they can patch new stuff in later too

[@GamerZakh]

@@LordDamo They can but it would depend on the budget they receive to do it. People gotta be paid when it comes to official game dev.

[@tecorrompo]

@@GamerZakh You can also say that they removed the fun parts of military too. That's the biggest issue with the new system for me.

[@hylianrapsody7607]

It was on my whihlist, but since you are the reason I took back Emperor and Zeus after finding the old CDs I'll make sure to buy it using your link ! I hope it can repay the fun you provide us with all you smooth and calm gameplays.

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it and that you're having fun rediscovering these games.

[@huitzilcorp]

Hi Zakh I'm a huge Pharaoh fan and I was waiting for your review. I think they made a very good work with this game. They should have kept the videos though, like the first one that says "a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step", they were inspiring videos. Another thing correct me if I'm wrong they address you since the beginning as "Pharaoh", while in the OG they called by title (e.g. normach etc). Looking forward to see the other missions!

[@Moxx.666]

Finally, after a long time of waiting to enjoy this legend game again. It still has some things to improve, since some internal scripts are present in some descriptions. Maybe they will fix those little details in a future patch. The minimap is also missing. One of the things that I liked is the option to rotate the buildings, and to be able to choose the specific decorations like the one type of gardens instead of random gardens. This way you can give a unique touch to projects in large cities. In short, to return to the vice of hours and hours of construction of cities and monuments, especially the great pyramid complexes, were they great time devourers.

[@PianoGuy954]

The absence of the minimap is the first thing I noticed! Honestly I’m not sure why they didn’t include it, it’s a pretty standard and necessary feature. But other than that and notwithstanding small bugs it seems great !

[@roberttipple8937]

What a great balance of the old and new. I wonder if a compromise would be to know where the battle would be so you could put your units there, and have the auto battle on the map when they arrive? That almost sounds like a real battle, from a leaders' perspective, and it might allow for more thought for the walls and towers locations? 🤷‍♂️ Can't wait to see what the future holds, modding, new missions, etc? Looking forward to living vicariously through your gameplay. 😁

[@ribspqd]

I hope improvements on military mechanics

[@tammo100]

The new music is fantastic! I'm fine with the graphics new and old, although I think old has a little more character but new looks more polished. I would love to have an option to include old military in the new Pharaoh though.

[@Sebastian-yl7nq]

There's multiple gripes I have with this game to a point where playing this new one just made me go back to old game. -UI overall is, for me, clunkier and worse to navigate than the one from 1999. -Where's the minimap and why can't I rotate around?! -The military stuff, how they did it, really hurts a lot. This takes away from the planning you had to do with defense etc. It also eliminates the option to take care of hostile mobs which terrorise your population. It ain't all bad, there's a fair few good ideas in there and the artstyle is nice, but with a few glaring issues and the amount of bugs/glitches it has, I regret buying it.

[@Mescherje]

I *L O V E* the change in military. I've always considered Pharaoh as an economy builder, not an RTS - which I think is obvious for everyone. So, the RTS elements with military shouldn't be in the game from the very beginning, in whatever form. And especially not as broken as they were. It was a thing that I couldn't stand in the original. A a time Pharaoh was made it was quite common to experiment with mixing genres. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Pharaoh is a great example of the latter. The way they reworked it in New Era is good, as you still have the military element in the game, but only from the economy perspective. They could expand this idea for some more elements, like better training, better feeding, better commanders, all of which could improve the quality of your army. But maybe that would be another game, not a Pharaoh. So, as it is, it's infinitely better than it was in original.

[@SovereignRO]

Yes I remember NUBT :))). This seems like a very good remaster, I have very fond memories of playing the game on my old PC as a child. If I were to ask for anything, it would be the ability to zoom out a bit more to enjoy the sight of the grand cities. I look forward to playing tonight!

[@GamerZakh]

Yeah zooming out is nice but I also kind of wanted to go a bit further out. Glad you're enjoying it!

[@DmytroBogdan]

Wow, your narrative skill has improved a lot since the days of the original Pharaoh. Nice intro!

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! I've been working hard to improve things over the years.

