I Was Wrong About Total War: Pharaoh

Mea culpa.
Twitch: / sargon_of_akkad100

[@belzibubtom9546]

A game set in the beginning of the Bronze Age collapse. With no Babylon, no Assyria, no Mycenaeans, oh brother…

[@ronald1865]

If they had any of these OG factions I would've bought this game😂

[@rorschach1985ify]

@apatheticnoncombatant7750 And the devs said they wanted to make the "definitive Bronze Age game".

[@sagittariusa9012]

Myceneans are in Troy. I still hope they fuse Troy and Pharaoh together like they did with WH.

[@aeedalqahtany756]

Dlc on the way 😂

[@cloverdog85]

It was probably being planned for a dlc or expansion like Warhammer. However after this flop it won't happen.

[@ElGreco15]

Rome 2 was the game that broke my desire to pre-order anything

[@vorynrosethorn903]

There are two bronze age total war mods, one for Rome 1 which is probably my favourite mod for it and one for Rome 2 which recently released its campaign beta and is already way better than pharaoh. I recommend them both.

[@ExcessOL]

The same will be true if they make a LOTR Total War. DoC for Med2 is already perfect

[@vorynrosethorn903]

Same is true for warhammer botet is way better than their three official hovercraft simulators.

[@davidburton9690]

Pretty sure the Sea Peoples will be added as a 39.99 DLC and be Kangz

[@robertlewis6915]

I love that the map has a total of 4 sea zones and they don't even cover the whole coast.

[@JB-hp5ii]

That's bizarre. Surely they've missed shading the sections between Cyprus and S.Anatolia? I mean nothing happens in them anyway given they've sacked off naval conflict.

[@davidstansbury9309]

​@JB-hp5ii to be fair, we have little to no evidence naval battles actually took place in the Bronze Age.

[@JB-hp5ii]

​@@davidstansbury9309 fair comment, but this is a game set in the ancient med - having some form of coastal trade / defence thing would seem thematic. The Battle of the Delta does seem a climactic battle of the age and is believed to have involved an Egyptian fleet. Also references to the Sea People's suggests they were maritime nomads, so it is disappointing there is no nod to this in the game.

[@robertlewis6915]

@@davidstansbury9309 I see your point, but that's an argument for not having naval zones, not arbitrarily ignoring the Cyprus-Anatolia sea zone. So far as I know, that area isn't peculiarly dangerous or impassible, so it should get the same treatment as any other area that borders more than one region.

[@Jilktube]

I had no idea that CA was receiving subsidies! That's insane. 1:50 And the fact that a 36 y/o game company (as old as Methuselah by industry standards), with *hundreds* of employees, and which is owned by one of the largest gaming companies in Japan is described as a "start-up" is genuinely suspicious.

[@robosoldier11]

Indeed. There has to be some weird tax loophole or some legal stuff playing out here for them to get identified as such. Like CA is probably a decade older then the supposed game fund program the Uk government set up lol.

[@729060]

Pharoah feels like a "Total War Sagas" title that had the Sagas part of the title removed with no other changes. It was an absolute shame that none of the fertile crescent was included despite being just as significant as Egypt during the period covered. At this point CA needs to suffer a bit, cut the fat, and hopefully return to the era of Shogun 2 which IMO was the last really good Total War game on launch.

[@Jaykane456]

I thought these 'saga' game titles were supposed to be a lite, almost mobile version of the game. Sadly it seems that the main titles have started shifting towards this lite, reskin the previous version of the game, rip out some game mechanics and add in some 5 year old systems to make up for it.

[@jamesespinosa690]

Saga's should have been 'stand-alone' to begin with. And then they should have connected them together kind of like what they've done with the Warhammer series.

[@davidstansbury9309]

​@@jamesespinosa690 my hope is that's exactly what happens. We get a 3rd, full scale game in the Bronze Age. It's a slim hope.

[@davidstansbury9309]

Egypt is part of the Fertile Crescent. It starts in the east in Southern Mesopotamia, up through what is now Northern Syria, then back down through the Levant and ends in the Nile Valley. But I am very sad Mesopotamia isn't there.

