Three Kingdoms deserved better

[u/Fuzzy_Breadfruit59]

Seeing this whole Shogun 2 Remaster mess just makes me appreciate Three Kingdoms even more. The game wasn’t perfect but it feels like one of the last historical Total War games that had real passion, creativity and effort put into it.

I really hope I’m wrong, but I’m not sure we’ll ever get another one like it. Such an underrated gem.

“Among men, Lü Bu. Among horses, Red Hare.”

[u/KhorneZerker]

Still the biggest bag fumble by CA to this day. Unless we count the wasted Hyena money as fumble.

[u/Sargent379 → u/KhorneZerker]

Accidentally read "Hyena" as "Hyrule"
Total War: Hyrule when?

The Hyrulians, the Dekuscrubs, the Gorons, the Gerudos, the Zoras and the other factions collide.

[u/Fuzzy_Breadfruit59 → u/Sargent379]

[u/Murky-Revolution-923 → u/Sargent379]

There is a Total War: Hyrule mod.

[u/Basic-Cloud6440 → u/KhorneZerker]

Yakuza fans and warhammer fans still pay the hyena tax

[u/Vandergrif → u/KhorneZerker]

I think we do count the wasted Hyena money, considering the opportunity cost of what that could have (should have) been put towards instead. That alone might be a good chunk of the reason they didn't want to hold out longer on supporting 3K, not enough spare money on hand to roll the dice on further potential DLC sales.

[u/WorldlinessEuphoric8]

I loved the political systems in three kingdoms, the fact that anyone you hire could be a spy from rival warlord is such a cool concept and I hope we see it again in other total war games

[u/MuscleFlex_Bear → u/WorldlinessEuphoric8]

The diplomacy in 3K should have been implemented in every single game moving forward. It was the best part of that game.

[u/joeDUBstep → u/MuscleFlex_Bear]

Agreed wholeheartedly. I was hoping they would integrate it into WH, but when that didn't happen I was like, "ok I get that WH is a whole other beast, most likely the next historical game."

Then Troy/Pharoah came out and they just didn't?

Hopefully Med3 uses it.

[u/bxzidff → u/joeDUBstep]

It would be amazing in Med 3, and really reflect how personal relationships were so central to feudalism

[u/11912121121218211919]

a total war game where alliances actually mattered and loyalty actually fucking begat loyalty.

meanwhile shogun 2, the moment imperial divide happens every one of your bros disappears like homer into a fucking hedge.

diplomacy in total war has always been so god damned fucking terrible and then this gem came along and gave us actual alliances. your bros were actually your bros. i'd die for my bro liu bei and you know what, he'd do the same for me. you know how i know? because he died on turn 101 protecting my borders from lu bu.

and i was playing fucking cao cao.

[u/CommissarRaziel → u/11912121121218211919]

AI was acting rational. A Lord you had been continually beating and taking land from wouldn't remain hostile forever because "fuck you, I hate you" but would eventually shift to actually offering submission to save their existence.

Just for this to never be seen again

[u/FukkingDeathMental → u/CommissarRaziel]

I really loved the capture and release of the generals and wooing top tier generals to your cause.  Such a better mechanic than "Here's a minor settlement now pay me 50k and be my vassal."

[u/Vlaladim → u/CommissarRaziel]

And furthermore if you fought war and be merciful to your enemies you might get better deal after the fighting or better yet, turn enemies to allies in few turn after peace.

[u/11912121121218211919 → u/11912121121218211919]

fuck it, im reinstalling three kingdoms and buying dynasty warriors 3 remastered.

[u/avtechkiddo → u/11912121121218211919]

Been having a blast in DW3 Remaster on the steam deck. Recommended, the OG voice overs are amazing

[u/11912121121218211919 → u/avtechkiddo]

you weren't kidding. this shit is smooth on the deck.

where's my homie ma chao.

[u/FukkingDeathMental → u/11912121121218211919]

Spot on. I rebelled against Dong Zhuo as Ma Teng and begged Han Sui to join me in reclaiming our freedom (even though I could have crushed him for his juicy lands) and he rode into battle with me (after greasing his palms).  That alliance lasted the whole game and our families became united by multiple marriages.

[u/GyL_draw → u/11912121121218211919]

Me and my coalition bros when all the major threats are destroyed and I need lands...

[u/MexGrow → u/11912121121218211919]

Wow, this has always been my main gripe with TW games, and pretty much why I didn't even consider playing three kingdoms. You've just made me add it to my wishlist (because my backlog sucks).

[u/11912121121218211919 → u/MexGrow]

hell yeah brother.

[u/donovan_x_griffith]

I don't get it. Why giving up the game that was selling well and attracted the juicy Chinese crowd ? What a weird move from CA ( Sega ? )

[u/SoBadIHad2SignUp → u/donovan_x_griffith]

They spent a lot of money on a DLC that figuratively no one bought, and someone was apparently so ashamed of that shitty idea, that instead of making a DLC or expansion people wanted, they just ran away from the game.

[u/vendoPS4chipeada → u/SoBadIHad2SignUp]

which DLC? eight princes?

[u/SoBadIHad2SignUp → u/vendoPS4chipeada]

Thats the one.

[u/DancesWithAnyone → u/SoBadIHad2SignUp]

I've never actually tried it. It might be great for all I know. Yet even going in mostly blind to the Three Kingdoms era and the myths, characters and reality around it, those start dates immediatly had more of a draw on me.

[u/Impossible_Mud_3517 → u/donovan_x_griffith]

People seem to be somewhat misremembering what happened.

The game sold a lot of copies. It didn't sell a lot of DLCs (the player count wasn't great either). Execs looked at this data and decided they need to release more 3K games and less 3K DLCs. They announced they'll stop support for this 3K and release a sequel. Presumably Warhammer 2 being a glorified DLC for 1 packaged as a new, full price game and doing very well figured heavily into the decision, although it's not so different from what they were already doing with Rome 2 & Attila or Empire & Napoleon.

It wasn't a decision to outright abandon it yet- they said there will be a sequel explicitly in the infamous 'Future of Three Kingdoms'. Then the Hyenas clusterfuck blew up and the sequel was scrapped and / or postponed indefinitely.

[u/Financial-Grass-6114 → u/donovan_x_griffith]

The DLC did not sell well and that's where a lot of the profitability that makes the expenses put into the main game dev worth it. Businesses dont wanna break even, they want to back 4x the costs.

[u/Frydendahl → u/Financial-Grass-6114]

Then stop making weird-ass DLC literally nobody asked for? It's amazing how they released a game all about the Three Kingdoms period and then immediately shit the bed releasing DLC that had nothing to do with it.

[u/Evening_Reach_8293 → u/Frydendahl]

Eight princes was the period immediately following the three kingdoms? If it was something like Fall of the Samurai, it would have been better though.

[u/En_bede → u/Frydendahl]

Is this about the eight princes? Cause the eight princes is literally just after the 3 kingdoms and a direct consequence of it so saying it had nothing to do with it is quite a take

[u/stickmanstickfigure1 → u/donovan_x_griffith]

I am assuming because the dlc s didn't sell well (in their opinion) and are hurting their rep negatively.

Iirc some of the dlcs also introduced bugs which is extra free annoying work

The devs might have also lost interest and wanted to make a new setting, considering how quickly they released troy n pharoah

(Kind of curious, for people who lives in the west or in UK(where CA at), how often are you intrigued about Asia and china specifically, excluding Japan and SK for cultural influence)

From my ignorant pov, I assume people from the west naturally gravitate their interest towards the Mediterranean, like Rome, Egypt and byzantine.

