Gameplay Videos

[AHumpierRogue]

The crash on that stream was because of a Windows update, it was unrelated to the game itself. Also the "Secure and Occupy" option seems to be unique to Yuan Shao, though I think Liu Bei has a similar ability. It uses his special currency, "Lineage" which is basically making use of his noble bloodline to gather support for his cause. It seems to basically be an Occupy option that automatically has faction support and some other benefits. Yuan Shao can also use Lineage to recruit characters at no cost of gold, which I personally think is a really cool way of showing how Yuan Shao was able to draw support around his noble name rather than any actual skill(though he did have some, he wasn't incompetent! Just, not enough to match Cao Cao).

[PikeStance]

There is a 2 hours long Twitch gameplay feed played as Yuan Shao which provides basically unfiltered footage. Check it out.

- Starting on, you see some markers on the map pointing out important locations like where the child emperor is even though its very far away from you and you can't see it.
- There is alliance coloring that simply colors your troops in white garment and the enemy units in black garment. This is something you toggle, normally your units will show your faction colors.
- Formation auto-fill out when you drag your armies.
- Conquest of small settlement result options: Occupy / Secure&Occupy / Loot&Occupy / Sack&Withdraw
- Occupied settlements slowly build up faction support. Early on things like income and military supplies get a penalty.
- Character coloring usually reflects their highest attribute.
- They had a crush when they tried to get into a siege battle. They didn't skip but went back to a previous auto save game to repeat the last turn. Siege worked the second time.
- First siege map was of a walled city with one side to the water.
- They were able to train 2 trebuchet units before the siege as part of the army because a sub-general had that expertise.
- The siege took about 9 minutes.
- The gameplay is not played on Ultra unit size.
- If you have a lot of cash, you can build a building in one turn with extra cost, but limited to one building at a time.
- 10 is the maximum character rank.
- Best units gets unlocked at rank 8.
- Pressing F1 gives overlay information on what certain sections of the screen tells.
- Another settlement battle with no walls lasted 6 minutes.
- They played about 13 turns in 2 hours.

I watched the whole thing (in parts).
One of my initial concerns was that the units looked cartoonish. It looks better now, but I would love to see what modder will do to liven them up a bit.
One good feature is the formation of auto- fill. It is nice to know that I do not have to group units together to keep the formation integrity.

Unless my memory is bad, I think the 'secure and occupy was a special feature to that specific warlord. It is at least limited because he had mentioned he "didn't want to waste them."
The F1 feature is a great idea.

The crash, as the guy above explained, was unrelated to the game.

I am not a big fan of the "faction coloring of troops; I prefer more realistic impressions. The white/black option is a good compromise. The coloring sometimes looks like you are playing a board game.

The animation looks good (at least improved from the let's play of youtubers). The Cavs charging in seem more realistic than previous titles. They didn't show too many close-ups of the battles but is generally how I play too. I am probably not the best to judge it.

Here is the total war live on youtube if prefer youtube to twitch. They are doing this once a week until release (I believe). I actually found this to be more informative than the normal "let's play on the normal Total war channel.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

I watched the whole thing (in parts).
One of my initial concerns was that the units looked cartoonish. It looks better now, but I would love to see what modder will do to liven them up a bit.

You can always make them look more cinematic or natural by changing the lightning and color palette. Using Reshade, GEM and various Sweet FX presets

[Seether]

There is a 2 hours long Twitch gameplay feed played as Yuan Shao which provides basically unfiltered footage. Check it out.

- They were able to train 2 trebuchet units before the siege as part of the army because a sub-general had that expertise.

Ugh... as zoner and I already discussed, the Chinese of this period did not have siege engines (whether traction, counter-weight or otherwise) capable of destroying walls or heavy fortifications. There are so many other historical siege weapons, equipment, and tactics that were used during the period, that could have been used instead. Disappointed...

[Mantis42]

Yes, it's a bit of a shame. Chinese walls tended to be incredibly thick compared to most western counterparts and had earthen cores, which are effective in absorbing kinetic energy. Wall breeches were pretty rare before the advent of modern cannonfire.

