Three Kingdoms Corruption & Public Order Guide: Breakdown and Starting Tips

[@italianspartacus]

Table of Contents: Corruption - 1:30 Public Order -15:40 www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/bwepxi/a_guide_to_buildings_and_economy_in_three_kingdoms/ TARROT HAS SOME GREAT ADDITIONAL FEEDBACK ON CORRUPTION: Some corruption points you forgot to mention: 1: The coin-minting tech that gives you -8% corruption also unlocks for Copper Mines a -4% corruption reduction faction-wide upgrade. I think there's like 6 copper mines on the map or something, so that can add up to -24% reduction faction-wide. 2: In addition to traits, there are ancillaries that reduce corruption by 5% faction-wide if on your ruler/heir/prime minister. 3: The most important thing about corruption is that the reduction effects are multiplicative based on your "base" level of corruption. So for example, in your video at T80, you had a roughly 10% base corruption level to all your cities. If you had all 3 anti-corruption techs, that -15% won't reduce your corruption to 0%, but rather -15% to that 10% base, which is really -1.5%, so your corruption level would only drop to 8.5% from 10%. In other words, if you had 1k income/city, you'd save 15 gold/turn/city. That, obviously, is completely worthless in savings at this point in the game. Now, in the late game when you're suffering 75% base corruption of a city producing 3k income, that 15% corruption reduction is going to be an extra 330 gold/turn/city, which is much more substantial. Investing into at least the copper mine tech in the mid-game to stop this is still advised, but you aren't going to get substantial returns on corruption reduction until the very late-game when the base levels are so high your tech works at 100% of its effectiveness. I do believe the total reduction bonuses are additive, so with the copper mines/reforms/ancillaries/building tech, you can achieve over 100% corruption reduction, which will really skyrocket your income. Related, you mentioned the anti-corruption assignments, but in the late game, they will end up producing much more income than standard Economy (Peasantry/Commerce/Industry) assignments will, because those will be a few hundred gold/turn at best, but if you're dealing with thousands of gold of corruption loss/turn, that could end up being over 1k gold you bring in just with anti-corruption assignments if your buildings aren't set up. Also, a minor correction to your point on public order: Public Order penalties come from population penalties, not city size penalties. This is a huge difference because each commandery in your city is worth an extra 500k to your city's total population. So if you have a city like Changsha and control all 3 commanderies, you're going to have a baseline of 1 million more people than a city where you control a single commandery, and thus will have more of a public order issue, even with the same city size, because of the higher population. This also means that if you have a city that has low population growth for whatever reason, you can upgrade the city size to get more building slots and not have to deal with public order penalties for a while. Also, personally, I find that a single Confucian temple is enough to combat public order penalties up until City level 8, which is where you max out the building slots. So, with a slot dedicated to public order and a slot dedicated to anti-corruption, that leaves 4 slots to customize your cities. In general, you need level 7 anyways to get the level 5 building for whatever chains you're investing in, so going to level 8 then stopping unless its a massive commerce/peasantry producing city is worth it.

[@Tarrot]

Some corruption points you forgot to mention: 1: The coin-minting tech that gives you -8% corruption also unlocks for Copper Mines a -4% corruption reduction faction-wide upgrade. I think there's like 6 copper mines on the map or something, so that can add up to -24% reduction faction-wide. 2: In addition to traits, there are ancillaries that reduce corruption by 5% faction-wide if on your ruler/heir/prime minister. 3: The most important thing about corruption is that the reduction effects are multiplicative based on your "base" level of corruption. So for example, in your video at T80, you had a roughly 10% base corruption level to all your cities. If you had all 3 anti-corruption techs, that -15% won't reduce your corruption to 0%, but rather -15% to that 10% base, which is really -1.5%, so your corruption level would only drop to 8.5% from 10%. In other words, if you had 1k income/city, you'd save 15 gold/turn/city. That, obviously, is completely worthless in savings at this point in the game. Now, in the late game when you're suffering 75% base corruption of a city producing 3k income, that 15% corruption reduction is going to be an extra 330 gold/turn/city, which is much more substantial. Investing into at least the copper mine tech in the mid-game to stop this is still advised, but you aren't going to get substantial returns on corruption reduction until the very late-game when the base levels are so high your tech works at 100% of its effectiveness. I do believe the total reduction bonuses are additive, so with the copper mines/reforms/ancillaries/building tech, you can achieve over 100% corruption reduction, which will really skyrocket your income. Related, you mentioned the anti-corruption assignments, but in the late game, they will end up producing much more income than standard Economy (Peasantry/Commerce/Industry) assignments will, because those will be a few hundred gold/turn at best, but if you're dealing with thousands of gold of corruption loss/turn, that could end up being over 1k gold you bring in just with anti-corruption assignments if your buildings aren't set up. Also, a minor correction to your point on public order: Public Order penalties come from population penalties, not city size penalties. This is a huge difference because each commandery in your city is worth an extra 500k to your city's total population. So if you have a city like Changsha and control all 3 commanderies, you're going to have a baseline of 1 million more people than a city where you control a single commandery, and thus will have more of a public order issue, even with the same city size, because of the higher population. This also means that if you have a city that has low population growth for whatever reason, you can upgrade the city size to get more building slots and not have to deal with public order penalties for a while. Also, personally, I find that a single Confucian temple is enough to combat public order penalties up until City level 8, which is where you max out the building slots. So, with a slot dedicated to public order and a slot dedicated to anti-corruption, that leaves 4 slots to customize your cities. In general, you need level 7 anyways to get the level 5 building for whatever chains you're investing in, so going to level 8 then stopping unless its a massive commerce/peasantry producing city is worth it.

