Almost all of my friends on Steam come from SimHQ and I haven’t seen anyone playing this game besides one person. I would just be curious to know why the lack of interest compared to previous TW titles like Rome 2 and Shogun 2. Maybe it was mostly due to the historical era and place?

Yep... I have zero interest in the period. So it was a no buy for me

Fair enough!


I would be very curious to know what percentage of sales of the game have come from Chinese customers. I wouldn't be surprised if it's 50% or more.

I bought it simply because I have always been a Total War fan. However, I just can't get into it and have only put about 2 or 3 hours into it. Like others, the period just doesn't grab me. I'm also put off by the fantasy aspect which although mostly optional---still bothers me by just being available. I want another gun powder based historical game--early or mid 19th century.

Right now, I'm playing FOTS almost daily just to fill the void.

It's hard to believe that I've been playing the TW games for 20 years now. The first Shogun game was released in 2000.


Cheers

Same here even though I skipped on the Medieval TW titles. I was busy playing other types of games when those came out. It's not a total loss though because TW Saga: Britannia is essentially Medieval 3 but with a limited geographic area (British Isles) and there's also the Charlemagne DLC for Attila which is technically early Middle Ages as well.

Medieval was a fantastic game for its time. It starts with the battle of Hastings in 1066 and goes to the discovery of the new world. Not only did one fight all across Europe, they then went to Africa and the mid-east with the Crusades. You could play as Christian or Muslim. Interspersed in this you had to deal with invasions of Huns and Tamarinds, along with the development of the first gunpowder siege engines and eventually matchlock small arms. Then you get the new world discovered and you get to sail to the Americas and conquer ancient indigenous tribes like the Mayans. For an novel twist on historical alternative fun, one could start the conquest of the new world as the Danes or Russians instead of the Spanish or English.

Med II was really the first TW game that attempted a bit of globe-spanning gameplay. Of course, Empire took this much further and even though it had launch issues, it's still pretty popular today just due to the wide global scope. That and the introduction of naval battles.

That reminds me, I need to fire up a new campaign in Empire.

Cheers

Really, really wish they would do a Total War Empire II . . .

... and not screw it up or dumb it down or break it in any way....

I've been with the franchise since the begining but i have very little interest in the time and place of TK. That's why i skipped it. But lately i tried Warhammer TW and I absolutely love it. It's a huge breath of fresh air after historical titles. The TW formula fits perfectly with the Warhammer Lore. The variety of factions and units, different mechanics, melee, ranged combat, firearms, artillery, cavalary, air units, magic, heroes, RPG elements. The map is beautiful, battlefields even better with giant statues, castles in the background, lava falls, snow, dense woods, underground tunnels in the mountains and more. For me it's the best TW since Empire (i really also hope for Empire 2).

Someone gave me a free copy of Warhammer 2 but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet. Maybe one day I will but I'm just not into non-historical based stuff when it comes to the Total War games. I'm not saying it's impossible though that I may end up really liking it once I finally try it. I guess we'll see.

I agree Cheyenne. I'm glad I gave it a go, Warhammer I mean. For me it's the best TW title of them all. I'm glad I set aside my presumptions and historical bias and tried it. I didn't think I would like it, but I quickly changed my mind.

I have a long thread about it, I'd be interested in anything you'd care to add to it, you know, which factions you like or don't, how your campaigns are going, which DLC you like, that sort of thing.

https://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4428896/tw-warhammer-2#Post4428896

As I talked about a lot in that thread, Warhammer has huge appeal to me due to the asymmetry, the factionaltiy that makes each one so different. There is a lot of replay value here, and by this stage I have played virtually all of the factions. Historical TW titles are restrained by the history they are recreating, but Warhammer isn't. I don't feel that playing as France is all that much different than Prussia. But in Warhammer a different faction is a big change, in all respects. Units, tech trees, mechanics, well, everything. It keeps it really fresh and interesting.

I read recently that either a patch or a DLC made a huge improvement to the turn resolve times in Mortal Empires, and with even more Skaven DLC having been released recently I should revisit it soon. I liked a lot of the factions, and some not so much. But the Skaven are my favorite.

Anyone here been playing this besides me? I have over 500 hours in it so far and the third DLC just recently came out.


Historical setting and time period aside, I think from a technical and game-play perspective this is the best TW game put out by Creative Assembly so far.

I have not. This leaves this game, Shogun 1, Medieval 1, Rome 2 and Thrones of Britannia as the only TW titles I have not played. Rome 1 was my entry point.

If you'd get around to giving WH2 a go we can talk about that

So what sets this game apart in your view? Where does it improve the formula?

It was the first game I pre-ordered in about a decade, but found the Tech Tree and way units and formations get unlocked a step back from earlier titles. I love how the game revolves around characters (Really dug the Ceasar in Gaul DLC and Napoleon TW, so it is no surprise I liked it) The duelling was cool but frustratingly opaque in its mechanics, and as soon as the battle was over you'll get swamped by enemy soldiers, so using the duelling has more downsides than plus sides.

Further disappointment for me was how few armies you can place around the map (even in end-game, I only have 3 armies, covering one of the largest land countries in the world.

It's a cool game, but not a very good Total War IMHO. I don't think I'll play it at least until Troy comes out.

Great post man. Good points and well said. Which is your favorite title?

As Vaderini mentioned, the focus on individual historical characters in the campaigns adds a lot to the immersion and while I do enjoy the "Romance" mode, I still prefer the "Records" mode which is more of the traditional TW formula for generals and their retinues.

The 3D battle combat mechanics are improved with greater variety of unit formations, siege weapons and deployable defenses. Plus the graphics just look gorgeous!

Phew, difficult question. Back in the day I loved Medieval 2 and have played it for years, but I played it last year again and it now feels quite dated. I think I'll go with Attila: The unit balance is miles off, it's buggy as hell and the Campaign AI doesn't play the same game you do, but I find the Battle AI actually challenging and it was also capable of surprising me for the first 150/200 hours or so. The atmosphere is also fantastic.

I really hope CA will come with a fictional TW series after the Warhammer-trology has ended. Personally I couldn't get into the fantasy setting, but as you say in your Warhammer 2 post, the fictional stuff just opens so many doors and opportunities for great gameplay.

By the way, after you've know played WH2 for some time, how do you feel about the "bonusses-only" cities? Does it feel dumbed-down?

The AI even on "normal" difficulty get cheats/buffs in all TW titles but it's even more obvious in Attila. For example, I recently played a campaign as the Huns and even with frequent sacking, it took me a long time (about 50 turns) to build up enough money to sustain 3 full armies. By comparison, when the AI plays the Huns, it already has about 7-8 full armies a few turns into the campaign and it will then have the elite Hun units like the Nokkors and the Bosphoran infantry a few turns after that.

Yeah, I don't mind the AI getting buffs but in Attila it's just crazy that it is better to NOT wipe out the Huns, and leave them alive so they will hire mercenaries and NOT respawn as deathstacks. Legendoftotalwar did a good overview of further nuisances: https://youtu.be/3BTIuxjT7LU?t=469

I also forgot to say in my post about 3K: What extremely irked me about Three Kingdoms to the point of frustration was that units are 'invincible'. If you defeat an enemy unit and wipe it out completely, it will respawn a couple of turns later.

Not only does this hamper tactical and strategic options (grinding the enemy force down over several turns and battles, or chasing units post-battle until they're wiped out), but it also causes the strange situation that the enemy respawns in 4 turns, and is up to full strength in ~7 turns, while YOU, the victor, need to go back to your own land (which takes turns), and then also have a much lower replenishment rate than the destroyed units.

