Exploring The GOOD & BAD of A Total War Saga: Troy - Retrospective 2023 Review 

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I hope the stances in Pharaoh will also include proper formations such as a shield wall !! Otherwise, the stances seem interesting, you could let your soldier recede in the center in order to surround your enemies, which certainly seems interesting and also reflects the battle tactics of the period.

Troy and Pharoah should have been a single true historical title.

I liked the concept of Troy but it's the only tw where i couldn't keep my interest throughout the campaign.

I like Troy and I am hyped for Pharaoh. We really should had a grander Bronze Age game instead of two different titles.

CA needs to develop a new engin e to improve on the problems of the games released in the past 10 years. Floaty units with crap collision. Bigger armies and unit sizes. and the most henious problem of all CRAP BATTLE AI. Iff the AI is not competent, the game is not going to be fun. I play total war for the battles and if the AI literally cannot put up a challenge then it is NOT fun. Hope next historical game has a new engine and it is Empire 2. Great review!

I feel like this game grew on me overtime. Its style captivates me like Rome 2.

I have said it before on other channels but in my opinion, Troy was a game I felt that CA just didn't commit to. If Troy released how it is now, I feel it would have been very well received by the community but when it was released, I was disappointed because of how much potential the game had that just didn't get used properly. I really hope that they don't make the same mistake with Pharoah because I feel that it has been a while since we have gotten a game that was good on launch.

The battle ui icons above the units are so immersion breaking 😅

Like with all Saga Titles, Troy was almost an absolute banger, but it just fell short in a lot of the things it tried too implement.

I’m just hoping Medieval III (if it’s made) isn’t based on the Troy/pharaoh engine.

While I understand the majority of your complaints I still feel like most of these things either won't be a problem with Pharoah[Such as unit variety bc with Troy they literally said they wanted it to be mostly infantry and that isn't the case with Pharoah] or are overarching problems with alot of Total War games, not just Troy. For instance I've seen people complain that Rome 2's battles are too short, and just about every Total War Campaign since like Empire has had bad AI. Not to mention, I don't think it's particularly fair to say a game is going to suck just bc it shares a similar art style to a game that was not well received. I agree Troy is not a very good Total War but I also do not think anyone should be so rash as to judge Pharoah without giving it a fair chance.

For me it's one of the greatest games ever. The historical complexity of the factions is on point, the fact that you can choose between historically accurate/hybrid/total fantasy is amazing, the simple yet challenging economic system is great and the unit differences, in the latest parts of the game, matters a lot. I'm playing as Agamemnon: I got half of the greeks as tributaries but my food economy is in ruin because I have so much stuff in my hands that my level of administration cost is exploding. I'm #1 strongest leader in 110 turns and everyone fugging invades me. Idk how but these Trojans are damn strong, sieges without minotaurs/cyclops are a slaughterhouse...a perfect chaos

It's almost like I've been playing the same game since Rome 2 was released.

Honestly preferred the style from troy what's wrong with a bit cartooney the art is amazing

The only positive that really comes to mind is that atleast the new game won’t be an epic games exclusive

I think Troy is a great game and I can't wait to see more news for Pharaoh

I was about to respond and refute point by point the criticism you thought up, but I kinda realized you are just biased against Troy for no reason. You criticize it for the *same things* all other Total Wars post-Rome 2 are guilty of, yet Troy does all of these things better than every post-Rome 2 TW. Some other points are literally inconsequential or outright wrong. "Bland UI", lol, when Troy has extremely gorgeous and thematic art in basically every UI window. The unit cards are bland because people complained Rome 2's were unreadable. They thought that designing the unit cards like the art on Greek vases would invite the same ire. The sieges in Troy are the best post-Rome 2 sieges, I have no idea what you are on about at that point and don't get me started on your thoughts on battles, you couldn't have missed the mark more utterly. The whole video just seems motivated by the desire to please the crowd and blindly follow what people have said about Troy, instead of a genuine exploration of this game. Troy is the best post-Rome 2 Total War and you, the reader who isn't TheTerminator, shouldn't be misled by this video.

