The Creative Assembly has posted new bits of maps and details of large, free updates coming to total War: Pharaohs, now including the Aegean and Mesopotamia, Assyria, Babylon, Mycenaean and Troy added as playable cultures and about 150 new reworked between them. We're looking at a revised and expanded map that includes the units that have been upgraded.

More than 2 times the faction (from 95 to 189!) and almost twice the state (from 181 to 349!Due to its very respectable map size, Total War: Pharaoh really looks a lot like what PC Gamer Fraser Brown called it at the time of the announcement. This may be a proper "Total War: Bronze Age" by the time they end.

"This expansion renders the world about 1.8 times more than the current map, giving players a vast expanse to conquer and explore," Creative Assembly said.

The new map includes the entire rest of Western Anatolia, the Aegean Sea including Thrace and all Achaia — southern Greece - and Crete. Much of ancient Mesopotamia lies a little further north, following the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to the Persian Gulf. It's more than enough room for four new major cultures, and frankly, more room than I'd expected on the western edge. The new map will be complete with suitable sea lanes stretching around the Mediterranean coast, as well as all the way up to the Black Sea.

It sews the Total War: Troy map into the Pharaoh map in some ways, but at the same time it definitely has a lot of new stuff going on. The creative assembly was clear that factions like the people of the sea get reworked actions to better understand the larger map. 

The creative assembly also says there will also be new historical landmarks.

"In Mesopotamia, you can expect to find the White temple of Anu, the Great Ziggurat of Ur, the Chogazanville, the Ziggurat of Enril, and in the important Great Aegean Sea awaiting conquest, the ancient statues of Mount Olympus, Meteora, Cubele, and the necropolis of Lemnos. "It's a good idea," they posted.

You can fully read the article Total War: Pharaoh Expanded Map on the Creative Assembly community blog.