[@DmytroBogdan]

@@GamerZakh why they didn't hire you to voice over Victory screen? That intonation was PERFECT and I just recently replayed through old Pharaoh so its fresh in memory

[@TazThaKid]

im 31 now, i think i played pharaoh shortly after release. so i was very young, but i got the building down to an extend. played on the easiest difficulty to just enjoy and build pretty cities with a pyramid as a center of attention. i have to say my memory is pretty vague, but i think i didnt like the military system. from your showcase mr zakh, i think they made the right decision to scrap the micromanagment (putting soldiers in specific locations, controlling them etc) and focus on the macromanagment (citiy building, "producing" units, building towers) because thats the strong suit of pharaoh. yes i agree they dont let you control your units anymore and give you less "freedom", but in return they give you more freedom with the city building. towers count to defence as long as you build them nomatter where. units count no matter where they are. walls dont do anything anymore? which leaves it as a "beautification". so you can focus solely ((?) my english is bad sorry) on city building and make the best most functional and beautiful city you can. But thats just me. i hope everyone who decides to get the game has fun with it, and if not thats sad, but like zakh said, theres still tho old one :) Greetings and enjoy your gaming, people :)

[@thenaiam]

GamerZakh, I'm here for your playthrough and analysis, and yes, humor and nostalgia! I'm so stoked!

[@GamerZakh]

I'm glad you're enjoying it!

[@thenaiam]

​@@GamerZakhI really appreciate your nuanced view and breakdown of the change in the military part of the game.

[@J_Z913]

I'm so stoked/worried for this game! I went out and bought it. I completely forgot to use your link though so I joined the Patreon instead!

[@GamerZakh]

Hey thank you so much! That's really kind of you. I'm glad you're enjoying it!

[@samnic90]

A few years ago when I got to know your channel it was this game and your playthrough that catched me! Just bought it trough your referral link. Thanks for sharing the love and beautiful covering of the game!

[@Jokie155]

I feel so stupid for buying it off my wishlist rather than using the link. I'll try get a plaza coaster instead, keep up the good work.

[@GamerZakh]

Hey thank you so much! No worries about not using the link, the main important thing is you got what you wanted and it was convenient. You watching the video already helps and thanks for considering the plaza coasters!

[@ydjeen]

Thx for you comment, it reminded me to use the link :)

[@JudgeAnnibal]

And so it begins! Already wishlisted from your link and will buy it ASAP!

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! Have fun playing!

[@renee4393]

I love the way you cover these games and commentary. Thank you for playing them for us ☺️

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! I'm really glad you're enjoying it.

[@roankai]

Zakh, I've been watching you for years and I'm so hyped both for you and all who watches your playthroughs! :D what a time to be alive!

[@GamerZakh]

Thank you! I really appreciate it.

[@lucabaracuda987]

NOW this is what im talking about.. waited for this for quite a WHILE !!!!

[@GamerZakh]

It has been quite a few years!

[@jediloop]

Thanks for the reminder that New Era is launching today! I just bought it on Steam, with your link . As for the RTS aspect and the military - I'm actually hugely pleased with the approach they took in New Era. I love Pharaoh, but the truth is that the original game I NEVER finished, precisely because of the advanced missions with the military aspect. Maybe some general idea was interesting (city builder + RTS), but the execution was terrible. Now I hope to finally get through Pharaoh from A to Z, precisely because at least the challenge aspect with the military remains (buildings, warriors, etc.), but the nasty pseudo-RTS that never worked well is gone.

[@Willpolita]

Finally this day has arrived, I remember saying here that I met this game through a magazine that sold games here in Brazil, I love Egypt and fell in love with Pharao, spent time playing the main campaign several times, reading everything that I had, playing for full days, I loved it so much in this game and now I will finally be able to play it in this beautiful remake

[@CaptWolfman]

Definitely getting this game when I get home. Graphics look awesome. Going to be fun playing through Pharaoh again.

[@circadianarchist]

I'm almost 30 and never managed to finish any of the Sierra games, nor to become a pro like you. But that's why I love them: the challenge never ends. I still remember the first time I tried to play, without reading the manual, and couldn't figure out how to feed people... the intro of this video gave me such nostalgia :)

[@themetalhippieplays7993]

I’m so excited to play the original for the first time along with this playthrough. My computor can’t handle the graphics of this remake. Let’s hope they make the same remake of Ceasar 3 😍

[@tammo100]

There are two unofficial remakes of Caesar 3. Julius and Augustus Mod. Julius is basically C3 gameplay with some UI enhancements, while Augustus includes a lot of extra options, buildings and gameplay. Both mods are free to download. I use Julius and it works fine.

[@themetalhippieplays7993]

@@tammo100 yeah that I know, I actually just completed a forced walker playthrough with Augustus. What I mean is like this remake of Pharaoh, with upgraded graphics and audio. Maybe they should even hire the team behind Augustus :)

[@chezannelavieendouceur]

Looks like fun, love that they kept the essentials of the aesthetics. Ok the grass and floodplain seem to look wobbly but really enjoy what they did with the buildings and people, so all in all it's a win for me and can't wait to play it!

