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

[katsusand]

as portrayed in the books

Citation needed.

And if you think Dynasty Warriors is representative of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, you're dead wrong.

[Goots]

Lets throw in the furious 5 while we're at it..lol

[ggsimmonds]

In the novel, he was pretending to be summoning the wind. When in fact he was predicting the weather.

Either way, it was a fiction. Most of the deeds done by Shu officers were either fictional or done by others, e.g. Liu Bei getting credit for Sun Jian's exploits at HuLao. Zhuge's empty fort strategy was another.

I think it is a reasonable belief that if the game draws on from the novel moreso than history, we should expect fictional units. I wouldn't at all be surprised if Wu gets warrior maiden units lol

One is Western Fantasy, the other Eastern Fantasy. Both are fantasy. It shouldn't offend you that a single warrior couldn't really fight off hordes of soldiers as portrayed in the books and Dynasty Warriors.

Absolutely incorrect. This comment comes off as being from someone whose only experience with the novel comes from the Dynasty Warriors games.

[katsusand]

Either way, it was a fiction. Most of the deeds done by Shu officers were either fictional or done by others, e.g. Liu Bei getting credit for Sun Jian's exploits at HuLao. Zhuge's empty fort strategy was another.

I think it is a reasonable belief that if the game draws on from the novel moreso than history, we should expect fictional units. I wouldn't at all be surprised if Wu gets warrior maiden units lol

Fictional story elements, yeah. Like Character X killed Character Y, and fell in love with Character Z.

But like I said, the warfare itself was realistic. And that's the only thing that matters. We're not gonna play the story, we will make our own story. That's what TW was all about.

[ggsimmonds]

Fictional story elements, yeah. Like Character X killed Character Y, and fell in love with Character Z.

But like I said, the warfare itself was realistic. And that's the only thing that matters. We're not gonna play the story, we will make our own story. That's what TW was all about.

My bad, I misread your earlier post.
You said: "So I doubt we will get unrealistic units."
I thought you said: I doubt we will get fictional units.

My belief is that we will get fictional units inspired by the fictional elements of the novel, but I wouldn't call them unrealistic units (like a character riding in on a dragon)

[katsusand]

My bad, I misread your earlier post.
You said: "So I doubt we will get unrealistic units."
I thought you said: I doubt we will get fictional units.

My belief is that we will get fictional units inspired by the fictional elements of the novel, but I wouldn't call them unrealistic units (like a character riding in on a dragon)

I honestly can't think of a fictional unit they could come up with from the novel.
You say a Warrior Maiden unit, but it's not like that's a new thing in TW... Remember Onna Bushi and the screeching women?

[MrJade]

I honestly can't think of a fictional unit they could come up with from the novel.

So Guan Yu's flight to Liu Bei totally didn't play out that way? Huh.

[ggsimmonds]

I honestly can't think of a fictional unit they could come up with from the novel.
You say a Warrior Maiden unit, but it's not like that's a new thing in TW... Remember Onna Bushi and the screeching women?

Your imagination is lacking then lol. Do you mean a fictional unit that you'd be happy with or any fictional unit?
Warrior maidens -- doesn't matter if its a new idea they use. They could easily read that Lady Sun had 100 armed female servants and say "oh mer god, elite unit for Wu!"
At least that wouldn't lead to unrealistic warfare though. I mean the textures would have boobs, but it wouldn't behave unlike other units. Now if they throw out a Diao Chan inspired unit out there seducing other units that would be a problem.

Or Zhang Fei's hero unit having the special ability to freeze enemy units in place

[MrJade]

Lord, my post got messed up, the quote should be

Absolutely incorrect. This comment comes off as being from someone whose only experience with the novel comes from the Dynasty Warriors games.

So Guan Yu's flight to Liu Bei totally didn't play out that way? Huh.

[ggsimmonds]

Lord, my post got messed up, the quote should be



So Guan Yu's flight to Liu Bei totally didn't play out that way? Huh.

What way? In history it never happened.
Did the events play out differently in the novel than they did in the DW games? Yes.
In the novel Guan Yu did not fight through hordes of soldiers.

[Roma_Victrix]

Pretty ignorant when it comes to Chinese ancient history and the dynasty struggles. Can one expect this to be a similar Shogun-esque type of game?

