Total War: Three Kingdoms Discussion Thread

[Ranbir]

the story events seem to come with very little conditional stuff, like, i'll recruit zhuge liang if i click "yes follow the story", even if my faction isn't even in the location where its supposed to take place.

Rather underwhelming given very little context exists for these events to even happen. Why did I randomly get Xu Shu and why did the mom event come up even though in this play I'm not an enemy of Cao Cao. Very weird!

Also not a fan that running away from a duel means total removal from the field of battle. Should be able to do multiple duels. Also don't rely on historical knowledge and assume Guan Yu will be an amazing duelling, apparently he's not given the class they gave him.

[Sakae Wu]

I'm a bit worried about Lu Su, who has high Satisfaction but personally dislikes Sun Jian and Cheng Pu. Hopefully Lu Fan or another good Wu strategist (I saw Lu Fan appear in a Sun Jian stream, he's pretty good but it might be random) shows up as a strategist (I imagine Zhou Yu is probably going to show up at some point, like how Liu Bei apparently has first dibs on Zhuge Liang).

Has Sun Ce come of age in your game yet? Hopefully Zhou Yu will show up shortly. I saw one stream where Sun Jian picked up Guo Jia, haven't seen either of the two Zhangs yet.

Interesting to read yours and others play throughs. This will be my first TW game, so I'm not super confident. I"ll try Zheng Jiang first, though it seems she needs to be played quite aggressively.

[Ranbir]

Wouldn't recommend her for a first timer. But you do you and good luck. She's definitely next on my list for that supposed unique banditry.

[Ranbir]

Really weird it doesn't show family relationships for my retainers. Just friends, acquaintances, rivals and oathsworn.

[Gray Riders]

Something a number of players have reported running into I thought I should warn everyone about; it seems upgrading a city's size does not reduce the "overcrowding" public order penalty. In fact since it increases the population cap it might make the problem worse unless you unlocked a slot to put a PO building in. The maximum overcrowding is -30 so it requires a lot of planning to keep a huge metropolis working.

Edit: Apparently this is one of the battle conversations you can get.
https://i.redd.it/wdhifag2m9031.jpg

I checked the localization file, it's not a photoshop. Seems to be Yuan Shao only.

[Ranbir]

CA are never good with balancing city growth and resource management like that. Actually pathetic. Salaries are totally all over the place too.

Ever since they tried to simplify food it became a nightmare balancing act.

I hope for a bug fix patch asap.w

Still same old design issues. If *I* choose a night battle, why would it disable my reinforcements?

[Gray Riders]

I started a second Sun Jian campaign, having figured out basic mechanics from the test run. This time I ignored Jiang Ling early on and went south, and returned the Imperial Seal when Liu Biao contacted me. I did take Jiang Ling later.

I think a lot of which generals show up seems preset? Both my own campaigns and a Sun Jian stream I saw had Lu Fan show up very early. Guo Jia seems to keep popping up for Wu as well.

I'm in a coalition with Yuan Shu, whose been reliable-ish this time--the AI is probably less likely to break coalition than a non-aggression pact since a coalition gives him more protection. He pulled me into a war with Liu Biao that proved profitable; I was able to capture the toolmaker near Xiangyang, and in the peace treaty I offered him a piece of quality armour (from the armour-maker minor settlement) in exchange for a Jade mine near Nanyang. Then I stole the armor back with my spy, Su Fei.
Su Fei was caught, but Liu Biao released him. I'm not positive he isn't a double agent, and haven't decided what to do. If anything goes wrong I'll toss him out.

Almost immediately after this, Cao Cao declared war, possibly because he wanted my new Jade mine. Yuan Shu--being Yuan Shu--refused to help until I paid him. Once I did I asked him to attack Yingchuan to distract Cao Cao while I have a full stack of Guo Jia, Zhou Tai, and a (randomly created, I think) Sentinel attack Chen. I'll have to crush some yellow turbans first but I don't anticipate problems.

Sun Jian, Huang Gai, and Lu Su have conquered a significant portion of the south and are about to grab two abandoned spice traders. We made contact with the Shi clan. I hope to vassalize them once my rank is high enough. They have the Peaceful AI type so I am not anticipating problems.

