It’s the budget man, the reason why Sofias games keep having to be saved is because ca is def not getting their budget or time, evident by the fact they needed epic games for Troy and how pharaoh released in only a year after warhammer with many reused assets. Even dynasties had a miniscule budget with the devs saying that as well forcing features like civilians and city viewer to be scrapped. Man ca needs to properly fund Sofia. Look at what they could do with time and budget they deserve
To be fair, Total War in general is fairly niche, so the profit it generates is probably not super high. But it would probably be higher if the devs got more time, budget, and proper direction.
I guess we are lucky Total War didn't go under with Hyenas fiasco. Imagine - one day biggest Brittain Game developer and next they had one of biggest flops on their hands called Hyenas. I think we are lucky that sega didn't step in and didn't fill total wars with microtransaction, but instead allowed sophia give fans what they asked for as far as historical title goes. And regain some of that good will and bring people back instead of milk those who are left. But who knows how next Total war title will look and I hope I didn't speak too soon.
Stop, a team of modders could and would make a Pharoah but better using the Troy engine if given the mod tools. The budget argument only works if you are talking about a complete restructuring of engine and complete rebuild of the engine and even then that is dubious. CA cuts corners at every stop to save money for publisher profits, it isn't the DEVS fault likely, although we don't know their incentives. Maybe they get a bonus is hours worked is below a certain point and so they are doing stuff quickly to meet a deadline of some kind. This game is a failure because it was a scam 9 months ago and only improved because it was such an obvious scam that they had to make up for it. CA acts like a psychopath. They will hurt and abuse people to get their way until people turn around and abandon them. Then they will immediately change face and the contrast between the abuse and normalcy gives the impression that they are really changed. No CA just did something a normal gaming company does...releases an average game with a large scope for full price. What they did 9 months ago was exploitative and evil and they only got caught because they have been doing for a decade now.
@@notiowegian ahh, classic. You don't understand the basics of modding or game. Dev. Modding *is not* the same as codding a game from scratch. Not remotely
They 100% intended on this being a PAID DLC, but realized they could not do that in the current heat. CA bit the bullet on Pharoah to get back some trust and released this for free. It only happened because we, the consumer, made it happe.
I think CA Sofia wanted the game to be complete , and it was main CA and Sega as a whole who wanted to nickel and dime everyone by cutting content and then selling them as addons
Basically we're all thankful CA has finally given us what we wanted/expected. When did releasing crap become so commonplace that we're all thankful when we get a quality product?
@@AndysTakeI started playing my Epic copy of Troy a year after its release when CA cut off 3K. By then they had shoe horned a historical option, but I found, after never playing WH, I prefer fantasy TW. I only bought Mythos last winter‘s sale on Steam and after playing Mythos, if I go back to Troy, it will be Myth that I play Thank you for the content. Please share your opinions, but know you do your audience a disservice when speaking on behalf of others. Looking at Steam numbers does not give anyone insight into the money going to CA and how good or bad the profits are. If you wish to speculate, like I have, then preface that Again thanks for the content, even if I disagree with a lot of it.
Economic law: cut up a product and sell all its parts for a much higher price, that is what they started with Troy and wanted to continue with Pharaoh, Medieval 3 is over, and also Empire 2, etc.
I might be the only person on planet earth that enjoyed “The Truth Behind the Myth”… I loved the idea of centaurs being people who rode horses into combat, harpy ladies and the Amazonians. Felt very original and cool in my opinion. As a historical fan I could look past the Three Kingdoms and Troy single entity generals because it felt right for the era/mythic nature of both stories. But I’m glad they are putting that to rest now. Ironically the “records” mode in Three Kingdoms made the generals way more overpowered. Lu Bu with good items/ancillaries and a full cavalry bodyguard was literally unstoppable, could easily get 1k kills every battle.
Truth Behind the Myth is very cool and creative, yes. It's a very charming way to add "unit diversity" without straight up including fantasy creatures.
I agree. It depends on the type of game we’re talking about. The single entity general is basically made for 3K and Troy, and even more so Star Wars. I appreciated that each general had his own little quirk and relation to other playable characters. In battle they are strong, freakishly so, but not as bad as the combination of ancillaries + records mode. I also really like the system 3K put in place with retinues. It makes sense that armies stick with the general that raised them from ground up. Makes sense that the armies strength should be a reflection of the general’s strength. It’s these little things that put 3K as one of my fav TW games all time, and one of the most complete aswell
Actually, I liked the 'truth behind the myth' of Troy!As for Three Kingdoms, I alsko reeeeeally like that game, and had played a lots of hous, almost exclusively in records mode...shame CA abandond it!
I think it's like 95% the plan, there are some missing textures and unfinished features, Cimmeria has the ai personality Amazon Queen But with dlc it would probably be another half a year and 40 dollars for the remaining 5%, the problem is the future of the game, which seems nonexistant
Combat is still derpy, unit spacing is horrible and the charges..dont get me started lol. I personally still think it needs a little polish, but they’re headed in the right direction
What total war have you been playing if you call the combat derpy and unit spacing horrible in Pharaoh? It’s the best so far, and a lot better than wh3 which is surely a lot more derpy
It was always the plan, this is the result of the 1 year roadmap that was announced and included with the Dynasty Edition that you could pre-purchase before launch. It's gross that youtubers and community haters now try to take credit for making them do it. Imo Andy still owes the people at CA Sofia a huge apology.
If you see a bot make sure to report it, My favorite feature of Pharaoh is the lethality stat which i think makes he game really interesting and forces you to be conscious of which units you use to push with and defend with. It may have been in Troy but never played it so don't moan at me.
I don't know what you're talking about but I personally liked the fact that Troy gave you the option of choosing between mythological or historical. Kind of makes sense when talking about this period in history
@@Lukaskovac-ex4nfno it was a real conflict, the Mycenaeans sacked and destroyed Troy. Didn’t happen as it did in the myths, and we will NEVER know how it happened, but we know it happened
@@S.P.Q.Rrespublicas time to critical thinking... If You think, that was a real event, how do You know about it? Based on what? History records, or what sources?
@@Lukaskovac-ex4nf There is archeological evidence, most modern and ancient historians consider it a historical event or an event with historical basis and there are a lot of hints in other foreign sources like Egyptian, Hittite. In fact it seems the Trojan war might have been a very wide event, and it didnt happen only around Troy. In Iliad ,Troy is also said to have many allies from all across the Aegean / Anatolia and in other myths, Acheans apparently campaigned a lot against the Trojan allies. Also the Trojan war gives a very pausible explanation as to why Bronze Age evolved like that in the area. According to the myths and ancienat historians, many Greek survivors from Troy, returned home only to find out that their thrones had been usurped. Some perished and some took their troops and wandered around the world. The Achean / Mycaean world did collapse and was usurped by the Dorians, the Sea people (a lot of them assumed to be Acheans) appeared out of nowhere and ravaged the sea coasts and we lose a lot of sources in the aftermath. The Acheans being involved in a catastrophic conflict in Anatolia, which led to their homelands being undermanned and weakened and drove a lot of them to the seas, explains why the Achean nations, suddenly collapsed collectively without warning and can be linked to the Sea people.
Andy Always a fair analysis. Cannot agree more. Pharaoh is a ton of fun especially for those of us that love to be in a Total War world. I have every TW game save the very first Shogun. Pharaoh may well be my favorite of all time. Ranged weapons are too strong but I’m sure the game will be tweaked soon. The map alone is magnificent art and a sandbox I will eagerly jump into. TW lends itself better to pre- gunpowder combat. Sofia under management limitations have developed a masterpiece
Dynasties was a good move from CA. Now I need medieval 2 remastered. I am Old and Rome 1, Medieval 2 and Empire were my life when I was young and I seem to be unable to enjoy the new games like I do the old ones.
I'm in total agreement. I'm playing as Babylon and enjoying this new dynasties expansion a lot so far, but it still doesn't compare to my old experiences on medieval 2 and empire. Half of me wishes they'd do a remake but the other half is terrified 😂
@@jacksonnn1661 Did you play the rome remaster? That one was perfect for me, it kept the style and gameplay of the original with a very nice graphics/hud update and some bug fixes.
@Tom-sd2vi no I've not played it yet. I wasn't sure how good the improvements were and if it was going to be worth it. I did look at it when it was on the last steam sale though. I'll grab it next time.
Oh boi, how i can tell you? From the guys of Feral, there is no remaster in progress for m2tw. They receive a lot of hate with rome remastered, they will no do it. At least in this and the next year.
