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

[zoner16]

Extreme unit sizes have been revealed.

240 men in infantry units. 60 men in cavalry.

[Huberto]

Extreme unit sizes have been revealed.

240 men in infantry units. 60 men in cavalry.

This is better, smaller than I'd hoped for, but an improvement. For some reason however, the battles still seem small to my eyes. The AI still seems pretty dumb too. Someone was joking that CA was in the process of gradually removing all the units from TW so it could just become a battle between heroes.

I've been playing DeI and had this a Rome v. Syracuse battle last night where the AI manuvered for a long time in front of me trying to find my flanks, while wrecking many of my units with 10 minutes of their missle superiority. They didn't rush in and blob and get flanked. I think it was mostly accidental - they moved around because it was lightly forested and they we're trying to find all of my army, but it was thrilling to see. Imagine an AI programmed to take different approaches to battle!

[NostalgiaFan]

Well I have to applaud CA for finally increasing the size of units being 240 again(tho that number is anything but extreme when it was in Rome 1 and Shogun 2 so it should really be standard huge) since it shows they at least listen to fan concerns, but as Huberto said the battles do not feel large enough still and I think that has to do with the graphics. Since Rome 2 it seems any time you zoom out the units keep looking like tiny black ants compared to older games like Med 2 which despite it's lesser graphics at least made the battles look fine from a birds eye view because of how clear it is especially on higher settings. 3K seems to still suffer from this problem which is why it's higher than average unit scale does not look as cool as it could.

Also the way units seem to just die way too quickly in battle to the point 240 men can be taken down to just 70 from two artillery strikes is going to suck with how short and uneventful "extreme" unit scale will be if they don't fix that. And why are Cavalry units still only 60? they should at least be 120 to match infantry unless they are going to make cavalry overpowered in a time when it should not be or it will get destroyed too easily with it's small unit size.

[zoner16]

Well I have to applaud CA for finally increasing the size of units being 240 again(tho that number is anything but extreme when it was in Rome 1 and Shogun 2 so it should really be standard huge) since it shows they at least listen to fan concerns,

It was only standard in Rome 1 for pikemen. Everyone else had something less than that, sometimes less than half that. Shogun 2's units standard size maxed out at 200 for Ashigaru. So as far as standard sizes go, this is the largest we've ever had.

but as Huberto said the battles do not feel large enough still and I think that has to do with the graphics. Since Rome 2 it seems any time you zoom out the units keep looking like tiny black ants compared to older games like Med 2 which despite it's lesser graphics at least made the battles look fine from a birds eye view because of how clear it is especially on higher settings. 3K seems to still suffer from this problem which is why it's higher than average unit scale does not look as cool as it could.

Part of it's the camera, and part of it's the amount of other graphical stuff that's going on. You can zoom out far more than you've been able to in the past, which makes things seem smaller. The amount of graphical effects and post-processing going on also forces some compromises on distant objects, which still technically look better on a model by model basis, but will blend in a lot more just due to the amount of stuff muddling up the admittedly rather generous draw distance.

Also the way units seem to just die way too quickly in battle to the point 240 men can be taken down to just 70 from two artillery strikes is going to suck with how short and uneventful "extreme" unit scale will be if they don't fix that.

It's more a testament to how absurdly overpowered artillery is right now. Those counterweight trebuchets are hitting the face of the wall and killing the men on top because I guess physic just don't work when dealing with anachronistic meme artillery. One wonders just how much more long and interesting the battles could be if they just removed those nonsensical units.

And why are Cavalry units still only 60? they should at least be 120 to match infantry unless they are going to make cavalry overpowered in a time when it should not be or it will get destroyed too easily with it's small unit size.

Cavalry at 60 is a bit smaller than some, but it is consistent at 25% of the infantry, and given how powerful cav are, I don't think they need the manpower advantage as well. Cavalry were sort of overpowered in this time period.

[Daruwind]

It was only standard in Rome 1 for pikemen. Everyone else had something less than that, sometimes less than half that. Shogun 2's units standard size maxed out at 200 for Ashigaru. So as far as standard sizes go, this is the largest we've ever had.

Shogun 2 - Ikko Ikki Ashigaru are also 240 men per unit
https://www.honga.net/totalwar/shogu...garu_Ikko_Ikki
But this is nitpicking, generally you are right. Such men count is usually rare for a few units in whole game at all... 200 was max in Empire, 160 for Napoleon..

