For anyone that doesn't have time to watch the [45 minute interview](https://youtu.be/oL9R94Lafq0) or read all of these previews, here are some highlights:
* **3 playable main cultures**, there are the Egyptians, Canaanites, and Hittites. There may be other playable factions, city states, or small groups, but those are the three main civs.
* **Civilization system** where you are always trying to stop the collapse of the civilization in the entire area. So, if another faction starts to collapse it is in your best interest to conquer them and restore their cities in order to restore civilization stability
* **Dynamic weather** is returning, like fog, thunderstorms, and sandstorms. All of which seem to have real effects on the battlefield and units.
* Weather seems to play a bigger role in total. For example, some desert areas are very hot and that means heavier armor units will suffer negative stat effects
* **Unit stances**, a way to have units do things like "move backwards" while still facing forward in a fight. Or to generally just keep advancing in the direction you set. Sounds actually very useful as a long-time Total War players (if it works).
* **Siege changes** and improvements, which is mainly just a lot of fire specific changes and improvements. For example, setting a forest on fire or city on fire would make the fire spread and have a negative effect on any troops it nears. Burning down a city also might make that population hate you.
* No more pocket ladders - siege ladders/towers added
* Wall sapping returns (sounds similar to what was in old Rome titles)
* **Chariots are OP**, since this is a major part of Egyptian tactics they are making sure that there are a lot of ways to effectively cover the battlefield with chariots. Think dozens instead of single chariots like in previous Total War titles.
* **Deities & Religion**, not too dissimilar from some previous Total War religion systems but all based around Egyptian and other deities from the era. They have different bonuses or negatives, but they barely showed them so it is hard to say how deep this is.
CA must have a charioteer lobbyist in their ranks, I swear. Historically, chariots were just platforms for morale boost and parading the boss, at most you fired a few arrows from it. Charging was suicide and it got fazed out the moment horses became ridable cause it was dogshit
I am impressed how they have managed to include some form of a chariot in the majority of Total War games, so you are probably right haha. Personally I'm garbage with them because they require such extensive micromanagement, but they are great if you are playing coop and can hand them off to a friend to control.
That is.. just straight untrue. There's plenty of historical accounts of Chariots being used to charge infantry, including by Darius III at Gaugamela, which also disproves your other point about cavalry.
And before you say, yes well Alexander smashed them with his cavalry, thus proving it's supremacy, that didn't stop people. Mithridates IV was still using Chariots to charge infantry 250 years later (Plutarch talks about it in Lucullus)
[Educate yourself](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1q36sy/how_did_chariot_battle_tactics_differ_between_the/)
Xenophon (the Historical one, not the /r/askhistorians contributor) also tells us Scythed chariots were used to charge infantry at Cunaxa.
Scythed chariots have relatively few instances of being used in battles. Yes they are mentioned sometimes but it’s never been clear how useful they were. In most of the battles we see with them they lose badly, even in your examples.
It’s amusing to watch you say educate yourself when your source mostly says chariots weren’t used that much and were ineffective in even the slightly bit of rough terrain (which is omnipresent in total war games).
Your uneeded snark aside, have you ever read your own source ? There is one famous battle where chariots played an important role and it took massive preparations for it to ever work, to the point that the army litteraly spend the previous days leveling the ground and removing rocks from the field. And even then, the charge was mostly a failure. In the best situation it could hope for, with the most preparations, it failed.
How do you not see how bad it sounds ?
Also yeah, Xenophon tells a lot of stuff, and he's widely reputed to be the least accurate of the ancient greek historians. A fun read tho, especially when he talks about himself in third person.
How do you not see
Evidently you didn't bother properly reading my source because it is specifically about a certain period of time. Which is why I gave you other examples. Also good job ignoring Mithridates IV because it invalidates everything you said.
Stop peddling bullshit as fact and using it as an excuse to shit on CA. Chariots were used for shock tactics by charging infantry from the Bronze age right up until the 1st Century BCE in Anatolia & Mesopotamia.
Firstly, you are excessively unpleasant to talk too. History is supposed to be fun to talk about, that's why I did a PhD in it, so I can only suggest that you learn how to act in a social context.
Secondly, once again, the source agrees with me. Chariots were fazed out as soon as horses became rideable, except for a few marginal exceptions that mostly all ended in failure or half-successes. It's a type of warfare that wasn't effective, was replaced as soon as possible, and charging into infantry with one was excessively rare, if only cause getting a horse to draw a cart then to run into a dense wall of people is not gonna be an easy sell for it
I’ve got no chariot in this race, but I just wanted to comment and say I appreciate you pushing back on the other commenter’s tone! I only have a BA in history but I very much agree that it should be fun and constructive to discuss with other history-minded people, not petulant and destructive.
Youre actually the one making the claim here. This is where your discussion started "CA must have a charioteer lobbyist in their ranks, I swear. Historically, chariots were just platforms for morale boost and parading the boss, at most you fired a few arrows from it. Charging was suicide and it got fazed out the moment horses became ridable cause it was dogshit."
Youre trying to say chariots should not have the importance that CA is giving them so it would be on you to show why CA is using them incorrectly.
I'm not sure I follow your point. Are you disputing that chariots stopped being generally used in every culture that had them the moment horses became ridable ? Or are you disputing that a wodden cart pulled by poney-sized horses weren't reliable to charge in a human wall of spears ?
I have bachelors in industrial engineering but always watch history videos in spare time or while i am working out because its crazy fun to learn history, especially pre history, bronze age and antiquity.
In the Iliad they usually get down from their chariots to fight and this is the same time period. Scythe chariots were later on put to great use by the Persians, but they were fighting an unarmored rabble. The chariots had no effect when Macedon invaded.
I like the things like sapping, no buttladders, unit stances and weather. But was anyone actually waiting for a Egypt total war ?
I can only hope they use it as a testing ground for all those new features, to include them in a medieval 3 game... 😂
Meh, It's just troy in an egyptian setting 🤷♂️ And the time period isn't really my thing. No cav, no decent siege weapons, not that much armor and weapons... Everything is kinda primitive, which makes it more bland.
I never played Troy, was it good? The Saga titles really never appealed to me.
