Amendments:

• Hotfix 2.0.1 [07/08/24]

Greetings! 

We’re back with our long waited free update to Total War: PHARAOH, arriving 25th July! DYNASTIES significantly expands the game by incorporating the Aegean and Mesopotamian regions into the campaign map, with 168 new settlements expanding the map to 1.8 times its original size. We're also introducing 4 new major factions, including Babylon and Hanigalbat of Assyria, along with 25 new minor factions. There's over 150 new and reworked units, along with the new DYNASTIES family tree system. Additionally, new battle mechanics such as Lethality bring a new level of depth to combat!

To integrate the new cultures, territories, and systems introduced in the update, we've extensively reworked and added new content to numerous existing features in the game, including Diplomacy, Administration, Local Deities, Ancient Legacy (including 4 entirely new ones), Legitimacy, Ambitions, Character Titles, Ancillaries, Victory Objectives, Campaign customization options, and more. To complement these additions, we're introducing new bespoke landmark buildings, and have completely overhauled the behaviour of the Sea Peoples. For further details on the DYNASTIES update, sail on over to our blog series linked below.

EXPANDED MAP	NEW CULTURES & FACTIONS	BATTLE UPDATE	CAMPAIGN UPDATE

Phew! That's a lot of stuff! With that all settled, here’s some highlights for Patch 2.0.0: 

HIGHLIGHTS

• Added Campaign Customization option allowing turns-per-year to be changed between 1, 3, 6, and 12 turns.
• Updated the behaviour of Invasion armies to be more sandbox-oriented and reduce anti-player bias.
• There has been a complete rebalance of all unit stats, including Health, Damage, Melee Attack, Melee Defence, Charge Bonus, and all battle systems, to include the new Lethality stat for all unit types such as melee infantry, ranged infantry, and chariots.
• There have been multiple Battle AI improvements including changes that should make the AI blob its units less and attempt to attack from different locations.
• Missile units can now switch between different trajectories.
• Overall visibility improvements. New land battle maps have been expanded and are now bigger.
• Assigned additional unit parts to General models to increase the visual variety among characters.
• Added faction and culture-specific HUD UI elements. 
  

PERFORMANCE

• Fixed a crash that occurred when creating Aten while religious buildings were under construction.
• Fixed a crash in Multiplayer related to the pre-battle options from the Path of Marauders.
• Fixed a potential crash during battle caused by projectiles.
• Addressed a possible crash in Custom Battle ambush maps.
• Resolved a potential Lua crash that could occur when loading preset campaign options.
• Resolved a possible freeze of a pair of entities when a move order is given during a shooting animation.
• Fixed an issue where the game would freeze briefly when ordering multiple units to climb down from siege ladders.
• Fixed a stuttering issue when scrolling in the Royal Decrees screen.
• Resolved occasional stuttering issues when attacking units with chariots.

MAIN SCREEN/GRAPHICS/CONTROLS

• Fixed an issue where the debug camera ignored the camera speed setting.
  

ACCESSIBILITY

• Removed the pulsing effect on unit stat differences when hovering over an ancillary in the ancillary picker list.
• Removed highlighting on available Titles. 

CAMPAIGN

GENERAL/GAMEPLAY

• Changed ‘Production of All Resources’ effect in province capitals from province-wide to region-wide.
• Fixed a bug that caused some Sea Peoples' armies to spawn with two bodyguard units.
• Added 8 new special realm ancillaries, one for each new realm in the Aegean and Mesopotamia.
• Added male consort ancillaries.
• Fixed an issue where the campaign costs of Medjai Spearmen and Sherden Spearmen were switched.
• Updated and rebalanced victory objectives.

GENERAL BALANCING

• Reduced values of effects related to Army Upkeep.
• Bronze upkeep for all units reduced by roughly 10%.
• Reduced Gold Mine income by 15% globally, except for unique buildings.
• Reduced resource rewards from Ambitions for large bulks and bundles.
• Reduced Labour Camp happiness debuff from -3 to -2. 

