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

[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.

[PointOfViewGun]

Their trailer said so too.

Where in the trailer did it say that the game will not be based on historical record? Do tell.

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.

You have no information so far to tell that they're gonna have magical weapons.

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

Collosal walls to begin with. Never existed.
Division of the empire between 3 factions. Nope.
Urban cohorts were not soldiers, but a police force.
So on and on...

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

All Total War games are historical fiction if you wanna go with that label.

[Frunk]

Not sure how much stock should be put into trailers. Anyone remember the Medieval I trailer/intro video? Pretty sure that game looked nothing like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Leonardo]

Man, that MTW intro video certainly bring backs memory and is by now nostalgic too.

+rep

[perifanosEllinas]

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.
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. Gladiator Battalions. Elite Urban Cohort units (who were really just firefighters). etc

These are historical inaccuracies, not fictional elements. All these existed in real history in one way or another, just not as portrayed in vanilla RTW.

Naked German berserkers.

This is a historically accurate unit.

Roman ninjas

There are no ninjas in RTW. I guess you're talking about the arcani. The arcani existed in real life, they were scouts. But depicting them as a unit was a really bad idea. Again, historical inaccuracy, not fiction.

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

For so many years that I've lost count.

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.

Well, CA rushing out games way before they're finished isn't something new. Would anyone really be surprised if that turned out to be the case after the game's release? Not me, that's for sure.

Another thing that I consider quite possible and haven't seen anyone talking about yet, is that since they're using the novel as their primary source and not real history, I think it's highly possible they'll include popular fictional battles from the novel as quest battles, like in warhammer. Especially the battle of Hulao Pass, since it was so emphasised in the trailer.

Where in the trailer did it say that the game will not be based on historical record? Do tell.

Dude, the trailer starts with a fictional event from the fantasy novel, the oath of the peach garden. It then shows us fictional weapon designs that strongly resemble the magic weapons of the fantasy novel. And it finishes with a fictional battle of the fantasy novel, the battle of Hulao Pass.

So I reverse your question: where in the trailer did it not say that the game will not be based on historical record? The trailer is full of fiction.

You have no information so far to tell that they're gonna have magical weapons.

I never said they'll have magic weapons, even though I still think they might. I said they have fictional weapon designs that strongly resemble the novel's fantasy weapons.

Collosal walls to begin with. Never existed.

What the hell are you talking about? Athens, Rome, Syracuse, Rhodes, Alexandria, Babylon, Tyros, Jerusalem and so many other ancient cities all had "colossal" walls at the time. Review your history before you make statements like that next time.

Division of the empire between 3 factions. Nope.

Rome's forces were eventually divided on several occasions, which is why it had several civil wars, just not in the way vanilla RTW portrays it. Again, historical inaccuracy, not fiction.

Urban cohorts were not soldiers, but a police force.
So on and on...

Yes. And in RTW you can recruit them and station them in a city to act like a police force, like a garrison, which is exactly how they are supposed to be used. So what's wrong with that?

All Total War games are historical fiction if you wanna go with that label.

No, they aren't. Nobody here has named one fictional element in vanilla Rome 1 or Rome 2 yet.

You guys give me the impression that you don't really understand what "fictional elements" means or what the difference actually is between historical inaccuracy and fiction.

[Intranetusa]

These are historical inaccuracies, not fictional elements. All these existed in real history in one way or another, just not as portrayed in vanilla RTW.

Since when did Screaming battalions of women and Battalions of half naked head hurlers exist in reality? Those are straight up fiction, not simply historical inaccuracy.

If it's historically inaccurate to such a large extent then it basically is fiction (or "historical fiction" as you phrased it earlier).

Simply using the name of a historical group of people, and then making them into something completely unrelated what they were in reality goes beyond historical inaccuracy - that is just historical fiction. Historically inaccurate would be saying the Romans were wearing lorica segmentata during the days of Julius Caesar. Historical fiction would be saying Roman spies were actually combat ninjas who had their own elite unit battalions. Or that Roman firefighters were actually a super unit superior to the Praetorian guards.

But let's assume all of these elements are not fiction/historical fiction but rather historical inaccuracy as you say. Even still, Rome Total War 1 makes this 3K trailer seem like a well researched historical thesis in comparison. The 3K's trailer of Lu Bu wearing medieval plated chainmail armor killing 6-7 dudes in a row is far more plausible than Egyptians from 2000 BC being transported by a time machine into the days of 200 BC ancient Rome or Roman spies suddenly turning into 16th century Japanese ninjas.

The 3K equivalent of RTW1's historical fiction/historical inaccuracy would be giving Lu Bu a musket from the Renaissance era and making him fight in a Ming Dynasty pike and shot formation...while wearing 16th century Gothic plate armor and being a part of a ninja clan.

