Remember our Total War Three Kingdoms threads? ...I'll never forgive them for what they stole from us.

>>2080383 (OP)
What made it so good? I'm thinking about pirating it.

>>2080731
The portraits were fuckable

>>2080731
Good aesthetic, good diplo, workable economy, fun battles. Whole package was event at worst.

>>2080731
Managing personnel is really fun. Having officers lead armies, service in your cabinet, act as governors, agents or just regular commanders is a very simple and enjoyable management problem. Would be better if they took the trait system from RI/MII, and if you even had unit captains like S1/M2.

I remember being put off by the fact that:
>population numbers were not always true, sometimes it would display one number on the map but then a different number on the details
>too much population growth would eventually punish you with no real way to solve it

>>2081013
>population numbers were not always true, sometimes it would display one number on the map but then a different number on the details
The game had very bad tooltips in general. Lots of ambigious stuff that didn't tell you exactly what applied where.
>too much population growth would eventually punish you with no real way to solve it
Skill issue. Build buildings that deal with public order and don't upgrade your cities higher than what you can manage. Some cheese strategies involved purposesly lowering order to spam rebels and kill them for items and exp but I never found it worth it.

>>2080731
Playing as a Chinese {{{merchant}}} and conquering the entire country with an excel spreadsheet in tab and threats of famine was kind of fun

luv me emperor
luv filial piety
luv the mantle of Heaven

'ate Xiongnu (not racist, just don't like em)
'ate the tyrant Dong Zhuo
'ate Yellow Turbans
simple as

>>2081067
If you don't like xiongu why did you ate them?

>>2080905
Show em

>>2081048
Post spreadsheet

I wish we got that Taiping Rebellion expansion for 3K

>>2081859

>>2081859
so true, and they didn't even make a Giuseppe Garibaldi expansion for Rome 2

>>2081859
You need a FOTS style game for that and sadly CA threw it away for shitty Warhammer guns

>>2081048
Don't google how that guy died

>>2082500
He was executed for talking shit about Cao Cao, wasn't he? Don't remember if there was anything particularly interesting about it.

>>2081013
They buffed population mechanics a lot in patches, making it easier to maintain and giving you better rewards for it.

There are so many sources of public order, if you stack even just some of them you can end up building all your commanderies up to regional cities or bigger with maxed tax rate and still end up with 100 public order everywhere. Ancillaries, character backgrounds and traits should be enough, especially in the emperor stage when you can have six people in addition to your faction leader giving faction-wide effects, but reforms and some faction unique mechanics and buildings help as well.

Once you have big cities, it's really nice how much more income, food and (local) replenishment you get just for having a huge population.

This thread made me reinstall the game. I haven't played in years. Are there any recommended mods?

>>2081048
They nerfed the shit out of food trading, but Kong Rong is still one of the most fun factions
>Cramped but safe starting position surrounded by strong potential allies in Liu Bei and Yuan Shao
>Unique building gives happiness and money, encouraging you to grow tall
>Population increases trade influence, encouraging you to grow tall
>Nearby port guarantees access to loads of trading partners
>Crossbows are the meta and faction unique unit is a super-powered crossbow with tons of ammo and longest range of all non-siege units
Funniest thing that can happen is Huang Shao attacking at the same time the scripted yellow turban rebellion spawns because they are hostile to each other and can wipe each other out

When I play this game my fans go into overdrive and the screen starts flickering and sometimes going entirely black for a second. It's weird because this is the only TW game where it happens, even the more recent ones run better.

>>2082675
I think the last few Nvidia drivers are fucking up Total War games for some reason

>>2082675
Ah, I think I've found the issue. The game doesn't let you cap the framerate so outside of battle it would just try to get a crazy high framerate and start fucking shit up. So I capped the framerate through the Nvidia settings app and now it runs at a silky smooth 120 fps without any issues.

I just bought this due to the summer sale

Anything I should know?

>>2089154
the recruitment system is kinda wonky compared to all of the other Total War games but it's cool once you get the hang of it

also don't trust Cao Cao under any circumstances

>>2089171
Any must-have mods? The workshop seems to be mostly Bing Xilling runes, so I can't really find anything.

Also, what faction should I play for my first campaign?

>>2089222
I think there are a few bug fix and "unofficial patch" mods that people swear by, but I played through it vanilla and didn't think there was anything that needed to be fixed that glaringly

as for beginner factions, Cao Cao is easy and fun and the "canonical" winner but might be a little too easy if you're a really experienced Total War player. Liu Bei is slightly harder because his faction mechanic isn't literally legal cheats, but he's still in a good position with strong starting generals and good unique units/buildings

>>2082617
Yes

>>2089222
Sun family with merc recruitment and plenty of space to expand

>>2089238
Alright, thanks

Btw, I know that the game has a "Hero" mode and a "General" mode. I also heard that one of these makes ranged units useless because the AI doesn't target the hero/generals?

>>2089276
Ranged units are really strong in this game so you've been lied to. Basically cavalry/characters > ranged units > infantry.
Trebuchets are really strong (they got nerfed at some point but are still good) and make the AI walk towards you because you have ranged advantage. That way you simply let them walk into your arrow show and most of their troops will flee before reaching your front line.

>>2089286
Are you talking about fantasy hero mode or "characters are like normal total war generals" route

>>2089298
I've only tried the default hero mode. Can't see how the other mode would weaken ranged troops.

Well, I've begun playing it, finally, and I don't know... it looks weird?

I mean, the game itself feels like it's fun. The campaign looks cool. But the battle just FEELS weird. The graphics LOOK weird. It just feels odd, compared to, say, Attila or Empire or Rome.