I don't get this 'fast paced battle' argument, I have been going through most total war games and the battles are equally fast paced in most games

Most people don't know this about the game since most players played one battle and just autoresolved or uninstalled after that, but they changed the way MD and flanking works so that it's done on a per-unit basis, not per model like in other games. So in rome 2 for example, the unit only takes flaking MD penalties for the models in the back of the unit when it gets flanked by infantry/cav, and then once the models turn around the nerfs are gone. Not so in Troy, if a unit is battling in front, then gets flanked, every model fighting in both directions get MD penalties now, flanking is much much more useful in the game than before, it helps give the battles an edge, once you're aware of it happening

My main was 3k, but it was left in a disappointing state imho. Once Pharaoh was announced by Sophia, I too have gone back to Troy (free on Epic +Amazon dlc) to acclimate to a Bronze period TW game. I’m enjoying myself, and I’m now thinking that I prefer having the option to play a campaign in a non historic mode. So I’m not pre ordering and will likely buy a Steam master set for Troy at the holiday sale. Maybe down the road, and for a discount, I’ll buy a balanced, and bug lite Pharaoh. Thanks for opinion and content

I wonder, if they use a resource based economy, if the stages of collapse will end up weekening factions rosters(because they don't have resources for units) also I am disapointed that the tribes(including sea peoples) are unplayable

why is no one talking about the small unit sizes in both?

I like total war troy though they could have made it better, it should have more factions, more land mass, better campaign. and a lot more.

Players: we want medieval 3 Ca: cool, take troy dlc with Egypt

I really dont know why ppl hate Troy....its a very good game

My thing with this new game is why was it not a DLC to Troy? why a full game no one ask for. Why not a game about alexander and his commanders after his death?

Enjoyed the video! I'm hoping it is not a reskin of Troy (or very similar gameplay wise) as it's been a long since we got a proper historical release and I'm excited to really delve into a new game.

One thing that hits hard with the game is the music. Honestly? This game might have the best soundtrack out of all Total war games. And this is coming from a Shogun 2 fan.

Im somewhat of a Total War Noob. I bought Rome 2 a year ago, played the tutorial and forgot about it. Then I bought Warhammer 3, played the Tutorial and forgot about it. The same for Rome Remastered & Pharao. But then I also bought Troy and it suddenly clicked. Now I understand how to play Total War and I just LOVE the atmosphere and gameplay loop in Troy, although it is still pretty tough for me. (Dont ask me why I bought all these Total War Games, they pulled me in with the idea, but somehow I had a pretty hard time getting into it)

It did make me laugh when the Chaos Dwarfs first dropped with new mechanics that we had never.... Seen... Anywhere... Before.... 🤔 but of course no one minded then. I hope Pharaoh includes the food system from Thrones of Britannia to be honest, literally the only total war to date that has actually made food a meaningful mechanic.

Troy is my second favourite total war after medieval 2. It is the only total war game where I prefer fiddling around with the campaign map without necessarily wanting to battle often. I love the manual trade, divine favour mechanics, immersive hero journeys and surprisingly somewhat smart AI in diplomacy and overall strategy. I can name only two conspicuous flaws: the bad provincial settlement economy, whereby capitals merely serve to stabilise and augment minor settlements; and the lack of battle formations.

I will probably buy this game specifically for the feature of falling back while fighting without turning around, and the return of walls actually mattering because of the removal of pocket ladders and the return of actual stairways or tower fights. And I will probably leave a review specifically saying that I bought the game for those features because I strongly believe that is the most ridiculous thing in all of the modern total war games, which have basically all been total war warhammer that I've played and hopefully modders can port that back into Warhammer 3

