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Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/10 16:44:50


Post by: nels1031


More Total War!!!!


Apparently the announcement was supposed to be tomorrow, but someone leaked aspects of it, so they came out ahead.
Announcing a new Total War era...

The year is 190CE. China is in turmoil. The Han Dynasty crumbles before the child-emperor. He is but a figurehead; a mere puppet for the tyrant warlord Dong Zhuo. It is a brutal and oppressive regime, and as Dong Zhuo’s power grows, the empire slips further into the cauldron of anarchy. But hope yet blossoms.

Three heroes, sworn to brotherhood in the face of tyranny, rally support for the trials ahead. Scenting opportunity, warlords from China’s great families follow suit, forming a fragile coalition in a bid to challenge Dong Zhuo’s remorseless rule. Will they triumph against the tyrant, or will personal ambition shatter their already crumbling alliance and drive them to supremacy?

The crucible fizzes. Allegiances shift. The fires of conflict stoke opportunity. Only one thing is certain: the very future of China will be shaped by its champions. Total War: Three Kingdoms is the next major historical strategy game in the award-winning Total War series.





Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/10 17:03:18


Post by: Riquende


Chinese Robert Baratheon on the left of that still.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/10 17:19:08


Post by: Voss


Trailer looks like its more for dynasty warriors


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/10 17:26:51


Post by: Matthew


Nice. I've always wanted a chinese-centered Total War, although I was hoping for a 17th-century Europe. A shame it'll probably have the mechanics of the latest games...


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/10 20:25:43


Post by: Disciple of Fate


Few issues I currently have on my mind.

Unit diversity, this wouldn't really be that big seeing as the three main factions are very similar and we might not get non-Chinese factions, plus diversity already wasn't huge in the 'early' Chinese armies. So is it going to be a lot of spear men with some early crossbow, sword units and light cav in for flavor? I'm trying not to imagine a more dressed down Shogun roster (all have the same troops).

Siege battles? The Warhammer ones are fine for Warhammer, but for a historical TW with actual background knowledge I would expect a little more.

That trailer? I will echo what some have already said, it screams Dynasty Warriors. I'm ok with Warhammer human heroes massively outperforming other humans and surviving a ton because its fantasy and they have magic weapons and such. A regular human in a historical TW murdering hundreds each battle and surviving a ton? If transplanted 1 on 1 from Warhammer I would pass.

Curious to see how they are approaching these issues, I wonder if they are going for a little fantasy touch seeing as the Three Kingdoms have been very romanticized.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/10 20:28:35


Post by: LordofHats


All I have to say is two words.

fething. FINALLY.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/10 21:05:34


Post by: Voss


 Disciple of Fate wrote:

That trailer? I will echo what some have already said, it screams Dynasty Warriors. I'm ok with Warhammer human heroes massively outperforming other humans and surviving a ton because its fantasy and they have magic weapons and such. A regular human in a historical TW murdering hundreds each battle and surviving a ton? If transplanted 1 on 1 from Warhammer I would pass.


To be fair (even though I brought it up), it may well be just an artsy cinematic trailer and the various leaders don't actually fight that way in game. (Either not on the field or fight with reasonably sized bodyguard units or whatever)


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/10 21:36:54


Post by: Disciple of Fate


Voss wrote:
 Disciple of Fate wrote:

That trailer? I will echo what some have already said, it screams Dynasty Warriors. I'm ok with Warhammer human heroes massively outperforming other humans and surviving a ton because its fantasy and they have magic weapons and such. A regular human in a historical TW murdering hundreds each battle and surviving a ton? If transplanted 1 on 1 from Warhammer I would pass.


To be fair (even though I brought it up), it may well be just an artsy cinematic trailer and the various leaders don't actually fight that way in game. (Either not on the field or fight with reasonably sized bodyguard units or whatever)

Yeah its possible they won't, but for a TW its still an odd trailer because its very focused on characters, which is why I agree that it seems more suited as a Dynasty Warriors trailer (they made the three guys fighting seemingly a head taller than the foot soldiers). Still, the trailer seems more focused on the heroes like the Warhammer ones were. In a way its also similar to the Shogun 2 one in the duel scene, but that one was less over the top and not focused on important characters. Like I said, lot of questions that will take some time to get answers to I guess. But a hero system transplanted directly from Warhammer just doesn't sound appealing for a 'historical' TW. The trailer does give off that vibe though.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/10 22:02:27


Post by: -Loki-


I wouldn't be surprised if heroes and lords take part in the battles like they do in Warhammer, though likely not taking out whole regiments themselves and obviously not throwing fireballs and gak around. It's an era that's been heavily romanticised, so they probably want to play that up a bit for the game itself as well.

Most likely they will be mobile morale buffers than can lend a hand disrupting regiments and have some fun fighting animations with other heroes


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 01:09:20


Post by: Melissia


I would not be surprised if individuals like Zhang Fei or Guan Yu become hero characters, either solo or with their own squads. Zhuge Liang and other such more known for strategists could be generals that have cooldown-based abilities.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 02:03:41


Post by: Ashiraya


 Melissia wrote:
I would not be surprised if individuals like Zhang Fei or Guan Yu become hero characters, either solo or with their own squads. Zhuge Liang and other such more known for strategists could be generals that have cooldown-based abilities.


If Lu Bu is not a hero character I'll eat my Shogun 2 disc.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 02:27:39


Post by: Galas


Voss wrote:
 Disciple of Fate wrote:

That trailer? I will echo what some have already said, it screams Dynasty Warriors. I'm ok with Warhammer human heroes massively outperforming other humans and surviving a ton because its fantasy and they have magic weapons and such. A regular human in a historical TW murdering hundreds each battle and surviving a ton? If transplanted 1 on 1 from Warhammer I would pass.


To be fair (even though I brought it up), it may well be just an artsy cinematic trailer and the various leaders don't actually fight that way in game. (Either not on the field or fight with reasonably sized bodyguard units or whatever)


YOu just need to compare the Shogun 2 Cinematic to this Cinematic to see how this doesn't appear to be "historical". Is just totally Dinasty Warriors-esque. And in both of them you see "heroes" fighting.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 02:55:02


Post by: flamingkillamajig


 nels1031 wrote:
More Total War!!!!


Apparently the announcement was supposed to be tomorrow, but someone leaked aspects of it, so they came out ahead.
Announcing a new Total War era...

The year is 190CE. China is in turmoil. The Han Dynasty crumbles before the child-emperor. He is but a figurehead; a mere puppet for the tyrant warlord Dong Zhuo. It is a brutal and oppressive regime, and as Dong Zhuo’s power grows, the empire slips further into the cauldron of anarchy. But hope yet blossoms.

Three heroes, sworn to brotherhood in the face of tyranny, rally support for the trials ahead. Scenting opportunity, warlords from China’s great families follow suit, forming a fragile coalition in a bid to challenge Dong Zhuo’s remorseless rule. Will they triumph against the tyrant, or will personal ambition shatter their already crumbling alliance and drive them to supremacy?

The crucible fizzes. Allegiances shift. The fires of conflict stoke opportunity. Only one thing is certain: the very future of China will be shaped by its champions. Total War: Three Kingdoms is the next major historical strategy game in the award-winning Total War series.





YESSSSSS!!!!!!! Called it! I knew this would be a great place for Total War to go. *cue dynasty warriors music*


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 04:04:37


Post by: LordofHats


 -Loki- wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if heroes and lords take part in the battles like they do in Warhammer, though likely not taking out whole regiments themselves and obviously not throwing fireballs and gak around. It's an era that's been heavily romanticised, so they probably want to play that up a bit for the game itself as well.

Most likely they will be mobile morale buffers than can lend a hand disrupting regiments and have some fun fighting animations with other heroes


The era and the big names in particular. I don't have an issue with the game playing that up though as it is fundamentally part of the charm of the period.

Guan Yu is way more fun as an exaggerated bad ass than as the incompetent military commander he really was, and fun-drunk Zhang Fei is a lot more interesting than a guy who would so frequently go into drunken rages his own men killed him because they hated him that much. Ma Chao the splendid is a lot more heroic than historical Ma Chao (who was a sociopathic maniac). They can still tell the broad strokes of history here while maintaining a lot of the cheesy charm that has made the period so popular both in China and outside of it. I think it's smart to play into the Dynasty Warriors motif a little bit.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 04:55:48


Post by: Eumerin


 LordofHats wrote:
All I have to say is two words.

fething. FINALLY.


This. It's an important period of time both from an historical aspect, and from a cultural aspect. It's something that really should be getting a lot more exposure from big developers (aside from Koei, who do both the Dynasty Warriors series, and a more serious strategy serious about the era).


As for heroes...

On the one hand, a purely historical game would be nice. On the other, this is the Three Kingdoms era that we're talking about. The characters - as depicted in the novel - would fit right in with the Dynasty Warriors games.

The fact that they're playing up Lu Bei tells me that, at the very least, they're going to be ignoring some of the more troubling aspects of the real history. Hopefully that doesn't mean that Cao Cao automatically gets the villain hat.


Edit - I'm pretty sure the first guy in the big fight at the end of the trailer is supposed to be Lu Bu.



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 05:32:05


Post by: LordofHats


It looks like they will be basing much of it off Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is easily the best known "history" of the period despite knowingly containing massive amounts of ahistorical content and Characters a lot more romantic (and noble) than their historical counter parts.

Personally my favorite of the three big states has always be Eastern Wu Shu Han is overrated. The only reason they lasted any period of time at all was because of Zhuge Liang's political machinations and geography. Wu is where it's at


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Eumerin wrote:



Edit - I'm pretty sure the first guy in the big fight at the end of the trailer is supposed to be Lu Bu.



The guy their fighting is clearly using Sky Piercer (depictions of Lu Bu's legendary halberd don't seem to change much across media), so the scene is clearly intended to represent the Battle of Hulao Pass, where Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are attributed as fighting Lu Bu in Romance of the Three Kingdoms (the battle itself is considered to be a fictional addition to the history of the era).


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 06:16:53


Post by: Eumerin


 LordofHats wrote:
It looks like they will be basing much of it off Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is easily the best known "history" of the period despite knowingly containing massive amounts of ahistorical content and Characters a lot more romantic (and noble) than their historical counter parts.

Personally my favorite of the three big states has always be Eastern Wu Shu Han is overrated. The only reason they lasted any period of time at all was because of Zhuge Liang's political machinations and geography. Wu is where it's at


No Wei. Cao Cao is the lord and master of all!

If this game doesn't have an achievement called "Do not pursue Lu Bu!", then I will be very disappointed. ^_^



Just took a peek at the Total War reddit. Most of the posters there seem fairly enthused about it. But there are a few grumpy individuals who apparently feel the need to interject their "more historical than thou" comments about this announcement as a reply to anyone who suggests that this might be a good game.

Unit diversity, this wouldn't really be that big seeing as the three main factions are very similar and we might not get non-Chinese factions, plus diversity already wasn't huge in the 'early' Chinese armies. So is it going to be a lot of spear men with some early crossbow, sword units and light cav in for flavor? I'm trying not to imagine a more dressed down Shogun roster (all have the same troops).

Siege battles? The Warhammer ones are fine for Warhammer, but for a historical TW with actual background knowledge I would expect a little more.


As you note, unit diversity is a problem. Though there are some technological advances as time goes by. For instance, my understanding is that the Chinese repeating crossbow shows up mid-way through the era. We'll see. Additionally, the various "barbarians" (i.e. any group that isn't Han Chinese) will likely add some limited unit variety. I'm not familiar with siege tactics during the era. So I can't comment on that. But we should get some naval stuff. The Battle of Red Cliffs is a pretty strong contender for the title of "Biggest Naval Battle of All Time".



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 06:54:33


Post by: LordofHats


The Repeating Crossbow is much older than the Three Kingdom's Era, though Zhuge Liang's improved design became incredibly prominent resulting in repeating crossbows in general being called "Zhuge Crossbows" which is where I assume the myth that they originated in the 3K period comes from.

As for the kinds of units there will be I suspect this game will be closer to Shogun 2 in style, which the factions generally having access to the same basic unit roster but with faction bonuses. Wei will almost certainly have bonuses toward's cavalry, Wu toward professional infantry/navy, and Shu toward more generic peasant infantry. They could do a more mercenary heavy system given the prominence of hired soldiers in the period. I'd expect Nanman to be present in south China and the Steppes peoples to be in North China. I don't know what they were called in this period but the Turks also had relatives living in the Western mountains who could be a faction. EDIT: They could port over the units of renown concept from Warhammer though as there are many special units featured in the myths and legends of the period that could be featured as such.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 08:29:13


Post by: Disciple of Fate


Eumerin wrote:
Unit diversity, this wouldn't really be that big seeing as the three main factions are very similar and we might not get non-Chinese factions, plus diversity already wasn't huge in the 'early' Chinese armies. So is it going to be a lot of spear men with some early crossbow, sword units and light cav in for flavor? I'm trying not to imagine a more dressed down Shogun roster (all have the same troops).

Siege battles? The Warhammer ones are fine for Warhammer, but for a historical TW with actual background knowledge I would expect a little more.


As you note, unit diversity is a problem. Though there are some technological advances as time goes by. For instance, my understanding is that the Chinese repeating crossbow shows up mid-way through the era. We'll see. Additionally, the various "barbarians" (i.e. any group that isn't Han Chinese) will likely add some limited unit variety. I'm not familiar with siege tactics during the era. So I can't comment on that. But we should get some naval stuff. The Battle of Red Cliffs is a pretty strong contender for the title of "Biggest Naval Battle of All Time".


Some advances true, but the majority of it was driven by incredible amounts of spear men and not more specialized troops (even though they came into being this was against armies in the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands even though that is a stretch There is some diversity due to geographical nature such as the more mountainous Shu or more cav influenced Wei, but beyond the sailing capacity of the WU neither was really decisive. Population advantage really did most of the work it seems, with a large population decline too.

So I hope its not just the three Han ofshoots with minor variations, as they had interactions with what is now Korea, Vietnam and Mongolia with their respective peoples at the time. So it depends on if they take the easy way out for real variation. I hope they won't go back to the more fantastical approach for diversity such as Middle/New Kingdom Egypt for the Ptolemaics in Rome 1 or Elephant Cannons in Medieval 2.

Siege warfare over strategic locations played a large role, but its less emphasized in the romanticized version because its just less dramatic. Yet mountains, cities and passes had sometimes incredible fortifications. But Warhammer has very straightforward flat plain, small wall sieges. Which is fine for WFB (discounting Dwarfs) because the lore emphasises field battles. So a bit more investment into the appeal might be needed, as the annoying 'bugs' are destructive enough for possible gameplay.

Who knows, they don't have a large team available as they did for older games as they have split up into several teams. Will it weaken the final product? As long as it works on release its still objectively better than Rome 2. But what will we get? Part of me is excited and part is left wondering.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 08:32:48


Post by: LordofHats


Ideally they'll start the game in the time period around the Yellow Turbin Rebellion. Might not be 100% historically accurate but it would let them build a map with all the major players of the period and not just the Three Kingdoms themselves.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 09:22:33


Post by: Disciple of Fate


 LordofHats wrote:
Ideally they'll start the game in the time period around the Yellow Turbin Rebellion. Might not be 100% historically accurate but it would let them build a map with all the major players of the period and not just the Three Kingdoms themselves.

Its a good bet they start early with that rebellion. According to their blurp they start in 190 and the Yellow Turban Rebellion should still be in full swing. As for major players, I assume they will follow their formula, no large starting unified power blocks. Following Rome 2 and Atilla I would expect some core territories with the rest of the territory of major starting players to be made up of vassals in the vein of the Seleucids and Sassanids respectively in those games. Depends on map size and how fractured they plan to go, maybe they will just go for the one faction per province.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 09:34:07


Post by: Kroem


Absolutely brilliant, I've been waiting for this all my life! We will see if it can eclipse Dynasty Tactics 2 in my heart.

I think they will base this on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms book rather than the true history in which characters are larger than life therefore justifying them being hero units.

Lets hope they include factions from the whole stretch rather than just the titular three kingdoms of Wu, Shu and Wei. I would love to be able to play the Nanman, Yuan Shu, Lui Biao, Ma Teng, Zhang Jiao etc


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 10:08:30


Post by: LordofHats


Yep sounds like a good play to start. I'd suspect starting playable factions to be Shu, Wei, Wu, Yuan Shao, and Dong Zhuo. They could implement Lu Bu as his own faction since he did have lands independent of his relationship with Dong Zhuo and simply start him as a vassal. Just cut out a few unimportant years/figures and Liu Bei can start in Xu province from the get go just for convenience. Tao Qian, the ruler of Xu in 190, isn't really that significant a figure of the period anyway. The interesting thing about this is that I don't think anyone in 190 would have thought that in ten years the winners of the great civil war would be three minor warlords with little land or resources. Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Ce/Quan would end up vying against each other for China but when the Yellow Turban Rebellion occurred they were nobility with low titles and limited (if any) holdings. Sun Jian was a figure of some renown at the time, but he died in 191. The creation of Wu was pretty much completely the work of his sons who didn't have nearly the same clout their father had. In 190 it would have been betting money on Liu Biao, Yuan Shao, Kong Rong, and Yuan Shu to take over China.

This would be a prime game to bring back the Horde system as well. Mass evacuation/forced migration were commonly used in Chinese history to move economic and labor resources to strategically vital positions and out of potential seizure by enemies.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 10:30:09


Post by: Disciple of Fate


Hopefully they can do it some justice, but politics and diplomacy was never the strong suit of TW.

As for mechanics, no further removal would be my minimal expectation. With some luck they will re-introduce some old or just new mechanics. Its not the way they went previously though, I hope they don't just put all their effort into a shiny new engine with state of the art graphics. Pretty to look at but as shallow as a puddle makes for terrible longevity.

Give modders more freedom I would say. They did some amazing work in earlier TW games and are filling in some glaring gaps in mechanics in Warhammer.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 11:47:27


Post by: CthuluIsSpy


Oooh nice. I was wondering when CA will cover China.
I hope my antiquated rig can run it


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 12:43:27


Post by: Kroem


Liu Bei can start in Xu province from the get go just for convenience.

It's a tough one because even starting him in Xu would make the historical partition of China very unlikely.

Maybe Shu could be an emergent faction that appears in Jing at a particular date? A bit like the Romano-British in Barbarian Invasion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I hope they put in a mechanic where you can obtain the Imperial seal and declare yourself Emperor like Yuan Shu did :-p


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 12:52:02


Post by: LordofHats


 Kroem wrote:

It's a tough one because even starting him in Xu would make the historical partition of China very unlikely.


Well he did historically start in Xu. It was the first government position he held that afforded him his own territory (and one he claimed in 196). Prior to hold that position he was just a landless lord under others. The alternative is starting him closer to Yi province but that would be even more historically inaccurate (it didn't happen until 212) and was only an option following the victory at Chi Bi.

I'm thinking of Shu as a playable faction mind you cause especially with the prominence given the sworn brothers in that trailer there's no way they won't be, which is tricky for Shu. Cao Cao and the Suns had territory holdings in 190 that give them definitively simple start positions. Liu Bei did not.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 13:17:59


Post by: Kroem


Yea I'm not saying he didn't rule in Xu, but by placing him there to start with would encourage Shu to be in the North East rather than the South West.

So how to encourage them to attack Lui Shang and transfer their powerbase to the Yi province?

Jing would be ahistorical as he was only there after the surrender of Lui Biao, but would give him a chance of ending up in the right place!

I think you are right and they will start him in Xu though, CA never cared about Oda getting crushed every campaign in Shogun 2 after all


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 13:26:28


Post by: LordofHats


Another possibility is to actually portray him as landless. Have him start as a horde and having to take his own territory? I wouldn't be surprised if they starting him in Yi honestly. That's the kind of historical detail CA has overlooked in the past for the sake of convenience. I'm fine with it either way. I'm just spit balling XD For that matter there were in general a lot of landless lords and rebel armies in this time period, something they could mechanically build into the game by separating the managing of armies from the holding of territories. Let the player lead and build a small force, work for landed lords and build up their power base until they can take their own territory?

Though Xu will likely be for Liu Bei what Owari was for Nobunaga. It's just a bad starting position, and from there Shu will likely be surrounded and wiped by all the factions around it. Especially if they go the obvious route and give Shu bonuses toward peasant armies which have typically been weak in the franchise.

Another interesting possibility is to create a more dynamic vassal system, one where no one ever really confederates and instead you have to keep your vassals in line and happy. Give the player the option to submit to another lord and scheme against him while using his position and power to advantage.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/23 13:32:33


Post by: Kroem


Yep a mix of total war and crusader kings would be perfect!

I think the starting factions will also include Yuan Shao and Dong Zhou at least, because surely they won't start with just 3.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 13:51:35


Post by: LordofHats


I bet money Lu Bu gets a faction or at least a campaign. For a guy who wasn't even around for the actual 3 Kingdoms he's pretty damn popular. Maybe not an initial one though. He's a prime candidate for DLC.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/09 14:02:16


Post by: djones520


 -Loki- wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if heroes and lords take part in the battles like they do in Warhammer, though likely not taking out whole regiments themselves and obviously not throwing fireballs and gak around. It's an era that's been heavily romanticised, so they probably want to play that up a bit for the game itself as well.

Most likely they will be mobile morale buffers than can lend a hand disrupting regiments and have some fun fighting animations with other heroes


Yeah, I'm thinking that might be a thing. I'm not upset by the idea at all.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 14:14:24


Post by: Disciple of Fate


 djones520 wrote:
 -Loki- wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if heroes and lords take part in the battles like they do in Warhammer, though likely not taking out whole regiments themselves and obviously not throwing fireballs and gak around. It's an era that's been heavily romanticised, so they probably want to play that up a bit for the game itself as well.

Most likely they will be mobile morale buffers than can lend a hand disrupting regiments and have some fun fighting animations with other heroes


Yeah, I'm thinking that might be a thing. I'm not upset by the idea at all.

This doesn't sound half bad, only one issue I can see pop up though: AI recruitment is famously lazy and consists of terrible army builds at time. Even Warhammer has them field 5-6 heroes at once sometimes. But if they field 5-6 heroes in this game and they are weaker it would make it even more of a complete roflstomp for the player. CA has not had a great track record fixing AI army builds. So maybe if they implement solo heroes and lords they should have a hard cap of 1-2 per army. That would work without making the army too weak.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 14:51:56


Post by: Kroem


 LordofHats wrote:
I bet money Lu Bu gets a faction or at least a campaign. For a guy who wasn't even around for the actual 3 Kingdoms he's pretty damn popular. Maybe not an initial one though. He's a prime candidate for DLC.

Yea he had a campaign in Dynasty Tactics 2 and it was incredibly cool!

Ma Chao campaign one time? He's even more bloodthirsty than Lu Bu!


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 15:56:33


Post by: nels1031


As someone who has never hand any interest in the Three Kingdoms setting (as yet, I will play the hell out of this game for sure.) I have to ask, do Mongols(or this era's equivalent) ever make an appearance?

One of the reasons I've always wanted to have a Total War in China is to play as the Mongols. Playing as the Huns in Atilla: Total War was challenging and fun, but I'd love a change of scenery/opponents.

Also, what the best resource to read about this era?


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 16:02:42


Post by: A Town Called Malus


 Ashiraya wrote:
 Melissia wrote:
I would not be surprised if individuals like Zhang Fei or Guan Yu become hero characters, either solo or with their own squads. Zhuge Liang and other such more known for strategists could be generals that have cooldown-based abilities.


If Lu Bu is not a hero character I'll eat my Shogun 2 disc.


A hero character that you can so easily flip to your side with either a stack of gold or a promise to marry him to a pretty princess


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 16:12:02


Post by: Disciple of Fate


 nels1031 wrote:
As someone who has never hand any interest in the Three Kingdoms setting (as yet, I will play the hell out of this game for sure.) I have to ask, do Mongols(or this era's equivalent) ever make an appearance?

One of the reasons I've always wanted to have a Total War in China is to play as the Mongols. Playing as the Huns in Atilla: Total War was challenging and fun, but I'd love a change of scenery/opponents.

Also, what the best resource to read about this era?

The Xiongnu were what you're looking for at the time. Some scholars link them to the Huns but that is not clearly provable. They are the steppe nomad empire that repeatedly raided succesive Chinese dynasties. Yet as far as I know during the Three Kingdoms period they had been largely defeated and subjugated by the Cao Wei.

Still as a TW game that doesn't have to mean a thing, but it all depends on how and if CA implements them.

As for a book, I'm not sure what book would be best on the specific era.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 16:32:33


Post by: nels1031


FAQ up.

Its pretty run of the mill and sparse.

We’re thrilled to be able to reveal Total War: THREE KINGDOMS to the world and we hope you’re all excited by the game as we are. In Autumn 2018, players will be able to conquer feudal China for the first time ever in a Total War game.



We’re setting out to make the most memorable and incredible Total War game yet and we can’t wait to show you more. And don’t worry, as with previous Total War games, we’ll be giving the press, youtubers, and community members access to the game before release so they can share their impressions too. We’ll also let you know the game shows we’re attending in the lead up to release and we’ll make sure reviews hit before launch.



Here’s a quick Q&A to answer any initial questions you may have about the game. Get in touch if you have any other questions and we will answer them in due course.



What is Total War: THREE KINGDOMS?

Total War: THREE KINGDOMS is the next major historical Total War game and is the first game in the award-winning series to take place in China. The Three Kingdoms period is one of the most turbulent times in Chinese history. The Han Dynasty is crumbling; the stage is set for a great new epoch, forged by the fires of conquest – the time to establish your legacy is now. But with many warlords eyeing the throne, each with a large army to back up their claim, it’s clear that the future of China will be shaped by its champions.



When is it releasing?

Total War: THREE KINGDOMS will launch globally in Fall 2018.



Is this the next Total War game you’re going to release?

No, we will be releasing A Total War Saga: THRONES OF BRITANNIA in Spring 2018. Total War: THREE KINGDOMS will then launch in Autumn 2018.



How big is the map?

As an Era-scale Total War game, the next flagship game in our series, it will have a jaw-dropping, epic Campaign Map to fit. We’ll be giving you an incredibly detailed sandbox of Three Kingdoms-period China to explore and conquer. Lots more to be revealed as we get closer to launch.



What will the early adopter bonus or Collector’s Edition be?

We’ll announce any news around these in due course.



Will there be modding support from release?

As with previous Total War games, the aim is to have modding using the Assembly Kit, and Steam Workshop support available very shortly after launch.



Will It be released on Mac and Linux from release?

We’ll announce any news regarding Mac and Linux releases at a later date.



Will it be available as a physical product or is it digital only?

We’ll have more details on this a little closer to release



What are the min/recommended specs?

Again, it’s a little early to confirm, but if you follow us on social media you’ll be the first to know.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 17:20:51


Post by: Commander Cain


I'm calling it now, there will be dlc featuring dragons and souped up heroes a year after release. Should be an awesome game though, I've only ever played Rome 1 and 2 and the Warhammer series so hopefully this one can pull me in as well.

I feel like they will have to work hard to make each faction play differently as that is the biggest strength of the Warhammer games and it really made it very entertaining to replay in different ways.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 18:04:21


Post by: CthuluIsSpy


 Kroem wrote:


I think you are right and they will start him in Xu though, CA never cared about Oda getting crushed every campaign in Shogun 2 after all


Funnily enough, I actually found the Oda start to be pretty easy, even on hard/hard difficulty. Early game you get an advantage on the tactical map due to having better and cheaper ashigaru, and as long as you secure your borders and keep an eye on diplomacy, you can expand and build up your forces to a point where Realm Divide doesn't just steam roller you.
Then again, the AI has terrible build orders, even in Shogun 2 where the AI isn't completely stupid, so of course if a human isn't playing Oda they will get wiped along with Tokugawa


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 18:22:40


Post by: Knight


Cool, adding to the wish list.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 20:14:33


Post by: Kroem


 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
 Kroem wrote:


I think you are right and they will start him in Xu though, CA never cared about Oda getting crushed every campaign in Shogun 2 after all


Funnily enough, I actually found the Oda start to be pretty easy, even on hard/hard difficulty. Early game you get an advantage on the tactical map due to having better and cheaper ashigaru, and as long as you secure your borders and keep an eye on diplomacy, you can expand and build up your forces to a point where Realm Divide doesn't just steam roller you.
Then again, the AI has terrible build orders, even in Shogun 2 where the AI isn't completely stupid, so of course if a human isn't playing Oda they will get wiped along with Tokugawa

Yea the only time they are guaranteed to survive is if you as the player take control of them. Although rarely the AI does manage to conquer everyone around them as Oda and become a major player!

Funnily enough I don't think I have ever seen the Tokugawa get killed early game, they are usually safe due to being vassals of the Imagawa and having the bonus to diplomacy.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 21:22:20


Post by: LordofHats


 nels1031 wrote:
As someone who has never hand any interest in the Three Kingdoms setting (as yet, I will play the hell out of this game for sure.) I have to ask, do Mongols(or this era's equivalent) ever make an appearance?


During the Han period the northern border was a big more south than it is today. At the time the area of Mongolia and much of what is now Northern China was populated by proto-mongol tribes. They were certainly around. The Wuhuan were commonly employed as mercenaries in China. The Han Dynasty didn't struggle with it's northern neighbors as much as previous and later dynasties, in part because the peoples to the North were busy with their own gak at the time. They were of course there but they have never featured that heavily in the period's lore or popular history. Cao Cao did have to quell the Wuhuan (who had allied with members of the Yuan Family) before Chi Bi in 207. He couldn't well march his entire army south and risk anyone getting to uppity but the Battle of Wolf Mountain has never been a very popular aspect of the era.

Also, what the best resource to read about this era?


You can read this for a general overview. One of the issues with trying to learn about the Three Kingdoms period in English is that almost none of the original histories about it have been translated into English! You'd have to hunt down more general histories on China, which do not focus primarily on the Three Kingdoms themselves. You'll likely find a couple different books called Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel or something like that. These are note "histories" but rather English translations of the historical fiction Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. Bizarrely enough, one of the best English works you can read for actual historical information is fething Dynasty Warriors. Most games in the franchise since DW4 have included an Encyclopedia that contains brief biographies of many of the characters that notes the highly generalized differences between their historical personas and what is presented in the game.

Records of the Three Kingdoms (also called the Sangouzhi) officially by Chen Shou is the official history of the era, compiled in the 3rd Century. It is part of the 24 Histories, and the fourth and final volume on the Han period. It is as far as I know the only surviving contemporary history of the period. Following Zhuge Liang's death, the administrative state of Shu Han decayed rapidly and spectacularly. The written records of the Kingdom pretty much vanished. Chen Shou, originally a citizen of Shu himself, compiled his history of the kingdom from memory and cross referencing some memoirs and outside sources. Cao Wei and Eastern Wu had both compiled their own histories and were used as source material by Chen Shoul. Unfortunately these works are now lost leaving only the Sangouzhi. Annotations to Records of the Three Kingdoms is a 5th century update to the Sangouzhi edited by Pei Songzhi and contains numerous corrections for errors made in Chen Shou's original work though many ahistorical elements of the period had already become prominent in Chinese cultural memory and were included in his annotations. It is more complete that the original, and contains a lot of commentary and personal assessments by Pei Songzhi that are considered to be reliable and enlightening regardless. The Book of the Later Han, compiled by Fan He in the 5th century stops in 189, but it covers a lot of the men and figures who were important leading into the 3 Kingdoms era (contains biographies on Liu Biao, Lu Bu, Dong Zhuo, Yuan Shu, Yuan Shao, and Kong Rong).

As mentioned earlier, the hard part is finding these in English! It's only recently (as in 2016) that a complete translation of Records of the Three Kingdoms was published in the English Language. I don't think Pei Songzhi's annotations have be translated as of yet in any easy to access manner, and I don't think there is an English translation yet of the Book of the Later Han.

You can read Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. There are really only two issues with it, 1) it is highly romanticized and contains lots of fictional events and exaggerated characters. Major figures, particularly those of Shu Han, are glorified and do not accurate reflect their historical personas. 2) it was written in the 14th century, much later than the above mentioned works and while it has been in English for ages it can be a... heavy read. It's long and the quality of the translation can make a big difference in how difficult it is to follow. More literal translations can be very confusing. However the broad strokes of the period presented in the book are accurate and from it you can get a feel for the myth and legend that surrounds the era and makes it so damn popular.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/11 21:35:19


Post by: nels1031


Thanks my dude.

