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One of the best I've seen!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 54 / 57
Date: January 02, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game is in every way as good and if not better than Caesar III. I own both games and I have to say they are two of the most addicting games I've played. They are so much alike and Pharaoh, though not a sequel or an add-on, adds more to the alreay masterful Caesar III.

There are many different perks in Pharaoh that make it very unique and fun. There are gods to worship, more industrial structures, more military units, combat on land and sea, you must make sure your citizens are happy, healthy, and fed enough, provide them with entertainment, law enforcement, and the best of them all, the construction of monuments. This game has pretty much all you could want and it is very easy to learn. The built in campaign teaches you how to play as you progress into the game. You can even interact with your citizens and see what they think of your wonderful city. But you better keep them happy because if you don't, they could revolt and turn your wonderful riches into worthless rubble!

If you haven't been able to grasp the concept of city building games or have never been very good, I suggest you try this one out! I'm sure you won't be sorry! I was never any good either, and look where I ended up, I can't put in down!

Insanely Addictive!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 35 / 37
Date: December 01, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I think Derek G missed the point.

Your farm workers stand in the flood and drowned because you haven't built a place for them to take the food. Simple really. That's what I love about this game.

Everything has a point and a purpose. I've been playing for about two weeks straight now, 3-4 hours a day... I was very frustrated for the first 10 days or so and now I've finally figured it out. Everything effects everything... If you want to play a complete city building game, this is the one. Great graphics, great cause and effect, and even the music doesn't get too annoying. You will lose sleep over this game!

Deceptive, Addictive & Down Right FUN!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 25 / 26
Date: November 19, 1999
Author: Amazon User

A take off on the Caesar City Building Series from Sierra, Pharaoh is easy to learn but deep to play. I too have had to "replay" a session as I wind up deep in debt trying to build this, or trade that! It does have online help,if you use it-I didn't at first and wound up broke! I am an avid Strategy Gamer from way back, I like Heroes, Age of Empires, StarCraft etc but have found myself staying up until the YAWN Hours playing Pharaoh! I say TRY it you'll soon be up with the rest of us!

This one's definately a keeper!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 24 / 24
Date: July 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User

As I moved closer to age 40, I began looking for games that were comprised of more than just shoot-em-up as fast as you can and keep-your-heart-racing-until-your-chest-explodes! During the last few years I've played SimCity 2000 & 3000, Civilization II, Civilization Call to Power, Settlers III, Caesar II and Caesar III.

Above all, my absolute favorites are Caesar III and Pharaoh (and soon to add Cleopatra Expansion pack).

Not only does one have the option of designing a beautiful city, but to succeed must learn to make things work as well, solving problems along the way to make the city run smoothly and properly.

Living conditions play a major role in how the game goes along. If they deteriorate, people are going to physically leave, moving out of the city before the player's eyes. Of course, an exodus like this can cause major problems in providing employment to much needed services. If people have no food or taxes too high they are likely to resort to crime or even rioting. The "god" effects (though optional--can be turned off) are absolutely astounding! Keep them happy and the rewards are great--anger them and suffer their wrath!

Other features such as fires and collapsing buildings can be frustrating at first, but once one learns how to handle them soon become a thing of the past. That's all part of "learning" how to build the best city one can--after all, fires and falling down buildings have always been a reality.

The player learns to depend on trade for revenues to keep the city functioning, and it's fun to watch the donkey caravans stopping at storage yards to buy and sell goods.

If city-building isn't a player's strong point and military is, that option is included as well. Along the military path winning criteria for each mission varies greatly from the more peaceful missions. Monuments are less grand, thus less time- and resource-consuming to build. Culture and Prosperity rating requirements are lower, giving the player the time and resources needed to concentrate on keeping their city safe rather than the epitomy of Egyptian society. (After all, at times just keeping a city is more useful to Pharaoh than if it contains the highest level of entertainment attainable.)

Since there is no "set" path one has to take in the game (you can inter-weave peaceful missions with military ones), and the fact a scenario editor is available from Impressions by downloading (and will be included in the new Cleopatra expansion), this game has great re-playability. There are also several websites available where one can download fan-made scenarios and get help for just about any predicament one would find themselves in.