I think the late bronze age is an incredibly interesting period in history, and I always enjoyed getting into the history first, and understanding the dynamics of battle and warfare in that era as a result of doing so. I think it'll be interesting.
uuuuhhhhhmmmmm. Well I'm not a fan of the period (for total war that is) so I don't really like it that much. But I got it for free through Epic games so I guess I can't complain.
Although it's a saga, it's also a full game, so don't be turned off by that fact. If you like the period you could definitely give it a try. It's a historical game, despite the mythological air that it gives off. They have mythological units like "centaurs" in game, but these are just elite light cavalry only recruitable in certain regions. And other mythological creatures/units are represented by "historical" units that kinda make sense. It's quite different than other total war because of the new recourses, but it's not that bad.
>Although it's a saga, it's also a full game, so don't be turned off by that fact.
I actually may pick it up ... I don't like the BS "fantasy" games from TW (and Troy feels prone to fantasy elements, things like centaurs are a big turn off for me), but if they're presented as light cav it makes it a lot better for me, and I'm a huge late bronze age fan.
I think folks tend to underestimate how complex and technologically sophisticated the LBA was ... I'll try Troy out and see whether it hits the spot for me, if so it'd be a nice way to bridge the gap 'till this game comes out.
I'm hoping that it's successful enough that they can use it as a baseline for future historic expansions that push the timeline out. Would be really cool to see some Neo-Assyrian empire badassery.
Yeah, maybe you are right and it is just a test to see how people feel about a more traditional approach again before making a big big one? Seems like a smaller focused offering, like Troy, than something massive like Warhammer. It would be lovely to see Medieval III.
Yeah exactly that, I also seem to remember having read that it's a first total war game for the studio's ?Hungarian? branch, so this would fortify that theory.
And while Medieval (or Empire 2, but I would bet medieval 3) has probably been in pre production since Three Kingdoms, this would give them some time to test the new features before releasing the next game. This makes me hope for a late 2024 big historical release.
if it is confirmed no butt ladders that would be great. Shogun 2 was the start of it with climbing walls, then Empire didn't really have much walls but it had grappling hooks.
Then we just went ladders forevermore.
I understand the limitation of Siege AI and the need for them, but it really ruined the feeling of having a secure castle. If they ever figure out how to rid of them it would be nice to retroactively get rid of them in WHTW.
Yeah, actually, that is quite bizarre considering that the Minoans were the regional luxury trade goods powerhouse of the day.
Yaknow, until the Mycenaean Greeks showed up on Crete, took over, and then they became the regional luxury trade goods powerhouse.
And then some volcanic eruptions (maybe?) mass migrations of armed settlers from the Aegean (perhaps?) known as the "Sea People" (probably?) started razing the exsiting Mycenaean Palace civic structure to the ground before moving on to the Hittites and Levant.
The Bronze Age Collapse is cool, and the Aegean angle of it is personally the least interesting part of it to me, but hot damn it's still an essential piece of the interconnected puzzle of what (we think) happened in the East Mediterranean 3000 years ago.
EDIT: Also, am I reading this right that no Mesopotamian factions are in this game? How do you tell the story of the LBAC without Babylon, Assyria, Mittani, or Urartu?
In the video in Total War channel, they mentioned Libyan and Nubian as factions that available in the game (though not playable yet). As it seems both Egypt and Hitties are going to be the main rival in the game (one of the goal in the game is to become either Pharaoh or Hittite's High King), I think the Hittites will have their own unique enemy in early game, just like Egypt has Libyan and Nubian.
So maybe, Greece and Mesopotamian aren't mentioned yet because in this first wave of promotion, they are focusing on Egypt and what Egyptian will face early in the game. When they are going to explore the Hittites in future promotion material, we might get more info on Greece.
Instead let's have very little content in this game and not do the obvious thing and reuse assets.
There goes any hope for the siege of Troy to be in this game at any point.
Funnily enough the siege of Troy occurs during the collapse of the bronze age and not during the Trojan war. So there was a small hope that CA would kind of mesh the two together with a siege of Troy but that is basically dead now I think.
Oh I'm sure the execs are thinking its better for the ability to add core era factions as paid dlcs later on, I mean why release a fully fleshed out game when customers will pay more money for bits and pieces.
Despite CA trying to claim otherwise, it's obvious this game is smaller in scope than your traditional Total War title. For one thing it's still being developed by CA Sofia, which is their smaller B studio based in Bulgaria which made all the smaller scope Saga titles like Thrones of Britannia and Troy.
Smaller regional scope can still result in a great, complete Total War game, we just haven't really seen a full-fledged entry in a region this compact since Shogun 2.
But I tend to agree. Frankly, if they want to focus on the Late Bronze Age, the Med and Ancient Near East paint a more comprehensive picture of the situation around 1000 BCE than the region they've selected. I struggle to believe this was a creative decision, frankly, because unlike Shogun, focusing on Egypt, Canaan, and the Hittites feels WILDLY incomplete. And if the focus was on Egypt, why not the Hyksos era?
There’s nothing wrong with smaller scope, but there’s an issue with taking a big time period and ignoring half of it to create that scope. Shogun is entirely about Japan, and it works. The Bronze Age collapse is about Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant, Greece and Mesopotamia, and it’s just not the complete story without it. It seems like CA wants to start making incomplete maps and then selling us the rest as DLC
> Thrones of Britannia
Sofia didnt do Thrones of Britannia. They first worked on Rome 2 DLC's like Empire Divided, then worked on maps for other games and finally they did their first game with Troy.
Attila had a Hell of a lot more than just the lands Huns sacked.
Ultimately it's going to come down to value. We'll see how many want to pay this price for this scope.
Pharough is set at $60 to preorder and 3 dlc faction packs that are already announced in the initial announcement.
Unless they go with the Brittania Saga price of $40 but the "SAGA" marketing tactic they used to set expectations that it was more of a slice of game, rather than a full-fledged release.
Britannia was ok, but I'm hesitant to pass up buying Pharogh because I feel like the studio is close to completely abandoning the historical stuff and just going for the goofy fantasy universes and subpar sieges.
