How is Cao Cao easy?

[TrustN1FX]

I've restarted so many times. This time I got to the end-game using a slightly different strategy where I was super aggressive at the beginning. The problem now is that I keep getting flooded by endless stacks from Duchy of Zong and the western factions and Bandit Queen. Am I doing something wrong or do I just suck?

[Ninjafroggie]

Sun Jian will probably be my next playthrough, there's a crapton of Han land in the SW of the map and nothing but minor warlords to fight over control for it

[Daiking]

it's not very wise to be too aggressive. the problem of corruption will increase at horrible speed and too many enemies will bring great pressure. i suggest you not to expand too much at first and try to improve your food production and income. selling redundant food and setting trade relationships with other factions will brings you a lot of diplomatic income. expand your territory is necessary, just don't be too fast.

[Ray]

For Battles -> Use ambush stance frequently. The ai is dumb af and will just walk right into it, even if you do it right in front of its army. Also use strategists or at least a sentinel/ commander with the fire arrows and night battles skill. Fire arrows are a must have against op towers and night battles not only reduce enemy morale, but also prevent reinforcements if the enemy has 2 stacks - basically like lighting strike from tw warhammer.


Overall -> Cao Cao isn't actually 'easy'. He will constantly have a war on multiple fronts due to his starting position and peasantry economy is the least profitable. Selling off his food can be really good at times, but when you can't find find anyone willing to give you a good deal you have a real problem. His faction mechanic is quite useful in the early game - I always use the proxy wars to weaken yuan shao by having yuan shu and / or Liu Bei declare war on him, thereby weakening many of Cao Cao's neighbors. Unfortunately his faction mechanic becomes useless in the mid and late game, when there is nobody willing to go for proxy wars or strong enough to make a difference, and when his manipulation to relationships isn't enough to make a big dent in the opinions anymore.

Sun Jian is probably the easiest. Great early generals with Sun Ce and around turn 36 Zhou Yu joining and strongest economy thanks to commerce income and stacking the multipliers for it from tech, admins, assignments etc. I never try to hold the first settlement where he starts, but instead just go south and take all the lightly defended han territory while leaving one general as a mobile garrison against Liu Biao in the home commandery,. He usually attacks the trading port - one retinue and its garrison is easily enough to defeat a full stack (choke points and towers). After taking the most important settlements, you become pretty much unstoppable.

[Kenuty]

Originally posted by TrustN1FX:

I've restarted so many times. This time I got to the end-game using a slightly different strategy where I was super aggressive at the beginning. The problem now is that I keep getting flooded by endless stacks from Duchy of Zong and the western factions and Bandit Queen. Am I doing something wrong or do I just suck?

head south
the land down there is unclaimed
then manipulate sun to be your backbone and then stab him in the back
Unify china
win

[Poqreslux]

The problem with Cao Cao's start position is that his start was doable in history, but very hard to do in this game. Historically, despite having a small amount of territories, Cao Cao had a rather large force and could be seemingly be everywhere at once. As they say, "speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao will appear."

The problem in this game is the mechanics don't let him expand as rapidly as he should be able to, and needs to, in such a position. His economy is food based (ironic since Cao Cao often suffered from food supply issues), and in the early turns when he should be taking the fight to his various enemies, the fact that he can barely afford a single army until he can start selling his excess food means most of the time will be spent running his army back and forth staving off invasions. This comes at the cost of the AI you're competing with gobbling up settlements while you're too busy fighting off invasions.

So instead, the way Cao Cao is meant to be played, or at least how it feels to me, is to turtle and get factions to fight each other (an odd mechanic for him imo) and expanding very slowly. Doesn't really fit for the actual figure in history or novel.

[Noob Van Noob]

Cao Cao relies on his diplomacy ability to influence other faction towards war with each other. use that in the early to mid game to keep your enemies occupied as well as prevent some factions from getting to powerful while you consolidate your power taking over weaker foes. endgame can be difficult depending on how you developed. in my current cao cao campaign i'm sandwiched between both Shu and Wu and it probably won't end well.

[Greldinart]

with cao cao its basically easy to manipulate people and have room for peace of one side, expand/developp other side instead always in war,
yet like all campaign when you grew in rank, ennemies tend to big alliance and beat your ass, so its easy in begin and mid game, but for the end game its all up to you.

[Tenshin51]

Originally posted by Poqreslux:

The problem with Cao Cao's start position is that his start was doable in history, but very hard to do in this game. Historically, despite having a small amount of territories, Cao Cao had a rather large force and could be seemingly be everywhere at once. As they say, "speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao will appear."

The problem in this game is the mechanics don't let him expand as rapidly as he should be able to, and needs to, in such a position. His economy is food based (ironic since Cao Cao often suffered from food supply issues), and in the early turns when he should be taking the fight to his various enemies, the fact that he can barely afford a single army until he can start selling his excess food means most of the time will be spent running his army back and forth staving off invasions. This comes at the cost of the AI you're competing with gobbling up settlements while you're too busy fighting off invasions.

So instead, the way Cao Cao is meant to be played, or at least how it feels to me, is to turtle and get factions to fight each other (an odd mechanic for him imo) and expanding very slowly. Doesn't really fit for the actual figure in history or novel.

Agreed!

Problem w/ that Ai use force march often, the first quest of Cao Cao is beating an old man. That stupid old man could slow down the expansion due that old man use force march.

The best thing to do is ignore that quest and expand. Also rushing the farmland at the west instead of getting the livestock to increase replenishment. There is a chance Yellow Turban can get the farmland in the East.

