Total War: PHARAOH announced - Linux port from Feral Interactive (UPDATE: incorrect)

R.I.P. Feral Linux ports.


Last edited by AsciiWolf on 23 May 2023 at 9:56 pm UTC

I haven't checked if the Feral ones are

I do remember this comment from a while back.

Definitely that comment. Not sure why we even call it a 'wrapper', Wine is to me more like a Translator. Though I probably favor that as it reminds me of the Translator that was required for some games to work (and others to work correctly) for the Atari 800XL from the earlier Atari 400/800.

Weirdly I did not realize that oh so long ago the version of Mario Bros that I had with distorted music was only distorted due to not using Translator!

But yeah, native to me means that they took whatever source code there is and built up a binary that uses the libraries that exist on the Linux system, rather than utilizing wine to translate Windows calls into Linux calls. Whether that is via some form of wrapper or not, making elf executable binaries is what makes something 'native.'

So is this game supposed to be related to "Pharaoh + Cleopatra" ?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/564530/Pharaoh__Cleopatra/

If so, that sounds pretty cool, I just wish the Trailer gave some indication as to the gameplay.

And there doesn't seem to be a Community Hub yet so it's really hard to tell what exactly this will be.

Edit: The best I can do is guess based on the tags?

Popular user-defined tags for this product:
Strategy
Action
RTS
Grand Strategy
Tactical

Total War is a big franchise so many people know what their games are like, especially as they have a very particular identity that no one else really does. You can look for any other total war game and have a good idea of the gameplay. No, nothing to do with city builders, it is a grand strategy game with two layers: strategic layer is turn based, expansive and fun but not too complex; tactical layer is real time, extremely detailed and units have a large amount of bodies.

But you have just zeroed on one of my main issues with the franchise: they are trying too hard to sell a AAA game, not a good strategy game. Their marketing always, always is just close-ups of individual soldiers or big aerial shots of the terrain, with no HUD, no images of the tech trees or building screens or economic overlays or anything. From the store pages and press releases, they look almost ashamed of the gameplay they created, because nothing of it is shown. It is all 3D models that you wouldn't even see during normal gameplay (you never zoom in that much) and bullshots. And then the game is heavy, with long loading screens, and you can't even zoom out enough during battles to see what is happening on two fronts... because "muh graphics."

Indeed.

On Pharaoh itself...
Usually, historical games are not really my cup of tea, but with Troy they eventually added mythical creatures and people rightfully loved that addition.

Sticking to historical units just limits possibilities so much compared to when you have magic + creatures available.
There's only so much you can do with basic archers, swordsmen, pikemen and cavalry. And that gets old quickly in this kind of game.

Three Kingdoms was a really good game (in many regards better than WH3), but the limited unit variety still meant the game died a very quick death through players stopping to play, as all factions were basically identical except for cosmetics.

From the description, it sounds to me like this could be another Three Kingdoms - but I'm really curious if or how they want to spice it up.

Sphinx units would be sweet!

Disgusting. I hope they don't add monsters and mythology. That ruined troy for me, since I want to play a real historical general and relive an alternate history where the particular civilization survives the odds.

Maybe they won't do that.
And then the game will die as quickly as 3K did...
Or maybe this is meant to be a quick-ish cash-grab for them like Troy was.

The LARP that you want is much better served with 4X games of the Paradox kind.
Those where you never really enter the battlefield.
Or something like AoE that is "mostly" historical, but the small unit size enables a very different kind of gameplay.
But in the Total War style of gameplay, being restricted to historical units only is just plain boring. Because there isn't much you can do wrong, there isn't much you can do right, either.
There just aren't enough variables to keep the gameplay interesting - otherwise you'd still see people playing it.
There's also the issue of units looking identical at a glance (from a distance a guy with a sword looks pretty much the same as one with a spear/shield/zweihander/etc) - now a big-ass troll, that one always sticks out and helps readability on the battlefield.

Playing with monsters is just childish rather than the chess game its meant to be.

