The Rival To Pharaoh City Building Is Here BUT!...

[@GamerZakh]

Things keep getting weirder in this one, I really do recommend watching through because there's just so many details and nuances that feel... off? Also, it's the last chance to sign up for the $1 tier on Patreon: www.patreon.com/GamerZakh I'm doing more city-building let's plays there (SimCity 2000) and I'm increasing the price to $3 BUT NOT if you're already at the $1 tier and stay on it. Last chance to legacy yourself the cheapest price I can give. Thank you for considering!

[@stefanwagner8473]

Ok - this is really weird: I just installed and played it. In WQHD capped to 30FPS with some settings on Epic, some on high, even activated AA on medium - on a 10 year old rig. 4 Cores @3.6Ghz, 16GB RAM and a Asus Geforce960 4Gb and it runs very smooth. I REALLY thought this would be a disaster. Till now no complains to the performance.

[@GamerZakh]

@@stefanwagner8473 Optimisation means work put in to running the software on various hardware. I've been looking around at other videos today to see if my experience is unique to me or not, and there are videos where people are lagging and videos where they aren't lagging. It means this game isn't optimised for every setup and the percentages I read in the video are the actual percentages task manager was showing, but it might be different on other PCs. This is also why I say in the video to test the performance before anything else, because you might not experience it. The other issues are design related and stand. For example, why are the LODs and pop-in so much worse than the Prologue I played 4 years ago? kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZ_GenmGoteLaZI

[@GamerZakh]

@@stefanwagner8473 To be clear, what's your task manager say about GPU usage from the game? What percentage? Also, you are running at 30fps, which is what I turned it down to so I could play too. 60fps uses double.

[@stefanwagner8473]

@@GamerZakh Yes - I just saw the sequence you mentioned to play it on a 960 with all turned off/down and so on a few minutes ago. Yes, running at 30fps. GPU useage is at 95% with fans on 1800rpm AND at 65°. Its like on Anno 1401 and many others games for me. Just asked GPT about the usage again, and even 100% is fine, if the temps are ok. It runs at 49° on idle. To be clear: This is NO WAY bashing, its just, like you said, very weird!

[@GamerZakh]

@@stefanwagner8473 Ah yeah that makes sense. 95% on a 960 at medium to high settings and 30fps sounds about right. When I dropped to 30fps I was getting 70% usage, and yes as long as your PC isn't literally melting it's probably fine for general use. It's just I can't encode video if my GPU is taken up entirely by the game haha

[@Red_Snapper]

GamerZakh's resolution for the new year is 1920 x 1080.

[@Cris1Mac]

Thanks, GamerZakh. I've had this wishlist for a long time. I'm really disappointed how this turned out. I've unwishlisted it. I really do appreciate how you give unbiased opinions about the state of games-not bought and paid-for thoughts.

[@tensaibr]

Great review. It's so rare to find people like you, who give very detailed, comprehensive reviews and not only know what the relevant points are, but also how to look for them.

[@WillTellU]

"Bug or feature" should be a gameshow, where contestants are presented with situations from games and have to tell if it's a bug or a feature

[@rdm3990]

This is actually a genius idea! It has a lot of potential for viral (short) videos.

[@uros.u.novakovic]

I have had this game on my wishlist since 2/24/2019 (DAMN!), and nothing I saw in this video sparked joy. Time to remove it from my wishlist. Thanks for this detailed review!

[@kurrwa]

unfortunetly this game is not good buy in my opinion, the builders of egyps, builders greece, and china sparked red flags. this video only proves it. I was hugely disappointed with ancient cities as well.

[@mrk45]

Think I'll stick with Children of the Nile, of which this seems to be little more than a remake. I wish there were more citybuilders where buildings aren't confined to a grid, like Manor Lords and Workers and Resources, that way every city doesn't end up looking like New York.

[@acev3521]

I hope this gets addressed in Anno 117 Skylines is trash so Anno is a good enough replacement for simcity depth wise while still looking good but this would elevate the game even more although I guess you can argue in 1800 it fits the theme since it’s basically a build your own New York/Chicago style game.

[@db8658]

Have you played Ostriv? It's easily in the same league as Manor Lords and W&R. It's one of the best city builders I've ever played.

[@PapiNewGunie]

@@db8658 I have been keeping tabs on that game, it looks insanely cool, but still in early access so I have held off on it.

[@sweepingtime]

This game is rougher than the stone used to build the great pyramids.