[PikeStance]

One must hope that they spent the time to work out all of the pathfinding issues that will accompany larger sizes.

[NostalgiaFan]

It was only standard in Rome 1 for pikemen.

Wrong, Roman First cohorts, Barbarian warband, along with plenty of others had 240.

Shogun 2's units standard size maxed out at 200 for Ashigaru. So as far as standard sizes go, this is the largest we've ever had.

Not for the Ikkō-ikki so again wrong.

Part of it's the camera, and part of it's the amount of other graphical stuff that's going on. You can zoom out far more than you've been able to in the past, which makes things seem smaller. The amount of graphical effects and post-processing going on also forces some compromises on distant objects, which still technically look better on a model by model basis, but will blend in a lot more just due to the amount of stuff muddling up the admittedly rather generous draw distance.

So once again graphics engine not up to snuff.

It's more a testament to how absurdly overpowered artillery is right now. Those counterweight trebuchets are hitting the face of the wall and killing the men on top because I guess physic just don't work when dealing with anachronistic meme artillery. One wonders just how much more long and interesting the battles could be if they just removed those nonsensical units.

Just goes along with my point and if this is for the "classic mode" it only enforces the idea that it was just a tacked on feature.

Cavalry at 60 is a bit smaller than some, but it is consistent at 25% of the infantry, and given how powerful cav are, I don't think they need the manpower advantage as well. Cavalry were sort of overpowered in this time period.

Based on what? Last I heard Cavalry were anything but overpowered especially if they were lighter units. I really doubt they should be powerful enough to take on 240 men with just 60 horsemen, even less so if they were spear men or pikemen.

[zoner16]

Wrong, Roman First cohorts, Barbarian warband, along with plenty of others had 240.

Not for the Ikkō-ikki so again wrong.

Yes, my mistake, didn't double check my facts on exceptions, but as a baseline unit size, this is the largest we've had, as Daru pointed out.

So once again graphics engine not up to snuff.

It's more of a side effect of a bunch of different graphics things that usually help the rendering when objects are in the foreground. Again, the camera being able to see that far forces some compromises. In the old games and on lower graphics settings, distant objects just revert to blocky almost sprite-esque rendering. Certain graphics effects will instead smooth it out, which is easier on the eyes and much better for the graphics card but does make large groups of similar objects difficult to define when in the distance.

Just goes along with my point and if this is for the "classic mode" it only enforces the idea that it was just a tacked on feature.

It's really not a Romance/Records thing. I can't recall trebuchets even being mentioned in the Romance. There's no mode where artillery should be this overpowered. Apparently the AOE splash damage being that extreme was a bug, so we'll see going forward.

My main issue is that bringing just two units of Trebuchets completely invalidated using the wall as a defense (and they only used half their ammo), so I'm currently under the impression that the omnipresent Trebuchets are a deliberate addition to give new players an "I win" button for siege assaults in case they get frustrated. Again, this wouldn't make sense for either mode.

Based on what? Last I heard Cavalry were anything but overpowered especially if they were lighter units. I really doubt they should be powerful enough to take on 240 men with just 60 horsemen, even less so if they were spear men or pikemen.

They pretty decisively wrecked a lot of units in Records mode of the past few streams, and were at the point where they were completely destroying low tier units in shieldwall as well. So long as they get the charge off, they seem to be pretty strong.

The militia tier "mounted infantry" units probably shouldn't be that powerful, and could stand to be of larger size, but I doubt it's going to affect much.

[Seether]

They pretty decisively wrecked a lot of units in Records mode of the past few streams, and were at the point where they were completely destroying low tier units in shieldwall as well. So long as they get the charge off, they seem to be pretty strong.

I think he's saying that cavalry shouldn't be able to wreck units as they do in the game. Chinese cavalry at this time were pretty light and lacked stirrups - not until the later parts of the Three Kingdoms period do we start to see true heavy/shock cavalry emerge.

[Incendio]

Sorry if this is a very basic question but my apologies I am not following discussions of Three Kingdoms Total War at this moment. Will this game have any historical battles or any kind of battle scenarios such as Empire, Napoleon, Shogun 2, ...?

