One odd thing in my campaign is when expanding to the south, as I de-fogged the amp, I noticed some abandoned. unsettled commanderies. It looked to me like it would cost 8000 gold to settle the region. So I dragged my feet occupying them. Early on I just couldn't afford 8 grand. When I finally had saved up that amount I sent an army there who 'attacked' the region and boom it was mine. Cost nothing, and didn't siphon off half the army to man the new settlement. What's that about? What's the 8000 mean? Could I have bought it for that price without sending an army? Confusing.

I'm actually confused too! Those are supposed to be derelict settlements to reflect the real historical events at the time but I distinctly remember having to pay that fee if I wanted to occupy it with my army. It was not free. Maybe something was changed with an update that came out after I had uninstalled? That's certainly possible.

Interesting. Wonder why it didn't take my money? In the end some of my rivals took a few of those when they were there for the taking for 50 turns. Because I waited until I had the money.

In one of my first posts since picking up TW3K I said I 'righted the economy'. But that's not true really. It took 50 turns before I felt I had a handle on it. Later it exploded, as often happen in this series, and now I'm clearing 20k per turn on middle taxation. There's a nice synergy to the economic model in this one. So many bonuses, traits, ancillaries, administrators and buildings to fine tune it.

The economy is divided in to three pillars, commerce, peasantry and industry. Since I took a trade port very early on I decided to focus on this. The commerce generated internally is not at risk, but the trade game is with so much geo-political upheaval. Trade agreements can be fleeting. By turn 100 I had it in good shape, but it felt like operating on a shoestring until then. I went anti-corruption from the off and have been able to keep it in check, relatively speaking. At this point my corruption is about 16%, compared to probably 60% it would be at this stage of a Rome 2 campaign. Surely this is a key to maintaining a good economy, rather than having it siphoned off. I'd say always spend some reform points here.

Good post DBond and yes, the precarious thing with trade deals is that they are often not permanent and if the majority of your income is coming from just one or two lucrative trade deals then things can get ugly real fast if those trade deals end for whatever reason. That happened to me in one of my many 3K campaigns and I ended up having negative income for a few turns. Thankfully I had a pretty large treasury at the time so I was able to quickly get rid of some units to lower my upkeep and I was able to take a couple more settlements to shore up my lost income.

Yep exactly, and the same principle applies to food. And not only are you at risk of having your breadbasket commanderies violated, taking new cities can deplete your reserves in a hurry. I took a big one last night in present day Vietnam. It was level 8. What is that, a small regional city? Whatever it is the food requirements for that city alone are -24 per turn. The regional city is -32. So you need to be careful, to build an overhead, or some conquering could find you out of food in a hurry. This is a neat dynamic that I enjoy. You need in several ways to lay the foundations of expansion.

In both Attila and 3K I always made sure to have as much of a food reserve as possible for exactly the reasons you mentioned. And in Attila you had the added problem that global fertility dropped as the campaign wore on.

Yep, that's the smart approach. I didn't care for the fertility thing in Attila, but in the end it was a minor inconvenience. But only once you knew it was a thing. A player who didn't realize this would happen -- and take measures to protect against it -- would suddenly find themselves in quite a bother. I need to return to that one sometime. I really like the campaign in Attila.

It's interesting when I think about how divergent each Total War game is. I have to hand it to CA that they are always looking to make it a new experience. Not every new idea comes off, but it says something that I have bought nearly every game they've released. Compared to something like Combat Mission, where I picked a few out and ignored the rest since there's no innovation or attempts to freshen it up. Played one, played them all. Total War is far better in this sense.

My Sun Jian campaign is rolling along, past 100 turns now. I had vassalized the number 2 faction. Cost quite a bit too. It was a diplomatic vassalization, so I needed to offer a trade agreement, four ancillaries, a hefty fee of about 6000, ten turns of payments of 400 and ten turns of ten food per turn. It paid off well because they basically give you 20% of their income which is a big shot in the arm. They had also answered a call to arms, even if they become completely incompetent when your allies. Accomplished nothing at all in the war. Why CA, why?

With my northern border snug as a bug because of this vassal, I sent all my armies south to assist in that offensive. The vassal's opinion of me was very high, well over +100. And then suddenly, a notification that my vassal has decided they no longer are. Well, that sucks. So I play another turn -- making a lot less money too now it must be said -- and then I notice the former vassals stacks encroaching upon my realm. Checked diplomacy to find out we are at war. It's funny, when the notification of the secession popped I thought "If this was EU IV we'd be at war" but nothing notified me this was the case, though it's on me for not checking.

So with a four-stack invasion under way over my northern border, and my armies far to the south I needed a new plan. Fortunately i had recently hit Duke rank and spent several prestige points on max army limit. I had three free slots.