I'll check it out.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/12 02:23:52


Post by: Eumerin


 LordofHats wrote:
 Kroem wrote:

It's a tough one because even starting him in Xu would make the historical partition of China very unlikely.


Well he did historically start in Xu. It was the first government position he held that afforded him his own territory (and one he claimed in 196). Prior to hold that position he was just a landless lord under others. The alternative is starting him closer to Yi province but that would be even more historically inaccurate (it didn't happen until 212) and was only an option following the victory at Chi Bi.

I'm thinking of Shu as a playable faction mind you cause especially with the prominence given the sworn brothers in that trailer there's no way they won't be, which is tricky for Shu. Cao Cao and the Suns had territory holdings in 190 that give them definitively simple start positions. Liu Bei did not.


Another option would be to start him out as a horde army, and then give him a series of missions that will result in him getting a territory to call his own.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Kroem wrote:

Funnily enough, I actually found the Oda start to be pretty easy, even on hard/hard difficulty. Early game you get an advantage on the tactical map due to having better and cheaper ashigaru, and as long as you secure your borders and keep an eye on diplomacy, you can expand and build up your forces to a point where Realm Divide doesn't just steam roller you.
Then again, the AI has terrible build orders, even in Shogun 2 where the AI isn't completely stupid, so of course if a human isn't playing Oda they will get wiped along with Tokugawa

Yea the only time they are guaranteed to survive is if you as the player take control of them. Although rarely the AI does manage to conquer everyone around them as Oda and become a major player!

Funnily enough I don't think I have ever seen the Tokugawa get killed early game, they are usually safe due to being vassals of the Imagawa and having the bonus to diplomacy.


It was Nobunaga himself and Hideyoshi that really gave the Oda clan a leg up over everyone else. Without the tactical and strategic thinking of either one of them, the clan would never have risen to prominence. So given that the computer could never be anywhere near as smart as those two men...

One thing that does bug me is that Oda and Tokugawa are pretty much guaranteed to go to permanent war. That's one reason why I like Koei's offering for the era. Nobunaga's Ambition: Sphere of Influence (and possibly earlier versions of the game; but the previous game that I owned in the series was 2) will trigger historical events if certain conditions within the game are met on the appropriate game year. For instance, the game depicts Nobunaga's father kidnapping the future Tokugawa Ieyasu, and then Ieyasu meeting Nobunaga when the latter's father decided to spare Ieyasu's life. That then leads into the later alliance between the two men when both had risen to rule their own clans.

(It's kind of scary to think how much that kidnapping ended up shaping Japan's future...)



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Probably one more append...

Bizarrely enough, one of the best English works you can read for actual historical information is fething Dynasty Warriors. Most games in the franchise since DW4 have included an Encyclopedia that contains brief biographies of many of the characters that notes the highly generalized differences between their historical personas and what is presented in the game.


Dynasty Warriors (and Samurai Warriors, which is Dynasty Warriors for the Sengoku Jidai; Warriors Orochi is the inevitable mash-up where both casts are merged into the same game) tries to include just about every officer that is known to have lived during the period represented by the games. The individual in question might be represented in-game as just another officer with a generic skin, but that generic officer has the right name. And there's an entry in the encyclopedia that will give you a little bit of biographical information about the individual.

Fun fact - He Man apparently fought in the Three Kingdoms era, and is one of the generic officers in the Dynasty Warriors games.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/12 05:28:02


Post by: LordofHats


Ah yes. He Man. That is a person who existed XD

Maybe they'll have a system of trying to win lords over to your side? A lot of the drama of the period directly stemmed from schemes and plans to win the loyal service of a vassal. They could bring back marriage alliances, which were also a big part of politics and haven't been featured in Total War for awhile it seems.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/12 09:16:14


Post by: Kroem


Dynasty Warriors 3 and 4 were great, but I absolutely hated the 'forts' system that they introduced in Dynasty Warriors 5 and pretty much much everything they have done with the series since then!

I'll say it again, Dynasty Tactics 2 is the best rendition of the RotTK story that I have played. You can watch the cut scenes on Youtube to get a sense of how good that game is!


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/12 09:43:37


Post by: LordofHats


I think 4 and 5 were the high points of the franchise for me. I liked 4s battles the most, but I liked the story system introduced in 5 (with characters having personalized campaigns corresponding however loosely to their lives).

I didn't hate 6 or 7 but some of the things I didn't like. 6's attempt to reinvent the way characters used weapons was a cool idea with horrible execution (and some of the character redesigns were quite radical). 7 was better but it's a game series where I either feel like playing it or I just don't play it at all. I feel like they really need to just desperately reinvent the game on a mechanical game play level, cause it's just gotten stale. Redoing the weapon system, adding new characters, and maps just doesn't fix that the game play has gotten stale.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/12 18:39:50


Post by: Disciple of Fate


While not wanting to rain on anyone's parade too much, lets not get too carried away on features. Most new TW have seen the removal of features, not always replacing them. Lets not forget in Warhammer TW you can't even vassalize or liberate factions anymore, not even for races it makes sense for.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/12 23:32:15


Post by: Ashiraya


'Become vassal' exists as both a diplomacy demand and as an option for when you take someone's last city, so no, it's not gone.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2000/01/13 00:12:34


Post by: Disciple of Fate


 Ashiraya wrote:
'Become vassal' exists as both a diplomacy demand and as an option for when you take someone's last city, so no, it's not gone.

It does, but only for some in WH1. Chaos has it for example, but others arbitrarily don't. Also Warhammer 2 didn't have it on release, if its back in I assume its only for those who had it in Warhammer 1. Iirc they only put it back in for VC and Chaos diplomatically.

Edit: I have to check out Mortal Empires once I have access to my PC if all factions allow the subjugate option now and not just WH1. Still think only VC and Chaos have the diplomatic option though. Its been a while so I could be totally wrong like you say
Still sad about the liberate function though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just quickly did a Mortal Empires start as the Empire, made sure to kill off all Marienburg armies outside of their settlements but killing the last settlement only gave me the options to occupy, loot&occupy, sack and raze. No subjugation. Also no ability in the diplo screen to vassalize Empire factions.

One for Kroq too, killed off Teotiqua. Again made sure to leave no armies outside, killing last settlement only gave occupy, loot&occupy, sack and raze. No diplo option.

Bit late to mess around with the others, but so far in line with what I remember from Warhammer 2, almost fully removed vassal system.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/13 05:39:14


Post by: Ashiraya


I remember vassalizing bastonne as argwylon.

Anyway a bit off topic I guess.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/13 14:51:55


Post by: Disciple of Fate


 Ashiraya wrote:
I remember vassalizing bastonne as argwylon.

Anyway a bit off topic I guess.

Sad to say I just tested Argwylon in Mortal Empires against Parravon, same result. No diplo options or subjugate option anymore. Seems you remember the older Warhammer, which is not being taken into the future of the trilogy.

Besides, subjugating is a terrible vassal mechanic even if it still was in game because you basically blendered the entire faction while conquering half a province you can't complete now, with the vassal likely being murdered within the first few turns for lacking an army.

Its kinda on topic though, because it demonstrates how CA has treated mechanics over Rome 2 to Warhammer 2. Rome 2 was sorely lacking and only got some back after literally years. Warhammer just had them removed from the first game to the next game for zero reason.
Its making me expect that TW Three Kingdoms while carrying the veneer of being Chinese TW will carry no real mechanics to properly go with the period. In Warhammer were reduced to using mods to get back old features. I really hope they will put some effort into reworking and putting back mechanics in Three Kingdoms, but I'm not going to bet on it right now.

Keeping an eye on the Thrones of Britannia one will probably yield some info even though its an Atilla based expansion by a different team. If it retains all the features Atilla has that's at least a more comforting idea. I want to be wrong on mechanics, but otherwise mods could solve it in Three Kingdoms, like they solved it in Warhammer so my Lizardmen could go forth and establish a petting zoo empire just like the Old Ones would have wanted.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/13 16:11:39


Post by: Ashiraya


It may have been TWH1, yes.

Surprising that it didn't carry over, but I guess it'll come with Norsca...

...In May.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/21 12:44:10


Post by: Big Mac


you all should check this 3 kingdoms drama series out, its English subbed, Chinese 3 kingdoms GoT like. the first couple episodes a bit slow to introduce the scene, episode 5 will get your blood running, great series to binge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmxJCPxmL7k&list=PLCldpz_Pc1FrGQLsaxaV0kVPqmXN_nanN


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/21 21:42:54


Post by: Kroem


 Big Mac wrote:
you all should check this 3 kingdoms drama series out, its English subbed, Chinese 3 kingdoms GoT like. the first couple episodes a bit slow to introduce the scene, episode 5 will get your blood running, great series to binge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmxJCPxmL7k&list=PLCldpz_Pc1FrGQLsaxaV0kVPqmXN_nanN

If you're prepared to do that you might as well go the whole hog and read the book 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms'!
There was also a John Woo film called Red Cliff that deals with the battle of Chi Bi in this era that was pretty well received a few years ago.

I bet money Lu Bu gets a faction or at least a campaign. For a guy who wasn't even around for the actual 3 Kingdoms he's pretty damn popular. Maybe not an initial one though. He's a prime candidate for DLC./quote]
Isn't that him in the trailer fighting Guan Yu and Zhang Fei? The only other candidates I think it could be are Zhang Liao or Xu Huang. Although I am basing that on the Koei interpretation of the characters :-p



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2024/01/22 00:26:14


Post by: Big Mac


 Kroem wrote:
 Big Mac wrote:
you all should check this 3 kingdoms drama series out, its English subbed, Chinese 3 kingdoms GoT like. the first couple episodes a bit slow to introduce the scene, episode 5 will get your blood running, great series to binge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmxJCPxmL7k&list=PLCldpz_Pc1FrGQLsaxaV0kVPqmXN_nanN

If you're prepared to do that you might as well go the whole hog and read the book 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms'!
There was also a John Woo film called Red Cliff that deals with the battle of Chi Bi in this era that was pretty well received a few years ago.

I bet money Lu Bu gets a faction or at least a campaign. For a guy who wasn't even around for the actual 3 Kingdoms he's pretty damn popular. Maybe not an initial one though. He's a prime candidate for DLC./quote]
Isn't that him in the trailer fighting Guan Yu and Zhang Fei? The only other candidates I think it could be are Zhang Liao or Xu Huang. Although I am basing that on the Koei interpretation of the characters :-p


haven't read the book, ssaw that red cliff movie, it was a bit hollywoodnized imo; i saw this series when first came out when i was visiting china, but didnt understand half of it, as they spoke ancient high chinese where i understood plain chinese, so i'm watching it again to understand it all, the translation seems quite accurate me, thus i recommend it.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/01/22 01:45:30


Post by: LordofHats


Nah it's def Lu Bu in the trailer. That's clearly supposed to represent the battle of Hulao Gate.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2024/03/26 01:08:06


Post by: Kroem


That was certainly my first guess.


I hope that CA keep the Koei colour scheme of red for Wu, blue for Wei and green for Shu Han the same and also that the Nanman tribes are in the game!

I wonder how they will deal with characters like Zhang He and Pang De who historically changed sides. Dynasty Tactics 2 had a cool system where officers could be recruited when a faction was eliminated if you had one of their friends on your roster.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/10/23 17:06:54


Post by: Eumerin


 Kroem wrote:
That was certainly my first guess.


I hope that CA keep the Koei colour scheme of red for Wu, blue for Wei and green for Shu Han the same and also that the Nanman tribes are in the game!


Or as I recently saw noted elsewhere, Nintendo Switch for Wu, Sony PS4 for Wei, and Microsoft X-Box 1 for Shu Han.

The reason why I'm reviving this old thread is because of this blog post on the Total War website -

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-warlord-legends-sun-jian


The takeaways -

There are 11 warlords you can pick from at the start of the game.

Historically, Sun Jian found the Imperial Seal while picking through the ruins of the former capitol of Luoyang, fought his way through an ambush by Liu Biao while heading back to his home in the south, and then finally died not long after in a volley of arrows. His son Sun Ce succeeded him, traded the seal to Yuan Shu in exchange for troops, and starting conquering the areas that would become the core of Wu. But he died young, and was succeeded by his brother Sun Quan, who eventually proclaimed himself Emperor of Wu.
Sun Jian starts the game north of the Yangtze River in Jiangling. Luoyang has already been burned by Dong Zhuo, and Sun Jian has already discovered the Imperial Seal. His goal is to get home to Changsha, where he can start to build up his power base. The blog notes that on his way home, he is approached by Liu Biao, who makes Sun Jian an offer - hand over the Imperial Seal, or else. If Sun Jian gives up the seal, then Liu Biao becomes friendly, and essentially secures Sun Jian's northern border. If Sun Jian refuses, then Liu Biao becomes an enemy, but it improves relations with Yuan Shu (I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing this is because of the later historical deal that saw the Sun family hand the seal over to Yuan Shu). According to the blog, every playable warlord will have a decision (referred to as a 'dilemma' along these lines early on, and the choice that the player makes can cause some rather large differences in the way that a given campaign plays out.

The blog post is a bit vague on the subject, but it's possible that there will be more possible dilemmas later in the game. If so, I'm guessing that they'll be triggered in a fashion somewhat similar to how Chapters work in the current games - i.e. meet a set of listed conditions, and the next dilemma is triggered.

The post also contains information on what specific traits and abilities make Sun Jian different from other warlords.


Finally, the post states that Sun Jian starts just after the destruction of Luoyang. But the first DLC pack (which is available for free with a pre-order, or purchase of the game within one week of release) is called "Yellow Turban Warlords". Make of that what you will...


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/10/23 22:28:56


Post by: Voss


They covered the Yellow Turban DLC back in September.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/the-yellow-turban-rebellion-a-potted-history

Basically, they acknowledge that the originators of the rebellion, the Zhang brothers, are dead at this point, but are basically carrying on with the idea that resistance went on in various places for a couple decades.

Functionally, you've got three warlords to choose from (curious if these count as part of the 11 in the current blog), and they're maybe historical? One, Gong Du, is mentioned as helping in a rebellion against Sun Jian.

Basically each of the three represents a different 'Taoist virtue' and gets different benefits.

He Yi is People domain, Compassion virtue, and a Healer. So he gets a Healer's Lodge building and berserkers. >.>

Gong Du is a Veteran (and bandit), Land Domain, Frugality Virtue, can build Hidden forts and can steal more stuff post battle. >.>

Huang Shao is a Scholar, Heaven domain, Humility virtue, Gardens building (public order buff?) and fields 'religious fanatics, martial artists and scholars.'

Unit roster for the faction as whole is 'unique and thematic and diverse,' which seems tricky to pull off. Peasant masses and basic yellow turban units are available to all three, but specialists and elite units depend on the leader.




Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/10/25 19:37:33


Post by: Kroem


Sounds really cool, shame it is day 1 dlc and not included with the bloomin game then!



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/10/26 16:00:06


Post by: Eumerin


The next warlord being previewed is Cao Cao.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-warlord-legends-cao-cao?fbclid=IwAR2pMXpl3ZSsCe1fRTC_mW3TkXB0eJABFo8FhZ1Ymo4DxVmpWkWFe34FIX4

Cao Cao is arguably the most important warlord of the early Three Kingdoms era, and likely would have succeeded in uniting the land under his control if it hadn't been for the disastrous Battle of Chibi (aka Red Cliffs). His play style will revolve around manipulating diplomatic perceptions, and he can even trigger a war between two other factions.

While it's not certain, the information about his starting position suggests that he might start the game at an earlier time than Sun Jian. It mentions that Dong Zhuo has branded him an enemy of the state, and is sending "henchmen" after him. This suggests that Dong Zhuo is still in Luoyang, while Sun Jian's start is after Dong Zhuo leaves the capitol (since Sun Jian has recovered the Imperial Seal, and is on his way home). There is a possibility that the start dates are the same. Dong Zhuo wasn't killed until after he relocated west to Chang'an. But post-relocation, Dong Zhuo would hardly be singling out Cao Cao as a problem since there were several other warlords (including Sun Jian) who had actively taken up arms against him.

Cao Cao's first dilemma will revolve around the murder of his father, Cao Song, by soldiers of Tao Qian. Tao Qian has denied that that the soldiers did so under his orders, and Cao Cao must decide whether to immediately attack Tao Qian in revenge, or delay his revenge until he's built up his power somewhat.

Historically, historians are unsure whether Tao Qian was responsible for the death of Cao Song. His soldiers definitely committed the murder, but accounts differ as to whether he ordered it, or was caught up in a number of his troops going rogue out of greed (Cao Song was supposedly traveling with a lot of wealth at the time of his death). Regardless of Tao Qian's exact level of involvement, Cao Cao decided to launch an invasion of Tao Qian's home, Xu Province, in revenge. Tao Qian sent out a request for help against Cao Cao's forces, and Liu Bei responded. Despite aid from Liu Bei, Tao Qian was still losing to Cao Cao until Cao Cao was suddenly forced to recall his troops back to his home territory of Yan Province in order to respond to treason among some of his subordinates, who had invited Lu Bu to invade. When Tao Qian died not long afterwards, the governorship of the province ended up passing to Liu Bei instead of Tao Qian's sons.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/10/26 16:08:46


Post by: Voss


 Kroem wrote:
Sounds really cool, shame it is day 1 dlc and not included with the bloomin game then!



Eh. I find this an overstated thing. Functionally it is included with the game. You get it free for the first week after the release date, so plenty of time for reviews if you find those worth waiting for, and CA gives preview copies to youtubers to mess around with at least a week (sometimes up to 2) in advance, so you can see gameplay and mechanics without problems being covered up before the game even comes out.

With three weeks of lots of firsthand information, people can decide to buy or not. Or ignore the title or wait for a sale (which definitely happens with CA titles)


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/10/31 17:06:37


Post by: Voss


Hmmm
https://www.totalwar.com/blog/what-the-teams-are-working-on-october-2018

So, apparently they're overhauling diplomacy for this one (hopefully making it more nuanced), and in battle, cav and infantry are supposed to move and react better (no more universal simultaneous pivot)

They're also feature locked (which is good for a March release) and on bugs and balancing.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/10/31 18:02:58


Post by: Eumerin


Voss wrote:
Hmmm
https://www.totalwar.com/blog/what-the-teams-are-working-on-october-2018

So, apparently they're overhauling diplomacy for this one (hopefully making it more nuanced), and in battle, cav and infantry are supposed to move and react better (no more universal simultaneous pivot)

They're also feature locked (which is good for a March release) and on bugs and balancing.


At the very least, I suspect that getting Cao Cao's ability to the point where it wasn't either largely useless or hopelessly broken would require that the diplomacy system gets an overhaul.

The link also mentions that they're building a character relationship system. Presumably this means that friendships and hatreds between individual characters will be tracked behind the scenes, and this will have an effect on your interactions with them within the game.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/10/31 18:07:26


Post by: Voss


Yeah, I left that out because they've mentioned it previously in more specific terms. I'm still not sure how it works, entirely, but they've mentioned it having effects on recruitment or even duels.

Truthfully I figured Cao Cao's ability would work like high elf influence, where you can just force positive or negative modifiers on others.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/01 15:44:12


Post by: Eumerin


And here's the leader of the last of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei -

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-warlord-legends-liu-bei?fbclid=IwAR20BC6uqi1ABhcRPhXT3PmejGSHGvYlORuAuYRYnQp4SNm5Iq4PNn2-9sY


Liu Bei's focus is on personal bonds with his followers. He starts with two very close followers - his sworn oath brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. If Liu Bei and his oath brothers are in the same battle, then the player will gain bonuses. The game will apparently encourage Liu Bei to maintain close relationships with all of his followers, and this will boost his unity gain, his ascent through the faction ranks, and improve his government capabilities. Because he's popular with the people, his militia units don't require any upkeep (which is also no doubt tied to the fact that he was frequently homeless until he finally secured Jing province following the Battle of Chibi; this means that he can maintain an army even when he doesn't have any income). And finally, due to his (tenuous) claim to descent from the ruling Han Dynasty, he can automatically take control of provinces owned by the Han faction for a small cost in unity.

Unlike the other warlords, Liu Bei starts out with just a single army in Dong Province, and no territory of his own. He's surrounded by Yellow Turban rebels, and will need to get past them to break out into the greater China. His initial dilemma will be the opposite side of Cao Cao's initial dilemma. As mentioned in the Cao Cao entry, Cao Cao's father, Cao Song, was murdered by soldiers belonging to Tao Qian. Tao Qian claimed that the soldiers had gone rogue, but Cao Cao held the old man responsible for his father's death, and invaded Tao Qian's province. Liu Bei's initial dilemma will be whether to respond to Cao Cao's invasion by supporting Tao Qian, or sitting it out. Supporting Tao Qian will turn Cao Cao into a powerful enemy, and he'll need to resist a potentially difficult invasion (historically, the only reason Cao Cao lost was because he was forced to return home when Lu Bu invaded his home province during Cao Cao's absence). If Liu Bei supports Tao Qian, it will prove Liu Bei's worth and virtue, and he'll be in a good position to inherit the province when Tao Qian dies (Tao Qian was already an old man; historically, when he died he turned the province over to Liu Bei, who then held it for a short time before losing it to Lu Bu).



Warlords confirmed so far -

Sun Jian
Cao Cao
Liu Bei


And just for fun, other possible playable warlords -

Yuan Shao (a powerful member of the nobility who led the anti-Dong Zhuo coalition, and early on possibly the most powerful contender for eventual control)
Yuan Shu (either a cousin or half-brother of Shao, who quickly turned into a rival after Dong Zhuo retreated from Luoyang and the Emperor's rule evaporated; historically, Shu was given the Imperial Seal by the Sun family in exchange for troops, and he made the mistake of using his possession of it to declare himself Emperor, which turned him into a target for EVERYONE)
Lu Bu (if the mightiest warrior of the era isn't a playable warlord, then something's wrong...)
Dong Zhuo (because, why not? He's lost Luoyang at this point, and was killed two years later by Lu Bu, but maybe he can regain power? The entry for Cao Cao explicitly mentions that he's still alive at the start of the game.)


And finally, almost certainly won't be a warlord, but he could be a fun dark horse candidate anyway -

Emperor Xian - Dong Zhuo died in 192. Historically, his successors refused to allow the Emperor to leave Chang'an until 195. They almost immediately changed their minds, and chased Xian to the ruins of Luoyang, where the Emperor met Cao Cao and accepted his protection. But what if Emperor had been able to successfully rally troops and militia to his side, and beat back his pursuers? This would have put him in the position where he could have rejected Cao Cao's "protection", and worked to reunite China under the renewed rule of the Han Dynasty. Historically, there was no chance of it happening (even if Xian had managed to somehow get his freedom, he'd been under the thumb of others for his entire life, and likely would have had difficulties actually running a government), but it could be a fun "what if?"


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/01 23:33:14


Post by: LordofHats


I would be shocked if Lu Bu wasn't playable in some form.

Others who were important to the period but aren't as well known because they weren't central characters in Romance of the Three Kingdoms are Kong Rong, Liu Yan, Shi Xie, Gongsun Zan, and Ma Teng.

The Gongsun family is notable in particular as the only Warlords who managed to endure into the Three Kingdom's era. Cao Wei only conquered them a few years before finally conquering Han Shu.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/02 03:17:29


Post by: Eumerin


 LordofHats wrote:
I would be shocked if Lu Bu wasn't playable in some form.

Others who were important to the period but aren't as well known because they weren't central characters in Romance of the Three Kingdoms are Kong Rong, Liu Yan, Shi Xie, Gongsun Zan, and Ma Teng.

The Gongsun family is notable in particular as the only Warlords who managed to endure into the Three Kingdom's era. Cao Wei only conquered them a few years before finally conquering Han Shu.


I had thought about Ma Teng, but more through his son Ma Chao. And I couldn't remember the father's name. Though Han Sui is up in that same region, and might be a better choice.

IIRC, Gongsun Zan was Zhao Yun's original master before the latter joined Liu Bei, which is about the extent of my knowledge of the man.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/02 03:38:16


Post by: LordofHats


Both would work as both were significant figures in the immediate aftermath of Dong Zhuo's fall. Ma Chao's eventual rebellion presented a meaningful threat to Cao Cao, and he became a major figure of the period so I'd view a lack of a "Ma" faction as not a great loss but an oversight. If you were to rank warlords as "10 most likely to conquer China" at the fall of Dong Zhuo then Han Sui and Ma Teng would both be on the list.

Gongsun Zan was Zhao Yun's original lord, and to be fair little is known of him. He was a seemingly successful and experience field commander from Northern China, old by the time of Cao Cao's rise, but a major warlord during the Yellow Turban rebellion, and while he lost a major battle against Yuan Shao that ended his own bid to rule China his family managed to hold on longer than anyone else afterwards.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/02 19:41:48


Post by: Voss


So, I was grabbing the Vampire Coast Sea Shanty off the Total War Access thing (which I had signed up for to get the legendary units sometime back)...

and it turned out there was a set of character portraits for Three Kingdoms, with hero types and traits, and various skills/abilities, items and mounts associated with the character. I doubt all of them are Warlords, but may give some insight (or be old news, dunno)

The background behind them is also themed: Fire, Air, Wood, Earth and what I presume is Metal.

Cao Cao, Hero Type : Commander, Earth

Dian Wei, Hero Type: Champion, Wood

Gan Ning, Hero Type: Vanguard, Fire

Sun Ce, Hero Type: Vanguard, Fire

Sun Jian, Hero Type: Sentinel, Metal(?)

Sun Quan, Hero Type: Commander, Earth

Sun Ren, Hero Type: Vanguard, Fire

Xiahou Dun, Hero Type: Champion, Wood

Xiahou Yuan, Hero Type: Vanguard, Fire

Xu Chu, Hero Type: Xu Chu, Wood

Zhou Yu, Hero Type: Strategist


Notably, all of the Suns except Sun Quan share the 'Flames of the Phoenix' ability. Though so does Xiahou Yuan


Presumably with the various people and families represented, there will be some sort of death and inheritance system involved like Attila or Rome.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/02 20:34:35


Post by: Eumerin


Voss wrote:

Notably, all of the Suns except Sun Quan share the 'Flames of the Phoenix' ability. Though so does Xiahou Yuan


Well, all of them did come to a bad end...

(Sun Ren didn't necessarily die prematurely, afaik; but I've heard that her marriage to Liu Bei wasn't a happy one, in part due to the usual suspicions that she was a spy for her family)

Presumably with the various people and families represented, there will be some sort of death and inheritance system involved like Attila or Rome.


Can't imagine that they wouldn't have something like that. None of the three kingdoms ended under the rulership of the individual who founded it. The Sun family in particular went through two leaders early on before Sun Quan finally came to power. Based on the information revealed so far, Sun Jian died pretty much right after the start of the game, and yet his sons founded Wu.

Incidentally, the Guan Yu poster was on the Total War Facebook feed this morning. I'm surprised it and the Liu Bei one weren't on the Access site.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/10 21:37:50


Post by: Eumerin


Ma Teng is confirmed.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-warlord-legends-ma-teng

Ma Teng's defining characteristic for the write-up is his loyalty to the Han Dynasty. Because of this, he starts out friendly with Dong Zhuo (since Dong Zhuo has control of Emperor Xian). Ma Teng's abilities will be tied to logistics and supplies. He will be able to provide more supplies for his troops, his troops will forage when encamped, requiring no supplies, and cavalry patrols from his cities will collect more supplies for friendly armies, and reduce supplies available to invading armies. He's friends with Han Sui (it's not clear whether Han Sui is part of his faction, or leader of another faction), and Ma Chao has been born, but still hasn't come of age. Ma Teng begins the game at war with Yellow Turban rebels in the Wudu Commandery. His initial dilemma will only kick in when Dong Zhuo dies (which the blog post suggests doesn't have to happen on schedule). When Dong Zhuo dies, his faction will descend into civil war. Ma Teng's initial dilemma will be whether to start a major war on his doorstep by getting involved and possibly rescuing Emperor Xian, or focus his efforts on expanding his power base in other surrounding regions instead.

On a related note, I find the focus for Ma Teng on loyalty somewhat ironic. What I understand is that he and most of his family eventually went to work for the Emperor, who had fallen into the hands of Cao Cao. While he was there, his son Ma Chao (who had been left at home) decided to launch on attack on Cao Cao's holdings. Emperor Xian ordered the execution of the entire family as a result. Ma Chao and his cousin Ma Dai were the only two male members who weren't in Wei, and as a result became the only male survivors of the family.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/10 22:11:53


Post by: LordofHats


Yeah it is ironic. While Ma Chao was the one who eventually launched the family rebellion, Ma Teng hoped to be a ruler in his own right, mostly focused on declaring his independence from the Han and ruling his lands as his own domain. He gave that up because Cao Cao was too strong (the rest of the clan obviously didn't) but hie primary characteristic being loyalty to the Han is kind of the opposite of what he should be.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/10 22:26:34


Post by: Eumerin


 LordofHats wrote:
Yeah it is ironic. While Ma Chao was the one who eventually launched the family rebellion, Ma Teng hoped to be a ruler in his own right, mostly focused on declaring his independence from the Han and ruling his lands as his own domain. He gave that up because Cao Cao was too strong (the rest of the clan obviously didn't) but hie primary characteristic being loyalty to the Han is kind of the opposite of what he should be.


Might be related to his portrayal in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In the novel, he tries to assassinate Cao Cao in order to free Emperor Xian. That leads to his death, and Ma Chao swears vengeance on Cao Cao for the death of his father, which is what causes Ma Chao to go to war with Cao Cao.



In any case, Ma Teng's initial dilemma makes me somewhat interested in him. The idea of freeing Emperor Xian from the civil war in Dong Zhuo's domain with the goal of reestablishing Han power sounds kind of interesting. I'm curious whether that will play out any differently than another player (say, Cao Cao, as happened historically) getting control of him.



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/13 18:11:01


Post by: Eumerin


And here's Liu Biao -

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-warlord-legends-liu-biao?fbclid=IwAR2lPmHK54YUyAD_DLxbKxIZ76rFOIINGc-36uCKwIDBkk7l-2FVFs6_FuQ

As his name indicates, Liu Biao is a distant relative of the Han Dynasty, as well as Liu Bei. He is described as The Aristocrat who has a love for academics and the scholarly. His abilities focus around education and training, which allows players using him to more rapidly increase the experience levels of their generals. He also receives a bonus to public order.

Liu Biao starts the game with rebels rising up in his territory. After dealing with the rebels, he is confronted with his inital dilemma. Yuan Shao has sent a secret message to Liu Biao asking him to retrieve the Imperial Seal from Sun Jian. Attempting to do so will lead to war between Sun Jian, and Sun Jian's ally Yuan Shu. Ignoring the request will hurt relations with Yuan Shao, who is a powerful, albeit more distant, warlord. Historically, Liu Biao did attack Sun Jian. He did not retrieve the Seal (Sun Ce ultimately traded it to Yuan Shu for supplies and troops), but Sun Jian was killed by an arrow during the battle. That started a long-running feud with the Sun family, which was only ended when the general who had led Liu Biao's forces in that battle was himself killed in battle.

Liu Biao is already old when the game starts (historically, he died of old age not long after Cao Cao started an invasion), and his sons are described as less than stellar potential heirs. The write-up suggests that the player might want to find another, alternate heir since the sons likely won't turn out to be very effective rulers.



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/13 18:15:51


Post by: LordofHats


Can't express much interest in Liu Biao. Indeed the guy just wasn't around for long. The biggest impact he made on the era was killing Sun Jian and setting Sun Ce up to build the groundwork for Wu.

This gives me hope though that the players I'd like to see will be in game. Kong Rong and Gongsun Zan were arguably more significant in the era than Ma Teng or Liu Biao. If both of them made it in, I don't see how the other two can't... but life does like to disappoint me.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/13 18:40:56


Post by: Eumerin


 LordofHats wrote:
Can't express much interest in Liu Biao. Indeed the guy just wasn't around for long. The biggest impact he made on the era was killing Sun Jian and setting Sun Ce up to build the groundwork for Wu.

