Duels? will it fit TW3K?

[Altimis]

I dunno in the Chinese history, especially ancient 3K periods their generals will often dueling?

I knew there tons of movie/book/anime/cartoon/fantasy of 3K doing this a lot, its just their "trademark".

As you guys seen in TW3K trailer, they even shown us famous "3 Bros vs Lu Bu battle in the Hu Lao Gate battle" (although, there no Hu Lao gate in trailer).

I believe not everyone like this idea BUT this is The Three Kingdoms, I think dueling fit the theme.

Maybe they will give option to make a duel then cinema cutscene pop like they did with Shogun 1 and 2 (those Ninja/Geisha assassin things) or they will make real battle duel on the field?

What you guys opinion on this?

[zoner16]

Short Answer:

No.

Long Answer:

Duels are a staple of Three Kingdoms fictionalizations for much the same reason they're hyped up in European historical fiction. They're flashy, useful storytelling to hammer in the themes the author is going for, and help condense complicated battles into a series of one on ones.

In history though, there are barely any duels between commanders that we know of. In fact, there are barely any instances of commanders interacting on the battlefield at all. There are a couple exceptions, like Guan Yu's killing of Yan Liang and the inconclusive duel between Sun Ce and Taishi Ci, but for the most part, duels were rare for the same reason they were rare elsewhere. There was barely any point to dueling on the battlefield when you can just have your army do all the fighting. Plenty of generals were skilled and strong warriors to be sure, but typically, they understood that it was more effective to lead in a way that they could focus on the entire enemy, rather than just one soldier.

Long, over-choreographed duels between single entities is something I could do without, but a return of matched combat that flows better and isn't as omnipresent as past iterations wouldn't be remiss in my opinion.


Also, side note: Not only was there no "Three Brothers vs Lu Bu" duel, but the Battle of Hu Lao Gate itself never took place. The battle is an invention of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms as a kind of standin for the Battle of Dagu, which was fought between Sun Jian and Dong Zhuo. Sun Jian did almost all of the legwork during the Coalition against Dong Zhuo, and he doesn't get nearly enough credit, so I feel the need to mention it here.

[geala]

CA has to decide wether they go history or fantasy. So to say, take Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms or Romance of the Three Kingdoms as base?

I had/have concerns when watching the trailer, it looks like a Chinese hero fantasy movie. They said however it will be a historical game, and they should act accordingly. I'm not against (even immortal) "heroes" as story element, as long as they work through units and armies. I don't want to see Warhammer like single person heroes smashing through whole armies.

Dueling does simply not fit into such a historical context in my opinion. It would also be a totally different total war experience if mayor conflicts would be decided by single combat. Maybe it could be fun, but it would be more an hero-development RPG with economy, diplomacy and army building as sidekicks.

As zoner16 wrote, I too am for individual fighting animations on the battlefield, as long as they are a) not overdone gungfu or mega-gore nonsense (blood and entrails are good, but no constant decaps, blood fontaines and such, please) and b) in a certain way decisive, with which I mean animations should only play as the way to killing or wounding, not as repeated sword dances one after the other without results.

Perhaps one could integrate dueling as an agents game, we had a similar feature in Empire. Although I never liked vanilla TW agents.

[PikeStance]

So, CA makes one fictional game (Warhammer) and suddenly their historical titles are fictional as well. Are people still overreacting to the theatrical trailer introducing the next "historical" title? I would hope that nonsense would have fizzled out by now.

No dueling.

[NostalgiaFan]

Duels are dumb and should not be allowed whatsoever unless it some special gimmick between agents and champions. Battles should try to work more around a Med 2 formula where the animations only happen when one strikes a killing blow against another.

[Intranetusa]

So, CA makes one fictional game (Warhammer) and suddenly their historical titles are fictional as well. Are people still overreacting to the theatrical trailer introducing the next "historical" title? I would hope that nonsense would have fizzled out by now.

No dueling.

The problem is their trailer is incredibly inaccurate (stereotypical idiot red shirts charging out of formation with nothing but a one handed sword or short spear to get killed by the heroes) and has fantasy elements (Warhammer/Dynasty Warriors like heroes dueling it out and slaughtering armies).

[PikeStance]

How exactly is this a problem. The point of the trailer was to reveal the next historical title. As I pointed out when it first came out it was typical of period Chinese movies. There isn’t anything more to it than that. I personally couldn’t think of a better way to introduce a game. Moreover it was a marketing gem; literally have people talking without revealing anything about the game at all. Well played CA, well played.