Advice on Party Of Five achievement

[Ardan]

I am slowly working towards getting all TW Three Kingdom achievements.

Party of Five requires you to have Zhao Yun, Ma Chao, Huang Zhong, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei all in your faction. And it is a royal pain.

Best way to try this is as Liu Bei I guess, as you start with two of the five already, and usually you get Zhao Yun through scripted events before turn 30 or so. If you don't get him by turn 40-50 (which I read can happen), he won't show up for you this way.

That leaves Ma Chao and Huang Zhong. The first in the heir of Ma Teng, and I got him by marrying him into the family with an adopted lady (this had little direct effect), and after Ma Teng's faction had only one region and was vassalized, I supported his freedom, went to war, and could unify with him, thus gaining both Ma Teng and Ma Chao.

I thought all I had to do now is wait untill Liu Biao (the master of Huang Zhong) through script would unify with me, as this seems to happen, especially after he dies. But he didn't die, he became strong, and though I could ally with him, the odds for unifying were never better than minus 20.

This brings me to a questionable game mechanic: You cannot sweeten any unify deal with anyone. All you can do is improve relations through gifts, be strong yourself, try get the other weak and have a lot of enemies, and hope that the hidden parameters for diplomacy work in your favor. You cannot negotiate Unification, and it sucks.

If Liu Biao does not die, or becomes reasonably strong, you do not get the scripted unify event.

What worked for me after hours and hours of trying different scenario's, was to attack him, reduce him to one region, vassalize him, buttering him up with presents to like me, and somehow at the right moment, with him feeling positive to me and threatened enough by others, liberate him and unify right after.

But this took several reloads, retries, and hours of trying different scenario's.

If you wanna try it this way be aware that Huang Zong always dies of old age around turn 160/year 220. That also limits the option of conquering the whole map so you everyone is in the recruiting pool as some people suggest.

If you attack Liu Biao, RELEASE all prisoners, else you risk alienating Huang Zong (by killing his oathsworn), and he can evenbecome a nemenis, which I am sure limits the chances that he joins you through whatever action.

You can check if he is still alive by spies, or by browsing the last social tab of your court and filtering on age, as he is invariably the oldest character alive.

I tried vassalizing and annexing, but even with him liking me as I released his oathsworn and we shared traits, he immediately ends up with another faction, I think most likely the Han (you could try to unify with those then, but his age limited that option for me).

Waiting untill Liu Biao dies didn't work for me either, I had him die of old age several times with Huang Zhong alive, but no unification event happened.

I also tried to discredit him with spies, lowering his satisfaction in the hope that he would leave court and could be recruited, or would join me after I annexed Liu Biao. But it never went lower than say 25, and most of the time that he is alive, you cannot target him with spy actions.

So in the end you gotta be lucky that Ma Teng and Liu Biao are so weak and like you so much that you can unify with them. And it sucks big time that it is unclear what factors make them inclined to do so. It is a shady combination of relative strength, threat from others, your own strength, sympathy and who knows what.

Best have this achievement just happen to you through luck. Because aiming for it lasted many frustrating replays.

[Avataristche]

Make Liu Biao really like you.
Raise some strong armies, make some strong allies (Sun family is usually a good candidate), but not with him.
Negotiate a vassalization, add Ultimatum and throw as much as you can his way - lands, blings, money, food. He will accept and will still like you, sometimes even more than before.
Annex. Enjoy your -90ish trustworthiness and achievement.

[Ardan]

Well, I tried annexing him a number of times, and it works, but Huang Zong leaves court and refuses to join me. Liu Biao is in my court, but not him. So, no, annexing doesn't work.

[Avataristche]

Worked for me, maybe its random

[Nickk]

funny I got all 5 of them twice, one was in Sun Jian, and the other I think was Gongsun Zan, I just installed the 8 turn per year mod and let it work out.