In Progress Let's Play Legend of Cao Cao.

[felipepepe]

On a Three Kingdoms related note, today is my birthday and my brother gave me Dynasty Warriors 8!

Seems definitely better than DW 6 and 7 so far, going back to huge battle maps full of missions & side missions, enemies that actually attack you and glorious story mode co-op.

 

[Ninjerk]

On a Three Kingdoms related note, today is my birthday and my brother gave me Dynasty Warriors 8!

Seems definitely better than DW 6 and 7 so far, going back to huge battle maps full of missions & side missions, enemies that actually attack you and glorious story mode co-op.

Have they abandoned the "Empires" offshoot or is that the next thing coming out?

EDIT:

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

But always stupid? In everything you do?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

There's no word on DW8 getting an Empires version yet.

 

[Name]

Those new Three Kindom movies/shows are all Michael Bay level fan fiction. People went to watch them only for those stars and Troy knockoff action scenes.
Those writing is a joke for a historic setting.

 

[Azira]

Really though, RotTK seems to be just as historically founded as the legend of Troy.
In one, we have the poetic writings of a chinese historicist.
In the other, we have the poetic writings of Homer.

I don't see much of a difference.

 

[Name]

Really though, RotTK seems to be just as historically founded as the legend of Troy.
In one, we have the poetic writings of a chinese historicist.
In the other, we have the poetic writings of Homer.

I don't see much of a difference.

Romance of Three Kindoms is written by some folk tales tellers thousand years later, and it's not poetic at all.
Records of the Three Kingdoms is written by a chronicler (which means it's historically founded, mostly) after the end of the era, which is the primary source of inspiration for all thing Romance of Three Kingdoms.
They are totally not like Troy.
But heh, Troy the movie is so cool! Let's imitate it.
Why don't they make a GRIMDARK version? GRIMDARK is hot!

 

[Cool name]

Why don't they make a GRIMDARK version? GRIMDARK is hot!

This is not your great-great-great-grandfather's Romance of the Three Kingdoms!

And now that idea is floating in the astral sea, waiting for the proper mind to give it fertile ground in which to grow and flourish. :/

What have we done.

Really though, RotTK seems to be just as historically founded as the legend of Troy.
In one, we have the poetic writings of a chinese historicist.
In the other, we have the poetic writings of Homer.

I don't see much of a difference.

As Name said, Teh Romance is based in the historical records along the folklore and the, uhm, style of artistic license that was favored by the dynasty of the time. While it is true that chinese historical records are not the most unbiased ones out there, and that they had a kind of noticeable tendency to exagerate and twist and freely interpretate historical fact it is far more 'historical' than the myth of Troy and the like. Most of the liberties taken by the novel are in the characterization. The events, battles, alliances, betrayals, and all that is almost completely historical, if 'dramatized.'

 

[treave]

As Name said, Teh Romance is based in the historical records along the folklore and the, uhm, style of artistic license that was favored by the dynasty of the time. While it is true that chinese historical records are not the most unbiased ones out there, and that they had a kind of noticeable tendency to exagerate and twist and freely interpretate historical fact it is far more 'historical' than the myth of Troy and the like. Most of the liberties taken by the novel are in the characterization. The events, battles, alliances, betrayals, and all that is almost completely historical, if 'dramatized.'

The most they venture into anything akin to Trojan myth would be that silliness with Guan Yu's ghost. I mean, seriously...

As for movies, what we need is a 300 derivative of RoTK with topless generals battling each other on fiery red cliffs in slow motion.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

As Name said, Teh Romance is based in the historical records along the folklore and the, uhm, style of artistic license that was favored by the dynasty of the time. While it is true that chinese historical records are not the most unbiased ones out there, and that they had a kind of noticeable tendency to exagerate and twist and freely interpretate historical fact it is far more 'historical' than the myth of Troy and the like. Most of the liberties taken by the novel are in the characterization. The events, battles, alliances, betrayals, and all that is almost completely historical, if 'dramatized.'

The most they venture into anything akin to Trojan myth would be that silliness with Guan Yu's ghost. I mean, seriously...

As for movies, what we need is a 300 derivative of RoTK with topless generals battling each other on fiery red cliffs in slow motion.

Pretty much anything involving Guan Yu is the farthest from history the novel gets. IIRC the vast majority of purely fictional events in it are related to him. Then again, in terms of the Chinese worship pecking order of the character's Guan Yu is at the top.

 

[Name]

Guan Yu is a deity in Taoism, Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism.
Talking about worship.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Indeed. Pretty well for any guy.

 

[Cool name]

Chapter 17.

Prepare the mind bleach.






Scene 1. Camping and stuffies.

