BUILDING SYNERGY | A Total War: Three Kingdoms Guide

[@krulkrulle6588]

This is exactly what i needed. The game is won on the campaign map/rice income.

[@HForHavoc]

*UPDATE: I will be 100% transparent and say that I did not research all the factions before making this video. I was furthest in my Gong Du campaign and my commanderies were in their best condition with that campaign. It appears that the Grain Storage Chain giving you peasantry income is unique to the Yellow Turbans, I've checked several others and that seems to be the case* *The only other building chain that provides peasantry income is the Tax Collection Chain, but that increases public disorder, something that is on my list for sure to address. But the principle strategy is the same, regardless of building type or name.* *Appreciate everyone's comments and I'll be doing a bit more research for certain videos in the future!*

[@Dragons_Armory]

Also, here is a useful note for all: Keep a hefty stash of wealth, even for aggressive players that spends rapaciously. If you finally reached the point where you are a local power and have time for some R&D: SAVE those money like crazy. Concentrate on 1 front and devour smaller neighbors while you climbing up the ranks. But mostly, position yourself so that you already have a deep stash of cash and countermeasures against the other 2 potential contenders: if they want to come at you you are already facing them with your best armies, if a fight comes you can bring more to the table, but most of all, with such a deep war chest you can have those fully stacked armies on the field much longer in a knock out drag out fight. Thing is, by the time late game hits and the realm divide (Emperor Abdicate) mechanic hits, you will have to be ready to instantly pounce on your enemies and deliver several knock out blows at their most vital resource centers. It will be a nightmare in terms of army maintenance- especially since you will probably reinstate many armies with expensive units. So I strongly advice start saving heavily between mid game and late game.

[@ehsteve231]

Great advice here. Also note: generals keep their retinues when recalled, and the cost of redeployment is relatively small for how powerful of a mechanic it is. Before you reach that vital King rank (or even if you're just expecting some neighborly wars in the future), you can make sure you have some powerful generals and retinues in reserve to pop up wherever you need them. While they're waiting for the call, they won't cost nearly as much upkeep as well, so you can use this to pump up your economy. Just keep an eye on their satisfaction (lack of purpose penalties).

[@AR-zv2qp]

I have a question, are the other factions loyal to you after the emperor's abdicate? Because I really hated the total war Shogun 2 realm divide

[@ehsteve231]

@@AR-zv2qp Other emperors get a diplomatic penalty. Neutral parties are unaffected i believe, but any faction alive after the three kingdoms form will usually seek to become a vassal of one of the emperors. Your own vassals will stick with you after you declare your kingship, and you can play with the loyalties of other emperors' vassals. I supported the independence of the unhappy vassals of my enemies and they joined me in war.

[@AR-zv2qp]

@@ehsteve231 nice

[@AR-zv2qp]

@@ehsteve231 thank you, who did you play as? Just wondering

[@COMMANDandConquer199]

I forgot what settlement it was, but as Sun Jian I had a trading port, and tea house on one commandary, added a few commerce buildings at the town as well. Ended up with something like 450 income from commerce with a 640% modifier. Giving me 3.5k income per turn. You can get a crazy economy going if you build it right.

[@TatsumiyaLightning]

That would be the province you start with where your capital is. Also has an armor crafter I believe.

[@markios6824]

Synergies replacing political focus is a great idea and for me it's finally the flesh other recent sequels failed miserably to deliver, keep it going please!

[@twoskullz7129]

You missed a critical industry building chain in Wudu: Forges! Under the red section. Provides flat and percent industry income.

[@kint87]

@B Jiang no its a non faction specific building :)

[@dnw009]

Industry is king in late game when there aren't many people to do commerce with especially when you're at war with one of the 3 other kingdoms.

[@mattisnoren484]

@@kint87 Playing as Cao Cao, my forges do not provide the flat income. They do increase the percentage though.

