New Historical total war era - Total War: Three Kingdoms!

[Intranetusa]

I think it's also the fact that they didn't want to do another game based on Europe, so China was a good choice for "cooling down" Europe a little bit.
I really don't know, was Shogun for instance intended to market heavily in Japan? I suppose that was also the idea, but I certainly did enjoy it.

Going back to game features, I hope they rework and invest a lot more on diplomacy. I think most people who play the campaign in TW games spend at least 80% of the time on the campaign map doing the Empire management side, and only 20% fighting battles.
I hope they bring back things like gifting or trading regions/settlements. Having a better alliance system, forcing allies to actually help each other one way or another: manpower, money, etc. Otherwise the alliance means nothing. Better trade, perhaps making resources like iron essential for the war effort (no iron = no armor or weapons).
And I really hope although I doubt they'll do it, for the old population system to come back.

Was Shogun 1 even sold in Japan? It was for Microsoft PC and I don't think there is a Japanese language option for it.

[SinisterOmen]

Was Shogun 1 even sold in Japan? It was for Microsoft PC and I don't think there is a Japanese language option for it.

I don't even know if it was Shogun 1 or Rome 1 the very first TW game (too lazy to even google it lol).
I was wondering more on the lines of Shogun 2 though, a more recent title. Was that one intended to market in Japan? I don't know really.

I was basically wondering because if 3K is supposed to market in China or whole Asia in general, perhaps Shogun games (or at least the second) was also somewhat intended to market in Japan.

[lolIsuck]

I don't even know if it was Shogun 1 or Rome 1 the very first TW game (too lazy to even google it lol).
I was wondering more on the lines of Shogun 2 though, a more recent title. Was that one intended to market in Japan? I don't know really.

I was basically wondering because if 3K is supposed to market in China or whole Asia in general, perhaps Shogun games (or at least the second) was also somewhat intended to market in Japan.

The Japanese market is a fair deal smaller than the Chinese one, I'd say the popularity of Japan in "the West" was a bigger reason for CA but that's just my assumption. For this new one I'd say the Asian market is definitely one CA aims at as the story is less well-known in Western countries but from what I've heard it's huge in East Asia. Now the entire backstory of Shogun 2 is also not very well known but a lot of people like Samurai and Ninjas.

[caratacus]

I don't even know if it was Shogun 1 or Rome 1 the very first TW game (too lazy to even google it lol).
I was wondering more on the lines of Shogun 2 though, a more recent title. Was that one intended to market in Japan? I don't know really.

I was basically wondering because if 3K is supposed to market in China or whole Asia in general, perhaps Shogun games (or at least the second) was also somewhat intended to market in Japan.

The first Shogun was a huge hit for Creative Assembly, it was different than anything else at the time and was extremely popular throughout the games market. Shogun 2 was a natural re-visitation to the subject of the earlier game. Samurai are recognizable aspect of Japanese history even though many in the West probably know very little about Japanese history. Any game based on Samurai warriors would have widespread appeal outside of Japan. Chinese history however is somewhat less known about outside of China, especially when it comes to warfare. The only widely known image of an ancient Chinese soldier would probably be the Terracotta Warriors. And although people in the West are familiar with the Great Wall, they know very little of the men who patrolled along it. A game with Ancient Greeks, Romans, Vikings, Knights and Samurai on the front cover would sell a game anywhere. One with a Chinese soldier of the Ming Dynasty would not to the same extent. Therefore sales inside China, especially for something as popular as the Three Kingdoms there, is significantly more important because it won’t have the same grab factor in the West. Although with a title as well known and established as Total War, this might not be the biggest factor. Certainly 5 years ago this would be perceived as a bit of a risk.

Another important difference is that the Japanese market in PC games is well developed and integrated into the global market. Many video games originate in Japan. Super Mario Bros Sonic the Hedgehog just to them two. China is altogether different, video games consoles from which many PC games came from, were banned in China. China's PC game market is only now beginning to expand and has potential to be extremely lucrative but may not reflect entirely the PC games market outside of China. What's more, the possibility of Chinese investment in games companies is a huge incentive to focus on China. Much like how Creative Assembly has expanded by acquisition by a Japanese company after the success of Shogun.

