WHAT A MESS: Total War Pharaoh Dynasties Fails To Impress Me

Total War: Pharaoh Dynasties has arrived & clearly resolves one of the biggest issues most players had with the game at launch: the scope of the campaign map. Dynasties might as well be called Total War: Bronze Age, which is great! There's a lot more content here. But does more content = better gameplay? Has Dynasties actually addressed the many issues at the core of the campaign design or the less than ideal state of battles?

I’ve personally had access for about 6 days. I’ve spent over 45 hours playing half a dozen campaigns to be able to make a thorough & honest review. In this video I’ll be talking about whether Pharaoh Dynasties is finally the definitive Bronze Age game we’ve all been waiting for, whether the campaign map additions, the new factions, battle mechanics, all of the changes here improve on the game and make it a proper Historical Total War. By the end, I’ll give you my final verdict on whether Total War Pharaoh with Dynasties is now worth buying & playing.

#totalwar #totalwarpharaoh #creativeassembly

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[TheTerminatorGaming]

As always, this is all based on my personal experience. I’m not hating on a game for the sake of hating, or CA for making it, or the many players who will enjoy Dynasties. There is a TON of new content here worth additional hours of gameplay and for some it may be worth the asking price, but changes made to the campaign & the battles simply do not address the core issues of the game. In fact it’s mind-boggling that some areas are actually worse, not better.

I really wanted to like Pharaoh Dynasties, I was quite excited about some returning mechanics and the full Bronze Age world we were promised. But I don’t believe it’s worth playing more than a few campaigns before seeing the same old flaws. Let me know what you think in the comments below & subscribe for more strategy game & Total War videos just like this!

[mateoarmas]

I agree for the most part but PLEASE dont ask for faster battles, the last thing we need is more arcade battles

[bluebubbadog]

You complain that different factions play the same and then also complain that factions have unique mechanics?

[dotcom]

The sea peoples spawning without a warning or prompt makes sense tho, thats how it happened in history. From what little we know of that era, they barely understood what was going on until they were already invading and sacking cities, King Ammurapi's letters to Cyrus made it clear that they had no idea who was atacking them or why, or where, and officials just stopped sending letters and later it was found out that the cities were destroyed and said officials killed.

[IslamistSocialist]

Well, shogun 2 basically has 95% identical unit. Does that mean that game sucks?

[marcelmaster]

Imagine griding a campaign for some epic battle against X faction for 60+ turns. Only for the battle to last 3-4 minutes like Warhammer.


Historical total war should take notes and keep improving like Pharaoh and 3K records did. Those new features like climate and terrain fit the Medieval 3 so much, so does the armour system

[Chtigga]

This update is great, I think you're being a bit too harsh at this point.

[Kerath]

> "Every faction plays the same"
Well, yes. That's what it means to be a human being in the ancient past. There is only so much you can do.

[bnjmndrf]

To be fair all your complaints are inherent to almost all total war.

[romanlutseiko]

It's funny you want the fights to be realistic, or they should be faster, or what? I don't get it...? So if you want realism then fights should take about 2 to 3 hours even when you have small skirmish, that's is realistic! But your are complaining about the fights are to slow 😅😅 I don't get it...

[strategist]

Glad to see so many people disagreeing. I think this is really bordering on view farming. While some criticisms are valid I think Terminator makes things overly dramatic.

[HistoricalWeapons]

Dude, it’s a good game. Go compare with older titles and you will see the campaigns now are a lot more complex than comparable titles such as shogun2

About your comment “you felt like you never left Mesopotamia” that’s historically accurate that factions did not have global spans during the Bronze Age. And there’s always the option to shuffle factions and randomize it

[ospslss]

It makes sense every faction has different traits because that is historically accurate I’m glad they did that because that makes the most sense

[oldrabbit]

tbh, while I get the "shallow mechanics" argument, it's not easy to implement true deep mechanics.. Even spreadsheet monsters like EU4 or Vicky 3, with a shit ton of tabs and mechanics in every facet, are still "wide but shallow" in terms of mechanic, then for a combat-oriented game like Total War it seems good enough with a few rebalancing.

Besides, while the Egyptians and Babylonians built impressive temples and monuments, what kind of Bronze Age wonders did the Cannite made? The Myceaneans didn't even have a historical high king, existing as a squabble of rival cities, but somehow they should follow a universal law? The Aegeans and Cannites had historically established many overseas colonies, and had a robust maritime tradition, so it made more sense for them to recruit abroad - but why a stay-at-home faction like Egyptians or Hittites can recruit far away from their homeland too? These legacies are based on history and made different cultures feel distinct, and I don't think they should make a pool of 10+ legacy available for everyone - even Paradox games wont give you that without restriction..

[lovelybitofsquirrel]

I swear you dislike anything that isn't a mod these days. CA could literally remaster shogun 2 and you'd still complain it's not enough.

I like your mod coverage but I will NOT be watching your consent when it comes to official content from now on. always feels like you're rage baiting for engagement rather than being genuine.

[aidanchutkan]

I love how you just skip over all of the new content and get straight to complaining. Really lets us know that you’re just farming hate views.

[SkySweeperSyn]

Honestly it sounds like lethality is exactly what i want. A war game should not be measured solely on numbers and statistics. A man always has a chance to kill another man. I feel like that was something that has been missing from total war for a while. Nothing annoys me more than seeingcgod damn healthbars for what is supposed to be a unit of individual intities.

Make the entities the healthbar...

[legionofrome]

People criticize it a lot and I understand why but a least give them credit for not yet dumping the game and actually making it into a reasonable title.

[seraphx]

I don't know but I think I'll end up disagreeing with your take on the game after I try the update tomorrow, your criticisms are largely criticisms that apply to the entire modern TW series wanting it to be something that it isn't, a deep strategy game on the scale of Paradox games, but the TW gameplay loop has always basically been the same.

I've started kind of getting annoyed at other long time players because CA Sophia could take the criticisms I've heard so far, make suggested improvements and all they'd likely get back from the fans is "It's okay but I just wish xyz also" and this would continue with each new iteration of update provided.

What CA Sophia has done with this update on a limited budget and time table is nothing short of impressive from where the game started, perhaps it's too soon to get excited, but if they continue developing Pharaoh in a positive direction it may very well end up like Rome 2 Emperor Edition a year or two down the road.

If they don't? well hopefully CA will take the greater series criticisms and implement some new design choices going forward, though at a certain point players have to understand that the perfect gaming experience doesn't exist, it's an ideal worth striving for but you'll never feel 100% happy with any game, there will always be another "But I wish they'd have also done xyz" thought in the back of our minds.

[Ealdorman_of_Mercia]

I utterly disagree with you. This is a huge massive update that added MANY features and changes we all wanted... and it's FREE.