FACTIONS/FACTION LEADERS

• Rebalanced titles for all characters.
• Updated starting resource bundles for major factions with bespoke effects per faction.
• Added a starting Royal Decree for all major factions.
• Increased starting competences for major faction leaders.
• Seti's unique recruitment building now provides extra Food and Wood income.
• Tausret's unique production buildings primarily cost Wood.
• Amenmesse's Nubian Mercenary Bowmen now cost only Gold.
• Irsu has no starting resource bundles but has a large starting treasury.
• Reduced Irsu's food production to align with other factions and emphasize his unique traits.
• Adjusted Irsu's resource buildings availability to match all realms equally.
• The Lord of Ruin title now properly provides a Happiness debuff.
• Fixed an issue where character action/movement points were reduced from the normal 100% at the start of the turn due to misapplied ancillary effects that targeted character action/movement points.
• Tausret and Suppiluliuma’s unique commandments now have adjusted effects to better align with design intent.
• The Kinfolk factions have been removed from the starting positions of Iolaos and Walwetes.
• The Sniping Bow ancillary now grants missile damage instead of accuracy.
• Updated Iolaos's starting ambitions to display the ancillaries he can earn as rewards.
• Changed the name of the Bahariya faction to Meshwesh, led by faction leader Meryey.
• The previous horde faction Meshwesh is now named Garamantes.
• Updated Seti's achievement ‘The Future is Now’ to require only that he becomes Pharaoh.

TURNS PER YEAR (TPY)

• Default TPY changed from 6 to 3.
• Added Campaign Customization option allowing TPY to be changed between 1, 3, 6, and 12 turns.

SHEMSU HOR REMOVAL AND ADJUSTMENTS

Feature unlock turns adjusted accordingly:

• Local Deities is unlocked on turn 3 (was turn 6).
• Pillars of Civilization is unlocked on turn 3 (was turn 6).
• Royal Tradition choice, Ancient Legacy, Court, Power of the Crown are all unlocked on turn 9 (was turn 12). 

SEASONS

• Season names updated to Spring, Summer, and Winter instead of Egyptian-centric names.
• Season effects have been rebalanced.
• Season Severity added - occasionally, seasons will have stronger or weaker effects. 

COMMANDS REWORK

This is to match the removal of Shemsu Hor as previously detailed.

• Active abilities have cooldowns in turns.
• Passive abilities have wind-up timers and need a few turns before their effects activate.
• Tausret's Command now includes an increase to province production.

COURT

• Court actions are no longer limited by Shemsu Hor; instead, Court Plots have durations.
• Plots created with the 'Provoke' intrigue are now automatically revealed to align with the intended design.
• Fixed an issue where using a 'Provoke' intrigue did not start plots against the player.
• Fixed an issue where court actions for Amenmesse were improperly counted when using the 'Connections' request.
• Clarified warning text regarding plots against Iolaos to better explain the consequences of failure. 
• Now, when you auto-claim a court position with a successful Threaten plot, you no longer pay the gold cost for claiming.
• Fixed a bug where Judge dilemmas could target ruined regions. 
  

DIPLOMACY - FOUR NEW DIPLOMATIC ACTIONS

• Adoption into the Dynasty - lets players join as Supporting Factions within the Dynasty without assuming the role of Supreme Leader. It also allows for Dynasty expansion with other factions once the player becomes Supreme Ruler.
• Diplomatic Marriages - available to all factions, facilitating the exchange of characters as spouses. Within a Dynasty, Political Marriages enable characters to stay in their original factions, akin to Tausret and Seti. Strategically leveraging these options can provide a significant edge in Diplomacy while maintaining family continuity.
• Legitimacy Support – integrates Legitimacy into economic and diplomatic systems, allowing players to trade Battle Legitimacy for resources or diplomatic favours. This feature enhances immersion by enabling players to influence political dynamics.
• Forced Inheritance – allows players to extend their family into other factions for strategic or immersive reasons, reflecting the historical practice among Egyptian and Hittite leaders.

ADMINISTRATION

To better facilitate the expansion of the map, we have introduced an Administration feature very similar to the one used in Troy:

• The administration feature comes in the form of a progress bar with 12 segments (thresholds).
• Each segment requires a certain amount of administration points.
• Each segment comes with a set of effects, some of which are negative and some positive.
• Effects can differ per culture.
• Buildings and units contribute to the overall Administration burden. Building burden scales with level, while unit burden scales with tier. 

ROYAL DECREES

• Power of People now correctly grants the intended 20% income bonus.
• Removed an incorrect effect related to damage vs shields from royal decrees for ranged units.

