In Progress Let's Play Legend of Cao Cao.

[SirArvedeth]

Amazing LP! It is some time already when I played Legend of Cao Cao myself, so it's fun to read your LP, you have great sense of humour!

What I kinda dislike in the game itself, it's how many historical elements were ignored, like Chen Deng and Chen Gui's trick leading to Lu Bu's downfall. If not for those two dickheads, we might see Lu Bu sticking around for a bit longer

Anyway, you're great, and LPs like this one inspires me to start my own one day, keep up the good work!

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Actually the betrayal isn't historical, but from the book. The whole point there in the book was to underline that Lu Bu was such a brainless dickhead even his fellow dickheads couldn't stand him forever. Historically most of Lu Bu's officers just deserted him and surrendered to Cao Cao.

 

[SirArvedeth]

Well, about betrayal being fictional - it's not completely true. Sanguozhi, which is kinda reliable source, as it is mostly non-fictional, states that Cao Cao gave Chen Deng task to hire people, who will spy on Lu Bu (Chen Gui being his son's accomplice). Considering Chen Deng was kept in relatively high esteem by Lu Bu, it was easy for him to spy on his employer, and as far as I am concerned, it should be called a betrayal.

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

I'm curious about why did the Zang Ba guy died. My frantic wikipedia-ing of every character that gets mentioned tells me that he should join Cao Cao and do stuff. Artistic license?

 

[Cool name]

Chapter 15.

Cao Cao is dumb; Liu Bei is both treacherous and full of fail; The genius strategist club continues to grow.






Scene 1. What could go wrong?

Spoiler

This scene does not make as much sense as it does in the book, as the game kind of ignores many interesting developments that did happen between the defeat of Lu Bu and this moment because they don't really fit a game about armies turning other armies into XP points. By this point in time Liu Bei is feeling pretty much a prisoner of Cao Cao, and has grown to despise him as he sees The Cao as an ambitious man that does not truly care for the Han and is merely using the Emperor for his own ends. He offers himself to hunt Yuan Shu as a way of both getting his own army and escaping Cao Cao's control.

More importantly, by now I believe Liu Bei was part of a conspiracy that did count the Emperor as well as several ministers and officials among their participants and whose objective was to either depose or kill Cao Cao so that the Emperor could, well, do something more than being a figurehead.

Do you really expect The Cao to fall for that one? To give an army to one of the few men on whom he sees a true rival and who is obviously far more loyal to the Han than to The Cao?

LOLNO.

C-Man...

*facepaw*

Nevermind then.

Guo Jia would later reprehend Cao Cao for this moment of utter retardation, but by then it was far too late already.

Scene 2. Totally did not see it coming.

Spoiler

After Yuan Shu's death Liu Bei sent back Cao Cao's officer to the capital but retained the army for his own use and became Xuzhou's de facto ruler. Xuzhou did technically belong to him as Tao Qian had left it to him but I do not remember if it did still belong to him in practice by this time. Cao Cao tried to have him assasinated by local officials loyal to him but the ploy did fail and Liu Bei took the city in the battle.

Liu Bei's advisors did convince him of acting such as it was the only way in which Liu Bei would be able to survive Cao Cao's response. By this time Yuan Shao was the only true contender to Cao Cao's power north of the river, with an army over a million strong and many able generals and advisors. The Cao's troop, generals, and advisors were far more experienced and skilled yet his army was far inferior in numbers.

Eventually all of this will lead to one of the most epic battles in the Three Kingdoms, and by far the most epic one in the 'prelude' period.

That's pretty much Liu Bei's M.O, C-Man.

Technically The Cao wasn't as angry and butthurt as he was smart. The point of attacking Xuzhou was to stop Liu Bei's forces from joining with Yuan Shao's, not being unable to sit. It was around this time as well that the plot to depose and/or murder The Cao blew up, so he was in a particularly bad mood. He pretty much killed everyone either involved no matter how directly or indirectly and then did proceed to tell the Emperor to suck it. The Emperor did learn to behave.