'Winning being a bad thing' is what annoyed me most about Attila, and that they copied it to Three Kingdoms is baffling.

Atilla's a good shout. I really liked the campaign play. The WRE run I did was probably the most strategic TW campaign I've played. I really liked the assymetrical styles of the various factions. Playing the Ostrogoths I think it was, migrating across Europe to settle in Iberia was a lot of fun. I should get back to that game

As to the quoted question, the short answer is yes. I'd rather say simplified than dumbed-down, but there is no doubt that the lack of things like a squalor mechanic is easier to deal with. There are some unique buildings that DO give a malus, and you also have to consider the corruption mechanic, which is really like squalor in a sense but faction-wide and dynamic, in a sense also a weapon that can be used against you by a different race. It's the factionality that appeals to me especially, each and every faction is unique in ways no other TW title is. Like they took that idea from Atilla and injected it with cocaine. Every tech tree is unique, and well, everything is. As a result it has a replayability I didn't get out of other TW aside from Medieval 2.

Like you I played that religiously, thousands of hours easy. Mostly with Stainless Steel. Two things I miss from Med 2. One, the trait system. Equally maddening and fabulous, I miss watching my characters rise to rule with chivalry and grace while others fall in to drunken madness and leachery, lol. The second thing I miss is the whole notion of having cities be military or civic. The strategical play here, deciding where to put your recruitment centers or your economic bases was fun. Add to that you could only replenish lost troops in cities actually able to produce them made army composition and deployment deeper than in later titles.

These days, as a much older and lazier gamer, I find that the replenish-and-recruit-anywhere systems we see now are more than fine with me. Provincial and global recruitment didn't exist in the Med 2 days

Thanks PM, is there gunpowder in that game? Shows how much I know about it. The thing Vaderini is describing with respawning formations would bother me too I think. No way to win a war of attrition with it working that way if I understand it. And when you're in foreign lands unable to recruit yourself, this could be difficult. Assuming of course you cannot recruit in foreign lands in that game. It's like you're playing on Legendary from the off

Nope! The original main campaign starts in 192 AD. One of the DLC campaigns starts in 180 AD and another one starts roughly 100 years later around 283 AD. So you're basically looking at the same basic technology that existed in the middle period of the Roman Empire.

Thanks. I wasn't sure when it was set and the Chinese had gunpowder first.

I'll probably play this game at some point down the line. But when WH3 comes out I'll definitely get that. Not soon though.

[Two years later]

I finally got around to picking this one up. It's currently on sale on Steam. I bought the Emperor edition. Now when I will get around to playing it is another question, but I knew I'd buy it sooner or later and decided to snag it on sale.

One thing I am wondering, what are the campaign objectives like? I really like Rome 2, as it turns out, but the campaign objectives are too ambitious and takes forever to complete a campaign.

How do Three Kingdoms objectives compare?

I'm glad you asked!

In the original main campaign, your faction must first capture enough territory to achieve the highest rank which is essentially one of the three contenders for the Imperial throne. This works similarly to how imperium level works in Rome 2.

Once you achieve that rank then you will get the next and final list of objectives which involves capturing the Imperial capital of Luoyiang (I know I spelled that wrong) as well as the capitals of the other two rivals for the Imperial throne.


But yes, the main campaign in Three Kingdoms takes a long time to finish. We are talking at least 120 turns here.


The campaigns for the DLC's work very differently though but it's been so long since I've played the game that I don't remember the details of the victory objectives.

Thanks. I read up a bit on it after making that post. 120 turns is fine. Warhammer 2 Mortal Empires campaigns were usually about 160 turns, and Rome 2 was the same. My first Rome 2 campaign went exactly 160 turns. In the end I expect this game will be about the same eh? 120 would be perfect though.

What little I learned of the TW3K campaigns sounds good. By gunning to become emperor I expect it allows a bit more latitude how and where you expand, instead of having specific geographic regions to capture. I guess I'll need to see how prestige is gained. I don't mind map painting necessarily, only how much is required. In Rome 2 I needed to take a huge part of the map. In a couple of the companion campaigns I held 90% of it. It just felt too much, like another 40 turns beyond where it should finish, and these turns become a bit of a slog. I'm already more powerful by magnitudes than anyone else, and it's just a matter of hunting down the last few objectives, or worse, filling out certain ones like hiring a massive mass of mercs. I like Rome 2, but the objectives are too ambitious and it needs the return of short campaign objectives like in other titles in the series. I like to complete campaigns, not just play til I'm done.

TW3K also has a sort of realm divide mechanic right? When you gain enough prestige there's a 3-way showdown for emperor supremacy? Is it a free for all or is it two against you?

Having read up on it I'm rather eager to get started. Total War will never be like Paradox games for example in terms of diplomacy. But what I read about diplomacy in Three Kingdoms sounds pretty good. Actually, most of what I read sounds pretty good. I think I'll like this one and I'm curious to know where I will ultimately place it in the hierarchy of Total War games.

Did or do you play records or hero mode? Any thoughts of the two options?

Heh, all this 3K talk is enticing me to reinstall!

I played both modes and enjoyed them. "Records" mode is strictly historical-reality based and "hero" mode contains some of the supernatural abilities and stories that are inspired by the original Chinese histories of the "Three Kingdoms" period. More specifically, in "hero" mode your general has supernatural abilities that he can use during 3D battles. It works similarly to how the elite hero units worked in Shogun 2.

Thanks, do you prefer one and why?

I just looked and my Taras run in RotR took 192 turns to complete. I held virtually the entire map in that one. That's too long so I hope TW3K is somewhat more focused. Of course this depends on my play style and success, or absence of, but under 150 turns is best.

Maybe I'll install this tonight.

I preferred the records mode because I'm just a stickler for historical accuracy but I ended up enjoying the hero mode more than I thought I would. It was quite fun levelling up the generals and seeing what kind of special powers you could assign to them. You can also do one-on-one duels between generals in hero mode.

Thanks, yeah that's a good answer and I think I'll see it the same. I'll try both but I think the first go will be on records mode.

Now to decide which faction to start with. Any thoughts?

Oh yeah, with the Emperor Edition I have all? of the DLC. I say it that way because the steam blurb says includes 6 items when the Collection edition has 7. Not sure what the one thing I didn't get, is.

I think Sun Jian might be the right choice for a first go, but I also have a thing for edge factions so I'll have a look at the map before deciding..I also like good ranged factions so I have some reading to do.

Cao Cao is a great one to play as when you are new to the game. You get a decent amount of territory and resources to start off with.

Thanks, but from what I know so far, Cao Cao is one to leave for later. Precarious starting position as I understand.

Well I've been reading about the various factions, attempting to get a feel for which ones would suit me best, and read this about Cao Cao



Actually, that sounds good and would suit me I think, especially if the diplomacy is as improved as I've read it is. Like a combination of Eataine and Eshin in Warhammer 2. I guess that means little to you, but seems a good combo.

The diplomacy aspect of 3K works extremely well and is quite detailed. It's not Paradox-level of detail but it's pretty close.

I'll see when I kick it off, but as we'd all agree, I'm sure, TW diplomacy has always sucked. Sometimes it sucks a lot, sometimes a little, but suck it does.

But in Three Kingdoms I read that not only is it much better, one of my longest-serving gripes of the series has been dealt with.

You know how when you want to strike a deal you have no idea what would make it work? So you offer 8 ducats.

"Such insolence!"

OK, ten ducats

"Do not come to me with such insults!"

How about fifteen?

"You sir, shall live cursed for all your days!"

Twenty.

"Sure thing"

But now, if I understand it, you can see straight away what the other party requires to make the deal. That's like, not great exactly, but way better than the way it was, repeatedly clicking through to get rejected over and over again. I hope this is just one of the diplomatic improvements, but at least it's something.

