Total War Three Kingdoms How Character Relationships Influence Combat

The generals in Total War Three Kingdoms are going to form their opinions on your ruler based on how they handle their negotiations and how they treat special events in the game

The character relationships in Total War Three Kingdoms provides a unique layer of intrigue and gameplay as the generals of your faction base their opinions on how you handle certain situations. You may notice special events that get introduced to you sway a particular character’s influence, or how you handle negotiations with other factions does this, too. It’s essential to keep these relationships in mind because they affect the combat of your generals and the specific bonuses they receive while fighting alongside your leader.

Total War Three Kingdoms Character Relationships

What Do They Mean?

To review your character relationships, you’ll want to head on over to the Court page, which you can do so by pressing the “2” button. Hit this, and you’ll see three tabs. You want to hit the third tab that reads “Characters.” This section brings up the massive, complicated tree of all the connections your leader has, and the relationships your generals have with other individuals they have interacted with during your campaign.

At a glance, you’re going to see a green or red aura around the character’s portrait. These colors are giving you a brief overview of how the relationship is going. The green aura means there’s a positive relationship between the two and they get along, whereas the red aura means it’s a more hostile relationship. The direct connections from your leader to the character is how their relationship is going. The smaller links you see, forming around the generals in your character page are their relationships. You can view these to see which generals get along with one another, and which ones are more aggressive to each other.

For more in-depth information, you can hover over the portraits to see what is influencing these generals. Some of them may approve of how you handle negotiations or the fact you’re consistently at war with other factions. Others may disagree with your leadership abilities. They may feel how you treat other factions is unfair, or the fact you’ve lost together means they do not trust you. Little choices you make during your campaign determine these outcomes, and they can change in future playthroughs.

How Do These Relationships Matter?

When your generals have a positive relationship with you, it can influence how they fight alongside you. When you have two characters fight with each other in combat who view each other positively, they’re going to give additional defensive bonuses to one another as they fight. On the flip side of that, those who see each other negatively may find themselves fighting with new zeal. There are not as many negative bonuses to having two generals who butt heads, as it increases their interest to fight the enemy.

You’ll want to keep these two generals close to maximize these bonuses and ensure you’re benefiting the most from your unit placement. These relationships go beyond your faction’s leader, too. These count for all of your army’s generals, so make sure you’re keeping them together and supplying them with helpful bonuses to contribute the most to their fighting style.