[@Luzitanium]

Happy New Year Gamerzakh nice to see your first gameplay video of 2025

[@babybornas1]

Interesting, the graphics doesn't even look too complicated to explain this kind of popping and performance. Mistakes must have been made during development process, hope they'll fix that in the patches as the game could be fun without them🤔

[@marekkos3513]

What is going on with the all 3D city building games ?.They look ugly , and with almot no art style at all.2D graphics will always be the best for city building games.I wish they mix 3D and 2D , so we can have something beautiful like the settlers 3,4 or just stick with the 2D art style like Pharaoh 1 , or settlers 1,2.I just hate 3D city building games.99% they all look ugly , and just bad.

[@lycanlube7484]

Gotta agree on most part, I prefer the 2d aesthetic on Caesar 3, stronghold and even Diablo 2 etc. they have such cool style

[@marekkos3513]

@@lycanlube7484 100%

[@SuperSajuuk]

Because all these devs just want to copy the Impressions series without having the faintest idea as to what made them "tick" with audiences around the world for 20+ years. They also have an obsession with MUH 8K TEXTURES AND GRAPHICS, despite the fact that a game with shallow to non-existent gameplay mechanics and a rubbish tutorial to make sense of it all is not a game. I personally buy games to experience the story and mechanics, because those are the most important aspects to me when I play games. The graphics -- unless they're really obviously shite or don't fit the aesthetic of the game in any way -- are immaterial to me, as I don't have an issue tuning down graphical fidelity to ensure low GPU utilisations. Games these days are far too focused on "making art", rather than creating a playable experience. Its why I continue to play OG Pharaoh and Zeus, as well as various other games from around that era (1995 - 2005), because no game since then has reached the same heights. The only clear exception to that has been Skyrim, which I have more than 700 hours in, not to mention the insane replayability of the game thanks to modding, so every run (which I do every 2 years or so) is like playing a brand new game and thus having a new experience, despite it being a game from 2011.

[@marekkos3513]

@@SuperSajuuk for me the graphics\art style always should be on the same level , as gameplay over all.I want immersion.Thats why I dont play terraria ;]].I love 2D pixel art , but terraria looks just ugly ;]

[@icoborg]

anyone knows the engine used in the game?

[@hex_1733]

Something serious must've gone wrong. I remember playing the demo a year or two ago and it wasn't like this.

[@GamerZakh]

I just went back to my old video of the Prologue: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZ_GenmGoteLaZI And you're right! There isn't even the pop-in thing!

[@hex_1733]

@@GamerZakh The difference is mind boggling. The demo looks so smooth. Wonder what they messed up lol

[@BlackFridayVideo]

At this point just give me a children of the Nile remake.

[@smugshrug]

after all these years and it's just an undercooked Children of the Nile.

[@ShMokou]

Modern DEVs... WHAT THE HECK? Optimization? Have you heard about OPTIMIZATION?

[@ShMokou]

And do not tell me about "just buy a better PC" no, your game allow less stuff even on "better PC", because you can't do optimization.

[@GamerZakh]

For reference, Manor Lords takes 5% of my GPU somehow because they use black magic. I genuinely don't understand how they did that.

[@corepunch]

Yep, couldn't agree more, they are a lot dumber now and get a lot more money

[@Fuego065]

Manor Lords works with the last Unreal Engine, right? Because it's probably part of the answer. Performance optimisation for small devs is very difficult but if it's done by the engine (And indirectly the 100s of devs working on it) and you "just" have to know it a bit without doing everything from scratch.

[@Riotlight]

That’s not a problem of optimisation as such, but just being poorly programmed to begin with, and if it’s been in development for over 5 years, developed on old technology. No city builder, or basic 3d environment should be using 50% of a 3080 with nothing happening. There is some serious code issues here, which will no doubt get even worse as the city expands.

[@pixell3d]

I was watching that video of yours and I'm thinking... As much as I was looking forward to Builders of Egypt, I think I'll leave this confused and seemingly unfinished game for now. I think it is necessary to wait some time for the game to be optimized, and for them to patch what needs to be patched. In the meantime, I'll try Citadelum... As far as I remember, you had positive reviews about that game if I'm not mistaken? I wish you all the best, keep up the good work... Greetings from Croatia ;)

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! For transparency I was sponsored by Citadelum. That one is at least feature complete as in they delivered on what they were promising to deliver. Didn't encounter any major bugs when I played too. As always, double check user reviews.

[@HAL_NOVEMILA]

If they release the game in this state then it's going to flop, it needs at least one more year baking in the oven... If the DEVs need funds to complete it then they should release it in EA, rather than mislead the players into believing that they're getting a full product.

[@felix_xb]

6:00 probably no culling of things that are outside your view. No reason it should be that intense unless some of the assets are literally 1mil polygon grass.