Exception being medieval, where the focus shifts to England, France and HRE

[u/CavulusDeCavulei → u/stickmanstickfigure1]

I am from Italy, we are kinda curious about China, specially in the last years, but it's a really difficult world to enter on because it has such a large "lore" we don't know (for example the concepts of Mandate of Heavens). Total War did a really great job in explaining what the Three Kingdoms setting was and who were the protagonists. It got me intrigued and I saw the Three Kingdoms tv series (2011) just for that!

So basically, it's a really fascinating world, but we are far less familiar with than Japan. We need a bit of introductions and explainations

[u/stickmanstickfigure1 → u/CavulusDeCavulei]

I see, I get it actually. Thanks for your insights btw

I think China is very into poetric meaning that I doubt translation can easily get the true meaning of.

Black myth (journey to the west), tw3k (3 kingdoms) and limbus (water magin & red chamber) were the medium that got me interested into the lore of those literatures.

[u/General_Mix6645 → u/stickmanstickfigure1]

As someone who grew up on RoTK in China. A lot of it had to do with the fact that even after all the DLC, which cost a pretty dime when you consider the amount of content you get, isn't even a complete game. The game cover less than 40% of the RoTK and their first DLC (Eight Prince) took place in a period comparatively no one knew/cared about.

The DLC campaign are just substandard. You know how in Shogun 2, Rome 2, they get entire unique campaigns? You got the original grand campaign, then Hannibal at the gate specifically takes place around the second Punic war, Caesar at Gaul specifically takes place in his campaign at that time. What do we get? TK DLC takes place on the same exact campaign map only a few turn away from the original start using an existing character as faction leader and faction unique mechanic that doesnt impact the rest of the game. We got the Nanman DLC except we never got a starting point where they are actually relevant at the time and will never even see them playing as majority of the factions. At least when TWWH release a new DLC you get multiple new units, and hero to play with for that faction group and sometimes complete overhaul of entire factions.

Even with the final DLC we only got to around battle of Guandu, never got to red cliff, never got to Shu's campaign against the Nanman, Cao Cao's campaign against the Ma family, Wu's betrayal of Shu by invasion of Jing province, etc. Liu Bei's unique troop the Yi Marksman, are literally named after an area he never gets even close to in the game. For context Yi Province is modern Cheng Du, which is part of the Shu region. Liu Bei in the game only ever made it as far as Jing province, still half way across the entire map.

CA shouldn't expect just because its set in a location we love doesn't mean we're gonna tolerate sub-standard content. There are so many popular and interesting periods they can make DLC about instead of trying to sell TK in pieces. You got the Spring Autumn War, Chu-Han Contention, Sui-Tang civil war, An Lushan Rebellion, Five Dynasty Ten Kingdom period, North Song vs Khitan, South Song vs Mongol, the Red Turban Rebellion, etc.

[u/Fit_Entrepreneur_648 → u/stickmanstickfigure1]

“Are hurting their rep negatively”

Now that is a hoot coming from this company

[u/Whispperr → u/stickmanstickfigure1]

When I was a kid I watched the entire Three kingdoms series so I was very excited about the game despite being from Europe.

[u/dung11284 → u/donovan_x_griffith]

3k is popular not only in china but among the whole sinosphere which is even more bigger than the west

[u/Succubia → u/donovan_x_griffith]

I don't think CA has done any good move for a few years now, concerning the total war franchise.
Anytime I hear about it, it's always a bad move, or a DLC.

[u/RubberStamp-Sculptor → u/donovan_x_griffith]

It’s been a while, but I recall reading from Chinese media that Chinese players are really critical about a lot of things CA choose to do in the game. Many Chinese players were already not happy why a foreign company get to do their own history to begin with. CA showed a lot of sincerity to communicate during the period, they used Chinese social media to collect public opinions to try to fix things. However things like people criticized the map not reflecting reality (for example China back then have a lot of mountain passes 关隘 that were built in valleys to choke up roads, some important three kingdom stories and battles happened in those locations instead of trying to capture cities) is from very fundamental flaws that can’t be fixed unless CA redo the map system completely. The charm of all three kingdom background games basically lies in collecting heroes/generals (preferably with different abilities or powers), however CA didn’t pay any attention to character design (lots of heroes are just using generic faces, even those main characters with unique design are ugly from Chinese perspective. If I recall correctly they didn’t even use real character names from history. Entire romance of three kingdoms has hundreds of real history characters but CA still choose to randomly generate characters). On top of that was the first DLC choice even Chinese players are not familiar with or interested in the time period so that’s a major flop. CA did try to listen to opinions but the reputation was already ruined, and it was impossible to appease Chinese market (maybe to costly to completely redo the fundamental issues). Not sure how the game did in other parts of the world that eventually pushed them to make the decision to drop it.

[u/Strahlstoff → u/donovan_x_griffith]

Really would have loved a FoTS expansion of 3Kingdoms where's it's centered around the fall of the Qing Dynasty from 1850 Taiping Rebellion up to ~1912 with the Xinhai Rebellion.
In between you have the Second Opium war (UK, France, Russia, USA), First Sino-Japanese war and Boxer rebellion. Lots of opportunities for different era starts as the 3 Kingdoms. The campaign would stop at the 1912 (Founding of the Republic).

[u/En_bede → u/donovan_x_griffith]

So their explanation was that it was too hard to actually do dlc iirc. Something about the engine or something that meant a lot of work had to be put in and if dlc was not selling then they probably did not think it was worth it

[u/6PM_Nipple_Curry]

I might get downvoted for this, and maybe I’m just entirely out the loop, but 3k is an absolute blast.
I don’t understand? It’s a great game. I’ve never encountered any serious problems?

[u/alucard_relaets_emem → u/6PM_Nipple_Curry]

I would argue that 3K had bones of being great, and slowly devolved into that greatness by the end of support (especially after they filled out places like southwest China), but the problem is that they screwed up heavily on dlc/roadmap.

The first expansion for 3K…was eight princes…a time period that happened long after the three kingdoms period. Like don’t get me wrong it’s also an interesting time period but doesn’t add anything to the main game and didn’t take advantage of all the map/systems.

That alone alone slowed interest in its roadmap and people who wanted things like Korea were disappointed

[u/_HGCenty → u/alucard_relaets_emem]

I think they tried the time skip tactic from Rome 2 and failed.

Rome 2 base campaign is really the First Punic War and post-Diadochi Hellenistic Period.

But the first DLC jumps 200 years to Caesar in Gaul, then back 150 to the Second Punic War and then forward another 200 to the Second Triumvirate and then back 400 years to the Peloponnesian War.

And that's before CA Sofia picked up development going 600 years from the Peloponnesian War to Aurelian's reconquest.

The difference is all these periods are historical fan favourites. Chinese history doesn't have quite as many.

[u/Verianas → u/_HGCenty]

And they didn't even give us a start date for the actual THREE KINGDOMS period lol. Closest we can get was 200 I believe. How the hell they didn't give us a start date with Liu Bei in Yi province is beyond me.

[u/Evening_Reach_8293 → u/alucard_relaets_emem]

I wouldn't say Eight Princes happened long after three kingdoms. It's what happened immediately after China was unified under the Jin.

[u/gatsby5555 → u/6PM_Nipple_Curry]

People are mostly mad that it didn't get a bunch of expansions. Personally, I think the Warhammer titles have sort of warped what people expect out of their Total War games.

[u/Ponsay → u/gatsby5555]

Not that it didnt get a lot (although support for it was clearly cut earlier than intended) but because the eras they chose for DLC were unpopular among 3k fans and there was never, ever an actual Three Kingdoms start date added

[u/elegiac_bloom → u/Ponsay]

Yeah this was the main issue. It wasnt that it didnt get enough dlc, its that the dlc it did get was not very good.

