Thank you, everyone, who had the opportunity to join us for the live Q&A event with Todor Nikolov and Milcho Vasilev over on Discord! We are excited to share Q&A answers.
Todor: Some of you have asked if we’re doing anything else for PHARAOH after DYNASTIES and while the team will remain committed to patching and fixing the game as needed, this will be the last planned content for PHARAOH, which is why we’re going all out with DYNASTIES! We are super proud of what the team has made as a love letter to everyone who stuck with us, and we are hopeful that when you have DYNASTIES in your hands, it will feel like the fully fledged and complete Bronze Age Total War experience we envisioned back at the beginning. Thank you for your feedback and passion with PHARAOH, which has helped us make it the best experience we could hope for.
Q: How will minor factions play in battle?
Will they have their own unique units?
I'm sorry but I still do not understand how "minor" these factions will be: buildings, units, traits...
Milcho: Minor factions will have rosters combined from a mix of already existing units from both native and some faction units. There are a few exceptions with some factions having access to a special unit like the Myrmidons in Aeolia.
Q:How will lethality work for the generals unit?
Milcho: Generals do have a small protection against Lethality and they will never be the first to die from their bodyguard unit. But once a certain number of entities have perished, that protection is dropped and your general is just as vulnerable as everyone else. This, combined with the new Dynasty system can lead to some very interesting situations. Will your general lead from the front inspiring those around him or will they give commands from the back lines and wait for a tactical advantage?
Q: Lethality, unit stats and changes to combat?
It seems inevitable that with the introduction of Lethality the pace of combat is going to change. With charges and ranged being more impactful, combat is going to become faster.
Given that this will be a significant change to Pharaohs slower paced combat, will unit stats be changed to compensate, or will we just have to accept that battles will be quicker now? And if the stats are changed, how will that impact campaigns with Lethality toggled off?
Milcho: Yes, that is absolutely true. That is why, to make sure the pacing of the battles remains relatively the same, we have rebalanced all other stats for all units. The additional campaign customizations which allow to toggle Lethality off or have it be at 100% are there mostly for fun (similar to the random start positions) and are not going to be balanced.
Q:Hello there! I want to say as a long time fan, it's fantastic to see some of the best battle features of the series being added back into the games after so long. I wondered how the lethal hit stat will work in game? Will this be a statistic like Melee Attack that is visible on the unit cards? Will it be at all buffable through technologies, leaders' skills or unit veterancy? Or more like a background effect simulating the randomness of a battle? (I hope for the latter!) Thanks!
Milcho: Lethality is going to be a visible stat in the weapon section for every unit. Ranged units will have separate Lethality for their ranged and melee attacks. It will be buffable through various game mechanics.
Q:Hi there! I recently purchased Total war pharaoh and am absolutely loving it, especially the stunning campaign map. I was wondering how unit speed affects hit chance and lethality percentage. For instance, how does speed of units like archer's shooting at chariots or units running versus walking or standing still impact these factors?
Milcho: Speed does affect hit chance and lethality indirectly. If a unit manages to pick up enough speed when attacking another unit (usually some distance between those units is required when the attack order is given) that unit will assume the charging stance and gain bonus to their Attack which will make a hit more likely which in turn will cause more lethality. If a unit is standing still it will become braced and receive less damage from being charged compared to if it was walking or running. If an archer is shooting at a unit with greater speed they are more likely to miss.
Q: Will the battle AI use the new/existing features?
I don't think I've ever seen the AI use a stance or formation yet. Will they use the new arrow switching mechanic? Also, can you please separate AI intelligence and AI cheats into two separate sliders like Warhammer 3 does? Thank you so much for listening to player feedback, I can't wait for the update!
Milcho: Yes the AI will use the new arrow switching mechanics all the time (though it still often prefers to use flaming arrows if available). Technically it does use stances too but only in specific situations. We want our AI to be as smart as possible and that is why we haven't put AI decisions into different sliders.
Q:the missile units are going to have and enhance in distance if they are in a hilltop or a city wall?
Milcho: Technically they don't get increased range, but they will have better line of sight and opportunity to use the much more lethal direct shots.
