Despite the negativity around the 3K DLC in general (timelines, historical inconsistencies, 3K civs/heroes in ranked etc.), these campaigns on their own were a lot of fun to play.
Scenario design, objectives and progression are definitely the main strong point and the best we’ve had since the Dynasties of India DLC. Cutscenes were also incredibly well made, especially with the coloring (green/blue/red) applied to highlight the faction characters and armies at various stages.
As many have pointed out, if these campaigns and civs had just been made standalone like the Chronicles DLC, it would have been perfect in terms of presenting and playing them without interfering with the main game. Hopefully this is something they’re considering doing in the near future.
Apart from this, I do hope they fix all the remaining reported bugs soon that were introduced with the previous patch. The game freezing every few minutes was definitely one of the most annoying parts while playing the campaigns.
Gameplay wise, I agree. I did not like the cutscenes, personally - standard slides are better, and the legendary difficulty did not add much anyway…it’s like only the 2k players (even though just 1% or so play ranked…so a 1% out of 1%) complain about the game being “too easy”…bro, Ornlu, I love you man, but you did not even manage a simple task to beat the Mongols on Hard in Kotyan 2, and you want legendary? Cmon.
Additionally, the choices are an interesting part of a mission, but choosing between 2 heroes in a second scenario, which will stay until the end of campaign, is not the best thing in my honest hopinion. Give us all heroes, please. And add this special hall of heroes building to all scenarios, too - who wouldn’t like to train all the Joan of Arc heroes in the final scenario, provided that they all survived?
There is a common critique that the final scenario is the “same” for all the kingdoms, so that the campaign is “13 scenario long” - but I disagree…every final scenario plays out differently, and as e.g. Sun Clan, you need to destroy a wonder as well as Cao Cao’s elite troops…as Cao Cao, you need to destroy both of your opponents and there is a king of the hill mechanic with 12 outposts, whereas as Liu Bei you face against a powerful navy and a powerful Cao Cao, but the “1 sword difficulty” is otherwise prominent compared to the rest.
Finally, I did not like how rushed the story seemed, as well as the magical elements (conjuring up windy storm in the final scenario, sorcery in the 1st Cao Cao scenario, sacrifices and a magical storm in the 1st Liu Bei…)
i liked it for the most part but its kinda too easy, particularly cao cao’s campaign. Cao Cao’s campaign was so forgettable and all the missions kinda felt the same. Ive completed liu bei and cao cao and first mission of sun clan. liu bei was easy but it was expected as a 1 sword, but it was harder than cao cao’s just bc of mission 1-2.
biggest pros for me is the cut scenes i really like the ink painting style. the story is a bit of a mess and confusing for those who dont know the original story probably (i do know it). honestly starting at sun clan might be best for the story?
i dont know what ot think of the cojoined last mission. i think its kinda interesting to do it but ill comment more on it when i finish the sun clans final battle. there was definately enough difference between the first 2 final battles to be a different mission.
ehh it’d make missions way too easy as they werent balanced with this in mind. Also heroes that died or left in the 3k campaign werent trainable after either.