[@Agimam]

the pop in reminds me of a game from the 00's

[@SomeBHODYoncetoldme]

My hesitation: If they used AI for voice, I'm already starting to feel conflicted about whether or not the historical part was really actually researched or just done by chatgpt. Integrity is easy to lose in light of convenience...

[@rijden-nu]

My thoughts exactly. Why even write compellingly if you're going to half-ass it with the voice anyway... Heck, just pipe in a hyperlink to a wiki page for people who want to read it then.

[@billyscorner2232]

Looking forward to part 2 on release. maybe a multipart or longer video would be appreciated

[@TheSebi99p]

You have been waaaaaaaaay too patient with this games during this video... I mean... I get it's not done, but pre-release implies it is almost done, like... 95%+ done... and well... if this is the case... ooooooh, boy... this is garbage.

[@GamerZakh]

I am as patient as I can be with every game because I know how things go sometimes, so take me losing my patience as a big sign.

[@astingilbert582]

Man my sister got me this game when I was a kid, it was the old "Builders of Egypt" I loved it but didn't understand a single thing since she bought it when she was in Poland and the game had only the polish language .

[@Musive99]

The - very likely - AI voice in the beginning is already what sinks this one for me. Edit: Language probably weird because of AI translations as well, notice that with a couple of new releases recently and in a few instances when a studio changes from human made translations to AI generated ones for a patch it even makes things worse especially with non-English languages (I'm German).

[@ivantumanov1015]

I like how zack lags the same amount as the game. Very immersive.

[@TheJanpietjoris]

When the "road connection" tick didn't go through, there were two road connections needed. There where two "road" icons there, but the missed the south one. You connected it when you put roads all around the place :P. So it wasn't a bug, but is was very unclear.

[@GamerZakh]

So it's what I talked about how because there are many bugs, the player begins to become unsure of what is and isn't a bug. But also reviewing the footage, the icons get hidden behind the trees?? That's kind of insane layering there. But also, why is there a road connection to the south? It leads to nowhere and I can barely pan my camera that way. It's not connecting to anything, previously you're told to connect 2 ends of a broken road. Here it's asking you to 'connect' a road end and... nothing? I'd argue that's worse than a bug, because by choice they've made something completely nonsensical and unintuitive in the tutorial.

[@rijden-nu]

Het is "Jan, Pier, Tjoris (en Corneel)".

[@TheJanpietjoris]

@@rijden-nu hahaha heb ik dat mijn hele leven verkeerd verstaan. Persoonlijk mag van mij Piet ook mee, heeft een snor.

[@thaipankatima658]

I still have the prologue somewhere in my steam account. Totally forgot this game existed. But if it's finally coming out, I might go back to it.

[@Hussam_B]

I don't know but I agree in assuming that the narrator voice could be AI generated. I always feel those voices are very flat in tone but with this ambient vibration when doing inflections

[@lasvista2tech]

They're going to need a lot of optimising this looks like raw unoptimised alpha

[@GamerZakh]

The weird thing is it ran better 4 years ago in the prologue. It's actually gotten worse over time.

[@KingOfKYA]

@@GamerZakh Or they optimised/programed for an amd card and there something wrong with nvidia that they didn't see.

[@lisas946]

Thanks for the heads up! I had the Demo version of this game but got rid of it when the new Pharaoh came out. Looks like I'm not missing anything but graphical issues with this one

[@rihnem]

11:55 I do have a B.C. computer :( No A.D. games for me

[@SeithonJetter]

Honestly, I found the demo showed some huge flaws, particularly that the people and walkers etc, all just blurred together. The absolute worst part however was the UE text was consistently blurry and difficult to read. Which seems to be a UE thing as I've seen it in other games too.

[@CristiMoisii]

11:10 No, it does not. The sooner you admit that the sooner you'll get devs actually doing their jobs properly. And all the way through to the end. Before releasing the games.

[@Tewlipz]

So my overall feelings on this after watching the video is that there's some good ideas in here, but I'll wait and see. Let them cook some more. I hope they take some of this feedback to heart

[@reishiki8682]

Hm, optimization concerns me. It's why i prefer games that are simpler, not prettier. As long as they run perfectly (bugs notwithstanding) I'll give them the green light.

[@Luzitanium]

they dont make games like it used to be, until now there is no competitor of Pharaoh or Children of the Nile.