And if I am not wrong it is also during this time that the glorious Mi Heng episode does occur. It is completely irrelevant to the plot so I will not go into detail about it but it is one of my favorite 'slice of life' scenes in the whole book. Just check wikipedia or an online edition. :D

I don't remember if this is on the book or not. Weird. I guess I have an excuse to read it again as soon as I get a new edition.

Scene 3. Catapult diplomacy.

Spoiler

'And yes, the thingie parked outside is my Catapult. Problem?'

He's a viper. He's actually our viper, though, so I don't really mind.

Fufufufu!

That moment when you come to the realization than to have a genius advisor and strategist is to be doomed to be his second in command.

Liu Bei will eventually come to discover the same thingie.

Scene 4. Gotta catch 'em all!

Spoiler

Scene 5. Camp fluff.

Spoiler

We can now buy magical super duper cute baby seals for a thousand gold each. Those are one of the few thingies I ever actually buy as there is a big difference between the basic and magical girl forms of our generals.

Xu Chu gonna Xu Chu.

Diao Chan is more or less a Dian Wei focused on support. Amusingly I do not know how to use Dian Wei but I love using Diao Chan, she's really good. Think of her as a support unit who can fight in a pinch or to finish a weakened unit, as she has a very good chance to block, hits twice more often than not, and once she has her own magickal super duper cute baby seal she can both attack diagonally and remove status effects from friendlies around her. However, her main thingie is that she has a spell that raises a unit's attack power. Geomancers do so as well, but the main purpose of Geomancers is to heal and thus every bit of MP spent on buffing is less healing.

Amusingly this only goes to show I never actually managed to enjoy Dian Wei because I never before got him to high enough level for his blocking to become truly hawkesome.

Now to equip our troops. We got several stuffies during the previous mission. Cao Cao will get a bronze shield, which raises his physical defense (Or was it the physical block chance?). Xiahou Dun will get Lu Bu's halberd, which gives him the 'chain attack' ability that Lu Bu did use (if a strike kills an enemy and there is another enemy in a 'red square' he will get a free attack). Xiahou Dun also gets a leather saddle, which to be honest I do not remember what it does. And for the time being Diao Chan will receive the raven robe and a bandana, which raises her MP and defense, while Man Chong receives a bandana, which raises his MP.

Then I dep-

What the bleep is wrong with them? :S

More than half my force is set. And just to spite me half of the preset forces are magicians and strategists. Add the two geomancers and, well, I only have Cao Cao, Zhang Liao, Xiahou Dun, and Yue Jin to fight as REAL MEN are ought to fight.

I have always thought it would be better to have strategists and the like be less like troops and more like equipment that gives special skills or advantages to the generals or give the player one shot super 'tactics' instead.

Scene 6. This game bleeping hates me.

Spoiler

I am not invading Xuzhou. I am liberating Xuzhou. No one deserves to have Liu Bei as a ruler.

Fufufufu! You can't hide from The Cao's fearsome ESP power.

I will not let Liu Bei ambush The Cao. That would be too great an honor for him. I send Zhang Liao and Xiahou Dun to the hills. Zhang Liao does not find anything. Xiahou Dun does.

*facepaw*

You shouldn't make promises you do not plan on keeping.

Buffed Xiahou Dun is pretty damn scary.

What did happen with that 'to the last man!' thingie?

Ah, yes. Liu Bei. Sorry, for a second I forgot.

With the 'ambush' defeated we move to the small city north of the river.

Guan Yu and his cavalry start moving west to look for Liu Bei and Zhang Fei. I leave Yue Jin to deal with the archers still alive in the smallish city and move the rest of our force to invade the other city from the north as Guan Yu leaves. My strategist and my magicians are almost out of MP by now, though, so we will be cutting it quite close to the time limit.

We take the city with only five turns left. I notice the enemies did kind of lock on Yue Jin after giving up on Liu Bei so I use him to split the enemy forces using the river. Once I put him on the bridge all enemies north of the river will try to reach him from the north and enemies south of the river will try to reach him from the south. That will make it quite easy for us to get to Guan Yu.

