What is the crowd's opinion of
Pharaoh and Cleopatra?
From 3.5 billion comments
➔ Pharaoh and Cleopatra website
By popularity online, this Service is:
14 reviews of this app found across the web:
If somebody from Activision sees this, please finally bring Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom to GOG and complete the Impressions game series.
In the same vein, I strongly recommend Pharaoh & Cleopatra. I still play it to this day and I probably have more than 2000 hours in it over the past decade.
Have you tried the Impressions city builder series? Caesar 3, Pharaoh and Zeus? They aren't recent by any stretch, but I enjoyed them.
http://www.gog.com/game/caesar_3 http://www.gog.com/game/pharaoh_cleopatra http://www.gog.com/game/zeus_poseidon
Why not, Gog.com? Though this is Pharoh and Cleopatra. Looks to be the same game, maybe with an expansion?
http://www.gog.com/game/pharaoh_cleopatra
$9.99
Also GOG is DRM free, so you'd just download and install and play. No need for STEAM or anything else.
For those of you who like Civ, but sometimes wish things were a little more laid back and noncompetitive and to spend more time just building a world, I would highly recommend Pharaoh (with Cleopatra expansion) and Zeus (with Poseidon expansion).
These are city building games that you can really sink your teeth in to, where instead of building a civilization, you build one city at a time throughout different missions. Similar themes pop up - producing enough food, balancing your budget, etc. and it's nice to pretend like after founding a new city in Civ you then go down to the level of the city and have to be a low-level manager, micromanaging the production line of goods to trade to balance your budget to pay for your military expansion...fun stuff!
I'd say Zeus is better overall, but after beating it many years ago I'm playing through Pharaoh and digging it too.
One big vote here for Sierra's game Pharaoh (and expansion Cleopatra if you like it), available on gog.com for $10. The art is beautiful and has held up well despite the game's age.
Well, Caesar 3 is on GOG, so you can still play that. Looks like it's on sale for less than $3 at the moment.
You can also get PHARAOH + CLEOPATRA which is really close.
I would love to see a modern version of something like Pharoah or any of those old historical city builders. I believe that there is a solid niche market still, enough so to have the old games of the genre on GoG at least. Banished kinda taps into a similar style of game but lacks the story line for me (but the AI is so much better!).
Rise of Nations is a very good option.
Pharoah or Zeus are along similar lines. You can get them off:
Lots of great suggestions here. A couple I didn't see that would definitely work (from GOG):
- Pharaoh and Cleopatra
- Caesar III
- Doom (get a newer engine like zDoom/gzDoom and it will feel a bit more modern)
Also,
- Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
- Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
- Fallout 3
- Fallout: New Vegas
- Grand Theft Auto III
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- Final Fantasy IV, V, VI, and VII
should run acceptably.
On GoG, you can pick up Pharaoh, Zeus or Caesar 3. Caesar is the oldest and IMO the weakest of the three, and the other two are on par with each other, it depends on which theme you prefer. Pharoah is more difficult and more "realistic", while Zeus is easier, newer and has more mythological elements, like appeasing the gods and stuff like that.
Personally I'd say Zeus is my favourite of the series, though Emperor is the best mechanically as it was released last. You can't get Emperor on GoG for whatever reason.
Zeus and Poseidon and Pharaoh and Cleopatra.
A Caesar III remake is optional.
I cannot recommend Caesar III and Pharaoh highly enough. Best city building games of all time - beautiful historical context, and haven't suffered aging since their release in 1998/1999 respectively.