[@RaiaJicin]

Thanks for this video telling me that I'm not completely off the rails with my expectations. Installed the demo of the game, saw the pop-ins, uninstalled. I didn't even look at the "raw" performance, but this flaw alone is a killer for any building game for me - you always pan and zoom around working on your city and you're supposed to ignore this incredibly bad and busy view? Especially in a genre where gameplay >>> graphics, this is the weirdest decision (or ineptitude) I've seen in a long time... I'd really have liked a good egypt builder again (this already looked limited at first glance with it's grid style and everything, but gotta take what you get), Children of the Nile feels like a lifetime ago..

[@mrSolar852]

The pop-in is like something a programmer found which they thought was really cool and efficient but didnt really consider the actual impact on the gameplay and user experience. Programmers do this kind of thing all the time

[@jasoncarter5854]

Have you seen the news regarding the state of the game and the developer? Doesn't look good, Jim. Builders of Egypt - 72h report 8.7k sold 9.7% returns median game: 1h 4min 6.4k activations from WL WL outstanding 298.5k preliminary: budget 1.3 million - less than 28% returned plan: no consoles, closing the company and rewriting the game to PLW, one-person support for the Steam version

[@GamerZakh]

I'm not particularly hopeful so I'm not doubting it. Though where do these stats come from just out of curiosity? I like knowing these things if it's possible.

[@jasoncarter5854]

@@GamerZakh Are you able to see my posts? For some reason they keep getting deleted.

[@GamerZakh]

@@jasoncarter5854 Ugh KZbin must be blocking them for some reason, I hate it when they do that. I don't have anything in my moderation folder even.

[@jasoncarter5854]

@@GamerZakh Yeah I've just tried to post a few times with the info, but it is out there and it may be announced soon. The developer knows and he told his Discord group after they asked him.

[@jasoncarter5854]

Just search for "Krzysztof Kostowski", he is the PlayWay CEO.

[@mr.critic]

0:50 Haven't you been doing this for the past decade? The game should be the most optimized game on the planet after 6 years of development.

[@GamerZakh]

Yes I've been doing this for 13 years, and recording/streaming always takes up resources. I have to explain every time there are performance issues so people who don't know that don't take me saying I have a 3080 and think a 3080 can't run something when it lags on my video. Quite often, there's no lag in the game until I start recording, or I can play on Epic without recording but only on High settings when recording. That is also why I gave percentages here to explain how much of my GPU the game itself was taking.

[@mr.critic]

@@GamerZakh 👍🏻✌🏻

[@rijden-nu]

​@@GamerZakh I was wondering about that... Why are you recording on the same machine that you are playing on? Isn't it both more representative of the game and better for the recording if you offload/isolate all the recording on a separate machine, so the gaming rig can put all its effort into the game?

[@GamerZakh]

@rijden-nu The cost of a second rig might as well be put into a single rig that's twice as powerful. I have a 3080, if I have money for a second rig, I might as well buy a 4090 and get the same effect. Edit: To be clear, the age of dual-PC streaming is pretty much over. 5-10 years ago, it was better to do it, but since GPU makers started adding features to help with streaming (like encoding video separately), you don't really get better performance from dual-PC anymore besides the raw power you're paying for. Plus, dual-PC adds on a whole bunch of complications and things that can go wrong. These days, you're better off using the money to just get a better PC. Even if you're doing something crazy, dual-GPU in a single PC would be easier. But also, asking "why don't you just have 2 PCs" to me, well the answer is the same as why I don't have a better PC. I don't have the money to buy it haha

[@rijden-nu]

​@@GamerZakh Good points. I thought most professional game recorders used separate rigs for production and recording, if only because recording on the same machine interferes with the production, by definition, no matter how small. Also, the recording rig could be kept a lot simpler than the gaming rig. But hey, your content never ceases to be amazing, and your near-immediate interaction with us as viewers to direct questions - even after all these years - shows your commitment. Thanks for your answer, and good luck building ancient empires!

[@NaCk210]

I became suspicious when I saw many games of this series appearing on steam at the same time (like Builders of Greece and there's a viking one as well I think), sometimes a sign of factory-like game development. It reminds me of medieval/sengoku dynasty games.

[@Despesh]

Will there be a similar stream with Builders of Greece, wonder how these two games compare to eachother?

[@GamerZakh]

Builders of Greece released into early access, so it more honest about its state, but is also sitting at mixed reviews on Steam. Essentially, they seem to be in a similar boat.

[@mallikanth1689]

Fantastic dive into this games design. Great work. I won't be buying Builders of Egypt.

[@iranicus]

Some of the mechanics reminds me of Caesar 3 o.o

[@ShufflerBluey]

Have they fixed the Pharoah remaster yet?

[@GamerZakh]

@@ShufflerBluey There's a modpack that apparently fixes a whole bunch of stuff. I'm planning to jump back in with that to see how it is now.

