Total War: Three Kingdoms

[ray245]

Finally. Although it seems like they are following the Romance version of the events rather than the historical version.

[The Romulan Republic]

Might play it. Nice to see them branching out from a focus on just Western history, though given the stereotyping and colonialist apologism in some of their prior games (particularly Empire), I'm a little wary.

Although when Total War made the move to fantasy as well as historical games, I rather hoped that they'd eventually follow it up with a Game of Thrones: Total War. I think the two franchises would fit well together.

[Elheru Aran]

To be fair, Three Kingdoms *is* a historical fantasy, sort of anyway. Doesn't it have a bunch of crazy feats like one man holding off thousands in melee combat, stuff like that?

I've also theorized that now that they've got their foot in the door with Games Workshop, the Horus Heresy would be an *awesome* Total War game.

In brief: You start out as a Primarch, recently discovered by the Emperor. Maybe not Horus or one of the more famous/pivotal Primarchs like Guilliman or Russ (that's what expansions are for!), but you're a Primarch of one of the Space Marine Legions. You run a few short battles as a tutorial before the Triumph at Ullanor, and post-Ullanor you get to start conquering slices of the galaxy on your own. Along the way... Lodges start popping up in your Legion, you can either suppress them or allow them to grow in the name of brotherhood. As time goes on... do your men remain faithful to the Emperor, or do you start feeling more and more distant from Terra, and closer to the Warmaster? Alliances can be formed with other Legions, the Adeptus Mechanicus can be petitioned for the use of their technology and Titans, and on the occasional special mission, you get Adeptus Custodes or Silent Sisterhood support. It culminates in the Massacre of Isstvan V... which side will you be on? After that point, two expansions: Traitor Legions and Loyalist Legions. If you keep your save-file from Total War: Horus Heresy I, you get to play your old army on whichever side you ended up on. Bonus expansions: Thousand Sons, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Second Imperium featuring you as Roboute Guilliman punching heads off in space!

(off topic digression now concludes)

[ray245]

To be fair, Three Kingdoms *is* a historical fantasy, sort of anyway. Doesn't it have a bunch of crazy feats like one man holding off thousands in melee combat, stuff like that?

To be fair, I don't recall THAT many one men against thousands of troops. But it's usually depicted as some sort of ritualistic duel between generals, with armies retreating after the general has been defeated, or just routing.

[AniThyng]

Might play it. Nice to see them branching out from a focus on just Western history, though given the stereotyping and colonialist apologism in some of their prior games (particularly Empire), I'm a little wary.

Although when Total War made the move to fantasy as well as historical games, I rather hoped that they'd eventually follow it up with a Game of Thrones: Total War. I think the two franchises would fit well together.

More like going back to thier roots - the first ever total war game was Shogun, after all.

[Elheru Aran]

To be fair, Three Kingdoms *is* a historical fantasy, sort of anyway. Doesn't it have a bunch of crazy feats like one man holding off thousands in melee combat, stuff like that?

To be fair, I don't recall THAT many one men against thousands of troops. But it's usually depicted as some sort of ritualistic duel between generals, with armies retreating after the general has been defeated, or just routing.

Yeah, in all fairness, I know little to nothing about Chinese literature. Most of what I know is gleaned from the occasional wuxia film, oh and I do have a passing familiarity with the Monkey tales. But that's about it.

Three Kingdoms is basically like... a romanticized version of early Chinese history or something like that?

[ray245]

Yeah, in all fairness, I know little to nothing about Chinese literature. Most of what I know is gleaned from the occasional wuxia film, oh and I do have a passing familiarity with the Monkey tales. But that's about it.

Three Kingdoms is basically like... a romanticized version of early Chinese history or something like that?

There are multiple versions of "Three Kingdoms". There's the canonical history of the three kingdoms, a period that did exist in the "Records of the Three Kingdoms". It's a work that was produced after the end of the three kingdom period, with a former court official of the losing side Shu Han eventually coming into the employ of the new Jin Dynasty. That's the historical version. That's the version that was written in the 3rd Century CE.

Then there is the Romance of the Three Kingdom, a 14th-century historical novel dramatizing the events of the Three Kingdom. Think of it as a Shakespearean retelling of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra and etc. Except the writer added all the popular folktales into the work, with all the magical elements and making one of the losing sides the virtuous, near-perfect leaders of morality. Think of it as the Chinese version of the Illiad or how a modern day movie might recreate the Roman Empire of Marcus Aurelius.

