LEAKED: Pharaoh WAS just a Troy DLC

[@Volound]

it looks to me like CA officially denied this to their customers: gyazo.com/747d30830dd11d012354044a7bbf6d05 this is a massive, MASSIVE fail - and PR shitstorm in the making. also, another massive FAIL for the shithole subreddit, presumably inspired by the above official statements that must have been deliberately deceptively offered: www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/17j3tiy/pharoah_is_not_a_saga/ any other massive fails from there regarding this that you can remember? i remember seeing some others. over the weeks and months. ill be attentive with approving links manually if you paste them. also you can just quote the title of reddit threads and they can be googled to be found.

[@cynicalgothbrit2352]

How would you react if it turns out your entire life was just another troy DLC?

[@Volound]

still wouldnt buy it.@@cynicalgothbrit2352

[@hammertime732]

That thread, in trying to deny Pharaoh as a Saga title, effectively describes Pharaoh as exactly what it was: a Saga title that was modded at the last minute into a superficially full title.

[@marcpaulus6291]

From Bronze Age collabs to CA collabs, history will repeat itself.

[@luigisaguier8336]

Jack Lusted's priorities seem to lean more towards emulating Sherlock Holmes rather than focusing on his role in game direction and production within the company. Moreover, his ability to advocate for consumer-oriented decisions within the company appears to be lacking, raising concerns that many recent decisions have not been in favor of consumers. This speculation, though, is a generous interpretation of his involvement in some of the recent anti-consumer practices

[@hammertime732]

If they had just made it a DLC and expanded the Bronze Age map to include Troy and Pharaoh's geography, it would have been critically better received and even been financially more successful. These past two months is like CA's Battle of Cannae but if Hannibal was just the stupidity of CA leadership.

[@Lone-Wanderer28]

Nah, this is CA's Manzikert.

[@PG19871230]

@@Lone-Wanderer28 The beginning of the end

[@CDProjekt7]

Or that battle where Austria defeated themselves. Battle of Karánsebes

[@Amadourrr]

OOF

[@thedonkey6704]

@@PG19871230 I mean after manzikert the Byzantines still survived and under few emperors even started thriving again like alexios komnenos. So does that mean that in those few years of thriving we get a good game again?

[@MasonDixonAutistic]

They saw the success of Fall of The Samurai, and instead of thinking: "Okay, so making an expansion stand-alone but able to combine with the base game benefits the player by increasing the support window, allowing retro-active improvements as they go in the same .exe" ...they thought: "...people will buy expansions, as whole new games. We can milk this and give players nothing in return. They just need to get excited for next product and not ask questions."

[@Legion12Centurion]

People did buy Napoleon.

[@mellowInventor]

@@Legion12Centurion Napoleon (2010) came out before Fall of the Samurai (2012).

[@hailalexander93]

Attila too, but I liked Attila as it was a good game that had its own expansions and I never had the performance problems others complain about.

[@doltBmB]

If I remember correctly FOTS was straight up a regular expansion to begin with, they patched it so FOTS was removed from the base game and made a separate game and changed the steam storefront so it was a separate game there as well, giving everyone who used to have the expansion as DLC a free copy. It was a bit of a mess and some of the achivements can no longer be gotten because of this. Actually whatever shenanigans they did completely messed up the shogun 2 depots so you can no longer download the release version of the game with depot downloader. The earliest depot of shogun 2 is from 2013 when the split happened. This is terrible because the FOTS release update downgraded the graphics in shogun 2.

[@Cba409]

Yup. They sell mods for the price of a full new game.

[@anteep4900]

im loving watching them get creatively disassembled

[@JoshuaLikesGrahamCrackers]

time for creative reassembly

[@negativezero8174]

Hopefully some Creatives Assemble

[@ColonelMetus]

​@negativezero8174 my butt is leaking whilenI watch this

[@CptCudlScoops]

That was a very Creative way to Assemble words.

[@amadeuszjankowski9212]

Same, can't stand that company

[@sebaszane]

Was player count for Troy even enough to justify a DLC like this? CA had no problem dropping everything they had planned for 3K. Nothing about this company makes sense.

[@TacticalBeard]

Three kingdoms was probably only popular to the Chinese market……… and the trouble that comes with selling games under the boot of the CCP

[@marcpaulus6291]

Remember that Troy was given away for free, so they did it all on the number of "saled" Titels.

[@die1mayer]

Chinese didn't buy DLCs, thus CA came up with the genious idea to drop support for 3K and develop a 3K II (similar to Warhammer I->II).

[@hammertime732]

@@die1mayer What's hilarious is the Chinese were eager for content but CA went out of their way to make the most culturally distasteful DLC possible for the Chinese market. Then they read the result as meaning NOTHING for 3K was viable. I don't know about EGS sales numbers, but no the player count for Troy does not justify DLC but even to this day the numbers for 3K do.

[@lolasdm6959]

@@hammertime732 No generally Chinese gaming community were not on board with the constant DLC model

[@edeneini839]

In a perfect world, 3 kingdoms would have dlcs all the way to the Jin dynasty, Troy and Pharaoh would be part of an "Age of mythology" total war series, WH3 would be as good as WH2 and Hyenas wouldn't have even made it past the concept phase.