Picked up Pharaoh after the update and am having a great time with it. I grew up on historical TW and this feels immersive/unique enough to stand out. I've barely scratched the surface on the factions and starting areas, but through 7 hours I've loved how the empire building feels, the economy is dynamic, and the dynasty aspect adds another strategic dimension off the battlefield. The battles feel great and the terrain modifiers really make you use the topography to your advantage, as you would IRL. It's been a joy exploring the mechanics and learning the fascinating history of the era.
CA Sofia are a great team, the problem is the overall CA leadership and how they treat CA Sofia. I'm sure they view them as an extremely cheap (and underpaid) workforce that can crank out content at breakneck speeds and be happy about it because "gaming is their passion" or some crap like that. If the initial releases of CA Sofia's games appear to be unfinished, it's because they are. Dynasties still needs time in the oven, though, there are plenty of balance issues and graphical glitches, but I'm sure they'll get to those eventually. However, Dynasties still suffers from a bad engine and combat design that plague contemporary TW titles since Rome 2. That's not CA Sofia's fault, they've been trying to fight the engine and design since day 1, there's a reason both Pharaoh and Troy are better games than Warhammer 3, Rome 2 and Thrones of Britannia. They'd have to crank up that lethality and design the combat around it so we can get some semblance of the Rome 1/Medieval 2/Shogun 2 combat in there. The campaign mechanics unfortunately still revolve around incremental numerical bonuses and are beyond boring. Which is strange because Troy had quite good campaign mechanics that led to interesting things, mostly god powers and units. The tech tree was still boring, though. I don't know, both Troy and Pharaoh seem torn between design philosophies and I don't see massive improvement on the horizon until CA changes leadership and engine.
You just made me realize what EA's plan was for the Bronze Age game. The lesson they learned from the Total Warhammer games was that customers would buy a third of a game for full price. The reality was that the factions and units of Warhammer are so distinct that it would be impossible to make the entire world at a single game. The customers understood this and were fine with buying it in chunks, as long as each chunk had as much content and polish as a full game, which they had. Unfortunately, Total War Bronze Age as a single game was smaller than Rome II, and they thought that customers would be willing to pay full price for a third of a small game with entirely human factions, which they were not. Yes, they did add in the mythology elements to Troy to add more content, but they were not interesting enough to make up for how small the base game was. They were planning on releasing Mesopotamia as the third standalone chunk of Bronze Age for full price until Pharaoh had such a negative reception and performance that they had to rush out the third game as a free update. They may have stretched it out like that to fill in the gap from a larger game being slowed down by the pandemic too, but they should have not priced it so high in that case.
If you think that this whole update was done in 9 months and not already made content planned for DLC milking years ago you are delusional. The only reason we got this for free is because Pharaoh was such a failure at release that they figured they'd made more money releasing it for free and hoping for people to buy the game than release it as DLC and have no one buy it.
It is better than Troy and Pharaoh. But i feel lack of immersion, you'll end up building the same buildings, once you build them all there is nothing else to do. When you host games, nothing really happes, no cinematic no changes on map, no trading ships on the map. Family tree is weird as I married Helena to Achilles and after I guess he died (cuz I can't find him, and someone else is ruling his faction she dissapeared from the game. There is no way to check on other families. Cities feel dead to and do not grow organicaly, without a city view. I was attacked by two armies and they stood infront of me as I had supperior defensive position and they did not attacked, this was my first battle I played...
@@filipsalamon the devs did state that they wanted to implement those features but they couldn’t due to the budget and had to focus on something that gave gameplay like the minor factions
"I was attacked by two armies and they stood infront of me as I had supperior defensive position and they did not attacked, this was my first battle I played" The AI will always attack you at some point, before time runs out, IF it did attack you, or just wait and take a strategic defeat without casualties when time runs out (if it truly attacked) If you married her to Achilles as a bride, she belongs to his Dynasty now. Even if he dies, she will not come back. And yes, all heroes and generals die. Super cool and dynamic, especially because we got the family tree now. "There is no way to check on other families" Only through diplomacy, if you try to give, or take, someone. "you'll end up building the same buildings, once you build them all there is nothing else to do" true, as in any other total war game. Just wage war after you are done with your cities. Huge wars are super taxing. (don't know how much you have played) But yeah, map is too static, and cities getting larger like Attila for example would be super cool.
They're crazy if they don't start work on Medieval 3 soon now. Can't think of any other time period that makes sense to do/redo at this point, and much of the fanbase are hyped for it.
I had completely given up on total war as a game series all together. I had no interest in any new games, nor did I care about the new releases. I barely even noticed pharaoe because I just didn't give a fuck about the franchise anymore. But this looks genuinely really good, and I genuinely want to play it. I currently don't have the money to buy it, but I have it on my list of games to play. So CA sofia braught me back from having given up on the franchise all together. The only nit-pick I would've liked is to have the lands of Urartu added to the map. It's around lake Van, so it is literally just outside the current scope, but they are one of the more interesting regions in my opinion in this time. Still though, fantastic the improvement that sofia has done. What a bunch of amazing people.
I fail to understand how the initial Pharaoh release wasn't a VERY different game from Troy. The Power of the Crown and the war for Legitimacy, the Ancient Legacies, the Outposts, the different Seasons with Nile flooding and harvest providing different effects, the Pillars of Civilization providing different effects and visuals depending on the civilization state, THE DYNAMIC WEATHER IN BATTLES (that would require huge work to transition from one state to another; the raindrops in a storm would have to create ripples on water, be soaked by sand and create splash effects on wood - every detail is a HUGE endeavour). Not to mention every aspect of the game that had to be recreated, recalculated and rebalanced. The character progression is vastly different, the way the Workforce works as well as the growth and influence outcome and balance are changed, all the buildings, all the technologies created anew, for the initial Pharaoh no units from Troy were reused, not to mention all the new animations and the matched combat animations. The CA Sofia team also listened to the community and introduced artistic versions of the unit cards, unit banners and much more. All of this had to be tested and iterated upon. THIS IS HUGE WORK! Do not underestimate how much effort a game requires.
The game has become great. I can't play with the lethality mechanic which further speeds up the pace of battle. However ! And this is the major advance that reconciles me with the Total War battles since Medieval II, we can desactivate lethality! As the unit statistics have been revised downwards to supposedly balance the pace, removing this mechanic reduces it. The battles then become slower and we can finally enjoy the combat scenes and tactical possibilities without becoming epileptic from the click. I'm more than happy to find satisfying battles again. I'm finally going to play Total War again! The coordinated advance and coordinated retreat unit tactics are very immersive and all come into their own with this finally more realistic pace. A big congratulations, CA. PS: I hope that you'll will keep this pace in the future updates.
100% this is Sega/CA doing huge corporate greed stuff. Edit: I got the game for $33. If they waited to release it snd released this as the original, complete version, I would be ok paying the full game price of $60. It seems like they screwed themselves by focusing on short term gain, screwing CA Sophia and its customer base at the same time. We live in an age where this has become fairly standard for corporate business practices and attitudes. But it still isnt the most effective business strategy. The primary issue is that the shareholders are the ones whose needs matter most. It isn't sbout building a company to last for decades by gaining the trust of consumers and building a solid, long term plan or reinvesting in their own company to grow. Nope, the profits go to the shareholders, who see that company simply as a means to gain wealth. Nothing more. Take that and look at all kf your experiences in this greed based capitalist system, at least in the US: health care, real estate, restaurants, you name it.
The way you talk about the family tree makes me think that your fist Total War games is Rome 2. Family tree has been around since at least Rome 1 (2004) all the way to Shogun 2. It was in Rome 2 where they decided to change it up and it ended up being a massive failure (the entire game, not just the family tree).
It is a good change and I applaud them for doing the change. I even bought the game which might seem stupid after what I will have to say. Apart from the campaign aspects I feel like unit variety is a real downer in a way. But you cannot really do much with the time the games is based in. I really do not like the esthetics of the times as much as for example the medieval ages. But it does have charm and I will try to put some time into it. I just hope they find their way forward towards what type of game they actually want to make and fulfill that duty. I felt like the mythos edition of Troy made me relieve a bit of the age of mythology hype again. But I still hope the next game is historical.
I’m hoping that a more positive reaction to them doing that is possibly they’ll realize we need a new medieval and actually include all relative sectors of the world for it to
Is it worth to buy? Im looking for this game, but for some reason, i think gameplay is not good like in old total war games like rome 1 and medieval 2. I mean some mechanics and good, graphics are good, but combat, and battles dont look that emersive. Sorry for my bad enlgish.
