Creative Assembly has now released the second post-launch Total War: Three Kingdoms update, and this latest release addresses some of the game’s more noticeable bugs. Have you noticed how Yuan Shao likes to vassalise the entirety of China? Thankfully, that should now be a thing of the past. However, the game’s updates are currently in beta, and as such, they don’t download automatically on Steam. To get them, you need to manually opt into the beta.
How to Get the Latest Total War: Three Kingdoms Update
The second Total War: Three Kingdoms update primarily addresses game stability and a variety of bugs. In order to download it, you need to pull up the game page in your Steam library. Right-click on the the Total War: Three Kingdoms entry in the library sidebar, then select Properties. In the Properties pop-up box, select the Betas tab. Here, you should be able to select from a drop-down menu which lists “update_beta” as an option. Once you select this, you’ll automatically opt into the beta. From now on, Steam will download new beta updates automatically.
While the focus is on addressing stability, the new patch does fix some specific problems. The first of these is, as the patch notes put it; “Yuan Shoa’s desire to vassalise every faction under the sun.” Apparently, Creative Assembly will be keeping an eye on this issue to see if it requires further change, but for now, Yuan Shao’s likelihood to vassalise factions has been significantly reduced. Additionally, generals who don’t have the “Cruel” trait will no longer trigger the “Flogging the Troops,” event. A bug had been causing this event to trigger for generals like Liu Bei, for whom it makes no sense.
Additionally, the patch also fixes a bug which meant that the event where Zhao Yun joins Liu Bei wasn’t always triggering properly. Finally, the chance of Dong Zhuo dying at the historically appropriate time have been reduced. This means that there is a greater likelihood of the tyrant surviving later into the game, making it slightly easier for players to unlock him. Dong Zhuo can only be unlocked to play after players reach the rank of King, or defeat his army in battle.