Spoiler

He's not buying your bull, C-Man.

When it comes to Teh Romance 'finest commander' more often than not should be read as 'badass dudes who's really good at personal combat.'

There are two schools of thought regarding this point. In one hand you have those who believe you should keep all characters equally trained, but I believe this point to be foolish. In the other hand you have those who believe you should focus on a few characters and leave the rest be. Many thinkie think this idea to be stupid, but it is actually quite smart. Why? Because the game scales the enemy level to your forces. So let's say there is a really hard battle. You field Cao Cao and Xiahou Dun, both level 30, and a few level 6 to 10 guys. The enemies will be scaled to the, uhm, middle point, whose name in english I just forgot, and your strong units will be pretty much immune to them.

But to be honest I am following neither. I have a few REALLY STRONG dudes like Cao Cao and Xiahou Dun, a few really weak guys and the rest of my force somewhere in the middle. Why? Because I'm dumb. That's why.

Anyway, let's deploy.

Scene 2. I really remember this game being harder...

Spoiler

Good thingie The Cao has a man completely out of the ordinary in his phone's contact book.

*facepaw*

Moar *facepaw*

Yan Liang cheats badly in this battle. He sits in a one tile wide bridge so that just a single guy, up to three if we use an archer and the catapult, can attack him at once, and he has an item, the bean bag, that will automatically use a healing item after every single attack that hits him. For the player it is a very useless item as every single use will consume a recovery bean and will thus leave you in abject poverty before long, but the AI doesn't have that problem so LOL.

So we will call for Guan Yu and leave the northern bridge to him while we concentrate all of our forces in the western one.

As I move Xiahou Dun and Zhang Liao away from the northern bridge I use the 'action' part of Xiahou Dun's turn to unleash the power of super duper cute baby seals, for it is time to show Yuan Shao the true might of the Cacao Rangers.

Cue transformation music!

Fact: Even as a boobie girl Xiahou Dun is 1000% moar manly than your random Codexer.

Deal with it.


Anyway, Mahou Shoujo Xiahou Dun is neither subtle nor complex. She moves fast and she hits hard, and that's about it. Yet that's all we want from Xiahou Dun. Zhuge Liang, Guo Jia, and the like are awesome and everything but no one's going to call them REAL MEN.

I love those battles that give me the chance to focus my entire army in a single point.

Guan Yu will take care of the lone cheating general in the northern bridge while my forces slaughter the enemy army. And by slaughter I mean..

... nothing but exactly that, slaughter.

We loot the bean bag from his still warm corpse, yet I doubt we will ever use it.

Anyway, we are almost done.

After dealing with the last few enemies we start moving towards Yuan Shao's camp. As the distance is vast I take the chance to...

Yellow dragon? That makes no sense.

I don't draw this shit, C-Man.

Anyway, Mahou Shoujo Cao Cao's more easy to discern advantage over his old self is the ability to attack diagonally, which we will put at use almost immediately, and even more insane tanking.

And soon afterwards...

Wait a second. Don't I get to turn into a boobie girl too?

I am affraid you are not popular enough for dudes to draw you as a hot girl so that they can fap to you without unleashing the homo.

There isn't much else to tell.

Scene 3. Meanwhile, deep within Yuan Shao's den of fail...

Spoiler

Liu Bei, inspiring example for single digit IQs since 161 A.D.

I can totally get behind that. Off with his head!

Ignore him! Head, his, off, with! Right nao.

Ask anyone who did ever help him.

Dumb and dumber, nao with chinese dudes.

Scene 4. He was just warming up.

Spoiler

Also known as a bag of ambulant XP and loot.

It's not. We are not going to use that thingie, like, ever.

That's not good advice for this particular battle. As you will see defending the bridges is far more trouble than it is worth.

No. ¬¬U

Jewgold is mine all mine.

Anyway, let's deploy.

Scene 5. Sometimes you just need to accept you are not cut out for this.

Spoiler

He was one of the two top warriors in your ranks. Now he is the top warrior in your ranks.



And not for long.

Even if we were to place Yue Jin plus two Geomancers that bridge would be far too much trouble to defend. Instead of defending the bridges we will let the enemy take them so that we can pull another 'Cacao Rangers... Combine!' maneuver on their wild donkeys.

In this battle Guan Yu's AI will screw us over pretty badly, by which I mean it is still a walk in the park but we actually have to, uhm, I don't know... Move our forces or something. If Guan Yu ever finds himself next to Wen Chou they will duel and Wen Chou will die. However, Guan Yu will instead spend the entire battle running around finishing the dudes my forces did weaken instead of killing Wen Chou.

