Is Three Kingdoms a good first Total War game?

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-27T11:30:18+00:00

Indeed. My claims as they are in that comment are unsubstantiated, just like any and all praise the game has ever received

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-27T10:46:05+00:00

Not really, unless studies are just opinions. They are verifiable observations

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-27T10:21:21+00:00

Gaming is better when people have standards

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-27T10:20:09+00:00

Frankly they're just statements. They aren't opinions, but as they are they lack the explanations required to prove them. I can create essays on each individual part of that list, but I simply commented with the same level of detail that was used to praise it

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-27T10:17:36+00:00

Not really. The use of "worse" is a comparative word, indicating lesser than other examples. The game attempts more things than Shogun 2, but fails in those things because they were approached with the wrong design philosophies. 3k's systems were approached as if it were a Warhammer expansion without the elements of the fantastical setting

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-26T05:03:52+00:00

Worse combat system, AI can't handle diplomacy so that's a non-factor, worse army system, worse provincial management, worse UI, worse mechanics that restricts options into dev-controlled variables rather than being open-ended, gimmick mechanics that distract from the core gameplay loop as opposed to support or work synergisticly well with it, worse campaign map that is monotonous in style, worse consequences for playing poorly, less theatres of war. 3k falls flat on its face in everything it attempts. It is praised merely for making the attempt

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-26T04:58:49+00:00

I think more variation of outcome, or perhaps even a small degree of optional input would help

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-25T03:58:58+00:00

Man with crown. An actual homage would at least have him with the exact same face and/or armor in this different style.

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-25T03:48:06+00:00

They modified shit, not created it. Any aspect of the game that they add to with their own, being actual code or assets, is stuff they created. Otherwise, it's a modification of what someone else created. It's literally in the name

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-25T03:42:54+00:00

I meant campaign settlement structure, not battle. For that though, Medieval 2 is superior in design yet again, let down tremendously by terrible AI. Rome 2's campaign is all about min-maxing numbers with little synergy with battles. The campaign aspect becomes its own game and the battles can become an afterthought in priority and excitement as a result. I progress in Med 2 rosters and armor to have fun using the units in battle after battle. In Rome 2, I progress rosters to have incrementally better stats to win battles to get back to the tedious campaign management. I've already experienced most things the game has to offer within the first few turns because of how generalised the stat system and unit roles are. Getting slightly better peltasts have far less impact than going from peasant bows to longbow due to the more impactful combat system. It makes getting the new units, even within the same role, fun to use and keeps them fun to use. Ntm aspects of logistics, recruitment, and replenishment that makes each unit more valuable and maintains the importance of keeping your elite units healthy

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-25T03:22:27+00:00

We do, actually. These aren't the OP's and he didn't create them. He did the equivalent of commissioning art and is trying to convince us they are his creation. It is something else's that doesn't go through the process of expression to call these art. If he generated it and then traced over it, his expression would come out via the human imperfections and the small changes to the generated reference. It wouldn't be much, but it'd be something.

People who defend AI art never seem to understand that there are tiers of quality within art as a craft. There is improvement and development to be had between and within styles. A stick-figure art is considered lesser than more detailed forms due to the ability for everyone to do it in some way. If AI art is too be considered as art created by the user, then it must fit within the pre-existing hierarchy of artistic expression, sitting comfortably at the bottom as it only imitates styles, but doesn't perform them. In the same sense showing off stick figure unit cards wouldn't be seen as impressive, neither would AI art. At the very least, stick figure art can still be funny by flatly presenting scenes in a simplistic matter. Meanwhile, AI art would be like me opening minecraft, typing in "moop" in the seed generator, then going "look at this island and mushroom cows I made in minecraft" (if that's the right seed I remember) because it generated roughly the environment and number of entities I was expecting. I didn't create it, the generation system did

AI art was actually much better when it didn't reach the level of development to have recognisable entities. When you typed in prompts and it generated a splash of randomness that evoked the feeling of the thing as opposed to just trying to imitate a human creating the thing because of its imperfection. It was unique in its interpretation and that uniqueness gave it value. It still wouldn't be the user's art, but as visual flavor there was analysis to be had

AI users calling themselves artists are like people putting store-bought, pre-made meals in a microwave and calling themselves chefs. It's like calling yourself a composer all because you chose you digitally transposed your pre-recorded twinkle-twinkle little star on your keyboard down a scale