Xiahou Dun will keep the cavalry at bay while the rest tries to convince Guan Yu. Once the battle begins Guan Yu attacks Zhang Liao, which leaves him right next to both Prince Wenyuan Zhang Liao and Diao Chan. Zhang Liao being a proper gentleman, Diao Chan goes first.

I'm totally going to tattle on you with Anita Sarkeesian.

That... was not nice, Yunchang. Do you want some lemon juice to throw along that salt?

You and Liu Bei tried to betray Cao Cao and join Yuan Shao, dood!

Anyway, it is now Zhang Liao's turn.

Scene 7. The three conditions.

Spoiler

That kind of depends.

But we are 'blue' so he will truly be a man of his word.

That's it for today. The next update will focus on Guan Yu's relationship with Cao Cao and Prince Wenyuan Zhang Liao, so no battles will be fought.

I'm curious about why did the Zang Ba guy died. My frantic wikipedia-ing of every character that gets mentioned tells me that he should join Cao Cao and do stuff. Artistic license?

Zang Ba has never been a popular Wei character and he never does anything 'epic' (bleep, I only barely remembered he was suposed to join The Cao myself) so maybe they did just kill him off because there wasn't a lot to do with him. As a cavalry general in the game he would be kind of obsolete next to the better known Cao Ren and the extremely more popular Xiahou Dun and Zhang Liao, and as a bandit leader we already have the also much more popular Xu Chu.

When it comes to Koei the Three Kingdoms are not that different from, say, AKB48.

Also,

Mediocre stats are mediocre.

Actually... Isn't The Cao getting Guan Yu on loan soon?

There ya go. :D

The relationship he develops with Cao Cao and Zhang Liao is actually nicely done in the game, and the 'blue' choices related to it are actually kind of touching and really, really cute.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Also, there's actually a guy named He Man going about the timeframe too.

 

[Cool name]

Chapter 16.

FRIENDSHIP! BROMANCE! SCARY HORSIES! Also, Liu Bei gonna Liu Bei.






Scene 1. Meanwhile, deep inside Yuan Shao's villanous fortress of evil...

Spoiler

Scene 2. Making Lawful-Good people seem liberal since 160 A.D.

(What the lol? Since when does the forum changes the L word for that? @_@)

Spoiler

He's so noble and gentlemanly.

Scene 3. Is this a gift or an assasination plot?

Spoiler

He's The Yunchang, C-Man. 'Change' for him means 'It needs moar DUTY!'

Yet he somehow manages to make it seem Lawful-UBERCOOL instead of Lawful-Stupid. He would be soooooo dreamy if he were to drop the beard.

'WTF? I'm not getting anywhere near that thing.'

Sure, Cao. Give the guy who has the weapon that doesn't trigger counter attacks and who will go back to being our enemy in, like, five minutes flat the horse that will allow him to ignore 'control' rules. I don't mind. Really. What could go wrong, right? Nothing, of course. Nothing at all.

...

Goodbye, fingers.

At times I feel Guan Yu is just trolling The Cao. :D

Scene 4. He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me...

Spoiler

A moron.

Scene 5. No more Prince Wenyuan jokes, promise.

Spoiler

Scene 6. It kind of defeats the purpose.

Spoiler

Scene 7. With enemies like these...

Spoiler

Never trust Liu Bei's opinion on anything before he unleashes the crouching dragon. And just in case never trust Liu Bei's opinion on anything after he does it, either. Skip the middleman and ask the man itself.

In the novel Liu Bei is even more of a loser. All of Yuan Shao's advisors are against going to fight The Cao, yet Liu Bei goes on about how it is Yuan Shao's duty to do battle with Cao Cao to serve the Emperor, who by then had pretty much gone back to his role as glorified McGuffin, as Yuan Shao was part, though not directly so, of the 'girdle edict' conspiracy. Then Yuan Shao grew angry with his advisors because they were just literati who would make him miss the great opportunities to be found in MANLINESS or something.

So he went to do battle with Cao Cao, and historians have been laughing at him ever since.

