Espionage | Total War Three Kingdoms Game Mechanics Guide

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#TotalWar #ThreeKingdoms #Espionage

[@pvblivscornelivsscipio]

Spying was the one mechanic I never fully mastered. This tutorial explained everything I was stumped about really well. Also when I first bought the game I had trouble keeping my economy in check, I was always good at battles but managing the economy gave me troubles but your Better Commandery guide really leveled up my game and I won the next campaign I started after I watched it. Thank you for still making guides for this game, you're the true master of it.

[@maxmustermann-zx9yq]

also depends on when you played, seems alot of stuff was broken or badly designed early on, I think I remember military revolt leaving your general turncoat right next to the other 2 pissed off generals

[@sovietbear1917]

This Cao Cao Fates Divided playthrough was a masterclass in destroying a faction with a Eunuch. Poor Yuan Shao got cleaned out by turn 5.

[@Couldyanot]

A small tip, you can't do military revolt if army is inside settlement

[@Tom-ne6ce]

This was so useful. If only the game told you why spying options were greyed out. Thanks so much, big big help!

[@bw1678]

I wish they added a global announcement for every unique character when they shift alliances, kind of like what they currently have for Sima Yi and Zhuge Liang spawning into the game. It wouldn't specify whether a character is banished, released, or sent out as a spy, but simply announce "Guan Yu has left Liu Bei's faction" to the whole map. Also make marriage announcements global for unique characters. And when an unique character is spawned into the game, like Guo Jia in 190 start, announce "A talented strategist named Guo Jia is seeking a master" to every faction, so everyone knows even if Guo Jia isn't in their pool.

[@bw1678]

I think it adds a lot of excitement for the game, without messing up the balance and give anyone an unfair advantage, since it doesn't reveal the reason of a character's shifting alliance, but simply informs you that they did it.

[@super_7710]

You should be able to mark a character as interesting. Having it apply to every unique character might get spammy and overwhelm new players.

[@arcomegis9999]

The Gathering mod collection has that.

[@sanadayukimura1375]

I've been waiting so long for an espionage guide I only started playing total war 1 month ago and you've been the only reason that kept me playing and enjoying this game with your videos so thank you so much and keep up the great work

[@Dricinix]

There's been a couple small guides on spies, but there's surprisingly little in the way of in-depth info out there. Cheers, mate, this was well done. I've been wanting to do a spy-themed game, whereas typically it's a feature I just ignored because it was a little obscure.

[@neinnein9436]

They should really add Strong Spy Options if your spy becomes faction leader. Like beeing able to do diplomacy in their Name. At least a huge bonus to whatever you are asking them for.

[@Pigga-k8k]

Spies can become faction leaders?

[@harimaken3808]

​@小熊維尼的朋友跳跳虎 Yeah. I see it about every time in mandate of heaven start with Jia Xu.

[@Thomas-der-Zweite]

Thank you. This was helpful.

[@TotalWarlord1]

Civil war mechanic sound so interesting, any plan to make a guide for it on the future?

[@SeriousTrivia]

It doesn’t really do much though. I think this guide pretty much covers it

[@sorenvongruner2592]

Nice video and thanks for all the help you give us. :)

[@watchanonsombutjaroensuk1444]

Wow, this is really useful thanks!!

[@Cracktower1]

Very thorough review. 👍

[@MasterObservato]

Not sure if you said this somewhere but if your army enters battle with an enemy army with a spy in it, you can pay money to extract the spy right then, preventing his retinue from entering the battle. You can also pay extra to have them fight with you as an ally. Mostly an early game thing, but it was super useful in Cao Cao's early game war with Tao Qian. It turned a scary full stack into a reasonable fight when Zang Ba took his retinue and ran. (This was when I still only had Cao Cao and Xiahou Dun as my main army.)

[@kkpw12]

Thanks for telling this. I am having exact same situation. Now I know what to do.

[@arcomegis9999]

There's the Spies Have More Option Available mod you should try. It gives all options to the spy, rather than have those options unlocked at certain positions. It made sense.

[@Finwaell]

it doesn't and that's just cheating. I swear to god 98% of tw mods are just cheap cheats for people who don't know how to play and are too stupid and/or lazy to learn

[@jellydamgood]

I spy with my little eye...

[@ProfWeeb248]

I love this guide and your Let's Plays because it all really taught me how to use spies, and how powerful they can be. But I'm having some trouble in my current game. I have Liu Biao's wife and Liu Cong as spies but when I have the available points, the option for civil war is still greyed out. Is there some special condition that needs to be met that I'm missing?

[@SeriousTrivia]

1. There could be too few land for a civil war. 2. Not enough of the court is dissatisfied

[@ProfWeeb248]

Thank you for the response; I'll try and figure out what the problem is, then, because I'm trying to get the achievement for it finally.

[@Aahe42]

What the heck how did I miss this?

[@ebenezeroh1707]

Thank you for all the informative videos! Can you please do one on collecting unique characters and how to keep unique characters when confederating factions? Whenever I confederate factions, the unique characters will go missing and not join me.

[@SeriousTrivia]

So real quick on keeping characters during confederation. Aside from the rulers family, you will only get whomever is in an army on the field (assuming you have enough army slots open to take them) so check and see if who you want is on the field before the confederate and make sure you have enough open army slots to absorb them

[@ebenezeroh1707]

@@SeriousTrivia Got it! Always learning new mechanics from you :D Would still love to see a video on how to get unique characters to join my faction. Examples are like Guan Yu and Zhang Fei who has like.. literally 100 satisfaction always Thank you and keep up the great work!

