hello good evening and welcome to the

next in our two-part series examining

diplomacy in total war Three Kingdoms

three kingdoms marks the most extensive

rewrite of total wars diplomacy system

to date and in the last video we covered

deal-making

haggling saber-rattling and more today

we'll be dealing with the different

forms of alliance and how they can help

you to broker major blocks of power

across the campaign map there are now

two key forms of alliance coalition's

and military alliances each offers

different levels of choice commitment

and control and they also share some

important features both forms can have

multiple members enabling you to build

large power blocks for mutual benefit

and simply by being in a coalition or

alliance with other warlords your

diplomatic standing with the other

members increases coalition's and

military alliances also benefit the

mobility of your armies here we're in

the early phases of a campaign playing

as yuan shao who's currently besieging a

town owned by the Han Empire as he's in

enemy territory we can see he's getting

a major negative to his armies military

supply as each turn meanwhile his eldest

son neurontin is holding the front at

home and instead gathering supplies each

turn coalition's and military alliances

give you new trucks of friendly

territory in which to wrest replenish

and resupply before striking out into

enemy lands once more so let's break

down the two forms of Alliance a

coalition is a looser lower commitment

sort of arrangement than a military

alliance forming a coalition is

relatively easy as long as you have a

neutral or better diplomatic standing

with the other party being at war with a

mutual enemy is also a definite bonus of

course let's see if we can get a

coalition signed with Liu Bei he names

his price which we can run afford and

yes the pact is signed now if we arrange

the diplomatic faction list by group we

can see we're now part of the newly

formed thundering

sky coalition once a coalition is signed

any member can invite another warlord to

join but like many major actions that a

warlord wishes to perform in a coalition

the consent of all parties is required

so if we go on to invite a new warlord

to the coalition for example the action

will be voted on by the other members

and the majority rules so if we propose

inviting cells out to the coalition for

example we can see Liu Bei looks well

upon this diplomatic standing plays a

strong role in voting of course so the

higher your standing with other members

the more likely it'll be that they'll

vote in favor of any coalition action

you declare now that we're in a

coalition we gain visibility over our

fellow members lands where our armies

can of course now resupply on their

travels in addition you can only switch

characters in their retinues out of

armies in friendly territory and allied

territory counts as this being in a

coalition also means you're

strengthening ties with increasingly

friendly factions that might join you in

your Wars but that is not a given this

early in the game for example with

relatively small holdings and Wars of

their own to contend with our coalition

Powell's may not be so inclined to join

in as a loose arrangement there's no

formal obligation for coalition members

to join each other's wars so as we

declare war on you and Shu we see

there's no vote required we can then of

course go cap in hand to our coalition

members afterwards and seek their

individual support in such a war but

their military support will still need

some negotiation especially if a

coalition member is friendly towards the

warlord you've just declared war on in

short you can merrily engage in private

Wars without involving the entire

competition

coalition's are easy to arrange and easy

to leave to but the benefits to

maintaining a coalition are clear not

least that the longer you're in a

coalition the better your diplomatic

standing the certain functions becomes

if a faction joins and it turns out to

be a thorn in your side you can call a

vote to kick them out enabling you to

manage membership provided the other

members agree jumping into a later safe

now let's take a look at military

alliances now these are a higher

commitment form of Alliance and all odds

will need to be at the faction ranked

8th Marquess to sign one though this is

not required to join an existing

Alliance you can also transition a

coalition into a military alliance on

the strength of a vote and again the

warlord who proposes this must be a

Marquess or better yan showers current

coalition sees them in league with

rubião and his vessels plus Wang Kwang

and sow sow sow sow and liubao are all

for it Bart Wang Quan isn't meaning

three in favor and one against so one

Quang leaves the party and we form a

military alliance with Telcel and Lu Bo

the key differences between coalition's

and military alliances revolve around

the notion of shared defense as soon as

a military alliance is signed you become

part of a defensive pact if war is

declared against a member of an alliance

that member may choose to fight the

aggressor in the private war or call

their allies to arms all members of the

Alliance are duty-bound to uphold this

and will then enter the war you can also

declare an alliance war against a third

party which of course goes to an

immediate vote with the members if the

majority vote YES the Alliance will go

to war with the target faction there are

only two ways to resolve an alliance war

either you leave the alliance and sign

peace with the opposing belligerents on

your own terms

all the Alliance votes as a group and

once again a majority vote is needed on

both sides to bring peace any minorities

opposing peace will leave the Alliance

and continue in private wars against the

original targets neither coalition's or

alliances stop you from engaging in

private Wars of course you can still

declare war or sign peace with other

individual factions at your leisure

now all of this adds up to a system

where over the course of a campaign

you'll see coalition's form over time as

different warlords goals and situations

align the AI understands the value of

such arrangements and will engage in

them frequently some coalition's will be

fleeting and will fall apart as goals

diverge some will endure to become

distinct power blocks and some will

solidify into powerful military

alliances that the world begins to

revolve around indeed wars between

significant long-term alliances become

more common as the campaign reaches its

later stages

another classic diplomacy feature also

makes its return in Three Kingdoms and

that's region trading alongside food

money and Salieri's and numerous other

diplomatic treaties territory can now be

used as a bargaining tool in diplomacy

and it's about the most valuable

commodity going it's a useful way of

garnering major value to strike big

deals especially later in the campaign

where you may have a surfeit of

territory if we approached sow sow and

click the trade territory option all our

owned regions are shown listed by

commandery with their constituent

regions detailed below you can only

trade away regions which are adjacent to

the territory of the warlord you're

dealing with so if we were to offer

territory to sow sow we can see that

only yuen tsuen commandery is tradable

as it's the only one next to his land as

you can see productive farmland is very

desirable so we can demand a lot in

return in this case let's try for food

per turn for ten turns and a regular

payment of 500 gold per turn but a

big-ticket item like attractive farmland

can be useful in deals where the

warlords asking price may be high in

aggregate these many changes to

diplomacy enable you to achieve more

than ever before with a host of new

big-ticket assets to trade and with the

ability to forge mighty alliances

between powerful warlords the campaign

power-play in total war three kingdoms

is it once more subtle more complex and

more far-reaching than ever before thank

you for watching and stay tuned for more

three kingdoms gameplay coming very soon

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