[@Bakarost]

Good days dont come back

[@rossdiggle]

Return to tradition, TIE Fighter. The only buggy game I remember was Elite 3 first encounters. It didn't work on launch and getting hold of a patch on floppy disc was as rare as hens teeth.

[@uncletedscabin4625]

TIE Fighter is an absolute classic that still holds up. One day I'll get around to playing the VR mod.

[@maxrobe]

Amstrad CPC version of Elite was bugged, (circa 1986). Telecomsoft/Firebird. (British Telecoms software arm), even sent out a repair disk to everyone who owned it.

[@LordTheCyril]

Old games 100% had bugs but they were rarely gamebreaking.

[@janneman7710]

the first totalwar title I played was Medieval Total War then the release of Rome came that is 20 years ago now, and was a big leap forward in gameplay. the titles that I played after had small improvements here and there, small improvements that strangely enough disappeared again with the next title the gameplay doesn't seem to have gotten more depth in 20 years, this game series seems to be on a stand still

[@All_Hail_Chael]

No Sargon, I wanted the hero shooter they spent all my money on and not Medieval 3 or any other Total War in a non shitty chariot-filled time.

[@shinjikurosawa957]

Holy shit, have we found someone who actually wanted to play Hyenas?

[@All_Hail_Chael]

@@shinjikurosawa957 No, that was GNVQ Advanced level sarcasm.

[@shinjikurosawa957]

Oh, good. You had me worried for a second there.

[@LaifuHaiku]

My name is CA, master of total war! Look upon my works, ye mighty! And be dissapointed!

[@seraphx26]

I agree with you that the Sea People were likely Minoan survivors, we know so little about Minoan culture overall, while we don't currently think they were war like on their island, the great upheaval they endured probably had a drastic effect on their way of navigating the world, after all once you are used to having a nice civilization and you get displaced from it completely, you probably find yourself back in survival mode pretty fast, which would include increased willingness to wage war and or raid.

[@drinkrealale]

Shogun 2 is the best total war game. Fight Me!

[@mandowarrior123]

It is, I wholeheartedly agree. A shamefur dispray. In terms of gameplay. Faction variety obviously was not there but we were meant to get shogun 2 again but with varied factions and history. Even down to castle upgrades being meaningful but strategic. Spear wall in front of my wall with a matchlock ashigaru on the wall holding off thousands. As it should be. Clan family tree just as complex as it needed to be that you know everyone important and dead generals matter. No shields either which CA treat as arrow proof. Morale system was great, realistic. Religion felt powerful and a strong motivation with the monks. Map layout meant ambushes were easy and bridges important. Finally they'd made great decisions then they flunked it

[@Broomtwo]

I bought early access just to play the early access weekend, and was thoroughly unimpressed. I played like 40 turns and got tired of reading all the different specific resource modifiers... and the AI was kind of dumb. Refunded after a couple hours.

[@Maveriks1010]

Never pre order.

[@qh777]

Yes exactly I wanted this to be like Rome II with a large map about the same size. Having to fight the Villanovans (early Etruscans) or Hallstatt Celts would be cool.

[@SansAppellation]

Are you sure CA received millions from the UK government? The TOTAL government fund was 5 million GBP...

[@timothychristie6994]

I’m not 100% sure what your asking but googling. It seems like it was a tax break equating to millions rather then being given a lump sum. If I’m off base my bad.

[@RichardPhillips1066]

Wow , you keept this channel under the radar Karl , i only found this by accident:)

[@Phantom-Spaceman]

Had absolutely no idea this was another one of Carl’s channels what a pleasant surprise!

[@danielkrcmar5395]

The main bugs in Rome 1 were just AI glitches where if you put teppps in certain places you can get them to stand in areas that will get them decimated.

[@ragsy887]

Might you elaborate on this a little?

[@danielkrcmar5395]

@@ragsy887 If you're set to loose when defending a siege (it might be when you're attacking the army biseging you?) your can stretch your troops out on the ground behind the wall in a certain way. Sometimes this makes the AI just walk upto and stand right in front of your wall and get killed off by the tower defences. You can also move all your troops to the centre point when you have a large city. By the time they've gotten through the wall and to you they're exhausted (and heavily picked off by the defenses if you have a larger wall because they don'tcapturetowers first), they won't wait to freshen up but still charge right at you. Three pike units and a set of archers and you've basically won.

