At a glance, theTotal Warformula
appears unchanged. On the turn-
based campaign map you guide your
faction’s research, upgrade
settlements with new buildings,
conduct diplomacy, and move armies
around like pawns to capture enemy
settlements. When armies clash, you
can take charge of your forces in
huge real-time battles set in gorgeous
battlefields. However, after a few
turns, I discover that there is a lot
more to think about. How do I keep
Lü Bu’s arrogance in check? How can
I negotiate safe passage for my
armies with a nearby warlord, so I
can crush an uprising of the yellow
turban rebellion? How do I hold off
the remnants of the Han dynasty and
their allies to the east and the south?The alliances of the era are so
tumultuous that Creative Assembly
has had to rebuild Total War’s entire
diplomacy and AI system almost
from scratch. In addition to typical
military alliances you can form
coalitions that don’t tie you into
complete military co-operation.
There are different flavours of
vassalage too, and many new ways to
undermine and betray other
warlords. The diplomacy screen lets
you trade goods, alliances, military
access and treasures in a detailed
tit-for-tat exchange. For a few turns
of my game several warlords
approached me about acquiring a
lovely clay bear I managed to
plunder. I gave it away for a series of
regular payments and put the money
into trebuchets.
“The previous system in previous
titles was a little bit too old now,” says
associate designer Nicholas Graber.
“We applied so many patches, so
many improvements, we basically
wanted to rewrite it.
“So we have a new diplomacy
system which is supported by a
mostly data-driven AI. It makes
development much easier and faster
as well. Apart from, obviously,offering a lot more options, it gives us
a lot more flexibility. We can come up
with new diplomatic options and
implement them much quicker.”
It might seem odd to bring a
strong diplomatic focus to a game
called ‘Total War’, but Three
Kingdoms is interested in different
notions of how power really works.
For Dong Zhou, it’s bullish
authoritarianism, backed up by
military might. But if you play as Cao
Cao you’re a master of manipulation.
You can turn heroes in other factions
against one another, and specialise in
using spies to create civil wars. Some
warlords are good at bringing people
together in alliances, which becomes
useful later in the campaign as
warlords ally to form huge factions.ZERO TO HERO
Your goal is to ultimately unify China
under your warlord’s banner, but in
this period China is shattered into
fragments of territory. Historically, a
period of fierce localised scrapping
led to the emergence of the three
kingdoms: Wei, Wu and Shu. The
leading figures of the period were
captured in Luo Guanzhong’s epic
14th-century novel, Romance of the
Three Kingdoms. This is the version
of the history we see featured most
often in games. Total War: Three
Kingdoms aims to strike a balance
between Romance and history with
characters that are powerful, but notncient ina is a most t e
perfect setting for a Total War game,
in a lot of ways,” says writer and
narrative designer Peter Stewart,
“because of the scope of the whole
thing. 30 million people died over the
course of it, and when you’re making
a game about war, that’s seems like a
perfect setting.
“And then there are the characters
as well, who all step into this vacuum
of power that’s created when the Han
dynasty collapses, which is exactly
what we wanted to focus on: how
those characters defined the era.”
Heroes have personality traits and
they can form relationships with
other heroes they fight alongside (orBELOW: Dong Zhou
here, demanding that
someone
immediately bring
him a sandwich.T
he Three Kingdoms campaign is set
in ancient China, 190 AD. The Han
dynasty has collapsed and Dong
Zhou has captured the child
emperor. Now the warlord lurks in
the palace, bullying anyone who
stands against him. Every cruel
overlord needs a Darth Vader, so Dong Zhou convinces
the greatest warrior in the land, Lü Bu, to slay his own
foster father and become Dong’s enforcer and heir. The
resulting family dynamic is... difficult.Total War: Three Kingdoms
COVER FEATURE
“A N C I E N T C H I NA
IS ALMOST THE
PERFECT SETTING
FOR TOTAL WAR”