I think for these reasons, a lot more consideration will be given on marketing TW Three Kingdoms in China than Shogun was in Japan back in 2000, not just for its larger demographics. Whilst the choice of Three Kingdoms fits well into achieving that objective;

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Video games industry in China and cross cultural gaming
http://www.inaglobal.fr/en/jeu-video...al-gaming-8446

"Indeed, this increase of locally produced games (in China) is also grounded in the specificity of Chinese culture. Thomas Price stresses that the “endless sea of made-in-China Three Kingdoms games”, is hard to avoid. The historical period (CE 220–280), has been greatly romanticized in the cultures of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. It has been celebrated and popularized in operas, folk stories, novels and in more recent times, films, television, and video games. The best known of these is Luo Guanzhong's “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”, a Ming dynasty historical novel based on events in the Three Kingdoms period detailing a fictionalized account of the real historical Three Kingdoms period. The movie shot in 2008 by John Woo became the top selling success of the Chinese box office in the history of Chinese cinema.

Creative Assembly will be hoping that TWTK will provide the same commercial boost the earlier Shogun game did. But this time by adapting their game to build upon the long established popularity of the Three Kingdoms throughout SE Asia.

[Theramines]

Man I'm loving all this backseat strategizing about a company's business posted by people who clearly have little to no understanding of business, software development, marketing or China, not to mention any actual insight into CA's thinking or decision-making process other than pure speculation.

But please, go right ahead and make these absolute assertions about the internal thinking at CA or pronouncements on how "China" is going to react to a game about which very little is known outside of a trailer and a few public comments.

As if any attempt to predict how a country of 1 billion people is going to react to something wasn't stupid enough, we're doing that without even knowing what that something is...

We're chatting and speculating. That's the purpose of this forum.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Maybe I should add that I don't think a Total War game can accurately portray the mostly operational style of warfare that was fought in this time period. While large armies could range from 100,000 to 200,000 men most engagements were fought by smaller detachments. For example the battles in the Yellow Turban Revolt were mostly maneuvers, ambushes and sieges. Yingchuan county, in Yu province, was taken by the Yellow Turbans after which Huangfu Song placed it under siege and the actual fighting was a series of skirmishes and only a few pitched battles.

Likewise the Battle of Guandu was a series of engagements with men numbering in the tens of thousands (detachments of 5,000-20,000) along various fortified positions on the Yellow River, then Cao Cao withdrawing to Guandu and being besieged by Yuan Shao, a double sortie by Cao Cao attacked Yuan Shao's siege lines and maneuvered behind Yuan Shao's lines to destroy the latter's supply base at Wuchao. Cao Cao's forces have been estimated to number anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 where as better estimations of Yuan Shao's army is anywhere from 60,000 to 200,000 (high estimates being up to 1 million men ).

In the famed Red Cliff campaign this was actually a massive operation along the Yangtze River. Zhou Yu was given 30,000 to 50,000 men and his fleet and Liu Bei with 20,000 men and his fleet opposed Cao Cao across the river in Jing province. Cao Cao for his part is said to have 200,000 to 250,000 men (though claims of 800,000 exist). Sun Quan personally led 50,000 men to besiege Hefei in Yu province. Hefei was defended by a few thousand men and received only about 1,000 men as reinforcements. Sun Quan was forced to give up the siege of Hefei for logistical reasons although his officer Zhou Yu had already defeated Cao Cao in Jing and forced him to retreat. Zhou Yu and Liu Bei then besieged Jiangling and Cao Ren's garrison had to be reinforced (allegedly Cao Ren had over 100,000 men by then).

[ptoss1]

Hopefully they're going back to how units interact in Shogun 2.

[katsusand]

Hopefully they're going back to how units interact in Shogun 2.

Oh god no
It will mess up any semblance of formation

[NostalgiaFan]

Oh god no
It will mess up any semblance of formation

Hell yes to this. the stupid mocap forced unit interaction of the previous historical titles. They should get a clue from Med 2 and instead make them only happen when a unit successfully hits another in a certain way to make them initiate the animation while still keeping the rest of the unit in cohesion without turning them into the fidgeting mess we see just from the trailer of TOB.

[Huberto]

While we don’t know yet how much of CA’s 3K game will be based on fictional events or stories and/or superhuman skills in combat, we can look at RoTK and begin to separate plausible historical events from purely fictional events. There’s a handy list on Wikipedia for example, see “List of fictitious stories in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. There are 45 separate entries there.

[stevehoos]

LOL, Good to see then admins back to correcting/purging dissenting opinions. Wouldn't want to nix the hype for CA's next installment. Exuberant praise is fine, but no thought crimes here.

This site is a joke. Has been for quite some time.

[NostalgiaFan]

So has there been nothing new yet coming out about this game?

