Gameplay Videos

[zoner16]

The removal of agents was announced by the devs themselves. The removal of trade agreement too. But none except Legend talked about the removal of ambush, edicts, army traditions, etc.

His video was largely shared precisely because he listed methodically all the features that were removed while other Youtubers *conveniently forgot to mention any of this and just repeated Jack Lusted talking point in officials CA videos.

I was particularly shocked about the removal of ambush because it is a feature I like a lot as implemented in Rome 2. Also people were very angry about it as it felt as a new rip-off after CA had gutted siege battles in Warhammer.

You're right. It was ambushes that Legend found out about. I misremembered that.

However, I still do not agree that there's some kind of conspiracy among every other Youtuber to cover it up. They all had things they focused on for likes and dislikes, and given the reaction to the ambush removal elsewhere (Reddit, forums, etc), it seems that a lot of people wouldn't have noticed anyways (despite the stances being visible in another video), so its entirely possible it was just missed.

It's always important to take information from a variety of sources, and I look forward to listening to Legend's opinion on this. However given that I've had to come down on both Legend's previous videos and Darren about things they missed and in Darren's case, misinformation he was spreading (albeit unintentionally), I would not say they're in any way less likely to screw up on reporting the whole truth, just in the opposite direction. Just because someone is more critical does not mean they're inherently more truthful.

EDIT: Here are some more videos

Interview with PartyElite-


Interview with several Youtubers, filmed and commented by MrSmartDonkey-


MrSmartDonkey campaign gameplay footage-


MilkandcookiesTW thoughts and criticisms-


Some thoughts from these:

While I see the reasoning why naval battles aren't as important as some of the other features, I feel that unless the autoresolve has some method of influence other than generic troop strength, it's going to completely misrepresent what made factions like Sun Jian and Liu Biao so competitive. If there are dedicated marine units that can be used to better control the waterways, or perhaps general skills that help, I can see it being somewhat mitigated. Essentially, a faction that wants to control the great rivers should actually invest in real river control, rather than just redirect ground forces. If nothing like that is in the base game, it'll be a black mark that I wave at CA every time they try to announce something. River control has to factor into the strategic gameplay if you want to do this period justice. The reason very few battles were fought on the river was because Wu essentially won the waterborne war in the first couple decades of the conflict, and everyone else had to play by their rules for years.

They do at least say that they want to do naval again in a different time period. Obviously those are just words right now, but it's at least it's an acknowledgement.

Not tying the points of interest to battle maps was a missed opportunity. It's nice that they're there, and it'll help me orient myself when playing the campaign, but I was really hoping at least some of the most interesting ones, like Mount Bailang or Tong Pass had special maps.

I think them shooting for Romance mode heroes being able to fight one or two units as a baseline is reasonable. A general's bodyguard would probably be in a similar situation, but more dependent on the unit type it was fighting.

The statement about the UI I find myself mostly agreeing with greatly. The red and green icons end up hiding more information from me and are far less immersive than the old banners. I've honestly had a hard time telling what the state of the units on the battlefield is at a glance compared to past titles. While they're easy to pick out at a distance, they are very much difficult to actually read. The Unit Cards have the same problem but are less egregious about it. I think mainly the foggy unit model on the neutral background is primarily what is making them less easy to discern. Highlighting the unit equipment is nice and all, but the equipment doesn't pop very well. It's especially egregious for cavalry. Ultimately they also don't mesh well with the artstyle of the rest of the game, which went for a mix of clear colors and ink strokes for basic information and the very well defined paintings for important pieces.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Some thoughts from these:

While I see the reasoning why naval battles aren't as important as some of the other features, I feel that unless the autoresolve has some method of influence other than generic troop strength, it's going to completely misrepresent what made factions like Sun Jian and Liu Biao so competitive. If there are dedicated marine units that can be used to better control the waterways, or perhaps general skills that help, I can see it being somewhat mitigated. Essentially, a faction that wants to control the great rivers should actually invest in real river control, rather than just redirect ground forces. If nothing like that is in the base game, it'll be a black mark that I wave at CA every time they try to announce something. River control has to factor into the strategic gameplay if you want to do this period justice. The reason very few battles were fought on the river was because Wu essentially won the waterborne war in the first couple decades of the conflict, and everyone else had to play by their rules for years.
They do at least say that they want to do naval again in a different time period. Obviously those are just words right now, but it's at least it's an acknowledgement.

Thanks for the videos

IMO Naval battles should be important and I really don't like it when companies say ''we'll revisit it at a later point'' NO do it from the start, we're paying you for a complete game.
We have seen this with Rome 2 when they failed to implement more the a few features and presented a bare bone product as finished. Now after 5 yrs they still failed to deliver all their promises, yeah I know at least they added the family tree. So I'm not a fun of we'll do it later excuse.

