[Total War] "Peace!" "WAR!" "War and Peace." "JUST WAR." "The book, sister."

Frei

So, Three Kingdoms is out. That's pretty cool, huh? Here's a new thread to post in while I hastily throw together some stuff to put in the first post. I know what you're thinking, and yes, I am pathetically proud of myself for that stupid thread title.

So Total War is a strategy game known for its mostly spectacular battle system and usually poor diplomacy system! But Three Kingdoms has good diplomacy. Like, real good! And not in a tedious way! And the battles are good! And you can choose Romance mode which is more of a sandbox where your generals and heroes can have very romantic duels and various more "fantastical" abilities or you can play Records mode which is a Romance mode that tries to follow the history as best it can and also removes a lot of features. But if you like a more down to earth experience, that's the mode for you and you should play it! Both fantasy-ish fans and historically minded fans can have a bit of their cake. Please note that this game has no dragons at all, not even one, so you can't win by making more dragons, so don't try.

Here's the launch trailer!

https://youtu.be/4UhSsPhIpqM

DON'T

TRUST

CAO

CAO

Actually, you probably shouldn't trust anyone, and definitely don't keep anything you find in a well (why were you messing about in a well, anyway?) if someone wants it. Also, some people in your court are spies. I don't know which ones, but at least one is. Probably more. Also, you have spies in other courts but who knows if they'll stay loyal to you if they decide they would make a better lord. So don't trust them, either. Also, your wife is seeming unsatisfied and is pretty mad at you for marrying off her daughters to like, everyone.


If you like elves and stuff, there's Warhammer and Warhammer 2 but you may as well just get Warhammer 2. Are you more of a gun guy? There's one about the Napoleonic Era. There's also Shogun 2 which encompasses a wide array of Japanese history, Empire which is good on paper but sucks, and then of course the older titles like Medieval and Shogun 1 which of course you can play. And then Rome, of course. Rome 2. There's lots, okay? There's lots. They're all good games in their own right but depending on your taste in historical period and/or gameplay preferences, you may prefer one over the other!

Also, here's some dragons and elves I talked about earlier.

https://youtu.be/4h4BI_smKfg

Here's Napoleon giving a great goddamn speech. Also, he was of average height for his time so stop height-shaming him you heartless monsters. Leave Napoleon alone!

https://youtu.be/q7RHiyWHuV0

Here's Shogun 2, showing American gunboat diplomacy at its finest. This is for an expansion to Shogun 2.

https://youtu.be/K7TCFkdFr6g

In more recent news, expansions have been added to Three Kingdoms, they are all worth checking out. Warhammer 2 release both free and paid DLC, new lords and heroes. The latest update includes a rework for Greenskins and their WAAAGH system. Eltharion has a unique and fun mechanic where he captures people and, well, tortures them into teaching him their special abilities, among other things. Imrik is a free lord, and he is ALL ABOUT dragons. Several dragon taming quests, leading you to be able to obtain legendary dragons which makes him the ideal lord for people who, you know, love leaving the battlefield a field of ash.

Jephery

So with the way corruption works, once you get really big it feels like you want to focus your income on developing your administrated commanderies, stacking the corruption reduction from administration and the corruption reducing assignments.

My base corruption in this game is 46%, but I get it down to zero in Jianye which has two mines and is on a river (river cities have an extra commerce income building chain), for 3k income a turn.

Botznoy

Currently Yuan Shao and I are fighting entirely over the Yellow River and if either of us break that'll be it for the game.

KetBra

I'm glad this new entry has been well received, but fairly sad that I will not have access to my gaming PC until like... December.

