168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Total War: Pharaoh has got me excited in all kinds of ways♔. It’s brilliant to see the series return to historical warfare in the capable hands of Creative Assembly’s Sofia studio, and also for it to take some pretty substantial leaps in terms of campaign dynamics, battlefield dynamics, and pure strategy game customization on a level we haven’t seen before in Total War.
That being said, the best part of my Total War: Pharaoh preview experience at Gamescom 2023, was﷽ sitting down with Associate Game Director Todor Nikolov and hearing the absolute passion that the team has for rebuilding these historical worlds—particularly the Sea Peoples, who play an important role in Total War: Pharaoh.
“We read a lot of books,” Nikolov tells me. “But there are also a lot of missing resources. That’s why the Sea People are so fascinating, because although there are bits and pieces of information, we had to really rely on interpretative history and archaeology to design this part of the game.” The Sea Peoples are a fascinating and elusive part of ancient history: a group of marauding invaders, aboard ships, who attacked Egypt and across the Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age Collapse. They destroyed ports, coastal towns, and villages, and generally pillaged an area of the world that was alr𒁏eady facing threats from famine and civil decline. In Total War: Pharaoh, the Sea People will come for you time and time again. I ask Nikolov if it’s a bit like a tower defense game, and he smiles, and says, “Yes, sort of.”
CA Sofia has experience in recreating historical events that are a little loosely defined. In Total War: Troy, the mythical age of minotaurs and gods was reimagined with a detailed hero system. In Pharaoh, the studio has taken a step away from the mythical but lends its experience in designing these systems with a range of deities, pyramid building, and a dynamic campaign map. You can read more about that in 168澳洲꧑幸运5开奖网:our campaign preview from Matt Arnold.
My Gamescom preview focused on three key battles, scaling in difficulty. These highlighted the new dynamic battle maps, which includ🅘e changing weather - particularly sandstorms, which whip up in fury and reduce the effectiveness of your ranged units. This in turn impacts the terrain. If it’s a horrible storm, the earth can turn soft and mulchy underfoot, slowing down heavy units and chariots. I used this to my advantage in one battle by falling back into a dense treeline next to a muddy swamp. When the enemy chariots charged my skirmishers, they floundered in the mud, allowing me to pick them off with ease.
Then it was time for true set piece spectacle: a siege with a hoard of roving Sea Peoples at my gates. This gave me a chance to zoom in and take a look at the design for their armour and weaponry. It was a real mish-mash, but generally followed a sort of Southern European theme, although it seemed like there were ꦚinfluences from Northern and even Eastern Europe. Everything about them seemed cruel, with gnarly blades and heavily-decked out siege towers rolling towards my walls.
The battle is a bit of a disaster. My units are spread too thinly, and the groups of marauders break across the walls like waves. They swarm into the streets and eliminat💟e my disparate units. The benefit of hindsight is a classic Total War-ism, and if I were to try this battle again, I’d rearrange my units around a central point. It’s a beautiful set piece regardless, and the sort of awe-inspiring and all-encompassing reimagining of history that got me to fall in love with Total War in the first place. Fans of the historic titles will find a lot to admire in Pharaoh.
A lot of this attention to detail and the chance🐲 to experiment with new features comes from focusing on a smaller part of history, and I hope that CA Sofia has more opportunities in the future to explore other regions and periods of history. I’d also hope that some of the features they experiment with in these honed historical experiences make it to the mainline Total War games in the future. Until then, I’m looking forward to leading my empire to total dominance in Pharaoh - or ❀crumbling yet again against a band of pillaging Sea Peoples.