So I’ve made several posts and comments Saying I’d like a more story oriented approach to the empires games. Now I know that the empires games are about making your own story and all and that if you want three kingdoms to just play the base game but I don’t really agree I think a big draw of these games at least to me is the 3 kingdoms lore and story. I don’t think it defeats the purpose of the empires spin offs.

So moving on I think the best way to way achieve this is events, event battles and cutscenes. The other and more complex element would be the AI.

So here’s my approach, let’s say starting from the 184 start. Also as my total war posts says I think this approach would greatly benefit from the map divisions being more along comanderies rather than provinces like it is currently.

So naturally we know the big factions at 184:

He Jin in Luoyang and changan in his faction would have Cao cao, Yuan Shao and possibly Yuan Shu as well Diao Chan and Wang Yun

Ding Yuan in Bing he would have Lu Bu, Zhang Liao and Lu Lingqi

Gongsun Zan with the Shu bros in his faction,

Dong Zhuo over in Liang with Hua Xiong, Dong Bai and maybe for simplicity’s sake we merge Ding Yuan with him.

And then the biggest factions ofc would be the Turbans now dw9 empires gave them the most territory in any game since 4 I think this is a good idea especially if they’re not gonna bring back empty areas like in 4 and 5.

The south can basically remain as it is currently with Liu biao, Yan, Yao, The Nanman etc although if they did adopt a comandery based map then they could put in a few more starting factions like Lu Kang, Shi Xie and such.

Now for the AI so from 184-190 factions shouldn’t fight amongst each other too much most fighting for the ai should be between the imperials and the turbans or the imperials and the nanman or the imperials and the bandits. This would sorta represent how until 190 the Han Dynasty is still sorta in control

Now after a few turns and maybe some fights with the turbans the first big event happens! The yellow turban rebellion event battle (which absolutely must return). you’d have your usual ppl involved He Jin the three kingdoms leaders, Dong Zhuo and maybe the Yuans plus the player now if the turbans lose as usual then the Zhang brothers die and then either all their territories become empty/independent or they all go to He Jin

Then in 189 would be next chain of events the order idk about but naturally He Jin gets killed by the eunuchs and Dong Zhuo basically annexes his faction plus Ding Yuan if they decide to keep him in, then following the novel the Yuans and Cao cao break away from Dong Zhuo and go to their respective bases in Ji, Yan, and Jing the event would also give whatever characters of theirs arent already recruited to them such as The Xiahou bros for Cao Cao. Then after some more turns, battles etc the Hulao gate event battle happens now if the allies win then Dong zhuo loses Luoyang which becomes a empty territory or maybe it’s occupied by bandits and he retreats to Chang and and the the assasinations event fires off which sees him killed by lu Bu then Wang Yun take over or maybe Li Jue to save time.

Now heres where the AI tweaks would really shine. They would have to make it so that the most aggressive factions and therefore the ones that will grow the biggest would be Yuan Shao and Cao Cao in order to set up the Guandu battle you could have some minor events in between to follow the story and spice things up like Liu Bei defecting to Tao Qian and inheriting his territory, Lu Bu’s rebellion in Yan, Sun jians death, Yuan Shu’ ascension etc

Then Guandu time! Now if you follow the story cao cao wins this causes yuan shao to die his faction is inherited by his shang and maybe Yuan tan breaks away to signify the power struggle. Now, tho weakened, Yuan shang and company should still be decently strong and large and Cao Cao’s Ai should focus on wiping them out before going after other factions. This would allow time for the player and events and battles to take place that set up the Sun family in Yang and Liu Bei getting his foothold in Jing

Then Chibi this should be biggest event battle ofc and after this one you should be able to follow the story pretty easily like if i had my way the ai would behave as it does in the story and events would still fire all the way up to 228 for the northern expeditions set up but after 208 i think it could be a free for all that these games usually are. Now most of the events would have an accompanying cutscene like dw9 has although these would really be bonuses

Now if you’re not into the story and you just wanna make your own story you could still definitely do that by declining or losing or joining the “wrong side” of event battles wiping out factions early and there would still be room for interesting things like if you’re playing as Cao Cao and you recruit lu bu instead of killing so you get to have him in battles he wouldn’t have been in like Chibi.

Ok sorry for the long post i love the empires games and also the story so i always wished I could have both. I have lots of ideas for this so if you’re interested ask me something about them. I know Koei will probably never pick any of this up but who knows maybe.