Pyramids - The Great Battles of the Pharaoh

Pyramids - The Great Battles of the Pharaoh
Developer(s)	Empire Entertainment and Haemimont Games
Publisher(s)	Empire Entertainment and FX Interactive
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Genre	Real-time strategy
Rating(s)	*PEGI: 12 ESRB: T CERO: A
Mode(s)	Singleplayer, Online multiplayer
Media	CD

Pyramids - The Great Battles of the Pharaoh is a real-time strategy game, and the last installement of the Pyramids series, sequel to Pyramids, Pyramids 2 and Pyramids 3. It is suggested to be developed by Haemimont Games and Empire Entertainment and published by FX Interactive and Empire Entertainment exclusively for Microsoft Windows.

During the official release, the game will also be released in Steam. Howerer, in non-Steam releases, no Internet connection will be needed in order to activate the game.

An iPhone and iPad version, called Pyramids Battles, and an online version, called Pyramids Online, will be also released.

New features to Pyramids III

• Instead of the campaign, the Story mode stands in the game, and covers all the Egyptian story (especially military history), from the first Egyptian unification by Narmer / Menes to the Roman invasion of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. An affiliate mode, the Great Battles, shows alternative stories of Egypt or even the victories oc Egyptian enemies.
• A major feature has been added in game: the Egyptian "money", the deben.
• A new multiplayer mode, Pharaoh War, is now awaible.
• Now, not only you can unlock wallpaper images, videos and music by completing various modes, but also by buying them.
• The Pharaohnic Avatar in the Pharaoh War, another great new in the series, will feature several combinations, probably almost
• All 10 factions of the previous 3 games will appear in this game, plus 2 new factions and 6 DLC, which makes a total of 18 factions.
• The new conquest mode, Age of Empires, is added.

Main menu

• Training
• Story (new mode)
• Great Battles (new mode)
• Age of Empires (new mode)
• Battle
• Challenge
• Mission
• Multiplayer
• Pharaoh War (new multiplayer mode)
• Extras
  • Royal tomb (image theatre)
  • Harem (video theatre)
  • Musician stage (music theatre)
  • Library (encyclopedia)
• Options

Factions

All the 10 factions in the previous 3 episodes come back in this title, plus 2 new factions never appeared in there. 6 other factions are awaible to download, for free to Italian and Spanish users of the game (since the publishers, the FX Interactive, distribuite the game in Italy and Spain with all their affiliated countries), or payable for other countries.

• Classic Egypt
• Ptolemaic Egypt
• Hatti
• Persia
• Rome
• Macedon
• Nubia
• Libya
• Arabia
• Seleucidia - Seleucide Empire
• Assyria (new faction!)
• Phoenicia (new faction!)

• Babylon (DLC)
• Carthage (DLC)
• Greece (DLC)
• Mitanni (DLC)
• Sumeria (DLC)
• India (DLC)

Other 2 factions may be addes as DLCs:

• Gallia
• Scythia

Story Mode

Story mode is one of the new in this game over the previous episodes. It allows the player to relive all Egyptian Campaigns with their relative villains, each one with 10 stages.

Egyptian Story

Story	Start	End	Main villain	Status
1 - Rise of an empire	3150 BC	2040 BC	Egypt	Canonical
2 - The barbarian of the sea	1790 BC	1530 BC	Egypt / Hyksos	Canonical
3 - The wars of the Tutmosids	1496 BC	1424 BC	Phoenicia, Mitanni and Nubia	Canonical
4 - The campaigns of Ramses	1275 BC	1274 BC	Hatti	Canonical
5 - The sea comeback	1179 BC	1176 BC	Libya	Canonical
6 - The Assyrian invasion	670 BC	653 BC	Assyria	Canonical
7 - The Persian domination	525 BC	332 BC	Persia	Semi-canonical
8 - The Ptolemaic Empire	310 BC	217 BC	Seleucidia	Canonical
9 - The Roman showdown	51 BC	30 BC	Rome	Uncanonical

Great Battles Mode

Another new in the game is the Great Battles Mode, which, obviously, allows the player to revive new battles in the Egyptian story or change the course of history. The first of the 5 battles are playable with the Egyptians, while the other 5 belong to the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Seleucids and the Romans.

