Potential Warrior Monk Units
- Since Shogun 2 had Warrior Monk units, why shouldn't China have Warrior Monks as well? As usual for a Glass Cannon, they would be units with high melee attack and melee defence but have expensive recruitment and upkeep, high vulnerability to arrows due to lack of armour, and require certain technologies and infrastructure. The Warrior Monks would have various fighting styles that depend on the region that they were recruited from. You could have monks that specialise with long weapons (Spear, Staff), short weapons (Sword, Knife), or even unarmed fighting styles.
- Unfortunately, Chinese history of the Three Kingdoms period don't contain any reference to fighting monks, unliked the Sengoku Jidai in Japan, so adding warrior monks to the game would be nonsensical at best.
- Plus the Shaolin Monastery and the martial art school it spawned only became a thing in the 5th century, hundreds of years after the events of the game. Any martial arts during this period would likely be limited to basic swordplay and grappling.
- Three Kingdoms appear indeed to have warrior-monk like units: the lightly armored Pearl Dragons, unlockable through the 'metal' element of the tech tree, who appear to be men wearing nothing but robes and holding tremndously large glaives. These Pearl Dragons come with both high melee defense and a high missile block chance despite having no shield, presumably because they swat down incoming projectiles with their weapons.
- The Taoist Yellow Turban faction has a number of units that could be construed as Warrior Monks.
The game will get three sources
- The historical records, the books, and in unannounced dynasty warriors crossover material.
Historical Accuracy, or Lack Thereof
- Some of the negative criticism towards Three Kingdoms describes Creative Assembly as making another Total War in an "Asian Fantasy Setting" similar to Warhammer instead of going back to real-life history. This is definitely not helped by the fact that some of the common jokes on the internet like to make fun of China for being infamous for historical inaccuracy and using excessive amounts of fictitious exaggeration and fluff when it comes to their ancient history. Even an early editor said that the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms was 70% fact and 30% fiction. So the question here isn't so much "Will it be Historically Accurate?" but "How Historically Accurate will it be?"
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms is about as much a history book as the legend of King Arthur is. No one is suppose to take it as a serious account of Chinese history. It would be like taking Richard the third as a historical source. So my question is, why would this be an issue? Either the game is based on the novel like the Dynasty Warriors games and basically just gonna be another Total Warhammer type game, or else it is gonna be based on the real events of the Three Kingdoms period in China, in which case the game would be historically accurate. Just like how no one takes the Dynasty Warriors games as being historically accurate, if they decide to base the game off of the novel, there is no "but we based it off of a historical Chinese source so it must be accurate" because the Chinese themselves don't even consider the novel to be any more than a story. TLDR: Three Kingdoms was a real period in Chinese history, the people in the novel like Cao Cao, Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang are real, the novel is not a historical source, but rather just a story. just because they call it Total War Three Kingdoms, that does not mean they are basing it off of the novel and not going to be historically accurate.
- It's funny how people who can't read Chinese think all Ancient Chinese sources and texts are historically inaccurate and are just fluff, when all they know about is either Three Kingdoms or Sun Tzu's Art of War.
- Chen Shou's historical Records of the Three Kingdoms (三国志) is a thing, mind. In fact, the game's historical consultant, Rafe de Crespigny, is the first person to write an English commentary on it.
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms is about as much a history book as the legend of King Arthur is. No one is suppose to take it as a serious account of Chinese history. It would be like taking Richard the third as a historical source. So my question is, why would this be an issue? Either the game is based on the novel like the Dynasty Warriors games and basically just gonna be another Total Warhammer type game, or else it is gonna be based on the real events of the Three Kingdoms period in China, in which case the game would be historically accurate. Just like how no one takes the Dynasty Warriors games as being historically accurate, if they decide to base the game off of the novel, there is no "but we based it off of a historical Chinese source so it must be accurate" because the Chinese themselves don't even consider the novel to be any more than a story. TLDR: Three Kingdoms was a real period in Chinese history, the people in the novel like Cao Cao, Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang are real, the novel is not a historical source, but rather just a story. just because they call it Total War Three Kingdoms, that does not mean they are basing it off of the novel and not going to be historically accurate.
Speculation on the 11 playable factions
- Cao Cao (confirmed)
- Liu Bei (confirmed)
- Sun Jian (confirmed)
- Dong Zhuo (confirmed)
- since he was the prime minister and is often portrayed as a villain.
