Great Bastion

The Great Bastion is a location and campaign mechanic for Grand Cathay In Total War: Warhammer III.

Description[]

The Great Bastion is a massive wall between the lands of Grand Cathay and the Chaos Wastes to the north. It is designed to protect Cathay from attacks by Chaos factions.

Armies cannot go through the wall, except at 3 Bastion Gates - a special type of settlement with only 4 building slots. Bastion Gates are very important defensive chokepoints, and are located in the following provinces:

Snake Gate in Western Great Bastion
Dragon Gate in Central Great Bastion
Turtle Gate in Eastern Great Bastion

At the start of the campaign, the Bastion Gates are controlled by 2 Cathayan factions: Imperial Wardens and The Jade Custodians, who also control several settlements nearby.

The forces of Chaos launch constant attacks on the Bastion Gates, trying to break through to Grand Cathay. Over time, chaos forces will slowly build up to launch attacks on the gates. The current owner of the gates must defend them from these incursions.

Should a gate reach tier 5, it will decrease the cooldown on the Wu-Xing Compass. Should a gate be broken through, the forces of Chaos can then attack Cathay, and will cause Grand Cathay to suffer faction wide problems.

If, after a breach and invasion, you destroy all Chaos warbands within Cathay's lands, the threat level for the Great Bastion will be reset to 0, allowing you to prepare your defences for future raids and invasions. Each warband army destroyed also lowers the threat level by 20, even if they are not destroyed by Cathay themselves.

Chance of Invasion[]

The chance of an invasion can be seen in a bar in the top center of the UI, while viewing the campaign map. (Except when playing as the Jade Court where the top bar shows different information relevant to their unique mechanics and goals).

The chance increases by a base 6% per turn, and other factors can influence it as well, such as:

Any of the Gates being held by any non-Cathay faction significantly increase the threat generation
The Wu Xing Compass pointed towards the Great Bastion lowers the rate by 2% per turn
Each Bastion can lower it by 1% per turn through The Bastion Patrolled commandment when controlled by a player playing as Cathay (except the Jade Court).

Events[]

Invading factions[]

Kurgan Warband

Great Bastion commandments[]

The 3 Great Bastion provinces have special commandments for Cathayan factions, different to other provinces.

Name	Effects
The Bastion Reinforced	Construction cost: -20% for all buildings (provincewide) Growth +25
The Bastion Patrolled	Great Bastion threat: -1% per turn (provincewide) Corruption: -5
The Bastion Enhanced	Unit experience gain per turn: +200 (armies in province)
The Bastion Restored	Casualty replenishment rate: +6%

Bastion Gate buildings[]

Bastion Gates have different buildings available to regular provinces. Notably, they have special defensive buildings, but cannot build anything else. Only a few units can be recruited directly, though they have access to a large variety of units in their garrison roster.

Grand Cathay: