Any way to prevent Guandu Event?

[ianliew]

I'm currently playing as an officer under Yuan Shao, and the Guandu event is quite crippling. First, Yan Liang and Wen Chou die, then Zhang He and Gao Lan defect, and finally Tian Feng dies (with Chun Yuqiong and Lu Weihuang). The end result is that by 201AD, Yuan Shao can still match Cao Cao in troops and wealth, but simply cannot utilise enough talent in war to hold his own and inevitably gets overrun.

I read that you can prevent the events either by playing as Yuan Shao and choosing an alternative option, or by playing as Yan Liang or Wen Chou, which disables the event as you can't die from an event. I'd much rather play my own fictional general within the ranks, though - so is there any way to stop Guandu from happening? I recall that in RTK11 there were certain conditions before Guandu would fire, like Baima having to be under Yuan Shao's control while Puyang was under Cao Cao or something - is there anything similar I can do in RTK13, like quickly overrun Pu Yang once the alliance ends, to stop the battle of Guandu? I assume killing Cao Cao or Guan Yu would work, but that's a bit hard to achieve in 200AD.

On a side note, I'm really enjoying this game. I finally get to play a vassal character (my previous experience with the RTK series being 2, 3, 4, 9 and 11), and it's great fun just enjoying the RPG elements, making friends and striving to get my liege's notice. I finally know how it feels to work for Yuan Shao, though - I keep telling him to attack Cao Cao, he refuses, then Guandu happens, everything falls to pieces, and Cao Cao slowly but surely pushes us back until the inevitable must happen. I took a gamble and made a trip down to Yuan Shu's last city before Cao Cao took it, and befriended Lu Lingqi, and once Yuan Shu fell recruited her - the two of us, together with Lu Meng and Hao Zhao, are all that stand between Cao Cao and the total destruction of the Yuan clan. Yuan Shao really doesn't have anyone good post-Guandu, and if I can somehow stop it happening I think we'd give Cao Cao a better fight. As it is I think the current game is lost... although I'm still loving every moment of it!

[Temujin]

You could always play with historical events off. If you're already in the midst of a game and don't want to restart, try getting rid of the advisor Xu You, who betrayed Yuan Shao and advised Cao Cao to attack Yuan's supplies. Some events still have key officer requirements, although I don't know about Guandu. Since Xu You is the one who guided the attack on Wuchao,which was key to the Guandu events, getting rid of Xu You might prevent it from happening

[ianliew]

I think by the time Xu You gives the intel on Wuchao Guan Yu has already killed yan Liang and Wen Chou, though. It should help save Zhang He, Gao Lan and Tian Feng, though - thanks for the tip. I'll try and get rid of him, although I'm not sure how I can do so if I'm just a governor. Maybe try to cajole him to rebel or something?

[Temujin]

If he is in your city, give him 1000 men, march him at Cao Caos forces alone, control the battle, and hope he dies.

[Temujin]

Or,yanno, coax him to rebel if you wanna be nice about it.

[Motrini]

You could create a custom event just to break the events chain (for example by making Guan Yu defect).
You can activate the custom event at any moment even after you started a scenario.
Anyway, I don't think that the Battle of Guandu is really that crippling for Yuan Shao (especially if you're aiding him), I've seen him taking the central plains even after losing Wen Chou and Yan Liang thanks to the sheer number of troops he can deploy (especially if you start from an earlier scenario so he has also time to train them while uniting the north).

[ianliew]

I normally start from 195, but I can see it being easier if I started from 189, because Cao Cao will have more competition for the area between the Yellow River and the Yangtze, whereas in 195 the whole area is pretty much his as Lu Bu and Yuan Shu are hardly going to be a match for him, while Sun Ce/Quan take a while before their borders meet (and they are probably too busy fighting Liu Biao anyway). How much of the area Cao Cao consolidates makes a big difference as to how easy a time Yuan Shao will have once he unites Hebei. Starting in 195, by the time the alliance ended in 199 or thereabouts Cao Cao had completely sealed Yuan Shao's border south of the Yellow River, and irritatingly also held Henei north of the river. Once Yuan Shu fell he pretty much only had to focus on a single enemy.

I've reloaded to just before Guandu, and although I couldn't save Yan Liang and Wen Chou, getting rid of Xu You seems to have prevented the Wuchao incident and made things a bit more balanced. With Zhang He, Gao Lan and Tian Feng, we've actually invaded the region south of the river and taken Jibei, and Puyang isn't going to hold out much longer. Yuan Shu is still surviving because Cao Cao's attention is on us a bit earlier. Amazing how a small detail can make such a big difference to things, and I wonder how scary we'd be if Yan Liang and Wen Chou were still around. I'll try the event thing and see if I can get Guan Yu to defect to Yuan Shao or someone else (although that might break the formation of Liu Bei's new army in Ru Nan).