[@xmixaplix]

I'm late to the video but for anyone reading, rule of thumb is industry tends to lead first. Things like Copper Mines give a large flat base income but commandaries, buildings, or even tech trees rarely have a big % boost to that. Your second biggest money maker are commerce couple with % boost buildings and tech can easily make that match industry or surpass it if you account for silk/spice that falls under your control. Silk and spice by itself is miniscule but when you couple it with harbors or even faction bonus like Ma Teng it's a insane boost especially if you control a lot of them as it is faction widewhen calculating silk and spice. Peasantry is always the lowest unless you upgrade your tech tree, have administrators, or play as Cao Cao to up the food production. I think it's why peasantry income by itself is low considering if you have a surplus of food it's worth its weight in gold already. But all in all its meaningless to max upgrade your building if you have corruption and public order issue. The key is quantity over quality. That is not to say you cant have a few of those cities max but not all commanderies are created equal so you got to judge it's worth. I sometimes find myself actually downgrade a city because of a lack of synergy. I'd say before you start your conquest, look at your faction, see what bonus it offers, what's your map surroundings and go from there.

[@amnesiacangel7212]

You picked the wrong faction to do this with as they function a bit differently than almost any other especially with the granaries and peasantry income.

[@josh0tator]

The first 8 seconds of your 3K videos are my favorite of all the youtubers covering this game right now!... and the rest of the video is pretty good too ;)

[@HForHavoc]

Well thank you! Make them myself :)

[@jorgancrath2885]

When I reached the endgame most of my building synergy had to be focused around reducing corruption and increasing public order as a result of population penalties.

[@jmoa5758]

The theme song for TW3K is amazing

[@raymobley705]

this instantly simplified my confusion. Great vid

[@Reyvinn92]

All Your recent vids are really, really greatly made. As always, very informative and extremely interesting. Thank You, and keep them coming! I hope You'll get Your 100k subs soon ;) You surely deserve it!

[@Linartowijaya]

This has open my eyes... Thanks for the tips...

[@radeintgaming]

This is great but the guide I have yet to find and hopefully you can make would be on when to move/conquer and when to stay put , upgrade and grow your cities. I always spread to thin or not enough.

[@MjolnirVanguard]

I would note that you can increase peasant income by increasing population. However with a higher population, you are likely to suffer public order penalties. Make sure you look into Confucian temples or the garrison building chain

[@skelton4795]

Pls the same for Army compositions and optimizing it especially and an extra sextion for yellow turbans cause their commanders skills are different that would be awesome

[@Battlefield2021]

The game tells you what units to pair with what commanders lol.

[@skelton4795]

@@Battlefield2021 there is much more to it than just colors even if u dont think thats the case than there are still questions like what commander colors should i use in the armys,what do i gain with it, what do i lose with it, are the yellow commanders worth it cause the purple one brings better infantry and good in holding out duells but the yellow commanders give higher moral etc

[@Battlefield2021]

@@skelton4795 That's situational. Nobody can answer who's best in what situation except for you. Early game I like to have a vanguard (red), champion (green), and strategist (yellow). A youtuber named Zerkovich does videos similar to what you're looking for. Check him out.

[@skelton4795]

@@Battlefield2021 y but he still hasnt done one for 3K just showed the units

[@aggieking87]

Personally what I use for generals is: Red + Green/Purple + Blue/Yellow, normally Red, Green, Blue with 6 cav (2 with missle defense, 2 with AP, 2 fast/cheaper), 6 melee (general mix of what’s avail), 6 ranged (prefer 1 catapult, 3 medium archer, 2 crossbow). That worked really well for my first campaign

[@MLJ-7]

Excellent video as always, it would be really great if you could do a video on diplomacy as I keep getting swarmed in the late game. Thanks for doing what you do 👌

[@darkrevan2]

Do you make use from the quick deal option and make this work? It helps greatly to see what is possible. Also always look at the amount of copper and food they have, maybe they are starving but are rich and are asking thousands of copper from you while 10 food (once) could be the counter against 10k copper :)

[@MLJ-7]

darkrevan2 I’m beginning to trade a lot more frequently, I think what I really need is to form collations with other regions... problem is it’s far to expensive to make it worth my while! Any tips to get around this?

[@arturo0727]

Can you make a video about corruption I'm having a hard with money. It takes a huge chunck of money.