The Pharaohs of the Nile	The Enemies of the Sphinx
1 - Inside Kadesh - 1274 BC	1 - The death of the Pharaoh - 1274 BC
2 - Pharaoh's coalition - 605 BC	2 - Thebes' siege - 663 BC
3 - Rematch at Pelusium - 535 BC	3 - Rage of an Achemenid - 3?? BC
4 - Alexander the Great - 3?? BC	4 - Raphia's borders - 217 BC
5 - The Nile to arms - 51 BC	5 - Augustus on the Nile - 31 BC

Age of Empires Mode

Another new is the Age of Empires mode, where the player can choose a civilization among 10 (Egypt is in fact united in Classic and Ptolemaic, and Seleucidia was born only after Alexander the Great's death) and the eventually downloaded DLCs. Completing this Conquest-mode at least once will unlock new screenshots and special contents, and earn a huge quantity of deben.

Rules

• The game is set in a Risiko-like map, where the Generals, represented as pawns, are moved from a province and city.
• All civilizations and factions in this mode have at least one, or even two starting provinces.
• Each province in this game has 3 cities, one of them a Great One. The player who conquers an entire province gain all of its advantages, most of all in economic terms.
• Four contestants are present: Civilizations (the only playable factions, the 12/10 standard factions plus the 6 DLCs), Factions (independent kingdoms, divided in many ethnies, such as African, Anatolians, Italics, Celtics...), Barbarians (hordes of the non-playable factions) and Rebels (dishonored generals or family members, independent tribes or bandits).
• The game begins in 3000 BC, with all civilizations and factions in the middle of Cooper Age. Each turn dures 3 months, thus making a whole year 4 turns/seasons.
• In order to create a new army, the player needs a general, who can:
  • Gain experience after each battle won;
  • Gain distinctive traits of personality (Fool, Cook, Twisted, Lazy, Brave...);
  • Recruit mercenaries in proper forts;
  • Gain special characters which increase their base parameters;
  • Join fleets and become admirals, as long as they stay in water;
  • Join its forces with another general, so they can share experience in case of victory.
• In order to survive, a civilization needs at least a province. If it loses it, the conqueror assimilates it, and the faction is eliminated from the game.
• Despite land and naval battles work in the usual way, a combination of these two types can happen. The gameplay in the conquest of another civilization's city is the same in the series, while it can vary when conquering any other territory:
  • Conquer all the villages belonging to the factions within 2 hours.
  • Conquer all the keeps belonging to the factions within 2 hours.
  • Defend the settlement in half an hour (30 minutes).
  • Kill at least 50 kills within 1 hour.
• Each Civilization also possess a Great Leader and 3 family members, all belonging to the genealogic tree of the civilization. Family members always act as generals, but are much more important than them; in fact, the player must assure the health and security of all heirs, not only the Leader, as conquering all the enemy cities is not enough to destroy a civilization, but it also needs to eliminate all of its family members, thus exterminating the whole genealogic tree.
• The Leader of a Civilization possess a special attribute, called Honor, while all Generals and Family Members possess Loyalty. Honor can change after diplomatic relations, and from that it depend all the Loyalty of all of his Generals and his Family Members. Honor can increase after doing a favour to another faction or a civilization or assuring public security in as much provinces as possible, or doing the right decisions for the empire. Instead, it can decrease if people are greatly discontent by the Leader's decisions, or after bad diplomatic decisions, or even betrayals. A Familiar or General must stay loyal to the Civilization Leader so he feels respected and even loved, but the Leader himself must protect his people in order to guarantee the stability of the civilization. When a General or a Family Member loses all of his Loyalty, he quits the Civilization and joins the Rebels, or a Faction or even an enemy Civilization.
• As this is a Risiko-like game, the player can upgrade the power of the cities by clicking an apposite button and then on a city, provided the player has enough tribute (the main money on the strategic map). This also raises the public order in the city.
• When a city is conquered, the conqueror has three coices: annex it to his empire, impose a great tribute (which raises taxes but sacrifices some public happiness) or sack it (with a great chance to earn a great loot but also to make the people angry).
• In diplomacy there are many options: War, Alliance, Cease-Fire, Military Access, Give/Ask proprieties of Cities/Provinces, Line of Sight, Map Information, Trade Rights, Vassalling, Technologies Exchange and also Make Peace/War with other Factions and Civilizations.
• Numerous events are present in this game: locusts plagues, earthquakes, waterquakes, volcano eruptions, plagues, storms, revolts, famines, great immigration, population booms, barbarian invasions, civil wars, unexpected fortunes or new production methods...
• Generals and Family Members can enter in cities to improve its Public Oder and thus its happiness. Horever, this also allows them to accept bonus missions, such as:
  • Protect an important person from a group of assassins;
  • Protect a sacred place or a caravan from thiefs;
  • Build a Great Wonder;
  • Eliminate bandits;
• All characters can die by old age, sickness, war, assassination or accidents. Horever, if there is a chance, the character can instead survive and return to the Capitol after a couple of turns.
• When a General / Family Member wins a battle (not a siege), there is always a chance to capture prisoners, and the defeated general himself as a change to be captured. The winner has four choices: execute them, enslave them, ask for a ransom or release them.
• Each Civilization Capitol possess a Great Palace, its most important building. If it is destroyed after a conquest, all the empire of the defeated suffers from a great happiness decrease, and some of its cities may revolt.
• There is normally no time limit, but the limit is still possible to put. There are 4 victory conditions:
  • Time over: It is set a number of turns, after the end of which the player with the highest score wins (it is the only victory condition to have a time limit);
  • Master of the World: The player who owns a total of 50 provinces is the winner;
  • Sole survivor: The player who conquers all the provinces is the winner;
  • Wonderful Empire: The player who builds or holds all of the 14 Great Wonders is the winner.
• Before any Age of Empires game starts, the player can also choose how many and what civilizations can be active in game.

