The Jade Court

The Jade Court
Overview
Type	Playable faction
Race	Grand Cathay
Ruler	Yuan Bo, the Jade Dragon
Campaigns	Realm of Chaos Immortal Empires
Legendary lords	Yuan Bo, the Jade Dragon
(Required) DLC	Shadows of Change
Currency	Money
Special Resource	Stone Steel
Territory
Corruption	Reduces Corruption
Climates	Suitable: Unpleasant: Inhabitable:
Startinglocation	The Realm of Chaos: Shang-Wu, Celestial Riverlands (map) Immortal Empires: Isle of the Crimson Skull, Aymara Swamps (map) Shang-Wu, Celestial Riverlands Floating Pyramid, Aymara Swamps

The Jade Court is a playable Grand Cathay faction introduced in Total War: Warhammer III with Shadows of Change. It is led by Yuan Bo, the Jade Dragon.

How they play

• Matters of State: A set of actions that benefit the Jade Court. All actions have a cost of Steel & Stone. They are divided by two; Steel Actions and Stone Actions. Steel Actions focuses on improving The Jade Court's army and combat capabilities while Stone Actions focus on improving settlement, province and economy capabilities.
• Steel & Stone: Two unique resources that are used primarly on Matters of State.
• Wu Xing Compass: The Jade Court receives four new directions for the Compass unique to them. These directions need special landmarks built in order to unlocked them.

Legendary Lord

Name	Lord Effects	Starting Army
Yuan Bo, the Jade Dragon	The Jade Administrator: Executor and Executioner, Yuan Bo wears many hats, his twin stewardship of the Jade and Celestial Courts granting him authority only matched by the Emperor and Empress themselves. Winds of Magic power reserve capacity: +25 Upkeep: -30% for Onyx Crowmen, Celestial Lion, Great Moon Bird, Jade Lion and Jet Lion units (Lord's army)

Starting territory

The Realm of Chaos

• Shang-Wu, Celestial Riverlands ^(map)

Immortal Empires

• Isle of the Crimson Skull, Aymara Swamps ^(map)
• Floating Pyramid, Aymara Swamps
• Shang-Wu, Celestial Riverlands

Faction effects

• All regions owned by a faction that you have a trade deal with are visible
• Diplomatic relations: +20 with Cathay factions
• Research rate: +5% for every province capital
• Hero capacity: +2 for Astromancers

Matters of State

Through the Matters of State mechanics the player can make province capitals into Commerce Cities or Fortress Cities. In Commerce Cities, infrastructure as well as trade resource buildings will give additional faction-wide bonuses. In Fortress Cities, military buildings will do the same thing.

Trade Resource Buildings

• Obsidian: +7 winds of magic reserve (all armies)
• Iron: +7 armor (all armies)
• Spices: +10% maximum caravan cargo capacity
• Gold: Income from mines and quarries +10% (factionwide)
• Exotic animals: +10% charge bonus for cavalry units (factionwide)
• Dyes: Character experience gain +10% (all characters)
• Gemstones: Magic item drop chance +10% (all characters)
• Pastures: +5 growth (all settlements)
• Marble: Construction cost -10% for Wall and Garrison buildings (factionwide)
• Medicinal plants: Vigour loss reduction -5% (all armies)
• Tusks: +5 relationship to all factions
• Pottery: +200 defensive supplies (factionwide)
• Salt: +8 to unsullied corruption in that province and the surrounding ones
• Timber: +10% ammunition for all your troops and construction cost reduced by 10% (factionwide).
• Wine: Rank +2 to recruit lords
• Furs: Frozen attrition reduced by 25% (all armies)

Infrastructure Buildings

• Spice Market: +10-30% sale value of cargo (caravans)
• Wares Emporium: +15-25% value of trade tariffs (factionwide)
• Conscription Field: +1%-3% casualty replenisment rate for Yin units (all armies)
• Conscription Office: +1%-3% casualty replenisment rate for Yang units (all armies)
• Tea Parlour: +1-3 Hero recruit rank (factionwide)
• Labour Conscription Bureau: -3--5% construction cost for all buildings (factionwide)

Military Buildings

• Training Camp: Local recruitment capacity +1-3 (local province)
• Nan-Gau Forge: +3%-10% ammunition (all armies)
• Corral: Recruit rank +1-3 (all armies)
• Alchemist Tower: Campaign line of sight +25-50% (all armies)
• Celestial Tower: Hero action success chance 3%-5%
• Celestial Barracks: Units recruited in this province have a permanent +10-20 armour bonus (local province)

Victory objectives

Immortal Empires

Short Campaign Victory

• Construct any two of the Astromantic Relay buildings and empower the Wu Xing Compass.

