Liu Bei Early Army Composition?

[Karsk]

I'm having trouble figuring out how to compose the retinues of Liu Bei Zhang Feng and Guan Yu

[RustyRed]

Early game, you'd be using mostly militia units, or what I call peasant units. They're the cheapest and you can make the most out of Liu Bei's discounts for militia units.

Liu Bei - archer militia/sword cav
Zhang Fei - sword militia/shock cav
Guan Yu - spear militia/spear guards

By mid game, you'd upgrade your militia archers to Yii (I think it was Yi, the ones unique to Liu Bei's faction) archers.

Decrease the ratio of militias in your main army as the game progresses, but you can still use mostly militia for rapid expansion on poorly defended territories and weak factions.

[Karsk]

Originally posted by xuthan:

Early game, you'd be using mostly militia units, or what I call peasant units. They're the cheapest and you can make the most out of Liu Bei's discounts for militia units.

Liu Bei - archer militia/sword cav
Zhang Fei - sword militia/shock cav
Guan Yu - spear militia/spear guards

By mid game, you'd upgrade your militia archers to Yii (I think it was Yi, the ones unique to Liu Bei's faction) archers.

Decrease the ratio of militias in your main army as the game progresses, but you can still use mostly militia for rapid expansion on poorly defended territories and weak factions.

What is also making me kinda concerned is that not including a strategist seems foolish. Would not including one work for liu bei? If swapping someone out for a strategist is better then who should it be?

[Sn3z]

I make balanced retinue's for either Guan Yu or Zhang Fei because later you can detach them and start the process of giving them their own retinues. Balanced retinues are much easier to act independently if you want to multi task, if you specialize its becomes tougher to detach but the advantages are the overall composition is alot stronger.

[Karsk]

Originally posted by Sn3z:

I make balanced retinue's for either Guan Yu or Zhang Fei because later you can detach them and start the process of giving them their own retinues. Balanced retinues are much easier to act independently if you want to multi task, if you specialize its becomes tougher to detach but the advantages are the overall composition is alot stronger.

so what does balanced retinues mean?

[Karsk]

I have to admit I am having quite a tough time getting situated in the early game as liu bei. Especially bc for some reason I cant grab land from kong rong until I drastically weaken myself fighting huang shao

[RustyRed]

Don't worry about Kong Rong just yet; leave him there as your trading partner. Slowly take away his lands through trade then confederate him when he has disbanded most of his armies. If you can't confederate him, vassalize him. If you can't vassalize him by then, declare war on him.

[RustyRed]

Originally posted by Steve Spaghetti, The Meme Thief:

What is also making me kinda concerned is that not including a strategist seems foolish. Would not including one work for liu bei? If swapping someone out for a strategist is better then who should it be?

Why would it be foolish? Your army is cheap and you win battles by using different strategies from the norm. Sure, you lose out on a bit of ammo and the ability to recruit trebs but you don't need trebs for every battle. As far as I'm aware, commanders can now use formations as long as they're the head of army.

[Karsk]

Originally posted by xuthan:

Originally posted by Steve Spaghetti, The Meme Thief:

What is also making me kinda concerned is that not including a strategist seems foolish. Would not including one work for liu bei? If swapping someone out for a strategist is better then who should it be?

Why would it be foolish? Your army is cheap and you win battles by using different strategies from the norm. Sure, you lose out on a bit of ammo and the ability to recruit trebs but you don't need trebs for every battle. As far as I'm aware, commanders can now use formations as long as they're the head of army.

I thought it was pretty much necessary to include a strategist with some archers and two trebuchets for a strong ranged component that lets you have access to all the formations?

[RustyRed]

Originally posted by Steve Spaghetti, The Meme Thief:

I thought it was pretty much necessary to include a strategist with some archers and two trebuchets for a strong ranged component that lets you have access to all the formations?

Commanders can do all formations as long as they're leading the army. You'll need to level them up to unlock more formations.

Your main question was asking for a composition for Liu Bei's early game. You don't need a strategist early game since you'll barely be able to afford 2 trebs in your armies; it would be wiser to save up to improve your economy.

