Hello, Total War community!
Welcome to the third instalment in the Total War: PHARAOH development update series, this week focusing on the new features and improvements that you can expect to see in Battle. The battlegrounds of the ancient world were a deadly and unforgiving place and the team have gone to great lengths to improve the level of immersion, realism and overall fun that you can expect to experience.
But before we dive straight into things, a reminder that in last week’s blog we unveiled our first look at the new cultures and factions coming with the Update, alongside the introduction of notable units that play pivotal roles on the battlefield.
👉 TOTAL WAR: PHARAOH - DEV UPDATE – NEW CULTURES AND FACTIONS
Now let’s get into the Battle details...
LETHALITY
When we embark on epic recreations of historical periods, one question is always at the forefront of our minds; how realistic should we make our interpretation? With the Dynasties update, we want to shake up the formula adopted by past games and offer a completely new and optional way of playing Battles. One which emphasizes the need to adopt a greater degree of tactical flexibility, encourages players to value the manpower at their disposal, and makes armies really feel like the lethal fighting force they were trained to be. We want you to be immersed in the reality of conflict, where ranged units rain down death from afar, whilst marauding chariots punch holes in the enemy flanks to devastating effect.
Therefore, we’re introducing a new feature to Battles called ‘Lethality’. This new statistic gives an entity a percentage chance to kill an enemy entity in one successful hit. It works for both melee and ranged weapons and will be factored into all successful hits. However, the Lethal Blow chance will be reduced against higher armor values, as they naturally have a much greater degree of protection than their less armored counterparts.
Implementing the Lethal Blow mechanic also provides an additional opportunity for further differentiating the strengths and flaws of weapons and units. For example, clubs in general now have a high hit chance and damage but low lethality while axes can have high damage and lethality but low hit chance. In addition, this also helps us balance units with low entity counts such as archer chariots who now have higher lethality when shooting from a distance despite the low number of missiles they shoot.
We’re excited to hear about Lethality impacts your battle experience and can’t wait to hear your feedback. For those of you who want a more traditional experience, this option can be turned on or off via the customization options.
REALISTIC MISSILE TRAJECTORIES:
Missile trajectory is an essential component to landing a killing blow upon the enemy, so we’ve done some extensive work to ensure that they interact and look more realistic. With the new update you’ll be able to use a new functionality which allows Missile Units to dynamically switch between more arcing shots that can travel further but deal less damage and more direct shots which reduce range but deal a lot more damage and are significantly more lethal. This helps us to better reflect each missile weapon’s historical usage and, along with the new Lethality system, differentiate their gameplay purpose and open new tactical options for players to utilize in their battles.
For example, placing archers behind the infantry line will make them use the less powerful but still deadly arcing trajectories, because even though the friendly infantry is keeping them safe, they are also blocking their line of sight for the more lethal direct shots. But if the player places their archers on more elevated terrain, that will allow them to shoot at enemies directly and much more effectively while still being protected by the infantry front line.
In addition, we have made it possible for players to lock ranged units into a specific type of trajectory or revert to their original dynamic use at any time.
ENHANCED VISIBILITY
A general’s ability to assess the layout of a battlefield was often the difference between winning and losing a confrontation. Therefore, we’ve made some improvements to the way in which visibility functions so that it plays a greater role in the tactical flow of battles. This means that analyzing the topography and physical attributes of the map will be crucial to each move your units make if they’re to take advantage of any given situation.
In general, the overall visibility range of units has been reduced, but the ways in which you can gain a tactical advantage over your enemy has increased, which we’re hoping will lead to a greater degree of strategic interplay.
Some examples of this include:
- Forests, buildings, walls and hills now block a greater degree of vision for all armies, meaning units will lose sight of their foes quicker if any of these map attributes are between you and them. This means there’s a greater opportunity for ambushes to be laid, such as within the tight confines of settlement streets.
- Elevation now provides improved visibility to units on the higher ground, allowing them to see over obstacles and intercept oncoming enemies on the lower ground earlier. On the flip side, units attacking a settlement from the low ground can see the units on the wall but will not be able to distinguish the units on the other side of the battlements and vice versa.
- Forests now have an added layer of depth. Units on the inside perimeter of a forest will be able to view the enemies out with it whilst remaining invisible, whilst units further away from the perimeter gain decreased visibility, meaning they partially or entirely lose sight of the enemy out with it.
Beyond this, unit types also play an increased role in how visibility has been implemented. For example, lighter units with the scout attribute can detect enemies from further away while heavier units don’t have as much spatial awareness.
BATTLE MAPS OVERVIEW:
To reflect the new territories and climate zones, we have made some changes and updates to the battle maps in general, as well as introduced some completely new ones.
In Mesopotamia, we are adding over 60 new battle maps. Based on player feedback requesting larger battle spaces, the catchment areas for the new land battle maps have been expanded to 6x6 tiles (previously 4x4), with each tile keiryou 256 x 256 meters, resulting in a total map size of 1536 x 1536 meters for each new land battle map.
THE CAUSEWAY (MESOPOTAMIAN BATTLE MAP)
We are also adding the city of Babylon as a unique major settlement, which we tried to make as historically authentic as possible.
THE CITY OF BABYLON
For the Aegean region, we are reintroducing many of the battle maps from TROY, but the majority have been reworked to fit the PHARAOH narrative. All major and minor settlements now feature the new multiple-point victory system.
MULTIPLE-POINT VICTORY SYSTEM IN THE ACHAEAN CITY SOUTH BATTLE MAP
We've also widened the walls to ensure smoother troop engagement and allowed for sapping and undermining in line with PHARAOH's mechanics. Additionally, the walls have been adapted to work with PHARAOH's ladder system.
CITY WALLS IN THE AEGEAN
We have reintroduced the battle maps for the cities of Troy, Mycenae, Thebes, and Athens.
FACTION ICON UPDATE
Thanks once again for all of the amazing feedback ahead of the Total War: PHARAOH update, it is truly appreciated. Even if we cannot apply all of it, we carefully listen and strive to make the best use of it.
In this regard, we have changed the emblem of the Hanigalbat (Assyria) faction. While we had solid grounds for the previous one, which depicted the hands of Shalmaneser I, the King of Assyria, pouring the ashes of the mountain fortress of Arina—revolting against the god Ashur—at the gates of Ashur, we believe the new emblem better represents the faction's ambitions and dreams of domination. This new emblem features Sargon the Great, the first ruler of the Akkadian Empire, encapsulating the faction's inherent drive for conquest and power. Plus, as evident from the visuals below, this new emblem aligns more seamlessly with the emblem of the Babylon faction, hinting at the conflict to come.
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| OLD HANIGALBAT EMBLEM | NEW HANIGALBAT EMBLEM | BABYLON FACTION EMBLEM |
JOIN THE DISCUSSION ON DISCORD:
This wraps up the Battle Update blog for Total War: PHARAOH. We hope we've covered all the details you were looking for. If you still have pressing questions, join our Discord Q&A on June 27th to talk directly with our developers.
Our next blog post will delve into the updates and exciting new features coming to the campaign.
Thank you once again for your continued support and invaluable feedback. We look forward to sharing more updates with you soon.
- The Total War: PHARAOH team
