There is a reason why paper was invented in China. The Chinese just like to record & write stuffs down. Before paper, they would write down stuffs on bamboo & silk while other civilization would mostly write down stuffs on the wall. So, it is not surprising that even Bronze age stuffs from China is still well documented.
@@SisyphusOfSodom Yes indeed. Plenty of writers, scholars and historians in China have written on the Three Kingdoms period over the last thousand over years since the end of the Han dynasty to this day. So there's definitely a mountain of work like biographies, critiques and annotations out there hidden in the libraries in China.
With such a rich setting, I feel like total war could learn a lot from paradox games. Having events that change heir/wife, using decisions to activate events, more flavour events etc. would probably add tons of value to the game like choosing Cao Zhi instead of Cao Pi
Cao Ang is probably crying somewhere in the nether realm. The eldest son of the Cao clan, literally gave his life and horse to save Cao Cao, whose death led to the divorce with Lady Ding and the rise of Lady Bian and her sons - and he loses to some drunk poet. Hua Tuo is a pretty legit character with an idiom in his honor. Imagine him being able to heal last wounds and/or cleanse debuff.
I feel like any officer that can potentially serve multiple factions across different start dates, such as Mi Zhu and Pang De, should be highly considered
Gotta give props to MTU/TUP/WDG2 modders. All 150 characters in the video has their own unique art and title/skills with these mods installed. Heck, they even include Bao Sanniang(鮑三娘), a female vanguard (beside Sun Ren) added into the game with her own unique skills.
I'm glad generals like Chen Deng, Zang Ba, and Zhang Xiu are so high as they have incredibly interesting lives, but don't get much focus. Overall, well done, anyone can see the work put into this.
Historically he and Sun Qian appeared to be teachers of sorts. Sun Qian was the protege of one of the most famous Later Han scholars, Zheng Xuan and was suggested to Liu Bei in a recommendation from Zheng Xuan himself. Both of their records say that Sun Qian and Jian Yong's ideas and thoughts were well known and appreciated by the people, but unfortunately whatever philosophical or political ideas they had were lost to time.
Having seen the entire video i think there a few more generals that could be added to Spice up the minor factions: -Yan Yan for Liu Yan and his son -Chen Gongying for Han Sui - He Qi for Wang Lang - Xu Gong for Liu Yao They should make these minor factions more unique and at least slightly more dangerous to take down
It warms my heart that there are some of the actual public servants on your lists. Wang Xiu, Sun Qian, Mi Zhu, Jian Yong, Chen Gui, Chen Deng etc. I do however miss out on Yi Ji still in any of the modern games, which is deeply upsetting. XD Yi Ji is still one of the four populists under Liu Bei's command and are still largely attributed to his success as a Lord of the People. I recognize he doesn't feature until much later in Records, compared to Romance, but he would have been a nice touch. I thank you again for putting Fei Yi on here, seeing how he deserves way better treatment.
You should do a one-off Let's Play for Koei's ROTK 14/13 just for the lore. I know it's not a popular game for the Western market but if you play the Gathering of Heroes scenario where they put all factions on the map at the same time, you'll come across virtually all characters of the entire 3K period, major or minor, each with attributes and a little bio that you can expand on and talk about.
Great list for generals. But I'd love to see more minor faction leaders being fleshed out, especially the 18 warlords (Zhang Miao, Bao Xin, Yuan Yi, Zhang Chao, Zhang Yang, Kong Zhou, Wang Kuang, Liu Dai, Qiao Mao etc) of the alliance against Dongzhuo period. A period where heroes emerged to spark the events of the Three Kingdoms. Great to see Liu Yu being a priority pick on this list. Administrators like Ju Shou, Gu Yong and Bu Zhi ought to be placed higher though. Ju Shou for his political acumen and role in the story, as well as Gu Yong and Bu Zhi for their important positions within the Wu court and their verbal sparring with Zhuge Liang. Zhu Jun should be higher in the list as he was an important compatriot of Huangfu Song and Lu Zhi. Would love to see more early faction leaders and figureheads of the era like Ding Yuan, Wang Yun and Lu Kang (陸康, who fought Sun Ce) to reflect the political and administrative diversity of the period.