[@STR33TSofJUST1C3]

1,200 hours into 3K and only now I've learnt there's a symbol in the spy menu that shows the effect and duration of Interference.

[@SeriousTrivia]

did you know there is also an icon on the top left of the screen for empower trade on the campaign screen =P

[@drasil5242]

There's also a faction-wide buff "Eyes & Ears" that gives you increased network/cover growth so interference pretty much pays for itself and then some.

[@twusman]

What if your spy becomes a faction leader?

[@SeriousTrivia]

nothing unfortunately, they are still just a spy

[@bosunbill9059]

I am always frustrated because my spies liked my enemy faction so much that they turned coat, it was like me giving the enemy free generals, how to stop this?

[@SeriousTrivia]

use maintain loyalty or use discredit faction or discredit character on yoruself

[@bosunbill9059]

It was MTU modded late game and Only me as Cao Cao and Sun Ce left, with Kong Rong as Sun Ce`s vassal ruling only Taiwan. I tried to spent maintain loyalty repeatedly, but I think Sun Ce AI researched all satisfaction bonus so everyone is too happy to discredit faction, and whenever a new character appeared in his court they suffered the same happy illness. Maintain Loyalty doesn't work well in situation like this for some reason.

[@raynaldoandhika6836]

If i recruit an enemy spy into my rank, and give him some position, good satisfaction. Is it possible that they could defect their previous master to fully join mine or is defect just mechanic for player only?

[@SeriousTrivia]

If they maintain 100 points of satisfaction for a few turns then they can offer to defect

[@raynaldoandhika6836]

@@SeriousTrivia Okay i wasted so much turn in this xD, my Sima Yi is only at 97 satisfaction for almost 30 turns and i can't be so sure if he already defect from Cao Cao or not, so i only put him as prime minister

[@SeriousTrivia]

if he defects, you will get a prompt

[@gucijaki7508]

Dunno if u still read these but i got a few questions for ai spying. Does the ai get spys without ranking up? Also does the ai have full map vision on legendary or do they need to discover me to spy on me?

[@SeriousTrivia]

No they have to have spy slots just like you. They do not have full map vision so if you don’t have diplomatic vision of them then they don’t have diplomatic vision of you

[@gucijaki7508]

@@SeriousTrivia ok nice thx for the swift reply love the work u do

[@pradyumnadas8140]

Sometimes when I have sent my spies to another faction, instead of getting recruited they were sent to another faction as a spy, making them a double agent, so I think double agent concept is present in this game.

[@SeriousTrivia]

that is impossible actually...you literally cannot spy for two factions in the game. You can get married away to a new faction or if the faction is destroyed you can be recruited by a new faction and maybe you can switch if you get captured in battle and be recruited but you cannot be sent out as another spy for another faction if you are already spying for your first faction

[@АбдулКадирДжаиланиИмсан]

after playing 112 hours finally, someone explains to me the detail of espionage! Thank you Mr. ST :)

[@caocalo2485]

Just listen some chinese ambient cool songs during watching this video the synergy is very good :D

[@TheReaperOfChess]

Damn I neglected this system until now... I thought ehhh fuck the spies don't need them... but didn't know there was this much in terms of layers in this game

[@EmileJobity]

How to detect and get rid of spies in your own fraction or armies?

[@SeriousTrivia]

you can only hope to catch them in the act, then you get the option to execute or recruit them. Mainly the best way to flip spies is to keep them at 100 satisfaction. Otherwise, just be careful when you recruit characters to make sure you don't recruit a spy

[@chrisohear3887]

Oh my god this worked! I got Lu Bu!! hahah This channel is a god send!

[@TranquillityX]

I was searching for this for hours thank you so much for your efforts I learnt a lot from you ^^

[@shamneo23]

wait what? that's an end game research tree?! 😲 so little unlocks n not even 1 green tech? i thought cao cao would need some green for his cities

[@SeriousTrivia]

I mean for fates divided, you can finish the game pretty fast, it is much more effective to go for blue and purple than green even with Cao Cao.

[@ShogunMet]

In a coop campaign, beside picking character with low satisfaction on your friend faction, is there any way to hide your own spies faction in order to the other player not notice you send them a spies ?

[@SeriousTrivia]

even if you send a low satisfaction character, without seeing the grudge, they will know that is a spy. The best way is to turncoat or else as long as your friend is paying attention, it would be hard to do it. Of course, you could throw him someone he can't refuse like a legendary character with art or a brilliant officer

[@dubuyajay9964]

I am struggling with loyalty with spies. Plz help. :(

[@SeriousTrivia]

like your own loyalty? are you tanking your own spies to the point that they leave or are you not hitting your targets enough?

[@dubuyajay9964]

@@SeriousTrivia Spies that I send to other factions leave me. :(.

[@SeriousTrivia]

@@dubuyajay9964 you need to constantly keep their satisfaction low by using discredit faction or even sometimes discredit character on your own spy since if the AI promotes them or fix their satisfaction then they will leave you

[@SeriousTrivia]

Also sending spies is a really ineffective way of spying since they tend to always to happy since they will get the newly hired satisfaction bonus. I almost never send spies and just instead focus on turncoats since they are already unhappy with their faction