Contains very little actual romance
Total War: Three Kingdoms
AFTER THE STRIPPED-BACK nature of
Thrones of Britannia comes the full-fat,
heavyweight, no-holds-barred game.
Three Kingdoms is as expansive as the
name suggests, taking inspiration from a
14th-century historical novel chronicling
the events at the end of the Han dynasty
and the steps toward Chinese unification.
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
novel contains nearly 1,000 characters
and 800,000 words, and it feels like the
game does, too. On the surface is the
classic Total War structure: a turn-based
strategy game in which armies and
generals prowl the map, capturing cities
and building them up, before rooting out
enemies and rebellions, and a real-time
tactical battle game when armies clash.
You’re offered a choice: Do you play
in Records mode, in which generals and
other characters are quite powerful but
need retinues of bodyguards to fight
for them, or Romance mode, in which
generals are supermen, capable of
flattening an entire regiment of archers,
and more politically astute characters
can foment a war out of thin air? Romance
mode feels more like the way the game
is intended to be played, all the playful
manipulations and Tek ken -like one-
on-one battles adding so much to theBattles are huge melees, but
superpowered characters add
visual interest.down with a well-designed army while
your cavalry mop up archers and wheel
around to slam into the back of enemy
infantry. The focus on characters means
the loss of a general is strongly felt,
but it almost seems a shame to send a
regiment after an enemy leader when you
could send one of your own and watch the
fireworks of a duel.
This series constantly evolves,
never afraid to cut back or embrace
new settings. The return to history—
albeit a fictionalized version of it—after
the Warhammer games has led to the
developer throwing everything it can
at Three Kingdoms. It’s a huge game,
completely open-ended, and with enough
starting positions that you’ll need a few
centuries free to complete it. –IAN EVENDENexperience on both maps. How long will
it be before we can take direct control of
our general as he (or she) duels with an
enemy leader, picking up a gamepad to
tap out combos and special moves?
For Warhammer or Britannia veterans,
this is slower, as you spend more time on
the strategy map and in the diplomacy
screens—where a new button works out
what it will take to get what you want from
the other side, removing the need to make
leaps in the dark. Now it’s clear: gold,
trade goods, and a daughter in return for
a defensive alliance? Fine. Just beware
that daughter doesn’t come back in 10
turns as a high-powered enemy general.
The focus on individual characters may
be an even larger change than the return
of the game’s full systems. You’re asked
to choose a character at the beginning,
your choice dictating starting position
and difficulty. From then on, you’re not
fighting other factions as much as other
leaders, looking at their personality traits
along with the disposition of their armies.
Things feel more familiar on the
battlefield. The camera system hasn’t
changed, you still get some time to deploy
before the battle begins, making use of
the terrain, and the enemy AI is still
straightforward enough to bog infantryTotal War: Three Kingdoms
ASPIRANT Sharply rendered
mass battles with eye-catching
character duels.
TYRANT Needs a monster system to play
at 4K at Ultra 60fps.
RECOMMENDED SPECS i5-6600/Ryzen 5
2600X; 8GB RAM; GTX 970/R9 Fury X.
$60, http://www.totalwar.com, ESRB: T8
VERDICT©^SE
GAin the lab
90 MAXIMUMPC SEP 2019 maximumpc.com
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