[PointOfViewGun]

The removal of agents was announced by the devs themselves. The removal of trade agreement too. But none except Legend talked about the removal of ambush, edicts, army traditions, etc.
His video was largely shared precisely because he listed methodically all the features that were removed while other Youtubers *conveniently forgot to mention any of this and just repeated Jack Lusted talking point in officials CA videos.
I was particularly shocked about the removal of ambush because it is a feature I like a lot as implemented in Rome 2. Also people were very angry about it as it felt as a new rip-off after CA had gutted siege battles in Warhammer.

There is literally an interview video with Jack Lusted titled: "Total War: Thrones of Britannia - Norman Knights are in, agents and razing settlements are out"

[zoner16]

Thanks for the videos

IMO Naval battles should be important and I really don't like it when companies say ''we'll revisit it at a later point'' NO do it from the start, we're paying you for a complete game.
We have seen this with Rome 2 when they failed to implement more the a few features and presented a bare bone product as finished. Now after 5 yrs they still failed to deliver all their promises, yeah I know at least they added the family tree. So I'm not a fun of we'll do it later excuse.

I think they meant they're want to do naval battles again in a different game altogether, in a different era, rather than patching it into this one at some point.

Given how unsatisfactory Rome 2 politics has been, even with the updates, I'd rather they focus updates on improving features they don't screw up rather than attempting to jam in something that they clearly don't have any idea how to do properly and don't even really seem to want to do at the moment. A proper military hierarchy or an expanded defection system (that ties into espionage) might be a great idea for a future patch instead. Assuming of course that the base game comes out alright (fingers crossed).

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

I think they meant they're want to do naval battles again in a different game altogether, in a different era, rather than patching it into this one at some point.
Maybe and expansion Napoleon style then...I guess we'll see.

Given how unsatisfactory Rome 2 politics has been, even with the updates, I'd rather they focus updates on improving features they don't screw up rather than attempting to jam in something that they clearly don't have any idea how to do properly and don't even really seem to want to do at the moment. A proper military hierarchy or an expanded defection system (that ties into espionage) might be a great idea for a future patch instead. Assuming of course that the base game comes out alright (fingers crossed).

Agreed. Fun fact is they could have asked modders about it and seek cooperation with the right people, but no they don't do that or they have done it wrongly in the past.
Anyway...Let's hope for the best. I'm optimistic since they have released Warhammer 2 quite successfully, but not as optimistic as I was before.

[14182]

Thanks for putting the clips up here.

Still waiting for videos of classic mode. I am not interested in Dynasty Warriors, thus I would simply skip the fantasy mode in this game.

[PointOfViewGun]

There are also many from foreign language videos out there. Anyone looking for videos in their own languages will find many on YouTube.

[PointOfViewGun]

MrSmartDonkey campaign gameplay footage-

This one of particular has a lot of good information and the footage is quite detailed.

He points out that the heroes will not be as powerful when the game comes out, that they will likely be only able to take about 2-3 units by themselves before being eliminated. They likely buffed them up so that they would not die on the battlefield when these people played with them.

Another important bit is how the battlefield representation is done. The units no longer have a circle for each men while you deploy the unit. The deployment is done within a box. The line of sight and range indicators of ranged units seems to have changed as well. You see the complete range are of your battle line in bold and the individual range information in a shaded color.

[kelembribor21]

Here is short video from Ign , mostly already seen battle footage, though at 3:10 is beautiful shot of the river with some ships , and I like cavalry charge animation despite choppy ugly melee combat, and as much I'v seen all horsemen die with horses in previous Total Wars some horses managed to escape , hope they change that in release.

[zoner16]

Good analysis by Darren over some of the problems seen in the battle gameplay so far:



I agree with most of his points about the actual gameplay and AI issues as well as his disappointment with the fact that the scale of engagements hasn't changed. I do disagree with him over how it should be changed though. I already have issues controlling 40 unit battles and the UI already gets really cluttered in those. Taking it above that is just going to make it difficult for me to appreciate tactics or the battle itself since micro will get crazy. I'd rather they just up the model count for the units themselves. Sticking with only 160 men per unit just makes battles feel tiny.

I also disagree with his (self-admitted very subjective) opinion about "grittiness." The level of detail I've seen in the map assets and the non-combat animations is incredibly engrossing, and aside from the amount of glare that the oversaturated colors create, it all feels fairly authentic to the time period. I've never been a huge fan of the amount of dirt and muck that inundates the Rome and Medieval games as it just makes things difficult to discern, and I've never felt that it helps my immersion.

