The first thing we can do to try and get you up and running is to verify integrity of the game cache. Right click on Total War Three Kingdoms in your Steam Library, select “properties” and then “files.” Next, select “verify integrity of game cache” and off you go. Hopefully this helps resolve the errors that your game is having.

Another reason that I have found that the game will crash upon startup or in the middle of a campaign is due to an old save file AFTER a new patch of the game has been introduced. I think the latest, and final patch for Three Kingdoms is 1.7.1. So if you are running a save that is OLDER than the latest update, you might have to resort to going back to an older game version. (In this particular case I believe that the previous patch is 1.7.0) To do this, do as we did before in #1, except instead of selecting “files” you will select “betas,” and from there select the older version of the game that you would like to play in. To be clear, you will be “locked” into whatever game version you choose, meaning that should you want to roll to the latest patch, you will have to go back to the betas tab and select the latest version.

2.1) Bear in mind that if you do indeed roll back to the newer game patch, it may cause issues with your save game.

If you are having issues and you think it might be due to #2 or #2.1, delete all your old saves and start a new game on the latest patch and see if that helps if the above does not.

Another issue that could be causing your game to crash on startup or mid game is due to driver conflict. If you have a Nvidia graphics card, go to “Geforce Experience” App and update any drivers or see if there are any drivers that need to be updated.
Similarly, if you have an AMD graphics card, go to your “Amd Radeon Software” App and update your drivers from there.

Similar to #4, it never hurts to check and be sure that Windows is up to date, which is also a very simple thing to do. Go to the search bar in the taskbar in the bottom left of your screen (it’s on the bottom left for me) and just search “updates.” Once you do so an option should come up that will say “check for updates.” Click on that and see if Windows has an update to be installed.

Another reason that may cause Three Kingdoms to crash is due to mod conflict. Not a big issue at all, when you launch Three Kingdoms, it should take you to the game launcher. From there click on the “Mod Manager” tab and turn off any mods before launching the game itself, and see if that helps. It needs to be noted here that doing this might make your CURRENT save incompatible, making it possible that your current SAVE GAME will crash BECAUSE you have disabled the mods. To correct this issue, check and see which mods you have are save game compatible, and which mods you have that are not. (To give you an example, economy mods that might give you more income per turn, or a mod that introduces a simple day/night cycle, is likely to be save game compatible.

6.1) The mods conflict issue is important to look at because players sometimes start a new game, get halfway through a campaign, and then find a mod they enjoy, like Radious Total War, and attempt to get the save game and mod to work together, and it very simply will not. The majority of overhaul mods are NOT save game compatible. In any case, to see if your mod is save game compatible, check out the description for the mod in question.

From here I’m starting to run out of ideas as to why your game may not launch and/or crashes, but I still have a few things up my sleeve. I have heard a couple times where evidently the resolution of the game or monitor can cause a crash. I’m not sure whether or not this can actually cause a crash, but just in case it does, you should be able to put the game into windowed mode by going to your Geforce Experience App or Amd Radeon App. Yup, from outside the game! Just go to the app, select Three Kingdoms Total War, go to details/settings, and change what you need to to see if it helps.

Finally, probably my least helpful suggestion in this guide, is going to be to check your system and see if it can run total War Three Kingdoms. The system requirements can be found on the store page for the game. If you do not quite, or just barely, meet the system requirements for the game, you are not going to necessarily have a smooth experience playing Total War Three Kingdoms, but there are things you can do to hopefully remedy this. Go to the graphics settings in game and dial them down to “low.” Perhaps even consider turning down the resolution to improve the performance, but before doing that, turn your graphics settings as far down as you can/dare to see if you can get the game up and running.

Something else that I forgot to mention, is there is a setting in game called "unlimited video memory."

If your game is lagging, and or crashing after a lot of lag, make sure this box is unchecked in the in game options. It will be under the advanced tab. This option, if I understand my basics correctly, exists to allow a user to use the system memory (RAM attached to the motherboard) if for some reason the user does not have enough VRAM on their graphics card.

On paper it sounds great, but works poorly in execution.

I hope this guide helps, but this is all I have to get you up and running and enjoying Total War three Kingdoms. These are the most basic solutions, and the most common reasons for the game to crash or stop working.