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

[Fedora Master]

The Romance is all about small groups of heroes duelling each other and stuff, so it makes sense to represent it in the game.

 

[Mefi]

It's also making a virtue of CA's need to minimise the number of units on the strategic map. RotK fits it well and it's understandable to then pursue the character elements to that. Similar thing with their take on the Iliad. Does create a curious problem for them with player expectations from a TW game ('where's my ninja/geisha/monk/missionary etc.?') and the clear pull to make eg spying more abstract, at least away from what's already baked in with Warhammer.

 

[A horse of course]

 

[copebot]

It's also making a virtue of CA's need to minimise the number of units on the strategic map. RotK fits it well and it's understandable to then pursue the character elements to that. Similar thing with their take on the Iliad. Does create a curious problem for them with player expectations from a TW game ('where's my ninja/geisha/monk/missionary etc.?') and the clear pull to make eg spying more abstract, at least away from what's already baked in with Warhammer.

With the spying system, it can be pivotal in determining the course of a war if you get your agent in charge of an army. You can do stuff like nuke their movement or cause attrition to them. However, you're only likely to get those pivotal events rarely in any campaign and many factions are highly resistant to spying just because they have high satisfaction. Getting vision over their territories is probably the most useful aspect since you don't have agents/heroes from other TWs to scout. A lot of newbie TW players do not scout in general so they undervalue the scouting that you get from 3K's spy system.

 

[Average Manatee]

I hate the forced color meta and the lack of variety in the map. I really want to like 3K as much as WH because the diplomatic system is actually fucking useful and important but the replayability is just not there for me.

There is no forced color meta other than with the Strategists once they level up a little. There are a small number of level up abilities that even really do anything, which is a separate issue. For yellows, reds, and greens I just put some mixture of cavalry and infantry. The main reason why you want Blues to command anything with ranged attacks is that their stats impact how much ammo they have.

Well you need an army led by a green for the best strategic map bonuses and a blue for artillery (and, as you said, ammo). That leaves you one other color general for other units. IIRC higher tier units are only available with a matching color (artillery for blues is a part of this) and you also get some kind of discount/stat improvement for matching colors. Granted its not that important but it's still irritating how it pushes you in one way. I find myself almost always in Green/Blue/Yellow just because lots of the major lords are yellow and I want to use them in combat. Purple always goes to administration/assignments. Red is either ditched or replaces yellow sometimes.

 

[Fedora Master]

There are actually very few bonuses to certain colors. Green for example only has 2 very weak ones. The top-tier Dragon units are all recruitable by anyone.

 

[Average Manatee]

Green leading the army gets +25% movement and +5% replenishment, which is huge. No other color gets both of those unless it was changed since I played.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Red is useful if you're going to rely on cavalry.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yellow is the cavalry for stomping non-spear infantry (both in dealing more damage and having absurd missile block chance of 85%+ so you can cheese the entire enemy army out of arrows if you want), while red is the cavalry for countering other cavalry (which includes generals on horseback). I usually go 4 yellow cav/2 red cav. In my experience red cavalry is already really good at what it does with a few of the mid quality units so you don't usually need to invest more in that.

 

[Fedora Master]

Green leading the army gets +25% movement and +5% replenishment, which is huge. No other color gets both of those unless it was changed since I played.

Oh I thought you were referring to unit buffs in particular. I believe SOME characters get the movement range skill outside their usual colors.
Redeployment can be more useful than movement range, by the way.

e: Past a certain difficulty the AI won't waste arrows on very resistant units.

 

[Average Manatee]

Oh I thought you were referring to unit buffs in particular. I believe SOME characters get the movement range skill outside their usual colors.
Redeployment can be more useful than movement range, by the way.

Redeployment -25% isn't an army general ability, it's a faction/heir/prime minister ability. So not applicable for replacing the green guys leading your army. Some do have movement range but they miss out on +5% replenishment which is just as important for speedy conquest (at least until the late game when you have tons of global +replenishment, but at that point you have a bunch of leveled green leaders and why switch them out?)

e: Past a certain difficulty the AI won't waste arrows on very resistant units.