Two quick pointers: 1) happy to be the first to say to you that I loved the “truth behind the myth”, still only play that game mode 2) I don’t think Sofia is learning anything: they already know, they are passionate. The issue (as an outsider) seems to be corporate wanting to maximize short term profit “and then fix” instead of taking 1-2-3 bad quarters
I'm a long time total war player, but never played pharaoh because I heard all the bad reviews, but I bought dynasties because it seemed really good and have been enjoying it so far.
I think when speaking about these things, it's incredibly important to speak about the higher ups. Sophia can have a crack team of developers and a group of game designers who are deeply in touch with the community and it literally would amount to nothing because CA and Sega are the ones who run the show. I really doubt sophia had to learn it's lesson twice and instead, the higher ups at Sega and CA are the ones who hamstrung the devs and forced them to work with constraints in order to squeeze every last drop out of the games. We really need to point the finger in the right direction because directing our frustrations at the developers themselves will never accomplish anything and it's exactly what the C-Suite at these soulless companies want.
I don't know if it's possible anymore but what I want for Sofia to do is to start from the Medieval 2 codebase when creating their next game. It doesn't have to look good, just keep all the mechanics, make it run well on modern systems and increase the unit limits. That would be such a breath of fresh (and also 20 years old) air to have an old school total war
Let's be honest, Pharaoh was released as it was in service to CAs dlc model. They want dlc to sell and work like it does in WH, but to do that they only know how to preserve parts of the map for later sale. Their problem is that they do not know how to monetize historical. Internally, they believe there is an upper limit on how many copies a TW can sell, and they only way they can increase revenue is through dlc attachment rate.
This would've been a $40 DLC on top of the $70 game if CA had their way. Sea People would've cost $20 too. CA can't look at Paradox selling $400 games and not get jealous.The PR disaster for Pharoah and Cities Skylines 2 were both necessary.
Total War is more or a live service than some live Services these days. They launch unfinished, broken, and filled with generational bugs(like Madden).
Its funny the time that CA actually did something a bit interesting for the past 12 years as a game company is to their most unpopular title era that no one would actually buy no matter how well made it is lol
Exactly, Pharoah Dynasties is great and has flaws, but look what they did in just 9 months! They should put them to work on Medieval 3 because they could do that in 1-2 years and it would sell like hot butter!
I think we would have to wait for a couple of years and wait to someone to come up and say why the first deliveries from CA Sofia were “half baked” (Britannia, Troy and the first delivery from Pharaoh). I think more than ever, it is quite obvious that the scope for Pharaoh was way bigger than the original release. This should have been the base game. We already know CA Sofia is able to do outstanding DLCs such as the ones for Rome 2, so it would have been a matter of time before getting more content.
Now, given the reception from Dynasties on Steam, one thing that is quite important to keep in mind is that Historic titles are not dead, the core fandom/old school fans from Total war are still here, and that CA actually listens to its fans…just think about Bethesda, which has a lot of difficulties hearing what the people want, I think CA is not at that level, and they push this project through. I would love to see DLCs for this one, but if not, they did a great come back!
What sucked the most about 'truth behind the myth' is that a Myth: Total War would still be an amazing game. I'd love to see what CA would come up with for Atlantis for example where they aren't constrained by GW needing to okay any and all ideas.
CA sofia should be in charge of Warhammer. They def know how to optimize a game, its amazing how beautiful Dynasties look in comparison to warhammer and how well it runs in comparison too
I dont like the age, but I got dynasties, didnt buy Pharao until now, and YES I LIVE IT! First real historical TW since Attila.. Finally! And I dint even like this period
If CA Sofia gets proper funding and time they would be able to make a game that I would pay full price for and buy the DLC. It's the executives to blame, yet they don't accept responsibility and blame Devs
Sadly this only worked out because they had Troy already made and could sticker it onto the map with a lot less effort than having to do the map from fresh.
They still had to do the actual map from fresh, the Greece map they added in Pharaoh isn't the Greece map from Troy, it looks similar but it's a new smaller version of it (adding the actual Troy map wouldn't have worked because it would've been way too big to add it there). Also while they reused the battle maps and some units from Troy, they still created completely new content for Mesopotamia where the map, all the battle and siege maps and all the units etc. are new, so it's not like everything they added was reused content.
Let's see. Troy, has 3 modes. The historical one, which is exactly like Dynasties. The "in between" (Legend behind Myth) which was what the story could be, based on Homers Epics and how people would persive thing then (for example Minotaurs being strong humans wearing skulls for helmets) and the Mythical one, which minotaurs, are in fact minotaurs. One could like them all, based on how they would go about it. (I liked the historical and legend behind myth for example) Pharaoh was a good game, most of the things people were whining about was, in large, logical, considering the age and how things were then. A lot of new things were implemented and most of them tried to reinvent things that total war games had abandoned. (every franchise has games that they test things on before new releases) Dynasties in an exact combination of both Troy and Pharaoh, combined with new things that the company is testing in order to maybe implement them in the future, something we have seen in every game. The troops diversity and how recruiting works, is a HUUUUUUUGE thing of that age, and works perfectly. In dynasties more than in Pharaoh, as in Pharaoh due to the fewer civs in the game, people went up in flames because they just don't give a fuck about what the game is about and why things are as they are. They compare former games which has 30+ different, not just factions, but in fact civs, and that is totally wrong. There are things that need patching, like graphical bugs, some AI things, but the game is surprisingly good. Even the new AI and how it behaves and goes about with it's armies is super refreshing. As someone that plays only on Legendary, things like that make a huge difference. Now, having said all that, people should know, that Dynasties, as good as it is, is almost the EXACT same game as Pharaoh, based on what people were b@@@ing about. Apart from that, there are so many other things that truly make a difference and things that were not changed, like unit diversity, but the addition of more civs, as I already said, "fixed" that. There is still much work to be done by CA to bring the series back, but this game is really good. (still on my 1st run on legendary, almost 200 turn, tried some other civs to check on their mechanics to have a full picture (less than 20 turns) but yeah, still only at 30 hours unfortunately)
CA Sofia should be given the next historical game we all know it has to be medieval if CA Sofia make it in the same way they've made dynasties they will sell even empire 2 Sofia know now and that's the important thing
I'm the one guy who liked the truth behind the myth. Weird it's just me. I've played TW since 2000. They MUST make a new engine for their next title though.
@@lordgerog For what i could see for now is for 2 motives: The first and ridiculous is that now the AI army is 90% ranged units because they know how this feature works, sometimes with slingers full stack...urgh. The second one is how quickly ranged units kills ANY type of heavy infantry in seconds, and i mean in front, not in the flanks, also making battles super fast.
@@lordgerog In regards the AI, at least for me they ALWAYS focus the armies against the player, no matter how many enemies or more important situations they have agaisnt a AI enemy.
If game developers don't learn the lesson, we customers do. I just waited when Pharaoh came out, and buy it only recently because of the dynasty update. I'm not saying I'm smart. I am just pointing out that it is bad for both parties to push out half-baked games.
People should be carefull with cheering too much. This is the bare minimum that Pharaoh should have had since launch, but there is still a lot of things lacking (naval battles for one), there are old mechanics from old total wars that could be brought back, there is the absolutelly unacceptable practice of charging in a separate DLC for blood, and these are just a few examples. I think this shouldn't become again one of those sources of hype and "wow, we love CA, they are so great, they listen to the fans, etc", because it just isn't true. This is just an answer to the fact they saw that they were on the verge of losing every scrap of trust and so they delivered a total war game. This should absolutelly not erase the past conducts of CA and any future releases should still be seen with skpeticism until we see a permanent change of conduct, we have seen this kind of BS for ages and it is unacceptable that it keeps happening all the time.
Thank for the video is good, but all this needs to be clarified. People who compare the game to Rome 2, I'll explain why I myself, thinking back, was wrong to attack this game. Remember that when Rome 2 came out it had a lot of bugs, TW Pharaoh came out optimized. Then we had to have expansions, paid, to have the Greeks, more Celts and nomads. I remind you that Athens and Sparta were not included in the base game. Then, as for the variety in the armies we had the barbarians: Celts and Germans who look very similar, all the Greek factions having the same hoplites and phalanxes (the Carthaginians too, only the skin changes), Rome and the nomads who also have all the same units overall. In the mechanics, I'm sorry but we had to wait 10 years to have the family tree and the intrigues. And we had to wait for Caesar in Gaul to have the seasons. And as for marriages, they are finally useful in TW Pharaoh, even descendants married to another faction can help now. And above all, all factions had the same way of playing, whereas in TW Pharaoh we have different mechanics depending on the group chosen. That's why for me this game was unfairly criticized by the community when it had all the assets of a good TW, especially if we objectively compare it to the old ones. I am a big fan of Rome 2, I have thousands of hours under my belt, but I have to be objective: yes, I have more fun on TW Pharaoh than on Rome 2, and Pharaoh made me interested in the Bronze Age, just as Rome 2 or Attila made me interested in Antiquity, its fall and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Thank for read and sorry for my bad english.