[@kurrwa]

They can’t use age of mythology name. Apply tor co and bring us amazing games :3

[@linming5610]

3k would had 2 sagas. End of Qin or rise of Han dynasty, with new mechanics where you can save Qin or fight Qin until you destroy them and have a fierce struggle between the two strongest factions like the Chu-Han contention to establish a new empire. The other is rebellion of the 5 barbarians with completely new mechanics, possibly starting at the date of the 8 princes but with the added mechanic like an overall Jin dynasty prestige where if they dropped to a certain level, the mercenaries will rebel and nomadic tribes invade en masse to migrate to better lands and establish their own kingdoms. You can choose to play famous Jin princes or the nomadic tribes.

[@LiquidModernityTastesLikeUrine]

and they would be investing serious $$$ to fund research & development of their best engine in a really ambitious way to bring a truly next gen, next-level, never-seen before experience of a TRUE historical total war title like medieval 3 or empire 2

[@heinrichzemo3766]

Mythology : Total War could be a great game, with religion/worship as the main mechanic. Start with Greece and Egypt, and they could expand it to the north with Slavic and Nordic mythology

[@P4TRICCS]

3k would need a full rebalance. Not being able to use or srmy because tje fiesr minor cut make 80+ man running away is a joke.

[@sedoskovelha123]

In case you didnt realise, ever since Rome 2 CA has only been making mods for Rome 2. That also explains why the newest titles are purposefully made hard to mod.

[@Volound]

youre talking to basically the only guy with any platform thats been consistently saying that for the past decade.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

@@Volound i dont have a platform but me and all my friends who play total war have had that opinion for a long time. it does help we all are programmers. its really not an unpopular opinion in the total war community. and a lot of people in the community have technical professions so we can infer whats going on under the hood. i hear more buzz about rome 1 campaigns these days than i do about warhammer 3.

[@angshumanroy277]

A big, much needed slap to all those shillfluencers who tried desperately to convince the community, peddling CA's false narrative about Pharaoh being a fully fledged "historical" title and not a saga game💯

[@Volound]

even CA themselves claimed otherwise. an example of the brand managers in england putting people in bulgaria in the crosshairs. ive noticed them do that a lot.

[@SmoughTown]

Immediately clicking on all your content - thanks for your continuing coverage bud. Wild that everything we have suspected is true, just so transparent from CA.

[@dagdamor1]

In an alternate reality, Smough is head of CA and is celebrating a new Fantasy smash hit, Erdtree: Total War, with a resounding 150,000 concurrent players.

[@SmoughTown]

@@dagdamor1 Lmao - i might be able to pick CA up for cheap soon.

[@zefft.f4010]

*t r a n s p a r e n c y* just...not exactly the kind of transparency we asked for...

[@pritzi101]

Unexpected crossover to be sure but a welcome one.

[@PenguinWithInternetAccess]

Well that's surprising

[@123asds]

I love how Volound singlehandedly is bringing down CA by holding them accountable for their scummy and low effort practices. It´s a disgrace that they haven´t managed to produce a good game since Shogun 2.

[@elang1702]

Attila good

[@Darthvegeta8000]

Shogun 2 was good but there are plenty of Total Wars since then I've enjoyed as well.

[@TheToledoTrumpton]

Warhammer 1 was good. The problem came with Warhammer 2 and 3, the cost of adding these games to WH1 was the same as, or more than the cost of writing a whole new game, because of the engine and legacy code issues. Instead of just making less profit on WH2&3, instead of the killing they hoped for, by essentially releasing them as new games for the work of a DLC, they took the low-road, releasing a cheap shoddy product and are now reaping what they sowed. They are not the first games company or software company to make this mistake, and they won't be the last.

[@nunya931]

@@elang1702 Agreed. It's just too bad they didn't ever optimize it. I think it's my favorite title. Rome II eventually reached a point where it's decent too. But it sure didn't start out that way. CA needs some real competition in this genre...

[@Gutenburg100]

​@elang1702 Attila was good but optimization was horrible. Still play it though saving West Rome lol

[@urahi830]

CA basically followed the trajectory of your average lottery winner: they struck gold almost purely based on luck with the Warhammer saga, alienated all the people close to them over the years and ended up pissing away their fortune on extravagant ventures that were doomed to fail from the start.

[@grimgoreironhide9985]

They struck gold with Medieval 2. It’s the game that saved the company financially.

[@madwellmusic8995]

Unfortunately its moreso the brand of total war than the game itself​@@grimgoreironhide9985

[@TheGreatBookofGrudges]

Hey dude thanks for the tag naturally I have to call leaks alleged for legal purposes until anything gets officially released but if true then: 1. I don't think CA Sofia need to apologise to me with regards to Pharaoh likely being a Troy DLC offshoot as obviously they would be bound by their contract to not confirm it. Naturally anyone who's been under NDA knows that type of thing was likely stressed in it. I like CA Sofia as a studio it's a massive shame they haven't been given their time to shine properly as they have shown that they do care about what they make hence their dev diaries, willingness to talk to the community, etc 2. With regards to another alleged leak of them maybe moving to Warhammer all I can say is good, but also bad? - Good because they do make good DLCs despite Troy not being a favoured game of mine they did make great new and thematic mechanics which we've already seen bleed over to Warhammer 3 and there's more I'd like to see to be honest. Ultimately the Warhammer fanbase would be very happy to see CA Sofia make DLCs for us. - Bad because CA Sofia DESERVE to be treated like a main studio, with the time, budget and resources needed to do so. While again Pharaoh wasn't really my thing I loved how they were so active and listened to the community. I said it on a stream a few days ago that they should be treated more like a dev studio and less than a B team.