It was at this time I learned what was meant by the "max deployments per season" mechanic. I had neglected this and was at the default 3. That means I could only call up three new retinues (one full stack) per turn, and I really needed more than that! So I thought, well this is a perfect time to try out Sun Jian's unique mercenary mechanic. I'll just whip up a merc army out of thin air. But I guess the idea is, if you want to use these merc armies, to build the merc buildings everywhere. Doing so would cumulatively drop the cost of recruitment, with each one lowering the cost by 10%. So if you build ten, these are free to recruit. But I had one, and the cost was exorbitant, like 4000 per retinue! A full stack would cost around 13,000 with all the unit slots filled. And merc upkeep is high too. So this was a fail. I can't afford that. So you need to either go all-in with the merc building line everywhere, be super rich, or just ignore it as Sun Jian.

So that in turn revealed a useful new mechanic. Retinues can be recalled, and then redeployed next turn elsewhere. I've had fun with the family dynasty stuff, and Sun Jian has a great one in Three Kingdoms. All his kids are great characters, and I made all but one a general. The second to last one of this daughters to come of age, Sun Ren, had been assigned to her brother's army with the intention to give her her own command after a bit of campaigning, and once I had raised my army limit. The problem was she was far to the south along the shores of the Gulf of Tonkin. But by recalling her, I could redeploy her retinue far to the north next turn, where she was made commander of two other retinues I had recruited on the previous turn. A bit gamey but perfect for my situation.

The more I play the more I really like the whole retinue and recruitment stuff in Three Kingdoms. It's very flexible, yet there are constraints based on which type of general it is, and which reforms you've enacted. Really nice.

And by the way, historical accuracy aside, most of my generals are women. And some of them are strikingly beautiful. Normally I might rail against such a thing, but field armies led by fierce hotties have a certain appeal

Haha! Great post and comment about the female generals.

Your post also resoundingly reminded me why I almost never bother with acquiring vassals in any TW game. Why? They almost always stab you in the back OR they get attacked by a rival faction and thus force you to decide whether to go to war with this powerful faction that you aren't really ready to fight or you have to drop and abandon your vassal which will piss it off as well. No thanks!

Thanks PM. I adopted one from the pile just because of how beautiful she is, and she even has that as a trait.

This was the only diplomatic arrangement I've made. No alliances, no coalitions. Like you, I am also wise in the ways or TW diplomacy haha. I still do trade agreements and non-aggression (if he is far away and offering big money). But otherwise I've stayed out of it. Almost always causes more trouble than it is worth, especially with the AI programmed to become incompetent as soon as you are counting on them for something. Unless there is an imminent threat I feel I can't handle, there's really no reason to go this route, which is a shame. The best parts are the money from vassals and the fact these alliances give you more apparent power when the AI is doing strength calculations to determine if they should strike.

That's what kills WH3 for me, I think in immortal empires they expect you to make alliances, build outposts, and use war coordination targets to survive nearly everyone gunning for you from the get go. But, those allies are so incompetent and don't seem to help.

I agree wormfood (although I've not played WH3 yet). However, I had lots of success using the war coordination mechanic in WH2. That was quite useful, and I could create sort of a pincer movement in certain cases. But without this specific target, the ally AI is terrible. Like we were saying before, all of us have played enough Total War to say with some conviction, that this is not confirmation bias. They really do become inert and ineffective when the player's ally or subject.

Sun Jian declared himself emperor. Took me by surprise because as you climb the prestige ranks, the last two rungs appeared to be King, then Emperor, and I expected to have to gain points between the two to finally reach Emperor. But by reaching king, the emperor flag-planting is automatic. At this stage the two leading AI factions do the same and the final contestants (Three Kingdoms, see?) are set. This does not start a war, but the battle royale is ready to begin. I'm about 120 turns in.

Declaring yourself emperor unlocks some serious units. But I'm in a big war, sweeping the jungles of the tribes to the southwest. Once finished, this offensive (combined with the southern offensive already completed) will essentially secure 180 degrees of the realm. Only the north and east will be fronts. In essence we have converted ourselves in to a massive edge faction through rapid expansion. At the start I spent a while just analyzing the map. Trying to envision the long game. And that is the plan I came up with. It's been a bit frantic at times, but it's soon to be done.

We are now the Kingdom of Wu, which makes me grin for some reason. Kingdom of Wu. Not exactly the most menacing it must be said. Underestimate the great Sun Jian at your peril

I've hit on a number of the features and aspects of Three Kingdoms throughout this thread. And for this one I'll talk about the settlement and building side. And it's pretty good. As mentioned before, the provinces are called commanderies, each consisting of one or more counties. The capital region is full-build, but the subordinate counties have a single building whose line is already set. These are useful things like woodcutters, iron and copper mines, rice paddies, toolmakers and farms. Only the capital can have walls.

Income derived from these counties can be any of commerce, industry or peasantry, plus a couple special commodities like spices and jade. The beauty in this system is how the player can focus on creating synergies within the commandery by grouping together buildings that all work in concert to maximize the income and production. Public order and food are the counters, and must be balanced against the other considerations. No squalor type thing exists. Food is a faction-wide resource, no requirement for each commandery to be self-sustaining. This encourages specialization of each, with certain suitable regions becoming the breadbaskets, while others might specialize in commerce and trade and others still in industry or military recruitment.