Q: Units coming from Troy
For the achaean factions you're bringing back a bunch of units from Total War Troy, will these units have the same skin they did in that game or will they be reskined for Total War Pharaoh?
Milcho: Units from Troy are going to be using the same visuals but they will have their stats and abilities reworked to fit the Pharaoh battles.
Q:Will the Trojan faction be in the Aegean or Hittite court, or have option to choose?
I've heard talk Troy will start as Wanax in the Aegean court, meaning they wouldn't be able to choose and also that would make them the "lords of the Greeks" (Danaans I know, but let's use Greeks for simplicity) which would be ridiculous, as Agamemnon should 1000$ start as the Wanax as being the overlord of all Greek lands was his whole thing. The Trojans were not Greek even if they had a lot in common with the Greeks. Plus, Troy had a lot of cultural connection to Hatti as well as Greece, and I could see an argument that they should be in the Hittite court. All I'm asking is Troy not start in either court so we get the chance to choose.
Todor: In the game Priam starts as Wanax while Agamemnon is a Heqetas in the Court. This was done in part to serve as a reason for their conflict in the context of the game. We wanted to give the players the option to relive a conflict resembling the Trojan War but spin it to be a Civil War from the Aegean Royal Tradition.
Of course, the feedback you are giving us is a valid one and we will have a discussion on it. Still, we don't have a lot of time to drastically change the current starting position situation.
Q:Option to toggle on or off having cavalry in a campaign?
I get why you guys added them, but can there be a setting to not have them available in the campaign? There were for sure some people riding horses at this time, but mostly basically never in combat.
Todor: I suppose we can discuss implementing another campaign customisation option, but at this point we won't have the time to properly make up for missing cavalry units, which means that the unit rosters in Mesopotamia will be in a weaker position.
Q:Why not switch to the old battle formula instead of trying to imitate it with features/mechanics?
Milcho: There are many reasons why we are not switching to the old formula, but the main one is that doing so will require a complete overhaul of all mechanics in the game and that is something we can't ever imagine making as a free update. The Lethality in Pharaoh is different from the Critical Hit in Thrones of Britannia in the way it is implemented and how it interacts with Armour.
Q:Will all of the other battle maps gets increased in size or this is just reserved for the new maps coming out for the update?
Milcho: Only the newly created battle maps will be increased in size. Some old maps from Pharaoh and all the imported maps from Troy have had reworks to incorporate the new dynamic terrains and weather as well as the multiple victory points system, but their size remains unchanged.
Q:Are dev implemented kill Animations for infantry completely off the table? I was hoping To hear something about it in the battles blog post, as it has been a highly requested.
Milcho: We have made a considerable amount of kill animations that were previously available only to generals, be available to all units. Only the really long ones will now be reserved for the post battle screen.
Q:We all want to see the return of kill animations for all infantry (including 2 handed)
But one point that seems important to me is that we can have viable animations for the combat for the shield wall / phalanx
Because apart from having an animation to make the unit in phalanx / shield wall static, this is a mechanic that cannot be fully exploited + having animations in shield wall posture + attacks, would make the fights much more epic and tactical.
Milcho: Currently we don't have any special attack animations that are used only when in a specific stance or formation. The main reason for that is that we didn't want those formations to be too advanced in terms of the time period. It is an idea worth considering though, as we have already stretched the authenticity in other areas. Regarding the other question - we have indeed added more kill animations for the regular units (including two-handed weapons) and now they will be able to perform most of the kill animations that so far only the generals had except the long elaborate ones mostly used on the post-battle screen.
Q:Who is Babylon's faction icon based on?
If Hanigalbat's new icon is Sargon the Great, then is Babylon's icon based on anyone specific?
Todor: This is based on the head of Marduk, the chief deity of Babylon.
Q:Customization Options in Multiplayer
Will there be Customization Options in multiplayer? It was said that Lethality is optional, but currently there aren't any options for multiplayer games.
Todor: Unfortunately, implementing Customisation Options for multiplayer would make their implementation significantly more time-consuming and costly. In short - if we had decided that having the for multiplayer was a must, we wouldn't have them at all in all likelihood.
