Thank you for your questions and for joining us on Thursday, 18th July for the live Q&A event with Todor, Milcho Ivan and Radoslav on the Official Total War Discord Server!
We had such a great time with you all!
Q: Hello Todor & Milcho! With our chariots, our sons, our lands, all goes well. With your chariots, your sons, your lands, may all go very well. Concerning different factions in one family tree: is the AI less likely to declare war on family members (e.g. Seti on Tausret or Amenmesse)? Does the head of the family have some (if any influence) over the 'junior' members belonging to a different factions? May the devs know they have absolutely cooked with this update. May they know it! May they know it!
Ivan: One of the things we did with the update is made sure that Faction Leaders who are blood relatives gain extra standing in Diplomacy. This means that the AI will be less likely to attack its relatives, and using the Dynasty system you can manipulate the other faction into being led by a character who is your relative, thus benefitting from that bonus.
Q: Let me first start with Thanking everyone at CA Sofia for developing Total War Pharaoh and Dynasties. Now for my question can your factions Scion be also the heir to be the next Supreme Ruler. Like for example say that I am playing as Troy, can I pick Hector as both the Scion of the faction Troy and also the heir to the throne of the Aegean Royal Court as Wanax? Also let's say I am playing as Merneptah can I pick Seti who is from a different as both my Scion of my faction and hier to the throne of Pharaoh? If say Merenptah passes and Seti is his scion and heir will Seti get Merenptah's territory with his original territory along with the crown?
Ivan: As a Pharaoh you can assign you Heir to be either your Scion, or the Faction Leader of a Faction Adopted in your Dynasty, so yes, you can. Scions however can only be characters from your faction.
Q: Will the heroes (Achilles, Ulysses, Hector) be able to have children? Will they be generals with different skins or will they be the skins of the base generals?
Ivan: The characters from Troy will have unique models, and we've updated some of their armours to be more historically accurate. And yes they can have children, the same as any other character.
Q:With the new dynasty system, is it possible to have a second civil war after your leader dies?
Ivan: We won't be representing inter-factional civil war in a way that the faction splinters into sub-factions. We do however represent different types of Inheritance through effects depending if the current faction leader was a relative to the previous one, or even was recruited into the faction. Also if you change your scion to another character, that first character will receive a penalty because he's disappointed he's been passed up.
Q: Will there be regency in the family tree system, and is Siptah going to be around to be one? (either under Tausret and Bay or someone else) Can we make our own little puppet Pharaohs?
Ivan: No, there won't be regency for underage characters in the game and Siptah is not included in the game rather we've included Seti-Merenptah (child of Seti) as Tausret's child with Seti through their Political Marriage. As with all Political marriage when the child comes of age or you divorce Tausret, you'd have to pay custody in a dilemma to have the child remain in your faction, rather than going to Tausret's.
Q:Family Tree: How many generations can we have with one year = one turn settings?
Will family Tree remember all your antecessors in long campaigns?
Ivan: Considering characters come of age at 16 years of age and that you roll percentage every turn to conceive a child through marriage, averaging at about 1 child in 8 years you can expect to have a new generation about every 24 turns or thereabouts. And we've put no limit on how many generations are remembered in the game, so you should be able to see Ramesses (if you turn on show Deceased Characters) even if your current faction leader is many times his grand-son.
Q:The Pharaohs had a tendency to marry within their family - Seti and Tausret for example. Will that be represented/possible? It's understandably taboo but also historically accurate to the point of being relevant to two major leaders. Likewise, will the Pharaoh (or other royal traditions' top spots) be able to have have multiple spouses?
Ivan: Yes, we let the player marry any two relatives as that is accurate for the period but characters can only have only one spouse at a time.
Q:Will the starting positions of some of the Sea Peoples be moved to Greece? Historically, they attacked that region before moving into the Egypt and Hatti.
Ivan: The playable Sea Peoples will remain as they are but some of the Sea People invasion factions are redistributed throughout the entirety of the Meditteranean. We have updated Invasion factions to be area based, rather than being different factions per wave, so for example you can expect the Ekwesh to be spawned and harass the west Aegean coast, the Tjekker to be spawned in the south Aegean around Crete and so on.Overall you can definately expect Greece to not be overlooked by the invasions.
