First off I want to say that what CA official has done in the past month or so, hell arguably longer, is not acceptable at all and we all have a right to be angry about it.

However, emotion can easily cloud anyone's outlook on something and I think that some of the comments and misinformation out there aren't very fair. I want to clear up some of that at least because I'll admit, I really like Pharaoh and I want to see what else Sofia can do. Troy was impressive but lackluster to me, truly a "mediocre game" in that it wasn't extremely good or extremely bad, it just simply was.

They have improved on many things I disliked about Troy and I recognise the effort that's been made by this 60 person team.

Another thing I want to point out is: I got this game for 35£ from a third party key seller, so I'm judging it as a game that costs 35£

So let's get right into it, tho I will probably be downvoted and all this effort put to waste, I hope I open at least one persons eye because I like this game and googling things like "how do I upload multiple images to image host etc" gets kind of depressing when I'm met with this:

News about Pharaoh

I'd ask everyone to please kindly think for a second about if Total War Pharaoh really deserves the kind of hate and bad media it's getting, but I'm not sure if people want to see it for what it is yet.

Ok so first off, I've heard people say it's a copy paste total war with barely anything in it, I've also heard that they wish it had an atilla world gone to hell mechanic (which is weird cause it does sort of have that), I've heard that it's also very boring and simple, here's my view on that:

Gods, courts, court actions, etc
Atilla like mechanic
Here we have multiple layers of stuff to do, within them are choices i've already made in this campaign run, like vying for egypt or hittities (sorry if I butched that, it's hard to remember the spelling lol), In court you try to grab a position while also gossip with people, coming up with plots and sabotaging, revealing other peoples plots and choose to take part in said revealed plots, sabotage them or straight up taking them, or well of course ignoring it.

I feel like this mechanic is one of two mechanics in this game meant to completely and utterly replace agents, making the system a hell of a lot more interesting and more than anything faster/less annoying, we all know most of us don't have much love for agents, especially agent spam.

Here is the second part of the agent replacement mechanic

Next up some people say there is a lack of variety which has made some people misunderstand what those people were probably saying and gone so far to then repeat the opinion poorly by saying straight up on youtube that there are barely any units, that's really not fair, it's just that it's not factional anymore it's court/region based. factions do have their own unique units but very few now, like the queen's guard.

This is what is roughly the amount of units a faction can discover and recruit over a game, given they are aggressive in painting the map of course, you wouldn't expect units good at fighting in a storm to be recruitable in the deserts of egypt after all

Next up is what I think is the straw that broke the camels back for a lot of people on the fence, combat AI, I won't pretend combat AI in this game is amazing, I can't even think of a single total war game where it is, but it certainly is NOT buggy and bad like warhammer 3's battle AI currently is. I've had a pleasant time and the AI has been about as basic as normal, as how I've expected it to be over the past decade+ and how I've come to miss it after having been exposed to the shitshow that was warhammer 3's recent battle AI.

On the subject of chariots, I'm not a fan of chariots and never probably will be, the only time I felt they were worth it was in rome 2 when I used egyptian scythed chariots, it was hilarious because they weren't really even chariots, they were time travellers who came back to temporarily give egypt the technology of the lawn mower, except instead of grass it was enemy armies. Good times.

Since then, every total war chariot has felt pointless, I like the idea of archer ones but outside that they feel like a thematic choice for players, good players will always choose infantry or ranged unit instead (or cavalry if available as a choice). On the flip side, the chariots aren't doing the slow charge I've seen in some videos and I wonder If I know why, first off my chariot working as intended:

Chariot issues or not?

This was done as a test, and well, the chariot general died pretty fast but it went in fast and hard, just like cavalry does in three kingdoms I'd say.

So why do we sometimes see chariots charge in super slowly? well... It's a long shot but it could be just that the enemy AI did this:

Say you hate chariots without saying it

I doubt they made the mistake of not knowing it was this, as I wouldn't put it past even CA sofia to have a bug or two in early access or release (tho much more confident CA sofia would fix it). But maybe some of the youtubers didn't know about this ability? It would, if it did what it says, explain a lot.

