Total War: Three Kingdoms

• Try to match the colors of your units and your heroes. Cao Cao is red, so he should have some red horsemen in his unit to share his bonuses with, for example. The types are red/yellow = cavalry, blue/purple = foot infantry, and blue = ranged and siege weapons.

• Think of units as a hero's army rather than part of the whole group. The hero's units will move with him when he gets reassigned, so doomstacking is less necessary.

• Diplomacy is a much bigger deal in this game and the tools to perform it are much more in depth. Make sure you are managing not only your own reputation, but also the relationship between people you want to get along or form a bond with. Cao Cao is the easiest to do this with due to his special ability.

• There is a ton of money to be made with trade. Typical trade agreements are good to get, but also trading excess food to people who are hungry but rich can net you thousands of gold for something you weren't even using. Just don't be greedy and sell *all* your food.

• Play in the margins of the economy a lot. If you make a deal and it has a high favorability by the other guy then throw in a demand for some gold to even it out some.

• War isn't the only way to gain prestige

• Minor early game spoiler:
  Dong Zhou is a raging jerk but if you follow the storyline then the plot will kill him off pretty early on, so don't dump resources into making him not hate you.