[heinous won]

Events don't fire if you are in a controlled battle, right? Why not just set one of those up right before the first Guandu event is set to fire?

[Motrini]

Originally posted by heinous won:

Events don't fire if you are in a controlled battle, right? Why not just set one of those up right before the first Guandu event is set to fire?

Right, I was forgetting about this.

[Losk Osmanthus 路渐秋凉]

I have trouble trigger that event and you want to avoid it?! good grief.

Yuan Shao AI always kill Zhang Yan force before event could happen in my games.

[ianliew]

My second game seems to have avoided the event completely - although I have no idea how it happened. I think starting from 189 means more can go wrong with the event triggers, while starting at 195 gives less time for changes. The Lu Bu events triggered off nicely, and he was killed, but after Guandu failed to happen I realised that Cao Cao failed to attack Xu Zhou and capture Guan Yu, which was probably what prevented the Battle of Guandu. I also made a big effort to capture Baima port, Guandu and Chenliu (and held onto them for dear life despite serious attacks from Cao Cao in 200 just to be sure), but I think Cao Cao not attacking Liu Bei broke Guandu. I have no idea why that changed, though - I didn't touch Liu Bei (other than to head down there and recruit Mi Shi as a free officer) although I had built up rapport with Guan Yu in anticipation of recruiting him once he joined Cao Cao. Maybe Mi Shi was integral to the Guan Yu surrender event since she and Gan Shi are supposed to follow him to Cao Cao anyway? If so then it's a really easy way to break that event (and Guandu after it). Cao Cao has also recruited Xu You himself, so I'm really happy now.

Yuan Shao has allied with Sun Quan while Cao Cao has allied with Liu Bei (who somehow ended up in Qiao and Ru Nan with his own force - I could have sworn that he was still working for Cao Cao during Lu Bu's death event). Liu Bei just fell to Sun Quan, who has now hired all three Peach Blossom brothers under his red banner, and we're going to crush Cao Cao once and for all before the inevitable big showdown. It's now vital to rush ahead and take the Liang area since Sun Quan is likely to crush Liu Biao and take Jing. It's also vital to be the one who takes Cao Cao's last city and captures the bulk of his great officers... good times! :) I'm not sure if any events will ever fire again from now on, but they did their job to set up the current situation. Thanks for all the help and advice, guys!

[heinous won]

Glad it worked out. And yeah once you break one event, they seem to always stop firing, it seems they function as one long long long chain. Like long as in once the 200 events wrap up no one has anything they can do except Cao Cao until 207.

[(deleted)]

Originally posted by ianliew:

I'm currently playing as an officer under Yuan Shao, and the Guandu event is quite crippling. First, Yan Liang and Wen Chou die, then Zhang He and Gao Lan defect, and finally Tian Feng dies (with Chun Yuqiong and Lu Weihuang). The end result is that by 201AD, Yuan Shao can still match Cao Cao in troops and wealth, but simply cannot utilise enough talent in war to hold his own and inevitably gets overrun.

If you have PUK you can actually launch a coalition on Cao Cao using C. servant alliance, If you allied with Wu/ Liu Biao then launch the coalition, the chance of them being in the coalition is higher. Though I think by now you may have used other method to clear it.

[ianliew]

Originally posted by 鬼神刀手:

Originally posted by ianliew:

I'm currently playing as an officer under Yuan Shao, and the Guandu event is quite crippling. First, Yan Liang and Wen Chou die, then Zhang He and Gao Lan defect, and finally Tian Feng dies (with Chun Yuqiong and Lu Weihuang). The end result is that by 201AD, Yuan Shao can still match Cao Cao in troops and wealth, but simply cannot utilise enough talent in war to hold his own and inevitably gets overrun.

If you have PUK you can actually launch a coalition on Cao Cao using C. servant alliance, If you allied with Wu/ Liu Biao then launch the coalition, the chance of them being in the coalition is higher. Though I think by now you may have used other method to clear it.

Thanks for the advice. I actually restarted the scenario (well, I started a new one from 190 rather than 195) and completed it, but I will want to revisit that 195 scenario someday (or maybe even the 200 scenario). I will definitely heed your advice, since for some reason I always tend to play Yuan Shao when he's around. I have no idea why I've always liked that faction - Yuan Shao was not exactly a good leader, but maybe because he has many officers who are really good, but just short of being the best in the realm. If I start the Guandu campaign I'm not sure if I'll have time to save Yan Liang and Wen Chou or not, so in the event that they're either gone or doomed I'll have to work on using alliances.