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Even after my good, long playing session, there are still moments when I feel lost, when I am not at all sure what’s going on. My first 10 hours were an exercise in bafflement. There are far too many systems, options, and happenings going on for even the most sophisticated user interface. It’s worth noting that Three Kingdoms is a difficult, complicated, and often confusing game. (It strikes me that this skill, rather than martial prowess, is the true mark of great leaders of the past.) Three Kingdoms makes people management feel like it’s a game in itself, rather than the clumsy chore it’s so often been in past games. Managing my empire’s nobles is similarly invigorating, tasking me with taking care to keep my extended family in a state of reciprocal contentment. And, in the absence of AI stupidity, I’m happy to suspend my belief in the service of AI cleverness. I know it’s a sleight of hand, but it’s a good one. This game makes me believe I’m doing it for real. I like people and I like pitching myself against them, I like the way we behave with one another and against one another. Just keeping track of it all is a puzzle in its own right. Leaders die and are replaced by their offspring or their partners. They think they can play me and, occasionally, they succeed. Part of the fun is that there are a ton of rivals to deal with, and they are constantly changing their allegiances. In the middle and late game, I find myself spending as much time tinkering with my diplomatic options as I do managing my armies. This is a world of shifting alliances and treachery. Then, as he faces an onslaught from a rival superpower, he’s virtually begging to be my friend. One turn, my neighbor scoffs at me when I offer him my protection in exchange for his loyalty. They have their own agendas, which are constantly shifting according to the fates of war. Or I can charm or strong-arm them into joining me as an ally, vassal, or subject.Īs you might expect, these transactions add toward a simple statistical calculation of how they view me. I can offer trade, marriages, and territory swaps. Depending on the state of my relationship with a rival, I can make various kinds of offers and deals to them. The real thrill, for me, is the game’s diplomacy section, in which I try to outwit my rivals by bluffing, bullying, coercion, and flattery.
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People Power Diplomacy in Three Kingdoms Creative Assembly/Sega This division is for those who want to feel a Romance of the Three Kingdoms legendary vibe, and those who want a more accurate historical experience.
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There are two modes of play (Romance and Records), one in which generals are godlike in their abilities, and the other in which they are merely overpowered fighters. Their main diversion from previous games is that heroes and generals play a greater role in the combat. Three Kingdom’s battle simulations are just fine. Battles are always mini-dramas in which I feel like I’m in control, even as the calculating numbers of hit points and buffs, crunch their way through flesh and bone. I like to zoom high above the battlefield to take the broader view, and then zoom right into some copse, where a few hundred soldiers are fighting hand-to-hand at my direction. There’s always been something thrilling about these engagements and Three Kingdoms is no exception. Their main attraction is an ever-improving and always impressive war engine, in which I manage a battle in real time, pointing my squadrons of horse, range, artillery, and infantry in the right direction, while hoping that my tactics are better than the enemy’s. These are the basics of all Total War games. I build buildings and I learn learnings, all of which yield me more money, more food, and better soldiers. I take care to maintain a well-fed and well-behaved populace. I use my new possessions as taxation pools, which fund more armies. If I win, my empire grows and my rival’s diminishes. I plot expansion and march my armies into neighboring domains. Like its predecessors, Three Kingdoms puts me in charge of a fiefdom, from which my grand aspirations take shape. Its constituent parts are in a state of chaotic intra-fighting. While other Total War games have focused on the Romans or the Shogunate or Napoleon, Three Kingdoms takes us to China, at the end of the Han dynasty. This game is the latest in a long line of interesting, flawed, occasionally dull historical simulations of superpower administration and warfare. Total War: Three Kingdoms Creative Assembly/Sega Calculating Numbersīefore it came out, I thought I might admire Three Kingdoms, but drooling adoration is not the reaction I had anticipated.