Very good guide videos sir, one of the best ones I've came across so far, thank you very much. Got a question which I have yet to find an answer anywhere. I appointed an Administrator (Admin) at a Commandery, after a while, I would like to move him to a different Commandery to apply his Commandery bonus to it... however I couldn't find a way to do so, have you tried and know if/how it can be done? I tried the followings: 1) At the destination commandery, ensure no appointed Admin, use the appoint Admin button - it brings up a list of all characters, but the Admin who is currently appointed to another commandery can't be selected to appoint. 2) If I dismiss that Admin from there (or from the Court UI), it is considered dismissing him from the Admin position completely, and he becomes massively unhappy about it - no I don't want that. 3) I clicked everywhere which seem to be relevant on the Court UI, no luck either. 4) I raised an Army with the Admin in concern, at the destination Commandery, tried 1) above - with the same result. 5) If I then recall said army, the Admin and his retinue goes back to his original commandery.
please put this in your description add 0:00 as your intro (I know it sounds dumb) and then it will give a cool feature to your video were your viewers can see on the timeline of the video the different parts of the video
Some things that I prefer to do. Initially I concentrate on protection rather then production. A city for instance has a very small garrison by default. Nothing that can hold of even the smallest armies. But if you add just 3 levels of the barracks that give you more garrison, you will now have a city that can at a minimum cause severe damage to a full stack, if not outright repel them. Since armies are limited, specially at the start, and since armies cost you upkeep each turn, this will allow you to defend your existing areas with less cost. Another benefit is that this also gives you Public order. If it is in a high risk area, I may stick a single general with 6 cheep archers in it also. The same goes for landmark areas, such as mines, fields, and such. I try to get them to at least level 4 as soon as possible, again for the large free garrison. These structures will be upgraded to 5 as soon as I have the tech for it. This will help you throughout the game, as almost any single army will not be able to threaten your rear, freeing up your main army to conquer. I also like to place a granary in every city to give reserve during sieges. Again this forces the enemy to siege longer, giving me time to relieve them or force attrition on the enemy during winter month. Granaries also give public order, so both the barracks and the granary are pretty important all the way to the end game. Should in the later game the cities protection not become as important, due it being far in the back save from attack, then I can always change them out for more economy structures.
One of the other really big things that isn't mentioned is that when you assign a administrator to a commandery the retinue of that administrator is added to the garrison of the capital building. Which is big for me, I was always shocked at how easy capitals were to take from the AI because they had a terrible garrison (the dang outlying territories get better garrisons!), but then I checked the garrison of a city I had an administrator in just to realize that the administrators retinue is added to the total garrison. (edit) If you are adding the Military Infrastructure (Patrols building to eventually become a Fortified Garrison) you don't really need to worry too much about having a Granary. The additional siege time is nice, but kind of overkill. The reforms you have to drop to get the thing are also better spent for almost every faction, other than Cao Cao, on other early game reforms. No army that is going to siege a capitol is going to be that stealthy. Also if you are putting Sentinels in your Commandery capitols (which I highly recommend) by the time you gotta really worry about the capitol you should have their two perks that increase ranged damage while also switching their retinues out for the high rank Defenders of Earth or some other archer unit. The AI will almost always bottleneck itself trying to get into a city, so you want plenty of archers or a unit that can just hold out forever (hence why I choose Sentinels).
Upgrading garrison to level 3 takes around 15 turns which will sap your ability to do other stuff via taking your valuable first turn moneys and preventing the generation of additional funds through economy buildings during that time. One might say that building economy grants you a mobile garrison in the form of an army. The building slots are too valuable for barracks chain buildings since you need 2 to 3 slots for your primary income, be it commerce industry or pesantry, 1 slot for public order and another for corruption mitigation(later in game). Garrisons are still useful for holding mountain passes to the rich farmland valleys.
Man I'm so glad I bought this game! It combines the things I love from Total War and from Crusader Kings. It has the character management and leveling as well as the total war battles I know and love. Honestly so glad I bought it and can't get enough.
13:51 - let’s take a looooooooookkk! 😂 I love it. Thank you for this video. It’s 2024 and I’m really enjoying the Three Kingdom way more because of you.
you want to use sentinels as administrators, the have the buffs for commerce and industry like the strategists however the more expertise they have the more cost they can reduce to build your commandaries
Thank you for this guide. I found this game having a steeper learning curve than other Total War games and had a hard time in my first play through. Thank you for simplifying these various issues.
This is the first Total War game I've played, but I've been playing Rot3K since it came out for the NES in the 80's. I'd love to see someone explain how things transfer from how it played over the years on NES and Playstaion, to how it plays now with Total War. Every video I've seen so far explains how this game is different from other Total War games.
One of the first things I've been doing in campaigns is getting a strategist giving them archers, and most importantly getting the trebuchet. Having a treb seems to give so much to a conquering army that I feel like I have to have one. They're expensive early on, but causing your enemy to walk out of their fortified town, and out of tower range makes taking settlements sooooooo much easier and less attritious it's insane.
"We havent had such diversity from income in previous total wars" (meaning peasantry/commerce/industry) Rome 2/Attila: "Am i a joke to you????....W-Wait-dont answer that..."
I don’t like this “maximising what you’ve got” strategy, it never works for me. The one which I have noticed is vital is food, as you can use food in trade deals and it can literally turn your campaign upside down if you run out
Oh man totally. I don't think I enphasize food enough. That's my bad. You really need to focus on it OR get a faction that has a ton to trade with reliably
It's a cycle. You need to upgrade your cities to get good income, but bigger cities require more food. So just make sure to include in your plans capturing a commandary that has good farm/livestock land. Otherwise you'll be wasting some building slots for food production in cities that would be better used for income. I like how in early game, everything seems to be hard to get (money, food, public order, good units). It really makes you think about your next steps.
Yeah always build food first before upgrading city. I learned the hard way. Iv been playing total war since the original shogun. This is soooo different.
Thanks for the video. Realised i Overlooked so much when I played my first campaign. Also knowing the details makes the game very much more interesting.
I wonder if modders could implement some of Three Kingdom’s campaign complexities into Warhammer... that would be cool in my opinion, as from what I’ve seen I prefer the greater faction variation and unit variety in Warhammer but the campaign depth of Three Kingdoms.
The Faction variation in Three Kingdoms puts Warhammer to shame. The unit variety isn't the same, but the shear difference in that EVERY faction plays differently and has different focuses is incredible.
Brian Stone you are right, the way factions play on the campaign is impressive. Still though unit variety and distinctiveness is a big part of faction variation, and adds a large amount of interest to the battles themselves. My idea was for modders to make something that is “the best of both worlds”.
The ancillary craftsmen are essentially diplomacy boosts since their craft rate cant be relied upon endowing more than a handful of your characters. Their unique items do give you a lot of influence when traded in diplomacy. Try giving them to a rich faction and see them lavishly throw their "ban liang" at your feet to get that sweet epic loot.
Really liked both episodes so keep going ;) Would be enjoyable to see some battles also (when you are in an advantage, disadvantage, city capturing and all that stuff could be fun to watch). I would also like to know about or see more about these spying options you mentioned at the end. So if you end up with a saved game with those scenarios I would love to see those too. Also how to deal with spies sent against you (how to try to identify them, what happens when you don't and they do some damage etc.) Overall thumbs up sir :)
So does disowning the spy make him come back to me or stay with his false master. Description in-game tells the latter but you seem to imply otherwise. If the former is the case, is there a way I can keep him from defecting to the enemy? Thanks for the video, very informative!
Regarding the connections between the colors, I just want to note that it is coming from the Wu Xing philosophy - and point towards this very useful page totalwar.fandom.com/wiki/Wu_Xing All credit to totalwar.fandom.com
Could you add an addendum about corruption? It is hugely game-breaking for me in the late game and even though I've tried assignments to get it lower, it barely seems to phase it. Building anti-corruption buildings kind of don't help in the net gain, since they have an upkeep which counteracts the benefit of cutting corruption.