[@emossg]

I almost lost my first game because I didn't pay any attention to corruption. Once I become empire I went from positive 8k income to negative 6 income in 1 turn due to losing trade agreements! Then I started to work on corruption and building optimization after dozen of turns I was at positive 10k income. That -63% corruption late game will definitely ruin your game.

[@kint87]

You need to start putting 1 anti corruption building ( one in industry chain, one in administrative yellow chain) when you start getting city with 4- 5 slots to buildings. Those building will reduce corruptions in commanderies and adjacents territories, so getting one in every territory is a good way to reduce corruption Otherwise you will loose 50-60% of your income

[@sukigaming9729]

great video, im thinking about getting the game

[@Darth_Valken]

Solid video, well put. Something of note though: the example you gave for a peasantry income setup, Anding, was rather poorly chosen, as Anding is less fertile and thus suffers a 25% malice to peasant income. It’s great for food production, but I wouldn’t focus on income there.

[@Krdragon6]

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the fertility of settlements changes from season to season in Three Kingdoms. In winter I think most regions are infertile and in spring many regions are fertile.

[@Darth_Valken]

@@Krdragon6 You are right, that does happen. But there are also regions with permanent modifiers, like old capital regions and infertile regions

[@lycon7000]

How do you deal with corruption?

[@nzfilm345]

great stuff, many thanks - keep them coming

[@Xsorus]

On my Zhang Campaign i make around 22k gold a turn (with 25 armies), 150 food total, and have almost a million gold in the bank....Only thing you need to know about building chains in Total War three Kingdoms is, you need the Farm/The Food Boosting Building/Admin Build (that reduces corruption)/and the Military Fort (For public order and reducing enemy supplies) Those 4 buildings are all you need, Anything else is just gravy. Also don't raise you cities once they get to the 6 slot tier....You don't need the cash and there is no reason to keep making them higher.

[@HForHavoc]

What difficulty are you playing on ;)

[@Xsorus]

Difficulty will not change those four buildings. You will need all four no matter what.

[@tiggurai]

more like this pls! also i think Spice comes from some northwest regions, and Tea generally in the southwest

[@DanBurgaud]

Hi! What is with the Legendary Animal Tamer, Legendary Bow Makers and Legendary Weapon Makers? What does it do?

[@lebaguette2122]

It provides a chance to generate Unique ancillaries, you should really conquer those place as ancillaries/armor/horse are very important for your generals

[@DanBurgaud]

@@lebaguette2122 "conquer those place"? Cant we build them in our own towns?

[@HForHavoc]

Nope they're specialty buildings only located in very specific regions.

[@kevinreynaldo2422]

Im on Emperor with my liu bei campaign, at the late game, almost all of the city got like 50-70% corruption which is reduced ur income a lot and the only way i know is find ur Commandery which yield the best income and assign noble to reduce the corruption by 50%. is there any other way? its so annoying

[@charlottesuherman5576]

Sorry i m new to this game.. but where can i see the corruption percentage in our city ?

[@thesheepthemightythecrazy]

Where are the 5th n 6th building slots? Even total war academy doesn't show these last slots.

[@vincentgregory1470]

This was helpful. Thank you!

[@harryjameson9423]

Unfortunately for me, Gongsun Zan's grain storage building chain doesn't produce peasantry income. :(

[@darkrevan2]

but his administration gives happyness and a percentage to all income which is nice as well :)

[@jerrylin6756]

Here’s some advice for pronunciation: Mandarin Chinese does not have the ‘aaaa’ sound (as in apple). So Anding would sound more like Onding.

[@oesophagus5614]

'a' sound in apple is pretty much 'e' in mandarin. onding is more close to cantonese. to pronounce A in mandarin generally speaking you open your mouth tall and wide

[@oesophagus5614]

like 'car' but without tongue twisting

[@19941189]

Literally what I needed 😭

[@phoenixboyz]

Great video, thanks for the information

[@ddanx]

i look forward to your public order video!

[@blesero]

what i hate the most is the public order penalty because of population. So if your income depend on the peasantry, you must build 2 public order building if you want the city reach imperial city for bigger bonus on peasantry income

[@highfalutinman]

Yep. Population maluses are a bit too punishing in this game I think. It really makes no sense considering that most of the time these highly populated areas are both prosperous income wise and has enough food for everybody.

