Publisher Sega and developer Creative Assembly today shared the first dev diary for Total War: Pharaoh, detailing the grand strategy game’s Outposts and Competences alongside a few other features we’ll inevitably encounter during our campaigns.
Total War: Pharaoh launches with seven different types of Outposts that serve a variety of purposes, from military to economic. Building a Fort in a region gives your armies a building that they can garrison and from which they can protect that particular area.
Total War: Pharaoh Dev Diary 1
A different type of Outpost is the Monument, which increases your legitimacy and strengthens your claim to the throne.
Other Outposts render units immune from the effects of desert attrition, reduce unit upkeep, or improve resource production in the regions that house them.
This new type of building complements those in your settlement, both being vital if you plan on succeeding during your campaign.
Total War: Pharaoh’s characters level up as your campaign progresses, allowing you to spend points across three Competences.
Presence represents a character’s ability to inspire the men around them during battle. Fortitude represents your ability to withstand harm both in and out of battle, while Ardour shows how quickly characters can make decisions.
Leveling them up comes with a variety of gameplay effects. Spending points into Presence increases the offensive capabilities of your armies, Fortitude raises defense, while Ardour lets them move faster both in battle and on the campaign map.
Total War: Pharaoh’s Competences also act as a prerequisite for Titles, special names that you can assign to characters. Each faction has “bespoke variety of titles that they can use,” according to the developer.
Competences are also based on a character’s background, affecting both the initial distribution of points and the types of traits available to that character.
A bloodthirsty warrior will be more likely to gain the Cruel trait rather than its polar opposite, Merciful.
Total War: Pharaoh also sees ancillaries returning while introducing a new equipment ancillary type. Equipped weapons, armor, shields, and mount determine that general’s bodyguard type on the field of battle.
The game’s first dev diary also explores other subjects, like the victory point rework, which we’ve also covered in our hands-on preview.
For even more on the grand strategy game, you can learn how crowns impact gameplay, alongside which factions will be playable at launch.
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