[@Volound]

someone definitely needs to apologise here. this is a MASSIVE fuck-up. we have CA staff ostensibly not just lying, but repudiating the truth while speaking in an official capacity on behalf of the company - lying for a company to their customers. if anyone should be worried about being sued or whatever then it surely shouldnt be us lol. also as leakers or whistleblowers we are afforded legal protections. you are never going to see a leaker get sued by a game company for misreporting something they sincerely believed to be true and had good reason to believe was leaked by a verified source. in fact you could argue you have a stronger duty to the public to actually report on that truth that far outweighs any responsibility to the company out of fear.

[@TheGreatBookofGrudges]

@@Volound Oh yeah CA needs to apologise to EVERYONE for everything that's happened in the past few years but I'm not holding my argument with CA Sofia against them as they don't make the decisions and they've been treated poorly here too. Reason why I don't want one is because I am simply indifferent to an apology as we've seen how great they come out. I want actions not words. I call them alleged as it does offer a means of protection as I do not trust them right now to not tamper with any other things I'm working on outside of TW.

[@joaffle]

When are we getting the the Volound interview on the channel been waiting for that one.

[@jakeholmannf]

Pharaoh has 1364 players right now. Age of Mythology Extended Edition, a game that originally came out in 2002, has 1914 on SteamDB. Creative Assembly has a lot of work to do to fix the results of spectacular mismanagement and to deliver products their customer base actually want and have repeatedly told them as much.

[@nomennisceo6495]

Age of Mythology is bloody great though

[@jonnycroft7428]

@@nomennisceo6495the starting cinematic alone is better than Pharaoh

[@jakeholmannf]

@@jonnycroft7428 Absolutely to both of you! It's a classic, so well done. Heck, Impressions Games' Pharaoh from 1998 is a better/more immersive Pharaoh than Creative Assembly's, just watch the cinematic for it. It doesn't spend over half of its cinematic focused on dung beetles either.

[@rickastley7522]

Don’t say that like Age of Mythology doesn’t deserve more players. I still own my disc.

[@jakeholmannf]

@@rickastley7522 It absolutely does, it's a gem that will be played for years to come. Total War Pharaoh will probably be ridiculed, mocked, and then forgotten about in a much shorter span though.

[@MikePawz]

FOTS was lightning in a bottle compared to anything they have made historical since the golden age, how greedy for them to assume Pharaoh was in the same niche

[@linming5610]

Could had been, had they market and priced it correctly.

[@MikePawz]

@@linming5610 not sure if they could have paid me to play this clone of a clone, in an old engine. And the Bronze Age, really?

[@linming5610]

@@MikePawz maybe not you. But some would. People just refused to play this game after seeing CA blatant abuse of their fanbase.

[@Dylan-hy2zj]

@@linming5610 I mean like it or hate it Total War games just aren't as enjoyable anymore, and the reason for that is because their badly designed software is so difficult to work with that adding or changing anything of substance is near impossible on any short timescale no matter how much money gets thrown at it.

[@HenriqueRJchiki]

Attila is pretty good all things considered tbh

[@DruidsTears]

It's sad being a Total War fan all these years just for it all come to this. I miss the passion for the historical setting and attention to detail no matter how small. You can tell when people actually put passion into things....

[@JackChurchill101]

I thought I was just getting old, and 20 years playing a franchise was bound to go stale and I would grow out of it, - but no, it's because I've been playing the same fucking game for a decade, reskinned and modded into tedium! You have to laugh at it really. Good to know not everything is due to getting old.

[@vesrra8185]

​​@@shmekelfreckles8157yes, they have same engine (thus same problems)

[@rainyvideos3684]

SAGAs are DLC without the DLC label. Small, cheap, and easily put out.

[@phantomjoker5]

*It all returns to nothing; it all comes tumbling down, tumbling down...*

[@goldenboy199]

Is that a neon genesis evangelion reference?

[@phantomjoker5]

@@goldenboy199 😎

[@goldenboy199]

@@phantomjoker5 I knew it!

[@Latinkon]

_The End of Creative Assembly_ 🙃

[@Marko777ify]

Gog and Magog.

[@sfugid]

Yes the DLC shitfest on Warhammer III and the fact that Pharaoh was clearly a SAGA game/ Troy DLC can't be understated..but the main reason of why Pharaoh is failling can't also be forgotten: Its a game that nobody really wanted, the community asked for Empire 2/Medieval 3

[@kurrwa]

They won’t make empire 2. They abandon sea battles.

[@richardyocum-qi7db]

It's just so simple that is just mind boggling lol . Empire 2 or Medieval 3. Any other historical title (besides maybe a WWI-II title) is just flat out a middle finger to the fans. As soon as I saw it was Pharoah my response was well, I guess it's over huh lol.

[@Real-Hawk]

I am still waiting for Medieval 3!

[@erwinschmied]

Napoleon 2 please

[@Freedmoon44]

​@@erwinschmiedso Empire 2 but with a proper Napoleon expansion

[@Warmaker01]

It doesn't surprise me at all one bit. Edit: The mention of the well done Fall of the Samurai as standalone warrants attention. FOTS didn't require Shogun 2, but it's a clear offshoot off of it despite that. But it was reasonably priced at $29.99 USD. Pharaoh should have been that, but CA got greedy and went all in, full priced at $59.99.

[@kurrwa]

People paying 40 usd for single skin in game so what do you expect ? Soon games gonna cost 100 for base game lmao

[@etienne8110]

It was overpriced. 30bucks back then was almost as much as the game (35).

