New Historical total war era - Total War: Three Kingdoms!

[PikeStance]

I am not sure of the purpose of the most recent "game-play" video except to show the "hero dueling" crap. I am sure the "arcadists" will love the feature. However, I am glad there is a "historical mode" to play. I am not interested in reenacting cheesy Chinese movies.

[REhorror]

Well, this is 3 Kingdoms and the vast majority of people know it via the Romance.

I'm sure people here love history and all, but this is ultimately a video game, CA ought to go where the main audience is. I even think that they should scrap the classic mode altogether and add in Romance things like the wooden automaton used by Kong Ming for logistics purpose.

Otherwise, I'm kinda impressed that big huge city siege is back (WaWa1 siege scenes were very underwhelming) and hero duel (which I think is necessary for the sword age Total War), everything else looks kinda meh and washed out.

[PikeStance]

I lived and studies Chinese history and I know it through historical record. I would say the "vast majority" would have no knowledge of Chinese history much less know anything of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Moreover, the Chinese do not study their history as you might think. They may know of the stories, but they would be stories. It would not be history.

The only time I have seen generals fight like one man armies is in Chinese movies. My favorite is when they guy fights with a baby on his back.
Moreover, how silly will those duels become after fighting them for a while. The exchanges would become repetitive and boring like the little dues who clash when initiate a battle/ auto resolve them.

[REhorror]

And? The vast majority really don't give a damn about the true version, if you tell them Guan Yu wasn't really using that halberd and Liu Bei was an opportunist and Cao Cao was actually just a politician trying to keep a dying empire together, they would say whatever floats your boat man, because the general story stays the same, just more entertaining to listen too.

You might find Romance to be cheesy and fantastical but that's what people grow up with. A big part with why hero duel is popular is because the TV producers can show the choreography, and that's lesser budget than full troop charging.

And come on, a lot of Hollywood movies have hero duel, from LOTR to that Troy movie, and nowadays Games of Throne for the same reasons. If they ever wind up making Troy: Total War or Arthurian: Total War (I think Neocone actually made two games based on that premise), I think a lot more westerners would relate because while that one is based on history, it would be completely boring if they do it "historically accurate" and ignore stuff like hero duel or legendary weapon.

[zoner16]

I lived and studies Chinese history and I know it through historical record. I would say the "vast majority" would have no knowledge of Chinese history much less know anything of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Moreover, the Chinese do not study their history as you might think. They may know of the stories, but they would be stories. It would not be history.

It's basically impossible to grow up anywhere in East Asia and not know a good chunk of the Romance. Most are taught parts or all of it in school, and then it's basically omnipresent in popular media like movies, books, and TV shows.

Most know that "it's not history," but only a subset actually know what the real history is.

Moreover, how silly will those duels become after fighting them for a while. The exchanges would become repetitive and boring like the little dues who clash when initiate a battle/ auto resolve them.

As long as we don't have to watch them up close every single time and can just leave them fighting while we command the rest of the battle, it's fine by me.

[herne_the _hunter]

Let's see some footage of classic mode before passing any judgement on it all Am not averse to the Romance mode i'll play in classic but the Ingrish accents of the protagonists are naff. I would rather hear people speaking Chinse and reading the subtitles. In Shogun 2 we had the generals speeches in Japonese and subtitles. Ok the advisor/ aide de camp speaking in the Japonese form of Ingrish but the rest made up for it.

[REhorror]

The voice acting is hilarious, it's straight outta Dynasty Warriors and old school dubbing, which makes it awfully fitting.

[zoner16]

I hope there's an option for Chinese audio with English everything else.

[PikeStance]

And? The vast majority really don't give a damn about the true version, if you tell them Guan Yu wasn't really using that halberd and Liu Bei was an opportunist and Cao Cao was actually just a politician trying to keep a dying empire together, they would say whatever floats your boat man, because the general story stays the same, just more entertaining to listen too.

You might find Romance to be cheesy and fantastical but that's what people grow up with. A big part with why hero duel is popular is because the TV producers can show the choreography, and that's lesser budget than full troop charging.