That's a big no, I think. You're going to see a lot of emphasis on stuff like Chinese crossbows and repeating crossbows, some chariots, as well as pike and halberd tactics and light cavalry used against northern Mongolic steppe nomads, no doubt (if they are wise enough to include the Xiongnu, Xianbei, and the Wuhuan, if not the Sino-Tibetan Qiang people of ancient Gansu, then known as Liang province).

The Chinese market is simply too juicy to just continue to ignore it. Personally, I can't really get started with the scenario, since its an entirely Chinese civil war without foreign involvement. Also too close to the Rome II and Attila timeframe for my taste.

I could be wrong, but I don't think this game will operate much like Rome II or Attila, to be honest, at least not in terms of tactics and unit variety. Also, if they are wise the developers at CA won't just include Chinese armies, but also as I hinted before the northern steppe nomads with tons of horse archers, as well as the hill tribesmen to the south. They could even include the armies of Champa in Vietnam, which had elephant cavalry in later periods (particularly when the Sui Dynasty invaded in the 6th century AD, in conjunction with their Korean fiasco). I'd be pleasantly surprised if they included early Goguryeo, one of the nascent Three Kingdoms of Korea (although at this time the Chinese were still colonizing northern Korea, where they had commanderies established since the 2nd century BC).

I think it would be good if the developers made a unique unit roster for the Tibetan Qiang peoples that overran Liang province to the northwest during the 180s AD, with sporadic rebellion afterwards. In that same token, it would be very shortsighted not to include the Wuhuan people to the northeast, who were invaded by Chancellor Cao Cao in 207 AD during his mission to capture or kill the sons the Yuan Shao, his former rival at Guandu in 200 AD. This would be the prime opportunity to showcase how Chinese armies squared against Mongolic nomadic ones in this time period. The Xianbei confederation was temporarily broken at this point but they should still have a menacing presence if we are to keep things historically accurate.

The problem, however, is that I fear this game will be too heavily based on the 14th-century historical fiction novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms of Luo Guanzhong, who wrote more than a millennium after the actual contemporary history Record of the Three Kingdoms was compiled by the Western Jin court historian Chen Shou. If that's the case you can expect some silly non-historical elements in the game, including near invincible characters or even Taoist magic employed by the Yellow Turban rebels. That would be a shame, seeing how this sort of thing is absent in other self-proclaimed historical titles from CA's Total War series.

China has so much interesting history to cover, and CA just had to pick the most fantasized, internal, and boring conflict imaginable.

CA isn't interested in innovating anymore, they picked a conflict "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", which isn't even historically accurate in a lot of ways, that allows them to mirror Warhammer. More fantasy fighting rather than realism, more single units beating down on mass blocks, more of the same spear emphasis fighting.

Victoria: Total War set from 1830-1920 would have been an amazing time to show the East. Russo-Japanese War. Sino-Japanese War. Boxer Rebellions. Opium Wars. So much exciting fun history, but instead... fantasy.

I hear what you're saying and I also enjoy learning about Japanese and Chinese military conflicts in the 19th and 20th centuries, but you almost make it sound as if only modern-period conflicts in East Asia are worth covering. TW could easily do a purely historically accurate depiction of China in the 3rd century AD, during the Three Kingdoms period, so it is a deliberate choice to introduce fantasy elements vis a vis Luo Guanzhong's 14th-century historical fiction novel.

I think the most fruitful period would have been either the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, which included Central Asia, China, Vietnam, Korea, and even Japan. They could have also gone with a 16th-century mod to mirror the Imjin War, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi of Japan invaded Joseon Korea. The latter was aided and reinforced by Ming-dynasty China. To this day the ruins of Japanese-style castles still stand in South Korea, dated to the decade of the 1590s. It would allow for the showcasing of Korea's greatest naval admiral Yi Sun-Sin, who never lost a battle against the Japanese and is their equivalent of Britain's admiral Horatio Nelson.

Alternatively, they could also cover the Chinese Sui and Tang Dynasty's 6th- and 7th-century invasions of Goguryeo in what is now North Korea. The Tang also aided the Kingdom of Silla against Japanese invaders who were trying to restore the fallen kingdom of Baekje, which they had previously aided and considered a sibling country through some shared heritage. After the Silla kingdom unified much of the Korean peninsula, they then fought the Tang Chinese for control of Goguryeo's fallen realm, ending with a Silla victory and restoration of diplomatic relations.