I installed Three Kingdoms and gave it a go.

After installing I ran the rule over the various leaders and lords, or the Chinese equivalent thereof. In the end I decided to try Sun Jian in a 190 start, who has some good merc bonuses, and I never use mercs, so what better time to get him out of the way haha. But aside from mercs he has some other advantages that should work for me. One thing I've never really liked in this series is general loyalty mechanics, and Sun Jian has some bonuses to keep them happy.

I played about 2 1/2 hours, though half of that was just acclimating to the new UI and all the new mechanics. My initial reactions or impressions were not great. And I think it has almost everything to do with how busy this game is from an aesthetic point of view, and also a systems point of view. There are a lot of things to keep track of, and the screen feels too cluttered, jammed with displays and info. I also don't care for how icons have replaced words, like on unit cards. Instead of having 'melee defense' and 'weapon strength' written out it uses icons, which over time I will learn and be able to assess units at a glance (I hope), but at the start it feels foreign and obtuse.

In a sense it feels like being a veteran series player has little to no payoff, with everything redesigned and everything to learn over again. With time, this murk should recede. The brain learns to focus on what's important, and ignore what isn't, and perhaps I can customize things and tailor it all to suit me better. In the first hour though it all feels quite dense indeed. Or maybe that's me!

My first settlement battle revealed that the towns have a lot of archer towers, all of which appear manned, and not in any way linked to unit proximity. They just keep pumping out arrows. If I get artillery, or fire maybe, this will be OK, but without it, assaulting settlements is costly indeed. Even those without walls like the one I captured last night against a weak garrison. There have not been many TW games where I've enjoyed settlement battles, with Attila and Rome 2 being the best of the bunch in my view. Too early to make judgements here, but the first one was not as much fun as it could be for me. Auto-resolve beckons.

Army composition is changed too, now divided in to leaders and retinue. Each leader can have six units attached, and three? of these comprise a stack. Another thing to learn, and how to best approach it? After taking that town on the banks of the Yangtze river I wanted to expand my army. I recruited a general (if that's what he is) with archers. And it turned out this dude had a negative effect on the 'harmony'. How should I have known? This sort of stuff can be compelling I suppose, but I work better without it. Sort of in the same way I much prefer Europa Universalis over Crusader Kings. Maybe I don't care for these sort of soft-factor mechanics with clashing personalities and personal motivations. I like my armies with a little more automaton in them I guess. Shifting loyalties and treachery have their place I suppose, and it will come down to how well I think it is implemented. Does it add to the experience, or make it all more frustrating and arbitrary? Time will tell.

I do like the camera. Not sure what or even if it has been changed. But something about the camera controls, and zoom levels feels better to me. Maybe my mind is comparing it to other recent games I've played and not Total War. But the camera controls feel great, in both the tactical and operational maps. The campaign map has a sort of Hearts of Iron 4 aesthetic. I've only discovered a small part of it in the opening turns, so I'll reserve judgement until I've opened more of it up.

So yeah, my initial impressions are subdued. This one didn't impact in the way some of the others have in the earliest stages, but I need to give it more time. I need to actually know what I'm doing to properly assess it. Let's see what I think after 10 or 20 hours.

Good post DBond and 3K was also a very new experience for me when I first started playing it. Also considering that the previous TW game I played was Thrones of Britannia which itself had some major changes from TW titles that came out before, it is VERY easy to get confused and lose track of which TW title does this or does that. I don't know if you have noticed yet but there are NO agents that you can use on the map. The entire agent dynamic has been totally redone. It now consists of hiring spies that you can order to infiltrate an army or a rival's court but it is all handled "off map" or "off screen" if you will.

Yes, I did notice it. After the first field battle that every TW campaign seems to kick off with, the next step was to find my spy or courtesan or assassin and send him or her off to do my bidding and run some recon as it were. But I had none. At first I thought maybe I have to unlock them, or recruit them. But eventually I saw the off-map mechanic as you describe. I've always been a vocal critic of agent play in Total War. Maybe this will prove superior in some ways? But that's a massive shift after 20 years of doing it a different way. I expect the biggest impact this will have on me is not the absence of agent actions, but losing my scouts and early-warning outposts they functioned as in other games.

Oh, that reminds me. The AI in 3K actually makes use of the "ambush" stance unlike previous TW titles so be careful when moving your armies into a fog of war area.

OK good to know, and I'm happy that's a thing. I've been abusing the AI with ambush for so long now I think it's only fair

After my initial tepid reaction to Three Kingdoms I spent quite a bit of time brushing up on things. With more understanding I gave it another go, starting over as Sun Jian. I had made a couple mistakes already, so it gave me a mulligan, and this time I got off to a better start. And I gotta say my opinion improved significantly. Played about 25 turns, had success, grasped the mechanics, systems and what I should be doing much better. Managed to carve out a decent realm, righted the economy and Sun Jian began to stake his claim to the throne.

On the first turn, Sun Jian obtained the Imperial Seal, which imparts good bonuses, but makes other warlords jelly. This led to some experimentation. But it made me wonder. Does the player get this seal regardless of which faction they play? Or did I just happen to choose the one?

About ten turns in, a strong faction to the north, Lu Biao, demanded I hand over the seal. I refused dammit. If you want it, come and get it. This led to war and me scrambling to counter. My army was to the south, having just taken a valuable trade port to the east of my capital. With Lu Biao marching south a race was on. I could see he had a full, fresh stack. Mine was less so, and casualties from the previous battles had not been replenished. My plan was to force march north to meet him, and set an ambush. I needed to recruit a few units to match his full stack. But you can't do that in forced march, and no replenishment either.

I beat him to the planned ambush location, and now out of forced march I recruited new units to build up my stack. But Three Kingdoms has a 'mustering' mechanic. Newly recruited units are created instantly, but at cadre strength. The unit will muster over several turns before it in turn becomes full strength. So this didn't really help all that much. Lu Biao blundered in to my trap and I got an ambush. But to my shock and dismay this seems to not impart the big auto-resolve advantage like in previous titles. The predicted outcome was a loss and so it proved. Hmm, how to crack it?

So I reloaded a save from two or three turns earlier and recruited straight away so that these units could muster a bit. I also recruited a second general (Sun Jian's son and heir who had just come of age) to garrison the town outside which I was setting the ambush, and in reinforcement range. This time we prevailed. I could have just fought the battle, and would have won, but I wanted to get a better feel for auto-resolve in this one, where things have changed from what I'm used to. It appears I can no longer use it as a crutch, gaming the systems a bit. I'm new to it, and perhaps when and if I have stronger units in my stacks I may see a different result. But in these early stages at least, it appears auto-resolve has been altered in some way compared to previous games.

I followed up that victory with a mopping-up battle against the remnants and causing Lu Biao to start over. Another faction declared on him after I had destroyed his army, so hopefully he'll have other things to worry about for a while. But I needed to win this battle, the whole campaign hinged on it. It took a couple tries, but that should hopefully ensure the spectre of a campaign defeat is removed. Not totally out of the woods yet -- I don't seem to be very popular -- but it was a key point in the campaign.

The dynastic side of Three Kingdoms is not bad. Usually I don't care for these sorts of things. For example in Rome 2 I'd be fine if that whole side to the game were removed. Feels like busy work, and I don't find I care about any of it. But here it's in a good spot. I now care about these family members, and want to take full advantage of this part of the game. It appeals probably because it is not so deep, doesn't try to do too much. There is a family tree, and cabinet-type positions to fill as in other TW titles. I've had nothing bad happen, like defections or civil war, so my view may change. But so far I think it's balanced just right. Sun Jian has a Heroism currency, one bonus of which is increased character satisfaction, so by choosing him I stand less chance of disharmony within the ranks, as long as he is successful on the field of battle and gaining Heroism.