[@crimsongamer2337]

I'm so looking forward to this game and all the new stuff that's been added. Pharaoh was one of my favourite Impression games. I'm hoping the remake is just as good. However, I will admit I'm not a big fan of the new military system, I liked being able to control/micro-manage my troops around the map (despite how janky military was in the OG Pharaoh).

[@RuSosan]

Oh yeah! Just got off to an extended weekend, arrived home with a whole bunch of my favorite Nepalese takeout and there's a new Gamerzakh Pharaoh-video to watch as I eat and knock back a few rum colas. Life is good. 😆👍

[@argentum746]

See, the problem i have with the military change is, that it seemed solvable but instead of investing some time and do proper work, they just nuked it. The original Military was not not good because of how it worked, it was not good because of the restricted controls, the restricted presentation, with outdated UI designs, because of technical issues and bad information flow. Those are all things easily fixed because the genre itself advanced a great deal and technology, UI design and so on reached a state, where these things are fixable. In that sense, the sole work they had to do, was remastering the combat by improving the controls, by improving the information flow for the player with clearer info flow and more ways to obtain the info (for proper decisionmaking), improving the UI and so on. Pretty much, what the goal with this Remake/Remaster was. But apparently this was too much of work for them, so instead they just took it out and replaced it with a few cheap windows with bad presentation. Pretty much the lazy job. What bothers me is, that they implemented a new combat system in 2023, that now has the same flaws as the different combat had in the old version of Pharao, but its just working differently, not better. It now still looks like garbage, it now still has basically not a lot of info, it still is bothersome because its there but you cant really do a lot with it. I wished they took the old combat system and heavily refined it. Yeah sure it wasnt good the way it was. But then improve the aspects that made it bad but keep the good core. And personally i liked the way Combat worked in Caesar and Emperor. Dated? Yes. But thats fair decades later, isnt it? Then fix the problems and its fine. Modders did that to some degree with the limitations and its still better than what New Era does now. If it worked like an AutoBattler, lets say like Heros Hour works, cool. I would dig that. Let me place soldiers, let them battle it out, allow me to give some minor orders during the AutoBattle. Cool. But its just a badly animated window. Lazy. And i absolutely hate using that term. But just scrapping and replacing it with a few windows instead of actually working on it appears to be the lazy decision of all the options they had in how they could deal with it.

[@spikelilgirl]

I had Pharaoh, but my copy was corrupted and I couldn't play it to the end. 😪 Loved Zeus and played it over and over. This looks like a good remake.

[@mebamme]

Dang, I was hoping I could finally beat the original game + Cleopatra before the remake came out! It's my favorite childhood game but I _still_ haven't played all the campaign missions. Either way, this is great news :)

[@GamerZakh]

It took me 7 years to finish the original game, so I know how tough that is haha.

[@yurisc4633]

Glad that they kept the original voice acting.

[@GamerZakh]

Hard to beat that lol. Even if you redo it perfectly today it'll basically be just as good as the original.

[@RowanPartridge]

In OG military my standard tactic when advised of an enemy invasion, I would save the game at 6 months, 2 months, 1 month, let the game run until the invasion arrived, noted the spawn of the enemy forces, reload the saved game and predeploy my forces to be ready for them. Cheating? Nah, military intelligence...my spies and scouts had detected the enemy's approach and warned my general. The changes in NE will be a new learning curve but my military instincts will be up to the challenge.

[@Gautamdange]

I am getting some free time this weekend, watching the new Pharaoh playlist! - your playthrough, Zakh this is probably the best weekend waiting for me :)

[@MaxHohenstaufen]

Once I read some interview with the developer from I think it was impressions games, anyway, a dev from most if not all the games in the famous city building series e.g caesar, pharoh, zeus, etc. He was the director I think, a key dev. I think gamerzakh has interviewed him on this channel. But I digress, in said interview, he recognized the military was not great in these games, that he wanted some things different, but that given to reasons (whatever limitations) he had to choose either leave that as it eventually turned out to be (not great) or ditch the whole military thing completely, but they simply couldn't not include some form of combat in the game since it was a very popular thing at the time with all aoe games hype and all. In sum, combat was never the focus of these games originally, but they decided to include something, although he was not very happy with how it turn out. Well, in the case of this remake (or remaster, i'm not sure how to call it), I strongly believe that, if they were to take such a different direction from the OG, they should've just done what this dev said he considered doing back in the day and leave it the military part out altogether. As it is now I do not think it contributes to the game experience in any way. I mean, some ppl never liked it anyway, but they removed any possible fun elements to the military and left only the nuisance of having to keep a military. That is, if you 're one who don't care for having the military part, you'll still gonna be annoyed that you have to make forts, weapons and a recruiter, it saves you none of the nuisance, but if you like the combat part, well, there's none anymore. So, of all things they included as options, this should be the first that you should just mark as "no", same as "predators". Honestly, I do not care to watch that "battle screen".