Kana

You say don't trust Cao Cao, but

"Gentlemen," [Cao Cao] said, "your praise goes beyond the measure. I am but a crude and simple man who began his official career by being cited for filial devotion and integrity. Later on, because of the disorder in the realm, I built a retreat fifty li east of the fief at Qiao, where I wished to devote myself to reading in spring and summer and hunting in autumn and winter until tranquility returned to the world and I could enter public life. Beyond all my expectations the court assigned me to serve as commandant for Military Standards, and so I forsook my life as a recluse and dedicated myself to achieving distinction by punishing the rebels in the Emperor's behalf. If after I die my tombstone reads 'Here Lies the Late Lord Cao, Han General Who Conquers the West,' my lifelong ambition will have been fulfilled.
"Let it be remembered that since bringing Dong Zhuo to justice and rooting out the Yellow Scarves, we have eliminated Yuan Shu, defeated Lu Bu, wiped out Yuan Shao, and won over Liu Biao. Thus peace has been restored in the realm. I have become the Emperor's highest servant, the chief steward of his realm. What greater ambition could I have? If not for me, who knows how many would have declared themselves emperor, or prince of a region?
"There are those who have drawn unwarranted conclusions concerning my power, suspecting me of imperial ambitions. This is preposterous. I remain constantly mindful of Confucius' admiration for King Wen's 'ultimate virtue.' His words burn bright in my heart. I long only to relinquish my armies and return to my fief as lord of Wuping. But practically speaking I cannot; for once I relinquish power, I might be murdered - and that would imperil the house of Han. I cannot expose myself to real dangers for the sake of reputation. So it seems, gentlemen, that not one of you understands my thinking." The officials OP rose as one and made obeisance.

It's not Cao Cao's fault that he's such a devoted servant of the emperor :sad:

Frei

I'm in Romance mode and you're playing in the Records. Get on my level.

(no, I'm just being a goof and RPing like one. I know Cao Cao wasn't actually the villain the Romance made him out to be)

(also, I have spies in your court)

Prisca

Three Kingdoms has been quite fun! it's a return to form for CA, especially as a historical game. I haven't had this much fun since Rome I. Now if only CA would continue to refine the characters in the game, as some famous characters are generic nobodies. If the system can come close to Crusader Kings II, it would be phenomenal.

On a related note - did you guys know there was a 3 kingdoms anime??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_unG6SMXHJg

Jephery

So the change to ambushes is nice, you can let half the army march right on by without revealing yourself, and then engage the half that haven't made it to the extraction point and annihilate them, cutting the army in half without any risk of a pitched battle.

Spectrum

Frei wrote: »

(no, I'm just being a goof and RPing like one. I know Cao Cao wasn't actually the villain the Romance made him out to be)

Shockingly, the real villain and actual eventual winner was the evil vizier Sima Yi. Who could have predicted such a thing?

---

So, any tips on managing satisfaction when people start hitting Level 4? That -36 for wanting higher office is a bit of a bitch. Do you just cycle out losers if you run out of slots or suck it up and start promoting and paying higher salary?

ED!

Han Shot First: "Playing as any faction, someone declares themselves emperor before you."

Olivaw

I’m really looking forward to the mod scene for this game

If only because I can imagine the first thing that people will add is officer artwork for all the characters that don’t have unique art

I for one look forward to the inevitable Dynasty Warriors stuff. Pang Tong will always have that dope hat and veil in my mind!

Red or Alive

I'm trying to get into the first TW: Warhammer (for the umpteenth time) and was wondering if there's a consensus regarding the optimal anti-aliasing technique. I can live with FXAA but it makes the game awfully muddy.

I've got a 1070 with an i7 6700k and 16GB of DDR4, so I'm hoping there's a decent compromise between FXAA and 8x AA that the Geforce Experience tool was recommending me (the difference between both is literally 50 fps, with 8x AA causing the framerate to seesaw between 30 and 55 fps on the benchmark).

The Brayster

I must say, I'm still really enjoying this. I have not stopped playing since it came out.

Notable stories include:

Cao Cao - my first game that I eventually dropped once I figured out what was going on (Like, 50-60 turns in). Pretty true to life overall. Got Chen together than squashed the local Yellow Turbans just in time for Cao Songs murder. I declare war on Tao Qian, who is aided by Liu Bei, but then out of nowhere a full stack led by Lu Bu just charges toward my capital so I have to peace out. Not long after I peace out Liu Bei inherits all of Tao Qians land.