Q:Will there be more post-battle scenarios?
because with hundreds of maps from Greece to Iran, seeing our generals always fighting on the same old desert plateau seems a bit boring to me.
I mean, if I fight in the city, I would like to see a city behind me, but if I fight on the coast or at sea, a coastal landscape. if I'm in Greece something new, if I'm in Nubia a sunny desert.
it's nothing extraordinary, just a nice touch that would make the game even better.
thank you for listening.
Milcho: This is a good idea and I agree it would add a nice variety to have different backgrounds for the fighting scenes after battles. Unfortunately we haven't had the resources to add such functionality, but we will see if we can do something like this in the future. Even though this offers no gameplay, I think that it will bring a nice variety to the experience of playing the game.
Q:Hi everybody ,
I am of the opinion that night battles should be more frequent.
if I think of a raid or a plundered village I imagine it is at night and not during the day, especially in the Bronze Age, just like in the seapeople trailer.
Too bad, however, that to have night battles I have to develop all 15 points of one branch of my general's talents.
I think it's very reductive.
Is it possible to change this factor, reducing the number of points needed to access night battles? make the value 10 or even 5 skill points so we can have more generals who can fight at night? what do you think?
Thanks for the great work and listening.
Todor: In fact, I second your opinion. We have added the effect in a progression system we have for the Dynasties and are considering assigning it to some of our rarer ancillaries. Hopefully, that will make the situation a bit better.
Q:Will we get the Option to Mount Irsu on a camel or Tausret on A Horse
Milcho:Now I can't get the image of Irsu on a camel out of my mind, thank you. Unfortunately the answer is no.
Q:Improving AI pathing and solving bugs
When playing battles I have several issues such as ordering a unit to chase another unit and suddenly my unit stops while running, this also happens when sending ladders to a wall, sometimes they just won't make the ladder advance. Another problem I find rather common is forming a line with my units to stop the enemy and then the enemy units just run straight through my lines. I'm guessing with the update you'll fix these bugs too?
Milcho: This is a bug that has been plaguing us for quite some time. I'm happy to say it should be fixed now.
Q:Chariots and lethality
Are chariots going to gain significant lethality to make their initial charges more devastating?
Milcho:Yes they are.
Q:Will units in the new update have "pocket ladders" available?
The image that's being used got me a little worried, since it shows something that looks like small ladders.
I am personally not a huge fan of this feature, and I feel the games that don't have it have much better and more immersive sieges, where walls actually defend the cities and proper siege engines matter.
Milcho: No. There will be no pocket ladders.
Q:Can you consider adding coastal battle, port assault and port assault?
In the future, can you consider adding coastal battle, port assault and unfortified port assault for Pharaoh without adding naval battle, so that the navy can fully serve the army, and even provide more tactics for land battle? In the absence of long-range siege equipment, siege warfare was extremely difficult in the Bronze Age, and allowing the navy to bypass the walls and land directly on the city might have provided more tactical options for siege warfare. I know you will not add naval warfare, because there are too few players to play naval warfare, and naval warfare tactics are not as rich as land warfare, then there is no naval warfare, but have a naval landing battle can you consider it?
Milcho: Unfortunately this is going to be quite costly and require a lot of work so for the time being we are not looking at adding naval or coastal type of battles.
Q:BRING BACK HISTORICAL BATTLES
almost all of Total War titles have historical battles you can play but not in a Bronze Age setting game of Total War? FOR THE LOVE OF AMUN, BRING IT BACK!!! There's so much historical battles to choose from.
Todor: Historical battles require quite a bit of effort from multiple discipline. At the end, there is a limited number of people who play them, although they are very passionate about them.
Q:Flying units and siege machines.
Although there are essentially no such units for the vanilla game, is there anything that can be done to facilitate the creation of these units? The goal here is to give us modding capabilities.
Total conversions will keep this game alive for decades. Thanks.
Milcho: There are no flying units and siege machines like catapults in the game as we want to keep the game as historically authentic as possible. That being said, the mechanics for such units have not been removed from the game and modders can easily create such units if they desire.
Q: Improvements to Formations?