[@maxrobe]

I think when Arch wrote "Feature Rich", that was a euphemism. (speaking as a software dev).

[@NoGGy]

Fallouts 2 had a fair few. I knew a load of games pre "cloud" that had plenty of bugs but usually meant going back a save and redoing it. They now use the general public for beta testing. All games are beta released games.

[@dimitrilium3912]

One glance at that map tells me they tried a mobile TW, couldn't get it right, and are now trying to recover cost with a rushed pc release.

[@viamdolor9226]

It was originally a DLC for Troy, the devs confirmed this.

[@Alex_Fahey]

​@@viamdolor9226So it's literally Troy 2 in the exact same way they made their Warhammer series. This is a second game where - assuming they don't drop it after a bad reception - the first major DLC will be that Mortal Empires bull to combine them into one larger map. I bet if this sells well enough, then Troy 3 will come out and add Mesopotamia and a bit of Persia in the same way.

[@viamdolor9226]

@@Alex_Fahey I'm actually hoping that is the case because it's the only way to salvage this game. Not that it looks particularly bad or anything, but it doesn't look particularly good either. The battles are beyond redemption yet again and while I appreciate the added campaign mechanics, they don't go far enough with them because you only get numerical bonuses for doing well and that's dreadfully boring. At least in Troy's myth mode you got special units or god powers out of that.

[@AllAmericanWoman1390]

Missed the forest for the trees, i feel like they missed the trees too. they're off goofing around in the weeds these days.

[@cripplelord6383]

My goal regarding entertainment is generally to get at least 1 hour of entertainment out of each dollar i spend. If it cant give me that it needs to be delivering something particularly special. Like a good movie.

[@danielkrcmar5395]

I did quite like in Medieval 2 and Empire how you had to decide between a economic based city and a military. Rome 2 just took it to far though.

[@madwellmusic8995]

Making an educated guess, but i believe the provincial system is actually a more in depth expansion of single settlement with unlimited building slots. Collectively, the capitol and the provinces add up to equate to the original. For example, in med 2 palermo is the only fortress in sicily. Newer titles just basically spread out the building slots onto the campaign map. In theory it makes total sense, as not every town was a bustling hub and mainly consisted of townships and rural communities. Those resources were then exported to a major settlement. Limiting the capitol though....and of course, eliminating the population growth mechanic to expand towns into a specialized hub is just waaaaay to much freedom for the player.

[@dyingearth]

It was Peter III, a German nephew of Elizabeth of Russia who sue for peace in the Russo-Prussian war at the time. Peter III was more interested in reclaiming some ancestral land than pressing the war that Russia was winning against Frederick. This of course made him super popular with the Russian military which eventually lead to the ouster of him by his equally German wife (who fully embraced becoming Russian nobility). History known her as Catherine II (The Great).

[@Usammityduzntafraidofanythin]

Back in the day, bugs (or "glitches") were rare, and it was a fun hobby to try to look for them. This is probably what lead to the exploits and speed run culture. I don't know how many zoomers engage in speed running - it seems like a millenial activity to me. I could be wrong.

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

The only 'speed runs' I know my fellow zoomers do tends to be quick forming a formable nation in paradox games.

[@juanchitaro5380]

DarthMod for Shogun 2 was the only way to play the game for me. I don't even remember how the vanilla version was like.

[@celtofcanaanesurix2245]

if lotus eater could get a games and media studio going like the daily wire did, god we would be in heaven. Hell I might even make a good ideas guy for that kind of thing, I have dozens of story ideas both historical and fictional.

[@padraicburns9278]

It looks like the northwestern edge meets where the Troy map ends 🤔

[@Retrofiend79]

Who on here remembers Centurion defender of rome ? In the days when you used to order games out of magazines py post, posting an order with a cheque and then waiting for what seemed like months for it to come though the post in some ways i miss that in many others i do not but nostalgia is what it is 😁

[@sethwoll6240]

It feels like they’re in a race for what can be the most streamlined, easy to play, and above all else usability to monetize. Before you know it MTW 3 is going to release with only 4-5 main factions that are all focused on Western Europe and maybe one Middle Eastern and everything else is going to be DLC.

