Platforms: PC
Genre: Strategy, RTS, Turn-Based, 4X

Total War Pharaoh is the franchise’s return to its historical roots for the first time perhaps since well, 2015’s Total War Attila. Sure, Total War Three Kingdoms and A Total War Saga Troy were both historical but they had fantasy elements as well, inspired by the popular Total War Warhammer titles. Thanks to Sega and Creative Assemblt, we’ve had our first small taste of Total War’s first pure historical title in a long time, playing 50 turns worth as the Egyptian leader Ramesses III.

The Most Accessible Total War Yet

Strategy games have always had steep learning curves and that includes Creative Assembly’s Total War franchise. However, the more modern titles in recent years have started becoming more friendly to newcomers, and Total War Pharaoh might be the most accessible one to date. While Total War Warhammer 3 also had some customization options (especially in its massive Immortal Campaign), for the first time ever in the franchise, Total War Pharaoh offers extensive and in-depth grand campaign customization options.

You can tweak almost everything, from your starting treasury (amount of money at the start of the campaign) and more. You can even turn off some features that have always been Total War staple mechanics; you can disable the trespassing diplomatic penalty, turn off rebellions (there won’t be rebels even if your region/province happiness is low), disable army attrition, decrease army upkeep, have max-rank generals at the start, and more. You can make your playthrough as easy as you want, or as hard as you want (you can also jack up upkeep and other things to make things harder for yourself). As a Total War veteran with thousands of hours on my belt, I played the preview build of Total War Pharaoh using default parameters, of course, but it’s nice to know that that I can customize my campaigns now and turn off annoying random disasters if I feel like it. Having more accessibility options is always a good thing, so kudos to the developers.

A Total War Saga Troy 2.0 Or Not?

Essentially, the core of Total War Pharaoh still feels like it was based on the framework and basis of A Total War Saga Troy, which is what many Total War fans have speculated since the game was originally announced. A lot of the mechanics from A Total War Saga Troy return in Total War Pharaoh, including the multiple resources mechanic (food, wood, stone, bronze, gold), the barter system, the near-absence of cavalry units with an emphasis on different weight classes of infantry units (light, medium, heavy), recycled content (the duel animations after auto-resolving battles look exactly the same) and others. It does feel like Total War Pharaoh started development as a A Total War Saga Troy expansion or spinoff but then became large enough to be its own game. Is it prominent enough that it’s more than just a A Total War Saga Troy 2.0? It’s too early to say since this isn’t a review copy, but here’s what’s new from what I did manage to experience in my 50 turns playing the preview build of Total War Pharaoh.

First up is the Legitimacy mechanic. Legitimacy in Total War Pharaoh is its own currency system, which players can obtain by conquering the sacred lands of the culture they want to rule or performing certain actions like building certain buildings or achieving certain feats. Once you accumulate enough Legitimacy points, you can challenge the sitting Pharaoh or Great King in a civil war. After becoming the Pharaoh or Great King, the main use for Legitimacy is in the court, where you can use it to influence ruling members of the court and more. Unfortunately, 50 turns was nowhere near enough for me to become Pharaoh. I did collect enough Legitimacy points after 50 turns to earn myself a seat in the royal court as a Vizier but I didn’t have time to usurp the throne by the time I reached 50 turns. In 50 turns, I didn’t even manage to fully explore Egypt, let alone the rest of the map in Total War Pharaoh, which stretched from the Levant to Anatolia. It was also quite annoying that near the end of my 50 turns (during the last 10 turns from turn 40 to turn 50), I kept getting harassed by raiding armies that randomly appeared.

Another new mechanic is the Pillars Of Civilisation mechanic, which represents the cosmic balance as perceived by the ancient Egyptians, separated into three tiers of stability. You start out in a world steeped in prosperity. The world will be generally peaceful, the visual mood is brighter and random events might occur to boost development, resource production and settlement growth. As civilisation falls into disarray, crisis begins to spread. The visual mood grows darker, and unpredictability will begin to grip the region. Natural disasters will become more prevalent, and aggressive nomads and Sea Peoples factions will invade more increasingly. And finally, left unguarded, the world will fall into collapse. As civilisation rapidly crumbles, a time of darkness and despair will consume the land. Here, instability throughout the region will reach its peak. This is known in history as the Bronze Age Collapse but 50 turns was not enough to reach that point so I didn’t experience what it would be like. Apparently, you can stave off the Bronze Age Collapse by building and upgrading cities that are ‘Pillars Of Civilisation’.

Another returning mechanic from A Total War Story Saga Troy is the deity system or gods system. However, Creative Assembly has managed to improve the mechanic by making it less of something that needs to be consistently maintained (the gods were too fickle in A Total War Saga Troy and required too much to be able to utilize properly). In Total War Pharaoh, the mechanic is more grounded. It still works the same way, with different gods providing bonuses to building types, specific settlements or unit types. Players can build shrines and temples dedicated to their gods to increase their favour and gain better bonuses, advancing through three tiers of worship. You can somehow still lose their favor just like in A Total War Story Saga but in the 50 turns that I played in Total War Pharaoh, all of that is downplayed a lot more, so the gods don’t get angry and lose favour just because you haven’t build a temple for that in the last few turns.

A lot of these mechanics can make for a lot of different potential playthroughs due to the different cultures and leaders. However, I only managed to play as Ramesses III. Since I only played 50 turns, there’s a lot I still need to experience properly before giving a more definitive take on the game. That being said, there were several new mechanics that I liked, including the return of an early Total War staple (which was absent in recent titles); outposts. Besides the usual cities/regions and provinces (made of multiple cities/regions), there are Outposts in Total War Pharaoh, just like the older titles like Total War Medieval 2 and Total War Napoleon. Outposts are structures you can construct on the campaign map, which includes shrines or watchtowers to bolster garrisons in your cities/regions. I also liked being able to customize my leaders and generals by giving them weapons and equipment. Unlike A Total War Saga Troy, I can give my leaders chariots or remove them at any time, which adds more variations to how I can build them up.

But best of all, I don’t have to worry about my enemies having more powerful magic or bigger monsters than I do, or the generals being god-like unkillable beings. That’s what I miss most about historical Total War and from what little time I’ve spent with the preview build of Total War Pharaoh, I believe that it has the potential to deliver that in a way that no other Total War title has in a long, long time. I look forward to being able to play the full version of the game closer to launch and being able to fully experience all the new mechanics of Total War Pharaoh.

The Total War Pharaoh preview version was provided by the publisher. It will launch for PC via Steam sometime in October 2023.