Has anyone won the game serving under Liu Yao?

[ianliew]

I usually play a custom officer with high leadership and intelligence as an advisor who can lead troops, and I've managed to help warlords for whom I have a soft spot for win the game. Usually they're fairly well-set (such as Ma Teng, Gongsun Zan, Yuan Shao, Liu Biao and Liu Yan) but occasionally I've picked weaker ones like Liu Yu, Wang Kuang and Ding Yuan. Those aren't too hard because the opposition at that point isn't too strong either, and there's ample time for you to dig in and build up in those early stages. One warlord I've always wanted to try was Liu Yao, but I find his situation almost always impossible. He only appears as a historical ruler in 195 (prior to that he's just a free officer) and neighboured by Sun Ce. He also has a very inconvenient alliance with Yan Baihu, which prevents him from expanding in that direction.

I tried securing an alliance with Sun Ce, but due to Sun Ce's large number of officers, it took quite a while (and I needed a couple of months to be able to get the option to do so), by which point either Lu Bu or Liu Bei would attack from the north. Fighting Sun Ce would be out of the question, and while Yuan Shu is just about doable, that opens up even more exposure to the north. Heading south would be ideal, but Sun Ce almost always heads that way and takes the city first. Has anyone had success serving under Liu Yao, and how did you do it?

[dtt.scanner]

Yeah, I tend to stay away from the weaker positions, but I have seen people do some wicked things with fire tactics on the videos... defeating 10:1 odds with a good defensive position. Perhaps what you need is a different set of strategies. If you take a weak position, then you need to create a few officers with the right tactical advantages.

Also, Private Troops can be very powerful as a subordinate officer, if you need to beef up the number of troops defending a smaller position. They do take a long time to build up and train though. At the highest levels they can be brutally strong (60000 ultra elite).

I think if I were going to do a weak position like that, I would create 4-5 additional skilled officers and add them to that faction, to give it a decent chance. If you really want to do iron man with just your character and the default officers, then you perhaps could spend the early game searching cities for and recruiting more officers. If you have the Virtue attribute (just one level) then you can recruit without hosting a banquet first to get an introduction. I would definitely slap one level of that on your character, and don't be shy about making him/her as strong as the opposing generals (nine levels in your main attributes with a good assortment of mid-range talents). Since you will have to focus on building up your position, you won't have time to build up your character. Start with the levels that you want to finish with.

Don't forget that with a Boon (Privilege), you can request all of the troops in your faction to take over a strategic position. That may be a way to get to that city before Sun Ce. Also, if you can make an Infirmary and Depot in the vicinity, you can heal and keep the troops at your disposal indefinitely... if it is not advantageous to send them home immediately and you have time to take and create the support stations. Since the new city will have poor weapons (at first), it may be better to keep the advanced troops deployed nearby to hold it, rather than send them home, until you can beef up the new cities.

I think the key to any long campaign is having enough officers though. I would suggest possibly making new officers and making their ages varied so that they don't all appear at once in the beginning, if you don't want to OP the start of the campaign. Have 1-2 new decent officers arrive per year, in addition to the ones you find on the map, capture and recruit. If you have info on the starting officers, you can make them "children" of the ones you start with.

[dtt.scanner]

Adding six officers (including yourself) with 2 of each A level troop skill and 80-90+ War skill, it is a pretty good starting position. With the reinforcement officers, you can take out Guanling and Shouchun, gain more officers (prisoners), and then pretty much take control of the south, starting with Sun Ce at Lujiang. Liu Biao will attack in force when you take Lujiang, but you should have silver troops against his bronze troops, so yeah, bring it. That opens up the entire south for conquest. If you can forge a treaty with Cao Cao, you can probably equal his position before the treaty runs out.

I have one created officer assigned as Cao Cao's daughter, so that's kind of a cheat for getting a treaty. I had it set up from an earlier campaign where I played under Cao Cao, so in this campaign I already have an introduction to Cao Cao and Bian Shi, and a relative to use as an envoy.

Do not accept a viceroy position until you are ready to take on the rest of the world. It seems like everyone launches an attack as soon as you accept the post. If you remain a governor, they will be more cautious (for some reason), and you can take out each faction one by one.

[ianliew]

Thanks for the tips, everyone. Liu Yao really does need lots of help, true, and I'm glad that I was just outmatched rather than doing something wrong.

On the subject of bad situations, another scenario which had me at a loss to deal with was when my custom officer was serving Yuan Shang after the death of Yuan Shao. Going by historical mode, after Yuan Shao dies, Yuan Shang takes over most of the original territory, but Yuan Tan rebels and takes a few cities around Bei Hai. Cao Cao is now super aggro towards Yuan Shang's cities, and Yuan Shang's troops frustratingly get cut to a fraction of what they used to be, allowing Cao Cao to just steamroll across the north. Yuan Shang no longer has Tian Feng, Ju Shou, Yan Liang and Wen Chou, is outmatched in troops around five to one, and also has Yuan Tan to contend with (if Cao Cao doesn't conquer his cities first).

Short of taking steps to prevent Yuan Shao dying (which defeats the purpose as pre-Guandu, Yuan Shao doesn't exactly need much help - my challenge was to see if I could save the Yuan family after the patriarch died), has anyone had any success with this scenario? Even if I added a few custom officers (I have Yan Liang, Wen Chou and Tian Feng's sons ready, with stats and skills identical to their late fathers) I think the troop discrepancy is going to be way too large, especially as Cao Cao's generals are extremely difficult to fight against even on even terms. I tried defeating Gongsun Du first to not have to worry about the back, but very annoyingly, just like Liu Yao with Yan Baihu, he is already in an alliance at the start, and by the time it expires it's usually too late. I thought of adding troops to Bei Ping (as according to the story, Yuan Shang still had a very large army stationed there under Ta Dun which outnumbered Cao Cao, just that Cao Cao had superior advisers and generals), which would give me something to fall back on, and even bring out to try and at least stop the collapse at Nan Pi if not Ye, but that would feel like cheating. Is there any other way, or is Cao Cao too strong to try funny tricks with?

[Muramune]

Links or it never happen!

[ianliew]

Links? The entire scenario is automated if you start a campaign from Guandu - it's easily replicated as long as you can get Baima to trigger.

[Vin362]

In the 190 and 194 as long as Cao Cao and Yuan Shao are around and none of the officers in the events have been killed or defected Guandu can happen, I even managed to get Guandu to trigger it in the Yellow Turban rebellion it also seems to be the furthest event you can get in the first 3 scenarios.

[Muramune]

Ok ill give it a go.