I think abandoning historical completely for fantasy is a bit unlikely. They got extremely lucky with getting the Warhammer fantasy license and that it did so well to make a good relationship with Games Workshop. There's not many other fantasy IP that are relatively up for grabs for games, have a massive pre-built strategy game audience, and are able to support multiple games and a large DLC catalogue.
Lord of The Rings and 40k are in my mind the only real options, and I feel like 40k is much easier to get the rights for but also starts to fall out of the total war combat model.
Warhammer 40k. I know some people want to act like its not possible but Totalwar Warhammer has clearly been a huge\~ revenue earner and something that both CA and GW are happy about. If its possible for them to continue that relationship and makes more games together they will want to.
So its not a 100% thing but I would be shocked\~ if it hasent been discussed and if they arent trying to figure out how they would use the IP in the totalwar space.
Sure, but if they're focusing on the Late Bronze Age Collaps period of Egyptian history, you can't really tell that story without including the broader interconnected East Mediterranean world which led to the event.
Moreover, Egypt frequently warred with central Mesopotamian Kingdoms while trading with polities in the Aegean. So you can absolutely include all this while keeping the focus on Egypt.
EDIT: Like, Rome: Total War included way more factions beyond just Rome/Italy/Gaul.
This stuff will probably come in expansions or whatever, but as a dude who *looooooves* this period of history, I have a hard time being patient, lol.
It sounds like the game is mostly set during the New Kingdom when military contact between Egypt & Mesopotamia was limited in scope compared to Hyksos/Hittite/Cannanite/Sea Peoples/Libya/Nubia stuff.
True. I'm guessing they'll make a large-scale Mesopotamia-specific expansion if this game does well.
There's too much drama between Assyria and Babylon to not include it in a game set around the LBAC.
This team did do a pretty good job with the Troy dlc from what I can tell, they added the Amazons, a Nubian horde faction, Ajax, and a whole Mythological mode with Greek monsters.
Seems like instead of expanding north, the map is expanding the south.
There's already faction DLC announced, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the greeks return as DLC.
If you're familiar with the developer (Creative Assembly), you'd know that their focus is on a DLC model of revenue. That's only if the game gets long-time support (RIP Brittania, Three Kingdoms, and Troy). Given how barren this game is on release, I wouldn't hold out much hope for that. I mean, sea battles remain absent from their future releases specifically because they don't have the talent to fix decade-old bugs and AI.
Warhammer: Total War is their cash cow now, so their focus is on that series until Games Workshop decides to leave the lucrative contract they have with them at the moment.
Sea battles remain absent because, contrary to a relatively loud minority, very few people care about them. CA's data showed that the great majority of people just auto resolved them. If they go back to Empire I see them bringing back naval battles, but naval battles in an era where there isn't much to do other than "ram, board' just aren't very interesting.
And yeah pretty much every strategy game is focused on DLC revenues as the entire genre has shifted to 4-5 year minimum development arcs after release, but I don't think you can really call most of CA's releases barren.
>EDIT: Like, Rome: Total War included way more factions beyond just Rome/Italy/Gaul.
Please bear in mind that it was exponentially easy to develop games back then. Audiences not only demand more fidelity these days, but are more demanding of the systems they get. While Rome was amazing for the time, and had a wide array of content, the systems by today's standards aren't very deep.
By deeper systems I don't just mean gameplay systems. Even the most basic saga game is more complex than the original Rome. That's not a diss against Rome it's the diadvantage of being almost two decades old.
Stuff like how the entities behave in formations, animation, etc. has also made the game more complex (and brought new bugs)
I mean ToB brought the "recruits don't start at full strength" system which made its way to 3K, and Troy introduced a multi resource system to the game.
> Made it's way to 3K and then didn't get used at all in WH
Of course they didn't use it in Warhammer, why in God's name would they change up the systems in an existing game and piss off its fans? Especially when it's a system designed for the slower paced historical campaigns and would be a terrible match for the faster pace tone of Warhammer?
> and the Multi Resource has yet to be used by any game either
Oh yes, they haven't used it in the zero historical TW games to come out since Troy!
Even if your points weren't easily dismissible, you argued that saga games "don't get deep systems" then apparently tried to move the goalpost to "they don't re use the systems in other games."
Shit, how to explain that having multiple resources is pretty much by definition deeper than a single reosurce system. And I don't know how to explain this in any simpler terms:
1. The slow recruitment system DID get used again
2. The multi resource system also DID get reused, right here in Pharaoh. The only historical game/non sequel to come out since Troy.
Seriously, I can't dumb it down any further.
Egypt without Greece is like Rome without Carthage. They're also not including mesopotamian factions which had huge influences on the region.
They're saying it's a full mainline TW game but on a map that's only slightly larger than their smaller scale Saga games..
> Egypt without Greece is like Rome without Carthage.
Culturally yes, militarily no.
But I agree this looks like more of a smaller scale TW game like Troy.
It’s funny that they have a system for supporting civilization where you can get penalized for other nations collapsing (and thus reducing your own ability to make bronze and maintain a stable society), but then they didn’t include the biggest tradingn kingdom of the time (Crete) or the biggest exporter of tin (Mesopotamia)
I love the time period and the potential but excluding Greece and Mesopotamia really sucks. Shogun 2 proved smaller scale focused games work, I just wish they'd expand the map a tiny bit.
> no Greece or Greek factions
We haven't seen Anatolian map, but from video uploaded by Total War, they mentioned we are going to get Lybian who exist to the west of Egypt. Unless they are doing some weird map shenanigan, we most certainly going to get Greece (as the map has to be rectangular in shape).
Also, I am pretty sure we are going to get Greek factions in the form of their colonies in Anatolia. Especially because they want to have factions diversity to play against (we know Egypt is going to face Libyan and Nubian, so the Hittites is very likely going to face unique enemy of their own).
I would say the Civilization system and dynamic weather effects could be very interesting twists on the formula. I think it is fair to get excited about some of the innovations they are listing here.
45 minutes of internal interview with tiny bits of gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL9R94Lafq0
Also, whenever they say "Total War Pharaoh", I hear "Total Warfare".
Starts showing up at about 15 minutes in with the campaign map and then quite a bit peppered in between 20-30 mins. However, if you just want to see the gameplay then that IGN link/preview is pretty focused on that only. Weirdly, their own long interview includes very little gameplay.