No, they aren't. Nobody here has named one fictional element in vanilla Rome 1 or Rome 2 yet. You guys give me the impression that you don't really understand what "fictional elements" means or what the difference actually is between historical inaccuracy and fiction.

You haven't actually defined the difference between what you consider the line between historical inaccuracy and fiction.

If RTW1 is simply historical inaccuracy rather than fiction then under your logic, then nothing in this 3K trailer is fiction either. The 3K trailer is simply historically inaccurate (yet still more plausible and accurate than the stuff in RTW1).

All of the characters, weapons, and armor seen in this 3K trailer did exist at some point in time, even if it's portrayed incorrectly in terms of appearance and time-frame.

Another thing that I consider quite possible and haven't seen anyone talking about yet, is that since they're using the novel as their primary source and not real history, I think it's highly possible they'll include popular fictional battles from the novel as quest battles, like in warhammer. Especially the battle of Hulao Pass, since it was so emphasised in the trailer...

Even if the battle as described in the novel didn't exist, there were plenty of battles by the coalition against Dong Zhou. You could just literally substitute Hulao Pass with any of the other numerous battles that they fought.

It's perfectly plausible that Tsao Tsao and Liu Bei fought in the same battle against Dong Zhou, even if it wasn't actually the "battle of Hulao pass."

So I reverse your question: where in the trailer did it not say that the game will not be based on historical record? The trailer is full of fiction..

Dude, the trailer starts with a fictional event from the fantasy novel, the oath of the peach garden. It then shows us fictional weapon designs that strongly resemble the magic weapons of the fantasy novel. And it finishes with a fictional battle of the fantasy novel, the battle of Hulao Pass.

The Oath of Peach Garden may not have happened as the novel portrays, but Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei were historically described as being as close as brothers. As oaths DID exist during the time period, the Oath of Brotherhood is not a big stretch in imagination.

A fraternal oath that may have taken place among the 3 in a garden is far MORE plausible than Egyptians from 2000 BC being transported to 100 BC in RTW1.

I never said they'll have magic weapons, even though I still think they might. I said they have fictional weapon designs that strongly resemble the novel's fantasy weapons.

The weapons are not fictional. Guan Yu's weapon is a more ornate version of the Guan dao or Pu Dao, which are real weapons that existed in the ancient and medieval era. Liu Bei's swords are obviously not fictional. Zhang Fei's serpent spear is based on actual designs of wavy-spears in reality with an alteration near the tip. Lu Bu's halberd is just a fancier version of the double crescent halberd commonly used during the Song Dynasty. It's not a fictional weapon although it is portrayed a bit incorrectly.

None of these weapons are "fictional" - the author used real-life weapons during the Yuan-Ming Dynasty as inspiration and they're more ornate than the commonly used versions.

So the weapons are really just anachronistic. It's no different than medieval Byzantine pikemen or explosive onagers in Attilla TW...and it's not remotely as bad as 2000 BC Egyptians or Roman ninjas in RTW1.

---

Furthermore, some of the historical fiction in ROTK is simply "filling in the blanks" and is less fiction than the stuff in RTW1. There is no evidence some of these ROTK events existed because there is no historical record of it, but at the same time, we cannot say for 100% certainty that they could never have happened because they are not outside the realm of plausibility (eg. taking an oath of brotherhood in a garden).

On the other hand, we can say for basically 100% certainty that the Egyptians from 2000 BC did not exist in 100 BC timeframe of RTW1, and that Urban Cohorts were not elite soldiers superior to Praetorians - because that simply contradicts evidence and is not plausible. Just like we can say for certain that Lu Bu was not a Samurai warrior equipped with a katana and musket.

[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.

[PointOfViewGun]

Dude, the trailer starts with a fictional event from the fantasy novel, the oath of the peach garden. It then shows us fictional weapon designs that strongly resemble the magic weapons of the fantasy novel. And it finishes with a fictional battle of the fantasy novel, the battle of Hulao Pass.
So I reverse your question: where in the trailer did it not say that the game will not be based on historical record? The trailer is full of fiction.
I never said they'll have magic weapons, even though I still think they might. I said they have fictional weapon designs that strongly resemble the novel's fantasy weapons.
What the hell are you talking about? Athens, Rome, Syracuse, Rhodes, Alexandria, Babylon, Tyros, Jerusalem and so many other ancient cities all had "colossal" walls at the time. Review your history before you make statements like that next time.
Rome's forces were eventually divided on several occasions, which is why it had several civil wars, just not in the way vanilla RTW portrays it. Again, historical inaccuracy, not fiction.
Yes. And in RTW you can recruit them and station them in a city to act like a police force, like a garrison, which is exactly how they are supposed to be used. So what's wrong with that?
No, they aren't. Nobody here has named one fictional element in vanilla Rome 1 or Rome 2 yet.
You guys give me the impression that you don't really understand what "fictional elements" means or what the difference actually is between historical inaccuracy and fiction.

