How to Have Fun

[Trooper2142]

For those who have just gotten the game or played around with it for a few hours, does this sound familiar? You picked (or made) a low level officer, rose through the ranks and are now a viceroy doing all the boring work as your ruler just bosses you around, pulls you to meetings, and gets all the credit. Or maybe you picked a ruler and just won the game because you are a human and playing against AI is like handing you the win from the beginning. A boring and souless victory.

If either of these apply to you then let me offer a third new way to have fun. Betrayal. You begin as a low level officer, rise to viceroy, and then take the crown for yourself. You get tons of tough enemies to fight (but still totally winnable if done right), a sense of accomplishment (since you didn't start out as a silver spoon fed ruler), and all the boring management of officer transfers and governers can be passed off to AI viceroys letting you cruise to victory at your own speed and management level.

Still not convinced? Let me tell you my most recent betrayal experience and see if you would like to do the same.

I picked the Anti-Dong Zhou Coalition scenerio and decided to play as a low level officer in the Dong Zhou army and change history (keep him from losing, since he is in a great position to begin with). Once this was done (though I suggest just turning off historical events if you plan to change history) I helped Dong Zhou conquer China and rise through the ranks. Everything was going great. The whole north-west was ours and Cao Cao along with everyone else in the east was on the ropes. In a few years, all of China would be Dong Zhou's with me right by his side ... or so he thought. For on one faithful day I was made viceroy of the eastern part of the empire ... and my plan moved into action. I had built up strong ties with a number of high ranking characters. No one too close to Dong Zhou, but strong enough to be governers and win battles. I then put my spouses and sworn siblings into governer positions in the best castles, and moved all the officers to castles under my control. Then it began ... the rebellion. All loyal governer were with me and all castles that did not go with me in the east were officerless ... and fell almost instantly. In less than a month I had siezed the entire east and set out to rule the world.

The rest of the campaign was filled with vicious western fighting against the loyalists, finishing Cao Cao, and fighting two different coalitions all across China. I put viceroys on areas I didn't want to manage and when I finished conquering China I felt accomplished. I started from the bottom and now I'm here. I earned this victory.

If you have any ideas or experiences you would like to share please feel free to add to the discussion and lets let everyone know the joys of betraying your lord.

[caps]

Wow that sounds epic!

[Spartanlemur]

That's a great idea. I think I'll give it a go in my next game.

[Twitch.tv/KAEN_SG]

sounds like fun but still too easy imho.. .once you get to viceroy the game is already easy mode as you probably control a large chunk of land.

next game, hardest settings and officer with 1 to all stats. ;)

[Spartanlemur]

Originally posted by KAEN:

sounds like fun but still too easy imho.. .once you get to viceroy the game is already easy mode as you probably control a large chunk of land.

next game, hardest settings and officer with 1 to all stats. ;)

I don't think difficulty is all that important.

The interesting thing is telling a unique three kingdoms story with the world.

[Twitch.tv/KAEN_SG]

Originally posted by Spartanlemur:

Originally posted by KAEN:

sounds like fun but still too easy imho.. .once you get to viceroy the game is already easy mode as you probably control a large chunk of land.

next game, hardest settings and officer with 1 to all stats. ;)

I don't think difficulty is all that important.

The interesting thing is telling a unique three kingdoms story with the world.

While that is true... there are games that are much better for that... ie. CK2, Rimworld.

[Spartanlemur]

Originally posted by KAEN:

Originally posted by Spartanlemur:

I don't think difficulty is all that important.

The interesting thing is telling a unique three kingdoms story with the world.

While that is true... there are games that are much better for that... ie. CK2, Rimworld.

I have about 1,000 hours in CK2, and I can honestly say that ROTK 10 and 13 fall into the same category of "games which focus on storytelling".

Europa Universalis 4 and Hearts of Iron 4 are more focused on pure strategy, along with ROTK 11. Personally, while I like a bit of a challenge, I'm more concerned with storytelling.

[Teralitha]

Its a nice story, but you used an exploit to do it.

[Trooper2142]

I'm also in the same boat of "It's all about the story." That's always my goal of ROTK 13 games is to make it a fun story or journey that I shape.

However, just because you made viceroy does not mean the game is in the bag.
Remember, you are throwing away that powerful empire, only taking a bit of it, and now it's your sworn enemy.

But hey, maybe that's not enough of a challenge for you.
So here are some tips to give yourself extra challenge:
1. Put the AI on hard, expansion fast, troops replace slowly, low merit, ect. (obvious, but had to mention it)
2. Be an empire in the south. The game is much harder with a southern empire as oppossed to a northern one, less castles, less supplies, more travel distance, and by the time you make it up there, Cao Cao or whoever is ready to take you on.
3. Pick(or make) a low stat character (another obvious one)
4. Ignore diplomacy. It is very easy to alliance everybody, but if you ignore it, you are setting yourself up for lots of coalitions against you, and at the wrong time they can hurt.
5. Don't save. The real Cao Cao couldn't, so why should you? (though exceptions for time limitations are okay)
6.Don't move all the officers away or set up a lot of friendly governers when rebelling. The moving officers away is a tad cheesy, so leave them there to make rebelling that much harder, and maybe just take one castle to start and use alliances to split up the old empire rather than absorb it. Reset the world back to warlords and work from there.