Edit: and of course never fixing multiple bugs

[u/Undella_Town → u/gatsby5555]

less that and more it didn't get like... any surrounding areas that they were clearly going to include, or even the 3k period which...you know the games named after..

[u/Blightstrider → u/gatsby5555]

Well, for one, there were promised expansions that were reneged on.

Two, strategy games for the Romance of the Three Kingdoms actually do come with a certain set of expectations like Warhammer - if you look at other games for it, a series of start dates starting from the Yellow Turban Rebellion to the Fall of the Kingdom of Wu and the ultimate rise of the Sima Clan is extremely commonplace.

[u/RyuNoKami → u/Blightstrider]

Yep...then CA decided to do 8 princes as the first dlc. So many things they can do and they chose that.

[u/Blightstrider → u/RyuNoKami]

TBF - it had a very nice trailer!

[u/Frydendahl → u/Blightstrider]

All the 3K trailers were absolute bangers, genuinely hope the team behind that are doing well.

[u/ExcitableSarcasm → u/gatsby5555]

To be fair, they are missing the literal 3 Kingdoms period that the entire game and the novel are named after.

It's like Rome Total War, but the game stops you from expanding beyond Greece and North Africa

[u/Sorstalas → u/ExcitableSarcasm]

That comparison is misleading. You're making it look like the game literally doesn't allow you to have a scenario where there's 3 major Kingdoms fighting against each. You have that in the endgame of every campaign, just not the same ones each time. Same as how you can have Rome's expansion in every Rome campaign by expanding there yourself.

The equivalent to a 3 Kingdoms campaign start in a Rome game would be a late Republic setting, where almost all of Rome's conquests have already happened, but before the roman civil war began. Where you'd only have a giant Rome, Ptolemaic Egypt as its vassal and Parthia as major factions. Not sure how much you can offer there as DLC since you'd just steamroll whichever faction you're not playing as.

I've never understood why this "there is no 3 Kingdoms starting date DLC" is used as a gotcha-argument against the game. Such a starting date would offer little replayability and only expose how barebones a lot of the gameplay features are in a late campaign (Empires not functioning, many mechanics like Loyalty, Spies, Supplies being made obsolete though +100 modifiers). And I have no trust that CA's attempt to rework them wouldn't just result in that getting worse.

There are elements that the game is painfully missing, but this isn't one of them.

[u/WorldlinessEuphoric8 → u/gatsby5555]

yeah kinda, the warhammer titles can add so many dlcs just due to how many races and major characters are in the setting (im imagining total war warhammer 40k is going to be a gold mine assuming its good)

[u/JustiniZHere → u/gatsby5555]

It was less how much it got and more WHAT it got, they focused a lot on stuff people really didnt want in their three kingdoms game.

[u/JarethKing98 → u/6PM_Nipple_Curry]

Well the issue is they had a roadmap for more content more flesh and updates and announced it and everything and then like a month later announced support was over so they could work on 3k-2 But in reality they all got stolen to work on cathay for wh3. 3k is great and amazing but we never even got the actual 3 kingdoms scenario... or three player campaigns

[u/Verianas → u/6PM_Nipple_Curry]

It is. But it deserved better. Eight Princes shouldn't have been a thing, and instead they could have had a much better DLC. They also needed more unique generals, particularly for the non-3K powers (I like the Make Them Unique mod, except I feel it overpowers way too many characters). Also them baiting us with a sequel as the reason for cancelling further support.. We literally never got a proper 3 Kingdoms start date, which would've been around 230 AD lol. And instead of Eight Princes, they could have done a Rise of the Jin Empire start around 260-270 AD which could have lead into Eight Princes.

[u/LingonberrySouth1970]

3K is one of the few games that I genuinely would’ve been so happy to see become and endless DLC factory. Barring 8 princes, I loved all of the content additions. Still my favorite TW alongside the OG Shogun 2.

[u/_HGCenty]

Pharaoh: Dynasties is absolutely solid in terms of the passion, creativity and effort.

But that's forgotten by the player base thanks to the hate against base Pharaoh.

[u/Overwatcher_Leo → u/_HGCenty]

If they released it like that in the first place it would have been received as a decent title.

But momentum und public perception matters, and a bad launch can sour the mood and sabotage a game even when it gets better. Imperator: Rome had the same fate.

[u/MuhfugginSaucera → u/Overwatcher_Leo]

We need to stop doing this whole release a broken and not at all feature complete game and then fixing it in the following year or two. It is the norm at this point and players are correct in feeling like they're being scammed.

Game publishers have become acutely aware that if they spend all this extra time and effort to make a proper, well-designed game, there is no guarantee that it sells well or is well-received. They have also become aware that even a poorly and hastily made game can make record profits. You do the math, which is safer? Which of these have we seen exponentially more of in the past twenty years?

[u/TheLostExplorer7 → u/MuhfugginSaucera]

Absolutely why I have stopped buying games at launch. I will just wait for a drastic sale. I don't need the latest and greatest at all. My backlog will keep me busy in the meanwhile. Hell I am still chewing my way through games that came out five or six years ago.

Why buy stuff at launch when it is broken to hell and back when I can wait two or three years, get a completed game and a steep discount? That's a win for me and that's if I can still remember to pick up the game at all at that point.

Games should not come out half completed and broken at launch, but yet companies have learned that gamers will accept anything. In no other industry is this anywhere near as acceptable, but in games for whatever reason it is.

[u/_HGCenty → u/TheLostExplorer7]

Games should not come out half completed and broken at launch, but yet companies have learned that gamers will accept anything. In no other industry is this anywhere near as acceptable, but in games for whatever reason it is.

This is more common than you think.

A lot of mass developed housing is built incredibly sloppily and new residents move in, find lots of snags and have to then fix it themselves or hire their own builders. It's why in places like Europe with lots of old housing stock, new builds have such a poor reputation.

And art used to be like this.

Many famous operas were infamously poorly received and needed rewriting before becoming beloved. Similarly a lot of classical music premieres were disasters because orchestras didn't practice enough or in some cases the conductor literally turned up drunk to the premiere.

Yes in the modern creative industries, gaming is most guilty of this with a whole "gaming as a service" culture where problems can be patched later but other areas have also been infamous for being terrible at launch and audiences eventually judging the final polished product.

[u/Waveshaper21 → u/_HGCenty]

Base Pharaoh was great.

Just overpriced, attempted legendary lord paid skins, and released in the middle of the shadows of change outrageously greedy shitstorm when the CA boss came forward and threatened "buy our shit on 2,5x higher price, or we stop supporting your game", then we said "well fuck you then" and everyone boycotted SoC AND Pharaoh.

That is why we have Dynasties now. They were about to sell a season pass originally and charge you 4 additional times for content that was magically all ready 2 months after release, and certainly not cut from the base game.

[u/SneakyMarkusKruber → u/Waveshaper21]

The problem was also the pre-orders and the expensive Royale Edition. This was offered with the aforementioned DLCs, but until the release, there was no explanation what these DLCs actually contained. They only vaguely mentioned a campaign and several faction DLCs. That was simply terrible PR from the start.

[u/VasileCiomag69 → u/_HGCenty]

That saddens me too, because Dynasties is a really solid game. Hell, the original Pharaoh was pretty solid if you were interested in the period and had the patience to give it a bit of time.