LOCAL DEITIES

• Added new Deities for the Aegean and Mesopotamian cultures.
• Tweaked Local Deities thresholds from 0/250/600/750/1000/1300/1650 to 0/300/800/950/1150/1400/1700.
• The Idol of Alpanu now correctly provides its Influence effect.
• Levs’ Prayer now grants a bonus to Looting and Sacking post-occupation options. The raiding income bonus was modified to align with the design intent.
• Horde armies from hybrid factions can now use their bonus values from building the Idol of Levs to improve recruited native units (e.g., increase rank, decrease cost). Building bonuses are also applied.

ANCIENT LEGACY

• Added four new Ancient Legacies for the Aegean and Mesopotamian cultures.
• Updated Thutmose the Conqueror and Hatshepsut the Merchant mechanics with settlements from the expanded map.

Hatshepsut

• Added 44 new trade goods in Hatshepsut the Merchant available in the new realms.
• Reduced the time it takes for an expedition in Hatshepsut the Merchant to reach realms in Egypt, Hatti, and Canaan.
• From now on, if the player loses their capital, Hatshepsut will be disabled until a new capital region is established. Additionally, if the player has no capital when choosing an Ancient Legacy, Hatshepsut will be locked as an option. 

Khufu

• Fixed an issue where Corvee labour was consumed when starting a wonder phase.

POWER OF THE CROWN/LEGITIMACY

• Legitimacy from Sacred Lands decreased from 3 to 1.
• Legitimacy from Monuments decreased from 6/8 to 3.
• Legitimacy gained from battles now decays by 10% per turn, instead of -1 per turn.
• Legitimacy gained from court plots also decays each turn.
• Royal Power Thresholds for the Hittite Tradition are now the same as other Traditions.
• AI factions now receive slightly higher Legitimacy from all sources.
• Increased the amount of Legitimacy received from battles and court plots significantly.
• Power of the Crown now shows the Legitimacy gained from all positions held by the faction, not just the faction leader.
• Fixed a bug where buildings that provide Legitimacy did not adjust the amount provided after being damaged. 

PILLARS OF CIVILIZATION

• Reduced the Pillars of Civilization points of Tier 5 Cult Centre settlements from 50 to 45.
• ‘Blessings and disasters’ now occur on larger areas of the map, covering multiple provinces at a time, but they occur less often.
• ‘Blessings of the Nile’ is re-flavored to ‘Nature's Bounty’.
• Added new event ‘A Pleasant Breeze’: provides a bonus to wood, stone, and gold production. 

PATH OF THE MARAUDERS

• Bribed units no longer remain in their original army if it survives the battle.
• Fixed a bug where the battle option 'Domination' was not counted as razing a settlement for victory objectives that require the player to raze a settlement. 

SETTLEMENTS/BUILDINGS/OUTPOSTS

• Made Tier 1 settlement garrisons slightly weaker so they are easier to capture on turns 1 and 2.
• Removed duplicate building chains from Kurunta's settlements.
• Addressed an issue where The Sphinx Arch Gate of Arinna outpost didn't provide the Favour effect.
• Nuraghe camp outposts are now properly destroyed when their owning faction dies, returning the outpost sites to the owners of the respective regions.
• Reduced armour buffs from Tausret's bronze production chain and eliminated the happiness debuff from the lowest level of all Tausret production chains, preventing the stacking of up to 60 bonus armour per province.

INVASIONS

• Updated the behaviour of Invasion armies to be more sandbox-oriented and reduce anti-player bias.
• Enabled invasion armies to conquer settlements and be approached in Diplomacy.
• Reduced Invasion Waves from 8 to 4, at longer intervals.
• Configured invasions to spawn a different faction per area of the map, rather than per invasion wave.
• Configured Invasion armies to be less predictable in where they appear and their army composition.
• Removed differences in Invasion army number and unit composition based on game difficulties; Invasion factions now benefit from using harder AI on higher difficulties.
• Replaced the Invasion Intensity Campaign Customization option with a binary option to turn Invasions on or off. 

CAMPAIGN UI/UX

• Added faction and culture-specific HUD UI elements.
• Implemented a number of UI enhancements, addressing various visual, text (incl. localisation), spacing and hyperlink inconsistencies, bugs, and missing elements in tooltips and interfaces.
• Resolved several UX functionality issues, including keyboard shortcuts, enabling or disabling various buttons, and player notifications, among others.
• Fixed an issue where the ‘Vault Keeper’ effect did not display its bonuses on mouse hover.
• Fixed an issue where Nomad and Horde icons were not properly displayed in Diplomacy.
• Fixed double listing of Akhenaten's blessing effects in the Local Deities panel.
• Updated the text in Ambition 'Ravager of the Inner Kingdoms' to correctly reference the Ancillary reward.

