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

Aqualung

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To get a sense of how complex these interpersonal relationships can become, Creative Assembly tells us that there will be "11 iconic warlords" in the finished game, each with their own playable faction - Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Jian have been announced so far. Beneath them will be at least two lesser tiers of character, Heroes and Generals, each of which will presumably tie into the complex social web of guanxi.


Sun Quan would be a more sensible choice than his father Sun Jian, IMO. In any case, I want to play it as 赤兔馬, I would feel really oppressed otherwise.
You want to play as red rabbit horse?

Red Hare, muh friend.
Well i want to play as Lu Bu,will ride you well my friend ;) .

sweatonmybrow.png
 

Tigranes

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Oh god, I haven't realised how amazingly cringy it will be to see them butcher the Three Kingdoms

Can't wait till you start battle and cutscene shows Tom Cruise Last Samurai pointing at the enemy and American voice actor drawl yelling "HEAVEN SEZ I, LU BU, WILL BE VICTORIOUS THIS DAY!!!"
 

Aqualung

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It looks like a mix between Koei crap and that 2010 San Guo with Peter Ho as Lü Bu.
What a disgraceful way to ruin such a prestigious story, full of beloved heroes and amazing episodes.
 

Lone Wolf

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I'm 18 eps into the series that gif is from.

And I'm finding it hard to pick my favourite character. But, at this point, might have to be Chen Gongtai. Fuck that dumb bitch Lu Bu.
 

Lone Wolf

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Why not both?

TW:TK is a while away, and I've got a couple of lengthy holidays between now and then.

To be honest, though, I'm really enjoying the series, pleb taste or no.
 

Infinitron

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https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/06/25/total-war-three-kingdoms-hands-on-e3-2018/

What Total War: Three Kingdoms is learning from its Warhammer cousins (and Crusader Kings II)
total-war-three-kingdoms-preview-6-620x300.jpg


They’re climbing the walls. Hundreds of tiny warriors are using grappling hooks to scale the stone barriers of a Chinese settlement, as I look down on the battlefield from my perch at E3. I bite my lip and pretend to know what I’m doing. Yes, swordsmen, through the breach. Spear dudes, down the middle. Grappling hook men, up you go. Only stinky Romans use anything as primitive as a ladder to assault a city. But oh no, I’ve forgotten my heroes. Three horsemen that are now hundreds of metres away from the action. These units are what Total War: Three Kingdoms is all about. Special warriors, similar to the powerful hero units of the Total War: Warhammer spin-offs. I send them in and they slaughter dozens of soldiers, holding entire battalions at bay. But the enemy has one of these heroes too – Lü Bu. And he LOVES to kill.

Three Kingdoms is the first “full fat” Total War game set in non-orc history since Total War: Attila (although what counts as “full fat” in Total War circles seems to be a lively debate). While fans of dusty military history might be pleased by this, it’s also clear from these hero units and other elements that developers at Creative Assembly have learned from their Warhammer days, despite this being made by a different internal team.

I was playing the Battle of Xiapi in spring 199 AD. At this time in Europe, Rome is reaching the height of its power, with Emperor Severus swanning about Iraq trying to bust down the walls of Hatra. But in China, all sorts of complicated shenanigans are occurring. The Han dynasty, China’s reputed “golden age”, is falling to bits and the country is splintering into the Three Kingdoms, the states of Wei, Shu and Wu. I can tell you all this because I’ve just learned it from Wikipedia. This lack of knowledge is one of the reasons Creative Assembly feel it’s right to set their next strategy game in third century China. It’s an under-explored period in videogames (unless you’re a Dynasty Warriors diehard) but a significant moment in world history.

total-war-three-kingdoms-preview-4-620x345.jpg


History, however, can only give you so much. Here, events of the campaign will also be lifted from The Romance of The Three Kingdoms, the 14th century Chinese novel that covers the same period. There’ll be two modes. A Classic mode will let you play through a more historically accurate version of events, while Romance mode will give you all the colour of the novel.

“What’s in the book matches what’s in the [history],” says Janos Gaspar, game director, after I play the demo. “But it has the texture that we usually don’t get as historians. It’s telling about emotions, it’s telling about relationships, behaviours, motivations. Not just of single people but for a wide cast.”

