Pharaoh: New Era Review – Egypt at its Best

Strategy creators are something that has a relatively strong fan base in our country, who were lucky enough to grow up in the era of the titans that determined the face of the genre as a whole. One of the projects that most people remember was undoubtedly the isometric pharaoh, in which the pyramids and many other majestic structures were built. Now this RTS has received a remake called Pharaoh: A New Era, the pros and cons of which we will discuss in more detail in our review.

• Platform: PC
• Publication date: 02.15.2023
• Developer: Triskell Interactive
• Publisher: dotem
• Genre: Building strategy
• Czech localization: Yes (Community)
• Multiplayer: No
• Data to download: 5 GB
• Game time: 38 hours of basic drag and drop
• Price: 565 CZK (couples)

In Pharaoh: A New Era, you have the opportunity to follow the rise of a civilization.

Egypt is one of the oldest civilizations in the world. His journey was really long. However, each of his steps represented something that helped shape the subsequent shape of the ancient world. As part of the “Pharaoh: New Era” campaign, the player has the opportunity to look at the initial steps and beautifully tread the paths over time towards a future that is not very favorable to this people. Individual passages are handled very well and often work as a form of learning rather than anything really complex.

Some of them are unreasonably long, but in general they form a worthy teaching passage, which is useful to go through both for understanding the mechanics and for absorbing the history of this culture, which is really interesting. For example, you have the opportunity to watch how an entire civilization began its journey, built the first tombs (masta), faced invaders, or what led to the construction of the pyramids. For a history lesson, “Pharaoh: A New Era” is ideal. In addition to an extensive campaign, you also have one-off historical missions, a sandbox, as well as a variety of maps that will easily take you to the 6th millennium BC, where they will allow you to begin your building odyssey.

Satisfying people’s needs is not easy

The basic idea of ​​Pharaoh: A New Era, like most building strategies, is that you basically build the city from the top. Under normal circumstances, you will first have to build starter buildings, around which you will build palaces, tax collectors, as well as structures focused on their daily needs. Most structures can be built almost anywhere. However, you can only build the wells needed to quench your thirst in grassy areas, while, for example, crops can only be grown in floodplains, where they grow exceptionally well.

At first, just observe the lives of ordinary people. People need to ensure a stable food supply, followed by ceramics, as well as luxury goods. In order for everything to work, you need to build an architect’s, fireman’s and doctor’s hut around the buildings. The further away you are, the more comfort the dolls need, so you will never get bored with your missus. So when it comes to catching acorns, raiders are on the scene. You need an army to stop them. However, if you’re looking for big fights here where you lead people into battle, you’re out of luck. The format is simple, but without an army, the invasion cannot be repelled, so you need to have some strength at hand in the barracks.

One of the things that you should constantly keep an eye on during the game, in addition to preparing for raids, is expenses and income. Of course, everyone would like to have a good time in Pharaoh: A New Era. After all, if I work, I should be paid accordingly, right? But what is the appropriate pay is a question you will have to think about in the end. If you give people too much, they will be happy, but your treasury will not be doubly happy about it. Therefore, it is necessary to find a balance between how much you pay and how much income goes into your treasury.

In case of failure, there are only two options. Either the dissatisfied eventually stop working and simply leave, since you will not be able to maintain the social peace that Egyptologist Miroslav Barta talks about, or you will get into debt and then you will have to fight for every penny. The very format of how Pharaoh: A New Era makes you take out a loan is downright funny, you feel like you’re being targeted by a banking company. As a result, it’s just as annoying.

God is asking for it!

You do not need to focus only on the will of ordinary people during the game. The gods are also an important factor in Pharaoh: A New Era that must be constantly reckoned with. For example, if you forget that your city should have a temple of Osiris, it may happen that your flourishing farms simply disappear, and only ruins remain in their place. But if you do not neglect the gods, they may, on the contrary, reward you with their favor. In the case of the already mentioned Osiris, he can bring you great profit during floods, or set them up so that you can get the most out of them.

Dancing among the gods is a little problematic. Because everyone wants to be worshiped, and you don’t always get it. Optimizing relationships with deities is sometimes more difficult than it might seem at first glance, but this is an aspect that gives the gameplay a decent kick and, at least in my eyes, makes you think more about city building, and especially the location of the temples and shrines that you have is in it.

I must have prayed a lot to the gods of Egypt, because the result is also an optimization of Pharaoh: A New Era. The game works stably under any circumstances. The only problem I see is the camera and, above all, all the possibilities it offers. I expected a slightly more energetic approach in this regard from the remake. However, it is not possible to work essentially with this element. The zoom here is minimal, and you can’t count on rotation either, because its creators didn’t give you one. At the same time, rotation would often make it easier for a person to build, because as soon as you build impressive temples and pyramids, a piece of the map will be overshadowed more than once, where something is built or modified very hard. Let’s hope that over time the creators will fix this in one of the updates.

RTS Pharaoh: A New Era Might Surprise

I didn’t expect much from Pharaoh: A New Era. In the end, however, I ended up with a really intense building strategy that impressed me both with its campaign and with the building itself. At first glance, it looks quite simple, but at the moment when you want to build a really big, and most importantly, noisy metropolis, it will offer you a relatively complex and, most importantly, exciting race for dozens of hours. Well, what are we talking about, you can spend a lot of time building pyramids and other majestic structures.

As a result, the ant innovations are also very well designed, which in a certain way move this work. I was a little expecting that the format of the battle would also change. Unfortunately, there is no revolution, it is still poverty. Another thing that is also not handled perfectly is the camera. Here you can not zoom out and, as a result, you can not even turn in different directions. In the end, however, these are only relatively minor flaws in beauty that will hopefully fade over time, perhaps at the urging of the community.