As you progress through the game and fill out your faction’s Tree of Reforms, new faces will tie themselves to your cause. Managing your court’s internal affairs isn’t much simpler. Failing to satisfy any one and it’ll set off a cascade of other problems. Good government doesn’t come easily, and the game forces you to balance keeping your citizens happy, managing population growth, paying your bills and making sure you have enough food to feed both your growing empire and your armed forces. Credit: Creative AssemblyĪll this is easier said than done. You’ll raise armies, manage your court, invest in the infrastructure of your cities and negotiate trade agreements with your neighbors. Most of your time will be spent staring at the world map conducting the kind of turn-based grand strategy that the Total War series is known for. The Art of WarĪs with all Total War games, the theater of war in Three Kingdoms is split across two fronts. It’s an open-ended and enormous sandbox of a strategy game that allows you to play out the Romance of the Three Kingdoms on your own terms, either as a conqueror, diplomat, merchant-state or liberator. Whether you’re coming to it as a veteran or newcomer, this feels like the Total War team’s latest effort might just be their accomplished game yet. Based around the Three Kingdoms period of China (and the renowned writings of Luo Guanzhong), Three Kingdoms is somewhat-smaller in scale than Creative Assembly’s Warhammer games have been but that narrower scope allows for much greater nuance - both on and off the battlefield. The same can’t be said for Total War: Three Kingdoms.

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