Mandate of Heaven (Total War: Three Kingdoms)

The Total War: THREE KINGDOMS - Mandate of Heaven chapter pack is the second major expansion for Total War: Three Kingdoms.

Overview

The Total War: THREE KINGDOMS – Mandate of Heaven Chapter Pack depicts the events of the Yellow Turban Rebellion and Qiang uprising, enabling players to engage in the conflict from either rebel or loyalist perspectives. Introducing a number of new characters and playable faction leaders, the campaign begins in 182CE, but players can choose to continue well into the Three Kingdoms period, with familiar characters entering the campaign as the timeline progresses.

Since the launch of THREE KINGDOMS and Eight Princes, we’ve had a massive amount of player feedback in terms of what people want to see in future THREE KINDOMS content packs. With that in mind, Mandate of Heaven introduces a host of new characters, 40 new battle units, a major rebalance of existing units rosters to encourage more diverse army builds, and unique faction mechanics for both new and existing playable Warlords which create distinctively different playstyles and campaign experiences.

A comprehensive game update will accompany Mandate of Heaven’s launch, featuring a great many tweaks, balance changes, bug fixes, and improvements – more on this soon (and don’t forget that we’ve got much more planned for future DLC!).

Mandate of Heaven includes:

• The largest and most detailed Total War: THREE KINGDOMS DLC to date
• The ability to begin a campaign in 182 CE just before the Yellow Turban rebellion…
• …Then play through the conflict and deep into the Three Kingdoms period
• New characters and six new playable warlords including the Zhang brothers and Emperor Liu Hong
• Unique new campaign mechanics, events and objectives
• 40 new battlefield units and new unit abilities
• Play the origin stories of legendary characters such as Cao Cao and Liu Bei

Premises

The year is 182CE. The Han Empire is in turmoil, and China is slipping towards chaos. The Emperor’s court is paralysed by corruption, and a great famine has ravaged the north. In the eyes of the people, Emperor Ling has lost the Mandate of Heaven – and with it, the right to rule.

Across the land, the people band together in opposition. Led by the three Taoist brothers Zhang Jue, Zhang Liang and Zhang Bao, they don yellow turbans and take up arms. Their aim: to tear down the unjust Han and replace it with their own dynasty of harmony and peace. They are thousands strong, with more flocking to their cause by the day.

Warlords sworn to the emperor rally to his banner; warriors of great influence and fierce ability. Yet the wiser, more ambitious of them harbour their own desires… if the Han becomes too weak, who then will take the reins of power?

Factions and warlords

The House of Liu

• Liu Hong, leading Liu Hong
• Liu Chong, leading Liu Chong

Han governers and warlords

• Lu Zhi, leading Lu Zhi
• Dong Zhuo, leading Dong Zhuo
• Liu Bei, leading Liu Bei
• Cao Cao, leading Cao Cao
• Sun Jian, leading Sun Jian
• Tao Qian, leading Tao Qian
• Liu Biao, leading Liu Biao

Yellow Turbans

• Zhang Jue, leading Zhang Jue
• Zhang Liang, leading Zhang Liang
• Zhang Bao, leading Zhang Bao

New features

Mandate of Heaven is a DLC that takes place a few years before the events of Three Kingdoms. It outlines many new updates, including new looks to the Alternate Unit cards, Militia units balancing, and new starting positions/dates. The most game-changing change is Militia units being nerfed; they have less morale, less damage, and just worse than before. Spear Guards are now considered to be a Militia unit. Making them considerably worse than before, and opens doors to giving Reform unlocked units more attention. The Yellow Turbans by far has the biggest update they have ever had; all or most of the Yellow Turban units' names received a name change (e.g. Yellow Turban Warriors - Redeemed Outlaws), there were also many new units Specific to the Yellow Turban Mandate of Heaven factions. Three new Yellow Turban Warlords were added, Zhang Jue, Zhang Bao, and Zhang Liang.

It introduces new Deployables, which are in the form of an Archer Tower, Stakes, and Oil. They are unlocked in reforms and can be limited to 1 or 2, depending on the unlocked reform. Archer Tower are the Towers in a normal settlement, except less damage. Stakes are wooden pikes pointed in one way and can be adjusted to become wider or longer made to kill Cavalry and injure infantry. Any units charging into Stakes will have a hard time breaking it down let alone staying alive. A militia unit charging into it will take tremendous amounts of damage. Oil is a black liquid that only takes one form, a black liquid splatted on the battlefield, and can be lit up by both fire arrows and infantry (in case of infantry, a unit can run up to the oil, and drop a torch to light it).

A little feature was also added, which most players overlooked. But before the Mandate of Heaven DLC, you were able to get +Trustworthy Rating (by defending enemies of the alliance etc.). And the highest you could get to was, "Respected". However, with the new update, it is possible to get the rating to "Highly Respected".