[@lisas946]

I installed this yesterday and was very excited, like you. Your videos helped me a lot with the OG game. I note a couple problems I experienced in Men-Efer? I kept getting Overseer warnings that no one wanted to live in my city because my taxes were too high - it was at the default 9% WTF?? I had to drop it down to 5% and finally 2% to keep families moving in - even though I had a whole block of Spacious Apartments. And if your people leaving from taxation, they also leave because of unemployment. I lost like half of my population late in this scenario, so then all my services were understaffed.. These triggers need to be tweaked by the Devs. I restarted that city twice & still couldn't get past it. Another issue with the Gods constantly "blessing " me with full Storage Yards. I kept running out of room for my actual produce!! Sad to see this video didn't get that far. I was hoping to see what I was doing wrong. Maybe tomorrow you'll upload it. Thank You for uploading these playthroughs!

[@awordabout...3061]

Bought this yesterday and have already played up to the Old Kingdom - I wish the minimap and the military system had been kept, but otherwise it's stable and fun! In terms of bugs so far: - Traders always give the 'The city won't trade' line when leaving the city after buying goods. - The kingdom road blocked message keeps popping up even when no blockage exists, and despite the message nothing is demolished. I'm sure there will be others. I look forward to seeing how the balance changes affect the really huge cities and big military scenarios in the New Kingdom!

[@andrebrasil4229]

I'm posting this comment before the video, but I can honestly cite some QOL stuff that hugely improves the game (which was already amazing) 1- Flood does not kill delivery workers that can't deliver their goods 2- You can build during pause 3- Global workforce option (to me it improves the game quite a lot) 4- You can immediately empty (throw away) stuff in Granaries and Storehouses 5- The overseer of Granaries actually makes accurate food predictions (the OG one underestimated your production a LOT) Those are some things I noticed after playing the game for 2ish hours today, quite pleased overall.

[@SuperSajuuk]

Point 1 in your list is not a feature, it is a bug that was supposed to be fixed but seems to have been missed before launch.

[@andrebrasil4229]

@@SuperSajuuk Well then, I legit thought it was a feature, since the graphics of the flood seemed rather shallow (I mean literally). Thanks for the explanation!

[@owler4167]

One minor thing I have noticed is in Perwadjyt mission kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z6i0nJuKYph1iZI the fig cart didn't sink despite staying on the flood plains- a nice minor change. This makes me wonder if you can actually use flood plain road even when they are under water. As for the military, the hands on approach was perhaps more satisfying but I remember it breaking the game for me. In one of the OG missions (Khmun, if I remember correctly) I was always getting a crash during a certain invasion (possibly because of sprite limit?) after which I have sadly never come back to Pharaoh again.

[@put1996]

If the on-map RTS was removed, what's the point of wall? One of my additional solution is... randomly destroy some building, not just taking money. However, the building will only be selected from building not inside the wall. This will maintain wall usefulness and not put that much workload on the dev too much, just reuse immigration walker function where "Treat gate as wall, if walker can reach = outside wall, if not = inside wall.".

[@GamerZakh]

That's a good suggestion, if you're up to it you should send it to the developers.

[@put1996]

@@GamerZakh How do I contact them?

[@GamerZakh]

@@put1996 The Pharaoh ANE Discord is the best place I think, they have a lot of discussions there and they have a bug report channel as well if you come across anything.

[@Morbazan125]

I used to design cities on graph paper🤣 always preferred symmetrical designs with the biggest pyramid in the centre.

[@ivan1450]

Used to play this game with my mom,back at 2001.

[@pauljohnson3317]

I like the new military system. It fits more with what a mayor of a city would be doing: train, pay, and feed the troops and have them do the fighting.

[@stevenjohns1322]

Well it’s looking promising so far now let’s get on with the journey 😊👍

[@GamerZakh]

It's a long way! Hopefully not another 7 years for me to finish this haha

[@DmytroBogdan]

A few words about the military. There are actually 3 types of opinions here: ones who enjoy RTS elements, one who doesn't care and the one who just likes the feeling of accomplishment watching equipped/upgraded squad of soldiers and moving them around the city or sending to a distant city for help. I'm in the 3rd camp and think I could play even without lame battle simulation screen, just a table at the end would suffice BUT there is no more of that accomplishment feeling because I can't see or control my units. I realize it would take more development time but maybe it could return in one of the future updates?

[@Lociak]

Hi its me again 😄 tipp for you. When you build pyramid or sth please check you can see the bottom. I tried to save space and took pyramid where the top was "out od map" but the gamę let you take this down. Finally there was a bug in the ending where you cant see bottom and they stopped bulid pyramid. I had to load some before autosave because my save was crashed. 😑 Just in case 🙂

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! Hopefully they fix that one soon.