Pharaoh War Mode

Pharaoh War is the advanced version of the multiplayer mode of the game. In this mode, player can still play with other players, but not in simple games, but in competitive and cooperative versions of Story Mode, Challenge Mode, Mission Mode and ultimately Nile Valley. This mode requires the player's Pharaonic Avatar.

Winning games will raise Experience Points and allow to level up in a traditional Experience Level-Up System. The Experience Levels are resembled in ancient gerarchies, and each level up improves the parameters of the players in Multiplayer. Each gerarchy is divided in 7 levels, from slaves to kings. Each time the player gains a rank, training costs and food consumption are decreased, and training and technologies speed, gold and food production, and unit attack, defense and health are increased, each by 25% per player level, until the player reaches 150% for each parameters:

• Food comsuption reduction
• Gold costs reduction
• Food production
• Gold production
• Unit attack
• Unit defense
• Unit health

Players can also create new alliances or join pre-existing ones. Each alliance can have up to 100 members. Alliances allow the players to create cooperative games in the singleplayer modes, and fight together in order to beat national/continental/world time/score records. They also allow the players to fight against other alliances in matches ranging from 1vs1 to 4vs4.

It's worth remembering that in order to play internet games, GameSpy or other multiplayer programs are required.

Other titles

• Italian title: Pyramids - Le Grandi Battaglie del Faraone
• Spanish title: Pyramids - Las Grandes Battallas del Faraòmn
• French title: Les Grandes Battailles du Pharaon
• German title: Die Großen Schlachten des Pharao
• Russian title: Пирамиды: Great Battles фараонов
• Croatian title: Piramide - Velika Bitke faraona
• Arab title: الأهرامات - معارك كبيرة من الفراعنة
• Korean title: 피라미드 - 파라오의 위대한 전쟁
• Portoguese title: Pyramids - As grandes batalhas dos Faraós
• Lituan title: Piramidės - Didžiosios Kovos faraono
• Lettonian title: Piramīdas - Lielā Cīņas par faraona
• Eesti title: Püramiidid - Great Battles of Pharaoh
• Jew title: פירמידות - הקרבות הגדולים של פרעה
• Greek title: Πυραμίδες: Οι μεγάλες μάχες των Φαραώ οι μεγάλες μάχες του Φαραώ
• Chinese title: 金字塔 - 法老王的大战役
• Japanese title:
  • Pyramids: ファラオの偉大な戦い (kanji)
  • Pyramids: Fuxa rao no idai natatakai(romaji)
  • Pyramids: The Great Battles of the Pharaoh (translation)