Wow, the level of logic jumps you had to go through to respond was just incredible. Some of your points were mind bogglingly stupid that I'm not sure on how to come with a response. You could station urban cohorts in cities to act like a police force so that makes it accurate? Really? How does that change the fact that you were able to use them as an army unit on the battle field or in sieges of enemy cities? It doesn't. The Roman division into 3 parts at the time of the game is fiction. It never happened. Period. To claim that the colossal walls that Rome I towns could have is historical is just incredible. No town ever had a wall that was that high. The final tier was stupendously tall. Just because you're jumping through bunch of logic jumps here doesn't mean nobody introduced successful examples. Then you accuse people of not understanding what fictional elements mean which is quite ironic.

You stressed magic couple of times. So, yeah, you did claim there will be magic in the game. Otherwise, it was senseless to argue about how the game would be a fantasy game if it had magic. I never said that the game won't contain fictional elements. My entire premise is that all Total War games to date had such elements. So, asking me about where in the trailer it says that it's not going to be based on fictional elements is a silly question.

[SturmChurro]

Well, I think the key difference here is they are using this supposed fictional novel (?) about as a basis, rather than taking actual historical fact(s) and playing around with that. Now I am not gonna even try to argue what is or isn't historically plausible or accurate in a China Total War game. They could have the supposed Medieval chain mail on one of the heroes and I wouldn't know that it wasn't a part of the time or not - which I suspect the vast majority of people who will pick the game up won't either. Game will probably be fun dialed down version of Warhammer (Hero systems) closer to SHOGUN 2; very stylized, colorful, martial arts focused. As I said before, if you are expecting a historical simulator... You ain't getting it!

[NorseThing]

Man, that MTW intro video certainly bring backs memory and is by now nostalgic too.

+rep

I agree 110% with you on this. I watched the trailer and thought to myself that I want that game. Oh wait. I have that game and I think perhaps I might even run through a few turns tonight. +rep to both of you -- it makes today better just to view the trailer.

[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.

[ptoss1]

If what reddit says is correct, it'll be essentially the literary version without magic. So about as historical as Shogun 2 or Rome 2, which might not be everybody's cup of tea. Not the most historical with fictional events but not fantasy either.

[Intranetusa]

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.

It'll be ok as long as they have an elite bodyguard rather than a single unit hero like in Warhammer. Elite Katana units in Shogun 2 can kill wave after wave of ashigaru and lower level units by themselves. Bodyguards in some TW games (especially RTW1) with HP bonus traits have some insane durability and can tank blow after blow. I can't count the number of times when I was capturing an enemy city and my units completely surrounded the lone general (all his bodyguards dead) but it still took like a full minute to kill him off.

[Huberto]

It'll be ok as long as they have an elite bodyguard rather than a single unit hero like in Warhammer. Elite Katana units in Shogun 2 can kill wave after wave of ashigaru and lower level units by themselves. Bodyguards in some TW games (especially RTW1) with HP bonus traits have some insane durability and can tank blow after blow. I can't count the number of times when I was capturing an enemy city and my units completely surrounded the lone general (all his bodyguards dead) but it still took like a full minute to kill him off.

Overpowered units like elite Katana are a immersion-killing bore (especially at the end of a battle like you describe) but I can probably live with it. The S2 combat animations are also pretty lame imo and wish we had more plausible ones and a bit less of an rock paper scissors tactical system. But if CA wedges superhero units or supermen into a TW tactical battle system then they are really taking Warhammer approach, even if its martial arts instead of fantasy creatures breathing fire.

TW:3K is a real design dilemma for CA, with difficult choices. When they develop the narrative, objectives, missions, etc., are they going to be plausible for Han China or plausible for RotK? A good analogy would be having to choose doing a game set in the Iliad or doing a plausible bronze age conflict that has leaders named Agamemnon and lots of references to the Gods intervening? I think some people are confusing in their posts historically-themed game mechanics that didn't happen in history versus game mechanics representing as magic/myth and fiction as real stuff. What does this mean for RotK? -- I saw a good example recently:

Basically this is what you could expect: Zhuge Liang would be capable to spam buff/debuff/utility "spells" like Kairos Fateweaver with unlimited power dice, but he cannot cast any damage spells to directly kill enemy unit or character. Other strategist type characters ( Pang Tong 龐統，Xu Shu 徐庶, Zhou Yu周瑜，Lu Su 魯肅， Guo Jia 郭嘉，Xun Yu荀彧 Xun You荀攸，Jia Xu賈詡 etc., etc.) would get a lesser version of the same thing, say, regular Lord of Change with different psychic mastery level.