[legate]

This was why I was hoping for siege escalation that simulated mining etc instead of trebuchets that can knock down walls in 3 minutes.

[zoner16]

This was why I was hoping for siege escalation that simulated mining etc instead of trebuchets that can knock down walls in 3 minutes.

The thing is, sapping is in the game. It's one of the most basic options for siege engineering, alongside rams. It basically does just that. That, plus the fact that walls are all scaleable (with debuffs) means that there really is no reason to have trebuchets capable of destroying walls except for the fact that nerds drool over trebuchets smashing stuff.

[PikeStance]

You can always make them look more cinematic or natural by changing the lightning and color palette. Using Reshade, GEM and various Sweet FX presets

Perhaps, but I am not sure that would result in a realistic texture to them.

Ugh... as zoner and I already discussed, the Chinese of this period did not have siege engines (whether traction, counter-weight or otherwise) capable of destroying walls or heavy fortifications. There are so many other historical siege weapons, equipment, and tactics that were used during the period, that could have been used instead. Disappointed...

The thing is, sapping is in the game. It's one of the most basic options for siege engineering, alongside rams. It basically does just that. That, plus the fact that walls are all scaleable (with debuffs) means that there really is no reason to have trebuchets capable of destroying walls except for the fact that nerds drool over trebuchets smashing stuff.

It just goes to show how inconsistent their approach is. On one hand, they revel at the fact that they draw inspiration from the Romance novels, but when convenient they resort to the same old same old. It is easier enough to mod it out, but it would be tricky to balance out that particular general.

[legate]

The thing is, sapping is in the game. It's one of the most basic options for siege engineering, alongside rams. It basically does just that. That, plus the fact that walls are all scaleable (with debuffs) means that there really is no reason to have trebuchets capable of destroying walls except for the fact that nerds drool over trebuchets smashing stuff.

I wasn't aware that mining was in-game, so that's a plus.

Siege weapons like the trebuchet were used to fire burning material or dead animals to inflict damage rather than kinetic energy against walls, so that could be modified.

Total War are never going to get sieges right. Being able to take a walled city in 10 minutes takes away the point of having fortified positions. The strategic value has never been simulated correctly.

[Mayer]

Trebuchets are ahistorical, i would have preferred if they weren't there or placed on the end of a tech tree. But they are nowhere near as bad as the Ninja style climbing of walls with grappling hooks by all units. The point of walls is to be a great obstacle for any army. Why can't we return to the old system of requiring siege equipment to take a wall (ladders , ram)?

Historical sieges were months-long affairs of demoralizing the besieged with a blockade while getting closer to the walls with trenches, fending off any sally-out. And would be decided by disease, the true killer of pre-modern warfare.

[zoner16]

Trebuchets are ahistorical, i would have preferred if they weren't there or placed on the end of a tech tree. But they are nowhere near as bad as the Ninja style climbing of walls with grappling hooks by all units. The point of walls is to be a great obstacle for any army. Why can't we return to the old system of requiring siege equipment to take a wall (ladders , ram)?

Mostly because the AI struggles with it, but also because the way armies and the unit cap in battles work means that the actual balance of siege assaults is out of whack on a base level and always has been. Since the attacker's number advantage is rarely as high as in history, they need more means of ingress to be able to push the envelope. The game design also encourages people to make full use of their units. As Thrones of Britannia's siege AI showed, people get bored of constant grind on the walls because it's not involved. You might as well autoresolve. So instead, it allows for more non-static fronts to take bigger advantage of the settlement map and let the player do things while other parts are grinding it out.

Personally, I've never had a problem with the grappling hooks/wall climbing so long as it puts the climbing unit at a noticeable disadvantage and actual siege engines remain the clearly superior option.

Historical sieges were months-long affairs of demoralizing the besieged with a blockade while getting closer to the walls with trenches, fending off any sally-out. And would be decided by disease, the true killer of pre-modern warfare.