I think the main problem is that the higher ups at CA grew very lazy and greedy. Saga games were a little scheme to make a quick buck and not be accountable for their games being very flawed because they were “experimental”. The fact is that they tried to go full cancerous on pharaoh: Preorder skins, dividing the full game into 3 releases to be sold as 1 $60 title and (likely) 2 $30 expansions, one for Mesopotamia and one for Greece, instead of letting Sofia deliver a full game when it was ready, and then start with their DLC from there. If this was the release state, then this would probably be one of the most popular tws of all time, and we would’ve gotten REAL dlc (meaning extra content which the game doesn’t need to be a complete experience) like an expansion into nubia, into the Indus Valley, Elam, the steppe, maybe even Bronze Age Western Europe, who knows? Hopefully all of the bs is behind us though, I would hate to see empire 2 divided into 3 parts: one for continental europe, one for the americas, and one for Asia or something like that
I agree that CA Sofia know their stuff. But as I have Rome 2 with all the dlc's I want, this is a smaller scale map without naval battles. And Bronze age? Not really a fan. So it's 5/10 from me. I might buy it and be amazed, or stick to Rome 2, Medieval 2, you know the drill.
if the called it a standalone expansion and made it say 30$ with the promise of future support and linking the maps with troy it might of been way better at the get go, but even then it would struggle a lot cause people want something else from TW games, like medieval 3, empire 2 etc, and some progress for a change in terms of game mechanics, better sieges, new engine. But i guess now the WH 40k milking begins so we can forget about all of that and get another medicore 40k game
Speaking of "they could just wait" to release Dynasties as a complete base game, as a Mac user I can say the same about just the Dynasties update. They could just wait and release Dynasties on the same day for all platforms. While I'm typing this comment, there is still no release date for Mac, except the vague "soon after." Pharaoh was the first TW game I played since Rome II, and I like the base version very much. But it turns sour, because I want at least the date when Dynasties will be available on Mac.
I dont think that better than Troy or better than 3 kingdoms means its a good game. Total War games used to be the pinnacle of strategy games with titles like Medieval 2 and Shogun. The fact that they cant make a better game in 2024 than in 2006! is crazy. I dont think you should applaud a company that doesnt manage to make game better than the game they published in 2006.
@@_Azurael_ Why? Because the constand whining and negativity is annoying as fuck. It's a curse of our time. Why are you not content when they give you a fun an extensive game? Do you realize how much work and passion goes into these games? Give them some credit and enjoy what you have before you demand a completely different game from them. Do you really think they enjoy their wrok when there a confronted with tons of clowns out there who think they are entitled to be given exactly the game they demand from them? If you don't like it, don't buy but stop complaing for real.
@@hector-nu6gl chill dude. They didn't GIVE me nothing. I'm a paying customer. This game is only mine, if I pay for it. Welcome to the economy? I am asking for them to make something i actually want, a sequel to Empire, because I want to give them my money, but I have a thing called standarts "Be gratefull of the big corpo for the breadcrums they allow us to buy". Now that is a cringe position.
I still can't bring myself to buy it. After Rome 2, Atilla, Thrones of Britannia, and DLC and mods-aplenty for each, there's just no reason to buy another reskin of the same game. The day they actually put in some effort to make a modern engine (one that isn't 16 years old) and put out a historic game, they can have my money.
This is all well and good, and I'd love to buy the game because it has some cool concepts... except I know the core stuff is still worse than it was 15 years ago, with the slot based city building and regions, combat system etc. Lethality is a plaster over a gangrenous wound. Until they overhaul the fundamentals, the series cannot be saved IMO. Even if it was dynasties at launch, it'd still be milking a declining franchise.
They thought that TW Pharaoh will be only base for the DLCs tsunami. The plan was to sell a lot of DLCs but those "stupid fans" didn't want to pay extra money for them... They should call is TW Bronze Age from the beginning and be as big as Dynasties. Now (at least for me) from the biggest disappointment (TW Pharaoh) it can be one of the best TW installment (not as good like ROME2 but... still very good).
Did the editing in this video seem... I dunno...excessive? Or is it just me? It's not something I would normally comment on, but once I noticed it, I couldn't stop noticing it. It's like there's a camera cut every sentence or so. Like every pause was edited out? Andy? ??? No reflection on the content at all. Just something I noticed.
Personally I put the blame for all issues with total war at the moment with the leadership of CA and maybe Sega. The devs know what they're doing, as seen from this update to pharaoh and how they now approach the warhammer dlc's, but they're just not allowed to do it in order to increase profits. Which can spectacularly backfire, as seen last year.
It’s the budget man, the reason why Sofias games keep having to be saved is because ca is def not getting their budget or time, evident by the fact they needed epic games for Troy and how pharaoh released in only a year after warhammer with many reused assets. Even dynasties had a miniscule budget with the devs saying that as well forcing features like civilians and city viewer to be scrapped. Man ca needs to properly fund Sofia. Look at what they could do with time and budget they deserve
not the budget, but pressure from the Publisher.
To be fair, Total War in general is fairly niche, so the profit it generates is probably not super high. But it would probably be higher if the devs got more time, budget, and proper direction.
I guess we are lucky Total War didn't go under with Hyenas fiasco. Imagine - one day biggest Brittain Game developer and next they had one of biggest flops on their hands called Hyenas.
I think we are lucky that sega didn't step in and didn't fill total wars with microtransaction, but instead allowed sophia give fans what they asked for as far as historical title goes. And regain some of that good will and bring people back instead of milk those who are left.
But who knows how next Total war title will look and I hope I didn't speak too soon.
Stop, a team of modders could and would make a Pharoah but better using the Troy engine if given the mod tools. The budget argument only works if you are talking about a complete restructuring of engine and complete rebuild of the engine and even then that is dubious. CA cuts corners at every stop to save money for publisher profits, it isn't the DEVS fault likely, although we don't know their incentives. Maybe they get a bonus is hours worked is below a certain point and so they are doing stuff quickly to meet a deadline of some kind. This game is a failure because it was a scam 9 months ago and only improved because it was such an obvious scam that they had to make up for it. CA acts like a psychopath. They will hurt and abuse people to get their way until people turn around and abandon them. Then they will immediately change face and the contrast between the abuse and normalcy gives the impression that they are really changed. No CA just did something a normal gaming company does...releases an average game with a large scope for full price. What they did 9 months ago was exploitative and evil and they only got caught because they have been doing for a decade now.
@@notiowegian ahh, classic.
You don't understand the basics of modding or game. Dev. Modding *is not* the same as codding a game from scratch. Not remotely
They 100% intended on this being a PAID DLC, but realized they could not do that in the current heat. CA bit the bullet on Pharoah to get back some trust and released this for free. It only happened because we, the consumer, made it happe.
This, one hundred percent.
I think CA Sofia wanted the game to be complete , and it was main CA and Sega as a whole who wanted to nickel and dime everyone by cutting content and then selling them as addons
Yes, and sega's deadlines didn't help
Shouldn’t be much of a secret that SEGA is greedy. They locked New game + behind DLC for the newest Yakuza game 😂.
The Paradox method.
@@emanuelalfred1565 yeah I bought Infinite Wealth too. Great game but it sucks that the technical end game dungeon is paywalled for $30 dollars
Basically we're all thankful CA has finally given us what we wanted/expected. When did releasing crap become so commonplace that we're all thankful when we get a quality product?
Giving it to us 9 months later. Lol.
No CA, but CA Sofia...there are differences
I feel you but it’s better than never getting it at all, or then just not giving a shit that people are pissed off
Seriously. It's like the bare minimum has become aspirational as far as publishers go.
@@HansAlRachid lol, "aspirational" made me laugh. But you're correct, sadly.
You mentioned you have seen no one who like sTruth Behind the myth. Well I LOVED it. It felt like playing Troy the movie.
well I'm glad to hear you exist then :)
@@AndysTake indeed I do, I think 🤔
@@AndysTakeI started playing my Epic copy of Troy a year after its release when CA cut off 3K. By then they had shoe horned a historical option, but I found, after never playing WH, I prefer fantasy TW.