[@Naeron66]

Shocker, prices go up over time.

[@duskworker8469]

uhhhhh FoTS was originally a DLC that you could get for super cheap combined with every other S2 DLC with the gold edition. Then they repackaged FoTS as a saga and charged full pop for it. Like years and years later.

[@rewstar3606]

Cant wait for Crusades, Teutonic, Americas, and Britannia Saga games from Medieval 2 for only $30 each 🤩

[@DivineAlchemyOfSouls]

Shit, even then it would have sold better than Pharaoh 😂. all they had to do was make a decent game set in the medieval era and people would have bought it

[@commandere2475]

Well, I got the Medieval II definite edition with all those for less than 30 bucks on sale. Worth it.

[@nickwilson8119]

Th thing about Nepoleon for empire, FOTS for Shugan 2 and Attila for Rome 2 is they were built on the back of big games that sold and they drastically improved those base games while keepong the scope.

[@tonyweaver2353]

They admitted this as a selling point when Troy was releasing as being a three part trilogy historical series for a day then everybody forgot, but I didnt. Im like where are the other two and here comes Pharoah and I was like wait a minute... Same age, same area, how is it not a dlc?

[@Elenrai]

Even worse, why did it not release as Fall of the Bronze Age. I got no care for these tiny games, Attila at least let me fix western rome and drag it back into a golden age, kicking and screaming, that is something that, to quote that EA guy, fills me with pride and accomplishment

[@camcelled5555]

I remember seeing a thread a while back on the subreddit whose name shall not be spoken going through Glassdoor reviews for CA. A lot of the anonymous feedback from actual former/present employees corroborate the leaks that you've been presenting.

[@joek600]

I have been playing TW since MTW. After the release of RTW I got pretty active in the modding community, mainly creating skins. I remember Jack Lusted very vividly. He was one of those loud extremely mediocre-bad modders throwing sloppy stuff out there, most of them being copied by other people's work or a fast hue/saturation adjustment in photoshop. He did managed to get some fame in the forums but never delivered. In fact there was a talk about inviting him over to our mod just because of his popularity. At the same time there was a guy who sadly his nickname escapes me after 20 years. He was absolutely brilliant making by himself a total conversion of RTW into basically a form of Three Kingdoms. All with fully custom models (best horses in TW before STW2), even DRAGONS at a time that changing the color of a crest was considered ''modding''. He went above and beyond the limits of the RTW engine and really aspired to join CA. Everybody though that he 100% deserved it. Guess what. He didnt get the job. Who got it? Frigging Jack Lusted because he was local and he had ''internet clout''. We all saw how brilliantly that went...

[@Cottage_Punk]

Did Jack Lusted modded RTW ? I became active on TWC after Medieval 2 / Empire. I never understood Jack Lusted's reputation of big modder. Like people frequently referred to him as the big modder recruited by CA but I never noticed him in the actual big and popular RTW / Medieval 2 mods. In fact I thought he had only been active on relatively lower scope Medieval 1 project. I never understood why he had such big reputation compared to others modders like say, Darth, who did compilation and occasionally neglected work but definitively released big stuff for Empire, Napoleon and Shogun 2. Your last point is so true. CA in a nutshell. And unfortunately, this is an old phenomenon. At least 20 years of toxic business culture.

[@joek600]

@@Cottage_Punk He used to be very active on TWC and Totalwar org. By active i mean the release of small packs of mostly recolored vanilla skins and a few stat changes here and there. He managed to get alot of clout because he is one of those extremely mediocre guys with a motormouth constantly promoting themselves. Social media didnt existed back then but the same logic applied to the fora and message boards. I still remember the WTF feeling when he announced his hiring by CA. Seeing him years after as the leading figure behind SAGA games and his demeanor on camera, confirmed my initial opinions about his type of guy. There were (and are off course) modders that did absolutely great stuff for TW. Jack Lusted though was never one of them.

[@TKainZero]

Darth mod was a must.

[@DerSteppenwolf1979]

Keep on fighting the good fight. CA needs to GO UNDER. They need to be made as an example to the industry, that companies CANNOT treat its community like cash cows. This industry needs a major shakeout.

[@RealPeoplePerson]

The Saga concept reminds me of Paradox's Imperator Rome. It was pitched as a smaller production than EU4 but with a lower price tag. It wasn't communicated clearly in the marketing though, so players were disappointed in what they got. In the end, it seems like players aren't really interested in smaller (or more "focused") game, but would prefer something deep and expansive to dig into.

[@theyellowarchitect4504]

Yeah bro it was dissapointing not because it was a shallow garbage game (e.g. mobile timers), but because le bad marketing

[@vulcanjoe8258]

Someone posted when pharaoh first came out that they found ini files from Troy, including cities and units etc. That post got ban hammered and deleted faster than anything so curious If that was actually was true

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

Makes you wonder why the engine used since Empire has been, instead of the very open engine for R1 and M2, locked behind keys and CA refusing to release developping tools (many other studios do to compensate for an engine hard to work with, if they still want modders to mod the game !!!).

[@Dylan-hy2zj]

CA should have just taken the time at any point in the last 8 years to properly engineer a better Total War engine. Instead they wasted their development time churning out title after title, all of which were just mods of previous titles. We've heard before; the reason they can't add or change anything of substance is due to their mountains of technical debt, brought about by short-term decision making, all at the expense of Total War's long-term prospects no less.