This gives me hope though that the players I'd like to see will be in game. Kong Rong and Gongsun Zan were arguably more significant in the era than Ma Teng or Liu Biao. If both of them made it in, I don't see how the other two can't... but life does like to disappoint me.


The big reason for Ma Teng is probably Ma Chao. Plus, they probably decided it would be a good idea to have someone up in that part of the map. Liu Biao also happens to occupy a pretty important location on the map. Namely, he's pretty much in the center of China. And Jing Province, which he controlled, was the eventual cause of lots of friction between Wu and Shu Han (which ultimately led to Guan Yu's death).

Yuan Shao is pretty much guaranteed to be in. Yuan Shu will likely show up as well, given the important role that he played. Liu Zhao seems likely based purely on the amount of territory that he controlled, as well as his position in the southwest. And Gongsun Du is up in the far northeast corner of the map, where his family retained control until quite late in the era, occasionally attempting to take territory from the neighboring kingdom of Gorgoryuo (sp? - part of one of the three Korean kingdoms that existed at the time). Lu Bu seems likely because, well, it's Lu Bu!

That's ten, which - assuming that those are all correct guesses - would leave one more starting warlord.




Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/23 19:44:31


Post by: Eumerin


The next warlord is a bit of a surprise.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-warlord-legends-zhang-yan

Zhang Yan is a bandit with territory that borders Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao. He's described as a definite underdog, who starts out weaker than the surrounding factions. As a result, the description for him suggests that anyone playing him should initially back another more powerful faction so that the player can grow their strength until they're ready to make their move. The advantages described in the article are that he excels at ambushes and deception, his troops move more quickly through forests, and he can engage in diplomacy with the Yellow Turban factions. His initial dilemma focuses on how to handle his initial expansion. Yuan Shao has recently started a campaign against Gongsun Zan (which historically led to the death of the latter and the conquest of his territory), but has left his southern territories lightly guarded. As Zhang Yan, the player can take advantage of this to launch raids into Yuan Shao's territory. Alternately, the player can ignore Yuan Shao, and instead secure the borders against the other bandits in the region. This will provide a more secure home base from which to operate. The article also suggests a third possibility - namely, seizing the mountainous territory to the west. However, expanding in this direction will eventually put you in contact with Dong Zhuo.

Historically, Zhang Yan chose to raid Yuan Shao's territory. This continued until Lu Bu (who had temporarily aligned himself with Yuan Shao) fought against him. Zhang Yan later made contact with Cao Cao, assisted the latter in his battles against Yuan Shao's sons, and subsequently officially surrendered to the Han Court (which was under Cao Cao's control). He was given the rank of Marquis in acknowledgement of his accomplishments.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/23 19:50:59


Post by: LordofHats


I'll be honest. I don't remember this guy XD But a bandit factions sounds cool.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/23 20:30:47


Post by: Eumerin


 LordofHats wrote:
I'll be honest. I don't remember this guy XD But a bandit factions sounds cool.


I don't know if you've played any Dynasty Warriors games. Some of the more recent ones (8 Extreme and 9, at least) have a mission that has you playing as Lu Bu, fighting bandits on behalf of Yuan Shao. I'd have to double-check, but I think the lead bandit is this guy. Gongsun Zan and Zhao Yun like to put in appearances in those missions, as well, fighting alongside the bandits (though afaik, Zhang Yan never actually fought alongside either one of them). At the end of the missions, Lu Bu (who, in Dynasty Warriors, is searching for someone who can actually challenge him on the battlefield) gets bored fighting for Yuan Shao, and leaves. This sort of matches up with what historically happened. Apparently Yuan Shao found Lu Bu to be too arrogant to work with Shao's forces.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/23 20:33:30


Post by: LordofHats


I've probably played the mission and just don't remember the character. The only "generic" characters in DW that I know are ones with big roles like Shamoke and Han Zan (think he became playable in 8? Can't remember).


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/11/23 20:38:57


Post by: Eumerin


 LordofHats wrote:
I've probably played the mission and just don't remember the character. The only "generic" characters in DW that I know are ones with big roles like Shamoke and Han Zan (think he became playable in 8? Can't remember).


Yeah, Zhang Yan is completely forgettable within the mission. He's more or less just another generic guy that you need to defeat. The DW8 Extreme version of the mission has you constantly saving Yuan Shao from a bunch of traps and ambushes (or, alternately, leaving Shao to his fate while you go deal with the enemy leader). The DW9 version doesn't even have that.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/07 18:21:51


Post by: Eumerin


It's been a while since I posted here, and three new leaders have been announced in the meantime.

The first is one that would have been surprising if he hadn't been in the game. Yuan Shao was the leader of the Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalition, and was initially viewed as one of the likely claimants of the throne when the various warlords finally started squabbling over the bits of the Han Empire. He's described as being good at forging and leading alliances. His initial dilemma is an interesting one. Gongsun Zan is attacking Han Fu at your suggestion, and has asked you for your support. But Han Fu has now turned to you for protection, and is offering his lands in exchange.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-warlord-legends-yuan-shao

The most recently announced leader is Kong Rong. He's a great scholar, and he specializes in teaching and educating his population, as well as doing better with trade deals than would otherwise be the case. His initial dilemma involves a great warrior who has offered his services (the image shows Taishi Ci, who initially fought against Sun Ce, but later joined him). Kong Rong can use the warrior to fight against the Yellow Turban Bandits that are attacking him, or can send the great warrior to find aid from another warlord.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-warlord-legends-kong-rong?fbclid=IwAR3RkmSqbQKDxoUfUC3V2GX_VHtifmS4WqrucGY67cj3k8ZwXLToVuUlf-4

And finally, we have the third warlord. Zhang Yan was a surprise. This warlord makes him look completely normal in comparison. Zheng Jiang was a bandit leader who was defeated by Cao Cao around 210. Other than that, we know nothing about her. And yes, I said 'her'. She hates the Han Empire, and wants to tear down its institutions. She'll reward a militarily aggressive play style that sees the player constantly on the offensive against neighbors. Her initial dilemma will focus on her neighbor and fellow bandit leader Zhang Yan. Zhang Yan has gotten himself involved in the fighting between Gongsun Zan and Yuan Shao, and has called on his fellow bandits to aid him. The player will have the opportunity to either join in the battle against Yuan Shao, or help themselves to Zhang Yan's territory while he's distracted by the war on the other side of his territory.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-warlord-legends-zheng-jiang


One other item worth noting - the entry for Kong Rong suggests that it will be possible to win the game even with a small number of territories under your control.


Nine warlords down, and two to go. Yuan Shao's half-brother, Yuan Shu, is conspicuously absent. I'd be surprised if he was not a starting choice, given that his fighting with Yuan Shao dominated the early portion of the era portrayed by the game. But they haven't announced him yet, and there are only two starting slots left. So we shall see. Dong Zhou or Lu Bu also seem like likely warlords, though. And we still don't have any starting choices that are in the southwest corner of the map, near Chengdu, where Liu Bei ultimately settled. And those options combined make up more choices than we have remaining.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/07 19:45:25


Post by: StygianBeach


While all the new stuff they have shown looks good, i am still disappointed by the day 1 dlc.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/08 07:41:26


Post by: LordofHats


Good to see Kong Rong getting some love. The diplomacy overhaul they're proposing would seem center to his playstyle. Hope it lives up cause that's definitely a weak point in the series in a genre notorious for bad diplomacy.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/10 00:11:26


Post by: squidhills


I haven't played any non-Warhammer Total War games, but I'm such a huge ROtTK fan that I may have to pick this up. One thing I'm curious about, though, is how/if they will handle the defensive fortifications that dotted China in this period, like Hu Lao gate. Total Warhammer didn't have a mechanism for just building a defensive fortification away from a city, which is fine, but Hu Lao Gate is such an important battle of the Anti Dong Zhuo Coalition period that it would be a shame to not have it. Romance of the Three Kingdoms 10 (I think it was 10... I've played so many) put the gates into the game, and they added a new element to the strategy of offense and defense. If you held a gate, it was like having a spare, stationary, army dedicated solely to defense on one of your flanks. Certain cities were unassailable without first capturing a gate or two. And if a defender actually positioned an army on a gate, then you'd get to fight a battle with the gate as a terrain feature/tactical objective.

It was pretty sweet, is what I'm saying.

So I hope Total War Three Kingdoms has the gates, somehow.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/10 04:19:10


Post by: Eumerin


squidhills wrote:
I haven't played any non-Warhammer Total War games, but I'm such a huge ROtTK fan that I may have to pick this up. One thing I'm curious about, though, is how/if they will handle the defensive fortifications that dotted China in this period, like Hu Lao gate. Total Warhammer didn't have a mechanism for just building a defensive fortification away from a city, which is fine, but Hu Lao Gate is such an important battle of the Anti Dong Zhuo Coalition period that it would be a shame to not have it. Romance of the Three Kingdoms 10 (I think it was 10... I've played so many) put the gates into the game, and they added a new element to the strategy of offense and defense. If you held a gate, it was like having a spare, stationary, army dedicated solely to defense on one of your flanks. Certain cities were unassailable without first capturing a gate or two. And if a defender actually positioned an army on a gate, then you'd get to fight a battle with the gate as a terrain feature/tactical objective.

It was pretty sweet, is what I'm saying.

So I hope Total War Three Kingdoms has the gates, somehow.


First of all, a quick note that there's no record of a battle at Hulao Gate anywhere aside from the novel. So it appears to have been an invention of the novel's author.

Now having said that...

Ulthuan in Total War: Warhammer 2 already has a gate mechanism in place. As is depicted in the fluff, Ulthuan has a mountain range that runs around the entire continent. And you can't get from the outer shores to the inner shores without going through one of the gates, which are located at the only passes through the mountain range. This is depicted in the game. And based on what I've seen while running around ancient China in Dynasty Warriors 9 (i.e. the open world edition of that series), there were lots of gates in various parts of the country. I've heard elsewhere that the intent behind the gates was to allow the Han to restrict the movement of military forces - *particularly* cavalry in the interior in and around Luoyang. When the lords rose up against the Ten Eunuchs, this restriction was apparently relaxed, which gave Dong Zhuo the opening to take control of the capitol (in the process of overthrowing the Ten Eunuchs).

Or so I've heard.

In any case, as I've mentioned, Ulthuan already features gate garrisons that can be used to restrict movement through parts of the map so long as the gates are garrisoned. This could easily be carried over to Total War Three Kingdoms.

There are also a number of settlements in both Warhammer Total War games that *should* be able to block off passes. But for some inexplicable reason, Creative Assembly made it possible to go around the settlements in every other circumstance in which the settlement in question might have been used to block one end or the other of a pass.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/10 05:25:17


Post by: LordofHats


Eumerin wrote:


First of all, a quick note that there's no record of a battle at Hulao Gate anywhere aside from the novel. So it appears to have been an invention of the novel's author.


The battle of Hu Lao Gate basically exists in RotTK to extol the martial abilities of Liu Bei, Zheng Fei, and Guan Yu early in the story, when truthfully they wouldn't start to shine until well after Dong Zhuo's fall. It also feeds heavily into the highly mythologized nature of Lu Bu's character.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/10 12:39:32


Post by: squidhills


Eumerin wrote:

Ulthuan in Total War: Warhammer 2 already has a gate mechanism in place. As is depicted in the fluff, Ulthuan has a mountain range that runs around the entire continent. And you can't get from the outer shores to the inner shores without going through one of the gates, which are located at the only passes through the mountain range. This is depicted in the game.


Well that explains that. I haven't done well enough in a game of Total Warhammer 2 to actually set foot in Ulthuan. I usually suffer some catastrophic, unrecoverable defeat before I leave Lustria or Nagaroth and have to start over.

I like Total Warhammer, I'm just terrible at it.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/10 16:17:00


Post by: Voss


Mind you, the gates in Warhammer 2 are awful. Currently, heroes/agents just ignore them and when you attack them, for some reason you can't build siege equipment. It treats them as a open field battle despite the walls.

Not that you need siege equipment in warhammer city battles...


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/11 18:51:29


Post by: Eumerin


And here's Yuan Shu -

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-warlord-legends-yuan-shu?fbclid=IwAR2VxPw5VrOCCp2OSIWPeW0-hyJjPlqdOx8rI7PYwZhjmyYCIAIV8o_q6-4

Note that because Yuan Shu shared his family name with Yuan Shao, this write-up frequently refers to him simply by his given name, Shu. Please keep in mind that despite this name, he is in no way associated with the later Kingdom of Shu which was established by Liu Bei.

Yuan Shu was the half-brother of Yuan Shao, and the two absolutely did not get along. Shu believed that Shao had usurped the former's birth-right (in fact, there were apparently even claims that Shao was adopted into the family, and not a blood relative of their shared father), and when Emperor Xian was believed dead following the burning of Luoyang, the two brothers quickly turned on each other. Early in Shu's life, he was apparently a competent leader. But as time passed (and by the time the game begins), he had become known for an overly extravagant life-style. He eventually obtained the Imperial Seal from the Sun family. In 197, he used this to declare himself emperor. Unfortunately, this merely made him a target for all of the other warlords (the fact that the actual sitting emperor - Emperor Xian - had turned up alive just a year or two earlier only made things worse). The Sun family - who had provided the bulk of Yuan Shu's military strength - immediately turned on him, and nearly every other warlord in the region used the declaration as an excuse to attack Shu. Shu was thoroughly crushed. With his defeat apparent, he attempted to flee to take refuge with his half-brother, Shao. But the army sent by Shao to escort him to safety was forced to turn back before it could reach him, and Shu died of illness not long after.

Yuan Shu's initial dilemma will focus on the battle between Sun Jian and Liu Biao. Yuan Shu can ignore the squabble between the two, and focus on other matters. Or he can get involved to help Sun Jian, who is in dire straits. However, doing so will almost certainly anger Yuan Shao, who is the one who asked Liu Biao to attack Sun Jian in the first place. Not only is Shao Shu's half-brother, but historically he was also the most powerful warlord in the region, and angering him will no doubt cause problems. Regardless of which decision Shu makes, his starting location is one of the most precarious in the game as he's surrounded by powerful hostile warlords. Liu Biao is one of his neighbors. His territory is within range of Dong Zhuo's armies. And the aggressive and resourceful Cao Cao is to his east. Because of this, the article describes Yuan Shu as having one of the most difficult starts in the game.

Yuan Shu has a unique mechanic called "Legitimacy". Presumably based on a combination of his noble blood, and his later claim to the Imperial Throne, Shu relies on the Legitimacy mechanic to propel his rise through the ranks. He can demand that another warlord accept his claims. If the other warlord does so, then Shu's legitimacy will be increased, which will help to increase his rank. However, recruitable characters will need to acknowledge his claims. So without spending legitimacy, it appears that it will be difficult for Shu to get new characters to join his faction. In addition to the new mechanic, Yuan Shu will also receive bonuses to income from commerce and industry. He also has access to a unique mechanic that will allow him to make an initial monetary investment in a character, and then receive increased income from that character over the course of the game.


That's ten warlords down, with one remaining. I suspect that the last playable warlord will be Dong Zhuo. However, this will leave a rather sizeable gap in that there won't be any playable warlords in and around Chengdu, in the southwest. And Dong Zhuo's fate during the era (which happened soon after the game starts; Luoyang was burned in 190, and Dong Zhuo died in 192) doesn't really endear itself to a Total War game. A dilemma along the lines of, "One of your generals is sleeping with one of your chambermaids. Should you ignore it, or execute him?" just doesn't have the same ring to it that the other dilemmas do.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/11 18:54:24


Post by: LordofHats


It's possible the 10th will be Lu Bu, who will have to choose between betraying Dong Zhuo or staying loyal to him. It's also possible they'll save Lu Bu for a DLC.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/17 19:35:33


Post by: Eumerin


And the last starting leader is...

*Drumroll*

Gongsun Zan

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-warlord-legends-gongsun-zan?fbclid=IwAR3tEvet016eYUqLze9BvSvhS_HU0OhBQX72tcQ4p521pZNr308kIOkPcJA

Note that Gongsun Zan should *not* be mistaken for Gongsun Du. Gongsun Du was situated at the border with Korea, and he and his heirs spent most of their time fighting Koreans until they were finally removed by the Sima family. Gongsun Zan had nothing to do with them (though it's possible that he was a distant relative), and was historically defeated relatively early on in the period.

Gongsun Zan is a military-focused warlord. He doesn't get civilian administrators. Instead, his generals oversee provinces. His "reinforcement radius" is 50% larger than that of other warlords (i.e. armies can reinforce each other while further away), and he has access to some of the best shock cavalry in the game. His faction also gets access to superior horse archers. He has a good relationship with Liu Bei at the start of the game (they're childhood friends), and he starts with the services of Zhao Yun, one of the greatest warriors of the era.

Gongsun Zan starts near the northeast corner of the map. The aforementioned Gongsun Du is to his east. But aside from the possibility of stabilizing Zan's flanks, advancement along this route is a dead end. Zan's western border is occupied by his rival, Lui Yu. One fork of Zan's initial dilemma is to permanently resolve his rivalry with Lui Yu by defeating him and claiming Lui Yu's territory. Alternately, Zan's old ally Yuan Shao has recently suggested that Zan should launch an attack on Han Fu. This is what Zan did historically, and the result of that is briefly discussed in Yuan Shao's write-up.


And that's it for the list of starting leaders. To review, they are -

Sun Jian
Cao Cao
Liu Bei
Ma Teng
Liu Biao
Zhang Yan
Yuan Shao
Zheng Jiang
Kong Rong
Yuan Shu
Gongsun Zan


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/17 21:10:49


Post by: nels1031


Judging by facebook reacts to this announcement, looks like alot of folks were waiting on this dude and what he brings to the table.

I know feth all about this era and its inspiration but even I am liking this dude. I always love the more militant type of factions/leaders.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/17 21:18:15


Post by: LordofHats


Happy to see Gongsun Zan. Surprised not to see Lu Bu, but then again he is perfect DLC fodder.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/17 23:03:57


Post by: squidhills


I'm not surprised they didn't include Lu Bu at launch. He is most famous for betraying pretty much everybody he served and then losing to Cao Cao. The RotTK games from Koei have traditionally presented him as an attack dog for Dong Zhuo and not much of a leader in his own right. In fact, of the various starting maps in those games, only one map ever features Lu Bu ruling a province. Gongsun Zan is usually featured on at least 2 maps.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/18 00:24:32


Post by: LordofHats


squidhills wrote:
I'm not surprised they didn't include Lu Bu at launch. He is most famous for betraying pretty much everybody he served and then losing to Cao Cao. The RotTK games from Koei have traditionally presented him as an attack dog for Dong Zhuo and not much of a leader in his own right. In fact, of the various starting maps in those games, only one map ever features Lu Bu ruling a province. Gongsun Zan is usually featured on at least 2 maps.


Certainly true. Even as a warrior lots of Historians consider Lu Bu's reputation to be exaggerated by folk myth and legend. He won few battles during his career. Sun Jian famously kicked his ass while having half as many men because Lu Bu was completely ineffective as a commander and couldn't get his officers to respect him.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/18 00:27:16


Post by: Easy E


I am a Yuan Shu man myself.....





Note: I only know what Koei has taught me.....


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/18 02:45:25


Post by: Eumerin


 nels1031 wrote:
Judging by facebook reacts to this announcement, looks like alot of folks were waiting on this dude and what he brings to the table.

I know feth all about this era and its inspiration but even I am liking this dude. I always love the more militant type of factions/leaders.


Historically, he didn't really bring much. Liu Bei linked up with him, and hit it off with Zhao Yun, who bailed on Gonsun Zan to follow Liu Bei when an opportunity presented itself. And then Zan got beaten and killed by Yuan Shao.

But that's more than Zheng Jiang brings. The only - and I mean *ONLY* - thing that we know about her is that she was defeated and killed by Cao Cao's forces in 210.

Lu Bu is a bit problematic as a warlord for a very simple reason. When the game starts, Dong Zhuo is still alive. And Dong Zhuo was Lu Bu's leader right up until Lu Bu betrayed him (which historically would be within two years of the game start). There are ways to work around that, of course. But those ways kind of up end the existing mechanics very dramatically. He might appear in a DLC, though, with some special mechanics.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/18 02:55:44


Post by: LordofHats


Gongsun Zan had a rather successful, if undefined, military career (one of the few men in the early stages of the period who did). He fought nonstop along the northern border for years, which is a role that generally gets a lot of credit in Chinese culture. Basically every defender of the North who didn't lose became a cultural badass as far as anyone is concerned.

He was also supposedly a genius. His defeat by Yuan Shao is generally attributed to his lackluster politics and administrative skill, rather than his military talent.

I also don't think Yaun Shao killed him. Pretty sure he committed suicide after his final defeat.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2018/12/18 04:54:28


Post by: Eumerin


 LordofHats wrote:
Gongsun Zan had a rather successful, if undefined, military career (one of the few men in the early stages of the period who did). He fought nonstop along the northern border for years, which is a role that generally gets a lot of credit in Chinese culture. Basically every defender of the North who didn't lose became a cultural badass as far as anyone is concerned.

He was also supposedly a genius. His defeat by Yuan Shao is generally attributed to his lackluster politics and administrative skill, rather than his military talent.

I also don't think Yaun Shao killed him. Pretty sure he committed suicide after his final defeat.


Regardless, he died quite early on in the period. The stuff that he did fighting along the northern border was primarily before the start of the game. So while he may have been important in the time period leading up to the collapse of the Han Dynasty, he didn't accomplish much once the infighting started.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/06 00:57:59


Post by: Kroem


Yea I'm surprised Zhang Yan, Zheng Jiang and Kong Rong made it over Zhang Lu or Liu Zhang.

I suppose they must have been pet characters of someone in the office.

Liu Zhang would have been really cool, he could have had really disloyal generals and would not be allowed to declare war on other factions due to being an umabitious man, but could get a bonus to public oder and recruiting talented generals due to being a placid ruler.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/07 11:38:16


Post by: Not Online!!!


As a long standing veteran i am going to skip this one, they overdid themselves with the yellow turban shenanigans, to bad, seems they'd finally gotten around to fix diplomancy. (granted TW ai diplomacy should be renamed to dickplomacy, since that is a more acurate form of describing it.)


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/07 13:47:04


Post by: Voss


Shenanigans?


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/07 14:35:06


Post by: Not Online!!!


Voss wrote:
Shenanigans?

Preorder bonus of an essential faction 6 months before release?

I don't like it when they take hostages in order to force you to preorder, especially since they have a bad record of delivering finished products ( empire and rome II)


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/07 14:47:08


Post by: Voss


Meh. The 'preorder' bonus lasts for the first week of launch (it's not like it was limited to 6 months ago), and they aren't shy with gameplay codes to youtubers, so they're will be plenty of content out to judge the game by before it launches.

Given how the history runs (especially considering the exact point when they framed this game), I wouldn't call the yellow turbans 'essential' anyway. It seems more overly cute than anything else.


Really, given their penchant for sales and dlc content, it doesn't seem much like 'hostage taking.' Just some minor bonus content if you bother to buy on launch for full price


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/07 17:55:41


Post by: Eumerin


Voss wrote:
Meh. The 'preorder' bonus lasts for the first week of launch (it's not like it was limited to 6 months ago), and they aren't shy with gameplay codes to youtubers, so they're will be plenty of content out to judge the game by before it launches.

Given how the history runs (especially considering the exact point when they framed this game), I wouldn't call the yellow turbans 'essential' anyway. It seems more overly cute than anything else.


Really, given their penchant for sales and dlc content, it doesn't seem much like 'hostage taking.' Just some minor bonus content if you bother to buy on launch for full price


Yeah. The game starts after the burning of Luoyang, and the relocation of the Emperor to Dong Zhuo's capitol. The major portions of the Yellow Turban Rebellions were already well over at this point. There were some localized uprisings later on (Cao Cao had to deal with one of them; iirc, after crushing the uprising, he "punished" the rebels by giving them farmland that had gone fallow), and that's presumably who the warlords in the Yellow Turban DLC represent. The original Yellow Turban uprisings were widespread enough to be considered a national emergency. The later ones that these guys represent were minor events in the history books.

These guys are nowhere near as important as the Warriors of Chaos from the first Warhammer game.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/07 19:29:37


Post by: Not Online!!!


Eumerin wrote:
Voss wrote:
Meh. The 'preorder' bonus lasts for the first week of launch (it's not like it was limited to 6 months ago), and they aren't shy with gameplay codes to youtubers, so they're will be plenty of content out to judge the game by before it launches.

Given how the history runs (especially considering the exact point when they framed this game), I wouldn't call the yellow turbans 'essential' anyway. It seems more overly cute than anything else.


Really, given their penchant for sales and dlc content, it doesn't seem much like 'hostage taking.' Just some minor bonus content if you bother to buy on launch for full price


Yeah. The game starts after the burning of Luoyang, and the relocation of the Emperor to Dong Zhuo's capitol. The major portions of the Yellow Turban Rebellions were already well over at this point. There were some localized uprisings later on (Cao Cao had to deal with one of them; iirc, after crushing the uprising, he "punished" the rebels by giving them farmland that had gone fallow), and that's presumably who the warlords in the Yellow Turban DLC represent. The original Yellow Turban uprisings were widespread enough to be considered a national emergency. The later ones that these guys represent were minor events in the history books.

These guys are nowhere near as important as the Warriors of Chaos from the first Warhammer game.

And thanks to your sheepish attitudes we will get less and less complete games.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/07 21:56:30


Post by: Eumerin


Not Online!!! wrote:

And thanks to your sheepish attitudes we will get less and less complete games.


That's a load of crap.

Early sales are important in the industry. Early sales push more sales, which push profits, which push repeat games.

Creative Assembly, in this instance, has chosen to push early sales by adding in DLC content, much as they did with both of the Warhammer Total War games. But there's a critical difference this time around. The pre-order DLC faction in the first Warhammer game was an important part of the setting, and played a major role in the campaign arc. The middle of that game essentially revolves around what that faction does. The Three Kingdoms pre-order DLC faction, on the other hand, adds something that ONLY the people who care about the setting will be interested in. If you don't have the DLC, then it won't subtract from your enjoyment of the game. The Yellow Turban warlords featured in the DLC are the last lingering remnants of a group that was destroyed long before the game started.

If the game started during the Yellow Turban uprisings, then your complaint would have merit. But it doesn't. It starts long after the uprising had been crushed. As such, the Yellow Turban DLC is a neat little bonus for the era fanatics and completionists. If you aren't one of those, and you don't have the DLC, you'll likely never even care about the warlords that aren't playable. If you are one of those, then you'll likely pre-order the game anyway.

What you're complaining about is the equivalent of whining because a car company announces that everyone who purchases a new model car within one week of the model roll-out gets free chrome rims instead of steel.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/07 22:07:26


Post by: Not Online!!!


Eumerin wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:

And thanks to your sheepish attitudes we will get less and less complete games.


That's a load of crap.

Early sales are important in the industry. Early sales push more sales, which push profits, which push repeat games.

Creative Assembly, in this instance, has chosen to push early sales by adding in DLC content, much as they did with both of the Warhammer Total War games. But there's a critical difference this time around. The pre-order DLC faction in the first Warhammer game was an important part of the setting, and played a major role in the campaign arc. The middle of that game essentially revolves around what that faction does. The Three Kingdoms pre-order DLC faction, on the other hand, adds something that ONLY the people who care about the setting will be interested in. If you don't have the DLC, then it won't subtract from your enjoyment of the game. The Yellow Turban warlords featured in the DLC are the last lingering remnants of a group that was destroyed long before the game started.

If the game started during the Yellow Turban uprisings, then your complaint would have merit. But it doesn't. It starts long after the uprising had been crushed. As such, the Yellow Turban DLC is a neat little bonus for the era fanatics and completionists. If you aren't one of those, and you don't have the DLC, you'll likely never even care about the warlords that aren't playable. If you are one of those, then you'll likely pre-order the game anyway.

What you're complaining about is the equivalent of whining because a car company announces that everyone who purchases a new model car within one week of the model roll-out gets free chrome rims instead of steel.

Aaaaaaaannnnnd that is a load of horseshite.

Early sales are important, however a company can achieve that without pre order bonuses, especially not when you announce them 6 months before the freaking game realeases, because at that point it is on disc dlc. (or hostage /paywalled content, and we all know how well polished the total war series has become after medieval II, hint, barely and only after a feth up trustworthy, F.e.empire total war or rome II or britania, heck Attila had one of the mainfactions nigh unplayable, which points to quite some problems of quality controll. )

Secondly the relevance of the faction still is completly irrelevant to the discussion. It merely is a gak practic and the only reason why ca and Sega didn't took a more important one is because they got gak on after rome II and the greek dlc were in Attila afterwards the irrelevant vikings were pre order and then tried it again with total war warhammer.
Morale of the story if you didn't like that then you can't condone this either.

Therefore your point about the relevancy of the faction is moot and my point still stands.
Or have you forgotten what they pulled the last time?


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/07 22:15:00


Post by: Eumerin


What they "pulled" last time was the Norse faction DLC with the Warhammer 2 release.

You seem to be operating under the mistaken belief that we would have access to these warlords in the main game if they hadn't been slated for pre-release DLC. That is wrong. Again, these aren't the Warriors of Chaos. The closest comparison is to the aforementioned Norse faction in the Warhammer games - i.e. a group that exists within the setting, but who players would not have complained about if they'd never appeared within the game.

Without DLC, you never see the Yellow Turban warlords. There is no realistic path in which someone decides to include these three warlords as unique and playable in a game set during this particular era.

My chrome rims comparison still stands.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/07 22:26:51


Post by: Not Online!!!


Eumerin wrote:
What they "pulled" last time was the Norse faction DLC with the Warhammer 2 release.

You seem to be operating under the mistaken belief that we would have access to these warlords in the main game if they hadn't been slated for pre-release DLC. That is wrong. Again, these aren't the Warriors of Chaos. The closest comparison is to the aforementioned Norse faction in the Warhammer games - i.e. a group that exists within the setting, but who players would not have complained about if they'd never appeared within the game.

Without DLC, you never see the Yellow Turban warlords. There is no realistic path in which someone decides to include these three warlords as unique and playable in a game set during this particular era.

My chrome rims comparison still stands.


What they pulled last time willfully misintepreted, i gave you their Modus operandi but pls be more apologistic torwards their practices

Again this is nothing more then a " look we are great we give you this faction for free if you preorder! Don't mind the gak quality controll or the fact that it is cut content so you can pay us more before it gets reviewed or before the flaws are known. "

In any pre empire total war era game we would've just gotten them as an unlockable faction. So try again.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/08 00:30:47


Post by: Voss


Yeah, OK, if you think the games quality is going to be bad, don't buy it.

But the rest is nonsense.

For one thing, the preorder bonus is going to be available for a week after the release date. So there is no 'before it gets reviewed' possibility.

Second, youtubers and streamers will (as is the norm with CA) have codes at least a week before hand, and will comb over the entire game before the release date even hits, so no, it won't be 'before the flaws are known.'

Thrones of Britannia got hit rather hard by that in fact, but they've still kept handing out because the know the bad press from not doing pre-release advertising is worse. The only thing kept back from Vampire Coast with the intro video and the final battle (the first was puzzling, the latter justifiable).

The preorder bonus is a minor incentive. This feels like shaking a fist at grocery stores for running 'buy two get one free sales,' and you missed the particular sale on <specific product> for this month, despite knowing there will be future sales.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/08 07:41:36


Post by: Not Online!!!


Voss wrote:
Yeah, OK, if you think the games quality is going to be bad, don't buy it.

But the rest is nonsense.

For one thing, the preorder bonus is going to be available for a week after the release date. So there is no 'before it gets reviewed' possibility.

Second, youtubers and streamers will (as is the norm with CA) have codes at least a week before hand, and will comb over the entire game before the release date even hits, so no, it won't be 'before the flaws are known.'

Thrones of Britannia got hit rather hard by that in fact, but they've still kept handing out because the know the bad press from not doing pre-release advertising is worse. The only thing kept back from Vampire Coast with the intro video and the final battle (the first was puzzling, the latter justifiable).

The preorder bonus is a minor incentive. This feels like shaking a fist at grocery stores for running 'buy two get one free sales,' and you missed the particular sale on <specific product> for this month, despite knowing there will be future sales.


Mhm, sure and we are just ignoring that they cancled access before release for critical players for thrones?


