One thing that sets Total War apart from the rest is how passionate the modding community has become over the years. With each Total War release, the community finds new ways to give us new content, keeping every title fresh. With the latest Total War Saga: Troy keeping players entertained, it could be fun to revisit some other releases. Total War: Three Kingdoms isn’t really old, but there’s always room for improvement! And here are some of the best mods that really will improve the gameplay.
40. Enhanced Battle Camera
Check Out This Mod Camera enhancements are typically a must-have for strategy games, especially those as big as Three Kingdoms. In combat with hundreds of units scattered across the battlefield, things can be… hectic. It’s important to have visibility of what’s going on at all times. This Enhanced Battle Camera mod gives you more control of the in-game camera by allowing you to zoom closer or further away as you see fit. There are additional options that make combat more exciting to watch, with cinematic options to remove the UI for better immersion too.
39. Make Them Unique
Check Out This Mod When it comes to visuals, Three Kingdoms isn’t that dated. While this is the best-looking Total War game to date, the community has continued to find ways to make the game look ever better. With small adjustments here and there, stronger graphics can greatly improve historical accuracy and unit designs too. Make Them Unique is the first of these graphics mods, giving some of the lower-tier generals unique appearances. It was disappointing to some fans that the unique characters were only given generic portraits and models. This mod gives them unique items and appearances to totally fix that.
38. Generals Face Overhaul
Check Out This Mod Another little detail that you may have missed – generals are each given unique portraits based on historical precedent. But when you zoom into their models on the field, it appears like their faces weren’t given much attention. Well poo on that! The Generals Face Overhaul fixes that, retexturing faces of some of the generals to make them better resemble their portraits. It might seem like a negligible change. But you’d be surprised how much it affects the visuals of the game overall. Some of the generals altered by the mod include Ma Chao, Huang Shao, Ma Teng, and Sima Yi.
37. Better Faces Plus
Check Out This Mod Once you’ve given Generals Face Overhaul a try, there’s no doubt you’ll want face upgrades for all the units you can. From the same creator as the generals mod, deema gives us more facial upgrades with Better Faces Plus. This mod improves unit faces by reducing wrinkles, stubble, eyebags, and other facial features. Faces are actually retextured too, so you’ll have to give both a try to fully appreciate the amount of effort that went into these mods.
36. Historic Weapon Model
Check Out This Mod Three Kingdoms covers one of the most well-known periods in Chinese history. And with that, it’s bound to receive some criticism. While it isn’t expected that the game will cover everything accurately, weapon models play a huge part in what makes the game feel authentic. Thanks to modder harrylee95 we have the Historical Weapon Model pack. It changes some of the weapon models to make them more accurate, as well as adds variety when it comes to units on the battlefield. Some of the weapons covered in the mod include long and short spears, halberds, swords, and even helmet alterations.
35. Horse Equipment Overhaul
Check Out This Mod Another visual upgrade mod by deema, this time focusing on equipment on horses. Like I mentioned earlier, each of these mods might seem like unnecessary minute details on their own. But combined, they make for big improvements to the visuals. This mod distributes different horse armor types to the different generals in the game, giving some unit variety here and there. It can get pretty boring looking at the same unit models copy-pasted across the field. Especially when they’re in the hundreds, and you’ve been playing for weeks on end.
34. Vanilla Units Remaster
Check Out This Mod As if deema hasn’t given us enough, he takes it even further with his Vanilla Units Remaster pack. As he explains in the description, Vanilla Units Remaster aims to add more variety to units. The goal is to avoid repetition in design, but still keep the styles very similar to the original game’s style. What it actually does is adds more than 25 face variations, along with equipment, weapons, and civilian models. All in one pack! You might be so used to the same models appearing over and over again that you hardly notice it anymore. But give this a try along with deema’s other mods, you’ll see a difference.
