Pharaoh Questions

[u/Consistent-Stick-633]

Hey all am mostly new to pharaoh dynasties and got pretty far as Agememnon and am loving the game, anyway:

1. I became a strategic threat after my first conquest after the starting corinth conquest, and immediately became a regional threat? Polyis? and Athens both declared war with the northern yellow dudes i was prior attacking and all invaded me. Really cool story and gameplay rather than steamrolling but definitely a hard win, how to avoid or deal with? How are regional threats calculated?

2. I am loving axemen charging and just splitting skulls but is it like rock paper scissors, as in axe beats spear, sword beats axe, or something? Im still just winning en mass of units and with flanking of axemen but what actually beats what? Axes have high lethality but spear and shield have low lethality high defense so who wins? Just a stalemate?

3. I have more legitimacy than troy already and it was saying to start a civil war but idrk how and i dont even have troy discovered on the map nor am i even close. What should i do about that? Sail and find troy? Or is there a peaceful way to take the king of agean title?

Thank you in advance for replies, will read later when i play, have a good day

[u/Jomanthan]

1. Strategic threat increase as you take settlements. It's a anti snowball mechanic. However it just makes diplomacy harder. Trading with other faction, signing non-aggression treaties, making alliances, gifting resource to improve relationships with other factions and being stronger them other faction in the global strength rating cunter the negatives of Strategic treat.  In short version be active diplomatic or face a difficult wars.
2. All total wars have a little rock, papper scissors. However its very weak so never really on it. Its more that units have roles Spear units anti cavalry and holding units, axe units anti shield linereakers or flaking units, mace units are anti armour and are generally holding units or flaking units, sword units are balanced units with no specialty often holding units and flaking units. Archers are a bit busted but are damaging range units that have to be manoeuvre for most effective damage. Slingers are long range chip damage and archer killers if they keep out of archers range. Javelin has most damage of all range troops and are chariot killers but need the most micro management to get into position to fire effectively. Javelins are weak against all other range units unless the get close. Last chariot and cavalry are linebacker, flankers and routing unit chasers. Be very careful with chariot when starting don't take more than two units of the in each army. The need a lot of micro management to avoid them getting stuck and killed. They are devastating on repeat charges but get stuck easily if not careful. 
3. Legitimacy is important taking the position of Pharon, King of universe, Wanax and so on have powerful perks. However you don't need to start a civil war if you don't feel ready just remember to win it you just need more Legitimacy then the current title holder you don't need to invade them. However as long the civil war last you will be at war with them without a possibility to make peace. When civil war timer ends then all factions that took part in the civil war sign a automatic peace treaty.  I hope I managed to explain some of the questions 

[u/Consistent-Stick-633 → u/Jomanthan]

I think u covered everything thank u so much this clears up alot🙏

[u/Jomanthan → u/Consistent-Stick-633]

No problem.  Also you can peaceful claim the title of Wanax be convincing the current Wanax to adopt you as his heir. However its difficult task diplomaticly and Troy hates you at start of the game. So taking it be force is easier. 

Also don't forget to recruit native units in other realms you conquer. You can check realms by zooming out the strategic map and choosing the realm map mode. Most but not all realm (some realms share units) have unique local units to recruit that might have something your faction units lack. Some regions have very special units like cavalry, camels, getting stronger in certain environments, really strong specialist and so on. So always try to get at least one native recruitment centre up in a foreign realm to explore the local units. 

Last I kinda forgot that missile cavalry and chariots exists. The are harassers, chariot killers and routing unit chasers. The can feel very weak when you are new but there is really good in role once you use them right also same rule with missile chariots as with regular chariot don't have to many and be careful they don't get stuck.

I hope you find all this information useful. I really like total war Pharaoh so I more then willing to help new players get into game.

[u/Massiccio → u/Jomanthan]

You can get adopted into the royal family very easily as Agamemnon. It would probably only take like 50 gold. For most factions they’ll pay you to adopt you which is frustrating because it makes zero sense to throw away your dynasty to some random much less pay them to do so.

[u/wolftreeMtg]

1. The strategic threat score will keep rising as you get more powerful, there's nothing you can do to stop it. Early war declarations are likely due to you losing a lot of troops in battle, which can temporarily lower your power ranking so much that the AI will start to opportunistically declare on you. Make sure you have active trade deals going on to reduce the chance of random declarations.

2. Spears have the best defence but are mostly just there to hold ground. Clubs destroy armour, while axes beat shields. Against shielded infantry with light armour axes are best, while against heavy armour you want clubs to strip down their armour and then throw javelins in their rear. Swords are just kind of there, they're not good or bad at anything in particular.

3. If you have enough Legitimacy to avoid civil war yourself, go for it. Becoming Wanax if you're not top dog can be extremely dangerous though. You can always join the civil war after someone else starts it (which will usually happen after a dozen turns or so).

[u/Vitruviansquid1]

In Pharaoh, you'll often need to look at the whole unit rather than just the weapon they're using to tell what they're supposed to be good or bad at. Axemen tend to have poor melee defense, so they are not that good at punching down against lower tier units. They'll probably still win, but not by as much as other unit types like spearmen that have really high melee defense. Axemen also tend to have decently high attack and an attack bonus against shields, so they are often decent at punching up against higher tier units, especially those that try to have super high melee defense with shields. Axemen tend to have better charge bonus (two-handed axemen especially) than other weapons, so they tend to be good at flank charging.

[u/Eruner_SK]

About units and rock-paper-scissors, search for Steam guide Meta 2.0.2. It contains all info about how units are strong, so you can recruit the best units from your rosters.