Heroes' Vow: Three Kingdoms

Heroes' Vow: Three Kingdoms is a single-player RPG set during the late Han and Three Kingdoms era. You take the role of a hero and choose how to shape your life: serve a lord as a loyal general, rule your own domain, or roam as a free officer with private troops. You can build alliances, fight battles, influence historical events and pursue your own ambitions across a world spanning a strategic map, city interfaces and local scenes.

Roles and rule

As a ruler, you manage cities directly or delegate them to Governors. You balance each city's economy, invest surplus funds in armies and recruitment, develop technology and pursue strategies to expand your power. When your forces are ready, you can campaign against other cities and seek to unite the realm, or entrust your faction to a confidant and travel the land.

As an officer, you earn merit and influence through service and quarterly assessments. You can rise to Governor of a city and then Viceroy of a region, observing major events or intervening with advice and by taking part in pivotal battles. As a free officer, you can trade, manage property, build Private Barracks, raise Private Troops and sign Mercenary Agreements with factions. Mutual trust with warlords can lead to Pacts of Faith, letting you take part in historical events across multiple factions.

Battles and abilities

The game has three combat modes: Legion Battles, Combat and Debates. Legion Battles are real-time strategy battles in which you aim to destroy enemy forces and capture their buildings. More than 100 maps cover five types of battlefield: Field Battles, Siege Battles, County Battles, Naval Battles and Pass Battles.

You can command as the supreme commander or fight as an officer in the ranks. Direct armies, use officer skills, deploy formations and siege engines, and draw on the tactics and counters of more than 30 troop types. Combat and Debates use turn-based card battle mechanics. Develop each officer's Command Spirit, Martial Spirit and Mind Spirit, collect Three Spirit Points, and combine thousands of spirits and skills to shape builds such as Assault, Defense, Crit, Counter, Evasion and Damage Reflect.

History and scenarios

More than 20 starting scenarios span major events from The Yellow Turban Rebellion to The Battle of Xiling. The world includes over 1,300 historical officers, represented by more than 2,000 full-body animated portraits. You can create officers before starting, and randomly generated officers continue to appear as the game unfolds.

The game covers nearly a century of history, from the Yellow Turban Rebellion to the fall of Eastern Wu, through more than a hundred scenarios and over 2 million words of narrative. Events can be experienced from different roles and faction perspectives, and you can change their outcomes through military skill, martial prowess or debate. At the Battle of Chibi, for example, you can play as Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Sun Quan, Zhuge Liang, Zhou Yu or an officer in their ranks. In Cao Cao's camp, winning a Debate can spare Cai Mao and Zhang Yun from execution and bring them into your service; you can also defeat the Sun-Liu coalition in the naval battle.

You can alter other historical outcomes too: help Yuan Shao win the Battle of Guandu, lead Liu Bei to victory over Wu at the Battle of Yiling, or assist the Prime Minister in the Northern Expeditions to restore the Han Dynasty. You can also save figures whose lives end in the historical record, including Pan Feng, Xing Daorong, Gao Shun, Tian Feng, Ju Shou, Lu Zhi, Guo Jia, Sun Ce, Zhou Yu, Pang Tong, Xiahou Yuan, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhang He and Zhuge Liang. Some of the people you rescue or bring into your circle can become family members and help you pursue power.

Personal relationships can also take different paths. You can save Diaochan from sacrificing herself in the Ensnare plot, prevent Cao Pi from forcibly taking Zhen Mi, compete with Zhuge Liang for Huang Yueying, or take Sun Ce and Zhou Yu's place to marry the Two Qiaos. The game also lets you pursue the unrealized ambitions of Prime Minister Cao and Jiang Wei.

Relationships and family

You can befriend any officer by talking about Topics, sharing drinks, giving gifts, cockfighting, sparring, traveling together, tutoring one another, helping with tasks or taking on officer quests. Relationships can grow into friendship and best friendship, mentorship or discipleship, and sworn siblinghood. You can fall in love, marry, share intimate moments, have children and raise heirs; special means can also win over married women. Build a family, manage property and develop talented heirs, or retreat with your kin to sacred mountains and great rivers to train in martial arts and eloquence.

A party of up to five members can travel with you. Invite officers, travel with spouses, hire mercenaries for protection or hire Wagon teams to run trade routes. Companions appear with you in story events and fight beside you in Combat. The family system also includes powerful aristocratic clans that compete for property and control of the Market, form temporary pacts or plot against you.

A changing world

Officers pursue their own ambitions. They may leave their liege or rebel if dissatisfied; free officers can raise Private Troops, take counties and seize vulnerable or abandoned cities to establish themselves as rulers. Officers form bonds and rivalries, and newborn children may arrive each year. Factions can form Vertical Alliances against the strongest power, while their target can organize a Horizontal Alliance in response. As a ruler, you can choose which alliance to join.

Travel across the map to encounter robbers, bandits, barbarian warbands and beasts, as well as peddlers, master blacksmiths and an elusive Immortal. In cities, you can take commissions for rewards, including Resurrection, which can bring a fallen officer back to life; the Five Sacred Mountains Pilgrimage, which improves your abilities; the Martial Arts Marriage Contest, where you can win a bride; and Like Father, Like Daughter, which lets you entice a good friend's daughter to serve your cause. The capital also hosts an annual Grand Tournament with martial duels, Debates and tactical command trials.

Events can take place in your residence: officers may invite you to drink, challenge you to cockfighting or ask to travel together, while lovers, beloveds, spouses and other officers may visit. If you know medicine, you can help treat sick officers at the Clinic. Poor Order can lead to theft, assassin ambushes or plots by rival officers; you can capture culprits and send them to prison. Seasonal festivals bring events such as New Year's Eve banquets, Spring Festival gatherings, Shangsi excursions and Dragon Boat Festival dumpling feasts. Qixi and Double Ninth improve the success rate of their corresponding interactions.

Each city can suffer six types of disaster: earthquake, flood, drought, locust swarm, plague and snowstorm. These cause varying losses to commerce, agriculture, population and buildings. You can also visit notable mountains and rivers with companions to train, tame bears and tigers, and deploy them in Combat.

Commerce and customization

Trade goods between cities with a Wagon caravan, or establish a Trading House and assign family members to manage it for an automated income. Family officers can also oversee Private Troops and city property, or research Family Technology to improve the combat strength of those troops. Other systems include forging, weaving and identification.

Before beginning a game, you can create custom officers or introduce a new faction. You can also edit historical officers' portraits, 3D models, poses and attributes.