So, this is going to be a long post so if you are a TLDR type of person, you’ve been warned.

Yes, I know the official stance as of now is that CA doesn't plan to do anything with Total War: Pharaoh Dynasties, other than the occasional hotfix.  (If even that).  Personally, I thought that it was strange that they still decided to keep that stance, especially with how well received Dynasties was received.  They recreated Pharoah into a solid game, and I think there is still potential to make it a historical-based game that is almost as untouchable as the first Rome and Medieval II.  Maybe comparable to Three Kingdoms.  Getting reacquainted with the game, I couldn’t help but let my imagination / history nerd-self go loose about what this game could still use or tweak to be even better.  

Obviously, I’m not an authority on what would make this game good or not good.  And some of these ideas I know may be impossible to actually implement.  But I still wanted to share, throw these ideas out in the ether of the internet.  Give a place for others, who have similar thoughts or feelings, to share their own ideas as well.  Maybe this post might turn a wheel or two within CA.  Maybe a modder might take note for their next project.  Maybe something written here will indirectly inspire a mechanic in a future Total War game down the line.  Maybe CA and/or all of you readers will point and laugh at me and move on.  

I’d rather share these ideas to no avail rather than let them collect dust in my mind.  So, get comfortable:

Let’s start with some reworks, tweaks, and additions to the campaign:

Start with the least important:  Tausret, Set, and Amenmesse should have their starting ages tweaked.  I found it odd that they all literally start at the age of 30.  Especially since Amenmesse is supposed to be the eldest, which is a big part of his character.  Seti and Tausret should be in their early 20’s, Amenmesse being in late 20’s.  Or keep him at thirty.  

Bring back the original Sea Peoples mechanic as in the original game.  Where it’s light raids of different tribes, and then the HUGE marauding ones.  I honestly can’t remember the last time I actually had to deal with the world collapsing in Normal mode ever since Dynasties.  Even the “big one” gets easily squashed before anyone can even settle anywhere.  I’ve played whole campaigns without fighting Sea Peoples, or their land locked counterparts, even once. Even more often, never had to deal with provinces getting razed to the ground nor deal with the task of reoccupying an entire void of now abandoned settlements.  I know many may not share this opinion.  So, I would suggest making it a campaign rule you can toggle.  Whether to have the Dynasties Sea Peoples dynamic, or The Original / Legacy Dynamic.  (With the exception of Walwetes still functioning as a faction looking to settle, regardless of the overall dynamic). 

Taking notes from Attila and Three Kingdoms: Allow the option to assign governors of provinces/nomes that you control.  Like in Attila, if the capital of your nome is besieged, the governor takes charge of the defense.  Be a good way to give each family member a job as your family gets huge.  This mechanic would probably make the most sense to make it an option once you are Pharaoh/Wanax/Great King/King of the Universe. 

Keep the High Priest of Amun as its position in Court.  And keep the mechanic of worshipping three main gods and having a general devoted to each.  But as you control more culture centers and build more grand temples, you should be allowed to assign family members or generals as high priest/esses of any god you have a built grand temple of.  It can be treated as a trait and provide a lite version of the same bonuses as a devoted general gets.  They get attached to the corresponding city like the governor is.  And they can take part in its defense as well.  Give the defenders some of the same bonuses a full-fledged devoted general does to their army.  

Speaking of assigning family members roles.  Make your family more dynamic.  Especially once you’re the big cheese of your culture.  For example, going off the previous ideas: Family members who aren’t given roles and kept idle/are forgotten get bitter.  Brewing a possibility for war.  Create another Seti / Amenmesse situation and declare a younger son as heir that, and doing so actually has consequences.  A son who isn’t a designated heir is a lot more of an accomplished general than the heir.  Giving him ideas.  Also, try to implement the possibility of multiple wives.  And then the possible drama/scheming amongst one another that would naturally occur.  Establish one as your Great Wife, your Nefertari.  You can set a limit of number of wives and children per wife, so you don’t create family trees that break the game.  Also, only the children of your Great Wife, or the siblings of your heir, are the ones who can get married within the faction and have babies.  The rest can still be assigned roles, be married off into other factions, or even rebel or scheme against you or their half siblings.  

I know I’m going to get groans with this one.  But you guys should allow the option to have women characters take more active roles in this game.  Especially with having Tausret as a playable character since day 1, I thought it was weird that you didn’t expand beyond just simply being in the family tree.  Especially if you take the entire Bronze Age into perspective, there were several named women throughout the period, in many cultures, who earned their place in history by their own right.  

