Spearmen before archers, I mutter to myself, as the Gamescom build for Creative Assembly’s Total War: Three Kingdoms spins up. Spearmen before archers. In 20 years of playing Total War games set everywhere and when, from feudal Japan to medieval Europe, that magic mantra has never steered me wrong: it’s the equivalent of i before e except in c , or always hit the treasure chest before opening it in Dark Souls. A Total War battle in which placing spearmen before archers doesn’t at least get you through the opening five minutes is, probably, a sign that Armageddon is imminent. Will Three Kingdoms be the installment that breaks the chain and brings about the fall of civilisation?
Of course not. As the demo battle – a night-time skirmish in the mountains – begins, hundreds of uncouth sword dudes stream from a bamboo forest above the road where my army is innocently ambling along. I dutifully stretch out a welcome mat of the second century’s finest polearms, slide my ranged units behind it, and watch with satisfaction as the ambushers are poked and pecked to a bloody standstill. Then I run a couple of cavalry units up the slope, and swing them round and down into the enemy’s rear in the tactician’s equivalent of a golf clap, scaring the other general off-map in the process. It’s over in seconds, the carnage daubed lavender and orange by combusting trees and the flying lanterns that, in Three Kingdoms, stylishly telegraph the discovery of hidden units. But wait, what’s that unholy trumpeting in the distance?