I kinda-sorta agree with everything, especially the "suddenly it's total war" part, i've always hated that during my campaigns, the only time i was somewhat relaxed was during both my amazon playthrough; maybe it could have been something latched to the actual quest line you follow during the campaign, where when you reach a certain quest the war actually starts in a way or another. But one if i have to had one note...i strangely never felt the lack of cavalry. I thought i would, but i didn't. During my first campaign with Enea i actually used a lot of two-handed mace light infantry and they were *fast*, like 62 speed. And i had to use them because i was facing a *lot* of ranged units and all of them would run so fast my standard line man could not reach them. And in a strange way, this is something i really like; in other total war are almost never recruit light cavalry because at the end of the day it has the same role as as the heavy one, but cost aside, it rarely provide me something more. Here instead i was massively recruiting a lower-light infantry unit instead of his late game equivalent because it would allow me to keep them hidden in the tall grass and quicly ambush them while faking a retreat with the main line.

Never managed to get peace with the trojans. Even after conquering more than half their territory.

I love the setting of Troy and Pharaoh so I will keep playing them for that reason. I also have gotten used to the advanced diplomacy options and the multi-resource system so going back to titles that only have gold feels like a downgrade in that regard. I will say that the diplomacy is a bit poorly optimized in this game, though not broken to the point where you can't play. You just have to adopt a specific strategy if you want to win, otherwise you will get swarmed and slowly gnawed to death by all the AI factions. The main issue in my eyes is that the game makes you feel like you can either go straight towards expanding your territory or take it slow and put yourself in an advantageous position thru diplomacy. That is not the case. At around turn 70 an enemy faction will declare you as their antagonist and slowly each small neutral faction will declare war on you. This is especially irritating if you are a Greek faction, as you end up fighting the Trojans and all the small Greek factions North of you. In addition to that many of your allies will eventually sign peace treaties with the enemy leaving you to fight more than half of the factions on the map alone. So yeah, I learned you can't just maintain two armies as Agamemnon and use diplomacy to slowly wither away your opponents and confederate allies over time, and that truly sucks imho. If someone wants to play like that, it should be an option. The strategy that works for this game is basically expanding as fast as you can until turn 70, gaining as many allies as possible by siegeing settlements adjacent to the faction you want to ally with and then giving them the regions in exchange for a military alliance. As soon as all hell breaks loose you need to consistently be #1 in power ranking, keep winning battles and build multiple armies to both defend your lands and expand outward. At a certain point you reach critical mass where you can finally support 2-3 extra armies to send over to the opposite continent and create a successful colony. Then you just keep expanding and upgrading settlements until you finally reach their capital. I think overall Troy is easier to play; Rhesus and Amazons make really good allies and the area to the North-East of the map is virtually inaccessible to the enemy after you conquer it. Trojans also have early access to archers which don't cost any bronze and they make short work of crappy Greek slingers. Greek nations are easier to confederate tho. Just be sure to make LOTS of allies early game and keep the small factions near you friendly so they don't immediately declare war as soon as they gain neutral status.

“I’m just bored” sounds like you are growing up and videogames just don’t cut it anymore, it happens to the best of us.

Troy was pretty good. There are some valid issues though. Floaty units, lackluster charge collision, dumb battle AI. That and adding mythos DLC behind a paywall. Make this game a no.

Not even on my radar. I got burned way too many times by CA. I'll take a look at release but i don't get my hopes up.

I really appreciate how candid you are and willing to explore the alternatives to the doom and gloom many of us feel. Signs point to real effort being made to improve up on Troy and learn from mistakes there but I'm still concerned. Fingers crossed for a great game.

I just bought this game and I have to say it's hard to imagine this was released after warhammer total war, mainly because of the battles. The unit cards are unreadable, the unit roles counters and weaknesses unclear and the greatest sin of all must be the lack of formation options in a game that is set in the age of formations. Cavalry wasn't a thing during the greek times so it makes sense it's not in the game (unless you activate mythology mode). All the more reason to spend more time developing proper infantry variations and formations. Currently you can just spam whatever, the bigger army wins. Ranged units are useless.

