Let's Romance the Three Kingdoms!

Intro music

















And so it begins...



Hmm? What is this!? They dare attack me and insult my ancestors!? Who wrote this?
I-I understand it was Chen Lin who composed it.
Ha ha ha! When scholars turn their hand to war, it makes them well-balanced. Chen Lin is indeed a great writer, but Yuan Shao, I'm afraid, lacks such talent.

We shall mobilize the entire army and prepare for a showdown with Yuan Shao. Do not delay!!


Unfortunately, we will not take part in this grand war....instead...


Currently, we do not have any rival force in particular. We do not currently have friendly relations with any particular force. You must remunerate the officers with gold - revenue comes in monthly. You will also require food to maintain your armies, and this comes in every season. Be careful not to run into any shortages. The last force to remain standing on the continent will become the supreme ruler of the next generation. If you would like this conqueror to be yourself, it's time to begin strategizing.

OK. Not having direct rivals part is bullshit. I'll tell you why later. Not having any allies is also a problem. And aiming to be supreme ruler with this small army that did not get any mention in the intro is going to be a long, hard journey. Prepare for at least a month-long LP. This ain't New Vegas.

Forces Review:
Our current army: 22,000
City owned: 1
Officers: 3

Other forces:
Gongsun Du - 35,000 City - 1 Officers - 3
This guy is no threat.

Zhang Lu - 24,000 City - 1 Officers - 7
Not a threat. In fact, prime candidate to die first.

Yuan Shao - 313,000 City - 7 Officers - 42
Not our immediate threat. He's huge giant up north fighting the good fight.

Liu Biao - 52,000 City - 3 Officers - 28
He's not a bad prey. Can cannibalize him for officers.

Liu Zhang - 32,000 City - 3 Officers - 21
A hippie. He is far, far away from the conflict and is safe despite his lack of good capable officers.

Ma Teng - 57,000 City - 3 Officers - 18
A minor warlord on the north-west corner. Famous for cavalry, he should be a good distraction for Cao Cao.

Sun Ce - 126,000 City - 5 Officers - 37
Third strongest power at the moment. Nice roster of officers. Dangerous.

Liu Bei - 43,000 City - 2 Officers - 10
He's got good warrior generals, but I doubt the AI will survive the conflict to grow. He's really in a bad spot.

Cao Cao - 184,000 City - 5 Officers - 54
This guy has the Emperor's backing and the most advanced tech. His roster is a good mixture of warriors and scholars. This is our primary threat to our survival. We won't be able to please him. It's a guaranteed fight for survival against the Central Giant early on.

Here's a the map of the situation. As you can see...Cao Cao is going to swallow us up. There's plenty of empty provinces to the south. We need to aim for survival down south instead of staying in the central.



And this is our lord.



Aside from the average charisma, politics and intelligence, he's pretty OK. APT stands for aptitude, it affects availability and chances of successful usage of unit tactics. We're going to use Cavalry most of the time due to his S rating.

Jia Xu is our chief strategist, which is pretty important. I'll show you later on the battle field.



Average War but extremely high Intelligence will allow him to pull off strategy easier. Basic stats explanation:
LDR = Unit Defense
WAR = Unit Attack
INT = Strategy Success & Defense
POL = City development
CHR = Recruitment

Our third officer is a muscleman.



He will probably be useless in city development, but at least he'll hit hard. Just don't expect him to defend...he'll take HIGH damage when defending with such low leadership.

This is my city which currently lacks any developed plots. We're going to need more officers, men, and equipment if we want to get anywhere.



So watch this space for further updates. I can't promise carrying on till the end, but it'll be epic.

Read more wiki if you want more background. It's a long story of backstabs and lost causes. No one can claim to be a saint.

Whoa, looks pretty! But this is no Rance, is it?

Well, I do hear Romance of the Three Kingdoms series is excellent strategy.

We need this as an emoticon.



Just imagine.


Bethesda made TES: V, Codex reaction: "it's a real RPG!".

Vaarna_Aarne said:

Well, I do hear Romance of the Three Kingdoms series is excellent strategy.

Click to expand...

Yes, though the AI is on the easy side and coming from a popamole gamer thats saying a lot.