Zhou Yu joined me in 196 in an event, though I've read people mentioning those events don't always fire (seems like a lot of people have trouble getting Cao Cao's main generals). I think he, Cheng Pu, and Sun Ce will form the core of my third army when I create it but that's a while off.

I'm undecided on weather Sun Jian should conquer more in the south or disband and re-build his army up north to fight Cao Cao, then once I have more money let Sun Ce and Zhou Yu polish off some more southern commandaries. I'm leaning towards letting them do it so they can get some rank increases.

[Ranbir]

First three to reach rank King, conveniently were me(Shu-Han), Wei and Wu. End games time. What's nuts with how the 2hole prestige thing works I've barely maybe secured like 4 commanderies but it's enough to declare me a world therat?

Wu had taken most of the entire south dozens of turns prior but the whole emperor declaration system HAD to wait for 3 people to reach the rank, Wu couldn't declare it any earlier.

Relations have a hard limit so characters give up "family" status if it's the oldest to replace it with a new one like "friend".

Character tracking and information pages are really bad. I'm suddenly seeing some of my generals with the "distant relative" icon but no way to track how that has come to be. Then I'm getting random messages of children being born but again, can't see it anywhere. Some characters are already married but it won't let me know with whom.

[Gray Riders]

Yuan Shao campaign has been more exciting than Sun Jian. Early on Zhang Yan declared war in a shocking historical moment. This gave me two good battles with the Black Mountain bandits, ending in their destruction. I accidentally released Zhang Yan instead of executing him.

I formed a coalition with Liu Bei and Liu Yu, but it turns out Liu Yu is a wet blanket who votes against everything. Cao Cao declared war on me and Bei joined in but not Yu. I want to invite some other members and Yu votes against everyone.

I raised a second semi-army around Yan Liang, Cai Yong, and Han Tong (Han Fu's son, maybe?). Yuan Shao's had a consistent issue with Strategists not getting along with my main generals, and Cai Yong is no exception. He and Yan Liang dislike each other but they both like Han Tong, which I hope will balance out. My finances are weak but should hit the green next turn, and there are two towns I can capture without weakening my defenses. I have a treaty with Zheng Jiang--I do not trust her so I'll give the town bordering her a garrison structure. I also have tons of food so that helps. He Bei is a massive bread basket!

I suspect comparing to my Wu game that getting kills levels generals up faster; Yuan Shao and Wen Chou are leveling up way faster than the Wu guys did and I've been making heavy use of them. So I've started having my strategists chase routers and carry out a few safe charges to try and level them up more.

Can't wait to become a Marquis and start vassalizing everyone.

Edit: Cao Cao brought a full stack to the yellow river to target Henei, but thanks to war coordination Liu Bei destroyed the stack for me. Now Yan Liang's army can start taking some of the Han territories along the Gongsun Zan border while Yuan Shao's main force marches south to politely explain to Cao Cao that I do not appreciate his war declaration.

[Mikhail]

Finally won my first campaign on Hard/Hard with Sun Jian.

It was interesting. Yuan Shao continues to be a power in the North and seems to be nigh unstoppable if left untouched by player interaction. Him making everyone vassals just makes him a hard target to take down because to deal with him, you need to deal with a billion other guys.

The South is uninteresting but safe. It's littered with free Han Dynasty real estate and of course, it's got the abandoned commanderies there which is even safer than taking the Han territory. I had a very similar time going south with Ma Teng so I think it's just the best way to expand if you're just looking to do it with minimal fuss.

The realm divide/end game event is cool. At least it doesn't throw everyone against you (like in Shogun) and can be reasoned with (unlike Archaon's arrival in WH). Plus it makes established powers out of the factions you're already playing against so it kind of feels organic.

I ended my campaign off with an Order 66 style maneuver. Got non-aggression pact with Yuan Shao (who had 2 emperor seats) and kept feeding him ancilleries to keep him happy. Then I got all of my stacks surrounding his 2 emperor seats, immediately declared war, and took both seats in one fell swoop. It was cheap but a win is a win.

I also ended up purchasing the Collectors Edition. Will definitely post pictures when it arrives.

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EDIT

AI Yuan Shao is getting a nerf on the beta patch.
https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-war ... te-2-beta/