[Theramines]

if they are wise the developers at CA won't just include Chinese armies, but also as I hinted before the northern steppe nomads with tons of horse archers

Of course they'll be included. It just wouldn't be a Total War without some form of horse archer spam.

[SkyTrickster]

This is going to be really interesting see how it will turn out. Either it will be a glorious return to form, or either they will jump through all the hoops to make it as similiar to a mix of warhammer and shogun as possible to maximize their potential sales with minium effort and attract the mainstream croud as much as possible.
I'm still divided. The announcement has got my attention, but looking at the Creative Assembly of the recent 5 years.... i am very, very sceptical. I can see so many ways how they will turn this into something the opposite of what a TW community would want.

I agree with Roma Victrix, the possibilities with extra factions and neighbouring countries are tremendous, but to be fair, the conflict is known to be a civil war only. I really should read more into this period and conflict but one would think they already have plenty of campaign map covered with china only, although i'm not sure where most of the battles were fought. I did read it has been romanticized so much later so i'm not sure whether CA is willing to dig deep for historical accuracy here.

[Leonardo]

This is going to be really interesting see how it will turn out.

If want to know more about the Three Kingdoms then checkout this FP announcement.

[Roma_Victrix]

This is going to be really interesting see how it will turn out. Either it will be a glorious return to form, or either they will jump through all the hoops to make it as similiar to a mix of warhammer and shogun as possible to maximize their potential sales with minium effort and attract the mainstream croud as much as possible.
I'm still divided. The announcement has got my attention, but looking at the Creative Assembly of the recent 5 years.... i am very, very sceptical. I can see so many ways how they will turn this into something the opposite of what a TW community would want.

I agree with Roma Victrix, the possibilities with extra factions and neighbouring countries are tremendous, but to be fair, the conflict is known to be a civil war only. I really should read more into this period and conflict but one would think they already have plenty of campaign map covered with china only, although i'm not sure where most of the battles were fought. I did read it has been romanticized so much later so i'm not sure whether CA is willing to dig deep for historical accuracy here.

It's not as if we don't have the excellent works of Chinese historiography such as the Book of Later Han or Record of the Three Kingdoms, written by historians as serious and academic as any Greek or Roman one of the time period. If CA chooses to follow the historical fiction novel written way later during the Yuan period for entertainment purposes (and reviving Han Chinese patriotism during a period of Mongol rule and occupation), then that is their deliberate choice. The choice is yours, CA!

I think we all know they are going to try to service the fanboys of Dynasty Warriors instead of doing something a bit more serious here, with the compensation of a veneer of historical accuracy. If that's the case they should at least include the Xianbei, Wuhuan, and Qiang peoples in the north as formidable adversaries, because they were historically. Luo Guanzhong's novel emphasizes the conflicts between the major Chinese states of Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Eastern Wu, but this does not mean major conflicts were not happening on the periphery (as I alluded to by mentioning the Liang province revolt).

On a lighter note, this meme makes me giggle.
https://i.redd.it/njkqlzwbug901.jpg

[LestaT]

So many wrong assumptions in this thread. Where's the exploration spirit on Europeans in the 14th century? Europeans now too afraid to venture out of Europe? Second dark age coming?

LOL.

Anyway, glad that an era on my second on the list wishlist for Total War game finally a reality. Time for me to learn some history much closer (not that close actually) to home.

While personally would prefer the earlier 7 Warring States period (wishlist no 1), I admit that this era is certainly more interesting, more bigger, more innovation and above all, more marketable.

Can't wait for Fall/Autumm, whenever that may be (I only know rainy or dry seasons, not fall, spring, winter, summer).

[Yayattasa]

While personally would prefer the earlier 7 Warring States period (wishlist no 1), I admit that this era is certainly more interesting, more bigger, more innovation and above all, more marketable.

Chances are Warring States (or at least the Chu Han Contention period) will be the subject of a major expansion to the title.

[Roma_Victrix]

I've read Romance of the Three Kingdoms and there wasn't any fictional elements in warfare that the novel depicted. So I doubt we will get unrealistic units.

Zhuge Liang summoning the winds at Chi Bi?

There are others but this was the first to come to mind

In the novel, he was pretending to be summoning the wind. When in fact he was predicting the weather.

Your memory might be a bit faulty, then, because the whole summoning the winds thing wasn't the only part invoking the supernatural (although as you say it was merely a ruse by Zhuge Liang in Luo Guanzhong's novel).

