Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Won!

My greatest foe is dead. My next-greatest hasn't got half the forces I do. Time to finish this.

#37 goes down by the end of the month.Yuan Shu had been killed in combat, and his subordinate Wang Ping was already on the ropes.

 

I'm not going to spend any more time micromanaging provinces or babysitting generals. First thing, Sun Ce's red provinces in the middle are going down. I can mobilize crushing forces easily; I just need to get generals there and transfer soldiers to the loyal ones (i.e. away from the ones I won in battle) before going in. 

This can also be tedious.

Sun Quan's (Ce died) last stand

 

Next target -  Yuan Tan. Regrettably, he breaks through my wall, but I know he won't be able to expand quickly enough to escape a multi-point invasion.

Sending reinforcements to #50

Which isn't to say he (or his eventual successors) make it easy for me. Where he is weak, he withdraws into unoccupied territory when attacked. Where he is strong, he attacks where I am weak. Where he must defend, he utterly abuses smoke and fire to delay the inevitable. I have so many useless generals that I wind up sending them back into southern China for some personal development and recruitment. And one summer, Cao Ang dies, depriving me of a loyal general, and worse, 20,000 soldiers.

The state of China in 203AD.

 

But they're fractured in a few months.

 

Looking grim for them by September.

 

I finish by conquest of south China by winter, which delays my final conquest of the north a few months.

Spring 204 brings more disease, and Yuan Shao dies, leaving his son Yuan Xi in charge. So does one of my generals and another 20,000 soldiers with him. By now I don't really need them.

I begin mobilizing troops northward.

Summer brings poor omens - locusts for me, which are bad news, and rebellion for Yuan Xi, which I didn't even know could happen.

In May, I begin my final attack on the northeast. 747,000 soldiers against a combined roughly 200,000 between both remaining masters, and this time I don't need to reserve all that much to protect my own lands from counter-invasion.

The old monkey rice trap formation. It never fails!

 

Yuan Xi's last stand. He dies in September after foolishly charging into the rice trap.

 

Winter. So close to victory! The inaction is painful.

 

Finally, at the end of February, I catch and behead my last rival in his castle at Youzhou.

 

Sure! But not this one.

GAB rating: Average.

I am so glad to be done with this one. 

On paper, this is a much better game than Nobunaga's Ambition (the 1983 version). It's a more complete and cohesive game, better designed and balanced around its expanded systems. And you no longer get wiped out or set back irrecoverably in the first turn. War, in particular, is a massive improvement, with meaningful tactical options that give the underdog a chance, and the economic and diplomatic layers are meaningfully broader. There's still some illogic carried over from its predecessor (arms/training are independent variables of army size, provisions travel anywhere instantly but armies travel one state per rotation, etc.) but overall this aspect is still a major improvement.

I also have to give some credit to the game's localization. I can't speak to its accuracy or efficacy in capturing nuance of the original, but this is, by my estimation, one of the first Japanese video games with a significant language element to be translated into English, and shows none of the awkwardness that plagued so many of its contemporaries and games released well beyond.

It isn't a great game, not even at its best - even though it's deeper than its predecessor, the systems and their interactions are still more broad than deep, and outside of combat, many gameplay options just aren't worth using. Castles are the only decent revenue source, so you just build them whenever possible, and then your economic concerns become a lot simpler. I never saw any point in levying taxes, searching for gold mines, or borrowing from the merchant or rivals. I also never felt it necessary to explore diplomatic options beyond "pay/marry off rivals who you don't want to fight yet" (though admittedly these options - including some subterfuge strategies, might be underexplored on my part). And for all the stats on your generals, none mattered nearly as much as the two loyalty stats, which are trivial to maximize.

But Romance of the Three Kingdoms' biggest fault is an incredibly tedious endgame, where you know you're going to win, but you still have to manage 30-50 states and make decisions for them every single turn. For the most part, these were extremely trivial decisions too, especially in winter when the game's already slow pace comes to a halt. I'd estimate it took me at least nine hours to get through the final twelve months.

The game is aware of this and gives you the option to authorize a state to make decisions for you, but the implementation is so flawed that I didn't want to do that.