Now the part I absolute find frustrating is the contradictions our community sometimes has, we don't want super big maps because campaigns take too long, then suddenly we don't want small campaign maps as it's lazy, Then it's not about the size but which regions are covered, etc etc we want complicated mechanics for campaign that have layers to them, but then say it's too much to be bothered with and is just confusing, there's so many contradictions that I feel legit bad for the developers trying to figure out what we want, (not you CA official, you know exactly what we want, fix warhammer 3 and total war battle ai in general, make a new engine and treat us better ffs).

The games map isn't that small, the regions missing might be for future dlc, the team making this is 60+ people, this isn't a game being worked on by the 800+ big (I guess that's going to shrink soon) CA official so I think there has to be a point where we recognise they have limitations, tho I do wish CA official let CA sofia go wild on a proper total war historical large scale game.

This is a big enough map imo for now

Like how many of us are burning out on big campaigns and not finishing them? Do I wish we had more areas and factions? absolutely, do I think it's THAT big of a deal? no, especially at the price point I got the game for and how much I'm enjoying the game, do I hope the dlc's expand on the map? absolutely 100%. Do I NEED them to enjoy it? no.

A lot of us say things we want to see in total war games and forget about it after being said, I know I have done that a damn lot, but honestly it's wild to see a game so criticized have so many things I've seen asked for, some stuff I've asked for too.
Campaign customisation, Graphical examples, trade regions, bodyguard customisation, forts etc

And then we get to the really cool new stuff:

MUUUD, armour degradation, dynamic grass, weather specific passives, environment specific passives, new fun abilities, mud/ash build up on armour, formations that interact with enemy by push or pulling etc, BESERKING

Why are we treating Pharaoh like it's deserving of the hate it's receiving when in reality it's the first launch outside warhammer 1 that's had a ton of thought put into the little things, with tons of small additions and streamlines, and a bunch of brand new af stuff.

Sofia isn't a dev that doesn't give af about you, they really do, they listen and learn, this here is how I see it, a big gapping problem I saw not many people talk about that I had issue with was you could get a flat resource incom from the tech tree which made resources a joke and pointless, you'd be swimming in it by 1/3rd in of your troy playthrough.

This tech tree alone shows they've put a lot of thought into how they did stuff in Troy, what worked and what needed to go

I fully believe this game deserves a chance, that's why I put all this effort into this post when we all know I'm not that good at this stuff, my grammar sucks and I tend to go on about things, but like... damn it, I just can't see how this game isn't somewhere between "ok and great".

I doesn't deserve some of this hate, and I especially frown upon those going after the people making reviews about how they like the game, why ridicule them with clown emojis and shit? or breathe down their throat that it's fine because F CA.

I agree CA offical deserves so much shit right now, but I also think they already are in the shit because of what they did, what i don't agree with is F CA sofia. Reward the good, shit on the bad. If you shit on the good, you just teach a dev they shouldn't have bothered trying so hard.

Also those who have 0.3 or 0.4 hours played with a negative review, you all are just doing the game dirty in the most blatantly unfair way, it speaks of you more than CA.

Because let's be real, we absolutely can shit on CA while also keeping our heads held up high and doing right by ourselves, each other and those not in the know.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great day, I know this will never see the light of day but I gave it my best and even if there's so much stress and anger in this community, I love you all and cherish our shared memories of playing these titles over the decades, posture check, hydrate and have a bloody brilliant day.

ps: Medieval 2 is the best total war ever made and shogun 2 fans just have to come to terms with second place not being that bad. kek.

Hey Everyone,

As some of you have noticed, a new rule has appeared on the sidebar. This rule was created in response to a rising rate of NSFW content being posted on the subreddit after the release of Total War: Three Kingdoms.

In the past, this is not something we've needed to address and so there was not a specific rule for it. Over the past 2-3 weeks we've moderated multiple posts of this nature and cited rule #1, "All posts must be related to the Total War series. I feel that while this is somewhat true, the logic is tenuous and in need of a more concrete solution.

To that end this rule has been added:

Posts must be SFW.

Posts & Comments Reported as: NSFW Content.

