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.