[zoner16]

I think he's saying that cavalry shouldn't be able to wreck units as they do in the game. Chinese cavalry at this time were pretty light and lacked stirrups - not until the later parts of the Three Kingdoms period do we start to see true heavy/shock cavalry emerge.

Cavalry was being used for shock purposes at least as early as Jieqiao (193AD), and there's evidence that Later Han professional cavalrymen went into battle in standard armor, not as light troops. By the Guandu campaign (200AD), we know of the existence of metal horse armor, and Guan Yu's little stunt at Boma during that is what Rafe uses as evidence for that while the shock impact wasn't as great as it might've been with stirrups, cavalry was being moved into a shock role by this point, only requiring an experienced rider who knew how to keep their balance. The account of the battles at Nanpi (205AD) and Huayin (211AD) seem to imply that the Tiger and Leopard cavalry were meant for this kind of thing.

I'd say its probable that while we don't have concrete archaeological evidence of stirrups for another hundred years, the hypothesis that either stirrups or some kind of precursor had been making the rounds among elite cavalry units by the onset of the Jian'an period is credible.

Certainly militia and maybe even mid tier horsemen should fill a more "mounted infantry" role with considerably less charge impact. Their current performance is probably tuned in the wrong direction, though I don't think we've seen them fight things higher than militia tier much yet, so it's hard to say for certain.

Sorry if this is a very basic question but my apologies I am not following discussions of Three Kingdoms Total War at this moment. Will this game have any historical battles or any kind of battle scenarios such as Empire, Napoleon, Shogun 2, ...?

Yes. So far, the confirmed battles are: Xiapi, Changban, and Chibi

[NostalgiaFan]

Yes, my mistake, didn't double check my facts on exceptions, but as a baseline unit size, this is the largest we've had, as Daru pointed out.

It's not as you have already been shown. Pikemen and Warband were common infantry units.

It's more of a side effect of a bunch of different graphics things that usually help the rendering when objects are in the foreground. Again, the camera being able to see that far forces some compromises. In the old games and on lower graphics settings, distant objects just revert to blocky almost sprite-esque rendering. Certain graphics effects will instead smooth it out, which is easier on the eyes and much better for the graphics card but does make large groups of similar objects difficult to define when in the distance.

This is an excuse because even when we see things from a view that was more on Med 2's it still looks like a bunch of black spots. These are official videos released by CA so they are on a higher graphics setting than normal so it only further proves why this engine is not up to snuff.

It's really not a Romance/Records thing. I can't recall trebuchets even being mentioned in the Romance. There's no mode where artillery should be this overpowered. Apparently the AOE splash damage being that extreme was a bug, so we'll see going forward.

My main issue is that bringing just two units of Trebuchets completely invalidated using the wall as a defense (and they only used half their ammo), so I'm currently under the impression that the omnipresent Trebuchets are a deliberate addition to give new players an "I win" button for siege assaults in case they get frustrated. Again, this wouldn't make sense for either mode.

The fact that we are only 2 months away from release and we already could have these bugs and unbalanced artillery and units shown in official videos like this only gives bad implications for it's release.

They pretty decisively wrecked a lot of units in Records mode of the past few streams, and were at the point where they were completely destroying low tier units in shieldwall as well. So long as they get the charge off, they seem to be pretty strong.

Except that does not answer my question of how were cavalry anywhere near as overpowered in the 3 kingdoms era as they are in this game. And why is there a "shield wall" in a game on China? I don't remember that being a formation used in this time and place.

The militia tier "mounted infantry" units probably shouldn't be that powerful, and could stand to be of larger size, but I doubt it's going to affect much.

It should since light cavalry should have no business beating a mass of spearmen and pikemen with only 60 men in total.

[NostalgiaFan]

Cavalry was being used for shock purposes at least as early as Jieqiao (193AD), and there's evidence that Later Han professional cavalrymen went into battle in standard armor, not as light troops. By the Guandu campaign (200AD), we know of the existence of metal horse armor, and Guan Yu's little stunt at Boma during that is what Rafe uses as evidence for that while the shock impact wasn't as great as it might've been with stirrups, cavalry was being moved into a shock role by this point, only requiring an experienced rider who knew how to keep their balance. The account of the battles at Nanpi (205AD) and Huayin (211AD) seem to imply that the Tiger and Leopard cavalry were meant for this kind of thing.