I pondered above how I should have known my promoted general would be disharmonious. Well, there is a green check mark or red X, clear as a mountain lake, on each character. So I just missed it. These relationships are dynamic, and events can pop to improve relations, and I imagine, strain them, even if I have yet to see a negative dynastic event. It will take many hours of play to learn the nuances of the character system. Most turns a notification pops up with 'people of merit' that can be brought in and adopted. I don't know how to make the best of this, and as I understand some of these may indeed be spies, so you need to tread carefully. But yeah, I'm digging the character side to Three Kingdoms, and that's a surprise.

Tactical battles don't stand out in any way really. Standard melee stuff. The retinue system does mean you fight more general-type characters in each battle though. The battle maps are good, better than Warhammer certainly. I have yet to get artillery (or even know how or when), and we'll see how that affects things. If you liked the combat in say, any game before or after Nappy or Empire or Warhammer, then you'll like it here too.

So yeah, my initial impressions were mostly due to feeling a bit lost I think. But with better understanding, the features and systems in TW3K are starting to look really good to me.

Only Sun Jian gets that Imperial Seal from the outset. One of the BIG pluses for me concerning 3K is that all of the factions are very distinct from each other in almost every way.

Only in "hero" mode are the 3D battles more distinctive from previous TW titles since the generals are "larger than life" on the battlefield with their one-on-one duels and special abilities.

Sun Jian, as it turns out, is a good choice for a first run in Three Kingdoms. The faction and character bonuses are good, although I've ignored his unique mercenary mechanics so far. But the Heroism mechanic helps with keeping the characters content, and reduces recruitment cost and retinue upkeep. Not amazing bonuses, but every little bit helps, and in the early going when you can't afford to give characters roles to play (general in field army or settlement administrator) the increased satisfaction keeps them happy enough while they await assignment. Heroism is gained by fighting battles and having fewer casualties than thine enemy. It decays each turn, so to get good bonuses you have to keep fighting and winning battles.

And that's not so hard since Sun Jian starts at war with the Han Empire who are curiously passive. I've blitzed them from the start with minimal forces. I've expanded more quickly in this run that any other one I can think of because of it. However there's a bug that is quite annoying. Three times now I have saved the game while at war with Han. The next time I reload it the war is over and we are at peace. I did not negotiate a peace treaty. This is bad because there's a 10-turn cooldown or you'll take trust hits for declaring again.

One thing I really like about TW3K is the turns per year. Is it five turns per year? I often complain about this, like in Rome 2, but here it's just about perfect. Characters don't age too fast, and actually there's a setting you can choose before the start to make characters not die of old age. They aren't immortal and can still be killed in battle or assassination. I opted not to go with that, and the 5TPY is just right. Five is an odd number but I saw that on turn 50 that ten years had passed so it must be five per year.

Diplomacy is better, but still not good. I expected much better after reading about it before playing. Some of the main annoyances are removed with a more streamlined process, such as the quick deal feature that lets you see at a glance all the factions that might agree to whatever proposal you are making. Click "Trade Agreement" and it shows all factions that might be keen with an open route. You can also see at this stage whether they will agree, with a rating that fluctuates as you add or remove various parts of the proposal, so you can add some money, or a marriage or whatever to sweeten the deal, and it removes much of the trial and error that was necessary before. But beyond the QoL improvements the underlying diplomatic mechanics are still as barebones as ever, the AI still proposes ridiculously out of line deals. It's better, but it still sucks.

To get siege weapons like trebuchets you have to have a strategist in the stack. The units you recruit are determined by the leader of the retinue you are recruiting them to. My faction leader Sun Jian, who is Sentinel class, cannot recruit siege weapons, so I need to make one of his generals the strategist. This retinue and recruiting system is unique in the series and I have to say I like it.

I like it as well even though it makes it a bit of a prolonged and difficult process to recruit siege units compared to previous TW titles. Some of the siege units are pretty cool to use though like the dragon fire trebuchet.

Yeah, and I might try the hero mode, but not that keen really. I'm playing on records mode for this run.

Another unique thing about Three Kingdoms is how tech works. Instead of having a tech research speed mechanic like most other TW games, here we have reforms that are unlocked at a rate of one every five turns. In smooth CA style the reforms tree looks like a cherry tree, with the various branches for each discipline, which blossom as you enact reforms. CA has always been really good at these little flavor touches. Map styles, unit cards, parts of the UI and others are often nicely inspired by the culture and era. So far I've focused mainly on fighting corruption, trade routes and trade influence, and food.

Aside from turns per year, another thing i tend to harp on is corruption. I hated it the way it was done in Rome 2. It's back again in TW3K and too early to make a proper assessment, but at least I can fight it. There are reforms, buildings and other means to keep a lid on it. But once again it seems like a blanket corruption that is tied to the size of your empire. Add a new town, corruption goes up by a set amount in every town. I want more nuance in these systems, but it's better here than Rome 2 anyway.

The provincial system is one where your regions -- called commanderies -- have a capital town, and one or more minor settlements. The minor settlements have one building, like a woodcutter or copper mine. Only the commandery capital has other buildings you can build to boost income, lower corruption, raise taxes and so on. A simple system, and works well enough, but I'd prefer all settlements to have full building slots. The main settlement choices are robust though and overall the system works fine. There is no squalor type mechanic, only happiness.

CA really nailed the Far Eastern aesthetics with 3K. At least for me it really adds to the immersion while playing the game.

Concerning corruption, there are characters that you can assign to your offices which can lower corruption if they have the right skills.

They did, but they always do, don't they? Like Shogun 2 was dripping with it.

The worst thing is Chinese places and names. Xing Zhang Zhou. And Zhou Zang Xing. And of course Xing Zhang Xhou . I hyperbolate of course, but that's how my brain sees it. I cannot differentiate easily and it comes down to the yellow dude, or the fat guy. Not the first game where I struggled with this.

LOL! I know what you mean. I did learn some interesting things too about the Chinese names. Cao Cao is actually pronounced as "TSAO TSAO".

I can't find the clip, but I remember a Chinese immigrant comedian complaining about English people trying to learn Chinese and thinking that mā, má, mǎ, and mà are the same. I only suspected they might be different because I happened to have subtitles on.

I bet that was funny.

Cause it's true

So far Three Kingdoms feels like an upper-tier Total War game. Not the best, not the worst, but time may change what I think. I do like how unique it feels, how it has introduced or re-imagined many of the core features and mechanics. That's key, for each game to set itself apart. And within the game I want to see that factionality as I call it. It looks like they have succeeded in making each quite unique indeed, which has always been a challenge in the historical titles. Of course I've played only one faction so far, but I can see many of the unique qualities of the others.

If you want something really unique play as one of the Yellow Turban factions or one of the tribal factions from the Southwest region of the map!

Yellow Turban has a lot of achievements so I might do. What's their deal?

They are bandit factions so their strengths tend to be in things like ambushing, raiding and low unit upkeep. The big challenge though is that most all of the other factions hate you because well....you're bandits!

Their tech trees are also VERY different from the main imperial/warlord factions.

OK cool, thanks. Sounds fun. Maybe I'll try them next.

On a different subject, I would really love to find out just how many copies of 3K were purchased by consumers in China. I get the impression that it was well over 50%. I know this is anecdotal but I only had one friend on Steam out of like 70 who bought and played the game and I remember quite a few people online (including SimHQ) who told me that they skipped on 3K simply because they were not interested in the historical setting.