For those who read books, try my post-Troy novel *The Diomedeia: Diomedes, the Peoples of the Sea, and the Fall of the Hittite Empire*, by Gregory Michael Nixon.

i dont understand the cartoony and less than realistic visual style complaint. Like, what is the problem? The use of color? Dude, ancient people didnt have a gray filter like in hollywood films and that region of the world isnt particularly humid and misty as britain.

I think the biggest disconnect with CA in Troy is due to the Epic store exclusivity. They may incorrectly assume the game was received poorly due to that rather than the real reason of it just not being a good total war game.

I loved performance and campaign map look. The best so far. But I didn't play it more than 10hrs. Now I am playing 3k tw.

Hi. I have an issue, pheraps you can help me. There are resources buildings that say in description "plus 1% food/wood per turn in all the faction" or "plus 15% food/wood per turn in the province". Now the problem is these buildings effects do not apply. Every turn I look at the production of food/wood and it does not improve. Am I missing something?

Getting bored in a long Total War game is a problem with them all.

How can your units have 90 troops? Mine only have like 30.

Pharaoh is doomed.

CA please make either Empire 2 or medieval 3 and dont fuck it up

Should be a Peloponnesian total war or something I mean who wouldn't want to run rampant as the Spartans or elect officials as the Athenians

I like the game. On sale, it's definitely worth getting. It's incredibly cheap on Epic Games as well.

There's a spiritual expansion to Troy called "Pharaoh".

i want simple answer buy or not?

What do you mean with slow or fast battles? You have of course less options because of the technological limitations of the time.

I dropped this game, but recently returned just to give it another try. Sucked, but again like always the modding community saved it for me. Now I genuinely enjoy the game. It sucks that we have to rely on mods for the game to be good, but still it's hard to deny the love modders give to games. Now I hear that there is a lord of the rings mod being worked on for this, hope it's true the potential is huge.

Troy has issues and I agree with most of your criticisms if not all but I still think its a good game. The visuals and immersion make up for a lot of the shortcomings

The worst thing in Troy is how unbearably long the campaign is. As soon as you get strong enough and can finally bring the fight to the Trojans (or the Greeks, depending on your faction) every single dumb minor faction will declare war on you for no reason, despite them being so much weaker. And so you need to spend hours and hours fighting meaningless battles and conquering the whole world before you're able to conclude the campaign. Hopefully that won't be the case with Pharaoh

I hope pharaoh will be a good game. After all its the first truly historical game we´ve gotten in quite some time. But i also disagree that Troy Falls short, Admitably Troys history mode does. But mythos (which sadly requires a DLC) is fun, intressting, challanging and Beautiful. Its smaller scale then other total war but im fine with that. And honestly i don´t think i´ve ever been forced into the troyan war in this game, exept for when i was military allies with one of the other primary greek or trojan factions.

Best thing about Troy? I was able to claim it for free on EGS, and I feel I don't lose much even if I don't spend a cent. Truth behind myth is good enough and Mythos is overkill. Worst thing about Pharoah? On my steam store it costs more than WH1, WH2, 3Kingdoms and is only about 1-2 bucks less expensive than WH3.

Hey Jem😊 I was wondering if you could make video about the best (working) mods for Rome 2 and its dlc’s. Ive also seen people using a good mod manager that i cant find. Does it have something to do with warhammer? I only have Rome 2 and cant get a overview over active mods. Keep up the good work👏

Pharaoh probably just anther stop gap before medieval 3.

WTH no cavalry in an historical bronze age tittle ??? How dare they ! I saw the movie, horses everywhere !!! LOL

Yeah i soo wished much better done troy game😢 i soo love the greek history the illiad perfect story.. just the game isnt soo many ways could have been better❤ Rome2 is old but is soo much better

Wow, thanks. Saved me some money.

May be they are going to make a bronze age combined map combining two games

i am still hoping to see empire 2 with new engine and they make them justice like having troops in proper era uniforms

People need to stop complaining and give this game a chance. I think it looks good, and I also assume that given the fact that this game is situated in another era with a different scenario, I think that this game is going to be a lot of fun.

for me the biggest problem is just the scope of the map. They should have released troy as "Total War Bronze Age" and just add troy and the comming pharao as smaller campaing packs. Troy just feels too small for a full prized total war. And this problem got bigger with immortal empire from warhammer 3, we now know that the engine is capable to create a full world with lots of provinces. CA should lern from paradox: release fever games but support them longer with more content.