Do you ever listen to yourself or do you just blurt stuff out, fire-and-forget mode?
"My historical make-believe is so much less childish than the make-believe with fantasy creatures"
"RPS combat is like chess, really, huehuehue *sips wine, tips fedora*"
Dear lord


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 24 May 2023 at 5:31 am UTC

Boys (or girls or everything inbetween), don't go on full total war over game preferences!

Fact is, that the "accurate history Total War" community haven't got a proper game since years. Warhammer aside, both 3 Kingdoms and Troy are fantasy adaptions in some way - so i think it would be fair to get a "pure historical" TW.
That being said, i'm not too excited about the announcement since i hoped for a gunpowder era game with a good naval fight component. I don't think that the classic egyptian age is too interesting when it comes to military topics, but we will see. Maybe the lack of unit diversity translates to some fresh ideas in game mechanics (one can still hope).

But you have just zeroed on one of my main issues with the franchise: they are trying too hard to sell a AAA game, not a good strategy game. Their marketing always, always is just close-ups of individual soldiers or big aerial shots of the terrain, with no HUD, no images of the tech trees or building screens or economic overlays or anything. From the store pages and press releases, they look almost ashamed of the gameplay they created, because nothing of it is shown. It is all 3D models that you wouldn't even see during normal gameplay (you never zoom in that much) and bullshots.

I had that feeling with FIFA. I didn't have the faintest for years what the actual gameplay might look like, because they always showed closeups of players.

To be fair, Feral ports for Toal War games all have the segfault crash that happens randomly. It's been in their games for years.

Proton/Wine + dxvk also works better overall. Sad but true.

Fact is, that the "accurate history Total War" community haven't got a proper game since years. Warhammer aside, both 3 Kingdoms and Troy are fantasy adaptions in some way - so i think it would be fair to get a "pure historical" TW.

Yes.
Because that community is too small for CA to focus on.
3K had a historical mode, and other than the "super generals" the normal mode was as historical as you can get with that period. Even the more strange units (like some artillery) actually existed, albeit maybe more as prototypes than actual battlefield use.
Anyway, it didn't do well, and boy did they drop that one like a hot potato.

Troy was a historical (well, mostly) game before they added the mythical creatures.
It didn't do well (EGS cash paid for that game).
Attila was historical.
It didn't do well.
Thrones Of Brittannia?
Didn't do well.
Rome Remastered?
Didn't do well - although I'm certain they invested A LOT less resources into it than into any of the Warhammer ones. Hard to say if this one flopped (judging by review & player numbers) or was never meant to be very successful.
Before that, my memory fails me, but I do remember Empire failing pretty badly.
Basically, they tried again and again and again to cater to the more historically focused crowd, and it didn't pay off for them - while even their completely f*cked up WH2 & 3 releases raked in the money.
The last big success in the historical sector for CA must've been Medieval 2? 2007? And I'd argue that was largely due to (fantasy themed ) mods.

The point is, this isn't a question of fairness.
It's a business decision.
And the historical accuracy fans are just a very small group, which is why major companies avoid them and they are mostly served by small and/or indie devs, such as many Slytherine titles, etc. Games that look more like Excel than Total War, unfortunately.

I'm not saying there will never be a good purely historical game in a Total War style, but I very strongly doubt that CA will be the ones to deliver it, they focus on where they smell the cash for their AA-AAA productions. At this point I also doubt they even have the right "history buff/excited for history" people to pull it off to begin with.
I'd put my money on some indie developer eventually filling that particular gap of large scale real-time battles in a historical setting.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 24 May 2023 at 9:33 am UTC

Fact is, that the "accurate history Total War" community haven't got a proper game since years. Warhammer aside, both 3 Kingdoms and Troy are fantasy adaptions in some way - so i think it would be fair to get a "pure historical" TW.

Yes.
Because that community is too small for CA to focus on.
3K had a historical mode, and other than the "super generals" the normal mode was as historical as you can get with that period. Even the more strange units (like some artillery) actually existed, albeit maybe more as prototypes than actual battlefield use.
Anyway, it didn't do well, and boy did they drop that one like a hot potato.