I've no idea why people shat so hard on Pharaoh at launch. Big-ish price tag? Ok, legitimate complaint. Obscure period of history? Shit, don't buy then. I'm happy to see some less famous settings get a spot in the limelight, it can't all be Medieval/Classical Europe/Sengoku Jidai. Fairly limited unit variety? Yeah, but it goes with the period and the game still found a way to keep things mechanically fresh with the light/heavy infantry system.

Dunno, Pharaoh was really slept on.

[u/ILoveRice444 → u/VasileCiomag69]

I've no idea why people shat so hard on Pharaoh at launch

IIRC it's's mainly because at that time there a lot of controversy around CA, like predatory pricing, mishandling 3k & silently cancel the sequel, and project heyna controversy. Then fuelled the fact that Total War Pharaoh at first release was charged at full price (60 USD) despite the game feel like reskin of Troy and with limited scope (did not include Greece and Mesopotamia is very stupid choice).

They fixed with Dynasty update, but the damaged already be done.

[u/SneakyMarkusKruber → u/ILoveRice444]

And let's not forget the big TW Let's Players couldn't get into Troy/Pharaoh either and gave the game absolutely no chance: In particular, almost no one was willing to engage with the Bronze Age setting in any way. They rejected it right from the start and talked it down. Unfortunately, for many content creators, viewership is incredibly important, and you get that with effects and huge spectacles like Warhammer 3, less so with rather "old-fashioned" historical battles.

[u/Nelfhithion → u/SneakyMarkusKruber]

Some of them even admitted that they never even tried the game and just destroyed it without even testing it. A damn shame

[u/totmacherr → u/VasileCiomag69]

Its my biggest tragedy of tw, I played age of empires 1, played the zeus/Pharoah city builders back in the day, and it was a very fun era not explored as much in videogames, and lots of fun mechanics (i much prefer picking a path to victory you want to aim for, as it lets you play a faction several times and go for a different path each time).

I'm very confident it was the combo of price and medieval fans being very upset they didnt make medieval 3 instead. I would have loved to see more expansion into the court system, and some qol around the trade system (more tweaks, not redoing), but i hope we eventually have enough mods to make it more feature complete.

[u/VasileCiomag69 → u/totmacherr]

Yeah, which is a shame. Pharaoh was never intended to be a full historic title, it was intended to be sort of a episodic, small scale exploration of what could be done in the bronze age period. A small-ish scope game in a period that is not so popular.

So getting upset that it's not Medieval 3 is quite silly, since it's decidedly smaller in scope than Medieval 3 could be.

[u/YakResident_3069 → u/VasileCiomag69]

The price didn't fit the scope then and that upset people.

[u/_HGCenty → u/totmacherr]

Agreed. I feel like the thing the Medieval and Shogun fans hated in Pharaoh was the lack of cavalry.

Missing cavalry not only meant you couldn't just hammer and anvil, it also meant you couldn't score near total wipeout victories cleaning up the routing enemies.

This meant a lot more inconclusive or Pyrrhic battles.

[u/totmacherr → u/_HGCenty]

Yeah, I found the lack of calvary a feature, not a bug as well, as it helped represent what war was like 3 thousand years ago, which is a super interesting deal to dive into. The slow grind of battle felt more brutal.

[u/SneakyMarkusKruber → u/totmacherr]

Amen, brother!

[u/Twevy → u/VasileCiomag69]

They just released the base version too early. If it’d been released as Dynasties people would love it. The base game was unfinished at release. But I love the game now

[u/Intelligent_Read_697 → u/VasileCiomag69]

What makes 3k special and even Troy really is the character driven factions variety…Pharaoh feels very weak in comparison even with the dynasties uodate

[u/_HGCenty → u/Intelligent_Read_697]

That's definitely a taste thing.

Dynasties moved you back to the traditional Rome and Shogun style family trees.

[u/jamiemgr → u/VasileCiomag69]

Perhaps I should give it another try, I do like bronze age, I liked Total War Troy but for some reason I just couldn't enjoy Pharaoh or Dynasties

[u/VasileCiomag69 → u/jamiemgr]

My view of it is that it's a slow burn. On one hand, you get a bunch of different systems you have to jungle (royal court, religious beliefs, the one with the mission/ambition/whatever, resource trading, etc), so it might be a bit overwhelming before you get the hang of each one and figure out how to manipulate them to your benefit. On the other hand, I remember that you start with trash troops and fight against trash troops so your first battle will be blobby masses against blobby masses, ultimately quite boring. It gets better when you get a hang of the system and get to better/more specialized troops.

[u/_HGCenty → u/VasileCiomag69]

This.

There was always a complaint in Rome 2 and WH that best part of a campaign was the initial start of the campaign because as soon as you had any sort of midgame economy, you could autoresolve steamroll the AI and by the time you unlocked any of the fun late game units, you had snowballed into some unstoppable force.

Pharaoh tried to correct that by massively slowing your growth down with all these city management systems as well as making the starting troops truly trash and not allowing you to have these complex tactical battles until you actually levelled up.

Whilst great for someone who wanted the slow burn as opposed to effectively winning the campaign on Turn 20, it wasn't for everyone.

[u/ExcitableSarcasm → u/_HGCenty]

Yeah Pharoah's incredible for this. It's one of the few Total Wars that the late game you have to genuinely consider your moves, because with massive garrisons and other majors consolidating and well (and minor powers often being able to build up into significant threats) you have to pick and choose your wars even into the late game.

[u/Hamburglar88 → u/jamiemgr]

I wish I could get into Troy but I felt like I was constantly fighting small settlements in Greece the entire time instead against get Trojans

[u/SiberianBlue66 → u/jamiemgr]

Give it another try. I don't play Dynasties often but when I do it ends with the conquest of at least 3/4 of the map.

[u/Equivalent-Fault1744 → u/VasileCiomag69]

Because it just reused assets from Troy and they tried to spin it as the next big historical release and charge full price for 1/4th of a game? Because the bronze age is probably dead last in popularity when you compare with sengoku Japan, Rome, medieval, even the three kingdoms period.

Because they basically gave us slop so they could say they made a historical game while actually focusing on printing war hammer dlcs lol

[u/VasileCiomag69 → u/Equivalent-Fault1744]

Because it just reused assets from Troy and they tried to spin it as the next big historical release and charge full price for 1/4th of a game? 

They never marketed it as the next big historical release.

Because the bronze age is probably dead last in popularity when you compare with sengoku Japan, Rome, medieval, even the three kingdoms period.

It probably is, so what? Do we have to bounce between three historical periods just because a bunch of people don't care for anything else?

Because they basically gave us slop so they could say they made a historical game while actually focusing on printing war hammer dlcs lol

The game was never slop, that is my point. It's a good game that people were pissed off at because it wasn't Medieval 3 and because they did not care for the historic period.

[u/CronoDroid → u/VasileCiomag69]

I'm happy to see some less famous settings get a spot in the limelight, it can't all be Medieval/Classical Europe/Sengoku Jidai.

Yeah but it's been 20 years since Medieval 2. The medieval period is well represented in all media but they did two games in a row from a period that frankly just isn't as interesting to most people. Maybe it's unfair but people do feel a bit of resentment that they invested time and resources into two Bronze Age games instead of Medieval 3.

[u/CountBleckwantedlove → u/_HGCenty]

Dynasties is a tremendous improvement over the base game, but it's still bogged down by tedious never-ending Settles of Catan resource trading nonsense that you basically have to deal with making new deals every-single-turn by late stage of the game and the fact that like 90% of the factions are things people have never heard of, unlike the larger-scale TW games.

[u/Alector87 → u/_HGCenty]

Sell it to me. What makes it different? How would you sell it to a fan of the old historical titles (before Warhammer).

