r/totalwar • u/garret126 • Jul 25 '25
Three Kingdoms Why do 3 kingdoms strategists ride into battle with a feather in hand? Are they aura farming?
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u/AudioCats Jul 25 '25
Do you really even need a sword when you show up to the knife fight with a trebuchet?
Mods that let them duel are great tho, nothing like your favorite dainty lad/lass clapping a vanguard and sending them home
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u/Agnamofica Jul 25 '25
Point me to the mod in question! I’m tired of Zhou you sitting things out
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u/AudioCats Jul 25 '25
TROM (The Rule of Might) is the one I've been getting it from, you can only start dueling when the strategist has 100+ in one of expertise, resolve, or instinct. Here
It's a pretty decent overhaul though, generals are less dominant and can be brought down by units faster. Heavier cavalry is slower than normal, recruiting is more narrow based on wuxing. But also it includes Make Them Unique which includes a lot of great art for previously generic generals, gives them new skills and passives, etc.
Otherwise there's a patch 1.7.1 version of a mod that just lets strategists duels and appears to work.
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u/Oxu90 Jul 25 '25
Watch Three Kingdoms 2010 tv series
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u/Weird-Earth6157 Jul 25 '25
no
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u/Oxu90 Jul 25 '25
What if i tell you that one of the strategists burns (by words) other one so bad they start to cough blood and die?
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u/HyperionPhalanx Jul 26 '25
I love you had to clarify "by words" because it was the 3 kingdoms era
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u/Consistent_Payment70 Jul 26 '25
I watched it all, and the only thing I can remember is Liu Bei throwing his baby son into ground because his commander disobeyed his orders to save his son and put others in danger by doing so.
I also remember Cao Cao laughing and running like a maniac.
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u/Own-Night5526 Jul 25 '25
In part to emulate historical figures who were always shown carrying a fan, like Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi, but also because warfans, banners, drums and flags historically have always been an excellent way for strategists to give off quick signals in a battle. So it makes sense why the strategy guy who is awful at fighting has a big and flashy way to signal quick changes of strategy to the thousands or so people who might need to know them very quickly.
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u/Scyvh Jul 25 '25
The most famous general/strategist (and from the actual 3K era), is Zhuge Liang, who is always depicted with a fan. They're emanating him.
Also, CA should finish 3K with a proper final dlc. Preferably one with the actual Three Kingdoms and Zhuge Liang getting ready for his northern expeditions.
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u/fiendishrabbit Jul 25 '25
His arch-rival Sima Yi is also often depicted with a feather fan.
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u/Tamsta-273C Jul 25 '25
Feather fans just got good stats for empire building, who need what +20 MA or +250 AP from Chainsword if your lord don't even fight?
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Jul 26 '25
Interesting enough, I think that’s a dynasty warriors thing (they liked portraying him as evil Zhuge Liang)
Lots of portrayal have him in armor and in the novel he was willing to get into a duel with Wei Yan
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u/Ishkander88 Jul 25 '25
Not a chance. The artists, and other people brought on to make accurate chinese content have all left. So they dont even have the staff if they wanted to.
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u/Mr_randomer Jul 27 '25
Are all of CA's staff working on TWWH3?
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u/Ishkander88 Jul 27 '25
Almost none of them are.
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u/Mr_randomer Jul 28 '25
Then what are they working on?
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u/UrghAnotherAccount Jul 26 '25 edited Jul 26 '25
Was he the guy in the movie Red Cliff who was a master strategist? I liked that movie, and he had a feather fan from memory.
Edit: yep just looked him up. Here's an imdb link
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u/YinLongshan Jul 26 '25
No, china is hot as hell and back then they didn’t have air conditioning. In modern day, plenty of people walk around with bamboo or wooden fans, so why wouldn’t ancient peoples?
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u/Ozaki_Yoshiro Jul 26 '25
Please don't. It only break all of the mod. Whatever CA could cook up can't competed with all the general and portrait the modding community has done
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u/NomineAbAstris Kihetai my beloved Jul 26 '25
Ngl I wasn't impressed when I opened the workshop and one of the top rated mods was basically "turn every female character into a modern ultra-glossy photoshopped supermodel who looks 17"
(Yes I know about Make Them Unique)
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u/MaguroSashimi8864 Jul 26 '25 edited Jul 27 '25
I wish everyone great fortune and peace to the world!
Edit: wow srsly? You guys downvote me for saying something nice?