Troy was a historical (well, mostly) game before they added the mythical creatures.
It didn't do well (EGS cash paid for that game).
Attila was historical.
It didn't do well.
Thrones Of Brittannia?
Didn't do well.
Rome Remastered?
Didn't do well - although I'm certain they invested A LOT less resources into it than into any of the Warhammer ones. Hard to say if this one flopped (judging by review & player numbers) or was never meant to be very successful.
Before that, my memory fails me, but I do remember Empire failing pretty badly.
Basically, they tried again and again and again to cater to the more historically focused crowd, and it didn't pay off for them - while even their completely f*cked up WH2 & 3 releases raked in the money.
The last big success in the historical sector for CA must've been Medieval 2? 2007? And I'd argue that was largely due to (fantasy themed ) mods.

The point is, this isn't a question of fairness.
It's a business decision.
And the historical accuracy fans are just a very small group, which is why major companies avoid them and they are mostly served by small and/or indie devs, such as many Slytherine titles, etc. Games that look more like Excel than Total War, unfortunately.

I'm not saying there will never be a good purely historical game in a Total War style, but I very strongly doubt that CA will be the ones to deliver it, they focus on where they smell the cash for their AA-AAA productions. At this point I also doubt they even have the right "history buff/excited for history" people to pull it off to begin with.
I'd put my money on some indie developer eventually filling that particular gap of large scale real-time battles in a historical setting.

I can't understand where you got these statements from. Neither CA (which wouldn't include Feral sales) nor SEGA released any relyable numbers on the sales of the titles. Even than you could just guess the sales profit of the titles. That being said, TW:3K seemes to be a very successfull game, given that both the overall sales and the profit were huge, according to some data released within a legal dispute between SEGA and EPIC (as far as i could find out).

However, obviously CA market research disagrees with your statements. We will see.

I can't understand where you got these statements from. Neither CA (which wouldn't include Feral sales) nor SEGA released any relyable numbers on the sales of the titles.

Steam reviews provide all you need for a good ballpark estimate of sales.
The amount of reviews for games is at something around 0.5-1% (some very good recent titles have even gone up to 1/60 and indies regularly get a lot more).
From that you get the rough sales numbers.

3K did indeed not sell badly. Afaik, it was the fastest selling title CA ever made?
But you need to look at what really rakes in the cash for games like that over time: DLC. And those need concurrent player numbers.

Now, I don't know if any of CA's games made them a net loss - in fact I doubt it, they are much better run as a company than they are as developers - but it is very clear from player numbers alone which titles did well and which ones did not.
3K basically dropped down to around 5K players just a few months after launch - and still sits there. With DLCs not having made much of a dent.
And the other historical titles fared much worse (though again, hard to say what kind of EGS deals were made for Troy). Troy and Thrones Of Brittannia sit at like 300 people playing.

Meanwhile, WH3 - despite a launch so terrible it will be remembered forever as a complete fumble - sits rather comfortably at around 25k players a year after launch. With DLCs definitely making a dent.
So there really can't be much of a discussion if fantasy-themed games are doing better than historical ones.

But I must admit, to my surprise the older historical titles are still doing surprisingly well, with player numbers in the 2k region:
https://steamcharts.com/search/?q=total+war
I did NOT expect especially Empire to still have such a stable player base. Despite spending a lot of time in TW communities, I've never encountered anyone talking about Empire.

So, who knows. Maybe they can afford to just play the long game here with the historical titles after all.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 24 May 2023 at 12:40 pm UTC

While I do enjoy historical settings a lot, unit diversity and faction asymmetry are things that it doesn't do that well - and the tactical combat benefits a lot from the former. The main reason I enjoy the Total Warhammers is that, in terms of interesting setting I prefer many (but not all) of the historical ones. I think it would be wise to account for that by focusing on other elements, both on the strategic layer (political and economical elements) and also more tactical elements (promotions for units, more terrain/weather effects, battle setups, etc).