The studio used biographies for Napoleon in the same way, he says, to add colour to that era of history for Napoleon: Total War, and here the idea is similar. They want to use both sources: the historical record as told by boring old taxes, inheritance records and army reports, and the “larger than life” characters and sometimes-mythical events of the Romance. Since the novel has all the significance in East Asia as Robin Hood or King Arthur does in England, says Gaspar, leaving it entirely out “would be a shame”. Although they will still give you the option to play through the facts without embellishment. In the historical Classic mode, major characters will be embedded with their men, for example, lacking the superheroic specialties of their Romance counterparts. They will be “more mortal”.

But there’s also something a little Crusader Kings about the champions of this new campaign (in the Romance mode at least). Or to hear Creative Assembly talk about them, it seems that way.

“We do have the concept of ‘persistence of character’ in the Romance mode,” says Simon Mann, senior designer.

In other words, characters will die in battle, but they will also be captured, wounded, hired, released and develop in other ways. The studio wanted to bring the concept of Guanxi, an Eastern philosophy of social standing and personal networking, to the sieges and skirmishes of this installment, says Mann.

“You break it down and… your family is one set of connections, your friends are another, your enemies are another, your boss is another part of those connections. It’s all about your kind of network. We really wanted to bring that to the game.

“The characters build their relationships with one another as you play through your campaign, so people form friendships, rivalries, bonds. And this is based on their personality types, the actions that both the player and the AI do on the campaign map and in battle.”

total-war-three-kingdoms-preview-5-620x300.jpg


Gaspar expands on that. When you’re recruiting, for example, you’ll have to keep a character’s family connections in mind. Not just their battle-stats.

“Characters have a relationship network,” he says. “They have property, you could almost say they have feelings, and you have to reason with that. When you’re recruiting a character you no longer just look through the stats and think: ‘Yeah he brings this trait and that’s good because later on he will be a better warrior.’ But also: ‘Hm, maybe I will pick this guy. He’s not great but he has good friends.’ And that might be very useful later on…”

But their temperament also matters. Gaspar gives the example of a ‘charitable’ person who might not get on with an ally who is ‘greedy’. This in particular is very Crusader Kings II, and a little different from the personality quirks of, say, Total War: Warhammer, where traits have more practical effects. A ‘lazy’ trait in those games, for instance, simply limits your movement range on the campaign map.

But in Three Kingdoms, traits might have a knock-on effect in terms of diplomacy, to the point where one character might leave the faction of another, fed up with their greedy ways, among other problems. Close ties will also be important in the heat of a skirmish. If there are two brothers in the same battle, says Gaspar, and one of them dies, that’ll have an effect on the surviving bro. He may lose morale, or he might go berserk. If there are two rivals fighting for the same side, they’ll both fight harder, trying to “outperform” the other.

total-war-three-kingdoms-preview-2-620x276.jpg


On top of this, the result of a battle may also affect how one character sees another on the campaign map, and if that brother does die to an opportunistic spear between the ribs, there will be “mourning period” where the morale and attitudes of his family members and friends are affected.

“Even maybe for years afterwards,” says Mann, “you might be feeling the hurt from an event like this. So now you don’t have to treat these characters as pawns, they’re humans with real ideas and depth of character you have to manage and control.”

All of this sounds interesting. A romantic war filled with drama in a setting that isn’t immediately familiar (at least to folks with big blind spots in their world history, like me). However, it remains to be seen how much depth all those relationship-twisting mechanics will have. And even if this interpretation of Guanxi has depth beyond a few intentional personality clashes, we don’t yet know how clear it’ll all be to the player. Even when moving my troops around on the map, I was reminded how much effort it takes to truly know a Total War game.

total-war-three-kingdoms-preview-1-620x300.jpg


In the short demo, I didn’t get a lot of time to bring myself up to date with a series I haven’t played in earnest since Medieval II. So it was hard for me to tell exactly how much has changed after such a long absence, and how much I need to re-learn. But it still feels like a game that offers more to those excited by small historical details – the weapons used by certain units, the effects of fire arrows on certain troops, the effectiveness of certain fortifications, and so on. Hovering my mouse over the units, I could see there were a lot of stats to read, a lot of details to learn about tiny men. And that means, for a Total War amateur, it still felt like a game of geometry and slow positioning. Of basic flanking and having greater numbers. Although I did notice the AI reacting to my advances by pulling back its troops to strategic points, rather than simply routing or throwing its swordsmen into the grinder.