Here's my copypasta from an above comment I made. Enjoy! Corruption is tied to overall faction size and overall commandery population it seems. You can reduce corruption via 3 different buildings (the Grand Treasury Mint, the Administration lines Grand Judiciary or the Office of Seals and archives) and 1 commandery territory building (the Copper Mine max building reduces by -4% faction wide). You need to keep an eye on what you build though. There is no point building a Grand Judiciary if you have a Grand Trasury Mint, you should build an Office of Seals and Archives instead so you max out that adjacent corruption bonus. Corruption level can be found when you select a Commandery and then hover your mouse over the left of the screen where the income for the commandery is. After a second a detailed breakdown of how much money the Commandery is making will be displayed along with a corruption level displayed in a percentage. If you really want to crack down on Corruption your best bet is to use a mix of one of the two AOE (or as I call the CAoE, Commandery Area of Effect) buildings in conjunction with a Commander that has the Crack down on Corruption assignment unlocked. The Assignment will reduce Corruption by a flat 50% in whichever Commandery they are deployed in. This negative STACKS with whatever else is in play for that Commandery. The max Corruption -% modifier you can get from reforms is -19% corruption, but getting there is very long and not really worth it until extreme late game (turn 150+). To break everything down here's an example of what I am talking about; Lets just say you have Commandery A and it is sitting at a cool 65% corruption (which can happen). To reduce this you have built the Court building (Administrative Office building T3 requires Capitol of Commandery to be T7 city) which reduces corruption by -10%. So now your local Corruption is 55%. You can further reduce this by getting the reform The Five Punishments (which allows you to build higher tier Rural Tax offices and gives a -5% Corruption Faction wide). Now your local Corruption should be sitting at 50%, which is still a lot. Fear not though, just Assign a Commander unit that you choose to give the skill Stability during a level up. This skill gives you +8 Authority, +5 Public order for the Administered Commandery, but what we really want is that Assignment it unlocks. Stability unlocks 'Counteract Corruption' which reduces Corruption in a Commandery by 50%. So by Assigning the Commander General with that specific Assignment you can reduce your total local Corruption to 0% for a few turns. Unfortunately there is no real way to reduce/eliminate all corruption entirely though. At least, not that I've found, and I've got around 70 hours in game so far (honestly around 45, I've left the game running a couple times while taking a break or running errands).
@@repo445-d4hYes there is no way to reduce it entirely for all fo your lands but you can get it down to 0% with out assignemnt in chosen cities. Where I am not sure is if the adjacent corruption bonus does stack on a commandery from the different commanderies. Administrator apply -30% corruption as well. In my play through with Liu Bei in the late game in my larger cities I had corrutpion dow to 0%-15 because off adminstrator, reforms and buildings with out assignment.
Longtime Total War player here. I'm just now getting into 3 kingdoms because my old computer couldn't run it well. I've gotta say, all these new systems have me FLOUNDERING. I'm going to have to spend a few turns rejigging my buildings in my current campaign since I was trying to just do it like Rome 2.
@28:50: You CAN actually use a Spy to take over a faction. If your Spy is the heir and you assassinate the Faction Leader you get an option to confederate their faction after they take over.
Hi, Thanks for many really good videos, they really help alot! One thing that I have noticed is that it´s quite hard to see the text in game on many of my devices, also on my 60" TV at highest res. One thing that might make for ease of seeing ing game text might be to change the in game resolution a little bit on these instruction videos since it might be helpful to be able to read the screen a little bit better. BR
hmmm i'll see what i can do about that- you're the first person to tell me that, so i wasn't aware that was an issue! I'm so sorry. i'll see what i can do in premiere :)
I’m struggling to read the text as well, but I think it’s just this game in general. I’ve watched other reviews specifically complain about all the text size.
I just bought this game a few days ago, the way I have been playing makes me feel a complete fool. I delegate 99% of the battles and don't really pay attention to all of these details in the characters, I guess my next playthrough is going to take alot more time. I am at turn 220 or so with about 10 hours of play. At least im an emperor.
Italian, can you maybe provide a video about the different court placements? Also like the more advanced ones. What type of characters that you should put there, what to focus on? In case it is in one of your other videos and I missed it. I do apologize. Thank you.
@@italianspartacus thanks for responding! Well, after watching your basic and advanced tutorials I restarted a campaign with Cao Cao where I put the focus ( like you advised) on peasantry and diplomacy. Now I arrived at the level of Marquis (never got there before with a steady income and all that) but now I have to choose excellencies and all that. The main question is who would you put in those different positions? What type of character (sentinels, commanders) or doesn't that matter? Would you choose one of the characters with the highest levels or the one with the best relationship between your faction leader? It's a lot but hopefully you understand what i'm trying to get at. Thanks ItalianSpartacus!
Awesome pointers. Got a question about character classes though. Does each class just determine their primary attributes and skills, or do they get some hidden buff for their described role? Like do champions get buffs for duels, do sentinels somehow effect fighting alongside Infantry, do vanguards just kill good (lol)? Thanks again for making the extra content.
ohhh that's a real good one.. and i don't know if i have an exact answer as to some hidden buff... but it more pertains to their innate bonuses to stats, followed by the weapons and armor they have access to that tends to make them better in specific roles either from the damage stats or passive buffs given. For example, Champions get a lot of Resolve, increasing their Health %, and having access to certain weapons, plus armor that gives them further bonuses in that situation. Then their SKILLS increase their innate potential further - THEN THEIR BACKGROUND increases it again haha, so it just really depends on each character :)
heya spart thanks for the amazing tutorial. a bit of a feedback; if you can play the game through and show us why you upgrades certain characteristics etc depending on the environment of the game i think it will be more helpful. again, thanks for the great effort youre making.
Ben fatto, bravo! One question: how do I know which of the possible sources of income (trade - population - industry - food?) is the most profitable or the best to maximize? Which of the sources mentioned above is "ideally" the best to develop? Choosing to develop a style of play based on a specific resource rather than another involves minimal differences or there is a decidedly more profitable style of play than others?
Hover over the income if your specific commandery to find out which you make the MOST of. Take a look at what's available to that commandery too - so lets say you have a lot of farms/livestock, then you'd want to focus on green. The settlements your commandery has access will dictate the best source of income :) Prego, fratello!
@@italianspartacus The quality of your accent is so impeccable that it prevents me from clearly understanding if you are actually Italian. On the other hand the name of the channel could be a simple tribute ... Well anyway from now on I have an "Italian" youtuber that I appreciate. ( the italian arumba of TWTK) ;) Post Scriptum When CA makes grand strategy with the typical elements of Paradox games better than Paradox itself ...(yes Imperator Rome, i'm looking at you....)
So a "faction-wide bonus as heir, etc." still procs for the commandanry you put an administrator in? I believe you said that at some point but it was just quickly, so I wanted to be sure. This is an awesome guide along with your beginner guide, thank you
@@italianspartacus not misleading at all, i saw the vid was a year old and patches happen lol. thank you for the response, i'll do some digging on my end and see if i can find a definitive answer
@@italianspartacus If it says faction wide bonus as heir/etc, you only activate them when the character is at that court position. Your Lu Su had 15% bonus to industry cause of its ability perk!
let me reword that in what buildings are best to prioritise when dealing with a border settlement with an enemy that you know will be a battleground vs what buildings to prioritise for more protected settlements.
I do like the setting of this game, and I think its pretty damn good. YOu can correct me, but the ones I've played the most where Warhammer 1+2. It feels like those are a bit more heavy on battlefield/army tactics/setups with less depth in actually building up towns and stuff. This one is much deeper with those things. How to build up your settlements, which buildings, branching building trees and stuff. It is very interesting, but even as someone who played Total War, the focus seems to be quite different - leading to a new learning curve overall
Sry but some of the information is just false, effects like tax collector trait (which benefit only if faction leader, heir or prime minister) will NOT benefit administration. Only skills, ancilliarys and temper traits which specifically say so will apply for an administrator. If you open the info panel located on the top right on the individual character screen you can see all effects for all possible positions listed in order OR select the position in court or other slots and hovering over desired characters will show the position specific that will be active bonuses.
How good is stacking peasantry income + food production + population growth for making money in commandery? Particularly with Liu Bei who has his unique administrative building that adds flat peasantry income? Or is commerce/industry just better?
Its not "just better". Commerce/ Ind has larger base values on buildings (like +250commerce vs +75 from peasantry) but food economy gives you 3 sources of income - from peasants, from population, and from option to sell excess food. Any one of those can make you filthy rich if done right. Happy gaming!
Turning grass down to low (looks exatly like Ultra, probably only effects battles), shadows off and I think filtering on 4x made the biggest difference for me. (Aside from Screen Space Reflections/Shadows). Everything else sadly doesn't really matter much, so can be on Ultra, if you are not desperate to gain fps. Turning resolution scaling to 90% also helps. No idea about the performance in battles, though.
I'm a huge fan of RotK but Grand Strategy games aren't really my forte, so i was looking for some tutorials and found your channel. Great videos, proper pronunciations, instant sub :D What i, as a total beginner" actually struggle the most with is army composition. I get the general gist of character classes, skills, benefits, you name it. But unit tiers, functions, synergies etc. are pretty overwhelming to be honest, especially since Total War is a bit more than "Rock beats Scissors". Do you have any advice how to approach this? Any good resources about what unit is used how, what their role in combat is, the natural tier progression and whatnot? Any help would be much appreciated!