I've been playing this game since I finally got mine in January or February, and I really can't see myself giving it up any time soon. :o)

Great Game, Good History Lesson

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 24 / 27
Date: February 24, 2001
Author: Amazon User

"Pharaoh" is a city-building game that takes the player from pre-dynastic times (3500 -4000BC) through the Old, Middle, Intermediate Periods to the end of the New Kingdom (ca 400 BC). Each period is made up of several missions that involve your "dynasty" in building a historical Ancient Egyptian city/settlement. To do this you must house, feed, and employ enough workers to achieve your goals, which involve population level, culture, wealth, military success, and of course monuments. In addition, you also must contend with the harsh environment and appease the gods. One of the best aspects of the game is there is NO time limit. Players can build as fast or slowly as they like. The overall effect of the game is a reasonable ancient history lesson. One sees the,literally, life-or-death importance of the annual Nile flood (in fact, failure of the floods may be behind the Pharaoh's loss of power and the rise of the Nomarchs in the Intermediate Period), and the extent that trade both inside Egypt and with "Asiatics" dominated city life. What most people associate with ancient Egypt: tombs and temples are also important here. Monument building takes enormous resources to complete as it did historically. Some things have been compressed or simplified for game play. For instance, the game uses "debens" as currency though there's no evidence, yet, that the ancient Egyptians used coins (not until the Hellenistic period well after the game period). But, as a convenient way to show the movement of goods and services, and to track wealth, it works well. Also, Egyptian religion was extremely complicated by modern standards, with gods changing and merging over time. The game reduces this to four basic gods, with differing powers. Again, a reasonable simplification that demonstrates how the Egyptians related to their religion. (As another reviewer said, monument building for the larger Pyramid Complexes and Temples can take literally decades of game-time. To speed this up, select the "Pyramid Speed Up" option. When this is "on" the gods will assist your monument project, provided they are pleased with your devotion.) Highly recommended as a simulation of ancient Egypt and a great game.

the most addictive game ever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 22 / 22
Date: November 13, 1999
Author: Amazon User

ok ,let me get this out of the way. i am an older gamer and compulsive when it comes to buying computer games,however most wear thin very fast. Pharaoh is the most addictive game i,ve ever bought.this game is not easy however. after defeat after defeat i decided to read the manual. this is a wonderful stay up to dawn city builder that makes sim city look like something for the kindergarten set.i have ceasar 2 by the same company, impressions, but this has the playability that i,ve only found in age of empires 2. if you want a kiddy clickfest look elsewhere but if you want a well thought out deep and playable game that,s not easy but fun give this one a try.

Well thought out

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 17
Date: August 28, 2000
Author: Amazon User

First, after watching a set of shows on Egypt - specifically the era covered in this game - I'm really happy with the level of historical 'accuracy' and the way the culture is distinct.

I also like the way the games get harder as you advance in time. The usual setup. More things are added, more things to balance, more expert workers to support on the backs of the peasants to make for a better life for everyone.

But, it's placed in historical context, so it makes sense.

The game interface is good and easy to pick up - the increasing difficulty makes asimilation easier.

Two things are slightly frustrating:

1 - It's hard to get things to go where you want.

a - Sometimes you have to micromange what goes where a little too much for results. It's really easy to end up with storage yards full of pottery, that then has to be redistributed to the citizens, but since each bazaar has only one delivery person, and they are often so busy getting food, the city never really develops. Of course, you can build more storage yards and more bazaars, but they require more people who require more bazaars... You get the idea. There is a lot of optimization.

b - There are limited ranges of effect for the various specialty buildings - temples, libraries, etc. This means that unless you plan way ahead, it's easy to strangle growth in an area since there is no where to put the new service that the area needs to evolve to nicer housing without tearing down housing to create a place to put the new building. And of course, tearing down housing costs you workers (see (a) above).