[@piskalmighty]

Very excited! I know longer have the free time to play this game, but am excited to follow your journey!

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks for joining!

[@RebelAstronaut55]

I used to play the old game 20 years ago when I was kid and didn't understand English. I knew what means Start, Next, Exit, Cancel, Click, Install, Error and that was all my English. The new game is looking great.

[@ktcd1172]

I sincerely hope that they fixed the difficulty bug with the 3rd mission. Personally I always found it to be the pits to have to remember to drop from Very Hard to Normal just for that mission. Mostly because many times it would start mission four with the lower difficulty recorded even if I got it changed before opening the map.

[@LordOfNothingreally]

I'm gunna have to pick this game up. Pharaoh was one of my favourites growing up

[@TheKeyser94]

I was bored so I was passing by the pages that I usually download games, and this one appear, I known that it was going to be a remaster of this game, so I download it and began to play it, this is a proper remaster of a game, not spend 30G in graphics, the new UI is very helpful, even after many years I still have problems arranging the houses, even that the UI is very helpful in knowing where to put the buildings.

[@sophiamarchildon3998]

And the crowd goes wild!!!

[@PolarisLP]

15:51 it's cool that you can rotate the buildings and that the shadows are consistent. But why are the flags not pointing in the same, uniform, direction? How can they put so much thought into rotating buildings and then forgetting about the flags!

[@GamerZakh]

Yeah that's an easy thing to overlook. Should be an easy fix once they get the bugs.

[@waleedkyk]

A quick question about the mechanics behind workers and employment. How do you ensure a building is fully staffed ? So at random times, buildings (eg: granary, brewery, pottery etc.) just loose their work force and stop functioning. The population is high, unemployment is rising, there is access to roads, houses are within a reasonable distance from buildings. I've read through a ton of forums with no solution. Any idea how you'd go about solving this problem ?

[@GamerZakh]

Ah yes, so in A New Era there are 2 options for how it works. You can toggle Global Employment in the settings. If that's on, working buildings just always have workers and can access your population. If it's off and how it was like in the original game, working buildings send out a walker people call a 'worker seeker'. That walker walks down streets taking random turns like most other walkers and the building it came from will only get workers if it passes a couple houses. It doesn't need to pass a lot of houses, just 1 or 2, and then the building it came from will have access to your entire population.

[@GamerZakh]

Oh to add, if you want stable employment in a building, that worker seeker needs to pass a couple houses every time it spawns, so you need to ensure working buildings are on a closed loop with a house or two or that there's only one way for the worker seeker to walk that will pass a house.

[@marcocasula4592]

I played and replayed caesar3 over the years, but for some reason never played the original pharaoh... this is the perfect chance to jump on board!

[@Nyst2]

I really like how good the buildings look and the quality of life improvements to the gameplay. However. The worst thing I can say about this game is that it doesn't trigger my nostalgia at all. I see this game and more then anything I want to replay the original rather then buy this one.

[@memoriummemorium205]

Downloading now can't wait to play look forward to sharing views and also looking forward to see your videos again

[@AndyNgFL]

pls review !

[@AndyNgFL]

does the DL include Cleopatra ?

[@elkarion]

Thanks for the overview, @GamerZakh! Just a small correction. The game music is not just a remix. It is the same music, yes, but completely redone using real musical instruments (live recording), as opposed to the original game music, that was using a synthesizer (computer created). Also some sounds were recreated (mainly all the building sounds and all the ambient sounds). The new music and sounds are great and probably the best thing that came from this remake. On a less positive note, even though they took their sweet time to fix bugs, the game fails on basic things like detecting all available screen resolutions. For instance, i can't play on my native 16:10 resolution and a lot of people are noting it does not work on ultra wide resolutions. Font scaling is also not implemented, and this is a big issue for people with reduced eyesight.

[@GamerZakh]

I didn't say it was a remix, I said it was a rearrangement with some recomposition. Rearrangement means redone with new instruments and stuff. Recomposition means the actual notes and timings change. So switching from syth sounds to actual instruments but maintaining melodies would be a rearrangement. Bugs are a bit of a problem right now yeah, they need to get on that because there's a lot of small ones too.

[@elkarion]

@@GamerZakh Ok, my bad. I misunderstood you. Thanks again for the video. I don't know how you managed to released so fast, but congrats and keep the great work!

[@GamerZakh]

@@elkarion Thanks! And no worries, I struggle with picking the right terminology as well, I just try to learn what I can from my wife haha.