Thank you very much man! I'm the same person that narrates the voice in-game if you press "F2" :) Welcome to the family!! Absolutely, so to do this you first need to understand the Classes. Lets group them by combat and non-combat Vanguard/Sentinel/Champion are your combat classes. Shock Cav/Infantry/Character killer respectively. Followed by.. Commander/Strategist. These two are MEANT to stay behind your army and bolster the army using their abilities. In line with this, you'll have units that each can recruit. Want archers? Get a strategist. Want Cav? Get a Vanguard. Now when it comes to the tiers, EVERYTHING is X Militia on the bottom. As you progress through both character ranks and reforms, you unlock better units. As far as how they kind of mesh together.. Sword infantry make up your backbone, with Halberd/Spears forming your flank defense as they can counter cav. Axes are meant more as "assault infantry" able to do shock damage to your oponents infantry force. Lastly, archers and siegecraft support your army from the rear. Cav of course will be used to do damage to the backline. Spear cav is shock cav, vs. the other is more meant for perpetual combat. What I do is create armies with one non-combat, like a commander or strategist, then two combat. I go with Vanguards and Champions most of the time. Then supplement as needed, having them build what THEY thrive in. does that help??
@@italianspartacus Thank you VERY much for your reply! That helped immensely! I usually went with a "Jack-of all trades" approach, trying to give each general a somewhat balanced entourage. So, focus more in the respective generals strengths, support them with matching units and then mix them in an army. And i think focusing more on a respective units "weapon type" rather than comparing them all against each other also helped quite a bit :D And you actually voiced parts of the game? Well, although it's one of the rare instances of a good german localisation, i think i need to switch to english now :D Again, thank you very much for your amazing videos and your great reply! I think i got the gist now.
@@italianspartacus How often do you mix units in your retinues? Like for instance if I had a vanguard, strategist, and Sentinel in my army. Would you try to only recruit vanguard units for the vanguard, sentinel units for the sentinel, and archers for the strategist? Or would you mix in some yellow units into your vanguard's retinue, some cav into your archers retinue as needed and so on.
hi there i really need your help, I am currently playing Lubu who is level 9, but I don't know why my armour pierece damage overall is 3.5k only ... I was watching other person who played lubu level 9 who had same weapon, follower and skill trait but has 12k armour pierece damage... What is going wrong?
Pa Lei Wa that doesn’t make sense if the person isn’t cheating. Sky Scorcher plus 200 instinct bonus isn’t even close to 12k. No other bonuses can give that much extra dmg
Really love your vids, it was very informative.. Thank you so much! I was just wondering, regarding character relations.. Can you influence two characters to end up liking eachother? Say through embedding them in the same army and having decisive victories? Also, do faction grudges or so last for ever? Or do they disapear with time? Thanks again
The only thing I don’t get is why can’t you just recall your spy? Just seems like something that you should be able to do. Also, is their a trait that makes a spy more or less likely to defect? Thanks for these videos btw, they are awesome. This game is ridiculously deep. Can’t put it down.
One thing I would like to know is how easy it is for a general to perma die. For Example, I get Lu-Bu, What happens If he gets shot Randomly on turn 1, What then? Can you increase the chance that this DOES NOT happen?
Resilience is the trait you're looking for.. And it'll be very hard for him to die. They'll almost always get wounded if they're legendary. Think of it as immortality from Warhammer
@@italianspartacus Thankyou, You Are Very Helpful, This is the First Proper Indepth Overview I have seen since the trailers. One Last Question, if you Are playing a Coop Campaign, But In Kind of a head to head scenario, Surely It wouldnt make sense to kit your spy out with spy enhancing gear, As when they recruit them, they will see all that and be immediately Suspicious? Or does the game hide that some way?
@@devil12280 yes absolutely! they will gain different ancillaries when they get recruited though.. and they won't see what ancillaries they HAD on them. it will show previous allegiances though, and that's the real tip
Not a dig, more something that just made me smile. While talking about optimising income at the start..you actually on negative income 😂 great vid and awesome content though :)
Great videos! The basics and this one are really useful for total war games. I not a new comer of the series have been playing, but i never played a lot because i didn't know very well what i was doing. One question that always comes to my mind is those bonus from the structures, sometimes the tell us that the effect is for the local province and sometimes for the faction, but there is some cases where nothing is told about. Like +60% income from commerce (tea house level 4). This bonus has effect on all buildings on my faction that generates income from commerce or it is only for the province buildings or only for that buildings?
A Guide on how to win in late-game? It seems that a kingdom contender will be an enemy as soon as any minor coalition declares war on you (not always right away but eventually). Because some factions are landlocked right in the center (Yuan Shu), late-game will become unbearable, especially when the other contenders are already striding through your provices. Having stand-by armies on the contour line is too costly, so any good strategies for late-game apart from having a good coalition and some vassals? In contrast to other Totalwar titles, the cities are quite weak on their own (garrison really feeble without military structure buildings that boost) and during battles, one has to cover quite a lot of ground (and vice versa) to get at enemies. I think the battle mechanics have changed so much that winning battles has become quite difficult.
basically just build towards what their colors are.. healers should be like vanguard/champions, scholars are strategists/commanders and veterans are sentinels/.... i can't remember that color!
I have a question: Some Skills have a "(generals)" in bracket next to it. Like The strategist skills Abundance. Abundance: +8 Resolve, Unlocks assignment: Replenish Supplies, +5 food production (generals) (administered commandery) I understand (administered commandery) means the +5 food production bonus is only within the commandery if administered by the character. What is the (generals) condition?
@@taylornox Oh.. Thanks. I was under the assumption the character's administrator buff wouldn't be available while they're deployed as a general outside the commandery. But I guess this means I was wrong about that as well. Thanks a lot for clearing that up.
Does anyone know how to significantly increase military suplies for generals? this is so far the most difficult feature of the game and huge difference from past total war titles. Even when i have high cunning on generals, items to support it etc, i hardly can wage a war because as soon as i get outside my borders, the military supplies for the army dissapears super quickly (and what was shock for me, it happens even if you are on the land of your allies) So before i can even reach enemy city, the supplies are almost all gone and there is no way for me to have a proper siege because all my troops start dying fast. All i can perhaps manage to do is wait one turn to make at least one battering ram quickly and then attack. And i have to win because if i loose the army will not be able to survive the trip back behind our border. In previous titles it wasnt this rapid and i was able to starve out the city sometimes etc. It is still in the game the option to have longer siege but my army would always be dead quicker then the army in town.
Know what I don't really get is the corruption, like the administrative buildings. I know to build those but I really need an explanation on the buildings as a whole, I noticed you just kind of skipped over the corruption part when it comes to commandery optimisation. Though the amount of land you owned looked small so I guess it wasn't a problem for you yet. Thanks for the explanation on this though I've been struggling a little when it comes to cash maybe I'm still in the Warhammer mindset of build all the same buildings.
Corruption is tied to overall faction size and overall commandery population it seems. You can reduce corruption via 3 different buildings (the Grand Treasury Mint, the Administration lines Grand Judiciary or the Office of Seals and archives) and 1 commandery territory building (the Copper Mine max building reduces by -4% faction wide). You need to keep an eye on what you build though. There is no point building a Grand Judiciary if you have a Grand Trasury Mint, you should build an Office of Seals and Archives instead so you max out that adjacent corruption bonus. Corruption level can be found when you select a Commandery and then hover your mouse over the left of the screen where the income for the commandery is. After a second a detailed breakdown of how much money the Commandery is making will be displayed along with a corruption level displayed in a percentage. If you really want to crack down on Corruption your best bet is to use a mix of one of the two AOE (or as I call the CAoE, Commandery Area of Effect) buildings in conjunction with a Commander that has the Crack down on Corruption assignment unlocked. The Assignment will reduce Corruption by a flat 50% in whichever Commandery they are deployed in. This negative STACKS with whatever else is in play for that Commandery. The max Corruption -% modifier you can get from reforms is -19% corruption, but getting there is very long and not really worth it until extreme late game (turn 150+). To break everything down here's an example of what I am talking about; Lets just say you have Commandery A and it is sitting at a cool 65% corruption (which can happen). To reduce this you have built the Court building (Administrative Office building T3 requires Capitol of Commandery to be T7 city) which reduces corruption by -10%. So now your local Corruption is 55%. You can further reduce this by getting the reform The Five Punishments (which allows you to build higher tier Rural Tax offices and gives a -5% Corruption Faction wide). Now your local Corruption should be sitting at 50%, which is still a lot. Fear not though, just Assign a Commander unit that you choose to give the skill Stability during a level up. This skill gives you +8 Authority, +5 Public order for the Administered Commandery, but what we really want is that Assignment it unlocks. Stability unlocks 'Counteract Corruption' which reduces Corruption in a Commandery by 50%. So by Assigning the Commander General with that specific Assignment you can reduce your total local Corruption to 0% for a few turns. Unfortunately there is no real way to reduce/eliminate all corruption entirely though. At least, not that I've found, and I've got around 70 hours in game so far (honestly around 45, I've left the game running a couple times while taking a break or running errands).
