A guaranteed guide and walkthrough for Pharaoh: A New Era that will eventually ensure you know how to play and enjoy the game.
For those who didn’t play the original, Pharaoh: A New Era is a city-building RTS simulation by Triskell Interactive and Dotemu in which you begin with an empty land and create a flourishing city. You’re given the tools to maintain and improve your citizens’ lifestyles, guaranteeing a constant populace in the tiniest possible area.
Building food and goods distribution networks and eventually building a thriving city to reach your objective may sound easy, but in reality, most would give up playing the game after being in debt for the second time in a row. So, for those who have already tried to play the game and have yet to progress much in the campaign mode, these are the tips for you to follow. If you correctly follow them, it’s guaranteed that you’ll be successful and eventually learn to enjoy the game.
Make sure you keep the game PAUSED until you reach my third point.
1. Understand the Map
The most common mistake newcomers to Pharaoh: A New Era make is that they immediately jump into constructing the structures. Don’t! Not even the roads. Understand the mission objective clearly. See what Pharaoh is expecting from the city. There are several facts to measure before you can actually start the construction. Among them, the Resources available in the city are the most important.
There’s a difference between raw materials and buildings that let you manufacture different goods. So, you need to identify what raw materials you currently have in the given map and which materials are to be imported. Within 6 months to 1 year, Pharaoh will start asking for goods, for which you have raw materials available in the city. So your priority should be manufacturing goods with resources available in the city.
2. Planning the Construction
It may sound complicated, but you need to visualize the city you wish to see at the end of the campaign. Don’t just start building from any random location. Because most of the time, recourses are scattered on the map, and if you build a city too far from them, you won’t be able to send workers into those areas.
So, plan a small-scale city just as in the screenshot above, and spread out roads in different directions so that you can reach all the resources. However, it may not be enough to reach all the locations at the very beginning. Fear not; I’ll be talking more about it soon. And make sure to use Roadblocks for sections you won’t need right now.
3. What Buildings to Build at the Beginning and Where
In Pharaoh: A New Era, you’re mostly going to start the campaigns with 5000 debens most of the time until you reach campaigns where you need to build pyramids where you get 15000 debens. Even that much isn’t enough if you don’t plan your initial spending correctly. So only build what’s necessary, and don’t use the Delete X tools unless you really have to. Because constructing something will cost you some debens, and when you remove them, it’ll cost you again.
So count the tiles before placing a building or plan the roads properly before you try to connect them. A simple recommendation for this is to do a draft layout out of roads only, and then, if you find mismatches when placing the buildings, restart the campaign. This time, you’ll know where to keep a tile or two spaces and where not to.
Also, when you start placing buildings, start with these sequentially:
Houses (build two separate sets, 2 rows, and 4 columns in each set. Each row is to have 12 buildings. So, 2 rows will have 24, and each set will have 48 houses)
- Water Supply
- Safety and Security
- Health (Physician first and Apothecary after a few months)
- Temples (Festival Square and Large Temples only)
- Farms (Whatever option is available. If multiple options are there, pick only one)
- 2 Raw material buildings for each type available (See points 5 and 6 for details)
- 2 Manufacturing buildings for the raw material buildings you’ve constructed
4. Starting the Game
This is where you UNPAUSE the game and let the citizens fill the empty households. Most will immediately start working at the buildings you’ve already constructed. So there won’t be any delay in food production. As soon as food production starts or reaches 50%, build a Granary close to both household sets so the Bazaar lady from both locations can easily access it.
Just when the food reaches the granary, make sure that it is adequately distributed. If you place the Bazaar in the middle of each row, one should be enough. Unless the Water Supply and Bazaar distribution is proper, wait to move forward until you fix it.
Even though you can view the Bazaar distribution from the Overlays panel on the left, you can also see the Water Distribution. As you will keep the Bazaar and Water Distribution side by side, you can get the idea of whether they’re covering the whole set of houses.
Make sure that you click all the Bazaars and allow them to buy the food items only. Select “Don’t Buy” from all the dropdowns except food items.
5. Production Setup
As you’ve placed 2 raw materials and 2 manufacturing buildings for each type, they’ve already manufactured their first goods by this time. So, place a warehouse close to them, but don’t allow the warehouses to hold any raw materials.
Only allow manufactured goods at the warehouses. If there’s no manufacturing building available, in that case only, you can store the raw materials. But only allow each item to have 1/4 of the warehouse space. If you click the warehouse, you’ll see options for allocating space.
6. Start Trading
This is the trickiest part and certainly the game changer of Pharaoh: A New Era. Before you actually place the raw materials or manufacturing buildings, look at the map and see what other cities are buying. Try to collect that raw material and manufacture those goods first. Sometimes, some cities sell raw materials, and other cities buy manufactured goods of that material.
For instance, in most cases, you’ll see that other cities are buying Pottery and Beer (during the initial campaigns) and Linen, Papyrus, or Jewelry (starting from the mid-campaigns). You should immediately start importing one raw material and manufacture the finished goods to export to another city.
Don’t let your Bazaars buy them. Have 2-3 manufacturing buildings close to the dock or warehouse where you’ll receive the raw material from another city and use that same warehouse to store the finished goods.
Here are a few things to note here:
- Only sign the trade agreement with the cities you will import and export. Leave the other cities at the initial stage. The trading is done via river and road. If multiple cities are buying the goods you’re producing, only then sign a trade agreement with them.
- The trading is done via river and road. So pay attention to the cities you’re trading with. If via the river, then you’ll need a dock. In this case, place the warehouse as close to the dock as possible. The same goes for manufacturing buildings.
