Three Kingdoms is worth the wait

An in-depth analysis of the history, literature and lore of a new era of Total War.

When I heard the name Total War: Three Kingdoms, the first image that came to my mind was Luu Bei depicted as a martial arts hero in the Dynasty Warriors game series. But amidst Liu Bei’s blows lies a most dramatic, chaotic, and enchanting period in Chinese history. The Three Kingdoms period saw the rise of outstanding heroes, generals with extraordinary tactical skills, and legendary warriors. Literary works about this period in Chinese history (most notably Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a novel written 1,000 years after the events and the inspiration of countless times). video games) is on par with classic epics like the Iliad or King Arthur.

Over the centuries, with numerous literary, film, poetic and video game adaptations, the Three Kingdoms period was a complicated era with many different perspectives. There are real events, recorded in history books. There are oral legends further woven from those events. And finally, a whole mythological story revolves around the novel and its central characters. From what we see in the trailer, it seems that Creative Assembly is leaning more towards myth and legend than mere historical events. But before we discuss how this affects battles in Total War, let’s clarify the political realities in the historical context of the game.

Brief history of the Three Kingdoms period

At the beginning of Total War: Three Kingdoms, which is in 190 AD, the Han dynasty is slowly falling apart. After more than 400 years of rule, the Han Dynasty is one of China’s most successful dynasties. To this day, the majority ethnic group in China still calls themselves “Han”. When the Han Dynasty became weak, things began to become chaotic. After a period of rebellion and bloody confrontations following the death of Han Ling Emperor Liu Hong, warlord Dong Zhuo came to power in the Han capital. Dong Zhuo is the fat guy with an evil look in the trailer, and is the main antagonist in most of the late Han Dynasty histories.

History books record that Dong Zhuo had a hobby of burning people alive, starting from the bottom of his feet so that he could enjoy the extreme pain of that person before he died. Therefore, in literary works, the author does not need to exaggerate or add too much to make him become a very bad guy.

Dong Zhuo deposed (and later forced to death) Emperor Liu Bian, the official successor of Emperor Ling. Liu Bian was replaced by his 8-year-old half-brother, Emperor Han Hien Luu Hiep. By capturing the childish emperor and removing some of the powerful eunuchs after a bloody purge, Dong Zhuo seized power from the Han dynasty. But his process of gaining power was not so smooth. The proud knight lieutenant Cao Cao (who moves the pieces on the battlefield in the trailer) has fled to the countryside and joined an alliance of warlords to fight Dong Zhuo, this alliance was formed by a member of the army. The official in the previous dynasty was Vien Thieu. In Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao fled after a failed assassination attempt on Dong Zhuo, but this episode has no historical basis.

Given the timing in the game that Creative Assembly has chosen, it looks like the story will go like this. Dong Zhuo used his puppet Emperor to rule Luc Yang, the old capital 750 kilometers southwest of current Beijing. The alliance of warlords Cao Cao and Yuan Shao (namely at least 13 warlords, according to sources) fought against him. Among those people were the names that would later form the famous Three Kingdoms, the three countries that rose to power to form the cauldron after the defeat of Dong Zhuo.

Cao Wei was founded by Cao Cao and his son Cao Phi, located in the capital Luoyang and holding North China. Sun Wu (commonly known as Dong Wu) was located at Wuchang in the southeast (modern Huzhou, 750 km west of Shanghai), officially separating from the Cao Wei state after a period of independence on the list means. Shu Han, in southwestern Chengdu (the capital of present-day Sichuan province), was founded by Liu Bei, one of the three heroes featured in the trailer while performing the legendary peach orchard twinning ceremony (though though historically unverified) with Zhang Fei and Guan Yu to defend China together. Liu Bei was a descendant of a Han Emperor, and he named his country Shu Han as an affirmation that he was the most suitable person to revive the Han Dynasty.

Thus, in short, Three Kingdoms is a story about a clan of warlords who feel that Dong Zhuo is not worthy to be at the top. But after Dong Zhuo was defeated, they themselves fought each other for the right to master, including the lords who had been loyal to Dong Zhuo. Historically at least, this led to a period of about 40 years, with the three independent states of Cao Wei, Sun Wu, and Shu Han forming the cauldron, each side being powerful and claiming a different position. .
(Spoiler: Cao Wei won the victory… something like that, after the Cao royal family was overthrown, leading to the establishment of the Jin dynasty, unifying the Central Highlands.)

Total War game mechanics

Whichever side you choose, your goal is clear: to become the Emperor of all China. In this respect, I think the game will feature a mechanic similar to the Realm Divide in Shogun 2, which forces the future shogun to engage in a final climactic civil war after the player reaches a certain level of strength. certain strength. In terms of Chinese history, a similar thing could be the separation of Cao Wei and Sun Wu.

What was unprecedented in previous Total War games were four decades of stability in the midst of the Three Kingdoms period. However, assuming the game is played in sandbox mode, there is no guarantee that we will have exactly 3 countries. Maybe there will be 4, or even 7, or maybe Dong Zhuo will defeat all the other lords and gloat over their burned corpses.

Another big question is whether Total War: Three Kingdoms will stick to history, or will be more mythical, fantasy. For the time being, from what we’ve seen in the trailer, it seems that the game will lean more towards the latter, with heroes like Guan Yu and Lu Bo sweeping the enemy team alone. We have a precedent for this in Total War: Warhammer, with demigod heroes with the strength of an army. Three Kingdoms will likely be the first Total War to recreate a historical period with such a fantasy style.

As a history buff, that left me a bit disappointed. But doing so also has its advantages. After all, in the hearts of many people, the Three Kingdoms period is associated with the image of outstanding heroes in the novel Three Kingdoms Dien Nghia. If your Liu Bei was accidentally shot dead by a random arrow in the first battle, it would be very boring, right?

Although I borrow a lot of literature, I still hope the game still maintains a solid historical foundation. The history of China is a story that is both deep and wide and incredibly thrilling. We are reliving a time when genius inventors were perfecting the crossbow, centuries ahead of Europe. Both the history and literature of this period abounded with weird tactics and masterful betrayals that you don’t often see in Total War titles, and I’d rather win battles by trick than by traditional strategy. system. The Total War series has used the same formations and combat systems across many games.

Economic changes (some records from that time say that China may have lost more than two-thirds of its population between the fall of the Han and the founding of the Jin) may have There are many interesting tactical problems, with a world falling into increasingly chaotic chaos like in Total War: Attila, instead of building a gradually stable world like in most other Total War games.

So will we see a bloody era in Chinese history or an epic with dramatic scenes of betrayal and backstabbing? It is possible that we will see both of these factors. However, no matter what happens, I am looking forward to leading the Shu Han on a journey to subjugate other countries.

Source: pcgamer