The THREE KINGDOMS campaign is the heart of the game. Built upon a vast map of ancient China, the campaign is where you manage and expand your empire, conduct diplomacy, raise and move your armies, upgrade your settlements, manage your economy and your characters, and much more.
Other Total War Three Kingdoms Guides:
- Total War Three Kingdoms: Guide to Factions
- Total War Three Kingdoms: Guide to Armies
- Total War Three Kingdoms: Guide to Siege
- Total War Three Kingdoms: Guide to Characters
- Total War Three Kingdoms: Guide to Administrators
- Total War Three Kingdoms: Guide to Relations
- Total War Three Kingdoms: Buildings Guide
- Total War Three Kingdoms: Food Guide
- Total War Three Kingdoms: Diplomacy Guide
- Total War Three Kingdoms: Commandery Guide
- Total War Three Kingdoms: Unit Abilities and Types
- Total War Three Kingdoms: Spies & Espionage Guide
- Total War Three Kingdoms: Public Order Guide
Reforms
Reforms advance your faction’s capabilities, the bonuses you gain from certain sources and unlock new building types for construction in your commanderies. You can mouse over each reform to get an overview of the benefits and unlocks it grants.
You can research one new reform in the spring season of every year (each five campaign turns). Certain reforms have prerequisites of two or more branches to research; scrutinise the branch imagery behind a reform to determine those prerequisites.
Factions in the Yellow Turban Rebellion DLC pack have a different reform mechanic which is not tied to the seasons. Instead, they choose a reform to research, which then takes a variable amount of time to complete, based on the reform itself and the faction’s research rate.
Resources
Certain resources are required to construct certain buildings. For example, you cannot build a tea house without first owning tea. You can find a list of resources, both those you own and those you do not, by mousing over the resource icon at the top left of the main campaign screen.
Resources can be gained by conquering resource-producing territories, or by arranging trade agreements with factions who own those resources. Resources are not measured; you either have access to them or you don’t. Once you have access to a resource, you therefore have all you need for any purpose, until you lose the commandery that generates it, or the trade agreement that grants access to it is cancelled.
Thanks, there is still one open question for me regarding resources: What happens if I get a resource by trade, build a building that uses the resource, and then lose the resource? Will the building become useless? Will it be destroyed? Will it continue to work normally?
If you lose access to a required resource for a building–whether a trade good or an internal resource like artisans or industrialists–the game will produce a marker next to that building in the city view, telling you that the building is no longer working, and income from it is nixed.
But on 1.61 I can’t tell if the building actually became disabled, as commandery income didn’t seem to drop. Gotta test it out and double check.