EDIT:

Here's another video from the Taipei Game Show demo posted to Baidu. It's the opening battle against the Yellow Turbans, but the Turbans are a lot stronger (full stack with three generals) and the battle actually goes on for almost eight minutes.

https://tieba.baidu.com/p/6019017200

The Turbans attempt to keep a coherent line going for most of the approach, which is good, but they deploy in a single line, which causes gaps to open up when their archers stop to start firing, which is bad, but probably fixable if they just force the AI to use the smart formation (which may be a new feature since it wasn't present in the old ambush demo). Their peasant troops rout fairly often, but there are enough of them that they keep cycling back into the fight while others hold the line, kinda like skaven. At the end, Guan Yu even dies to an enemy general, so it doesn't look like they can be as easily gamed as in the build they showed in the US and Europe

There's a rather amusing yet frustrating little bit near the end where he zooms in on a duel, and there are two opposing units getting smushed together by the forcefield but not interacting. At first I thought it was the battle engine glitching out, but no, the actual issue was that one of the units was routing and the other was trying to move past them, but the duel field had crushed them up against each other and neither could move forward but neither was interested in fighting. That duel forcefield is proving to be a big issue.

[Huberto]

Good analysis by Darren over some of the problems seen in the battle gameplay so far:



I already have issues controlling 40 unit battles and the UI already gets really cluttered in those. Taking it above that is just going to make it difficult for me to appreciate tactics or the battle itself since micro will get crazy. I'd rather they just up the model count for the units themselves. Sticking with only 160 men per unit just makes battles feel tiny.

Imagine a 70 unit per side battle. You group your units into three battle groups during deployment phase, and give them basic orders, plus one group of reserves. Then you assume command of one of the groupings and assign the others to the AI. At regular intervals during the battle you may switch and take command of any group you wish. You also may continue to give basic orders to the other groups. Result: epic real time battles.

Regarding TW:3K, I am really not liking the battle UI. The hero cards are way too big on screen and the unit cards , I literally have to look through an artistically rendered fog to figure out what units I have. By design the units are indistinct, i.e. they have no individual character, all the individuality goes to the oversized heroes. Also, a pet peeve perhaps, but I find the arrow trails very distracting and fake-looking. I hope they can be exchanged for a more subtle presentation like in Attila.

In appearance, battles have an all hero-centric look that's just too extreme for me. I think that's what Indy Pride? was trying to get at when he was complaining about the generic unit id markers. In battle it's just plain green or red markers for units + fog cards, compared to all the micro detail -- including stupid jokey banter during battle that pop up and clutter the screen --for the hero units. Some very silly physics animations add to the over the top atmosphere as well.

This is just appearance, mind you. The way heroes actually function in battle drives me nuts. I'm assuming this will be removed in Records mode, although duels remain? Are we going to have to deal with AI duel challenges in Records mode? Can we please have the option turn off duels all together?

What I'm seeing are many problems with this game that boil down to the influence of Dynasty Warriors on its design.

Anyway, hats off to Darren for drilling down on the AI like this. It's really important for TW community to identify issues sooner rather than later and to lift up this kind of discussion to pressure CA for fixes. Modding is going to be a big deal for this title for those of us who want to play a TW game of ancient warfare set in China.

[zoner16]

Imagine a 70 unit per side battle. You group your units into three battle groups during deployment phase, and give them basic orders, plus one group of reserves. Then you assume command of one of the groupings and assign the others to the AI. At regular intervals during the battle you may switch and take command of any group you wish. You also may continue to give basic orders to the other groups. Result: epic real time battles.

I'll be honest. That sounds frustrating and needlessly convoluted. Restricting my perspective and control of my own troops for no particular reason isn't something I find immersive, and since you can switch perspectives whenever, it's not really adding anything except another couple clicks to get from unit to unit. I'm still doing the same micro, just more dispersed and more at the mercy of the AI, which I didn't like when they introduced it in Medieval 2 and still haven't liked since, since the AI just can't behave itself.

The amount of unit segmentation we already have is rather extreme for the time period. Adding more won't help matters. If they want to increase scale, just increase the number of men per unit. That'll actually represent how battle were fought.

Regarding TW:3K, I am really not liking the battle UI. The hero cards are way too big on screen and the unit cards , I literally have to look through an artistically rendered fog to figure out what units I have. By design the units are indistinct, i.e. they have no individual character, all the individuality goes to the oversized heroes. Also, a pet peeve perhaps, but I find the arrow trails very distracting and fake-looking. I hope they can be exchanged for a more subtle presentation like in Attila.

I've been going through the unit cards recently (all the ones that Teiba farmed) and I think that the problem of unit distinctness is mostly restricted to the militia units, who are so lightly equipped that the vast majority of the unit card is just fog and silhouette on a neutral background. Once you get into the more professional and noble troops, the big shields and heavy armor helps give the unit a clearer identity. Their individual poses are also unique to each unit and pretty easy to pick out. I can instantly tell the difference between the Protectors of Heaven and the Azure Dragons despite most of their kit being the same because of the very distinct poses that they take. I could even guess their intended roles in that particular case, due to the expressiveness of their poses.