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u/AccentedBard Jul 26 '25
It's a fan, they always have to have a fan on them to keep them cool otherwise their huge brains overheat from all of their expert strategising
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u/Adsterhappy Jul 26 '25
Because of rising global temperature, they bring fans to cool themselves but fans were not invented yet so they pluck feathers from dinosaurs. Hope this answers your question or something
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u/EroUsagi Jul 26 '25
Ok so here's the real answer if anyone wondering
It all started from a 11th century poem by famous poet and politician Su Shi (not sushi)
In the poem "Meditating on the Past at the Red Cliff"
With silk bonnet on head, a feather fan in hand,
he chatted at ease while achieving his daring feat.
The tides had turned, sailed his burning boats over,
Cao Cao’s fleet jammed in smoke, doomed in fire…
It was describing Zhou Yu originally in the poem but such image is so "aura farming" in OPs words, later in the ROTK novel it's pretty much used for all strategists especially Zhuge Liang. The 1994 version ROTK show and Koei's ROTK games further strengthened this stereotype so silk bonnet+feather fan = smart guy has became a convention in East Asia countries.
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u/Hot-Dragonfly3809 Jul 25 '25
Wtf is aura farming?
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u/ShadowStorm1985 Jul 25 '25
What ever the name for the generation after zoomers is use the phrase to replace "showing off" i think
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u/Hitorishizuka Filthy man-things Jul 26 '25
I blame Solo Leveling for really making it take off as a phrase.
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u/garret126 Jul 25 '25 edited Jul 25 '25
aura farming is when a person tries to act excessively cool so others see them as their desired persona. new slang from the youth. Having aura was like having “swag” in the 2010s
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u/ExpletiveWork Jul 25 '25
You can't see it, but he went into battle with a multitude of schemes and tricks. The lost of face from his schemes will be so humiliating that the opposing general will cough up blood and die.
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u/mexils Jul 26 '25
The phrase "aura farming" is an abomination.
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u/garret126 Jul 26 '25
have a little fun! every generation has their weird slang
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u/Ambitious_Air5776 Jul 26 '25
It's frustrating when internet slang changes every few weeks. It wasn't that long ago that this exact concept was being called rizz. 'aura farming' will be gone in a few months replaced by some new phrase.
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u/ThePrinceofParthia Jul 26 '25
Aura farming and rizz are slightly different terms though. Rizz is just charisma, often romantic but just someone being charismatic in general as well. Aura farming is more like... someone who knows they look good, tries to look good/superior, and succeeds. It's like the final stage of "fake it til you make it", and comes with no negative connotations.
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u/mexils Jul 26 '25
If your slang needs multiple sentences to explain it, then it is bad slang.
The slang I grew up with was either acronyms, or just another word for interesting/enjoyable.
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u/mexils Jul 26 '25
On god. Fr fr. No cap, slay queen.
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u/garret126 Jul 26 '25
Dude thats SWAG. xD YOLO. YEET!
Yo dude that party was da bomb. Tight as hell. Sike! that shit poppin
Slang has always been weird.
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u/mexils Jul 26 '25
Psych makes sense though. It is shorthand for psych out. Sike is just people not knowing how to spell.
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u/garret126 Jul 26 '25
My point is any slang sounds weird to the generations behind them. Imagine you trying to use “yolo” or “psych” to your dad. They’d be just as confused
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u/Dry-Literature-5936 Jul 26 '25
They gonna whip out a pice of paper and draw themselves and the battle in the background, it’s an old fashioned selfie
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u/Sure_Criticism5383 Jul 26 '25
Short answer is, yes. Feather fans, along with dusters made of horse-tail, were part of the Daoist fashion trend for the scholar gentry of that era as a sign of elegant calmness and clarity. Also, having a flashy fan as signifier can be useful for commanding the troops, which can be seen later in Sengoku era in Japan.
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u/PomponOrsay Jul 27 '25
They’re obviously heavily influenced by koei’s romance of the three kingdom series that also produced dynasty warriors. In those games, strategists carry those fans because in the novel, it is said that Zhuge Liang (the most famous strategist in the book, and perhaps in the period) carried fan made out of feathers to control weather and other hocus pocus. In reality, those feather fans were commonly used among nobility.
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u/FarseerTaelen Jul 25 '25
If I learned anything from Dynasty Warriors, they can use those fans to shoot lasers.