33. More Flag Variations In Battle
Check Out This Mod One more mod that adds a bit of variety to something so small is this More Flag Variations mod. Modder contactnovuspc gives us a few new versions of war banners, just to spice things up a bit. You probably didn’t pay much attention to those flags your armies carried out into battle, maybe just brushing them off as another insignificant detail. Well this mod sees them as a very specific detail! It simply adds more immersion to the Three Kingdoms combat experience, and of course it’s totally free, so who could pass this one up?
32. Enhanced Dust Particles
Check Out This Mod Environmental effects play a huge part in the visuals of combat. And thanks to modding, all of this can be improved as well. To start off we have Enhanced Dust Particles by modders [HT] Philip and Petellius. This mod is actually based on a Total War: Rome II mod of the same name, bringing the same effect to Three Kingdoms. It basically gives battles a more realistic look by improving dust effects on the battlefield. Units will kick up more dust as they move across fields, giving combat a more cinematic look.
31. Realistic Battle Blood
Check Out This Mod I don’t think a war could be called a war if there wasn’t any bloodshed. And that’s one way to improve the overall look of combat in Three Kingdoms, specifically with the Realistic Battle Blood mod by kelstr. While the game provides a blood decal slider in the options panel, kelstr wasn’t satisfied. Specifically with how blood would show up more on units, but not affect the environment. This mod fixes that by drastically increasing blood spatters on the ground around battling units. According to kelstr, setting the slider at around 50-60% will already give you a realistic effect, so maxing it out will probably make everything a bloody mess. Sounds like a good time to me!
30. Arrow Trails Redux
Check Out This Mod While the Total War series has become known for the scale of battles, it can easily get a bit cluttered at times. You know, given the large numbers of units and everything going on at once. These games are known to break lower-end PCs and push graphics cards to the limit. While your setup might be powerful enough to run large-scale battles without any visual impact, you might not be able to enjoy it much, as things can get really messy pretty quickly. Arrow Trails Redux aims to help with that by removing arrow and smoke trails. Don’t worry though, you’ll still be able to track your projectiles with added highlighting effects. It’ll just be easier to see everything else that’s going on.
29. kelstr_cinematic_campaign
Check Out This Mod If you’re looking for a more cinematic way to enjoy battle scenes overall, kelstr’s Cinematic Campaign mod might be exactly what you need. The mod makes the game much more enjoyable to watch, focusing on visual improvements through an updated map, new lighting effects, camera angles, and even a simplified UI. With all these improvements combined, the game just looks stunning. The lighting effects make for dramatic sunsets, and the UI improvements make it much easier to appreciate the visuals you’re given. Ultimately this is a great way to enjoy the game from a more passive approach, which is definitely what some of us need after a long work week.
28. Tiered Unit Cards
Check Out This Mod Most graphics mods make visual improvements solely for the purpose of making things look a bit better. Others aim to make the game easier to understand. Tiered Unit Cards is a perfect example of that, as the unit options in these games can easily get overwhelming. Taking the right units into battle is one of the most important decisions you’re going to have to make in Three Kingdoms. And Tiered Unit Cards makes that task a little bit easier for you. This mod makes changes to all unit cards, adding a tier rating loosely based on unit cost. This makes it a bit easier to distinguish which units are more valuable than others, so you won’t have to spend too much time preparing for combat.
27. Captains For All Units
Check Out This Mod With Three Kingdoms changing things up and focusing more on heroes, previous Total War games always featured captains at the head of each unit. They were easily identifiable since they would always have unique headgear, and would always stand ahead of each unit to lead them into battle. This wasn’t included in Three Kingdoms. Modder ProPanda wanted to bring it back. With Captains For All Units, you’ll now have exactly that: a captain at the forefront of each unit, with a unique weapon depending on their type, along with increased HP so they can last longer in battle.