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/08 13:36:42


Post by: Kroem


I fail to understand why people are arguing that paying extra money for day 1 DLC that could have been in the game at launch is a good thing lol!
Admittedly it isn't the worst practice that the game industry has right now, but it is still definitely not customer friendly.

I think I'll wait a couple years to pick this game up, when I can get the whole game with all the factions for a tenner in some sale.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/08 14:13:45


Post by: Voss


Not Online!!! wrote:
Mhm, sure and we are just ignoring that they cancled access before release for critical players for thrones?

Ignoring? No. Just not something I'm aware happened. The youtubers I watched were not particularly impressed or happy with it, yet never CA 'cancelled access.' CA even went out of their way to provide beta builds to a couple so that patches wouldn't screw up their Let's Plays.
Going to have to back this up with something.


@Kroem- there is no extra money involved. Either get it at release for zero dollars, or wait for a sale and get the base game and dlc for less dollars (than the base price of the main game).


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/08 14:19:06


Post by: Not Online!!!


Voss wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:
Mhm, sure and we are just ignoring that they cancled access before release for critical players for thrones?

Ignoring? No. Just not something I'm aware happened. The youtubers I watched were not particularly impressed or happy with it, yet never CA 'cancelled access.' CA even went out of their way to provide beta builds to a couple so that patches wouldn't screw up their Let's Plays.
Going to have to back this up with something.


@Kroem- there is no extra money involved. Either get it at release for zero dollars, or wait for a sale and get the base game and dlc for less dollars (than the base price of the main game).


Legend of totalwar is no youtuber in that case?



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/08 14:25:11


Post by: Voss


What part of 'not something I'm aware of' equals 'Specific guy is no youtuber?'

I don't keep track of them all, as there are unapologetically a lot of them. As I said, it didn't come up with the ones I do watch.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/08 14:50:18


Post by: Overread


 Kroem wrote:
I fail to understand why people are arguing that paying extra money for day 1 DLC that could have been in the game at launch is a good thing lol!
Admittedly it isn't the worst practice that the game industry has right now, but it is still definitely not customer friendly.

I think I'll wait a couple years to pick this game up, when I can get the whole game with all the factions for a tenner in some sale.



The argument is that the total price of the game at launch is estimated to be a value greater than the market would like; therefore they discount the core game and add an optional side bit of content as launch DLC. This is evident by how many complain about "launch DLC" and the "total price of the game". By doing launch DLC the developers give gamers the option to have some content later, if they so wish, whilst keeping the core content of the game at a lower value.

CA tends to do ok with this because what they partition off as DLC is typically races/factions in a game which already has quite a wide array of factions to start with. They got in a bit more hot water with Warhammer and Chaos not just because of how key Chaos are in the lore and in their own game, but also because the game launched with way fewer factions than most TW fans were used too (even though in most TW games the majority of factions are just reskins with minor alterations)

Eg:
Full game £40
Game with Launch DLC £30 + £10

If the developer did away with the launch DLC then they'd be charging you the first price and everyone would complain; so they charge at the lower price where only a portion complain. It's the lesser of two evils.


Where launch DLC is bad is when developers partition off key game content (or perceived to be). Eg if CA partitioned off siege battles to its own DLC. That is where launch DLC is very bad practice. Another angle is if the amount of launch DLC is excessive - for example if they were to have 10 factions as launch DLC, each in their own DLC packet, and each priced at £10*


*Interestingly tihs is basically what they've done for TW Warhammer. However they staggered it by having several released in blocks as stand alone games; by having one or two free army additions and by adding campaigns and free DLC along the way. But in general you are paying around £10 for a faction (which is honestly what one would have paid back in the "golden era"; in fact back in the Golden Era your average expansion pack was closer to £15 each and many times you wouldn't get a new RTS army, you'd get a couple of units added to each existing army.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/08 18:44:41


Post by: Kroem


I do see where you're coming from, and agree this is about changes to games basic pricing strategy.

Assuming value based pricing which everyone uses nowadays, I contend that the percieved value of an AAA game is roughly £50 almost regardless of the level of content (once a certain content threshold has been reached).
In the old days you would continue adding content after this threshold to maximise sales.

At some point someone realised that instead of continueing to add content, they should make the minimum content necessary to hit the percieved value of £50.
Then anything extra you charge for as DLC or add to pre-order bonuses to increase percieved value.

So to use your example, where we used to pay £40 for everything, now we pay £40 + £10 for everything.

I get that it isn't a deal breaker for most people and that's cool. But as any sales or purchasing person will tell you, we should always be pushing for a better price, more value for money better service etc. rather than being happy about paying more!


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/08 19:13:18


Post by: Not Online!!!


It's the same lie with "But we didn't hike the price, it's always remained 60$ forever, we need these (insert DLC cut content, microtransactions, Gamblingboxes) "

Even it it is remotely not true, you see the new DLC's are each 15$ each and the main price is 60$ and they cut up the game into tiny weeny bits.
Before that we got expansion sets, liteerally another half or third of a game, no we pay slighlty less for the "expansion kits" but atleast 5 times.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/08 19:26:54


Post by: A Town Called Malus


Not Online!!! wrote:
It's the same lie with "But we didn't hike the price, it's always remained 60$ forever, we need these (insert DLC cut content, microtransactions, Gamblingboxes) "

Even it it is remotely not true, you see the new DLC's are each 15$ each and the main price is 60$ and they cut up the game into tiny weeny bits.
Before that we got expansion sets, liteerally another half or third of a game, no we pay slighlty less for the "expansion kits" but atleast 5 times.


Once you account for inflation, many games are cheaper now than they ever have been, even with that kind of stuff factored in.

For instance, in 1997 Final Fantasy VII cost $50. That $50 in 1997 equates to around $75 in 2017. But Final Fantasy XV didn't cost $75 did it? It cost $60, and cost a hell of a lot more to make than FF7 did. So game budgets have massively increased whilst the effective cost of the retail product has decreased. You need to account for that double whammy to your revenue (starting further away from breaking even and each individual sale moving you less close to breaking even) through increased sales or selling extra content or both.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/08 19:41:58


Post by: Eumerin


 Kroem wrote:
I do see where you're coming from, and agree this is about changes to games basic pricing strategy.

Assuming value based pricing which everyone uses nowadays, I contend that the percieved value of an AAA game is roughly £50 almost regardless of the level of content (once a certain content threshold has been reached).
In the old days you would continue adding content after this threshold to maximise sales.


Yes... and no.

In the real old days, they had "expansion packs". Buy a game, it does well in early post-release sales, and the publisher okays the creation and release of an expansion pack that retails for somewhere between $20-$30US. Wing Commander was the first game that I can think of off the top of my head that did this, though I'm likely forgetting one or two of them. The Shareware games made by companies like Apogee were a variation on this. You download Commander Keene episode 1 for free. You like the game play. So you buy the other five episodes. This is how we first got Castle Wolfenstein and Doom.

Then the internet started to become more available to the public, and we had "free patches" that you could download off of whatever site the company had posted them on. This was later expanded to include free minor additions for some games. Buy a game, and the developers will continue to throw the occasional bone to the players. Though not everyone participated in this, and it was typically limited to certain developers (who got goodwill from the public for it).

You still see that from time to time (for instance, the TW:WH games had the FLC releases), though it's nowhere near as widespread as it used to be.

I suspect that the turning point was with the release of games that were "free", and were funded exclusively by micro-transactions. You play the game, you like the game, you want to play more of it, and you spend a few bucks to do so. And some people apparently end up spending truly ridiculous sums of money on those games.

The modern DLC is likely inspired by what those games offer. People balk at paying an extra $30 to add something new to their game. But many of those same people will be quite wiling to spend $50 if they do it in $5 chunks.

The "Free Day One" DLC is a variant of this, again based on human psychology. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that if Creative Assembly were to include the Day One DLC Warlords in their release as part of the basic package - i.e. a count of 14 warlords instead of 11 - even without a price increase, then they'd probably have fewer sales than they do by offering the Yellow Turban warlords as "free for the first week only".


Edit - Since I mentioned Wing Commander above...

If I remember my details correctly (and it's been a while, so I might be misremembering), then the first Wing Commander expansion pack was actually intended to be a form of "Day One Extra". Obviously you couldn't download it (download speeds were far too slow at the time). But I remember reading that the initial intention behind it had been to offer the expansion pack to the first X players who bought the game. So if you bought the game right after it went on sale, you'd be able to get the extra dozen or so missions included in the expansion pack. And then the game became a smash hit, and Origin Systems realized that it would be a much smarter move to out the expansion pack into general release.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/10 02:56:20


Post by: Eumerin


This is interesting...

Sima Yi was head of the Yi family. The Sima family ultimately supplanted the Cao family and took over the Kingdom of Wei, and then defeated both the Kingdom of Shu and the Kingdom of Wu, reuniting China and establishing the (short-lived) Jin Dynasty. So Sima Yi is a pretty important person. However, he was only eleven years old when Luoyang was destroyed, and the game starts not long after that important event. As a result, I didn't think that Sima Yi would be in the game - or at least not in the launch version with the "Dong Zhuo's still alive" start.

And yet, Creative Assembly just released a poster for him.

Very interesting...


For those unfamiliar with him -

Sima Yi was a brilliant strategist who was recruited by Cao Cao. He loyally served first Cao Cao, and later Cao Pi (who deposed the last emperor of the Han Dynasty, and established himself as the first emperor of the Wei Dynasty). Unfortunately, Cao Pi died after just a short reign, and the following generations of the Cao family weren't nearly as talented as their predecessors. More and more responsibility devolved down to Sima Yi, and his two sons, Sima Shi and Sima Zhao. By the time Sima Yi retired, he and his family were effectively running the Kingdom of Wei. Sima Shi died not long afterwards due to a combination of a head wound and illness, leaving the family to Sima Zhao. Sima Zhao was widely expected to depose the sitting Cao emperor. But less than two years after successfully conquering the Kingdom of Shu, Sima Zhao died in 265. Zhao's heir, Sima Yan, deposed the sitting Wei Emperor just a few months later, and took the throne himself.

Unfortunately, Sima Yan's attempts to avoid the problems that led to the overthrow of the Wei Dynasty ultimately backfired. His heir, Emperor Hui, was mentally incompetent. Between Hui's mental issues, and the problems created by Yan's actions, the unified empire created by the Sima family collapsed. The Jin Dynasty relocated to the southern part of the country, establishing what is now known as the Eastern Jin. Meanwhile, the northern portion of the country fragmented, and became consumed by the 16 Kingdoms period.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/17 16:26:57


Post by: nels1031


Spies and Subterfuge! I'm liking this concept.




Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/17 16:32:17


Post by: LordofHats


It would be nice to see a game push some new ideas on diplomacy and spy craft in the 4x realm. Talk about a part of the genre that’s been stagnant for as long as I’ve been alive. At least CA seems to be giving a good stab at it.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/17 16:48:39


Post by: A Town Called Malus


That is a cool concept. Being unsure of whether those skilled generals and administrators you have recruited are really on your side seems like a great little addition to make it feel like allegiances are in flux (as was often the case during history).


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/17 16:53:41


Post by: Voss


 LordofHats wrote:
It would be nice to see a game push some new ideas on diplomacy and spy craft in the 4x realm. Talk about a part of the genre that’s been stagnant for as long as I’ve been alive. At least CA seems to be giving a good stab at it.


That's certainly true. I'm always a little relieved when a 4x game reveals they don't have an espionage system (rather than having the typical bad one), and that's more than a little sad.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/17 19:02:17


Post by: Overread


Knights of Honour had a system whereby you could set a spy to infiltrate an enemy faction and they could wind up a general of an army and yes you could tell them to turn and steal an army that way.

My main issue with spies in many 4* games is that they end up too powerful. Being able to kill heroes or generals that have taken 100 turns to level up is a BIG hit to any player; being able to wipe out armies or shut down big cities etc..... Those are big game changing effects when spies should be more subtle; focused on buffing or debuffing and information gathering. At least in my view they should be a subtle means to change the course of war not a sudden big game changer.



Though the worst was in Haegemony where you only had a fleet of around 8 or so ships and perhaps 3 or so mobile space stations. A high level spy could blow any one of them up fairly easily. So you could easily end up in a situation where spies were tearing you apart with little chance of recovery.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/17 21:12:39


Post by: nels1031


 LordofHats wrote:
At least CA seems to be giving a good stab at it.


And if CA gaks the bed on it, they'll have hopefully given the modding community a means to fix/refine it.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/18 01:05:01


Post by: Eumerin


 Overread wrote:

My main issue with spies in many 4* games is that they end up too powerful. Being able to kill heroes or generals that have taken 100 turns to level up is a BIG hit to any player; being able to wipe out armies or shut down big cities etc..... Those are big game changing effects when spies should be more subtle; focused on buffing or debuffing and information gathering. At least in my view they should be a subtle means to change the course of war not a sudden big game changer.


One of my worst Total War moments came about because of espionage, and something that I had no real control over. I was playing the Spanish Peninsula scenario as the British in Napoleon: Total War, and had been chasing the French all over the place, slowly pushing them out of Spain.

And then an assassin killed Wellington, which was an instant lose condition. All of my hard work immediately went down the drain. Needless to say, I was pretty annoyed. And I've soured on espionage in general ever since then. Pulling that sort of a dramatic thing off in real life is a *lot* more difficult than it typically is in the games.

This new system looks pretty good, as its based around the characters who are doing the rest of the work in the game. So instead of the situation that we have in the Warhammer games where every turn your army once again has to deal with a hero attempting to perform an incredibly unlikely action against you (while you yourself are unable to effectively respond to those attacks since your assassination hero is busy chasing down the Chaos heroes that are corrupting your lands), you're instead focused on trying to second guess the true loyalties of your subordinates.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/19 11:23:59


Post by: Not Online!!!


Eumerin wrote:
 Overread wrote:

My main issue with spies in many 4* games is that they end up too powerful. Being able to kill heroes or generals that have taken 100 turns to level up is a BIG hit to any player; being able to wipe out armies or shut down big cities etc..... Those are big game changing effects when spies should be more subtle; focused on buffing or debuffing and information gathering. At least in my view they should be a subtle means to change the course of war not a sudden big game changer.


One of my worst Total War moments came about because of espionage, and something that I had no real control over. I was playing the Spanish Peninsula scenario as the British in Napoleon: Total War, and had been chasing the French all over the place, slowly pushing them out of Spain.

And then an assassin killed Wellington, which was an instant lose condition. All of my hard work immediately went down the drain. Needless to say, I was pretty annoyed. And I've soured on espionage in general ever since then. Pulling that sort of a dramatic thing off in real life is a *lot* more difficult than it typically is in the games.

This new system looks pretty good, as its based around the characters who are doing the rest of the work in the game. So instead of the situation that we have in the Warhammer games where every turn your army once again has to deal with a hero attempting to perform an incredibly unlikely action against you (while you yourself are unable to effectively respond to those attacks since your assassination hero is busy chasing down the Chaos heroes that are corrupting your lands), you're instead focused on trying to second guess the true loyalties of your subordinates.


Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, some popes, etc would like a word with you.
But i agree Agent spam, especially AI one is annoying as feth, not to mention that the AI has better chances then the player, so long you are not Safe scumming.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/19 11:51:04


Post by: Overread


Thing is when Kennedy was assassinated the world didn't end - the game kept going. Plus the way TW game work losing a heroic high level leader mid to late game can be quite a crippling blow; because often you don't have all that many.

It feels more fair to most players when its death in a battle and you can always have another go at it. But death to a spy (where reloading just has the AI make the same moves over and over) is really painful because there's very little you can do to stop it.


I'd like to see spies move away from assassinating generals and instead shift into the political system more. There's more room there for spies to do things - perhaps kill an npc noble to start destabilizing alliance blocks or reinforce your own etc... I think if they went there it would be possible to have them in their own arena where they can kill, spy, plot and scheme without it directly affecting your armies.

Of course TW has always had fairly light diplomacy and I think that's delibrate. The game is built around the 3D battles not around diplomatic and dynastic choices such as, say, Crusader Kings 2. Mixing the two is tricky - add too much of both and it can be so much that it overwhelms many a player. CK2 has very casual combat but very detailed diplomacy; TW is the total opposite with far more detailed battles and childishly simple diplomacy.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/19 11:54:32


Post by: Not Online!!!


 Overread wrote:
Thing is when Kennedy was assassinated the world didn't end - the game kept going. Plus the way TW game work losing a heroic high level leader mid to late game can be quite a crippling blow; because often you don't have all that many.

It feels more fair to most players when its death in a battle and you can always have another go at it. But death to a spy (where reloading just has the AI make the same moves over and over) is really painful because there's very little you can do to stop it.


I'd like to see spies move away from assassinating generals and instead shift into the political system more. There's more room there for spies to do things - perhaps kill an npc noble to start destabilizing alliance blocks or reinforce your own etc... I think if they went there it would be possible to have them in their own arena where they can kill, spy, plot and scheme without it directly affecting your armies.

Of course TW has always had fairly light diplomacy and I think that's delibrate. The game is built around the 3D battles not around diplomatic and dynastic choices such as, say, Crusader Kings 2. Mixing the two is tricky - add too much of both and it can be so much that it overwhelms many a player. CK2 has very casual combat but very detailed diplomacy; TW is the total opposite with far more detailed battles and childishly simple diplomacy.


That would require to innovate for ca which we have seen, that they are neither capable nor willingly to do ever since the start of the dumbing down cycle with rome II onwards.

I also fully expect them to further feth up diplomacy.
Yes i am aware of the supposed "IMPROVEMENTS" but i belive it when I see it working.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/19 18:23:18


Post by: Eumerin


Not Online!!! wrote:

Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, some popes, etc would like a word with you.
But i agree Agent spam, especially AI one is annoying as feth, not to mention that the AI has better chances then the player, so long you are not Safe scumming.


Kennedy and Lincoln were both killed by essentially random individuals who held grudges against them, and not by actions of an opposing country (well, depending on whether or not you believe any of the various conspiracy theories about Kennedy's death). And both assassins were caught almost immediately. The same was the case with President Garfield, and was almost the case with President Reagan. And again, in all four of those cases, the suspect was caught fairly quickly. The assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, probably the single most significant assassination in history, was the work of a small group of individuals with no attachment to anyone else (and came very close to failing). So we can see that assassinations in the real world tend more toward the "random event" sort of thing than actual manipulation by hostile powers.

That's not to say that Total War-style assassins haven't sometimes played roles in the real world. The assassination of Trotsky would pretty much fit the bill. The recent polonium-based actions of certain Russian agents in Great Britain would be another example. The famous attempt to kill Hitler with a bomb had backing, albeit internal to Germany. More than one Russian Tsar met his end at the hands of an organized group of Russian revolutionaries who weren't happy with how "slowly" the current reformist Tsar was in liberalizing Russian society at the time (and invariably ended up bringing in a new Tsar who promptly rolled back many of those reforms in the name of security). Groups in the Middle East have used suicide bombers to take out high value individuals (the leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan was killed literally just before the US intervention by a suicide group pretending to be a news camera crew).

So it is possible to have a TW-style assassin in the real world. But it's pretty rare. And the assassins involved almost always get caught afterwards.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/25 09:16:29


Post by: Not Online!!!


So it seems that the AI is even more chromosomes shorter then before.....

Some specific players had access to a build of the game. Ultra unit size was 30 cav max, 18 units maximum in a army, down from 20.
And sieges, god the SIEGES....


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/25 17:36:17


Post by: Eumerin


Not Online!!! wrote:
So it seems that the AI is even more chromosomes shorter then before.....

Some specific players had access to a build of the game. Ultra unit size was 30 cav max, 18 units maximum in a army, down from 20.
And sieges, god the SIEGES....


Isn't 30 cavalry in a unit standard for Total War? Or am I misremembering?

The army size was already known, and I believe is mentioned earlier in this thread. Each general can lead up to six units, and you can have three generals in an army.

I haven't heard or seen anything from CA on the sieges (though it's possible that there's something out there that I just haven't looked at), so no comment on that.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/25 18:00:44


Post by: Big Mac


I had seen the latest Arch's review based on other play tester's brief playthroughs, AI is dumber than a brick would be a compliment to their AI, siege is ugh, you should just see it for yourself, I'm not pre ordering this even though it was on my wish list, am gonna wait and see.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/25 18:01:54


Post by: Not Online!!!


 Big Mac wrote:
I had seen the latest Arch's review based on other play tester's brief playthroughs, AI is dumber than a brick would be a compliment to their AI, siege is ugh, you should just see it for yourself, I'm not pre ordering this even though it was on my wish list, am gonna wait and see.


If rome 2 is anything to go by, or the phases of Treehitler the almighty everchosen, then yes, don't preorder


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/25 19:54:14


Post by: Voss


Not Online!!! wrote:
 Big Mac wrote:
I had seen the latest Arch's review based on other play tester's brief playthroughs, AI is dumber than a brick would be a compliment to their AI, siege is ugh, you should just see it for yourself, I'm not pre ordering this even though it was on my wish list, am gonna wait and see.


If rome 2 is anything to go by, or the phases of Treehitler the almighty everchosen, then yes, don't preorder


'Treehitler the almighty everchosen?' Ok then.


@Big Mac- I'd suggest watching other playtesters playthroughs/commentary rather than a review by someone who's only seen them.

Sieges look like a decent return to the more complex sieges of the historical games, with the full settlement and choice of attack angles.
AI looks pretty typical, not much to say there.


Pre-ordering is, as with everything digital, completely pointless.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/25 20:14:33


Post by: Not Online!!!


'Treehitler the almighty everchosen?' Ok then.


Yes Durthu, don't you remember warhammer total war release of the wood elves, were he literally would wipe out any bretonian and imperial faction before even Archaon get's involved?

https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/5i9hrn/orion_is_an_ass_and_a_hypocrite/

And from 1d4chan:
"Tree Hitler - Nickname given to Durthu, because on top of spectacularly pissed off and hateful diplomacy dialogue, Durthu would not only militarize and become powerful quickly, he had a tendency to invade Not-France typically wiping them out and the Empire before setting sights on the Dwarfs and proceeding to attack the rest of the non-evil Old World. Instead of being an isolationist tree, Durthu became an aggressive dictator, destroying half of the Old World before the Warriors of Chaos even showed up, which made them seem like the paltry relief force to the tree devastation, but instead of fighting each other, they would often form a non-aggression pact and even ally with each other. It is perhaps accurate to lore, as Durthu is one of the last ancient Treemen, hates anything not from Athel Loren and is tormented by forest spirits reminding him that he has failed to protect the forest and his friends from the outside world. "


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/25 23:19:18


Post by: A Town Called Malus


Not Online!!! wrote:
'Treehitler the almighty everchosen?' Ok then.


Yes Durthu, don't you remember warhammer total war release of the wood elves, were he literally would wipe out any bretonian and imperial faction before even Archaon get's involved?

https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/5i9hrn/orion_is_an_ass_and_a_hypocrite/

And from 1d4chan:
"Tree Hitler - Nickname given to Durthu, because on top of spectacularly pissed off and hateful diplomacy dialogue, Durthu would not only militarize and become powerful quickly, he had a tendency to invade Not-France typically wiping them out and the Empire before setting sights on the Dwarfs and proceeding to attack the rest of the non-evil Old World. Instead of being an isolationist tree, Durthu became an aggressive dictator, destroying half of the Old World before the Warriors of Chaos even showed up, which made them seem like the paltry relief force to the tree devastation, but instead of fighting each other, they would often form a non-aggression pact and even ally with each other. It is perhaps accurate to lore, as Durthu is one of the last ancient Treemen, hates anything not from Athel Loren and is tormented by forest spirits reminding him that he has failed to protect the forest and his friends from the outside world. "


Eh, still not as good as Civ Gandhi.

Gandhi wrote:Greetings from M. Gandhi, ruler and king of the Indians... Our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/25 23:22:19


Post by: Not Online!!!


Granted nuclear ghandi isn't supposed to be isolationistic unlike durthu.


Edit, actually what with the supposed improvements of ai dickplomacy i'd like imagine nuclear ghandis and treehilters will show up in bigger numbers.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/26 00:34:31


Post by: LordofHats


That's sad to hear.

Hopefully it's better by release, or quickly fixed. Worse comes to worse the Total War modding community has a decent track record with fixing and improving the AI in the series.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/26 01:34:16


Post by: Grey Templar


Eumerin wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:
So it seems that the AI is even more chromosomes shorter then before.....

Some specific players had access to a build of the game. Ultra unit size was 30 cav max, 18 units maximum in a army, down from 20.
And sieges, god the SIEGES....


Isn't 30 cavalry in a unit standard for Total War? Or am I misremembering?

The army size was already known, and I believe is mentioned earlier in this thread. Each general can lead up to six units, and you can have three generals in an army.

I haven't heard or seen anything from CA on the sieges (though it's possible that there's something out there that I just haven't looked at), so no comment on that.


30 cavalry was usually the standard size. But you had the option to increase the number to somewhere between 60 for an elite cavalry unit, and 120ish for a infantry unit. In Total Warhammer some units could be 150 dudes.

I'm not going to be happy if unit size is hard capped between 30 and 50. Tiny units like that are so dumb when you are trying to have grand scale battles.

I understand why the tiny unit sizes are an option, for people with lower quality PCs, but having it be the only option is dumb.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/26 02:41:58


Post by: LordofHats


It might be a choice based on the era. Actual combat cavalry were not common in that period. Now if Infantry units were in the range of 100 to 150 I'd consider it to be lame. Massive infantry formations were hallmarks of the period.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/26 03:38:13


Post by: Voss


Infantry units are 120.
'Formation' depends on how you're defining terms.
Commander + 6 units of 120 is a formation of 721 bodies, so a single army can be 2163 men.

{Not sure if commanders get a bodyguard unit in historical mode, in which case this may be higher in the other mode of play}
In at least one of the siege battles I've seen, town commanders at least can sometimes be units. [Many a True Nerd's video, when he takes Taishan]


As far as options go, there isn't any word one way or the other on adjusting unit sizes the way you can in Warhammer.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/26 10:46:14


Post by: Not Online!!!


What does shock me though is how the AI behaved in some sieges, completely passive, like rome II passive as in not reacting at all.

Then there is the one battle of someone against a yellow turban rebellion army, which he literally won with taking nearly 0 casualities.

Granted this was a preview build that was at the time some months old but still....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 LordofHats wrote:
It might be a choice based on the era. Actual combat cavalry were not common in that period. Now if Infantry units were in the range of 100 to 150 I'd consider it to be lame. Massive infantry formations were hallmarks of the period.


I will admit that if they did it because of that then i would not be miffed.

but frankly what concerns me more is the fact that an army now only can hold 18 units.
down from 20 that doesn't bode well in my opinion.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/26 15:15:39


Post by: Voss


Except it's up 1 to 21.
1+6+1+6+1+6=21


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/26 17:04:26


Post by: Grey Templar


Sure, but 3 generals is a bit strange and frankly boring. Like in Warhammer Total War I wish they had given you separate slots for the characters instead of them taking up the space of a whole unit.

Here they are effectively just giving you 1 character slot for free, and then forcing you to give up 2 of your unit slots anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not Online!!! wrote:
What does shock me though is how the AI behaved in some sieges, completely passive, like rome II passive as in not reacting at all.

Then there is the one battle of someone against a yellow turban rebellion army, which he literally won with taking nearly 0 casualities.

Granted this was a preview build that was at the time some months old but still....


One would hope that they wouldn't have gone backwards and used the pre-patch Rome 2 AI.

You would think that they could use some of their older AI mechanics from older Total War games instead of rebuilding from scratch each time. The AI in Shogun 2 was pretty decent.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/26 17:12:55


Post by: Eumerin


Not Online!!! wrote:


but frankly what concerns me more is the fact that an army now only can hold 18 units.
down from 20 that doesn't bode well in my opinion.


Again, the change in the size of the army is not a new thing. This is something that's been known for a while. And I suspect that it serves two purposes.

1.) In the old days, armies didn't need to have a general assigned. So if you had a border that you wanted to garrison, but didn't want to actively campaign in, then you could leave a few leaderless units to keep an eye on the border while you went and did things somewhere else. For instance, in the Shogun series, Oda could leave a couple of units to keep an eye on the border with Tokugawa while he sends his armies and generals to conquer Ise. In the more recent games, armies *must* have a general assigned to them. This means that if you're actively campaigning against the Vampire Counts in TW:WH, then you can't assign a few extra units to keep an eye on the passes to Bretonnia. The Three Kingdoms method allows a middle ground that allows you to leave a smaller army behind to watch the border while you send your troops off to go fight the more important battles.
2.) The developers presumably want to include a *lot* of historical figures as commanders. That pretty much requires that armies be smaller if you don't want players using just a tiny handful of commanders. Additionally, we know that it's possible to get a leader under your control inserted into an enemy faction where they can end up as a general. That general can then potentially switch back to your faction with at least some of his troops. Having a full stack of troops leave for the enemy like this would be much more devastating (and potentially unbalancing) than just losing half a dozen units.

Finally, I believe it's been stated by CA that in historical mode, generals will have a bodyguard unit, whereas in romance mode they'll be lone heroes. With up to three generals in an army, that's six units per general. Do we know if that's six units INCLUDING the general? Or is it six units PLUS the general? Because if it's the latter, then that would mean that armies actually consist of up to 21 units.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/26 17:21:57


Post by: Grey Templar


I think most people agree that the "mandatory general" mechanic was a pretty dumb idea. Why can't I just have a few units stay in a key location as a deterrent? Generals are expensive to maintain, and forcing all of your armies to have one was stupid.

I love the idea of campaign characters also being combat units like Total Warhammer introduced, but for crying out loud they shouldn't take up a whole unit slot. Each army should have 20 unit slots, a slot for the general(and his unit) and then 2 slots for support characters.

Especially since the current method really messes with my OCD sometimes when I'm making an army with Warhammer Total War. I hate having an odd number of slots to play with or having a single unit of anything thats not a character.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/01/26 20:04:58


Post by: Not Online!!!


 Grey Templar wrote:
I think most people agree that the "mandatory general" mechanic was a pretty dumb idea. Why can't I just have a few units stay in a key location as a deterrent? Generals are expensive to maintain, and forcing all of your armies to have one was stupid.

I love the idea of campaign characters also being combat units like Total Warhammer introduced, but for crying out loud they shouldn't take up a whole unit slot. Each army should have 20 unit slots, a slot for the general(and his unit) and then 2 slots for support characters.

Especially since the current method really messes with my OCD sometimes when I'm making an army with Warhammer Total War. I hate having an odd number of slots to play with or having a single unit of anything thats not a character.


I miss forts, behind rivers, was hillariously funny in Empire total war.

The whole support charachters fits a game like Warhammer total war, however in a historical title i think they have not to exist imo, they should go back to shoguns system in that case.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Grey Templar wrote:
Sure, but 3 generals is a bit strange and frankly boring. Like in Warhammer Total War I wish they had given you separate slots for the characters instead of them taking up the space of a whole unit.

Here they are effectively just giving you 1 character slot for free, and then forcing you to give up 2 of your unit slots anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not Online!!! wrote:
What does shock me though is how the AI behaved in some sieges, completely passive, like rome II passive as in not reacting at all.

Then there is the one battle of someone against a yellow turban rebellion army, which he literally won with taking nearly 0 casualities.

Granted this was a preview build that was at the time some months old but still....


One would hope that they wouldn't have gone backwards and used the pre-patch Rome 2 AI.

You would think that they could use some of their older AI mechanics from older Total War games instead of rebuilding from scratch each time. The AI in Shogun 2 was pretty decent.


there is a meme somewhere, with family guy but instead of mentally handicapped there is CA's TW Ai at the bottom.

But from what we've seen sofar that makes other TW ai look like Napoleon Bonaparté compared to a 5 year old.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/06 02:55:51


Post by: Voss


The Empire building video is interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4Y4RvthA_M

Supply (by season, no less) and towns get a better look than I've seen so far.

Ma Teng's start looks really interesting, though I suspect he snowballs really fast with the income benefits.

Not really sold on referring to building chains and commander types by color, however. The colors they've attached to various concepts have absolutely no meaning to me.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/07 18:39:36


Post by: Eumerin


Tremble in fear! The tyrant Dong Zhuo has come!