Well, this has no numbers, and it's three years old. But it was a hit in China apparently. Which you already knew so this is no help.

https://www.destructoid.com/total-war-three-kingdoms-sold-best-in-china/

My search netted an interesting article, why Three Kingdoms failed. That's the wrong word here, it sold very well, but the DLC did not.

https://www.keengamer.com/articles/features/opinion-pieces/why-total-war-three-kingdoms-failed/

I am honestly surprised about the DLC not selling well. I bought them all and enjoyed them all.

It is surprising, but I cannot comment yet on the quality of the DLC. I bought it, but yet to play it. But it led to the end of the three Kingdoms support it appears. The article goes on about bugs, and while I've seen some, it's all very playable. I dunno, seems fine to me, and the fact I got the DLC in the bargain bin helps. If I had paid full boat for all of it I might have a different take.

I haven't talked much about the campaign, as it takes time to get a proper feel for it. But a few observations and opinions all the same

I mentioned above that I think diplomacy is still poor. And while I think that's true of the diplomatic actions I am taking, the campaign is a hoot from a diplo point of view. I mean the coalitions, alliances, vassalizations that the AI factions do amongst themselves. The backstabbing and subterfuge. Vassals breaking free. It's all quite interesting, and there's much more of this than in other TW games. It's a shame I have trouble differentiating the factions or it would all be even more interesting to me.

Three Kingdoms has a supply mechanic. The Stainless Steel mod for Med 2 was the first time I played a TW title that attempted this sort of thing, and I've always liked the concept. When you cross the lines in to enemy territory you start using up the supplies and invasions need to be more measured. No running around sacking cities with no repercussions. Recovery is fast though in friendly territory, so the overall effect is minor for a careful player.

There's an intrinsic 'roads' thing where the more developed your cities the faster the travel trough that territory. Feels just right. In my campaign I decided to fight mostly to the south and west from the start, which took me in to some wild lands. Jungles, small towns, rivers to cross. Needless to say, tactical battles in jungle terrain are not the best from a control point of view, but the terrain effects on movement, modified by the development of the commandery, again feels right. Panzer mentioned the AI using ambush and he is right. Ambush chance percentages are high. And though I've walked in to them (sometimes intentionally because I know the unit is there but unseen), ambush mechanics are far more valuable to the player.

There's an imperium-like mechanic that follows your rise through the ranks. Like marquis, duke, king, emperor. I like it a lot for reasons I'll get to in a sec. But it controls how many armies you can have (along with reforms), and for much of the game I've had just four field armies. Our expansion has been fairly fast, 30 occupations in 90 turns. That means a big realm with just four armies to police it, repel incursions and prosecute the offensives. And ambush stance is the star. It's always a key facet of my play style, and it allows me to defeat larger local forces in detail, one army against five. We no longer have the huge auto-resolve advantage, and if you get ambushed and play the battle, the AI is very aggressive in assaulting your trapped forces, slamming in to you at full speed before you've moved much at all. So while the ambush battles have less of an advantage in TW3K for the ambusher than we are used to, it's as effective as ever in allowing the player to control matters when outnumbered operationally.

When you level up your Chinese version of imperium, you can spend points in several things. Increase the max number of spies, armies, trade routes, administrator positions and how many special actions you can take at a time. This gives a neat flexibility that is missing in previous games with a similar feature. Sun Jian is strong for commerce, so I've focused on that and spent my points on more trade routes and more armies at the expense of the other options. Someone playing Cao Cao might instead ignore the trade routes and focus on spies and actions, or maybe you play tall and look for more balance while playing the diplomatic game and expanding through diplomatic arrangements and installing administrators to maximize each of your commanderies.. This sort of flexibility is great for replayability and for tailoring your empire to your style.

I've reached duke level in this run, with king and then emperor to go. It's all been quite interesting. I like discovering new campaigns and working out the best approaches, acting and reacting to the events as they unfold. The campaign mechanics are good, the geo-political situation is fun to watch, even if I am not always sure who is who. The AI is competent, they are good stack-builders (better than most TW games) and reasonably aggressive and cautious as the situation calls for. AI stack building in this game is good I think because which units you can recruit is now tied to reforms rather than buildings. In previous games the AI struggled here because they would build early buildings on every slot, and when the higher-tier options came on line there was no room for them. So you end up fighting levy-level armies with your professional ones. But in TW3K the change allows the AI access to a wider roster. Couple this with the retinue system and AI army composition is in a good place.

What difficulty are you playing the campaign on? I'm assuming "Normal" or "Medium"? I forgot what they call it exactly in 3K.

This one's normal/normal like always for a first run. Then I'll go hard/hard for the rest if this one follows suit. Limited AI moves is on. Matter of fact this is the first one since I think Shogun 2 where I don't feel compelled to speed up the unit travel animations to make the AI turns go by faster (no agents helps). I don't see much beyond my borders, although I recently diplo-vassalized the second-biggest faction, as a buffer to the north while I have all my armies fighting in the south. Once I finish up that will secure the southern flank from any possible invasion and I can then return my victorious armies to the homeland.

Sun Jian is not an edge faction, and starts with a single region in the center. Looking at the map strategically it was self-evident to expand to the south and west, although I didn't initially factor in the rough terrain (jungle) or the tribal factions which have some nasty units.

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!

Good luck in your run. Who are you playing?

I'm around turn 180 now. There are just two Kingdoms left. Shu-Han was the first of the three that I went to war with. We were probably near parity when it kicked off. It was a long, hard-fought war but I beat them down enough to get an abdication, and that confederated their remaining territory, and the few armies they had left were brought in to my service. Nice. Now we are at war with the other, the Kingdom of Wei. In order to make things as difficult as possible, the game had each of these future Kingdoms confederate minors near the northern edge of the map in the early-mid game, to which they moved their capitals, placing them about as far away from my position as possible. And the capture of these two capitals is the objective of the campaign. It's a long one.

But we're nearly done, need to capture maybe another 6 counties.

More about corruption.... at the top of one of the building lines is an anti-corruption building that grants -20% corruption in adjacent commanderies. I quickly installed a web of these throughout the realm and just like that corruption is zero to two percent everywhere. It's just a matter of climbing the tech tree to the right spot. The tech tree (or reforms more accurately) is an exercise in opportunity cost. I want nearly all of these bonuses and unlocks (except the spy stuff) and deciding on which to choose is tough.

Public order became a problem for me in the end game. It's caused by population. Overcrowding essentially. It's China, yeah, I guess I get it, but the population increase across the empire is very fast. Not sure what my starting capital had for pop at the outset, but at turn 180 or so, which is about 36 years, that commandery has a population of 8.5 million people. That's like present day New York or London. The city level determines max pop it can support, and as the population nears and reaches this limit the disorder grows. Once the city has reached Imperial City it can go no higher. To keep a lid on it you need to pull all the tricks, from administrators and court positions, to the right buildings and reforms. It's a balancing act that I navigated successfully, but it feels like population increases too fast for such a compressed time frame. Running higher taxes can slow it down, but that contributes again to disorder so it's a fine line. If I play another at higher difficulty I imagine this will be a bigger issue for me.

We touched on it earlier, but as I near the end it's striking how well the end-game works in Three Kingdoms. Aside from Vortex as I said, this is easily the most effective approach CA has taken for making the end of the game worthwhile and challenging.

I'm playing as Liu Bei in the DLC campaign "Fates Divided" which was the last DLC released.

That dude acts like he's all friendly and diplomatic and everything is yellow, and everyone knows yellow is so soothing and non-threatening. But I personally sent him to meet his maker. Didn't want to do it because there's bad mojo in killing paragons of virtue. He stood in the way however, as leader of Shu-Han faction, one of the Three Kingdoms. He had lived a long time too. Shame, that.

