Gong Du Help.

[The Gunslinger]

Just started my first Yellow Turban campaign. I killed off Ma Teng, took him out quickly. Moved north west. Took the farmland after 10 or so turns. . When I did, LU BU and a second Dong Ming army was close by, just out of sight. They attacked with both armies, run ended.

Any tips for this faction, and what techs should be priotity? Ty.

[Feix]

Always have 2 armies moving in pair in reinforcement range of each other. That's the trick.

[Feix]

Build Forges for replenishment. Lu Bu/Dong Ming is intent on attacking you. Lure and ambush his armies one by one.

[yuzhonglu]

DONT PUSH ANY FURTHER THAN WUDU TOWN. DONT EVEN TAKE THE SILK.

Instead push south, and keep a cheap bow force on standby in ambush stance behind Wudu. Get it to small city with a forge and a garrison and your area is secure.

Use your main force to take Chengdu and Jiang Ling province in South. Of course take Hanzhong first preferably before T10. Then sail down Yangtze and take Changsha, and Poyang (Sun Ce's territory) and win, as you have free reign to conquer the South.

[Valnak]

Originally posted by The Gunslinger:

Just started my first Yellow Turban campaign. I killed off Ma Teng, took him out quickly. Moved north west. Took the farmland after 10 or so turns. . When I did, LU BU and a second Dong Ming army was close by, just out of sight. They attacked with both armies, run ended.

Any tips for this faction, and what techs should be priotity? Ty.

Gong Du is the worst of the Yellow Turban choices in terms of uniques, but that doesn't matter since you almost always get He Yi, Huang Shao and He Man when their factions are destroyed. He's actually probably the best, but the other faction leaders have recovery which is just amazing. You can overcome this by bringing a healer with wisdom of the body to heal him. I believe but do not know that in-battle healing cannot surpass the health you start with in the battle. Gong Du, however, is by far in the best starting position. yuzhonglu covered it perfectly so I'll leave that there.

For the Yellow Turbans there aren't 3 general types, there's about 9 divided into 3 classes: Scholar, Veteran and Healer. Class determines what they can recruit, but their individual title like "potter" "brewer" or "sorcerer" determines what they're actually good at. For example one class of scholar doesn't have fire arrows, but some do.

Regardless of class type you want to start out veteran heavy + healers, then 1 vet 1 healer 1 scholar as you unlock and can support master archers.

Earlygame veterans have your archers, mid/late they have your 2-4 trebuchets and whatever else you want. Maybe cav, maybe something you want to play with like more infantry, maybe horse archers. Mid/lategame your scholars are packed full of master archers. Healers start with whatever, peasant spearmen are worth their price, but they need to level up to get yellow turban spearmen which are really solid and have shields. I usually transition them to Youxia and put spearmen on my veterans.

Unlocks just go for replenishment, character experience, unit unlocks and mapmove. Avoid the building unlocks, you're going to be so rich anyway it doesn't matter until much later. Build Yellow Turban Headquarters in every province. The +order is nice, but the -order of neighboring enemy territories is just too great. YT are about industry and farming, much less so about commerce/trading.

[Nero]

I disagree, Zhang Kai is one of the best heroes in the whole game imo.