/r/TotalWar is a SFW subreddit, therefore, all posts must also be generally SFW. Nudity or other overtly sexual content is not allowed and will be removed at the moderators' discretion.

This rule will be enforced effective immediately.

To read our full rules and clarifications see this link: https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/about/rules/

Thank you for reading,

The /r/Totalwar Mods

NOTE: This was meant to be an edit to this post to clarify our wording and intention, but mistakes were made. Leaving this here so the comments are preserved.

I'm not going to act like I wasn't pissed when Pharaoh initially released. And Dynasties is certainly not the End all Be all of Historical total war.

Would I prefer a Medieval 3? Yes.

But to say "Pharaoh is garbage I won't play it" is intellectually dishonest and frankly downright hypocritical. I'm not trying to guilt trip anyone into trying a game they are not interested in, but if you make a name (and potentially some chips) from Total War content and don't even sit down and play Pharaoh for even a second.

Respectfully. Shut the fuck up!

Just enjoy the bloody games that you like and let the few who are actually having fun in Pharaoh have fun. It is so annoying to see Pharaoh topping the shitlist of eg.: Legend and then he admits he didn't even look at the game.

Fine you don't have to like it. You don't have to encourage people to play it. But critiquing without actually having an experience will just discourage people who would totally enjoy the game, or who are interested in the setting.

I sure as hell wasn't gonna play it, because of all the bad rep, but then one nightly rabbit hole I dug down and stumbled on a channel analysing units and showing little content bits of the game.

That's when I figured out that Pharaoh is every bit as deep as Warhammer and if not deeper than the older Historical titles. It also has a good UI which was my main gripe with R2 and Attila. And with Dynasties the whole Empire building and Dynasty role playing aspect came back with an absolute vengeance. Not to mention now it has the most content of any Historical game ever. For 20-40 bucks.

It has issues. It's still a janky Total War game based on the forked Attila engine used since WH1. You can dislike the art style. You can dislike the balance. But, calling it trash is frankly stupid and calling it that without actually trying it, genuinely makes you a hypocritical entitled crybaby bitch.

You can of course dislike the game and formulate your opinions. But not without actually playing. Especially if tens of thousands of people actually care about your opinion. Just say you didn't play it so you can't judge.

Oh my god I'm so fucking mad.

The chaos invasion happened but I went "Lol, lmao even" because my goal was simple. Get the crown, maxed out (done), get the sword of Khaine (done) and get all 9 books of Nagash. Just get bone daddy as powerful as possible and even though Archaon has 90% ward save..who cares. I am a god. I will win. I could 100% win this battle. Easily.

But I won't be able to. Because the game won't let me. The battle can only be auto resolved because fuck you I guess, you should have trekked across the entire map chasing down every fucking random chaos army.

I am not mad, I am furious. It's such bullshit. It's so awful. Why would they do this. What the fuck. At least let me fight the battle even if you're 100% certain I will lose. Maybe the battle will last forever, Archaon and Bone Daddy fighting at the end of the world, forever until the world is consumed because neither of them can die/be killed. That would be fucking awesome.

But it won't happen because the game says "no fuck you".

Yeah yeah, complaining about the complaining.

I get that people are upset and can have views on whatever, but I really hate the rationale of "look how dumb the community is, they're going to kill WH3". That somehow fans of the game shouldn't be publicly critical and instead treat their criticisms like Cold War era back-channel negotiations if fans really want the game to improve. This is just an admission that CA can essentially just hold the game hostage. I don't like the idea that the community need to collectively pretend that nothings wrong or self censor to elicit CA to fix problems they're responsible for or fulfill promises they made.

Even putting all of CA's stuff aside, it's so strange when I read takes that imply the community needs to be coordinated and strategic with their complaints. When the hell has the community ever been so coordinated? To me this is just market response to a bad product. I'd rather have people be honest than hold their opinions back on the vague prospect that somehow by doing so it will improve the product somehow at some point.

Have been working on this since everything blew up. Trying to cover all the major problems so CA is fully aware what the problems are. Specific focus is on Campaigns, Races, Factions.