For instance, the character Yu Ji (于吉; perhaps based on the Taoist priest Gan Ji of the Eastern Han period) in Luo's 14th-century novel is a magician who is sentenced to death by Sun Ce on charges of heresy and witchcraft, but with a hint that Sun Ce had him killed out of spite and jealousy. He is then haunted by his ghost, who stresses Sun Ce out so much that he eventually becomes ill and dies. There are many similar episodes, especially in regards to the Yellow Turban rebel leaders who are able to muster Taoist magic. In the beginning of the book it is said that the rebel leader Zhang Jue confronted an old man in a cave who handed him a book, allegedly filled with secrets of the cosmos, and informed him that he was an immortal spirit of the southern lands before vanishing into thin air. Zhang Jue was then said to have healed the sick with blessed water (one can find a similarity here to Christian holy water).

Aside from the supernatural, there are also just downright silly events like Zhang Fei shouting down an army of Cao Cao at a bridge and causing one of his generals to faint and die in sheer fright of him. Lol. There's even a moment where Zhang Fei suggests using a gunpowder bomb to wake up Zhuge Liang from his slumber, who he perceives as being rude for ignoring him and his party waiting outside his home. This is obviously centuries before gunpowder weaponry and warfare existed in China (at the earliest the 11th century AD during the Song dynasty).

Of course, the official Chinese history Records of the Three Kingdoms offers a far more serious and sober assessment of the contemporary period in which it was written (by Chen Shou, a Western Jin court historian). Gone are the elements of fantasy, magic, and superstition, along with silly tropes and anachronisms of Luo's novel that were meant to entertain Chinese of his own day during the waning years of Yuan-dynasty Mongol rule. This should come as no surprise, since official Chinese historiography was meant for didactic learning aimed at the Confucian literati and ruling establishment. It was not something one read for simple pleasure or amusement, and it often provided nuanced, balanced views of historical subjects, far less the heroic tales and deeds presented in Luo's novel, such as those ascribed to the sworn brothers of the Peach Garden Oath.

[ggsimmonds]

Your memory might be a bit faulty, then, because the whole summoning the winds thing wasn't the only part invoking the supernatural (although as you say it was merely a ruse by Zhuge Liang in Luo Guanzhong's novel).

For instance, the character Yu Ji (于吉; perhaps based on the Taoist priest Gan Ji of the Eastern Han period) in Luo's 14th-century novel is a magician who is sentenced to death by Sun Ce on charges of heresy and witchcraft, but with a hint that Sun Ce had him killed out of spite and jealousy. He is then haunted by his ghost, who stresses Sun Ce out so much that he eventually becomes ill and dies. There are many similar episodes, especially in regards to the Yellow Turban rebel leaders who are able to muster Taoist magic to defeat their foes.

Aside from the supernatural, there are also just downright silly events like Zhang Fei shouting down an army of Cao Cao at a bridge and causing one of his generals to faint and die in sheer fright of him. Lol. There's even a moment where Zhang Fei suggests using a gunpowder bomb to wake up Zhuge Liang from his slumber, who he perceives as being rude for ignoring him and his party waiting outside his home. This is obviously centuries before gunpowder weaponry and warfare existed in China (at the earliest the 11th century AD during the Song dynasty).

Of course, the official Chinese history Records of the Three Kingdoms offers a far more serious and sober assessment of the contemporary period in which it was written (by Chen Shou, a Western Jin court historian). Gone are the elements of fantasy and magic, along with silly tropes and anachronisms of Luo's novel that were meant to entertain Chinese of his own day during the waning years of Yuan-dynasty Mongol rule. This should come as no surprise, since official Chinese historiography was meant for didactic learning aimed at the Confucian literati and ruling establishment. It was not something one read for simple pleasure or amusement, and it often provided nuanced, balanced views of historical subjects, far less the heroic tales and deeds presented in Luo's novel, such as those ascribed to the sworn brothers of the Peach Garden Oath.

Then there was Deng Ai encountering Zhuge's apparatus on the way to subjugating Shu.

As much as I love the novel, at times the pro-Shu slob fest gets a bit much.

[Yue Fei]

On the one hand, I'm excited about the game, on the other hand I'm really bothered by the anachronistic armor and weapons used by Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Lu Bu from 900 years later. It would be akin to putting King Alfred the Great in this:



It just looks completely and utterly wrong to have Late Han/Three Kingdoms era figures wearing and using Song and Yuan dynasty style armour and weapons.