Total War: Three Kingdoms - the next major historical Total War title set in ancient China

[RNGsus]

Does diplomacy work?

 

[cw8]

Does diplomacy work?

U need diplomacy almost every turn. As the AI will gang up on you the moment you are weak. Actually it will gang up on you if you're strong too. Basically assume you're at war with everyone and that you can get backstabbed anytime even by your best vassals and you should be fine. Anything else, save scum works too.

 

[RNGsus]

As far as being stabbed in the back, do you mean even if you give gifts, secure marriages to establish kinship, win your battles, honor trade agreements etc the AI will retardedly just fuck your shit up anyway? Or do you mean as long as you do what's expected of a good lord every turn your vassals remain dependable? Is there realm divide/mongol invasion tom foolery where you're hardcoded to fight everybody?

 

[cw8]

As far as being stabbed in the back, do you mean even if you give gifts, secure marriages to establish kinship, win your battles, honor trade agreements etc the AI will retardedly just fuck your shit up anyway? Or do you mean as long as you do what's expected of a good lord every turn your vassals remain dependable? Is there realm divide/mongol invasion tom foolery where you're hardcoded to fight everybody?

As in you can have very good relations with your vassals, in the green, have "Trustworthy" as your diplomacy rep and they can declare independence from you next turn or any other turn and you have to go to war with them. Think your relative strength is important, my 2 smaller vassals didn't declare independence from the beginning since I'm much more powerful than them. If they somehow get as strong as you, or close to you, you'll have to keep watch. Also ambitious assholes like Yuan Shao or Cao Cao will never stay vassalised for too long regardless of strength.

AI is good at ganging up on you at times too. Say you're fighting Cao Cao, then all the sudden he invites another faction into a coalition or gets invited into another coalition and then calls upon the coalition to fight you then all the sudden you're fighting a lot more people.
There's no realm divide, although once you gain the Emperor rank which happens pretty soon, 2 other strongest factions will declare themselves Emperor as well. And if you're in a coalition with any of them, it will dissolve. You don't start a war with them immediately but they won't particularly like you.
Tips say to put armies along even Allied borders as to "show strength" so that they won't try anything funny. Too many times I have shifted my entire army to the frontline, only for an ally or vassal to stab me in the back and then have a war on two fronts and have nothing at the back to defend. With the anti-corruption tactics this time round, my income actually stayed and grew when I expanded territory instead of catastropvhically dropping and I could afford a lot more generals, advisors and armies.

 

[RNGsus]

Then if the battle AI wasn't retarded as ever, and the UI was to my liking, I would call it incline. The cheating strategy AI can be fixed easily enough in PFM, which I'm sure somebody's updated by now. Those are some of the first mods to hit steam workshop.

Are there general speeches?

 

[cw8]

Ah I missed those in MTW2. You don't get general speeches, you have short general insult exchanges instead.

 

[RNGsus]

There really was a lot of love in that game. There were several lines effected by traits and ancillaries in Shogun 2, but nobody remembers them because they're in Japanese. On the whole the best entries in the series, although I haven't played Total Warhammer yet and I'm told they are the best.

 

[cw8]

Medieval 2 was all along my fav. Fast forward to the Warhammer TWs. It's like the King Arthur games but a lot more. Especially Warhammer 2 where you have so many factions and different units. And then you have the magic to go on top of it all. Nothing like having Dragons roast an army or having Steam Tanks blast through everything moving and the legendary lords laying down some hurt. Of course, now we have 3 Kingdoms and I'm biased to 3 Kingdoms since I'm a fan of the novel and history.
I'm not sure which one is my favourite now, but it's either one of the three: Medieval 2, Warhammer 2, or 3 Kingdoms.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

There really was a lot of love in that game. There were several lines effected by traits and ancillaries in Shogun 2, but nobody remembers them because they're in Japanese. On the whole the best entries in the series, although I haven't played Total Warhammer yet and I'm told they are the best.

Shithammers are dumbed down games for the retard "Dragons are cool" crowd. Everything on the 3d map after Med2 is cancer (Shogun2 was ok). Unfortunately even if CA decide for some miracle reasons to go back to 2d map, that will resolve 90% of the problems CAI have, they don't have a single competent game designer that will make it good.

 

[Tigranes]

Does diplomacy work?

U need diplomacy almost every turn. As the AI will gang up on you the moment you are weak. Actually it will gang up on you if you're strong too. Basically assume you're at war with everyone and that you can get backstabbed anytime even by your best vassals and you should be fine. Anything else, save scum works too.

Which I think reflects the life of a Romance warlord pretty well... but hell for gamers, who aren't used to all their plans being constantly interrupted. Seems like once you know how to establish relative martial superiority you can still keep loyal vassals, given you managed to keep several until endgame?

 

[cw8]

Which I think reflects the life of a Romance warlord pretty well... but hell for gamers, who aren't used to all their plans being constantly interrupted. Seems like once you know how to establish relative martial superiority you can still keep loyal vassals, given you managed to keep several until endgame?

Kong Rong's the only loyal vassal I had since the beginning but even so I was 2-3 times bigger than him by the time I vassalised him. I don't think he's the ambitious sort like Cao Cao to declare independence. By the time I vassalised Zhang Yan, I had the entire Central and Northern China, so vastly bigger than him. Couldn't vassal Sun Jian who controlled the south but once he died and Sun Ce took over I could, although at a hefty price. Sun Ce stayed as a vassal for awhile, then when his power ratings matched mine, he declared independence. I reloaded the previous autosave and annexed him, thus gaining control of the entire South without fighting a battle. Dropped from "Trustworthy" to "Treacherous" in diplomacy ratings for annexing a vassal but seriously there's no one to oppose me at that point. Diplomacy didn't matter anymore from then on. I marched 20 armies to the West and painted it my map colour after that.