Also, Fuck Wu. I hope they go down fast and hard.

At choosing ZX. Your man, JX is one of the best officers in the entire game if I'm not mistaken.

Black said:

We need this as an emoticon.



Just imagine.


Bethesda made TES: V, Codex reaction: "it's a real RPG!".

Click to expand...

"Bioware to develop Arcanum 2"



Oh this'd be so awesome as an emoticon.

GarfunkeL said:

Whoa, looks pretty! But this is no Rance, is it?

Click to expand...

Nope.

There is Koihime Musou that is kinda like Rance.

Are there many gameplay differences between this one and the third?

Between Rot3K 11 and 3? I should think so.

EDIT: Not that I would know, I only played 4,10 and 11.

:Bookmarked:

Looks interesting. Is it official non-fan made translation? Would want to buy it liek for money.

Yes, it's an official translation by Koei.

Chapter 1: Babysteps
Cao Cao didn't wait long before he pounced, we must advance in another direction.

Chapter 2: To Defend is to Die
We will attack until we can defend comfortably.

Chapter 3 : Stronger, yet Weaker
Officers are upgraded. Shitstorm in the Central Plains. Nowhere to run now.

Chapter 4: The doors are open
A minor hiccup on an otherwise successful counterstrike against Sun Ce's march.

Chapter 5: No friends, only enemies.
Unprovoked attack by Liu Zhang, Sun Ce loses expansions and tries again. Meanwhile, to the north, the Yellow Tide has stopped?

Chapter 6: The enemies of my enemies
Formation of Naval Defense Force, Sun Ce completely repulsed! The Red Storm is no longer rising, Cao Cao to capitalize! How will Zhang Xiu react?

Chapter 7 : The north cannot swim
With naval supremacy assured, Zhang Xiu's navy culled bordering forces garrison in preparation for a major offensive.

Chapter 8 : Always watch your back
With the major offensive underway, Zhang Xiu's western front is under attack by Liu Zhang. It's Cao Cao's turn to capitalize!

Chapter 9 : Snakes on the plains
Cao Cao's narrow escape. Yuan Shao's arrival signals opportunity!

Chapter 10 : Tragedy of Xu Chang
Zhang Xiu's arrival at the battle of Xu Chang complicates matters. But no one could have predicted the outcome!

Chapter 11 : Across the river
Cao Cao grows stronger while Yuan's grasp on Guan Du falters. Sun Ce arrives at Guan Du!

Chapter 12 : Here to stay
Cao Cao attacks Zhang Xiu directly at Wan. However, a repeat of history is unlikely.

Chapter 13 : The elusive one
Cao Cao sieges Wan again. A new strategist for Zhang Xiu rises!

Chapter 14 : The lonely dragon
An unexpected loss of an officer led to vengeance while Cao Cao is besieged by three separate forces.

Chapter 15 : All is forgotten
Tired of the deadlock in Wan, Zhang Xiu considers diverting more resources to deal with Cao Cao to the west.

Chapter 16 : Brutality
The build up completes, and unleashes its fury at Cao Cao. 100,000 of Zhang Xiu's army marches towards two objectives while the rest of China is too busy fighting amongst themselves.

Chapter 17 : Cao Cao's empire crumbles.
Defeat at Han Zhong exposes Cao Cao's weak colonies to the north. Cao Cao is driven off the Central Plains while Yuan Tan and Liu Bei bears the brunt of a revived Sun Ce's army.

Chapter 18: Multi-headed Dragon
Cao Cao loses northern territories. Ceasefire expires, eastern war restarts.

Chapter 19 : Chaos in the Central Plains
Zhang Xiu's army marched on without respite to press the advantage, counter-attacking with numerical advantages and speed.

Chapter 20 : Ascension
Zhang Xiu is crowned Emperor. The three kingdoms prepare for their last stand.

I read part of the book. Interesting, but fucking huge and it can be hard to keep track of the many, many characters.

Chapter I: Babysteps

Music: Spring Buds

There are at least half a dozen free officers at the start of each scenario. Either they're waiting for the right lords to pick them up, or they lost their liege in previous campaigns or simply waiting for the right time to make their debuts.



