Pharaoh (video game)
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| Pharaoh | |
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| Developer(s) | Impressions Games |
| Publisher(s) | Sierra Entertainment |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release date | 1999 |
| Genre(s) | Strategy/Simulation |
| Mode(s) | Single Player |
| Media | CD ROM |
| Input methods | Mouse + Keyboard |
| Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile | |
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| Developer(s) | BreakAway Games |
| Publisher(s) | Sierra Entertainment |
| Engine | Isometric projection |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release date | 2000 |
| Genre(s) | City-building game |
| Mode(s) | Single Player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB Everyone |
| Media | CD-ROM |
| Input methods | Mouse + Keyboard |
Pharaoh is an isometric city-building game set in Ancient Egypt created by Impressions Games and published by Sierra Entertainment for Windows-based computers. It involves the construction and management of settlements and cities in ancient Egypt, and is the first such themed game in the City Building series.
The game was released on October 31, 1999, and complemented with an expansion pack, Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile, developed by BreakAway Games the following year. Both the original game and expansion pack are commonly referred to, and may be purchased as one, under the title Pharaoh and Cleopatra.[1]
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[edit] Game description
- See this section of the City Building Series article for a gameplay overview.
Pharaoh is based on the same game engine as Caesar III, also by Sierra Entertainment, and operates on the same principles, but has many improvements and exceptions.
All scenario objectives must be met before the next city in a campaign can be accessed and played. Each mission sets five targets for the city, each being a value on a rating scale. A higher target along the scale represents a higher difficulty level for the city.
There are five rating scales: population, representing simply the number of residents in the city; the culture rating, representing the population's access to city services; monuments, which represents monument completion; the prosperity rating, which represents the city's financial success; and the kingdom rating, representing the city's relations with the Pharaoh and other cities in the kingdom.
[edit] People
The people of Pharaoh can be seen going about their daily lives inside a given city. There are many different types of people in a given city, these being:
- Indoor workers: These people can be viewed inside most of the buildings and structures, going about their daily tasks. The game does not, however, show indoor workers moving to and from their residences, or sleeping, as the later version Children of the Nile does.
- Outdoor workers: Outdoor workers are recruited by work camps and sent to work either in the fields performing agricultural work or to monument construction sites.
- Destination walkers: Destination walkers are those who are sent to a particular place in the city to do a particular thing. The most common destination walker is the delivery man who will take goods and products to and from their manufacture site to a storage yard or dock.
- Bazaar workers: Bazaar workers buy needed goods and then sell them to occupants of houses. Bazaars must have certain goods and must be able to regularly provide them in order for a housing unit to maintain itself.
- Service providers: Service provides wander the city streets offering their services to buildings as they pass them. There are several different types of service providers, among them entertainers, educators, religious priests, health care professionals, and civil servants. Road blocks may be erected to prevent service providers from wandering into areas of the city where they are not needed.
- Citizens: Citizens are special characters that find the unemployed workers and hire them for jobs in the city. Citizens are automatically generated by a structure needing employees and vanish once the structure has a full staff.
- Scribes: Scribes are the elite citizens of a city who do not perform work but simply engage in leisure and education activities.
- Children: The only children who appear inside the city are students who can be seen sitting inside the scribal school building and bazaar helpers who carry baskets of goods back to the bazaar for resale to houses. Clicking on bazaar helpers generates a comical statement where the small boy will proclaim: "Maybe I carry baskets now, but one day I'll run the bazaar!" or "That bossy lady makes me carry goods all day!"
- Criminals: Criminals appear during a crime wave and are spawned by housing units which have not been patrolled by a policeman, especially those located in a poor and run down area of town. There are two types of criminals: thieves, which steal money from the vaults of city administration buildings, and tomb robbers which attack monuments and steal burial provisions. Thieves and tomb robbers run through the streets and can be captured by policemen.
- Homeless: There are three types of homeless persons in the city: immigrants, emigrants, and homeless. Immigrants are coming to the city for the first time to find a home, emigrants are leaving the city, usually because the city sentiment is low. Homeless persons are former residents of a city who have been kicked out of their homes and now wander the streets. Homelessness usually results when a residence is downgraded due to losing a service or not having a critical supply, thus decreasing its occupant capacity.
- Soldiers: Soldiers are usually inside forts and cannot be accessed individually, but appear as one unit when clicking on them with a mouse. Exceptions are soldiers on their way to join a fort for the first time, who walk from a Recruiter or Academy alone to the fort, as well as lone sentries stationed on walls and inside watchtowers.