But I don't think this is a "games do poorly when there is no fantasy" situation. The series did fine with many (if not most) of the historical games, there is a lot to the games besides unit selection and diversity (some people prefer to focus on morale and terrain over army composition, or might play more for the strategic layer and fight few battles). If they did want to sacrifice the "realism" for more diversity, there is a million ways they could do it without mythology and monsters. And there are several other genres of strategy that make even better use of those fantasy elements (due to not relying so much on formations with large numbers of figures, for example). Warhammer was exceptional in many ways, but most of the games that did poorly were the smaller spin-offs - Troy (also Epic exclusive, lol), Britannia, Atilla. Rome 2 was very successful and had a long life, 3K did quite well despite being up against Warhammer 2/3, Shogun 2 I remember being well-received...

Disgusting. I hope they don't add monsters and mythology. That ruined troy for me, since I want to play a real historical general and relive an alternate history where the particular civilization survives the odds.

Maybe they won't do that.
And then the game will die as quickly as 3K did...
Or maybe this is meant to be a quick-ish cash-grab for them like Troy was.

The LARP that you want is much better served with 4X games of the Paradox kind.
Those where you never really enter the battlefield.
Or something like AoE that is "mostly" historical, but the small unit size enables a very different kind of gameplay.
But in the Total War style of gameplay, being restricted to historical units only is just plain boring. Because there isn't much you can do wrong, there isn't much you can do right, either.
There just aren't enough variables to keep the gameplay interesting - otherwise you'd still see people playing it.
There's also the issue of units looking identical at a glance (from a distance a guy with a sword looks pretty much the same as one with a spear/shield/zweihander/etc) - now a big-ass troll, that one always sticks out and helps readability on the battlefield.

Playing with monsters is just childish rather than the chess game its meant to be.

Do you ever listen to yourself or do you just blurt stuff out, fire-and-forget mode?
"My historical make-believe is so much less childish than the make-believe with fantasy creatures"
"RPS combat is like chess, really, huehuehue *sips wine, tips fedora*"
Dear lord

Why would historical games die fast? Attilla, Rome, Shogun 2 where all amazing historical games. Everything was easy to tell apart. And you actually felt like a real battlefield commander from the ancient era.

If you want silly troll units, play Warhammer 3 TW. At least this is a serious game. I hope they combine the complexity of paradox campaigns with the battlefield tactics to TW (and even expand it further). WW1 total war would make an amazing game. Or even a WW2 game.

OK, on one hand I have nothing against "pure" historical games and I think TheSHEEEP is being a bit over the top in claiming they're automatically going to be rubbish. Although to be honest, I think ancient Egypt, being at the dawn of organized warfare, is if you go strictly historical likely to be a bit sparse on interesting unit types.

But you're being ridiculous too. I mean, effectively you're saying the artwork decides whether a game has tactical interest. Has it occurred to you just how shallow a stance that is?

It's certainly as easy to create interesting and balanced warfare and units in a fantasy setting as in a historical one; why would it not be? And it does increase the range of possibilities.

Meanwhile, surely it should be possible to have an optional "mythic" mode that would have sphinxes and whatnot if you select it but not if you don't. No reason everyone can't be happy.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 25 May 2023 at 5:22 am UTC

I think TheSHEEEP is being a bit over the top in claiming they're automatically going to be rubbish.

I never said that.
I think there are some great purely historical games out there.
And I also think CA's more historical ones are pretty good.

What I did say is that they are going to get boring a lot faster than fantasy ones due to the limitations of sticking to history, but I'm not sure if that has much to do with overall quality.

It's just a simple fact that they aren't doing as well as fantasy ones because the audience that tends to favor that stick-strictly-to-history isn't big enough.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 25 May 2023 at 6:06 am UTC

I hope they combine the complexity of paradox campaigns with the battlefield tactics to TW (and even expand it further).

You should look into the Crusader Wars Mod. This project let you jump from a CK3 campaign right into highly modded Atilla battles. I was blown away from the scripting when i saw videos about it on YT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIvCLh4523Q

A cross game mod feels like a whole new era of modding. Didn't check Linux compatibility right now.

Disgusting. I hope they don't add monsters and mythology. That ruined troy for me, since I want to play a real historical general and relive an alternate history where the particular civilization survives the odds.