[@blesero]

@J H my solution is a bit different to you, if one province pack with industry or commerce settlement, the city will regional city max and if it comes with farming settlement like livestock or lumberyard or rice paddy, i will max it to imperial status with 3 slot city building focus on public order bonus. that's how i counter this -30 public order penalty for population

[@blesero]

@@highfalutinman yeah man. i hope they release the mod sooner so we can get rid the public order penalty because of damn population

[@ItsMEBetUDidntKnow]

How do you fight corruption as a yellow turban faction?

[@Alexeiyeah]

I have a question that may be a little awkward... It's not related to thia video, but I thought on it when you showed the map at the beginning. How long is map distance? Like... China is a rather big country but I imagine walking over neighborhood provinces did not take, like, a month or so. Depending on the province size, how many turns does one army take to reach a neighbooring province?

[@HForHavoc]

It very much depends based on terrain. Open provinces you can cover in 1-2 turns. But mountain passes, it could take you 6 turns to cross what seems like a very short amount of space. They've done an excellent job with this title and using terrain effectively.

[@Drago02129]

Should you update the minor buildings or city/town buildings first?

[@HForHavoc]

Minor first for the most part. It'll give you the most revenue

[@blanksvii9684]

Was this video made with the pre-release version of the game? The Grain Storage chain doesn't provide any income in my version.

[@mosseon3456]

he's playing as yellow turban, they're different. the idea is the same though, maximize based on the comandery's unique buildings.

[@stanisawl2902]

What is that intro music?

[@chekitatheanimatedskeptic6314]

I simply cant make commerce... it seems to me that in this game it depends too much on which character you choose, because most ones I played I only had as an option to invest in food and industry, since you can have high industry income without any special buildings and commerce buildings seem much more rare than industry ones (ports, silk, jade and spice is rare compared to mining and the plain buildings from city slots, commerce ones seem underwhelming).

[@haivu1835]

So I still new to the game, especially corruption system, how to control it cause my last gameplay, I lost due to corruption lol

[@arturo0727]

Lol same I had like 75% of China and i can only afford 2-1/2 armies. I'm in the 80% corruption per city. XD

[@scottrabie]

So stack bonus'. Isn't this obvious? I would like to see some influence on surrounding commanderies like in Charlemagne.

[@oesophagus5614]

minus corruption in adjacent regions and military supplies from governance and military supply chain

[@machetesaint2355]

Thank You

[@trentonfox]

Anyone got suggestions for good noob playthrough starts? Tried immediately jumping into a Yellow Turbans game, got my butt stomped

[@josh0tator]

I started as Gongsun Zan, and i have at least made it to the three kingdoms-mid-game era. Make sure to be aggressive against your neighbor to the west (in the Gongsun Zan playthrought)or they will over power you quickly, i would start building up your frontier cities with increased garrison buildings and food production(regardless of commandery speciality) in the beginning and deconstructing those buildings to better suit the commandery specialization( i.e. commerce, industry, food etc..) once they are relatively secure from counter-attacks.

[@Krdragon6]

Lol. First tip for a first playthrough for a beginner: Don't play Yellow Turbans. Honestly, like Josh said, Gongsun Zan is a good first playthrough. Not because it's easy but because he's in a safe spot. Cao Cao is in a tough spot but he's pretty strong to start so that's why the game says he's easy. Honestly, though, I think Sun Jian might have it easiest. He's got yummy Han Empire territory just waiting to be conquered all around him.

[@trentonfox]

@@Krdragon6 thanks man, I've finally gotten that into my head after more buttstompings. Will give Gongsun Zan and ol Sunny a shot. The UI seems very cloistered together, imo.

[@christopherlandaverde9397]

Thanks!! :)

[@Lord_Imrahil]

What about global bonuses that some buildings can give. Those make it even harder to optimize the synergy, as it is across multiple regions. And corruption is not something in the buildings synergy, but an important part of balancing the buildings in a commandry.

[@darkrevan2]

yes corruption can be a hard thing had some with 76 % or so and had already some techs and admin buildings to lower it :(

[@Lord_Imrahil]

@@darkrevan2 I had to stop expand at one point and rebuild my economy to battle against corruption, so that at least my high profit regions were more or less safe from corruption. While food and low value provinces did as much as they could to support, but weren't the priority.