The streets of a city in Pharaoh can become very active with all the various city people going about their business. City people can be accessed by clicking on them with the mouse and the character will then provide a statement, usually about how they feel regarding the condition of the city.
[edit] Buildings
[edit] Housing
Citizens of Pharaoh's cities occupy several different levels of housing, all of which require certain services to be maintained. Higher levels of housing are also required to be located within "nice neighborhoods", determined by a level of "desirability." Desirability can be influenced by any industrial buildings in the general area (dragging the area down), as well as any nearby elegant or stately buildings (making the area more attractive). Statues and gardens may also be added to increase to appeal of an area.
The highest housing units are known as estates. The player, themselves, also may build a personal mansion, the size of which is determined by what mission is being played. The three different mansions are the Personal Mansion, Family Mansion, and Dynasty Mansion.
[edit] Religion
The gods present in Pharaoh are:
- Osiris, god of the Nile flood
- Ra, god of the Sun
- Ptah, god of industry and workers
- Seth, god of war
- Bast, goddess of the home
Some cities worship only a selection of these gods, and most cities have a 'patron god' which must be worshiped more than others and is harder to please. Gods are worshiped by building temples, shrines, and temple complexes. Temples dispatch priests to wander the city and spread the word of their particular god. Shrines are small monuments which have no staff but simply serve to appease those living near one. Temple Complexes may be built to any god, though they are usually only available for the Patron God. They are massive structures which greatly increase a god's activity in a particular city and grant the city special abilities. Temple complexes also can have altar and oracle additions, which pay homage to lesser gods.
Each Local Deity God expects the same as every other Local Deity. A Patron God expects more than a Local Deity and will often require much more attention.
In addition to temple-building, festivals may be thrown to specific gods to appease them. Happy gods will grant a city various special gifts or powers. If a god is angry, it may effect a disaster upon the city, relevant to the god's domain. Osiris, for example, will reduce the Nile flood, thus reducing agricultural yields. Seth will destroy troop forts, and Ra will lower a player's kingdom reputation.
[edit] Entertainment
Keeping the citizens of Pharaoh's cities occupied in their off time is a critical part of city planning and housing evolution. To evolve beyond the most basic cottage, a house must have access to at least some entertainment. Higher and more elegant homes requiring a full array of entertainment options to keep the occupants happy.
In Pharaoh, there are three main types of entertainment: Jugglers, Singers, and Dancers. each must be trained at a special school, known respectively as a Juggler School, Conservatory, and Dance School. Graduates of the school will either wander the streets of the cities, providing entertainment to houses as they pass, or perform shows on set stages positioned to serve multiple homes. The stages are divided into three class, those being Juggler Booths which have Juggler shows only, Bandstands which display jugglers and musicians, and the largest stage is the pavilion which features both jugglers and musicians as well as dancers.
For the most selective of citizens, a Senet House must be constructed. While not an actual entertainment show, Senet masters walk the streets of a city, inviting citizens to come to the Senet House. Unlike the other forms of entertainment, the Senet House does not require a separate training facility, it instead needs a steady supply of beer. Senet House access is the one of the highest possible forms of entertainment available in the game.
The ultimate form of entertainment is for a city to have a zoo, which is an addition only available in the Cleopatra expansion. Zoos require straw and meat to keep the animals comfortable and feed within, with zoos vastly raising a city's culture rating. Zoos send out zookeepers who invite citizens to visit the zoo, thus providing homes with zoo access.
[edit] Education
Pharaoh allows for the creation of an educated class of citizens who live in better homes and hold down less manual jobs. Citizens are educated by having access to a Scribal School which dispatches teachers to teach people in nearby homes. In the more cultured cities, a library may be erected which, in turn, sends out librarians to provide further education to the elite citizens. Both Scribal Schools and Libraries require a constant supply of papyrus to operate.
Those who have received a large amount of education and who live in the top class of homes, are eligible to become a Scribe. Scribes are elite citizens who do not hold a job in the city, but rather spend their days in academic pursuit. It should be noted however, that having too many scribes will cause the city's employment levels to drop, eventually causing some scribes to become ordinary citizens and rejoin the work force. This, in turn, makes the former scribes, and the city in general, unhappy.
[edit] Industry and agriculture
In Pharaoh, industry is not only necessary for the production of commodities but also plays a large role in the mining of construction materials, which are used in monuments.
Pharaoh also has a complex agricultural system based on the annual inundation of the Nile. Some areas of the city map next to the river are designated as flood plain areas, which are covered by water once each in-game year and where only farms and roads may be built. The extent of the flood determines how fertile the farms are when they are planted after the flood, and this determines the yield of the farm at the harvest season. Farms may also be built in fertile fields away from the river, but should be irrigated with a water lift system, channeling water from the Nile to the farms in order to make them fertile. Field farms operate year round while flood plain farms are dependent on the inundation.