I often finding myself deciding if I want the people to be healthy and not pay taxes or pay taxes and die of plague. Or, even worse, have the Gods curse my city (full of healthy taxpayers) because of insufficient respect. Argh!

2 - There is too little water.

You need to have farms (with granaries, work camps and storage yards) and docks (with storage yards) on the river, as well as housing (houses need to be near wells). And of course, there's fishing, clay pits (for bricks and pottery), reed gathering and hunting. By the time you get done putting everything by the river that needs to be near the river, there's no river left! If you have rock quarries for building pyramids, the workers will live in lousy housing, and will make everyone unhappy.

Of course, the limited resources and problems in building nice cities are historically accurate, so even the stuff I don't like makes sense.

The river is deep and wide

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 15
Date: January 31, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Derek, who reviews this game a few reviews below this one, made some cogent points about "Pharaoh". It is *not* very intuitive and it *is* frustrating, at first. But those are two of the truly marvelous things about this game, things which make it very worth the money and time it takes to become even a little proficient at it. One must take the time to run through the tutorials, play the demos (Derek is right on when he recommends d/ling the demos: check out Hotgames.com for those) and be willing to learn the lessons that they teach. Ancient peoples learned to survive and build their civilizations by observing, over and over, the patterns of nature, and by trying to manipulate those patterns; they didn't have users' manuals, you know!

The objects (plural) are not always mutual agreeable, but then, this is how most of our lives run, anyway, right? "Pharaoh" not only is a lot of fun once you get the hang of it, it can also help you see how things interconnect, a valuable tool for games and for Life. Consider that when you can't figure out why your boss wants something done in a way or within a time-frame that doesn't make sense, or why an environmental group opposes a new development because of habitat destruction: everything connects to everything else.

But forget the philosophy if that bores you. Watching a bunch of hunters shooting arrows into a flock of ostriches to get the blood going! Whoops! There's a fire in the bazaar! Where *is* that bucket brigade? What do you mean, I can't build a temple there?

Take a chance on this one! I really do think that anyone with a cerebral bent of any sort will find a lot to like in this game. And because so many of the problems will allow multiple solutions, it is doubtful that anyone will exhaust the possibilities.

A great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: May 05, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Pharoah is a game in witch you can build cities and create a mighty empire. This game is not like a Age of Empire and in a way it takes more skill to play. You will become addicted to this game and I would Highly recommend it to everybody.

Excellent City building game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: April 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Pharoah was a Christmas gift to me in 1999. I wore out a copy the first year I had it, and even now, over two years later, it's still my favorite of the strategy/city building games. There's so much to it that it can take a year or more to get used to it all.

The depth of the game is what I think I like the best. I played Caesar 3 for a while, but there was a lack of depth to it, all farms would yield the same amount of food, there was no massive project to keep you busy, the gods were all the same, and you didn't have a lot of choice over whether you had a peaceful or warring scenario. Pharoah changes that. Your farms will yield various amounts of food or goods based on the floodplain, the meadow, irrigation, or other things affecting them. Sometimes you run out of room in a storage yard or granary, and the workers in the field will stand there and be drowned. Sure, it's a little extreme, I don't expect the average citizen to allow themselves to be drowned, but it does give the "you snooze, you lose" feeling. If you can't store it, you lose it.

The gods are much improved over Caesar 3. Each god has a personality, and they have a pecking order now. There's a patron god for each scenario, and 0-4 local gods. The patron deity needs more attention than the lesser gods, and all gods can help or harm your city. You can get double crops, full storage yards, festivals thrown for other gods and other things if they are happy, and plagues, destroyed farms, and lowered kingdom ratings if you piss them off.

The monuments are another thing I like. You can't just meet the basic requirements; sometimes you have to build a monument as well, which takes time, supplies, and a lot of labor. It takes time to put a monument together, which is nice and annoying, if you need the time to finish up your city it's not a big deal, but if you've met all the other requirements in the scenario, the monument building can take a while.

All in all Pharoah is a great game. My only complaint is when I start a new family and I have to go through the first few levels, which are like an in-game tutorial. If you've played Caesar 3 before, or played Pharaoh before it can get old.

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