Armistice & tribute and other questions.

[wsbenway]

I can't understand what the armistice option offers. Also I would like to know what tribute does? Both are on the Emperor options on the main page.

I started a new game as Cao Cao in the second campaign. Cao Cao starts with a city and a port plus a hefty amount of officers which is good for someone like me who is new to the game and tries to understand all the mechanics. I was able to conquer my first city and also gather some more officers. I do have issues with money though. I have in all affairs officers from turn one. I invest more (middle option) in the farming and commerce and I have all others in the default (first) option. I had to borrow money from the market after spending on items, research,armies etc. Where do I have to focus in order to get a sufficient income? Also I struggle to create a serious army in numbers. Truth is that I invaded and conquered my first city but lost many men in battle and now I struggle to gather around 5500 (the minimum if I am not wrong) archers. Is it a valid strategy to recruit every single turn from the barrack? It does not seem to affect support negatively but it does affect economy a lot!

Sorry for my many questions. After 10+ hours I still have many questions. What I can say though is that the more I invest time into this game the more I like it despite the uncomfortable UI.

[Caprontos]

Armistice is basically a way to force peace with a faction. It's not useful a lot of the time but sometimes its handy if you just don't want someone bugging you while your trying to do something else. Or if you don't want a force to take over another force (because you want to) you can make them not fight. Getting a factions last city means you get all it's officers (as prisoners).

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If you pay tribute to the emperor you get contribution. So if once you can afford it, you should do so every turn. With contribution you can get higher ranks (if you meet the requirements) which gives you more ranks to hand out.

But more importantly you can trade it for fame (Renown, reputation I don't know why they don't pick one word). And the higher your rulers fame - the easier it is to hire officers. You want to get around 10k fame and it'll make a difference in how quickly you can absorb forces. You also want to remove any infamy as it makes it harder to get people.

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Unlike most ROTK games this one doesn't give nearly enough starting income to do everything efficiently. (Most factions don't even get enough officers to do so). Generally it just takes awhile to grow cities (like most of the game to get them to max).

So you want commerce at max growth if you can and everything else at the low setting (or nothing. Until your money levels out. If you have enough money its good to get patrol done second, farming is third important, flood control is next and you can ignore defense a bit till your city stats start getting even. Since you can't grow the city until all it's stats are maxed. (also always have your very best spy officer working, even if he's at the lowest setting - because the earlier your network expands the better).

Your capital though pays for a lot of things that your other cities won't pay for. so if you have cities with more then they need, you can transport the excess to your capital (which is why patrol is good to max out early). I wouldn't buy to many items till your income is leveled out in general. Sometimes you need the cheap items. Just have to decide if you can afford it.

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For research you can check what your cities features are, and research the things that unlock them. For military you want crossbows quickly. They lose fire arrows but are much more effective. Ignore horsies all together(they have a purpose but you don't need it, more a mid-late game distraction) and heavy infantry is useful when you can get them. Personally I go for crossbows - siege - heavy infantry, and mix the things I need to get features in as I go.

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For recruitment early on you just want to get 15k light archers for defense in each border city, then 15k light infantry and archers to fight with. (up it to 20 of each, 25k, 30k etc as your officers get deeds and you can field and afford more troops)... For backline cities - with the new bandit stuff I'd guess 15k archers is all you need and can easily defend from anything (I haven't had time to really playthrough with the final update).

The main issue with recruitment is it lowers the cities population. Population only grows once at the start of the year (based on current population, I think) and unless you use the "Fast" setting for growth, you can take more then it gets (With fast it stays more even, even if you recruit a lot). You need population to expand the city and it determines how many people you can recruit per season.


You have Xiahou Yuan. He should be your main general (and an archer usually for me). He has a special skill that improves the movement range of all your units which if you use it properly you should be able to take much less damage when climbing the walls. Once you get siege weapons you can break the gate and get on the wall with no damage(till your fighting).

If you want to use Cao Cao, use him as a reinforcement army so you can use him without moving your capital (though moving it to Xu Chang is fine, as that's the best city to have as a capital). He's very strong but generally you don' want to use the ruler for fighting to much. Which sucks because a lot of them are really good. If you use him, just march him back to the capital and have him enter, after you win the fight,

You do want to use the heir (just the one you want to take over) as much as possible. So who ever your main army is that your going to do most of the fighting with stick them in that army somehow. As a sub commander is fine if they suck (And a lot of heirs suck). They will get less penalty when they take over if you've built them up

Despite his good officers - Cao Cao has one of the hardest starting locations in the early scenarios. This is because he has no save expansion. It takes awhile for him to get backline cities. I think if you can take Xu Chang, Runan and Wan, then you'll have three cities to defend and one that can focus more on growing. If you can befriend Liu Biao you can then go east and take that part of the map pretty safely... By then you should have enough cities to do what you want.

[wsbenway]

Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response. It is really helpful! Never played before any ROTK game (except from Total War- but this has different mechanics) and I am still trying to find my way. Once again thank you, not only you gave me answers but also insight about strategies and things that I was not aware of. For example I have completely miss the 'giving ranks to officers aspect of the game. Trully appreciated @Caprontos!

[Caprontos]

No problem, just note ranks increase the pay of an officer. So it's another thing to use less at the start to conserve money.

A certain amount of this games content isn't necessary to win, but gives things to fiddle with if you want to, like marriage, sworn bothers, horse breeding crafting, or the book making has a minor effect on the overall game but you can use it to pad out your main officers a good bit . If you use (and get a bit lucky) with all the side stuff though it can have a big effect on the game eventually. By making a super team of officers you can win battles much easier.

I made this Zhao Yun:
https://i.imgur.com/HKrICyU.png

Who's obviously broken at that point, easily wins the Duel tournament. but you can make a similar officer who's super good at most stats (I just didn't screenshot them I guess). All the little fiddly bits though is what really set this indie ROTK apart form KOEI's ROTK series (which are pretty fun in their own ways to).

[wsbenway]

Thanks once again! Zhao Yun looks really impressive stats wise. Until now I have not encountered any three digit stats officer. Obviously there are many things that I have to figure out. Which is imressive on its own because I was not expecting this kind of depth from this game.