I'd Love to see Cao Hong be a unique type, but I'd love to see potential maps for a TW-3K-2 Wei split between Cao Fang having most of Wei with other Vassals, Sima Yi and Cao Shuang as the bigger ones with events happening if winning as whichever, either way I know the Mod Community will make it even more fun once vanilla is beaten
Huh , ive just noticed that the TUP version of Ma Dai and Mi Zhu look a lot like their depictions on the artwork used in Rotk games. That was a nice touch by the mods
I honestly thought, Pan Zhang would be on the list. Hua Xin, Pang Hui, Chen Tai would be interesting. Xiahou Mao, both Ma Zhong and the Kuai brothers are a C tier candidates. Cao Chong, Yue Jiu, Lu Kuang and Xiang are favorites of my who fall on E tier not gonna happen. And last Pan Feng on tier to good to be recorded historically.
Fun fact (I know ST knows this but for others lol) - Lu Kang, the last great hero of Wu, is not only Lu Xun's son BUT is also Sun Ce's grandson. Lu Xun was married to Sun Ce's daughter. As Lu Xun and Sun Ce were two of the greatest heroes of the three kingdoms period, it's no surprise that Lu Kang was as awesome as he was. Dude had great genetics lol. It's criminal that he's not a unique character in neither Total War or Dynasty Warriors to this day!
Been waiting to see when a video like this was going to arrive. If there is a feat of a great character, there is usually someone else right there to support them without the recognition. 150 sounds like a lot in perspective to the base game + DLC but when the video ended, I was disappointed that I didn't get to hear more names. Thanks for putting all this together, ST!
You are awesome!!! I have wanted this list for so long! I even have one of my own. You are the only RU-vidr I am subscribed to and love your videos. Thank you so much for all the work you put in to make them!
Now that you mentioned it, I think a Ze Rong faction has a very interesting concept. A gauge between good and evil can be fun if you do good things and spread budishim you get better passive income, public order and court satisfaction; you embezzle and break treaties then you get better loot and sack income, army buffs... We have to belance between the 2 similar to Malus Darkblade mechanics.
Frankly, your choices are solid, if i had to add SOME choices, it would be a few more Jing Province folk: S1 Kuai Yue, EASILY. Plus, Liu Biao can have his own strategist. A minor faction id also add just to spice up the south would be Wu Ju; historically Liu Bei's friend, and the administrator of CangWu Liu Biao sent to slowly take over the Jiao province. He can be a vassal of Liu Biao, a direct enemy faction Shi Xie faces, and later Wu. and waaay in the back, id throw up Wang Can as the longshot. Obviously he didn't contribute much, though he did update some laws under Cao Cao, and was known to write up propaganda pieces for Liu Biao, and another Jian'an scholar
Given the large roster of the three kingdoms, I think the only way for the army composition to utilize them all is to have an officer lead each unit. Kind of like Wu's retinue system I supposed.
Fu xie should be a character. Killed yellow turban notables and also fought the Liang rebels only to die to them. But he did a number on the yellow turbans. Also chengyuan Zhi and Deng mao, Yan Zhang, simply because the yellow turbans don't have many characters so every named one should be included at some point.
Amazing video! So many interesting characters. Others I think could be worth considering (most have been done by MTU already) would be : 1) Lady Trieu, maybe if they add Vietnam somehow, or an extra character for Shi Xie perhaps, as MTU places her there. 2) Ma Yunlu, Ma Chao's sister, as the fictional wife of Zhao Yun and another character for Ma Teng. 3) Zhang Xun, a general of Yuan Shu -- I know he isn't that important historically, but Yuan Shu could use more characters, and I love his character in MTU, he is very strong (both in terms of fighting and his background bonus). 4) For Lu Bu's faction (what can I do, I'm a normie, I like his story :P) -- a) his daughter, mainly for a cool what if she was a fighter scenario -- daughter of the dragon and such, and I'd much prefer her to be made into a general than someone entirely made-up like Zheng Jiang -- always nice to have some more female characters just for variety. b) Cao Xing, who refused to join Hao Meng's rebellion -- again, not that important historically, but as he's the one who makes Xiaho Dun one-eyed in Romance, he could be cool to have (and we don't have too many archer characters, anyway).
CA likes doing reveals during the year of launch so fingers crossed for lunar new year 2024 we get the reveal. The fact Lu Su never gkt unique artwork ever blows my mind. You'd think by his importance he would've been unique at 3K's original launch.