In some missions, a "Hunting Lodge" may be built which sends out hunters year round to kill various game animals such as ostrichs, birds, and antelopes. Other animals, such as scorpions, hippopotamuses, crocodiles, and hyenas may not be hunted but will instead hunt citizens of the city who venture too near them. Other year round sources of food are the Fishery which will send out fishing boats into the Nile to catch fish, and the Cattle Farm which raises and slaughters cattle. Fisheries need a shipwright to build their fishing boats for them, but the shipwright constructs the small boats from scrap wood, not requiring imported or stockpiled wood from a storage yard. Cattle farms need straw to feed the cattle contained within.
There are several primary industries that a city may manufacture and requirements for advancement or mission completion may have a city importing resources as well. Cities may also grow certain types of food, and often must import more food to either feed the entire population or have a city with multiple food types (required for higher level residences).
When food and industrial goods are not being used immediately, they are stored in a granary (for food) or a storage yard (for other goods). Food may also be stored in a storage yard instead of a granary if it is being imported or stockpiled. Storage yards and granaries may be ordered to hold only certain types of food/goods or empty their contents of unneeded supplies. Storage yards may also stockpile goods to build up a resource of a needed item.
| Primary industry | Raw Product | Secondary industry | Product | Uses |
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| Wood Cutter | Wood | Chariot maker, shipwright | Chariots | Wood for Shipbuilding; scaffolding (for monument construction); Chariots as equipment for Recruiter building for training chariot-riders |
| Clay Pit | Clay | Potter, Artisan Guilds, and Brickworks require Clay to function | Pottery; Bricks | Pottery used as domestic product for housing evolution and for lamps, Artisans mix clay with paint for tomb murals, Bricks used in monument construction |
| Reed Gatherer | Reeds | Papyrus Maker | Papyrus | Library and School service buildings |
| Barley Farm | Barley | Brewery | Beer |
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| Flax Farm | Flax | Weaver | Linen |
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Chickpea Farm, |
Chickpeas, |
Cattle Ranch and Brickworks require Straw to function | Meat and Bricks | Food supplies; Bricks (for monument construction) |
| Henna Farm | Henna plant | Paint Maker | Paint | Used in the Cleopatra Valley of the King missions to paint wall murals in burial tombs |
| Oil | Imported only | Lamp Maker | Lamps | Used in conjunction with pottery to create lamps to light burial tombs |
| Gemstone Mine | Gemstones | Jeweler | Jewelry | Domestic product for housing evolution |
| Copper Mine | Copper | Weaponsmith | Weapons | Equipment for Recruiter building for training spearmen |
| Gold Mine | Gold | N/A | Money | Delivered directly to city treasury to supplement funds |
| Granite Quarry | Granite | N/A | Granite Blocks | Monument construction - Obelisks |
| Limestone Quarry | Limestone | N/A | Limestone Blocks | Monument construction - Pyramids |
| Plain stone Quarry | Plain stone | N/A | Plain Stone Blocks | Monument construction - Pyramids |
| Sandstone Quarry | Sandstone | N/A | Sandstone Blocks | Monument construction - Sun Temples |
Henna farms, lamp makers, and imported oil are available only in the Cleopatra expansion and are mainly needed, along with an Artisan Guild, to paint the interior of Royal Burial Tombs.
[edit] Military
Some cities are susceptible to attack by other civilizations, and the player must counter this threat by building defenses. A maximum of six armies can be recruited from the general population, each consisting solely of spearmen, archers, or chariot-riders. Walls, gates, and towers, limited only by costs, can also be built to defend the city. Warships can also be constructed for naval defense.
Depending on the level of a particular mission, a player may or may not be allocated military unit availability. Military units are divided into forts, with chariots, archers, and infantry in separate types of forts. A Recruiter is necessary to send soldiers to a fort and, in some missions, soldiers may also visit an Academy to increase their skill level prior to be being sent on "active duty".
In addition to ground forces, a Navy may also be established in certain missions. Naval wharfs are built to house one naval vessel a piece, each requiring a shipwright to construct. The two types of vessels available are Transports and Warships, of which the player may built several of each.
Military establishments are the least attractive structures in the game and building any military building next to a residence plot will cause the desirability of the area to rapidly diminish.
In addition to defense, the player will sometimes be asked by other cities to provide reinforcements for a battle elsewhere. It should also be noted that police constables can also fight enemy armies but usually very unsuccessfully. In the final missions of the Cleopatra expansion, the player also may command Roman troops in addition to Egyptian.