I only bought Mythos last winter‘s sale on Steam and after playing Mythos, if I go back to Troy, it will be Myth that I play
Thank you for the content. Please share your opinions, but know you do your audience a disservice when speaking on behalf of others.
Looking at Steam numbers does not give anyone insight into the money going to CA and how good or bad the profits are. If you wish to speculate, like I have, then preface that
Again thanks for the content, even if I disagree with a lot of it.
Yeah, I really liked that idea as well. It's a cool idea and really fits with the semi-mythical, semi-historical setting of the Trojan war
Idk why they didn’t just fully go that way in the in the beginning by doing this in between you don’t get a full historical or fantasy experience
Economic law: cut up a product and sell all its parts for a much higher price, that is what they started with Troy and wanted to continue with Pharaoh, Medieval 3 is over, and also Empire 2, etc.
Unfortunately that's the norm for the entire gaming industry now
And they will blame us for not buying half-game for double price.
Sorry, explain that again?!
Why are they over?
@@mab7727 They are not interested in such big projects, why? when with smaller ones they can charge the same. But I hope I'm wrong
@@pepepote4268 Got it.
Sadly, I think you are right to an extent.
That's also why I dropped the game long ago.
I might be the only person on planet earth that enjoyed “The Truth Behind the Myth”… I loved the idea of centaurs being people who rode horses into combat, harpy ladies and the Amazonians. Felt very original and cool in my opinion.
As a historical fan I could look past the Three Kingdoms and Troy single entity generals because it felt right for the era/mythic nature of both stories. But I’m glad they are putting that to rest now. Ironically the “records” mode in Three Kingdoms made the generals way more overpowered. Lu Bu with good items/ancillaries and a full cavalry bodyguard was literally unstoppable, could easily get 1k kills every battle.
Truth Behind the Myth is very cool and creative, yes. It's a very charming way to add "unit diversity" without straight up including fantasy creatures.
I liked it as well
I agree. It depends on the type of game we’re talking about. The single entity general is basically made for 3K and Troy, and even more so Star Wars. I appreciated that each general had his own little quirk and relation to other playable characters. In battle they are strong, freakishly so, but not as bad as the combination of ancillaries + records mode. I also really like the system 3K put in place with retinues. It makes sense that armies stick with the general that raised them from ground up. Makes sense that the armies strength should be a reflection of the general’s strength.
It’s these little things that put 3K as one of my fav TW games all time, and one of the most complete aswell
Actually, I liked the 'truth behind the myth' of Troy!As for Three Kingdoms, I alsko reeeeeally like that game, and had played a lots of hous, almost exclusively in records mode...shame CA abandond it!
I have 200+ hours in 3k and all of them in records mode. Single-entity unitis murdering hundreds of men single handed is too immertion breaking
If I had to guess what we have now was always the plan, just after multiple DLC. Either way, it’s a great game now
I think it's like 95% the plan, there are some missing textures and unfinished features, Cimmeria has the ai personality Amazon Queen
But with dlc it would probably be another half a year and 40 dollars for the remaining 5%, the problem is the future of the game, which seems nonexistant
Combat is still derpy, unit spacing is horrible and the charges..dont get me started lol. I personally still think it needs a little polish, but they’re headed in the right direction
What total war have you been playing if you call the combat derpy and unit spacing horrible in Pharaoh? It’s the best so far, and a lot better than wh3 which is surely a lot more derpy
It was always the plan, this is the result of the 1 year roadmap that was announced and included with the Dynasty Edition that you could pre-purchase before launch.
It's gross that youtubers and community haters now try to take credit for making them do it.
Imo Andy still owes the people at CA Sofia a huge apology.
If you see a bot make sure to report it,
My favorite feature of Pharaoh is the lethality stat which i think makes he game really interesting and forces you to be conscious of which units you use to push with and defend with. It may have been in Troy but never played it so don't moan at me.
*moans*
@@MrDaredevil96 😢
Lethality was not in Troy, nor in old Pharaoh. It is brand new mechanic of Dynasty version
@@ErunerOfHatti thanks, I thought it was but i was just unsure.
I don't know what you're talking about but I personally liked the fact that Troy gave you the option of choosing between mythological or historical. Kind of makes sense when talking about this period in history
Trojan War was mythologcal conflict,
@@Lukaskovac-ex4nfno it was a real conflict, the Mycenaeans sacked and destroyed Troy.
Didn’t happen as it did in the myths, and we will NEVER know how it happened, but we know it happened
@@S.P.Q.Rrespublicas time to critical thinking... If You think, that was a real event, how do You know about it? Based on what? History records, or what sources?
@@Lukaskovac-ex4nf archaeological evidence of a Mycenaean sack of Troy, at the ruins of Troy. On 3 separate occasions
@@Lukaskovac-ex4nf There is archeological evidence, most modern and ancient historians consider it a historical event or an event with historical basis and there are a lot of hints in other foreign sources like Egyptian, Hittite.
In fact it seems the Trojan war might have been a very wide event, and it didnt happen only around Troy. In Iliad ,Troy is also said to have many allies from all across the Aegean / Anatolia and in other myths, Acheans apparently campaigned a lot against the Trojan allies.
Also the Trojan war gives a very pausible explanation as to why Bronze Age evolved like that in the area. According to the myths and ancienat historians, many Greek survivors from Troy, returned home only to find out that their thrones had been usurped. Some perished and some took their troops and wandered around the world. The Achean / Mycaean world did collapse and was usurped by the Dorians, the Sea people (a lot of them assumed to be Acheans) appeared out of nowhere and ravaged the sea coasts and we lose a lot of sources in the aftermath. The Acheans being involved in a catastrophic conflict in Anatolia, which led to their homelands being undermanned and weakened and drove a lot of them to the seas, explains why the Achean nations, suddenly collapsed collectively without warning and can be linked to the Sea people.
Andy Always a fair analysis. Cannot agree more. Pharaoh is a ton of fun especially for those of us that love to be in a Total War world. I have every TW game save the very first Shogun. Pharaoh may well be my favorite of all time. Ranged weapons are too strong but I’m sure the game will be tweaked soon. The map alone is magnificent art and a sandbox I will eagerly jump into. TW lends itself better to pre- gunpowder combat. Sofia under management limitations have developed a masterpiece
I like them as they are
Dynasties was a good move from CA. Now I need medieval 2 remastered. I am Old and Rome 1, Medieval 2 and Empire were my life when I was young and I seem to be unable to enjoy the new games like I do the old ones.
I'm in total agreement. I'm playing as Babylon and enjoying this new dynasties expansion a lot so far, but it still doesn't compare to my old experiences on medieval 2 and empire. Half of me wishes they'd do a remake but the other half is terrified 😂
@@jacksonnn1661 Did you play the rome remaster? That one was perfect for me, it kept the style and gameplay of the original with a very nice graphics/hud update and some bug fixes.
@Tom-sd2vi no I've not played it yet. I wasn't sure how good the improvements were and if it was going to be worth it. I did look at it when it was on the last steam sale though. I'll grab it next time.
Oh boi, how i can tell you?
From the guys of Feral, there is no remaster in progress for m2tw. They receive a lot of hate with rome remastered, they will no do it. At least in this and the next year.
@@lordgerog I know, maybe later though
Picked up Pharaoh after the update and am having a great time with it. I grew up on historical TW and this feels immersive/unique enough to stand out. I've barely scratched the surface on the factions and starting areas, but through 7 hours I've loved how the empire building feels, the economy is dynamic, and the dynasty aspect adds another strategic dimension off the battlefield. The battles feel great and the terrain modifiers really make you use the topography to your advantage, as you would IRL.
It's been a joy exploring the mechanics and learning the fascinating history of the era.
CA Sofia are a great team, the problem is the overall CA leadership and how they treat CA Sofia. I'm sure they view them as an extremely cheap (and underpaid) workforce that can crank out content at breakneck speeds and be happy about it because "gaming is their passion" or some crap like that. If the initial releases of CA Sofia's games appear to be unfinished, it's because they are. Dynasties still needs time in the oven, though, there are plenty of balance issues and graphical glitches, but I'm sure they'll get to those eventually. However, Dynasties still suffers from a bad engine and combat design that plague contemporary TW titles since Rome 2. That's not CA Sofia's fault, they've been trying to fight the engine and design since day 1, there's a reason both Pharaoh and Troy are better games than Warhammer 3, Rome 2 and Thrones of Britannia. They'd have to crank up that lethality and design the combat around it so we can get some semblance of the Rome 1/Medieval 2/Shogun 2 combat in there.