• For one, only the master can automate (and de-automate) states, so you still have to wait for his turn before the option is available. And you might want the master to do something else, since there are options only available to him.
• Second, there's no way to know what an authorized governor is actually doing, so the option might as well be an auto-skip function. That's bad on a newly conquered territory, or one held by a general with even the slightest hint of disloyalty, because mutiny and rebellion are ugly things. Toward the end, that described most of my territories and generals, because I needed the loyal ones for war.
• Third, if an army moves through an automated state, that army ain't going anywhere else until you de-automate it.

The game was somewhat enjoyable at the start, but never all that satisfying. Building up a state isn't much of an accomplishment; only conquest actually feels like a major progress event, and even that part takes forever.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms: First scenario won!

199AD

 

Dong Min, successor of the late master Dong Zhou, remains my most well-armed foe with 24 generals commanding 370,000 soldiers, and occupies both of China's capital cities Loyang and Ch'agan. I want them.

I have... quite a bit more than that, with 49 generals and 633,000 soldiers, but loyalties and arms levels are all over the place, and I do need to reserve much of my army to defend the regions I already have. By my estimation, I will need about 540,000 soldiers to take any of Dong Min's territory, hold it, and guard my own from retaliation, and the more equipped they are, the better.

Phase 1 of my attack plan. Spread out. Retake as much free territory as possible, and scour for weapons-grade metal and soldiers. A lot of it is territory I previously abandoned; it lies deteriorated, disloyal, and fallow, but meticulous redistribution of gold and rice and several months of maintenance gets it back into shape.

New generals are recruited too; Cao Cao has a field day charming Guan Yu's disgruntled servants in region 2 over to his side, and more free agents are found in the territories I've taken. With the playing field narrower, not to mention the inevitable victor of this conflict obvious, they're not in nearly as much of a hurry to leave my employ any more.

Phase 2 is ensuring that each general gets what they need from wherever it is available. The process is... not exciting.

It's three times longer than this and I have another one for provincial needs.

 

By spring of 200AD, I have 54 generals, mostly loyal, half of them fully armed, and more than enough metal to arm the rest albeit spread all over China. And almost 750,000 soldiers.

Phase 3 begins. I begin moving troops toward Dong Min's domain, picking up weapons along the way.

In January 201AD, I launch my first invasion, on state #18.

 

Even with all that fortification he can't hold out against my overwhelming forces, and I don't hesitate to use fire to keep him moving. It's a rout, and Dong Min's commanding officer withdraws before the end of the month.

Next, I invade #20.

This one's a bit disadvantageous for me, but liberal use of trick attacks followed by fire forces a lot of retreats and evens the odds.

It spills into the months to come, and Dong Min sends reinforcements, but this cannibalizes #21's defenses which I also invade with my spare generals.

I'm outnumbered, but now they truly have nowhere to run.

 

#21 runs out of rice and falls, and I immediately have the surviving generals, now in my employ, invade Yuan Shu.

I'm quickly reminded not to do that, as multiple generals defect during the fight, adding their ranks to Yuan Shu's and making the battle drag out far longer than it need be.

Before I'm done with Yuan Shu, #20 is taken by attrition.This triggers the victory conditions for scenario 1, and simultaneously, of 2, 3, and 4.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Yijing

197-198AD

A few events happened over the year 197.

• I spent the summer and fall depopulating the east coast in preparation for a massive invasion of Yuan Shao's (yellow) territory.
• Winter put a freeze to this.
• In the spring, Yuan Shao, Liu Bei (green), and Gongsun Zan (brown? formerly region #3) started fighting.
• Gongsun Zan died, and territory changed hands between Yuan Shao and Liu Bei, fracturing both empires.

Those last two points actually align somewhat with history, only a year ahead of schedule and with Liu Bei's involvement. Coincidence, or semi-scripted event?

By March 198, I have 20 generals commanding nearly 400,000 soldiers stationed in regions #6 and #7, neatly divided between the well-armed (in #6) and the poorly armed (in #7). Yuan Shao isn't getting through to me. The poorly armed spend their time searching for metal. The well-armed go in.

Once again, the enemy just doesn't have enough provisions to support a defense. All I have to do is turtle.