>>2082617
For me, its TROM + a couple unique character mods

>>2089366

Its because of the cartoonish modeling, Rome 2/Attila had their art department more focused on realism, 3k/ Warhammer have a more fantasious art focus. I know what you mean, they do look silly and too "clean" compared to what ancient chine actualy looked like. If you put the models from 3k and from cathay side by side they look almost identical in style.

>>2089442
That's not what I mean. I mean the battles themselves look weird. I can load up a battle of attila right now no mods or anything and it'll look perfeclty normal. I'll understand everything.

Three Kingdoms just looks...off, I don't exactly know why. I don't know if it's my settings or anything. Is there anything I need to change from how it initially is to make it feel more 'normal'?

>>2089444
mayhaps its the post effects settings

>>2089456
Nope. It's the battle itself. The weird UI doesn't help either.

>>2089444
You can change card units to alternative so you get noraml cards and not shadow silhouette ones, you can also change lighting and setup it at one time of the day otherwise it make both glow bal and battle map changing colors weirdly

>>2080383 (OP)
Ok, should I buy this piece of shite before the Steam sale ends? And if yes, what dlc actually add up or polish features.

>>2089717
If you want to be able to just play in the base startdate you don't need any. None of the mechanics are paywalled.

>>2089717
You don't need any DLC really. That's part of the reason they didn't sell so well I think. They don't add new mechanics or other cool stuff they mostly just add new startdates.
The Nanman and Yellow Turban DLCs add factions to the main startdate so consider them but don't get them until you tried the base game and see if you like it.

>>2089733
8 princes and mandate have a bit different campaign mechanics, world betrayed has 2 factions with unique mechanics that exist only in that startdate, fates adds literally nothing. You can see you can see the effort going down.
It's nice that nothing important is paywalled, but from a pure business perspective that just made the DLC a really poor value proposition.
We were supposed to get northern expansion but it was cancelled with game ending support.

>>2089743
But the different mechanics are locked to the new start dates. Would have been better if they had added new mechanics, new buildings, new units etc. to the original campaign.
The only paid DLC I got was Mandate of Heaven. I beat it once with Dong Zhuo and then didn't really play that start date again. I have 700 hours in the game and it's pretty much all in the base game start date.

Paradox understands that people want it all mashed up in one campaign which is why they can sell DLC for 10+ years to the same game even when the quality starts to fall.

The female community moderator on reddit ruined future 3K DLC sales. Why CA allowed her to self-sabotage her employer is beyond the pale.

>>2089803
I don't really understand what they were thinking. As you say, you have the example of paracuck games where people overwhelmingly just play the grand campaign and even in TW mini/alternate campaigns were just never all that popular and people want to play the biggest sandbox map. This isn't even a new thing it has been true for as long as the series existed. Who goes back to rome1 to play alexander, kingdoms is okay bu clearly not the definitive experience of playing med2, FotS gets away with it by having a radically different setting despite the same geographical area (and now they consider it a separate game) but RotS is a footnote. I don't get how, you can play base game factions but start bigger was supposed to be a selling point, you are denying yourself the interesting part of the gameplay when you start small.

>>2089959
> FotS gets away with it by having a radically different setting despite the same geographical area
The map is basically the same size as vanilla, they're BOTH grand campaigns. Not really comparable to the rest of your examples

>>2089803
I like different starts. And customisable starting options. The thing is I do not gonna pay extra for that.

>>2089959
For what it's worth, Viking Invasion and Barbarian Invasion were well received back in the day. Also Mandate of Heaven and Eight Princes campaigns are still worth it for their unique flavor, the problem is everything between 8P and AD 190 is just the same as AD 190 but with fewer factions.

>Records mode
>Militia of Virtue
>Watch as the H*nnoid troops exhaust themselves before wiping them out

>>2089222
Gongsun Zan's unique mechanic is extremely user friendly, as it allows you to appoint governors to your first five provinces right off the bat. This reduces construction costs, and allows you to strengthen the garrison without paying extra upkeep. He also has the single best starting location in the game for corner camping, and he can shout really loud in battle to get enemies to flee earlier.
Sun Jian is also good, mostly because it'll take a while before anyone major can get to you. I would advise against Cao Cao, as his unique mechanic requires some knowledge of the game in order to not waste it.

Recently I tried my hand at TROM with the Warlord difficulty mod. Playing as Gongsun Zan, Zheng Jiang, Han Fu and Yuan Shao quickly formed a coalition against me to the west. Yuan Shao even threatened me to give up a province, which I'd never seen the AI do before, and I had no choice but to agree as I needed time to deal with Liu Yu. Sadly even after defeating him I was placed in terrible danger when Gongsun Du betrayed me and attacked from the east. I actually had to submit to Cao Cao, which caused everyone except Yuan Shao to back off. I have to pay Cao Cao a lot now, but fortunately he agreed to compensate me handsomely for agreeing to join his other wars in the south.

What followed was two years of grinding warfare and now I've slowly crawled my way back against Yuan Shao. I'm considering rebelling against Cao Cao in order to make peace with Yuan Shao and settle the score with Gongsun Du, but it's questionable whether I could make the peace in the first place. Overall the mod is good. I'm a little bothered by how inert diplomacy is relative to vanilla, but it's still workable and the revamped unit roster feels much better. Imagine being forced to become a vassal to the AI!

>>2092373
>Gongsun Du still exists
There can only be one Gongsun

Do you guys prefer to instate yourselves as the new Han emperor or do you prefer to begin your own imperial dynasty?

Sorry, I think you got the