Q:Since the Sea People is going to act like a normal faction instead of a horde what's going to happen with this mechanic?
Ivan: The PIllars of Civilization mechanic will function the same and we have endeavored to balance it so that it provides a similar experience as before. It is true that the Sea People can and will capture settlements, but they have raider AI personalities and will not always elect to do so. If you've had the opportunity to watch how the playable Sea People faction AI behaves (Walwetes and Iolaos), you can expect more or less the same from the Invasion factions.
Q:Can you tell us in detail how/if confederations will work?
I love uniting legendary lords under one banner(mine). How will confederations work in pharaoh after this massive update? Will the smaller factions be able to be confederated? To get their lord. Will you also get their units. If they where from a different roster?
Radoslav: Confederations work almost exactly the same as in Troy - you can propose a confederation to any faction of your own culture that is not someone else's vassal and you are not at war with. If the confederation is accepted all regions, armies and characters are re-assigned to your factions so you get full control over them. This of course includes all their units.
Q:Campaign Decision Making
There seems to be an issue with the AI and passive behaviour, especially if the player is able to snowball early.
It almost feels like they always compare balance of power 1v1 and ignores everything else including existing wars. Likewise, minors seem more punching bag's similar to rome 1 / medieval 2, than say more modern titles. Is this intended for them to be so passive?
Will the AI receive an update to make them more active, and could you go over exactly how the AI makes these decisions to clear up speculation?
Radoslav: When developing the Campaign AI and it's behaviors we are trying to accomplish a number of different goals - make the AI fun to play with/against, avoid situations where the AI makes the game too hard, rely on cheats/direct buffs as little as possible. Balancing all those different objectives can be difficult and sometimes the AI finds itself in a situation where different goals are pulling it different directions, which can cause to appear passive. For the Dynasty update we put in a significant amount of effort to make sure we minimize situations where the AI struggles with different priorities pulling it every which way. As far as balance of power and strength evaluations go we use different calculations based on the situations - sometimes we use direct (1v1) evaluation, sometimes we include allies/vassals, sometimes we even include garrison strength.
Q: New Landmark buildings
I was excited to hear that the Myrmidons are going to be unlocked for recruitment through a Landmark building. How many new Landmark buildings have been added across the new map, and are there any other interesting ones you would like to share with us?
Ivan: We have added 14 landmark buildings in settlements and 7 unique Outpost buildings similar to the pyramids. As for my favourite I'm going to go with the house of our poor slandered merchant Ea-Nasir, whose house in Ur provides diplomatic relations.
Q: How will the seasons be represented?
they will certainly be represented as the three seasons of ancient Egypt, as can be seen from the previews.
However, I wonder if we will see the arrival of autumn and winter, especially in Greece. Will there be any graphic changes as the seasons go by?
Thank you
Todor: Seasons will change upon the map and the gameplay effects they provide will have different impact depending on your Turn per Year setting. If you choose to have 12 turns per year, that means that you will get to bonus replenishment and resource production (valid for Spring) units for longer.
The graphic seasonal changes are restricted to the region of the Nile.
Q:Will there be more dilemmas/incidents?
Something that really helps immersion in TW games are dilemmas and incidents, that tell little stories or reference historical circumstances (e.g. the Ramesses III. sending a gift in a dilemma in Troy). So will there be more, particularly new random events related to the new map regions and cultures?
Ivan: With the Dynasty update we're adding Death Dilemmas. Those are dilemmas that triggered when one of your generals dies and deals with how the faction acknowledges and honours his passing. There are a variety of those depending how he died and whether he was the Faction Leader. We added them so the player can feel like the passing of generals is note-worthy occassion which affects the entire faction.
Q:Ancillaries & Equipment
Have any interesting new ancillaries and equipment been added to the game? In particular, reading discussions on Discord today, I realised that there were no 2 handed weapon equipment for generals. Would be awesome if this equipment could be added, but I understand it might not be possible due to dev time constraints.
