SHi Xie

[ROE]

Anyone know how this game decides who will be the the other two emperors? Playing MoH as Liu Bei so i started in the north. When it came time to ascend, Ma Teng became one emperor (which i thought wasn't possible since he's a governor) and this Shi Xie guy became the other. Old Shi becomes an emperor in almost every single campaign i play even though others seem to be much more powerful, and i hate it. Now i have to slog all the way to the south land agian, bending and breaking knees as i go, just to finish this campaign. Also the i surrender please don't kill me option seems to have been removed. Yay.

[Hex]

Might be "coalition becomes an empire" sort of thing?

[RCMidas]

Ma Teng was not assigned as a governor of the Han until later, which means that an MoH start lets him become one of the emperors. He and Han Sui were very much outlying groups at this point, almost more barbarian than Han - Ma Teng's wife is technically not Han, being Xiongnu (or Xiabei, I forget) - and due to how the randomness of a campaign can go, you probably won't see him become one of the governors the way he did in history.

Shi Xie controls a lot of land, most of it quite well-developed, therefore giving him more than enough Prestige to become one of the three also. Other factions may control MORE territory, but his is simply MORE advanced. This means that he is very likely to become one of the emperors if you expand quickly enough to trigger the event - he expands slowly, but consistently, so it takes some time for other factions to outpace him.

[StevoTheOutlaw]

Shi Xie has a good chance (less so in MoH than in main) of becoming Emperor because he doesn't have any relatively strong neighbours and there is a lot of land around him that is undeveloped.

Who becomes emperor is based on who are the most powerful warlords at the time.

[ROE]

Thanks for the knowledge. The power thing is what i though also, but unless the little triangle thing that displays relative strength is wrong, Shi Xie was not even close to the most dangerous. That distinction went to Yuan Shu who somehow managed to take over all of what was once Cao Cao southern kingdom, including some of Sun and Lui Biao's. The guy held a lot of territory and more than a few full stack armies. He ranked in estimation as the second most powerful behind me and followed by Lady Wu. Somehow, Shi Xie still managed to become emperor even though he was like sixth or seventh most powerful. I have seen this same thing play out over many campaigns when i was trying to decide who would be best to make a strategic ally for the upcoming split. Then bang. Shi Xie from nowhere.

I think the game is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with me.

[Fried Noodles]

It's Prestige that determines who the top three candidates for emperor are, not military strength.

You can kinda guess at who is going to be a contender for the throne based on wthe global strength rating, but it's not always telling.

In my Liu Chong game, I was concerned that Liu Bei would form the Kingdom of Shu-Han because nearly every step of the way he was equivalent or stronger than me.

I eventually made him my vassal and was expecting him to declare an independence war in the endgame while declaring himself emperor... But my two contenders ended up being Cao Cao and Sun Ce to my south (both weaker than Liu Bei).

Liu Bei just looks mighty because he can field twice as many armies at 50% cost as long as they're full of militia units, but Sun Ce and Cao Cao either control more territiories OR have more high level cities and counties which stacks on a ton of Prestige.