The campaign mechanics unfortunately still revolve around incremental numerical bonuses and are beyond boring. Which is strange because Troy had quite good campaign mechanics that led to interesting things, mostly god powers and units. The tech tree was still boring, though. I don't know, both Troy and Pharaoh seem torn between design philosophies and I don't see massive improvement on the horizon until CA changes leadership and engine.
Bro, for real? Buzz and Woody? I got my dream Buzz Lightyear toy when i was an adult, too. xD
haha absolutely! :D my name is Andy after all! Stood no chance
CA is graded on a curve. The bar is on the floor 😂. Love the update tho.
You just made me realize what EA's plan was for the Bronze Age game. The lesson they learned from the Total Warhammer games was that customers would buy a third of a game for full price. The reality was that the factions and units of Warhammer are so distinct that it would be impossible to make the entire world at a single game. The customers understood this and were fine with buying it in chunks, as long as each chunk had as much content and polish as a full game, which they had.
Unfortunately, Total War Bronze Age as a single game was smaller than Rome II, and they thought that customers would be willing to pay full price for a third of a small game with entirely human factions, which they were not. Yes, they did add in the mythology elements to Troy to add more content, but they were not interesting enough to make up for how small the base game was. They were planning on releasing Mesopotamia as the third standalone chunk of Bronze Age for full price until Pharaoh had such a negative reception and performance that they had to rush out the third game as a free update.
They may have stretched it out like that to fill in the gap from a larger game being slowed down by the pandemic too, but they should have not priced it so high in that case.
If you think that this whole update was done in 9 months and not already made content planned for DLC milking years ago you are delusional.
The only reason we got this for free is because Pharaoh was such a failure at release that they figured they'd made more money releasing it for free and hoping for people to buy the game than release it as DLC and have no one buy it.
Yeah, it was made in that time, thats why they cut a lot of things, or added, in the progress due to the feedback.
New engine would be more exciting than Medieval 3
It is better than Troy and Pharaoh. But i feel lack of immersion, you'll end up building the same buildings, once you build them all there is nothing else to do. When you host games, nothing really happes, no cinematic no changes on map, no trading ships on the map. Family tree is weird as I married Helena to Achilles and after I guess he died (cuz I can't find him, and someone else is ruling his faction she dissapeared from the game. There is no way to check on other families. Cities feel dead to and do not grow organicaly, without a city view.
I was attacked by two armies and they stood infront of me as I had supperior defensive position and they did not attacked, this was my first battle I played...
Don’t worry, modders will take care of that, maybe CA did leave that parts on purpose 😅
@@filipsalamon the devs did state that they wanted to implement those features but they couldn’t due to the budget and had to focus on something that gave gameplay like the minor factions
You can literally look at other families when you adopt them into your family?
"I was attacked by two armies and they stood infront of me as I had supperior defensive position and they did not attacked, this was my first battle I played"
The AI will always attack you at some point, before time runs out, IF it did attack you, or just wait and take a strategic defeat without casualties when time runs out (if it truly attacked)
If you married her to Achilles as a bride, she belongs to his Dynasty now. Even if he dies, she will not come back. And yes, all heroes and generals die. Super cool and dynamic, especially because we got the family tree now.
"There is no way to check on other families"
Only through diplomacy, if you try to give, or take, someone.
"you'll end up building the same buildings, once you build them all there is nothing else to do"
true, as in any other total war game. Just wage war after you are done with your cities. Huge wars are super taxing. (don't know how much you have played) But yeah, map is too static, and cities getting larger like Attila for example would be super cool.
I liked that Truth behind the myth approach with Troy.
We are so back to Historical title maybe MAYBE Medieval 3 is not too far
(copium intensifies*)
They're crazy if they don't start work on Medieval 3 soon now. Can't think of any other time period that makes sense to do/redo at this point, and much of the fanbase are hyped for it.
@@TheSm1thers I'm not. They have proven they can't make a good game in the current time.
I had completely given up on total war as a game series all together. I had no interest in any new games, nor did I care about the new releases.
I barely even noticed pharaoe because I just didn't give a fuck about the franchise anymore. But this looks genuinely really good, and I genuinely want to play it. I currently don't have the money to buy it, but I have it on my list of games to play. So CA sofia braught me back from having given up on the franchise all together.
The only nit-pick I would've liked is to have the lands of Urartu added to the map. It's around lake Van, so it is literally just outside the current scope, but they are one of the more interesting regions in my opinion in this time. Still though, fantastic the improvement that sofia has done. What a bunch of amazing people.
I'm the first REAL comment, not bots.
Thanks for removing the bot, Mr. Andy
@@chipcrispy the army of justice is never far away 🦅
🦅
I fail to understand how the initial Pharaoh release wasn't a VERY different game from Troy.
The Power of the Crown and the war for Legitimacy, the Ancient Legacies, the Outposts, the different Seasons with Nile flooding and harvest providing different effects, the Pillars of Civilization providing different effects and visuals depending on the civilization state, THE DYNAMIC WEATHER IN BATTLES (that would require huge work to transition from one state to another; the raindrops in a storm would have to create ripples on water, be soaked by sand and create splash effects on wood - every detail is a HUGE endeavour).
Not to mention every aspect of the game that had to be recreated, recalculated and rebalanced. The character progression is vastly different, the way the Workforce works as well as the growth and influence outcome and balance are changed, all the buildings, all the technologies created anew, for the initial Pharaoh no units from Troy were reused, not to mention all the new animations and the matched combat animations. The CA Sofia team also listened to the community and introduced artistic versions of the unit cards, unit banners and much more.
All of this had to be tested and iterated upon.
THIS IS HUGE WORK! Do not underestimate how much effort a game requires.
Thanks Andy, wonderful spoken. Love your passion.
I think in time it's going to be remembered as one of the Total War greats.
Soooo…. When’s the mod to convert it to mythos dropping?
bought the game yesterday due to the update. Very nice.
The game has become great. I can't play with the lethality mechanic which further speeds up the pace of battle. However ! And this is the major advance that reconciles me with the Total War battles since Medieval II, we can desactivate lethality! As the unit statistics have been revised downwards to supposedly balance the pace, removing this mechanic reduces it. The battles then become slower and we can finally enjoy the combat scenes and tactical possibilities without becoming epileptic from the click. I'm more than happy to find satisfying battles again. I'm finally going to play Total War again! The coordinated advance and coordinated retreat unit tactics are very immersive and all come into their own with this finally more realistic pace. A big congratulations, CA.
PS: I hope that you'll will keep this pace in the future updates.
100% this is Sega/CA doing huge corporate greed stuff.
Edit: I got the game for $33. If they waited to release it snd released this as the original, complete version, I would be ok paying the full game price of $60. It seems like they screwed themselves by focusing on short term gain, screwing CA Sophia and its customer base at the same time.
We live in an age where this has become fairly standard for corporate business practices and attitudes. But it still isnt the most effective business strategy. The primary issue is that the shareholders are the ones whose needs matter most. It isn't sbout building a company to last for decades by gaining the trust of consumers and building a solid, long term plan or reinvesting in their own company to grow. Nope, the profits go to the shareholders, who see that company simply as a means to gain wealth. Nothing more.
Take that and look at all kf your experiences in this greed based capitalist system, at least in the US: health care, real estate, restaurants, you name it.
I think it's less the fault of CA Sofia but of upper managements faults
The way you talk about the family tree makes me think that your fist Total War games is Rome 2. Family tree has been around since at least Rome 1 (2004) all the way to Shogun 2. It was in Rome 2 where they decided to change it up and it ended up being a massive failure (the entire game, not just the family tree).
You’ve never watched my channel before huh
@@AndysTake a real "do you know who I am?" Moment
It is a good change and I applaud them for doing the change. I even bought the game which might seem stupid after what I will have to say. Apart from the campaign aspects I feel like unit variety is a real downer in a way. But you cannot really do much with the time the games is based in. I really do not like the esthetics of the times as much as for example the medieval ages. But it does have charm and I will try to put some time into it. I just hope they find their way forward towards what type of game they actually want to make and fulfill that duty. I felt like the mythos edition of Troy made me relieve a bit of the age of mythology hype again. But I still hope the next game is historical.
I’m hoping that a more positive reaction to them doing that is possibly they’ll realize we need a new medieval and actually include all relative sectors of the world for it to
Is it worth to buy? Im looking for this game, but for some reason, i think gameplay is not good like in old total war games like rome 1 and medieval 2. I mean some mechanics and good, graphics are good, but combat, and battles dont look that emersive. Sorry for my bad enlgish.
