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Total War: PHARAOH

Axioms

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
1,521
Medieval 3 or Empire 2.
This CA didn't develop Medieval 2. The people that did develop Medieval 1 and Empire are fewer now than they have ever been in the history of the studio.
If anyone expects good things from this they haven't been paying attention for a very very long time. But ok what ever OOoh Shiny. You people deserve to be treated like shit frankly.
Same as fans of CK3/V3. Shiny graphics! Yeah but the gameplay ate shit and the game focus is in a totally different direction from what made the OG games great.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,228
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The only thing I want from TW at this point is for Feral, the guys who ported Rome and Medieval 2 to mobile and made Rome Remastered, to make a Medieval 2 Remastered.

Rome Remastered has a shitty interface compared to the original, but the devs listened to community requests and lifted many of the old hardcoded limits for modders.
The potential size and depth of mods is much greater than ever before, and if they give Med2 the same treatment, we can completely ignore what CA is doing and just play mods forever.
 

RobotSquirrel

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Aug 9, 2020
Messages
1,975
Location
Adelaide
The only thing I want from TW at this point is for Feral, the guys who ported Rome and Medieval 2 to mobile and made Rome Remastered, to make a Medieval 2 Remastered.
I mean Medieval 2 remastered makes a lot of sense at this point. I'm shocked that they haven't done it yet. But I didn't really like Rome Remastered, I felt it wasn't a perfect 1:1 replication of the original. Yes there were some improvements to the AI which were appreciated but it just didn't play exactly the same, I found playing Germania to be a nightmare to be honest, it felt better when playing the Roman factions, I did get a slight hint of bias when I played it.

But yeah Medieval 2 getting an update will be appreciated because I feel as though it'd benefit the most from the changes that Rome got. I wouldn't feel so bad if it played differently on account that Medieval 2 played a bit sloppy anyway, there was a distinct lack of variety compared to Rome because of how they changed it so that there was only 1 unique unit type per nation and the rest came from perk buildings, wasn't a massive fan of that because it meant there was no difference between playing England versus say playing Germany or Scotland. I want to be clear though I prefer Medieval 2 over Rome.

Kingdoms was where they figured it out. So if they could do a Kingdoms styled redo of the original grand campaign, that'd be incredible. My dream would be for a single unified campaign map where all of the kingdoms factions were added to the grand campaign and the Americas were expanded to include all of the natives thus giving something for the Aztecs to do while they wait for Europe. There is soo much scope with Medieval 2 it'd be a shame not to do that. Lets be honest here, you're going to still piss off the purists no matter what you do, so I say go nuts with it.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I mean Medieval 2 remastered makes a lot of sense at this point. I'm shocked that they haven't done it yet. But I didn't really like Rome Remastered, I felt it wasn't a perfect 1:1 replication of the original. Yes there were some improvements to the AI which were appreciated but it just didn't play exactly the same, I found playing Germania to be a nightmare to be honest, it felt better when playing the Roman factions, I did get a slight hint of bias when I played it.
It's all about the total conversion mods, I haven't played vanilla Rome 1 or Medieval 2 in over a decade. In fact I played vanilla Rome for the first time again after purchasing Rome Remastered, and it surprised me how insanely fast the battles there are. I've gotten used to the slower, more methodical pace of Europa Barbarorum and other mods of its type.

Rome 1 and Medieval 2 are amazing platforms for total conversion mods, and Rome Remastered expands upon that a thousandfold. Just look at the massive monster of a mod that is RTR: Imperium Surrectum.
The same for Medieval 2 would be a dream.
 

Caim

Arcane
Joined
Aug 1, 2013
Messages
15,876
Location
Dutchland
Played a lot of Medieval 2 in my day and a remaster would be fun, but I'm not sure if they're able to pull it off at this point without new and interesting ways to fuck it up again.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
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Messages
33,228
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The remaster of Rome was made by a third party (Feral), not CA themselves. The Medieval 2 remaster would be made by them too (they already ported it to mobile).
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,885
People want the opposite of innovation. The Sofia team tried to innovate with Troy, but everyone hated it for dumb reasons. Pharaoh is just bad because they didn't want to do the same as Troy but didn't have any more ideas on how to do that while keeping up with Bronze Age historicity. In the eyes of the hoi polloi, the only acceptable course of action is to go back to cavalry charges and nothing else.

The big problem i have with games like this is the regressions.

I don't have an issue with people wanting more of the same if it meant the game keeps getting better with each entry. But that's not what happens. Sometime features go missing, things that worked well in the previous entry are either absent or are poorly implemented if not downright broken. You can have good AI in one game and dog shit AI in the next even though little else changed.