 

[RNGsus]

I watched NuLegend's review. Population is back as a statistic, but it doesn't impact development or your levy pool. Not sure what it did.

Has Legend of Total War dropped the banter from his videos? He even apologized to CA, because they didn't give him the promoter's key for saying what we're all thinking about this company.

 

[Raghar]

I watched NuLegend's review. Population is back as a statistic, but it doesn't impact development or your levy pool. Not sure what it did.

Has Legend of Total War dropped the banter from his videos? He even apologized to CA, because they didn't give him the promoter's key for saying what we're all thinking about this company.

Well, he's kinda stupid. Trying to apology to CA, trying to downplay weakness, not criticizing not dropping draconic DRM. He did better last year, and he should remember, it's two part of equation. Viewers who don't like downplaying ignoring flaws because reviewer wants to get to better side with publisher, and actual publisher/developer. Frankly viewers can look at more famous reviewers who are acting as bribed by publisher, and read an article in 5 minutes.

 

[RNGsus]

He gave Warhammer a shitload of attention on his channel. It just goes to show pr at CA are a bunch of spiteful cunts, and ecelebs are easy to manipulate. He's a married, aussie neet, so he needs to shit on something or he'll shoot up a mosque.

 

[RK47]

Can't even afford a game and want to be a youtuber?

 

[CyberModuled]

Good news for Goliath. The crack was a lot sooner than I thought

 

[Beggar]

Shouldn't this one be in the JPRG faggotry section?

 

[Fedora Master]

It's not bad but feels rather weird at first compared to other TW games. The performance improvements are really good. The UI is ass.
e: Also everyone is a bearded badass with obvious European features when in reality they should all look like this:

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

have you ever read the description of liu bei? the fascinating, charismatic, handsome liu bei? fat lips, stupid expression, ear lobes touching his shoulders. basically a roadkilled toad.

 

[fantadomat]

have you ever read the description of liu bei? the fascinating, charismatic, handsome liu bei? fat lips, stupid expression, ear lobes touching his shoulders. basically a roadkilled toad.

Meh,different times different paragons of beauty. Hellena of Troy is also not a beauty by modern standards.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Ugly is universal and timeless though.

 

[Tigranes]

have you ever read the description of liu bei? the fascinating, charismatic, handsome liu bei? fat lips, stupid expression, ear lobes touching his shoulders. basically a roadkilled toad.

Dude was charismatic, not handsome in a way to get the ladies going.

And half of that charisma involved, at least in the Romance, wailing about how it is his lack of virtue that has led his followers to suffer so, lo, he is not worthy.

So very different standards of what is charismatic leadership + had nothing to do with being hawt.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Shouldn't this one be in the JPRG faggotry section?

Indeed. Seems only fair, going by the rules.

Which I think reflects the life of a Romance warlord pretty well... but hell for gamers, who aren't used to all their plans being constantly interrupted. Seems like once you know how to establish relative martial superiority you can still keep loyal vassals, given you managed to keep several until endgame?

It's super fucking random. At the end of my campaign, I had Liu Bei as a loyal ally in my coalition, while tiny ass factions with literally only a single iron mine and no village were breaking trade agreements to join coalitions from people 6 provinces away and declare war on me. I didn't have any vassals since I was playing the bandit bitch, but I also saw someone break a non aggression pact with me 2 turns after I made it with them. Again, when they were hopelessly outclassed. It's also trivially easy to become so reviled by a faction that they'd prefer extermination to any peace deal you offer.

I think a good summary of the diplomacy is the playthrough someone did where they won the game by offering 10 turns of food for a province that produces food, immediately broke the deal on the same turn, and made another deal of the same type with the same person because they needed the food even more. It's got lots of options and details, but the way they interact is broken.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

have you ever read the description of liu bei? the fascinating, charismatic, handsome liu bei? fat lips, stupid expression, ear lobes touching his shoulders. basically a roadkilled toad.

Dude was charismatic, not handsome in a way to get the ladies going.

And half of that charisma involved, at least in the Romance, wailing about how it is his lack of virtue that has led his followers to suffer so, lo, he is not worthy.

So very different standards of what is charismatic leadership + had nothing to do with being hawt.

but having a stupid stare stuck on your face does.

 

[Axioms]

Shouldn't this one be in the JPRG faggotry section?

Indeed. Seems only fair, going by the rules.

Which I think reflects the life of a Romance warlord pretty well... but hell for gamers, who aren't used to all their plans being constantly interrupted. Seems like once you know how to establish relative martial superiority you can still keep loyal vassals, given you managed to keep several until endgame?

It's super fucking random. At the end of my campaign, I had Liu Bei as a loyal ally in my coalition, while tiny ass factions with literally only a single iron mine and no village were breaking trade agreements to join coalitions from people 6 provinces away and declare war on me. I didn't have any vassals since I was playing the bandit bitch, but I also saw someone break a non aggression pact with me 2 turns after I made it with them. Again, when they were hopelessly outclassed. It's also trivially easy to become so reviled by a faction that they'd prefer extermination to any peace deal you offer.

I think a good summary of the diplomacy is the playthrough someone did where they won the game by offering 10 turns of food for a province that produces food, immediately broke the deal on the same turn, and made another deal of the same type with the same person because they needed the food even more. It's got lots of options and details, but the way they interact is broken.

I mean I support the idea of factions rather dying than joining their hated enemy. This is true to life, a key part of many massive empires failing, etc. But some of the other diplo stuff makes very little sense.