@@repo445-d4h You my dude are a life saver, got to say though it's mental that you actually can't reduce your corruption by 100% via buildings in the commandery itself and need to leave it to getting and levelling up a specific character (who may not live long) so you can actually combat corruption. See the final tier building that boosts adjacent commanderies by -20% corruption does that stack with other adjacent ones? so say my capital for instance is surrounded by 4 will that give me a -80% corruption modifier on my capital or just the 20%? I've about 44 hours pumped in to the game myself but I keep getting my ass kicked lmao furthest I've got is conquering South China with Sun Jian then wa bam I ran in to the corruption problem and was to far gone with war and my armies to fix it.
I'd have to. Jump. Into. The game to fully. Explain as I can't remember off the top of of my head, but it has to do with population as a result of certain buildings! Hover over the provincial capital building and it should have an entry for peasantry income!
I always wondered how the %bonuses in cities apply. Let's say i have a city with a building giving me +2 food and also a building giving me +50%, I will obviously end up with 3 food. Let's say this city has a farmland attached producing +4 food, does the % bonus from the building in the city also apply to this attached farmland? Does it produce 6 food then? Or does that % bonus only apply to the food production in that city?
Omg this whole time I thought "only if they are prime minister, heir, or faction leader" meant it was totally useless if they weren't. Legit I was a little upset at the game for having so many unusable buffs.
Huang gai, cheng pu and lu su are generic also?! 😭 Awesome vid though, its really different than twwh and more complex, gonna take a while to learn. Awaiting patiently for Mixu’s legendary heroes of china 😂
Bonus that are unlocked if you are prime minister, heir or faction leader also unlocks if you are an administrator? Is that real? The way I understand that phrase dint include 'administrators'...
do you need to produce food on every commanderie or ot's ok to produce food only on some commanderies for the other commanderies that don't produce food ?
Ywah absolutely, if your economy can support it, do it! Just make sure you've got enough food that you're building a surplus across the entire faction. That builds your reserves
Excuse me! Have you figure out how to triger legendary general to join you either free general or historic event? I play through Liu bei twice, and only get to have zhao yun once freely, otherway i have to annex the whole damn region! or like cao cao with Xu huang, Dian Wei , even ma chao and stuff? Or how do i recruit other faction legendary character?
It depends on what factions are still around and if they have them in their faction. So if Dong Zhou's faction gets eliminated, and Lu Bu wasn't killed, he'll join the global candidate pool for recruitment!
As liu bei, you'll get access to Xu Shu. Follow Xu Shu's events and it'll lead you to Zhuge Liang. Two or three turns after that, you'll get Pang Tong too. I've had Dian Wei pop up in Zhang Yan's faction. Wiping out Zhang Yan's faction put him in the recruitment pool and I managed to get him in. Ma Chao starts off as a baby and will become of age like 20 (don't quote me on that) turns, playing as Ma Teng. Basically though, if you want to recruit another faction's legendaries... You'll have to send out spies and use their assignment to lower their satisfaction so they leave the faction -- OR, you wipe out the faction and pay attention to your recruitment pool in the Court screen
What class is the best for dueling? The champion is supposed to be the correct choice when dueling right? But I feel that sometimes either the vanguard or sentinel will do it better.
While generally character like green champions are good against other characters, it's not exactly set in stone especially in the campaign. I find characters with high instinct, resolve or expertise all seem to do the job fairly well.
No! Own army will work if they are NOT commander. There are three types... Own retinue, if commander, and own army! Own army doesn't require you to be the commander
I accidentally married off sun ce to yuan shu's daughter thinking she would come into my faction and instead lost sun ce to to his faction. Only noticed after I'd already quick saved past it and didn't want to lose a few hours progress so played on. Is there any way of possibly getting him back to my side? I'm a lonely father missing my son and heir at the moment lol
@@italianspartacus I had a bit more of a look into possible avenues and I'm thinking I need to go to war with yuan shu need to either fight and capture sun ce or I can try and cause a device between sun ce and yuan shu through subterfuge. Neither are quick or guaranteed unfortunately lol. My campaign is going pretty interestingly so just gonna play it out and see what I can do
I can’t find any elite melee Calvary in the tree do they exist? Also is there an innate bonus to matching generals to units of the same color? If there is commanders seem like the worst class. There is no faction that has red green blue legendaries so I am not sure what to do army optimization wise.
End of the red tree :) Ruby Dragons I think? Commanders benefit from a lot of "back line" buffs - like strategists. They buff up units with charge defense and the such. Commanders are also able to mix a lot of units. They get melee cav (yellow) as well as sword infantry! All classes can only have specific units, so you might think Strategists suck BUT they're the only ones with access to high tier archers
ItalianSpartacus I love strategist they are the best in my opinion I would put one in every single army and Jade Dragons are for vanguards. They gave every color besides yellow an elite unit afaik which is dumb purple has two units. Then the emperor units are for blue and green. So I know the commanders get a 25 percent block buff on melee cavalry but is that all? Is there an innate bonus for putting the same color unit with the same color general? I started out doing that just putting same color units with each general which means I only use champions strategists and vanguards since they have the best units and cover their weaknesses.
Table of Contents
Commandery Optimization 0:56
Character Optimization 12:27
Spy Optimization 22:23
Very good guide videos sir, one of the best ones I've came across so far, thank you very much.
Got a question which I have yet to find an answer anywhere. I appointed an Administrator (Admin) at a Commandery, after a while, I would like to move him to a different Commandery to apply his Commandery bonus to it... however I couldn't find a way to do so, have you tried and know if/how it can be done?
I tried the followings:
1) At the destination commandery, ensure no appointed Admin, use the appoint Admin button - it brings up a list of all characters, but the Admin who is currently appointed to another commandery can't be selected to appoint.
2) If I dismiss that Admin from there (or from the Court UI), it is considered dismissing him from the Admin position completely, and he becomes massively unhappy about it - no I don't want that.
3) I clicked everywhere which seem to be relevant on the Court UI, no luck either.
4) I raised an Army with the Admin in concern, at the destination Commandery, tried 1) above - with the same result.
5) If I then recall said army, the Admin and his retinue goes back to his original commandery.
please put this in your description add 0:00 as your intro (I know it sounds dumb) and then it will give a cool feature to your video were your viewers can see on the timeline of the video the different parts of the video
4 years later and this video is still on point. 👍
Just wanted to let you know that this 30 minute guide literally saved my campaign.
so happy to hear that man :) glad i could be of help!
bro please i need some help how do i grow more food i am almost emperor of china please
@@tlpcompany3688 how did your campaign go bro hope u had fun
These guides are really great. It is not the easiest game to pick up, so I am glad you have taken the time to do them.
Thank you for taking the time to watch and then comment man! I appreciate it :) glad they helped
Honestly 7 hours into the game and i am still studying and reading everything. Just soo much to learn
Did it work out? 😂
Some things that I prefer to do.
Initially I concentrate on protection rather then production. A city for instance has a very small garrison by default. Nothing that can hold of even the smallest armies. But if you add just 3 levels of the barracks that give you more garrison, you will now have a city that can at a minimum cause severe damage to a full stack, if not outright repel them. Since armies are limited, specially at the start, and since armies cost you upkeep each turn, this will allow you to defend your existing areas with less cost. Another benefit is that this also gives you Public order. If it is in a high risk area, I may stick a single general with 6 cheep archers in it also.
The same goes for landmark areas, such as mines, fields, and such. I try to get them to at least level 4 as soon as possible, again for the large free garrison. These structures will be upgraded to 5 as soon as I have the tech for it.
This will help you throughout the game, as almost any single army will not be able to threaten your rear, freeing up your main army to conquer. I also like to place a granary in every city to give reserve during sieges. Again this forces the enemy to siege longer, giving me time to relieve them or force attrition on the enemy during winter month. Granaries also give public order, so both the barracks and the granary are pretty important all the way to the end game.
Should in the later game the cities protection not become as important, due it being far in the back save from attack, then I can always change them out for more economy structures.
One of the other really big things that isn't mentioned is that when you assign a administrator to a commandery the retinue of that administrator is added to the garrison of the capital building.
Which is big for me, I was always shocked at how easy capitals were to take from the AI because they had a terrible garrison (the dang outlying territories get better garrisons!), but then I checked the garrison of a city I had an administrator in just to realize that the administrators retinue is added to the total garrison.
(edit)
If you are adding the Military Infrastructure (Patrols building to eventually become a Fortified Garrison) you don't really need to worry too much about having a Granary. The additional siege time is nice, but kind of overkill. The reforms you have to drop to get the thing are also better spent for almost every faction, other than Cao Cao, on other early game reforms. No army that is going to siege a capitol is going to be that stealthy. Also if you are putting Sentinels in your Commandery capitols (which I highly recommend) by the time you gotta really worry about the capitol you should have their two perks that increase ranged damage while also switching their retinues out for the high rank Defenders of Earth or some other archer unit. The AI will almost always bottleneck itself trying to get into a city, so you want plenty of archers or a unit that can just hold out forever (hence why I choose Sentinels).