Always played on legendary and it seems to do often for me. The only units I notice specifically never being shot at are generals (on romance of course).

 

[copebot]

They're nerfing cav a little bit in this patch so it will be interesting to see. Infantry are supposed to be getting big buffs to weapon strength. They're also changing how routing works in a way that will probably make cavalry more strong, even though it's intended to improve infantry. I might try a new bandit campaign.

My old go-to composition was 4 red cav, 2 yellow cav, 4 archer of various kinds, 2 treb, 4-6 infantry of any appropriate kind. All the red cav was mostly to delete enemy heroes and get cavalry supremacy with impact damage. Since they are nerfing impact damage, who knows if that'll be effective. I also made some late game armies of spammed Azure Dragons, but honestly those are not that good against higher tier armies. They're just really good against trash and garrisons.

 

[Average Manatee]

My old go-to composition was 4 red cav, 2 yellow cav, 4 archer of various kinds, 2 treb, 4-6 infantry of any appropriate kind. All the red cav was mostly to delete enemy heroes and get cavalry supremacy with impact damage. Since they are nerfing impact damage, who knows if that'll be effective. I also made some late game armies of spammed Azure Dragons, but honestly those are not that good against higher tier armies. They're just really good against trash and garrisons.

Haha, I like how that's LITERALLY the exact same unit comp and numbers I run, even down to only running 4 infantry on my early game "full stacks" just to cut on costs a bit. Like I said there's a sort of forced meta and unit comp that lowers replayability a lot. Even in Shogun 2 (the other TW game that had a fairly low unit variety) you could choose between adding gunpowder/cannons, vary your unit comp a bit more (as opposed to nice round 6s of each unit type), decide between a general quality vs. quantity approach, and manage individual garrisons with individual units.

It's kind of weird that TWTK is a game that is the absolute best at everything TW is not normally about while being among the worst at being a TW game. It's got great diplomacy, good internal development mechanics, a good wide vs. tall strategy decision. You can basically play the whole game never declaring war and just eating up the map through economy and diplomacy if you want. Ironically its ahead of games like Civ and Paradox games in this respect, even in those supposedly more complex games you fairly quickly reach a point where war is the only way to grow. But in terms of varied battles? Ergh.

 

[copebot]

My old go-to composition was 4 red cav, 2 yellow cav, 4 archer of various kinds, 2 treb, 4-6 infantry of any appropriate kind. All the red cav was mostly to delete enemy heroes and get cavalry supremacy with impact damage. Since they are nerfing impact damage, who knows if that'll be effective. I also made some late game armies of spammed Azure Dragons, but honestly those are not that good against higher tier armies. They're just really good against trash and garrisons.

Haha, I like how that's LITERALLY the exact same unit comp and numbers I run, even down to only running 4 infantry on my early game "full stacks" just to cut on costs a bit. Like I said there's a sort of forced meta and unit comp that lowers replayability a lot. Even in Shogun 2 (the other TW game that had a fairly low unit variety) you could choose between adding gunpowder/cannons, vary your unit comp a bit more (as opposed to nice round 6s of each unit type), decide between a general quality vs. quantity approach, and manage individual garrisons with individual units.

It's kind of weird that TWTK is a game that is the absolute best at everything TW is not normally about while being among the worst at being a TW game. It's got great diplomacy, good internal development mechanics, a good wide vs. tall strategy decision. You can basically play the whole game never declaring war and just eating up the map through economy and diplomacy if you want. But in terms of varied battles? Ergh.

Well, if melee infantry actually does something besides be disappointing after the patch maybe that will open things up a bit. They have added a bunch of new units and factions now. For whatever reason, I really enjoy many of the battles in 3K but it is sometimes hard to get a good fight in because the AI tends to build such shit armies. It's like WH1 or early WH2 when you would just wind up fighting nothing but Brettonian peasants and all-Marauder stacks except that is like what it's been for 3K over and over even in the late campaign with the AI not making good units.