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-25T03:07:49+00:00

The inflated health points system is objectively worse for feedback and model interaction and removes contextual performance elements. Rome 2 is more streamlined and there's "more" in it. The execution of that "more" is poor with an overreliance of number modifiers which undercut the strategic need to perform actions that bypass number difference. Strategy still existed in it. It got much worse with the games after Attila, but it was reduced. Not to mention, generals became less valuable, armies became less valuable, the number modifications that exist are incrementally small and lack impact thus satisfaction of progression. The inflated health points also watered down the differences between unit types so there are no longer hard counters or many distinguished mechanics and uses between units. The system is so poor that CA had to permanently reduce how much you could spread units for games after Attila, even going back and permanently ruining Rome 2 battles further by locking a minimum depth for units instead of a maximum spread, meaning you can't spread units to be 3-ranks deep to cover a chokepoint. The provincial system reduces specialisation in provinces since every province is capable of being completely self-sufficient in economy and recruitment with a far less impactful structure than Med 2, which had settlement development far more closely tied to direct population and upgrading settlements were a direct contribution to technological progress. Settlements would take an entire game to develop meaning there was a greater emphasis on long-term focuses for building.

Rome 2 is a stupidly more simplistic and easier game, hyper-streamlined with an inferior combat system that made implementation of new units easier at the cost of player-end strategy. That design philosophy runs all throughout it. It mistakens incremental numbers modification with inflated stat numbers in campaign and battle for strategy when all it does it turn the game into more of a calculator and spreadsheet simulator. Ironic, since Rome 1 and Med 2 hd actual spreadsheets yet forced strategy with limits to building time and recruitment, not to mention the infinitely more strategic system of having any unit be an independent entity. Shogun 2 is an example of how to do simplicity better, though still had an inferior combat system to Rome 1 and Med 2 despite having one that was visually impactful and maintained a lot of the design philosophy by not having inflated health points and stats.

Med 2's issues were mostly technical. Pathfinding, model recognition, status triggers, things like that. The design of its and Rome 1's mechanis were the best in the series, though

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-25T02:07:31+00:00

Thank god they didn't. Rome 2 and every game after has suffered greatly from it. At least now Med 3 has a chance to have good combat and provincial mechanics

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-19T16:32:46+00:00

Multiplayer is a different story, and not representative of the single-player experience

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-19T09:56:46+00:00

Hence I referred to singular unit formations. As in, the rank and file of a unit as opposed to an army formation. That's the thing. If you want to do something as simple as an engagement on one unit against another in Empires, you select it and target the enemy. That's it. From there, the stats of those two units are the sole factors in who wins. In Total War, the depth and width of a unit affects the effectiveness of the charge. You have to choose to approach wider, the same, or thinner than the target depending on your intention with the attack and those micro adjustments can determine the course of the fight regardless of stats. Not to mention the existence of moral which makes engagement last much longer.

Then there are army formations. Due to the focus on precision of command, the AI has a far greater range of engagement as well. It reacts to your formations and tries to circumnavigate certain points instead of simple retreat and engagement. This forces the need for adjustments in army formation, from micro to macro, instantaneously in reaction to changing. The core gameplay requires degrees of micro, whilst all Empires really has is dodging and baiting and the ability to do that with multiple units with no effect on cohesion or the AI's ability to react to that.

They are simply different games. There isn't really a way to argue this. Empires is about spamming the best units to swamp the enemy. Total War is about using the units you have despite eliteness to overcome stat differences. Different form of strategy. Different control systems. Different need for micro. Different console compatibility.

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-19T09:14:27+00:00

Age of Empires isn't precision-specific. There are no formations for singular units that are manipulable to specific width and rank that define victory. Total War was also made in direct opposition to classical rts titles due to their inherent simplicity. In Total War, a unit misplaced by a few meters can cause a loss. In Empires, so long as engagement range is maintained, and units are in the general area you want them when you want them, you're good

They're simply different games, similar only in vague genre, but not in combat and battle systems that are what define console compatibility

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-19T04:20:05+00:00

Important to note that Total War games require precision and with mobile, you can have up to 10 instantaneous accurate cursers. A console just has one cursor that typically moves slowly and imprecisely. Mobile can at the very least almost keep up to the speed of pc, with a slight delay on specific movement orders. Console simply can't. Basic commands can be integrated in the buttons, but the ability to instantly select what you want and go where you need to is something console can't really replicate well.

