Now Playing: The Furious Wild (DLC)

The Furious Wild is the first ‘expansion’ content released for Total War: Three Kingdoms. It introduces a new culture type – the Nanman – and features a complete overhaul of the campaign map which has also been expanded to include several new regions in the south-west. Like with the other major DLC releases for 3K, this expansion is accompanied by a patch and free additional content, but this review will only focus upon the pieces that you’re actually paying for.

The Nanman come with four playable factions, each led by a unique character and each with their own unique campaign mechanics. The goal for each faction, however, remains the same – to unite all of the Nanman tribes beneath your banner and form your own Kingdom. Every tribe you confederate through conquest or diplomacy will bring new benefits to your faction through an increase in prestige, the rate of research or by unlocking new units.

Your initial army roster will be somewhat limited, but as each tribe falls beneath your control that roster will rapidly expand to include more than 25 new Nanman specific units. Sword, axe and spear units operate exactly as you’d expect in comparison to their Han equivalents. But the Nanman also get access to more ‘exotic’ units including elephants and tigers.

There are ways the Nanman can get access to the more traditional Han units, but I’m not sure why you’d want to play as the Nanman if you don’t want to create armies full of rampaging tigers and elephants. If you’re accustomed to playing as the Han factions then switching to the Nanman can take some getting used to, but once you do, playing as them in battle can be very enjoyable and they certainly add some welcome variety to the Three Kingdoms campaign. 

The Nanman have their own system of government, although it operates, more or less, just like those of the Han factions. They also have their own unique technology tree and building types, although the core systems of character assignments, satisfaction, faction support, public order, corruption and income types (commerce, industry, peasantry) remains the same. And this is where we run into the main issue I really have with this DLC – the lack of unique cultural mechanics.

Nanman characters don’t have classes like those of the Han factions – no vanguards, champions or strategists. They are, however, subject to the same types of character stats and their related faction / unit benefits – cunning, for example. Nanman units, like their Han counterparts, are also subject to the class based system of ranged (blue) axe & sword (purple) cavalry (red) and spears (green). So a Nanman character with a high cunning (blue) stat, will always be more beneficial when in command of ranged (blue) units. This results in a situation where, even though Nanman characters are not class based, their units and the statistic boosts they provide to those units are.

If a Nanman character has a high cunning base stat, you’ll want to assign them as your unofficial ‘strategist’. These characters can then boost their stats in a particular skill as they level up, and unlock additional benefits by completing personal ‘missions’ based upon various actions – such as winning duels, killing enemies or by increasing the levels of particular units within their retinue. 

To be clear, it’s not as if this system doesn’t work in practice, but it doesn’t feel quite right. As an entirely new culture type I would have expected the Nanman to utilise their own unique class system both for characters and units. Instead, we get a system which is really just a slight twist on the core class system and frankly, isn’t as interesting to manage from a character perspective. 

And that’s my main criticism of this DLC – it doesn’t really go far enough to establish the Nanman as their own unique culture. Too many of the core systems remain the same aside from a slight tweak. Am I expecting too much? I don’t think so, not when this DLC is marketed and more importantly priced as a major expansion.

I do like the Nanman campaign. It feels like a mini-campaign playing out alongside the main campaign. Because of their starting location, you won’t really be interacting with the core factions, not until you unite the tribes and form the Nanman Kingdom. By this time the Han factions will have become more established and powerful and you may, like me, find yourself in a pretty fun and massive border war. But with the formation of the Kingdom your campaign is pretty much finished, and there’s not much incentive to continue on. 

Overall, The Furious Wild is a welcome and decent expansion to Three Kingdoms, but I wouldn’t say it’s an essential one and I do feel the asking price is simply too high given how little of the core faction / character systems this DLC actually changes. The map overhaul is good, the new units are great and I’m glad there’s more variety and conflict centred around the once rather barren southern regions of the map. I’d recommend picking it up at some point, but maybe wait for a sale.

6/10