I wonder how the eventual three kingdoms come to be? In this run, the three which did seemed to do so naturally out of their good start positions and inherent advantages. But does it switch around from game to game? Or is always the same three, with one maybe changed to the player's faction?

Not sure what to do for run two. Tell me your impressions of the Fates Divided campaign if you don't mind. Maybe I'll try an Eight Princes run.

The three top contenders for the Imperial seat can and do change each time you play the campaign so there is some randomization going on.

The Fates Divided campaign takes place several years after the Mandate from Heaven campaign and it is essentially Cao Cao and allies vs. everyone else. I highly recommend the Eight Princes campaign because in that one you have 8 members of the same family dynasty vying for ultimate power. I had a lot of fun with that campaign.

I had a look at the eight princes and saw a couple that looked well suited to me. I think I'll try that next.

Finished my first TW3K campaign. 191 turns, or 38 years. Lady Wu, wife of Sun Jian at the start, lived through to the end. In all I had 133 counties under direct ownership. That means most of 'em, and not all that far really from painting the entire map. All kingdom seats and 95 counties are the objectives. It's a big one, this campaign. Couldn't fit it all in to one screenshot

Congrats DBond on your win! How many of the battles did you do 3D and how many did you auto-resolve? Do you have a rough idea?

It was 110 manual to 78 auto resolve. I was rolling with 15 field armies at the end.

Wow! I don't think I ever had that many in any of my campaigns. I think my max was 12.

As far as auto-resolving vs. playing the 3D battles, I've only played 1 or 2 campaigns in all TW titles where I fought every single battle in 3D mode. One of those campaigns was in Rome 2 so I could get the achievement.

My army limit was 18. You can whip them up out of nothing, although mustering slows it down a few turns. But it's risky. The spy side of the game means any of the candidates could be spies. And more than once I hired one, filled out his retinue with expensive units, only to have him defect and take all those units with him! Panzer knows this, it's more of a general comment.

I've mentioned it a few times through this thread, but I am impressed with the recruitment model in TW3K. For several reasons really, but the best part of it is probably the fact the AI can finally do well with stack composition and put up a better fight as a result. Best end-game in historical Total War games for me.

Population was 142 million which I think is a neat stat for comparing future runs perhaps.

And actually that was ending two.

As I closed on the final enemy palace, the Kingdom of Wei saw the futility of staying in the fight and offered to abdicate. But I had fought so hard to reach this final assault that I rejected his overtures. I was determined to win the campaign on the field of battle and bring glory to Wu. The sword being mightier than the pen. And doing it this way gained that city for my realm, but the Kingdom of Wei remained. And I held 111 counties.

After looking over the end game stats I reloaded the final turn auto-save and this time accepted the offer of abdication, confederating Wei and that brought it to 133 counties.

Had a run of the rule over the various choices for a new game. Decided to try Eight Princes, which is set about 100 years after the main campaign.

I started with Sima Ai, as his bonuses and special units looked good. Played a few turns, but ditched it. Sima Ai's start location is the same as Sun Jian, and I just didn't want to fight more in the jungles, even if this territory was easy to conquer with so many unoccupied counties to sweep up. His unique 'currency' is Reformation which grants good bonuses like reduced corruption. But it is primarily tied to which buildings you construct. School, marketplace and judiciary buildings boost Reformation, while most other buildings reduce it. This seemingly benign mechanic was already causing me fits as the opportunity cost of making decisions now had another thing to consider, and I knew that it would continue to do so throughout the run. So I decided to have another look at the selection.

I wanted to play on a different part of the map. So I started again as Sima Yong along the northeastern coast. Got off to a great start, but now feel sort of boxed in, and still unsure of exactly what the long game goals are. It will come I'm sure.

It's early to make judgements, but one stark difference is how much more slowly my units are mustering and replenishing. And honestly this is great. Battles and casualties have a more lasting effect and this is what I want to see. Taking 60% casualties and then being fully fit two turns later seems anachronistic. Taking seven turns to fully refit feels much better. I just hope the AI is under the same constraints.

I see several differences and I'll give it a bit of time to form an opinion on this campaign. But so far, so good.

At some point during the Eight Princes campaign you will see a major political event trigger and then it will be clear what your objectives are. I forgot her name but the Princess/warlord you see in the opening cutscene gives you a choice of either supporting her claim to power or not. Your objectives to win the campaign will then be determined after you make the choice.

I'll take your word for it, thanks for the info. I reached Prince and I see there are parallel things like Regent. Do I want to be a regent? How do I become so? What are the drawbacks? Rhetorical, don't feel compelled to answer.

Do I want to cozy up to Jin, or are they my target? None of this is obvious, although one turn after cutting a trade agreement with them I was issued a new mission to take the Imperial seat. So it seems I shouldn't have made that agreement.

This has been a fun campaign so far because each time I overcome an enemy, a new faction declares war the next turn. I win the previous war and think I'll finally get a few turns to refit, but the AI has other plans. The way it has happened makes me suspect it's intended to have the other princes take their shots in turn, like how henchmen come one at a time in kung-fu movies. Feels artificial in a sense, but it could all just be coincidence, not to mention fun. A sample of one does not a good study make.

My approach has been to just go for it. When these nations declare on me I'm just full send, my armies straight for the kill, leaving my entire realm unguarded to an attack from a different direction. Sima Yong has a nice bonus to campaign map movement when starting in own territory, 25%. Add to that my focus on Might alignment is granting another 15% and that's a big advantage in operational mobility over the AI factions and they can't deal with it really. I have yet to declare any wars, but have killed off six factions. They ask, Sima Yong answers.

This expansion got the attention of the empress, and an event fired saying how my growing power cannot go unchecked, and gave me the choice of declaring on Jin, or not. Good bonuses or bad ones. I chose the good ones and we are now at war. Just 30 turns or so at this point, and this campaign isn't fooling around. I've struggled with making strategic plans, but the game keeps deciding for me. I'm just rolling with it.

The alignment thing is new for Eight Princes and there are four, each with attendant bonuses, and I always like these sorts of mechanics that allow some leeway in how the player approaches it to sort of fine tune his faction to his style of play. Three Kingdoms has several things that are like this.

Sima Yong has a few inherent bonuses, mostly tied to garrisons. If you garrison one of your armies, you get a nice discount to building in that commandery. So I just use the good movement range to shuffle them around to buy new stuff on the cheap. Public order is replaced here by noble support, which works essentially the same way, but the building bonuses and maluses have been changed in Eight Princes to feed this mechanic. I especially like the military infrastructure line, which gives positive noble support, and for Sima Yong, big bonuses to all income sources. From guard towers! Really nice synergy. Sima Yong is a 'defensive specialist' and his unique bonuses revolve around this.

My main issue has been really lousy choices for drafting new generals in to the faction. So bad in fact that I am not expanding armies since I don't want to employ these people due to past allegiances or undesirable traits. Avoiding defections is key, and some characters have traits that make this much more challenging. Add to it the harmony mechanic you must remain mindful of, and the fact most seem to be the yellow commander cream puffs and it's left me with few acceptable options for bringing new retinues on line.

Glad to hear you are enjoying the Eight Princes campaign! I'm pretty sure I ended up playing all 8 of those factions.

Good grief, where do you find the time?

I'm about 60 turns in and it's going fine. I captured the Imperial seat and have control of the Emperor and now it's a matter of filling in the objectives. It's been a very busy campaign, maybe two turns out of the 60 were without a current war.

Public order and general loyalty have been much more difficult to maintain than in my Sun Jian run.