This is why a good strategist can be quite useful in advising who to persuade. We lack a charismatic officer, so we rely more on 'personality matches'. It's hard to keep track who likes who in this game because of the historical mode, it might affect recruitment difficulty. Captured brothers will not turn coat unless both are captured, etc.



Above is the menu for city development. Facilities like markets and farms improve production. Barracks recruit troops etc. The speed of completion is determined by Politics stat. Hu Che Er....should NEVER EVER be assigned to do this. His efficiency is terrible. 10 days is 1 turn. Jia Xu could complete that market single handedly in 30 days. You can also poll 3 officers together to speed things up.



Alright! Successful recruitment. Now we have 4 officers.



He's a fighter, but there's not much he can do in peaceful times but drill the soldiers. A for Spears , B for Siege Weaponry. He'll work for us.



I spent a few months focusing on recruitment. I need to get up to 5-6 officers to make my kingdom viable. And this guy looks like a pretty decent civic official.



And here's a surprise. Jia Xu recommended Lei Bo, with 15 Charisma to recruit another. And it worked!



Reason? History, that's what.





Much like Jagged Alliance 2 merc relationships, there's plenty of this in game. I'll demonstrate how these helps more later on, when I have the chance.



And that brings out officers count to 6. I think we need to start developing our city a bit. Markets are must to generate gold. But the most important choice is to decide on the core unit of your forces. Always check your starting techniques and equipment to determine what's best to mass early. Stables breed horses, Smiths make weapons. Workshops construct siege engines.



As you can see, we have already attained first tier research on Cavalry. Giving us slight bonus on attack. How do we research things? We need to spend Technique Points, you gain them by doing successful actions like developing cities and fighting. They can be lost by losing cities and such.



While the civic officers are busy developing during peacetime, the brutes can go patrol the streets and clean up crime to improve a City's Order. Higher Order means less chance of bandit army and more taxes. They can also be told to drill the soldiers.

Neighboring provinces of Cao Cao has finished their build-up quickly. They have more talented civic officers than we do.


Xu Chang lies directly to the east of us. Within it, is the Emperor's Throne, giving Cao Cao additional Technique Points per turn, allowing him to gain tech. superiority. It is said that Emperor's Influence also makes it easier for officers to join you.


Luo Yang is to the northeast. We hope by bordering Yuan Shao across the river, they will not divert their forces to crush our pitiful forces so soon.


With the Stables completion, we start stockpiling horses. We have 22,000 men. 20,000 horses would be sufficient to field any replacements should there be any losses. Zhang Xiu as the lord can command 10,000 troops on the field. That's why it's always good to have a warlord in charge. Weak leaders cannot exploit the huge army sizes.


Sometimes when there's nothing much to do and Action Points to burn, I tell my spare officer to Search the city. Sometimes it yields a promising recruit or artifacts such as these.


Zhang Xiu will hold on to it for now. The spear's got a lot of history behind it. It used to belong to the strongest general in China. Too bad he's got such a shady loyalty. Lu Bu killed two of his stepfathers and betrayed another master. Eventually he was executed by Cao Cao because he's deemed too untrustworthy.


The final piece is the workshop. We will roll out one Flame Tower in 2 months. City sieges are painful without them. They also work in a pinch as replacement archers, although they're slow as hell and cannot retaliate when attacked.

We have roughly 27,500 men, time to buy some food and...





We ran out of time.





Cao Cao's forces are converging on our city from 4 directions. I'm afraid we cannot repel a firepower of this magnitude. Plan B.



Hu Che Er will start the evacuation convoy. The rest of the officials will stay put and do what they can to buy time. We don't lose as long as we have a city in our control. Historically, we convert to Cao Cao's cause. But this time, Hu Che Er will move our bulk of troops and supplies to the unoccupied city down south.



Next month's taxes went into recruiting a small militia to hold into the town longer.




Well done! Now the officers in Wan can move on.





Cao Cao's forces did not pursue us. We'll have at least a year while they develop the newly captured cities to plan our next move.


We settled in Xin Ye for now and a small detachment of troops were sent to the nearby port to collect taxes and secure it for future use.

Sometimes, avoiding total defeat is sufficient. We still retained our war assets of 27.500 men, 20,000 horses and a siege tower.