[@DavidMel21]

@@GamerZakhare the devs still working on it? Do you know if it’s been abandoned or not?

[@GamerZakh]

@@DavidMel21 The devs fixed up a bunch of stuff but it's not up to the devs to continue working on it or not. The publisher dictates that. It's a licensed IP that the publisher got permission to fund and work on, so they call the shots. As far as I know, no more significant official work can take place for the game. Mods however have come a long way and are still being made.

[@DavidMel21]

​@@GamerZakh Thanks for the reply. I was hoping they would reintroduce the old military style game play. I guess I'll have to play the og for that. Look forward to watching your play-through though hopefully re inspire to me to revisit the game 😁

[@aboutrobots]

the UI was really confusing for sure. But also, while you compared it to older games, and said stuff like "I know what the difference between a temple and shrine is", etc... At no point in the video did you mention a feature that was new, innovative, or otherwise made this game unique. I think historical accuracy and bonuses carrying over to the next mission (maybe? still no idea how that worked) might be the new features

[@GamerZakh]

@@aboutrobots I didn't mention much that was innovative because I didn't encounter much that was innovative.

[@meinacco]

Yeah I played the demo like a year ago and have a high end GPU (not newest gen but still top end). Even in a new game when nothing was going on my GPU was maxed out until I zoomed in like almost to the maximum. Horribly optimized. Very disappointing to see how little has changed since then. Just imagine playing this with something like a i5-10400 and a GTX 1650 ...

[@sokarash]

Honestly I've been very sceptical about this game since I played the Prologue and the continuous postponements. Honestly it seems the dev overestimated its abilites and rushed out the build last minute, because its been in the works for so many years. The prologue even looked better, on my RTX2070 Super (Desktop, if you have the mobile GPU in a laptop, that might be named the asme, but is a very different GPU and heavily depends on how the cooling solutions works - the game GPU can perform very dfferently in different laptops). I suspect its also a great showcase on why Unreal Engine is no silver bullet for game dev, especially for strategy games with a birds eye view. I talked to multiple devs for multiple games, and all told me that Unreal is great for any characeter-driven game, where you controller a character. Like a FPS, Third-Person-Game or even a Plattforming game. Because the culling and lodding of the engine is optimized to work that way and is coded very deep into the engine. For a strategy with a birds-eye-view, its just not suitable. But changing that can lead to a lot of other problems, so you should only do it if you know what you are doing. Maybe other devs have found better workarounds to keep the performance up. Here, its pretty clear many things went wrong during development. I also had a feeling the dev (I think its mostly one guy) had big ambitions, but overestimated its abilities. Modern game development is complex and there is a reason why for even seemingly small games, the credits list quite a few people.

[@GamerZakh]

@@sokarash I have a feeling it's not even the same devs working on this today than at the start. I looked back at my list videos and in 2018 it was being developed by an indie studio with the game called Hard Ancient Life. In 2019 PlayWay acquired the game and the developer listed changed to Strategy Labs, which is a company owned by PlayWay. Looking up the name of the original dev company gets few results. Is there any confirmation that the original developer is even still there working on this? Because after my stream of this, I spent a good while thinking about how some of these problems could happen. It's not just 'bad' or 'inexperienced'. And I ended up feeling like whoever is finishing the game today is completely different from whoever started the game in 2018. It's the simplest explanation for the completely different approaches to various design elements in the game. It feels like a game made by devs who don't talk to each other.

[@sokarash]

@@GamerZakh Could be, I haven't done much research on that. I assumed its still the origianl dev, with help from a PlayWay studio. But PlayWay is a very misterious company with not the best reputation. Certainly something went wrong in the development process.

[@patrickv1080]

at 11 minutes were somebody said if gammeplay is good it will trump the graphical and performance and optimazition issues: HELL NO we cant keep let them get away with this shit doenst matter if its an ubisoft or this indie builder there is zero excuse for this shit even manor lords which is developed by a solo guy could do it. STOP BUYING THIS SHIT until it is fixed and ready to be played what the hell is wrong with you guys.

[@zaadbaad541]

But unreal engine will save development time by using ray tracing and we don't need optimization because the engine requires you use ai upscaling.

[@patrickv1080]

@zaadbaad541 never heard something so stupid. There are so many games using unteal 5 where you dont need some ai upscaling Technology to work Properly. Ai upscaling is the worst that could be developed because now developers think they dont need to optimize.