[@MLJ-7]

Tarrot you seem well informed and so I’d love to ask you - where the population penalty is say -6, is there any other way to combat this other than upgrading the city?

[@Tarrot]

@@MLJ-7 There really isn't a way to combat it outside the methods listed (PO buildings, reforms, reduced taxes). You can garrison troops in the city to reduce it, but there's really no way to prevent it. If absolutely necessary, you can just reduce the level of the city and force-reduce the total population.

[@italianspartacus]

added to the Pin :)

[@immotion665]

Thanks so much, that's what i was missing. I saw another comment here but do you think it's worth having low public order and having an army running around farming yellow turban xp?

[@dubuyajay9964]

@@immotion665 Depends if you're willing to deal with the hassle of having to babysit commanderies. If so, yes. But if you let a Rebel army grow too big before you can xp grind due to distractions or a plain brain fart, then it will bite you in the ass...hard. For they will attempt to take a town. I presently have 3 commanderies I have to babysit due to me being to unable to lower tax due to food issues. It's a pain, but I am getting constant xp from rebel stacks. So, whether it's a boon or bane Depends on your tolerance for micro management.

[@Godsavethecrumpets]

you make the best guides man, they are so comprehensive and easy to understand

[@italianspartacus]

thank you very much man, that's one of the best compliments to hear as i really struggle with making sure everything is coherent :)

[@chrisjoyner4873]

Your guides are so helpful. Thank you. Any chance for a Unit and Army Builder Overview video - going over the strengths and weaknesses of the units, the different gerneral colors/ types, and especially anything going over the unique units unlocked through the reform tree! That would be great :)

[@LorenJaffrey]

My experience is as the game progresses i will always have problems with public order as the cities constantly grow. To counter that i build temples and the one building from the red tree which gives public order if i hit problems in a certain city. When the situation gets worse ii focus on reforms which give public order in the later stages of the game which are pretty accessible. Furthermore i focus on appointting characters which increase public order as leader, prime minister or heir.

[@wittedcoast]

Just wanted you to know after watching your videos, especially your live stream after memorial day, my campaigns have been going soooo much better

[@italianspartacus]

Fuck yes dude, great to hear

[@aimannorzahariwod]

WHAT I FUCKING NEEDED. My god damn campaign is corrupt as hell.

[@Rukdug]

An additional public order tip that I assume wasn’t included was because it’s faction specific instead of general, is to always build schools as Kong Rong. His schools provide public order (either +8 or +10 at the highest level) as well as producing income from all sources.

[@italianspartacus]

awesome point man!!

[@MadpupYT]

Downfall however is the population growth, which can cause the negative population effect to quickly outpace the public order buffs you get from the building. When using the schools I found that if I wanted to keep public order neutral or positive I would still need to build the temples on top of the schools.

[@Lord_Imrahil]

Copper mine can give you global reduction to public order, which is useful in addition to stateworkshops and administration offices.

[@djuraster]

I dealt with public order the same way I did in other games of this type. I would have a small army with just cavalry (one general) and run around dealing with rebels, farming experience and making a base for the next full stack. Three kingdoms has cities that would constantly rebel, so it`s easy to spot them and keep cavalry army close....