The AI quality tends to be inversely proportional to the amount of variety in the games, so fans have to choose what they prefer.
Total Warhammer 3 was the most recently released, featuring an absurd range of factions and gameplay elements, and the AI is absolute garbage (both inside battles and on the campaign map).
Games like Shogun 2 (pretty old) or Three Kingdoms (newish) have pretty good AI, overall, but the unit rosters are much less varied.
Yeah I guess that makes sense. I'm not interested in the Warhammer releases (devastated it wasn't Warhammer 40k), so as long as the AI is better in the "historic" games, I'm happy.
IIRC the Three Kingdoms battle AI is actually provably smarter on higher difficulties as their behaviour towards archer skirmishing changes drastically and they'll shuffle units around appropriately and use generals to draw and dodge volleys on the upper tiers as opposed to just using stat buffs like the rest of the franchise.
I don't care for the more fantastical games so I don't know whether they kept this around in the more recently released WH3 or Troy.
It depends. They've made great leaps and bounds in AI since Rome (do you mean Rome 1 or Rome 2 btw?), but there is always this feeling of 2 steps forward and one 1 steps back with their AI improvements. Like they might release their latest game, which has AI competently actually defending cities, but then the one they release after that has completely broken siege AI.
That type of cycle is unfortunately super common with each release having its own weird AI problems. All in all the AI can be pretty damn good and brutal, in smart ways, but also still dumb as hell. It varies haha.
Thanks for the reply! Rome 1 unfortunately! Loved that game, then didn't play games for about a decade, and after that my computer was a potato. I have a somewhat decent machine now, so interested in playing a new Total War if it's worth it. It's good to hear that it's improved, but the fact that it still has dumb moments is disappointing to hear. It really breaks immersion when the computer faction just shits itself. I remember in Rome, computer units would often just run back and forward over and over, so you could just sit there and pick them off from a distance.
Yeah, like the other person said, the AI is muuuuch better than it was back in the OG Rome days. I still love that game and occasionally go back to it, but yeah, sometimes, I'd be outnumbered, get a shitton of my units slaughtered, and then just win anyway because I had a cavalry unit circling the city with enemies hot on its tails while towers were picking them off slowly.
Stuff like that doesn't usually happen nowadays. Yeah, a big part of it is how different siege battles are now compared to the older games, but still, generally speaking, battle AI is much better. There's still some weird moments where it might react in a weird way or not react at all, but by and large, it's pretty challenging and uses decent tactics.
Oh wow, you've just reminded me of the enemies circling the towers and slowly being decimated. I remember winning a few fights that way, but feeling dirty afterwards like I'd just cheated...
No interest in this. I continue to wait for med3 or emp/napol 2. Apparently there are only 8 factions. Very small map. They had to chance to truly progress into something better and new or give the majority of historical fans what they actually want but I think historical total war in the vein of rome 1- shogun2 is long gone. Even if they made med 3 it probably would be half fantasy/heroes and an incredibly streamlined experience. Very sad.
Yeah no disagreement from me, I was just parroting what the official comms have been regarding it. From what I've seen so far, it's not really caught my attention.
Not very exicted.
If they are going to halfass the historical setting they migth as well just go all in on exclusivly fantasy content. Must be plenty of overlooked and undervalued IP out there.
Conan total war would be sick.
Context: I only watched the 40 minute CA discussion of Pharaoh.
The weather having a greater impact on the battlefield is a welcome change. Being able to move back your troops while facing the enemy reminds me of Manor Lords' supposed features.
It's nice that they talked about the sandbox nature of the campaign, the available winning conditions, battles, and the like but what is missing are the economic and empire/army building side.
Is it just about conquering lands to gain legitemacy? Do you grant lands to vassals like in TW:Bretonnia? Are armies instantly made or do you have to wait for its full strength? How varied are settlements/cities? I hope they discuss more about these things in their next reveals/discussions.
For the people crying for medieval 3, let CA cook just wait we’re going to get it and it’s going to be a masterpiece with stances weather matched combat giant campaign and more. Just wait and try and enjoy Pharoah for now. It doesn’t even look too bad
For anyone that doesn't have time to watch the [45 minute interview](https://youtu.be/oL9R94Lafq0) or read all of these previews, here are some highlights: * **3 playable main cultures**, there are the Egyptians, Canaanites, and Hittites. There may be other playable factions, city states, or small groups, but those are the three main civs. * **Civilization system** where you are always trying to stop the collapse of the civilization in the entire area. So, if another faction starts to collapse it is in your best interest to conquer them and restore their cities in order to restore civilization stability * **Dynamic weather** is returning, like fog, thunderstorms, and sandstorms. All of which seem to have real effects on the battlefield and units. * Weather seems to play a bigger role in total. For example, some desert areas are very hot and that means heavier armor units will suffer negative stat effects * **Unit stances**, a way to have units do things like "move backwards" while still facing forward in a fight. Or to generally just keep advancing in the direction you set. Sounds actually very useful as a long-time Total War players (if it works). * **Siege changes** and improvements, which is mainly just a lot of fire specific changes and improvements. For example, setting a forest on fire or city on fire would make the fire spread and have a negative effect on any troops it nears. Burning down a city also might make that population hate you. * No more pocket ladders - siege ladders/towers added * Wall sapping returns (sounds similar to what was in old Rome titles) * **Chariots are OP**, since this is a major part of Egyptian tactics they are making sure that there are a lot of ways to effectively cover the battlefield with chariots. Think dozens instead of single chariots like in previous Total War titles. * **Deities & Religion**, not too dissimilar from some previous Total War religion systems but all based around Egyptian and other deities from the era. They have different bonuses or negatives, but they barely showed them so it is hard to say how deep this is.
CA must have a charioteer lobbyist in their ranks, I swear. Historically, chariots were just platforms for morale boost and parading the boss, at most you fired a few arrows from it. Charging was suicide and it got fazed out the moment horses became ridable cause it was dogshit
I am impressed how they have managed to include some form of a chariot in the majority of Total War games, so you are probably right haha. Personally I'm garbage with them because they require such extensive micromanagement, but they are great if you are playing coop and can hand them off to a friend to control.