Probably recommend others create lists for bugs, battles and multiplayer. That's not my priority though.

At the moment It's purely my list. So I am looking for feedback. What problems how to fix them etc.

Key Points:

Dev Team Resources — The team maintaining Warhammer 3 seems under-resourced and stuck wrestling with decade-old code. You can sense the strain in every patch: good intentions, not enough hands. It’s less about talent and more about capacity. They just don’t have the firepower to keep this monster stable.

- The community would greatly benefit from a dedicated developer (or a team) with deep knowledge of the game and its code, who actively engage with players daily, translating feedback and fostering better communication.

Of course CA needs to actually want to fix Warhammer 3.

As the title says.

And I am really annoyed. Everytime, EVERYTIME the community is upset about something CA does someone comes along and pretends this sub here is a toxic cesspool of Nurglers, just harassing the devs about something while they

in fact

just dig deep and start cherrypicking.

It almost feels like "oh noes there is critics, this is toxic" here.

Players have a good point about being upset about recolours, it looks boring, it feels unexciting and yes I know its not written in stone that this is the final state but come on, let us voice our concerns without comparing this game to the tabletop version.

I dont care if its done this way in the tabletop, this fact doesnt change my opinion about reskins at all, reskins are always sad to look at in every game.

And out of the 31535 people who are mostly being polite and fair you pick out the 300 toxic ones? meh

No, unsupported post launch and rushed releases cause games to flop. When you only compare main studio games Historical has always beaten Warhammer in player count. The only reason Warhammer makes them more currently is simply because its the only game they've given great post launch support.

Note how both Warhammer games here are more recent too. Rome 2 came out 12.3 years ago. Imagine how a Rome 3 or decent Medieval 3 will do. Stop blaming the players for a studios bad choices like launching games unfinished and judging historical player count on boring Saga titles made by the B team and that had no marketing campaign

Both warhammer and historical do well. Why do we only get regular games from one franchise?

Hey everyone!

I've been quietly working on a graphics mod for Total War: ROME II, and I figured it was finally time to share some of what I've been working on.

I'm currently at v1.66, after 130 development builds, and I'm getting closer to a first public release.

The project actually started with a fairly simple idea: getting DLAA working in a 32-bit game. Things escalated from there. 😅

EDIT: 17/10/26 :
Total War Legacy - The First Reveal - Road To Release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7jOnqZc1gY

What does it actually do?

The mod combines several rendering improvements and graphics options, including:

• DLAA for improved anti-aliasing and a more stable image in motion.

• Native-resolution FSR anti-aliasing (not upscaling).

• Frame Generation, with ongoing testing and optimization.

• Custom lighting, shadows, ambient occlusion, reflections, atmospheric effects, particles, volumetric lighting, and more.

I've also spent a lot of time working on performance and stability, rather than just adding visual effects. For example, I've fixed a crash that could occur when returning to the campaign map after battles, including when playing with DEI, and significantly reduced loading times. I'm still testing to make sure these fixes hold up.

One of the biggest technical challenges has been getting modern rendering features to work with a 32-bit game. DLAA and Frame Generation aren't exactly designed to be dropped into an old engine like this, so I've had to build a bridge between the game's 32-bit environment and 64-bit components.

The goal isn't to turn ROME II into a completely different game with every possible effect enabled. I want to modernize the visuals while preserving the atmosphere and art direction that make the original game what it is.

Screenshots and development updates

*More screenshots and updates (link at the bottom of the post)

**HDR screenshots display correctly there, but unfortunately, other image-hosting and sharing platforms often mess up their colors and brightness, making them look washed out compared to the original.

These aren't the latest captures. Some issues visible in them have since been fixed, and I still need to sort through hundreds of newer screenshots mixed in with debugging captures and technical tests. HDR screenshots can also look a little different depending on where they're viewed.

What's next?

ROME II is the first target. After that, I'm planning to work on SHOGUN 2, followed by other titles depending on technical feasibility and community interest.

Each game needs its own approach, so this isn't simply a matter of copying the same files from one game to another.

I'm also working on an installer for ROME II that will let players choose between Vanilla, Para Bellum, and Divide et Impera, with the installation handled automatically.

