Battle of Wei [SPOILER]

[ksuyen]

First, before undertake this save your game. Reason: you need to choose between siding with Cao Cao or Liu Bei. You can reload and play again for another faction.

Now I side with Cao Cao and defeated numerous of times. Here I found:
"From the start, ignore Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun's from the centre (Yu Jin should engage them and force both to back down), and charge straight north through the base to reveal and defeat Cao Bao, the first hidden ambush officer. Progress North East and reveal all of the hidden ambush officers. Don't worry about taking the bases, your allies will do that - just make sure to kill all of the ambush officers.

Once you have killed the last ambush officers close to the Northeast base, you'll probably be getting or have already gotten the Tao Qian "counter attack" message, where Zhao Yun appears. Prior to this, Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan will also have been ambushed by boulders in the "inner/central south east" base. Ignore Zhao Yun for now, and charge down to support Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan. They'll probably be at yellow health when you get there, so you'll make them recover. Kill the two officers in the base with them as fast as you can. While you're in there, two more officers should charge up to the base from the south which are part of the "counter attack" - kill them as well.

If you were fast enough, then in the North East there should be an ongoing engagement between only Zhao Yun, Mi Zhu, and a Mighty Shu General vs about 5 or 6 Wei officers, including Guo Jia (killing all of the ambush officers at the start severely weakens Zhao Yun's counter attack to the point where the Wei generals can hold him in the North East for a time). At the same time, Yu Jin will be moving to engage Zhang Fei. Charge as fast as you can up to the North East to support the battle against Zhao Yun. This part was absolutely critical for me as I got several messages from Wei Officers indicating "yellow health", so when I arrived, I restored them all to almost full health, and killed Mi Zhu and Zhao Yun. I may have been lucky that none of them died at all, but you should be able to keep most alive.

During/towards the end of dispatching Mi Zhu and Zhao Yun, you should get a message from Yu Jin indicating that he's down to yellow health in battle with Zhang Fei. After Mi Zhu and Zhao Yun are down, charge straight down to Yu Jin and Zhang Fei. They should be pretty much having a one on one duel in a relatively quiet area with a few troops around. Restore Yu Jin's health, and kill Zhang Fei as fast as possible. I used a volley from one of the hills at the edge of the village to achieve a dramatic success and reduce Zhang Fei to one pip of courage here.

If everything has gone to plan, you should be pretty much home and hosed from here. Yu Jin is free to advance, with 2 pips of courage. In the North, Guo Jia and the other generals should have taken out the straggler Mighty Liu Bei General, and in the South West, Cao Cao's forces should either have killed or be winning against the few Shu generals which we didn't take out when helping Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan. All of the Wei forces will now converge in front of the castle.

Kill Guan Yu, and support the Wei forces in front of the castle. The ram will be able to break down the gate easily after Guan Yu is down, and then everyone will rush Liu Bei and Tao Qian, who will be massacred. Overall, I may have lost a couple of generals, but none of the main cast. In my case, Xiahou Yuan, Xiahou Dun, Dian Wei, Guo Jia, Yu Jin were all in there."

[ksuyen]

If you feel sad that you killed your friends here, you can always reload the save game and side with Liu Bei. But fighting Cao Cao armies will be even more difficult.