The bottom line here is that if you like games like Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia then you will most likely enjoy Romance of the Three Kingdoms, if you are a fan of the previous versions then this may well tickle your fancy. Even if you just enjoy tactical strategy games, this is a great chance to have a different nationality to the standard US, or sometimes UK ones we are used to. A hefty price tag, so maybe wait for a sale but there’s a decent bit of replayability here too.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV is the most sophisticated one in the whole series. It not only follows the "easy to start, hard to master" formula but also identifies a lot of innovative gameplay.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV represents a marked improvement on recent outings from the franchise, offering great strategic gameplay and strong characterisation. All of this is done with a strong focus on ease of access, made easier by a clean UI that allows people to pick it up easy. There are downsides, however. With adequate at best, though often poor AI and a collection of bugs, some that are game-breaking, there is still room for improvement and a dire need for patches to fix the bugs and optimisation issues.

If you are looking for an in-depth strategy game to sink your teeth into, and you can’t get enough of Cao Cao and company and if you have already played Three Kingdoms to death, then, by all means, pick up Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV. But if not, then I would recommend taking your time and money elsewhere.

It's not a chore to conquer China in Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14. It's just underwhelming. Especially when we've seen this era represented so much better by Creative Assembly so recently, I couldn't come up with a compelling reason why I'd play this instead. Only die-hard fans of the franchise who want to see Koei's specific takes on these characters will be likely to find much to get excited about here. And given that this is the fourteenth entry in the series, I expected a lot more.

Fans of the series and setting will probably find validation and likable aspects here, but I wouldn’t suggest jumping in here if you’re unfamiliar. There are better strategy games out there for cheaper with more depth, options, and personality than this one. By the end, I preferred the idea of just playing Civilization VI as China — that’d probably be a more fun evening of strategy for me.

This game might sound interesting to Chinese history aficionado but it falls short as it was not polished enough as some of its predecessors.