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.
At a glance, the Total War formula
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
flavors 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. SomeW GAMES PREVIEW
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 not
outright magical.
“Ancient China is almost the 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 exactlycharacters defined the era.”
Heroes have personality traits, and
they can form relationships with other
heroes they fight alongside (or against)
in battle. In time disagreements can
become outright rivalries and heroes can
defect to join another faction or create
their own. The devs say that you will
probably be able to let lesser heroes go,
but betrayal from major characters in
your faction — heirs, and others who
hold titles — may prove devastating to
your campaign. The relationship system
works in the other direction, too. If two
best friends go into battle and one of
them dies, the other may fly into a rage
for the rest of the fight, and enter a
period of mourning after the battle.
You even build armies around your
heroes. You can have three in an army,
each taking a retinue of up to six unitsAncient China is
almost the perfect setting
for Total War.