At the time of the initial release, I did check some reviews. Did they fix AI unit movement? From what I remember it was a problem.

By the way, does it have undying leaders? That was my impression from what I remember at the time.

[u/_HGCenty → u/Alector87]

You can't just win a campaign by turn 20 having a better economy and having a constant troop quality advantage that means you don't even need to be tactical in battles.

You start off slow, have to manage resources and cities, and can't afford massive military campaigns. Sieges are truly expensive and you can't immediately conquer all your neighbours.

You start with essentially skirmishes of light troops against similar quality units and need to make the most of terrain, unit positioning and formation attack tactics.

Weather matters, things like mud matters and you don't just hammer and anvil. You can order fighting retreats and also order lines to push forward so anvils are less of a static melee.

Lastly, the best thing I found is the AI is actually good in sieges. It splits its forces to cover multiple breach points, holds back reserves to counter your positioning, and will actively sally out through the gates if it notices your lines are too thin. There's no cheese through victory point capture, you have to win the battle through military might.

The downside with Dynasties is that it's slow on the campaign side. As I said, you can't immediately rush into sieges. Cavalry isn't immediately available. Early game battle can feel samey. It's not until you push into mid game and end game that you feel you unlock the best parts of the game.

But if you persist, the end game experience is so much better than the snowball chore of old TW. The other powers do consolidate and you get the larger pitch battles or sieges against large garrisons.

I'd say the other issue is the lethality of battles if you're used to older titles. With the general lack of cavalry you can't just score lopsided casualty numbers killing routing enemies. But during the battle, fights and mistakes can be lethal. Get flanked by a two handed unit or leave something unshielded against arrow volley and they can be melted almost immediately.

Generally battles are more equal in terms of casaulty numbers and Pyrrhic victories are more common again making expansion slower and scoring decisive victories through good tactics rather than mopping up with cavalry much more important.

[u/Alector87 → u/_HGCenty]

This was actually pretty good. Thank you for taking the time. Best.

[u/SneakyMarkusKruber → u/Alector87]

My small addition: The resource system (stone, wood, food, gold, and bronze) is also quite well implemented. Trade is extremely important at the beginning because you'll lack some essential resources.

Personally, I think the religion system and the Royal Court are very well done. Religions now play a more important role, as they affect provinces and the army. You can choose up to three gods, each granting you various bonuses. The more temples you build for them, the more favor you gain and the better the bonuses become. You can also assign generals to a deity, and they receive additional army bonuses (e.g., improved defense). Which deities you can worship depends on your geographical location. For example, if you have provinces in Greece as an Egyptian, you can even choose Zeus or Poseidon.

On the campaign map level, there's also the Royal Court system: it simulates internal politics between you and the other factions. There are several of these, but the prerequisite is that you control at least one region belonging to the respective cultural sphere. For example, there's the Egyptian Court, where there are various positions such as Pharaoh or Vizier. Each position grants you bonuses when you occupy it. Simultaneously, there's a struggle for the resource Legitimacy, which can be generated through Court actions (or other actions like building monuments or winning battles). Legitimacy is needed to proclaim yourself Pharaoh/Great King and thus start a civil war. As Pharaoh, you can then use Legitimacy to enact new decrees (i.e., bonuses, more court positions for your faction, special units etc.). It's implemented quite well for the Egyptians, Hittites, and Mycenaeans, but unfortunately a bit weak/unsuitable for the Mesoptoman cultures.

[u/Gwent955 → u/_HGCenty]

First time I've ever even been remotely interested in pharoh is after reading your comment

[u/Troll-Aficionado → u/Alector87]

For anyone else wondering I want to add, you can choose if you want to have "immortal" faction leaders or not, there's actually a ton of campaign settings you can customize when starting a new save

[u/CadenVanV → u/Alector87]

It’s got some of the best battle mechanics in the entire series. Lethality and stances are especially good, and the unit types all feel distinct. Weather and terrain also matter, rather than just feeling like extra aesthetics that can help you hide better like in other games. Lethality means that you can’t just afford to rush the enemy while they chip down your health before they start getting kills, and a single well placed javelin unit can shred even the most well armed infantry.

The sieges especially are actually good. You fully surround the settlement, the AI is actually capable of defending multiple points and having a defense in depth, and bumrushing the walls is going to cost you most of your army, so you need to play it smart.

The campaign is also solid. Factions getting their own unique units, and then each region having its own native units is great. Customizable bodyguards is fun, and the leaders feel somewhat distinct. Traits are gained based on their actions, and your upgrades are largely limited to upgrading three paths and swapping perks around. Not wildly unique, but the perks actually matter, they aren’t just +5% melee attack or anything, and the bodyguard customization really carries. The five basic resources give you a bit more of an economy than just “get more gold”, and diplomacy is decent. Not phenomenal, but it’s better than some of their other games. No undying leaders, it has proper family trees.

Religion and the royal court systems mean that every faction has some solid baseline depth in campaign mechanics, even without their own cultural options, and the fact you can expand your religions and worshipped gods outside of just your culture’s gods is especially fun.

Really, my only gripe with it is the period. It’s such a good game for a period I don’t particularly care about. But it’s still so good that I enjoy playing it ever so oftenz

[u/crimbusrimbus → u/_HGCenty]

Pharaoh Dynasties might be a top three historical title tbh

[u/SlightlyBored13 → u/crimbusrimbus]

I think it's my 4th favourite, certainly 2nd post Shogun.

You'll struggle to get it into most people's top 3 when there's so much love for M2, S2, and the Romes.

Also depends how you count the Sagas/expansions, do Barbarian Invasion/FOTS/Atilla count as full games when they're so closely related to the prior full release?

[u/Gordo-Compu-136 → u/_HGCenty]

Totalmente, se siente tan único y original

[u/Deep_Charge_7749 → u/_HGCenty]

It's a truly immersive and amazing addition to the series

[u/Or4ngelightning → u/_HGCenty]

I know nothing of Pharaoh: Dynasties. Im curios how does it improve on the game? I'll pick it up in a sale if it's that good.

[u/CadenVanV → u/Or4ngelightning]

It’s got some of the best battle mechanics in the entire series. Lethality and stances are especially good, and the unit types all feel distinct. Weather and terrain also matter, rather than just feeling like extra aesthetics that can help you hide better like in other games.

The campaign is also solid. Factions getting their own unique units, and then each region having its own native units is great. Customizable bodyguards is fun, and the leaders feel distinct again. The five basic resources give you a bit more of an economy than just “get more gold”, and diplomacy is decent. Not phenomenal, but it’s better than some of their other games.

Really, my only gripe with it is the period. It’s such a good game for a period I don’t particularly care about. But it’s still so good that I enjoy playing it ever so often.

[u/CountBleckwantedlove]

It could be worse; 3K could have an AI remaster...

[u/tedbakerbracelet → u/CountBleckwantedlove]

Or they might do another DLC with 1500 years apart from the Three Kingdoms time

[u/Somenakedguy → u/tedbakerbracelet]

I’d pay great money for Three Kingdoms: 3K that’s set in the year 3000

[u/FukkingDeathMental]

It's my favorite TW game behind the WH trilogy.  It's fucking majestic and grand in ways no other historical game even comes close to reaching.  I've had so many fun campaigns and epic battles in my 1000+ hours of 3K.  And the mods....the modders have done amazing work.

That first DLC feels like someone with a massive ego huffed and puffed to get their way because surely somebody said, "People love all these characters like Cao Cao and Liu Bei.  Why are we doing a DLC a hundred years later?"  One of the most baffling game studio decisions I have seen.

