Pharoah a New Era Review – A modern nostalgia trip

Way back in the olden times (circa 1999) city builders like Pharoah a New Era were all the rage on PC. The god-like ability given to a player to build a city from nothing was a genre that players across the globe indulged in. From ancient Rome to Greece to Egypt players got to play out what-if fantasies of building an empire from nothing. One of those games that is often spoken of fondly is Pharoah and now modern gamers have a remaster to test their mettle in.

City builders offer the player the chance to live out their city planner dreams, something I never thought would be worthy of creating in a game. However, once you get into the game you realise how much fun it is to plan the layout of your city and what a power trip it can be to control the fates of all the people who live and work in your city is. It also gives you a chance to do it your way, the right way that the people who build and maintain your city never get right. For us South Africans any city builder that had power generation as a mechanic would be the sole focus.

Pharoah a New Era starts you off slowly introducing you to the base mechanics. This is not something that you should skip over or click through as fast as possible. Much like the original, the remaster is an intricate game of interlocking and interdependent mechanics. Everything you build and do has an effect elsewhere in your city. Like any real city it is like a living organism that requires you to pay attention to the smallest detail no matter how inconsequential it may be.

These early warning signs if ignored can signal disaster later on. On top of maintaining all your buildings and the economy you better ensure that you have enough food stored for the inevitable flood or drought as well as enough leisure spaces for your citizens, because if you don’t they will grown unhappy and then revolt.

Citizens are the lifeblood of a game like this, watching them march about the roads going about their business is like watching the heart circulate blood around a body. If they get caught in a chokepoint due to poor city design or have no where to drop off goods or services, the city will have a heart attack. On top of all that you to ensure their happiness with adequate wages (something our current corporate and governmental overlords should take note of) and enough space to relax and recuperate.

Pharoah a New Era has two labour recruitment systems in place, the original system of having recruiters visit homes or the much better Global Recruitment Pool that only requires that the places of work be connected to a road. The latter requires less micromanagement which is welcome in a game with a myriad of systems to keep track of. If you want to challenge yourself (masochist!) you can switch to the original system.

Another aspect of city builders tends to be the military management side. Every ancient city had to have a militia to protect the citizens and occasionally expand the ruler’s influence through violence. Pharoah a New Era is no exception although unlike some city builders the military is not as much of a focus as the aspects. If you get attacked an adequate military should be able to defend your city with some damage.

There are some military focused missions in the game, but for the most part if creating, maintaining and upgrading an army is not something you are particularly keen on, Pharoah a New Era allows you to focus elsewhere with no dire consequences.

The game offers you a myriad of options and tweaks to suit your play style. Don’t want citizens to fall prey to a horrible crocodile attack, you are on the Nile after all, switch off predators. Want to reduce the admin around your population further, switch off Age Simulation so that a fixed percentage of your population is always eligible to work instead of growing old and dying off. And yes cheats are still available to make you laugh and cry at the same time.

While these options are all welcome improvements, there are still a few things missing. For one a mini-map is missing from launch. The devs have promised that it will be added in a patch, however, when I booted this up about a month ago that had not yet gone live. Additionally, diplomatic options could’ve used a welcome upgrade. Instead of being able to send some of your extra goods to a neighbouring city you can only send money to Egypt. Expanding on these options like later games did is something that I am disappointed the devs did not consider.

Pharaoh a New Era is a welcome return to the ancient Egypt for both older gamers looking for a modern nostalgia trip or newer gamers looking to see what held our attention all those years ago. The modern upgrades are a welcome enhancement that ensure that what you remembered the game being like is what it is like, but they do have you scrabbling through your old boxes for the discs you definitely still have because this game just isn’t what you wanted. I highly recommend this modern nostalgia trip to virtual city planners old and new.