Mods will fix up the game probably add cav as well

I remember I played Troy at release with Achilles. At the start, it was really interesting with all those new mechanics, diplomacy, factions heroes etc. It got me hooked. And it was really challenging, especially at the beginning (I played on VH). But somewhere through mid-campaign, I just got simply bored. Troy factions had ridiculously stronger units and armies and I had no idea how could they afford to upkeep them. I remember it was very difficult for me to maintain elite units in my armies since they were so expensive to upkeep. Yet, Troy factions kept on spamming elite armies like there's no tomorrow. And somehow they kept on sending them to my territories. I really grew bored of keep on fighting endless stacks of elite armies. Eventually, I just stopped playing. I lost all the interest. The mechanics were good, but the AI was just way too unbalanced and the fights were really terrible. How can you even fight tactical if you don't have time to think at all. After the units clashed, the fight was over in like seconds.

These 5 minutes battles are ridiculous! CA says that in Pharaoh wheather will change during battles and I wonder how. A one-minute sandstorm in a 5 min battle? Ridiculous!

I’m just waiting for med2 remastered lol

We need three kingdom’s recruitment system - this whole I have to build a certain building to get a certain unit is so old-school - and they have a better system, so why not implement it? Just let us recruit armies directly with the general and they replenish over a few turns to full strength

if they only could hear you 😔

Problem with bronze age games is that there is so little known, so the studio really needs to be creative and innovative. Everything looks the same, and all the mustique around the period seems gone, which is on of the periods strong points. It looks flashy and shallow without direction.

Hey Terminator, did you find the Age of the Ring mod for BFMEII?

i try troy and pharoah , and i still think that warhammer total war and atilla is the best total war.

My Steam says I have 23 hours playtime since Jan 2022 = enough said

I’m fully convinced this was supposed to be a Troy DLC but due to the negative sentiment that game received they want to distance Pharaoh from it.

What killed Troy for me was the cartoony art style and the wonky battle mechanics where units clashed weird and had lots of space in between each other. Battles were my favorite aspect of older games but they never felt right in Troy. If it was a Bronze Age game in the Attila style of battles and art design I would be a lot more hyped for it. At present it is likely a complete skip for me:/

Troy total war is my favorite game from Total War series. My only issue is the DLC should have been included in the game + AI issues.

To be fair, the lack of cavalry in the game is because of cavalry wasn't present much, if at all, during that time period.

Do mods fix some of the more disappointing gameplay elements of the game?

graphics of this game are really trash feels like 2008

For me, the Truth behind the Myth thing killed my hype for Troy. They should have gone full historical or full fantasy with this and not try to make a mix to please both fans from Historical and Fantasy titles. Still, it had some good things on it. The resource system was actually good and the change weapons skill also. I can imagine in the future game, like Medieval 3, to have heavy knights that can change to polearms or greataxes depending the situation.

you should put some distance between your mouth and mic :)

Ive tried troy so many times I just couldn't get into it. Just like most of the segas games.

Cool 💎

If new pharaoh total war will look like Troy total war, I will give miss 😅😂 and good jobe I never both Troy total war, coz it was pointless waste of money😂