- Yuan Shao (confirmed)
- as he leads the coalition forces.
- Ma Teng (confirmed)
- would do for the area around Wu Wei.
- Gongsun Zan (confirmed)
- for his battles with Yuan Shao and his white horse cavalry.
- Liu Biao (confirmed)
- since he was a major governor in the south area and had clashes with Sun Jian which ended in Sun Jian dying.
- Yuan Shu (confirmed)
- declared himself Emperor, gave Sun Ce soldiers, pulled some shit on Sun Jian.
- Kong Rong (confirmed)
- Zhang Yan (confirmed)
- Meng Huo
- Confirmed in newest Total War Blog Post.
- Shi Xie (currently an NPC warlord)
- Zhang Lu(currently an NPC warlord)
Korea and Taiwan are possibly on the campaign map.
- The Sun Jian Trailer shows a map of China including the Korean Peninsula and the island of Taiwan, suggesting they are possible trade partners or playable factions.
- The Diplomacy Gameplay Reveal video does indeed show a full map of Korea, although it is grayed out, indicating it will not be in the campaign at release.
- Taiwan is on the map, as an uninhabited commandary that can be colonized.
- The Diplomacy Gameplay Reveal video does indeed show a full map of Korea, although it is grayed out, indicating it will not be in the campaign at release.
Unique faction units.
In one video they said that there would be certain factions specific units. Lets figure out which units there are, and put them here.- Cao Cao
- Tiger and Leopard Cavalry
- Heavy Tiger and Leopard Cavalry
- Liu Bei
- Sun Jian
- Ma Teng
- Liu Biao
- Zhang Yan
Confirmed as every faction has their specific unique units.
Make popular for Dynasty Warriors.
Character who might be made popular enough in this game to become playable in Dynasty Warriors.- Zhang Yan , a powerful bandit leader with a big number of man.
- He Man, The Most Powerful and having a chance to be an even more Ascended Extra.
- Zheng Jieng, Koei likes to take Female characters who didn't do much fighting as player characters, well here's one who technically even in the novel and potentially real history, had her own Bandit Army.
- He Jin add more.
Possible DLC.
A Vietnamese rebellion will become a DLC faction
Vietnam and China fought each other pretty much constantly throughout their history, so it would be nice to make a nod to that with a Vietnamese rebel faction. Although Vietnam was still under Wu dynasty's domination during the Warring States period, there were rebellions that established several short-lived independent territories. The Vietnamese faction would be an even more guerrilla-focused version of the Yellow Turban factions, with even weaker peasant troops but make up for it with special units like war elephants.- It would be hard to add since the Trung Sister rebellion began in 40AD, whilst the Three Kingdoms era was over in 280AD with the Jin conquest of Wu.
- There were far more rebellions than just the Trung Sisters rebellion. The Luong Long Rebellion (178AD) and the Lady Trieu Rebellion (248AD) are two examples. The Luong Long Rebellion is the closest to the game start date of 190, only off by 12 years, so CA can always take some Artistic License to have that rebellion in the game. This is a rebellion so obscure that not even the Vietnamese know much about it, so CA has a lot of room for creativity. If not, CA can always create a fictional rebellion entirely.
Eight Princes will feature a surprise invasion by the Five Barbarians as a late-game event.
- Right now, the game only features non-Han Chinese cultures as unique units for certain factions. Eight Princes will potentially change this as the five "barbarian" nations in northern China (Xiongnu, Jie, Qiang, Di and later the Xianbei) revolt against the Jin dynasty. Since these nations were living as Chinese subjects at this point, we probably won't see a return of full-fledged horde gameplay right away, and they'll likely function more or less similarly as the rest of the factions.
- Jossed. There are no late-game events for the DLC
Eight Princes The handicapped Sima Zhong have a genius kid Sima Yu who is going to be in the game.
Speculation on what characters are getting new, unique artwork for the main campaign and why that characters?..
- Cao Ren, probably Cao Cao most important general. He in Cao Cao faction at beginning have a interest story and what’s very successful.
They will add Tribal Factions.
Other than the Nanman, there are various tribes that existed independent at the time of the 3 Kingdoms, and with the addition of the Shanyue under Yan Baihu, we could see more of them playable, such as the Hill tribes, Xianbei, or the Xiongnu. They will add the Sogdians.
And for a theory that's COMPLETELY different, the Sogdians and their lands from the Western most part of China could theoretically be made playable, probably with completely new units and possibly playstyle and tech tree.