[@1Daveyjonesman1]

You know there I was, seeking to wash my within the shower and I thought of this astounding analogy. With all the controversy and chaos that's been ensuing, increasingly so, I got to thinking...if a Wal-mart Manager saw the customer service line wrapping outside the front entrance, the RETURNS line to be specific, and went up to a customer and asked what was wrong and they showed him/her the rotten...leafy advertised product, with moldy, hardened, and crusty Avocados and the Walmart manager decides to EJECT the customer outside of the store, what happened? He saved Walmart the immediate sale of an atrocious product, however, then most likely lost a customer to perhaps Grocery Outlet, 99 cent store, or maybe even the dollar tree. Moral of the story, regardless of how unimportant the Wal-Mart manager makes you feel for not desiring to purchase their soiled product, do know that no matter how much delicious Pomegranate Raspberry dressing you throw on those Crusty Avocado products, it's still moldy! Honestly had a few other analogies but that one I could actually coherently type out. Just want some good leafy greens yo! BTW, this comment was banned for posting in the Total War Subreddit

[@TacticalBeard]

All in the pursuit to make line go up they made the line go down

[@PARAN0IDxGERBIL]

Many such cases

[@lolasdm6959]

imagine just making good products and then line can go up.

[@strategicavocado]

Thank you so much for this information. Not only me but probably most of the total war fans were suspicious about this. And you just confirmed it by a trustworthy source. It really saddens me that the future of the total war series won't probably be bright... we just want good games. Think about it... Even TW: Attila has some Rome II voice lines and some similarities, ToB as a "mod" from Attila, Pharaoh as a DLC from Troy... They want to make the MOST of every release they have and I feel like they abuse it. They just see money, nothing else. Sad

[@petresko1041]

No joke, Third Age feels exactly like its own game that uses the same game engine. It's masterfully made. I felt like I was playing a new release of Medieval II for a favorite fantasy title. Clown Assembly's marketing shills will never have the merit to recreate something like this.

[@trickyfoxx6941]

I play it to and fully agree third age all day

[@jackabsolute5525]

Yeah Lusted was the author of the Retrofit mod in Medieval 2 which basically added kingdoms features to the base campaign game and indirectly became the template for which other mods were based off if I remember correctly. He's one of the OG modders like Darth or Radious or Swiss or the others on the scene who I can't remember. It was.a good time back then when the community would help each other... though a LOT of people would whine why this or that historical faction was not included. Ah, never change TWCenter.

[@RTSG_Prism]

Volound you are the people's champion bro. Leading the people's revolution against CA's corrupt practices.

[@Volound]

thanks prism for bring in the vanguard with me

[@Tomo_mo]

No way volound is a people's champion leading the revolution. Most people on the forum has deep hatred towards him for some reason that i dont understand. He is the unpopular hero that is hated but also needed.

[@Volound]

the answer is clear. those are not total war fans. they are disgusting warhammer incels.@@Tomo_mo

[@Tomo_mo]

@@Volound i mean warhammer is also a total war game, but i get your point. And now i kinda get why youre so hated much, youre hella based and unhinged. But despite that, me an old time historical fan sincerely appreciate you and other total war youtubers for shedding light on the recent CA controversies. Cheers m8.

[@Volound]

come on it isnt really. total war is total war. warhammer is something else.@@Tomo_mo

[@angelobartolomeu5679]

Their market value will plumbe so drastically that Volound might actually buy CA or TW rights with patreoj money

[@kemancash2812]

I wish that Manor Lords gets a huge success. I have nearly all the games of total war and they are the only firm that produces their type of the game right now. We deeply need a competition to have better quality total wars and such.

[@fungunsun1]

Sloooowly some things are coming out. Ultimate general series is another good mention. But yeah they are still too small in scale to rival TW.

[@aquapendulum]

Shogun II playing in the background is a sad reminder that we will never have something that good again.

[@PROVOCATEURSK]

I got perma banned on total war reddit for saying Pharaoh sucks. Guess they bought the mods too.

[@TsunamiWombat]

the scuttle was that a CA dev said in an interview it was originally a DLC that "grew too big in scope" and became it's own game. This was publicly known I thought? Or was this interview a myth? I swear I thought most of this was already publically admitted knowledge, the 'new' bits being 1. Pharoah was originally also a saga but changed mid development into a full price (it was clear it was always a saga but I thought they at least set out with the delusion of a full price game), and 2. Sofia taking over Total Warhammer development. And i'm going to be honest, if that's true it's welcome news because Sofia seems to be the last holdout of passion in CA. Reminder that Medieval 2 was actually made by CA Austrailia, not Horsham, and then they got fucking closed after it launched because it was considered a failure. I'll take Sofia being shifted to warhammer over them getting shuttered any day.

[@Volound]

they have a PR shitshow on their hands now, because this happened after that gyazo.com/747d30830dd11d012354044a7bbf6d05

[@honkworld9405]

@@Volound Caught in 4k.

[@redxhand]

sofia? isnt that the one who manages Pharaoh and troy?

[@Volound]

YE@@redxhand

[@TsunamiWombat]

@@Volound oh look CA lying. Again.

[@mwm1724]

I bet if they made Medieval 3 or a Victoria TW after three kingdoms instead of making the exact same game two more times with a different coat of paint, CA wouldn't be in as much money trouble.

[@CrowMercury]

I have no trouble believing this. Everything about Pharaoh screamed Troy, and the map desperately screamed to be bigger. Everyone who gave an honest review asked for greece and babilonia, now we know what was thr plan, but they tried to swindle the buyers.

