Total War: Three Kingdoms

[mirth]

Drying loins is always a tragedy.

Tis why the good lord gave us Aveeno.

[undercovergeek]

Aveeno - for when the developer locks your factions

[Gusington]

 

[Destraex]

Anybody know a good well researched reference book on the tactics and formations of chinese armies of the period?
I mean something that does discount all the fantasy rhetoric and alleged perfection of the armies of the period and gives a fair dinkum objective study of the day.
For instance I would not read homer to get information on Hoplite tactics.

I have some old WRG book and three osprey books which are very outdated from when the west was first learning about this stuff.

Thanks Jomni. I am more looking for well presented modern studies of the periods tactics interpreted from all the evidence.

Sun Tzu's Art of War?
...Or any English translation of the period-appropriate books in this list if they exist.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_military_texts

[JasonPratt]

Drying loins is always a tragedy.

Somehow this jpg becomes relevant again!

[Gusington]

LOOK OUT

[Sir Slash]

If that thing had lipstick on, it could've been my first wife.

[FlickJax]

If that thing had lipstick on, it could've been my first wife.

LMAO

[solops]

Somehow, this title just does not interest me. I have all of the other total wars. I will probably skip this one until I can get a GOT version for $10. In addition to a lack of interst in the material and overload from all of the other TWs, I have Oriental Empires for a China fix, if I need it. Who know, maybe TW:China will be OK.

[Destraex]

This title interests me from the standpoint of learning in detail about actual chinese armies of the period and how they worked. Comparing them to western imperial troops from contemporary armies. From the little I have looked at, for the most part. It seems that western armies developed almost in line with most advances the chinese had. Sun Tzu lived around 500bc and Chinese armies of the time would perhaps be comparable to Persian armies of around 500bc? This is the sort of thing I am interested in.

The period in question (three kingdoms) is part of the imperial chinese period and starts around 200AD. Which is kind of funny because it seems to be a civil war between three kingdoms similar to the Roman Triumvirate civil war. The earlier "dynasties" only ruled a tiny part of china in comparison to what china is today.

Technologically the notable exceptions are what I am interested in. The crossbow was one if I recall correctly. I want to continue to explore what a chinese army was, cutting through the myth. Exploring how it operated.
Chinese armies are certainly not as reliable and well disciplined as I expected. But it is early days for my pet interest in ancient chinese warfare.

I guess you guys can start to understand why I am often disappointed by total war titles. I seem to get excited and do a lot of research on what is known of the armies of the period and then find that total war increasingly just does not care about making armies work like they were capable of at the time. Total War does not want to advance and innovate to teach. It instead just wants to wow and engender a hollywood feel with a few light homages to history.

P.S. I am finding it hard to track down good books on ancient chinese army tactics and organisation, battle testing etc.

[jomni]

This title interests me from the standpoint of learning in detail about actual chinese armies of the period and how they worked. Comparing them to western imperial troops from contemporary armies. From the little I have looked at, for the most part. It seems that western armies developed almost in line with most advances the chinese had. Sun Tzu lived around 500bc and Chinese armies of the time would perhaps be comparable to Persian armies of around 500bc? This is the sort of thing I am interested in.

The period in question (three kingdoms) is part of the imperial chinese period and starts around 200AD. Which is kind of funny because it seems to be a civil war between three kingdoms similar to the Roman Triumvirate civil war. The earlier "dynasties" only ruled a tiny part of china in comparison to what china is today.

Technologically the notable exceptions are what I am interested in. The crossbow was one if I recall correctly. I want to continue to explore what a chinese army was, cutting through the myth. Exploring how it operated.
Chinese armies are certainly not as reliable and well disciplined as I expected. But it is early days for my pet interest in ancient chinese warfare.

I guess you guys can start to understand why I am often disappointed by total war titles. I seem to get excited and do a lot of research on what is known of the armies of the period and then find that total war increasingly just does not care about making armies work like they were capable of at the time. Total War does not want to advance and innovate to teach. It instead just wants to wow and engender a hollywood feel with a few light homages to history.

P.S. I am finding it hard to track down good books on ancient Chinese army tactics and organisation, battle testing etc.

You won't learn it from Total War.  I think you should look at Field of Glory to see how the armies actually evolve through the ages in a historical fashion, despite it being rather simplistic.
Pike and Shot / Sengoku Jidai also teach a lot about the evolution of organisation and tactics.

Shameless plug: You are right by saying the Chinese are like Persians.  In my Silk Road mod, they are primarily organised into mixed units of crossbows and halberdiers and function like the Persian Sparabara.  This is good enough to battle against themselves and their nomadic and tribal neighbours (but apparently not against Western heavy infantry).

200 BC (not AD) is the start of the Imperial Period.  This is when the Qin dynasty abolished the Zhou dynasty feudal system as a lesson from the Warring States Period.  They established the classical Chinese bureaucracy run by a scholarly elite which exerted direct control and governorship of all the different provinces (Commanderies).

[Destraex]

Field of Glory is a definite no for me unfortunately. I don't believe I would get the movement that should happen from formations in a natural way.

I meant that the three kingdoms wars was around 200ad. Sorry if I was unclear.

[bob48]

I've started on the book, and so far, its not the most gripping read.

[Destraex]

 I have just started looking into what may be. By taking a quick look at the period immediately before the period that Total War will be depicting.

China Total War (aka three kingdoms)
Just reading about the Han period (25-189bc) (think it was just before the three kingdoms period). They used crossbows extensively of varying sizes. Apparently they were impressive for stopping cavalry charges. Some were so big they could be mounted and were generally used in sieges. But the kicker was that men who could load the larger ones were prized for their strength. These men were considered specialists. I am imagining big ass crossbowmen of hero size with massive crossbows. Smaller hand crossbows were around as well.

However horse barding does not seem to be a thing until the end of the period. I think they must mean until the three kingdoms period. Cavalry of the Han period as far as they can tell did not have shields or barding. Was halberds, small crossbows, bows, swords and spears.

What is interesting is that Han armies were made of conscripts who often trained for an entire year before being put on easy duties like city guard and then finally graduating to the active army. I cannot remember how long Roman training was during the republican period. But I do not think it was this long and if I recall correctly it was more of an annual thing.
Units had names like "smash fo" which were related to historic campaign performance, place they were stationed etc. Just like the later western imperial period roman legions.

The Han armies were often of varying quality. Sometimes having poor leadership and moral. Other times very professional. Not giving the full year of training was blamed numerous times in a row for the Han losing entire armies.

Commanders that failed could expect execution if they returned as could their subordinates.

They used nomadic horse archers and chinese horse archers. Nomadic Horse Archers were highly valued for the northern fighting where the terrain was open.

One description describes three Hsiung-nu eagle hunters by circling and using their bows from a distance (sounds like the cantabrian circle) defeated 30 Han Cavalry.

For those interested in the original terracotta warrior colours. Which today are not seen on the ones originally unearthed. Newly excavated ones though are better preserved with new methods.
https://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/shaanxi/xian/terra_cotta_army/colors.htm

The terracotta army dates from the first imperial dynasty which was approx 400 years before the three kingdoms period that will be in total war. However I think further research will show not too much would have changed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army

[Gusington]

^Great info, thanks for posting.