[@lordphoenix4733]

thank you for this video man. These guides have been really good. Currently playing Yuan Shao and have been trying to deal with corruption so this video will help me. Also was good to hear about not progressing the cities, which I tend to try and get them all maxed out so I will be changing to do what you have done. making my capital the biggest out of everything. keep up the good work man and thank you for spending your time on these videos. Your awesome!

[@italianspartacus]

NO LORD PHOENIX! YOU'RE AWESOME! thanks so much man :)

[@lordphoenix4733]

@@italianspartacus SPARTY WE HAVE DONE THIS BEFORE! YOUR AWESOME! :)

[@unifieddynasty]

I keep my normal cities at rank 8 (lucky number in Chinese, because '8' sounds like 'prosper' in Chinese). You get the max build slots at rank 8, which the last two can be used for public order buildings like the garrison and temple/granary.

[@hardworn1045]

Hey one thing not mentioned about Corruption reduction is that all Copper Mines at 5th level provide -4% Corruption Faction Wide. On my first playthrough it snuck up bad on me and I ended up at 60% corruption and then had to work it down for like 50 turns..... If you're planning on winning by conquering most/all of the map, I would really suggest building both the State Workshops building AND the Admin building in basically every city, that's what it took to knock corruption down from around 60-65% down to >17%, which got me in the neighborhood of 7k per turn back that I was missing. This is also something to keep in mind if you're thinking about confederating a large vassal, that's actually how it happened to me (it doubled my commanderies and almost double the corruption with it). Side note, I think it would be really cool if there was more interplay with the corruption mechanics and spying, or even a faction that focuses on that style of play. Maybe things like getting a spy into an admin role grants you some income which the enemy faction sees as corruption spillage, or an army general spy grants a portion of their battle income, and ruling family? family estates? Another thought I had was if you have a commanding general spy with 2 other spies in that faction it would be cool to spend cover points to get them all into 1 stack and then flip the whole army (It would take significant effort to do since a lot has to fall into place so i dont think it would be really broken). It would be interesting to have a faction capable of winning without holding much territory this way. Maybe they could have less public order buildings and instead of corruption that builds with commandery growth it would be public order penalty so that it was harder to grow them very wide.

[@DanBurgaud]

Currently we have "administrator" to govern a single city. This is all sound and good when you only have like 2~3 commanderies in the early first 5 years or so. But when you continue playing into the mid / late game, you cant possibly govern 20-50 commanderies with just 5 administrators. Based on your video, my experience and the game codes, it appears that we should only develop just a few cities and demolish the rest to level 1~2 to keep corruption/order down. Sounds like a good despotic leader. However, I believe CA should designate specific cities as Provincial Capitals such that, capturing it gives you the right to govern the whole province. The province of "Xu" for instance where Tao Qian administers historically had 9 cities (in game had 3 cities and 4 extra territories). If we capture the capital (game is suggesting "Donghai") we then gained the Governor seat for the province to govern and administer. Historically, 3K period had about 13 Provinces. That should be very manageable to administer than having 100+ cities independently.... And the "assignments" should be applied to the whole Province as well instead of just the individual cities.

[@pisiunhan]

On an other guide video, it said that the number of commandaries u control matters not the how big u are. Im still kinda confuse about that

[@iamplay797]

great guide spartacus thanks

[@D2themax7]

Thank you for making this video about corruption. I keep looking for the beastmen and undead factions spreading it, but gosh darn it, I can’t seem to find them anywhere!!!

[@pzg_kami6472]

@ItalianSpartacus I'm an old (or better say classic) total war player that used to play all titles before Rome2 but kind of stopped post-Rome2 when CA badly screwed over that game. But I found TW:3K kinda interesting and decided to give it a try. I've seen many guides as well as yours however even playing Cao Cao (which is the easy faction that is even recommended by the game itself) on Normal difficulty I have huge problem to finish the campaign. I see my rival factions despite not being big as big as mine could muster 9 Armies (which is apparently the army-limit for Kingdoms) but as soon as I recruited my 6th army I'm started with minus income !!! This is besides the fact that everyone keeps declaring war on me which is super frustrating. I can't even imagine how easy could people like you play very hard factions such as Yuan Shu on Legendary difficulty while I'm having struggle with my campaign with an easy faction (cao cao) on normal ! I really do like this game (after all this is a total war) however I'm starting to regret my decision on buying it :`( Is there any hidden mechanic(s) that I might missed or is it that I'm simply too old for it ? :p Also thanks for all the tutorials you made and uploaded