@@repo445-d4h That is correct. I try to give my administrators 6 cheep archers, its another addition to the defense that helps allot.
Thanks for the tips!
If you’re good enough and utilize Archer Towers properly you can defend a city with the smallest garrison even against full armies.
Upgrading garrison to level 3 takes around 15 turns which will sap your ability to do other stuff via taking your valuable first turn moneys and preventing the generation of additional funds through economy buildings during that time.
One might say that building economy grants you a mobile garrison in the form of an army.
The building slots are too valuable for barracks chain buildings since you need 2 to 3 slots for your primary income, be it commerce industry or pesantry, 1 slot for public order and another for corruption mitigation(later in game).
Garrisons are still useful for holding mountain passes to the rich farmland valleys.
even for a veteran total war gamer a pretty perfect tool that you made here - thanks a lot.
Awesome to hear brother. Glad I could be of help!! :D
ty bro, just bought the game and have literally no idea what i was doing and this was the best guide i found
No worries dude I'm happy to help /)
Man I'm so glad I bought this game! It combines the things I love from Total War and from Crusader Kings. It has the character management and leveling as well as the total war battles I know and love. Honestly so glad I bought it and can't get enough.
You lecture so naturally you're better than all my zoom professors
thanks for the great guides its making my first playtrough way more enjoyable
Yayayayaya great to hear man!! Hope you have a blast
You are the official "Total war 3 kingdoms tutorial" ! honnestly they completly forgot the tuto/presentation/guide/Initiation stuff : thank u
ohhhh no they didntttttt! ;) Press "F1" and then right click any of those dialogue boxes.. you'll get a video.. recognize the voice?? mwhahahah
13:51 - let’s take a looooooooookkk! 😂 I love it.
Thank you for this video. It’s 2024 and I’m really enjoying the Three Kingdom way more because of you.
I just got this game and was so lost thanks for the guide help me out so much
Happy to help brother :)
you want to use sentinels as administrators, the have the buffs for commerce and industry like the strategists however the more expertise they have the more cost they can reduce to build your commandaries
Thanks for these two videos, just what I was looking for!
just put up the third!
Thank you for this guide. I found this game having a steeper learning curve than other Total War games and had a hard time in my first play through. Thank you for simplifying these various issues.
This is the first Total War game I've played, but I've been playing Rot3K since it came out for the NES in the 80's. I'd love to see someone explain how things transfer from how it played over the years on NES and Playstaion, to how it plays now with Total War. Every video I've seen so far explains how this game is different from other Total War games.
One of the first things I've been doing in campaigns is getting a strategist giving them archers, and most importantly getting the trebuchet. Having a treb seems to give so much to a conquering army that I feel like I have to have one.
They're expensive early on, but causing your enemy to walk out of their fortified town, and out of tower range makes taking settlements sooooooo much easier and less attritious it's insane.
"We havent had such diversity from income in previous total wars" (meaning peasantry/commerce/industry)
Rome 2/Attila: "Am i a joke to you????....W-Wait-dont answer that..."
favorite quote in this video: "...but this is about optimization, not cutting corners!"
thanks for your guides!!!
hahahah happy to help man :)
I don’t like this “maximising what you’ve got” strategy, it never works for me.
The one which I have noticed is vital is food, as you can use food in trade deals and it can literally turn your campaign upside down if you run out
Oh man totally. I don't think I enphasize food enough. That's my bad. You really need to focus on it OR get a faction that has a ton to trade with reliably
It's a cycle. You need to upgrade your cities to get good income, but bigger cities require more food. So just make sure to include in your plans capturing a commandary that has good farm/livestock land. Otherwise you'll be wasting some building slots for food production in cities that would be better used for income. I like how in early game, everything seems to be hard to get (money, food, public order, good units). It really makes you think about your next steps.
Yeah always build food first before upgrading city. I learned the hard way. Iv been playing total war since the original shogun. This is soooo different.
This game was so intimidating, now im chilling thanks to this lol
Thanks for the video. Realised i Overlooked so much when I played my first campaign. Also knowing the details makes the game very much more interesting.
I wonder if modders could implement some of Three Kingdom’s campaign complexities into Warhammer... that would be cool in my opinion, as from what I’ve seen I prefer the greater faction variation and unit variety in Warhammer but the campaign depth of Three Kingdoms.
The Faction variation in Three Kingdoms puts Warhammer to shame. The unit variety isn't the same, but the shear difference in that EVERY faction plays differently and has different focuses is incredible.
Brian Stone you are right, the way factions play on the campaign is impressive. Still though unit variety and distinctiveness is a big part of faction variation, and adds a large amount of interest to the battles themselves. My idea was for modders to make something that is “the best of both worlds”.
You're a total war god. Thank you
The ancillary craftsmen are essentially diplomacy boosts since their craft rate cant be relied upon endowing more than a handful of your characters.
Their unique items do give you a lot of influence when traded in diplomacy. Try giving them to a rich faction and see them lavishly throw their "ban liang" at your feet to get that sweet epic loot.
Love your videos ! Yes please ! Do battle tactics tutorials ! :D
Thank you!! It's up!! :D
Another absolutely incredibly well-explained sucinctly video-thk you!
Really liked both episodes so keep going ;) Would be enjoyable to see some battles also (when you are in an advantage, disadvantage, city capturing and all that stuff could be fun to watch). I would also like to know about or see more about these spying options you mentioned at the end. So if you end up with a saved game with those scenarios I would love to see those too. Also how to deal with spies sent against you (how to try to identify them, what happens when you don't and they do some damage etc.) Overall thumbs up sir :)
Thank you so much! Did you see the other tutorials linked at the end?! They might help! :)
@@italianspartacus I will definitely check those out. I just relied on youtube to give me the next suggestion and it failed me. So I apologize :D
BASTARDS! hahah yeah, at the end, in the last 15 seconds, you should see a link to ALL of the tutorial videos
Your voice calms my restless soul
So does disowning the spy make him come back to me or stay with his false master. Description in-game tells the latter but you seem to imply otherwise. If the former is the case, is there a way I can keep him from defecting to the enemy?
Thanks for the video, very informative!
Regarding the connections between the colors, I just want to note that it is coming from the Wu Xing philosophy - and point towards this very useful page totalwar.fandom.com/wiki/Wu_Xing
All credit to totalwar.fandom.com
thank you for those information it really help me... i really enjoys it i think its the best total war i ever play!
Man you have a new sub, I totally hyped about the game. Great introduction to the scheme and presentation of the game.
awesome to hear man! :) glad it could be of some help brother. welcome to the family hehe
Nice crunchy strategy. Thanks for making this!
Could you add an addendum about corruption? It is hugely game-breaking for me in the late game and even though I've tried assignments to get it lower, it barely seems to phase it. Building anti-corruption buildings kind of don't help in the net gain, since they have an upkeep which counteracts the benefit of cutting corruption.
Here's my copypasta from an above comment I made. Enjoy!
Corruption is tied to overall faction size and overall commandery population it seems. You can reduce corruption via 3 different buildings (the Grand Treasury Mint, the Administration lines Grand Judiciary or the Office of Seals and archives) and 1 commandery territory building (the Copper Mine max building reduces by -4% faction wide). You need to keep an eye on what you build though. There is no point building a Grand Judiciary if you have a Grand Trasury Mint, you should build an Office of Seals and Archives instead so you max out that adjacent corruption bonus.
Corruption level can be found when you select a Commandery and then hover your mouse over the left of the screen where the income for the commandery is. After a second a detailed breakdown of how much money the Commandery is making will be displayed along with a corruption level displayed in a percentage.
If you really want to crack down on Corruption your best bet is to use a mix of one of the two AOE (or as I call the CAoE, Commandery Area of Effect) buildings in conjunction with a Commander that has the Crack down on Corruption assignment unlocked. The Assignment will reduce Corruption by a flat 50% in whichever Commandery they are deployed in. This negative STACKS with whatever else is in play for that Commandery. The max Corruption -% modifier you can get from reforms is -19% corruption, but getting there is very long and not really worth it until extreme late game (turn 150+).
To break everything down here's an example of what I am talking about;
Lets just say you have Commandery A and it is sitting at a cool 65% corruption (which can happen). To reduce this you have built the Court building (Administrative Office building T3 requires Capitol of Commandery to be T7 city) which reduces corruption by -10%. So now your local Corruption is 55%. You can further reduce this by getting the reform The Five Punishments (which allows you to build higher tier Rural Tax offices and gives a -5% Corruption Faction wide). Now your local Corruption should be sitting at 50%, which is still a lot. Fear not though, just Assign a Commander unit that you choose to give the skill Stability during a level up. This skill gives you +8 Authority, +5 Public order for the Administered Commandery, but what we really want is that Assignment it unlocks. Stability unlocks 'Counteract Corruption' which reduces Corruption in a Commandery by 50%. So by Assigning the Commander General with that specific Assignment you can reduce your total local Corruption to 0% for a few turns.
