Total War: PHARAOH - confirmed! - general discussion

[KLAssurbanipal]

Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1...al_War_PHARAOH



FAQ: https://pharaoh.totalwar.com/news/reveal-faq

Pharaoh Store page: https://store.totalwar.com/en/total-...al-war-pharaoh

Pharaoh Website: https://pharaoh.totalwar.com



Screens:

[KLAssurbanipal]

[KLAssurbanipal]

[Aruberikku]

DELETED

[alhoon]

Is that Saga or full historical?

And I see soldiers in the high hundreds. What era is this? Bronze era covers a laaaaarge span.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Is that Saga or full historical?

And I see soldiers in the high hundreds. What era is this? Bronze era covers a laaaaarge span.

In the era of the New Empire at the time of the Bronze Age Collapse, 1250 BC i would guess.

[KLAssurbanipal]

Full historical. XVI-XI cent. BC.

[Cloacky]

This looks amazing so far, I also love the ideas of dynamic weather and fire. I'd preorder this but I know that most TW games were atrocious at launch so I'll wait for them to fix it and for reviews.

[AnthoniusII]

The sword duel shows that it wont be historical. They fight like 3000 years later.

[zoner16]

Every historical title has anachronisms. The question is how this informs the gameplay style. The pre-order bonus mentions bodyguard units and we've seen the return of Rome 2/Attila style ladders, so it's moving in the right direction at least.

[alhoon]

I also saw siege towers... In a game that is happening in 13th century BC, I find the idea of siege towers very peculiar. How did they even built siege towers? Not to mention that Troy was the only city of that time with serious walls.

[sumskilz]

Not to mention that Troy was the only city of that time with serious walls.

This is not at all true. By the end of the Early Bronze Age in the Levant for example, cities typically had walls that were 8 to 10 meters thick. Walls built around Levantine cities in the Middle Bronze weren’t as thick, often only 2 to 4 meters. However, it was in this period that casemate walls started to appear. These were constructed of a series of squares or rectangles with walls that were 2 to 4 meters thick that were filled with earth, so that using less stone they effectively formed walls that were 10 meters thick or more. Starting in the Iron Age, the casemates that formed the walls were built with entrances on the inner side, so that they could be used as storerooms during peacetime and filled with earth during a siege.

During the Late Bronze Age, when this game is set, very few new city walls were built, probably due to population decline, but most cities still had their Middle Bronze Age walls. Jerusalem during this period was a highland city-state vassal of Egypt that was off of the main trade routes, and yet it retained its Middle Bronze fortifications that were so massive that nothing was built in the region on a scale that rivaled them until the monumental building projects of Herod I during the early Roman period.

So far, I’ve only been mentioning the thickness of the walls. This is because only the first few meters of the height above ground was made of stone, above that, the rest the height was made of mudbrick. Here is a pic of tourists walking through the gate at Megiddo, in which you can see the height of stone foundation:



These fortifications were built in the Iron Age, but are of similar proportions to typical Middle Bronze Age city walls. Although, they are actually not as thick as Megiddo’s Bronze Age walls were. Based on the surviving mudbrick detritus from other sites, the total above ground height could have been three times the height of the stone by itself. In Egypt, Ramesses III ordered mudbrick walls more than 15 meters high to be built around several cities.

Most of the stone from Egyptian walls has long since been reused for other projects, but these Middle Kingdom fortifications give some sense of what they were like:



Also note the 22 meter high gate at Medinet Habu built during the New Kingdom period:



EDIT: Regarding siege towers, this is from Middle Bronze Age Harput in Upper Mesopotamia (modern southeastern Turkey):


Image source

The people and the fortifications/siege tower are obviously not depicted to scale.

[Roma_Victrix]

EDIT: Regarding siege towers, this is from Middle Bronze Age Harput in Upper Mesopotamia (modern southeastern Turkey):


Image source

The people and the fortifications/siege tower are obviously not depicted to scale.

Yes, this one dates to roughly 2000 BC and the style of carved relief art is very similar to Akkadian artistic tropes. It is the earliest known depiction of a siege tower from Anatolia (Turkey), while siege towers were described some centuries later by the Hittites of the same region in their now deciphered cuneiform writing (source). A slightly earlier depiction of a siege tower comes from Egypt, in a tomb at Thebes (Luxor) from the First Intermediate Period. Evidence for their use is simply more solid for the later Babylonians, Assyrians, and Kushites of the Iron Age, and of course the Hellenistic Greeks and Romans after them (and to be inclusive, also the Warring States, Qin and Han dynasty Chinese, who apparently invented their models independently of the Near East).

Alhoon basically stepped on a pedantic scholarly landmine by bringing things up in this thread.