And come on, a lot of Hollywood movies have hero duel, from LOTR to that Troy movie, and nowadays Games of Throne for the same reasons. If they ever wind up making Troy: Total War or Arthurian: Total War (I think Neocone actually made two games based on that premise), I think a lot more westerners would relate because while that one is based on history, it would be completely boring if they do it "historically accurate" and ignore stuff like hero duel or legendary weapon.

It's basically impossible to grow up anywhere in East Asia and not know a good chunk of the Romance. Most are taught parts or all of it in school, and then it's basically omnipresent in popular media like movies, books, and TV shows.
Most know that "it's not history," but only a subset actually know what the real history is.

As long as we don't have to watch them up close every single time and can just leave them fighting while we command the rest of the battle, it's fine by me.

Where you are getting this from? My wife is Chinese and I have taught Chinese students. I can say with absolute certainty that the Chinese do not focus historical study on (in the words of my wife) "old stuff." They study late Qing, WW2, and founding of the modern state. They know very little of the "Romance." In fact, the only "story" my wife mentioned to me is the Monkey King.

TV shows in China deals almost exclusively with modern relationship. There are occasionally historical period shows, but mostly within the Qing period. These shows also deal with interpersonal relationships. I did watch a rather interesting movie about the Concubines of the Emperor. Vicious women to say the least. This is funny, I watch I think a 1930/40 film about the Civil War. All the roles were played by kids. I id you not (no pun intended). Too funny. Anyway, fighting scenes tends to be highly fantasy based. They fly around like Peter Pan.

Let's see some footage of classic mode before passing any judgement on it all Am not averse to the Romance mode i'll play in classic but the Ingrish accents of the protagonists are naff. I would rather hear people speaking Chinse and reading the subtitles. In Shogun 2 we had the generals speeches in Japonese and subtitles. Ok the advisor/ aide de camp speaking in the Japonese form of Ingrish but the rest made up for it.

I think they were only showing some for the troops and the Hero fighting business. The audio was reused. I suspect that the advisers will have a Chinese accent with some Chinese words like S2TW.
Based on the trailer, i would say they have not worked on much except the silly hero duels.

[druchii7]

And come on, a lot of Hollywood movies have hero duel, from LOTR to that Troy movie, and nowadays Games of Throne for the same reasons. If they ever wind up making Troy: Total War or Arthurian: Total War (I think Neocone actually made two games based on that premise), I think a lot more westerners would relate because while that one is based on history, it would be completely boring if they do it "historically accurate" and ignore stuff like hero duel or legendary weapon.

The key is, ok if they want to release 3K or Arthur TW, etc, that's interesting as a fantasy or hybrid title, but for historical titles I don't want any of those. I'll likely never play TW warhammer even if it was only 10$/€, as I'm not interested. I could get hybrid title such as 3k, but only if it has an enormous discount. I want my historical titles untouched by novels nor tales.

[zoner16]

Where you are getting this from? My wife is Chinese and I have taught Chinese students. I can say with absolute certainty that the Chinese do not focus historical study on (in the words of my wife) "old stuff." They study late Qing, WW2, and founding of the modern state. They know very little of the "Romance." In fact, the only "story" my wife mentioned to me is the Monkey King.

TV shows in China deals almost exclusively with modern relationship. There are occasionally historical period shows, but mostly within the Qing period. These shows also deal with interpersonal relationships. I did watch a rather interesting movie about the Concubines of the Emperor. Vicious women to say the least. This is funny, I watch I think a 1930/40 film about the Civil War. All the roles were played by kids. I id you not (no pun intended). Too funny. Anyway, fighting scenes tends to be highly fantasy based. They fly around like Peter Pan.

Grew up in the region and have a lot of Chinese friends from there both back then and ones I met later. Most are familiar with the more famous stories of the Romance because most get some amount of classical literature study. The Romance is like Shakespeare in that regard, where most don't know all of it, but they know the big, famous points that get referenced over and over.