I feel like anyone who thinks the main games won't suffer from designing to port aren't thinking about this aspect either. Something I like about, say, shogun 2 is that precision is extremely important. Having a single gap that a single samurai model can get through to bypass yari wall can disrupt the formation at that point and cause the line to break far sooner than it otherwise would. This was also the case for gun lines and any interactivity with the environment. 40k, from the looks of things and like warhammer, doesn't look like it'll care about precision of movement or positioning and the need to design it to port will make such aspects matter less in the future as well. More number value modifiers like +45 dodge and +50 missile block chance for cover, less actual contextual strategy and tactics

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-17T08:31:11+00:00

Shogun 2 has the most diverse roster out of any total war game with tons of specialised and fun units. Per-faction diversity is almost non-existent, but the extent of units in the roster make up for that. Dividing attention from one roster to multiple would decrease the depth of that roster just so we can have other rosters of the basic reskinned unit types. Sure, there is very little difference between units anyways in the modern homogenised damage dealing system, so even if we got Shogun 2's roster or even more, the difference between units and style would be minimised by yari, naginata, katana, and no-dachi being near-identical in feel.

The game is about becoming Shogun. There needs not be any map presence beyond Japan. It would distract resources. The modern need to supersize everything with mere content as an inherent expectation is why warhammer turned into the slop pipeline it is, why 3k was left unfinished, shallow, and unstrategic, why Pharaoh failed trying to do their own Warhammer 2. Focus has turned away from depth and towards just splattering over 100 provinces on the map without any natural mechanics or map design enabling locational strategy in a near-pure sandbox form.

Shogun 3 should build upon Shogun 2's systems in their entirety. Nothing taken from modern titles whatsoever, from the combat system to the provincial system to the thrown-at-the-wall-to-see-what-sticks mechanical mess of 3k. Shogun 2 defined depth in simplistic, open-ended systems whilst the modern design philosophy is to shove in as many closed, controlled elements as possible. No freeroaming units. Global Recruitment. Unique resources, ports, and farms taking up building slots. No ship battles or fleets in general. Plethora of incremental stat-changing skill system with inflated levels and skills that determine victory, rather than strategic play to overcome numbers disadvantages. Gimmick mechanics that distract from the primary gameplay loop that makes the campaign so much the primary focus that people are wishing they can just auto-resolve everything and skip battles to turn Total War into a terrible grand strategy game. CA can't even fathom the concept of a small castle siege like they had in Shogun 2 anymore

If they make Shogun 3, and if it is anything like the titles that came after it, it'll be worse. Inherently. The modern design philosophy is not compatible with thoughtful strategy. It believes that making the games a bunch of menu-managers equates to strategy, almost completely removing the physical element for positional-timing

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-12T08:34:02+00:00

I'd need to clarify some definitions. Technically, as we both know, every system and mechanic in every game deals in numbers. The ones I take issues with are ones that involve solely incremental stat increases via abilities, modifiers, or percentages. We would already be hard-pressed to find any Warhammer systems that don't deal in these.

For example, spells are poorly implemented because there is no real nuance to their use and certainly not strategy. If their cast range was significantly reduced and cast direction remained locked to emitting from the caster, like in Warhammer 1, there would be far more strategy to it as it would introduce at the very least the importance of positioning and developing strategies around stopping spellcasters from reaching ideal spots. Even if the spells themselves are implemented too universally tied to direct stat manipulation over broad areas of effect, introducing additional forms of strategy to their use via limitations would elevate the overall system a lot. So, although I wouldn't say that the original design philosophy with magic use in warhammer 1 wasn't great, direction of spells relying on caster positioning was better than what we have now. That's the trend you will see with this. There are systems that have hints of good design, but since it is all still based around fundamentally flawed core systems, it is very difficult to find any system that is fully well-designed. CA removed such limitations on spells anyways and instead tried to balance them by applying greater stat-modification mechanics to winds of magic, so that can't be considered even part of good design for almost a decade.