Cao Cao battles against Yuan Shao are some of my favorite in the book simply because they show a pretty weird side of his generals that will later show itself after Chi Bi as well. When Yuan Shao has a WTFHUGE army, Cao Cao generals and advisors are all MANLY and brilliant and totally screw Yuan Shao to the point in his later appearances in both book and game he is pretty much down to his last sanity point.

Something similar does happen several times after Chi Bi. Cao Cao generals are all down to a few men and under attack by far superior forces. Then they go all IF THIS IS HOW IT IS I'LL SHOW YOU MY TRUE POWER, shake a manly fist while striking a manly pose against the manly horizon, and then proceed to ROFLSTOMP everyone.

So my pet theory is that their musou powers run on glory. Do they have a huge army and all the advantages? Meh. Bo-ring. Are they on their last leg and facing a much more powerful enemy? GRRR! MY GLORY LEVELS ARE OVER NINE THOUSAND! THIS IS MY ULTIMATE TECHNIQUE!

Then the enemy explodes.

In case the game did still not manage to drive the point home, here's to another asshole who forgot the entire point of having advisors is to listen to what they say. Cheers!

Scene 8. Prepare the Butthurt Cannon!

Spoiler

Why do you lie?

And that's it for today. In the next update we will face Yuan Shao in two back-to-back battles. Or should I say two back-to-back one sided slaughters? In any case during those battles Cao Cao, Xiahou Dun, and others will finally unleash the hidden power that lies dormant inside their super duper cute baby seals. Enemy armies will explode! Generals will cry for their mommy! Yunchang will decapitate his bro's allies! Yuan Shao will not be able to sit for months!

Also, I remember the game being harder. Way, way harder. Is there no one out there who can beat me? :lubu:



Edit: I was just looking for a Lu Bu animated smiley or emote or somethingie like that and somehow...

Spoiler

... that did happen. Nothing to do with the Three Kingdoms but it is all kinds of AWESOME and CUTE and D'AWWW so I'll post it here anyway.

Cao Mengde is not amused

I have always been a bit of a Weitard but every now and then The Cao really has a lapse. And that particular moment? That was one hundred percent dumbfuck. Even Guo Jia was, like, WTF CAO?! DID YOU FORGOT TO PUT YOUR BRAIN ON THIS MORNING?! And Cao was, like, what do you mea- OH SHIT!

Glorious image is glorious, though.

 

[JoKa]

Great LP, will follow this closely!

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Red Pandas are so cute it's unreal.

 

[treave]

He would be soooooo dreamy if he were to drop the beard.

Blasphemy! The Beautiful Beard can not be touched. A Guan Yu is nothing without its Beard.

Also, something weird I came across:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3834608/1/GUAN-YU-The-Owner-s-Guide-and-Maintenance-Manual

 

[Monstrous Bat]

2. Low level strategists add too much randomness to my plan. I don't do randomness. If a plan is not almost one hundred percent reproducible I feel just as if I had used a cheat to go through the mission. It wasn't my skill. It was luck. I did not win.

Why do you use Liu "I shot at a mountain and missed" Ye then? Besides, the low level fire tactics have pretty damn great accuracy, especially against someone like Lu Bu.

I find your extremely stingy play style... interesting. Finishing LoCC without ever spending any money on anything but seals? Sounds like a nice chanllenge game.

We can now buy magical super duper cute baby seals for a thousand gold each. Those are one of the few thingies I ever actually buy as there is a big difference between the basic and magical girl forms of our generals.

Well, if the first promotion turns them into magical girls, then what does the second promotion do? Turn them into witches a la Madoka?
I feel so dirty for mentioning that loli anime on the Codex

 

[Helly]

Cao cao, please stop being so... so...

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Also, I think the updates could use splitting into multiple posts, since images still load inside the spoiler tags nowadays. The page is murder to open, so it'd be good if we could discuss inanely fast enough to avoid multiple updates on a single page.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Also BC, I think you mean Wei guys having GLORY POWER *after* Chi Bi. At Chi Bi they were the ones with the fuckhueg army and got throughoutly tanned by the smaller forces of Liu Bei Kongming of the North Star and Sun Quan's crew (though historically we'd cross over Zhuge too there).