Unfortunately there is no real way to reduce/eliminate all corruption entirely though. At least, not that I've found, and I've got around 70 hours in game so far (honestly around 45, I've left the game running a couple times while taking a break or running errands).
@@repo445-d4hYes there is no way to reduce it entirely for all fo your lands but you can get it down to 0% with out assignemnt in chosen cities. Where I am not sure is if the adjacent corruption bonus does stack on a commandery from the different commanderies. Administrator apply -30% corruption as well. In my play through with Liu Bei in the late game in my larger cities I had corrutpion dow to 0%-15 because off adminstrator, reforms and buildings with out assignment.
Longtime Total War player here. I'm just now getting into 3 kingdoms because my old computer couldn't run it well. I've gotta say, all these new systems have me FLOUNDERING. I'm going to have to spend a few turns rejigging my buildings in my current campaign since I was trying to just do it like Rome 2.
@28:50: You CAN actually use a Spy to take over a faction. If your Spy is the heir and you assassinate the Faction Leader you get an option to confederate their faction after they take over.
Dude you are the goat. Please tell me you’re gonna make these for Troy cuz with out this I’d be so lost!
I'm working on it right now :)
thanks allot, I am pretty new to the game and this will allow me to enjoy the game allot more, and push through the learning curve :)
YUSSSS happy to be of help man!
Hi,
Thanks for many really good videos, they really help alot!
One thing that I have noticed is that it´s quite hard to see the text in game on many of my devices, also on my 60" TV at highest res. One thing that might make for ease of seeing ing game text might be to change the in game resolution a little bit on these instruction videos since it might be helpful to be able to read the screen a little bit better.
BR
hmmm i'll see what i can do about that- you're the first person to tell me that, so i wasn't aware that was an issue! I'm so sorry. i'll see what i can do in premiere :)
I’m struggling to read the text as well, but I think it’s just this game in general. I’ve watched other reviews specifically complain about all the text size.
Great guides! Thank you and subbed, of course :)
Great video. Good tips when getting started with this game.
I just bought this game a few days ago, the way I have been playing makes me feel a complete fool. I delegate 99% of the battles and don't really pay attention to all of these details in the characters, I guess my next playthrough is going to take alot more time. I am at turn 220 or so with about 10 hours of play. At least im an emperor.
Lmao same I suck at the battles
So if a character is red I want to focus more on red? is that what you're saying? ;) lol really great guide and helped a lot thank you!
effectively! :D hahah any time man, glad it helped :)
Italian, can you maybe provide a video about the different court placements? Also like the more advanced ones. What type of characters that you should put there, what to focus on? In case it is in one of your other videos and I missed it. I do apologize. Thank you.
hmmm! i'll see what i can do.. is there any type of question you have in specific to them that i might be able to answer for you?
@@italianspartacus thanks for responding! Well, after watching your basic and advanced tutorials I restarted a campaign with Cao Cao where I put the focus ( like you advised) on peasantry and diplomacy. Now I arrived at the level of Marquis (never got there before with a steady income and all that) but now I have to choose excellencies and all that. The main question is who would you put in those different positions? What type of character (sentinels, commanders) or doesn't that matter? Would you choose one of the characters with the highest levels or the one with the best relationship between your faction leader? It's a lot but hopefully you understand what i'm trying to get at. Thanks ItalianSpartacus!
Nice guide, loads of food for thought.
Oh and forgot to sub; 36595th! :P
He who controls the spice controls the universe
Im always struggling with economy and public order. This vid is pretty enlightening, hope i can get better.
Awesome pointers. Got a question about character classes though.
Does each class just determine their primary attributes and skills, or do they get some hidden buff for their described role? Like do champions get buffs for duels, do sentinels somehow effect fighting alongside Infantry, do vanguards just kill good (lol)? Thanks again for making the extra content.
ohhh that's a real good one.. and i don't know if i have an exact answer as to some hidden buff... but it more pertains to their innate bonuses to stats, followed by the weapons and armor they have access to that tends to make them better in specific roles either from the damage stats or passive buffs given.
For example, Champions get a lot of Resolve, increasing their Health %, and having access to certain weapons, plus armor that gives them further bonuses in that situation. Then their SKILLS increase their innate potential further - THEN THEIR BACKGROUND increases it again haha, so it just really depends on each character :)
Wait, I don't get it! If you disown a spy, a message pop-up saying that you will lose the spy, but also the agent as a whole... are you of that? o.o
He's incorrect on this. You lose the spy/character if you 'disown' them. You need to 'recall' them if you want to keep the character.
heya spart thanks for the amazing tutorial. a bit of a feedback; if you can play the game through and show us why you upgrades certain characteristics etc depending on the environment of the game i think it will be more helpful. again, thanks for the great effort youre making.
ohhh great point!! when there's another DLC drop, i might do just that :)
@@italianspartacus keep it up buddy! Love your vids on the game.
“let’s take a loooook” 🎶🎶😂
Ben fatto, bravo!
One question: how do I know which of the possible sources of income (trade - population - industry - food?) is the most profitable or the best to maximize? Which of the sources mentioned above is "ideally" the best to develop? Choosing to develop a style of play based on a specific resource rather than another involves minimal differences or there is a decidedly more profitable style of play than others?
Hover over the income if your specific commandery to find out which you make the MOST of.
Take a look at what's available to that commandery too - so lets say you have a lot of farms/livestock, then you'd want to focus on green. The settlements your commandery has access will dictate the best source of income :)
Prego, fratello!
@@italianspartacus
The quality of your accent is so impeccable that it prevents me from clearly understanding if you are actually Italian. On the other hand the name of the channel could be a simple tribute ... Well anyway from now on I have an "Italian" youtuber that I appreciate. ( the italian arumba of TWTK) ;)
Post Scriptum
When CA makes grand strategy with the typical elements of Paradox games better than Paradox itself ...(yes Imperator Rome, i'm looking at you....)
So a "faction-wide bonus as heir, etc." still procs for the commandanry you put an administrator in? I believe you said that at some point but it was just quickly, so I wanted to be sure. This is an awesome guide along with your beginner guide, thank you
Yes it SHOULD work, but it might have changed with time so I apologize if I mislead you!! Also thank you very much for watching :)
@@italianspartacus not misleading at all, i saw the vid was a year old and patches happen lol. thank you for the response, i'll do some digging on my end and see if i can find a definitive answer
@@italianspartacus If it says faction wide bonus as heir/etc, you only activate them when the character is at that court position. Your Lu Su had 15% bonus to industry cause of its ability perk!
Great guide. But a little blue makes purple not the other way around xD
3:58
"Just China ignore that!"
Nice video could you do a video on settlements and economy.
to be honest the first third of this video is really all about settlements and economy
let me reword that in what buildings are best to prioritise when dealing with a border settlement with an enemy that you know will be a battleground vs what buildings to prioritise for more protected settlements.
stormraven8484 ah good point, I often struggle with military buildings myself. They just don’t seem very worth it too me
hey im in hospital tommorow morning iv broke my elbow its came away from my other bone
I do like the setting of this game, and I think its pretty damn good.
YOu can correct me, but the ones I've played the most where Warhammer 1+2. It feels like those are a bit more heavy on battlefield/army tactics/setups with less depth in actually building up towns and stuff.
This one is much deeper with those things. How to build up your settlements, which buildings, branching building trees and stuff.
It is very interesting, but even as someone who played Total War, the focus seems to be quite different - leading to a new learning curve overall
facts, I thought I'm gonna get bored of 3K since Warhammer had so much faction and unit diversity, but it was the complete opposite.
Hehe, you clearly don't use a script.
Great video, thanks for the help! ❤
Hahaha I do more NOW but when this video was made? Not as much hehe sorry
Good explanation and pres. Like
Sry but some of the information is just false, effects like tax collector trait (which benefit only if faction leader, heir or prime minister) will NOT benefit administration. Only skills, ancilliarys and temper traits which specifically say so will apply for an administrator.
If you open the info panel located on the top right on the individual character screen you can see all effects for all possible positions listed in order OR select the position in court or other slots and hovering over desired characters will show the position specific that will be active bonuses.
How good is stacking peasantry income + food production + population growth for making money in commandery? Particularly with Liu Bei who has his unique administrative building that adds flat peasantry income? Or is commerce/industry just better?
Its not "just better". Commerce/ Ind has larger base values on buildings (like +250commerce vs +75 from peasantry) but food economy gives you 3 sources of income - from peasants, from population, and from option to sell excess food. Any one of those can make you filthy rich if done right. Happy gaming!