Two quick pointers:
1) happy to be the first to say to you that I loved the “truth behind the myth”, still only play that game mode
2) I don’t think Sofia is learning anything: they already know, they are passionate. The issue (as an outsider) seems to be corporate wanting to maximize short term profit “and then fix” instead of taking 1-2-3 bad quarters
I'm a long time total war player, but never played pharaoh because I heard all the bad reviews, but I bought dynasties because it seemed really good and have been enjoying it so far.
I’m having a lot of fun with Dynasties
I think when speaking about these things, it's incredibly important to speak about the higher ups. Sophia can have a crack team of developers and a group of game designers who are deeply in touch with the community and it literally would amount to nothing because CA and Sega are the ones who run the show. I really doubt sophia had to learn it's lesson twice and instead, the higher ups at Sega and CA are the ones who hamstrung the devs and forced them to work with constraints in order to squeeze every last drop out of the games. We really need to point the finger in the right direction because directing our frustrations at the developers themselves will never accomplish anything and it's exactly what the C-Suite at these soulless companies want.
I don't know if it's possible anymore but what I want for Sofia to do is to start from the Medieval 2 codebase when creating their next game. It doesn't have to look good, just keep all the mechanics, make it run well on modern systems and increase the unit limits. That would be such a breath of fresh (and also 20 years old) air to have an old school total war
The Truth behind the Myth approach was really original but I prefered the Mythos mode way more.
Let's be honest, Pharaoh was released as it was in service to CAs dlc model. They want dlc to sell and work like it does in WH, but to do that they only know how to preserve parts of the map for later sale.
Their problem is that they do not know how to monetize historical. Internally, they believe there is an upper limit on how many copies a TW can sell, and they only way they can increase revenue is through dlc attachment rate.
Whenever a TH-camr goes too long without saying "honestly," I get worried they've gone back to lying to me.
two words for CA sofia. MEDIEVAL 3.
I generally agree with what you said. I'm just so pleased to have a complete bronze age game!
This would've been a $40 DLC on top of the $70 game if CA had their way. Sea People would've cost $20 too. CA can't look at Paradox selling $400 games and not get jealous.The PR disaster for Pharoah and Cities Skylines 2 were both necessary.
Total War is more or a live service than some live Services these days.
They launch unfinished, broken, and filled with generational bugs(like Madden).
Its funny the time that CA actually did something a bit interesting for the past 12 years as a game company is to their most unpopular title era that no one would actually buy no matter how well made it is lol
I would love if they added expanded production buildings it's nearly impossible to keep up 3 armies of 20 stacks
I am enjoying it the way it is. I hope they can expand on it adding more of Elam(iran) and going further into italy
I liked Troy. Liked the mythical units too. *shrug* So now you know one person that liked it.
Exactly, Pharoah Dynasties is great and has flaws, but look what they did in just 9 months! They should put them to work on Medieval 3 because they could do that in 1-2 years and it would sell like hot butter!
I think we would have to wait for a couple of years and wait to someone to come up and say why the first deliveries from CA Sofia were “half baked” (Britannia, Troy and the first delivery from Pharaoh). I think more than ever, it is quite obvious that the scope for Pharaoh was way bigger than the original release. This should have been the base game. We already know CA Sofia is able to do outstanding DLCs such as the ones for Rome 2, so it would have been a matter of time before getting more content.
Now, given the reception from Dynasties on Steam, one thing that is quite important to keep in mind is that Historic titles are not dead, the core fandom/old school fans from Total war are still here, and that CA actually listens to its fans…just think about Bethesda, which has a lot of difficulties hearing what the people want, I think CA is not at that level, and they push this project through.
I would love to see DLCs for this one, but if not, they did a great come back!
CA Sofia now can make Medieval 3 out of Pharaoh engine. They have tools, skills, passion, are available, just Sega needs to let them cook.
CA Sofia and Haemimont games are very good bulgarian strategy games developers!
What sucked the most about 'truth behind the myth' is that a Myth: Total War would still be an amazing game. I'd love to see what CA would come up with for Atlantis for example where they aren't constrained by GW needing to okay any and all ideas.
CA sofia should be in charge of Warhammer. They def know how to optimize a game, its amazing how beautiful Dynasties look in comparison to warhammer and how well it runs in comparison too
I dont like the age, but I got dynasties, didnt buy Pharao until now, and YES I LIVE IT!
First real historical TW since Attila.. Finally!
And I dint even like this period
If CA Sofia gets proper funding and time they would be able to make a game that I would pay full price for and buy the DLC. It's the executives to blame, yet they don't accept responsibility and blame Devs
You should check out scourge of war waterloo remastered once grogs toolbar mod is updated
Sadly this only worked out because they had Troy already made and could sticker it onto the map with a lot less effort than having to do the map from fresh.
They still had to do the actual map from fresh, the Greece map they added in Pharaoh isn't the Greece map from Troy, it looks similar but it's a new smaller version of it (adding the actual Troy map wouldn't have worked because it would've been way too big to add it there). Also while they reused the battle maps and some units from Troy, they still created completely new content for Mesopotamia where the map, all the battle and siege maps and all the units etc. are new, so it's not like everything they added was reused content.
Let's see.
Troy, has 3 modes. The historical one, which is exactly like Dynasties. The "in between" (Legend behind Myth) which was what the story could be, based on Homers Epics and how people would persive thing then (for example Minotaurs being strong humans wearing skulls for helmets) and the Mythical one, which minotaurs, are in fact minotaurs. One could like them all, based on how they would go about it. (I liked the historical and legend behind myth for example)
Pharaoh was a good game, most of the things people were whining about was, in large, logical, considering the age and how things were then. A lot of new things were implemented and most of them tried to reinvent things that total war games had abandoned. (every franchise has games that they test things on before new releases)
Dynasties in an exact combination of both Troy and Pharaoh, combined with new things that the company is testing in order to maybe implement them in the future, something we have seen in every game. The troops diversity and how recruiting works, is a HUUUUUUUGE thing of that age, and works perfectly. In dynasties more than in Pharaoh, as in Pharaoh due to the fewer civs in the game, people went up in flames because they just don't give a fuck about what the game is about and why things are as they are. They compare former games which has 30+ different, not just factions, but in fact civs, and that is totally wrong. There are things that need patching, like graphical bugs, some AI things, but the game is surprisingly good. Even the new AI and how it behaves and goes about with it's armies is super refreshing. As someone that plays only on Legendary, things like that make a huge difference.
Now, having said all that, people should know, that Dynasties, as good as it is, is almost the EXACT same game as Pharaoh, based on what people were b@@@ing about. Apart from that, there are so many other things that truly make a difference and things that were not changed, like unit diversity, but the addition of more civs, as I already said, "fixed" that.
There is still much work to be done by CA to bring the series back, but this game is really good. (still on my 1st run on legendary, almost 200 turn, tried some other civs to check on their mechanics to have a full picture (less than 20 turns) but yeah, still only at 30 hours unfortunately)
CA Sofia should be given the next historical game we all know it has to be medieval if CA Sofia make it in the same way they've made dynasties they will sell even empire 2 Sofia know now and that's the important thing
I know this isn’t related in any way to the video, but I was just curious. Have you played any of the Nobunaga’s Ambition Games?
I'm the one guy who liked the truth behind the myth. Weird it's just me. I've played TW since 2000. They MUST make a new engine for their next title though.
The update was good but the lethality system is broken together with the horrible AI doing nosenses.
Why lethality is broken?
@@lordgerog For what i could see for now is for 2 motives: The first and ridiculous is that now the AI army is 90% ranged units because they know how this feature works, sometimes with slingers full stack...urgh. The second one is how quickly ranged units kills ANY type of heavy infantry in seconds, and i mean in front, not in the flanks, also making battles super fast.
@@lordgerog In regards the AI, at least for me they ALWAYS focus the armies against the player, no matter how many enemies or more important situations they have agaisnt a AI enemy.
If game developers don't learn the lesson, we customers do. I just waited when Pharaoh came out, and buy it only recently because of the dynasty update. I'm not saying I'm smart. I am just pointing out that it is bad for both parties to push out half-baked games.
