It’s a combination of turn-based strategy, resource management and real-time unit combat. “Total War is a game that works on a simple rule, there is always something to do in every turn.”Īs a strategy game, the Total War system stands with few peers. However, while the style of the game is pretty, it feels like some of the in combat visuals have suffered for it and don’t run as smoothly as you would expect. It’s a suitable switch of aesthetics that gives this game a unique and pleasing feel. It begs some inevitable comparisons to the style of the Shogun series, however where Shogun was brightly coloured, Three Kingdoms leans to darker tones. The skills tree is a literal tree, drawn with long flowing branches. There’s a distinctive art style to the game, drawn from Chinese calligraphy – lots of painted swishes and touches which feel natural and right at home within the context of the game. It was a period of great turmoil which changed the shape of a nation, and the Total War: Three Kingdoms game fits perfectly into this setting. In the Three Kingdoms period of China, three superpowers were vying for control of the total Chinese empire. If you’ve never played this game before, it’s called Total War and not ‘Total Friendship’ for a reason.
Attack, defend, trade, create alliances, break alliances and take over the known world. However, when you break it down, Three Kingdoms is a game of simple small moves and how they work in combination. For newcomers to the franchise, there is an exceptionally steep learning curve, which can be quite daunting.
Total war three kingdoms review series#
While veterans of the series will be immediately familiar with the mechanics of a typical Total War game, there is an extensive underlying management system which will test their skills. It’s a hearty feast that’s sure to satisfy the most ravenous strategy buff. They all eventually get there, but the end result is that the tiger’s charge is vastly more impressive and interesting than the elephants scattered walk to the battlefield.Diving into the world of Total War: Three Kingdoms for the first time, it’s clear that the team at Creative Assembly are keen to try as many new ideas as possible all at once. Total War Warhammer and Three Kingdom (and now Troy) have outrageous pathfinding problems when placing units in littered terrain and when trying to get all ranged units to fire together, but the elephants’ mass seem to add a new problem to that growing list – they usually get stuck on each other, resulting in charges actually being a handful of animals hitting the enemy lines while the other leisurely walk about trying to find their way to the front lines. Unlike Carthagenean pachyderms that can go berserk and have an “execute” button to be put down, the biggest threat presented by The Furious Wild’s elephants is pathfinding. On the other hand, elephants’ effectiveness is let down a bit but how unreliable they can be. None are as awesome as the tigers, though – weighing a quarter of a ton and covered in armour, these beautiful felines charge the enemy lines like shock cavalry sans riders and send people flying on impact, like the devastating dogs from Total War: Rome I and II, but with a beautiful Bengal Tiger coat on top and about thrice the size. From the fire-wielding melee warriors of Zhurong to the support and war elephants that can shatter a unit’s ranks in a splitsecond, most Nanman troops feel extremely deadly. The units themselves are surprisingly effective. These can be recruited by all Nanman’s at some point – and all main characters can ride elephants as a mount – but specific characters have bonuses associated with their respective units that the others do not share. In now-classic 3K style, allegiances and loyalties are shifting, and you can try to peacefully partner with these characters instead of killing them in your quest to unite the land.Įach of the characters also have favoured units, such as Lady Zhurong’s tigers or King Mulu’s war elephants. Each of them have unique playstyles – Meng Huo and Lady Zurong can become lovers or rivals, the former granting them powerful battlefield effects when fighting together in battles while the former turns their campaigns into a disaster, for example – which reflect the way they behave as characters. At the heart of that conflict are the four new characters: Meng Huo, king of kings Lady Zhurong, descendent of the God of Fire King Shamoke, the ruler of the five valleys and King Mulu, more beast than man.
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