This week, Creative Assembly made its first big gameplay reveal of the new year, with a new video highlighting the mechanics of Total War: Three Kingdoms spies. Like many of the game’s mechanics, those of spies have gotten some big changes and improvements. Specifically, the game has an entirely new system called the ‘Undercover Network.’
How the Mechanics Work for Total War: Three Kingdoms Spies
The gameplay video released earlier this week shows an extract of campaign gameplay; something which has only been shown sparingly thus far by Creative Assembly. The video reveals a new spy system called the ‘Undercover Network’. This is apparently “an entirely new paradigm to Total War.” The first example of this system shows that players will be able to release characters from their service into a ‘global recruitment pool’. This allows other factions to recruit them. As a result, you can use this system to secretly seed spies among your rival factions. Although this risks the character joining a rival for real, or even starting a new independent faction, if they become dissatisfied with you. Interestingly, this network system will be available to all other factions as well, meaning that new characters you recruit could actually be enemy spies.
The video also gives a glimpse at the Total War: Three Kingdoms ‘Reforms’ menu, which is the game’s faction upgrade tree; in this case, represented as a literal tree. The video shows several spy-related reforms. These include ones to boost the size of your undercover network and reduce the cost of its operation. According to Creative Assembly, the spy system has two resources; Undercover Network Points, which is a faction-wide resource representing the strength of the network, while Cover Points indicate how well hidden a single spy is.
Spies are capable of utilising a variety of abilities once in the service of another faction. They can improve or stymie trade, improve diplomatic relations, or even discredit other characters and factions by spreading malicious rumours. They can also send false orders, leak orders to another faction, or poison provisions. It sounds as though spies will be more important and more powerful than ever in Total War: Three Kingdoms.