When you start Total War: Three Kingdoms for the first time, you'll have the ability to pick from one of eleven warlords.

But if you defeat Dong Zhuo in battle, or reach the rank of Emperor, you'll unlock a twelfth - the mighty tyrant Dong Zhuo!

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-warlord-legends-dong-zhuo?fbclid=IwAR29UD2lxM8t8RRQD7a_9o56fE0BtiiVpqQpnFHXdfSqs6MKDOtqaKsW-Cs


Dong Zhuo has some very good commanders among his ranks (including Lu Bu), and the control of the Han Emperor (the article notes that controlling the Han Emperor allows a warlord to forcibly incorporate "Han" territories). Dong Zhuo's mechanic is "Intimidation", which is gained by gaining control of additional territories, winning battles, and executing other characters. It's lost by promoting characters, losing battles, and through natural decay over time. High Intimidation means that his vassals are more "satisfied", and there's less corruption. Low Intimidation means the opposite. Intimidation can also be used to "improve" the chances that another warlord will accept the diplomatic deal that you're offering.

Dong Zhuo starts in the center-north of the map. He's particularly opposed by Sun Jian, Yuan Shao, and Cao Cao. On the one hand, you could stand back and let your enemies to the east wear each other down. The drawback to this is that whomever emerges will likely be in a very good position to confront you afterwards. On the other hand, you could start expanding early. But this is likely to cause your enemies to ally against you once again (as they did during the Coalition just before the start of the game).

Dong Zhuo's dilemma, unsurprisingly, revolves around Lu Bu. While most dilemmas revolve around a single important decision, Dong Zhou's dilemma is a series of choices that will determine what the exact outcome is. In Romance mode, the choices will revolve around the young and beautiful Diaochan. Both men are in love with her, and Dong Zhuo has seized her for himself. However, while Diaochan plays a prominent role in the early portion of the novel 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms', she's a fictional character. So in Historical mode, the dilemma will instead revolve around a series of personal differences between Dong Zhuo and Lu Bu, coupled with the political scheming of Wang Yun (an important official who historically convinced Lu Bu to help assassinate Dong Zhuo; in the novel, he's the adoptive father of Diaochan). And yes, one possible outcome of Dong Zhuo's dilemma is that you end up being assassinated by Lu Bu.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/08 07:55:20


Post by: Not Online!!!


It's a nice throwback to rome i unlocks. That said solong the AI still is the Preview level stupid so long i will pass.



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/11 03:14:33


Post by: Voss


You know, I really like these bio pages for the characters, but I wish the 'further reading' sections were more robust. It's always just the Kongming online encyclopedia, the book itself (no particular edition or translation) and the same biographical dictionary by de Crespigny.

That isn't a slight, it's just not a solid 'sole source' for any sort of research (sole source is bad practice anyway). I would've told any undergraduates in my classes back when I was a grad student that a biographical dictionary was a good starting point to get an outline, but not something to build on.

It makes their research for the title feel really shallow. And Kongming raises my academic hackles something fierce, given the staff page and the fact that the Koei and Dynasty Warriors games get the same amount of weight as the novel, with history trailing behind.


Granted I know most of their audience probably won't care, but I'd like to see a blog from the writing/research team with a deeper bibliography at some point.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/11 03:43:57


Post by: LordofHats


I mentioned the issue pages back I think.

A lot of his history is currently only available in Chinese. Very little of the body of work on the period has been translated into other languages.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/11 08:38:40


Post by: Eumerin


Voss wrote:
And Kongming raises my academic hackles something fierce, given the staff page and the fact that the Koei and Dynasty Warriors games get the same amount of weight as the novel, with history trailing behind.


Granted I know most of their audience probably won't care, but I'd like to see a blog from the writing/research team with a deeper bibliography at some point.


What LordofHats said. We're lucky to have the amount of history that we do about the Romans. And even then, there are huge gaps in our knowledge. China's got a very long and ancient past, but they had to deal with issues like people rewriting the past to fit modern (at the time) interpretations (which is essentially what the novel was), or outright destroying all records of elements that they didn't like. Couple that with the fact that China's only really been unified in the modern era since the Communists won the civil war, and that it's really only been open to the West since the early '70s (when President Nixon went to China), and you've got a situation in which you've got a lot of haphazard elements of history... that are largely still only in Chinese since there's only really been enough time to start translating the most important parts of it into foreign languages. Assuming China stays stable for a while (always a question mark, since the country likes to collapse into very bloody pieces every now and again), we'll hopefully get more Chinese history translated into other languages. In the meantime, though...


Also, Koei makes Dynasty Warriors (along with the more serious Romance of the Three Kingdoms games).



Dynasty Warriors right now is essentially a mid-point between the novel and history. The early games followed the novel closely, from what I understand. Later games have shifted things somewhat in the direction of history, though, largely in the interests of doing things like making Cao Cao less over the top villianous, and giving Wu more to do (since from what I understand, the novel is largely "Wei vs. Shu, with guest appearances by Wu").

If you're interested in researching the history, supposedly the best place to look is a book called "Record of the Three Kingdoms". And Amazon appears to have an English language Kindle edition for $10US.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/11 12:50:17


Post by: LordofHats


I'd say the story Dynasty Warriors tells is still largely based on the romantic literature of the period, but they've gone out of their way to note differences between the folklore and confirmed historical records in their in-game encyclopedia, and in a few areas have trumped the romantic versions of events with the more historical.

Dio Chan played a larger role in earlier games than she does now. She's mostly just there these days, and not brought up as a reason for Lu Bu to betray his Dong Zhuo.

Wu's abandoning of their alliance with Shu is largely played with the historical version in more recent games as opposed to the more romantic one of earlier entries too, though that shift has combined with the introduction of more and more of Guan Yu's kids, many of whom are largely fictional (or are so unknown they might as well be).


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/11 14:24:58


Post by: Voss


So, they just announced a delay to may 23rd.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war-three-kingdoms-development-update

Probably a good thing.

And it won't affect the warhammer 2 dlc date, which will now release before three kingdoms. Though there still isn't any details on that that I have seen. I assume its skaven vs lizards at long last, and April seems likely given the context.

Imperator Rome will also come out before 3k now, though personally I think that needs a lot more work and not just polish.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/11 15:10:50


Post by: ZebioLizard2


Given what's been seen from videos there's been alot of reasons to delay. The AI is practically non-existent and the tactical layer seems weaker then ever.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/11 16:48:27


Post by: Not Online!!!


 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Given what's been seen from videos there's been alot of reasons to delay. The AI is practically non-existent and the tactical layer seems weaker then ever.


Indeed.
So far the AI showed more ROME 2 behaviour than anything else really.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/11 19:38:42


Post by: Eumerin


 LordofHats wrote:
Dio Chan played a larger role in earlier games than she does now. She's mostly just there these days, and not brought up as a reason for Lu Bu to betray his Dong Zhuo.


?

In both DW 8 and 9 (the most recent game) she's key in persuading Lu Bu to turn against his master.

If you're going to have her in the game and have the betrayal, this is important. While Diaochan is fictitious, she is loosely based on a real person. Lu Bu was sleeping with one of Dong Zhuo's maids. One of the reasons why Lu Bu turned against Dong Zhuo was apparently the fear that this affair would be discovered, and Dong Zhuo would have him executed as a result. The fictitious part is the idea that the woman in question was working with Wang Yun, or that she intentionally seduced both men to turn them against each other.

DW9 also has Diaochan leave immediately after Dong Zhuo's death, while most games keep the two together as lovers (in fact, Lu Bu's desire for revenge for her death is the driving force behind his actions in the spin-off Warriors Orochi III).

though that shift has combined with the introduction of more and more of Guan Yu's kids, many of whom are largely fictional (or are so unknown they might as well be).


Part of the problem here again comes down to gaps in historical knowledge. The Dynasty Warriors games need to have characters for Shu late in the game. So they have to populate the list with individuals like Guan Yu's kids. I saw a comment elsewhere complaining about Ma Dai still being alive at the end of the Shu campaign in DW9, and the comment was made by someone else that Koei had to make it that way. If they didn't have him (and Zhuge Liang's wife, who's also still around long after her husband has died), then they'd be short of characters. The Guan kids are there to help address that shortage.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/11 21:30:57


Post by: LordofHats


Eumerin wrote:
In both DW 8 and 9 (the most recent game) she's key in persuading Lu Bu to turn against his master.


Hmm. I don't remember her being that important in 8, but I haven't played 9. She definitely fell off to the wayside during 6 and 7.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/11 22:27:26


Post by: Kroem


She definetely played that role in DW3 and 4 as well, I hated DW 5 so much that I havn't played any since then!

In DW3 at The Battle of Hu Lao Gate, Lu Bu will join the allies against Dong Zhou if Diao Chan is defeated as he blames Dong Zhou for her death.
(Although this only happens if you are fighting on Dong Zhou's side, and not playing as either Lu Bu or Diao Chan).

Zhang Liao will also join the allies if still alive at this point, as he is a sub-general in Lu Bu's unit for this battle.



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/12 00:08:41


Post by: Eumerin


 LordofHats wrote:
Eumerin wrote:
In both DW 8 and 9 (the most recent game) she's key in persuading Lu Bu to turn against his master.


Hmm. I don't remember her being that important in 8, but I haven't played 9. She definitely fell off to the wayside during 6 and 7.


In 8, the actual betrayal isn't depicted in any of the four original campaigns. But there's an unlockable side mission that has you playing as Diaochan to recruit Lu Bu against Dong Zhuo, and save Wang Yun. Additionally, during the Hulao Gate battle, if you bypass Lu Bu (as you're supposed to when playing as Wei) and then attack Diaochan, Lu Bu drops what he's doing and makes a beeline for you (Spoiler: This is bad). Finally, DW8XL Extreme Edition adds a Lu Bu campaign. Diaochan plays an important role in the "overthrow Dong Zhuo" mission in that campaign (iirc, she's one of the three playable characters in that mission). She leaves at the end of the mission, but comes back later on if you meet the necessary requirements.

She also appears during Cao Cao's failed attempt to assassinate Dong Zhuo (i.e. the first Wei mission), and helps him escape from the palace. Lu Bu appears in that mission as well, though only as an antagonist. IIRC, there's no evidence of any affection between the two during that mission.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/02/23 00:49:05


Post by: Voss


Well, despite the delay, they're still doing content videos. Records mode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fD1rzvghxc

Highlights:
30 years into the campaign

Amazing map, with a dust storm effect limiting visibility

characters do bring retinue units in records mode.

unit stamina apparently has 'more impact' on records mode.

Reinforcements take a long time to show up in the first battle. Which gives a sense of realism, but makes the fight much easier than it needs to be. The garrison is almost completely slaughtered before the reinforcements make contact.

Taking the arrow towers seemed really quick compared to other historical TW games.

---
On the down side, the AI was completely suckered by two cav units and put all its ranged units on them, while the rest of the enemy units did basically nothing.


I liked that it was a nice long battle, but the AI looked terribly static, even declining to attack his stationary crossbowmen with no ammo. Looked pretty, but also looked like Firaxis-level AI (for those unfamiliar with the recent Civilization games, that's real bad.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/03/14 23:13:30


Post by: Eumerin


System requirements were posted in the blog today. Fortunately, it doesn't look like I'll be needing to upgrade anything for *this* game (though I'll likely be on the lower end of things).

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/three-kingdoms-tech-effects-and-system-specs?fbclid=IwAR1AfPZ03QdXZYR8_RRoeEOtorMbrAC1zPjiaaTbjdSXKksA0vMYxKzY8p0


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/03/14 23:39:57


Post by: Voss


Eumerin wrote:
System requirements were posted in the blog today. Fortunately, it doesn't look like I'll be needing to upgrade anything for *this* game (though I'll likely be on the lower end of things).

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/three-kingdoms-tech-effects-and-system-specs?fbclid=IwAR1AfPZ03QdXZYR8_RRoeEOtorMbrAC1zPjiaaTbjdSXKksA0vMYxKzY8p0


Same here, I'm definitely at the point where my GPU is letting the side down.


However, I'm really not a fan of the rest of that blog. Repeatedly saying 'we aren't going to do the work' sends a poor message. [Even though from a programming perspective, I get it- if TAA gives better results, than do that]. But the highly, highly critical 'fans' of CA are going to take that statement and run with it to Meme-land.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/03/15 11:38:59


Post by: Not Online!!!


Voss wrote:
Eumerin wrote:
System requirements were posted in the blog today. Fortunately, it doesn't look like I'll be needing to upgrade anything for *this* game (though I'll likely be on the lower end of things).

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/three-kingdoms-tech-effects-and-system-specs?fbclid=IwAR1AfPZ03QdXZYR8_RRoeEOtorMbrAC1zPjiaaTbjdSXKksA0vMYxKzY8p0


Same here, I'm definitely at the point where my GPU is letting the side down.


However, I'm really not a fan of the rest of that blog. Repeatedly saying 'we aren't going to do the work' sends a poor message. [Even though from a programming perspective, I get it- if TAA gives better results, than do that]. But the highly, highly critical 'fans' of CA are going to take that statement and run with it to Meme-land.




WELLLLLLL: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/540722836664330202/543EAB3D8FCFF167DBEA00E9120B6FE491FA3D56/


CA fired themselves into the meme land category with Rome II, that said it is unlucky worded.
Also don't forget the preview battle of Carthago and the "Biggest budget yet" . They were caught when they fethed up, and the community let one time go with ETW.
It is imo just correct when they get reminded that they did feth up.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/03/15 11:48:25


Post by: Overread


The highly critical fans are basically at the EAHATE level of intelligence. CA could publish a blog where they only said good things and were rehoming the homeless and giving people kittens and all good things and the hate crowed would still meme-hate it to the ground.

I think CA realises this and is mostly ignoring them - the supreme haters are basically on a trolling roll.




That's not to say CA hasn't made mistakes or blunders, but that the "hate crowd" has moved on from legitimate complaint into just hating for hatings sake alone



Also I do agree that blog could be worded a LOT better, then again they might be baiting to get the SLI and duel card users out of the woodwork and get them complaining in large enough numbers to justify the work. Far as I'm aware running duel cards is very far from the norm; so a marginal gain for a feature very few use - yeah I can see why they wouldn't invest into it. I think they are basically saying "prove" there's enough of you out there to make it worthwhile investing significant resources into this. Sure one day multi-card setups imght be more common, but right now my impression is the average gamer has 1 card


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/03/15 11:52:26


Post by: Not Online!!!


 Overread wrote:
The highly critical fans are basically at the EAHATE level of intelligence. CA could publish a blog where they only said good things and were rehoming the homeless and giving people kittens and all good things and the hate crowed would still meme-hate it to the ground.

I think CA realises this and is mostly ignoring them - the supreme haters are basically on a trolling roll.




That's not to say CA hasn't made mistakes or blunders, but that the "hate crowd" has moved on from legitimate complaint into just hating for hatings sake alone


A: EA hate is very valid, yes, sorry to say that but F EA and their gak practices. The poor studios under them are "often" not the problem though.
B: Blunders is a veeery nice word for CA/ Sega and the Total war series. In fact the community has often been to lenient in my opinion: See ETW, Rome II, the questionable first day DLC decisions (Chaos or greek city states)


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/17 17:03:58


Post by: nels1031


Reviews are coming in for Three Kingdoms:




A couple other sites are posting their reviews as well, I'll post them as I see them, if its an interesting read.

I pre-ordered because I'm a Total War fiend, but I'm weirdly not hyped for this one. At all. TW:WH2 has so many variations of playstyle that I haven't gotten bored with it yet and I'm not hungry for anything new. And this era does nothing for me so far. Maybe after I play it a bit late next week I'll change my tune. Some of the features previewed seem like great additions, where other stuff that I've seen has me scratching my head.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/17 19:23:23


Post by: Voss


I've been watching a lot of playthroughs and reading some of the reviews. It looks rather good. At lot of the Cons have been 'its so complex' which is a good sign, as if you bother to learn the game, that goes away with time.

Diplomacy looks really good for once, and they seemed to have improved the earlier AI problems at least somewhat.

There is honestly more unit and leader variety than I expected, and the game as a whole looks more robust than most TW titles. I'm pretty excited for it again, after being rather dubious in late winter.


----
Though by comparison, I am very tired of TW2. The changes to skaven and lizards are fine, but feel too little too late. And ikkit is just frankly broken for a campaign- just a steamroll.
As far as variations of play style goes, at this point it feels more like skins for the standard swords/spears/cav (rock/paper/scissors) with ranged/magic support. Corruption is just really tiresome for me at this point, the vortex campaign is annoying and ME is just too big (too long in turn times), and with that annoying chaos invasion that isn't even vaguely interesting anymore. If they bump up some of the old world factions and do a smaller campaign map, it might suffice as a placeholder for TW3.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/17 23:22:59


Post by: LordofHats


I really want this game to be good. I think I'd enjoy it even if it was mediocre simply because of it's setting and how long I've wanted TW to make a game for it. It seems like if nothing else CA has managed to capture the epic scale and the romance of the era, which is maybe the most important part. If nothing else, modders will take whatever mess they leave and create something great.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/18 09:06:29


Post by: Not Online!!!


 LordofHats wrote:
I really want this game to be good. I think I'd enjoy it even if it was mediocre simply because of it's setting and how long I've wanted TW to make a game for it. It seems like if nothing else CA has managed to capture the epic scale and the romance of the era, which is maybe the most important part. If nothing else, modders will take whatever mess they leave and create something great.


The problem imo is that the engine and it's modification of it they used since ETW is Genius for units with ranged attacks but bad for formation fighting, and in the infantry charges you can see this very well. In WH2 they fixed it eventually, but so far all we've seen from the lets plays is that they didn't translate that into three kingdoms.

Personally, i would've loved the warlord era for china. The prevalence of guns would've lowered the issues with the engine and politics would be just as cuthroat as in 3kingdoms.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 03:37:58


Post by: Eumerin


Not Online!!! wrote:
Personally, i would've loved the warlord era for china. The prevalence of guns would've lowered the issues with the engine and politics would be just as cuthroat as in 3kingdoms.


IMO, it breaks down when gunpowder becomes too prevalent on the battlefield. I got Napoleon back in the day (and later Empire, though I didn't play much of it). And the game didn't do a good job of handling things for that era, imo.

As for what I've seen...


Lots of talk about the new diplomacy system, which is generally well-received.
Reviewers talking about how much they like the generals in Romance mode.
One review that spent far too much time gushing over female generals, and how amazing it was that you could marry your daughters off to another state, and then see those same daughters come back as enemy generals that would destroy your armies on the battlefield (/rolleyes).
A conspicuous absence of talk about the AI. I think the grand total of AI comments that I've seen is a quick mention that enemy troops tend to stay for too long in places where they'll get shot. As I recall, that was a problem mentioned a few months ago. So I'm a bit suspicious about the current state of the game's artificial intelligence.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 11:52:44


Post by: Not Online!!!


A conspicuous absence of talk about the AI. I think the grand total of AI comments that I've seen is a quick mention that enemy troops tend to stay for too long in places where they'll get shot. As I recall, that was a problem mentioned a few months ago. So I'm a bit suspicious about the current state of the game's artificial intelligence.



Why am i not surprised, oh wait always the same Spiel, https://www.google.com/search?q=rtw+ii+ai+meme&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjhsozEhKriAhWGdlAKHSczAPgQ2-cCegQIABAC&oq=rtw+ii+ai+meme&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-img.12...1778.1778..2684...0.0..0.113.113.0j1......0....1.Bb3a8Q8jbMk&ei=lpPiXOGPHobtwQKn5oDADw&bih=512&biw=360&client=ms-android-sonymobile&prmd=imsvn#imgrc=eSkrH4nMT1mVoM


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 12:11:17


Post by: Overread


Honestly AI has, at least visually, stagnated in the games market.

FPS and some other formates hide it a lot better, but RTS games tend to show that AI really isn't improving by leaps and bounds like everywhere else. I think the only company at present really pushing AI is Blizzard and they have somewhat nuts resources open to them - so one hopes their developments trickle down into the market in general.


That said I still recall the AI in Medieval 2 (the game everyone loves on). It HATED sieges and most times would retreat from them and draw up battlelines forcing you to either wait them out or move out and attack. Which isn't a bad idea, but its somewhat anti-climatic when you're expecting a siege battle.

Then there's the Empire AI which retreated from their Star fortress as I attacked - even though I'd made a mistake and had NO artillery and NO siege weapons. Seriously I ran up, climbed the walls with no opposition and soon was firing their own defensive cannon at them. They, of course, retreated to the other end of the town on the map and I had to leave the fort and hunt them down. (huge maps are fun but not when it turns into a game of army chase).



Suffice to say the TW AI does decently, but in the end AI is just coming up short in many games. You hear the same issues in Stellaris (although honestly I'm surprised their sector AI is as bad as it can be since it seems to just build at total random).
Heck the Pokemon AI has for generations just random picked what it does each battle turn!


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 13:58:07


Post by: LordofHats


Oh jesus the nonsense you'd never be able to get away with if the Pokemon AI actually made choices based on basic information (like switching out of an unfavorable pairing, or even just using move sets that make sense). You'd never be able to beat the Pokemon League Champion with a Lv. 1 Rattata ever again!

EDIT: Now that I think of it, FGO's ai also picks targets at random, except for some of the challenge boss fights where the AI is coded to kill Casters first because Merlin was making every challenge fight a non-challenge XD


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 14:09:05


Post by: Overread


What makes me laugh is when the pokemon AI uses things like sleep over and over even if the opponent is already asleep.


And wasn't there a goldfish who played pokemon for a while and got pretty far though purely random movement.


I mean I get that at its core its a kids game, but still you'd think they'd put a very basic bit of thinking into the choice of what to do per turn. But I figure their main issue is if they did that they'd have to make it so that you auto-healed at the end of every fight otherwise you'd be forever going back and forth to the poke-centre.

It is one time where I'm honestly confused why the AI is so bad when you'd expect it to be good - knowing the status of its opponent; knowing the weak and strong combos and knowing the element line ups (heck pokemon has so many now its actually quite a bit to remember all the various combos that work against each other).


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 14:10:05


Post by: Not Online!!!


 Overread wrote:
Honestly AI has, at least visually, stagnated in the games market.

FPS and some other formates hide it a lot better, but RTS games tend to show that AI really isn't improving by leaps and bounds like everywhere else. I think the only company at present really pushing AI is Blizzard and they have somewhat nuts resources open to them - so one hopes their developments trickle down into the market in general.


That said I still recall the AI in Medieval 2 (the game everyone loves on). It HATED sieges and most times would retreat from them and draw up battlelines forcing you to either wait them out or move out and attack. Which isn't a bad idea, but its somewhat anti-climatic when you're expecting a siege battle.

Then there's the Empire AI which retreated from their Star fortress as I attacked - even though I'd made a mistake and had NO artillery and NO siege weapons. Seriously I ran up, climbed the walls with no opposition and soon was firing their own defensive cannon at them. They, of course, retreated to the other end of the town on the map and I had to leave the fort and hunt them down. (huge maps are fun but not when it turns into a game of army chase).



Suffice to say the TW AI does decently, but in the end AI is just coming up short in many games. You hear the same issues in Stellaris (although honestly I'm surprised their sector AI is as bad as it can be since it seems to just build at total random).
Heck the Pokemon AI has for generations just random picked what it does each battle turn!


That is true but etw atleast had the excuse of a total new engine, how Napoléon and rtw II turned out soll medicore/ bad at the start even though the Budget was 40% higher is memeworthy.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 14:18:46


Post by: LordofHats


Eh. Even a "smart" Pokemon AI would probably still be fairly predictable, which would actually be useful in preparing player's for online play since the hardest and most important skill in high-end PvP battles is your ability to predict what your opponent does next.

To steer this back to the topic, I remember what you said in MII, and I generally abused it. The AI handled siege battles horribly. So horribly that a garrison army of archers/crossbowmen could hold off an army twice it's size because the AI would stand outside the wall in shooting range if you sent one unit out to bait them in.

Rinse and repeat and you win every siege battle that actually happens, and some factions had easy access to cheap/early crossbows. Saved a lot of time and money for building large field armies to beat the rest of the AI to a pulp.

Once you learn how the AI makes decisions, it gets really easy to steam roll right over them.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 14:50:34


Post by: Not Online!!!


 LordofHats wrote:
Eh. Even a "smart" Pokemon AI would probably still be fairly predictable, which would actually be useful in preparing player's for online play since the hardest and most important skill in high-end PvP battles is your ability to predict what your opponent does next.

To steer this back to the topic, I remember what you said in MII, and I generally abused it. The AI handled siege battles horribly. So horribly that a garrison army of archers/crossbowmen could hold off an army twice it's size because the AI would stand outside the wall in shooting range if you sent one unit out to bait them in.

Rinse and repeat and you win every siege battle that actually happens, and some factions had easy access to cheap/early crossbows. Saved a lot of time and money for building large field armies to beat the rest of the AI to a pulp.

Once you learn how the AI makes decisions, it gets really easy to steam roll right over them.


Granted the wh II ai is equally bad, especially at dealing with flying units if it has non.
I personally found the AI failed the hardest in City fights in etw, i once hold of 2 stacks with 3 units of conscripts 2 line infantry a general and a unit of guerilla.

Overall i find the situation reflects badly on ca.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 15:06:33


Post by: LordofHats


Eh.

Overread is right. AI across the industry is lackluster, and hasn't really seen much improvement over the past decade. If anything, CA at least tries to push new mechanics and ideas in the genre they're most well known for. Sure all those ideas don't hit, but at least they're trying.

Picking on them for not pushing AI too feels overly critical.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 16:17:50


Post by: Not Online!!!


 LordofHats wrote:
Eh.

Overread is right. AI across the industry is lackluster, and hasn't really seen much improvement over the past decade. If anything, CA at least tries to push new mechanics and ideas in the genre they're most well known for. Sure all those ideas don't hit, but at least they're trying.

Picking on them for not pushing AI too feels overly critical.


And what mechanics did they push exactly since etw /ntw? If anything they stagnated until Attila and even there the Innovation wasn't great, but atleast the AI got improved there.
Also sieges have been downgraded heavily over time and so did formation fighting and the melee model overall due to the terribad engine since etw.

It is nice that they are trying to fix diplomacy so that it not Automatically turns into dickplomacy but that comparativly matters little when I can just shoot my way to victory with missile units.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 16:41:49


Post by: Overread


Warhammer 1 and 2 were vast innovations for CA - they added flying units, super heroes, dragons, massive units, spells, etc... They reworkeda huge amount of stuff.

Even sieges are actually more satisfying from a combate side in many ways because now you're not playing "hunt the army" as you run around a massive map and spend more time chasing the enemy than actually manoeuvring into combat.



I think that the issue is most people have no concept of AI and many games like FPS trick players into thinking AI are far better in them when in actuality the AI is simply having a much easier time because it has far less to think about - its all reactionary mostly, there's no pre-planning or thinking ahead. They can also hide it behind things like pre-designed patrol pathways and pre-design play styles on specific maps etc.... Ergo it appears better than it is whilst RTS games tend to show up the glaring issues far more readily. Esp since most AI are never thinking about the "long game".



Also with diplomacy lets face it - most players will complain unless the AI rolls over to do what they want. And most players are willing to dump an AI ally in a moments notice, heck if the AI self-learned diplomacy from a player they'd just learn to use it to shore up one front or for long distance trade with the long term goal of breaking the alliance and running amock in their once allied lands to take over.

My hope is that things visually settle down and that as a result we see AI get more time to shine and get attention. Blizzard is messing around with it a lot in Starcraft and I think that is where we might well see new ideas and the next generation of RTS AI start to come together. Not forgetting Blizzard doesn't make many actual games; they have the ability to profit without game sales so they've far more resources to put into something like that than a company like CA who has to invest into new games to continue earning. Heck Blizzard has tournaments that bring in hundreds of thousands in prize money alone (or at least raised that in supporting money I think). They've deeper pockets than most.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 17:07:19


Post by: Not Online!!!


Warhammer 1 and 2 were vast innovations for CA - they added flying units, super heroes, dragons, massive units, spells, etc... They reworkeda huge amount of stuff.


out of all this only the flying units are actual a new mechanic.

Dmg overtime through spells is comparable to artillery ammo available in ETW for howitzers, damage spells like the flamming skull etc also work similarly to support artilery from shogun 2.
Super heros are either cavalry or infantry units with stats most of the time.
Spells are again the same a temporary buff not unlike some abilities units had in the past like steady or banzai, except this time you can mark a friendly or enemy unit.

Even sieges are actually more satisfying from a combate side in many ways because now you're not playing "hunt the army" as you run around a massive map and spend more time chasing the enemy than actually manoeuvring into combat.


"Kaplan, the players complain about the siege AI, what shall we do?
Let's make sieges just a minescule area where the AI can't maneuvre out of the way."

And this is what is called a band aid, one that even has more shortcomings then before, you can easily abuse the AI plugging gaps in the wall and put archers literally right infront of the unit and kill it without repercussions, infact you can abuse the living hell atm out of the siege AI if you want to.

Also i will give you that, that FPS got a lot better at hiding it's terrible AI, but imo just screwing around with a chaos army that has no flying unit with one flying unit, making it constantly realign and waste stamina also shows that the flying mechanic has from an AI standpoint a very limited interaction capability.
infact just recently i won a ambush battle against a full skaven army because it mindlessly ignored a bunch of flying pirates that killed 3 plague claw catapults whilest just rushing my line.

Also with diplomacy lets face it - most players will complain unless the AI rolls over to do what they want. And most players are willing to dump an AI ally in a moments notice, heck if the AI self-learned diplomacy from a player they'd just learn to use it to shore up one front or for long distance trade with the long term goal of breaking the alliance and running amock in their once allied lands to take over.
the very existence of games like EUIV or Crusader kings would show that this is not the case and there is a lot more to do with an better indepth AI diplomacy system.



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 17:46:15


Post by: ZebioLizard2


 Overread wrote:

And wasn't there a goldfish who played pokemon for a while and got pretty far though purely random movement.
.


That was a twitch plays pokemon thing, and it was one of the earlier gameboy game ones if I remember right.

the very existence of games like EUIV or Crusader kings would show that this is not the case and there is a lot more to do with an better indepth AI diplomacy system.


Aren't those easily broken at times?


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 17:54:26


Post by: Voss


Very easily. I'm baffled by anyone holding up paradox games as an example of good or even more than barely functional diplomacy. Its a points-over-time based system with a lot of exceptions and get out of relationship free clauses (country too big, too small, no other possible rivals, hard coded desires for provinces, etc)

Of major strategy companies, they're near bottom (saved from that status by firaxis, who give no rat butts about it )

As for AI, most people don't understand the concept correctly, and don't grasp how massive 'proper AI' would be, or how badly it would ruin games.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 18:13:35


Post by: Not Online!!!


Voss wrote:
Very easily. I'm baffled by anyone holding up paradox games as an example of good or even more than barely functional diplomacy. Its a points-over-time based system with a lot of exceptions and get out of relationship free clauses (country too big, too small, no other possible rivals, hard coded desires for provinces, etc)

Of major strategy companies, they're near bottom (saved from that status by firaxis, who give no rat butts about it )

As for AI, most people don't understand the concept correctly, and don't grasp how massive 'proper AI' would be, or how badly it would ruin games.


When you compare with TW the Diplomacy of Paradox is functional. The point was also to highlight that an intersting or improved Diplomacy system is better then non.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 18:40:58


Post by: Overread


Honestly my impression is that most of the diplomacy complaints which aren't "the AI won't do what I tell it to do" tend to boil down to a few things

1) There is rarely if never any actual connection between player and AI actions. Granted few players will go to an AI's aid in war, but similar the AI doesn't tend to do much either, its more convenience thaty ou're against the same foes.

2) Games like Crusader Kings just have WAY more options and depth to the feature. Which is good because their combat element is basically super light. It's mostly a case of balancing your infantry number vs your income and getting the war over fast.
Crusader Kings and TW are both similar in the main map view approach to empire building; but whilst one focuses more on dynasty and diplomacy; the other focuses on army combat. Merging those two elements together would create a very indepth game, but run the high risk that it actually becomes so complex it puts players off.