I'd say its probable that while we don't have concrete archaeological evidence of stirrups for another hundred years, the hypothesis that either stirrups or some kind of precursor had been making the rounds among elite cavalry units by the onset of the Jian'an period is credible.

Certainly militia and maybe even mid tier horsemen should fill a more "mounted infantry" role with considerably less charge impact. Their current performance is probably tuned in the wrong direction, though I don't think we've seen them fight things higher than militia tier much yet, so it's hard to say for certain.

"Shock" is the key word here, if cavalry was meant more as a force to strike quickly and decisively to attack a unit in it's flanks and rout it I would understand since that was the original purpose of cavalry in antiquity with few exceptions, even than it would make more sense for them to be filled with more horsemen because that kind of cavalry would die quickly in battle if they stayed too long.

Cavalry that was capable of fighting in close combat and winning still on the other hand was rare as hell and more suited for cataphract types in this period, not until very late antiquity and the middle ages we would see cav usually be strong enough to handle themselves in combat like knights and others of the period, and unless the cavalry unit is heavily armored like that I see no reason they should be strong enough to beat a mass of infantry units with spears and pikes on their own if they only have 60 men in total. That should only be for the most armored and elite horsemen in an army, not medium shock cav and even less for light cav.

[Incendio]

Yes. So far, the confirmed battles are: Xiapi, Changban, and Chibi

Thank you, I will not be able to play them but I can't wait to see youtube videos of these battles. Does someone know how many soldiers were common in battles of this period?

[zoner16]

It's not as you have already been shown. Pikemen and Warband were common infantry units.

That's not what I'm referring to. 240 men as standard is the highest there's been. "Standard" is the key word here because it refers to the majority of units. Which means that either all infantry or at least very close will be at least 240 men.

This is an excuse because even when we see things from a view that was more on Med 2's it still looks like a bunch of black spots. These are official videos released by CA so they are on a higher graphics setting than normal so it only further proves why this engine is not up to snuff.

I honestly don't see that. Things only look like ants when they're in the distance and the depth of field takes charge to blur distant objects. Otherwise, it's usually the anti-aliasing and additional lighting/shadow effects that tend to give foreground objects a "darker" shade than they did in the older games, but they're all perfectly defineable. I can see why you wouldn't like it if you were in to the older style that prioritized the sharpness, to the point of reducing the definition of out of focus objects rather than interpolating, but it has very little to do with the game engine not being up to the task. It's just a different direction.

The fact that we are only 2 months away from release and we already could have these bugs and unbalanced artillery and units shown in official videos like this only gives bad implications for it's release.

Live build means things being worked on and changed constantly. Bugs can crop up from basically everything that you do when programming. A fix for one thing might break another. Something as isolated as an AOE effect bug is basically expected. What would be of greater concern is if entire subsystems were not interacting properly.

This, of course, is also true in the reverse. A game that looks perfectly fine in preview builds can easily be broken before launch if the wrong tweaks are made (and things are always being tweaked). This is why pre-ordering is always a bad idea if you want to ensure quality.

Except that does not answer my question of how were cavalry anywhere near as overpowered in the 3 kingdoms era as they are in this game.

It should since light cavalry should have no business beating a mass of spearmen and pikemen with only 60 men in total.

"Shock" is the key word here, if cavalry was meant more as a force to strike quickly and decisively to attack a unit in it's flanks and rout it I would understand since that was the original purpose of cavalry in antiquity with few exceptions, even than it would make more sense for them to be filled with more horsemen because that kind of cavalry would die quickly in battle if they stayed too long.

Cavalry that was capable of fighting in close combat and winning still on the other hand was rare as hell and more suited for cataphract types in this period, not until very late antiquity and the middle ages we would see cav usually be strong enough to handle themselves in combat like knights and others of the period, and unless the cavalry unit is heavily armored like that I see no reason they should be strong enough to beat a mass of infantry units with spears and pikes on their own if they only have 60 men in total. That should only be for the most armored and elite horsemen in an army, not medium shock cav and even less for light cav.