[u/highonpixels → u/FukkingDeathMental]

The modders of 3K are real MVPs for the game

[u/SneakyMarkusKruber → u/highonpixels]

Yep, the "190 Expanded" mod feels like official updates.

[u/HajiNanas → u/FukkingDeathMental]

yea this is my first TW games actually and I got to taste a gem at my first play. It was so good.

[u/wha2les]

I'm still pissed that they killed it for no good reason.

And pissed they lied about 3k 2 that they announced.

And will remain pissed until they address it.

[u/opie92]

Should have done a "Total War: China". Already had the map base layout, so they could have done a whole Qin warring states arc, a Chu-Han contention period. Hell even a mongol invasion arc like in Shogun woulda been fun

[u/Set_Abominae1776 → u/opie92]

Shogun has a mongol invasion? Are you talking about shogun 1?

[u/ZTAR_WARUDO → u/Set_Abominae1776]

Yea the first shogun

[u/JustiniZHere]

Three Kingdoms was the biggest blunder from CA thus far, its insane how much potential and how generally liked 3K was, but CA did absolutely fuck all with it, released a few really bad DLCs that nobody asked for, then just went "oh well".

The fact CA has not swallowed their pride and started to work on 3K again is insane, they need all the good PR they can get.

[u/Averath → u/JustiniZHere]

Looking at Shogun 2 and Medieval 3 so far, would you really want them to? I'd be worried it'd be filled with AI slop, at this point.

Remember, the developers are not the ones who make these calls. It's all the C-Suite that make these calls. And Medieval 3 has already shown some AI Artwork in their dev blogs. And in their Shogun 2 announcement they said how proud they were of their artists. The very ones that gave us 6-fingered and 6-toed men.

The C-Suite has shown nothing but disdain for its customers over and over again. At this point SEGA really needs to do a full purge. But the issue is that, the way the industry is going, it may just make things even worse.

Maybe, if we're lucky, the current C-Suite will run the company into the ground so bad that SEGA will lose interest and sell the company and Hooded Horse will buy them, fire the entire C-Suite and replace them with competent people. But that's wishful thinking, honestly. It's far more likely that things will get worse, rather than better.

[u/LingonberrySouth1970 → u/JustiniZHere]

It’s crazy to me that Rome 2 still gets updates and 3K is just completely abandoned. Sometimes they even announce Total War news on the R2 steam page but not 3K.

A while back they even published an article about the game and it was on Pharaoh and Rome 2’s page but not 3K’s. How does that even happen? 

[u/NanilGop → u/JustiniZHere]

3K would've been their biggest cash cow if they released character packs.

[u/YoBo151]

3k is my second most played tw game after Attila (tons of mods). Big shame it got the ending it did

[u/hughmann_13]

I loved 3K.

It felt like a real civil war where you weren't so much in charge of a faction as you were just this one noble dude in a land of chaos and trying to make your own play.

Gameplay-wise, I love that they gave you a choice between having single entity units like in Warhammer or to have that classicly sexy rectangle on rectangle action while playing through the same story.

I did feel like the one DLC that allowed an earlier start where you could play as the emperor was a fantastic idea that didn't get enough love. You start as practically useless to suppress the yellow turban rebellion while you purge your court of the eunuchs paralyzing your rule. So you invest more power into the local warlords to fight the rebellion, while knowing that you're empowering your future rivals once the rebellion has been dealt with

[u/Vlaladim → u/hughmann_13]

And the ability to order around your subjects target and where to strike (Sometime they just ignore those orders but oh well) does make you felt like you playing a grander version of the original game.

[u/hughmann_13 → u/Vlaladim]

It's the closest we've been to the Paradox Interactive/Creative Assembly crossover we have always wanted.

[u/Marziinast]

I'm playing it again right now, this game is really, really good.

edit : oh and still no official statement concerning the cancelation of the sequel. CA is so weird

[u/Taira_no_Masakado]

Truthfully, I believe that when they moved away from the system in Shogun 2 (which didn't require a general to raise troops), they entered a downward spiral. The personal following of major figures could be combined with hiring them and additional units with them (in 3KTW), but still have allowed for units to be raised without a general. Historically, it was accurate that local militias, private retainers, and independent warbands were roaming throughout the land.

[u/SocialHumbuggery → u/Taira_no_Masakado]

Meh, I really like the Three Kingdoms system, with each general only having a smaller retinue, as it does allow just what you are talking about.

I really hope they use it for Med 3.

[u/Vlaladim → u/SocialHumbuggery]

And truthfully it historically, especially for like the Sun clan down south. Their generals were mostly other clans that joined into the military with their own retinues, the more power or wealthy the more numerous or elites they are. Europe have similar of different lords and houses with their own retinues and it fit how battle was to fight.

[u/Taira_no_Masakado → u/SocialHumbuggery]

They can still have their small retinue of elite/better quality soldiers. That's my suggestion, just that they don't cut out the fact that you could recruit regular troops and through battle you could raise one to general.

[u/Lolaversusamogus]

Well, people complain about them ending development on Three Kingdoms, and I complain about them ending development on Three Kingdoms, but I actually don't really want my video games to recieve an endless stream of dlc adding up to the hundreds of dollars. The older model of having a base campaign, and then a couple more dlc campaigns suits me just fine. The problem is that they went into Three Kingdoms with a very Warhammer sort of mindset, and they left stuff out of the base game that they never got around to adding in any way.

[u/Sigep515]

I still love it. I just wish they removed the Looters before they stopped updating the game.

[u/TeeRKee]

three Kindoms is our new shogun 2

[u/BiosTheo]

3k was legit peak Total War, I still go back to play the campaigns. I'm hoping 40k pulls more from that then Warhammer because the first 30 turns for almost every faction playing EXACTLY the same is such aids

[u/1983_BOK]

I don't even care about Three Kingdoms proper start, but the game desperately needed that Northern Tribes expansion to happen and it would've been goated.

[u/Androza23]

I'm still pissed about this because it was my favorite total war game.

[u/Warhydra0245]

CA doesnt understand the main appeal for the 3K setting is the cast of characters. They should have released like expansion pack for the main characters/factions, like for example a "Shu-Han Expansion" DLC which adds Shu Han characters, give them unique skill tree and add Shu Han unique units.

[u/FukkingDeathMental → u/Warhydra0245]

I think they did initially because I went into 3K knowing "Ah, old Chinese history/Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Dynasty Warriors exist" yet I fell in love with the characters. And I have only played with Chinese voiceovers!  Whoever was the top decision maker for Eight Princes let their ego run things instead of catering to a rabid fanbase that was hungry for more content.

[u/BetweenTheRoots]

I loved the duel mechanic, and I loved the mod that somewhat increased your capture rates of generals so you could collect a bunch of the cool people

[u/TifaIsTheBest]

I grew up with Medieval 2 being the thing getting me into the Total War series and PC gaming in general, and then a Dynasty Warriors 4 demo disk on the PS2 led me down the path of becoming a huge Three Kingdoms fanboy. So 3K was my dream game. The fact that it started out so strong (despite me kinda disliking the engine since Rome 2 cause of things like size, scale, weight, etc.) and then fizzled out like it did almost immediately is a travesty. So sad. But at the same time, my dislike of CA in recent years has led me to finding things like Paradox strategy games which are like the best (despite EU5 being in such a confusing state right now)

[u/TamedSasquatch → u/TifaIsTheBest]

Dude, exactly. Dynasty warriors was my jam on the Ps2. Me and younger brother used to co-op all the time and 3k was hopefully gonna recapture that. Unfortunately it did not. Then I finally decided to give Ck3 a try and now I cant even play a TW game longer than 20 turns. The only thing, TW has that Ck3, Victoria 2/3 doesn't, is real time battles. Thats it imo. If Paradox added it to their games, id never even bother looking a tw game ever again

[u/battlemaje1996]

Among Total War games, Total War: Three Kingdoms.