That being said, I wish the unit cards were more artistic. The unit cards of Shogun 2 and Warhammer are by far my favorites, and while I get that those are difficult to make, they do a great job of pulling me into the setting.

This is just appearance, mind you. The way heroes actually function in battle drives me nuts. I'm assuming this will be removed in Records mode, although duels remain? Are we going to have to deal with AI duel challenges in Records mode? Can we please have the option turn off duels all together?

No and yes: https://www.totalwar.com/blog/three-...icised-history

4. Will duels feature in Classic Mode?

Yes, but they work differently to how they do in Romance Mode and follow the historical references we have for single combat. Firstly, they happen much more organically than in Romance Mode: rather than choosing a duel option, a duel can break out between two heroes whenever they clash on the battlefield. Secondly, as heroes are not single entity units in Classic Mode, when two heroes duel, their two retinues of bodyguards will clash too. The clashing bodyguards will encircle the heroes and face off while the duel takes place. Thirdly, as heroes won’t have special combat abilities, there is less focus placed on the actions you take during a duel, and more emphasis placed on how you manage the rest of your army while the duel takes place.

This is...alright-ish, but I still worry about the "encircle" bit. From what we've seen in these videos, the problems that the bizarre forcefield around the duels creates are incredibly noticeable. I'd rather the duels were just two bodyguard units fighting, with the generals specifically trying to target each other. The over the top Wushu animations just don't match up with the era, and for that matter, neither does the wide berth that everyone gives them. The sanctity of champion combat comes more from Ming era machismo romanticism than it does any description of Han era warfare. A general's bodyguards would absolutely interfere in combat if they thought it would help.

Anyway, hats off to Darren for drilling down on the AI like this. It's really important for TW community to identify issues sooner rather than later and to lift up this kind of discussion to pressure CA for fixes. Modding is going to be a big deal for this title for those of us who want to play a TW game of ancient warfare set in China.

Agreed. The answer I received to my question in the last AMA was that they'd be talking about modding soon, so we'll see what's possible.

To be honest though, most of the feature set is there to make the combat Jian'an authentic in Records mode (with a ton of rebalancing of course). The main issues are just making the combat animations look less stupid and making the AI play ball, neither of which is that controllable by modding.

[SturmChurro]

I haven't actually watched any full videos just clips. The campaign looks pretty good, but battles look like absolute . I think the game kind of looks bad in general as well, the visuals. Heroes and duel animations look cool, but everything else.... Game looks really dated. I am pretty torn.

[PikeStance]

The developers do not refer to a "classic" mode, in the video they refer to a "Romance" and "Records" modes.

I personally would not play the "Romance" mode if you paid me. I hate in movies where the "hero" goes through the enemy like a hot knife through soft butter. Watching the gameplay it looks downright silly and awfully executed.

My biggest gripe with siege battles is that the scale is always horribly out of whack. Even with a 20 unit army, it is impossible to defend a large settlement. Unless I have to, I NEVER fight sieges.

It does make a fan wonder, when are they going to actually address the battle mechanics which is why we all play it The campaign features are only the precursor for battles. It is a waste of time to play total war if it begins and ends at the battles. I would rather play paradox if that is the case.

[legate]

I am not a fan of Total War sieges. I would rather that it took at least two turns to damage the wall enough for you to then launch a final assault on the battle map, allowing for a relief army to try and fight off the besiegers. Yes, I know its a game but having the ability to knock down castle or city walls within 5 minutes was never appealing to me.

It would also be better if you ran out of food and supplies quicker when a field army is present in a city during a siege. The city-folk having only enough food for themselves rather than feeding a full-stack army. This would force you to lead your field armies out to meet the enemy before a siege or position your army behind the settlement ready to be a relief force. Garrison should be city militia units.

The dueling in 'records' mode still sounds a bit naff. I would rather it was removed completely and have it like previous historic titles.

There is some real potential for a deep historical epic with 3K. Sadly I feel it is going to miss the mark. But we shall see

[Daruwind]

New let´s play video

[legate]

The latest video was very good. The game appears much deeper than I had expected. The supply and economic system look good too.

[PikeStance]

I actually like the approach to the campaign part of the game. The failing is the ignorance of the BAI. Supposedly they were told this at the time of the invite which I have heard was a few months ago and not recent. The don’t care about duels, childishly Hollywood for my taste.

[ptoss1]

If campaign mechanics work properly and the AI knows how to use them I think this will be my favorite TW game.

[PointOfViewGun]

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. Apparently due to accidentally clicking the Windows notification to restart the computer. 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.