In regards to its media footprint, perhaps "omnipresent" was the wrong word to use. I just recall seeing a lot of advertisements for books on the period in bookstores when I was in China in 2016, and I was told by my Chinese friends that the Three Kingdoms TV shows were really popular and The Advisors Alliance about Sima Yi was basically mainstream.

Based on the trailer, i would say they have not worked on much except the silly hero duels.

The gameplay trailer had a semi-functional battle with several different troop types, formations and unit abilities, parts of the siege mechanics, and functional (if awful looking) animations. So I'd say the battles are probably nearing alpha. No idea about the campaign.

[Daruwind]

Total War : Three Kingdoms segment planned on Gamespot E3 Live June 14th at 9:20 am PST so stay tuned for more info probably..

https://www.gamespot.com/e3/schedule...rce=reddit.com

[perifanosEllinas]

New interview with the devs. The big news from this is that they confirm there will be 11 playable factions at release.



Well, I do exactly what everyone here says I'm supposed to do to make the video work, but no matter what I do the videos just refuse to work, so here is the link.

[Daruwind]

[YOU_TUBE]DXyuZssxJik[/YOU_TUBE] without these _

[zoner16]

So the statement that the factions are very different and are geographically distributed all over the place, yet are not "culturally different" makes me think we won't be getting playable factions that aren't part of the empire at launch. I realize that the threshold for "culturally different" could be anything, and calling the people of the northern frontier of the empire culturally the same as anyone south of the Yangtze is silly, but it's just my interpretation of the intent of the statement.

With that in mind, my guess for the playable factions would probably be along the lines of the following:

The three "main" warlords who either form one of the three kingdoms or whose offspring do:

• Cao Cao
• Liu Bei
• Sun Jian

The two Yuans, who are just too powerful and important to history to NOT have in. They were essentially the two favorites to reestablish the empire until their subordinates and allies turned on them:

• Yuan Shao
• Yuan Shu

The northeastern warlords on the edge of the Manchurian/Korean frontier respectively (no relation):

• Gongsun Zan
• Gongsun Du

The Xiliang faction in the northwest, in and around the Hexi corridor:

• Ma Teng

The governors of the southernmost provinces:

• Liu Biao
• Either Liu Yan or Shi Xie

Then of course the tyrant faction in the capitol:

• Dong Zhuo/Lu Bu

This should give a good spread of factions throughout the empire with access to different kinds of troops both native and foreign, hitting most of the big names of the period without clustering everyone in the Hebei/Henan area.

I've seen a bunch of people say that Dong Zhuo and Lu Bu may have separate factions, and I disagree mostly because given that Lu Bu is Dong Zhuo's adopted son, if Dong Zhuo dies (probably by making the right decisions for a assassination plot event chain), by Total War family tree mechanics and the new Guanxi system, the mess that the faction was in politically would be replicated a lot better if Lu Bu was fully part of the faction and able to trigger a civil war.

[Huberto]

Just noticed that Simon Mann, lead battle designer for Warhammer, is now lead designer for Total War 3k. Makes sense given what we’ve seen so far. Listened to the interview where Mann and Gaspar were gushing about John Woo’s Red Cliff as their inspiration for TW:3K. Was the movie historically accurate in any way? According to r/AskHistorians the answer is a thousand times no. “Watch for a fun time but don’t expect to learn anything historical.”

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

My immediate impression is that they view this as the generic Chinese title that they have always been asked to make. They chose Three Kingdoms to make it closer to Warhammer and because the period clearly has a market in Asia and in the West (as Koei has proven for two decades).

Also Jesus Christ they are citing novels???
If they wanted an edgier version of the history they could have just checked the Cao Man Zuan. Even in that historical source, it is hard to separate the facts from the (anti-Cao) propaganda.

[druchii7]

The friendly or unfriendly relationship between characters sounds interesting. It's the only interesting new feature to me, but at least there's one. No interest on talking about classic mode... again.

[perifanosEllinas]

Another interview with the devs. A lot of focus on characters in this one.

[skillfultree]

mods will fix it