r/TotalWarThreeKingdoms

I have spent an honestly unhealthy number of hours playing Napoleon when it came out and became completely addicted. About a week ago, I picked up Total War again after being deep into studying for a while.

Since I did not have any background in Chinese history, I had to spend time learning it first so I could properly understand the units, the factions, and the overall lore. Now I am trying to get a solid grasp of the game mechanics, especially diplomacy and how the court system works.

I would really appreciate any advice that could help me improve and understand the game better. Also, I would love to get into multiplayer at some point, so if anyone is interested, I am definitely up for it.

I'm pretty deep into a Liu Bei campaign and I'm basically stuck in a corner between Yuan Shao and Cao Cao. I can't really do any further militaristic expansion.

I'm starting to think it's a lost cause at this point.

Someone said that you can do 1 action per council member per year. So technically 5 decisions. WHO WAS LYING?
That was not true!!

Edit: Just likq RegularOwl said. select decisions for each council member and THEN confirm.

I have a decent amount of hours in the game but I’m still confused on how the exact mechanics of spy and satisfaction work.

I understand the basics of satisfaction management, (high authority leaders, items, titles, relationships, and positions) but how do I get rid of the satisfaction loss that comes from recent events. They often occur after I extract a spy. I tend to use spying to obtain unique characters so I discredit both characters and factions. However these negative effects don’t disappear after the spy joins my faction. Any potential fixes?

I’m also confused on what determines which targets are available. For example, not everyone in the faction can be the target of a discredit action. If want to lower the satisfaction of a specific character, some are unavailable. What causes this?

Edit: Additionally, what causes a character to wiling to be a spy for you. Sometimes it’s below 50 satisfaction but some others never have the option.

What are some strats yall use playing as the YT factions in the 190 expanded mod? Because man, I've been trying to play as Gong Du and Huang Shao and have been getting clobbered😂😂

I'll win some early fights, but being surrounded by a bunch of powerful neighbors, they just are able to run me down after a while. Like on Huang Shao, I took out Kong Rong immediately, but then Liu Bei(mainly), Chen Gui, and Yuan Shao decided it was my time.

Any tips or things yall do to help your playthroughs go better than mine have?

Warring states era
Second chance for china
Character focused (like Napoleon / Attila etc.)

Life has been rough for me since the beginning of the year, and development slowed down more than I wanted.

But I kept pushing.

And honestly, that ended up helping the project.

I had a working demo before…

And I scrapped it.

Completely.

Because the more I played it, the more I realized it felt too limited and too small for what I was trying to make.

And it didn’t feel worthy of something so heavily inspired by Kingdom.

So I tore the foundation down and rebuilt it from scratch.

Because I’m basically trying to make the Kingdom game I always wished existed.

I’ve reread Kingdom more times than I can count, and like a lot of people here, I’ve always wished there were a game that captured things the series does so well:

• Rising through the ranks
• Commanding armies
• Officer rivalries
• Large-scale warfare
• Coalition-level campaigns

That’s honestly what pushed me to start building this.

A lot of this rebuild has been driven by asking:

What would a game built for Kingdom fans actually need to feel right?

For me, that means:

• The rise from foot soldier to Great General
• Meaningful officer progression
• Formation warfare and battlefield tactics
• Rival generals and reputation
• Kingdom-scale campaigns where strategy matters

I’m not trying to make a Kingdom adaptation

I’m trying to capture the feeling Kingdom gave me.

What the game is

The game is called Rise of the General.

It’s a historical strategy RPG set during the Warring States period around King Zheng’s rise, heavily inspired by Kingdom and influenced by officer-focused strategy games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms 8 Remake.

• You don’t start as a famous general.
• You start as a nobody.
• A foot soldier.
• Taking orders.
• Trying to survive.

You earn fame through war and choices, rise through the ranks, command officers and armies, and eventually fight kingdom-scale wars.

The long-term vision is to combine:

• Living world simulation
• Officer progression
• Tactical warfare
• Story choices
• Massive campaigns between states

Basically…

start as Shin.

Work toward becoming a Great General.

