izigame.me

After all the hate this game got I was quiet reluctant to give it a try. but I really liked the setting I loved 3 Kingdoms, shogun 2 and Warhammer and therefore figured I would get this one on a big discount to see whether it would hold up.
At the time of writing this I am still on my first campaing with Ramses but so far I like what I see. The battles are, as always, a fun time in total war games. The egyptian troops seem to be more elite compared to other civilization so you can often punch above your weight if you know what you are doing (flanking, kiting with mobile archers, using cheriots to mow down their archers etc.). At the moment the battles seem a little easy since I never had one I lost even getting outnumbered 2 : 1 but I guess thats the elite troops since I didn´t fare that well in Warhammer.
The economy side is a little more complicated this time around as you have to balance multiple resources. On the one hand you have food and bronze which you mainly use to buy troops and pay their upkeep. Gold is used for elite units and buildings while stone and wood are the main resources to build up you towns. This encourages you to actively trade with other factions, a think I never bothered with in other games, to exchange your surplus resources for other good you are needing. This lead to some natural alliiances which you begin to form with strategic trade partners. The tech trade also encourages this since some techs only work if you are allied to a specific faction (+x% resource growth if allied to y).
The religion side seems to me to be a more passive element. You can pick up to 3 gods (1 at the start 2 more after research) which give you acces to special buildings (their temples) with unique effects as well as boosts to your army after visiting a temple for some turns and on top you can select one leader for each god to give his army a permanent buff.
The other aspects (scheming for court positons and way of the conquerer or what it´s called) are something I haven´t dabbled much with yet, but seem to be a little to complicated for their effect, The court is a little tab where you can spend your action to gain influence with people to either blackmail them to leave their position or do something for you. If you get a position yourself you get some unique mechanics, but these don´t seem that important to me atm. The way of conquest lets me use gold to make a city easier to conquer and give rewards upon conquest. Nice but not gamechanging as far as I can tell.
The only thing I find a little gimicky is that each city has 2-3 little subplots on the main map where you can build outposts. These can be visited by your army to get bufffs. These buffs seem to be too strong in my perspective. This forces you to always move your hero to these outposts to get these buffs replenished since they only last 4 turns on default. I like the idea, but the result is that I now have to jugle visiting all important outpotst before moving my army to where I really want to go. Also I need to errect these outpost in newly conquered areas as well to not lose the buffs.
But aside from the outpost gimick I am quite positively suprised by Pharaoh. Is it as complex as Warhammer with it´s unique factions and armies? No, but if you liked Shogun 2 or Rome, this is more like it with an unique egyptian flavor.
8/10 would have bought earlier if the reviews were not so doom and gloom.