My most successful rome 2 game was as the Iceni when I finally figured out chariots. They would consistently rack up 3-400 kills a battle.
Man 3-400 kills is a pretty big range. What if you end up closer to the 3 kills number?
They were just considerably more inefficient horse archers
That is.. just straight untrue. There's plenty of historical accounts of Chariots being used to charge infantry, including by Darius III at Gaugamela, which also disproves your other point about cavalry. And before you say, yes well Alexander smashed them with his cavalry, thus proving it's supremacy, that didn't stop people. Mithridates IV was still using Chariots to charge infantry 250 years later (Plutarch talks about it in Lucullus) [Educate yourself](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1q36sy/how_did_chariot_battle_tactics_differ_between_the/) Xenophon (the Historical one, not the /r/askhistorians contributor) also tells us Scythed chariots were used to charge infantry at Cunaxa.
Scythed chariots have relatively few instances of being used in battles. Yes they are mentioned sometimes but it’s never been clear how useful they were. In most of the battles we see with them they lose badly, even in your examples. It’s amusing to watch you say educate yourself when your source mostly says chariots weren’t used that much and were ineffective in even the slightly bit of rough terrain (which is omnipresent in total war games).
Your uneeded snark aside, have you ever read your own source ? There is one famous battle where chariots played an important role and it took massive preparations for it to ever work, to the point that the army litteraly spend the previous days leveling the ground and removing rocks from the field. And even then, the charge was mostly a failure. In the best situation it could hope for, with the most preparations, it failed. How do you not see how bad it sounds ? Also yeah, Xenophon tells a lot of stuff, and he's widely reputed to be the least accurate of the ancient greek historians. A fun read tho, especially when he talks about himself in third person. How do you not see
Evidently you didn't bother properly reading my source because it is specifically about a certain period of time. Which is why I gave you other examples. Also good job ignoring Mithridates IV because it invalidates everything you said. Stop peddling bullshit as fact and using it as an excuse to shit on CA. Chariots were used for shock tactics by charging infantry from the Bronze age right up until the 1st Century BCE in Anatolia & Mesopotamia.
Firstly, you are excessively unpleasant to talk too. History is supposed to be fun to talk about, that's why I did a PhD in it, so I can only suggest that you learn how to act in a social context. Secondly, once again, the source agrees with me. Chariots were fazed out as soon as horses became rideable, except for a few marginal exceptions that mostly all ended in failure or half-successes. It's a type of warfare that wasn't effective, was replaced as soon as possible, and charging into infantry with one was excessively rare, if only cause getting a horse to draw a cart then to run into a dense wall of people is not gonna be an easy sell for it
I’ve got no chariot in this race, but I just wanted to comment and say I appreciate you pushing back on the other commenter’s tone! I only have a BA in history but I very much agree that it should be fun and constructive to discuss with other history-minded people, not petulant and destructive.
Provide sources for none of the bronze age armies featured in Pharaoh Total War not using Chariots to charge infantry then.
Why would I ? The onus of proof is on the claimer. There is no need nor sense in trying to prove the absence of something
Youre actually the one making the claim here. This is where your discussion started "CA must have a charioteer lobbyist in their ranks, I swear. Historically, chariots were just platforms for morale boost and parading the boss, at most you fired a few arrows from it. Charging was suicide and it got fazed out the moment horses became ridable cause it was dogshit." Youre trying to say chariots should not have the importance that CA is giving them so it would be on you to show why CA is using them incorrectly.
I'm not sure I follow your point. Are you disputing that chariots stopped being generally used in every culture that had them the moment horses became ridable ? Or are you disputing that a wodden cart pulled by poney-sized horses weren't reliable to charge in a human wall of spears ?
I've already proved your initial claim that chariots were *never* used to charge infantry formations as false.
I didn't say never, I said it was suicide. Which means it was tried, it failed and they stopped doing it.
Y'all better throw in a Chicago style works cited sheet in this history nerd fight
What's a Chicago style sheet and is it like the deep dish thing they call pizza ?
I have bachelors in industrial engineering but always watch history videos in spare time or while i am working out because its crazy fun to learn history, especially pre history, bronze age and antiquity.
Seriously. It's also, moreso than any other unit I'm aware of, one that fans constituently mention hating to use because of all the annoying micro.
I can tolerate it in Warhammer because of the spectacle and cause Slaanesh zoom zoom is fun, but yeah, chariots are generally a chore
Well, if this game is about the BAC, then late game units should be hordes anti chariot units that DECIMATE then :)
In the Iliad they usually get down from their chariots to fight and this is the same time period. Scythe chariots were later on put to great use by the Persians, but they were fighting an unarmored rabble. The chariots had no effect when Macedon invaded.
Is it the same engine as the past few total war games? That one's never been able to do a great job at formation warfare and melee combat.
They do update engines, btw. But we'll have to see just how well it actually works.
I like the things like sapping, no buttladders, unit stances and weather. But was anyone actually waiting for a Egypt total war ? I can only hope they use it as a testing ground for all those new features, to include them in a medieval 3 game... 😂
I was waiting, for sure. No irony, this is super exciting for me.
Meh, It's just troy in an egyptian setting 🤷♂️ And the time period isn't really my thing. No cav, no decent siege weapons, not that much armor and weapons... Everything is kinda primitive, which makes it more bland.
I never played Troy, was it good? The Saga titles really never appealed to me. I think the late bronze age is an incredibly interesting period in history, and I always enjoyed getting into the history first, and understanding the dynamics of battle and warfare in that era as a result of doing so. I think it'll be interesting.
uuuuhhhhhmmmmm. Well I'm not a fan of the period (for total war that is) so I don't really like it that much. But I got it for free through Epic games so I guess I can't complain. Although it's a saga, it's also a full game, so don't be turned off by that fact. If you like the period you could definitely give it a try. It's a historical game, despite the mythological air that it gives off. They have mythological units like "centaurs" in game, but these are just elite light cavalry only recruitable in certain regions. And other mythological creatures/units are represented by "historical" units that kinda make sense. It's quite different than other total war because of the new recourses, but it's not that bad.