Early game to me is the first 30 turns.
Mid-game 30-70 turns.
Late-game 70+ turns.

[Karsk]

Originally posted by xuthan:

Originally posted by Steve Spaghetti, The Meme Thief:

I thought it was pretty much necessary to include a strategist with some archers and two trebuchets for a strong ranged component that lets you have access to all the formations?

Commanders can do all formations as long as they're leading the army. You'll need to level them up to unlock more formations.

Your main question was asking for a composition for Liu Bei's early game. You don't need a strategist early game since you'll barely be able to afford 2 trebs in your armies; it would be wiser to save up to improve your economy.

Early game to me is the first 30 turns.
Mid-game 30-70 turns.
Late-game 70+ turns.

Thank you! I suppose while I am at it and because I am also having a lot of trouble with the first 30 turns could you perhaps offer some advice there?

A lot of the time the event for Tao Qian wont fire, leaving low food production, plus Huang Gao seems to garrison Dong capital even when I take the time to annex Langye using some unity.

[RustyRed]

Originally posted by Steve Spaghetti, The Meme Thief:

Thank you! I suppose while I am at it and because I am also having a lot of trouble with the first 30 turns could you perhaps offer some advice there?

A lot of the time the event for Tao Qian wont fire, leaving low food production, plus Huang Gao seems to garrison Dong capital even when I take the time to annex Langye using some unity.

What or who were you have trouble with?

If it's Huang Shao, you should have destroyed him in the first 4-5 turns, leaving only his farmland for Yuan Shao to deal with.

[Karsk]

Originally posted by xuthan:

Originally posted by Steve Spaghetti, The Meme Thief:

Thank you! I suppose while I am at it and because I am also having a lot of trouble with the first 30 turns could you perhaps offer some advice there?

A lot of the time the event for Tao Qian wont fire, leaving low food production, plus Huang Gao seems to garrison Dong capital even when I take the time to annex Langye using some unity.

What or who were you have trouble with?

If it's Huang Shao, you should have destroyed him in the first 4-5 turns, leaving only his farmland for Yuan Shao to deal with.

Usually I take a few turns to recuperate and get a different army after taking the iron mine, then I go annex langye and then hopefully take dong town.

Often Huang Shao has three armies and by that point there's always one of them in dong town as a garrison.

Eventually, if I manage to take him out, I don't have a lot of food reserves and at least four times in a row the event for confederating Tao Qian didn't fire. Then Huang Shao goes across the river to eventually return while Yuan Shao inexplicably attacks me despite not sharing a border. Oh and Cao Cao attacks me after all of that.

That's how it's played out several times now.

[RustyRed]

Originally posted by Steve Spaghetti, The Meme Thief:

Originally posted by xuthan:

What or who were you have trouble with?

If it's Huang Shao, you should have destroyed him in the first 4-5 turns, leaving only his farmland for Yuan Shao to deal with.

Usually I take a few turns to recuperate and get a different army after taking the iron mine, then I go annex langye and then hopefully take dong town.

Often Huang Shao has three armies and by that point there's always one of them in dong town as a garrison.

Eventually, if I manage to take him out, I don't have a lot of food reserves and at least four times in a row the event for confederating Tao Qian didn't fire. Then Huang Shao goes across the river to eventually return while Yuan Shao inexplicably attacks me despite not sharing a border. Oh and Cao Cao attacks me after all of that.

That's how it's played out several times now.

Don't use a different army to deal with Huang Shao. After you take the mine (which should be on the first turn), head straight for Huang Shao who should be sitting in the town of Taishan. Sit outside Taishan town and build a full stack on turn 2. On turn 3, attack the town and fight a manual battle (should be easy enough), if not auto-resolve at the cost of losing more men. On turn 4, head for the city of Dong and sit outside and wait for 1 turn for replenishment. On turn 5, you siege the city of Dong for 2 turns and pick the 'dig tunnel'. On turn 7, do your battle manually.

If everything turns out right, you should have 3 settlements in 8 turns. I'll leave a screen shot of me just auto-resolving on Legendary. If you do battles manually, you should have more men by the end of 8 turns so you can head straight for Cao Cao.

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