Balkans are not 100% Greek, so where is that nationalism ? And what history recent findings have to do with nationalism? In that conference were Historians from all arround the world. History is a munber of facts taht many of them still waiting to be discovered. There is no nationalism here. Simple logic. While that last frazer kept the steppes and northern europe in ice and snow in the south Olive and grain were the primary food recourses. When the road opened HISTORIANS claim that people from the south migraded to north that because of the snow had no expirience in grain crops. Compare the 3000BC nortern europe settlements (still 1000 the bigest ones)when around Meditaranean thanks to Egyptians , Minoans , Mitani , Assyrians etc HUGE urban centers emerged with huge grain plants and sophisticated irrigation systems. AM i wrong again? Egyptians were the 1st in the world that devided their army units in DIVISIONS with each one with a spesific name. Is that an Egyptian nationalism or a historical fact dicovered in the Hieroglyfics descibing the battle of Kadesh? I guess you know about the Minoan and Mycenean Swords and jewels found in norse nobles tombs that ment the both Minoans (1st)and the Myceneans had full trade and diplomatic knowlege of those people and ofcourse they already knew the roads to go there.

That would be hieroglyphics.
Morticia wasn't talking about impressive irrigation systems and agriculture, she was simply pointing out that such stone fortifications existed in other parts of Europe around the same time, the late Bronze Age. Also yes, late Bronze Age Egypt had infantry regiments, but overall the style of warfare in the Eastern Mediterranean was dominated by use of chariots, which was equally true for Mycenaean Greece and Hittites of Anatolia. Whoever the Sea Peoples were, they pretty much upended that (of course they were most likely peoples of the same region, not from Northern Europe, but that is something Morticia already pointed out). Also, what's with this "Indo-European race" talk. LOL. The Urnfield culture built these fortified towns around 1300-1200 BC, that was well after Mycenaean Greece was already founded (circa 1750 BC). The Mycenaeans themselves were culturally Indo-European in origin (assimilating earlier Aegean peoples and the Minoans), so I fail to see why this was mentioned.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Cyclopian walls of Mykenai of that time? Also Memphis which means White Wall. They had Walls also the hethitians. Archaeologists have found the remnants.

[alhoon]

Cyclopian walls of Mykenai of that time? Also Memphis which means White Wall. They had Walls also the hethitians. Archaeologists have found the remnants.

Yeah, those Cyclopean walls that inspired countless generations of Greeks from 1600 BC to the start of the classical era... are inspiring pieces of architecture but they are like 3m tall. Sure, they are composed by stones that would have taken great ingenuity to lift. BUT... a man can easily climb them. They like 3m tall with huge handholds, and there were no battlements on the other side, no guys to stop you from simply climbing. And if you fall? You may sprain an ankle and that's it.
Those cyclopean fortifications are impressive for their era but they are not going to stop someone from going over the wall. Nor they did. The Dorean Greeks trashed them without issue.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Doesn't change the fact that the hethitian and egyptian cities and the cities of the fertile crescent had walls.

Hattusa:

Siege towers:

Siege Warfare in Ancient Egypt (touregypt.net)

So not incorrect in the time frame of the game.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

And further: all four possible leader for the Egypt are historical (Ramesses, Seti, Tausret, Amenmesse):

Amenmesse (1203-1199 BC)

Amenmesse - Wikipedia

Seti = Sethos II (1203-1197 BC)

Seti II - Wikipedia

Tausret (1198-1188 BC), female pharaoh

Twosret - Wikipedia

Ramesses = RamessesIII or Ramses III (geb. 1221 BC,1188 - 1156 BC)

Ramesses III - Wikipedia

The timeframe of the game is around 1200 BC then.

And as the rulers changed in a short time politics / pleasing the court is playing an important role then.

Now it has sparked my interest.

[zoner16]

New Kingdom Egypt was significantly more organized and better developed than the Myceneans, so their walls being significantly better isn't surprising. Their monument building was testament to their construction capabilities. Walled cities were common throughout the near east during the Bronze Age and the scale of warfare meant that people were constantly finding ways to attack them.

The fortress at Buhen (which is remarkably well preserved) featured rock walls 10m high, along with a host of other more sophisticated defensive measure such as drawbridges, battlements, and bastions, and it was built during the 12th dynasty, in the 19th century BC.

[Rob003]

Difficult to put into words how disappointing this is, does CA not listen to fans at all?? More boring ass Bronze Age combat with sticks and clubs. I was very hopeful we might see a Medieval or a new Empire\musket game, I guess this series is truly dead after all.

Maybe I'll try it 2 years from now at 75% off when I'm bored...

I can only hope this is a smaller saga type title, but a lot of people are saying this is the new mainline title...all that wait for nothing, can you say anticlimactic...

[prince_blucher]

Difficult to put into words how disappointing this is, does CA not listen to fans at all?? More boring ass Bronze Age combat with sticks and clubs. I was very hopeful we might see a Medieval or a new Empire\musket game, I guess this series is truly dead after all.

Maybe I'll try it 2 years from now at 75% off when I'm bored...

I can only hope this is a smaller saga type title, but a lot of people are saying this is the new mainline title...all that wait for nothing, can you say anticlimactic...

Exactly! +rep. I won't even buy in 2 years! Last TW game I purchased was TOB, everything else is garbage. So underwhelmed.