May it be noted that all the events of normal Three Kingdoms will play through, as long as the requirements are met. E.g. in normal Three Kingdoms, Kong Rong will get a decision to give away Taishi Ci to Liu Bei for better relations or to keep him. If Taishi Ci isn't already recruited by another warlord by the time of that event, the event will not trigger. If very specific event trigger at all. It also is worthy to say that almost all the unique characters are floating around somewhere, waiting to be recruited, except the faction leaders of factions.

History

Mandate of Heaven DLC gives us insight for the reason Three Kingdoms began. It marks an important event where the Yellow Turbans rise to object the Han. The objective differentiates if you are playing as Yellow Turbans or normal factions. For Yellow Turbans, the victory objective is to own 50 counties, and also own Luoyang, the capital of Liu Hong. For normal factions, the objective is to destroy all three Zhang brothers' factions. There are also new Rebellion factions named Looters.

There were a huge amount of new units added to this update, most in which can only be played if you are playing during the Mandate of Heaven period. One of the new units added were new Imperial Units. You will normally unlock Protectors of Heaven and Defenders of Earth when you reach Emperor, but if you play as Liu Hong, you start off with an Imperial Army, with all the Imperial units that cannot be recruited unless you research the individual reforms.

It is notable to note that when the starting date for Three Kingdoms officially begins, there will be an event where Liu Hong dies (if you play as him, you may have a chance to stop him from dying), and Empress He (Liu Hong's wife) will take over as regent for a turn also. Then Dong Zhuo will overthrow the Empress, and take control of the Emperor, therefore officially starting the Three Kingdoms period. Keep in mind, that the objective for normal factions is still the same (to destroy Zhang brothers' factions), if not completed already. Players will have the chance to become Emperor after they reach the rank by gaining prestige. You could detach from the Celestial Empire, in which Liu Hong commands, and become an independent faction, which will most likely make other factions be inclined to declare war on you.

As Emperor, you can annex territories of subjects, on the cost of -20 political influence, and also be untrustworthy. The Emperor also can dissolve the Empire if the player wishes. Giving every Warlord under the Empire freedom to act as they wish. If the player gains enough influence, they can annex subjects like annexing a vassal, on the cost of 400 political influence. Political influence is gained through buildings and specific events. After a few years when you start the campaign, an event will pop up saying that the Celestial Empire will declare war of the Yellow Turbans. This event cannot be prevented, no matter if you play as the Emperor or not. It will not be long after in which the Empire of Liu Hong will declare war on Beigong Boyu, which was a historical rebellion.

There is also an event in which Liu Chong is killed, marking the start of the Three Kingdoms period. It is possible to stop this, just like stopping the Emperor's death, if the player plays as Liu Chong. It is known that Yuan Shu assassinated Liu Chong, and an event will either make him happy or make relations sour, one will end up being the assassination of Liu Chong, and the other will save him. Which one, the player would have to find out.

There are now three new Yellow Turban leaders, who are only available to play in 184, before the fall of the Celestial Empire. They are; Zhang Jue, Zhang Bao, and Zhang Liang. They each start with one army, and no territory, having only a Han Empire army, and Han Empire territory to take in their first turns. They start off in the north, with Zhang Liang in Ye Town, Zhang Bao in Anping Farmland, and Zhang Jue in Zhongshan Town.

System requirements

Mac OS X

Minimum

• OS: Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit
• Processor: 3.4GHz Intel Core i3-4130
• Memory: 6 GB RAM
• Graphics: 2GB AMD R9 285 (GCN 3rd Generation), 2GB Nvidia GTX 680
• Storage: 60 GB available space
• Additional Notes:
  • Requires Vulkan
  • Nvidia requires 418.56 or newer drivers.
  • AMD requires Mesa 19.0.1.
  • AMD GCN 3rd Gen GPU's include the R9 285, 380, 380X, Fury, Nano, Fury X.
  • Intel GPUs are not supported at time of release.
  • Other modern drivers and distributions are expected to work but are not officially supported.

Recommended

• OS: Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit
• Processor: 3.4GHz Intel Core i7-4770
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: 4GB AMD RX 480, 4GB Nvidia GTX 970
• Storage: 60 GB available space

Windows

Minimum

• OS: Windows 7 64 Bit
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 3.00Ghz
• Memory: 4 GB RAM
• Graphics: GTX 650 Ti 1GB|HD 7850 1GB|Intel UHD Graphics 620
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 60 GB available space
• Additional Notes: 6GB Memory if using integrated GPU

Recommended

• OS: Windows 10 64 Bit
• Processor: Intel i5-6600 | Ryzen 5 2600X
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: GTX 970 | R9 Fury X 4GB VRAM
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 60 GB available space

Media

Videos

Mandate of Heaven Reveal Trailer - Total War- THREE KINGDOMS

Mandate of Heaven Let's Play - Total War- THREE KINGDOMS

Featured screenshot

Artworks

Game keyart by Bayard Wu

Alternative game keyart (without titles) by Bayard Wu

External links

• Total War: THREE KINGDOMS - Mandate of Heaven on Steam
• THREE KINGDOMS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE: THE HISTORY BEHIND MANDATE OF HEAVEN - Total War.com