[ptoss1]

I prefer S2's combat animations to Rome 2 and Attila. They look like they're stabbing into nothing and the combat feels like it has no impact. Personal preference but that's how I feel.

[Anna_Gein]

I have a question to people familiar with China history. We're the Three Kingdoms the only political entities of their time ? Or were there a many more political entities ? Were kingdoms the only form of state or many more different political systems.

I am think about entities like Free Cities, trade confederations, warlike tribal societies, independent monasteries, alien cultural groups roaming the countryside (similar to Goths and Vandals in the Roman Empire), etc.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I have a question to people familiar with China history. We're the Three Kingdoms the only political entities of their time ? Or were there a many more political entities ? Were kingdoms the only form of state or many more different political systems.

I am think about entities like Free Cities, trade confederations, warlike tribal societies, independent monasteries, alien cultural groups roaming the countryside (similar to Goths and Vandals in the Roman Empire), etc.

Technically the Three Kingdoms did not exist until 215 when Liu Bei and Cao Cao finished off the last two warlords (Liu Zhang in Yi and Zhang Lu in Hanzhong). The term is usually used to refer to the collapse of the Han Dynasty that started with the Yellow Turban revolt in 184 or the usurpation by Dong Zhuo in 189. In 189-191 there were multiple warlords that controlled various cities. Gradually these warlords were either picked off or joined with other warlords. In 193 almost everyone was established and there existed perhaps 20 warlords. In addition to this there were multiple tribes on the steppe that became involved, the Xiongnu were a tribal entity that had existed within the empire for a century and they resided in Bing province. Likewise in the south there were multiple tribes that took minor roles, usually pledging allegiance to whoever was in charge but rising up in revolt as well. The Han Dynasty itself was not technically abolished until 220 when Cao Pi forced Emperor Xian to abdicate.

If it was in say 193 then the factions should be Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Sun Jian, Gongsun Zan, Gonsun Yuan, Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu, Ma Teng, Li Jue, Liu Biao, Zhang Yang, Lu Bu, Liu Yao, Xu Gong, Wang Lang, Tao Qian, Zhang Xiu, Shi Xie, Liu Zhang, Zhang Lu, the Xiongnu (in Bing province), the Yellow Turbans, various southern tribes, the Heishan Bandits.

[Ngazi]

I have to agree that the novel is not any less historically accurate than Total War games but the massive bias in the novel is something that would not benefit gameplay.

Specifically the belittling of Zhou Yu and the supervillian Sima Yi.

[Anna_Gein]

Technically the Three Kingdoms did not exist until 215 when Liu Bei and Cao Cao finished off the last two warlords (Liu Zhang in Yi and Zhang Lu in Hanzhong). The term is usually used to refer to the collapse of the Han Dynasty that started with the Yellow Turban revolt in 184 or the usurpation by Dong Zhuo in 189. In 189-191 there were multiple warlords that controlled various cities. Gradually these warlords were either picked off or joined with other warlords. In 193 almost everyone was established and there existed perhaps 20 warlords. In addition to this there were multiple tribes on the steppe that became involved, the Xiongnu were a tribal entity that had existed within the empire for a century and they resided in Bing province. Likewise in the south there were multiple tribes that took minor roles, usually pledging allegiance to whoever was in charge but rising up in revolt as well. The Han Dynasty itself was not technically abolished until 220 when Cao Pi forced Emperor Xian to abdicate.

If it was in say 193 then the factions should be Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Sun Jian, Gongsun Zan, Gonsun Yuan, Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu, Ma Teng, Li Jue, Liu Biao, Zhang Yang, Lu Bu, Liu Yao, Xu Gong, Wang Lang, Tao Qian, Zhang Xiu, Shi Xie, Liu Zhang, Zhang Lu, the Xiongnu (in Bing province), the Yellow Turbans, various southern tribes, the Heishan Bandits.

Great. So the map will not start with 3 big blob. That's a relief.

Were the Xiongnu independent or semi-independent ? Or were they integral part of the someone else kingdom ? Say question for the southern tribes you mentioned. Were all warlords acting as kings ? No "republican" cities ruled a merchant or oligarchic elite ?

[Ngazi]

The Three Kingdoms eventually were three emperors (then one emperor), but for most of the novel they were not kings. The centuries old Han court was still the structure of power much like the Roman Senate still survived well past Caesar. Prominent people held military and civil offices even if only to further their own ambitions, while at times the state of anarchy made even a small time governor quite autonomous.

The Xiongnu were way past their prime and what we call the Xiongnu were by this time probably various groups of steppe peoples under different rulers, in very different areas, and in different states of sinicization / urbanization / integration.