[@italianspartacus]

brothaa! thank you so much for watching! for starters, cao cao is definitely NOT an easy campaign. i'm a seasoned veteran of the game and i got my ass handed to me trying it out the first time. it requires a vastly different play style than most TW players are used to. my recommendation? play Sun Jian. You WILL get bored with it because you'll start to snowball in power, quickly, but it is a great introductory campaign because you are relatively removed from the greater conflict and you can really pick and choose what fights you want to get invested in. let me know how that goes because i think you'll learn the mechanics far easier with him. also, he has a LOT of strong officers at his disposal.

[@pzg_kami6472]

@@italianspartacus Surprising that Cao Cao isn't easy despite the game says so ! my own experience also shows the opposite just as you cited. Will try Sun Jian next time. and Thank you so much for advice and help

[@swallowedinthesea11]

If you have less than two hours of playtime and have owned the game for a week, if I recall correctly, you can request a refund.

[@dubuyajay9964]

@@pzg_kami6472 The thing is, you need to abuse Proxy War and get others to fight for you while you focus on economy and army building/local defense until you are ready to march. Proxy War let's you talk kingdom A into fighting Kingdom B without going to war yourself (unlike a regular war). The reason it was labeled (mistakenly) as "easy" is because the code monkeys were expecting players to use Proxy war to get others to distract and weaken your foes and/or bribe/trick your foes into fighting someone else (Ceasar's divide and rule) while keeping your hands clean...until you choose to stop going tall and start going wide. Alas, TW did a shit job explaining this because they added new mechanics and expected some crappy vids to work as well as the old tutorials. One step forward...twenty steps back. 🤦‍♂️ I still enjoy this game but again CA falls into the trap of adding shiny new buttons while gutting others and doing a horrid job explaining it.

[@eugenecoleman8525]

In almost all of my campaigns I find it works well to go straight for the 10% replenishment in the red tree. After that I go straight up to coin minting, and if needed the short yellow branch that unlocks from building the public order building. By the time you have all of those you will be around that turn 60-80 and be very close to unlocking the reform that give the heavy melee cav and axe unit. Going with this strategy you will have the nice bonuses of the red line like replenishment and military supplies as well as the income, corruption reduction, and public order of the yellow tree, and be able to unlock top tier units soon after.

[@eugenecoleman8525]

Also this strategy will unlock the higher end administration buildings. My tree looks very similar to the one in this video

[@Terrestrialbeing24]

I seemed to have missed what having high or low public order actually does. Does it make raising armies slower? Decrease population over time? What else?

[@italianspartacus]

yes! it will affect your mustering :)

[@Aragorn.Strider]

I looked into it in my own game, and for th elongest time corruption was 0%. After some time it was 3%. But I kept on playing and conquered and raised lots of land, and it became 53%. So only then (...) I saw this video, got many of the reductions but now it is back again at 53%. So yeah, its rough

[@jaredandrew9906]

Shout out to FitGirl Repacks. Been playing this title for free over the last week. Enjoying it very much. Great vids bro.

[@jollygreen4662]

PM, leader, and heir have -5 corruption jewelry. Will it stack up and reduce faction wide?

[@italianspartacus]

I believe so!

[@rjsikes9033]

when selecting my second administrator, i select who i want. i confirm, then it says confirm again but its grayed out. any ideas?

[@italianspartacus]

Hmmm.. Is he deployed as a general or does he already have a place on your court?

[@stephenfraser280]

You need to click on a different commandery. If it's grayed out you already have an administrator there. Click another and you'll get the black button again.

[@rjsikes9033]

@@stephenfraser280 thank you brother, legend. i clicked on multiple before thinking it was just a bug. turns out i had one just by chance in all i checked because i though it might be something like that.

[@theBubbadukes]

Owe you for this one. Couldn't figure out why i was stagnant and even losing money as i was going to town as sun jian. Expanded too quick and ended up receiving corruption penalties sooner than normal. Much thanks, made this campaign a lot more enjoyable

[@italianspartacus]

Awesome dude.. Glad I could help you out! :)

[@hungphan670]

It's good that rebellion in this game are so easy to deal unlike shogun 2 a FUCKIN full-stack come out from nowhere and rekt your town immediately the turn after

[@adriltythorin6702]

Does it matter what type of counties you pick up, or is the increase in corruption linear? IE, does it give you the same corruption if you take a level 1 fishing village as a level 10 city?