[@karelwolf998]

the grayed out chracters are not pay to play, but just disabled for the early access.

[@danielkrcmar5395]

1:40:00 it's probably a copyright thing. That's the reason loading screens can't have mini games in them because some company copywrote the concept back in the 80s.

[@amorencinteroph3428]

The sad thing is Rome 2 is how I first got exposed to the Total War series. xD My boyfriend was a big fan of it (played Empire and Shogun II all the time), so when Rome 2 came out I pre-ordered it for his birthday, and he eventually bought it for me as well so we could play together. It was, uh, at least somewhat entertaining so not a total loss of money. Although one of my favorite memories will be, as Athens, Confederating the Selucids by something like turn 10. As he put it "Yeah, uh, that's game over. How the fuck am I meant to compare against that?"

[@Nlwalker487]

It looks like to me like they are going for a trilogy. Like Warhammer. Next would be the Mesopotamia area, and then they would do a dlc where you can play with Troy, Pharaoh, and "Mesopotamia" factions. Unfortunate

[@tjbr50]

I don't think those factions are necessarily paywalled, just maybe not available for the early access

[@lostalone9320]

In Warhammer TW, about 50% of the heroes are DLC/microtransaction only.

[@sedoskovelha123]

Go in your last video regarding this topic and see my comment: I told you it was your worst take ever. I stand by that. This was obvious from the beggining. CA only makes crap nowadays.

[@Smratboy]

off topic but would love to see you play some TWWH3 if you enjoy that one. Would be great to see a co-op campaign with you and Arch.

[@krissmus]

I am guessing the plan is to create a combined campaign with Troy total war, doesn't the map like cut off exactly where the Troy map begins? haven't played Troy so I'm not sure but it makes sense. and then they probably want to release a third game with the eastern factions. so basically they are probably going to give it the Warhammer treatment, except this is 3 smaller saga games at full price.

[@IoganUnschlagbar]

So, basically, if the Pharaoh's developers would say that the current state of the game is the early access everyone would be fine, knowing there will be plenty of content.

[@galidorn1]

ending Total War Arena was a mistake it was awesome to play with armies of players vs players I wish Rome II was remade with theater maps like Empire TW example: Rise of Rome map for Italia & Sicily, Hannibal at the gates map for Iberia/gaul/north africa, wrath of sparta map for Hellas. so on.. but at this point modders could throw away the Campaign maps and make their own with Google Earth. Lords of the Realm II in 1996 by sierra still even now has done settlement management, population labor manament and conscription better than any of the Total War copy cats

[@jackstone112]

Atilla totalwar was and is my favorite!

[@xkcdapostle]

Why aren't they including the other civilisations? Well, if they haven't planned to expand the map for DLC then how would they maximise their profits?

[@tezzy5584]

Writing was on the wall the second it was announced - a blatant Troy clone, mass assert reuse, a cheaply made title for maximum price.

[@danielkrcmar5395]

What's the 3,000 year old song about the sacking of Anatolia by the sea peoples? Never heard about that before.

[@Alex_Fahey]

I believe its title is the Iliad.

[@danielkrcmar5395]

@@Alex_Fahey That's about Hercules isn't it?

[@Shadow0000]

I think Carl is actually just mad because they don't include a certain Sumerian emperor... ;)

[@RichardPhillips1066]

The issue franchises now is the original highly talented nerds have moved on and then your just left with a franchise and 2020 types who dont understand the source making third rate versions

[@hermanPla]

Rome 2 has gotten okay because of mods? Which mods do you use Carl, I would love to see a list.

[@Meylan191083]

The last game I bought was Atilla. Warhammer is not of interest to me, and the feedback I saw for Thrones of Britannia, Troy etc did not make me want to buy those. Something I really loved about Empire was the town function. You had to think carefully about what you chose to build. I think having limited slots and making choices is a good thing for the empire building part of the game. In Rome 1 and Medieval 2 you could just build everything in every settlement. In Empire as Great Britain I would start the game prioritising economic and research buildings but once I got around to conquering India, I needed a lot of religion and happiness buildings before I could realise the economic benefits of the area. It forced me to make choices and think ahead.