Even in past Total War games with family trees but no option to field women, the women of your family still felt like actual characters.  In Pharaoh, they are just 2D side profiles that you can’t even change the name of.  Even the male characters of your family that you never actually use get at least the decency of a 3d portrait and the option to change their name.  

If making women generals/rulers across the board in every faction is too big of an ask, it should at least be an option for Tausret’s faction.  

Either way: To still satisfy those who I know think capable women are a recent invention and are still vibrating over the fact that even just Tausret is in this game…  (And yes, I am intentionally being an @$$hole to that particular crowd, make no mistake) You can also make this a toggleable option in campaign rules.  Something like Patriarchal/Traditional or Equal.  

Now, for big additions.  These are callbacks to older titles within the Total War series: Historical Battles and additional campaigns:

Historical Battles: Sure, only so many battles from the Bronze Age were recorded to even have occurred.  And even some of those details are scant.  But that just allows room for some creative freedom. 

1. Battle of Megiddo- Would be very cool to experience the first recorded organized battle in history, especially commanding Thutmose III.  And luckily that is one that is well recorded.
2. Battle of Kadesh- This one is a given.  Allow the option to play either as Rameses II or Muwatalli II
3. Battle of the Delta - Another given, especially with the events the base game revolves around.  At least as play Rameses III, or even possibly play as the Sea Peoples that fight through the ambush.  Iolaus would seem more appropriate, given the circumstances.  
4. Battle of Perire- 1208 BCE.  Take control of a younger Merneptah as he fights off a Libyan and Sea Peoples Coalition
5. Battle of Nihriya- Veering away from Egypt.  This was a big battle between the Hittites under Tudḫaliya IV (opportunity to play as one of the Legacy figures) and the Assyrians under Šulmānu-ašarēd I.  The battle details themselves would be one where you utilize those creative freedoms.
6. Battle of Kār Ištar - Battle between the Assyrians under Adad-nirari I and the Kassite Babylonians (Same dynasty that our own Adad-shuma-usur eventually rules) under Nazimaruttash.  Another battle where you would utilize those creative freedoms.

New Campaigns: This is a callback to Rome 2/ Attila, in particular.  Where you are more narrative driven, and the story is based off the historical events portrayed.  Sometimes, on a smaller/more concentrated map than the Grand Campaign's, like the one in Hannibal at the Gates.  For Pharaoh: Dynasties, such campaigns I think you can bring back the original campaign game’s map, or even just Egypt (Depending on the subject time period).  And the focus for these campaigns would be certain Egyptian Dynasties.  Maybe even add a scripted narrative to drive to add more depth.  

1.  18th Dynasty - So there's a couple points you can start here.  At the very least, start out as Hatshepsut.  The narrative here could be making Egypt the economic and infrastructure powerhouse she does historically make Egypt, as well as the rearing and tutelage of Thutmose III into the pharaoh he becomes.  This mechanic could be like the mechanic of when you play as Zenobia in Rome II: Empire Divided, as she raises her son Vaballathus.  Then, once she dies and Thutmose III takes over, you go on the conquests he accomplishes in life.  Maybe go even further.  You also can add the twist that instead of working to prepare Thutmose III, you hijack his inheritance completely and instead prepare her daughter, Neferure, for rule.  And deal with the backlash that creates.  (This is something that UCLA Professor Kara Cooney speculates that was attempted, very softly.  But it wasn't well received so then Hatshepsut shifted gears and just focused on her own rule before Thutmose III took over).  If you succeed with Neferure, then she can fill in and accomplish the conquests Thutmose III does.  Or picks up where Hatsheput left off with the economy and infrastructure.  (Assuming there is still anywhere else to improve on).   
   1. All that or start at the very beginning as Ahmose as he drives out the Hyksos and establishes both the 18th Dynasty and The New Kingdom.  Still can have a narrative that leads up to Hatshepsut/Thutmose III
2. 19th Dynasty - So... yes.... We already play as them.  But I think you can have a concentrated campaign and take it back a generation or two and start as Seti I or even the big man himself, Rameses II.  If the latter (or you play up to his rule), all roads lead to Kadesh.  And you can even have a more decisive victory than what historically happened.  From there, you can choose to honor The Great Peace or continue your conquests.  (Or sign the treaty, just to break it).
3. 25th Dynasty - A little left field.  But plunge forward into the Third Intermediate Period and take over as Piye, King of the Nubians, as he campaigns and conquers all the squabbling kingdoms of the Period to establish the Kushite Empire and the 25th Dynasty of Egypt.  