So currently, the incredible trait "expert charge defence" is locked behind unit formations like Spear Wall, whereas in previous games it merely required the unit to brace. Are there any plans to buff formations to make them more worth using? Currently, units with spear wall enabled perform significantly worse in combat than the same units with spear wall disabled, with the added negative that they are also unable to move. I love the reintroduction of formations into Total War Pharaoh, but I really think they need some love.
Milcho: There are no fundamental changes to Unit Formations and Stances have received a number of bug fixes and quality of life improvements as well as some rebalancing of the stats they provide. There are also a few new ones coming with the addition of the new Mesopotamian, Trojan and Aegean units.
Q:So how is cavalry/camelry actually implemented
Since it is, after all, a bit early for that.
Milcho: We understand that this is pushing the boundaries of what is plausible in a historical title, but we have tried our best to implement them as faithfully as possible while adding the so needed variety to the gameplay.
Q:"Godnapping" battle mechanic?
During Bronze Age, ancient societies believe that the cult statues/idols were considered manifestations of the gods. Because of this, Godnapping was prevalent. Godnapping, is a state-sponsored sacrilege. It's a term coined by archaeologists and historians. It is the forcible removal of cult statues by invading forces, is attested and in ancient Bronze Age history.
Please CA Sofia, please add this to this update.
Todor: We have considered this idea but so far have not implemented it in any way. The time window before release is currently too narrow for us to add anything that is not a simple fix or a balance tweak.
Q:Unique Units for Minor Factions.
Will minor factions like Setnakhte, Merneptah, Napata, etc. will have their own unique units or will they borrow it from their major kin factions like Ramesses for Setnakhte and Merneptah?
Todor:They are relying on native units and units from major faction rosters.
Q: Battle customisation to modify the pace of battles
I think battles are too fast and instead of enjoying the marvellous animations or executing advanced tactics (I've never used the option for units move back during battle), I find myself just clicking all the time or in big important battles I'm playing everything in slow motion because of all the units I need to give orders and it feels like cheating.
Battles will be much much more enjoyable if they were slower so that we can enjoy the scene, the music, and follow one soldier in particular. It's truly a cinematic experience.
Surely there's a lot of people who like the current speed and prefer everything fast. So there should be an option to adjust the natural longevity of battles.
Thanks
Milcho: Currently the battles in Pharaoh are some of the slowest in the Total War series (mods excluded). With the campaign customization option of turning off Lethality they will become even slower even though not as well balanced.
Q:Unit collision, unit cohesion, pathfinding
Will there be improvements to these things? Especially the behaviour of Chariots in battles?
Milcho: There are not going to be any big changes but we have done some bug fixes and minor improvements to cohesion and pathfinding, especially when using stances.
Q:Visibility change
Visibility change has me really excited, but my thought is how useful or necessary will scouting be? Would we need a handful of light troops to run ahead of the army in a battle to scout, Or will vision in a open field be roughly similar to how it is now.
Milcho:Visibility has been overall reduced and this will be noticeable even in an open field battle, but how important it is going to be depends entirely on the situation and your game plan for that battle.
Q:Aššur
Since Babylon is a unique major settlement, is Aššur, city of the god Aššur, in the land of Aššur also a unique major settlement?
Milcho:Assur is also going to be using a new battle map, but it will not be completely unique for just that settlement.
Q: Have you considered releasing any pharaoh specific tools for modding? Or otherwise what is your philosophy on mod support for pharaoh?
Todor: We have always tried to make games that are as mod friendly as possible and we are always open to feedback from players
and
modders. Our ultimate goal is to be provide the modders the ability to do everything that a developer can do. In that endeavour we often have to be mindful of time and budget so we usually focus on expanding already existing tools - Terry, Dave and the Script Codebase.
Q: Civilians in city battles
We all know that unarmed civilians were living in their cities despite it being under siege. At the moment cities feal empty, adding this would make the cities more alive and atmosphere more realistic. Imagine after your victory civilians would come out of their houses basements and welcoming you so that you dont kill them…
Todor: It would have caused some challenges / complications with age ratings that would have impacted delivering Dynasties.
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