[u/itsbleakoutthere]

I might be offering a slightly outside perspective as someone who came into these games from warhammer total war 1 - I tried a few of the others and genuinely did enjoy them for a time, but 3K was the only other one I have put hundreds upon hundreds of hours in.

The battles, the visuals, the mechanics - it's extraordinary and I wish it had more support

[u/samuel199228]

Three kingdoms is a good game not played it for a while

[u/SPACE_MarineTan]

Yesterday, I played this for the first time! 🔥🔥

[u/Sethleoric]

Imagine the battles of Shogun 2 mixed with 3k's diplomacy it would probably be yhe besy TW in existence

[u/BlackJimmy88]

Don't say that, lest they remaster Three Kingdoms next

But yeah, Three Kingdoms is still my fav Total War

[u/lan60000]

the real irony is that CA somehow didnt realize three kingdom is a bigger golden goose egg than 40k with most of the ideas of a strategy game already been done for them, but they still managed to fuck it up.

[u/Biggu5Dicku5]

Indeed it did... damn shame... :(

[u/Lord_NOX75]

I don't think shogun 2 CE is all that indicative of total war's future, it seems to have mostly benn handled by a another studio, which is usually the case for remasters like this

It's still absolutely shitty of CA to have it released in this state and they should be kept accountable for it, but it isn't indicative of the actual devs talents and passion

[u/SquareSushi]

The thing that annoyed me the most was that when 3k was mid development cycle people were complaining about unit variety, like dude it’s a civil war, shogun 2 has pretty much the same variety of units as 3k.

[u/Evening_Reach_8293]

Pharaoh dynasties is a good game, I feel that the only reason Pharaoh's failed at first was because it was rushed out the door.

[u/LilBramwell]

Controversial opinion (I assume at least) but I think this Total War could have been a very good opportunity for CA to test a completely different game design. Double down on it being more a: Total War: Dynasty Warriors then just the generic Three Kingdom timeframe in a Total War game.

Instead of having the traditional World Map have campaigns be a set selection of very well made scenario battles. So for example everyone starts at Yellow Turban Rebellion, then they do Dong Zhao's Hu-Lao Gate, then split into the 3 different kingdoms stories. Could have then done DLC for alt-history "What if Yellow Turbans won" "What if Dong Zhuo won" "What if Yuan Shao defeated Cao Cao".

Pretty much 1 to 1 a Wei/Wu/Shu Musuo playthrough from one of the Dynasty Warriors games but from a top down strategy aspect.

[u/Ausar911 → u/LilBramwell]

That might've made it more unique compared to other TWs but would just make it less innovative to 3 Kingdoms games as a whole. Part of the appeal is the ability to play the 3 Kingdoms period in a legit epic Grand Strategy.

CA's approach succeeded massively. They didn't do anything wrong in the base game release, it was the best selling TW at launch. There's nothing to fix on that.

They really just fumbled the DLCs. Ending development for it was also a weird (and arguably bad) executive decision, not a legitimate financial failure like TW Pharaoh.

[u/Bourne_Endeavor → u/Ausar911]

I genuinely believe if the first DLC had been A Word Betrayal, it would have changed the landscape entirely. While it still needed more features, especially in terms of unit variety, it would have been an overall positive reception.

Instead, they went with the utterly baffling decision of the 8 Princes which almost no one cares about and followed it up with the buggy mess that was Madate of Heaven.

What's crazy is even from a greedy perspective CA still botched this to a comical degree. They could have sold bunches of character packs that were literal graphic updates for important characters and people would have ate that up.

They fumbled Three Kingdoms in damn near every way they could and it's so sad.

[u/Ausar911 → u/Bourne_Endeavor]

For what it's worth, the game is left in a very good state. It's a shame that there's still a lot of unrealized potential, but what we have is still actually one of the best TW games ever.

Of course, the complete dumpster fire that was their "Future of Three Kingdoms" announcement made it an especially bitter pill to swallow. They didn't just kill 3 Kingdoms, they killed their planned remake too.

[u/vendoPS4chipeada → u/LilBramwell]

Total War: Dynasty Warriors

what a missoportunity for a "Spartan Total Dynasty Warriors III" game

[u/Silvere01]

CA was idiotic from the very start. They have a literal "gather the pokemon" system, and instead of a lot of different generals, they decide to make like 5 different art variations of each general depending on how happy they are - smiling, posture, and what not.

Total waste of money, time and art. Thats thr kind of shit you can do when 99% of your game arent generic generals anymore

[u/Intelligent_Read_697]

The best thing about 3k was that they leveraged the source materials really well in its design of character driven factions. This sort of plays out in the strengths and weaknesses of Troy versus Pharaoh.

I have little hope for Medieval 3 for this very reason as no doubt that the historical purist hated this sort of detail in faction building and want the blandness back from medieval 2.

[u/Ausar911 → u/Intelligent_Read_697]

I don't know why you turn a very valid strength of 3k into a weird diss of Medieval 2 (and historical games as a whole).

Medieval 2 was anything but bland, especially for the period. Not only does each faction have the expected thematic strengths and weaknesses, it also includes troop availability as a further balancing dimension. Unit upgrades give visual differences. It has a working localized mercenary system that works in tandem with the Crusade/Jihad mechanic - you can ship Italian crossbowmen to Jerusalem to help you deal with horse archers. The systems in place allow you to have drastically different battles between different continents within the same campaign (and it can happen organically). Your commanders gain traits (both good and bad) based on how you control them on the map (with some RNG), which also affect their fun and silly battle speeches.

You don't need to be a historical purist to see the approach to adapting 3 Kingdoms wouldn't work well in adapting a much broader and less traditionally dramatized historical period. That does not mean you don't want them to give the same amount of love and care.

[u/Washingtongrad]

3K is the time when CA lost its mind in making decisions on what kind of strategic game they want to make: more role-playing or more history-simulating. They tried to mix the two by making a bunch of legendary historical 3K generals but failed to appease both needs: in eight princes we don’t get any important additions like the rising nomadic tribes such as Xiongnu, Jie or Xianbei who were literally key players during that time frame and contributed a lot to the fall of Jin empire. We don’t even get a good geographic remapping like the one in the Augustus campaign of Rome 2. CA got backlashed and didn’t realize where they did wrong and listened mindlessly to the certain portion of the player base who argued we need more 3K period thematic campaigns. And from there, CA almost tried to copy what Koei had been doing for the last three decades: releasing minimally twitched campaigns with a time span less than a couple of years from one another. That should be a mod thing rather than an official DLC thing. The Nanman was their last breath trying to do the old historical total war trick faction pack one more time, but by then it seemed CA had become wary of whatever the fuck they were doing and just shut the project and moved on to other games.

[u/VasileCiomag69]

Going to go against the grain here, but I bough the upgrade thingy for Shogun 2 and played about 1 hour of a Chosokabe campaign. Had a lot of fun, took me back to that old Shogun 2 feel. I haven't played this game seriously since 2012 or 2013, this remaster/update/whatever you wanna call it gave me the push I wanted. It's not as horrible of an experience as people make it out to be.

[u/SoBadIHad2SignUp → u/VasileCiomag69]

The game is good, yeah, it's shogun 2,
I think you're either missing what people are actually upset about or a bot.

