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Video Games General

Piemanlives said:
It's one of the reasons why CA abandoning the game stings so much. Because frankly? Three Kingdoms is a good game.

Not without its flaws sure but it's just a solid game overall.
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I think that is why. I mean the DLC was really bad no? I bet some boss said that to spend more money after that wolud be a waste.
 
giodan said:
I think that is why. I mean the DLC was really bad no? I bet some boss said that to spend more money after that wolud be a waste.
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Eight Princes is apparently considered by many players to be a waste of money, since it adds nothing, and is, as far as I understood it from a cursory reading on things at least, Chinese history isn't my strongsuit, pretty much about the death of a short-lived Dynasty, and the beginning of what is essentially a dark age (in the sense of "things are bad" not "we don't have records") for Imperial China, rather than the decline of one Imperial Dynasty and the rise of a new one in the base game, on top of adding nothing new in terms of units, as they still use the same roster as the base game, while being about a bunch of new characters nobody really cares about.

Unlike, say, Caesar In Gaul and Empire Divided for Rome 2, where the former, even though it doesn't add any new units, or at least none that aren't just a color swap and added to other factions like the Roman Auxiliaries, it offers a unique experience with new mechanics centered around, well, Caesar's campaign in Gaul and his rivalry with Vercingetorix, being situated entirely within Gaul, while the latter shows Rome right at the beginning of its decline in the Crisis of the Third Century, with all new unit rosters and unique factions, several of which being basically factions from Attila in their earlier incarnation, such as the Sassanids, Saxons, and Goths (which haven't yet split into the Ostrogoths and Visigoths yet).

Or, for a better comparison, Age of Charlemagne for Attila. The Roman Empire is gone (at least in the Westt. There is the Theme of Sicily, a province of the Byzantine Empire, that exists as an unplayable faction and has so. many. mods. to make it playable), and the DLC's narrative is about the rise and consolidation of what would later be the kingdoms of Medieval (Western) Europe, such as Saxon England, Muslim Spain, and, of course, the Carolingian Empire.

Even Mandate of Heaven, whose period is the Yellow Turban Rebellion, which only has a few remnants in the main campaign and doesn't add any new units either, iirc, has that setup appeal, as this is where all the notables of the era, such as the tyrant Dong Zhuo, get their start, and the ball for the decline of the Han Dynasty and the later conflict gets rolling. Think of it as having an A Song of Ice and Fire game, taking place at the time of the books, and making a campaign about Robert's Rebellion campaign, and you get the idea, to do the cringy thing and compare history to a Fantasy IP.
 
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ShogunTrooper said:
Even Mandate of Heaven, whose period is the Yellow Turban Rebellion, which only has a few remnants in the main campaign and doesn't add any new units either, iirc,
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Mandate of Heaven added the entire Imperial Army line of units, something you don't get access to unless you:

1.) Play as Liu Hong in the Mandate of Heaven start date.
2.) Get access to them by holding one of the Emperor Seats (IIRC).

The 2nd in particular takes a while before they become available/relevant given you actually have to reach the point where the Three Kingdoms kicks off. And even then you have other options available at that point so you might not end up using them at all.

Beyond that any character added by the DLC (ignoring Liu Hong) would've had their own personal units like Liu Chong's crossbow cavalry/infantry included as well. The 182 CE Yellow Turban armies also had some new units to differentiate them from the 190 CE Yellow Turbans but I forget what exactly they did with that roster.
 
So what I'm hearing is that the largest chunk of Total War: Three Kingdoms is awesome and a must buy with the current discount.
 
Velk said:
So what I'm hearing is that the largest chunk of Total War: Three Kingdoms is awesome and a must buy with the current discount.
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Oh, I can only recommend it, and I say that as someone that is only faintly aware of the Romance of The Three Kingdoms novel. I treat it mostly as an exotic setting, as my lack of knowledge means I am literally unable to nitpick anything about it, beyond giving the weird, jar-shaped shields of some of my infantry odd looks (seriously though, why are they that shape?).

