Total War: Three Kingdoms Ranking: S
Three Kingdoms is my first Total War game, so I can’t make any comments about how it stacks up in the series. I can tell you that, as someone who read Romance of the Three Kingdoms, this game impressed the hell out of me. The attention to detail is astounding. For the most part, the warlords act the way they were portrayed in the novel – Cao Cao the devious manipulator, Lu Bu the ludicrously strong warrior, Liu Bei the virtuous scion of the Han, etc. Characters in general comprise a large part of the gameplay. Their personalities affect their relationships with the people they work and fight alongside, which impart bonuses or debuffs. I found myself paying attention to even my generic characters, assembling teams that would jive well and lay waste to enemies.
Combat looks amazing. You’ve got large armies with different units clashing and generals dueling it out one-on-one, all on beautiful maps with terrain advantages and disadvantages. You can ambush enemies from the forest. You can lay siege to a city and rain flaming artillery onto the defending peasants. I encourage everyone to zoom in with the camera and see the carnage up-close if you’re winning a battle and it makes no difference whether you’re commanding well or not. Just take the spectacular visuals in.
Let’s get into some negatives. Campaign movement in this game is BS. I’ve had the game decide that my generals need to take 5 turns to move a few inches forward on the campaign map while the enemy runs around with impunity. Chasing the enemy around the campaign map gets really old really fast. Diplomacy also needs some tweaking. I was once best friends with another faction and at war with a third faction. The first faction decided to vassalize the other faction and all of a sudden they hate me because I now had a war with one of their vassals. Speaking of vassalization, the AI vassalizes much easier compared to the player. A game about a bunch of factions all vying against one another feels more like a game where a bunch of factions are all united against you.
Also, remember how character personalities and relationships are important? Cue 2 of my characters, who are best friends, suddenly gain some random traits that make them despise each other. Zheng Jiang and Lu Zheng, sworn sisters, started hating each other at around turn 3 in my campaign. Oh and Zheng Jiang randomly got injured hunting while invading an enemy city so she couldn’t fight in the siege.
Finally, spies are FUCKING USELESS. I don’t know how people have gotten any use out of them. Mine get recruited and defect 10 turns later (but their satisfaction just happens to drop like a rock right AFTER they defect). Every. Time.
So sometimes the game can be infuriating, but the positives unequivocally outweigh the negatives. I recommend Total War: Three Kingdoms with zero qualms.
Three Kingdoms is my first Total War game, so I can’t make any comments about how it stacks up in the series. I can tell you that, as someone who read Romance of the Three Kingdoms, this game impressed the hell out of me. The attention to detail is astounding. For the most part, the warlords act the way they were portrayed in the novel – Cao Cao the devious manipulator, Lu Bu the ludicrously strong warrior, Liu Bei the virtuous scion of the Han, etc. Characters in general comprise a large part of the gameplay. Their personalities affect their relationships with the people they work and fight alongside, which impart bonuses or debuffs. I found myself paying attention to even my generic characters, assembling teams that would jive well and lay waste to enemies.
Combat looks amazing. You’ve got large armies with different units clashing and generals dueling it out one-on-one, all on beautiful maps with terrain advantages and disadvantages. You can ambush enemies from the forest. You can lay siege to a city and rain flaming artillery onto the defending peasants. I encourage everyone to zoom in with the camera and see the carnage up-close if you’re winning a battle and it makes no difference whether you’re commanding well or not. Just take the spectacular visuals in.
Let’s get into some negatives. Campaign movement in this game is BS. I’ve had the game decide that my generals need to take 5 turns to move a few inches forward on the campaign map while the enemy runs around with impunity. Chasing the enemy around the campaign map gets really old really fast. Diplomacy also needs some tweaking. I was once best friends with another faction and at war with a third faction. The first faction decided to vassalize the other faction and all of a sudden they hate me because I now had a war with one of their vassals. Speaking of vassalization, the AI vassalizes much easier compared to the player. A game about a bunch of factions all vying against one another feels more like a game where a bunch of factions are all united against you.
Also, remember how character personalities and relationships are important? Cue 2 of my characters, who are best friends, suddenly gain some random traits that make them despise each other. Zheng Jiang and Lu Zheng, sworn sisters, started hating each other at around turn 3 in my campaign. Oh and Zheng Jiang randomly got injured hunting while invading an enemy city so she couldn’t fight in the siege.
Finally, spies are FUCKING USELESS. I don’t know how people have gotten any use out of them. Mine get recruited and defect 10 turns later (but their satisfaction just happens to drop like a rock right AFTER they defect). Every. Time.
So sometimes the game can be infuriating, but the positives unequivocally outweigh the negatives. I recommend Total War: Three Kingdoms with zero qualms.