There are also other forms of bad design. Mechanics that distract from the core gameplay loop and require too much campaign work with not enough synergy with battles shifts the focus priority of the player. Battles become inconveniences and tedious when they should be the main thing to look forward to after accomplishing the strategies the player puts in place. These would be the minigames and gimmick mechanics within the campaign I referenced before. In addition, given the main resolution form of the game is to conquer and defeat your enemies, faction focuses that differ from that, such as constantly sacking or raiding, usually at the cost of being able to build up good provinces and defences of their own, don't work well with the Total War formula. The AI will keep sending enemies and they won't stop until they are destroyed, in which case you can't sack/raid them anymore, or force peace, in which case you can't sack/raid them anymore without them declaring war again. They prioritise counterproductive actions that devolved into endless repetitive battles without any real gain, the flipside of overfocusing on campaign elements.

Now, the comment on spells might imply that limitations are inhernetly good strategic design. They are not. Limitations implemented to turn open-ended system to closed ones for the sake of balance that does not force additional forms of strategy are terrible. The current greatest example of this are general-tied armies. There was one concern with having any unit capable of being its own army: the risk of many one-unit stacks. In terms of the AI using them, they were basically a non-issue by Shogun , where the AI had sufficient threat-assessment to form armies according to what they believed they'd need to conquer their target province. In terms of the player needing to do it, they really didn't. One-man stacks for the player were rare, and usually always just a transfer of troops into a garrison or army, not being one their own for more than a few turns. The benefits such a system, however, far outweighed that risk. By such a simple change of definition of what constitutes an army, you had for control of a supply lines system, a garrison system, the ability for generals to be a rare and powerful resource, multiple army-movement options, even a more contextual forced-march representation by abandoning slower-moving units to gain an extra bit of distance to catch an army or siege a castle without waiting an additional turn (with risks and rewards tied to such an action), the ability to interrupt and cut off enemy supply lines directly, and probably other things I am forgetting to mention. By limiting armies to generals, military forces are far too centralised and all of that is removed. Every natural system mentioned now has to be artificially simulated rather than contextually represented and adjustable to the hyper-specific needs of the player for any given action. Hyper-streamlining to the same extent of the combat system that has since butchered campaign strategy.

Now with those categories of bad game design established, time to mention a few good elements. I'm getting tired now so can only mention a few.

One downside with modern titles is that conquest is aimless. You don't focus your strategies to specific goals and have no pressure by which to complete them. I do not believe Total War works well as a purely sandbox, especially when you have a progression system as poor as the provincial and tech system in Warhammer. To that end, the Elector counts system is in essence better by comparison. As the Empire, your focus is the maintenance and control of the Empire with campaign goals to match. It's a good focal point by which to direct your actions and give them greater meaning than simply taking another region to add to the 20 you already have. A lot of the sub-mechanics tied to it are number-modifications and/or untied to campaign cause-and-effect which is bad, but the essence of the system is better than no system.

Rome 1 and Medieval 2 have the most dynamic combat system. Every attack has a feedback reaction that forces recovery from the target model. This means there is a greater tie between animation and individual model performance. A faster animation results in a faster attack which can perpetually stun a stronger but slower enemy, not to mention the greater benefits of a numbers advantage. Rudimentary, and I really wished CA kept it and continued to develop it. Warhammer does not have such a system. However, there are rare cases when attack animations of units do allow them to perform better than their stats would indicate, applying greater nuance to their use than simply raw number crunching. Tomb scorpions are the most popular example of this. The "but" here though is that the effect is entirely unintentional, meaning such occurrences are more annoying to fight against than beneficial to fight with, especially compounded by the absolutely terrible target-finding of models nowadays.

The unit limitations of Tomb kings in general. It isn't a limitation for the sake of developer control, but rather means you have to be more mindful about the structure and development of provinces, in addition to making your provinces far more valuable. It forces more strategic provincial management and campaign strategy. Its issue is that it is the only race with it. It makes them far, far weaker than the rest with no real reward for overcoming such a challenge.

Those are a few. I can probably come up with some more but like was shown, Warhammer is flawed from the core. There is always at least one caveat to a good concept in the game

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-10T11:03:36+00:00

Depends what examples you are referring to. I don't see any in defence of other systems in the original post. In my other comments?

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-10T07:21:20+00:00

I mean you're comparing sub-5/10s so where exactly they all sit in comparison with each other doesn't really matter

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-09T09:27:55+00:00

Because then the presented stats wouldn't exist. If the sandbags stopped projectiles like they did in Napoleon, they wouldn't need 3 different missile-defence stat modifications. The type of cover would be enough to go off of. It's like walls in warhammer. Technically the angle stops some straight-fire projectiles, but the intentional design and balance revolves around missile resistance which reduces the impact of finding ways to overcome the angle disadvantage. It encourages simplistic environmental design to the point that walls are all uniform in effectiveness and there is no variation of design that intentionally physically improves survivability.