[@shadybizz8967]

gosh I hope a caesar remake is in the books now that they have the engine and mechanics ironed out. a revival of impression games would be lit. I like the change to military. I honestly never got the OG pharaoh and opted to watch Zakh instead because military was so stressful. I’ll actually get this one now

[@GamerZakh]

Remaking the other games probably depends on how much money this makes. If they turn a big profit it would encourage them to push for the rest of the series.

[@shadybizz8967]

@@GamerZakh the steam reviews note a bunch of bugs - have you noticed any game altering bugs? I’m still interested in getting it, maybe will just hold off for a few patches or something

[@GamerZakh]

@@shadybizz8967 Yeah there's quite a few bugs. Most small stuff but it adds up. They alread released one patch, so if you're not rushing you can wait a couple weeks and check what patches are released.

[@RowanPartridge]

Forts need more equipment. Archer forts advise that the archers need composite bows made with wood by a "Bowmaker". Infantry forts need soldiers equipped with hide-covered shields, the hides obtained from hunting antelope and made by a "Shieldmaker". In the scenarios I have played (Old Kingdom) so far, these facilities are not offered. Is this a game deficiency or am I missing something?

[@GamerZakh]

Those things become available in later missions.

[@yonstenger]

Very excited to get home from work today so I can play this game!

[@TriBermuda2112535]

Forced worker tips still worked in this game not same method but it can work with every buildings included 1x1 building

[@GamerZakh]

Yeah it's easier to do now and the UI showing the spawns makes it clear.

[@fajarn7052]

Its a nice concept for the military, but I would say that the jankiness is what makes pharaoh, pharaoh. More brainstorming might be good for the Towers. Winning a battle should let us loot something too.

[@theblackdragon7321]

Seems like the pop bug is fixed? Awesome. I can't wait to get this at some point. Ty for the vid Zakh!!

[@matt5742]

I thought of you the moment I got a steam notification that this was on sale!

[@Kaazzaam88]

Thank you for this detailed video and your analysis, love to see this missions on your channel :)

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.

[@LindaMissad]

sooo excited to see this. One question: Can you set up the beginning basics on Pause like in some of the later games?

[@GamerZakh]

Yes you can now build while paused, so that makes it easier to manage.

[@Nelson-Sunburn]

finally one of the greatest simulation games is back.. i remember playing this one in my student days LOL

[@haconen3201]

Fantastic video mate, thank you for the break downs

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! Glad you found it useful.

[@rusyanyasin7210]

I really like this new version of Pharaoh, and the cheat box is working just like the old game... One thing that is saddened me is that it's a pity they didn't make a video for each campaign like the old Pharaoh

[@fajarn7052]

I hope it would be a mini strategy/turn based game instead, with phases, etc. We can use our assets as cards to deploy each phase. I think that would be great if they can.

[@paradicsompaszta]

Did you play a pre-release version? There were missing texts (at 21:55 and 32:50) and you didn't comment on that. I also noticed you did your best not to show these issues for too long because they sponsored you. Do you know if they fixed these issues in the release version?

[@GamerZakh]

Wait which text is missing at 21:55? I straight up don't see the missing text, so I can't comment on it. For 32:50, I specifically zoomed in and showed it super clearly. Everyone will see that lol, c'mon how am I hiding or avoiding it? Yeah a tooltip is missing text, I don't really care about that but wanted to show it anyway. If I wanted to hide it, you wouldn't see it. I don't have much to say about it. Like okay, a tooltip bug. I did specifically say I wanted the difficulties explained but nothing that would fit on a tooltip. Nowhere in this sponsorship does it tell me not to criticise the game. I have a whole dedicated section on military, the thing they tried to hide because even in their 8 minute gameplay preview they had a grand total of 1 second of military. I spent all that time showing and talking about military, the number 1 thing that would stop people from buying the game. Those broken tooltips are nothing compared to that.

[@paradicsompaszta]

I would like to apologize, Zakh. My comment was more harsh than I intended. I really enjoy your videos, this one included! You really put a lot of effort into this one and you highlighted the essentials. You had a lot of things to cover so it is understandable why minor issues didn't grab your attention. I was just curious regarding the UI text bugs and whether they were fixed, because that brakes immersion. Reading "Preparing festival for system.collections.generic(...)" at 21:55 is not ideal. These small UI issues might be a good sign as well showing that the dev team worked on more important bugs and didn't manage to tackle such minor UI issues for the release. They will probably fix it soon. Finally I would like to thank you, Zakh, for replying to my comment. Keep up your great work and I'm looking forward to more videos about the new Pharaoh.

