Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom Windows game

Pharaoh: A New Era, the revitalisation of a classic strategy game of the late 90s, is coming very soon. It follows a recent trend of old-time strategy titles being spruced up and brought back for new and old players alike. We're no stranger to classic RTS or strategy here at ModDB, and neither is the rest of Impression Games' back catalogue - so here's five mods for their other games to get you into the swing of their particular loop!

GSzero+

By Godsman

This mod has a whole bunch of changes under its umbrella, setting the stage for a good excuse to come back to this fantasy original. Image artifacts have been cleared up, loot drops have been rebalanced, and a lot of units have received a second pass to give them a little more (or a little less) presence on the battlefield.

Zeus and Poseidon - Full HD+ (EN/FR)

By Gazatus

Older games are, naturally, designed for older hardware, and that means sometimes they don't stretch so well to fit the newest resolution standards for computer screens. Well, never mind that - seeing as modders have created HD patches for a number of Impression Games' titles, including Zeus: Master of Olympus. There's a special satisfaction to playing old games in crisp resolution, and a similar HD mod exists for Pharaoh if you want to get a taste of what to expect with A New Era.

EmperorLimitPatch

By Vadim_Panenko

Part of the fine of strategy games is building the biggest base, or the most sprawling city, but even modern games have to rein in players lest their architectural fascinations get out of hand. Enter the simply named EmperorLimitPatch, which removes limitations from buildings in Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom. Now you can build the largest city in all of China, one befitting of a real Emperor!

Caesar 3 - Restored Cinematics v1.0

By BeleG_AG

Whilst resolution scaling mods are one way to improve visual fidelity and modernise an old classic, they do nothing - or in fact, sometimes make worse - the issue of old pre-rendered videos looking crusty on modern hardware. With the advent of AI upscaling, though, mods like this one for Caesar 3 can improve the fidelity of even these old videos, smoothing the transition for HD play.

Pharaoh - Easy Mode

By revelati

Wrapping up with a mod for Pharaoh is fitting given what's coming up, but perhaps you've never played Pharaoh, or it's been a long while since you have? Never fear - if you wanted to brush up on your skills in a less intense manner, the Easy Mode mod for Pharaoh makes resources a little less strictly maintained, giving players an easier way into the challenging strategy of the endgame.

Unearthed and Uncovered

Pharaoh is one of Impressions Games' strategy titles, releasing in 1998. It put players in control of Ancient Egyptian society, and in charge of building up cities, handling the needs of their citizens, and managing the resources necessary to build a lasting empire. Following the trend of other isometric strategy games getting their own remasters (like Starcraft and Age of Empires), Pharaoh is coming back into the modern limelight with A New Era.

Rolling Down The River (Nile)

Pharaoh: A New Era is coming on February 15th (just after Valentine's, luckily!), and will offer all the same content as the original, with thousands of years of ancient history to explore and this time, in brilliant 4k. You can check out the remake's Steam page here and add it to your wishlist, though pricing info is not yet public.