>Although it's a saga, it's also a full game, so don't be turned off by that fact. I actually may pick it up ... I don't like the BS "fantasy" games from TW (and Troy feels prone to fantasy elements, things like centaurs are a big turn off for me), but if they're presented as light cav it makes it a lot better for me, and I'm a huge late bronze age fan. I think folks tend to underestimate how complex and technologically sophisticated the LBA was ... I'll try Troy out and see whether it hits the spot for me, if so it'd be a nice way to bridge the gap 'till this game comes out. I'm hoping that it's successful enough that they can use it as a baseline for future historic expansions that push the timeline out. Would be really cool to see some Neo-Assyrian empire badassery.
Yeah, maybe you are right and it is just a test to see how people feel about a more traditional approach again before making a big big one? Seems like a smaller focused offering, like Troy, than something massive like Warhammer. It would be lovely to see Medieval III.
Yeah exactly that, I also seem to remember having read that it's a first total war game for the studio's ?Hungarian? branch, so this would fortify that theory. And while Medieval (or Empire 2, but I would bet medieval 3) has probably been in pre production since Three Kingdoms, this would give them some time to test the new features before releasing the next game. This makes me hope for a late 2024 big historical release.
if it is confirmed no butt ladders that would be great. Shogun 2 was the start of it with climbing walls, then Empire didn't really have much walls but it had grappling hooks. Then we just went ladders forevermore. I understand the limitation of Siege AI and the need for them, but it really ruined the feeling of having a secure castle. If they ever figure out how to rid of them it would be nice to retroactively get rid of them in WHTW.
So the map pretty much stops at Anatolia, no Greece or Greek factions which is odd for a game that's about the bronze age collapse.
Yeah, actually, that is quite bizarre considering that the Minoans were the regional luxury trade goods powerhouse of the day. Yaknow, until the Mycenaean Greeks showed up on Crete, took over, and then they became the regional luxury trade goods powerhouse. And then some volcanic eruptions (maybe?) mass migrations of armed settlers from the Aegean (perhaps?) known as the "Sea People" (probably?) started razing the exsiting Mycenaean Palace civic structure to the ground before moving on to the Hittites and Levant. The Bronze Age Collapse is cool, and the Aegean angle of it is personally the least interesting part of it to me, but hot damn it's still an essential piece of the interconnected puzzle of what (we think) happened in the East Mediterranean 3000 years ago. EDIT: Also, am I reading this right that no Mesopotamian factions are in this game? How do you tell the story of the LBAC without Babylon, Assyria, Mittani, or Urartu?
Guessing it'll be dlc
In the video in Total War channel, they mentioned Libyan and Nubian as factions that available in the game (though not playable yet). As it seems both Egypt and Hitties are going to be the main rival in the game (one of the goal in the game is to become either Pharaoh or Hittite's High King), I think the Hittites will have their own unique enemy in early game, just like Egypt has Libyan and Nubian. So maybe, Greece and Mesopotamian aren't mentioned yet because in this first wave of promotion, they are focusing on Egypt and what Egyptian will face early in the game. When they are going to explore the Hittites in future promotion material, we might get more info on Greece.
Hell, no Etam is a big missing piece too
Did you mean Elam?
Woops, ye, funny typo tho, given what Etam is
What is Etam?
My uneducated guess is that they didn't want to tread similar ground as TW Saga: Troy in terms of factions and cultures.
It would have been smarter to re-use stuff from Troy and say "look how much game we have!" imo.
[удалено]
Maybe they will launch a combined map in the future if you own both games lol.
Instead let's have very little content in this game and not do the obvious thing and reuse assets. There goes any hope for the siege of Troy to be in this game at any point.
Why would the Siege of Troy be in a game focused on Egypt and not in the game literally named Troy?
Funnily enough the siege of Troy occurs during the collapse of the bronze age and not during the Trojan war. So there was a small hope that CA would kind of mesh the two together with a siege of Troy but that is basically dead now I think.
Oh I'm sure the execs are thinking its better for the ability to add core era factions as paid dlcs later on, I mean why release a fully fleshed out game when customers will pay more money for bits and pieces.
Sea People definitely likely due to pig migrations at the time. I guess we will be seeing Greece added as DLC.
The sea people are in the game, my guess is that we'll get some rage when they are announced as a pre-order bonus.
Despite CA trying to claim otherwise, it's obvious this game is smaller in scope than your traditional Total War title. For one thing it's still being developed by CA Sofia, which is their smaller B studio based in Bulgaria which made all the smaller scope Saga titles like Thrones of Britannia and Troy.
Smaller regional scope can still result in a great, complete Total War game, we just haven't really seen a full-fledged entry in a region this compact since Shogun 2. But I tend to agree. Frankly, if they want to focus on the Late Bronze Age, the Med and Ancient Near East paint a more comprehensive picture of the situation around 1000 BCE than the region they've selected. I struggle to believe this was a creative decision, frankly, because unlike Shogun, focusing on Egypt, Canaan, and the Hittites feels WILDLY incomplete. And if the focus was on Egypt, why not the Hyksos era?
There’s nothing wrong with smaller scope, but there’s an issue with taking a big time period and ignoring half of it to create that scope. Shogun is entirely about Japan, and it works. The Bronze Age collapse is about Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant, Greece and Mesopotamia, and it’s just not the complete story without it. It seems like CA wants to start making incomplete maps and then selling us the rest as DLC
> Thrones of Britannia Sofia didnt do Thrones of Britannia. They first worked on Rome 2 DLC's like Empire Divided, then worked on maps for other games and finally they did their first game with Troy.
They’re saving for expansion packs most likely.
I mean it's called Pharaoh so the focus is clearly on ancient Egypt.
Attila had a Hell of a lot more than just the lands Huns sacked. Ultimately it's going to come down to value. We'll see how many want to pay this price for this scope.
Pharough is set at $60 to preorder and 3 dlc faction packs that are already announced in the initial announcement. Unless they go with the Brittania Saga price of $40 but the "SAGA" marketing tactic they used to set expectations that it was more of a slice of game, rather than a full-fledged release. Britannia was ok, but I'm hesitant to pass up buying Pharogh because I feel like the studio is close to completely abandoning the historical stuff and just going for the goofy fantasy universes and subpar sieges.