[@nymshade]

All this CA news almost makes me feel kinda relieved that the rumors of CA doing a "WAR40K shooter" haven't amounted to anything. As bad as I want battlefield:warhammer, I don't think CA should go anywhere near that idea anymore. I don't see CA recovering from these disasters, even if they announced medieval 3 yesterday.

[@hydry6317]

whats funny is that Troy + pharoah + more in middle east would be the bare minimum for a total war game pre-2016. Nevermind 2 full games plus some

[@ChristianRoss-z2n]

It becomes more and more clear why there is less and less innovation..after such a long time a Total war Should be a lot more then the same game over and over and over again.

[@picklewart5382]

Another scummy trend by scummy companies. Assassin's Creed: Mirage was also supposed to just be a DLC, for Valhalla. They're selling chunks of games for full price and that's when it's clearly time to stop buying from those companies if it wasn't before.

[@JerryCanTheThird]

Someone needs to make a Clown mod for Pharao - a circus faction of sort. Troops consist of lower management clowns, marketing clowns, leaders are CEOs and so on. Absolute dog shit faction with troops that just scatter or do nothing (no AI coding required 😉) and reduced stats.

[@Elenrai]

I recommend the clown from Empire Earth😂

[@YamatoPower9000]

One of my wishes is to hear/see Volound happy like a kid from new TW game or something else at least once in life.

[@Volound]

im one of the happiest people i know lol, how else would i have been able to endure for so long?

[@Elcore]

A Glaswegian who complains is unhappy. A Glaswegian who complains constantly is happy.

[@Volound]

this guy gets it ok@@Elcore

[@swedichboy1000]

Myth: The fallen lords would´ve been a good contender for TW, sadly theres no digital purchase as of yet.

[@johnsullivanmusic2719]

I remember when they changed Shogun 2 to be a "saga" title so that they could distance themselves from thrones of brittania and say "we made 1 good saga game look at shogun 2!" and its like shogun 2 was a full development game, in fact the creator miraculously got more time to finish the game and then sega said that the time used to finish the game didnt translate to new users like they thought and so nobody could ever get more time to finish a total war game again lol.

[@rusael333]

I'm not even a big Total War fan but I love seeing how this community comes together to call out greedy corporate practices and not out of a sentiment of moral high ground but simply because they want to play good games again

[@deinemutter8999]

What I wonder about the last SAGA titles (Troy and pharao ofc included) they are all about time periods where we know very little about. This makes the historical aspect very open for interpretation. This alone is a strange choice and I wonder if there is more behind it.

[@notjaisavage740]

>didnt trust thst troy would sell well >Makes an even more limited version of troy and tries to sell it for more money than troy Flawless logic there CA

[@mcmarkmarkson7115]

They destroyed their brand so hard. Sure they make no money directly on mods, but if the base game is good and gets modding support more people are gonna buy these niche strategy games. Nobody ain't buying their new games.

[@roach590]

Dude just imagine the games we could have if game companies didn't decide making better games wasn't necessary... Medieval 2 came out almost 20 years ago, Imagine how much better games could be, not just total war but almost every game, we could have been living the dream. Instead now we only have cool indie games and the extremely rare gem from a big studio.

[@toddfromwork8931]

Thanks for being an outlet for whistleblowers Volound. It's an important service that is totally lacking in journalism today. Plus it's a riot trolling CA and their fanboys 🤣

[@MarkHoppusy]

Two things: 1. I watched that SoulGames video last week and was hoping you'd see it. 2. I believe he also made a GREAT point about Medieval 3 in that video. He said that CA isn't in a hurry to make a Med3 because they will struggle to find a way to justify cutting out 70% of the factions to sell back to us as DLC. If they do make a Med3 and they make you pay $4.99 for France, $5.99 for Byzantine Greek Fire Throwers, or $6.99 for HRE, people are really going to hate them. I wouldn't put it past them.

[@asirry3144]

So Rome 2 disaster but in medieval sittings. So Cool

[@MarkHoppusy]

@asirry3144 I never said anything about Rome 2, my guy.

[@grimgoreironhide9985]

Medieval 2 was what financially saved CA. They later released Empire and Shogun 2 building up some goodwill. But flushed it down the toilet with the launch of Rome 2. It all went downhill from there.

[@urahi830]

I mean is literally anyone surprised about this

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

Anyone who's not a shill (and maybe even them)? No.

[@henrythebeyonder]

At this point I can no longer call CA as "creative assemble" anymore XD SINCE TODAY I WILL BAPTIZED THEM AS "CORRUPTED ASSEMBLY" (they are not what they used to be like 10 years ago, more over 20 years when they started)

[@revanlord05]

I mean, this was just expected, they saw how the line was going down and decided to "Fuck It, turn that DLC into a full game, we need the money!" Don't expect a full Bronze Age Total War, that idea is dead with Troy and Pharaoh. Also, Don't expect Medieval 3 or Empire 2; they're still figuring out how to put France and Germanic Nations into DLCs.

[@beetheimmortal]

I mean, let's be honest. Anyone who thinks Pharaoh *didn't* start out as a DLC is delusional at this point. Poor Crytek Black Sea, as they used to be known back in the day, just drew the worst possible cards. Also, cheers to SoulGames. I already watched his video when it came out, and it was just the absolute cherry on top of this cake of hilarity.