If the men are not in good formation, there's nothing particularly stopping the horsemen from running over them. If the infantry was solidly formed and of good discipline, then the cavalry would have to rely on the actual force of impact and the actual combat, but otherwise, the psychological and physical shock could easily disrupt an enemy formation and then run down the disorganized troops. A spear is not some anti-cavalry "I win" button, and usually requires a large amount of them steadily deployed to fully deter a cavalry charge, otherwise, they'll just exploit the gaps and run down everyone. Given how much the armies of the Jian'an period relied on conscripts and irregulars, this kind of steel was in short supply until much later.

The description of Jieqiao makes it clear that Gongsun Zan expected his cavalry to win frontally quite easily, and the fact that specialized tactics had evolved in the west particularly to counter this kind of tactic implies that by the end of Later Han, it was a known and used battlefield role for cavalry. Since much of the fighting post Warring States/Chu-Han Contention had been against much less rigidly formed tribal and rebel armies, there was plenty of opportunity for those who would eventually lead armies in this era to get used to this method of fighting.

So while its exaggerated in the physics and animation in game right now, I can't say that the general ideas is off until I see some more matchups between different tiers of units, because the majority of what we've seen is cavalry running over militia.

And why is there a "shield wall" in a game on China? I don't remember that being a formation used in this time and place.

The use of interlocked shields as cover is attested to from at least the Warring State era. Possibly sooner, but the region it spread from in the south is one we have less records from. It was never called "shield-wall" but the general idea was the same. In the later combined arms formations at the end of the Warring States and into the Qin and Former Han eras, they were less a standalone formation and instead made up the front ranks in front of men with long spears who would stab over or between the gaps. The best example is again, Jieqiao, where Qu Yi's men hid behind great shields while the White Horse Righteous Followers were shooting at them.

Thank you, I will not be able to play them but I can't wait to see youtube videos of these battles. Does someone know how many soldiers were common in battles of this period?

Depends on how much you believe the sources, and it also depends on what you mean by "Battle." A lot of what people will commonly call a "Battle" was in reality a campaign made up of multiple battles in a large theater. In most cases, you'd see most individual engagements peak out at about 40,000-50,000 men actually fighting in one area, with others either just in the vicinity or fighting in a different engagement nearby. Many actual battles were only a few thousand men strong a piece. The campaigns could have anywhere from a few tens of thousands to well over 200,000 men deployed throughout a theater on a single side.

[Anna_Gein]

240 for infantry is still too small imo.

I play R2 with a x2 unit size mod I did for myself. It means infantry is usually 320 strong, skirmishers are 240 strong and cavalry is 160 strong. Imo it is the minimum I need to enjoy TW battles. I did a similar mod for Warhammer 2. It made the battles so much more fun. Especially as Warhammer have larger units in vanilla.

[AHumpierRogue]

I'm satisfied with 240 infantry personally, that seems more than big enough but I do feel cavalry should have 80 models instead, rather than 60(and 60 rather than 40 on Ultra) but at a slight cost to their performance individually to compensate.

[Intranetusa]

What do you mean by baseline? Is 240 the "standard" size for most units while there are units larger than 240?

[Intranetusa]

The "lighter" cavalry in the video shouldn't have defeated the braced spearmen. However, the this era did have heavy cavalry and did have armored shock cavalry. Armor for horses (at least partial armor) have existed since Zhou Dynasty times, there are records for heavy cavalry for the later Han times, there are descriptions for heavy cavalry and sets of horse armor in the records for 3K, and there are archaeological depictions (figurines) of fully armored cataphracts from around the 3rd century.

You don't need stirrups to have shock cavalry. The Persian cataphracts and Macedonian companion cavalry proved that.

[Seether]

You don't need stirrups to have shock cavalry. The Persian cataphracts and Macedonian companion cavalry proved that.

Correct, although stirrups exponentially increases the effectiveness and kinetic energy of the said horse/rider simply by the rider being able to brace, making them true shock cavalry. And, while I don't disagree about the Persians or Macedonians, the vast majority of Chinese cavalry during the early and middle TK period were "light" cavalry - they were not heavily armed, armored, or had horse barding like your Persian or Macedonian examples. While there are a few isolated examples of heavy "shock" cavalry in the early and middle TK period (primarily amongst the warlords of northern China, as zoner noted), it was not until the later end of the era that true shock cavalry emerged (primarily only in Wei/Jin) and became a mainstay of Chinese armies.