Sometimes its good to have games that focus in detail on one area; with a TW game most of it is about getting big armies into big 3D battles. A heavy diplomatic system would get in the way.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 21:51:50


Post by: Dark Apostle 666


I've got to say, the diplomacy system is pretty much ignored when I play TW games - get some early game income from trade agreements, but beyond that, I just see enemy diplomats as assassin fodder.
Like with Medieval 2, from my perspective the only really important diplomacy that you can do is with the Pope, when playing as Catholic faction, and that's less diplomacy, more prolonged bribery to prevent getting crusaded against. It's far more about the combat side, or even managing happiness in settlements, than it is about diplomacy, at least from my perspective.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 22:28:05


Post by: Voss


 Dark Apostle 666 wrote:
I've got to say, the diplomacy system is pretty much ignored when I play TW games - get some early game income from trade agreements, but beyond that, I just see enemy diplomats as assassin fodder.
Like with Medieval 2, from my perspective the only really important diplomacy that you can do is with the Pope, when playing as Catholic faction, and that's less diplomacy, more prolonged bribery to prevent getting crusaded against. It's far more about the combat side, or even managing happiness in settlements, than it is about diplomacy, at least from my perspective.


Well, that's because TW games have had a weird to defective diplomacy model. Warhammer's has been almost offensively bad, since alliances are a flat detriment (people can and will drag you into wars where you must break a treaty, ruining your diplomatic ability with everyone, including them) and that mistrust lasted basically forever until recent patches. Plus allies would use your strength in determining there strength in deciding whether or not they were weak enough to confederate with you, which is just pants on head bad, as no matter how weak they are, they're always comparing your strength (X) to their strength of (X)+1.

This one is a lot broader, with all sorts of trades and relationships possible, not just the bare minimum. Even peacefully transferring land, and everything has a value weighted by what they actually need or desire. [2 food to someone with no food is worth more than someone with 20 food]. Its a big shift for the franchise, and from what I've seen, really makes the game more interesting.

----

They announced today that the DLC would be 'story chapter' focused, so you'd see various characters at different points in time and different areas. That's honestly a relief, because the same map and same base relationships get old after a while.
It also allows some of the characters in new scenarios- quite a few of the campaign cast were commanders along the northern borders against invaders, but for the main campaign, that period is over. A DLC pack could actually focus on those campaigns, while not touching the 'three kingdoms' setup.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 23:36:50


Post by: Motsie


I'm more curious about how they handle mid-to-late game snowballing.

TW games are characterized by that grueling start to carve an empire, interrupted by a sudden shift into auto-resolve grind mode for victory conditions.

This is an issue with 4x games in general, though.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 23:44:45


Post by: Overread


TW isn't as bad as some - you can at least envision having armies in different places in your empire. A lot of 4* I find tend to fall into the terrible pit of "put all your army in one single place to win".

Stellaries suffers from this still; though I think the king from more recent games was Sword of the Stars 1 which almost requires you to do it against the AI otherwise their superfleet will beat any other fleet you send.

It was a huge shame that their second game, which looked like they were going to go for really tactical battles and limited armies with more spread out forces - ergo a really sweet approach to combat for a standard 4* experience - sadly they utterly utterly messed up the launch and the game was a mess. A huge shame because I really think if it had done well it would have changed things for 4* in a big way.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/20 23:49:23


Post by: LordofHats


 Overread wrote:
Stellaries suffers from this still; though I think the king from more recent games was Sword of the Stars 1 which almost requires you to do it against the AI otherwise their superfleet will beat any other fleet you send.


This is why I play corvette fleets in Stellaris, cause managing five swarms of tiny fast ships and avoiding the enemy fleet while wrecking their infrastructure left and right is a lot more entertaining than building a battleship stack XD


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/21 01:05:58


Post by: Eumerin


 Motsie wrote:
I'm more curious about how they handle mid-to-late game snowballing.

TW games are characterized by that grueling start to carve an empire, interrupted by a sudden shift into auto-resolve grind mode for victory conditions.


Reviews have revealed that when one of the warlords reaches a certain strength level, the game will loosely emulate the actual Three Kingdoms phase of the era by forming the remaining warlords into three large power blocs. This is supposed to happen in a far more natural fashion than the "everyone hates you now, including your vassals" stage of Shogun 2. I'm not sure whether the player is required to be the leader of one of the factions, or whether the player could theoretically end up a junior member. Note that historically, this is not what happened. Historically, Wei (Cao Cao) conquered or vassalized pretty much everyone but Wu (Sun family) and Liu Bei (still homeless at the time) before the third kingdom (Shu Han, under Liu Bei) had even begun to form. But if it works, it should help for the game's purposes. My primary concern is how the process ends up dealing with territory mismatches. The bulk of the warlords are in the north and east. And none of the playable warlords start near Cheng'du (where Shu Han historically had its capitol). So depending on how the criteria for formation of the kingdoms are determined, you could theoretically end up with all three kingdoms focused on the northeast of China.

They announced today that the DLC would be 'story chapter' focused, so you'd see various characters at different points in time and different areas.


Three pretty obvious focuses would be -

1.) The Yellow Turban Rebellion - This one would take place before the current game start. The Yellow Turban warlords in the Yellow Turban DLC are hold-overs who survived the big rebellion (which was *huge*), and later started their own smaller, localized uprisings, and shouldn't be confused with the theoretical events of this scenario
2.) Formation of the Three Kingdoms - a scenario start in which Shu Han has finally been formed. Shu and Wu are alternately allying against Wei, and squabbling with each other over Jin Province.
3.) Rise of the Sima Family - The fact of the matter is that the clan that reunited China isn't one that's currently playable. And they never will be with a normal game start. This particular scenario would focus on the rise of the Sima family within the Kingdom of Wei, leading to (unless the player intervenes) the overthrow of the Cao family, and the eventual reuniting of China under the Jin Dynasty.



Edit -

A couple of other random items -

First, CA announced in a blog post that Three Kingdoms is their most "pre-ordered" game. If nothing else, it appears that anticipation for this game is pretty high. There's no qualifier in that announcement with the word "historical", so it appears that it beat out the Warhammer games, as well. I'm rather surprised by that... Of course, this is just pre-orders, and it's entirely possible (likely, even, imo) that it won't do as well against the Warhammer games in total sales.

Second, and only loosely related - I've been watching a Chinese TV series on Netflix ('War of Kings', for the curious). It's set during the fall of the Qin Dynasty, and has quite a few familiar faces if you've seen the Three Kingdoms TV series (for instance, the same actor who played the virtuous Liu Bei in that series plays the Qin Emperor in this one; also, I haven't double-checked, but based on the look of the series, I'm guessing it's by the same company that did Three Kingdoms). Anyway, the reason why I mention it is that I spotted a famiiliar surname early on. So I double-checked the date it was set in, and thought, "Him? REALLY!?" But a quick check on-line confirmed that the guy named "Liu" really was Liu Bei's distant ancestor, and the first emperor of the soon-to-be-founded Han Dynasty.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/21 08:17:12


Post by: StygianBeach


Voss wrote:
Well, that's because TW games have had a weird to defective diplomacy model. Warhammer's has been almost offensively bad, since alliances are a flat detriment (people can and will drag you into wars where you must break a treaty, ruining your diplomatic ability with everyone, including them) and that mistrust lasted basically forever until recent patches. Plus allies would use your strength in determining there strength in deciding whether or not they were weak enough to confederate with you, which is just pants on head bad, as no matter how weak they are, they're always comparing your strength (X) to their strength of (X)+1.


Now I understand why other AI High Elves would confederate with Tyrion and not me (Averlorn) despite being BFF's with me and not with Tyrion.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/21 09:39:49


Post by: Overread


The Dynasty Warriors games have for years built a very steady and stable fanbase of their own and almost defined the era for the gamer in terms of visuals and style. CA is riding that coattail heavily with their Dynasty era game. In addition I bet this game has a massive appeal in China (for games of this type in that market); so that alone could prop its sales up massively over some other titles.

All in all if its got more pre-orders than ever before and its beating the Warhammer games (which if I recall right were some of the biggest sellers for CA) then its a very good sign that the game will sell really well once it hits release.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/21 16:56:36


Post by: Not Online!!!


 StygianBeach wrote:
Voss wrote:
Well, that's because TW games have had a weird to defective diplomacy model. Warhammer's has been almost offensively bad, since alliances are a flat detriment (people can and will drag you into wars where you must break a treaty, ruining your diplomatic ability with everyone, including them) and that mistrust lasted basically forever until recent patches. Plus allies would use your strength in determining there strength in deciding whether or not they were weak enough to confederate with you, which is just pants on head bad, as no matter how weak they are, they're always comparing your strength (X) to their strength of (X)+1.


Now I understand why other AI High Elves would confederate with Tyrion and not me (Averlorn) despite being BFF's with me and not with Tyrion.


Atleast they fixed it for chaos, beat up enemy lord, get's trait beaten, make vassal, problem solved, vassal swarm activated.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/21 22:28:51


Post by: Motsie


Two things I really like so far is the presentation of the tech tree as a watercoloring tree, and the character-focused nature of romance-mode.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/22 03:35:34


Post by: nels1031


Pre-load is up for any other fellow Total War-ophile that pre-ordered, like myself!

Can’t wait to jump into a setting that I know feth all about and have read very little of the games new features. Going to be a whole lotta reloads and restarts this weekend!


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/22 04:32:41


Post by: Argive


I thought this was out already? Seems to be all over my steam


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/22 07:10:20


Post by: Not Online!!!


 Argive wrote:
I thought this was out already? Seems to be all over my steam


Na just the influencers got it and of these the uncritical only.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/22 16:21:53


Post by: Voss


 Argive wrote:
I thought this was out already? Seems to be all over my steam

Steam does a lot of pre-release advertising for major titles. Rage 2 started months ago and still hasn't gone away, despite release and a general lack of interest.

Though some of confusion of 3k probably stems from multiple delays, though I think the game has largely benefited from those.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/24 12:47:52


Post by: nels1031


Looks like a hit so far, setting a concurrent player record for the franchise by a fairly large margin on Steam. I certainly didn’t expect that.

I played a few turns as the military centric dude whose name escapes me, he starts in the top right corner of the map. It was “Records” mode and all I really did was feel out the controls and features, as well as get the graphics pumping on my machine. I’m digging it so far, though I will scrap this Records campaign and go for the Romance mode this extended weekend.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/24 13:57:24


Post by: Voss


 nels1031 wrote:
Looks like a hit so far, setting a concurrent player record for the franchise by a fairly large margin on Steam. I certainly didn’t expect that.

I played a few turns as the military centric dude whose name escapes me, he starts in the top right corner of the map. It was “Records” mode and all I really did was feel out the controls and features, as well as get the graphics pumping on my machine. I’m digging it so far, though I will scrap this Records campaign and go for the Romance mode this extended weekend.


Only had a few hours with it last night, but looks good so far.

Some of the romance character abilities might need to be toned down (I think a yellow healer forced my general to flee from a duel... somehow. Or I really misclicked on something), but largely i m very impressed.

The 'red' reforms feel fairly necessary at the moment- picking up better replenishment and fewer mustering turns makes a huge difference.

Also playing with extreme unit sizes (240 infantry), no performance problems.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/24 17:47:41


Post by: Overread


I'm really liking how it seems to be getting rave reviews from most and a really positive reception!


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/25 03:27:32


Post by: Voss


 Overread wrote:
I'm really liking how it seems to be getting rave reviews from most and a really positive reception!

Yeah, the reception is really positive so far.

I'm pretty impressed with it, though Southern China really needs to be something other than free territory for anyone at the Yangtze. I settled down with a He Yi campaign after trying Ma Teng for a few turns and Gongsun Zan for 40 or so (he seemed too easy). Moving south is the best move, as it gets you out of being completely surrounded by hostiles. But as the campaign went on, the inevitable war with Sun Jian happened, and the amount of provinces we both have is utterly ridiculous- restoring settlements has nothing but a gold cost, so its a huge slog across slow terrain. My replenishment bonuses have turned it into something of a steamroll/chase, and whatever is going up north (ie, actual China of this period) has nothing to do with either of us. We both get attacked by other people, but we're both ignoring it as its too far from our war (my economy is tapped with four full army stacks)

The end of Sun Jian is pretty much inevitable (I've killed all three of his known children and his wife at this point, but haven't seen himself since the initial battle across the Yangtze, where I stole his seal and promptly gave it to Liu Bei for peace). But even before the Great Southern War, the big problem with He Yi is I felt really disconnected from the major conflicts and players. Part of it is the diplomacy restrictions, but also the war for the throne of China just doesn't matter- its all about building up and trying to subdue one neighbor at a time while their bizarre alliances shift and transform (I got to see Kong Rong vassalized, liberated and vassalized again over the course of a single end turn.) Losing settlements temporarily doesn't really matter (especially for He Yi and his +100,000 population bonus whenever he takes a settlement). The real restriction for He Yi is characters- the unit captains the Yellow Turbans can recruit just don't measure up in romance mode.


---
But yeah, loving the game, but Southern China needs a rework. Historically it had very small and lawless settlements that weren't worth much in this period. None of that is reflected in the current setup- its easy territory to snowball with. And I suspect either AI restrictions or the fog of war keeps northerners from diving very far into the regions below the Yangtze.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/25 05:26:51


Post by: nels1031


Right now Gongsun Zan is my main campaign. Just using him to learn the mechanics and such. I figured being situated at the very northeast is a somewhat unassailable base to build up my forces. Its great fun so far.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/25 06:24:36


Post by: Eumerin


Seeing a complaint -

Apparently Yuan Shao is vassalizing nearly everyone around him early in the game. This includes both the minor factions, and the major factions. This *might* be triggered by going to war with him.

Keep in mind, though, that "going to war" with him can include being at war with a different faction that Yuan Shao then vassalizes or forms a coalition with, causing him to then be at war with you.

Since this is happening very early in the game, players are unable to effectively fight back against the amount of troops being thrown at them.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/25 20:06:49


Post by: LordofHats


Finally downloading the game and planning to play a little tonight.

I think I'll try Ma Teng or Sun Jian first, but I also want to try Gongsun Zan.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Voss wrote:

But yeah, loving the game, but Southern China needs a rework. Historically it had very small and lawless settlements that weren't worth much in this period. None of that is reflected in the current setup- its easy territory to snowball with. And I suspect either AI restrictions or the fog of war keeps northerners from diving very far into the regions below the Yangtze.


On the other hand, that might, to a degree, be purposeful. While the South of China was not as well developed at the start of the Three Kingdom's Period, the era is when the south started to become much more developed. Because of Shu and Wu southern China emerged from the period as a very well developed region that would become vital to the Jin and Sui dynasties. The difficulty in crossing between northern and southern China is why Chi Bi was such a significant battle. One doesn't simply march north/south and conquer, a trend that first emerged in this era and became increasingly significant in following centuries.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/25 20:38:13


Post by: Voss


My point is, it isn't simply a matter of 'march south and conquer.' Its simply a matter of 'march south and pick up free territory with a single commander and zero troops.' The only time you need to fight down there is if you're at war with someone doing the same thing.

Yeah, sure a gold cost is involved, but money is a simply matter of cycling ancillary and food trades, even if you don't get an economy running.

There should be all sorts of supply, low population penalties, public order and other problems and there are none. Its a snowball area, pure and simple (and a huge one). None of the historic barriers to building up the region are there.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/25 20:51:20


Post by: LordofHats


Voss wrote:
My point is, it isn't simply a matter of 'march south and conquer.' Its simply a matter of 'march south and pick up free territory with a single commander and zero troops.' The only time you need to fight down there is if you're at war with someone doing the same thing.

Yeah, sure a gold cost is involved, but money is a simply matter of cycling ancillary and food trades, even if you don't get an economy running.

There should be all sorts of supply, low population penalties, public order and other problems and there are none. Its a snowball area, pure and simple (and a huge one). None of the historic barriers to building up the region are there.


Oh. That's completely different from what I thought was happening. I should probably poke around at that when I get the game in.

That's weird. Something that would probably spark a lot of conflict in a PvP game, but is just weird in a TW game.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/25 21:19:05


Post by: Not Online!!!


Voss wrote:
My point is, it isn't simply a matter of 'march south and conquer.' Its simply a matter of 'march south and pick up free territory with a single commander and zero troops.' The only time you need to fight down there is if you're at war with someone doing the same thing.

Yeah, sure a gold cost is involved, but money is a simply matter of cycling ancillary and food trades, even if you don't get an economy running.

There should be all sorts of supply, low population penalties, public order and other problems and there are none. Its a snowball area, pure and simple (and a huge one). None of the historic barriers to building up the region are there.


Nearly all Total wars have this problem though, some locations are just secluded enough and easily maintained in nearly all games, etw had french and dutch Guyana, Napoléon had the whole ottoman empire up for grabs if you wanted, warhammer II depends on the map but the one Lizard Lord down south in the corner off the map get's 90% off the time not even to see Chaos.
Also population mechanics to reflect that situation would basically lead to the reimplementation of the old mechanic.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/26 21:35:16


Post by: Eumerin


Some comments -

The narrator/advisor is HORRIBLE. Her intonations are awful and eyeroll inducing. And while I don't profess to be an expert in Chinese pronunciations, I've *NEVER* heard anyone talk about "Lur Bu" or "Urine Shao". There are times when an unwritten 'r' sound appears following a vowel - Chibi is one of them - but I'm pretty sure that Lu Bu and Yuan Shao aren't supposed to have them. Also, I'm puzzled as to why they decided to go with a vaguely British accent for the narrator/advisor when everyone else that I've heard has a vaguely Chinese accent. They should have done all one or all the other. I don't ordinarily mute the advisor in these games. But I'm probably going to do it in this one.

Started the Cao Cao campaign to get a feel for things. Then restarted as Sun Jian. Had four warlords who had declared war on me early on (three of them scripted - ironically, the fourth one was the one that I'd just gotten a HUGE scripted diplomacy bonus with). One of them - Liu Biao died in battle, and Liu Bei immediately confederated his territory. I'm guessing that's a scripted (or pretty high probability) thing, given that's more or less what happened historically (albeit when Liu Biao died of natural causes). And that's fine. But it's a bit weird when it happens barely three years into the game...

With a slightly better idea on how things worked early on, I restarted the Sun Jian campaign so that I could take a slightly different tack to the first few turns. I got to the attack on Jiangling to cross the river. And this time, instead of cramming everyone through the same gate, I split my army into two, and sent my other general with his units to hit the other nearby gate and seize those towers so that they'd stop shooting at me. He got soundly defeated. Further, the units in my main force barely won against their opponents. This was not helped by things like the axe infantry that I sent to chase the enemy archery unit who literally stopped RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE ENEMY ARCHERS just before those archers left the town. In the end, the only unit left in the town was the enemy leader, who kept running all over the place on his horses. I moved my remaining units up to capture one of the towers that was allowing him to do this with impunity, but my units turned and ran just as they reached the control spot. This left me with just Sun Jian and few of the men in his retinue. The enemy leader in theory could easily take Sun Jian (his remaining unit was over twice the seize of Sun Jian's), but he wasn't interested in closing with me. So I made an unrestricted run for the town square (since there were no guard towers there), dismounted, and seized it.

And that was when I belatedly discovered that seizing the town square does NOT win the battle for you. It merely gets rid of a morale boost that the defenders would otherwise receive.

/sigh


I've been playing Records mode. The game apparently doesn't bother to track which mode you wanted to start in last time. So I have to remember to set it from Romance to Records every time I start a new game.

The game defaults to having your troops run when you issue them a movement order. I turned this off for two reasons. First, in Records mode, exhaustion apparently plays a bigger role. Running across the battlefield to attack your opponent will quickly exhaust your troops. So I had to click off the "Run" button whenever I issued a Move order. Second, I've yet to find a way to force my units to stay in formation when moving. They'll be in formation at the destination. But if you tell them to run, then they'll all move at best speed when moving. And since the generals are all mounted, this causes them to get out in front of their foot troops.

This is a Bad Thing(tm) when you're close enough for the enemy to attack you (whether via bows or charges).

Ten-strong cavalry units at the start of the game is rather odd, imo.

Trebuchets are awesome. They run out of ammunition very quickly. But while they've got it, they'll seriously mess up your opponent's day. And if the enemy units are massed closely together (as they usually are), then the terrible accuracy isn't as big of a problem as it might otherwise be.



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/26 21:58:20


Post by: Not Online!!!


And that was when I belatedly discovered that seizing the town square does NOT win the battle for you. It merely gets rid of a morale boost that the defenders would otherwise receive.

Recently i went down with a Spree of total wars, the shift between the main Center just providing morale was done in Attila allready (which is kinda Amusing because sometimes you just need to not have the Center). On one hand it is great on the other, only if you have as indepth sieges as Attila had.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/27 06:06:07


Post by: Eumerin


Not Online!!! wrote:
And that was when I belatedly discovered that seizing the town square does NOT win the battle for you. It merely gets rid of a morale boost that the defenders would otherwise receive.

Recently i went down with a Spree of total wars, the shift between the main Center just providing morale was done in Attila allready (which is kinda Amusing because sometimes you just need to not have the Center). On one hand it is great on the other, only if you have as indepth sieges as Attila had.


I've got Attila, as well as both of the Warhammers. But it's been a while since I played out a siege in either one. So I didn't remember the change. Regardless, it was annoying to be caught off guard by it.

I found a switch to allow you to have all of the voices in Chinese (presumably Mandarin), including the advisor/narrator. MUCH better. And I noticed that the Chinese-language advisor pronounced both Lu Bu and Yuan Shao as I expected she would, and not like the English-language advisor does.

Seriously, CA? Lu Bu's only the best known warrior of the era (aside from maybe Guan Yu). How exactly does your quality control not catch the fact that the person who delivers the English language opening montage is SCREWING UP HIS NAME!?

I've run Sun Jian's Jiangling battle two more times, and lost both times. It doesn't make any sense. I'm fighting against halberd troops with axes. Advantage axes. I've got medium infantry versus his militia or light infantry (I don't remember which). Advantage medium infantry. And I'm still losing. The only thing that I can figure out is that maybe his archers (incidentally, archery in this game is indirect fire, which gets a bit absurd when the archers in question are quite literally firing over the buildings in multiple blocks of the town to hit your troops - and no, the archers in question are not elevated) are absurdly effective. He's got two units of archers in that fight (along with the guard towers), and I can't get to either one of them until I wipe out his infantry first. During the last battle, I sent a unit of nearly full-strength halberdiers around the front of the town to capture the unguarded guard towers to one side so that they'd stop shooting at me. One of his units of archers was positioned not far away, but behind a barricade, so melee troops couldn't directly get to it. I expected my unit to reach the capture point with some losses, but otherwise largely intact. Instead, when I checked on it again, the last half dozen or so men (out of 40) were fleeing, after having been routed apparently just short of the capture point. My best guess is that a single unit of militia archers essentially melted my unit in the short period of time that it took to march from one entrance to the other.

Uh... what?

Generals are mounted in Records mode, along with their bodyguard. A lot of the troops that I'm facing carry halberds. Yes, there's a note on them that specifically states that they're good against mounted troops. However, in every single battle, the first time one of my generals gets into combat with a unit of halberdiers (which is pretty much guaranteed to happen in the battle I'm having trouble with, since all of the enemy melee infantry in that battle carry halberds), I IMMEDIATELY lose that general. The rest of his unit is still present. But the general is immediately taken out (wounded, in this case). That seems a bit odd...


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/27 06:26:09


Post by: Not Online!!!


What difficulty setting.
To quote legend: melee is a losing proposition after hard.

I'd imagine that this would be your problem
.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/27 09:53:55


Post by: Eumerin


Not Online!!! wrote:
What difficulty setting.
To quote legend: melee is a losing proposition after hard.

I'd imagine that this would be your problem
.


Nope. It's on Normal.

Took another crack at it, and managed to pull off a win.

I'm pretty sure it's the archers, possibly in combination with the Guard Towers. On my unsuccessful attempts, the enemy managed to completely block the entrance to the town with the unit that it positioned at the front of the entrance (there were additional units positioned a little further back, but they weren't physically in the town entrance until after the initial fighting started). As a result, I wasn't able to get units inside past the initial blockade. On my successful attempts, the front-line unit guarding the entrance collapsed in on itself after my initial charge against it, and I was able to slip units past the flank. This allowed me to go after the archers that the AI had positioned just inside the town. It also allowed my units that slipped past to take the Capture Point for the Guard Towers at that entrance.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/27 14:29:51


Post by: Not Online!!!


Eumerin wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:
What difficulty setting.
To quote legend: melee is a losing proposition after hard.

I'd imagine that this would be your problem
.


Nope. It's on Normal.

Took another crack at it, and managed to pull off a win.

I'm pretty sure it's the archers, possibly in combination with the Guard Towers. On my unsuccessful attempts, the enemy managed to completely block the entrance to the town with the unit that it positioned at the front of the entrance (there were additional units positioned a little further back, but they weren't physically in the town entrance until after the initial fighting started). As a result, I wasn't able to get units inside past the initial blockade. On my successful attempts, the front-line unit guarding the entrance collapsed in on itself after my initial charge against it, and I was able to slip units past the flank. This allowed me to go after the archers that the AI had positioned just inside the town. It also allowed my units that slipped past to take the Capture Point for the Guard Towers at that entrance.


Probably the guard towers then.
Sega really fethed them up, even in the old games. In Attila atleast you could burn down the whole village / city to destroy them.

So far, you like the game or not?


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/28 00:26:36


Post by: Eumerin


Not Online!!! wrote:

So far, you like the game or not?


Mostly. But there are weird little things that are irritants. The narrator/advisor that I mentioned above was one of them. If I hadn't figured out how to get her to stop speaking in English (I switched to the Mandarin voice, but there's also an option to mute her; I'm not sure if the mute option works in the cutscene and loading scene voice overs, though), then I would be much less enthusiastic about playing.

Whenever I get an offer of marriage, the person making the offer has always offered a female to marry one of the men in my group. And the fine text *always* notes that the person that the marriage offer is for - i.e. my male retainer - will go join the other faction. This even applied when Yuan Shu offered to marry someone to Sun Ce, my faction heir. That's not the way that marriages worked in ancient China. Barring very unusual circumstances, the bride should be joining the groom's family (and faction), and not the other way around. Needless to say, I haven't accepted any offers yet.

The "narrative" missions feel clunky. As Sun Jian, you're informed early on in your mission chain that you can either put your focus on the North, or on the South. And then you get a quest to wipe out Liu Biao's two vassal factions, presumably as "revenge" for Liu Biao attacking you to take the Imperial Seal. They're both north of the Yangtze. After you deal with them, you then get a mission to wipe out another, seemingly random, guy (the game's a bit vague about exactly *why* I'm trying to wipe him out) who's much, much further north along the eastern Yangtze. So much for having a choice about which direction to focus on.

Koei-Tecmo makes a series of Three Kingdoms strategy games called (appropriately enough) Romance of the Three Kingdoms. They also make a series of strategy games set in Japan's Sengoku Jidai called "Nobunaga's Ambition". I've got one of the more recent of the latter games - Sphere of Influence. In that game, you have the option to pursue certain goals, which will then cause certain important events to occur as they did historically (more or less - and assuming that one of the AI factions hasn't screwed it up in the meantime). I assume that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series does something similar. The TW3K missions feel like CA wants to duplicate the missions from NA: SoI, but without the narrative events that made it all worthwhile. So you're left bungling around trying to perform seemingly random actions (the guy that I got assigned to wipe out after taking out Liu Biao's vassals was some distance away from my territory), instead of focusing on activities that are relevant to your goals. Admittedly, you could completely ignore the missions. But if you do that, then what's the point of having them in the first place?

All in all, I'm enjoying it. But there are little things that make me think that the game could have used more polish.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/28 09:29:10


Post by: Not Online!!!


Eumerin wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:

So far, you like the game or not?


Mostly. But there are weird little things that are irritants. The narrator/advisor that I mentioned above was one of them. If I hadn't figured out how to get her to stop speaking in English (I switched to the Mandarin voice, but there's also an option to mute her; I'm not sure if the mute option works in the cutscene and loading scene voice overs, though), then I would be much less enthusiastic about playing.

Whenever I get an offer of marriage, the person making the offer has always offered a female to marry one of the men in my group. And the fine text *always* notes that the person that the marriage offer is for - i.e. my male retainer - will go join the other faction. This even applied when Yuan Shu offered to marry someone to Sun Ce, my faction heir. That's not the way that marriages worked in ancient China. Barring very unusual circumstances, the bride should be joining the groom's family (and faction), and not the other way around. Needless to say, I haven't accepted any offers yet.

The "narrative" missions feel clunky. As Sun Jian, you're informed early on in your mission chain that you can either put your focus on the North, or on the South. And then you get a quest to wipe out Liu Biao's two vassal factions, presumably as "revenge" for Liu Biao attacking you to take the Imperial Seal. They're both north of the Yangtze. After you deal with them, you then get a mission to wipe out another, seemingly random, guy (the game's a bit vague about exactly *why* I'm trying to wipe him out) who's much, much further north along the eastern Yangtze. So much for having a choice about which direction to focus on.

Koei-Tecmo makes a series of Three Kingdoms strategy games called (appropriately enough) Romance of the Three Kingdoms. They also make a series of strategy games set in Japan's Sengoku Jidai called "Nobunaga's Ambition". I've got one of the more recent of the latter games - Sphere of Influence. In that game, you have the option to pursue certain goals, which will then cause certain important events to occur as they did historically (more or less - and assuming that one of the AI factions hasn't screwed it up in the meantime). I assume that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series does something similar. The TW3K missions feel like CA wants to duplicate the missions from NA: SoI, but without the narrative events that made it all worthwhile. So you're left bungling around trying to perform seemingly random actions (the guy that I got assigned to wipe out after taking out Liu Biao's vassals was some distance away from my territory), instead of focusing on activities that are relevant to your goals. Admittedly, you could completely ignore the missions. But if you do that, then what's the point of having them in the first place?

All in all, I'm enjoying it. But there are little things that make me think that the game could have used more polish.


So basically childrens sickness that all modern games have.
What personally annoys me the most is the fact, that the UI is so god damn clunky. no seriously diplomacy UI feels and just looks ehhh.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/28 15:42:15


Post by: Grey Templar


Yeah. The biggest thing for me is the UI is clunky. Its pretty, but its not an intuitive setup and I can't really put my finger on exactly what the problem is with it.

I think it might be that everything is borderless and highly stylized and its tough to tell exactly what you are looking at without staring for a few seconds.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/28 17:01:34


Post by: Not Online!!!


 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah. The biggest thing for me is the UI is clunky. Its pretty, but its not an intuitive setup and I can't really put my finger on exactly what the problem is with it.

I think it might be that everything is borderless and highly stylized and its tough to tell exactly what you are looking at without staring for a few seconds.


Most grueling i find when you try to do the diplomacy things and the small information you kinda want visible, is all hiden behind small little things and the scrolling down or up is annoying as all hell.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/28 20:08:31


Post by: nels1031


Getting a lot of weird diplomacy requests in this game. Like factions that I couldn't even find on the map telling me to be their vassal, or requesting 1 credit every months for 10 months for one of those add-on characters.

I've also done a few aborted playthroughs where the fat dude who seems to be this settings main villian has been killed within 20 turns, which triggers a cutscene. That's not the driving force behind me stopping these playthroughs, its usually me just making bad choices or just exploring options and starting over, but its still weird to see. With no familiarity to this setting, I don't know if that's supposed to happen so early or not. Definitely seems like a big deal, as no other faction gets a cutscene when I've seen them obliterated.

All in all, despite me not having any emotional investment in this setting or its characters, I'm having a decent amount of fun and don't regret my purchase. But it does feel a bit raw in some aspects that a little more TLC or patches could help out with. Not sold on the 3 characters + retinue mechanic for army building, for one.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/28 21:16:13


Post by: Voss


Yes, the tyrant Dong Zhuo dying ~15 turns into the game is normal. Given the game's opening crawl and opening map overview highlight the fact that he's taken over a regency and functionally kidnapped the child emperor and set himself up as a tyrant, him dying is indeed a big deal.

It puts the warlords opposing him into 'free-for-all' mode.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/28 21:20:33


Post by: LordofHats


I agree that the UI is very pretty but often time hard to read. I think they went a little overboard this time, compared to Shogun 2 which managed to be very stylish while still being very intuitive. I'll probably get used to it but right now it's kind of an annoying thing. The over map has the same issue. It's very pretty but clearly reading it at a glance is hard for me.