Long Campaign Victory

• Construct the Astromantic Relay building in Hexoatl and empower the Dragon River direction of the Wu Xing Compass.
• Construct the Astromantic Relay building in the Star Tower and empower the Ashshair direction of the Wu Xing Compass.
• Consutrct the Astromantic Relay building on Great Turtle Island and empower the Nongchang Basin direction of the Wu Xing Compass.
• Construct the Astromantic Relay building in the Southern Sentinels and empower the Broken Lands direction of the Wu Xing Compass.
• Achieve victory in the final quest battle.

Diplomacy

Immortal Empires

Starting agreements

• War with the Blue Vipers

Strategy

Immortal Empires

Like Yvresse, the Jade Court starts with a split position, with Yuan Bo heading an expedition into northern Lustria while retaining Shang-Wu in the Celestial Riverlands. After three turns have passed you will receive a dilemma which will allow you to sell off Shang-Wu for a nice wedge of money, or to keep it and try and hold it. Unlike Eltharion however Yuan Bo doesn't really have the option to leave Lustria behind and just concentrate on his homeland, not if he wants to achieve campaign victory, since all the objectives lie in Lustria. So it's simply a choice between a tougher, potentially more rewarding campaign (keep Shang-Wu) or a much easier ride in the early game (sell it).

The opening enemy, the Blue Vipers, are easy to deal with and once they are, Yuan Bo has a relatively sheltered position. This is because he has two natural allies in Markus Wulfhart and Alberic de Bordeleaux directly to his south who should buffer him at least for a while. This gives you a chance to decide who to target first: Hexoatl or The Thousand Maws. It may be that one of them will declare war first and make the decision for you, but the giant toad may leave you alone for a while because he has a lot of smaller enemies to deal with, while the Dark Elves are likely to be more pugnacious. However their position is very annoying to navigate around, and doing so will leave you exposed. This is probably the crucial strategic decision in this campaign so make it carefully. Do everything you can to avoid getting sandwiched, throw a bribe at the one you aren't at war with if necessary.

Once the first enemy has been dealt with, the second should follow fairly easily. Then you want to build the Relays. Once they have completed construction, three Lizardmen armies will begin mustering nearby in a manner similar to those that spawn during the Wood Elves' forest healing events. They are easy to deal with so long as you have your own armies ready, but be aware that they increase in strength with every Relay built, such that the ones that spawn with the last one are very high quality.

Push south either east by sea or down the western flank of Lustria to access the last two Relays. You will have to deal with whatever situation has developed down there as you find it. Be very careful about who you offer Non-aggression pacts with. You don't want to be in a situation where an ally has taken one of the cities you need, because without a huge amount of money they are very unlikely to let you have it, and then you'll tank your reliability by attacking them.

Don't worry about the final battle at all - it can be won with a very modest army just holding the central plaza and letting the friendlies that spawn in there do most of the work.

How to "keep" Shang-Wu after selling it off for 20000 gold in under 10 turns?

1. Turn 1:Recruit a 2nd army during the first turn, use the Levy the Province on them after global and local recruit spearmen and archers (Preferably Yang).
2. Next turn, move the army to the border of the nearby Vampire Counts minor faction and recruit.
3. After that turn, declare war and take Baleful Hills. Again, recruit. And of course, sell away Shang-Wu for 20000 money.
4. As fastest as possible, defeat the Vampire Counts minor faction. Won't be hard, mostly just skeletons and zombies with your Yang lord casting Dragon's Breath on them. If positioned correctly, each Dragon Breath can take away 1/2 health of 3-4 units at once. Your only threats on battle is probably the Dire Wolves and the Bats trying to harass your Archers. Other than that, Snikch might decide to declare war on you. Emphasize on "might".
5. Capture Shiyama's Rest before The Jade Custodians do, destroy whatever building is there and build an infantry-recruiting building.
6. Sell it in exchange for Shang-Wu. I got an extra 3000 from this.
7. Don't disband the army yet. Move down south and corner The Golden Order. Capture The Great Canal Province before he does to isolate him. After confederating Zhao Ming, you can just destroy Gelt to keep entire of Cathay to yourself.
8. Note that this strategy depends on the fact the nearby Vampire Counts minor faction to be more aggressive than The Jade Custodians, capturing Shiyama's Rest which originally belongs to The Jade Custodians.