This would have gone far better had I placed the two geomancers in the western bridge so that I finish both of Wen Chou's companions in the first round. Guan Yu would then attack Wen Chou himself and finish him off in a single round, but to be honest I was too lazy to reload and switch people around just for that.

In either case the first thingie I have to do is to retreat the forces at the western bridge so that they can rejoin my main force.

That's a spell enemy magicians have been using for a while but I never did manage to screenshot. The spell gives a status effect that forces the target not to move, yet they can still do 'actions' normally. I don't really use it, and when the enemy uses it I just ignore it. Kind of useless.

Cao Cao finally defeats Wen Chou and obtains a silver shield from his corpse. Xiahou Dun is up north being all manly by himself. The others are just finishing the foes advancing through the forest. Xiahou Dun, Cao Cao, and Guan Yu would be more than enough to deal with those dudes coming from the north but I will send everyone just because I love to abuse weaklings.

Diao Chan did attain level 15 when fighting around the tent north of the bridge. You know what that means.

Cue transformation music!

... Good thing I'm dead.

Because you did not learn from your mistakes and again faced against the beautiful and brilliant genius strategist? :3

Yawnies.

Scene 6. Meanwhile, back at Yuan Shao's den of butthurt...

Spoiler

Did he finally check wikipedia or something?

Now for the bad nyaws. My magickal witchy journey's climax is going to happen in around a month or so, almost exactly, and if that's not a game over screen I am finishing my moving back to Asia right afterwards because I feel kind of stupid paying for an officetel I am not living in (though my Brother is kind of 'Thanks, Sis! This place you are paying for me is far more awesome than the goshiwon I was going to get myself so take your time!'). So, there are two ways in which we can continue this:

1. I make one or two more updates and then that's it until I come back, IF I come back.

2. I make one or two more updates and then upload the game and the savegames (I don't know how to split them...) somewhere so that someone from among the Codexers I am close with does continue in my stead.

So, like, if you are one of my Codex bros and want to take over, do tell.

 

[Azira]

She'll be too busy attending live K-pop concerts.

 

[Cool name]

can't LP in korea?

I'll spoil this stuffie to keep my promise of not turning any more threads into Black Cat threads. Not even mine.

Spoiler

I do not know of a good private proxy over there. Every time I was over there I did come to the Codex using the same as I ever use, but as I did say elsewhere I have half the world between me and the proxy and then half the world between the proxy and the Codex. It's not particularly funny.

Besides that, I need to rebuild my life over there. I need to make new friends, I need to find new hot guys, I need to find new places to be a regular at, new stores to raid every time my card's limit resets, new groups to belong to, a new gym I feel comfortable at, a new place to take dance classes, etc. And my magickal witchy journey did require me to pretty much left everything I knew and everyone I knew aside, so presently I am pretty lonely. And being honest I love attention and popularity and stuffies, so being pretty much by myself is hell. I will go mad if I don't get a new life ASAP.

And then my cousins have already said they are not going to leave me alone until they have purged the decadent west from me and turned me back into a perfect lady so there's that.

And, well... In the end that's the point of a magickal witchy journey. You either kick the bucket for realz (well, in theory anyway. For obvious reasons everyone who deals with the topic did not kick it fo' realz.) or your kick the bucket for metaphorz and become someone else, the person you could be if it were not by the external influences and your past and your memories and your scars. So, hell, I don't know. I can come out of it and no longer like videogames. Or, like, I can come out of it and actually like super cinematic AAA+ videogames. I don't know. I just want to leave everythingie behind and start anew. I have been trying to do that for, like, years, and moving back to asia is my once-in-a-lifetime chance to do it properly. I hate the west, I hate my past, I hate myself, I hate a lot of bleep. So the next time I come I may be, like, role playing games? Aren't those the games with, like, numbers and stuffies? Ewww. What are you, nerds?

And then you ban me because you are evil and bad and super duper mean.

She'll be too busy attending live K-pop concerts.

And then there's that too. Not only attending but also using my many, glorious, min-maxed, EPIC LEVEL charms to make Junsu/Xia mine all mine.

Spoiler

What a man...

And a few dozen others as well, but Junsu first. No time to LP when you have a harem to take care of.

 

[Monstrous Bat]

But... why would you need a proxy in the first place? Is Codex banned in Korea? Because I find that kinda hard to imagine when I can access Codex without any problem from mainland China.

I could take over the LP if absolutely nobody else would, but then I'd be updating at a rather infrequent rate because I'm a huge lazyass busy with other affairs.

By the way, the savegame files are those with the .e5s extension.

 

[Cool name]

Because being online pretty much means trusting some of your personal information to people you do not know nothing about, and I am super duper paranoid.