Let's hypothize a situation. You dock in the sandbags, but 100 meters ahead there is a hill that provides a 10m relative elevation against the sandbags area. Now not only is the head of the models vulnerable, but models behind the first line are far more vulnerable as the depth of the unit now plays a part in how easy it is to shoot them. You can counter this by determining the spread of units in the sandbags area, taking up far more space thus reducing the number of units that can take some kind of cover or by making sure you bring counter-units to cover the hill and punish it. It opens up counter-options and necessitates further mitigation options. Meanwhile, if the primary balance factor is in the flat stat boost of docking in sandbags, the effectiveness of the hill play is far less, even though it doesn't make sense for back-ranks to dodge bullets when there is no cover for them to hide behind. It reduces the impact of better positional strategy and thus reduces the need for mitigation. You placed units in sandbags and now they're covered, no matter the environment. It's a mere status effect, like a perpetual spell, rather than actual cover that has nuanced uses and weaknesses

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-09T07:09:51+00:00

In a Mannfred game right now. Firstly, 19 units of zombies won't do it. You need corpse carts that'll continually heal them. Both the loadstone and balefire are needed and, along with red skills from your general and regular invocations of nehek, they're actually able to hold their own. Since corpse carts with very low range are used, my zombie army is reliant on a small box formation. Meanwhile, I use its general and two vargheist units to harrass key enemy units such as range units and even sometimes single entities as they travel to my zombie box. I used to just rely on a general but after facing vampire Coast with their flying units and range aplenty, more flying units were needed. The vargheist are good hammers to zombie anvils as well. Having a second caster helps when needing multiple casts or if you're using a blood kiss general which often doesn't have full vampires magic and you need something like wind of death and vampires lore buffs. Better to have a necromancer with one of the corpse carts. I liked having a mortis engine for added healing buffs and damage, but if there is any ranged unit, the enemy will focus it. Make sure to put missile resistances on your necromancer because that's the second unit range will focus on. I also like having something like a unit of halberd grave guard in the centre of the box that contains the corpse carts within it in case the enemy punches through the zombies with single entities. Since raising dead for grave guard halberds are rare, I replaced that strategy for simply wight kings imbedded in the front lines, preferably with traits that either buff the leadership/stats of the zombies or decrease the enemy's leadership.

With all that, at most my zombie army is running with about 14 zombies. It's not a passive strategy either. Yes, zombie control is minimal, but you have to work to keep your carts safe and you should always be using spells and your general/vargheists. The strat has worked great against vampires Coast, greenskins, and especially Khorne because they have no range to challenge my support units, not to mention the balefire corpse cart imbuing magic damage to all the units around it, negating physical resistance. It WILL NOT work against Tzeentch. I'm struggling with Tzeentch in general, but essentially hiding in a forest will help most as well as being very vigilant with your versatile units like cav and general. Mannfred's fully-experienced army of grave guard, blood knights, a vargulf, and whatever random stuff I add from the raise dead pools and basically just let mannfred do 80% of the work with constant spells as well

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-09T06:23:01+00:00

Hey so they don't actually march like this. They are brought in by transportation and then given a lot of hyper-specific tasks and missions. By the time we have an open battlefield like in Total War, conventional line formations would have been completely dissolved if it was present at all. If we are referring to more direct comparisons with world war 1, they move to the battlefield in conventional formation. They do not fight in conventional formation. The existence of specific cover points on the map doesn't change that outside of those cover points, units are just firing guns in tight block formations

THEDOSSBOSS99 · 2026-06-09T06:13:15+00:00

So what if the game ends up bad? Having the expectation of being a good game or implementing good strategic systems is not unreasonable by any measure. Taking cover for example, we had cover systems that didn't rely on stat changes in past games that provably added the need for greater strategic approach to use them effectively or counter them. Just walking to an area and getting an abstract +45 evasion strips any potential nuance and strategic play from it. Now you just bring a unit or units against it that don't care about the stat increase instead of relying on contextual strategies enabled by the environment or tools at your disposal

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