@@petrmiros9908 i guess the downside with peasant economy is reliance on higher population numbers which can take a while to grow
MacTavish also the public order penalties from high pop
Yeaaa the public order is so bad Confucius cant get them to be good :(
hey man. im wondering what your graphic settings are, seems you managed to hit a sweet spot between performance/graphics quality
Turning grass down to low (looks exatly like Ultra, probably only effects battles), shadows off and I think filtering on 4x made the biggest difference for me. (Aside from Screen Space Reflections/Shadows). Everything else sadly doesn't really matter much, so can be on Ultra, if you are not desperate to gain fps. Turning resolution scaling to 90% also helps.
No idea about the performance in battles, though.
Here for “parenthetical notations”
"do me daddy"
I'm a huge fan of RotK but Grand Strategy games aren't really my forte, so i was looking for some tutorials and found your channel.
Great videos, proper pronunciations, instant sub :D
What i, as a total beginner" actually struggle the most with is army composition.
I get the general gist of character classes, skills, benefits, you name it.
But unit tiers, functions, synergies etc. are pretty overwhelming to be honest, especially since Total War is a bit more than "Rock beats Scissors".
Do you have any advice how to approach this? Any good resources about what unit is used how, what their role in combat is, the natural tier progression and whatnot?
Any help would be much appreciated!
Thank you very much man! I'm the same person that narrates the voice in-game if you press "F2" :) Welcome to the family!!
Absolutely, so to do this you first need to understand the Classes. Lets group them by combat and non-combat
Vanguard/Sentinel/Champion are your combat classes. Shock Cav/Infantry/Character killer respectively. Followed by..
Commander/Strategist. These two are MEANT to stay behind your army and bolster the army using their abilities.
In line with this, you'll have units that each can recruit. Want archers? Get a strategist. Want Cav? Get a Vanguard.
Now when it comes to the tiers, EVERYTHING is X Militia on the bottom. As you progress through both character ranks and reforms, you unlock better units.
As far as how they kind of mesh together.. Sword infantry make up your backbone, with Halberd/Spears forming your flank defense as they can counter cav. Axes are meant more as "assault infantry" able to do shock damage to your oponents infantry force. Lastly, archers and siegecraft support your army from the rear. Cav of course will be used to do damage to the backline. Spear cav is shock cav, vs. the other is more meant for perpetual combat.
What I do is create armies with one non-combat, like a commander or strategist, then two combat. I go with Vanguards and Champions most of the time. Then supplement as needed, having them build what THEY thrive in.
does that help??
@@italianspartacus Thank you VERY much for your reply! That helped immensely!
I usually went with a "Jack-of all trades" approach, trying to give each general a somewhat balanced entourage.
So, focus more in the respective generals strengths, support them with matching units and then mix them in an army.
And i think focusing more on a respective units "weapon type" rather than comparing them all against each other also helped quite a bit :D
And you actually voiced parts of the game? Well, although it's one of the rare instances of a good german localisation, i think i need to switch to english now :D
Again, thank you very much for your amazing videos and your great reply!
I think i got the gist now.
@@italianspartacus How often do you mix units in your retinues? Like for instance if I had a vanguard, strategist, and Sentinel in my army. Would you try to only recruit vanguard units for the vanguard, sentinel units for the sentinel, and archers for the strategist? Or would you mix in some yellow units into your vanguard's retinue, some cav into your archers retinue as needed and so on.
you need a little bit of blue to make purple not vice versa :D
hi there i really need your help, I am currently playing Lubu who is level 9, but I don't know why my armour pierece damage overall is 3.5k only ... I was watching other person who played lubu level 9 who had same weapon, follower and skill trait but has 12k armour pierece damage... What is going wrong?
Pa Lei Wa that doesn’t make sense if the person isn’t cheating. Sky Scorcher plus 200 instinct bonus isn’t even close to 12k. No other bonuses can give that much extra dmg
Really love your vids, it was very informative.. Thank you so much!
I was just wondering, regarding character relations.. Can you influence two characters to end up liking eachother? Say through embedding them in the same army and having decisive victories? Also, do faction grudges or so last for ever? Or do they disapear with time? Thanks again
The only thing I don’t get is why can’t you just recall your spy? Just seems like something that you should be able to do. Also, is their a trait that makes a spy more or less likely to defect? Thanks for these videos btw, they are awesome. This game is ridiculously deep. Can’t put it down.
How come in your game it says "small city" and for me it's all in Chinese or something. I can't find a way to change it
As Cao Cao, would I still be making commerce buildings ? In the start, it seems like most of his income comes from peasantry, so I assume not.
Yeah I'd definitely go peasantry :)
One thing I would like to know is how easy it is for a general to perma die. For Example, I get Lu-Bu, What happens If he gets shot Randomly on turn 1, What then? Can you increase the chance that this DOES NOT happen?
Resilience is the trait you're looking for.. And it'll be very hard for him to die. They'll almost always get wounded if they're legendary. Think of it as immortality from Warhammer
@@italianspartacus Thankyou, You Are Very Helpful, This is the First Proper Indepth Overview I have seen since the trailers. One Last Question, if you Are playing a Coop Campaign, But In Kind of a head to head scenario, Surely It wouldnt make sense to kit your spy out with spy enhancing gear, As when they recruit them, they will see all that and be immediately Suspicious? Or does the game hide that some way?
@@devil12280 yes absolutely! they will gain different ancillaries when they get recruited though.. and they won't see what ancillaries they HAD on them.
it will show previous allegiances though, and that's the real tip
Not a dig, more something that just made me smile. While talking about optimising income at the start..you actually on negative income 😂 great vid and awesome content though :)
Hahahaha it's true.. This save is from. An earlier build of the game, so I noticed that and thought, "welp.... Let's see how the chips fall" hahaha
@@italianspartacus well done sir well done :) again nice vid :)
Great videos! The basics and this one are really useful for total war games. I not a new comer of the series have been playing, but i never played a lot because i didn't know very well what i was doing.
One question that always comes to my mind is those bonus from the structures, sometimes the tell us that the effect is for the local province and sometimes for the faction, but there is some cases where nothing is told about. Like +60% income from commerce (tea house level 4). This bonus has effect on all buildings on my faction that generates income from commerce or it is only for the province buildings or only for that buildings?
I am confused by the term "adminster commandery" benefit of an ancillary. Does that mean he is the general in charge of an occupying arm, or...etc?
is it better to put yellow troops with yellow generals, red troops with red generals etcetera. and if so, why?
well certain generals can only recruit certain troops :)
A Guide on how to win in late-game? It seems that a kingdom contender will be an enemy as soon as any minor coalition declares war on you (not always right away but eventually). Because some factions are landlocked right in the center (Yuan Shu), late-game will become unbearable, especially when the other contenders are already striding through your provices.
Having stand-by armies on the contour line is too costly, so any good strategies for late-game apart from having a good coalition and some vassals? In contrast to other Totalwar titles, the cities are quite weak on their own (garrison really feeble without military structure buildings that boost) and during battles, one has to cover quite a lot of ground (and vice versa) to get at enemies. I think the battle mechanics have changed so much that winning battles has become quite difficult.
Having trouble building up the yellow Turban characters. Since they are sort of hybrid. Any tips?
basically just build towards what their colors are.. healers should be like vanguard/champions, scholars are strategists/commanders and veterans are sentinels/.... i can't remember that color!
I have a question:
Some Skills have a "(generals)" in bracket next to it. Like The strategist skills Abundance.
Abundance: +8 Resolve, Unlocks assignment: Replenish Supplies, +5 food production (generals) (administered commandery)
I understand (administered commandery) means the +5 food production bonus is only within the commandery if administered by the character. What is the (generals) condition?
When they are a general ie, deployed on the map.
@@taylornox Oh.. Thanks. I was under the assumption the character's administrator buff wouldn't be available while they're deployed as a general outside the commandery. But I guess this means I was wrong about that as well. Thanks a lot for clearing that up.
@@nithingirish9752 Correct, your administrators still gain the buff while deployed, its just obviously riskier because they could get sliced and diced
Does anyone know how to significantly increase military suplies for generals? this is so far the most difficult feature of the game and huge difference from past total war titles. Even when i have high cunning on generals, items to support it etc, i hardly can wage a war because as soon as i get outside my borders, the military supplies for the army dissapears super quickly (and what was shock for me, it happens even if you are on the land of your allies) So before i can even reach enemy city, the supplies are almost all gone and there is no way for me to have a proper siege because all my troops start dying fast. All i can perhaps manage to do is wait one turn to make at least one battering ram quickly and then attack. And i have to win because if i loose the army will not be able to survive the trip back behind our border. In previous titles it wasnt this rapid and i was able to starve out the city sometimes etc. It is still in the game the option to have longer siege but my army would always be dead quicker then the army in town.
