Sun Jian?

[Karsk]

So his dilemma about keeping the seal also coincides with an early objective to defeat Liu Biao's vassals.

My question is how to do this while fighting off Liu Biao? Since I can beat him, however if I make peace then I can't fight the vassals anymore.

Any tips are appreciated, as well as your advice in general for the early turns of Sun Jian's campaign for following the story,

[reevestone]

The short answer is... not easily. Liu Biao and his vassals are really a single unit in the early game, you go to war with one you go to war with all. Liu Biao will have a full stack with some of his pretty nasty infantry, Cai Mao should have a full stack, and Huang Zu might have something or just sit at home and twiddle his thumbs. Defeating any one of them would be very doable, especially with a good ambush or some such, but the issue is that once you engage one of them and win, the others won't be far behind and just smash into your weakened army. You essentially have to just play incredibly damn well and win at least two battles against equal-or-superior forces back to back and still be able to press the advantage (because even if you annihilate Liu Biao's army, after 3-5 turns he'll be right back with another full stack), or get lucky and hope he gets entangled in an early war (probably with Yuan Shu or He Yi) that distracts their attention from being monopolized on you.

The odds are massively stacked against you, but you do have one of the nastiest pieces in the game in the form of Sun Jian himself, so that's something. I recommend patience, wait in ambush until they take the bait, ambush battles go a long way to getting the K/L ratios you need to not get beaten down through attrition. Decide early on if you want to go all-in on winning the Liu Biao war and give Sun Jian all the support he needs by filling out his own army (at the risk of your economy and Heroism stalling out), or hedge your bets by making a minor army back in Changsha to go around beating up the surrounding Han Empire, expanding your territory and earning you Heroism while Sun Jian holds off Liu Biao.

Honestly, the far easier campaign path is to do what Sun Jian should have done, break from the story and give Liu Biao the damn seal. Yeah, the seal is awesome, but as Sun Jian you have basically limitless and almost unchallenged potential in the south, and the only thing that can really slow that down is an early war against a superior foe. Handing over the seal not only lets you immediately dive into just tearing through the southlands, but wins Liu Biao over as a friend to keep your northern flank secure. Challenges, like the "Destroy Cai Mao and Huang Zu" Challenge, are Challenges precisely because they're difficult to achieve and usually try to push you to follow the story at the expense of what would just be simpler.

Easiest way to destroy Cai Mao and Huang Zu? Hand over the seal, and do it, like... a hundred turns into the game, after you own the entire Southlands and have a gigantic power base to work from while everyone else is still squabbling in the north.

[Karsk]

Give up the seal? For a strategy gamer that's like admitting defeat right off the bat!

N.E.V.E.R.!!!!!!

Srsly tho I might do it.

I do find that I can beat the crap out of Liu Biao's army to get a peace with him and the two vassals. Maybe then expand all around me to get strong enough to take them all out?

[Karsk]

What do you think about that?

[The Former]

I gave up the seal, myself. If you choose not to, I suggest holding fast at Changsha for a while and letting Liu Biao come to you. Wear him down in defensive battles that favor you, then counterattack. If he doesn't come, send a specialist army - either tough and durable or highly mobile - to tie him down while your main forces tackle his vassals.

[Wraith]

Giving up the seal give you a much better position of power then having the seal to begin with which I find kinda ironic.

Giving up the seal mean the southern borders is free real estate and you can slowly expand and turn into a powerhouse.

Keeping the seal mean you have to fight Liu Biao and his vassals stalling your expansion.

[Hyen《A》 ♧]

I played Sun Jian so here's a tip. Starting a campaign, check your ancillaries, if you have an exceptional weapon for Huang Gai, commence the game. If not restart campaign until you do.

Manually fight the first enemy, duel the enemy champion (this is why you need the weapon), and gain minimal losses and then proceed to attack the settlement. Demand surrender and they will. Tell Yuan Shu aka your sugar daddy you support his legitimacy and request gold per turn or instant gold, whichever works for you. Upgrade Changsha. End turn.

Recruit his wife, or Cheng Ho (I went with his wife for more diverse leaders in the army and the leadership bonus is just nice). And recruit as many as you can. Start moving south (using the river, not the road) and sail all the way to the trading port north of your capital. Land on the territory and take it next turn. Recruit again and sail again and land on the territory north of the river but land on the right side, not the left of the mini river. By now Liu Biao will demand the seal, don't give it. You're at war and now can freely take his vassals city. It will be a hard fight but you'll get it. Once you got the city, build another army with the Sentinel Cheng Po right over there, and another leader to follow him as well. Now you have about five characters all huddled together and you can push towards the farmland in the east with Sung Jian while Cheng Po stays at the city and consolidates his forces. Be wary that soon after war is declared, Lou Biao will be sending a full force to capture Jiangliang (the city you captured at turn 1) so either demolish all the buildings beforehand or trade it up to your buddy if you want, though I prefer the former. In my campaign I couldn't demolish any in time so I lost quite some cash opportunities so it should be brighter for you.