[@SunTzu176]

I think a step forward to fixing the battles, is to go back to the more hand crafted maps of the original total war. Theres such a marked difference between the hand crafted maps of the older titles and the generated maps of Rome 2. Empire, Napoleon, and Shogun 2 had generated maps, that they went over and added details by hand. But more to warhammer and as much as i love warhammer total war the maps are garbage, theres nothing memorable. I think its ine thing that spice the battles up and makes me want to actually command the battle, is the maps. They also need to roll back the terrible idea that you have to have a general in charge of an army. Because all this does is you end up with max stack battles only. I miss having my 3 unit stack of knights running into a random enemy army of 2 swordsmen and 2 archers thats making its way to an enemy city and pouncing in them. You had to fight this battle personally to win.

[@fal1026]

RTS. The punished genre... 🤣😂😭

[@defectiveindustries]

EAT THE SLOP

[@danielkrcmar5395]

Egypt literally moved entire cities brick by brick due to changing access to water. It'd be cool if that was a feature but obviously that's asking to much.

[@Moritz19081980]

6:30 Not entirely true. I am a bit older too (born 1980) and in the 90s there were a lot of bugged games. They used to publish patches on disks/CDs attached to gaming magazines, you actually had to buy. So in some sense it was worse. You had to pay for the patches back then. And there was indeed a need for patches, because it wasn't the dream world you remember. In some cases you could write (an actual letter or poscard) to the publisher to get a patch or fix. But to basically say "there were no bugs because they couldn't afford so" is just wrong. Nostalgia was clouding your memory a bit here.

[@fringer6]

I agree, there's a lot to do with the "Barbarian" peoples north of Greece, involving invaders, favorable mercenaries etc. Hell, it could even be more specific, involving trade between the Nords (Nordic Bronze Age peoples) and Brythonics, who supplied tin. Founding colonies would be a load of fun. Give bonuses for historical regions. Sea Peoples as a singular horde faction is just really odd to me. They should be a mishmash of different unit types, depending on the ethic/culture of the Sea Peoples general. I'd say one of the biggest losses to Total War was troops requiring city populations/slaves. It's something that would make Vassalization far more appealing. General speeches as well, depending on their stats.

[@maltardraco9555]

We Wuz Kangs Total War

[@ShidaiTaino]

2016 wants its jokes back

[@CiceroSolo]

Keeping it confined to Egypt and hittites is a stroke of genius. It makes for a much better game

[@badhabits1965]

seems you've been out of the loop with total war, probably too busy dadding and businessing and philosophing. They've gone to shit like a lot of major series and studios for a while now.

[@23Revan84]

It does suck they are missing so many other factions. I wanted the Assyrians to sack the fucking Levant! I rather stick to my Napoleon Total War and older games.

[@leojohn1615]

i really hope that a new game on the new engine will be good but im seriously not holding my breath. How can they possibly see a stat that says 80% of battles are auto resolved and think we need to make battles faster and less important. Honestly that explains so much playing warhammer 3 i just cannot get through a campaign these days as battles simply are not meaningful and dont result in a significant change on the campaign map almost all battles are either an easy victory or impossible and the building mechanics are just useless. Its really tragic that a game which on the battle map is simply unrivaled can end up being almost unplayable.

[@Usammityduzntafraidofanythin]

You should play the Sargon campaign for Age of Empires 2: Return of Rome. The DLC itself is bad overall (mainly it's just putting Age of Empires 1 in Age 2; most reviewers didn't like that), but the Sargon campaign had an okay storyline and alright missions - I really liked the ending to it. Anyway, my point is that it's the only video game I know of that has bothered to mention Sargon. It's not as bad as Pharoah. It's classic AoE.