26. No Death By Old Age
Check Out This Mod There’s always a lot going in Total War. This can make the series quite intimidating to newer players, since the learning curve is pretty steep. Lucky for us, there are mods that simplify things a bit. So newbies rejoice! In Three Kingdoms, one of the toughest parts of the game is losing one of your characters to old age. He might have been your favorite warrior, and while you were still counting on him to win most of the battles ahead, his time had to come eventually. Or did it? With this mod you can basically give characters immortality. You won’t have to worry about randomly losing characters anymore, as they just never die. Well, of old age.
25. Some Death By Old Age
Check Out This Mod Obviously, never dying of old age isn’t totally realistic, right? Well modder Norse offers a less drastic option for those who want a more realistic Three Kingdoms playthrough. This mod does exactly as the name suggests, giving characters a 5% chance of death starting at the age of 70. Death chances increase as they age, reaching up to 50% as they approach 100 years. But who wants to live to 100 anyways?
24. Han Character Hoarding Nerf
Check Out This Mod Here’s another mod that makes the game a bit easier to get through. While it does make the game less challenging, it’s considered as a must-have by many Three Kingdoms fans. Many players seem to agree that the Han’s ability to mass-recruit generals is just unbalanced, and this nerf aims to alter that. Instead of hoarding generals with no limits, The Han Empire are now required to pay their recruits and keep them happy as well. This prevents them from keeping all the generals in their pocket for the entire game, without really doing anything to make them stay.
23. Respec Character Skills
Check Out This Mod A lot goes into getting characters in Three Kingdoms, and you’ll probably find that you’ve spent way too much time buttering up a faction just to get your hands on their hero. Once you finally do, you’re disappointed to find that the AI decided to spend their skill points on random attributes. Which basically renders the character useless. Here’s a quick fix so you’ll never have to experience that problem again. This mod resets the skill points of each character you recruit, so you can choose how they’re distributed based on your own needs.
22. Recruited unique character can use their special units
Check Out This Mod Another cool feature of Three Kingdoms is that each faction has an assigned special unit that can be recruited into battle. In each faction, only the hero character within that faction has the ability to recruit the special units. This becomes troublesome once you start recruiting heroes to join your own army. Once a hero character is acquired by a different faction, he loses the ability to recruit his previous faction’s special unit. That’s a bummer isn’t it? That ability is a huge part of what makes each hero desirable. Well with this quick fix by Alex Zhao, you’ll no longer be unable to call those units in battle.
21. Havie Improved Skill Trees
Check Out This Mod Modder Havie felt that many of the skill trees in the base game were quite repetitive, despite there being six different templates for each character class. With Havie’s modded skill trees, players are given more flexibility in terms of character development. This allows your characters to excel at different roles depending which you choose. You’ll have more freedom to tailor-fit development of each character, depending on your needs as well. Do note that the mod was made specifically for Romance mode, so this is a cool mod to try if that’s what you’re looking for.
20. All Factions Playable
Check Out This Mod As with every other Total War game, there are always factions that appear throughout your playthroughs that you never get to play as. This mod basically makes all factions across the map playable in the main campaign, giving you tons of new options to choose from. If you’ve played through the campaign a couple of times before, this is a great way to get more out of Three Kingdoms. Long-time fans will absolutely want to try out this mod.
19. Unlocker All 9 Formation (New Game Only)
Check Out This Mod This time we’re focusing on giving more options to explore in battle. Unlocker All 9 Formation takes a few hidden battle formations that didn’t quite make it to the final version of the game, and makes them available for you to use during combat. It might not do much, but it will give a few new battle formations to play around with, making combat a bit more dynamic. Note this only works in a new game file so you’ll have to install it, then start a new game to get it to work. Keep an eye out for future updates and maybe this will get fixed.
18. Heroes Join Your Faction
Check Out This Mod The Three Kingdoms Era included many notable names. And while Creative Assembly did their best to include all of them, you’re just not meant to meet every single one. How it works in TW: Three Kingdoms is you meet some of the unique characters through random world events, but sometimes you’re just not so lucky. Tw1tch’s “Heroes Join Your Faction” mod seeks to change that up, giving a few of the events a 100% spawn rate. With this mod active, the event triggers for Dian Wei, Gan Ning, and Pang Tong, among others, are sure to happen in every playthrough.
