Total War Pharaoh Review – Unearthing Ancient Egypt Is A Challenging Yet Rewarding Experience

Adding onto Creative Assembly’s vast library of strategy titles is the upcoming Total War Pharaoh, where players can find themselves in ancient Egypt at the zenith of its power.

Unearthing Ancient Egypt

Total War Pharaoh’s campaign mode not only lets players be in control of Ancient Egypt, but also get to choose between three main factions and eight different faction leaders, each with their own unique playstyle, and playable units.

You have faction leaders like Seti, the rightful heir to the throne of Merneptah and has a playstyle that heavily focuses on war and expanding into new territories. Players could also choose to stand with the Canaanites with Irsu, a savage warlord and raider who preys on the fragility of civilisation and reap the rewards of the chaos that ensues. No two faction leaders are completely the same and it offers some hefty replayability value.

As with Total War titles, each faction and leader has a difficulty marker for players to tweak to their liking. If you fancy yourself a challenge, you can opt to play as the Canaanites or the Hittites faction considering how they serve to be more of a challenge as compared to playing as the Egyptian faction. This makes for a neat feature for veterans to have more challenging content for them to test their prowness without alienating newcomers or casual players.

Brace for Invasion

The beginning till the mid game of Total War Pharaoh is normally smooth sailing, because players would only need to pay mind on the economy and conduct brother wars around Egyptian region. However, the real challenge comes only during the mid to late game when the Sea Peoples’ Invasion appears.

The Sea People’s Invasion is the game’s endgame event where the strength of the event is influenced by the Pillars of Civilisation mechanic. If a player manages to keep the level of Civilisation prosperous, it’ll make the Sea People’s attack be weaker and vice versa.

The invasion will only appear after turn 30 and what makes them scary is that they can appear from any direction, so long as there’s a sea or river. To me, this is a neat feature to include in Total War Pharaoh as it brings in additional challenges and extra flavour because of how unpredictable they are.

The Power of the Gods

In Ancient Egypt, gods were thought to preside over many aspects of everyday life, and their presence was strongly felt. Total War Pharaoh portrays the impact of religion in the Bronze Age societies, all while staying on the side of realism. Unlike previous Total War entries, Gods in Pharaoh plays an important role where the deity that players choose will determine their future prosperity and play style.

Worshiping the god of Ra who has the ability to focus on combat, can increase Melee Attack, Defense, Resistance, and also Morale. Not all gods are focused on combat though, there’s also god of Ptah, which increases Happiness, Income, and also reduce army salaries and everything tied to resources.

Players can gain the ability to worship up to three gods. Across Egypt Anatolia and Canaan, 19 gods can be discovered by conquering settlements associated with them. Different gods provide bonuses to building types, specific settlements or unit types. Each of the gods also has a cult centre, a larger city that counts as a Pillar of Civilisation.

Pillar of Civilisation

The Pillars of Civilisation mechanic represents the cosmic balance as perceived by the ancient Egyptians, separated into three tiers of stability. There’s Prosperity where natural events may occur to increase development and resource growth. There’s Crisis where natural disasters will become more frequent and groups like the Sea People will attack more often. Lastly, with Collapse, civilisation collapses and darkness engulfs the Earth, instability across regions reaching its peak.

This mechanic makes gameplay feel interesting because not only do you have to stabilise the empire you’ve built, you have avoid bringing the collapse of civilisation. It’s up to the players to conquer and restore other factions when they fall into the brink of collapse.

Weathering With You

In ancient Egyptian culture, the changing of the three seasons was defined by the ebb and flow of the Nile. The ending of the seasonal cycle was marked by the celebration of Shemsu Hor, which in terms of gameplay mark the turn on which court intrigues resolve, faction commands reach their final stage, and other important events. Each season takes two turns, and the changing seasons affect the food production buildings along the river Nile.

Weather can change during battle, so a sunny day can suddenly turn into a raging thunderstorm depending on the region that you’re fighting in. These weather systems cover some familiar types such as fog, rain, sun, along with some new variants.

Weather also plays a big role in combat, with storms dramatically lowering missile unit’s effectiveness, sandstorms lowering visibility, movement speed and dealing tiny amounts of damage per second to all units.

The dynamic weather system in the game works alongside the expanded dynamic terrain system to create realistic battle maps that change depending on the weather conditions. Which adds in a level of complexity and depth to combat, requiring players to stay on their toes and adapt accordingly.

To War

War is one of the main selling points of Pharaoh. There are several things that make this title stand above the rest with its various improvements such as new animations and also dynamic weather that can change the course of battle.

Units now have combat animations that match their fighting style, meaning that you can anticipate seeing units engage in battle with more realism as they exchange blows.

Unit weight now also play a crucial role in decision-making in battle, where units with heavier armour and weaponry will struggle to move through muddy terrain, while those in lighter clothing will be more vulnerable to sandstorms.

There’s also an exhaustion system which impacts the effectiveness of troops in battle, making tactical decisions more crucial and requiring players to relearn some strategies from previous entries.

Verdict

Total War Pharaoh might not bring in massive changes that some of the previous entries might have, but these minor additions included makes the game much more challenging and worth looking at. This is especially so with the Sea People’s Invasion giving the game an element of surprise.

When it comes to combat, there’s also the new Dynamic Weather feature that makes war more chaotic but being able to weather the storm (pun intended) can be used as an advantage to defeat strong enemies.

Total War Pharaoh was played on PC via Steam. Review code was given by the publishers.

Total War: Pharaoh

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Creative Assembly

Release Date TBC

Microsoft Windows

Total War: Pharaoh, the newest entry in the award-winning strategy series, immerses you in ancient Egypt at the zenith of its power. Master dynamic real-time battles, forge a lasting empire, and stand against the collapse of an iconic civilization.

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