Total War: Three Kingdoms

I brought Dynasty to @tomchick’s over Christmas but we never got to play, and thus still don’t know who shot J.R. Tom’s comment was that it sounded like Fief in ancient China but I beg to differ.

I was probably thinking of Bruce’s interview with Hollandspiele and it got mixed in my subconscious during my dreams because of too much Twilight Struggling and eating earlier this month — I don’t need to be alarmed oO

I’ve been faintly aware of the manga for a long time, but your post inspired me to take a longer look. Here’s an interesting post by the translator. Hox’s foreword and afterword in his translation is also interesting.

Useless things I’ve learned as a result:

  • RoTK was popular in Japan during the Edo period, which explains similarities between some Sengoku stories and RoTK. Obvious, but still odd to consider that RoTK is ancient history for Norabunga! and friends.
  • There are various versions of RoTK. Not exactly clear whether the tea buying episode from the manga (which is as far as I’ve gotten) is from another version of RoTK, or if it was from Eiji’s japanese translation, or it’s by Yokoyama himself. It’s absent from the english translation in any case, and Zhang Fei’s background seems substantially different as well.

Im not sure what you mean by multiple versions, there’s only one original text, but it’s been adapted innumerable times. My “favorite” RoTK adaptation is Ikki Tousen, which is RoTK as busty Kung Fu school girls.

Turns out “recension” is the correct term. Hesitant to throw this on the useless knowledge pile, since I’ll now break out that word whenever possible.

Wow good finds! I read the series up through volume 47 or so in Japanese, at which point the slower reading in my non-native language, and the fact that all the “main characters” of the first 35-40 volumes were dead at that point made it a difficult slog.

Of course having learned Three Kingdom’s lore in Japan, I learned the Japanese pronunciation of all the characters, which is completely different from the Chinese. When I studied Chinese a few years later it was interesting learning how much they differed.

IIRC, there are stylistic differences in the last fifth or so that indicate that it was written by a different, later author than the bulk of the book. The division being sometime around the point where the first generation dies. I can’t find a primary reference on that claim at the moment though.

So recent forays have led me onto another adaptation of RoTk called “The Ravages of Time.” Sima Yi is the main character in this one, and the author inserts him into various events preceding his actual introduction in the novel. Some of the more famous strategists in the novels (ie. Guo Jia, Jia Xu, Zhou Yu etc.) are now students of the same teacher, so they contend against each other with a shared past.

Naturally it’s a lot less faithful to the original than Sangokushi, but it does seem to break out of the usual depictions in interesting ways (Dong Zhou is now a fit, charismatic general, Lu Bu is no dummy, etc.) I gathered all this by spoiling myself on this tvtropes page, so I can’t speak to the actual quality of writing/fan translation.

The art style reminds me of the art in Blade of the Immortal, though not quite as well done. Definitely lacks the flair and the spectacular fight scenes that I’ve only come across in Blade, but I assume it makes up for it by having an actual story.

It started in 2001, and it’s maybe 3/5ths through the tale? Maybe another another 10 years to go before it’s through.

Total War: Three Kingdoms will include a romanticized version where heroes are similar to Warhammer TW heroes and a classic mode which is more realistic. Interview with game director

Here’s some actual gameplay with a 1-on-1 duel at the end:

And here’s a character trailer:

Also delayed until Spring 2019.

2 different game modes.

Interesting.

Yep, I can get behind that. Best of two worlds.

This is why I Total War. BTW I am starting to like Thrones more. There are some interesting mechanics and the combat is gritty.

CA is doing something that I would have never thought possible. They are doing the dream game (Warhammer 2-3) and still staying historical --AND learning the lessons. AND --experimenting with these sagas. Best ever time for Total War.

Can’t say as I agree. My view is they’ve spread themselves thin taking on multiple projects simultaneously, and I read this week they’re going after an FPS as well. For me the work on TOB is B-team level that doesn’t hold a candle to Shogun 2.

Shogun2 is great. but the fact ot compiles its shaders every fucking time it loads renders it unplayable for me. I have a monster computer, I do not tolerate these loading screens anymore.

That CA managed to build a shader cache into their engone for later TW games is cool, but they never retrofitted it to shogun is a motherfucking crime.

Boy this feels like a big miss to me.

They’re having a hard time translating different warfare periods into what is now essentially a static and ossified combat system. It’s like watching American Football, but this time they’re wearing Spartan Helmets! and this time they’re wearing Viking Helmets! and this time they’re wearing Chinese Armor! but it’s still the same underlying game.

Watching small units of 100 men… spearman, in testudo, match under flaming arrow fire into walls, is sooooooo overdone at this point. Like Thrones instead of modifying the underlying combat system, they reskinned it. 3K should have huge Chinese style armies. Even if that mean lower graphics. Tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands. Not 500 + a catapult.

I’m agreeing with @Enidigm here.

You all are persuading me that I may be wrong-ish. Though Chinese 3 kingdoms total war just seems like a natural place for the series to go. But I won’t give up on my main point: Warhammer 2 (fantasy) and semi-historical … and maybe another (hopefully better “saga”) means CA will continue to experiment both historically and fantastically.

Though I have to say I love me some Warhammer 2 … and I am playing Thrones as well. With less enthusiasm.

I liked the setting of Thrones (I love Saxon Tales!), and I like the idea of smaller armies. I am not sure if I like how all the components come together. When the game gets board-gamish it’s easier to abuse a deficient design (snowball!!).

Then again, when I played the AI never declared war on you so I didn’t get a good experience.

Actual Battle