[@GamerZakh]

@@paradicsompaszta Thanks! Ah that text I didn't notice it. Also didn't see it especially at that time, you see there's a cut in the video? Right at that moment my wife came in and asked for my help lol, so I didn't have a chance to read that popup.

[@GamerZakh]

@@paradicsompaszta Oh just to note, the hotfix that dropped today has now fixed those text bugs. Just check both the difficulty tooltip and the 'Preparing festival' text.

[@williammullinax6130]

Man this is exciting. Been waiting long time for this

[@eddieballgame]

Following this with interest, as you are the...expert. Btw, Nebuchadnezzar is really coming along nicely with all the updates & the new DLC.

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! Yeah I plan to check out the new Nebu DLC next week.

[@tdbbe]

never played pharaoh but did play zeus and middle kingdom. most memorable was the music and npc sayings

[@Nurk0m0rath]

Dock options? Okay, that alone makes me want to buy the updated game. I've been going through and replaying the original game, and when I got to Abu, I found it much more convenient to have an industrial center in the north of the island, near the food supplies, but I required a dock there to import basic items for those industries ... but, I also had one near my stone quarries on the east side of the river. The idea was to import clay, reeds etc through the northern dock and export stone from the south. But instead ships would come to the northern port and make my walkers run all the way to the quarries and back for the stone. The only way I could find to increase efficiency was to reset the city and put one dock in between the two with storage nearby to receive incoming and fetch outgoing goods. Having the ability to designate docks for specific resources sounds amazing to me.

[@GamerZakh]

It's hard to say whether the original or this is better, original has a proper military and all, but there's a lot of fixes and modernisations in this remake that really deal with all the frustrating points of the original.

[@Nurk0m0rath]

@@GamerZakh The problem with the OG military is that they didn't create a dedicated RTS engine, just a shallow replica of one. RTS engines are notoriously complex, and players can FEEL when things go slightly wrong. Because of that, I actually like the new direction. It keeps the focus on city building and lets the player build what looks good, rather than just what's mechanically functional. NGL, I've lost a lot of stone towers and gatehouses in the OG to people stabbing rock walls with sticks because I didn't nestle them 3 tiles deep in walls, or squads of soldiers that were forced to spread apart, and NOBODY likes the look of a 50 tile long block of police stations to fend off attackers with the boys in blue. By gathering all military forces into one place for an autobattle, I can now make dedicated fortresses that house my entire military, long-term storage, and administration buildings ... like a real historical fort. I can put towers on the front of walls instead of nestled into the back, and I don't require a minimum of 3 tiles of walls in front of all towers just to slow the enemy down enough for the towers to do their job. I still don't need to be historical ... but now I can.

[@Nurk0m0rath]

@@GamerZakh Oh and hey, I just learned about an interesting trick with the OG that I'm wondering if it works in A New Era. Apparently, if you make a pavilion on a completely disconnected intersection (make sure none of the road tiles are touching another road, even across a roadblock) and position either the dancer or musician stage adjacent to a road corner, you can make all the entertainers enter and exit the pavilion via the stage, so they will wander around the loop without creating an intersection to confuse walkers. Any chance you've tested this already? I haven't watched all your videos but I've never seen this trick feature in one so I have no idea if you were even familiar with it. I'm also very curious how well the new Pharaoh handles walkers on 2x2 plazas. The OG seems to have some special code that mostly keeps them going straight, but they still occasionally get turned around. I do love the look and general function but it's hard to argue that the glitches destabilize your walker routes. So I'm wondering if the new generation fixed that or was even aware of the problem.

[@honolooloo5891]

you really waited till the exact second it was released :) also, wasnt it supposed to be out yesterday? super stoked, our time has come

[@GamerZakh]

We weren't allowed to publish anything before then, so I made this live exactly when I could haha. It was supposed to release today.

[@AhmadSammy]

This is really exciting! I saw the title of this video, immediately went to steam and bought the game, then came back and watched the video. Good job @GamerZakh on this video, it’s a great overview!

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@reubenlema9589]

Hey thanks for making this video was good to see what new setting they introduced. For me the working age option is awesome, always got annoyed at the late city gameplay where half your city is too old and retires, cool to know its toggleable.

[@MegaLol2xd]

I was waiting so much for this game, it's finally out

[@AmandaVieiraMamaesouCult]

Oh, I'm gonna choose global employment so fast. Thanks so much for this! I literally cheered when I saw your video on my feed!

[@GamerZakh]

I'm glad you're enjoying it!

[@Andrew_-_-_]

Sold! Sold! Sold…. Take my money 😂 didn’t think we’d see it delighted and getting it today

[@figl2]

Thank you for the content sir! Used the link you provided for purchasing the game.