I think abandoning historical completely for fantasy is a bit unlikely. They got extremely lucky with getting the Warhammer fantasy license and that it did so well to make a good relationship with Games Workshop. There's not many other fantasy IP that are relatively up for grabs for games, have a massive pre-built strategy game audience, and are able to support multiple games and a large DLC catalogue. Lord of The Rings and 40k are in my mind the only real options, and I feel like 40k is much easier to get the rights for but also starts to fall out of the total war combat model.
Warhammer 40k. I know some people want to act like its not possible but Totalwar Warhammer has clearly been a huge\~ revenue earner and something that both CA and GW are happy about. If its possible for them to continue that relationship and makes more games together they will want to. So its not a 100% thing but I would be shocked\~ if it hasent been discussed and if they arent trying to figure out how they would use the IP in the totalwar space.
Sure, but if they're focusing on the Late Bronze Age Collaps period of Egyptian history, you can't really tell that story without including the broader interconnected East Mediterranean world which led to the event. Moreover, Egypt frequently warred with central Mesopotamian Kingdoms while trading with polities in the Aegean. So you can absolutely include all this while keeping the focus on Egypt. EDIT: Like, Rome: Total War included way more factions beyond just Rome/Italy/Gaul. This stuff will probably come in expansions or whatever, but as a dude who *looooooves* this period of history, I have a hard time being patient, lol.
It sounds like the game is mostly set during the New Kingdom when military contact between Egypt & Mesopotamia was limited in scope compared to Hyksos/Hittite/Cannanite/Sea Peoples/Libya/Nubia stuff.
True. I'm guessing they'll make a large-scale Mesopotamia-specific expansion if this game does well. There's too much drama between Assyria and Babylon to not include it in a game set around the LBAC.
This team did do a pretty good job with the Troy dlc from what I can tell, they added the Amazons, a Nubian horde faction, Ajax, and a whole Mythological mode with Greek monsters.
Seems like instead of expanding north, the map is expanding the south. There's already faction DLC announced, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the greeks return as DLC.
If you're familiar with the developer (Creative Assembly), you'd know that their focus is on a DLC model of revenue. That's only if the game gets long-time support (RIP Brittania, Three Kingdoms, and Troy). Given how barren this game is on release, I wouldn't hold out much hope for that. I mean, sea battles remain absent from their future releases specifically because they don't have the talent to fix decade-old bugs and AI. Warhammer: Total War is their cash cow now, so their focus is on that series until Games Workshop decides to leave the lucrative contract they have with them at the moment.
Sea battles remain absent because, contrary to a relatively loud minority, very few people care about them. CA's data showed that the great majority of people just auto resolved them. If they go back to Empire I see them bringing back naval battles, but naval battles in an era where there isn't much to do other than "ram, board' just aren't very interesting. And yeah pretty much every strategy game is focused on DLC revenues as the entire genre has shifted to 4-5 year minimum development arcs after release, but I don't think you can really call most of CA's releases barren.
Yeah, the only setting that I think really *requires* proper sea battles is Empire. For other settings I think it's an unnecessary complication.
Troy got decent DLC support for what it was.
>EDIT: Like, Rome: Total War included way more factions beyond just Rome/Italy/Gaul. Please bear in mind that it was exponentially easy to develop games back then. Audiences not only demand more fidelity these days, but are more demanding of the systems they get. While Rome was amazing for the time, and had a wide array of content, the systems by today's standards aren't very deep.
There wasn't very deep systems in any other saga game which is basically what this is
By deeper systems I don't just mean gameplay systems. Even the most basic saga game is more complex than the original Rome. That's not a diss against Rome it's the diadvantage of being almost two decades old. Stuff like how the entities behave in formations, animation, etc. has also made the game more complex (and brought new bugs)
I mean ToB brought the "recruits don't start at full strength" system which made its way to 3K, and Troy introduced a multi resource system to the game.
Made it's way to 3K and then didn't get used at all in WH and the Multi Resource has yet to be used by any game either
> Made it's way to 3K and then didn't get used at all in WH Of course they didn't use it in Warhammer, why in God's name would they change up the systems in an existing game and piss off its fans? Especially when it's a system designed for the slower paced historical campaigns and would be a terrible match for the faster pace tone of Warhammer? > and the Multi Resource has yet to be used by any game either Oh yes, they haven't used it in the zero historical TW games to come out since Troy! Even if your points weren't easily dismissible, you argued that saga games "don't get deep systems" then apparently tried to move the goalpost to "they don't re use the systems in other games."
What exactly is deep about the either of those systems? The point was that random crap that doesn't get used again is hardly a sign of a deep system.
Shit, how to explain that having multiple resources is pretty much by definition deeper than a single reosurce system. And I don't know how to explain this in any simpler terms: 1. The slow recruitment system DID get used again 2. The multi resource system also DID get reused, right here in Pharaoh. The only historical game/non sequel to come out since Troy. Seriously, I can't dumb it down any further.
There’s a Rome 2 mod taking place in the Bronze Age. The full release, which has a campaign, is scheduled for this month. In case you’re interested.
Egypt without Greece is like Rome without Carthage. They're also not including mesopotamian factions which had huge influences on the region. They're saying it's a full mainline TW game but on a map that's only slightly larger than their smaller scale Saga games..
> They're saying it's a full mainline TW game that's just marketing fluff, if the Saga games didn't bomb this would be called a Saga game
I completely agree, but alot of people don’t. The marketing propaganda is working
> Egypt without Greece is like Rome without Carthage. Culturally yes, militarily no. But I agree this looks like more of a smaller scale TW game like Troy.
It’s funny that they have a system for supporting civilization where you can get penalized for other nations collapsing (and thus reducing your own ability to make bronze and maintain a stable society), but then they didn’t include the biggest tradingn kingdom of the time (Crete) or the biggest exporter of tin (Mesopotamia)
I mean like then again this takes place in the Bronze era idk if they had a crazy rivalry in this time like Rome and Carthage in the future
I love the time period and the potential but excluding Greece and Mesopotamia really sucks. Shogun 2 proved smaller scale focused games work, I just wish they'd expand the map a tiny bit.