Steps to create military units:
Spearmen and archers: 1.Build weaponsmith 2.Build recruiter 3.Build forts 4.Build academy(Optional)
Chariot-riders: 1.Build chariot maker 2.Build recruiter 3.Build forts 4.Build academy(Optional)
[edit] Civil Service
Cities in Pharaoh maintain a variety of civil service buildings that keep the city running through its own infrastructure. Most such buildings supply the city with specialists who walk the streets of the city, performing duties to keep the city safe or perform a needed service. The civil service buildings in Pharaoh are:
- Palace: The hub of city administration, it is from here that all city activities are monitored. The bulk of the city's treasury is also stored at the palace and the palace sets the wage amount given each year to the city workers. Palaces may be robbed if crime gets out of control in the city. Palaces are available in three levels, depending on the level of a particular mission. The palace types available are village, town, and city.
- Bazaar: These critical buildings gather and supply people with all the needed commodities such as food, pottery, beer and, in the case of elite citizens, jewellery and fine linen. Bazaar workers send out two types of employees, one who finds the needed goods and one who sells them. Bazaars must be located close to houses to provide their services but not too close since no one enjoys living next to one. There are two types of Bazaars, elegant and normal. Normal bazaars send out one gatherer and one seller while elegant bazaars will send two of each type of employee. Bazaars become elegant if they are located in a desirable area.
- Service Posts: Service posts provide specialists who deter three possible damage types to city, these being fire, building collapse and crime. The fire post sends out Fire Marshals to prevent fires in the city, while the architect's post: provides architects to prevent buildings from collapsing. The last service post, the Police Stations, provides policemen to deter crime. Service posts are small one tile buildings marked by a color code to distinguish their purpose: red indicates a fire post, brown an architect's post, and blue posts are police stations.
- Courthouse: Courthouses are large stately buildings which provide Magistrates who help prevent crime and are necessary for a residence to evolve to a higher type of dwelling. Courthouses also serve to maintain a portion of the city treasury and can be robbed by criminals if the city's crime rate is too high.
- Tax Collector: Collects taxes from the population. The tax amount is dependent on the quality level of the housing and the percent of tax that the city is currently imposing. Pharaoh begins each mission with a tax rate of 9% which can be raised or lowered with varying effects on the city sentiment. Tax Collector's store a portion of the treasury and can be robbed by criminals if a crime wave occurs.
- Road Blocks: While not an actual building, roadblocks are essential to proper city planning. Road blocks only allow those to pass who are performing a critical function such as transporting food to a granary or bringing trade goods to and from a storage yard or dock. All other "random" walkers, such as Entertainers and bazaar traders are prevented from passing the roadblock thus stopping vital civil servants from wandering into industrial areas or farms where their services are not needed.
Whenever a building requiring workers is constructed, a special type of worker known as a "Citizen" will appear and begin searching for workers to staff the building which have just been constructed. The citizen does not count as part of the city's actual workforce and will vanish as soon as the building needing employees is fully staffed. People must also live relatively close to where they work, as the citizen will not journey too far from the building needing workers to find employees.
[edit] Health care
Health care is provided in Pharaoh to both the living and the dead. Every city has a level of general health, determined by the number of health buildings active in the city. Each health building sends out its own type of provider who grants the health care services to housing units as they pass. The greater number of health care services, combined with the amount and types of food each house has, determines the general health level for an entire city. If the health level drops too low, a plague will hit the city causing much death and a sharp decline in the population. The primary health care buildings are:
| Building | Description | Service Provider | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Well | Provides a crude source of water for those who live in the immediate vicinity | None | |
| Water Supply | Provides a water carrier who takes fresh water to nearby homes. Normal wells send out one water carrier while elegant wells send out two. | Water Carrier | |
| Physician's Office | Doctors keep health care up in the city and prevent disease | Physician | |
| Apothecary | Raises the health care level in a city and prevents malaria | Herbalist | |
| Dentist's Office | Raises the health care level even further, raises the city culture rating, and provides middle class citizens with dental care. | Dentist | |
| Mortuary | Keeps the city health care level up by disposing of dead bodies. The mortician must have a supply of linen to turn his clients into mummies. | Mortician |
[edit] Monuments
Some cities require that specific monuments be constructed before the player may move onto the next city in the campaign. Monuments are build through a lengthy process of acquiring needed resources (such as bricks and stone) and then having a peasant worker force clear the area where the monument will be and then build the monument itself. The work force is gathered by a Work Camp which is also in charge of supplying workers for farm and field cultivation. Thus, when a work force is heavily engaged in agriculture, the available force to build the monument may diminish, especially during a harvest.