Looking at all these portraits I just hope Koei visits RoTK again and bring back older management type gameplay, recent titles have been lacking and aimless.
I agree with you alot, all those characters has to have unique looks in game. my childhood was Dynasty warriors, I played most of the DW & TW games and you can imagine how exited i was the day they released TW3K ,i still play it and like it, but i really wish they would add a much bigger map, i believe KOREA (goguryeo), Mongolia, South east Asia & Tibet region for the next TW3K game. this would allow played to have more free options, maybe even Centra Asia would be good idea since china during Threekingom era was in contact with Huns & with Kushanian empire via silkroad, the heavenly horse (Nisean) is said to be brought from This region to China from Kushan lands, and the battle for heavenly horse is gonna give it enough resone to have some of central asian nations in the next genre. I also believe the devs should work on relationships and character's desires, people should be able to put more effort trying to keep their factions characters convinced to stay in the faction and not to leave or betray. the fact that you can lose a character from the court only due to dislike or desire for higher office is kinda boring, they should have traits that would explain the characters desires, for example one character would only be happy if they would have X type of horse/ sword/ jewelry or administration of x province. another example would be if a character had patriotism as a trait, would mean that attacking this character's home town would reduce the relationship between him & the master. i just want to see more depth and meaning behind those traits in game, the character's traits and relationships should be decivie. you sometimes get those ''character attitude re-rolled'' which doesn't even make sense, they should instead add more options for a king, he should be able to throw parties and gatherings in order to make some people start liking eachother. an other thing this game is missing is that A spy even if hired as an administrator is unable to ''spread animacitty propaganda'' so your spy is not able to convince the set faction to suspect X faction a possible future enemy thus delaring war on them. this option is missing from the game and they should add it for the next game. Last but not least, i belive they should add weathers to the game, like in Civ 6 gathering storm, there should be drout, flooding, snowstorm & blizard that would randomely be generated, it would force players to come up with a plan before attacking a nation, they would have to prepare everything, and wait for the right time, just like the books of ancient china told us, many of these generals and factions would wait months even years to play out their plans because they would need to study their enemy, their networks, their terrain, the weather, the faith of the heaven and seas. this would add so much depth and strategy to the gameplay, imagine if moving huge armies and suddenly blizard hits, how cool would that be, your supplies would be haulted and you would loose an entire expedition. it would then require players to have a strategist hired to be able to predict the weather of comming the next turns, these all would ad depth to the game.
I think that there could be good dlc system around heirs and faction control. Dormant factions or stylized factions. Have you ever played Civ 6? The different personalities of the leaders, like for Kublai Khan there is a side with mainly mongol faction mechanics and another with mainly Chinese. The main game Cao Cao could be more or less what we have now but they could have “first son dlc” where their would be an option to play a Cao Cao faction that is based around the idea of the heir being Cao Ang, another around Cao pi, and another around Cao Zhi The reason I suggest this is because it would allow prominent or even just cool factions to share one start date to a greater extent. The reason I think this would be important is CA really tries to avoid dlc for dlc, and for good reason it’s a huge barrier to entry Think of a Liu Bei start that was not peasant focused but entirely revolving around recruiting Zhuge Liang and having faction mechanics around him. Different court systems and titles, could be a way to add diversity to these factions as well
I have played a ton of civ 6. I think honestly CK3 is probably the best engine for this type of inheritance interactions so it’s hard to see total war lean too much into it as it’s so far from their typical game play
They should bring in northern tribes, Han Sui should be playable faction. Personally I don't think female character should be leading the army except Zhu Rong in nanman and northern tribes. Throw in loyalty system, like how well you can judge or perceive other character traits in your court base on your own trait and capability, make loyalty not eternal and uncertain so you can have a taste of judging character like Cao Cao himself.
I also think that a hero portrait (on the left bottom corner) should have been implemented given the this time period always made sure they bow to superiors. Would have been nice to see them bow their heads or bow with their hands. Its really bland to look at it when heroes just pop up as a 2d png picture when they talk or duel. Or maybe, every general and unique character could have also had their own portrait in battle. So lets say you have the Three Brothers, instead of the art work, you have all 3 on display moving and engaging in battle, seeeing them deal damage, get hurt, or run away-basically and animation of them, not just a picture.