After you get the farm, push towards Jiangliang to capture it again, starting with the farmland controlled by his vassal Cai Mao. The next battle will very determine the course of the game because if you can ambush Liu Biao or best his entire stack, you can freely retake your captured city and start taking his lands instead.

At this point you can do what you want, if you're in character, destroy Liu Biao's army and take his capital, then move towards the north to go after the Emperor. If you're a little greedy, after ending the fight with Liu Biao either peace or destruction, create another army and start capturing the cities south of you or send both the stacks south instead. The south has a lot of easy to take settlements and the defenders are very little.

[Karsk]

What do I do about public order btw? I don't see any way to increase it.

I'd rather not make another thread to discuss the topic.

I really appreciate the tips so far!

[Black Hammer]

There is a Reform you can get relatively early if you build a level 2 Temple that gives +3 Public Order everywhere.

[Karsk]

Oh I wanted to add I've been paying on Records.

Romance just seems.......wrong. Too casual. As much as I like the idea of a duel removing fatigue and the focus on overpowered characters just doesn't feel right.

I mean this is supposed to be Total War not Heroes of Might and Magic.

Now that being said I'm open to trying it but i'd be interested in hearing any reasons why it would be good to try.

[Hyen《A》 ♧]

Originally posted by Dedmosh:

Oh I wanted to add I've been paying on Records.

Romance just seems.......wrong. Too casual. As much as I like the idea of a duel removing fatigue and the focus on overpowered characters just doesn't feel right.

I mean this is supposed to be Total War not Heroes of Might and Magic.

Now that being said I'm open to trying it but i'd be interested in hearing any reasons why it would be good to try.

Romance isn't as OP as you think it is. I charged my commander into the back of a spearmen stack and suddenly he died in a few seconds. So unless he is protected by a few units, these heroes can still die easily too.

As for PO, I didn't want to believe this but the Confucius temple actually helps a lot. After I captured Jiangxu, the residents PO was -12 per turn and after building that, they went to +20 per turn (after the initial negative faction support was removed).

[Jerroser]

Originally posted by Dedmosh:

Give up the seal? For a strategy gamer that's like admitting defeat right off the bat!

N.E.V.E.R.!!!!!!

Srsly tho I might do it.

I do find that I can beat the crap out of Liu Biao's army to get a peace with him and the two vassals. Maybe then expand all around me to get strong enough to take them all out?

In my recent game with Sun Jian I decided to keep the seal and holding off Liu Biao wasn't that difficult. We just had a stand off outside the city near Cai Mao for a couple of turns and then he accepted a peace deal in exchange for a few ancilaries.

Then after a little while later after I had expanded quite a bit in the south areas, he declared war on me again. So I want straight for Cai Mao and took him out then managed to fend off his other vassal who tried sailing over to attack the trade port with its garrison. (wasn't actually expecting to win that one). Then not long after that Liu Biao asked for peace, allowing me to extort quite a large amount from him with it.

I'll probably continue the fight a bit later and try taking the other vassal out, but in the mean time Cao Cao has gone and declared war on me so I need to hold him of.

[Plutonious]

I kept the seal but it's probably better to give it away. I took out the vassal at Jiangxia while giving up the area around Jiangling. I defeated about a dozen full armies from Liu Biao as he kept crossing the river before he would peace out with me. While I had my main army running all over keeping Liu Biao at bay, I also had another nearly full army in a race with Cao Cao taking the settlements to the east from the Han.

In the end it would have been better to just give up the seal- by the time I got peace with Liu Biao I had a ton of settlements, but nothing was upgraded and my corruption was >70% on all the provinces. The provinces were all completely worthless with no income, all my revenue went to unit upkeep, and the starting wars trashes your relations with all parties so no one would trade with me. I did manage to head of Cao Cao and keep him on his side of the Yangtze, though. However, it took me a LONG time to dig out of the corruption/worthless province hole I had dug for myself. I had to crank up taxes all the way and disband all my retinues to slowly upgrade one province at a time. I ended up winning around turn 130, but I don't think I had a single battle for 60+ turns while recovering from the early expansion and it was really boring.

Giving up the seal would have made the start way way easier, I could have kept to two smaller armies and focused on keeping Cao Cao contained. Not having to spend all my cash on unit upkeep and focusing that cash on settlements would have made things a whole lot smoother.

[Karsk]

Is there any way to get the seal back? Or perhaps ally with Yuan Shu before that?


Any tips for army composition for Sun Jian?

Bc the way we unlock units is very confusing and I've been trying to have 4 frontline infantry two spearman to guard flanks and cavalry to guard or attack the back line.

[Flippy]

If you dont give the seal, lu biao will confederate with lu bei and you evemtually going to fight a much stronger faction

[Hyen《A》 ♧]

I crushed him.everytime though. Yes his champions a beast. But ambush works like a charm. Use that. It's He Yi and Cao Cao who keeps giving me a nuisance everytime.