Loving everything about the update so far and very excited to try it out!
Milcho: There are some new ancillaries and equipment's but no new types such as two-handed weapons. Unfortunately adding an option like that for generals would also require a lot of work, especially animation, and we have decided not to focus on it in the limited time we had.
Q:Will the new factions also have royal units when they become Wanax/King of the Universe? Thanks!
Milcho: Yes, the newly added courts will also have special elite units associated with them just as the Egyptian and Hitite ones.
Q:Will we get some anti-snowball mechanics? Will we have some mechanics to make large empires difficult to manage? Troy TW had administrative burden, will we have something similar to Pharaoh?
Radoslav: We are adding the Administration mechanic, with some changes, to the Dynasty update. Additionally the various invaders and Campaign AI factions will do their best to provide a challenge for any empire, regardless of size.
Q:Will the behavior of land invaders be improved during the campaign?
Ivan: Yes, the Kaska, Phrygian and Libu Invaders, along with the three "land invader" factions in Mesopotamia that we're adding will all benefit from the same improvements as the Sea Peoples and will not be scripted.
Q:This is something I noticed in the dynasties video that the Mesopotamians don’t seem to have their unique 2d drawn art cards. Have any provisions been made for this?
Milcho: Yes of course, the 2D unit cards option is available for all factions.
Q: We've seen that Mesopotamia and the Aegean have dwelling and hecatomb mechanics respectively; will the Egyptian, Canaanite, Hittite, and Sea People pantheons also have their own analogues to these?
Ivan: No, these additions are unique to the Aegean and Mesopotamian deities respectively and are based off of their culture.
Q:Will there be Cutscenes for Major Events and Agent Actions?
Seeing your agents action in a cutscene was always awesome and I’m sad it has not been added since Shogun 2. Will they be added in for Total War Pharaoh Dynasties?
Todor: We have full screen cinematics for important campaign events such as a civil war or the crowning of a Pharaoh and we have added new ones for the Aegean and Mesopotamian factions. I myself am a huge fan of the agent action cut-scenes in Shogun 2 and hope to see them return one day in the TW games. In Pharaoh, however, there are no agent characters.
Q:Will the hittites cannanites and seas people get their own campaign theme like the orange of the acheans of the gray of Mesopotamia and is there going to be new cinematics for the game?
Todor: There are faction specific UI elements for Canaanites, Hittites and Sea Peoples and new coronation cinematics for Mesopotamians and and Aegeans.
Q:UI Appearance
I noticed in the blogs and videos for the new cultures that some aspects of the campaign UI appearance were changed to better fit those cultures. Have the existing non-Egyptian factions had their UIs updated to better reflect their cultural contexts as well?
Todor: Every culture and major faction has received some specific version of UI elements.
Q:Will scripted events be tied to turns or years?
Radoslav: In general we stick to using turns for everything in-game. The current setting for Turns per year is very easy to query so any modder looking to build a system that behaves differently based on TPY value can do so without trouble.
Q:Will the full soundtrack for Pharaoh now be uploaded in addition to the new Mesopotamian music?
Just a simple question, but are we going to get a new soundtrack uploaded to Youtube or elsewhere that showcases the new Mesopotamian music? Will it be available to be sold on Steam as well?
CA_KingGobbo: I can actually take this one myself. I am happy to confirm that there WILL be a free additional soundtrack coming featuring a bunch of tracks from Mesopotamia that have been added in Dynasties, as well as the music from the Dynasties trailer which I know some of you were requesting. This will be claimable through the TW dashboard with your CA Account, as we’ve done before with FREE STUFF. Keep an eye out for more info on this.
Q:Will it be possible to recruit "unique" general from other factions ?
You added Diomedes, Achilles, Sethnakke etc, I wonder if we will be able to recruit "unique" general from the same culture. I have the mod "recruit defeated legendary lords" from TWW in my head.
Or will it be possible only through confederation ?
Thanks !
Ivan: Only through Confederation.