[@SomeBHODYoncetoldme]

I don't agree with that sentiment either. If a game with poor performance is good gameplay wise, you still won't be able to play it once you hit a certain population due to said performance issues and the simulation might break because of it. This game is nowhere near being ready for release by the looks of things, and death by a thousand paper cuts from the bad UI design to the LOD stuff will kill fun through repeated annoyance.

[@Upuauta]

OMG what a clusterf.... This will be hit hard by reviews...

[@SGtidbits]

Without even looking at any of the gameplay, I am already put off by the grid and all the 90 degree angles. It's not the 90's anymore, come on.

[@GamerZakh]

For that, it's not an age or technology thing. Most players prefer grids in city builders. Grids continue to be used because players want it.

[@SGtidbits]

@@GamerZakh I'm a gamer, and what I'm saying is I'm put off by that now. Even though I loved those games before. It's uninspired game development. It baffles me that they try so hard to make a game beautiful, and then make it ugly by design.

[@duartecorreia8602]

Personally I like complicated and hard games to master, and I tend to look the other way on issues like those you have mentioned if it doesn't break\crash your game. If an issue somehow stops the progression of the mission at some point and freezes something and you can't go on, now that's death for me. I don't like to go back and restart due to those issues. It seems playable to me but it would depend on the price.

[@GamerZakh]

@@duartecorreia8602 Thing is, this wasn't complicated or hard, the game just repeatedly lied to the player. I have not played through the game, but it got dangerously close to bugging out to breaking a mission in this video. One time it was asking me to build a road connecting to the point, and I did, but it didn't register that I did so I couldn't progress the mission. I had to place the road again on a tile that already had a road for it to register the connection. Then there's things like the request for resources and it showing me needing to send 10K after I had fulfilled the request for 500. Turns out, that entire window was bugged and there wasn't even a request, let alone for 10K. The tutorial text constantly mixing up city names and saying the wrong city names, along with other mistaken instructions and information doesn't help. You can't ever be sure what the game is telling you is correct. They might've been a one offs, but if these kind of things are happening in the early tutorial missions, I fear for the testing of the later missions.

[@duartecorreia8602]

@@GamerZakh then it is indeed a broken game.

[@jolanser]

@@GamerZakh For the roads, there was a 2nd road you needed to connect to along the bottom of the build area, but the marker for this second road was hidden by palm trees (we glimpsed it for a a fraction of a second when you panned the camera one time EDIT: Can be seen at 1:30:49, four tiles from the left edge). The tutorial should have said something like "roads connected 1/2" instead of "0/1", and/or the map should have been tweaked so that there is no foliage obscuring important markers. So to be fair to the game, that particular paint point was not a bug, but poor tutorial craft (wait, is that better or worse? xD ). And it still does not take away from the fact that there appear to be so many details that are off and wonky that it's easy to explain things as "bugs" when something does not immediately work as the player expects. (Which is sort of heartbreaking, as many of us probably wanted this game to be polished by now and great, so that it could add to and further the small renaissance of ancient city builders we are seeing lately)

[@GamerZakh]

@@jolanser Ah right, so that leads back to what I said about when there are bugs, the player isn't able to tell what is a bug and what's intentional choice.

[@ktcd1172]

Is this finally released? I have been playing the demo off and on for well over a year.

[@GamerZakh]

Well it released but it still feels like a beta or early access. Doesn't feel like a finished game yet.

[@ktownmoe]

I know I should not comment on a video before I fully watched it but man was this game a pita during the time I followed it. With all these delays, weird company communications, prologues, demos and whatnot. I exptected it to be a real challenger to the citybuilder genre but at some point I even left the beta and their discord because it was just unbearable. Obvious bugs resident for months, glitches, snail-paced development, an overall weird scope and atrocious performance after the initial stages of a city. Now x years after the original planned release it seems they have some kind of an alpha stage with the same amount of issues left, right and center in every department of the game. I don't wanna bash on this game and hope every ancient city builder turns out to be a great addition to the genre but this one had me winded up. Perhaps I will take a look at it once it reached a full release but presenting this game in that state in front of a large audience is not helping from my view. Thanks for the Video Zakh, appreciate all citybuilding content and the effort you put in. 💙 Edit: Fully watched it, you showed a lot of patience but I guess everything has its limits lol. Game is not near finished.

[@icoborg]

i dont see the problem in loading to continue campaign...all games developers have progressively take off the ability to load and save whenever the player wants...i hate that.

[@GamerZakh]

The problem here is that it wasn't clear what I was even loading into. It doesn't say 'Campaign Mission 2' or something clear like that. The icon on the left shows 'I' and 'II' but because I had 2 saves it just looked like they were numbered save files, instead of it showing what mission you'd be loading into. I wanted to load mission 2 and I didn't immediately know how to do that. In 2025, saving and loading clearly has been long solved.