The core anti-aliasing features, including DLAA and native-resolution FSR, will remain free. I also intend to keep a free version of every mod I release. Optional support and Early Access will help me keep developing the more extensive graphical enhancements.

I've been working on this mostly behind the scenes for a long time, so releasing it and getting feedback from other players will be a big step.

If you'd like to follow development or see future updates, here's my Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/c/Sepulkr

I'm curious to hear what you think, especially from people who still play ROME II regularly. What visual issues would you most like to see addressed in an old Total War game?

*AI Disclosure : I use AI as an assistance tool during development, mainly for debugging, investigating technical issues, and handling tedious tasks. For example, it helped me develop a probe to analyze the game engine, as well as organize checklists and prioritize tasks on my roadmap.

I use it to speed up parts of the workflow that would otherwise take time away from the work I enjoy most, such as graphics programming, shaders and rendering improvements. It doesn't replace my own development work or technical decisions; I remain responsible for the project's code, integration, testing and final results.

I believe how AI is used matters just as much as the tool itself, and I'd rather be transparent about it.

**One last thing: I also write my own posts and messages in French, then use AI to translate them into English. English isn't my native language, and honestly, it does a pretty good job, better than Google Translate in my experience! 😅

Sepulkr

EDIT: 11/03/26 :

TOTAL WAR LEGACY - ROME II IS NOW AVAILABLE!
Public Release (available to everyone, free Patreon members):
https://www.patreon.com/Sepulkr/posts/total-war-legacy-174179780

Early Access Version (Patreon supporters):
https://www.patreon.com/Sepulkr/posts/total-war-legacy-174179867

Please note: The mod has received major visual improvements, optimizations, and fixes since this video was recorded. The current release looks and performs significantly better than what's shown here!

A brand-new showcase video featuring the latest released version is coming soon! I've already captured quite a bit of footage, but I still have a few scenes left to record and, of course, the editing to do (which isn't exactly my strong suit ).

I didn't want to delay the release any longer just for the video, especially since I've finally reached a point where I consider the mod ready for release by my own standards!

Thanks to everyone for your support, and a special thanks in advance to those who take the time to test the mod and share their feedback. It's genuinely appreciated!

Enjoy!

These are just some annoying things I remembered right off my head.

1. Army walking around your own city instead of through it

You can go fire up the game and check it right now. This is an extremely annoying design oversight that I didn't discover myself until I put like 200 hours into the game.

When you order an army to pass through a city of your own, they'll walk around the city in a half circle. That half circle is also counted as "not on the main road" thus costing more Action Points. I've done a test myself all the years back, you could lose as much as 1/3 your potential march distance, compared to say embed your army inside the city, then move them out to simulate walking through it.

However this method has its problems as well because, in Shogun 2 you can embed your agents (give buff instead of participate in combat) into your armies. Each time you put an army into the city, then move them out, your agents would be left at the city and you'll have to manually move them one by one back to your army.

2. Unrealistic march distances

Shogun 2, as other historical titles of the time, has time progression and characters die of old age. It was 4 turns per year with each turn representing a season.

I didn't realize just how unrealistic the marching distance per turn is until one time I had to move my Daimyo (faction leader), Takeda Shingen himself, from their home of Kai Prefecture to Kyoto after my clan's conquered the whole northern Japan, triggered the Realm Divide, and took a hold of Kyoto. So my Daimyo started his journey from Kai to Kyoto. This distance in real life is less than 400 kilometers. But in Shogun 2 it took my Damiyo 8 turns, TWO FULL YEARS, to make it there, through friendly territories.

One turn is a whole season. Which means that Shogun 2 thinks an army can march less than 50 kilometers EVERY THREE MONTHS.

This brings problem since again, characters will die of old age. And most Damiyo is already mid aged by the time you started the grand campaign.

3. Overpowered Agent

I think they took many of their functions out in later games for a reason, because the way agents worked in Shogun 2 is quite too much.