The fights between heroes aim to bring a little more to the map than triangles of horses poking rectangles of archers. While my soldiers fought two long and farcical skirmishes in separate parts of the city, I sent one of my important horsemen to challenge the enemy’s hero – Lü Bu. But this enemy general is a beast of a fighter. Did you know he killed his own dad? It’s true; he’s a dad-killer. He quickly stabs his way out of trouble, causing my bloodied hero to flee the entire battlefield in fear. I also could have broken this duel off early, but it would have resulted in a drop in morale for the surrounding troops.

total-war-three-kingdoms-preview-3-620x359.jpg


Mann suggests I use another hero, a general who is more specialised at going head to head with fellow warriors. I click on Lü Bu once more and my hero heads straight for him, ignoring all the other clashes around him. They fight, and I see the menu for my hero. Each special character will have abilities to use during these dramatic scraps. One of my hero’s abilities – Blinding Fury – does a massive chunk of damage in one hit. I use it to deliver the fatal blow to the enemy commander. The battle is over. Lü Bu is dead.

I mean, I knew this was going to happen because the demo blessed me with a ridiculous amount of troops, and it was introduced as “Lü Bu’s last stand”. But still, victory feels good. I didn’t get to see the campaign screen, or how this win would affect the map of China, not to mention the invisible network of relationships lying underneath it all. And I suspect that side of things (among other details too small for my feeble brain to pick up during a tired E3 day) will be the real measure of worth for fans of Totes War. But by learning from their Warhammer outings, and (it seems) from Crusader Kings II’s familial feuding, this trip to the east has gained some promising features.
 

AwesomeButton

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I tried watching "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" but my girlfriend (at the time) was getting a headache from listening to their language.

Nice to see about their "new" mechanics. Too bad the game will probably be too easy for them to mean anything.

Also, is TW an RPG now? :lol:
 

fantadomat

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Also, is TW an RPG now? :lol:

They've been steadily moving in that direction for a while now. King Arthur games had them beat in that department, but no one remembers those two.
I do,they were pretty fun back then. I remember that the campaign in the first one didn't wait for you to advance,got fucked by teleporting enemies :negative:. The second one was better but buggier,it had interesting quests.
 
Self-Ejected

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I tried watching "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" but my girlfriend (at the time) was getting a headache from listening to their language.

Nice to see about their "new" mechanics. Too bad the game will probably be too easy for them to mean anything.

Also, is TW an RPG now? :lol:
RPG elements kreep into everything but rpgs.
 

AwesomeButton

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I tried watching "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" but my girlfriend (at the time) was getting a headache from listening to their language.

Nice to see about their "new" mechanics. Too bad the game will probably be too easy for them to mean anything.

Also, is TW an RPG now? :lol:
RPG elements kreep into everything but rpgs.
RPG devs are still under the illusion that RPGs are too difficult and need streamlining.
 

Fedora Master

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Remember all the promises for Rome 2? "You can totally equip your armies with top-of-the-line equipment that's ahead of its time!"
 

Rahdulan

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You know what I want? Avatar Conquest mode to return but decouple it from multiplayer matchmaking and basically turn it into another campaign story mode, except you're a custom created officer who can ally with existing warlords/factions and rise in ranks. Start from fighting shitty skirmishes against local bandits and eventually rise to command a faction or, better yet, form your own.
 
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You know what I want? Avatar Conquest mode to return but decouple it from multiplayer matchmaking and basically turn it into another campaign story mode, except you're a custom created officer who can ally with existing warlords/factions and rise in ranks. Start from fighting shitty skirmishes against local bandits and eventually rise to command a faction or, better yet, form your own.
Cant fist this enough, but unfortunately it will never happen. Welp, back to ROTK X then.
 

Raghar

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Remember all the promises for Rome 2? "You can totally equip your armies with top-of-the-line equipment that's ahead of its time!"
And they didn't lie. It's just economic model is primitive, and rushing top building on the tree isn't that much rewarding.
 

fantadomat

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At this point everything in TW games is primitive and half-assed. Buildings,research,rebellions,retarded political system,the same shitty diplomacy,armies moving speed,agent spam etc etc. All they do by now is update the visuals and add a tad bit flavour.
 

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