Rome is the last Total War game i played and the reason i could never follow the series after that is that i have no interest in replaying the same shit over and over except it's always a mixed bag every single time. Sometimes things are worse, sometimes they are the same. Sometime they introduce new things, sometimes they don't. There's no consistency, no sense things are maturing along the way. It's just maddening to me and Total War is not the only series that does this.
 
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Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,131
Pathfinder: Wrath
This is getting an overhaul that adds Mesopotamia, Assyria and the map and factions from Troy.
 

Luka-boy

Arcane
Joined
Sep 24, 2014
Messages
1,649
Location
Asspain
The full announcement:

17c039f50088440b4619235921e79d6558270104.jpg


Hello, Total War Community!

We hope the valiant Montu has brought victories to those of you who braved the battlefields of Ancient Egypt, Anatolia and the Levant, while the wisdom of Toth will bolster the decisiveness of those who are yet to thread those ancient fields of destruction.

In January we launched the High Tide Update for Total War: PHARAOH, welcoming the harbingers of the Bronze-Age Collapse, the Sea Peoples, as a new playable culture alongside their two dedicated factions, bringing the core roster up to ten. We were delighted to see your positive reception to this free update which was part of our post-launch ambitions to create a vast Bronze-Age strategy experience.

As mentioned in our Leadership Message back in December, the vision for Total War: PHARAOH since the outset of the project has been to increase the size of the campaign map and introduce even more cultures and ways of engaging in glorious strategic conquest. Today, we’re excited to announce that this will come courtesy of a vast free update that significantly reworks the existing campaign mode already available in PHARAOH’s base-game. This update will usher in a host of exciting new additions whilst also implementing some familiar content from its Bronze-Age brother, A Total War Saga: TROY. We want to improve your experience of this most iconic age, and we’re working hard to deliver it later this year.

In terms of the content you can expect to experience, prepare to embark on a conquest across a map that has greatly increased in size as we add the renowned and highly requested regions of Mesopotamia and the Aegean to the conflict alongside the playable cultures of Babylon, Assyria, Mycenae and Troy. Whilst within the strategic campaign layer, you will have access to all new mechanics such as the Dynasty system which adds mortality and succession to the faction leaders’ quest to leave behind a legacy that will survive the ages. And finally, within battle you can expect over 80 new units for the Mesopotamian factions, alongside the addition of over 70 reworked units from a Total War Saga: TROY.

Given that this update will make some big changes to the way in which Total War: PHARAOH plays, we will be taking steps to ensure that you still have the choice to experience the original campaign should you wish to. We’ll reveal more information on how this will be achieved in a later instalment.

On another note, we’ve made it clear that we’re keen to improve the level of transparency we exhibit across all our products to ensure that you have a better understanding of what we’re working on, as well as how and why we make certain design decisions. With this in mind, we want you to come on this Bronze-Age journey with us to help us begin to find the right path to a greater developer-community collaboration.

Starting next week, we'll be kicking off a series of conversations around the creation of this update, starting with a deep dive looking into the expanded campaign map and how we're aiming to bring this long-lost world to life, before inviting you all to send us your questions for a Q&A session the following week.

Every couple of weeks, we'll have a new topic featuring a variety of voices from across the project, first detailing how we're approaching the work, and inviting you to share your thoughts and feedback on that vision. We'll then come back to you the week after to dive into more detail on the topic over on the official Total War Discord - so make sure you join today and keep an eye out for new channels to post your hotly anticipated questions.

Thanks again for your support, and for your candid feedback - we want Total War: PHARAOH to be an incredible experience for everyone!

—The Total War Team
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,131
Pathfinder: Wrath
Imo, the lack of content is the least of its problems. The gameplay is bad and the factions are essentially interchangeable. Yes, I know the factions in Shogun 2, Medieval 2 and Rome 1 are interchangeable as well, but the map made a bigger difference in those games and Medieval 2 is just a vehicle for mods. And the battles weren't terrible in those games. It's a different matter in Pharaoh, the engine is still awful and the battles have never been more boring because you don't have myth units and/or magic to spice things up a bit. Infantry behave more like liquid molecules than anything else. The AI is awful. It's a modern Total War without the bells and whistles basically and you'd be surprised how much of the heavy lifting they do when they are suddenly gone. If Pharaoh were a good game, they would've expanded the map either way, just not for free. It's bizarre to me how people can easily be satisfied by the devs only adding more content when the fundamental gameplay is the problem.
 

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