Pharaoh - Thrive or Perish by The Nile

[MarlaDesat]

Pharaoh - Thrive or Perish by The Nile

The classic city building game set in ancient Egypt can make you feel like a pharaoh or a failure.

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[Tanis]

I didn't play Pharaoh until after Cleopatra came out, so I never experienced the vanilla game.

What kind of amazed me about the games is that one 'little' tile could be so damn useful.

I started with the CAESAR series and it was ALWAYS a pain in the ass to direct the flow of goods.
But, with that one little tile, everything changed in Zeus and Pharaoh.

Heh.

 

[elvor0]

I think Pharaoh was the second city building game I ever played. Loved it, not only was I heavily into ancient Egypt but I found it far, far more enjoyable than Ceasar 3. Mainly because the ancient egyptians were apparently much better at building houses that didn't collappse every five seconds and generate that awful collapsing noise.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

I played this game heavily back in the day.
I've always loved city building games or any other type of game that lets you direct your little people/creatures to go forth and discover, build, advance and create monuments in your name!
Muahaha..oh..right, where was I?

Not to be a downer or anything, but after a while if feels kind of, pointless..
At least to me, as whenever I feel that I know the ..rules of the game and how it will turn out I can't even bring myself to begin.

I've begun to want more randomness and procedural generation in my games.
I want the little buggers to feel like they exist on their own terms and not solely for me to direct unquestionably.

Great read anyhow, thanks for bringing back the good memories.

 

[Scow2]

I would have liked this game a lot more if it HADN'T had the retarded "Roamer" mechanic that demanded stupid, traffic-restricting city designs.

 

[Queen Michael]

Ooooh, I remember this! One of the voice actors for the Swedish version did the voice of Koopa in the Super Mario Bros. Super Show too. He's in pretty much every Swedish dub ever.

 

[small]

still one of the best city builders ever made, some of the team made an updated version with more detail called "children of the nile" not a bad game and worth looking at.

i remember playing the vanilla pharaoh and it didnt have the later speed up monument construction mechanic so building the great pyramid felt truly an achievement, funny i never had that much trouble with moving goods and i never used roadblocks

 

[Dirkie]

I've spent so many hours on this game, and it was fun.
Actually, it's a good thing GOG doesn't have any payment options I currently can use, and i'm missing one of the old disks (next to that, I don't think the original installation works with windows 7 anyway).

Strategic planning, logistics, people management, city layout management, it was all there, it looked good and you had to take many things into account for feeding your people, like the ebb and flow of the nile river, graneries, bazaars, gold mining, trade etc etc. It's addictive, it's fun and when I look at it, the graphics might be dated, but the mechanics underneath are great.

For a little bit more fun, different colours and greek mythology, try Zeus Master of Olympus and the slightly less realistic expansion Poseidon.

 

[Don Incognito]

Agreed with Dirkie above. The Sierra/Impressions Games history city-builder series truly hit its pinnacle with Zeus: Master of Olympus. A better army mechanic, a mythology component with gpds and heroes and monsters, more appealing graphics. Highly recommended.

 

[Xan Krieger]

I remember when this game took up half the harddrive of my old computer, good times back in the day. Bought it off GOG and feel young again, good times are back. Would recommend it to anyone who enjoys city builders and management sims since it can be a real test if you have a bad map.

 

[stringtheory]

I think Pharaoh was the second city building game I ever played. Loved it, not only was I heavily into ancient Egypt but I found it far, far more enjoyable than Ceasar 3. Mainly because the ancient egyptians were apparently much better at building houses that didn't collapse every five seconds and generate that awful collapsing noise.

Don't worry! You'll be hearing it from your temples, granaries and mines instead!

 

[Razorback0z]

Really good games the Pharaoh series, I enjoyed them a lot.

 

[elvor0]

I think Pharaoh was the second city building game I ever played. Loved it, not only was I heavily into ancient Egypt but I found it far, far more enjoyable than Ceasar 3. Mainly because the ancient egyptians were apparently much better at building houses that didn't collapse every five seconds and generate that awful collapsing noise.

Don't worry! You'll be hearing it from your temples, granaries and mines instead!

Indeed >< I'm pretty sure that was the first time I ever had a genuine rage quit.

 

[Frankster]

Pharaoh/Cleopatra is one of my all time favorite games and usually gets my nomination in them "best games ever/top 10 games ever" threads. City builder games ftw.

 

[Dirkie]

*snip*

Don't worry! You'll be hearing it from your temples, granaries and mines instead!

Indeed >< I'm pretty sure that was the first time I ever had a genuine rage quit.

Another rage inducing problem with the game was the general "happyness" factor, with the basic game (Pharaoh) you could get the needed amount of happyness, but with Cleopatra installed, it was impossible, because the happyness meter required certain buildings to be built to get the amount needed to win some scenarios, but those buildings were not available in those bits of the game.
Solution, finish the basic game first, and only then install the expansion.

But yeah, good times. Good times indeed.

 

[Kamurai]

With the time setting and the flaws mentioned, I would rather play a newer version of this game: not that it even sounds bad, but I think a 2nd version of this game could be a winner and it would feel a shame to play less than that.