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The Yellow Turbans followed this up by splitting their forces and invading, in ways where I could attack them. This was not good, but it was not good in a way that made tactical sense. In my first major engagement, I was so outnumbered and didn’t react well, and was quickly routed. I had smaller armies with better generals and units going up against much larger, less disciplined hordes. This provided an ideal opportunity to test the new combat balance. A desperate peace left me without any place to go but against the local Yellow Turbans, the rebellious peasant army of the era. My initial phase was a decent bit of expansion against the local Han losers, but once I went against Gongsun Zan, I started struggling. I had three theories as to why this was: first, that in the preview I played Liu Bei whose faction power was raising cheap peasant units that I was playing in the Dynasty Warriors-like Romance mode instead of the more historical Records mode and that hero units were ridiculously powerful.Ībove: Yuan Shao and Gongsun Zan battle for the north in Total War: Three KingdomsĪs Yuan Shao, I started a Romance game, so I could play the titular character and his heroes like Zhang He, Wen Chou, and Yan Liang. My key issue with the combat was that battles turned into chaotic, too-long scrums instead of tense tactical encounters with tight battle lines and brilliant manuevers. After they’ve worked with Three Kingdoms a bit more, I can say that it definitely seems like the delay has helped it play much more like what I hope for in a Total War game. Sega PR approached me with a preview build recently to see how the game had been updated - particularly if the combat felt better. Around that time, Sega announced that it would be delay Three Kingdoms for two months. Register today.Ī couple months ago, I previewed Total War: Three Kingdoms, with the initial reaction that the combat was worrisome and the strategy was on the right track.
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