Wow didn’t know this is such a problem. In my campaign as Cao Cao I’ve never had to worry about supplies at all
This video made the spy system seem so cool o_0
Know what I don't really get is the corruption, like the administrative buildings. I know to build those but I really need an explanation on the buildings as a whole, I noticed you just kind of skipped over the corruption part when it comes to commandery optimisation. Though the amount of land you owned looked small so I guess it wasn't a problem for you yet. Thanks for the explanation on this though I've been struggling a little when it comes to cash maybe I'm still in the Warhammer mindset of build all the same buildings.
Corruption is tied to overall faction size and overall commandery population it seems. You can reduce corruption via 3 different buildings (the Grand Treasury Mint, the Administration lines Grand Judiciary or the Office of Seals and archives) and 1 commandery territory building (the Copper Mine max building reduces by -4% faction wide). You need to keep an eye on what you build though. There is no point building a Grand Judiciary if you have a Grand Trasury Mint, you should build an Office of Seals and Archives instead so you max out that adjacent corruption bonus.
Corruption level can be found when you select a Commandery and then hover your mouse over the left of the screen where the income for the commandery is. After a second a detailed breakdown of how much money the Commandery is making will be displayed along with a corruption level displayed in a percentage.
If you really want to crack down on Corruption your best bet is to use a mix of one of the two AOE (or as I call the CAoE, Commandery Area of Effect) buildings in conjunction with a Commander that has the Crack down on Corruption assignment unlocked. The Assignment will reduce Corruption by a flat 50% in whichever Commandery they are deployed in. This negative STACKS with whatever else is in play for that Commandery. The max Corruption -% modifier you can get from reforms is -19% corruption, but getting there is very long and not really worth it until extreme late game (turn 150+).
To break everything down here's an example of what I am talking about;
Lets just say you have Commandery A and it is sitting at a cool 65% corruption (which can happen). To reduce this you have built the Court building (Administrative Office building T3 requires Capitol of Commandery to be T7 city) which reduces corruption by -10%. So now your local Corruption is 55%. You can further reduce this by getting the reform The Five Punishments (which allows you to build higher tier Rural Tax offices and gives a -5% Corruption Faction wide). Now your local Corruption should be sitting at 50%, which is still a lot. Fear not though, just Assign a Commander unit that you choose to give the skill Stability during a level up. This skill gives you +8 Authority, +5 Public order for the Administered Commandery, but what we really want is that Assignment it unlocks. Stability unlocks 'Counteract Corruption' which reduces Corruption in a Commandery by 50%. So by Assigning the Commander General with that specific Assignment you can reduce your total local Corruption to 0% for a few turns.
Unfortunately there is no real way to reduce/eliminate all corruption entirely though. At least, not that I've found, and I've got around 70 hours in game so far (honestly around 45, I've left the game running a couple times while taking a break or running errands).
@@repo445-d4h You my dude are a life saver, got to say though it's mental that you actually can't reduce your corruption by 100% via buildings in the commandery itself and need to leave it to getting and levelling up a specific character (who may not live long) so you can actually combat corruption. See the final tier building that boosts adjacent commanderies by -20% corruption does that stack with other adjacent ones? so say my capital for instance is surrounded by 4 will that give me a -80% corruption modifier on my capital or just the 20%?
I've about 44 hours pumped in to the game myself but I keep getting my ass kicked lmao furthest I've got is conquering South China with Sun Jian then wa bam I ran in to the corruption problem and was to far gone with war and my armies to fix it.
This is so helpful and I know it's a year old but how is the income from peasantry calculated? I don't understand it!
I'd have to. Jump. Into. The game to fully. Explain as I can't remember off the top of of my head, but it has to do with population as a result of certain buildings! Hover over the provincial capital building and it should have an entry for peasantry income!
I always wondered how the %bonuses in cities apply. Let's say i have a city with a building giving me +2 food and also a building giving me +50%, I will obviously end up with 3 food. Let's say this city has a farmland attached producing +4 food, does the % bonus from the building in the city also apply to this attached farmland? Does it produce 6 food then? Or does that % bonus only apply to the food production in that city?
Kingdom of Zhong is hella op
Hi Spartacus, Thanks for the video. I'm confused about how to use Cao Cao in field battles. Is he better suited to be an administrator?
No he can do fine in battles.. He's a commander I believe, yes? So he gives passive bonuses!
@@italianspartacus Okay thanks. I find Cao Cao weird because he benefits archer and calvary so not sure which to specialize in for his retinue.
Ryan Vu depends on how you want to fight, you could go with either or split the retinue between cav and archers. If you want the bonus that is.
Omg this whole time I thought "only if they are prime minister, heir, or faction leader" meant it was totally useless if they weren't.
Legit I was a little upset at the game for having so many unusable buffs.
Huang gai, cheng pu and lu su are generic also?! 😭
Awesome vid though, its really different than twwh and more complex, gonna take a while to learn.
Awaiting patiently for Mixu’s legendary heroes of china 😂
Bonus that are unlocked if you are prime minister, heir or faction leader also unlocks if you are an administrator? Is that real? The way I understand that phrase dint include 'administrators'...
It isn't. I'm sorry at one point they were different, and I assumed it was still that way. My bad brother!
do you need to produce food on every commanderie or ot's ok to produce food only on some commanderies for the other commanderies that don't produce food ?
Ywah absolutely, if your economy can support it, do it! Just make sure you've got enough food that you're building a surplus across the entire faction. That builds your reserves
Excuse me! Have you figure out how to triger legendary general to join you either free general or historic event? I play through Liu bei twice, and only get to have zhao yun once freely, otherway i have to annex the whole damn region! or like cao cao with Xu huang, Dian Wei , even ma chao and stuff? Or how do i recruit other faction legendary character?
It depends on what factions are still around and if they have them in their faction. So if Dong Zhou's faction gets eliminated, and Lu Bu wasn't killed, he'll join the global candidate pool for recruitment!
As liu bei, you'll get access to Xu Shu. Follow Xu Shu's events and it'll lead you to Zhuge Liang. Two or three turns after that, you'll get Pang Tong too.
I've had Dian Wei pop up in Zhang Yan's faction. Wiping out Zhang Yan's faction put him in the recruitment pool and I managed to get him in.
Ma Chao starts off as a baby and will become of age like 20 (don't quote me on that) turns, playing as Ma Teng.
Basically though, if you want to recruit another faction's legendaries... You'll have to send out spies and use their assignment to lower their satisfaction so they leave the faction -- OR, you wipe out the faction and pay attention to your recruitment pool in the Court screen
Is there a bonus for a general to command the same wu xing soldiers?
What class is the best for dueling? The champion is supposed to be the correct choice when dueling right? But I feel that sometimes either the vanguard or sentinel will do it better.
While generally character like green champions are good against other characters, it's not exactly set in stone especially in the campaign. I find characters with high instinct, resolve or expertise all seem to do the job fairly well.
Aca estoy, a ver como hago para no perder de nuevo una campaña :(
heya lion!! i know its been almost a year late but do you do live tutoring by any chance? like private tutoring thing?
Does the "own army" skills only work when they are commander?
No! Own army will work if they are NOT commander. There are three types... Own retinue, if commander, and own army! Own army doesn't require you to be the commander
Question: Can you assassinate enemy characters outside of battles?
I accidentally married off sun ce to yuan shu's daughter thinking she would come into my faction and instead lost sun ce to to his faction. Only noticed after I'd already quick saved past it and didn't want to lose a few hours progress so played on. Is there any way of possibly getting him back to my side? I'm a lonely father missing my son and heir at the moment lol
Hahaha I'm not sure to be honest.. I've never dealt with that scenario. I'd have to sandbox it. Anyone able to weigh in??
@@italianspartacus I had a bit more of a look into possible avenues and I'm thinking I need to go to war with yuan shu need to either fight and capture sun ce or I can try and cause a device between sun ce and yuan shu through subterfuge. Neither are quick or guaranteed unfortunately lol. My campaign is going pretty interestingly so just gonna play it out and see what I can do
I can’t find any elite melee Calvary in the tree do they exist? Also is there an innate bonus to matching generals to units of the same color? If there is commanders seem like the worst class. There is no faction that has red green blue legendaries so I am not sure what to do army optimization wise.
End of the red tree :) Ruby Dragons I think?
Commanders benefit from a lot of "back line" buffs - like strategists. They buff up units with charge defense and the such. Commanders are also able to mix a lot of units. They get melee cav (yellow) as well as sword infantry!
All classes can only have specific units, so you might think Strategists suck BUT they're the only ones with access to high tier archers
ItalianSpartacus I love strategist they are the best in my opinion I would put one in every single army and Jade Dragons are for vanguards. They gave every color besides yellow an elite unit afaik which is dumb purple has two units. Then the emperor units are for blue and green. So I know the commanders get a 25 percent block buff on melee cavalry but is that all? Is there an innate bonus for putting the same color unit with the same color general? I started out doing that just putting same color units with each general which means I only use champions strategists and vanguards since they have the best units and cover their weaknesses.