Gongsun Zan: Basically took over everything north of the Yellow River to form the Kingdom of Yan. Ended up stuck in a stalemate over that same river. My elite forces composed of Gongsun Zan, Zhao Yun, Zhang Liao and Sima Yi, staring down the forces of a very powerful Yuan Shu on the other. Fought a couple of battles but once I realised how far away the other two Emperor Seats were I just thought 'Y'know what, I'm kinda done here'.

Liu Bei (ongoing): Mostly standard Liu Bei affair, inherited Tao Qians lands, friendly with Kong Rong yada yada. Managed to wipe out Cao Cao before he got too powerful to handle to form the Kingdom of Shu-Han.

My first story from this was that I had used Xu Shu as a spy against Cao Cao and used him to open the gates at Chen, but he was caught. I then immediately got the event where Xu Shu goes to join Cao Cao to 'save' his mother. By the time I attacked the city I found that the gates had, in fact, been opened, and Xu Shu was the newly appointed commanded of the army there. I managed to capture him post battle and re-hire him, so that there is a happy ending.

My second story involves the fate of Guan Yu. My war against Cao Cao was basically staged with three stacks, each of the Oath Brothers leading one. After Liu Bei and Zhang Fei saw success in the north, Guan Yu, who I had basically holding defence in the south with a slightly weaker army, was moved in with the hope of some easy gains in the south on this tide of victory. He was, however, caught out by an ambush by his nemesis Xiahou Dun. I realised my army was lost regardless, so I spent the entire battle just issuing micro orders to Guan Yu, who managed to kill two other generals and wound Xiahou Dun (again) as well as a large number of enemy soldiers. I still lost, naturally, but Guan Yu survived that, albeit wounded. Fittingly, being on the receiving end of Xiahou Duns wrath earned Guan Yu the 'One-Eyed' trait. Not long after this the Kingdom of Wu declared war out of nowhere, caught Guan Yu off guard while mustering and succeeded in killing him. It was only in that moment that I realised I'd managed to almost perfectly recreate history again.

Last Son

Spectrum wrote: »

Frei wrote: »

(no, I'm just being a goof and RPing like one. I know Cao Cao wasn't actually the villain the Romance made him out to be)

Shockingly, the real villain and actual eventual winner was the evil vizier Sima Yi. Who could have predicted such a thing?

---

So, any tips on managing satisfaction when people start hitting Level 4? That -36 for wanting higher office is a bit of a bitch. Do you just cycle out losers if you run out of slots or suck it up and start promoting and paying higher salary?

Afaik low satisfaction doesn't have any downside until you hit 0, when they will leave, so you just need to keep them above that. There are a lot of ways to manage it though, depending on how much you want to focus on it.

1) Don't hire anyone who has traits that clash with your faction leader.
2) Make sure all the generals in an army like each other(When hiring a new general there will be a green checkmark if they get along with the current generals, a red X if they don't)
3) Stack authority on your faction leader, every ~13 authority gives +1 satisfaction to everyone in the faction.
4) There are reforms in each section of the tree to buff the satisfaction of characters of the same element. There are also two reforms, one blue and one yellow, that give +10 satisfaction to everyone faction wide.
5) Promoting them as you said though that can get expensive. There are reforms in the blue and yellow branches of the tree that lower character salaries if you do go this route though.
6) The yellow section of the reform tree can give you more administrator slots.
7) Look for characters that have the skill that unlocks an assignment called "reward the filial", generally found on blue/green characters iirc. This lets them run an assignment that buffs everyone's satisfaction by +10.

Kruite

One comment on character satisfaction. Clashing traits does not always result in characters hating each other.

Lu Su is the starting strategist for Sun Jian, and they have one trait that clashes. But they are almost oathsworn friends due to their time together.

HamHamJ

You can also give people excess accessories you have lying around for a small boost in satisfaction.