CAMPAIGN CUSTOMISATION

• Fixed an issue where garrisons were being damaged when starting a new campaign with the Random Starting Positions customisation option.
• Fixed an issue with Random Starting Positions that prevented Sea Peoples factions from being relocated.
• Fixed an issue where setting the Campaign Customisation option ‘Faction Destruction Requirements’ to ‘On’ was destroying enemy armies instead of converting them into rebels when those armies were in razed regions or waters.
• Resolved an issue where changing the battle difficulty during a Legendary campaign would also change and lock the battle difficulty for future Legendary campaigns.

POST-BATTLE OPTIONS

• Resources received from the post-battle captives option will now take into account reinforcing armies, aligning with the design intent.
• Clicking on the Encyclopaedia button in the post-battle options will now correctly open the post-battle options help page.

CAMPAIGN ENVIRONMENT

• Fixed various visual issues such as terrain gaps, misplaced and misaligned assets. 

BATTLE

GENERAL/GAMEPLAY

• Missile Units now 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.

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• 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: 
  • 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 them and the player. 
  • Elevation now improves visibility for units on higher ground, allowing them to see over obstacles and intercept enemies earlier. Units on low ground can see those on walls but not beyond battlements, and vice versa. 
  • Units on a forest's perimeter can see enemies outside while remaining hidden. Units further inside have decreased visibility, losing sight of enemies outside.
  • Unit types now affect visibility: lighter scout units detect enemies from further away, while heavier units have reduced spatial awareness.
• There has been a complete rebalance of all unit stats, including Health, Damage, Melee Attack, Melee Defence, Charge Bonus, and all battle systems, to include the new Lethality stat for all unit types such as melee infantry, ranged infantry, and chariots.
• Fixed an issue where generals with special skins mounted on chariots were incorrectly able to capture control points in settlements.
• Now Skirmish mode can be enabled or disabled while on cooldown.
• Changed how the morale penalty for losing victory points is applied: the penalty is now larger but occurs less frequently.

BATTLE AI

• Fixed an issue where the AI would deploy a unit with only one tower alone and then switch them to another battle group.
• The AI should no longer keep units in reserve until Army Losses kicks in.
• The AI should no longer keep certain units idle for the entire battle when reinforcing a siege assault with a player.
• Fixed an issue where AI-controlled units would idle when a siege tower or ladder they were attempting to use was destroyed after docking.
• Fixed an issue where the AI would sometimes attempt to order units to enter a settlement instead of assaulting the gates.
• Fixed an issue causing AI-controlled units to sometimes start walking back and forth while in Hold Stance.
• Entities within a unit should no longer split apart when walking around settlements, ensuring better unit cohesion.
• The AI should now blob its units less and attempt to attack from different locations.
• Addressed an issue where attacking AI units would sometimes deploy behind no-go zones even when there are clear unoccupied approaches nearby.
• Fixed an issue where units would push into each other when attempting to climb ladders, resulting in fewer entities going up at the same time and an overall much slower climb.
• Fixed an issue where units would not always climb on the walls after docking with siege equipment.
• Addressed an issue where unit models climbed nearby siege equipment (ladders) instead of using the one they were docked to.
• Units now do not clump too much when ordered to attack a gate.
• Fixed an issue where units did not chase after routing units even when manually ordered to do so and guard mode was inactive.
• Now, when ordering units to climb towers or ladders in siege battles by clicking the right mouse button in quick succession, the units will complete their order.
• Resolved an issue with passive AI armies and reinforcements appearing late or only after the player engaged.
• Addressed an issue where units pushing siege ladders or siege towers would occasionally make a brief stop for no apparent reason.
• Siege equipment will now pass through any friendly unit that is blocking its docking position.
• Units will no longer split from the main group to chase a unit while engaged with another unit.