To the west, across the river lies Liu Biao's domain.


To the east, on the coasts, Liu Biao's forces is fending off Sun Ce's expansion.



So...what's our next move?

Chapter 2: To Defend is to Die

Music: Shattered Bamboo

Our situation is perilous. We're not about to develop this newly captured city, only to lose it to Cao Cao again. All discussions led to the same conclusion : To Defend is to Die. We will strike west across the river into Liu Biao's domain.


22,500 troops are transported to the port, ready to attack across the river.


Generals given additional command. This increases their pay but increase maximum troop cap by 1,000. Civics officers get +1 to their Politics skill.


18,000 men sailed across the river to assault the neighboring port to spearhead the invasion.


Liu Biao forces did not react when we took over the port.


Finally, Jia Xu and our lord makes our way across to lead the invasion personally.


Liu Biao finally replied with a small detachment of 6,000 pikemen.


By using the Perturb strategy, Jia Xu succeeded in confusing the Pikemen unit. Making them easy kills for our cavalry. Strategy success rates depend on attackers INT vs defender's INT. Jia Xu has 71% chance of success here. Liu Biao mobilized another 6,000 cavalry while we marched our Flame Tower from the docks.


Their command paralyzed, they are unable to attack, nor defend. Leading to spectacular kill rates of 1,884 on one charge by 10,000-strong cavalry.


Destroyed enemy units will give us some of their food and lead to captured officers in command of that unit.


He didn't take the on-the-spot offer of employment, but prison time might drop his loyalty low enough to reconsider. I'm not about to execute an 80 INT officer.


Yeah, what he said.


Overall situation is going great. We suffered minor casualties, and Liu Biao does not have enough men to field anymore. The towers will start pummeling on the walls, while the rest use Surround tactic to lower casualties. Direct attacks on city walls will cause high attrition. We can't afford that. Surround limits the damage to one unit only while giving additional attack power. Also, it's best to use high INT officers like Jia Xu to start fires on the city for more damage.


We're leaving our old city behind. Every scrap of gold and food are transported out.


Liu Biao sent a small detachment over from his southern city. But he's one turn too late to intercept the shipment. Enjoy your free empty city, bitch.


I left behind a garrison of 2,000 on the port to hold him off. Losing that city means game over. We need to cap the one across the river first!


Up north, a minor kingdom dies to Yuan Shao's massive horde.


We're SAFE! Now we can afford to lose the old city! We earned a nice boost of Tech Points to spend. We're about to lose 200ish points for losing the other empty city, so I'll spend this on Sworn Sibling for 500 points. What does it do? Observe.






Sworn siblings will never betray you. And they gain a chance for a 'Free assist attack' when you attack an adjacent enemy to them. Since Jia Xu will be busy spending his movement on strategies, it's a good idea to have him get free attacks when he's next to his two bros.




They finally broke through the port blockade and seized the port we abandoned.



Doesn't matter one bit.

Fascinating! Is this like Civ meets EU3?

Civ V combat mechanics. With officer stats and historical officers. City development is really simplified. Income boosters & facilities.

Surely Liu Biao's days are numbered. He'll soon regret his shortsighted decision to be your neighbor.

Liu Biao has some nice officers. Like Wen Pin, the dude you were fighting. Hes like Hu Che Er, but with better leadership. Not to mention his 2 advisors, but they're blood relatives if I'm not mistaken, so you might have to catch both.....

EDIT : http://kongming.net/11/portraits/ portraits just in case someone wants to have a look.

EDIT 2 : This is Cao Cao, for whoever wants to see his stats - http://kongming.net/11/i/p/?p=040-Cao-Cao_A

How do historical events work in this installment? Will events automatically occur for the AI or do they have to be triggered?

I'm not sure. Certain preset scenario will have certain events triggers. But I've not experienced it all to confirm it. Who knows? It's auto-trigger btw.

Chapter 3: Stronger, yet weaker.

Music: Summer March



Liu Biao is down to his last city. His eastern city was seized by the rampaging Sun Ce's army. He has the misfortune of being in the way of a desperate force like us. Whoever captures his last city to the south, will seize all his officers in one fell swoop. An eliminated force officers will have zero loyalty, and depending on his personality, has a really high chance of being successfully recruited. The ruler, if he is a minor one, can be recruited as well to make the conversion process easier.