[Abdülmecid I]

So, apparently some Chinese fans visited CA's headquarters taking a glance on the development of the game. He is obviously not allowed to reveal the juiciest information, but his account is still interesting:

On January 11th, I was invited to CA headquarters for a tour and was able to some interview CA employees.
We can't talk about the vast majority of the stuff we saw at CA.
Everything here will be stuff CA has already announced or made available.
Total War: Three Kingdoms has been in the works for quite some time now, maybe two years, and most of the stuff we saw at CA was concept art. I can say that personally it far exceeds my expectations and will probably once it launches as well.
One of the major concerns the Chinese community has brought up is whether or not a foreign company can faithfully depict Chinese characters faithfully to the culture and history. On this respect, I think we can rest easy. Not only has CA done their homework, they also have Chinese employees working on character design.
Characters, units, and UI are all stylistically Chinese. Original content also contains Chinese elements.
The game is based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms (literature) and not Records of the Three Kingdoms or RotTK (game). So they've used tv series like the 1994 version of Three Kingdoms and Red Cliff as reference material.
Most of the character designs were done by that Chinese girl in the middle of the picture. She's holding a copy of Jiazhou Fuyuan in her hands, which basically means Armor Restoration.
Even though they've used pop media as reference material, the game is still a historical TW at its core. CA takes their history very seriously (LMFAO). You won't find Zhuge Liang firing fireballs from a chariot.
We asked the Three Kingdoms lady some popular community questions, and from the answers we've heard up until now, there's nothing to really worry about.

I think that this quote basically confirms the majority of the early speculations about the game. He's rather adamant that the game will be primarily based on literal and not historical sources, on the Romance instead of the Records of the Three Kingdoms. However, he clarifies that, despite any imaginary elements, the Three Kingdoms will not reach Warhammer's level of fantasy, in terms of defying natural laws. In my opinion, CA probably intends to adopt a moderate approach, where the protagonists will be unrealistically strong and the architectural environment, as well as military equipment, will not strictly reflect the archeological reality (not a big deal presumably, because not many of the customers are familiarised with Chinese history, in comparison to Rome or Medieval Europe), but physics will be respected.

Secondly, only his visit and completely positive comments about the representation of Chinese culture indicate that the huge market of China will be one of the main targets of Creative Assembly. It's seems like a reasonable strategy, because the Chinese audience and the popularity of the Three Kingdoms in the West (due to popular culture, such as cinema and video-gaming) will ensure the game's financial success. That being said, I noticed one minor contradiction between his claims and those of previous sources. He says that 3K has been under development for two years, but a former CA employee had stated that the projected essentially existed only on paper until a couple of months (check the comments below the video). However, Darren also agrees that the idea existed for many years, so either the Chinese visitor or the responding CA employee meant with the "2-years" remark the conception of the project, not the actual beginning of its creation.

[Intranetusa]

. He says that 3K has been under development for two years, but a former CA employee had stated that the projected essentially existed only on paper until a couple of months (check the comments below the video). However, Darren also agrees that the idea existed for many years, so either the Chinese visitor or the responding CA employee meant with the "2-years" remark the conception of the project, not the actual beginning of its creation.

If the development is less than 2 years and it's already releasing 2018 then we might be getting another garbage launch like Rome 2.

[perifanosEllinas]

Official Post by CA, 11-1-2018

Total War: THREE KINGDOMS is the next major historical Total War game

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-...e-kingdoms-faq

Fan's post officially approved by CA, a few days later

CA is highly confidential about the new game and we can only tell what we are allowed to tell and all stuff here is published with CA's agreement.

Since the game will be based on novel but not historical record, CA has referenced lots of old Chinese TV shows and films (e.g. Three Kingdoms in 1994, Red Clif by John Woo. I don't need to explain a lot since you've watched the trailer.

https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/7soopg/translation_chinese_total_war_community_member/





So CA goes the immoral and unmanly way of false advertisement and lying ... again ...





That's all I needed to know to decide about buying it. I've had enough of that BS with Rome 2, so I'll pass this time. I gave them the benefit of the doubt back in Rome 2's days, but now being 5 years older and wiser, I have zero tolerance for BS.

"Making the same mistake twice is not the deed of a wise man." ~ Menander

And as they say: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

I just have one serious question though: why the hell is false advertising not illegal concerning the gaming industry? Why the hell is this allowed? Why do we let companies get away with disrespecting us in such a vulgar way?