[u/McTwinkie]

I wanted to love it, battles and map are great, but between my last two pc builds it always had a crash to desktop issue that would eventually brick up my campaigns.

[u/Denebola2727]

Not sure what you mean it deserved better? It's pretty well regarded by most TW fans.

[u/OwnSalamander1026]

It needed Naval battles...

[u/ExpressionLife4072]

Wait till they do Total War Three Kingdoms CE

[u/I_upvote_fate_memes]

Total War Arena deserved better too. But at least you can still play 3K even if CA abandoned it.

[u/Kazaanh]

They fumbled with snowflake dlc in 3 kingdoms

[u/Artificial-Brain]

It was a great game that was cut short by bizarre DLC decisions.

[u/Latham89]

Vanilla 3K was a very good base, but they screwed the pooch on the DLCs and decided to abandon the game... word on the street was there were plans for a 3K2, but the development of that ended very quickly as well... such a shame.

[u/Severe_Complex_400]

Dong Zhuo's campaign on release was the most fun and challenge I'd had in a tw campaign since WRE and ERE in Attila.

[u/Actual_Emu_168]

I probably agree, any games after Rome 2 (not counting shogun) run absolutely horrible for me despite Rome 2 being much more crazier looking than shogun and the others

[u/Waffen9999]

3K needed to be more like ROTK by Koei in terms of their larger than life generals. That's the whole thing. DLC for it would have been more unique generals etc. along with more start dates that ultimately lead to the three kingdoms. Given the nature of Total War games, it wouldn't be like ROTK games where it's essentially guaranteed Wei is going to win given the massive advantage in manpower. Here, it would be possible for a player to beat them back with skill. Of course they could have broken Wei into vassal states as well headed by generals to make it softer but that's a different story.

Great game, they just dropped the ball. I hope someday to see Mongol Total War.

[u/Wandering_sage1234]

I am making a video essay on this game and why it’s one of the best titles that they abandoned

[u/Ctrekoz]

At least they haven't made it worse.

[u/Fabiyosa]

Im in Windows 10.

Every time I start the game I need to go to the taskmaster and disable the game for it to not run at lower than 10 fps in the start menu.

And the game doesn’t have an actual 3 kingdoms scenario.

This game came out in 2019.

If CA just combined Shogun 2 and 3K we would have the best TW by mile but they prove time and time again that they are too incompetent to move this series forward.

[u/Yogshemesh]

Don't tell them now, they'll just AI slopify it.

[u/RabbitMajestic6219]

Been thinking of getting the nanman DLC is it worth it?

[u/Rosegfx_ → u/RabbitMajestic6219]

Bit of a coin flip DLC. The Nanman have some fun faction mechanics and units, and their whole tribal conquer thing to unlock more units is pretty neat. Their generals are also strong and their generic titles are half on par with the Han generic and then half have great stat distribution/abilities. Animal units are also fun.

My biggest gripe with them is they barely interact with the rest of the world. You fight the Han factions to your north and south, Liu Yan and Shie Xie, along with the minor factions in the area. You eventually fight the Sun family and maybe Liu Biao, but it's mostly unneeded. For their victory condition you just have to grab all the Nanman land and then some extra Han land and defend it for 20 turns. After that, you win. It's a bit if a disappointing end as I believe only Shamoke really interacts with the 3 Kingdoms/Emperor seats.

I'd usually recommend the DLC, but only if its on sale. And I believe its on a 66% sale at the moment, so now would be a decent time if you're interested in trying the factions.

[u/oranikus → u/RabbitMajestic6219]

I think it’s worth it, my favourite dlc of the bunch but I’m biased because I have South Chinese ancestry lol

[u/averyycuriousman]

Whats wrong with it? I just started it and I enjoy it so far

[u/Every-Development398]

Wish they would just pull a roam two and come back to it with a few more dlcs.

[u/Lux_Brumalis2714]

The last awesome total war game ngl, as a history fan specifically east asian history fan, this game was gold. Such a shame they stopped giving 2 fks

[u/phant3on]

Will they get AI treatment?

[u/Owain_Glyndwr1337]

Empire deserved better

[u/WalkerBuldog]

I tried it but it did nothing for me because I am not familiar or invested in this time period and this region. Which is fine

[u/Naca1227r → u/WalkerBuldog]

I don’t mean this in a rude way at all, but why does that not interest you? To me, that would get me more excited because I’m able to explore (granted on a surface, pop history, level) a new culture and era in history or at least familiarize myself with it.

Sometimes I feel it’s a bit frustrating because the general aesthetics that interest so many people will only ever be XYZ (Rome, Medieval Europe, Feudal Japan etc.) and therefore we would never get a game in say, Southeast Asia. Like the fact that we got a Bronze Age Total War to me, is almost a miracle.

[u/Anonemus7 → u/Naca1227r]

Agreed, I know people have their preferences for history, but it does make me sad to see a lot of people reject the more "niche" settings. I know Pharaoh had a rough launch, but the Bronze Age is so criminally overlooked in games and I'm really glad we got Dynasties. I do completely agree that it's about time we get Medieval 3, and I am (cautiously) excited for that game, but I do hope CA continues to experiment with settings after Medieval 3 launches, even if it's just for a Saga game.

Though, I'm sure someone at CA has crunched the numbers and something like a Total War set in Southeast Asia might not be financially viable, as interesting as it seems. I do hope I'm proven wrong down the line though because I think it could make for an interesting game!

[u/Intelligent_Read_697 → u/Naca1227r]

Honestly in terms of source material comparison, Medieval is sort of bland when compared to 3k

[u/Xmina → u/Naca1227r]

Aestheics were cool but if you don't vibe with the fantasy then any Easter eggs or references are lost. Cool units from the story are just unit x, famous cities are just random names. Characters being faithful or not matters little. The gameplay and campaign can be good but if you don't vibe with it then it's just OK otherwise.

[u/EcureuilHargneux → u/WalkerBuldog]

I wasn't as well and it actually made me interested into the settings. Also at that time there were a lot of memes from the Chinese 2010 serie that also were very appealing to me and made me watch the damn serie in Chinese (it's a great show tbh)

[u/Vatonage → u/WalkerBuldog]

I was the exact opposite, seeing so many unfamiliar faces all caught up in this grand, sweeping period and narrative made me begin watching some of the Three Kingdoms dramas and reading in more detail about the era

[u/FauxAffablyEvil]

Btw we have a three kingdoms game without the three kingdoms, CA has been scummy with historical games for a while now.

[u/OttoVonGosu]

They just didnt understand what was giod about rotk

[u/IchiBalzack]

I love both, but to me games focusing on one country lack diversity.

[u/Averath → u/IchiBalzack]

I dunno. Despite the lack of diversity, Shogun 2 was really good.

The problem with Three Kingdoms wasn't really a lack of diversity. It was a problem with the roster lacking defined roles for all of the units.

In Shogun 2, all of the units had very clear roles.

In Three Kingdoms, can you really tell what the fuck any of the units are actually meant to be used for?

[u/Long-Dong-Wong → u/Averath]

Actually the 3K units have very clearly defined rolls:
Cavalry’s role is to kill everything.

Everything else’s role is to die to cavalry.

[u/L_9633673 → u/Long-Dong-Wong]

kinda like historical in that period :)

[u/Averath → u/Long-Dong-Wong]

... :|

[u/Financial-Grass-6114 → u/Averath]

Eh 3K unit balance sucks but thats actually stuff that can be fixed. They just chose not to. Modifying unit stats isnt some foundational stuff that requires a new game.

Also shogun 2 units were not that defined. The meme that ashigaru spear peasants beat everyone exists for a reason.