[@crocrox2273]

Why I never get notifications for this

[@lostalone9320]

The big problem for modern Total War games is that the strategic mode and battle mode don't work together. The strategic mode encourages you to just build huge stacks, but that makes the battles boring because you smash almost everyone. If you are playing the strategic mode well, the battles are trivial, but the strategic mode is also boring. It always feels like the whole game is balanced around the Mongol invasion arriving eventually, but there is no end game challenge you are waiting for.

[@defectiveindustries]

I guess thats why they added auto resolve to the games. When they added that, I was instantly reminded of tabletop wargaming and the scourge of power (cheese) armies and how I loudly complained and opined that we may as well not even bother playing the game and just roll a dice to determine who won. Like what is the point? Games have become lowest common denominator slop

[@jamesespinosa690]

Uhhhhh what??? Respectfully, are you dumb? Being good strategically almost always trumps being a good tactician.... The balance you've described is desirable.

[@ej.crusing6130]

Suddenly, my "mere" 400 hrs of TWW fells like nothing

[@hidupsehat5205]

Just replayed baldurs gate 1 , it’s just better, completely agree with you on pre internet

[@assyrianchristian764]

Again just wait for Bronze Age mod for Rome total war two Egypt and hitties have campaigns and there working on the other nations which you can play custom games already

[@Nigel1Powers]

WHAT this is Carl?

[@IceniTotalWar]

Oh yeah 😁😁, i was also surprised to find out 1 of my favourite KZbinrs was also a Total War player.

[@pupp993]

Vouland was right about shogun 2 being the last good total sad

[@jamesespinosa690]

Age of Wonders is the competitor. The problem is the tactical game is turn based. I absolutely love AoW Shadow Magic. The later games where they introduce multi model units aren't as good though. Im gnna reinstall the game now!!

[@anteep4900]

i wouldnt say they were ever a competitor, there is no real time tactics or large scale combat in aowr

[@ryanyvegaify]

You are right on the mark about the total war series i was hyped for the warhammer total war games. But my chief complaint was the diplomacy. Your an elven faction dealing with marauding tribes of chaos beastmen. Hey fellow neighboring elven faction can we enter into a strategic alliance since were the same race and worship the same gods and help prevent our villages from being sacked and everyone in them from being raped murdered and eaten. The default response is of course fuck no. I was optimistic well if you can make an okay warhammer total war game how about an elder scrolls total war well i dont hope for that anymore it'd probably suck

[@angryhermit4291]

You sound like sargon

[@furrymessiah]

Imagine that

[@franklydum5056]

I hate the invincible lord concept with a burning passion, and now the invincible lord IS the faction. Jesus wept.

[@braydoxastora5584]

3 kingdoms? Eh it was ok. But it was no shogun 2. And rome 2 didnt get until after 10 years

[@BadNews885]

Is this Sargon?

[@BadNews885]

5mins in: yes it is

[@richard343s]

DLC was a mistake. This is why we get unfinished games time and time again.

[@wulfgarpl]

Sorry, Carl. CA wont get bankrupt. Warhammer carries the company.

[@robosoldier11]

Well glad I can come back here and say I was right. But at the same time kinda wanted to be wrong. CA could’ve taken a turn. But no it’s such a garbage pile of a company now. CA of old is weeping.

[@galidorn1]

yeah kinda lame there no babylon or any mesopotamian kingdoms didnt like the portral of trojans or the hero designs at all in troy. the lvl 1 and lvl 2 troops for achians and minoans were cool but the lvl3 and 4 heavy units were awful. and disappointing the Hittites didn't play in some how

[@Pers0n97]

You'd have to not have kept up with CA stuff for YEARS to have any hope for Pharaoh. This company has been going down for a while

[@user-rw2jo1fz2p]

Did u buy and try the game or not? Dont make reviews on how bad the game is if u dont actually played it.I almost did not buy it myself and i would have missed out on the most fun i had since rome total war. The game is great. try it.

[@tragicthegarnering3619]

Ca have always been massive money grabbers, they make paradox look good.

[@magnuslord]

You were also wrong about Vtubers.

[@SuziQ499]

Awful game CA are finished they are greedy and devoid of any creativity or passion not created a good game since 2012.

[@j.w.9669]

Of course you were wrong… talking is cheap and CA only talks never delivers