Corruption in Total War Three Kingdoms Total War Three Kingdoms guide, tips
Last update: 30 May 2019
Corruption is one of the mechanics in Total War: Three Kingdoms, the existence of which most players probably won't even have a clue because it is pretty well hidden. During the first rounds of the game, it has no impact on your faction. However, with the subsequent territories conquered by your forces, its level will grow, absorbing a significant part of the income. How to deal with it? Read this page to find out.
Where does Corruption come from?
In Total War: Three Kingdoms, Corruption appears when there are too many settlements under your faction (they are part of commanderies). Check it by opening the Commanderies view (alt+f4) and move the cursor over the money icon next to any of the settlements. You will see all the costs and revenues of the settlement, along with the level of corruption. The level of corruption informs you how much of the income of the settlement will be wasted - the higher the level of corruption, the higher the costs.
How to reduce Corruption?
There are quite a lot of ways of stopping or reducing the corruption level. You can use:
- The right reforms. Some reforms can reduce the overall level of corruption in the faction by a few percents (for each reform). This is one of the key ways and its "free" - you can reduce corruption, without investing gold.
- Constructing the right buildings in the settlements. Some of the buildings for the commanderies give you a huge list of various benefits and they reduce the corruption level. Interestingly, there are buildings that allow you to reduce its level in the nearby commanderies.
- Assigning posts at the Court. Mainly administration posts - any person assigned to this post reduces the level of corruption by 30%.
- Decreasing the pace at which you expand your territories. Although tempting, conquesting territories reinforce the effect of corruption. Instead, you can use diplomacy (more details in "Diplomacy and trade" chapter) to, for example, get a vassal - physically, the territory still belongs to another faction, but you will receive part of their income and military assistance, without increasing corruption in your faction.
As you can see, Total War: Three Kingdoms has many ways of reducing corruption. However, the most important thing to do is to control it all the times and, if possible, slow down the process of conquering new territories to avoid increasing this stat. ?