Before we march out, we'll receive a pleasant news from the Emperor himself.




Increase ranks gives additional troop command cap. This raised the main sovereign force to 11,000. Generals can be promoted further to command another 1,000 as well. Titles are granted by seizing more cities. We have 2. One ghost town is still counted. Heh.

The current situation in the north is starting to deteriorate for Cao Cao. Karma's a bitch. Yuan Shao has began crossing the river to Central Plains.

If Cao Cao is not careful, he might lose his grasp on the Emperor as well. His force is cut down to just over 200,000 against Yuan Shao's 300,000 strong troops while fighting two fronts at the same time.


Ma Teng absorbs Zhang Lu's domain of Han Zhong to the west. We'll see how he defends it from Cao Cao.


Not bloody likely. Ma Teng is about to lose one of his core city to the northwest. Too bad.

None of the above matters to us at the moment, we're rushing towards Liu Biao's last stronghold.

We wiped out two small spear detachments. Their last pitiful attempt to stop us and started sieging the walls. The green bars indicate how much willpower of the unit is left. A flame tower unit with zero willpower cannot fire. Willpower is also needed to execute special unit tactics like Cavalry's Charge or Spear's Rush.

Outside of combat, we can restore it by drilling them in city. During combat, we need to construct a Band Platform on the battlefield.


Every turn, it'll restore 10 willpower to friendly units within 2 squares. With the free willpower, we set fire to the cities over and over again.


Finally.


Mine. All Mine!

But there's a terrible side-effect in keeping so many prisoners at once. None of them wants to join at once. They need time to think about it in prison. And prisoners need to fed monthly. I think I nearly bankrupted myself feeding over twenty inmates.



So always pick the cream of the crop first. I don't have enough gold to bribe them all. Like these guys:




Liu Biao is also a follower. The rest will come easier.


Also, secure the intellectuals for domestic development. Our cash is running low and the city is still in ruins.



The party's over, though. Because Sun Ce is an asshole and sent 20,000 troops to attack us. We can't hope to hold on to two cities at the same time.



Time to make my exit. We move out all the off-duty officers to the northern city. I compared both cities and found the northern one has more land to develop, hence better income. The downside is the danger of being left with nowhere to run if things turn bad.


Also, I'm burning off TP on sworn sibling ceremony again. This time for Huang Zhong, Gan Ning, and Wen Pin. I really have not enough gold for Tech Research, but these sworn siblings help in cementing loyalty and it costs no gold.



With the intellectuals on my side, most facilities are completed in less than 5 turns. Just fill everything up with market places and mints to produce gold. Food can be bought off the market. Xiang Yang is turning into a fine city.

We let Sun Ce take the southern city. We've got nowhere to run now.


Current world map situation so far:


Armies on the move are upside down T-blocks. As you can see, Yuan Shao is fucking shit up in the Central Plains. Cao Cao is barely keeping up. Sun Ce's red is spreading out of control in the south east.

I predicted Cao Cao to die first anyway.

Army strength:




We're moving up. But still a minor power compared to the rest. At least I'm not Liu Bei.

Well, looks like its really going to be Romance of the 3 Kingdoms. But with Yuan Shao, Sun Ce and You instead. Looking at the map, it looks like you're going to be Shu.

Everytime I played this game Cao Cao always over-extended and died a terrible death.

Erebus said:

I read part of the book. Interesting, but fucking huge and it can be hard to keep track of the many, many characters.

Click to expand...

I've read the whole book. It's a very interesting read, being both technically and culturally so foreign (ie, all that cannibalism and stuff). But if I hadn't played Dynasty Warriors so much it'd been hell keeping up with what was going on at times and who was who.

Vaarna_Aarne said:

Erebus said:

I read part of the book. Interesting, but fucking huge and it can be hard to keep track of the many, many characters.

Click to expand...

I've read the whole book. It's a very interesting read, being both technically and culturally so foreign (ie, all that cannibalism and stuff). But if I hadn't played Dynasty Warriors so much it'd been hell keeping up with what was going on at times and who was who.

Click to expand...

This.