Total War: Three Kingdoms hands-on — Combat is no longer an imperial pain

A couple months ago, I previewed Total War: Three Kingdoms, with the initial reaction that the combat was worrisome and the strategy was on the right track. Around that time, Sega announced that it would be delay Three Kingdoms for two months. Sega PR approached me with a preview build recently to see how the game had been updated — particularly if the combat felt better. After they’ve worked with Three Kingdoms a bit more, I can say that it definitely seems like the delay has helped it play much more like what I hope for in a Total War game.

My key issue with the combat was that battles turned into chaotic, too-long scrums instead of tense tactical encounters with tight battle lines and brilliant manuevers. I had three theories as to why this was: first, that in the preview I played Liu Bei whose faction power was raising cheap peasant units; that I was playing in the Dynasty Warriors-like Romance mode instead of the more historical Records mode; and that hero units were ridiculously powerful.