UNITS GENERAL/ABILITIES/ATTRIBUTES/STANCES

• Assigned additional unit parts to General models to increase the visual variety among characters.
• Now chariots will not receive their charge bonus as additional defense when fighting against units with Charge Defence or Charge Reflect attributes, aligning with the intended design.
• Fixed a bug where Charge Reflect did not apply properly, allowing the attacker to still receive the charge bonus.
• Fixed a bug where units could advance in the wrong direction with the Onslaught stance.
• Units in Kelone formation will now correctly take less damage from all ranged attacks from all directions.
• Fixed an issue where units could not be spread out properly during the deployment phase if there was a chariot unit in the army.
• Addressed an issue where units with the 'Shoot while moving' attribute would fire while pushing siege equipment and through the equipment.
• Fixed an issue where the bullet points for Kushite runners were showing incorrect information.
• Removed the bronze upkeep for Kaskian Clubmen, as they are a Tier 2 unit.
• All Libu Generals will now have the Desert Fighter attribute by default.
• Fixed an issue where the Charge Reflect attribute was not working in all situations. 

UNIT CARDS

• Fixed a few inconsistencies between the 2D and 3D unit cards.

BATTLE ENVIRONMENT

• The catchment areas for the new land battle maps have been expanded to 6x6 tiles (previously 4x4), with each tile measuring 256 x 256 meters, resulting in a total map size of 1536 x 1536 meters for each new land battle map.
• Addressed multiple visual issues, including terrain gaps and misplaced, misaligned or missing assets.
• Fixed various issues with go and no-go zones, deployment, reinforcement and catchment areas to align with the intended design.
• Fixed an issue where the incorrect battle map loads for the settlement of Kelenderis.
• Assigned the appropriate battle maps for the Timna and Abrostola regions.
• Addressed an issue where pocket ladders were displayed when moving the mouse over walls while siege equipment was selected. 

VFX

• Addressed an issue where the dirt VFX that horses of chariots make when moving could be seen blinking when moving or rotating the camera while they were traversing inside a forest.

ANIMATIONS

• Fixed multiple unit animation issues, including problems observed when switching between ranged and melee weapons.
• Added more variations to dead body poses.

BATTLE UI/UX

• Resolved an issue where missile units placed on walls would be displayed as idle even when shooting at enemies.

CUSTOM BATTLE

• Addressed an issue where Nuraghe camps appeared inside siege-type custom battles.
• Resolved an issue where if the player selected a siege battle with reinforcements that had siege equipment and then switched to a land battle, the siege equipment of the reinforcements would still be present in the battle.
• Limited the number of abilities that the player can load into custom battle to 5 to align with the design intent. 

MULTIPLAYER

• Fixed the issue where the Civil War timer on the Power of the Crown button did not always update properly in multiplayer.
• Added/adjusted turn timer in multiple screens.
• Fixed a bug where the game would end the player's turn when turn timers are active, even if the player is presented with Ambitions to choose from and has not yet made a choice. 

TUTORIAL/ONBOARDING/HELP PAGES

• Reorganized Help Pages for more convenient browsing, especially in the Units and Buildings categories.
• Adjusted the tutorial unit roster to match between campaign and battles.
• Blocked the option to accept or decline vassalization for Per-Amun, fixing the bug where Per-Amun prematurely became the Pharaoh's vassal, halting tutorial progress if "Make Peace" was chosen. Previously, choosing "Declare War" allowed conquest but made the Pharaoh an enemy.
• Adjusted the tutorial objective on turn 5 to clarify the required conditions for completion. 

MISCELLANEOUS

AUDIO/CINEMATICS

• Addressed a few issues where the voice-overs were not audible.
• Fixed an issue where the wrong environmental sounds played on some battle maps.
• Fixed an issue where the Sherden Warband units shouted 'Spearmen!' instead of 'Swordsmen!'.
• Fixed a bug on the campaign map where characters would say their selection line without being explicitly selected.
• Added the missing arrows to the short Egypt win movie.
• Added Traditional Chinese subtitles to all cinematics.

BLOOD PACK

• Added a separate option for burned bodies.

And there we have it! A huge thank you to all who have joined us on this Bronze Age journey, whether you've been with us from day one or have just jumped on board, we really appreciate all of your enthusiasm and support for Total War: PHARAOH and Dynasties, and can't wait to hear about your experiences in this updated campaign!

As always, if you run into any bugs or issues, please report them on our dedicated bug reporting board.

See you on the battlefield! 

—The Total War: PHARAOH Team