And, well... 'Maybe she did not find a proxy server that did live up to her monocled expectations and did allow her to live both a 'nerdy' lifestyle and an 'in' one, so she did have to choose' is kind of a better way to be remembered than 'Maybe she did explode' or 'Maybe she will come out the TV to visit from time to time.'



Edit: Though it would be pretty cool to leave a haunted bishoujo game behind, kind of you date-sim Black Cat for seven days and if you don't get the cool ending she comes out of the TV and eats you. That would be awesome.

MoarEdit: And of course it would be Ironman and involve lots and lots of microtransactions.

 

[felipepepe]

As much as I would like to see the rest, LPs are very personal quests... IMHO, do as much as pleases/fits you, then carry on into new horizons. Anything beyond that, we leave for the future to unfold.

Good luck sis, your name shall always be remembered on the halls of Codexia.

 

[Name]

Because being online pretty much means trusting some of your personal information to people you do not know nothing about, and I am super duper paranoid.

this sounds like one of those drama scenes where the rich bitchy mother-in-law sends private investigators to dig up dirt about the company heir's love interest and gives her a fat envelope of cash to leave the country and never come back

I thought this is referring to gov agency monitoring internet activity.
Guess I need to read more private eye stories and less cyberpunk.

 

[Cool name]

I thought this is referring to gov agency monitoring internet activity.
Guess I need to read more private eye stories and less cyberpunk.

If there is a gov agency monitoring my internet activity they either believe I am a total nutcase or incredibly dangerous. Considering I am yet to be recruited to be part of a Jericho-like commando team of super wizards I am assuming the former is closer to the truth.

I'll show 'em.

As much as I would like to see the rest, LPs are very personal quests... IMHO, do as much as pleases/fits you, then carry on into new horizons. Anything beyond that, we leave for the future to unfold.

Good luck sis, your name shall always be remembered on the halls of Codexia.

this sounds like one of those drama scenes where the rich bitchy mother-in-law sends private investigators to dig up dirt about the company heir's love interest and gives her a fat envelope of cash to leave the country and never come back

He speaks K-Drama! :D

But yes, the Codex is one of those thingies that could doom one to never marry well.

 

[Crooked Bee]

You know what happens when I take over your LPs:

Spoiler

I never complete them either.

On that note, good luck with your journey!

 

[XenomorphII]

Sad that this will likely not be finished. It has been fun though, thank you for going through the trouble, and good luck!

 

[Kz3r0]

And, well... In the end that's the point of a magickal witchy journey. You either kick the bucket for realz (well, in theory anyway.

Remember to return home before midnight.

Fare thee well young lady.

 

[Mrowak]

Hmm... why is everyone saying farewell, already? I want my

magickal witchy journey's climax

goddammit!

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I downloaded and completed this game because of this LP. And as I'm a big fan of tactical RPGs I have to say I loved it. I finished it up on the Neutral/Evil red path, so I'm very curious on how the good blue path works out.

That being said, affiliating red with evil and blue with good might not be completely accurate. I made some decisions in the game that I thought were merciful and saw my red part of the meter rise instead of the blue. It may be more accurate to consider the red the standard Cao Cao reaction from the stories, and the blue the out of character response which creates a whole new timeline.

Anyway, this game was awesome and has a lot of replay value. I just realized after reading a walkthrough that I could have saved two characters that died in my game. And I only collected 33 out of 50 of the special items.

Again, hope this LP is continued. Very awesome game and I have a thing for the three kingdoms as I read the novel and played half of the RotTK games.

 

[Name]

I downloaded and completed this game because of this LP. And as I'm a big fan of tactical RPGs I have to say I loved it. I finished it up on the Neutral/Evil red path, so I'm very curious on how the good blue path works out.

That being said, affiliating red with evil and blue with good might not be completely accurate. I made some decisions in the game that I thought were merciful and saw my red part of the meter rise instead of the blue. It may be more accurate to consider the red the standard Cao Cao reaction from the stories, and the blue the out of character response which creates a whole new timeline.

Anyway, this game was awesome and has a lot of replay value. I just realized after reading a walkthrough that I could have saved two characters that died in my game. And I only collected 33 out of 50 of the special items.

Again, hope this LP is continued. Very awesome game and I have a thing for the three kingdoms as I read the novel and played half of the RotTK games.

Blue path means

Spoiler

stay loyal to the Han Dynasty and remains as its Chancellor (also unlock super cool fantasy save-the-world ending storyline), Red path is crowning your self as Emperor and finish everyone else as you are the boss(also fictional). Remain True Neutral will net your third ending, the historical one, where you remain as Chancellor of Han until your sudden death but you have paved the way for your son to become Emperor.