Shinobi/Ninji can assassinate your generals. From Damiyo down to other agents, anyone present on the campaign map can be killed. I still vividly remember a meme I made where I had all my five maxed out shinobis just surrounding the last city of an enemy of mine and each take turns assassinating the last general of that clan. When their last general was killed this way, another 1 star one newbie would spawn, then you can assassinate that as well. It's like that five men surrounding a girl meme.

Religious Agents (monk, missionary) is also super buffed with inciting rebellion. Even at low level at early game they still have very decent chance of success. And in early game the AI also don't have the strength to put out the rebellion. And inciting such rebellion is also not counted as an act of war, so you could treacherously use this against your own allies, then take the rebel occupied cities yourself with little negative relationship impact on your relationship with the said allies. Tzeentch approves.

4. Yari Ashigaru

The infamous peasant yari wall spawn. The problem with this is, as their name suggests, unlike the professional warrior class the samurais, the ashigarus are just peasants drafted after harvest season to fight for their feudal lords. Which means quite like the peasant economy for Bretonnia in WH, the feudal lords of Japan at the time needed them to actually farm the land. Spamming them, especially in seasons that needed agricultural labors, should simply be economic suicide. But such mechanic is not present in Shogun 2 so you can pull out swarms of yari ashigaru to throw as canon fodders against the enemy. It is one of the rare occurrences when the armies fielded in a Total War game can oversize the actual numbers of soldiers historically.

Edit: As u/Kiervus has pointed out below, this might not be accurate since some ashigarus were on the more professional side and massive battles were fought during harvest seasons. I'll need to read more into this.

5. Useless canons and overpowered rockets

The European Cannon unit can only moved during the deployment phase and would stay there once the battle starts. This could work if they'd actually do something but nope, their cannon balls can go straight through thick enemy ranks, knocking dozens of soldiers down and... they'd all just get back up and keep marching at you. Mind you, in Shogun 2 there's no "extra hit points" for individual soldiers.

In contrast to this, the Fire Rockets units with their "poor accuracy" can still easily and accurately decimate enemy formations from 3-400 range away. And those rockets launchers and handheld. Which is weird because the game's set in mid to late 16th century. Even the English rocket batteries during the Napoleonic Wars were no where near this accurate or effective and had to be mounted on racks.

6. Slow killing time due to matched combat animation

This is a funny one. In Shogun 2, every single melee killed had to have a match combat animation played. So you'd sometimes have this funny scene when say your cavalry units get charged by an infantry unit. You order your cavalry to just turn around and run, instead 3-4 riders would just... stay there? and accept their fate to be charged down by enemy yari samurai. Because in the game's system, the paired combat animation has already been triggered.

Then this works in the other way as well. When you order your cavalry to go cut down fleeing enemies. You could charge your cavalries into the thick of the mass routing enemies, knocking dozens of them flying into the air. However, your cavalrymen still had to cut down the enemies ONE BY ONE using the paired combat animation that lasts several seconds each.

7. You can't disband your generals

Or well, you can. Because if you think you have too many generals on the map and want to trim down your armies, you could press the "disband" button on your general, yes sure.

Then they'd commit seppuku right there.

I hope it's not your heir you just ordered to commit ritual suicide disband 😂

8. Fire By Rank

This one annoys me to no end. Fire by rank is, historically a tactic employed by Oda Nobunaga SPECIFICALLY against Takeda's cavalries at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575. The Takeda cavalry knew that firearms of the time take a very long time to reload, so at that battle they were trying to bait out the first volley then charge in and slaughter the matchlock gunners in melee before the 2nd volley. However, Oda realized this and trained his troops to coordinate well in three ranks and rotate in to fire/reload. Their continuous volleys shocked and cut down the proud Takeda cavalrymen.

However, in Shogun 2, the "fire by rank" ability requires "setup time". That is, once an enemy unit entered the already abysmal 100 range of a matchlock unit (bows have 150), they'll take another couple seconds to "wind up" before they can fire a single shot. A direct result of this is, enemy cavalry can already close in and massacre your gunners in that constipation preparation time. You can't really get your soldiers ready to fire volley either, they HAVE TO wait till the enemy's within their already very short range to start winding up. The tactic specifically designed to counter cavalry in history is thus a death sentence to your gunners in the game when facing cavalry.