Time told

A few days ago I responded to the community poll you put out asking about people's thoughts at the first look of Pharaoh - more specifically, to some of the negative comments that I kept seeing over and over. Excuses are excuses, but when I wrote that comment it was like, 2am for me and I was ranting and rambling on an insomnia-driven tirade. Not the best start. Aside from just that though, my perspective has changed a bit in other ways in the last few days, including after seeing the videos you've released since that poll. I decided to give Troy another spin to refresh myself ahead of Pharaoh since it will indeed share a lot of similarities with the UI, resource management, and (some) battle functions, and so on. Frankly, I found myself thinking along the lines of the pros and cons you laid out here in this retrospective, ESPECIALLY with the glaring weaknesses of siege battles, and with the abrupt onset of all the Trojan factions declaring on you making the conflict feel contrived and hollow. It's along these lines that I - like you alluded to as well - appreciate how Pharaoh will appear to address the Sea Peoples crisis in a more sophisticated, all-encompassing manner. I made this comparison before, but it feels even more true now - that seems much more in line with the arrival of Attila in TW: Attila, and the sheer scope and scale and TONE of sheer despair and destruction. I know it's early, but IMO I think Pharaoh could very well deliver on that. Also, hooray for the proper return of manually constructing siege ladders! No more pocket siege! In essence, I do think I was giving Troy a little too much credit before I actually went back and revisited it, as sad as it feels to say that. The direct similarities to Troy (by setting, by developer, and by mechanical and UI elements) are clear with Pharaoh, and with a better perspective on what specifically worked and didn't work with Troy, and how bad some of those things didn't work; I better understand the concerns over Pharaoh. I still don't think all is lost though, like in my original comment. I've always been at least cautiously optimistic with game releases, and that still holds true with Pharaoh, with a good amount of reason for that being the mechanics we saw in the first look, and the fact that it's still pretty early and we might see some changes by launch. As far as the content people feel is missing, no doubt that's gonna be packaged in the faction packs and first DLC campaign pack advertised with the preorder bundles, which sucks but it's really a decade-old Total War marketing tactic by now so I'm not surprised. Like I said in my earlier comment on the poll, this is definitely the prelude to the bigger, badder historical Total War coming up next, from a different team, in a different setting, with (hopefully) more of the good and less of the bad. My money's still on Medieval 3 although I'd love Empire 2. I see TheIronMenace's comment as one of the top comments at the time of writing this this, and I absolutely agree with them: CA DEFINITELY NEEDS A NEW ENGINE BY NOW. I reckon Pharaoh is the last hurrah of the current engine and that's what we're getting NOW to buy time for the reveal of the new engine - together with the hugely hyped historical title in either Med 3 or Empire 2 right alongside it - LATER. Probably not till Christmas 2024 at the earliest, I think. I like to think that I'll enjoy Pharaoh in the meantime though.

Thrones>Troy

Bronze age is boring. No cavalry for a start!

The series is going backwards if you ask me. Hell, I would rather see a Historic series set in China, Shogun maybe redone.

as always ca exaggerates first on one side then the other: how can you like to see a type of battle similar to that brought by the dei .... click on the enemy and wait 20 minutes for someone to die in the meantime ..... on troy the combat was beautiful ... see that the battle opened up over multiple points of conflict (so you better use light units to encircle and chase). let's see what the new title brings but from what I've seen until I patch it it will be the usual right click and youtube. The only problem with troy is the balance ... and the inability to deal with 5-6 armies coming out of the blue while you are in the negative in maintaining one

I could see it being workable if its a game that encompasses the entire eastern Mediterranean with all of the Bronze age empires. If its just Egypt and maybe a little of Palestine this game is gonna be an uninteresting pile of shit. The fact that they called it Pharaoh instead of Bronze Age or something makes me think they're going with the latter. No one asked for this title.

a 60$ (the peasant version) game everyone, feast your eyes on reused assets, unfixed bugs, removed features, terrible ai, overpriced dlc. I'll take a few wild guesses here, no naval battles, once again payment for blood dlc, bronze age warriors using siege towers like it;s the 100 year war. That's it, after 23 years this will be the first total war i will not buy, not even torrent. Only way i'm getting this POS is via humble bundle, hopefully not because i don't want it and i don't hate anyone enough to give to. Absolutely disgusting, they managed to destroy one of the most unique and beloved franchices in the niche world of strategy. Here's to indie devs and the competition they will bring. Total War is utter trash.

I have nothing to complain about Troy, as it was gifted by Epic, except, it got boring so fast.

The bad, literally all of the mythical stuff