Total War: Three Kingdoms

> Send a spy to spy on an enemy faction.
> Spy gains a position in the enemy faction's noble court.
> Spy begins liking the enemy faction more than my faction.
> Spy resigns and becomes loyal to enemy faction.
> Ex spy becomes enemy faction's leader.
> Declares war on me.
10/10

Decent enough that I had clocked over 1k hours, kinda without knowing.
I still feel like I have much to learn about the history and the characters that are presented in this game.
History games and history itself is what I like I guess, more than the gaming part of it.
In that sense, gaming is more of an interactive tool to learn about history.
From this perspective, though obviously romanticised, hence not entirely a historically accurate sim of this chain-of-events that happened nearly 2 millennia ago, presented in part as it did in this game, has been quite an enjoyable ride for me.
I hope anyone who is kinda like me could enjoy it as well.
Total War: THREE KINGDOMS gets my recommendation.
This was my 2 cents, pls do as you will.

Total War: THREE KINGDOMS has the best diplomacy system of all Total War games.
I was able to win just by having a food monopoly starving others and simply purchasing all their lands in exchange for food. I always wanted to have this kind of victory.

Why did they actually abandon this game, like why?

My favorite total war.
I started playing total war with the warhammer ones.
I don't even remember why I bought this one.
Things I liked that are specific to Tree Kingdoms, or change from warhammer:
- Art style
- UI
- Duels between generals
- RPG elements that affect tactical gameplay (night attacks, weapon options, flaming projectiles)
- Reform tree (research but so vast you can make a different playthrough depending on which paths you chose)
- Cavalry weight: cavalry and mounted generals actually being able to push through infantry (somewhat) is such a breath of fresh air in this series
- Building up cities is very satisfying
- 3 faction types: despite everyone being from the same period, warlords, bandits and rebels add variety
Don't ask about the 7 princes thing, or the jungle tribes. Apart from these two that, in my opinion, aren't pertinent, the DLCs offer interesting additions.
CA please make more romanced historical settings for total war, with this game's pattern. I've seen how the Troy and pharao ones play, and I'm not impressed.

I'm writing this partially as a message to my future self, because I am rapidly becoming a huge fan of this game, however, I have seen what huge fans of this game look like, and they don't seem happy, either with Creative Assembly as a whole or how they've handled this specific game. So, in case that happens, and I become someone furious at the lack of a Northern expansion or the balance of the indigenous southern factions, let me just say that I love this game. I've played 30 hours, I've finished a campaign, and it's the most fun I've had with any Total War game. For the first time, Total War is about people more than armies, and anchoring this game around the magnetic personalities of the cast of Romance of the Three Kingdoms gives this game an astonishing amount of character and life that colours so much of the experience, with unique mechanics that reflect Cao Cao's scheming or Liu Bei's bonds of brotherhood. Placing the human faces of one of the most popular and influential works of fiction in human history on Total War mechanics does so much to enliven them, especially when they do superhuman feats of taking on entire regiments by themselves, or seeing an ocean of armies part to allow two master swordsmen to duel for the fate of all China.
It has a lot of the same problems and limitations as most Total War games, but there are a lot of mechanical changes that I do like. Total Warhammer 2 had even more asymmetrical factions but I found in my brief time with it that I was often frustrated at how often fights between individual units would drag on, where it seemed like however I positioned my units, however deftly I tried to flank, or how many gaps I would leave in my lines, the statistically better unit would win time after time, and it eventually led to play where I would just line up my armies, march them forward, and let them fight it out in a big line, because I felt so little effect from any attempts at ambush or cleverness. Here, it feels like positioning and tactical play matters so much more. I've won battles handily that the AI insisted I had absolutely no chance of winning through careful positioning of missiles, spearmen, and a lot of running horsemen around to charge into people from the back with my bro, my homie, my absolute Guy, Xiaohou Dun. I've gotten cocky and turned convincing routs into embarrassing skirmishes that would force me to pull back and reinforce. At least on Normal difficulty, this was not a game about composing the perfectly balanced army, it was a game about being clever in the moment, about the kind of tactical moves and big plays that someone like Cao Cao would pull off in the novel.
It's a game about making you feel like a mastermind just like him, about feeling like these larger-than-life figures, and also, the quiet sadness of these people dying and falling out of history, replaced by people you don't recognise, of the emptiness that comes when you defeat your most bitter enemy. It is the game that, for me, has come the absolute closest to fulfilling the intoxicating promise of Total War.
I could be wrong about this. Maybe in like 5 campaigns time, I'll see through the lines of code and into the artifice that underpins all of these kinds of games. Maybe the majesty and the fantasy will be gone by then. But that's why this message exists, future me. That even though you may not be loving the game now the way you did back then, the love that exists now burns so, so bright, and I don't want you to forget it.