Other than that though, I'm liking it.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/29 02:05:59


Post by: Eumerin


Voss wrote:
Yes, the tyrant Dong Zhuo dying ~15 turns into the game is normal. Given the game's opening crawl and opening map overview highlight the fact that he's taken over a regency and functionally kidnapped the child emperor and set himself up as a tyrant, him dying is indeed a big deal.

It puts the warlords opposing him into 'free-for-all' mode.


Well, the warlords opposing him were already more or less at each others' throats before he died. But his death was a significant event historically. So it belongs in the game, even if it doesn't always happen like its supposed to.


It's probably worthwhile to give a quick background to the events at the start of the game. There's a lot of history that's important to understanding what's going on, and the game just skips right over it all. So with that in mind...

The dynasty at this time in China was the Han Dynasty, widely considered to be China's Golden Age. Unfortunately, by the late second century, the dynasty was losing power. The landowners were becoming more and more powerful, and the central government was becoming mired in corruption. Additionally, a group of court officials - The Ten Eunuchs - had effectively seized power in the capitol city of Luoyang. They used this power to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the country. During this time, a group of brothers (led by Zhang Jue) established themselves more or less as Taoist faith healers, working to aid the common man. They taught a philosophy called "The Way of Great Peace" that was based on a book called Taipingjing, or "Scriptures of the Great Peace". In addition to the faith healing, Zhang Jue and his followers taught that a yellow sky would replace the blue sky, and the Han Dynasty would be overthrown when that happened. They apparently plotted a rebellion based on this prophecy. But the Han government got wind of their plans before the scheduled launch date, and Zhang Jue was forced to trigger the rebellion a month early in March 184. The rebels wore yellow cloths on their heads, which is how the rebellion got its name.

The rebellion affected a huge swatch of territory. It reached from the northern border, clear down to the Yangtze River. It ran from the eastern sea shore, to Louyang in the west. And it extended south of Luoyang well past Nanyang, and out to roughly two thirds of the distance between Luoyang and Chang'an. It took nearly a year for the rebellion to be completely supressed, with the Emperor issuing an edict announcing the rebellion's end in February of 185. Even so, localized flare-ups continued until early into the next century. And while the rebellion had been suppressed, that only happened at great cost. There was a lot of damage to the local infrastructure, and many local officials were murdered by the rebels.

In 189, Emperor Ling died. Immediately afterwards, General in Chief He Jin (also the late Emperor's brother-in-law) began squabbling with the Ten Eunuchs over control of the government. He Jin and his sister (the Empress Dowager) had a joint Regency, which directly threatened the power of the Eunuchs. He Jin was also supported by the Yuan family, including Yuan Shao, and Yuan Shu. In order to bolster his support even further, He Jin asked a nearby warlord - Dong Zhuo - to come to the capitol with his troops. Dong Zhuo accepted the request, and made his way to the capitol. But before he arrived, He Jin was assassinated by the eunuchs. When Dong Zhuo arrived, the Eunuchs attempted to flee. But Dong Zhuo caught them and brought them back. Simultaneously, He Jin's brother, He Miao, met his end at the hands of his own troops. This left a power vacuum in the city. Dong Zhuo managed to take control of both He Jin's and He Miao's troops. He also convinced a young man by the name of Lu Bu to assassinate the latter's commander, Ding Yuan, and side with Dong Zhuo. This left Dong Zhuo with enough troops to seize control of the capitol. He deposed Emperor Shao, and placed Shao's half-brother, eight-year old Xian, on the throne instead. He acted as Xian's regent, effectively running the country.

In response to Dong Zhuo's actions, the Guandong Coalition formed to oppose him in early 190. Some of the names in the coalition are familiar. Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu were important leaders in it. Cao Cao and Sun Jian both served as lesser leaders under other warlords (Sun Jian led troops under Yuan Shu). Squabbling and in-fighting meant that the Coalition's military forces didn't achieve much, though they did pressure Dong Zhuo enough to cause him to decide to leave Luoyang. Dong Zhuo ordered all of the civilians to evacuate to his home city of Chang'an. He then had his troops loot the buildings and tombs, and finally burned the city to the ground. Cao Cao attempted to give chase with his own troops, but was defeated (this is covered by one of the historical battles in the game). Under Yuan Shu's orders, Sun Jian (who had *always* opposed Dong Zhuo, even before the latter seized the capitol) moved into the vacated capitol, where he discovered the jade Imperial Seal abandoned in a well. Sun Jian fought with Dong Zhuo's forces more than once, and generally performed well on the battlefield.

However, Sun Jian and Cao Cao appear to have been the only two commanders who actually fought against Dong Zhuo's forces. The other commanders wasted their time squabbling with - and even killing - each other. As time went on, it became more and more clear that the Coalition had become one in name only, and it finally collapsed. One of the reasons for this collapse was likely that the Coalition members were unaware that Emperor Xian was still alive. When he was evacuated to Chang'an, the Coalition members had no news of him, and believed him to be dead. Yuan Shao even suggested a replacement emperor (said replacement reportedly threatened to flee to what is now Mongolia if Yuan Shao attempted to install him on the throne). It didn't take long for the various members to realize that if no one was emperor, the replacement would likely be the person who could gather the most military strength. Between that, and the various squabbles, it's no surprise that the Coalition didn't last long.

Meanwhile, back in Chang'an, Dong Zhuo was becoming increasingly erratic and suspicious. His adopted son, Lu Bu, began to worry that Dong Zhuo would turn on him. It didn't help that Lu Bu was secretly having an affair with one of Dong Zhuo's chambermaids. In 192, one of the chief administrators - Wang Yun - with support from Lu Bu, launched a coup de tat, and had Dong Zhou killed. Wang Yun seized control of the government. But this control was short-lived. Wang Yun refused to pardon Dong Zhuo's generals, and they returned to Chang'an at the heads of their respective military forces. Wang Yun was killed, and Lu Bu was forced to flee east. Within a few years, the four generals were squabbling between themselves, and fighting broke out in Chang'an. Emperor Xian managed to use the chaos to escape back to Louyang, where he was met by Cao Cao. Cao Cao took the Emperor back to his own capitol, in Xuchang, and established himself as the official head of the Emperor's government. Emperor Xian held the title. But Cao Cao was the one calling the shots.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/31 19:21:54


Post by: nels1031


So twice now I've been able to recruit Legendary Commanders (The Bandit Queen and someone else whose name escapes me) and they come to me with 0 Satisfaction, causing them to rebel the very next turn after I spend a pretty penny to recruit them. They come with equipment that I couldn't change to give them items to up their Satisfaction as well. The Rebel Queen somehow took 3 of my kids with her oddly enough. Not a big deal, I have 5 kids, but the near $4K I spent to get the Bandit Queen and her full stack of troops was wasted before I could even send them into battle.

Is that a bug or am I missing something in how they are recruited and kept loyal? Playing as Gongsun Zan, if that means anything.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/31 19:28:43


Post by: Not Online!!!


 nels1031 wrote:
So twice now I've been able to recruit Legendary Commanders (The Bandit Queen and someone else whose name escapes me) and they come to me with 0 Satisfaction, causing them to rebel the very next turn after I spend a pretty penny to recruit them. They come with equipment that I couldn't change to give them items to up their Satisfaction as well. The Rebel Queen somehow took 3 of my kids with her oddly enough. Not a big deal, I have 5 kids, but the near $4K I spent to get the Bandit Queen and her full stack of troops was wasted before I could even send them into battle.

Is that a bug or am I missing something in how they are recruited and kept loyal? Playing as Gongsun Zan, if that means anything.


No jeff, the court said she'd get custody and 3/4 off your income

Probably, maybee check the steamforums though.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/31 19:40:31


Post by: nels1031


Not Online!!! wrote:
 nels1031 wrote:
So twice now I've been able to recruit Legendary Commanders (The Bandit Queen and someone else whose name escapes me) and they come to me with 0 Satisfaction, causing them to rebel the very next turn after I spend a pretty penny to recruit them. They come with equipment that I couldn't change to give them items to up their Satisfaction as well. The Rebel Queen somehow took 3 of my kids with her oddly enough. Not a big deal, I have 5 kids, but the near $4K I spent to get the Bandit Queen and her full stack of troops was wasted before I could even send them into battle.

Is that a bug or am I missing something in how they are recruited and kept loyal? Playing as Gongsun Zan, if that means anything.


No jeff, the court said she'd get custody and 3/4 off your income


Its all good, they were minors and my two oldest sons were already generals. If she wants to take 3 teenage boys and raise them, all the power to her. Would've paid her double.

Only thing that bothers me is that I get the notification that they rebelled and they disappear from the map, giving me no opportunity to kill them all.



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/05/31 19:53:09


Post by: Not Online!!!


 nels1031 wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:
 nels1031 wrote:
So twice now I've been able to recruit Legendary Commanders (The Bandit Queen and someone else whose name escapes me) and they come to me with 0 Satisfaction, causing them to rebel the very next turn after I spend a pretty penny to recruit them. They come with equipment that I couldn't change to give them items to up their Satisfaction as well. The Rebel Queen somehow took 3 of my kids with her oddly enough. Not a big deal, I have 5 kids, but the near $4K I spent to get the Bandit Queen and her full stack of troops was wasted before I could even send them into battle.

Is that a bug or am I missing something in how they are recruited and kept loyal? Playing as Gongsun Zan, if that means anything.


No jeff, the court said she'd get custody and 3/4 off your income


Its all good, they were minors and my two oldest sons were already generals. If she wants to take 3 teenage boys and raise them, all the power to her. Would've paid her double.

Only thing that bothers me is that I get the notification that they rebelled and they disappear from the map, giving me no opportunity to kill them all.



Tw Sega diplomacy and relationship ai, reminds me of rise of the republic pre Patch:

"A CIVIL WAR FOR YOU AND YOU AND YOU T3 SO YOU CAN RESTART"


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/01 14:38:37


Post by: nels1031


I figured out my dilemma with legendary characters and recruiting them. You have to immediately give them promotions to up their “Satisfaction”.

The Bandit Queen works for me as a high ranking general and is married to my faction heir.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/02 01:34:35


Post by: LordofHats


Having jumped into a Sun Jian campaign to poke around down south, I see what Voss was saying, and it's totally weird. I'm not sure why they designed it this way. I would think these regions should be home to bandits, barbarians, or minor factions, not just empty and free for the taking (well not literally free).


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/02 18:21:04


Post by: nels1031


There has to be something broken with Yuan Shao, as someone mentioned above. Its like he gets to auto-vassalize his neighbors and the neighbors of his neighbors without even getting into a war and dominating them into accepting vassal-hood. Its probably the most annoying thing I’ve run into so far in this game.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/04 00:55:23


Post by: Eumerin


 nels1031 wrote:
There has to be something broken with Yuan Shao, as someone mentioned above. Its like he gets to auto-vassalize his neighbors and the neighbors of his neighbors without even getting into a war and dominating them into accepting vassal-hood. Its probably the most annoying thing I’ve run into so far in this game.


I think the issue is tied to his factional ability. Though if that's the case, it appears that his ability is running amok on steroids right now.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/04 01:15:18


Post by: LordofHats


I've seen Yaun Shao and Liu Bei at times go kind of crazy with their bonus. Yan Shao moreso. I think it's just that his vassalization ability is simple, so the AI can do really well with it. Liu Bei I've only seen go wacky once, where the AI really seemed to abuse his ability to take over Han Empire settlements, went straight to Chang'an with it, got control of the Emperor, founded Shu-Han, and forged a coaliation with Cao Cao, Ma Teng, and Liu Biao within 40 turns.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/05 04:31:01


Post by: nels1031


A beta patch is out that is starting to address Yuan Shao’s zealous vassalizing, so it was definitely broken.

My current playthrough, knowing that he’d get a small empire growing within 30 turns, I struck at the heart of his domains and executed Yuan Shao fairly quickly. Was a pretty fraught endeavour, as the people to the north of me declared war on me as I went south. Took my self to bankruptcy to fund the armies needed, but with a few timely ambushes and 2 pretty bloody sieges, I hobbled the Yuan Shao juggernaut before it could get going. With that out of the way, I methodically took over everything in the top right corner of China, making great pains to avoid pissing off anyone that bordered my growing empire.

After taking all but 2 settlements in the north east section of China, basically everything within the Yellow River, I was declared King, which meant I got a new selection of seemingly badass units, and I unlocked Dong Zhou! Now I’m torn on starting a new campaign as Dong Zhuo the Tyrant or putting the new Emperor units to the test and uniting China!

Leaning towards Dong Zhuo, because it looks like a bigger challenge. No pun intended, he’s a beefy fellow.

And yeah, just did the opening scene with Dong Zhuo. Looks like it might be a fun change of pace.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/05 10:33:47


Post by: LordofHats


I’m enjoying Sun Jian a lot. Heroism fits with my style of play well and there are so many directions to take his campaign. I do wish they’d add some of the barbarian tribes to the game as they were supposed to be present in regions of southern China and could fill some of the empty space better. Maybe in a future DLC.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/05 18:11:27


Post by: Mozzyfuzzy


I tried the Sun Jian, campaign and find myself having to deal with 4/5 different armies from various directions if I even remotely attempt to hold onto the Jade Seal, while also not being able to take the things I want to take.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/05 18:34:58


Post by: LordofHats


 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:
I tried the Sun Jian, campaign and find myself having to deal with 4/5 different armies from various directions if I even remotely attempt to hold onto the Jade Seal, while also not being able to take the things I want to take.


Yeah. Holding the seal seems like a hard mode challenge.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/05 22:30:38


Post by: nels1031


 LordofHats wrote:
 Mozzyfuzzy wrote:
I tried the Sun Jian, campaign and find myself having to deal with 4/5 different armies from various directions if I even remotely attempt to hold onto the Jade Seal, while also not being able to take the things I want to take.


Yeah. Holding the seal seems like a hard mode challenge.


I'll have to check that out. I picked Gonsun Zan at release and have not picked a single other faction until last night when I unlocked the Tyrant.

I'm going to go on record and say that I'm 100% not a fan of how you build armies in this game. I'm cool with the retinue thing, I've made my peace with that, but the way it limits unit selection based on what type of character you have just feels wrong, and totally unlike any of the previous Total War games. I was looking forward to a unit being unlocked through reforms that would have gone great with how I play Gonsun, and then I find out my dude can't recruit them. For instance, Gonsun Zan starts the game with a unit(which I thought was about to unlock through reforms) he can never recruit, from what I can tell. Maybe it fits the lore of this setting, but I don't really care for it. Its too limiting for my tastes.

Maybe I'm missing something or more units will unlock as I get higher class?

I also find myself not even bothering building the "red buildings", as they don't really unlock anything and I'd rather have economy/food boosting buildings. Had they been tied to unit unlocks like previous TW games, I'd be making tougher choices on what to build and where. Maybe when I get above Large Cities, I'll build some for gaks and giggles.

When the Mod Manager drops, I hope that the color restrictions for what generals can recruit is the first mechanic to get modded out.

Also, I love how the Hero's insult each other during the battle. TW: Warhammer needs that.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/06 01:09:49


Post by: LordofHats


It took me awhile to notice different kinds of commander recruit different troops too. I think the most egregious case is that the only Champions can recruit shield spear infantry. I'm so so on it. It's an interesting idea, with retinues tailored to the character's combat and command style and gives more depth to army composition.

And yes. Red buildings are mostly worthless unless you're Ma Teng who gets a custom patrol building that provides food.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/07 03:46:01


Post by: nels1031


So playing as Dong Zhuo (so far) is like playing as a small version of the Western Roman Empire in TW: Atilla. Every turn the hits keep coming as your vassal the Han Empire is picked apart across the map. You have to get your gak together quick, or you’ll get swamped along with them.

His “Intimidation” mechanic is a great addition. Its a real incentive to keep your faction active and on the offensive, though it seems a little harsh as it decreases very quickly and his “Coerce” mechanic takes a big chunk from the Intimidation meter.

About 40 turns in and this is the most fun I’ve had in the game, because there is something going on every turn.



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/07 16:08:23


Post by: LordofHats


I'm finding Yuan Shao still snowballs really hard in the beta patch.

As such, I've formed a coalition with Cao Cao and Kong Rong, and with the South of China secure in my grasp I'm marching Sun Jian, Sun Ce, Sun Ren, and Sun Quan + their full stack armies up north to kick his ass XD Nuclear option is apparently the only way to stop the guy from becoming to strong to stop XD


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/07 16:32:51


Post by: nels1031


 LordofHats wrote:
I'm finding Yuan Shao still snowballs really hard in the beta patch.


Yeah, the language in the patch notes announcement implied(as I read it) it was going to be a gradual toning down with Yuan Shao's issue. Which to me implied it might be 1 of 2 things: Its a problem in the overall core diplomacy mechanic, or they wanted to avoid doing a hatchet job to Yuan Shao's faction bonus.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/07 20:43:30


Post by: Not Online!!!


 nels1031 wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
I'm finding Yuan Shao still snowballs really hard in the beta patch.


Yeah, the language in the patch notes announcement implied(as I read it) it was going to be a gradual toning down with Yuan Shao's issue. Which to me implied it might be 1 of 2 things: Its a problem in the overall core diplomacy mechanic, or they wanted to avoid doing a hatchet job to Yuan Shao's faction bonus.


Probably the first, the later never bothered ca overly much.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/09 14:58:02


Post by: LordofHats


Welp I won my Sun Jian Campaign. As soon as I declared myself Emperor Yuan Shao and Liu Bei did the same. Liu Bei's emperor seat was undefended and right next to a city I held so I took it. Then I incited Yuan Shao's vassals to rebel against him, vassalized them myself, and laughed as a dozen full stack armies descended on his territory. I went right for his emperor seat and took it. Game over XD

That was fun.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/11 00:24:29


Post by: nels1031


Nice!

Right now in my Tyrant campaign, I have the top left of the map under my control and I’m debating pushing east and running parallell to the Yellow River, or driving south. The Tyrant just died, so Lu Bu is running the show with his fancy headpiece.

One challenge is that consistently I’m having pretty serious issues keeping a stable economy. One turn I’m pumping 4K$, the next its 1/3rd that . Pretty sure its to do with shifting trade lanes and less tribute as my vassal gets chewed apart, but even in my Gonsun Zan campaign, my economy would shift gears in the space of one turn.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/21 04:57:10


Post by: Eumerin


Now that I've finally got some free time again, I started this back up the other night. And while I was playing, I discovered an interesting problem. As Sun Jian, I had two very eligible sons that needed to get married and start producing heirs.

But there were no single women.

A quick check online confirmed that I'm not the only one encountering this issue. Apparently there are lots and lots of men in this game, but nowhere near enough women. So people are running into serious difficulty trying to find spouses for their male heirs, particularly as they get later into the game.

Oops.

There's speculation that the shortage of marriageable women is an unintended side-effect of CA making it possible for every woman in the game to lead troops (there are explanations for this reasoning that I'm not going to get into here). But afaik, CA hasn't said anything about the matter yet.

Of course, in theory Sun Ce isn't supposed to care about finding a wife, because there's apparently an event that has he and Zhou Yu meeting and marrying the sisters Da Qiao and Xiao Qiao (traditional names - literally "older Qiao" and "younger Qiao" - since their real names aren't recorded). But I've had poor luck getting the Sun family events to fire, aside from the one where Zhou Yu joins.


On a loosely related note, people have also begun to complain because the game doesn't have a way for you to figure out who a non-family member's spouse is. And the only way you can find out if they're married is when you try and do something that an existing marriage prohibits This can be a bit of an issue if, for instance, you've just recruited someone who left another lord while their spouse stayed behind, meaning that there's a potential conflicted loyalty issue. Or sometimes you might want to force a character to divorce their spouse (which you can do) for whatever reason. But you don't know if the spouse is someone that you're friendly with (and are going to tick off by forcing the divorce), or someone that you don't care about.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/06/21 05:04:32


Post by: LordofHats


Eumerin wrote:
Now that I've finally got some free time again, I started this back up the other night. And while I was playing, I discovered an interesting problem. As Sun Jian, I had two very eligible sons that needed to get married and start producing heirs.

But there were no single women.


Yuan Shu usually has a daughter who comes of age around the same time as Sun Ce. If she isn't available, there's usually a Sentinel who comes up for recruitment a few years later (you can tell I too have been trouble shooting this issue).

The latest patch fixes the issue of children being very very uncommon, to the point of being non-existant except for Lady Wu (who gets a 50% bonus to having kids). Unfortunately the game has another problem; a constant lack of female characters who can be married, and especially as the campaign goes on, a slow grind on new younger characters becoming available for recruitment. This is an issue because female characters can't have kids past 50, so as characters get older and older, and younger characters are slow to appear, you run additionally into the problem that what women you can find are too old to have kids in the game.

The most obvious solution is to make the "Find Spouse" option available to all members of your family, or maybe even all characters. Faction Leaders have access to this feature and it autogenerates a character for them so they can have heirs. It would instantly resolve the issue. I also feel like it might be useful to just have a generic autogenerate feature for characters, rather than solely relying on the game's limited pool to meet your needs, cause there are times where there just isn't anyone worth recruiting available.

Of course, in theory Sun Ce isn't supposed to care about finding a wife, because there's apparently an event that has he and Zhou Yu meeting and marrying the sisters Da Qiao and Xiao Qiao (traditional names - literally "older Qiao" and "younger Qiao" - since their real names aren't recorded).


Really? I've seen the sisters come up for recruitment, but I've never seen the event. Maybe because I usually Marry Sun Ce as soon as I can, and usually just wed Zhou Yu to Sun Ren once she comes of age.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/16 15:19:10


Post by: nels1031


First standalone campaign coming in hot!





Details:

Spoiler:
Total War: THREE KINGDOMS – Eight Princes Chapter Pack

New campaign set 100 years after the Three Kingdoms period began
Eight new playable princes with substantially different playstyles…
Supported by unique buildings, assignments and court options
New elite units: pummel your foe with mighty cataphracts!
Shape your faction development with four new alignments: Wealth, Spirit, Might, and Mind
Key public order and faction-rank changes to reflect this unique conflict

The year is 291 CE, and a generation has passed since the tumultuous events of the Three Kingdoms period began. Despite the tripartite division of power which brought the conflict to a stalemate, and the brief unification of the kingdoms under the Jin dynasty, civil war is no more than a heartbeat away.

For the Jin is a dynasty divided. Its many ruling princes are hungry for greater power, each with ambitions – and methods – of their own. Eight stand above all others… will they rally to their emperor and empress? Or carve a legacy for themselves that will echo through the ages?

The Eight Princes Chapter Pack is set 100 years after the events of Total War: THREE KINGDOMS, and features a new cast of playable factions led by the foremost princes of the Jin Dynasty. These Eight Princes offer feature substantially different campaign mechanics, focussing their playstyles in fascinating and unique ways


Playable princes

Each of the eight playable princes adhere to the five core character classes of the base game, and have their own sets of campaign mechanics which strongly focus their gameplay style.


Sima Yong: the shrewd defender

Class: Vanguard
Playstyle focus: defence and infrastructure

Unique units:
Xianbei Horse Archers (harassers, high rate of fire and mobility)
Xianbei Riders (shock cav, excellent charge bonuses)

Sima Yong has a particular focus on defence and infrastructure. All garrisoned armies increase reserves and faction support, and help to decrease construction costs in his settlements. His unique Military Security building chain improves noble support, income from all sources, boosts prestige and provides additional garrisons. His unique Military Supervision assignment further boosts income from all sources, but at the cost of noble support.

Known for his talent at identifying capable people, Sima Yong has an increased chance for Man Of The Hour events triggering after battles.


Sima Jiong: the imperious regent

Class: Commander
Playstyle focus: centralised government

Unique units:
Qi Guardsmen (polearm infantry, good vs cav, excellent armour)
Qi Crossbowmen (armoured crossbowmen, excellent vs armoured units)

Sima Jiong’s unique resource is Control, which increases noble support and decreases corruption. Control is generated by the faction leader, and through military successes, but is lost through military losses and the assignment of ministers at court. To combat the latter and increase control, Sima Jiong has a unique court action enabling him to cast out powerful characters from ministerial positions.

Sima Jiong’s unique administration building chain generates further control while reducing corruption, and his commanderies have access to a unique Micromanage Commandery assignment, boosting income from all sources and reducing corruption, at the cost of some control.


Sima Yue: the imperial overseer

Class: Sentinel
Playstyle focus: politics and internal government

Unique units:
Xu Raiders (assault, shock infantry, good charge)
Warriors of Xu (Frontline axe infantry, high health, good missile defence)

Sima Yue’s unique resource, Influence, decreases construction costs and time and increases his faction’s research rate. It is generated through special assignments in his commanderies, and lost through military defeats. It also decays naturally over time.

His unique Labour economic building chain boosts population growth and reduces construction costs. His court also features two unique ministerial positions: the military emissary which reduces recruitment costs and enables the Military Interference assignment, and the Provincial Advisor, which reduces corruption and enables the Provincial Inspection assignment.


Sima Ai: the principled administrator

Class: Champion
Playstyle focus: internal development

Unique units:
Infantry of Jing (polearm infantry, anti-cav, good morale and armour)
Archers of Jing (excellent ranged damage, high ammunition)

Sima Ai’s unique resource is Reformation, which improves trade influence and research speed, while reducing corruption. Reformation is generated by settlement development, as Sima Ai’s unique Reformed Infrastructure trait means that buildings in commandery capitals influence the increase – and decrease – of Reformation.

To further enhance Reformation, Sima Ai’s faction also has access to two unique commandery assignments. Restructure Administration boosts Reformation gain and any Reformation gains from commandery buildings, while Regulate Markets decreases Reformation, but enhances income from commerce, silk and spices.


Sima Ying: the beloved governor

Class: Strategist
Playstyle focus: characters

Unique units:
Qiang Hunters (Horse archers, good skirmishers, good melee, fatigue immunity)
Qiang Marauders (shock cavalry, flankers, fatigue immunity, poor defence vs missile)
Qiang Raiders (melee cavalry, flankers, fatigue immunity, poor defence vs spears)

Sima Ying’s court differs from all others, as characters who are assigned to any ministerial position grant factionwide effects – a trait normally reserved only for the prime minister, heir and faction leader. Assigning a smart combination of characters to Sima Ying’s court can therefore have a powerful and wide-ranging impact.

Sima Ying also has access to a stronger variant of the Government Support agricultural building chain, which grants extra bonuses to income from peasantry and food production from farms in the same commandery.


Sima Lun: the usurper prince

Class: Commander
Playstyle focus: espionage and diplomacy

Unique units:
Xiongnu Cavalry: (Shock cav, excellent charge)
Xiongnu Cataphracts (assault, excellent charge, excellent armour)

Sima Lun’s unique faction resource is Subterfuge, and his playstyle is heavily dependent on deception and espionage. Sima Lun has extra spy slot available from the start of the campaign, and generates his unique resource through the actions performed by his spies. Subterfuge can be spent on inciting proxy wars, performing diplomatic deceptions, and increasing the effectiveness of the faction’s undercover network. Subterfuge is also generated Sima Lun’s unique Judiciary administration building chain, which also improves income from family estates.


Sima Liang: the rightful regent

Class: Champion
Playstyle focus: lawful rule

Unique units:
Imperial Guards (frontline infantry, excellent defence)

Sima Liang’s faction has a unique government type called Domain, which restricts the number of counties which can be governed without incurring penalties. However, his faction also has access to the unique resource of Jurisdiction, which increases his faction’s maximum domain size, and greatly increases income from the faction leader’s estates, replenishment, and the chance to capture characters. The main source for Jurisdiction is factions who submit to his leadership through a unique Cooperation vassalage treaty. Jurisdiction is also generated through Judiciary administration building chain, which also fights corruption.

Sima Wei: the tempestuous general

Class: Vanguard
Playstyle focus: aggressive expansion

Unique units:
Chu Infantry (assault, strong VS infantry)
Chu Spearmen (anti-cav, strong VS armoured cav)

Sima Wei’s unique faction resource is Fury, and is generated through military victories and conquest options. Fury reduces unit upkeep, increases replenishment, and impacts the diplomatic attitudes of other factions towards Sima Wei. Fury decays over time, so maintaining military momentum is the key to success with Sima Wei. But he also has some tempting tools to release his Fury and to show his generous side: he has two unique administration assignments – Reward the Nobility, which boosts support from nobles, and Rally Conscripts, which further enhances replenishment.

Sima Wei also has a unique court action – Present Gift – which improves the recipient character’s relationship with him.

Sima Wei’s Conscription military building chain brings higher starting ranks for new recruits, a bonus to seasonal retinue deployment, a boost to replenishment and a reduction in redeployment costs.


Faction advancement
A prince’s faction ranks differ from those of the warlords of the Three Kingdoms period, advancing from minor prince to grand prince, then imperial prince.

You also now have the choice of whether to pursue the emperorship for yourself, or preserve the existing emperor and rule as his regent. Your choice between these two positions is based very closely on the alignments paths you choose to follow throughout the campaign.
Alignments

The alignments system grants new choices in how you shape your faction over time. The four alignments – Wealth, Spirit, Might and Mind – all grant different bonuses, and their adoption is driven by a wealth of bespoke new events and dilemmas. As your association with specific alignments grows, you’ll begin to encounter events and dilemmas themed specifically around those alignments.

Your alignments also inform the dilemma you’ll face when you capture the emperor. The outcome of this dilemma in turn defines whether you ascend to the highest faction rank of Emperor or Regent.

Each alignment grants increasing bonuses to aspects of your faction:
Wealth: Increasing your faction’s alignment with this aspect offers rising bonuses to income, trade and prestige.

Spirit: Increasing your faction’s alignment with this aspect grants rising bonuses to your faction’s food production, diplomatic relations, noble support and prestige.

Might: Increasing your faction’s alignment with Might brings factionwide bonuses to your armies’ campaign movement range, mustering times, retinue upkeep and prestige.

Mind: Increasing your faction’s alignment with the Mind boosts character experience gains, your faction’s research rate, available administrator positions and prestige.
Noble Support

The war of the 8 Princes was largely a struggle for supremacy among the nobility. To reflect this, public order is now known as noble support. Low noble support will cause a rebellious noble-led army to spawn.

However, the sources of positive and negative noble support throughout your infrastructure are thematically very different to public order, as the aristocracy’s needs and desires are different to those of the people. Maintaining stability through noble support will depend on different building choices to the Three Kingdoms period. Likewise, unlike public order in the base game, growing commandery populations do not have a negative impact on noble support.




Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/16 17:38:16


Post by: Eumerin


Interesting choice. I would have thought that the first DLC campaign would be "Three Kingdoms Have Formed" or Yellow Turban Rebellion. Instead, we have the rather chaotic conflict that ran from roughly 291 to 307. Sima Yue was the eventual victor, but his victory was short-lived as he was killed just a few years later. What makes this a particularly odd choice for a DLC campaign, though, is that only a few years after Sima Yue's death, the Western Jin Dynasty completely collapsed. Northern China, where the rulership had been centered, entered the Sixteen Kingdoms Under Five Barbarians era. That was a period of rule by multiple small nations primarily dominated by members of five foreign tribes that lasted for roughly 150 years. Southern China began the rule of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and would remain seperate for about three centuries.

In short, the new campaign covers an historical power struggle that lasted for a couple of decades, and led to the overthrow of the ruling class by foreigners almost immediately afterwards (and I'll note that the first of the Sixteen Kingdoms was established in 304, even before the power struggle was resolved).

Or as the victory screen ought to say, "Congratulations! You won, and reigned for about three years before foreign invaders overthrew your government and executed you!"


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/16 17:55:32


Post by: Voss


The limited scope makes it better for a dlc campaign, to be honest.

It also keeps the map while shaking up the politics, locations and abilities, which makes it nice for game longevity (I'm already very tired of the 'Dong Zhao is dead' message).

Looks good overall. (Wish they'd add different campaign modes to warhammer 2. I hate the vortex campaign, but ME is such a plodding thing, and I've little urge to play TK.)


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/16 18:04:33


Post by: Not Online!!!