 

[A horse of course]

 

[Mefi]

With the spying system, it can be pivotal in determining the course of a war if you get your agent in charge of an army. You can do stuff like nuke their movement or cause attrition to them. However, you're only likely to get those pivotal events rarely in any campaign and many factions are highly resistant to spying just because they have high satisfaction. Getting vision over their territories is probably the most useful aspect since you don't have agents/heroes from other TWs to scout. A lot of newbie TW players do not scout in general so they undervalue the scouting that you get from 3K's spy system.

Yeah, I've had the game since release. I was more referencing that there's no agents on the strategy map. 3K is a clear break from other Total War games in that regard in pushing spying into the more abstract 'send character on mission in menu, harvest points to attempt spy op'.

----

New DLC is a bit overshadowd by the patch. The overhaul for combat is, erm, interesting. Hopefully a mod or hotfix to come quickly to sort out the morale hijinks now possible. All for aphorisms from Sun Tzu but winning every field battle by triggering mass routs from afar seems unintentional.

 

[Theodora]

Now that there's a bunch of DLC etc., is there any consensus on what starts/campaigns are the most interesting?

 

[A horse of course]

Now that there's a bunch of DLC etc., is there any consensus on what starts/campaigns are the most interesting?

The uninstall campaign

 

[JarlFrank]

Whoa?

 

[Fedora Master]

Didnt know Volound was still around.

 

[BrotherFrank]

Fuck that guy, major drama queen and gets triggered if you disagree with him in the slightest.
*incoming butthurt rant as i unload a petty grudge*

I found it weird that he made entire vids to reply to random comments on plebbit but thought nothing of it until he made a full autist rant with added smarm and cuntiness to some slightly disagreeing comment I made (proving he does indeed scour his comment section for arguments to get in) that wasn't even that spicy, didn't like my rebuttal to his response, then deleted my comments like a bitch, presumably because the conversation wasn't one sided enough to make him look good.

Needless to say, wasn't impressed.

 

[Mazisky]

Guys, would you suggest Three Kingdoms to a Warhammer only player?

I am not a fan of the setting, but the game seems good

 

[Average Manatee]

Fuck that guy, major drama queen and gets triggered if you disagree with him in the slightest.
*incoming butthurt rant as i unload a petty grudge*

I found it weird that he made entire vids to reply to random comments on plebbit but thought nothing of it until he made a full autist rant with added smarm and cuntiness to some slightly disagreeing comment I made (proving he does indeed scour his comment section for arguments to get in) that wasn't even that spicy, didn't like my rebuttal to his response, then deleted my comments like a bitch, presumably because the conversation wasn't one sided enough to make him look good.

Needless to say, wasn't impressed.

He does come across as a bit of a self-absorbed cunt. He is fairly accurate in his criticism of modern TW games though (not that it takes an IQ above 90 to be able to list a half dozen obvious fuckups).

Guys, would you suggest Three Kingdoms to a Warhammer only player?

I am not a fan of the setting, but the game seems good

Depends on what you are looking for. Its definitely the closet gameplay to warhammer in that you can have heroes and you are up to date with the same modern UI/strategic concepts. I didn't play Troy though.

 

[copebot]

Volund's criticisms are often somewhat accurate,

Guys, would you suggest Three Kingdoms to a Warhammer only player?

I am not a fan of the setting, but the game seems good

I didn't know anything about 3K before but later I became a lot more interested in the time period and the story. Some of the character elements are a little confusing if you don't know the story, but you'll get the gist of it anyway. 3K is more well rounded than Troy and it has better siege battles than Warhammer. The thing most people praise about 3K compared to Warhammer is that the diplomacy system is just much more functional. I have played campaigns where I just acted as a mercenary taking cities and selling them for the cash to build up my core commanderies. Coalitions are much better than the defensive/military alliance system of Warhammer.

 

[Fedora Master]

The Three Kingdoms era is very interesting if you have any taste for history at all. Just listen to this while playing to get the hang of it.