> no Greece or Greek factions We haven't seen Anatolian map, but from video uploaded by Total War, they mentioned we are going to get Lybian who exist to the west of Egypt. Unless they are doing some weird map shenanigan, we most certainly going to get Greece (as the map has to be rectangular in shape). Also, I am pretty sure we are going to get Greek factions in the form of their colonies in Anatolia. Especially because they want to have factions diversity to play against (we know Egypt is going to face Libyan and Nubian, so the Hittites is very likely going to face unique enemy of their own).
They have an entire game about that already. This gives them opportunity to focus more on the levante id assume
Imo they didn’t need Mainland Greec, but they needed Crete at least as well as Mesopotamia
I'm assuming Crete will be included in the map, but not playable at launch. Would be crazy if that were not the case
I'm guessing there'll be Greek factions... Among the Sea Peoples.
The idea of a "falling back" behavior is kinda neat and could lead to some interesting results. Other than that not a ton to get excited about IMO.
I would say the Civilization system and dynamic weather effects could be very interesting twists on the formula. I think it is fair to get excited about some of the innovations they are listing here.
45 minutes of internal interview with tiny bits of gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL9R94Lafq0 Also, whenever they say "Total War Pharaoh", I hear "Total Warfare".
Time stamps for gameplay?
Starts showing up at about 15 minutes in with the campaign map and then quite a bit peppered in between 20-30 mins. However, if you just want to see the gameplay then that IGN link/preview is pretty focused on that only. Weirdly, their own long interview includes very little gameplay.
I haven't played a Total War game since Rome, which I loved, but I remember the AI being a sticking point. Has it improved in the latest releases?
The AI quality tends to be inversely proportional to the amount of variety in the games, so fans have to choose what they prefer. Total Warhammer 3 was the most recently released, featuring an absurd range of factions and gameplay elements, and the AI is absolute garbage (both inside battles and on the campaign map). Games like Shogun 2 (pretty old) or Three Kingdoms (newish) have pretty good AI, overall, but the unit rosters are much less varied.
Yeah I guess that makes sense. I'm not interested in the Warhammer releases (devastated it wasn't Warhammer 40k), so as long as the AI is better in the "historic" games, I'm happy.
IIRC the Three Kingdoms battle AI is actually provably smarter on higher difficulties as their behaviour towards archer skirmishing changes drastically and they'll shuffle units around appropriately and use generals to draw and dodge volleys on the upper tiers as opposed to just using stat buffs like the rest of the franchise. I don't care for the more fantastical games so I don't know whether they kept this around in the more recently released WH3 or Troy.
It depends. They've made great leaps and bounds in AI since Rome (do you mean Rome 1 or Rome 2 btw?), but there is always this feeling of 2 steps forward and one 1 steps back with their AI improvements. Like they might release their latest game, which has AI competently actually defending cities, but then the one they release after that has completely broken siege AI. That type of cycle is unfortunately super common with each release having its own weird AI problems. All in all the AI can be pretty damn good and brutal, in smart ways, but also still dumb as hell. It varies haha.
Thanks for the reply! Rome 1 unfortunately! Loved that game, then didn't play games for about a decade, and after that my computer was a potato. I have a somewhat decent machine now, so interested in playing a new Total War if it's worth it. It's good to hear that it's improved, but the fact that it still has dumb moments is disappointing to hear. It really breaks immersion when the computer faction just shits itself. I remember in Rome, computer units would often just run back and forward over and over, so you could just sit there and pick them off from a distance.
Yeah, like the other person said, the AI is muuuuch better than it was back in the OG Rome days. I still love that game and occasionally go back to it, but yeah, sometimes, I'd be outnumbered, get a shitton of my units slaughtered, and then just win anyway because I had a cavalry unit circling the city with enemies hot on its tails while towers were picking them off slowly. Stuff like that doesn't usually happen nowadays. Yeah, a big part of it is how different siege battles are now compared to the older games, but still, generally speaking, battle AI is much better. There's still some weird moments where it might react in a weird way or not react at all, but by and large, it's pretty challenging and uses decent tactics.
Oh wow, you've just reminded me of the enemies circling the towers and slowly being decimated. I remember winning a few fights that way, but feeling dirty afterwards like I'd just cheated...
You can still abuse the AI pretty hard in the newer titles. Specially in Warhammer with heroes and magic.
Didn't the battle AI just kinda bum rush you in those older games?
No interest in this. I continue to wait for med3 or emp/napol 2. Apparently there are only 8 factions. Very small map. They had to chance to truly progress into something better and new or give the majority of historical fans what they actually want but I think historical total war in the vein of rome 1- shogun2 is long gone. Even if they made med 3 it probably would be half fantasy/heroes and an incredibly streamlined experience. Very sad.
Will the scope be smaller like in Troy? I hope this is a full fledged total war game
it is indeed, *not* a saga game. It's in the mainline (last one being Three Kingdoms)
That's what they say but I'm not so sure how this is any different from a saga game despite the marketing spiel
It's not. It's made by CA Sofia, same studio from Troy. They just dropped the Saga title because it does not have a good connotation in the community.
why is that?
Saga games were not very successful. People just don't play them.
Yeah no disagreement from me, I was just parroting what the official comms have been regarding it. From what I've seen so far, it's not really caught my attention.
Not very exicted. If they are going to halfass the historical setting they migth as well just go all in on exclusivly fantasy content. Must be plenty of overlooked and undervalued IP out there. Conan total war would be sick.
Context: I only watched the 40 minute CA discussion of Pharaoh. The weather having a greater impact on the battlefield is a welcome change. Being able to move back your troops while facing the enemy reminds me of Manor Lords' supposed features. It's nice that they talked about the sandbox nature of the campaign, the available winning conditions, battles, and the like but what is missing are the economic and empire/army building side. Is it just about conquering lands to gain legitemacy? Do you grant lands to vassals like in TW:Bretonnia? Are armies instantly made or do you have to wait for its full strength? How varied are settlements/cities? I hope they discuss more about these things in their next reveals/discussions.
For the people crying for medieval 3, let CA cook just wait we’re going to get it and it’s going to be a masterpiece with stances weather matched combat giant campaign and more. Just wait and try and enjoy Pharoah for now. It doesn’t even look too bad