Total War has never been a full representation of the tedious slog of warfare. Most of the playerbase would get bored of micromanaging gradual siege escalation.

[PointOfViewGun]

Second Twitch stream is up:

- First battle had rain. The battle map had bunch of rain filled small lakes.
- Clicking a unit triggers its own commander's voice.
- The first open field battle with full stack against full stack, though still relatively early game, took about 10 minutes to finish.
- The plan is to finish 3 Twitch streams with the Romance mode (we're done with the 2nd one now) and then do 3 Twitch streams of Records mode with a different character.
- Each character can get friends or enemies. Two generals in the same army can become rivals which you have to watch out for. This effect their satisfaction and it can be caused by events you create in the campaign.
- The second battle was a small settlement siege with snow.
- When there is snow movement speed is decreased by 75%.
- This battle lasted about 13 minutes.

[AHumpierRogue]

I thought the 3rd stream looked very good, gameplay looked fun. I'd say 10 minutes is acceptable for an early game full stack battle, I know some people would prefer them to last 3 hours but for most that is fine.

[PointOfViewGun]

Third stream.

[PikeStance]

I thought the 3rd stream looked very good, gameplay looked fun. I'd say 10 minutes is acceptable for an early game full stack battle, I know some people would prefer them to last 3 hours but for most that is fine.

I am really not sure what people expect for 20 vs 20 units (in this case 21 vs 21). For me, this is jus skirmish fighting. The only time I had a significant long battle is using my own battle mechanic with 40 unit battle on ETW. The battle seesawed throughout and could have gone either way.

The only real way to increase the battles would be to increase the defensive capabilities of the units so that they fight longer before being killed. Personally, I would have to reduce morals buffs in order to prevent the nonsensical 5-10 man unit from still fighting.

I think CA is going for short intense fighting rather than drawn-out affairs. Every game is like that. Wheels certainly seem to enjoy them. LOL

[Daruwind]

I was watching a few streams and tried to catch Korea and well looks like whole land mass is there, you can easily see hard borders of campaign map. I won´t be surprised to see Korea getting DLC..

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[PikeStance]

Yeah, I could see a potential Sino-Japanese War Mod or DLC. (the former more likely). Then again, I thought we might get a War of the Roses Mod for ToB.

[SturmChurro]

I was watching a few streams and tried to catch Korea and well looks like whole land mass is there, you can easily see hard borders of campaign map. I won´t be surprised to see Korea getting DLC..

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Yeah, but wasn't it like that in SHOGUN 2 as well? Honestly, I can't remember how much Korea was in it other than a trade route or something like that.

[zoner16]

Yeah, but wasn't it like that in SHOGUN 2 as well? Honestly, I can't remember how much Korea was in it other than a trade route or something like that.

Must of south Korea was in Shogun 2's map. Shogun 2 had the excuse to have it, as they couldn't fit all of Japan on a rectangular map without including at least some of Korea. It also had the excuse why not to make it relevant in game, because no sane mainstream gaming company is touching the Imjin War with a ten foot pole right now, given the nationalist pissing contests over it and subsequent conflicts (same reason we will never get a Sino-Japanese war DLC).

3K very easily could have not included Korea at all. The map could have cropped off a good chunk of its eastern bounds and they wouldn't have lost anything currently playable, just a bunch of ocean. So them including Korea almost guarantees future plans for it. Additionally, there's no political diatribe over the wars between Goguryeo and the various northern states. It's ancient history, and honestly, most countries involved take pride in the part they played.

[Daruwind]

Yeah, but wasn't it like that in SHOGUN 2 as well? Honestly, I can't remember how much Korea was in it other than a trade route or something like that.

Pretty much agree with @Zoner16. Main difference is, in Shogun 2 Korea was without any detail. Just tip od Peninsula...here in 3K it seems they bothered with detail shoreline. And we even see part of Japan Sea...Check my second picture up. The map could easily end in Yellow sea, no point in depicting whole Korea as it is...