It is certainly a different Total War from the others. It is not only a strategy and RTS, but also has 4X elements. I have read many complaints about the interface, the unreadable map, etc. Well, you can get used to everything. I think the developers designed the game very well. However, it is not for everyone. First of all, you need to like the "Chinese atmosphere". It is good to read something about China and watch some movies: "Hero", "House of Flying Daggers", "Empress", "14 Blades", or more recently "Shadow", but especially "Three Kingdoms (Red Cliff)" from 2008, directed by John Woo. I get the impression that the game's developers were heavily inspired by the latter film, which worked out to the game's advantage.
3K has unconventional solutions when it comes to mechanics - especially on the strategic level. It is designed according to the Chinese Wu xing theory of five transformations: tree (木, pinyin mù); fire (火, pinyin huǒ); earth (土, pinyin tǔ); metal (金, pinyin jīn) and water (水, pinyin shuǐ). The cycle of creation and destruction translates into the erection of buildings and the selection of military units and generals. Failure to follow this rule has real, negative consequences for the functioning of the state and the army.
Playing 3K, what I miss in the other installments of the series, I have the feeling that the developers have given the player real tools to build an empire and manage it. It couldn't have been otherwise, by the way, since Imperial China was essentially the first state in history with an elaborate administration, made up of top-down educated officials.
But one step at a time.
In the game, regardless of the chosen leader and faction, we lead a state with a monarchical system. Our ruler has broad prerogatives. With them, we conduct a policy of distribution and appointment, creating the power elite of our kingdom. From among various candidates, we can appoint them to offices at two levels: the central, or court, and the provincial level in the form of commandery administrators. Several ministers make up the monarch's advisory body, the council, which meets once a year to propose specific measures for internal and external policy. Candidates for office can combine civilian and military functions, so there is no avoidance and conduct expansion in one or at most two directions, due to the high cost of maintaining several armies. It is not easy in the game to create an efficient and effective spy network, but if successful there are plenty of options here: from sabotaging enemy logistics to inciting rebellions in cities to disrupting the transfer of power within an enemy dynasty included. However, there is no option to send a recruited spy to the enemy's territory with a preview of the map - a completely different solution from the one used so far. Instead, we receive reports from our envoy.
We recruit the army in a given commandery. Each army consists of three generals, commanding a maximum of 6 troops, which gives a total of 18 troops + 3 bodyguard troops of each general. This solution may seem strange, after all, in previous TWs there was only one general. However, it is not an ahistorical solution from the point of view of military history, given that armies were divided into two wings and a center. Here the player - the commander-in-chief - is de facto in command anyway;) The diversity of units is, in my opinion, greater in 3K than in Shogun 2, but let's not expect the unknown. The battles themselves look quite nice and have something of a fairy-tale feel to them, even in archive mode - in my opinion, this fits in with the overall concept of the game. On the other hand, the troop morale system, animations and damage dealing are a bit disappointing. On the plus side, however, the game can be credited with the ability to create different infantry and cavalry formations on the battlefield, as well as obstacles in the form of, for example, oil patches or palisades. This undoubtedly gives more possibilities to use the terrain. For example, we can protect our wing from enemy cavalry by building various barriers and hiding archers or crossbowmen behind them. Relationships between generals also play an important role in battles. One should think carefully about what to do with captured generals of the enemy army - their execution aggravates our relations with all factions, due to the game's treatment of war crimes as dishonorable!
As for the audio-visual aspect. I will say yes, the music here is atmospheric and the graphics, well, what who likes. I'm glad that the developers have moved away from the graphics known from Rome II, Attila and Thrones of Britannia, which is, to say the least, strangely ugly due to fatally chosen colors and poor edge smoothing. Yes, there is no revelation in 3K in this regard either, but the character cards, "moving" event cards, troop icons, beautiful tech tree and the overall interface based on exclusive black, look great and aesthetically pleasing!
I give it 9/10. I'm not looking forward to Medieval 3 or Empire 2, I'd prefer the Thirty Years' War period of 1618-1648, but with equally developed management mechanics as in 3K.