By linking recruitment to reforms and not buildings, there's more freedom in TW3K than other titles. You can build military buildings for some bonuses like increased rank of the new units, recruitment cost reduction and this sort of thing. But you could play through the entire game without building any military buildings at all and do fine. One thing I tend to be critical of in the various games in the series is how garrisons are handled. We've come a long way since say Med 2, when garrisons were units you recruited and let sit idle for hundreds of turns. Now of course we have 'native' garrisons that are determined by which buildings you build, and there's a military infrastructure line that stiffens these. I've made extensive use of this line in my frontier commanderies, and these are demolished if the front moves beyond, where new ones are built. With such a vast realm, and relatively few armies to cover these immense distances, garrisons can be key. More than once I've won heroic victories with a captain and his garrison fighting off much larger stacks. The arrow towers I talked about early on are great when they're yours!

This is one more aspect of Three Kingdoms that I think is well done. If I examine this game and each of the core facets, it's clear this is a good one. Good campaign, building system, recruitment model. The reforms are balanced and useful and the character and dynastic side is pretty good too. I wonder where I would place it in the series? I'll have to ponder this question.

I immediately thought of "Kingdom of Wu Tang Clan".

It's obvious that you have really taken a liking to 3K! I actually reinstalled TW: Troy recently and when I'm done with it I'll reinstall 3K.

Wu Tang Jian. I like it haha.

Yeah I do like it and glad I've given it a go. You've answered questions I had about it before, and thanks for that. I knew I wanted to try it, but like I usually do I waited until it was fully baked, to play the most seasoned and polished version. And it was 66% off too, which is key.

As you saw in the other thread I am ranking it third of the TW games I've played and that's high praise indeed. None of these are bad games. But Three Kingdoms has impressed me with it's systems and unique features. Like I said I can't identify a weakness and I can always find something I don't like. But so far I've yet to with TW3K. As I'm nearing the end of my first run I'll try another one next and see if I can switch up my paradigm with a very different sort of faction and approach to give me a more well-rounded view of the game.

Maybe those Yellow Turban cats.

The Yellow Turban campaigns can be quite challenging even on normal difficulty and it will take some time to learn the tech trees as they are very different from the tech trees for the warlord factions.

And maybe not, too

I'm about 160 turns in to this Sun Jian run and it's not close to being done. Matter of fact, the hard part only just started.

When I declared as Emperor, two other nations did too. And now those wars have kicked off and for the first time in forever in Total War I have formidable late-game enemies to overcome. Probably since the Mongols in Med 2. Usually by this point there's just no stopping me as the snowball gathers relentless pace and mass. But now I've got an enemy with many full stacks, all with late-game compositions. This has been a weakness in every Total War title, except for the Vortex campaign in Warhammer 2. There's always that tipping point where the advantage the player has becomes irrevocable and the AI is swatted aside. But here in Three Kingdoms it's all dovetailed quite nicely indeed in to a final showdown with worthy adversaries.

The five turns per year is perfect. Characters live a long time, relatively speaking. Sun Jian lived for 130 turns or close to it. When he kicked off, his son Sun Ce took over and was quickly killed by a 'hunting accident' Ugg. The hunting accident is a running joke in EU IV, killing off all my great heirs it seems. And here too. There's some sort of story option that popped and I chose it. But I have no idea what the story is and I wonder if I had not chosen it whether Sun Ce would have lived (with the one-eye trait). If this pops again in my next run I'll ignore it, whatever it is. It doesn't say much for its implementation that I don't even know what it is.

I like how corruption is handled in TW3K. I have some role to play, and can take some measures to keep a lid on it. Rather than have a blanket rising corruption like in Rome 2, in this run I have 16% corruption in a few of my most profitable commanderies, while in others it rages at 66%. A much better mechanic in this game.

This was extremely well implemented for 3K. There's no ludicrous "realm divide" where the player has to fight the rest of the known world and there's no easy mopping up of the map once the player has become strong enough. This "showdown" of the player against 2 other warlord powers fits perfectly with the context of the history being portrayed in the game.

Well said Panzer and that's exactly right. The main enemy now is what Lu Bei became. They've grown through a nice mix of conquest and diplomacy, confederating many small factions. I noticed one of their generals had a trait called something like master of the Han, awarded for capturing 20 Han settlements. One AI general! What are the chances of that happening in any other Total War game?

Each of the three kingdoms emerged from a sort of vacuum. All three essentially played their own games through the mid point. Sun Jian in the south. Lu Bei in the center and Wei in the north and east. We each carved out our own empires without much interference with each other. But now we've all come to blows and it's a very interesting end game set up.

Ok I reinstalled 3K yesterday and started a new campaign. I'm actually glad I reinstalled because I never played this on my current Alienware system so it was nice to be able to max out all of the detail settings. I ran the benchmark and my FPS was hovering between 150-175!