Sure, the battle AI shits itself on occasion (My guy, you are holding a village with lots of chokepoints I have to break through and towers in support, are you really going to rush into range of my archers, rather than let my heavy infantry drag their asses to you?), but it's Total War, so that's to be expected. The campaign map AI is pretty great, and the diplomacy is actually somewhat coherent. They still do weird shit at times, but as of now only factions have asked me for military access when we actually share a large border, and I am on good terms with them, rather than doing that when I'm on the other side of the map, or when they bordered an enemy of mine, probably because the AI figures I might trespass otherwise.

The Dueling mechanic is especially neat, as, even if you disregard the practical use of locking down an enemy commander and potentially breaking the morale of a good chunk of the enemy army, you get to know what it looks like when you have two heroes in a fantasy movie face off in a climactic showdown, surrounded by hordes of fighting men, except that this time you are the general in the back, watching your champion cave some bamboo-wearing savage's skull in (My Ulcer is still bleeding, thank you very much!), directing the rest of the army around that fight, potentially even doing the dishonorable thing and send your guy some help if he gets his ass kicked. Well, or send your heroes right into the enemy, especially Vanguards, and see how one of them single-handedly stops that cavalry unit in its tracks that was about to flank your archers.

Having played a bit of Troy, which also has a Dueling mechanic, Three Kingdoms does it a bit better due to the retinues, as you have multiple commanders, meaning that, even if your champion dies or flees, and about a third of your army takes a morale hit, you still have two other dudes that can try and save the situation, or even avenge your fallen commander in another duel against a now-weakened enemy, rather than have your entire army rout because their one and only general just died. Plus, there are certain units that plain just don't care if their leader died, and just keep fighting.
 
Update on the Three Kingdoms front:

Kingdom of Wu was eaten (read: confederated) by the Kingdom of Wei, meaning I am fighting Cao Cao, as he doesn't like me. And While Gongsun Zan is now dead, and I now own the northern edge of the map, I now have an even bigger problem in the east, as now I have a way longer hostile border.

The Bleeding Ulcer remains, the Nanman are a pain to fight with all the ambushes and terrain debuffs down in the south for Han armies, but now Meng Huo is finally gone, while Lady Zhurong's territory is in the process of falling too, as, of all people, Dong Min, Dong Zhuo's brother, not only has been the star of my southern campaign, but is also currently besieging Zhurong's last city.

In other words, the fat, ugly bastard is gonna dominate the fiery jungle woman. Have fun with that mental image.

Of the Nanman, only Mulu and the generic Nanman Rebels faction remain now, which is still going to be a difficult fight, given how much of a pain in the ass the previous parts had been, but once these are dead, I can send all my southern armies, which are now chock-full of veteran units, finally east and fight Cao Cao, where they are desperately needed.

Zheng Jiang was still chilling in the mountains for a long time, relations with her have been consistently good, weirdly enough, but I realized I didn't declare an Empire War, only called my vassals to arm, which somehow didn't include her since she is part of my Empire, not a vassal, so I did that, and now a ton of bandit armies, that have likely been building up over the last several dozen or so turns while she was twiddling her thumbs and sending shitty poetry to the Imperial Court or whatever, are streaming from her territory in the north to fight in Emperor Liu Xie's name, and towards the east, which will be a huge relief, since they will at the very least deplete his troops until the rest of my armies can arrive, or keep Cao Cao's vassals busy.

I can only imagine the Bandit Queen smirking to herself as the young Emperor somehow never sent her the proper request, and, to take a piss out of the Han Empire's bureaucracy, she never answered them because technically they didn't apply to her, only to jump on the call the moment he actually did it right. I know I'd do that.
 
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Velk said:
So, looking over what I already bought previously, I do have the Eight Princes dlc. How bad is it?
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Its not bad, its just lacking.

The only unique characters are the 8 princes and like maybe three others. Everyone else across all of china is a generic officer. The 8 princes' unique units and faction resources are all reskins of people from the base game. The units are exactly the same, despite taking place almost 100 years after the three kingdoms period. The tech tree is identical. The base game has variations on playstyle enough to maintain interest in multiple campaigns in a start date, you can play as a Bandit, a Nanman, a Yellow Turban. All of that isn't present. Its just a more boring campaign, with less interesting characters.
 
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