People should be carefull with cheering too much. This is the bare minimum that Pharaoh should have had since launch, but there is still a lot of things lacking (naval battles for one), there are old mechanics from old total wars that could be brought back, there is the absolutelly unacceptable practice of charging in a separate DLC for blood, and these are just a few examples. I think this shouldn't become again one of those sources of hype and "wow, we love CA, they are so great, they listen to the fans, etc", because it just isn't true. This is just an answer to the fact they saw that they were on the verge of losing every scrap of trust and so they delivered a total war game. This should absolutelly not erase the past conducts of CA and any future releases should still be seen with skpeticism until we see a permanent change of conduct, we have seen this kind of BS for ages and it is unacceptable that it keeps happening all the time.
Thank for the video is good, but all this needs to be clarified. People who compare the game to Rome 2, I'll explain why I myself, thinking back, was wrong to attack this game.
Remember that when Rome 2 came out it had a lot of bugs, TW Pharaoh came out optimized. Then we had to have expansions, paid, to have the Greeks, more Celts and nomads. I remind you that Athens and Sparta were not included in the base game. Then, as for the variety in the armies we had the barbarians: Celts and Germans who look very similar, all the Greek factions having the same hoplites and phalanxes (the Carthaginians too, only the skin changes), Rome and the nomads who also have all the same units overall.
In the mechanics, I'm sorry but we had to wait 10 years to have the family tree and the intrigues. And we had to wait for Caesar in Gaul to have the seasons. And as for marriages, they are finally useful in TW Pharaoh, even descendants married to another faction can help now.
And above all, all factions had the same way of playing, whereas in TW Pharaoh we have different mechanics depending on the group chosen.
That's why for me this game was unfairly criticized by the community when it had all the assets of a good TW, especially if we objectively compare it to the old ones. I am a big fan of Rome 2, I have thousands of hours under my belt, but I have to be objective: yes, I have more fun on TW Pharaoh than on Rome 2, and Pharaoh made me interested in the Bronze Age, just as Rome 2 or Attila made me interested in Antiquity, its fall and the beginning of the Middle Ages.
Thank for read and sorry for my bad english.
I think the main problem is that the higher ups at CA grew very lazy and greedy. Saga games were a little scheme to make a quick buck and not be accountable for their games being very flawed because they were “experimental”. The fact is that they tried to go full cancerous on pharaoh: Preorder skins, dividing the full game into 3 releases to be sold as 1 $60 title and (likely) 2 $30 expansions, one for Mesopotamia and one for Greece, instead of letting Sofia deliver a full game when it was ready, and then start with their DLC from there. If this was the release state, then this would probably be one of the most popular tws of all time, and we would’ve gotten REAL dlc (meaning extra content which the game doesn’t need to be a complete experience) like an expansion into nubia, into the Indus Valley, Elam, the steppe, maybe even Bronze Age Western Europe, who knows?
Hopefully all of the bs is behind us though, I would hate to see empire 2 divided into 3 parts: one for continental europe, one for the americas, and one for Asia or something like that
I agree that CA Sofia know their stuff. But as I have Rome 2 with all the dlc's I want, this is a smaller scale map without naval battles. And Bronze age? Not really a fan. So it's 5/10 from me. I might buy it and be amazed, or stick to Rome 2, Medieval 2, you know the drill.
if the called it a standalone expansion and made it say 30$ with the promise of future support and linking the maps with troy it might of been way better at the get go, but even then it would struggle a lot cause people want something else from TW games, like medieval 3, empire 2 etc, and some progress for a change in terms of game mechanics, better sieges, new engine. But i guess now the WH 40k milking begins so we can forget about all of that and get another medicore 40k game
yeah is a great game now, but i am wondering why there are only 400 people playing.. even with dynasties update they are not selling more products
You're looking at at the wrong SteamDB page, Pharaoh Dynasties got its own separate SteamDB page and it had almost 8000 people playing it on Sunday.
@@lp4514 any proof? link?
Speaking of "they could just wait" to release Dynasties as a complete base game, as a Mac user I can say the same about just the Dynasties update. They could just wait and release Dynasties on the same day for all platforms. While I'm typing this comment, there is still no release date for Mac, except the vague "soon after."
Pharaoh was the first TW game I played since Rome II, and I like the base version very much. But it turns sour, because I want at least the date when Dynasties will be available on Mac.
Nah, Mac is job of feral.
@@lordgerog all I'm saying that it could be released in one day.
It's a conflict of interest between the developers who want to make a great game and the executives who want all the money now.
When you let CA Sophia do their thing you get a good game, when you let suits rush a game you get trash, it is simple like that.
I would be happy paying $60 for this.
Empire total war 2 when? :{
Without the combat, a total war game is not done, and Pharaoh's combat, war system is not enjoyful. They need to improve on it
I dont think that better than Troy or better than 3 kingdoms means its a good game.
Total War games used to be the pinnacle of strategy games with titles like Medieval 2 and Shogun.
The fact that they cant make a better game in 2024 than in 2006! is crazy.
I dont think you should applaud a company that doesnt manage to make game better than the game they published in 2006.
I knew something was wrong with this game when even Andy (who’s normally so positive) slammed it.
It's what everyone wanted, except for Terminator
You're the first person to pronounce Sofia correctly.
Now give me an Empire 2
Give yourself a life.
@@bluewizzard8843 why the hostility dude?
@@_Azurael_dont question it too much. Some people tend to be rather rude💀
@@_Azurael_ Why? Because the constand whining and negativity is annoying as fuck. It's a curse of our time. Why are you not content when they give you a fun an extensive game? Do you realize how much work and passion goes into these games? Give them some credit and enjoy what you have before you demand a completely different game from them. Do you really think they enjoy their wrok when there a confronted with tons of clowns out there who think they are entitled to be given exactly the game they demand from them? If you don't like it, don't buy but stop complaing for real.
@@hector-nu6gl chill dude.
They didn't GIVE me nothing. I'm a paying customer. This game is only mine, if I pay for it.
Welcome to the economy?
I am asking for them to make something i actually want, a sequel to Empire, because I want to give them my money, but I have a thing called standarts
"Be gratefull of the big corpo for the breadcrums they allow us to buy". Now that is a cringe position.
I still can't bring myself to buy it.
After Rome 2, Atilla, Thrones of Britannia, and DLC and mods-aplenty for each, there's just no reason to buy another reskin of the same game.
The day they actually put in some effort to make a modern engine (one that isn't 16 years old) and put out a historic game, they can have my money.
Why is no one talking about how good is infantry matched combat and kill animations? Its perfect . Better than rome 2 , attila and shogun 2 .
I love "Truth Behind the Myth" the most in TW Troy... lol... but I know I'm a minority view there.
I think they game is great now, besides the few problems…
This is all well and good, and I'd love to buy the game because it has some cool concepts... except I know the core stuff is still worse than it was 15 years ago, with the slot based city building and regions, combat system etc. Lethality is a plaster over a gangrenous wound. Until they overhaul the fundamentals, the series cannot be saved IMO. Even if it was dynasties at launch, it'd still be milking a declining franchise.
I think they wanted to release the map bit by bit like the warhammer games to make more money
They thought that TW Pharaoh will be only base for the DLCs tsunami.
The plan was to sell a lot of DLCs but those "stupid fans" didn't want to pay extra money for them...
They should call is TW Bronze Age from the beginning and be as big as Dynasties.
Now (at least for me) from the biggest disappointment (TW Pharaoh) it can be one of the best TW installment (not as good like ROME2 but... still very good).
Did the editing in this video seem... I dunno...excessive? Or is it just me? It's not something I would normally comment on, but once I noticed it, I couldn't stop noticing it. It's like there's a camera cut every sentence or so. Like every pause was edited out? Andy?
???
No reflection on the content at all. Just something I noticed.
Historical total war games should be making a comeback now warhammer is winding down,.
I don't agree with your take on Troy fantasy/historical setup being that big of a problem, 3Kingdoms has a similar setup and worked fine.
I bought Pharaoh recently but I'm very disappointed by the "Cartoony" art style especially after only playing Atilla and Rome 2 for the last 5 years
Personally I put the blame for all issues with total war at the moment with the leadership of CA and maybe Sega. The devs know what they're doing, as seen from this update to pharaoh and how they now approach the warhammer dlc's, but they're just not allowed to do it in order to increase profits. Which can spectacularly backfire, as seen last year.
Max Fosh from wish.
Refunded the game
Didnt enjoy it
Usually im pretty negative but if anyone plays this game and os having fun, dont let idiots like me ruin it.
Have fun
I just want CA create new graphic's engine. It's high time we get a new one.
Its harder to make an engine than to make a game.
@@gerardotejada2531 That's why they should take all the time they need. Warscape was a mess from the start cause it was rushed.