Q:Will both the old app also be expanded?
So i know we get dynasties in a seperate app due to technical reasons. But will the orginal gamemode also be expanded with the map and the new factions? So we can play the vanilla game but with more stuff.
Or will the map expansion only be in the new app? Because of technical reasons? And only for dynasties?
Todor: The extension only applies to the new app. Our intention was to keep the old app exactly at was for the players who enjoyed this particular experience.
Q:Why no mention of Administration Burden in latest blog?
We can clearly see in a couple of screenshots and in latest video; I think it’s a great addition that was sorely missing! Why did you not mention it?
Todor: We have made a number of additions and improvements to the game but it is extremely challenging to fit every one of those into a blog or a video.
Q:Option to switch 2d and 2d art for family tree?
This update looks absolutely beautiful, I only started to find the Bronze Age interesting thanks to this game and with this update, think it’s going to be one of the best total war games.
Only thing that bothers me is the mix of 2d and 3d art in the family tree. I think being able to have 2d art for generals would help with visual cohesion. Again I am so excited for this update, well done CA Sophia!
Ivan: At this time this is not possible. The Dynasty visualization uses a similar system to the Court portraits, which also cannot be switched to 2d. But thank you for the suggestion, I will make a note of it.
Q:Culture differences
Will cultural and religion differences have a negative impact on the public order like they did in Rome II?
Ivan: No, We haven't changed how public order works with this update.
Q:Minor factions and Major Factions
Hello guys, I have been wondering about if the minor and major factions will be changing during the campaign. That is to say, Egypt in the early game is a major faction but probably during the campaign Egypt start loosing it lands and resources, so Can Egypt become a minor faction? and vice-versa with minor factions, can they become to major factions at some point in the campaign? And will they get bonus if the achieve major faction level?
Ivan: Minor factions are the 25 factions you can play as in this update along with the 14 Major Factions like Ramesees and Seti. We called them Minor Factions because they don't have unique rosters and several unique mechanics like Commands and a passive Court ability. It has nothing to do with a faction's strength or size.
Q:Is there a particular reason why Athena did not make the cut for which Greek gods are available to worship? It seems like a decision was made to limit the Mesopotamian and Greek gods to five each. I suppose tough decisions had to be made if five was the limit. Is there a chance we could see more gods added in the future?
Todor: We had to limit our gods to 5 and Athena didn't make it. It is very, very hard to include every relevant god in a pantheon and we had to make compromises for absolutely every culture in the game… Sobek forgive me for I have transgressed against him.
Q:Will the Dynasty system have some scripted characters (or character names)?
I'm thinking, how in Medieval II you could randomly get some of the big historical figures of your factions.
Even though it was really random when they showed up it was still a nice touch.
For example, play enough with Babylon and you get Nebuchadnezzar.
Ivan: We've tried to include as many historical characters as possible at campaign start but other than that all characters being born through the course of play will have random names from their culture. You will ofcourse see some familiar names - for example there is a chance the name of a boy from the Mesopotamian culture to be Sargon.
Q:can Setnakhte also get a re-designed logo?
since Hanigalbat gets a re-designed logo, could Setnakhte get one more associated to Set?
Setnakhte is even more Set-ish than Seti, Setnakhte is an usurper and he named Set as his father.
other Set symbols could be a seated Set animal or a Was Sceptre
Todor: I am afraid, at this point it is a little too late for that.
Q:Will we get new intro for the new (and maybe the old) factions?
The intro with Merenptah... no THE GREAT PHARAOH MERENPTAH is great, but it is weird that if I play with the Hitites or the trojans I get a intro so centered around the egyptians.
Todor: We have an updated version of the Campaign Intro where the newly introduced factions are featured.
Q:Please add the option to disable land invaders in the campaign Settings.
In the campaign Settings, players can disable sea people, but not land invaders from outside the map, these invaders always appear frequently in the map boundaries, they are always scattered in the player's territory, some players are annoyed by these invaders, after this update, will we see the option to disable land invaders in the campaign Settings?
