These very different characters can make for very different starts-Cao Cao, the suggested beginner's choice, feels more like trad Total War in that you have a decent settlement, an army, and a neighbour to defeat so you can complete your first province (here called a commandery). Some of them are warlords with varying degrees of legitimacy to their attempt to take charge of China, some of them are straight-up bandits, and one of them is Dong Zhuo, a tyrant who begins the campaign with the current child-Emperor as a hostage. Rather than choosing a faction at the start of a campaign you choose an individual leader. Your enemies can even submit themselves to vassalage under your allies as a last-ditch attempt to end wars, forcing you to either give up on your conquest or upset the ally in question. Vassals are an important part of Three Kingdoms, with factions much more eager to suggest handing some of their income over to you in perpetuity, though they may demand a degree of autonomy at the same time. So is the quick deal button, which lets you immediately see who is open to trade or vassalhood or whatever rather than having to scroll down a list. It feels like being part of an exclusive high school clique everyone wants in on but, my god, did you see what Zheng Jiang wore to Brad's party? Request denied.ĭiplomacy has been a weak point for Total War even as other systems have improved, so these are welcome changes. They allow for more than two members as well, so my Confederation to Defeat the Barbarians has new faction leaders lining up to join it on the regular.Įveryone in the coalition gets a vote on who is allowed in, so frequently someone like the bandit queen will rock up to the table and be voted against by a majority even before I get to make a decision, leaving just a button that lets me acknowledge her application while sadly declining it on this occasion.

Between non-aggression pacts and alliances there are coalitions, unions that act as a step along the path to confederation without being guarantees of friendship forever. There's a finer grain to the diplomatic options as well. It's a version of history that's closer to an epic movie, where the broad sweep is familiar but subtleties are ignored whenever they would be inconvenient to the action.

The alternative, Romance Mode, feels like an honest embrace of what Total War has really been all along, though. There's an option to turn some of these things off at the start of a campaign by engaging Records Mode, if you want stamina to play a more important role in unit repositioning or to get rid of the duels and get generals' bodyguards to do most of their fighting instead.

Characters like Cao Cao are cast as devious opera villain masterminds able to manipulate wars into existence at the drop of a hat, when the history books suggest he was a decent ruler and also quite a good poet. Their leaders are larger-than-life figures with complicated backstories and rivalries, who carry legendary spears and are able to defeat entire units single-handed. Soldiers can run around the battlefield seemingly forever without getting tired. Total War: Three Kingdoms embraces the story it's inspired by, Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, rather than strict historical accuracy.

Three kingdoms china