17. AI Won’t Execute Characters AI
Check Out This Mod It’s pretty common for the community to find flaws in the AI for these games. While devs almost always argue that AI behavior are placed there for a reason, many fans still feel that they get an improved experienced by adjusting the AI. If you’ve played through Three Kingdoms a few times, you’ve probably fallen victim to at least one of these issues. Lucky for us, we have the AI Won’t Execture Characters mod by Alex Zhao. It sucks when one of your heroes gets captured by an enemy faction. What’s even worse is the possibility that you might lose them forever if the enemy AI decides they should be executed. This mod simply stops that from happening, as execution is no longer an option. Enemy AI will now only have two options for captured characters: either recruit or release them.
16. More Skill Points + Quicker Upgrade
Check Out This Mod Another one from Alex Zhao making the game a bit more fast-paced. Here you won’t have to spend countless hours grinding, as the More Skill Points + Quicker Upgrade mod lets you get those skills a bit faster. What it does is lowers the required experience to level up by 1/3 the amount of the base game. So basically your EXP requirements are dropped by 66%, meaning you’ll move through skill trees much faster. It might be a bit of a cheat. But fun is fun, yeah?
15. More Deployables
Check Out This Mod More deployables is a preference mod which puts added focus on preparing field defenses for coming battles. It just gives you more deployables, allowing you to place 30 stakes instead of the original 16 per group, as well as 60 caltrops instead of 40. Deployables have been rebalanced as well, where stakes have higher HP, allowing them to deal more damage before they’re destroyed. This is balanced out by the changes made to caltrops, where they do less damage, but decrease enemy speed more than before. As of now, only stakes and caltrops are included in the mod. But barricades and sharp stones are already in the pipeline for a future update.
14. 10 Turns Per Year
Check Out This Mod When it comes to pacing, some players just don’t have the patience to play through the stretched-out events of each campaign. As it’s always a matter of preference, there are always those who actually want to stretch the game out even more. A great way to do this is with the 10 Turns Per Year mod by Dresden, doubling the original amount of turns per year to 10. This means that you’ll be able to get more done in shorter amounts of time, allowing for much more to happen in the course of one in-game year.
13. 15 Turns Per Year
Check Out This Mod Now if things still aren’t fast enough for you, Dresden offers an even more prolonged option, giving you 15 turns per year. Imagine how much you’ll be able to achieve in a year with 15 turns.
12. Division of Empire
Check Out This Mod Other than modified game mechanics, there are also a few mods that introduce new features ones. If you’re looking to jazz up the campaign experience, Division of Empire is a great mod to start with. It changes how the Han Empire behaves, dividing each of its governors into their own independent minor factions after 8 turns in the campaign. This makes campaign politics play out much differently, adding new aspects of diplomacy that were previously not present in the base game. The mod also enhances AI to make for a much more interesting playthrough. Give it a try and see what you think!
11. Create Vassals: Grant Administrator Independence
Check Out This Mod Here’s one of the more original mods out there for Three Kingdoms. The Create Vassals mod introduces a new political action, which allows you to release an administrator, resulting in his own faction. When this option is selected, the administrator takes his commander along with him, and the newly-formed faction becomes your vassal. This was previously a random event that could trigger during a campaign. But this mod gives you control over when and how it happens.
10. Better Diplomacy
Check Out This Mod With Better Diplomacy, modder DonkeyWorld takes inspiration from strategy games like Europa Universalis IV and Galactic Civilizations II. The idea is to make AI improvements when it comes to diplomatic decision-making. Some of the tweaks include encouraging more long-term deals, discouraging warmongering, and an added focus on forming coalitions. These changes all make for a better AI experience, making your enemies less predictable, and making political events more engaging.