We push on through the territory, driving Liu Bei out of #16, and spilling into #17 and #15 beyond.

Liu Bei puts up a long, flame-intensive defense, in which some of his own generals defect to me, and at least one burns to death in his own fire trap, but he too eventually runs out of rice.

He started with 14 generals.

I have him executed, and while his rule is succeeded by his top general Guan Yu, multiple officers below him refuse to swear loyalty. Such is the price of soldierly humility, I suppose.

Winter comes, and I know to stop pushing my luck. Guan Yu is absolutely furious, but there's not a whole lot he can do about it now. Yuan Shao is a bit cross, and several of my own territories are within striking distance of his, so I pay off his animosity with a bit of wuzhu, and hunker down until spring. During this time, I finally complete arming the generals in state #6, and also steal one of Guan Yu's former generals.

In spring, disease claims the life of Dong Zhou - formerly my strongest rival - and of another general whose name was unremarkable.

Nine down. Six to go.

 

Romance of the Three Kingdoms: Eastern provinces

195AD

Loyal generals are your most precious resource. Money comes in reliably every year and castles basically print more of it. Rice is harvested every year and if you don't have enough you can buy more. Soldiers can be recruited as long as you have enough cash and rice to support them - and the calculation to determine how many you can support is simple.

All the soldiers in China do you no good if you haven't got enough generals to lead them, and they are named, finite in nature, and rival masters love to hoard them. You need a general in every state you own, or else it produces nothing for you and can't be defended. But then you also need several generals to conquer any territory claimed by a rival. I had to abandon the southern states in order to fight Ma Teng and take the northwest, because there just wasn't enough manpower to hold everything and take more.

Finding more generals is a frustrating exercise, as well. Most of my recruits come from searching my own territory, but there's no way to know if a region has a free general until you spend several turns searching and find nothing, and even then you might not be sure. And if you do find a free general, you can't actually hire him until it's Cao Cao's turn in the month; another master might have snatched him from your own territory first, and usually do. And when you have Cao Cao recruit, he might refuse (even though he usually doesn't). And a freshly recruited general tends to not be very loyal; you can't do anything about it until it's his turn next month, and he could very well leave you before then.

Cao Cao can try to bribe generals employed by other masters, sure, but so far this has yet to work for me, and the manual suggests this antagonizes their employers, which I really don't want right now. The other way to recruit generals is by defeating them in battle, but generals hired this way tend to defect VERY fast. Never leave them in charge of the rice.

As for boosting loyalty, the easiest and most reliable way is gifts of money. A maximum gift of 1000z boosts loyalty 40 points, and you want it maximized to 100. 99 is not enough; a general with anything under 100 will leave you when you least expect it.

After the fall of Ma Teng, I recruited three of his generals, but two left me almost immediately. And I found several free generals hiding in his states, but I could only manage to recruit one and hold onto him. Nevertheless, I am better off now than I was before the conquest; I can withdraw from the northwest states without fear of losing them, and focus on my weakest rivals, who are inconveniently situated on the east side of the map.

In April, I begin moving them across the map, picking up whatever soldiers I can recruit along the way. This takes me over a year, but by winter 196, I have nearly 200,000 soldiers at the doorsteps of some weak rivals, and I bring 180,000 lead by my nine dumbest generals into the peninsular domain of Kong Rong, who only has 60,000.

It's not even remotely fair.

The limited winter mobility, combined with the mountainous terrain, does mean I have to be cautious of fire attacks and ensure that every unit engaged in a siege has a clear escape path. But Kong Rong's units aren't terribly mobile either.

The battle takes me two months to win, and during this time, Kong Rong's neighbor Wang Lang, for reasons I can't begin to understand, leaves his territory and wanders into mine.

The royal guards ensure he does not survive this.

In just a few months we regroup and invade the marshy province #11 to the south with a likewise massively overpowering army.

Efficient conquest demands careful attention to the generals' ability. Only some of them have the naval skills needed to cross the Yangtze Delta, and only a few can be positioned on the north bank (even though we are invading from the north).

But victory is mine before the end of the month. Shang Chong does not have enough rice! His generals, territory, and head are mine.

Yuan Shao, watch out. You're next.