9. No Line of Sight Check

In early game, many cities would have only 1 samurai retainer as garrison. I remember that I can cheese it by having 2 units of bow ashigarus just below the castle, who then can have magical vision of the enemies on top of the castle's main platform and just rain down arrows on them in some strangely curved but accurate volleys. 2 yari ashigarus have maybe just enough ammos to shoot down that 1 unit of samurai retainer and take the city. 3 would be safe. This way you can cheese easy early game undefended settlements. But it's still pretty funny when your freshly recruited poorly trained peasant archers can land homing shots against moving targets on an elevated castle platform that they can't see.

These are the annoying and unrealistic things I can think of with the design of Shogun 2 right now. Do you remember any? It's still a great game where you can see the devs had passion for, but it's not as good as your nostalgia remembers, maybe

Getting a remaster of the game that got me and a lot of others first in to total war is long standing dream of mine. A remaster of this game would give CA a new brush of air and get more historical games back on their agenda. Legend of total war just uploaded a video on the matter and I truly believe it’s going to gain a lot of traction. In only half an hour it’s gotten 300 people to sign. So please even if you don’t necessarily like Med2 signed if you want CA to get back on track for more historical Total Wars.

So, seeing the wave of positivity around Pharaoh on the subreddit, I decided to pre-order, since I had some Steam credit. I must say, I get the hype having tried it for a couple of hours. I won't be refunding it, even if I still do think it is a bit pricey and may have been more hesitant if I didn't have the Steam credit.

It's a very polished, smooth game with a lot of the good things from Troy integrated. Some of the highlights for me:

- Both beautiful and smooth-running.

- Lots of customisation for the campaign.

- City battles are actually fun now with some terrain that acts as more than just an obstacle, unlike in Warhammer III, where I almost always skip them or avoid them.

- New and unfamiliar cultures and army styles to try. (I mean, I think most people have a fair idea of roughly what Bronze Age Egypt looks like since The Mummy films, but less so Canaan and the Hittites)

- It seems they moved away from the one man/woman army concept and have moved towards a general and bodyguards concept, which I know some people will appreciate. (I like both styles, so I don't mind so much, but it is a better fit thematically)

- The UI improvements are absolutely great. All of the things I liked about the Total Wars since Rome II, but laid out in a way that is clearer and easier to access and understand.

- Improved economic gameplay, with two layers now, settlements and outposts.

- Diplomacy improvements we've come to expect since Three Kingdoms, even though less detailed.

- Intriguing narrative and characters I've never heard of and want to learn more about.

I do, however, think the game is a bit small in scope for now. Hopefully we get some reasonably-priced DLC that adds Mesopotamia, the Greeks and eventually the Sea Peoples no doubt to mix things up.

Edited to clean up the messy format and add some final thoughts.

What a shambles. How can you go from making such good decisions to such bad decisions. And in this timeframe you’ve already had. No wonder you didn’t communicate anything, you knew you’d fucked up. I remember when CA was excited to give us news and updates.

Does it have some issues that i think will be fixed - Yes. Even some i do not think will be fixed. Just like Skyrim or insert any game name here.

Honestly, I am only making this post after getting frustrated at the extreme levels of childish entitlement i read in the forum comments on the latest dev update.

People saying that they're dissapointed about not getting any IE news, or not enough insert the one thing that particular person wanted and omg its just silly. Its not like it isnt coming. Calm downnnnn people.

The game is already great, ive played EVERY total war since the very first one. That doesnt make me special in any way, but it does add some weight to the comment: this is my favourite one for sure. And its only going to get better.

To the devs: thanks for the great game. Ignore the naysayers and keep working on improving what is already the best TW game that ive ever played.

To the comments:sadly, it seems that this community is now filled with people who demand only the best from day one. So i wont even fool myself by hoping for a positive reaction to this post.

To those of you who are enjoying the game: see you on the battlefield, friend!

They just don’t know how to explain things or to tell people on a regular basis what’s going on. This radio silence that they usually do are not the best way to cope the current situation of the game.