halflingbarbarian
Scholar
It's out. Word on Chinese gaming forums is that the changes the new kit introduced changed the gameplay up tremendously, including better AI in battles, mechanics to further protect AI from 'cheap' player moves, and greater variety in strategy overall.
Some claimed that (gasp) the AI can actually beat the player now in battles without overpowering numbers, through proper selection of marching generals and use of defensive structures. No longer are ALL battles drawn-out slugfests to see who has more spearmen (those who played the basic version will know what I'm talking about), but instead about utilising each kind of unit and their strengths to capture and defend objectives.
'Grand strategies' which in the basic version that are like 'spells' a kingdom researches for one-time use have been expanded upon. Gone are the usual candidates for spamming (lower trust, plunder, etc.) to weaken enemies indefinitely until you decide to crush them with actual troops. More strategies are up for research now, and most of the offensive ones have a chance of failure attached when executed.
Furthermore, no longer do these strategies cost only gold; now they are only unlocked by generals with the appropriate skill and level. This is very important in the overall scheme of things, because ROTK is a war game basically, whoever has the might, wins. War generals are greatly favored over scholars for their crazy shit in battles (AOE damage, AOE +def, etc.) and are much more efficient in battles than having a couple of smart guys using tricks and diversions to whittle down armies. Brute force was king. In the power-up kit, it's still the same, but now, the smart guys are also favored for a reason: only they can research 'grand strategies'. You can have Zhuge Liang, but he does not and will never know 绝道 ('End of the road'), a favourite 'spell' used by many players in the original. Only appropriate talent will know how to work that 'spell', like Fa Zheng, or Lu Meng.
Now cities are also better differentiated with different 'tech'. These 'tech' will directly affect war and battle, like 阵法看破 ('Break strategies'), 军医治疗 ('Army medics'), etc. Now, those high politics stat generals are no longer paper-pushers that are sort of fillers for high intellect or war ability generals. They are now crucial in early game to unlock these 'tech' which gives you great early game advantage where your economy and general infrastructure cannot support overpowering armies.
Also, unit types are now upgradable, plus there are now tribal units, which may play a role in hard-countering bum-rushing same troop types. You can now also promote little shits to generals, creating a more dynamic game-world other than always trying to net those high-value historical generals right off the bat; this also means unpopular losers like Yan Baihu with his ugly mug and bad people relations can still get cronies to work for him.
Natural disasters are also back! (Nothing I hated more than getting plague in my capital city, and nothing I love more than seeing a target city get a terrible drought)
I just started a new game with this kit (just released), and these are my initial impressions. But I got a feeling TechmoKoei got their shit together after getting flamed by fans EVERYWHERE for the piece of shit that was ROTK 12 original and decided to pull their shit together (A popular chinese gaming forum actually had a movement to spam-call the TechmoKoei office to question them why ROTK 12 was so dumbed down).
It's released in Japanese only now, but there are great Chinese language patches out there. If you can't read either of these, you can wait for a working English patch. Those that want to 'demo' the game can PM me I'll direct you to the nearest 'demo'.
Some claimed that (gasp) the AI can actually beat the player now in battles without overpowering numbers, through proper selection of marching generals and use of defensive structures. No longer are ALL battles drawn-out slugfests to see who has more spearmen (those who played the basic version will know what I'm talking about), but instead about utilising each kind of unit and their strengths to capture and defend objectives.
'Grand strategies' which in the basic version that are like 'spells' a kingdom researches for one-time use have been expanded upon. Gone are the usual candidates for spamming (lower trust, plunder, etc.) to weaken enemies indefinitely until you decide to crush them with actual troops. More strategies are up for research now, and most of the offensive ones have a chance of failure attached when executed.
Furthermore, no longer do these strategies cost only gold; now they are only unlocked by generals with the appropriate skill and level. This is very important in the overall scheme of things, because ROTK is a war game basically, whoever has the might, wins. War generals are greatly favored over scholars for their crazy shit in battles (AOE damage, AOE +def, etc.) and are much more efficient in battles than having a couple of smart guys using tricks and diversions to whittle down armies. Brute force was king. In the power-up kit, it's still the same, but now, the smart guys are also favored for a reason: only they can research 'grand strategies'. You can have Zhuge Liang, but he does not and will never know 绝道 ('End of the road'), a favourite 'spell' used by many players in the original. Only appropriate talent will know how to work that 'spell', like Fa Zheng, or Lu Meng.
Now cities are also better differentiated with different 'tech'. These 'tech' will directly affect war and battle, like 阵法看破 ('Break strategies'), 军医治疗 ('Army medics'), etc. Now, those high politics stat generals are no longer paper-pushers that are sort of fillers for high intellect or war ability generals. They are now crucial in early game to unlock these 'tech' which gives you great early game advantage where your economy and general infrastructure cannot support overpowering armies.
Also, unit types are now upgradable, plus there are now tribal units, which may play a role in hard-countering bum-rushing same troop types. You can now also promote little shits to generals, creating a more dynamic game-world other than always trying to net those high-value historical generals right off the bat; this also means unpopular losers like Yan Baihu with his ugly mug and bad people relations can still get cronies to work for him.
Natural disasters are also back! (Nothing I hated more than getting plague in my capital city, and nothing I love more than seeing a target city get a terrible drought)
I just started a new game with this kit (just released), and these are my initial impressions. But I got a feeling TechmoKoei got their shit together after getting flamed by fans EVERYWHERE for the piece of shit that was ROTK 12 original and decided to pull their shit together (A popular chinese gaming forum actually had a movement to spam-call the TechmoKoei office to question them why ROTK 12 was so dumbed down).
It's released in Japanese only now, but there are great Chinese language patches out there. If you can't read either of these, you can wait for a working English patch. Those that want to 'demo' the game can PM me I'll direct you to the nearest 'demo'.