9. Sleeping Tiger of Tianshan
Check Out This Mod So we’ve seen a lot of mods, but how about community custom maps? Sleeping Tiger of Tianshan is one of the best examples, and is especially exciting playing with a few friends. The map is medium-sized and features an elevated walled town in the center. The town has four entry points and is surrounded by open fields, leaving attackers with unlimited tactical options to make their approach.
8. New Faction : Goguryeo
Check Out This Mod Another option is to introduce a completely new faction to the game. Modders ADMIRAL and bastet do exactly that, adding Goguryeo to the playable factions in the Three Kingdoms campaign. Goguryeo is actually a historical Korean kingdom, and the new faction has its own set of units and buffs. This includes updates for horsed units which an interesting dynamic to the game. The faction is rated as very hard, so this should make for a challenging new experience for veteran players.
7. Dynamic Campaign+
Check Out This Mod Dynamic Campaign+ is perfect for those who prefer to leave the game as-is, but also want variety across different playthroughs. Think of it as a NG+ for Three Kingdoms, as the modder himself explains that Dynamic Campaign+ aims to increase the replayability of the campaign. And I’d say it absolutely delivers on that goal. The mod randomizes certain choices and faction attributes throughout the game, so each playthrough will present a unique set of challenges to overcome.
6. Unify After Long Divide
Check Out This Mod There are actually a lot of “total overhaul” style mods choose from when it comes to Three Kingdoms, so I suggest giving each a try to see which you like the most. To start off we have Unify After Long Divide. As with most total overhauls, the mod introduces loads of new units for you to play with. Major changes have also been made to the morale system, greatly affecting how the campaign plays out.
5. Wu Kingdaissance
Check Out This Mod If you’re looking to stay close to vanilla gameplay, why not try a complete graphics overhaul instead? Wu Kingdaissance is really a terrific option, as it essentially reskins all the famous characters in the game. The mod impressively modifies almost 300 characters, with over 100 new models including weapons, mounts, and ancillaries. This also introduces a few new special abilities to boot, all based on true historical events surrounding each character.
4. Radious Total War Mod
Check Out This Mod Radious has become a pretty well-known name when it comes to Total War mods. And the team is back with another total overhaul for Three Kingdoms. This mod touches on everything from adding new units (over 70 unique units), faction mechanics, economy features, and AI. With the Radious Total War mod, you’re sure to get a completely unique campaign that’ll keep you busy for weeks on end.
3. SFO: Three Dragons
Check Out This Mod Now another popular option to try is SFO: Three Dragons. The mod team themselves explain that SFO basically updates every single aspect of the game, with the sole purpose being a much harder experience. Looking to actually have some troubles in-game? This should be your go-to mod. Everything is new here, including battle mechanics, terrain, heroes, and it even comes with a fresh new UI.
2. TROM OVERHAUL
Check Out This Mod TROM, or The Rule Of Might, is another mod if you’re looking for a completely fresh Three Kingdoms run. This mod actually combines the Make Them Unique visual upgrades with the gameplay changes of HVO, to make for a completely different Three Kingdoms game, visually and gameplay-wise. I mean, it might as well basically be a totally new game! Other than the MTU graphics changes, this mod offers new unique characters, buildings, and battle mechanics, plus quite a bit of smaller changes you’ll notice as you play.
1. Beneath A Red Sky: A Battle Overhaul
Check Out This Mod Ranking at the top here (but definitely not the absolute go-to) we have Beneath a Red Sky. Beneath a Red Sky isn’t actually a single mod. It’s more a collection of little gameplay mods combined, that all drastically change combat in Three Kingdoms. While staying true to vanilla as much as possible, BARS aims to make combat much more realistic, immersive, and historically accurate. The mod places a larger emphasis on fatigue and morale during battles, along with updated unit behaviors to make battles more epic and drawn-out. If you’re a fan of Three Kingdoms for the war aspects, you should definitely give this one a try.