[@MadpupYT]

From what I've seen, yes and no. Smaller population settlements will not be hit as hard by corruption as higher population areas when you start to gather corruption in your commanderies, but they will gather way more corruption that what they would when you start the game. While your level 7 city might have 50% corruption, your level 3 settlement might only have 30%.

[@danc9014]

Can I get a confirmation I just fucked up my campaign. I always thought the population debuff to public order was when cities reached the cap on the settlement. What you are saying is a larger settlement administration causes the population public order hit? I've been upgrading my settlement when I start seeing the population affects. Oh no

[@italianspartacus]

it's okay! it's okay brother! we can bring this back.. just focuse on some of the public order buildings and you're going to be okay! :D

[@danc9014]

​@@italianspartacusThanks man your videos are great quality and the info is much appreciated. Another question if you don't mind. I've never paid attention to grain storage. I'm playing Cao Cao so I have a lot of farmland that I turned to Irrigated Farms, Winnowing, and County Office for corruption control. Where does the storage come handy super tall cities?

[@italianspartacus]

It helps with public order and increases your reserves so that you can get better replenishment too! And thank you so much for watching brotha! :) anymore questions just let me know

[@iamplay797]

to me once i get a city with walls i then max income on it if it has food to go bigger i do if not i dont upgrade them further

[@ryansmith3842]

Tbh I'm 150 turns in my sun jian campaign and I never knew how to check my corruption levels lol

[@ryansmith3842]

All my cities are at 48% uh oh

[@hardworn1045]

@@ryansmith3842 Yeah this happened to me, max out your copper mines first since they're corruption -4% faction wide, then start on the state workshops because they effect adjacent commanderies earlier in the build chain than the admin building which is commandery only until the final upgrade. That should get you a decent start on it, and snag those reforms/ancillaries too because its only gonna get worse as you get bigger.

[@ryansmith3842]

@@hardworn1045 thanks for the advice, much appreciated :)

[@yanbaihuzxzxzx]

Only thing you can do is just bank your coins, dont invest to heavy into the cities and just finance your armies. Get as much coins you can get and if you're into the millions you can finish the game with it. once you start getting 25k into every turn 10 turns you got 250k I dont usually expand until i get a huge bank of coins then i go all out

[@jaysonlee1082]

I mean u only have that little lands and corruption why are u even getting corruption reduction that early? I have tons of lands that I get 70%++ corruption every cities even those with admin has 70% i keep on doing the assignments to reduce 50% but it will just get back up there slowly, I'm paying for cities that I cant get income from which makes me feels kinda stupid but at least I'm still getting 15K per turn from cities that I can still get income from. That 19% isn't helping much I built some -corruption building but it's still not enough. Why is it so crazy and I don't think I have got the half of China yet.

[@quintens879]

My tactic is just to semi ignore it. you have no time for mere peasants when your fighting one of the three kingdoms. let them become angry, your city will decrease in population. and when they create a rebel force you crush it. giving you an automatic plus 20 public order each turn. and a decreased population and corruption of course. (sorry for my bad english and grammar.)

[@MaxGideonActor]

Started taking a shot of tequila every time ya said Corruption. Wasted by minute 2 ;) Luv videeo, gun a save n wattch w budz , keep hud work cus awsum by huffy bfsyh gbn7$,[ B, 🐧❤

[@italianspartacus]

Rookie move, should have done it with Mike's Hard Lemonade. You'd at least be able to stand right now!! ;)

[@MaxGideonActor]

@@italianspartacus food for thought, good sir. Fud 4 thawt 🐧🍺🥃😎

[@Inquisitor_Redacted]

It's kind of annoying that you need to make those lousy tax buildings to get that lower path. I know you can just make them then bust them, but it's still kind of dumb.

[@dubuyajay9964]

I hate that too. Building and demolishing a building just for tech.

[@hungphan670]

Did you know your capital alway have 0% corruption

[@dubuyajay9964]

It should be the opposite. 😂🤣🏛🏯

[@kashual]

Kong Rong your opinion Is Wrong!

[@rusm5710]

Do a guide on how to combat boredom of this game