Dynasties Revised Mod v2.8

Would you like Total War: PHARAOH DYNASTIES to feel more deliberate, have a classic and serious level of Total War challenge and pacing with greater rewards for good governance and command, while retaining as much of the original game as possible? If so, this mod is for you!

This mod is not so much an overhaul, as it is a tuning mod since it retains the original gameplay. Building off experiences with my Troy Revised Mod, the same "ADD elements" are removed here, causing the campaign to be more personal, require more strategy, and have an increased overall challenge when using the intended Campaign Customization settings (see below). This mod is an attempt from a 25+ year veteran Total War player to recreate the classic *difficult* Total War campaign challenge, from the earliest games in the series. The goal also is to make the campaign challenging and interesting from start to finish.

Recommend that you start a NEW campaign with this mod, rather than resuming an old one with this mod! (finish your old campaign first)

+++ Recommended Campaign Customization settings… +++
(This mod was made with several Campaign Customization settings in mind; they are strongly suggested for the intended, most challenging experience but are optional. Lower them as desired. It is intended to be difficult and restarts may be required. All non-listed options are personal preference but default is strongly suggested.)
—–NOTE: * marks the vital settings

/ / / CAMPAIGN
☥ Resource Deposit Values: Medium
☥ Royal Decrees Research Rate: Low *
☥ Army Size: Medium (more of a Bronze Age feel) *
☥ Player Recruitment Capacity: Low
☥ Turns Per Year: Six (vital for the longer number of turns) *
☥ Pillars of Civ.: Disaster Freq.: Medium
☥ AI Legitimacy Bonus Modifier: High
☥ Iron Man: On
☥ Player Army Upkeep: High *
☥ Player: Adjust Happiness Per Turn: Low *
☥ General XP Gain Rate: Minimal *

/ / / BATTLE
☥ Dynamic Weather Severity: Very High
☥ Battle Terrain Severity: Very High

/ / / AI
☥ AI Recruitment Capacity: Low *
☥ AI Building Construction Costs: High *
☥ AI: Adjust Happiness Per Turn: Low *

/ Campaign Difficulty: Legendary (or Veteran, if preferred)
/ Battle Difficulty: Veteran (or Normal or Hard, if preferred)

With this mod, DYNASTIES plays more like chess. Smaller in scope and scale but more personal, decisions are more consequential. Governing is tricky. You will find yourself carefully contemplating what to do on your turn, planning your actions. Campaigns are generally longer in total turns (averaging around 200-300 turns to Ultimate Victory conditions), but each turn tends to play quicker.

IMPORTANT:
If using my "Longer Battle Mod" or "Difficult Auto-Resolver Mod", you do not need to (and shouldn’t) activate them with this mod; both are included and expanded. Also included: my "Better 2D Unit Card Highlighting" mod.

______

Changes:
Too numerous to mention, most significant are:

-When not fighting battles, the goal is that good governance should require thought and contemplation (rather than mindless building). Reworked legitimacy so that good and bad governance of provinces matters. If you have low happiness, then you will have decreasing (court/scheme decaying) influence. If you have low influence then your legitimacy will decrease (this mod adds a vital negative legitimacy mechanism!). As you start out, strive to get your home province in order to stabilize your legitimacy, exempt from taxes, build temples focusing on happiness, then work on gaining legitimacy and branching out methodically. An unhappy population means an illegitimate leader, making good governance an absolute necessity and causes a more methodical and thought provoking strategic game.

-The economy has been overhauled so that buildings and outposts cost 2x wood and stone to construct. This makes choosing what to build more consequential, instead of just simply mindlessly building the next building in the chain, every couple of turns. With the higher upkeep for armies (see Suggested Campaign Customization Settings above), expect to do a lot of trading to be able to build what you want.

-Population growth is adjusted so that worker growth takes longer, making settlements grow much slower. The reason for this is to make it much more important as to what you choose to build with your pop requirements, to lengthen the "middle game", and to eliminate the standard game’s ridiculous settlement growth where you can go from a shanty town to metropolis in around 50 turns. The problem with that behavior is that after your settlements quickly reach their maximum potential, there is nothing else to do. There is also no reason to get growth perks in the original game’s rapid growth level, now these growth perks (through buildings, technologies, ancillaries, etc.) are vital to gain. You have to fight for population growth, all the time — it is now one of the most valuable commodities.

-Battles are now more deliberate and tactical. See my "Longer Battles Mod" for more details – it has been fully incorporated.

-The autoresolve has been reworked to be tougher, to force you to fight all but the most lop sided battles. The idea is that if you autoresolve a battle, then you will suffer more losses. Think of the autoresolve as delegating the battle to your incapable inbred cousin who is your second in command, who is only able to win the easiest battles. This encourages you to fight more battles, in an attempt to do better than the autoresolve result or to avoid unnecessary losses.

-Sieges are now more realistic in length, causing them to be more deliberate. In the standard game, you just need to wait a few turns to rapidly starve out the enemy. With longer sieges, you must put time and effort into avoiding that siege battle and starving out the enemy. Additionally, the effectiveness of the siege and how long the defender can hold out is directly dependent on the number of troops in your besieging army (more is better – and it is recommended that you play with Extreme sized units). Also port settlements will hold out in sieges longer.

-Penalties are harsher – bankruptcy effects are more severe as are crisis/collapse effects. When everything falls apart at the height of the bronze age, it should do so spectacularly, forcing you to be significantly challenged.

-Some technologies, ancillaries, and titles have been adjusted to make them more attractive, thus reducing the "best and obvious" choice acquisitions (the goal being to make every option as attractive and effective as possible).

-Many aspects of ambition and courts have been slightly adjusted (like Pharaoh Crown effects) to be more attractive as an option.

-The extreme anti-player bias has been reduced. Now other AI factions should no longer "pile on" as much as they did before.

-As well as many other miscellaneous changes, such as: weather and battlefield terrain have better effects on battles, lowered replenish base rates so that all the perks, buildings, ancillaries and post-battle choices to increase replenishment rates are important.

…and more! (see Change Notes for more details)