Cantido

Frei wrote: »

DON'T

TRUST

CAO

CAO

stopgap

I bought this game, I managed to hold off for 4 or 5 days, and then I saw everybody playing and now I have a game. Will update with impressions.

HamHamJ

So I routed the enemy army and the only one left was their general who was dueling my general. They were pretty much neck and neck and I was like, should I let this play out? And then I remembered that I am Cao Cao and promptly ordered my units to interrupt at which point Huang Zhong got shot by a ton of archers and died.

Kana

Always trust Cao Cao, he's very trustworthy, as he'll tell you himself, and he should know!
Pursue Lu Bu, you can take him.
Go back for babies.
Never turn down an invitation to go see the Emperor
If the fort looks empty, it's definitely a trick
Hide in dry forests so the enemy's fire arrows can't hit you
Steal the greatest warrior in the realm's girlfriend so everyone will respect you
And then once you get a great team of advisors, sit on your hands and wait for inevitable victory

Kana

In previous Total War games it always kinda felt like once a war started it would just go until one side or the other was destroyed. But like now with Liu Biao I declared war on Yuan Shu, seized his jade mine, and then considered attacking his city. But that battle would've been a really close fight, which I didn't want because I'd be quite vulnerable if I lost, and he didn't want because losing it would've destroyed him. So we simply agreed to peace again.

I like Liu Biao's start, you have two vassals which you can get a lot of use out of, but also all you have is a bit city and some industry, you have to maintain food trade agreements to keep your population fed. Plus since I'm a governor I don't start out at war with Dong Zhuo or the Han Empire, and Dong Zhuo's too close to me for now to risk starting that fight. I'm spending an awful long time staring at the diplomacy screen every turn, figuring out which fights are safe to start and who I need to stay useful to.

HamHamJ

So I've made it to becoming the Duchy of Wei but my problem remains that Dong Min controls the Emperor, and is in a coalition with me, Shu-Han, and Song. And I really don't want to have to fight all three of those at once. I've been trying to use my Credibility to worsen relations between Dong and the rest of the coalition so they will agree to throw him out but it's not really working so far.

Jephery

You can stack redeployment cost reduction to 100% and have 0 cost redeployment. Its amazing for the end game, you can teleport your armies from one side of your empire to the other for free, just need 1 turn for returning to court and 2 for replenishment.

Dongs Galore

Kana wrote: »

In previous Total War games it always kinda felt like once a war started it would just go until one side or the other was destroyed. But like now with Liu Biao I declared war on Yuan Shu, seized his jade mine, and then considered attacking his city. But that battle would've been a really close fight, which I didn't want because I'd be quite vulnerable if I lost, and he didn't want because losing it would've destroyed him. So we simply agreed to peace again.

I like Liu Biao's start, you have two vassals which you can get a lot of use out of, but also all you have is a bit city and some industry, you have to maintain food trade agreements to keep your population fed. Plus since I'm a governor I don't start out at war with Dong Zhuo or the Han Empire, and Dong Zhuo's too close to me for now to risk starting that fight. I'm spending an awful long time staring at the diplomacy screen every turn, figuring out which fights are safe to start and who I need to stay useful to.

My thoughts exactly.

In my last game as Yuan Shu, the Donger declared war on me because I wouldn't give back his lumber yard, and sent Lu Bu with a full stack +1 to do it. I only had about 3/4ths of a stack of low-tier troops + the garrison and could not win in the open field, mostly because Lu Bu is fucking insane, and there were no reinforcements to lift a siege. So as a last ditch effort, I put my field army into ambush on the road, and Lu Bu walked right into it. All of the Yuan household cavalry, led by my daughter, came roaring out of the forest and slammed into the Dong archers at the rear while the infantry threw themselves into blocking positions at the middle of the column.

A few moments later, Lu Bu and his elite cavalry came barreling down the column, butchered my infantry and knocked my daughter's eyeball out while her cavalry fled in terror, but not before the Dong infantry and archers had been cut to pieces. After his costly victory, Lu Bu promptly turned around and withdrew from the province, and Dong Min offered a peace treaty with a small indemnity for my trouble.