Got the achievement for hitting 225 of any one alignment and was surprised to see just 2.7% have done. I got it in less than 50 turns so it's curious more haven't done so. Of course as Sima Yong I have a mechanic that grants might based on the number of garrisoned armies I have so it was easier for me I guess. Maybe other factions have no equivalent.

I have that achievement as well. There are two other achievements though where I knew I would never get because I was either not interested in trying or it would be way too difficult. The achievement for winning 222 multiplayer battles and the achievement for winning a campaign on legendary difficulty.

I won't get those either, as I can't see a way to game a legendary run. And anyway it's really the battle restrictions that rule out Legendary for me in TW games. Not that I could succeed anyway, but the camera and pause restrictions make it not fun.

This Eight Princes run is hard/hard and it has certainly been an active campaign. 60 or so turns in and my faction leader, the mighty Sima Yong, has been in over 50 battles so far.

Eight Princes returns to the idea of having a research rate that the main campaign removes in favor of one reform every five turns. It's so interesting to think about how CA changes this stuff up form title to title and even campaign to campaign.

Short campaigns are a thing again. Was taken by surprise to secure victory on turn 89. I mean, the rank I was about to achieve was victorious prince, so you might think I would have caught on. But above that was ultimate victory with the goal of overcoming all of the other 7 princes. I assumed that was the victory condition, being at the top and all. But the win fired and that's a great length in turns for a Total War campaign. It was just at the point where the size of the empire was feeling a bit cumbersome, and then boom, done and dusted. You can play on and take that last step if you want.

Cool campaign, especially as it proved fairly compact. It had a brisk pace, always at war, and I never declared a single one. Like the henchmen I mentioned above, new enemies just kept coming, and I expanded in to whichever neighbor was feeling froggy. Even when I cleared the ledger of enemies through conquering or diplomacy, and thought I could get a few turns respite, the next turn someone else would start it all over again. Sima Yong's excellent mobility was a massive advantage, as the border gore resulting from the haphazard path of expansion meant a lot more front line to cover. His garrison bonuses made money, saved a lot more and helped to keep order. Public order was a challenge most of the way through as the Might alignment gives increasing negative noble support, until the final level. A faction-wide -10 is a juggling act. But Might boosts melee damage and adds even more movement range.

Good faction, great synergy for expansion, despite the defensive specialist vibe. Being able to throw up the military infrastructure line in every new town quickly helps to defend it, get order sorted and boost income too. I played this one with the ageless option. It was over quick enough that it probably didn't make much difference, but it does streamline the whole character side of the game. Whether that's good or bad depends on the player.

Congrats on your campaign win DBond! Now try out one of the Yellow Turban factions.

I did start a YT campaign to have a look around.I only have the 190 start for these factions I think (no Mandate of Heaven). Played a few turns as Huang Shao. Not sure what my approach should be. Looked through the roster and tech tree. The units look really good, especially the early game ones. Should be able to outclass the armies encountered in the early stages. The leader choices look interesting, although I have no feel yet for which class can recruit which unit types. This is the only faction in the game with heal right? That can be game changing, especially since no one else has it.

However, I think that holding together any sort of constant territory is hard to do. At war with half the map, and little way of stopping it short of annexing, since there isn't much diplomacy for Yellow Tubans and no spy mechanics.

All of which makes me think the way to do it is to get one or hopefully two stacks of good units and just pillage and plunder, sacking and looting to maintain the cash on hand to support the early game. No sense building up towns only to lose them to one of the many enemies. Can't defend everywhere.

Or maybe a migration. Say Take He Yi and head to that open land south of Sun Jian, maybe making him the target along the way? I don't like fighting in jungle, and there's the Miasma malus to deal with, not to mention that the tribal armies are strong.

It seems that corruption is a big problem for YT factions and that would drive me mad. But if I always just loot and scoot maybe the traditional economy isn't really all that important.

Have you played a YT campaign Panzer? Which one, what start and how did you approach it?

I've finished a campaign with these YT factions:

He Yi
Gong Du
Huang Shao
Zhang Bao


For all of them I followed the fundamental policy of building up my armies as quickly as possible with cheap peasant units since I was at war with multiple factions. I also used the ambush stance a LOT. It bought me enough time to build up my economy while keeping enemy armies at bay. All of the YT campaigns were a tough challenge for me even on "normal" difficulty. There were at least 2 times I had to restart a campaign because I made some mistakes.

I think you already told me you had done so, sorry. That's alot of Yellow Turban runs, impressive.

This He Yi run has gone better than I thought it might. Got through the perilous early game. Money has been extremely tight, even running out at one point. Can't afford enough armies to properly defend my empire. But the two I have have been busy. Knocked out four factions right off the bat, all turn-one enemies on my borders. Most important was taking out Lui Biao, who has the most potential of these early foes. I was wrong about outclassing the armies encountered early, and maybe I was comparing it to the Eight Princes run, but the AI armies have better units than I expected at the start.

He Yi gets amazing replenishment. One of my armies is already at +50% and this is fantastic to keep the attacks going.

We often use the phrase "surrounded by enemies" even if it isn't literally true, just that there are enemies all around. But in this one it is a fact. Here's how it's gone so far.

First shot shows turn 1.

Second shot shows the progress after 20 turns. Good expansion, but still surrounded.

Third shot shows the diplomatic state of affairs on turn 48. We've moved south to take Changsha from Sun Ce (Sun Jian dies by event) and have negotiated temporary peace with all of our neighbors, and actually turning a profit!

At the start I had a look about and saw that there was no safe direction, no secure border, and as rebels, any that do exist quickly turn hostile. The establishment does not care for such rabble.

So how to approach it? Full send. I've taken a much different approach to things in this YT run. With our excellent replenishment I can maintain momentum better than the AI, who take longer to refit. This gives me a better operational pace. So I just went for it, and if the enemy slipped past to siege and capture my cities, so be it. In the mean time I'd be taking two or three of theirs. Early on the economy was sh!t, so I sacked and looted each town to keep enough of a treasury to maintain my army. For the first 40 turns I built literally nothing, as it all felt provisional, towns trading hands, and no reason to spend that money only to lose it or have it burned to the ground. The problem with this approach is that these post-battle choices reduce settlement level, so if I do end up keeping it, I've reduced the value, and it has a knock on effect down the line. But the fact is I need money and this is the way to get it.

I've yet to research artillery which adds another level of challenge to the battles. Yellow Turban have a very deep and versatile roster, but it needs to be unlocked through reforms. I'm getting on top of it now, with good front line infantry and good archers. But the economy keeps a lid on my recruitment at the moment. Huang Shao got smoked early on and he appeared in my court and I hired him straight away to lead my second army. The third Yellow Turban faction, Gong Du, still lives somewhere to the north of my borders, but we have yet to see him. Maybe we can meet up and confederate.

This is the first run I've played in TW3K with the Romance mode on. This changes the general units from standard retinue units to single overpowered characters. I like using the special abilities, which gives it a flair like Warhammer, but these units are far too strong in normal combat (not duels). One general can wipe out hordes of spearmen. It's silly to have the entire enemy stack routed, yet one general remains to keep killing my men. I don't think I'll choose this option often over the more realistic Records mode, but it was worth a try.

Overall the Yellow Turban faction is quite interesting. It's a desperate start, and no one likes you and you can't even negotiate with them. But public order is easier to maintain, the roster is good, and the replenishment bonuses that He Yi gets are amazing. Power to the people!

Yes, the Romance mode is quite a significant change to the gameplay compared to the 'Records" mode. What's funny are the players who complained about this mode specifically because of the overpowered generals but they also forget this isn't the first time a TW game has had this feature. Shogun 2 had it as well with its tiny super-elite units.