- Always keep rooms at the warehouses for goods that you’re selling, both finished goods and raw materials. Traders from other cities come after a few months, so you don’t want to send them back empty-handed just because you didn’t store the goods they came to buy.
Let this continue for a few months, and you’ll have enough debens to continue the next constructions.
7. Add Facility Buildings
As soon as trading starts, invest in the goods your households need. And it’s the pottery to start with. Pottery requires Clay and Potters. Even if you don’t have Clay as raw material, you’ll always have Potters in your city. So, import Clay to maintain a supply of 1500 units. Keep a separate warehouse for Clay and Potteries and allocate half space for each item.
If you already have Claypits in your city, you don’t have to import them. Build 2 Claypits and 5 Potters, and let your Bazaars buy them. You can hold this until you have 1000 units to keep the supply steady.
Now, all the households will evolve once they get potteries. Which means more citizens will come to fill up the rooms. This is when you’ll repeat what you did during the initial trading. Sign more trade deals and start selling more items.
8. Don’t Forget the Gods
One thing will annoy you the most in Pharaoh: A New are the gods. They need constant pampering. Now that you have a good money flow, hold festivals for each god sequentially after 6 months. Initially, you can start with Common Festivals, but if you can afford to switch to Lavish Festivals to have more intervals in between.
They only do a little if they are pleased other than filling up your granary or warehouse very often or making the land more fertile, etc. You’ll know the drill once you start doing festivals. Don’t ignore this part because they are an unavoidable pain when angry. Later, when you have a larger city and many temples, they are usually happy with you. But initially, you’ll need to keep them happy through these festivals.
Edit: After reading the guide, Reddit user danishjuggler21 shared the suggestion below on how to make the gods happy with little effort. It’s a nice suggestion, and I’m simply quoting his words.
“Might want to mention shrines for keeping the gods happy. They have no upkeep cost (other than needing a nearby architect post) because they don’t require employees, and it’s a lot less micromanagement than festivals.
To keep the gods thrilled, you need one shrine per god per 300 people in your city. For patron gods, it’s two shrines per 300 people. And they don’t need to be near housing. It saves so much on workers and money in the long run.”
9. Introduce Beer and Collect Taxes
Follow the same procedures for introducing beer to the city as you did for potteries. In most cases, you’ll have to import raw materials to produce beer or import beer directly. Importing raw materials only is ideal if you don’t have the farms to produce them, but if you need to import beer as finished goods, it’s an expensive trade. So before you do, make sure you’re exporting at least 3 different types of items.
In most cases, you’ll either have Claypits to produce potteries or Barley Farms to produce barley. And there will be multiple cities buying them. So, if you’re importing either raw material or finished goods, make sure you produce enough to keep a stock of 3000 units to feed your city and the cities you’re trading with.
And when the households have access to two types of goods, even though you’re making a lot of debates from trade, don’t miss out on the taxes. This added fund is to be spent on the city’s beautification. As soon as the buildings evolve after receiving potteries, you’ll have to increase the Desirability by placing Plaza on the roads, gardens, or statues of different sizes. Otherwise, the buildings won’t evolve any further.
10. Pharaoh’s Requests for Goods
Yet another annoying fact that you’ll have to face constantly through every Pharaoh: A New Era campaign. Pay attention to all of the requests. Stockpile the goods, buy them if necessary, and try to meet the delivery within the given time. Pharaoh will request only raw materials or finished goods available in the city. So, when trading them, export atter keeping certain stocks. After the first few requests, you’ll know the quantity you need to keep in stock. So, take measures accordingly.
11. Military Buildings
Even though it’s a relief that you don’t have to engage in warfare in Pharaoh: A New Era, if you see the Military Buildings option in the right panel, have at least 3 army units. There are occasions when you’ll need them. Do this only when you have extra manpower and enough debens to spare.
However, in some Pharaoh: A New Era campaigns, you’ll need to start investing in the military from the beginning, which is only a few. In these campaigns, you’ll have the raw materials to manufacture weapons. So, you can start by manufacturing weapons at the beginning of the game and use them for your military while exporting them to other cities.
12. Extra Workers
Always have a Plan B for extra workers when you need them. Have a small city structure ready just in case you need 100~150 workers suddenly to construct a larger monument or produce a certain type of goods. This small portion of the city can be necessarily disconnected from the main city by using roadblocks if you can produce foods separately to feed the citizens. Otherwise, try placing granaries and select the option “Get All” from the type of food you’re producing.
13. Chief Advisor, Observers and Citizens
The Chief Advisor of Pharaoh: A New Era is literally your best friend. He tells you exactly what you need to do to improve your overall standing. If you’ve followed all the 12 steps I’ve discussed so far, you’ll probably see messages like this when you select the Chief Advisor from the Observers menu at the left. Also, check the other Observers occasionally and see if you’re missing out on anything.
When things really get busy at the later stage of the game, it’s best to keep an eye on the advisors who point out if anything needs your attention. You can also click on random citizens walking on the roads to hear their opinions. They won’t hesitate to share their opinion loudly if you’re missing out on anything.
This is where I’ll end this guide, and if you call this a walkthrough of any sort, I’m certain that if you follow these steps, you won’t have to look back to anything to enjoy the game. Feel free to reach out to me through comments if you’re still having difficulties, and I’ll attend to them with details.
Pharaoh: A New Era is a beautiful game if you know how to play and enjoy it. Happy city-building. Also, check out the Pharaoh: A New Era PC Review.