So the question is which version of the Three Kingdoms are you asking about here? The historical one based on actual written sources with plenty of archaeological data or the 14th century historical novel with heroes capable of lifting halberds weighting 18 kilograms with a single-hand.

The records actually didn't say much about combat and pitched battles, but the romance version dramatise all those events and added tons of duels between heroes/general.

[Elheru Aran]

Halberds weighting 18 kg with a single hand would definitely fall into the category of 'fantasy' for me. Of course when it comes to historical (as in, literally written a long time ago) literature, the boundaries between simple fictionalized re-tellings of history and outright fantasy can be pretty well blurred.

So I suppose that given that the last Total War outing (as far as I know) was a Warhammer Fantasy Battles version, is this the romantic version, or the historic version? I can see them going with the Romance as to give it some more dramatic colour, history is typically fairly dry when you leave out all the folktales...

The trailer makes a significant point of showing what appears to be a duel between some heroes, so I'm guessing the game also has a function for that if those heroes are at battles. Something like that.

[ray245]

Halberds weighting 18 kg with a single hand would definitely fall into the category of 'fantasy' for me.

Romance is pretty much fantasy. There are even more fantastical elements like summoning the winds to blow back the enemy arrows. ( Although this was portrayed as Zhuge Liang being good at meteorology.)

Of course when it comes to historical (as in, literally written a long time ago) literature, the boundaries between simple fictionalized re-tellings of history and outright fantasy can be pretty well blurred.

To most people in East Asia, where facts end and fiction begins is something quite hard to tell. Most people are brought up with the tales of the events from the Romance version, and unless they chose to study Chinese history at uni, most people would never learn the more historically reliable version.

So I suppose that given that the last Total War outing (as far as I know) was a Warhammer Fantasy Battles version, is this the romantic version, or the historic version? I can see them going with the Romance as to give it some more dramatic colour, history is typically fairly dry when you leave out all the folktales...

This seems to be the case. The Halberd one of the generals was using was a 14th-century weapon, not a 3rd-century weapon. So while the generals might be more fanciful, the common soldiers seem to be more based in reality.

The trailer makes a significant point of showing what appears to be a duel between some heroes, so I'm guessing the game also has a function for that if those heroes are at battles. Something like that.

The duel is based on an event in the Romance version of the tale ( As far as records go, those generals never met at this battle). This is a TV-series version of the duel, which is a quite wuxia in style. At the same time, we don't see generals going up against an entire army on their own. They tend to be depicted as the duel between generals while the army watches.



To be fair, ritualistic duel among generals while the army watches aren't that uncommon in many parts of the world. Warfare as an almost ritualistic duel between commanders was a thing in South Asia and Southeast Asia. And I believe there was someone making an argument that these duels tend to occur because of Chinese development in armored cataphracts/cavalry. Well-armored commanders leading a cavalry charge against an enemy armored cavalry counter-charge seemed to be increasingly common in Chinese warfare, which might explain some historical basis of such duels.

[The Romulan Republic]

Might play it. Nice to see them branching out from a focus on just Western history, though given the stereotyping and colonialist apologism in some of their prior games (particularly Empire), I'm a little wary.

Although when Total War made the move to fantasy as well as historical games, I rather hoped that they'd eventually follow it up with a Game of Thrones: Total War. I think the two franchises would fit well together.

More like going back to thier roots - the first ever total war game was Shogun, after all.

Fair enough.

Well, I'll probably try and buy it when it comes out.

Edit: I probably forgot Shogun because I've only played Rome and Empire, myself.

[Lord Revan]

To be fair, ritualistic duel among generals while the army watches aren't that uncommon in many parts of the world. Warfare as an almost ritualistic duel between commanders was a thing in South Asia and Southeast Asia. And I believe there was someone making an argument that these duels tend to occur because of Chinese development in armored cataphracts/cavalry. Well-armored commanders leading a cavalry charge against an enemy armored cavalry counter-charge seemed to be increasingly common in Chinese warfare, which might explain some historical basis of such duels.

IIRC ritualistic duels between champions (not nesserly the generals though) were fairly common alternative to battles in pre-medival times (or the equilevant time period), though that said unless I'm mistaken there a fair deal of formality involved, it was more of a gentleman's agreement of "lets solve this battle by having our champions fight instead of our armies" between the generals then something that happened in the middle of the battle.