Yeah true. But it's an option so they can stick their complaints.

That reminds me about a couple options in TW3K that are really nice. I had complained earlier about how cluttered the screen was. But eventually I found there's a UI size slider. It is +200% at default. I cut that in half and it's way better for me.

Ah sh!t, I forget the other thing.

One thing TW3K doesn't have is that feature where you click the end turn and it cycles through every unit without a current order and every city with an upgrade possible. Not many TW games have actually used this, but I like it a lot. In this game we don't have agents so it's less of a big deal. But it's one of those QoL things CA has done that I like.

In my research prior to picking this one up i had read about the return of the Man of the Hour mechanic, which I loved in Med 2. Heroic victories by standard garrison captains could result in that leader being recognized and promoted to general. I've now had a dozen such victories but no Man of the Hour. Is it a thing?

I really like the traits system, best since Med 2 for me. I like too, how these traits are taken in to account when determining what bonuses a character appointed to office will grant.

Speaking of traits systems, I really abhorred the one in Atilla even though I loved everything else about the game. The absolute most dreaded trait was the "blind" one which some generals seem to get just randomly. It gave your general a -5 for the three main attribute categories. Ugh.

We've hit Ascended in this Yellow Turban run. Another fun campaign for me. These games have come a long way, meeting my call for more diversity from faction to faction. For me, that's key to replayability, as just playing the same sort of faction on a different part of the map isn't enough. But when everything from roster, to tech tree to faction mechanics are different it makes it all that much more fun and interesting.

At Ascended rank, we are nearing the end game. At Enlightened, the final phase will begin, and three of the other factions will do the Three Kingdoms thing. Yellow Turbans have to hold all three of those Emperor seats, giving one more target to YT factions than any others will have. The requirement to hold 95 counties remains, and I'm in the thirties at the mo, so there's a long way to go.

He Yi was a good choice, as the operational pace possible through the insane replenishment means I was able to play through 100 turns with just two field armies. It's funny, but usually I detest losing a town. Preventing this sort of drives how I play. I think I'm still fairly aggressive, but the specter of losing territory imparts a certain caution, keeping armies near threatened sectors, keeping home armies in standing, building up garrisons and all the other ways a player might protect against invasion. And when you are not nestled along the edge of the map --and when you're rebels that no one likes -- the threat of invasion is constant and the entire perimeter is a potential avenue. So I take steps to counter these eventualities, stationing armies in those spots that can best react to the many possible incursions.

But as Yellow Turban? So what? Let them take my frontier towns. He Yi's replenishment means I can fight a difficult settlement battle say, and next turn all my losses are replaced and I can attack again with a full stack. The enemy cannot match this pace. They might take a town or two, but they'll find themselves cut off in an island province behind a sea of their formerly held territory while licking their wounds and sitting still while they recuperate. It's liberating. Full enemy stacks that cross the border are usually something to fear, to counter and crush before they do any damage. But in this run it's instead an enemy to exploit, after all they've left their homelands open to me. By taking their towns it hurts their income of course, and before long they are isolated and out of money. Several times I've gone to war and after a few turns I see all their armies are down to two retinues instead of three. I imagine they are cutting down to be able to afford to keep fielding that army. And by now the army that invaded me several turns ago is in peril.

Many of these wars have followed this pattern. With just two field armies it takes several turns usually to react, that's a lot of distance to cover. But once in position the AI is going to be hard-pressed to cover my moves. After several turns the AI is only too eager to make peace, and the money I've squeezed out of them in peace deals has fueled He Yi's rise. The economy is now flowing, and I've focused hard on research rate in this run. It was a tough start, things had to break right for me at times. But the notion that losing territory is just a means to an end is pretty cool and a different mindset than I usually have when playing Total War campaigns. It's like jujitsu, if I can borrow a Japanese term in a China-based game. The 'yielding art', using the enemy's force and momentum against him rather than taking him head on. It's been a lot of fun.

If you want diversity in each faction, you should seriously consider WH2.

Yeah, but your post makes me think we just met.

https://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4428896/tw-warhammer-2#Post4428896

And in the favorite TW title thread I rated Warhammer 2 first and had this to say

1. Warhammer 2 -- As much as I like many of the historical titles, they are in effect hamstrung by their hostoricalocity. Great games, but Warhammer 2 takes that leash off the designers. There is still lore to adhere to (I guess, I wouldn't know anything about that), but the fantasy nature allows the devs to run wild. Each and every faction is so unique, beyond what is possible when you're constrained by history. The Mortal Empires battle royale mode is Total War at it's most free. In the Steam era (since 2006 for me) no other TW game comes close in hours played. The most replayable Total War game.

Am I actually shadow banned around here?

Nah. As far as I know Zuckerberg doesn't work for SimHQ.

Yes, that quote is proof thanks Panzer haha.

Just having fun that wormfood, who I have discussed WH2 with plenty of times, is suggesting I give it a go. Perfect recommendation actually, just a few years too late (Unless he typo'd WH3)

No you're not shadow banned around here. I'm just confused and forgetting who I'm replying to.

I remember the other thing I had forgotten a few posts ago..... Three Kingdoms has alternate unit cards which is a nice touch.

Finished the He Yi Yellow Turban run, this one on normal campaign and hard battles. 177 turns. I mentioned focusing on research rate and it was 700% at the end.

The campaign is a good one and busy for sure. Always at war and often with multiple enemies. Through the first hundred turns I maintained just two fire-fighter field armies, who ran hither and yon stamping out whichever front was aflame. By the end I had 13 armies I think.

Population again was a problem. This feels better balanced in Eight Princes, but in the main campaign it is too much. There's a negative population public order malus, and it was a challenge to control through the late game.

I like how the buildings in three kingdoms often have bonuses to more than one thing. Like the Community Square line, which grants satisfaction and public order. Or another might boost commerce income and trade influence.

Overall a fun campaign, a proper challenge to get your footing, and like the analogy I used 'the yielding art' where I was fine with losing territory over there while I took more over here. Hit 'em where they ain't. The insane replenishment rate we had meant a much higher pace was possible even with fewer armies. I never had to sit and refit, or wait for public order to even out like other campaigns and factions. Yellow Turban roster is diverse, with good archer options, average infantry and cavalry and the same artillery every faction gets. I was putting a trebuchet and a multiple bolt crossbow in to every field army. Every army had slightly different composition, but as a pattern I fielded

Scholar
Veteran
Healer

2 Men of the Forest
2 Archery Masters
2-4 cav (either white wave or later the excellent righteous vanguards)
1 Trebuchet
1 Multiple Bolt
6-8 infantry, usually white wave mixed with the best spears I could get

The Romance mode was interesting. Passive buffs are fantastic, and the active ones were fun to play with. I'd like this mode more if the generals weren't so overpowered in combat. It's fun though to use the abilities to shape the course of the battle. I like some parts of each mode, Romance or Records, and it's good to have options, even if I suspect I'd play the more realistic Records mode more often.

I just recently narrowly lost a 3D battle against the AI because he had a general and I did not. All he had left was his general and I had two spear units and he caused both of them to break with one of his special abilities which I believe caused a massive morale hit.

Same, lost a couple where one enemy veteran was the last enemy standing. He routed my remaining troops and there ya go. What I want is the same general's skills and abilities with a normal retinue, that would be a good compromise. Romance mode is a lot like the way it is done in Warhammer 2 -- now that I've played it! -- but there the leaders aren't quite so powerful n melee combat.

Had a look at a few other potential choices for a new run, but came up with nothing. I have Fates Divided and Eight Princes but none of the other DLC it seems. Maybe time to switch it up. That's three TW3K campaigns completed in the last few weeks.