[PointOfViewGun]

Official Post by CA, 11-1-2018
https://www.totalwar.com/blog/total-...e-kingdoms-faq
Fan's post officially approved by CA, a few days later
https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/co...munity_member/
So CA goes the immoral and unmanly way of false advertisement and lying ... again ...
That's all I needed to know to decide about buying it. I've had enough of that BS with Rome 2, so I'll pass this time. I gave them the benefit of the doubt back in Rome 2's days, but now being 5 years older and wiser, I have zero tolerance for BS.
"Making the same mistake twice is not the deed of a wise man." ~ Menander
And as they say: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
I just have one serious question though: why the hell is false advertising not illegal concerning the gaming industry? Why the hell is this allowed? Why do we let companies get away with disrespecting us in such a vulgar way?

Because a reddit poster said so?

By the way, what's wrong with the game making references to the novel? Pretty much all Total War games to date had non-historical elements or stories one way or the other. It's still historical for all intents and purposes.

[perifanosEllinas]

Because a reddit poster said so?

Their trailer said so too.

By the way, what's wrong with the game making references to the novel?

This is advertised as a historical game. Fictional events, fictional characters, fictional weapon designs of magic weapons and all the other stuff from a fantasy novel have no place in a historical game. Plus, if it has any fictional elements then it's by definition a historical fiction game, not a historical game, so this is false advertisement. They're lying to us. And I will also agree with Huberto, they are disrespecting history too.

Pretty much all Total War games to date had non-historical elements or stories one way or the other.

Oh really? Name one fictional element in Rome 1 or Rome 2.

It's still historical for all intents and purposes.

No, it isn't. It's historical fiction. Unless it has magic too. Then it's fantasy.

[Intranetusa]

Oh really? Name one fictional element in Rome 1 or Rome 2.

2000 year anachronistic Egyptians...every unit is wrong. Stereotypes of Celts, Germans, etc.
Screaming battalions of women. Battalions of half naked head hurlers. Spanish infantry with bull helmets. Naked German berserkers.
Rome split into Julli/Brutii/Scipii. Greek city states depicted as a unified empire. Red carpet wearing no armor Spartans. Hoplites fighting in a Macedonian sarissa phalanx. Macedonian silver shields depicted as a sarissa. Hollywood stereotyped Roman legions. Roman ninjas. Gladiator Battalions. Elite Urban Cohort units (who were really just firefighters). etc

[NostalgiaFan]

Oh really? Name one fictional element in Rome 1 or Rome 2.

Dude really? How long have you actually played the vanilla versions of those games?

The game being based more on the fictional Novel has me worried but they also said they are not going to go as far as include magic or anything like that so at least Fantasy is not going to be apart of that. The thing that worries me is if they are going to go all out in making all the weapons and equipment of the soldiers anachronistic and make the heroes one man armies or keep the anachronisms to a select few elements and make the heroes more like Shogun 2.

What really should worry everyone is the thought that this game may not have been in development for as long as we thought and that it might have actually been left at the back burner in place of the warhammer games, I would hope that is wrong but knowing CA it is not out of possibility. Hopefully anything to do with the fictional novel is kept more to the parts that involve character drama and politics and not stuff like Gunpowder or characters soloing entire armies.

[Huberto]

Dude really? How long have you actually played the vanilla versions of those games?

The game being based more on the fictional Novel has me worried but they also said they are not going to go as far as include magic or anything like that so at least Fantasy is not going to be apart of that. The thing that worries me is if they are going to go all out in making all the weapons and equipment of the soldiers anachronistic and make the heroes one man armies or keep the anachronisms to a select few elements and make the heroes more like Shogun 2.

What really should worry everyone is the thought that this game may not have been in development for as long as we thought and that it might have actually been left at the back burner in place of the warhammer games, I would hope that is wrong but knowing CA it is not out of possibility. Hopefully anything to do with the fictional novel is kept more to the parts that involve character drama and politics and not stuff like Gunpowder or characters soloing entire armies.

I'm more or less OK with what you say you're comfortable with; however putting superhuman martial arts warriors into the game as shown in the trailer would absolutely kill immersion for me as would narratives based on fictional stories from RotK presented as objectives, story-lines, or quests in the game. I don't see playing as the Julii or Scipii anywhere near the level of fantasy that super heroes on the battle map or fictional narratives would represent. The key difference there is historically themed game mechanics (rival Roman families) that is not literally true versus fictional stories presented as historical truth, big, big difference in my book.

If you've been following CA's blog posts, "what the teams have been working on" you'll notice that 3K went into "full production" in early 2017. That's at least 1.5 years to execute and "go gold," more than enough time for a typical TW game. CA also claims 3K was in "pre-production" for a year before that.