I vaguely remember reading a folklore about a child who was also named Ma Dai who found a brush that can draw anything into real life. Judging by the Dynasty Warriors interpretation of him using a brush as his weapon, was he the same Ma Dai or just a coincidence?
I thought you would break this up by one faction per video though as you mentioned a while back as part of your "What do you want to see in TW3K 2 video series". Wasn't expecting a massive hour long video. Really excited for this. Good to see that you've ranked them as well. This list could certainly be a great help to CA in fleshing out characters for the next game.
"Han Dang ends up often forgotten". Did you say this because of the running gag in Dynasty Warriors, or because it's actually rather true? If true, would this mean KT made the gag for this reason?
Man, I went through the whole video, and you still could have cut another half. Your S choices were generally on point though; although I'd have included more characters to flesh out the Shan Yue and Nanman and other barbarians. What I do think would be interesting to see though; is which characters should get fully unique dialogue, voice lines, and voice actors.
Huang Zu & Cai Mao but not Kuai Yue & Kuai Liang? It was Kuai Liang's plan that led to Sun Jian's death and Kuai Yue was so liked by Cao Cao he became one of the nine minsters
ST, when do you think the next game will be set? I had imagined that it would be a sequel, maybe starting around the time of Liu Bei's arrival in northern Jing. If it goes further back and overlaps with the first game that would be incredible, as all of the early minor factions make for a much more interesting setting than three huge factions. I was gutted that they never made Liu Yao and Han Sui playable even though they already had unique artwork, and if they go far back enough to include Xu Rong then I would say he deserves to be either A or even S1 tier!
Cao Hong is a stingy badass, at one point in time he had more money than Cao Cao, which confused the later "How does he have more money than me when he works for me?". One time Cao Pi asked if he could borrow some silk and gold from his uncle, however Cao Hong refused. Cao Pi holds grudges and once he became Emperor of Wei, he tried using his status to get silk and gold from Cao Hong once again, and once again Cao Hong refused. Then Cao Pi tried to find any excuse to make Cao Hong lose his valuables and assets. Cao Pi's mother scolded him and said "He's the reason why your father lived long enough to gain power and why you're even here!" Cao Pi then returned Cao Hong's assets but he lost much of his power. XD
Regarding Han Dang: What class of general would you make it? I say he is fit for either commander or champion. For Tian Yu I see him as a vanguard, mostly because he fought in the north.
Loving the tier list video and the explanation of each character. Btw, Do you watch this donghua called battle through the heavens? If so, what are your comment about the studio not showing the medusa "love scene" cause I'm upset as hell🗿
The Make Them Unique mod does a wonderful job of portraying many of these characters in-game, but it would be nice to have some official support for it from CA. As for Dong Bai, she's known to me personally as the insufferable cockroach that keeps bouncing around faction to faction for decades in some two thirds of every game I play. I always kill her first chance I get.
If they so make another game in the 3K era, I think they should start either just before or just after Chibi (since I doubt they'll ever add naval combat again...), just to see if we can get these later characters. I'd like them to still have the earlier 190 as an option for characters like Dian Wei or Yuan Shao, but with the emphasis on later time frames.
I really expected to see Yan Yan and to a lesser extent, Zhang Ren and Dong He. I was very disappointed they were not added with the Liu Yan/Liu Zhang playable faction.
I think the next total war three kingdom game should have a dynamic system for generating faces, clothing and portrait poses. That way all generic characters would look unique. Famous characters can be curated based on their description in the novel.
At 32:13 you said that Zhuge Dan's branch was exterminated by Sima Zhao, but I thought Zhuge Dan's son, Zhuge Jing (Zhongsi), survived into the Jin dynasty and he was visited by Sima Yan after the conquest of Wu because they used to be close/chilhood friends. Is this not true?
I’m surprised that Niu Fu made the cut but Guo Si didn’t. Your new minor faction ideas are all super interesting, hopefully at least a couple of them will be playable in the next one.
It would be nice if CA could take your list in consideration. I wouldn't mind all of them. Lol. I'm surprised that it had Gao Shun in the original as I liked him alot. Guo Huai would be nice. DW did him dirty as his character representation really isn't in my taste. 😝 I agree with your take, especially in their ranking for each faction/other.
Maybe i missed it, but did Qu Yi make the list? He sounded like a talented general Edit: nvm you mentioned him at the end. I don't even think he's in the game. Never managed to find him.