[@the3rdid485]

Honestly if they had released some properly good DLC for Troy and basically made it be like a proper expansion pack with a ton more content it would have been a win-win. They could have sold way more copies of it, gotten a ton better feedback, a lot of Goodwill from the community, and it would have increased sales of Troy, Plus they probably would have saved a ton of money developing it as a DLC versus a standalone game. It's mind-boggling that they chose not to do this.

[@jasonnguyen1840]

This company's leadership baffled me. It's like they are either perpeptually high or living on another plane of existence....

[@changer_of_ways_999]

What saga games SHOULD have been were sort of testing grounds for new mechanics, programming, and sort of a microcosm of future concepts. Thrones of Britannia could have been a testing ground for campaign mechanics for Medieval 3. They could have done an Italian Wars saga game to test out early modern/shot and pike warfare in combat. Troy could have been a testing ground for a mythological series. But because they're made by a B team instead of a pioneer team, they have no real impact on the series. Also, using saga games as mini test beds for future main series games would require a linear and united pipeline of projects rather than the branching and forking mess that they apparently have. Saga games could have been to Total War what the Act I was to Baldur's Gate 3. If they openly said, "here's a slice of a future pie, enjoy it and tell us what you think before the rest of the pie comes out," I think players would be more willing to invest in it instead of just getting cheap mini campaigns just for the sake of content.

[@warrenwest407]

Imagine, we could have had egyptian mythological units...

[@Daiciyomon_4594]

Fake book of Grudges Nathan do not deserve a apology if he said sorry to me first

[@fringer6]

I've been pining for a Bronze Age Total War since Rome, and I end up getting this mess. It's a terrible shame that they shot their shot with this time period, meaning we're unlikely to ever see it again. Hopefully CA can get its shit together for the next full release title. I have zero expectations, but hemorrhaging money can really force a company to act accordingly.

[@Naeron66]

Have you played it?

[@fringer6]

@@Naeron66 yes, and I didn't like how small the world map was. Sure, it had a lot of regions, but not even half of the actual Bronze Age world. Combat was alright, with the chariots still being a massive weak point, in my opinion. They don't carry that stopping power. I really dislike the trend of basing factions around a singular hero, rather than around a family system. A singular figure made more sense for Troy, or for a smaller expansion pack, but not for the full game. I enjoyed the diety system, and I think it's a good building block on expanding the religion system in TW games. The absolute loss of a population/slave pop per city needs to make a return, as the cities feel less for doing so. It failed as a Bronze Age Total War, but should have stayed as a Troy DLC, as it lacks the expansiveness of a mainline Total War game.

[@qh777]

I've asked for something like pharaoh since Rome II came out. I am disappointed by the geographical size of the campaign map with the game. My wish for the game was at release a campaign map about the geographic range as Rome II and Atilla with Egyptians, Canaanites, Hittites, Assyrians, Mittani, Babylonia, Mycenaeans, Minoans, Libu tribes, etc. The sea peoples would be an event like the Mongols in Medieval II and some dlc ideas would be making them playable as like a horde faction, then a future dlc with Elamites added and maybe Indus valley. My hope is in the future they try a proper bronze age title like I described.

[@Scruffynerfherder10]

This just shows the laziness/corporate greed that exists at CA, they obviously leaned on the modding community to make new “games” and even tried to keep modders out by making a convoluted game engine that; from what other people have; is beyond ridiculously hard to program new mechanics and scripts

[@mandaloriancrusader6699]

That would've actually been a great move to throw a whole expansion for Troy with all factions and greater map to enjoy. Instead they opted for mindless greed, zero afterthought about what happens when you displease people that buy your products again and again and again.

[@rhino3330]

What the hell have they been doing with ALL THE MONEY WE SPENT FOR YEARS on their games ? Greedy corporations never fail to disappoint.

[@foxdavion6865]

From my experience, the closer you are to the truth, CA community team staff either deny it or ban you. Remember that one time 6 years ago on Twitch when people wanted them to add Kislev with bear mounts and CA said in responce on Twitch 'no'. Then 5 years later we got Kislev woth bear mounts? Yeah... CA's been like this since Napoleon. I will say this though, they for some reason choose to never pick a fight with me though, which is a good thing for them, because I'd shatter their puppet show into dust infront of everyone, even when they desperately want to.

[@TobyIKanoby]

Good job Volound, some time ago you made me understand why I had a problem with Total War games since Rome 2, these days you are on the way the to make a lot more people understand why they should have a problem with CA in its current state.

[@RobGM2]

Atilla and Shogun two were my last total war purchase. Up to that point I had bought every single game and expansion. According to records, Atilla is my 49th Great Grandfather.

[@cobaltfog]

The way to increase profits is to jack up prices while reducing the quality of product? These executives make how much for coming up with this genius plan?

[@LaxyDrey]

Any further news on the Rob Bartholomew is sacked situation? Has there been any official statement made or in the making so far?

[@Volound]

ive had more confirmations. rob is done. and nothing said officially, which is more evidence that it is true.

[@shadeblackwolf1508]

Pharaoh as a concept has potential. Imagine a cross map with pharaoh, and a 3rd pack on the way at saga pricing

[@CaptainGrimes1]

I feel validated in not buying a new total war game since Napoleon, with stainless steel, darthmod and Europa barbaroum I don't need any more 😊

[@mikaelgrande6968]

When considering the amount of mods etc that are out there, I don’t cry too much about their fall because I have the games and mods I need of GOOD games to be happy

[@theicelandicnationalist2.023]

As Paradox gamer, I don’t know if I should laugh, or be a afraid, because it’s not my strategy developer imploding (which CA completely deserve this). But on the other hand, I know for a fact that paradox can (and will) do something equally as greedy, and while they would survive an implosion a lot better than CA (because CA’s publisher is SEGA, while Paradox’s publisher is Paradox Interactive) if they would die, I don’t think I would survive the effects of withdrawal… I need my goddam Hoi4/Vicky2 damn it! At least paradox’s modern games are similar to the classic total wars in being pretty timeless

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

Paradox is already just as greedy, they're just more subtle about it.