Believe it or not, that’s all I have for now.  So yeah, as I said, there are just some ideas I wanted to throw into the void.  Even if this doesn't inspire CA to come back to this game, maybe they could put this in their back pocket in the event they ever make a Pharaoh II in the future.  Or a skillful modder can get some inspiration reading this.  And if you, dear reader, also have good ideas to add to this thread: Please, share them in the comments below.  Either way, it was at least cathartic to share this.  

Thank you for your time if you read this all the way through.  

These are great ideas!

My DLC wish list
1.- Add Elam, Urartu and a Libyan tribe as Major factions. This DLC will be focused on destroying civlization with the Sea Peoples
2.- A campaign about the battle of Kadesh would be perfect
3.- Historical battles

My wishlist, that is easy to do:

1. Add more Troy assets.  There's a huge number of units that could be repurposed and added to the Aegean theatre for Achilles, Odysseus, Diomedes/ Ajax and others.  Their rosters are extremely thin, there's only Agamemnon who has a notable roster, which is pretty crazy considering the amount of Bronze Age units Troy had.

2. Make Sea Peoples more dangerous again.  The Sea Peoples were nerfed pretty hard in Dynasties, and basically made reaching "collapse" in a Bronze age collapse scenario impossible.  This is something that really deserves attention as it undermines the whole premise.  

3. Rebalance Chariots.  Lethality made it so Chariots are often 1 shot.  They really need either a trait giving them protection vs Lethality, or a HP system where they get a number of lethality charges.  One lone arrow killing 2 horses, 2 riders and breaking the chariot itself is totally unintended and should be fixed.

4. Rebalance Titles.  Right now the title system is kind of jank and unbalanced.  It's easy to have a general who is by all accounts an unbeaten military genius, but have negative military status in titles since i'm losing undefended towns on my borders.  Sure, it's not perfect but I don't think that should make him incompetent in military matters.  Similar for other titles, some are almost impossible to do well in on hard difficulties due to the nature of the game and what it throws at you.  I could be winning a Legendary campaign but the game considers my ruler pretty terrible in terms of titles.  This part feels totally untested.

Wishlist that would be a huge amount of work (realistically something to include in the next game):

1. Historical Battles.  These are important and foundational pieces of a Total War game.  I really don't care about metrics, "Only 1% of people play this so why bother".  Using that logic, we could say that only 1% of gamers play a Total War game, so lets just not make it, right?  People want to learn and feel immersed in the time period and historical battles really set the scene.

2. Dump Characters and focus on Cultures/ Nations again.  There's been enough games with Unique lords being your faction and having a skill tree and levelling up.  I get why this was a thing for Warhammer, but porting this to every other Total War game is a really dull way of handling nation building.  Rome Total War wasn't a bad game because my general "Julius Brutus" was a generic man who didn't have a skill tree, the same way Pharaoh isn't automatically a banger because I can put all Rameses' points into Damage.

Really I'd just like a patch or two and keep the game ticking over.  I understand user interaction is low, but that's inevitable for a game that gets 0 mention, 0 marketing, 0 updates from the company.  It does feel quite tough to be a TW fan sometimes, reading CA's posts about how they are going to improve the way they update games, communicate, have extra patches which fix the game when talking about Warhammer, and just utterly ignore Pharaoh.  Part of Warhammer's popularity is because you stuck with the game for 10 years.  If you did 2 patches and dumped Warhammer I, that would be a dead game too.  I think CA really need a reality check and stop jumping from project to project going "all-in" for a few months and abandoning things soon after.

This is my favorite TW game. 
I would pay double for any DLC

My wishlist:
1.- The destroyers faction pack: Urartu, Elam and Libya
2.- Make the original pharaoh (cause i love how the Sea peoples destroyed everything) and Troy campaigns inside the Dynasties edition
3.- Historical battles as mentioned in one of the previous post 
4.- Rise of the Akkadian empire campaign

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Darios#5306 wrote:

I stopped playing Pharaoh because CA abandoned a game where MP doesn't work despite my numerous support tickets. Another patch or two might have made a world of difference in the perception of this game.

Can't really see myself purchasing another Total War game in the future. I'm curious to see what CA is going to do once they run out of Warhammer content to produce.

Yeah I've admittedly stopped playing because I keep dealing with a crash that happens no matter what I do, so I literally can't play up to a certain point.   I've sent up a crash report, but it's gone ignored and unaddressed, like dozens of others over the last few months.  It's like they forgot this game exists.