Maybe they won't do that.
And then the game will die as quickly as 3K did...
Or maybe this is meant to be a quick-ish cash-grab for them like Troy was.

The LARP that you want is much better served with 4X games of the Paradox kind.
Those where you never really enter the battlefield.
Or something like AoE that is "mostly" historical, but the small unit size enables a very different kind of gameplay.
But in the Total War style of gameplay, being restricted to historical units only is just plain boring. Because there isn't much you can do wrong, there isn't much you can do right, either.
There just aren't enough variables to keep the gameplay interesting - otherwise you'd still see people playing it.
There's also the issue of units looking identical at a glance (from a distance a guy with a sword looks pretty much the same as one with a spear/shield/zweihander/etc) - now a big-ass troll, that one always sticks out and helps readability on the battlefield.

Playing with monsters is just childish rather than the chess game its meant to be.

Do you ever listen to yourself or do you just blurt stuff out, fire-and-forget mode?
"My historical make-believe is so much less childish than the make-believe with fantasy creatures"
"RPS combat is like chess, really, huehuehue *sips wine, tips fedora*"
Dear lord

Why would historical games die fast? Attilla, Rome, Shogun 2 where all amazing historical games. Everything was easy to tell apart. And you actually felt like a real battlefield commander from the ancient era.

If you want silly troll units, play Warhammer 3 TW. At least this is a serious game. I hope they combine the complexity of paradox campaigns with the battlefield tactics to TW (and even expand it further). WW1 total war would make an amazing game. Or even a WW2 game.

OK, on one hand I have nothing against "pure" historical games and I think TheSHEEEP is being a bit over the top in claiming they're automatically going to be rubbish. Although to be honest, I think ancient Egypt, being at the dawn of organized warfare, is if you go strictly historical likely to be a bit sparse on interesting unit types.

But you're being ridiculous too. I mean, effectively you're saying the artwork decides whether a game has tactical interest. Has it occurred to you just how shallow a stance that is?

It's certainly as easy to create interesting and balanced warfare and units in a fantasy setting as in a historical one; why would it not be? And it does increase the range of possibilities.

Meanwhile, surely it should be possible to have an optional "mythic" mode that would have sphinxes and whatnot if you select it but not if you don't. No reason everyone can't be happy.

Because including monsters, etc sets a bad precedent for future games, waters them down and makes them look and play childishly rather than being serious warfare sims.

I was initially against TW:Warhammer even being released and I played it but already in the game we saw diplomacy die and "interesting unit types" all were essentially different forms of cavalry with different models.

Why ruin a perfectly good historical series with this childish crap? If someone wants to play a childish game they should go play CIV, not ruin TW with it.

That's not a reason. It's just a vague assertion. You're equating "non-historic" with "childish" but you are advancing absolutely and exactly zero reason for that claim. I would say it's in fact a rather childish claim. If things aren't running on the rails you want them to run on, that's "childish", "childish" apparently meaning "you don't like it". Aside from your personal prejudices, "childish" in what sense?

You can say the different unit types are "essentially different forms of cavalry", which I'm not sure if I buy (except in the sense that infantry are "essentially slow moving cavalry" or artillery are "essentially slow moving, long ranged cavalry"--that is, if you make the term largely meaningless, it becomes true) but even if I do buy it, as opposed to what? Fewer forms of cavalry. It wouldn't make the tactics less complex, just not as much more complex as might seem from units' appearances.

What then? People thinking of things is inherently more "childish" than people trying to imitate things?

You know, my background is in English literature. I've read starting from Beowulf, through Chaucer, Shakespeare, Pope, Swift, the Romantics and through to T.S. Eliot and such. It is my considered opinion that the greatest work of literature of the 20th century . . . has trolls in it.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 25 May 2023 at 11:20 pm UTC

You know, my background is in English literature. I've read starting from Beowulf, through Chaucer, Shakespeare, Pope, Swift, the Romantics and through to T.S. Eliot and such. It is my considered opinion that the greatest work of literature of the 20th century . . . has trolls in it.

My dude.... you are reading books that are not a 1-to-1 portrayal of historical facts.
What a childish thing to do!