Liu Bei Mandate of heaven

[ThePriest]

Is this even possible at all to win?
I've tried this campaign over a dozen times now. It cannot be done. It doesn't matter what I do or how I do it. The AI in the form of Zhang Liang and his doomstack full of minions keeps chasing me when I go west, when I go north, when I go south and when I go east. I can chose to take a province or to keep going without land. He will chase me and he will find me and then he kills my stack whether it's full of weak militia units or filled with god tier units (or at least the best thats available) it makes no difference. The family estate bug drains my income unless I reload every turn which is kinda pointless, too.

One of my units starts fleeing in the fight with the Liang doomstack and they all fall like dominos. Ive searched up guides but they are very unclear. I even looked at videos on youtube but they seemed lucky in their playthrough, with the doomstack leaving them alone alltogether giving them a chance to actually build up.....

[scott_cookman]

Liu Bei....after you collect Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, high-tail it to Ba/Jiangdong. Take over the Han territory. Confederate Dong He and the Liu (if they are negative for unify but it is less than 10 then you can coerce them and you only take a diplomatic hit).

If you coalition with Liu Biao there is nothing in that area that will challenge you. Hopefully the Yellow Turbans don't win before you solidify your base.

This is the strategy I use on VH/VH. Confederation might be harder on Legendary.

[Roflberries]

Do not merge Guan Yu and Zhang Fei into Liu Bei's army. This will allow you bypass the early army cap.

Do not allow the Zhang bros to start a battle, they have night battles and the morale hit to your militia units will end the battle before it begins. Always be on the offensive, or bait them in to ambushes.

It's absolutely doable, I did it on Legendary with the fervor bug.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/779340/discussions/0/2144217412755600874/

[Leto]

absolutely disgusting fang

[Fang]

Publicado originalmente por Sir Toine:

absolutely disgusting fang

Really? You blame *me* for that? I'm not the one saying the devs must have corona. Give me a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ break.

[ThePriest]

Publicado originalmente por scott_cookman:

Liu Bei....after you collect Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, high-tail it to Ba/Jiangdong. Take over the Han territory. Confederate Dong He and the Liu (if they are negative for unify but it is less than 10 then you can coerce them and you only take a diplomatic hit).

If you coalition with Liu Biao there is nothing in that area that will challenge you. Hopefully the Yellow Turbans don't win before you solidify your base.

This is the strategy I use on VH/VH. Confederation might be harder on Legendary.

Okay, gonna give this a go tonight, thanks!

[ThePriest]

Publicado originalmente por scott_cookman:

Liu Bei....after you collect Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, high-tail it to Ba/Jiangdong. Take over the Han territory. Confederate Dong He and the Liu (if they are negative for unify but it is less than 10 then you can coerce them and you only take a diplomatic hit).

If you coalition with Liu Biao there is nothing in that area that will challenge you. Hopefully the Yellow Turbans don't win before you solidify your base.

This is the strategy I use on VH/VH. Confederation might be harder on Legendary.

It didnt work. Yeah it takes like 50 turns to sail all the way to the south (cant do it on land because of too many enemies). The doomstacks are everywhere and cannot be defeated. I forego on trying this ridicilously badly designed campaign. This stuff is absolutely retarded. I don't have the time to go all the way south anyway because by then the turbans will have won the mandate war. My supposed allies of the Han empire do nothing, just wait and be destroyed, even when they're right next to my army and a doomstacks attacks me they dont even reinforce.

The difference in difficulty between this and the normal campaign is insane, I never needed this many tries for ANY game only to still face defeat.

[scott_cookman]

Sorry man, you could also just sail to guangling and take that. You'll have Tao Qian and Liu Chong as natural boundaries to the north. Make sure you have military access treaties with them. Then just watch out for Sun Ce and Cao Cao.

[Fried Noodles]

Migration is a fine idea but I find that it's mostly for its own sake... doing it for fun or to have a very specific base of operations.

The Yellow Turban 'doomstacks' are not that strong at all as they are mostly comprised of low-tier peasant trash with a few elites peppered in.

They are "Zhang Fei bait".

You just need to be a bit patient when and where you engage them.

Doing a siege battle in a Lv.2 or Lv.3 city is preferable to encountering them on the field or at a farmlands. Make sure all of your armies have as much movement range as possible.

Even as a Shoemaker, you are able to float three armies once Zhang Fei and Guan Yu appear. Just don't merge them. Let them both lead their own armies and give them reach.

Running around with three "full" armies of 9 quality generals and a few militia units is pretty powerful.

There is a bit of RNG involved when it comes to which generals show up for you, but even if you just get generics you should still have the advantage in offensive battles.

Just pay extra close attention to enemy ambushes and manually battle pretty much every fight... you can recall 2/3 generals per army and redeploy them next turn to heal if you must do a delegate, but you sacrifice some movement range every turn you do this.

I started my own legendary Liu Bei MOH run just the other day. I also intended to do a minor migration and head south to destroy Huang Shao and capture Dong with the longer-term goal of claiming the Pengcheng temple for myself (that +10 satisfaction is great!).
But I ended up changing plans due to Zhang Liang corralling me up north. I didn't want to attack his full stack at the Henei farmland... if he was instead garrisoned at the Henei town, that'd be a different story.
Instead I went north and destroyed Zhang Bao's faction and am working on "rescuing" Liu Yu's territory from Zhang Jue.

I did get kinda fortunate this run though. I got Huang Gai, Cheng Pu, Taishi Ci, Chen Gong, and Zhao Yun.
But I'm even more excited by Zhang Lu, the Celestial Master (+100% food production) being in my court.
And one of the most clutch generals in my employ has been Yang Feng... he is a bandit champion and brings me the Mending skill. And later on he will provide +10% Character Experience and -10% Retinue Upkeep.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2078899870

[E.R.L.]

Very cool roster Fried Noodles! Did you take any steps to build your economy to afford all those characters? Looking to play the Liu Bei 182 start date campaign soon.
I started playing recently and completed a 190 start Liu Bei campaign a week ago. I hired several good generals at the beginning of the campaign, but I don't believe by Turn 17 I had that many.

[Fried Noodles]

Publicado originalmente por E_L_2:

Very cool roster Fried Noodles! Did you take any steps to build your economy to afford all those characters? Looking to play the Liu Bei 182 start date campaign soon.
I started playing recently and completed a 190 start Liu Bei campaign a week ago. I hired several good generals at the beginning of the campaign, but I don't believe by Turn 17 I had that many.

The economy is being held together with spit and gum. It will start to fall apart in the next couple of turns unless I make some good gains against Zhang Jue.
Selling Military Access to whoever will pay for it. Recently sold Pingyuan city to the guy who starts in Taishan (forget his name) one turn before losing it to Zhang Liang.
Considering working my way towards salary reduction reforms...

[E.R.L.]

Ah I see...well those characters are too good to pass up! Hope things work out.

Did you get Pingyuan city by the event or by capturing it yourself? Saw elsewhere that it can be a bit weird if the event fires or not.

[Fried Noodles]

Publicado originalmente por E_L_2:

Ah I see...well those characters are too good to pass up! Hope things work out.

Did you get Pingyuan city by the event or by capturing it yourself? Saw elsewhere that it can be a bit weird if the event fires or not.

Yeah it was a little weird. I acquired the city through the event even though it was already under Yellow Turban control.
So it was like Zhang Liang himself gave it to me only to change his mind and want to come and take it back.

[E.R.L.]

Huh, well okay then. Thanks!