[@Gigaros]

Is it possible the preview version everything unlocked in the first mission because they intended only the first mission to be used for previewing? Might be worth trying to play the first mission post completion to see if there's more.

[@GamerZakh]

This version I have is the release version, no embargo or anything.

[@LindaMissad]

This is very disappointing. I've had this game in the GOG wishlist ever since you played the demo a few years back. I was really looking forward to it's release. Guess I'm really glad PNE has come out which I'm loving. Thanks for all of your incites on this game. I wonder if it would even run on my laptop. Take care

[@raymondrogers3929]

Games are not being optimized. Cities skyline 2 was released with simple culling and its performance was a nightmare. Threat Interactive and other channels have been doing analysis on older games vs newer games. AA implememtation has been atrocious as well.

[@aslag94]

I think this game suffers from the pharaoh's curse

[@kengislabrie]

I played the demo, aka the Prologue, a year or two ago, and I did not remember that it was that bad on the graphic side. I saw some problems with the UI and how it was worded, as it was confusing then. Even how the UI works for the Stockpile, Bazar, and Trading seems unchanged and is still not user-friendly and confusing. I sent them feedback about those issues but it seems they did not change any of it. I hope they just sent the wrong pre-release version to the reviewer, but I doubt it.

[@GamerZakh]

You're right, I looked back at my video on the prologue from 4 years ago and the trees don't pop-in like that. The game actually looked better years ago and I didn't have performance issues either.

[@alenafraskova6903]

It's coming so soon? I almost missed it :) I wanted to play an egyptian city builder for a long time and was waiting for this to release :D I remember playing a demo as a kid on a CD with some old egyptian city builder and I loved it but of course CD is gone and I still have no clue what was the name of the game :D

[@alanahbastiaanse8639]

Pharaoh?

[@GamerZakh]

If not Pharaoh it could be Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile?

[@alenafraskova6903]

@@GamerZakh thank you both, I think it was probably immortal cities children of the nile, I have the youtube video when you played open and will check it eventually but I think that was it, thanks :)

[@dot2562]

That empire of the ants has way more bugs.... 🐜🐜🐜🐜

[@Szgerle]

It looks like shit and has that ugly modern UI style.

[@Idolismo]

As much as I love city building / management games and absolutely long for a proper Pharaoh successor I don't think I will be giving this a go until they resolve the issues. And I have a very good computer, so running it probably won't be an issue but I do not want to reward bad dev practices. They need to work on optimization.

[@zerothehero2579]

Who built the houses and Fire Station. Plus the people just look like assets not sims.

[@khalid6722]

🎉🎉🎉🎉Finally 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@Yohann26]

I tried the demo 3 times in the past, I rarely saw a tycoon game so poorly optimized, it discouraged me for playing more of it

[@antonyloc]

Yea!!!!

[@AlkaloidGames]

And we keep play indie game in isometric view xD

[@innieplays]

Did you notice that when you're first people came to the city via the road at 14:23 they are all the same avatar? All male, and the only difference is that some of them have a greenish grey shendyt and some have a white one. And all have the exact same hair. :( I was so hopeful for this game, I absolutely loved it when they came out with the Prologue and have been waiting for it, but I must admit so far I'm quite dissapointed and won't be buying it any time soon. I'll wait and see if they fix the issues, because the cpu problems etc are a real dealbreaker for me.

[@KnigtOfSwan]

When Zeus and Poseidon?

[@GamerZakh]

In 2025

[@ACMaddocks]

Uck... I think this will either kill my 6750XT or else look so fugly that it wouldn't be worth playing :/ /keeping it on my wishlist... but definitely waiting for optimizations/patches before thinking about buying //looks like an EA release - not full release

[@7Soul123]

I tried the demo and I couldn't stand looking at it

[@pogo575]

Dirty dirty lods wow.

[@innieplays]

"Pieces of bread to be..." would be more accurate gramatically.

[@uncleelias]

I watched this live and it doesn't get better the second time around. A shame. This developer needs help. Hopefully the issues can get ironed out in a major pre-launch patch

[@JeffPetro]

Lot of AI tools sloppily integrated into dev :(

[@Trifler500]

I hope you will tell them that "Bread" should not have an "s" :)

[@GamerZakh]

Haha at this point that's really far down on my list

[@vishensivparsad]

is a single pc for streaming and gaming not causing big perf losses in all games? I thought you always need a dedicated streaming pc if you wanna start streaming anything

[@GamerZakh]

There was a time when dual-PC streaming was preferred, but these days it doesn't really help much. If you can afford a second PC you can afford better hardware in your main PC, so for me, instead of buying a second PC to steam better I might as well use that money and get a 4090 which would solve the same problem with less complication. RTX cards at least now use a different part of the GPU to help decode video recording, so my GPU usage can technically peak at like 120% if you combine the game and recording software usage. In this case though, the game taking 90% of my GPU by itself would cause issues regardless. Consider, Manor Lords at max graphics and 1440p resolution uses 5% of my GPU. This uses 90%. The problem here is the game not my hardware.

