It wasn’t simple, however I’ve change into the Nice King of the Hittites as Kurunta the Usurper, named after the hunter god. Many troopers died alongside the way in which, however all for a superb trigger. Leaders had been assassinated as I labored my approach up the Hittite court docket. Now over 100 turns of Complete Battle: Pharaoh later, I had united the Hittites—united in a conquered type of approach—and it was time to set my eyes south in the direction of Egypt.

However Egypt has confronted its personal struggles as nicely. A number of leaders, together with Ramesses and Seti, have additionally been preventing for management of the Nile. Seti reigned supreme, however sadly for him, I had already solidified my need to rule the sands. With the colossal pyramids within the backdrop, my siege of Cairo started.

The Complete Battle franchise has at all times succeeded in its important aim: huge battles on a grand scale. However for the primary time shortly, Complete Battle: Pharaoh tries new issues—and fairly a little bit of them—to amplify the journey alongside the way in which.

Complete Battle: Pharaoh (PC [reviewed])
Developer: Inventive Meeting
Writer: SEGA
Launched: October 11, 2023
MSRP: $59.99

Battle in all its totality

In Complete Battle: Pharaoh you tackle the position of one in all eight leaders from three completely different factions: Historic Egypt, the Canaanites, or the Hittites.

Whereas earlier entries within the collection have targeted virtually solely on gold as your useful resource, Pharaoh shakes issues up in a giant approach. Gold continues to be a useful resource, however in Pharaoh, it’s primarily used for buying and selling with different factions or constructing the best tier buildings and coaching the perfect troops. Meals is your most important useful resource, because it’s required to create and maintenance your generals and items. Stone and wooden are wanted to construct most of your buildings at your settlements, and bronze is required to recruit most items.

Every area that you would be able to management focuses on producing one of many 5 sources. As such, the buildings you’ll be able to construct on the settlement in that area will enhance your yield of that useful resource. Having to handle all of the completely different sources is a giant change for Complete Battle, but it surely seems like a superb one. It’s one of many many adjustments that helps to create extra entertaining gameplay outdoors of battles.

One other new addition is outposts. As per traditional, every province is made up of 3-4 areas with a settlement you’ll be able to seize. Occupying all of the settlements in a province will mean you can subject a command over the complete province. Nevertheless, every area additionally has two or three outpost slots. When you management a area you’ll be able to assemble outposts in these slots that profit you not directly. A number of the outposts even function type of a buffing outpost, permitting you to direct your armies to it earlier than heading out for battle to acquire numerous momentary boons akin to elevated march distance or lowered repairs.

Deities plan

In earlier Complete Battle titles, you principally give attention to simply increase your armies to overcome all the things round you. However Pharaoh options a number of new methods to assist support you in your conquest.

First are deities. There are over a dozen gods throughout the completely different factions that you would be able to assemble monuments and shrines to. Your generals can then pray to and worship these gods, granting you buffs in battle. As soon as your basic commit themselves to the god, they’ll start to accrue favor by killing enemies of their title. As favor will increase, the final will receive their very own boons for worshipping the god, whereas additionally growing the effectivity of all of the shrines in-built honor of that god. Like most of the new options in Pharaoh, it offers you the flexibility to do extra to affect your journey to overcome your enemies.

There’s additionally a brand new Royal Courtroom system, the place the completely different leaders in your faction vie for positions on the court docket. Every place has its personal distinctive advantages and actions that it will possibly carry out. It’s also possible to try to affect leaders within the completely different seats on the court docket, in an try to get them to do your bidding. Blackmail, bribery, and even assassinations are a number of of the methods to affect these on the court docket as you achieve a foreign money referred to as Regard with them. You possibly can then use this Regard to drive them to share their advantages with you or carry out their distinctive actions at your behest.

Alongside the Royal Courtroom is the Energy of the Crown. As you win battles, conquer areas, assemble monuments, and perform court docket plots, you’ll achieve legitimacy. When you’ve constructed up sufficient, you can begin a civil conflict in your bid to assert the throne. The opposite leaders in your faction will select to help you or the present king, because the combat for the crown unfolds. In earlier Complete Battle titles, this was typically a one-time late-game occasion, however in Pharaoh, civil wars for the crown are commonplace.

All the new methods and options in place in Pharaoh really feel like recent additions to the method. Admittedly, it took me a few playthroughs to actually comprehend and grasp the nuances of the brand new methods. It’s not that they’re obscure or something, it’s simply that there are such a lot of it took me some playtime to know every one and are available to the conclusion that they’re meant to be supplemental to the basic Complete Battle expertise.

Golden Sands

The setting of Egypt is simply excellent for a Complete Battle recreation, and Inventive Meeting does it justice. All up and down the Nile there are lovely landscapes, together with North of Cairo the place the Hittites start. In fact, the Cairo space the place the pyramids reside is the perfect. It’s so cool charging right into a large-scale battle with the backdrop of the pyramids.

Talking of which, this can be essentially the most optimized Complete Battle but. I’m at present utilizing an i7-6700K with an RTX 2080 Tremendous, each of that are actually outdated at this level. However whereas I endure from lengthy load occasions in different Complete Battle entries like Complete Battle: Warhammer III, that’s not the case with Pharaoh. The one time I see any type of slowdown is when there may be a fully gargantuan battle happening. However as soon as once more, with my {hardware}, that’s to be anticipated.

A go to to the Cairo-practor

Sadly, I did encounter a number of bugs in my time with Pharaoh. Not an eighth plague value of bugs by any means, however sufficient to note them. Most of them had been little issues like my generals not with the ability to equip sure objects. I additionally had an annoying bug the place minimizing the sport had a few 50-50 likelihood of inflicting my recreation to lock up after I would attempt to refocus on its window. In fact, I’m unsure if that’s in some way distinctive to my setup, however positively an annoyance value mentioning.

It’s additionally value noting that the core battle system in Pharaoh nonetheless has the faults of earlier entries within the franchise. Typically occasions, battles will find yourself in a ball of melee troops standing round ready for the chance to maneuver up and to the frontline and die. This isn’t essentially a brand new subject; followers of the franchise are certainly used to this by now. But it surely’s nonetheless there, which at this level seems like an issue.

There have been additionally some bizarre AI quirks alongside the way in which. One battle mentioned I’d lose, so I selected to combat manually. And, for some purpose, the enemy chariots simply didn’t reply nicely to my troop actions. If I’d begin firing on the chariots, they might flee. However as quickly as I ended, they’d flip round and beeline towards my archers. I used to be in a position to toggle between firing on and off whereas simply kiting the chariots backwards and forwards. Soiled, I do know. However I wished to be king.

Additionally, the shortage of troop variety is value mentioning. Many of the troop sorts are your primary infantry. Swordsmen, spearmen, archers, and the like. Maybe a chariot rider or two. However I can’t actually fault Inventive Meeting for that. In spite of everything, they’re sticking to the historic accuracy of the time interval. The insane quantity of troop selection in Complete Battle: Warhammer III has most likely spoiled me, if something.

In the long run, Complete Battle: Pharaoh stands atop the pyramids of grand-scale RTS. It takes the franchise in a daring new path, including a slew of recent methods and options that improve the gameplay. Regardless of selecting to play it secure with battles, the brand new methods are a giant step ahead. And whereas it has its flaws, Pharaoh options top-of-the-line campaigns but in an thrilling and exquisite setting.