 

[Cool name]

Also BC, I think you mean Wei guys having GLORY POWER *after* Chi Bi. At Chi Bi they were the ones with the fuckhueg army and got throughoutly tanned by the smaller forces of Liu Bei Kongming of the North Star and Sun Quan's crew (though historically we'd cross over Zhuge too there).

That's what I meant. When they are at a disadvantge like with Yuan Shao or at Xiaoyao/Hefei, Fancheng, etc, or even all those ambushes Cao Cao seem to fall into they are all MANLY and AWESOME and IMPOSSIBLE IS FOR THE WEAK. When they have a massive advantage, like in Chi Bi, they are all, like, uhm... Can't really bother. Meh. I'm going home.

It does happen a lot in Teh Romance.The Cacao Rangers I just remember more because they do that stuff a lot and because the battle almost everyone remembers and talks about is Chi Bi, so I go, like, and what about all those other battles in which they were WTFAWESOME?

Red Pandas are so cute it's unreal.

They truly are. I could just hug them and cuddle them and spoil them a lifetime.

Why do you use Liu "I shot at a mountain and missed" Ye then?

By randomness I actually meant climate and terrain. My first experience with strategists, back when I was new and unexperienced, was to have two or three turns of rain while the enemy was giving my dudes an epic beating. And then you have the terrain. Once they level up they have spells for all/most terrains so that's not so bad, yet by then most fights are against massive numbers. It's just the way I roll. Let's say if I have to pick between using a spell that may do X damage to four enemies, yet it may do X damage to only two enemies or I may have run out of MP when I really NEED IT NAO, and a dude who will do X amount of damage to a single dude ALWAYS, I will pick the second even if the first one is potentially more effective.

I find your extremely stingy play style... interesting. Finishing LoCC without ever spending any money on anything but seals? Sounds like a nice chanllenge game.

I will delay buying stuffies as much as I can.



As the game gets more difficult I may need to buy some weapons and armor, but I want to get as far as possible before doing so simply to get the most result from my jewgoldz. I rarely buy consumables in games, though. Again, my obsession with 'predictable.' I know my healer can heal up to X damage, so I try to plan around suffering X damage or less. Once you add potions another unpredictable thingie is put into the table: Do I have enough potions, or should I not have bought that armor? Do I have too many potions and for those I did not buy the armor I could have bought?

I am one of the most boring persons you are going to see playing games that involve any kind of resource management.

Well, if the first promotion turns them into magical girls, then what does the second promotion do? Turn them into witches a la Madoka?
I feel so dirty for mentioning that loli anime on the Codex

Hey, Madoka was pretty good until the tenth episode. I always thought if Madoka had finished with the tweest it would have been far more awesome, with...

Spoiler

... dark hair girl eternally replaying the same events over and over and over to save Madoka, yet never actually managing to do it.

I thought it was badass and beautiful and cute and romantic.

Then they did remember to release the last two episodes.

Ugh...

Totally ruined it.

Blasphemy! The Beautiful Beard can not be touched. A Guan Yu is nothing without its Beard.

You do have a point. Some time ago I did watch this movie about Guan Yu crossing five passes and slaying six generals in which he was without a beard for most of the movie. It feel so wrong. It wasn't until the last scene, when he appears and strikes a manly pose with the manly green (or would it be, uhm, greenish blue? Or maybe sea-green? Or... -__-U) dragon crescent saber against the manly, uhm, black background and caresses his beard that I felt, like, WOW THE MOVIE REALLY WAS ABOUT GUAN YU!

But guys will never really understand how awkward stuffies are with guy with a beard, more so when you have really delicate skin. Goatees are the closest I am willing to go. So Guan Yu will have to remain in the friendzone 4evar. I just see that thingie and it is like, no. Bleep no. My imagination is not powerful enough to ignore THE BEARD.