Ivan: In this update land invaders will use the same system as the Sea Peoples, so turning off Invasions would affect both Sea Peoples and land Invasion factions.
Q:Any changes to tech tree?
Will new factions feature the same tech tree?
Todor: The newly added factions will have a different versions of the tech tree with some specific technologies added here and there.
Q: What campaign mechanics do the minor factions have access to, and what mechanics do they not have access to?
Apologies if this was explained somewhere already. It looks like they can work their way into Dynasties (super cool), but do they have access to Ancient Traditions, Religion etc.
Ivan: Minor Factions will have access to the Dynasty System, Royal Tradtions and Ancient Legacies. They also have access to all the standard features like Royal Decrees, Local Deities, Traits, etc.
What they won't have in terms of mechanics is a Command power, a Royal Court passive ability.
Q: Families, Dynasties, and Game Over
In previous games (Shogun 1, Medieval 1, Rome, Medieval 2 come to mind) if you ran out of family members (to say nothing of generals), you recieved an ignominious game over, even if you still had a vast empire otherwise intact behind you. So I wonder, what happens if you run out of characters? By that I mean all of your dynasty members die, is it game over, or does another non-dynastic general take over and they become the dynasty in charge? Further, do all of your generals have to be dynasty members, or will there be non-family leaders that have no legitimate right to rule should they succeed? In such cases are there any special consequences for a non-standard succession? When you do swap into a new dynasty will you reset your dynastic progress to claim things such as a court position or your various factional relationships (as I think it should be since a new lineage can't use the old one for any of its legitimacy/power base).
Ivan: If your last family member dies, one of your generals automatically becomes your next faction leader. If you don't have any generals currently the game spawns one in an event. In both cases the game treats it as if the general is a son of last faction leader, so your family won't get wiped. You will not receive a Game Over screen if you don't have any family members left.
Q:If you vassalise a foreign faction, will they join your Royal Tradition's court?
Say I'm playing as Suppiluliuma and vassalise Troy, or a Mesopotamian faction, or some Greeks. As my subjects, will they join the Hittite court and take part in it?
Ivan: I assume here you meant Confederate. Having a vassal means that the faction is subservient to yours, but still leaves them with some autonomy and doesn't change the Royal Tradition they belong to. Confederating a faction means that its characters join your faction, but not your family unless you marry them to off to your relatives.
Q:Will the new update have a better tutorial for the vanilla edition stuff as it's still quite a bit more things in the game than previous Total War games like Troy
Radoslav: The tutorial is the same vanilla Pharaoh tutorial, just ported over to the Dynasty map.
Q:What happens to the kids of couples where the father and mother are in different factions. i.e. Which faction do the kids appear in/serve, and what happens with inheritance (e.g. If Tausret and Seti both die, does their kid get one or both parent's lands?) I'm seeing these questions come up in a lot of places, so it would be very helpful to know. Thanks you.
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
Ivan: The parents are only in different factions if they are married in a Poltical marriage. Before coming of age, their children are not considered to be in either faction. When they come of age a dilemma triggers asking for custody Gold of the player to keep a child in their faction, if they pay it, the child is now considered to be in his faction. This dilemma can be triggered early if the parents get divorced before the child comes of age.
The core Inheritance rules are that only Scions inherit, and Scions are only characters from your faction, so the child of Seti and Tausret will not let you confederate Tausret. We did this because we were hesitant to add another Confederation option along with base Confederation, the Annexation Royal Power, and using Dominance in the Atreus Ancient Legacy. Inheriting from a child of a Political marriage would be especially questionable because if it worked both ways it could lead to the player being confederated out of the game.
[UPDATE]
Q: Will Preorder skins be added back?
Not on topic but the preorder skins are amazing and currently theres no way to get is there anyway they can be renabled my friends have them but i do not. Thanks!
A: Yes! As part of celebrating the Dynasties update, we are happy to give the Avatar of the Gods Cosmetic Pack and Heart of the Shardana Cosmetic Pack available for free for all owners of PHARAOH! These can be activated in both Total War: PHARAOH and Total War: PHARAOH Dynasties.
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