[@vishensivparsad]

@GamerZakh aaah that's interesting. Thanks for the info about the dedicated decoding hardware, I've been out the loop lol

[@GamerZakh]

@@vishensivparsad Yeah because of the rise of streaming, Nvidia and card manufacturers in general have been adding features to help with other use cases outside of just running games these past few years. Honestly it's kind of feeling like a good GPU is almost like a mini computer itself inside your computer.

[@vishensivparsad]

@@GamerZakh lol with the power requirements of the 4070ti upwards there might as well be another computer hiding in those graphics cards

[@SIZModig]

"This is what they're calling release." Well summarized embarrasment.

[@cristitanase6130]

Classic old Unity problem. If you're using the default terrain and the default trees and grass this happens. There are some packages on the Marketplace that can be used to generate far better vegetation and to optimize everything or you can design your own trees, or at least increase the vegetation LOD distance so that the "popping" won't be visible from the main camera. Why are they not doing this is beyond me. It just shows laziness and a bad quality game. Increase the vegetation distance or vegetation and terrain quality and it will stop the pop-in.

[@Haarba1]

So its unoptimized mess, pretty typical for 2020+ games. Bet its LOD issue, as soon as grass starts to render it is in full res and entire map at the same time, pretty common mistake actually.

[@kurrwa]

first mission red flag, who gonna read 8 paragraphs before first mission that's bad design haha I wouldn't be surprised if text was AI generated haha

[@bartvanpoppel22]

Kinda sad the developper gives out free keys for previews. He must know himself the state of the game right?

[@GamerZakh]

Marketing and promotion rarely involves the developer when there's a publisher. The publisher would be in charge of most things, including when to release the game.

[@PhazeyBlur]

UE 5?

[@michakonieczko6875]

I still cannot understand why devs keep wasting time doing shit-looking GPU-draining 3D graphics instead of doing simplier, better looking 2D graphics

[@Ef3us]

That voice coming out of that mouth and body xD Impressed ngl

[@johnjohanson8662]

I don't like any game that exploits AI. why would I pay for something that nobody felt was worth using a real human to do? disappointing.

[@GamerZakh]

Besides the fact that AI can't 'act'. At that point, might as well just get a developer to read out the text.

[@jolanser]

There is no mention of the game using generative AI content on the Steam store page where the little box of AI information should be, so if the game does use AI voices then it's also breaking Steam's rules. Which isn't great...

[@jolanser]

The dev did clarify on the BoE discord that AI was used during the development of Builders of Egypt (2D art was mentioned as an example). So it's offmy wishlist now (before even considering all the many other issues). Don't know why the use of AI is not mentioned on the store page, though.

[@kabiebebe2332]

But does it have crafting 😅😅

[@dalaraz1]

2 minutes in i know im not installing this game :p

[@Tiger1AuasfE]

This game look's like it needs much more work...Definitely unfinished for release.

[@alejandroschubert1597]

I'm really disappointed with this game, had it on my whishlist for a long time but not anymore. I'll keep playing (and recommending) the remasterization of the original Pharaoh

[@ndennant]

BOE is a cumbersome unfinished beta that is just boring to play. After a 6 yr wait, the developers just released what they had. Such a disappointment.

[@dil.aug.8489]

Children of the Nile did it better 20 years ago smh

[@Cenot4ph]

Lods need a lot of work

[@mbvalency]

The 3D graphics look so ugly :/ Not the same as Pharao

[@pigeonlizard]

So…. AI voice reading the text… absolute crap optimization… I bet they used AI for their code too.

[@Isylon]

I was excited about this game, but it is taking too long, and looks like a 2000s rip-off 3D version of Pharaoh!

[@ThePariahDark]

Performance improvement is usually one of the final steps being done during game development, and this game is not yet released.

[@GamerZakh]

It releases in 3 days, how much do you think they can optimise by Wednesday?

[@glodomorraa]

This is the game that everyone here just wants and needs. I will buy it anyway, hoping they will resolve those issues.

[@ekscalybur]

Thank you for encouraging developers to continue to release unfinished garbage. We all appreciate you.