Total War: Pharoah Irsu, Cannaanites, Veteran/Veteran First 60 Turns Pt1
10I was meant to upload this today not yesterday oops. Hope that doesn't totally ruin my algorithm for DOW things!
Anyway, I've been trying out Pharoah and I love it. Look, It's clearly a saga title, the scope isn't massive, it should not cost £50, it should be £30. So im'ma refund the early access demo and buy it with a key. *shrugs*
As far as the game is concerned though I feel bad for CA team Sofia because they've done a great job.
Outposts - Not only does this add campaign map economic complexity (which there's a lot of in this game, the barter system also helps here but even with that aside there's huge building diversity and lots of unique buildings too)
Monotheism - By default you can only worship one god. When fulyl researched this can become 3 Gods. Or, if you choose a certain egyptian legacy you can fuse the benefits of any other single God into a new one and then just worship that hybrid-uber god.
The shrines built in outposts give campaign map buffs. If you pray to them via interact you get either campaign or battle buffs for your army. And then once you get enough favour with a God you can devote a general to that God for buffs on your army.
There's a lot of diversity here in the buffs. But, the really cool thing is that you can only worship Gods that are native to the part of map that you are in. So you have to collect the Gods like pokémon. This immediately adds diversity to campaigns as you have different Gods to worship which diffrent buffs which favour different army types.
Unit diversity via the native+faction unit mechanic.
The politicking for either the Hittite or Egyptian Crown - There's a whole political system going on in the game between the major factions that are trying to compete for either of the crowns. If you get the crown you get a load of fun unique buffs but it is a battle to get and keep it. Just being a high member in the respective courts is powerful too though. You don't need to always be the ruler. More complexity is nice. The only downside here is that it might become too easy to game after time and start to feel like a chore. We'll see. Can always turn it off though or choose not to participate.
The return of the barter system - I love the barter system. It gives more reason to interact with NPC factions. It adds direction to campaigns and more campaign map complexity.
The ancient legacy objectives - Unique questlines you can choose to pursue which grant your campaign unique buffs. The egyptian hybrid-dual God worship is one of these. Each culture has their own and there's multiple to choose from. Adds to campaign diversity.
All of these things really make the game stand out to me compared to other total wars. I love every mechanic and 5 of them are entirely novel.