Okay, thread just went straight into weird. :S

I'll finish next update soon so that we can just forget this all happened.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

In case of Cao Cao's escape from Chi Bi though, they didn't do that hot (since Zhuge just trolled Cao Cao's crew with ambushes and his plan only went South due to ->) and only got away because Guan Yu is such a nice guy (in the book, obviously, historically there's absolutely no evidence of the Huarong trail story having any factual basis).

 

[treave]

Blasphemy! The Beautiful Beard can not be touched. A Guan Yu is nothing without its Beard.

You do have a point. Some time ago I did watch this movie about Guan Yu crossing five passes and slaying six generals in which he was without a beard for most of the movie. It feel so wrong. It wasn't until the last scene, when he appears and strikes a manly pose with the manly green (or would it be, uhm, greenish blue? Or maybe sea-green? Or... -__-U) dragon crescent saber against the manly, uhm, black background and caresses his beard that I felt, like, WOW THE MOVIE REALLY WAS ABOUT GUAN YU!

But guys will never really understand how awkward stuffies are with guy with a beard, more so when you have really delicate skin. Goatees are the closest I am willing to go. So Guan Yu will have to remain in the friendzone 4evar. I just see that thingie and it is like, no. Bleep no. My imagination is not powerful enough to ignore THE BEARD.

Okay, thread just went straight into weird. :S

I'll finish next update soon so that we can just forget this all happened.

Well, you cannot compare just any man's ragged tufty stubble to The Beautiful Beard. It was noted to be long and smooth and silky even in an era without hair conditioner. I am sure the experience is rather... different.

And on that disturbing note, we will reach the next page of the thread with the next post.

edit: Hm, I thought the I STAND ALONE AGAINST THE MANY, THE HEAVENS SHALL BE MY WITNESS! happened to almost every faction, depending on whether they are the underdog in any particular battle. Just a way to make the generals more badass. I mean, Wei aside, we all know about the Shu generals, and the Wu generals also have their feats, e.g. Taishi Ci and Gan Ning.

Especially Gan Ning.

 

[RK47]

Hm, I thought the I STAND ALONE AGAINST THE MANY, THE HEAVENS SHALL BE MY WITNESS!

Hi. My name is Zhang Fei, you shall not pass.

One of my moment in the novel when Cao Cao greatly overestimated KM's cunning.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Awesome LP and great tactical skill, BC-sensei

Game added on my 1000 page long to-play list :/

 

[Norfleet]

I find your extremely stingy play style... interesting. Finishing LoCC without ever spending any money on anything but seals? Sounds like a nice chanllenge game.

Hah. You think Black Cat is stingy? You haven't seen anything.

As the game gets more difficult I may need to buy some weapons and armor, but I want to get as far as possible before doing so simply to get the most result from my jewgoldz. I rarely buy consumables in games, though.

I, too, dislike consumables, unless they are dirt cheap. If it amounts to more than about 1% of expenses, I'm going to balk at it. The way I see it, if you CONSUME them, you don't HAVE them anymore. That sort of undermines the point of getting them in the first place, since now you have to do without them. And if you were going to do that anyway, why not just skip the entire unnecessary "having" and "using" stage and save the money? Clearly you have a plan to manage without them anyway, or else you're fucked, since you no longer have them. Why not just us this?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Bros bros bros

I just ordered a blu-ray of John Woo's Red Cliff, the 280 minute big budget movie about the battle of the same name, in RoTK style. Includes this awesome thing:

 

[Tigranes]

Well, it's better than Michael Bay.

 

[Cool name]

The guy who does Teh Kongming is sooo dreamy.

But Liu Bei does not play ball with baby.

Anyway, there's a lot (A BLEEPING LOT) of pointless (BLEEPING POINTLESS) fanfictioning but it is a pretty fun movie for what it is. I.E: EPIC BATTLES AND TEH KONGMING BEING FABULOUS.

One hundred percent pro Liu Bei, though. >_<U

 

[Ninjerk]

John Woo is stupid and so are you.

 

[Cool name]

There are few thingies more boring than someone who isn't willing to be very stupid. *shrug*



Anyway, sorry about the delay. I have had the update written since the day after I did post the previous one but I have been quite busy and not feeling great so I never manage to finish uploading the screenshots.