Even his proxy wars takes longer to accumulate totally wish there are more ways to accumulate credibility.
Also Cao Cao unique units doesn't help either due to Ji infantry. Ji infantry's reflect charge is quite broken against cavalry, attacking this unit in the rear or flank w/ cavalry will cause devastating damage against cavalry,

Ji infantry alone negate the usefulness of the cavalry. Also Cao Cao cavalry are too damn slow, sure I understand their armor cavalry but armor in the game are fragile. Totally wish cavalry have more models in extreme mode.

[Pury]

I agree. I'm not very good at Total War games, but, TK3 seems more hard then both Warhammers for me. I have already tried 3 times, and a faction with a ♥♥♥♥ ton of vassals always ♥♥♥♥ with me.

[Kenuty]

Originally posted by Obi-Wan Kenobi:

I agree. I'm not very good at Total War games, but, TK3 seems more hard then both Warhammers for me. I have already tried 3 times, and a faction with a ♥♥♥♥ ton of vassals always ♥♥♥♥ with me.

telling you go south
the land of the beautiful

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Tenshin51:

Originally posted by Poqreslux:

The problem with Cao Cao's start position is that his start was doable in history, but very hard to do in this game. Historically, despite having a small amount of territories, Cao Cao had a rather large force and could be seemingly be everywhere at once. As they say, "speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao will appear."

The problem in this game is the mechanics don't let him expand as rapidly as he should be able to, and needs to, in such a position. His economy is food based (ironic since Cao Cao often suffered from food supply issues), and in the early turns when he should be taking the fight to his various enemies, the fact that he can barely afford a single army until he can start selling his excess food means most of the time will be spent running his army back and forth staving off invasions. This comes at the cost of the AI you're competing with gobbling up settlements while you're too busy fighting off invasions.

So instead, the way Cao Cao is meant to be played, or at least how it feels to me, is to turtle and get factions to fight each other (an odd mechanic for him imo) and expanding very slowly. Doesn't really fit for the actual figure in history or novel.

Agreed!

Problem w/ that Ai use force march often, the first quest of Cao Cao is beating an old man. That stupid old man could slow down the expansion due that old man use force march.

The best thing to do is ignore that quest and expand. Also rushing the farmland at the west instead of getting the livestock to increase replenishment. There is a chance Yellow Turban can get the farmland in the East.

Even his proxy wars takes longer to accumulate totally wish there are more ways to accumulate credibility.
Also Cao Cao unique units doesn't help either due to Ji infantry. Ji infantry's reflect charge is quite broken against cavalry, attacking this unit in the rear or flank w/ cavalry will cause devastating damage against cavalry,

Ji infantry alone negate the usefulness of the cavalry. Also Cao Cao cavalry are too damn slow, sure I understand their armor cavalry but armor in the game are fragile. Totally wish cavalry have more models in extreme mode.

You can ignore the old man quest for sure but it's a sooner rather than later thing because his neighbor will likely declare war on you say within the first 20 turns. Which means you'll likely eliminate them one after the other. The bigger threat though still seems to be yuan shao vassalizing everyone around you, though it isn't apparent at the start.

I also ignore ji infantry with their crappy stats and prefer sword militia until I unlock better assault units.

[Tenshin51]

Get some non aggression pact to that old man's neighbor is quite easy w/ figurines and food.

Then quickly expand w/ Han territory after conquering those either go north or south.

[Simonson [29th Ret.]]

Diplomacy.

YOU MUST MAKE ALLIES.

[Poqreslux]

Oh and also, Wang Lang can choke on a garden house. Dude shouldn't even be where he is. Belongs down in the empty southlands.

[BastardSword]

I played Sun Jian on normal and got really quite far but then Yuan Shao and Cao Cao ended up at war with me. I made peace with Yuan Shao and moved my best force south to deal with Cao Cao. Then he made peace with me. Then he started a proxy war between me and Liu Biao. So I moved my army to fight Liu Biao. Then just as I was about to take their last land, Cao Cao magically vassalized Liu Biao, which made Liu Biao suddenly not at war with me. Then Cao Cao declared war on me on the other side of my lands so I gave up after this endless BS. The game just gets way too ridiculous sometimes and needs a ton of ironing out but I don't see CA addressing it because of how much praise they're getting for releasing a game that isn't completely broken from bugs at release.

So I tried Cao Cao since the game said he was "easy." Things quickly got impossible because I had no money and again clans kept flipping back and forth between being at war with me and not at war with me, which makes it impossible to strategize or prepare for war because of how long it takes to raise armies and move them around.

Trying Liu Bei on easy now just to try and get used to the game and I'm finally doing ok but the game is still ridiculous. Zong Rong and Yuan Shao are having a massive war and there's a big mess of full stacks wandering around northern China. It's very hard to keep track of what's going on and who's at war with whom and where armies are capable of moving to.

Also I keep finding that factions keep ending up at war with me but the game doesn't tell me about it. These are clans that aren't vassals or allies of anyone. I keep finding that Yuan Shao is at war with me even though he was previously at peace with me, and the game doesn't tell me.

And before you say "git gud," I play Shogun 2 on Hard and find it easy. This game is just a confusing mess that undercuts any attempt to use strategy. In Shogun 2 I know where threats are going to be. In 3K a neighboring faction changes from war to peace and back again by the time I finally get my army over to attack them, then they get vassalized and are locked into peace again. The vassalization system in particular is ridiculous, nearly every time that I finally beat down an enemy faction into the dirt and get ready to take their last town, they get vassalized and the war is over, and if I attack that town I start an army with Yuan Shao or whoever who has like 10 other vassals which also automatically go to war with me if I do this.