Kingdom Come

While it has always been about the factions and what is displayed on the armies’ banners as seen in previous Total War games, TW:TK puts great emphasis on the characters leading them. No other installment comes even close to Three Kingdoms when it comes to its focus  – sometimes too much – on the individuals that at times, it does get overwhelming.

It isn’t just your faction leaders who have distinguishable and features. Creative Assembly went the full length, bestowing traits and mannerisms to almost each named character allowing even the lowliest and most incompetent of generals to ascend into power if you choose to do so.

This means that no specific character is tied to a role. Your competent spy can be promoted to a General, govern a province later on or even made heir of your faction.

What is even more intriguing is that Creative Assembly has painstakingly modelled most, if not all of these characters based on the history of the Three Kingdoms saga. Those familiar with Tecmo Koei’s Dynasty Warriors franchise would instantly recognize characters such as Lu Bu, Xiahou Dun and the ever famous Zhuge Liang and it’s up to the players to chart these characters’ future.

In my save file, I adopted the Sleeping Dragon into the Liu Bei family and made him an heir. I probably should marry him off to one of the heiresses of the nearby provinces to secure my borders.

On top of all of this comes the actual governing in Three Kingdoms where you grow settlements, broker deals, balance tax, track food supplies, forge alliances via multiple methods and due to the character relationships mentioned prior, none of them is as clear cut as it seems.

Everyone’s got an opinion of whatever move you make in Three Kingdoms so keeping a close eye on appeasing your allies is as important as outsmarting your rivals. I found securing alliances via marriages is the most effective way to negate any ally from turning their back on me and once things are locked in, all that is left is keeping their mood in the green.

A special mention also goes to the tech tree in Three Kingdoms as I honestly believe it to be the most gorgeous tech tree to have ever existed in a video game. Just look at it; simple, yet gorgeous & ever-expanding.

Each branch stands for a specific researchable trait which in turn benefits your faction in the long run. The one you see above is my save which focused on the commerce and peasantry aspect of things.

Bad Romance? Hardly…

The most ambitious game of its kind, Total War: Three Kingdoms is by far the pinnacle of a long, illustrious lineage of brilliant turn-based RTS games by Creative Assembly. It is grand on so many levels that its minor delay in its release date can be easily forgiven; in fact, I applaud Sega and the devs for it.

Simply put, TW:TK is a must-have for any Total War fanatic. Don’t be dissuaded if you are unaccustomed to the story of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The game will not only show you the ropes, but it will make you an avid fan of the history of the unification of China just by playing it.

Pros

– Highly engaging and engrossing campaign.
– Rich and extensive characters roster.
– The freedom to chart your own ‘Three Kingdoms’ storyline.
– Graphically stunning.
– Lots of battlefields great and small for awesome combat.
– Very accessible, to a point.

Cons

– Micromanagement can get a bit super overwhelming.
– The mid-game part can be a slog, with enemies on every side of the map.

FINAL SCORE: 90/100

We reviewed Total War: Three Kingdoms on the Alienware M17 R3 with the following specifications on Ultra settings:

• i7 6700HQ 2.6GHz CPU
• 16GB RAM
• GTX 980M GPU