[@Viryu9]

Called it. When I first saw Pharaoh, and how it would focus on chariots, I knew it will basically be a Troy reskin.

[@michaelbird9148]

Many things with this, but I wish that developers were able to distinguish between small and large games. E.g., "this is a smaller project looking to expand an area of focus." Combines with transparency in pricing.

[@Riael]

"Bosses have divulged that CA has been in money troubles since April this year" Maybe if they spent less money flooding my news feed with paid posts and sponsored youtubers they could pay their programmers enough to make a good game that would sell well.

[@jasonkurtrix357]

Or to eat

[@Mankorra_Gomorrah]

I’m interested in seeing where CAs “black October” goes in November. It feels like they don’t have much left to lose/ far to fall aside from Sega announcing massive downsizing beyond what they’ve already done.

[@Troopertroll]

The only CA game I play is Stainless Steel, which is a mod they didn't make.

[@Heldermaior]

Thrones of Britannia has one of the best, if not the best recruiting system in all of Total War. The problem with these games is that they are rushed and never fix underlying issues. This males perfect sense with something you discussed previously, the issue of technical debt. The fact that theor code looks like spaghetti code and everything is cobbled together plays a huge part in it. Why can't we have Attila improvements in RTW2?heck, the idea from sagas comes since Napoleon. Empire and Napoleon share the same problem. Napoleon improved almost everything Empire did... Except the actual strategic game. Empire was the first game that actually brought strategic thinking into a total war title and it has never been reproduced. So why couldn't we get Napoleon's improvements in Empire? What was stopping them of combining the two? Anyway, CA needs to die and a new company needs to pick up the slack of combining strategic and tactical gameplay.

[@MrHappyface198]

This didnt need to be leaked. Everyone with a brain recognized it from the get go. Small thing with attila being rome 2 with slight tweaks to game mechanics. Sigh.

[@Volound]

oh, it did need to be: gyazo.com/747d30830dd11d012354044a7bbf6d05

[@leonrobinson2053]

All they had to do is open a new limited company to manage the Hyenas losses. Release Pharaoh as a DLC and improve on Troy, they'd have made money and not lost trust. They could have then quickly remastered medieval total war 2 and made some serious cash, just like Roman remastered

[@emirhaneksioglu4503]

Not a strategy game but DLC (expansion) stuff from early 2000s really were what these things should've been. I feel Oblivion and its DLCs (except the one thing I will not name lmao) are another prime example of good additional content. It is sad to see companies that had it right in the past like CA and Bethesda have gone off the deep end at this point.

[@hbfb1123]

So i suppose this confirms legendoftotalwar's theory that pharaoh was planned as a dlc but then ca changed it to a full game with full price at last minute hoping that they can get back some of the money they burned off due to hyenas. CA is turning in to gaming company version of wings of redemption and dsp lmao. Total lolcows

[@marcpaulus6291]

Next Saga game in Line: Total War Early Stone Age, just 3 Units with Clubs, Sticks or Stones. Max Unit size 5 Men (Ultra) Fight for Domination over a Cave and pray that not a random Sabretooth shows up and destroys your army.

[@ProbusVerus]

Don't give them ideas 😂

[@BloodwyrmWildheart]

Just play a Norsca campaign.

[@User-bw6ok]

In principle, I think we can still save the game, or rather reputation. Now just can not lose time. 1 to announce that Paralon goes to the category of Saga, that is renamed Saga. 2 reduces the price to the level of Troy. 3 the difference in pre-order money will be refunded. 4 swear to God that they will not be fooled again. 5 swear to God that the game will be filled with content and expand the map. 6 make a preliminary announcement of Medieval 3 (with the fleet), say in a few years will be released global flagship. And maybe under these conditions CA will save its reputation. But for this you have to have balls, I do not believe that they will be able to do anything.

[@theseb1979]

It was painfully obvious from the beginning that it was a Troy DLC

[@Volound]

"it was always painfully obvious that CA were officially denying the truth": gyazo.com/747d30830dd11d012354044a7bbf6d05

[@awesomepawn2]

Ill never forget that the base game came with fall of the samerai and then they *took it away* when they rebranded too. Fucking furious.

[@EusiWorkshop]

This video has more views in the first 7 hours of being live than Pharoah does sales to date. Cheers man :P

[@thecaveman6946]

Sad to see total war fall to the corporate greed that is prevalent throughout the entertainment industry. I would have hoped this game series to be to niche to defile but no where money can be squeezed it will be. And the worst part is that this model has been proven over and over again as unsustainable but the corpos don’t care it’s idiotic they could make more money in the long run if they just kept quality up.

[@100gendos]

Creative Assembly regrets that its clients demand the creation of a new game every time, while Omega Force regularly feeds its pets the same Musou game with a different sauce.

[@roistenbarker1269]

Theres a mod on the workshop for pharaoh where they add the mythos dlc units. Apparently, it was already there in the game code, not sure if its still up but yeah.

[@pikestance4219]

The "revelation" that Pharaoh is a DLC to Saga game is the worst kept secret.