(Yeah… that fantasy.)

One of the biggest things I rebuilt was the skill system.

Originally, the game only had five broad skills.

It worked, but it felt shallow.

Builds didn’t feel unique enough.

Old Skill System

https://preview.redd.it/4os14vexo6xg1.png?width=1757&format=png&auto=webp&s=571f40e388baba7f78ffb8521c4ae7d53819b1fb

So I rebuilt it into a layered core + substat system where every general can develop differently.

Martial.
Warfare.
Command.
Presence.
Insight.
Vigor.

With deeper substats beneath them all.

New Core + Substat System

https://preview.redd.it/bftd38fzo6xg1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=845a5205d47f6e4cd8902aab2e9e669fd7841e05

That alone changed the game massively.

Then I rebuilt combat.

This was the biggest change.

Originally, combat felt too much like 1v1 fighting with units appearing around it.

It didn’t feel like war.

Old Combat UI

https://preview.redd.it/99r0b6kfp6xg1.png?width=1909&format=png&auto=webp&s=d35938202c78a4435d79bc9bfce1b2834abe21ca

Now, combat is being rebuilt around 5v5 officer-led turn-based battlefield warfare, inspired much more by strategic war games than by traditional RPG combat.

Built around:

• Formations
• Morale and cohesion
• Officer and sub-command dynamics
• AP and stamina decisions
• Positioning that matters every turn

Less isolated duels.

More battlefield command.

More Romance of the Three Kingdoms in spirit than traditional RPG combat.

New Combat Concept

https://preview.redd.it/b8xwdqqrp6xg1.png?width=1447&format=png&auto=webp&s=1e991e3c0f5842d1269771b16d91083383e9021f

This is much closer to the kind of warfare I imagined reading Kingdom.

And while rebuilding all this…

I quietly put up a Steam page.

Steam Page
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2480350/Rise_Of_The_General/

If it looks interesting, feel free to check it out.

Wishlists help, but honestly, I’d love feedback from Kingdom fans most

because you’re exactly who I’m making this for.

If anyone wants deeper development updates, I made a subreddit for the project, too:

Game Subreddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/RiseOfTheGeneral/

This has been a passion project for a long time.

And after rebuilding everything…

I finally feel like I’m making something worthy of the idea.

My dream is to capture even a fraction of the feeling of the Coalition Arc, large-scale campaigns, and the rise to great general fantasy.

For fellow Kingdom fans — what would a Kingdom-inspired game HAVE to include for you?

Thanks for reading.

That for the seasonal council meetings, you can actually select 1 action PER MEMBER… WTF

For 1k hours I’ve just been picking 1.. which is fine.. I just feel dumb :D

I usually declare war on Liu Biao and get him out of the way, because if not he’ll constantly betray you throughout the campaign.

This time I decided to go straight for He Yi leaving one army behind for the inevitable Liu Biao war declaration.

Army in ambush mode at Nangyang (Jade mine). Liu Biao’s retinue comes in for the takeover attempt.

Ambush successful and I end up capturing / executing Huang Zhong.

My army marches west and I take Liu Biao’s capital.

Promptly call a peace treaty as Liu Chong decides to declare war on me.

Liu Biao’s council immediately rebels, and 3 army stacks of his former generals appear and take his last commandery at Xianyang.

I get a new ally and trade agreement!

Just found it funny :D

Btw goated game so far, I spend like 10 hours just reading directions before booting up my first game.

In terms of mods what kind of direction is this game like. I came from xcom, battle brother where bb is heavily focused on qol mods where xcom mods kinda reshape the whole gameplay.

Hello As per title. Game won't save current turn manually, but only on turn change (auto save). I have cloud saving enabled, yet it won't save in the cloud. What am I doing wrong? I wanted to play the game on my secondary pc just to find out my last cloud save was on turn 86. I'm on turn 163. I don't understand.

I've been playing to paint the map and make my way to Korea. I have three generations of Dou Mao descendants and A Lot of unique characters.

I see other factions with young characters with unique art but cannot birth my own. Anyone else have any similar experiences?