Kong Rong start

[ChainSaw]

Too hard to start a campaign for Kong Rong. After the third move, yellow rebellions attack my capital with a full army. I started the campaign 10 times and still lose. At this time, Liu Bei captures the territory of the Han Empire and I am left with nothing. Is this a bug or is it played by everyone?

[Mount Nomad]

Kong Rong has a stewpid scripted rebellion attack (what you encountered) early on. Most of the factions have some sort of scripted "story" event (which's nonsense, as the game makers wiped their bottoms with the story). Would be nice if your starting town had walls to buy you a siege turn, huh?

You just have to expect that attack, and be careful about expanding until after it occurs (especially as that Yellow Turban jerk to your west will take your town if you move your army east). You need a max sized army ASAP anyway. After that, it plays as a normal Governor faction. Trade deals mean lots income.

[Lord Admiral Mormont]

Originally posted by ChainSaw:

Too hard to start a campaign for Kong Rong. After the third move, yellow rebellions attack my capital with a full army. I started the campaign 10 times and still lose. At this time, Liu Bei captures the territory of the Han Empire and I am left with nothing. Is this a bug or is it played by everyone?

In your second turn build a army in that town, a blue general with three archers is enough for that fullstack, even on autoresolve

[Speechy]

I've done a lot of research on Kong Rong start and have done around 20 different starts. I got it down pat with Very Hard.

Basically...

Turn 1 - Take the starting rebel army and then take the lumber yard. Keep Kong Rong in Lumber yard for replenish
Turn 2 - Raise a new force in the main settlement, hire as many as you can. move Kong Rong so he is just in range of the main settlement.
Turn 3 - By this time the Yellow Turban faction will either attack or not, this part is random. If he does you should by this time have a force you can win by playing the battle even if it says you'll lose.

If you survive the above then you're mostly fine. The scripted Yellow Turban rebellion comes around turn 8 but your 2nd army you created by this time will be strong enough to defeat it as the rebel army is mostly peasants which are easy to kill due to no morale.

You also need to block off the fishing port so Liu Bei doesn't come up your east side and take what you need to get a good economy.

[Speechy]

Alternatively, start your campaign on easy, one you defeat the rebels and take the han sites on the right then up your difficulty to whatever you prefer. I agree the start is hard but once you get that part sorted its smooth sailing from there.

[Hollywood]

All you have to do is recruit a bunch of cheap units turn 2, then go into ambush stance outside your main city and Huang Shao will come and attack, then you're done. The rebellion plot for Taishi Ci is just a stack of peasants who can easy be 1v3'ed by any unit in the game, all they do is act as blobs to block enemies temporarily so you can shoot them with your own ranged units.

[Hollywood]

Also it's fine if Liu Bei takes part of that territory as you can make him your vassal almost immediately upon reaching Marquis.

[ChainSaw]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I'll try it soon.

[T.]

u could also try to just head south and get that bigger city. let it become your capital and retake the north afterwards again. your start capital is only a lvl 1 city i think so its not even worth the trouble. that way you also block liu bei from expanding east. (but he will go north for this yellow turban bandit)

[Hollywood]

Originally posted by T.:

u could also try to just head south and get that bigger city. let it become your capital and retake the north afterwards again. your start capital is only a lvl 1 city i think so its not even worth the trouble. that way you also block liu bei from expanding east. (but he will go north for this yellow turban bandit)

Can you get Taishi Ci doing this? I assumed you needed your starting area to get him.

[ChainSaw]

Originally posted by Speechy:

I've done a lot of research on Kong Rong start and have done around 20 different starts. I got it down pat with Very Hard.

Basically...

Turn 1 - Take the starting rebel army and then take the lumber yard. Keep Kong Rong in Lumber yard for replenish
Turn 2 - Raise a new force in the main settlement, hire as many as you can. move Kong Rong so he is just in range of the main settlement.
Turn 3 - By this time the Yellow Turban faction will either attack or not, this part is random. If he does you should by this time have a force you can win by playing the battle even if it says you'll lose.

If you survive the above then you're mostly fine. The scripted Yellow Turban rebellion comes around turn 8 but your 2nd army you created by this time will be strong enough to defeat it as the rebel army is mostly peasants which are easy to kill due to no morale.

You also need to block off the fishing port so Liu Bei doesn't come up your east side and take what you need to get a good economy.

This instruction worked well. I captured 2 TE areas and I managed to take a sawmill ahead of Liu Bei. But after 3 moves, Yuan Shao declared war on me and sent 2 full armies to the newly captured settlements .... I had to load the previous save and reduce the difficulty from very high to high, then Yuan Shao immediately offered me peace (very strange).

[JuX]

The whole event is there to slowdown Kong Rong's early game. Otherwise there wouldn't be much resistance and would you be able to setup pretty strong economy right from the beginning.

[T.]

Originally posted by hollywoodkik:

Originally posted by T.:

u could also try to just head south and get that bigger city. let it become your capital and retake the north afterwards again. your start capital is only a lvl 1 city i think so its not even worth the trouble. that way you also block liu bei from expanding east. (but he will go north for this yellow turban bandit)

Can you get Taishi Ci doing this? I assumed you needed your starting area to get him.

capturing the south city you have to do on your own. but i still got an event somewhen to send taishi Ci to liu bui or to recruit him. dont know if or on what exactly it is connected.

i went south, got attacked by huang shao in north and lost city. replenished and retook behai city. managed to get the trading port far north too. liu bui took the lands of huang shao.

i think this was the reason yuan shao never (at least early like OP reported) declared war on me although on very hard. had this everytime i went for huang shaos territory.

nevermind. with langye, behai and everything to the east (donglai) i could establish strong economy, got in coalition with liu bui which stood by my side even after he claimed king.

funny side story: liu bui was loved and loving everyone. we even had a war against zheng jian somewhen and he was like crushing her back to her mountains ... although still loving her :) kinda weird.