Once at the monument, the workers are directed by members of a Guild. Usually this is a Stoneworkers Guild, but a Bricklayers Guild is required when the monument (also) contains ordinary bricks. A Carpenters Guild is available to construct wooden ramps for large monuments and, in the Cleopatra expansion, an Artisans Guild supplies painters to paint the inside of the burial tombs.
[edit] Trade
Trade is an essential part of the game and for most cities a primary source of income. Pharaoh has a sophisticated trade system, allowing the player to manage the flow of commodities into and out of the city. Trade begins by establishing a trade relation with another city. For this, a map of the known world is accessed, allowing the player to select a city, see what the city will sell and buy, and purchase the rights to trade with a city. The farther away a city is from the player's city, the more expensive the trade right routes will be. Some cities will not offer to trade right away, but must be given gifts or assistance to open up their own trade route.
Once a trade route has been opened, the trade city will send traders to do business. Trade over land appears in the form of a caravan which will walk into the city, sell or buy their commodity, and then depart. Trade over water is slightly more complex, as it involves constructing a working dock.
Docks allow trade ships from other cities to tie up and send agents into the city to buy or sell goods. To prevent back-ups at the dock, cities with multiple trade routes should have two or more docks. Docks also should not be located too far away from the storage yards where goods are kept, or the ship's agents will have to travel across the city and delay the vessel's time at the dock.
Excessive importing of a product can be prevented by instructing merchants to only deliver products to city storage yards if those storage yards have not exceeded a given stockpile. Similarly, exports can be limited so that the city does not run out of a given commodity. Additionally, instructions given to each individual storage yard can ensure that trade deliveries to one particular location are quickly distributed over the city, which is important for trade by water as cities usually only have one suitable site for docks.
Trade cities will only trade a maximum amount of goods per year, with this level raised depending on events in the game such as lending assistance to a city or having the God Ra encouraging trade partners to do more business. Trade routes may also be disrupted or even cut off by sandstorms, war, or the Nile river becoming too turbulent to travel.
The player can also order the city to stockpile a commodity by temporarily, or permanently if the good is not needed, preventing export or consumption.
[edit] Historical accuracy
Although the puzzle-like aspect of Pharaoh keeps the simulation far from realistic, the game stays true to the chronological order and timing of major events in the history of Egypt, including monument construction, wars and national disasters, the births and deaths of notable leaders, and the founding and fall of ancient cities.
The game also provides limited encyclopedic information about ancient Egyptian practices within its help menu. The instructional booklet includes a much more thorough but short history of Egypt.
Apart from the names of various Pharaohs, historical characters who appear in the game are the Royal Architect Imhotep as well as references to Moses in a Cleopatra mission.
[edit] Campaign structure
Throughout the game the player takes the role of successive generations of a particular family, progressing from city to city and ascending in rank from village elder to pharaoh. In most cases, the player is given the option of two cities to choose from to complete the next level. Usually one is more focused on domestic challenges, while the other involves military campaigns. In the original Pharaoh game, missions were required to be played in order. The Cleopatra expansion offered a "Select Mission" feature which allowed either individual missions to be played or single campaigns.
[edit] Platforms
Pharaoh and Cleopatra work on Windows 95, and subsequent Windows Versions. The game works without problems on XP and on some versions of Windows Vista.
There was a Macintosh version planned (the manual provides Mac alternatives for a single button mouse) but it was never published.
On GNU/Linux you can install this game with wine.
[edit] System requirements
Win95, Pentium 133 (200 recommended), 32MB RAM (64MB recommended), 4X CDROM, 360MB free HDD space (600MB recommended) including 100MB free space on HDD, 1MB VGA video card (2MB SVGA recommended).
Important Note: The game has speed setting option,with values ranging from 10-100%, that increases in increments of 10. 90% is the normal game speed. 100% is an unthrottled speed, allowing the game to operate as fast as the PC Hardware will allow it to.
[edit] See also
- Campaigns of Pharaoh and Cleopatra
- Housing of Pharaoh and Cleopatra
- Monuments of Pharaoh and Cleopatra
- City Building Series
[edit] External links
- Pharaoh (video game) guide at StrategyWiki
- Pharaoh at MobyGames
- Pharaoh Fasttrack Guide, containing mission walkthroughs.
- Pharaoh description including system requirements.
- Pharaoh at HeavenGames
[edit] References
- Pharaoh video game, Sierra Entertainment, released 1999
- Cleopatra video game, Sierra Entertainment, released 2000
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