[@highfalutinman]

There is a vein of the administration complex chain that gives a -10% to corruption. Also you can assign a general to lessen corruption by 50% in a specific commandery.

[@Lord_Imrahil]

@@highfalutinman What about state workshops, they reduce in one of the branches corruption in adjacent provinces.

[@Vermilion2049]

I tend to be rice focused. If I have excess, I sell to other lords.

[@al-aminmanebpel5312]

Wtf why your building options not the same as mine

[@haydengower2592]

He's playing as the yellow turbans. They get some different options.

[@DrNo-yl8ye]

You forgot/not included corruption, the bane of every large empire. When i forced another emporer to abdicate i took over an imperial city, which had almost 60% corruption at its` height, even with reforms to reduce it. Would really appreciate if you could make a video on it, as the only way i know how to reduce it is to build the manufacturing/upgrade with reduced corruption. And frankly, this seems more like a case of "i have no clue" then "the game doesn t give you options".

[@HForHavoc]

Didn't include corruption because it has nothing to do with building synergy in this video lol. Corruption video is on my list but it's decently down the list

[@Krdragon6]

There are two standard buildings that reduce corruption and both can be upgraded to reduce corruption in neighboring commanderies. One is the state industry chain and the other is the prestige building chain. If you put one of these in every commandery then you won't have a corruption issue. However, the settlement does have to be a small regional city size in order to have those buildings.

[@StephanthePelted]

I guess the real question is how to balance public order vs population vs corruption vs buildings set... A shame its not in the video :)

[@HForHavoc]

That’s not what this video was about. There is no building synergy when it comes to corruption and public order. Those will be addressed in another video

[@yourztruly8255]

Please do a ma teng campaign

[@GusJake7]

TLDR: Match the colors.

[@jollygreen4662]

Good.stuff

[@ferhatugras1833]

I'm sorry but you picked the wrong faction for your video. All of your buildings are unique to Yellow Turban and does not have the same bonuses and hence doesn't apply to coalition, governers and the bandit factions. However synergy strategies you employ such as putting all industry buffing buildings into an industry special province still applies. Thanks for your work though.

[@HForHavoc]

Every faction will have unique buildings. Several of the YTR buildings are simply relabeled but have the same effect. The underlying strategy is the same across the board tho, matching building types to coincide with your regional settlements.

[@silentone11111111]

Good vid 😀

[@kiro2k2]

good guide but the music was too loud..

[@revanfiveonenine8367]

Sadly you did this with the yellow Turbine tribe their building system is a lot simpler

[@HForHavoc]

Still relevant. The principle theory behind is the same

[@revanfiveonenine8367]

HForHavoc yeah not saying it’s a bad video just you used a dumb down version of the game I would have label it for beginners other faction have do building go to 3 or 4 versions good video tho

[@cameodouglas6465]

cleetus mcfarland

[@MrDrewluna]

Half of china is currently in my possession, its too much work to study evrything

[@emossg]

Optimizing your top 3 money making cities will go long way. Once you have done that you can move to lesser cities. Saved my first game.

[@Krdragon6]

It's actually a lot simpler than studying everything. There's pretty much a couple buildings that you always want to build together depending on whether you want the city to make money off of peasantry, commercial, industry, or something special like tea or spice, and then if you want to two or three of those together. You want to keep a few cities with extra spots so you can put the other buildings such as anti corruption or the school building or the garrison building, but that's pretty much it.

[@voxxel]

Awesome guides! Can i sub twice?

[@germanverner6501]

So I mean this is good video and all but its a bit plain. Like I expected way more. I know exactly what to build since it makes to synergise certain buildings. I was expecting early game build, mid and late game. For example rush commerce as it gives you trade influence. And start planning your anti corruption buildings mid game instead of realising that you are getting half of profit.

[@farolight4221]

Dosn't help. You just say what do what not give A guide

[@HForHavoc]

Lol. Isn’t a guide just telling you how to do something?

[@nightwatch333]

you speak too fast

[@Voltron4ev4]

Excellent guide. Thanks.