It felt like something that you might actually read about on wikipedia, you know? Like, "Tactical Dong victory, Strategic Yuan victory" made possible by a guerrilla action against an overwhelmingly superior force. In an older TW, they would have just come back a few turns later with another doomstack and my desperate victory would have been meaningless.

Dongs Galore

Also, psa: the Chinese VA is better than the english ones, you should switch over in audio settings

Tube

I’m finding the late game (after achieving duke rank) a real slog

Jephery

The final endgame when you're emperor isn't too bad of a slog, since after winning enough battles and taking enough settlements, the rival emperor will agree to abdicate, which will instantly annex them fully.

Jephery

I finished Cao Cao legendary. I didn't know you unlocked playing as Dong Zhuo after your first campaign win. That was a nice surprise.

Bigity

I dunno how you guys even get past 10 turns on legendary.

HamHamJ

So Liu Bei attacked one of my settlements and with so good tactics I've managed to route his armies. Except for Guan Yu. Who is currently taking on the entire garrison and winning.

Edit: Whew, he finally fell.

Bigity

HamHamJ wrote: »

So Liu Bei attacked one of my settlements and with so good tactics I've managed to route his armies. Except for Guan Yu. Who is currently taking on the entire garrison and winning.

I mean he is totally rad. And awesome.

Jephery

Bigity wrote: »

I dunno how you guys even get past 10 turns on legendary.

It takes a lot of tries to get a winning position in the early game. One bad battle will collapse your strength rating and cause the AI to dogpile you, so you have to play every battle and minimize casualties.

Spectrum

Oh Yuan Shao, everyone is memeing about you becoming an unstoppable vassalization machine...

...but you maybe should have waited to wardec me until you had actually started doing any of that.

Welp Han Empire and randos in Central China, you get to live a little longer because someone really overstepped their bounds. Did you really want the rest of Dong commandery that badly?

Tube

Yuan Sho just dissolved our coalition, declared war on me and then declared war on half the map. Wtf bro.

Kana

Jephery wrote: »

Bigity wrote: »

I dunno how you guys even get past 10 turns on legendary.

It takes a lot of tries to get a winning position in the early game. One bad battle will collapse your strength rating and cause the AI to dogpile you, so you have to play every battle and minimize casualties.

Yeah the AI are some cutthroat motherfuckers

Everybody gets packed so close together so quickly that the moment there's blood in the water everyone immediately tries to join in and get their slice

Tube

Jephery wrote: »

The final endgame when you're emperor isn't too bad of a slog, since after winning enough battles and taking enough settlements, the rival emperor will agree to abdicate, which will instantly annex them fully.

I’m approaching being king pretty soon which I guess is the endgame. Right now it’s a huge mess of different alliances to keep track of and a lot of the ai actions seem nonsensical.

Cantido

Liu Bei's camapign is like night and day between Cao Cao. Enemies surrender in terror of Zhang Fei and Guan Yu. Tao Qiao's empire falls in Liu Bei's lap per the story. I can see it embedding Warhammer bad habits because the need for diplomacy seems minimal in the beginning compared to Cao Cao.

As Cao Cao, I have no idea why I'm at war with....fuck I don't even know.

Botznoy

Yuan Shao is down after some insane battles with 10k troops deployed but man fuck his endless nonstop vassal situation

Fencingsax

Tube wrote: »

Jephery wrote: »

The final endgame when you're emperor isn't too bad of a slog, since after winning enough battles and taking enough settlements, the rival emperor will agree to abdicate, which will instantly annex them fully.

I’m approaching being king pretty soon which I guess is the endgame. Right now it’s a huge mess of different alliances to keep track of and a lot of the ai actions seem nonsensical.

I mean, not inaccurate to politics.

Jephery

I'm trying out Gong Du, and having to face Lu Bu is disgusting on romance. Even though I beat him, he still killed near two full units of spears that were helping my generals down him.

Tube

My game has descended into an absolute shit show