Relative to other recent Total Wars, Pharaoh is noticeably more challenging. Add in the near-constant threat of Libyan invaders in the West, always targeting my hardest-to-access settlements, and I really felt the welcome pressure I'm looking for in a Total War grand campaign. You may even need to go two or three provinces North or South to find an ideal route, so speed versus safety was always an interesting consideration. But on the fringes, they're often not connected to their closest neighbors as the crow flies. Cleverly, every settlement is connected by roads to somewhere. On the other end of the spectrum, crossing open desert with no established paths causes appropriately punishing attrition unless you stop and camp regularly, which can slow you down to a crawl. Especially later on when the Sea People are invading in force, they can swiftly slink upriver to bypass your strongest defenses, which led to some exciting chases to catch them before they could torch the soft underbelly of my empire. Sailing the river itself is by far the fastest way to get anywhere, so sticking close to it is like having access to a super highway. The winding snake of the Nile and the inhospitable deserts on either side strongly shaped every strategic decision I made, too.