the idea and concept is great, implementation is horrible. in my humble opinion that is.
this is my impression and experience so far:

- character and city select:
The UI of this menu needs improvement big time. consider the starting map, you can click on cities to choose where to start but you cant go back to check other cities, it immediately forces you to pick between 'be a vassal' or 'be free officer/band' and auto starts the game. so just to find the faction you want to play around or join needs a few restarts. map is also central and northern china so no Jing, Yi or Yang provinces, no Chang An or anything west of Luo Yang too.

Also why is Yuan shu starting in Luo Yang if this is around or before yellow turbans? but almost everyone else is starting around their 190 typical start positions. and dong zhuo is shang dang.

also custom characters is misleading. they are basically custom in the sense that they are not historical, self-insert characters. but they are not customizable on start, cant change their look, equipment, voice, skills. you pick a preset.

- combat

i dont know who this is meant to cater to, again the idea is good but it seems like it might work better as turn base for me i am not sure. there are so many units around, you cant manually order your units to use their skills since everything is in real time and you need to be close to an enemy to even execute a skill to attack. but if you are away it does not queue the skill/command. no it tells you it cant reach, so you gotta unpause and pause again and again to wait to get close and try again to press the skill in time before the enemy swarms you and one shots you because most fights you are outnumbered and its swarm on swarm. like ant war, they funnel into a group so you might not be the target but you'll still get damaged from aoe skills.

might benefit from half time speed or something for that. or an ability to code orders for the characters. like unicorn overlord.

- information and ui

this gets confusing specially with missions, i joined a mission for dong zhuo which was 1 star, but afterwards he tells me to be careful that i should expect heavy resistance. i leave the city and as per the mission i get attacked by an army of 20 thugs. and i have myself and 4 other companions.

you can't get good information in general, and specially with missions, you cant back away and consider things. if you talk to someone about a quest you either accept on the spot or it declines it. maybe the other quest is more difficult or pays less so i end up wanting to take this first one? tough luck better reload.

- some observations

skills/perks might need a rework, also map shouldn't be hidden in fog of war and i need to discover it. at least make maps purchasable.
a scouting ability is needed, to be able to identify thug or group sizes on the field before engaging them. they are too vague the way things are.
companions need to be cheaper. the way the game is right now it feels (to me) like you're meant to hire small retinue but you're not, you're hiring people one at a time.
also when being given tasks to provide products we need an option to receive money from lord to go and buy the product for him, maybe for a less fee. also why does he send us to a location and does not PIN it for us on the map? but if he wants me to go bully a bandit camp to pay him money he does? makes no sense. how am i supposed to know which city sells cow hide if i dont go to them all one at a time.

TLDR: good concept, keep an eye on it, but wait for now until further notice.

Not really any endgame and main story ends pretty early on so you basically just wait until the next big campaign event happens. I would pass until it gets some more updates.

This game is so good. I'd been looking for something that really reminds me of Water Margin style writing and hints at how harsh the famine and brutal realities of this era could be. The years leading up to the Yellow Turban Rebellion were a low point for the people in China and it's glossed over too frequently. People were starving. Food was a primary currency and it was being used to buy and maintain government positions rather than feed the people (to my limited understanding).

I'd been a fan since I was a kid and read up anything I can on the era - but as an English speaker it had been hard to find good sources that hadn't been heavily manipulated/made PG. Hard times bring hard people.

I'd been a minor battle brothers fan - the battles were too time consuming and the story/backdrop too generic/generated. I'm more interested in maintaining my troop, recruiting/training/managing and replacing my wounded.

As a player I'm quite happy exploring the map and seeing which of my favorite officers of the era I can meet and how they might be implemented - or researching new ones I don't recognize. I prefer auto combat and programming in my priority system (I just wish there was a guide to understand priorities more better). The battles are fine - but it's secondary to the story of gameplay I'm writing for myself. I'm very happy they're fast.

The art is fresh and fun - I absolutely enjoy seeing new takes/interpretations of what some of these old heroes may have looked like.

Which officers will I befriend? Who will I serve? Will I become a bandit or a king? How will my officer die? What tragedies and triumphs will he suffer?