Pharaoh

Pharaohs are the leaders and second most powerful hero of the Egyptian Civilization, after the Son of Osiris. They can empower buildings, increasing build, training and resource collection rates. Pharaohs can also heal other units, much as priest do, though at an increased rate. Pharaohs also have the normal abilities of most other heroes, including countering Myth Units and collecting relics - until the Titans Expansion, Pharaohs were the only Egyptian heroes capable of carrying relics: the Hands of the Pharaoh upgrade, a technology made available to Egyptian civilizations in the expansion, allows priests to collect relics as well.

Pharaohs cannot be trained. Each Egyptian civilization starts the game with one Pharaoh who, if killed, will return from the dead 90 seconds later at the Town Center free of charge (this takes less time if Nephthys's City of the Dead improvement has been researched). Generally, this means that a player may only control one Pharaoh at a time, but worshippers of Osiris can research the New Kingdom improvement in order to control two.

Rather than reading "Pharaoh (Hero)" in the info boxes in the form all other heroes (except Hersir) pertain to, each Pharaoh has a unique name, randomly selected from a list of Pharaohs at the beginning of the game. Should the Pharaoh die, he will respawn with the same name and a roman numeral after it detailing which incarnation of the Pharaoh he is. For example, a Pharaoh called 'Bob' dies. After a short amount of time, a new Pharaoh will appear at the town center called 'Bob II'. If the New Kingdom improvement is researched, another Pharaoh will spawn with another name, for example 'Bob II' is the original Pharaoh and the secondary Pharaoh is crated as 'Joe'.