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[@inigobirden2155]

Really excited for the release, I'm messing around with the game and definitely am looking forward to a more in depth breakdown from you once you have had some time to play the game and analyze the changes. There's definitely some things that are bugging me about the game like the music just doesn't have a punch to it, the composition is fine but the mixing and sound balance feels off and some of the advisor screens and feedback of the game feels like it just doesn't give me the information breakdown I'm looking for, but generally the game has been pretty good so far. It will definitely be great when they get the editor added in and I'm curious to see if they plan on sticking with the game to add in future tweaks or quality of life changes.

[@DmytroBogdan]

We can rotate buildings but we can't rotate the map... I needed this option a couple times already because a small garden was hidden behind a temple or palace, also no minimap :( Are devs even listening to feedback from Steam forums? Lol, most of bugs are still there, like: Perwajit, trading ships congo line, too many slums when everyone (even 1x1 worker huts) live in common residences, and some new ones, like: deleted section of Kingdom road will result in constant warning of road blockage, dumbed down military, can't kill predators in early missions (that is what the option to turn them off for), some UI glitches, no diagonal mouse scrolling, garden option doesn't save after exiting map, no max zoom out option when starting the map, etc.

[@GamerZakh]

You can use flat mode to see behind things. Devs are listening to feedback but keep in mind for an actual production, any work needs to be paid, so the devs can only do what they get funded to do. Everyone could want to do something but there might just not be any money to do it.

[@DmytroBogdan]

@@GamerZakh I know, that is why I left positive review on Steam (which I almost never do, I mean reviewing). I just hope for a couple of post launch patches or at least a mod support.

[@borgessa3]

I played OG on Very Easy - that's just how i roll. I did enjoy the military missions, especially the ship ones. So not sure how i feel about that. Playing at Very Easy, it really didn't seem to have all the problems i saw you had to deal with.. I think i will miss the original warring. Global employment is nice yeah i'm gonna love that. Thanks Zakh, you made me a better player :) Edited to ask - does anyone know if you can still speed up the monuments as, waiting for those things to get built was tedious beyond measure.

[@ThaGamingMisfit]

A classic example where nostalgia takes over common sense.I've watched 4 streamers/youtubers play and all I could say to myself in my head is 'why?'. The sheer amount of bugs and illogical stuff feels really 25 years old, and I don't understand why this is a good thing ? I guess it's cool for the people who loved it, but there are so many games that do way better and make way more sense now, it's called evolution in game development. You even mention 'this exploit is still in the game, good !' To each its own, if people love replaying bugged illogical games from the past, it's all good. I guess my sentiment is an exception, even my most loved games from the nineties I don't want to play again or see a remake of, I rather keep those good memories than replace them with a less positive sentiment because of realizing how games did evolve, especially in clunkiness.

[@GamerZakh]

It's not just nostalgia, the modernisation of games comes with a cost. Many gamers feel a lot of new games feel 'clinical', like they have no personality. Everything is designed based on some refined formula and so many games just feel like the exact same game. Over the decades, a lot of design 'rules' have been established. Many are good, like designing with colourblind people in mind and other accessibility options. But along with that, what is considered a 'good game' has become formulaic. 90s games have a lok of jank, bugs, and bad design but with that also comes uniqueness and personality. Like all the people who don't really like Cities Skylines because it feels devoid of personality and looks bland. Levelling up your city doesn't even have a sound or animation, just a popup window with a list of new buildings. You talk about "illogical stuff", but if we're talking logic then most things in games, old and new, are illogical. Video game logic is a thing. Pretty much every game is illogical, we just get used to what's released today. Zenyatta in Overwatch getting stuck on a ground trap? Illogical, they're floating. Agent 47 taking multiple bullets to the face and walking away? Illogical, he should be dead. Games are inherently illogical, they just need to be consistent. Forced walkers is a technique that's been developed based on the walker system. In the originals, it wasn't intended so was inconsistent. In A New Era, it's been canonised, so it's now consistent and works like a proper mechanic. For those who don't know about it, it's like a secret to be discovered. Remember that feeling? After playing a game for 100 hours and then discovering something NEW. A secret mechanic, a hidden area, a new playstyle. That doesn't really happen anymore because games are all streamlined into being 'correct'. Modern games are 'good' but many of them are boring because of it.

[@dazamad]

Just bought it on steam. Been wsiting for this dsy. Thanks for ghe video. May i ask i dont recall what flat mode is? Didnt know it was in original game. Thanks

[@GamerZakh]

Flat mode is when it flattens all the graphics and the cliffs too so you can just see the layout of things on the ground.

[@jojol.2630]

Also the new lose conditions will be the death of me. My normal strategy involves playing fast and loose with my debt lol

[@GamerZakh]

Haha I've been there on many maps too