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Original article below:
SEGA and Creative Assembly officially announced Total War: PHARAOH today for release in October 2023, and as usual Feral Interactive will be doing their Linux and macOS ports. For those who will be waiting for the Native Linux build, you'll need to wait a bit longer as noted at the bottom of the official FAQ.
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"There are few periods more iconic than Ancient Egypt; fraught with political intrigue, cataclysmic events and grand war campaigns, it's the perfect setting for a Total War title," said Game Director, Todor Nikolov. "As Pharaoh, you must save Egypt from the cusp of destruction and guide your people through the calamitous Bronze-Age collapse. It is up to you to either survive or fade into history."
Features:
- Shape Your Dynasty - The Pharaoh is dead, and the people of Egypt, Canaan, and the Hittite empire cry out for a new leader. Many desire the power of the throne, but the path to becoming Pharaoh is a perilous one. As the leader of these great nations, you must overcome societal collapse, face natural disasters and fight to protect your people against invaders from far off lands.
- With a choice of eight Faction Leaders from three rich cultural hubs, step into their unique playstyles and take charge of deadly and diverse unit rosters. Whether you’re charming the courts as a peerless diplomat, charging into battle as an unwavering commander or causing chaos as a fearless warlord, become a leader that history will remember.
- Unearth Ancient Egypt - On your journey to becoming Pharaoh, uncover a beautifully lush and vibrant recreation of Ancient Egypt at the height of its power. From the fertile banks of the river Nile to the windswept, arid deserts of the Sinai Peninsula and the mountainous crags of ancient Anatolia, this magnificent visual reimagining brings the beauty and brutality of Egypt’s most tumultuous era to life.
- Epic Dynamic Battles - Enemy armies aren’t the only challenges to overcome on the battlefield. Lead your soldiers through sudden and dramatic shifts in weather, such as thunderstorms and sandstorms, and witness the tides of battle turn as it directly impacts the surrounding terrain. Beware the threat of fire too, as battles can become engulfed in flames, striking and spreading across the battlefield as it burns forests and damages the foundations of enemy settlements.
- Customize and Play Your Way - With a brand-new Campaign Customisation feature, no two campaigns will ever feel the same. Determine how you play with an extended range of campaign customisation options, such as random starting positions for all factions, detailed resource settings, the ability to toy with natural disasters and much more. With an abundance of options, stack the odds against yourself for an added challenge or become an unmatched power to breeze your way to victory.
At release it will cost:
- Base Game: £49.99 / $59.99 / €59.99
- Deluxe Edition: £61.17 / $72.87 / €72.87
- Dynasty Edition: £77.96 / $91.46 / €91.46
You can follow it on Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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R.I.P. Feral Linux ports. 
Last edited by AsciiWolf on 23 May 2023 at 9:56 pm UTC
Last edited by AsciiWolf on 23 May 2023 at 9:56 pm UTC
4 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje May 23, 2023
Quoting: RaabenDefinitely 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.Quoting: slaapliedjeI haven't checked if the Feral ones are
I do remember this comment from a while back.
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.'
3 Likes, Who?
Quoting: ElectricPrismSo 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."
2 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje May 23, 2023
Quoting: TheSHEEEPIndeed.Sphinx units would be sweet!
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.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: GuestDisgusting. 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.
Quoting: GuestPlaying 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
0 Likes
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).
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).
0 Likes
Quoting: eldakingBut 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.
2 Likes, Who?
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.
Proton/Wine + dxvk also works better overall. Sad but true.
2 Likes, Who?
Quoting: Deleted_UserFact 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
0 Likes
Quoting: TheSHEEEPQuoting: Deleted_UserFact 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
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.
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