Now this is a "suprise" choice of DLC. Of the welcome kind though.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/16 19:27:03


Post by: LordofHats


I'm kind of very disappointed the first major DLC pack isn't some kind of Barbarian civilizations pack. It's a major omission in the base game and leaves Southern China kind of borning.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/16 20:28:04


Post by: nels1031


 LordofHats wrote:
I'm kind of very disappointed the first major DLC pack isn't some kind of Barbarian civilizations pack. It's a major omission in the base game and leaves Southern China kind of borning.


Yep, was kind of suprised to see that the main campaign gets no love for the first DLC. Granted we got the Yellow Turbans right out of the gate, but like you said, a good portion of the map is just generic dudes.

I was waiting to read that the patch would add some FLC baked into the patch like some of the Warhammer DLC did, but alas, nothing. Least we got a "Blood" pack! New content!


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/16 20:53:11


Post by: LordofHats


Yeah, the lack of the Nanman is just a big glaring omission. Non-Han Chinese tribes were significant political and military forces Eastern Wu and Shu-Han needed to contend with in the period. It's weird that they aren't there.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/16 21:20:56


Post by: nels1031


 LordofHats wrote:
Yeah, the lack of the Nanman is just a big glaring omission. Non-Han Chinese tribes were significant political and military forces Eastern Wu and Shu-Han needed to contend with in the period. It's weird that they aren't there.


I just wikipedia'd the Nanman, and would actually pay money to play the faction named "The Man".

Also, that page states that this Three Kingdoms period was the second bloodiest war in human history, like 10 million households during one census during the Han era, and then the Jin did a census and came up with a tally of a little under 3 million households. Holy feth!


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/16 21:22:32


Post by: Not Online!!!


 nels1031 wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
Yeah, the lack of the Nanman is just a big glaring omission. Non-Han Chinese tribes were significant political and military forces Eastern Wu and Shu-Han needed to contend with in the period. It's weird that they aren't there.


I just wikipedia'd the Nanman, and would actually pay money to play the faction named "The Man".

Also, that page states that this Three Kingdoms period was the second bloodiest war in human history, like 10 million households during one census during the Han era, and then the Jin did a census and came up with a tally of a little under 3 million households. Holy feth!


It's China.
Literally rates of death and destruction on the same level as the napoleonic wars are always expected.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/16 22:53:45


Post by: Grey Templar


 nels1031 wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
Yeah, the lack of the Nanman is just a big glaring omission. Non-Han Chinese tribes were significant political and military forces Eastern Wu and Shu-Han needed to contend with in the period. It's weird that they aren't there.


I just wikipedia'd the Nanman, and would actually pay money to play the faction named "The Man".

Also, that page states that this Three Kingdoms period was the second bloodiest war in human history, like 10 million households during one census during the Han era, and then the Jin did a census and came up with a tally of a little under 3 million households. Holy feth!


Yup. Modern wars have nothing on the wars of antiquity in terms of body counts.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/16 23:35:22


Post by: Eumerin


Fratricidal wars are always the worst kinds for body counts. And that's essentially what most of China's wars have been. Since the Qin Dynasty, the country's probably spent as much time divided as it has united. And that's ignoring tiny outliers like Hong Kong under the British, and the current situation with the Republic of China.

Also worth mentioning again, the Battle of Chibi (Redcliffs) takes place during this period, and is generally believed to have been the biggest naval battle (in manpower numbers) of all time.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/17 00:13:48


Post by: LordofHats


 Grey Templar wrote:
 nels1031 wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
Yeah, the lack of the Nanman is just a big glaring omission. Non-Han Chinese tribes were significant political and military forces Eastern Wu and Shu-Han needed to contend with in the period. It's weird that they aren't there.


I just wikipedia'd the Nanman, and would actually pay money to play the faction named "The Man".

Also, that page states that this Three Kingdoms period was the second bloodiest war in human history, like 10 million households during one census during the Han era, and then the Jin did a census and came up with a tally of a little under 3 million households. Holy feth!


Yup. Modern wars have nothing on the wars of antiquity in terms of body counts.


China in particular. Basically every time a dynasty fell, mass starvation, forced migration, and bloody warfare basically cut the population down by massive amounts.

The Three Kingdom's period is actually notable for it's battles being fairly clean in terms of body counts. Most troops of the period were levies and quickly routed when things went south, and warfare focused heavily on skirmishes, quick advances, and fighting retreats. At the same time, this enabled fighting to be frequent, with major battles happening multiple times in a year. Entire sections of the country were depopulated.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/17 00:45:05


Post by: Eumerin


 LordofHats wrote:
Entire sections of the country were depopulated.


And that was something that was acknowledged as a serious problem during the period itself. After suppressing one particular uprising, Cao Cao "punished" the rebels who surrendered to him by sending them off to farm cropland that had been left deserted earlier on during the wars. Fallow cropland was land that wasn't producing food for his domain or his armies. And the "punishment" apparently addressed the grievances of those who had participated in the uprising.

Also note that Cao Cao didn't originate this particular "punishment". It had been used before by other rulers in previous eras.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/17 01:00:03


Post by: Argive


Is there a deal on this game on steam yet?


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/17 01:09:34


Post by: Overread


 Argive wrote:
Is there a deal on this game on steam yet?


No its not that old yet - though you can oft get it a little cheaper on Fanaticals https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/total-war-three-kingdoms
They are a legit store (new name of Bundlestars), though even there you can't use most of their extra discounts on the game, but its probably the best price you'll get from a legit store.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/17 01:29:32


Post by: Argive


Thanks man.

I still have plenty of the other total war(WH1,2 and Rome 2) games DLC to enjoy so it should be on sale by the time I'm done with those hehe


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/17 01:34:47


Post by: LordofHats


I wouldn't expect a sale on steam till maybe the Winter sales, and it'll probably only be 5% cause the game is still selling well. It's maybe the most financially successful Total War game they've ever made..


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/17 01:50:55


Post by: Argive


Well maybe I'll treat myself if finances are good tail end of the year


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/17 10:09:27


Post by: A Town Called Malus


 LordofHats wrote:
I wouldn't expect a sale on steam till maybe the Winter sales, and it'll probably only be 5% cause the game is still selling well. It's maybe the most financially successful Total War game they've ever made..


Yeah, even the Warhammer ones don't get that heavily discounted yet, especially when you factor in all the DLC.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 00:42:03


Post by: LordofHats


When I said most successful they've ever made, I didn't realize it meant a million copies in a week damn

And Sony/EA would call that a failure because they overbudgeted and drove their workforce into the ground for "meager" sales.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 00:56:43


Post by: Overread


In fairness the chinese market is getting bigger - as the articles say's there some 300million gamers. Whilst that might be stretching the definition of "gamer" that's still an obscene market size. *

Three Kingdoms was always going to do well and the fact that they also chose to follow the dynasty Warriors visual style, which pretty much defines the romance period characters to many gamers; has likely boosted their potential sales dramatically.

I'm glad to see CA getting a real powerful winner. Warhammer did phenomenally well, but also changed a fair few things in the series and that earned CA some flack; plus adding women to Rome 2 added more flack and then Britannia was a decent, but not revolutionary title. So having 3 Kingdoms really get a fanastic pick up from the community is very rewarding to see.



* I can well see a time where studios use the Chinese market for big releases and almost use the western market for more pet-projects in comparison - or at least a strong rise in eastern influenced titles and themes. Which is no bad thing as new cultures and ideas are a neat thing to see in games.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 01:42:29


Post by: nels1031


 Overread wrote:
plus adding women to Rome 2 added more flack and then Britannia was a decent, but not revolutionary title.


Forgetting Atilla: Total War after Rome 2 and between Britannia gives me frowny face!

I think Medieval 3 will smash Three Kingdoms sales records fwiw.


Back to Eight Princes : Sima Wei ( first of the princes to be revealed)

https://www.totalwar.com/games/three-kingdoms/eight-princes/sima-wei/?fbclid=IwAR3deU9hMCo9KawWp_0yp6fQquCMtvKKI-9cAflgsY9fZrtsi9gbgRT71CA

Sima Wei was one of the sons of Emperor Wu, original founder of the Jin dynasty, and was given military command of Jing province at the young age of 18. Known for his volatile temper, but also generous to the people and his troops, he joined Empress Jia in a conspiracy to overthrow Yang Jun. Now his troops are marching into Luoyang, establishing the political and martial pressure in the name of Empress Jia. Nevertheless, Sima Wei is loyal to the Jin, and will not hesitate to do what is best for the empire.

PLAYSTYLE

An aggressive expander, he will be able to field armies more efficiently and cheaply if he can maintain momentum. This means a big upkeep reduction and replenishment bonus when his Fury is high. Fury is his unique resource and represents his vigor, his tempestuousness and his spirit in defending the authority of the empire. Fury will make others weary and jealous, so it risks isolating him diplomatically, though his military power should be able to match this. He can also vent some of his energy into rewarding his followers through assignments and gifts.

GUANXI

Sima Wei’s is accompanied by his two trusted assistants, Qi Sheng and Gongsun Hong. Both are loyal to Sima Wei, and both share resentment against Sima Wei’s rival Sima Liang. Sima Wei can count on both, be it in military matters or in matters of political intrigue.

START POSITION

Sima Wei starts within grasp of the capital Luoyang, and his powerbase is well-established. He has two vassals, the Prince of Nanyang to the east, and the Prince of Ba to the west. While these can initially provide great support, they will eventually open new fronts against common enemies as well. Sima Wei’s starting commandery, Shangyong, is relatively secure and has a Master Weapon Craftsmen, but its terrain is mountainous and difficult to traverse. Therefore, as Sima Wei, it will be vital to extend your powerbase early in order to increase the extent of your military range.


WHAT KIND OF PLAYER IS HE FOR?

For players who like to be driven forward at all times, and who not only want to feel rewarded themselves for taking risks, but who also like to share their spoils with their followers and comrades.




Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 05:00:09


Post by: Eumerin


Odds and ends...

Empress Jia gets a brief mention in that snippet. She's an important individual for this period, but might not be touched on again as she's not one of the princes. If you've played Dynasty Warriors, then you might remember the easy-going Sima Zhou, who comes out on top at the end. And you might remember that in the more recent games, he has a sinister advisor, Jia Chong.

That's Empress Jia's father.

Emperor Wu, son of Sima Zhou and founder of the Jin Dynasty, described Lady Jia thusly - "... Lady Jia is jealous, ugly, short, and dark-skinned."

Despite Emperor Wu's apparent misgivings, Lady Jia was married to the mentally incompetent crown prince. And when Emperor Wu died, Lady Jia became Empress Jia.

She bore her husband four children. Unfortunately, all of them were girls. Her husband's only son - and thus heir - was by another wife, and Jia eventually had him killed.

When her husband took the throne, the previous empress - the Empress Dowager - maintained an iron grip on control of the capitol. This rankled Empress Jia, and she began to look for ways to dislodge the Empress Dowager. She eventually conspired with her husband's brother, Sima Wei, to remove the Empress Dowager via military force. As a result of this, she is often seen as one of the chief instigators of the War of the Eight Princes that followed.


And on another note, here's my response when someone questioned as to whether this new material really had anything to do with the Three Kingdoms focus of the game -

Yes, the Three Kingdoms were reunited. But the dynasty that reunited China - the Western Jin Dynasty - lasted for such a brief period of time that it almost didn't count. And the reason why it didn't last for very long was largely because of the struggle that is the focus of the DLC.

The game starts around 190. Wu fell in 280, officially reuniting China under the Sima family. That's ninety years.

Just eleven years later, in 291, the War of the Eight Princes started. It lasted for about 15 or 16 years, ending in 306 or 307. The "victor", Sima Yue, died just a few years later in 311. And Luoyang and Chang'an had both fallen to the barbarians by the end of 316, just five years after Sima Yue's death.

Or in other words, within thirty-six years, the heirs to the Sima family managed to piss away all that their forebears had accomplished.


That's pretty freaky when you think about it. It took ninety years to put China back together after the destruction of Luoyang. And it came back apart again in less than half that time.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 05:12:34


Post by: LordofHats


If not for the legendary nature of Wu Zeitan's cruelty (fairly earned or otherwise), Empress Jia might easily qualify as the most "hated woman" in Chinese history. She basically buried the entire dynasty (and she was a complete idiot, none of her plans really worked the way she wanted, and they all made things inevitably worse), though it didn't help that no one bothered to tell Sima Zhou/Emperor Wu just how bad his son's condition was. It seems no one wanted to speak up, so he didn't realize how mentally incompetent, mentally incompetent was. The poor kid reportedly didn't even understand sex, but he still had a dozen children.

It's worth noting though that Jin can still be seen as an important transitional dynasty. The Jin retreated to South China and lasted until 420 and during that time a lot of important economic developments occurred and carried ramifications for China that long outlived the Jin.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 06:14:29


Post by: Grey Templar


 LordofHats wrote:
The poor kid reportedly didn't even understand sex, but he still had a dozen children.


Well... Its entirely possible that he wasn't the real father.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 12:49:06


Post by: nels1031


Some more patch/DLC additions, as well as a response to those that felt the main campaign is getting left behind:

With the upcoming release of Eight Princes for THREE KINGDOMS, there’s also some additional free content (alongside continued fixes and tweaks to the base game) that will be available for everyone in the main campaign.
Eight Princes will bring with it new units to the base game:
• Cataphracts
o Available to Vanguards
o Require the 'Shock Warfare' technology
• Heavy Cataphracts
o Available to level 6+ Vanguards
o Require the 'Barded Mounts' technology
• Mounted Crossbows
o Available to Strategists
o Require the 'Divine Manipulation of Threads' technology
• Heavy Mounted Archers
o Available to all level 6+ characters
o Require the 'Swiftness is the Key in War' technology
We've also added 17 new armour variations for generic generals that can now be generated by buildings in the main campaign and gained by characters.
We’ve also seen some of your concerns around Eight Princes and want to address them. Eight Princes is an interesting period of history and will lead to great gameplay for Total War – when we sit down and choose what chapter of history to focus on next, the game is always at the forefront of our minds. There’s no point in choosing what seems to be an interesting period of history if it doesn’t make any sense within a Total War game – it’s got to be fun to play, as well as exciting to read about.
When it comes to the Chapter Packs, we’ve mentioned before that these are something we want to do for THREE KINGDOMS, but it doesn’t mean that it’s the only kind of DLC that you’re going to get. We’re planning more expansion-type content, as well as more DLCs like the Yellow Turbans, which add new playable factions to the main campaign.
We’ve also seen a lot of you asking for more characters in the main campaign (or turning some of our generic characters into unique characters), and this is something we absolutely would like to do moving forwards.
If Eight Princes isn’t for you, that’s okay – as we just said, there’s a wide range of content planned, and we’re pretty sure some of it will appeal to you


You can count me in as someone who had a wary eye on this DLC at first, as it seemed like too much of a departure from the base game, but as long as they get a chapter pack for the founding of the Yuan dynasty or even a Kublai: Total War (still a long ways off historically) I’ll be happy. And who am I kidding, Total War DLC is the only DLC I consistently still buy. I’ll get all the chapter packs tbh.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 13:20:46


Post by: LordofHats


 Grey Templar wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
The poor kid reportedly didn't even understand sex, but he still had a dozen children.


Well... Its entirely possible that he wasn't the real father.


Huh. I wonder if any historians of the period have asked that question XD


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 nels1031 wrote:
You can count me in as someone who had a wary eye on this DLC at first, as it seemed like too much of a departure from the base game, but as long as they get a chapter pack for the founding of the Yuan dynasty or even a Kublai: Total War (still a long ways off historically) I’ll be happy. And who am I kidding, Total War DLC is the only DLC I consistently still buy. I’ll get all the chapter packs tbh.


I think with a few caveats, Total War generally releases good DLC. They don't charge you $20 for a mission pack that'll last an hour and has nothing particularly interesting in it. Total War DLCs generally do what DLCs should do; expand the base game.

I'll probably by the Princes DLC and play it. Probably enjoy it too. I'm just disappointed other things didn't come first, and that's pretty much solely because I'd like to see a few things in the base game patched up so mileage may vary.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 15:00:33


Post by: Grey Templar


 LordofHats wrote:


I think with a few caveats, Total War generally releases good DLC. They don't charge you $20 for a mission pack that'll last an hour and has nothing particularly interesting in it. Total War DLCs generally do what DLCs should do; expand the base game.


Yeah.... except when the DLC is for stuff that should have been in the base game already. Or is in the game, its just in the form of a faction that is unplayable unless you buy the DLC.

$19 to unlock the Wood Elves or Beastmen is a rather jerk move. I mean, yes it is a DLC with a lot of content. Its just content that should, and indeed is, in the base game.

They've basically locked game mechanics behind a paywall.

IMO, a $19 DLC should add extra stuff to the entire game. The only time it should unlock a faction is if its multiple factions and they're a faction that weren't in there already as an NPC faction. I do miss old school total war where all factions were unlocked as you played the game.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 15:33:07


Post by: LordofHats


I think the Wood Elves were worth it. You got a whole new faction with a unique playstyle distinct from everyone else and two variations on it. Totally worth. They also weren't in the base game at all. I think they stuck some empire rebels or something over there originally?

Beastmen however were not worth it. Beastmen were a halfassed faction with an incomplete unit roster, no unique mechanics to justify the cost or enhance replay value, and gakky balance. I've never played a WTW game where the Beastmen were a meaningful threat, because their roster is that gak. They weren't in the original game either, but they hardly added anything to the game once put in so...

Also the "blood and gore" DLCs have always been stupid.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 15:49:18


Post by: Grey Templar


 LordofHats wrote:
I think the Wood Elves were worth it. You got a whole new faction with a unique playstyle distinct from everyone else and two variations on it. Totally worth. They also weren't in the base game at all. I think they stuck some empire rebels or something over there originally?

Beastmen however were not worth it. Beastmen were a halfassed faction with an incomplete unit roster, no unique mechanics to justify the cost or enhance replay value, and gakky balance. I've never played a WTW game where the Beastmen were a meaningful threat, because their roster is that gak. They weren't in the original game either, but they hardly added anything to the game once put in so...

Also the "blood and gore" DLCs have always been stupid.


I've never bought the wood elf DLC, but the faction exists as an AI faction when I play.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 16:03:58


Post by: LordofHats


The way CA does DLC now, the factions get added to the base game whether you buy the DLC or not. Buying the DLC lets you play as them. Like how the Yellow Turban factions are in Three Kingdoms whether you buy the Yellow Turbans DLC/got or not.

I'd have to check, or someone can fact check me, but I think when WTW first released the Wood Elves weren't there and some Empire rebels were occupying that part of the map at the time. Skarsnik and Belegor (however you spell the names too lazy XD) weren't there either until their Warlord pack got released. Actually, the WTW map was a lot like the Three Kingdoms map in a way when the game first released. You only had the Dwarves, Orcs, Empire, and Chaos at release and the rest of the map was mostly filled with Empire rebels or minor Dwarf/Orc actions. I think only the Goblins had distinct NPCs before a faction DLC hit to increase map diversity.

I'm kind of 50-50 on that. On the one hand, it lets people who didn't buy the DLC still benefit from it in a way. The new faction still appears on the map, and can be played against. At the same time, does the company really need to charge $20 just for access? I think it has to be a damn good faction to justify that cost. Wood Elves I think were worth the $20. The Beastmen were not.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 16:05:40


Post by: Grey Templar


That is correct, they got added after the DLC was released. But that still makes them part of the base game. Unless you've never updated your game files, you can't play Warhammer Total War without the Wood Elves being in it now.

If they were going to charge $20, I would at least have wanted multiple factions in the bundle.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 16:14:14


Post by: nels1031


 Grey Templar wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
I think the Wood Elves were worth it. You got a whole new faction with a unique playstyle distinct from everyone else and two variations on it. Totally worth. They also weren't in the base game at all. I think they stuck some empire rebels or something over there originally?

Beastmen however were not worth it. Beastmen were a halfassed faction with an incomplete unit roster, no unique mechanics to justify the cost or enhance replay value, and gakky balance. I've never played a WTW game where the Beastmen were a meaningful threat, because their roster is that gak. They weren't in the original game either, but they hardly added anything to the game once put in so...

Also the "blood and gore" DLCs have always been stupid.


I've never bought the wood elf DLC, but the faction exists as an AI faction when I play.


Athel Loren at release was just a large, impassable forest at the games release, there were no provinces to populate, no placeholder faction holding down their territory until their DLC was fleshed out. Just blank forest. It was probably the best bang for your buck DLC that they released, in that it actually added to the original game map, in addition to adding what LoH mentions above.



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 16:56:47


Post by: Eumerin


 Grey Templar wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
The poor kid reportedly didn't even understand sex, but he still had a dozen children.


Well... Its entirely possible that he wasn't the real father.



It's possible. But it's also possible for a woman to stimulate the necessary physical responses if the man isn't actively trying to stop her, and there aren't other reasons (like ED) that the male can't perform.

And there would have been quite a few people interested in producing a legitimate heir.



As for TW:WH DLC factions - the Tomb Kings in the second game also weren't present until their DLC was released. There was a VC faction in that region instead. I'm fine with CA including the factions as opponents even if you don't own the faction, as I suspect that it makes multi-player stuff easier when you have players using a mix of DLC.


not for the legendary nature of Wu Zeitan's cruelty


Ironically, when Wu Zetian declared herself Empress, she also declared her rule under the Jin Dynasty, instead of the current dynasty (Tang, iirc). But the revived Jin Dynasty only lasted as long as she did, and the dynasty reverted back after her death.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 21:01:49


Post by: Voss


 LordofHats wrote:
I think the Wood Elves were worth it. You got a whole new faction with a unique playstyle distinct from everyone else and two variations on it. Totally worth. They also weren't in the base game at all. I think they stuck some empire rebels or something over there originally?

Beastmen however were not worth it. Beastmen were a halfassed faction with an incomplete unit roster, no unique mechanics to justify the cost or enhance replay value, and gakky balance. I've never played a WTW game where the Beastmen were a meaningful threat, because their roster is that gak. They weren't in the original game either, but they hardly added anything to the game once put in so...

Also the "blood and gore" DLCs have always been stupid.


The blood and gore dlcs basically exist so they can sell the base game to other markets without issue. Some of them have decent animations/effects, others just look like they took a brush with too much red paint to the unit models.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 22:13:56


Post by: Eumerin


Iirc, the original blood and gore dlcs were free. It wasn't until later that they started charging for them.
I got them when they were free. But I don't care enough to pay for them.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 23:00:34


Post by: LordofHats


If they were free my opinion would be different.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/18 23:51:20


Post by: Overread


 LordofHats wrote:


I'm kind of 50-50 on that. On the one hand, it lets people who didn't buy the DLC still benefit from it in a way. The new faction still appears on the map, and can be played against. At the same time, does the company really need to charge $20 just for access? I think it has to be a damn good faction to justify that cost. Wood Elves I think were worth the $20. The Beastmen were not.


Thing is Warhammer is so vastly different from CA's normal. Normally most of the different armies they add to games are purely a reskin of existing animated assets etc...
However with Warhammer each army is totally alien to the others, requiring its own host of designs and animations, some have more arms or don't even have legs or they have loads of legs. So each army was a much more major reworking right from the core. I appreciate the costs honestly, because when you compare it to RTS games the cost of a new army in Warhammer TW was bout the same as a regular old expansion pack for a game; and you'd maybe only get a new army then (most times you didn't).


As for the whole "buy to play as" part I think that's purely CA making multiplayer work and also making their campaign maps work. Otherwise they'd have to redesign maps for each possible owning combination; and in multiplayer players would get annoyed if they couldn't play against factions they didn't own. Meanwhile they'd argue if they can do that then then why can't the faciton just appear on the campaign map. It's also partly marketing too of course, playing against Wood Elves is going to make people more interested in them and more likely to buy into them.

Plus each time they released a paid DLC they also released some free DLC too. So on the whole I feel they handled it well. It's expensive if you want to buy full price in one go, but the games do go on sale regularly and buying as they released the prices felt fair and well spaced out. The only real mistake was how they broke Norsca and they fixed that without any community backlash to demand the fix be made (of course there was loads of griping that people didn't have Norsca "now" but CA didn't resist reworking and making it work).



Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/19 17:04:04


Post by: nels1031


Next prince : Sima Lun

WHO IS HE?
Sima Lun, Prince of Zhao and Sima Yi’s youngest son, was an egomaniac who was willing to go to any length to secure power. Historically, it was through his actions that the War of the Eight Princes started in earnest; having convinced Empress Jia to assassinate the crown prince, he then accused her of treachery and had her and her family killed. Although acting as regent to Emperor Hui at first, it was not long before he declared himself emperor, drawing the ire of the other princes and starting a cycle of war and betrayal that would shake the Jin dynasty for years to come.

PLAYSTYLE
Sima Lun is a self-serving schemer, willing to engage in subterfuge and treachery in order to acquire riches and power for himself – even if it means sacrificing the efficiency of his own administration! He builds ‘Subterfuge’ through acts of espionage and by developing his own corrupt judiciary building chain; having plotted sufficiently, he expends this resource in order to control other factions in diplomacy.

GUANXI
Sima Lun may delight in deviousness, but it is said that the true cunning behind his ambition lies in the hands of his trusted advisor, Sun Xiu! An inseparable pair, there are no depths to which Sun Xiu would not have his prince stoop in pursuit of wealth and power.

START POSITION
Sima Lun presides over the fertile lands of Shangdang and Ye, north of the Yellow River; securing the entirety of Shangdang and moving into the Taiyuan mountains will give him a solid power-base and source of income, removing his initial threat and allowing him to focus south towards the capital all the while. Sima Yong – the Prince of Hejian – is nearby, and although they begin on fair terms his opportunism poses a threat to Sima Lun’s ambitions. Prepare for war!


WHAT KIND OF PLAYER IS HE FOR?
Any player looking to double-down on clandestine activity should embrace Sima Lun’s subterfuginous style, driven as it is by performing spy actions and enabling some powerful diplomatic chicanery. Being a sneak has never felt so good!


Though we're only 1/4th into the reveals, he seems like the kind of guy I want to kill first. My douchebag radar is pinging off the charts. Gameplay wise, I'm also leary about the part that says " he expends this resource in order to control other factions in diplomacy". All I felt when I read that was "Here comes another version of the Vassalizing Train that we saw in early 3Kingdoms campaigns!"


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/19 17:22:16


Post by: Grey Templar


 nels1031 wrote:
Next prince : Sima Lun

WHO IS HE?
Sima Lun, Prince of Zhao and Sima Yi’s youngest son, was an egomaniac who was willing to go to any length to secure power. Historically, it was through his actions that the War of the Eight Princes started in earnest; having convinced Empress Jia to assassinate the crown prince, he then accused her of treachery and had her and her family killed. Although acting as regent to Emperor Hui at first, it was not long before he declared himself emperor, drawing the ire of the other princes and starting a cycle of war and betrayal that would shake the Jin dynasty for years to come.

PLAYSTYLE
Sima Lun is a self-serving schemer, willing to engage in subterfuge and treachery in order to acquire riches and power for himself – even if it means sacrificing the efficiency of his own administration! He builds ‘Subterfuge’ through acts of espionage and by developing his own corrupt judiciary building chain; having plotted sufficiently, he expends this resource in order to control other factions in diplomacy.

GUANXI
Sima Lun may delight in deviousness, but it is said that the true cunning behind his ambition lies in the hands of his trusted advisor, Sun Xiu! An inseparable pair, there are no depths to which Sun Xiu would not have his prince stoop in pursuit of wealth and power.

START POSITION
Sima Lun presides over the fertile lands of Shangdang and Ye, north of the Yellow River; securing the entirety of Shangdang and moving into the Taiyuan mountains will give him a solid power-base and source of income, removing his initial threat and allowing him to focus south towards the capital all the while. Sima Yong – the Prince of Hejian – is nearby, and although they begin on fair terms his opportunism poses a threat to Sima Lun’s ambitions. Prepare for war!


WHAT KIND OF PLAYER IS HE FOR?
Any player looking to double-down on clandestine activity should embrace Sima Lun’s subterfuginous style, driven as it is by performing spy actions and enabling some powerful diplomatic chicanery. Being a sneak has never felt so good!


Though we're only 1/4th into the reveals, he seems like the kind of guy I want to kill first. My douchebag radar is pinging off the charts. Gameplay wise, I'm also leary about the part that says " he expends this resource in order to control other factions in diplomacy". All I felt when I read that was "Here comes another version of the Vassalizing Train that we saw in early 3Kingdoms campaigns!"


Yeah, those sounds interesting if its a human player controlling it, but the AI will probably be totally broken with it. Especially at higher difficulties where the AI just gets free resources.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/22 20:45:31


Post by: nels1031


Next Prince up:

Sima Ai

WHO IS HE?
Sima Wei’s brother of the same mother (concubine Consort Shen), Sima Ai was praised by many for his filial piety. He supported Sima Wei in his coup against regent Sima Liang, and when Empress Jia had Sima Wei executed, Sima Ai was demoted as the supporter of a criminal. In subsequent years, he became known as a reformist, and as a diligent administrator with humility and great talent. Of all the princes, he was possibly most dutiful to the true Emperor Hui, despite his disabilities, and always paid him respect. Sima Ai wanted to reform the government, and amid the constant flip-flop between centralised government and decentralised liberalism during the Later Han and early Jin periods, Sima Ai tried to be a driver for a modern approach to liberalism. The most poignant moment of Sima Ai’s life came at the end: before being burned to death as a traitor by the rebels Sima Ying and Sima Yong, he wrote a touching farewell letter to Emperor Hui.

PLAYSTYLE
Sima Ai was a political reformist and a filial administrator. As such, his playstyle is focused on the civic side and developing a reformed infrastructure. He is about focusing on a de-centralised government and liberal administration, represented by certain building choices. He will have to balance the need for centralised infrastructure with other elements and create a balanced approach to commandery management. If he can modernise the government successfully, he will be rewarded with better research rates, higher public order, a less corrupt government apparatus, and more efficient trade.

GUANXI
Huangfu Shang is one of Sima Ai’s closest advisors and military commanders. He fought various battles for his superior, while being rewarded with higher offices under Sima Ai’s superiority. Huangfu Shang was also rival of Li Han, who was the scheming lieutenant of Sima Yong.

START POSITION
As the Prince of Changsha, Sima Ai starts relatively far away from the capital in a good position. He also has a Master Armourer region in his control right at the start. To the north, the Yangtze river provides a good defence, but the terrain in the south is difficult to manoeuvre, so expansion will be difficult.


WHAT KIND OF PLAYER IS HE FOR?
Sima Ai is for the player who focuses a lot on civic infrastructure, and who enjoys administration of their commanderies. He is also for players who believe in political liberalism and who want to reduce direct state-driven control and its corruption.


Seems like a faction that can turtle up and make bank just from upgrading buildings. Also, reading his fate he seems like he is the prototypical "nice guys finish last" dude.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/22 21:02:22


Post by: LordofHats


Sima Ai is basically Cao Cao with great historical publicity. Functionally the two men were remarkably similar (a major focus of administrative reform and, depending on the source, filial piety). Maybe the one distinction between them is that Sima Ai lacked Cao Cao's knack for cut throat politics, which is how he wound up dead from what should have been a fairly obvious reversal at the time.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/22 21:21:10


Post by: Eumerin


I thought the real life Cao Cao had an issue with micro-managing things at times? That sounds different from the decentralization-focus Sima Al is supposed to have.

Of course, that tid-bit about Cao Cao might be wrong.


Total War: Three Kingdoms (Moving on to next game?) @ 2019/07/22 22:42:59


Post by: LordofHats


Eumerin wrote:
I thought the real life Cao Cao had an issue with micro-managing things at times? That sounds different from the decentralization-focus Sima Al is supposed to have.

Of course, that tid-bit about Cao Cao might be wrong.


Maybe. I’d need to go look. Cao Cao got turned into a villain during the period before and after the Sun dynasty as people in China increasingly lionized Shu-Han. His negative traits were enhanced and his more nobler traits ignored or twisted. Cao Cao to my knowledge was generally lauded by his contemporaries for picking men of talent and trusting them to fulfill their duties without his direct oversight (though that doesn’t inherently mean he wasn’t a control freak).

Sims AI always seemed similar to me. Reform minded, ambitious bit nominally loyal to the Emperor, and with an eye for talent. He simply lacked the same ability to judge the intentions of others, a talent Cao Cao made excellent use of.