Those are generally the handicaps I'll give myself if I want a challenge, but honestly your focus should be on making a story for yourself. The fun is telling a journey. Take Lu Lingqi, have her abandon her dead beat dad and join the Western calvery, marry Ma Chao, and terrorize the north. Keep Liu Bei in the north and help him overthrow Cao Cao. Start a little kingdom in the south and vow to marry the three prettiest girls from all the major empires. Or maybe remake a historical character, put him in a scenerio where he is already dead, and now you are a time traveler. Prevent Cao Cao's loss at the hands of burning boats or bring Yuan Shao to glory. (Guo Jia is a great choice for this)

There are tons of fun stories to make, so focus on that and you'll have a much better time.

[Doctor Shotgun]

I'm glad someone feels the same way about the viceroy position lol. It just turns into a constant stream of officer transfers, governor appointments, and cross-country journeys to meet with the council (seriously, the council voted to improve our culture when there was only 1 city on the map left to conquer >.<).

That aside, I tried a 1/1/1/1 stat character earlier today, and holy crap it takes forever to do anything lol. I couldn't even turn in 2 tasks in a season. I might just try starting as an insignificant character in a weak faction and see how that works out instead.

Also, anyone know what the game difficulty setting actually does? It's not very descriptive in the options menu. Does it make the AI more intelligent, or does it just give your enemies free resources or something?

[Teralitha]

hardest difficulty speeds up troop recruiting and recovery, and aggressiveness.

[Trooper2142]

Making a 1/1/1/1 character is just making the game longer, not harder. Remember, you are just one character in the empire, and eventually any empire gets enough high level officers to do anything efficiently. All you are doing is keeping yourself from earning experience or merits. Even a 100/100/100/100 character is not god and cannot win the game from any position, he will just rank up a lot faster and win debates/duels.

The way to go for a challenge/reasonable time frame is to either pick a historical officer or make an officer with good 70, 80, or 90 stats in either warfare or domestic and put the other side of stats at around 20, 30, or 40. Then for added challenge reduce the amount of merits you get from the settings. That way you will have a use and be able to rank up, but you will have clear limitations.

[Hakuna Matata Madafaka!!!]

You want really, really, really hard game? Try the "Vietnam vengeance" style. It's simple:
- After 2000 years under the tyrance of China, it's time for Vietnam to rise up
- You start at JiaoZhi, you work under Jiao Zhi banner
- You don't rebel against your ruler because you not against your our people when the whole Chinese warlords will aim for you
- You accept getting boss around and working with all those dunces in your force because they are your people and you don't rebel against your ruler
- You can only use Jiao Zhi source of officer, or "southern barbarian" officer like Meng Hou, Zhu Rong, etc because they are actually the same "Viet" race, they are your people
- And not a single Chinese officer because this is your Vietnam vengeance, not Vietnam conquest, you either kill them or let them rot in prison.
- If your ruler still hire those chinese, it's your responsible to make sure all of them just stay in Jiao Zhi, as they are on exiled
- You don't interact with Chinese officer, even when they are on your force, because you and them don't speak the same language
- If one of your people work for Chinese warlords, he/she is a betrayer, you treat them as Chinese now
- If your ruler die, you will have to rebel, but before you win against the new ruler AND get back Jiao Zhi, you cannot take another region from China, all the above rule are still in effect
- Every year end, you have to bring 50% of gold and supplies back to Jiao Zhi, this is extracting resource from enemies
- You don't ally with Chinese force, truce is ok, not ally or coallation.

[XYZEXPIRED]

Not related to what the guy said above but it sound like one of the strategy that spread the misinformation. Shi Xie is a Chinese governor whose credit for provide stability in that JiaoZhi region after Ma Teng's ancestor Ma Yun (he appear in one of the ROTK special character before) pacify the rebellion. The Barbarian Tribe "Meng Huo" and the like are part of the Thailand + Laos region, they use elephant, Vietnamese doesn't have that many elephant like them to bring in battle.
However if playing like a Vietnam rebellions against Chinese, I would just make a new officer clans or serve and rebel against Shi Xie :).
To have a fun game, turn off historical as this cause a lot of lands to shuffle around giving advantage for those big player and randomize the officer :).

[Doctor Shotgun]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

hardest difficulty speeds up troop recruiting and recovery, and aggressiveness.

So that would stack with the individual settings for troop recovery and expansionism?


Also yeah the 1/1/1/1 character probably wouldn't play much differently once I (eventually) ranked up and gained the authority to issue orders to the more talented officers. I would just have rather limited impact on the game until then.

[Shafii]

guys how can i change it to the english version if i already downloaded the japanese version?