Victory condition, too harsh?

[Guvenoren]

Do any of you people go through until victory condition whenever you choose a new faction? Well, I tend to. But this game has me on my knees as Liu Biao. I don't understand how you're supposed to achieve victory. 95 counties when you're only allowed to hold 32. Through alliances? well what happens when everyone refuses to join your co-operation? What happens when your own ally holds the Emperor throne? Then you need to backstab him to get it and then everyone declares war on you.

The victory condition needs to have a modifier. I feel like it's way too hard.
Or even better, more than 1 victory condition.

[kniko]

Well for the first part alliance and vassels both count towards your counties needed.

[zrallo]

I just finished a victory with Liu Biao. Counties owned by vassals count toward the 95-county victory requirement. As I conquered counties on my way to the emperor seats, I would sell them to my vassals so that I wouldn't exceed my own Dominion requirements. Just make sure one vassal doesn't get too strong. Always be looking to add new vassals so that you can feed them counties as well.

[Ale is Yum!]

And what's the story with the game suddenly ending? It abruptly informed me that I'd been defeated, but didn't tell me why or how, or even why the gme had suddenly ended. Is there a turn limit? What am I missing?

[RCMidas]

I believe the only loss condition, short of actually having no settlements or armies left, is in the 182 Mandate of Heaven start period and to let the Yellow Turbans capture 50 settlements including Luoyang.

[dulany67]

I have a Liu Bei campaign where I was the only emperor but was 10 counties short of victory. I honestly couldn't be arsed to grind those 10 counties. OTOH, I couldn't care less about achievements, so in my mind that's a victory.

[Ale is Yum!]

Thanks, but is there a turn limit?

[RCMidas]

No turn limit.

[Guvenoren]

Originally posted by dulany67:

I have a Liu Bei campaign where I was the only emperor but was 10 counties short of victory. I honestly couldn't be arsed to grind those 10 counties. OTOH, I couldn't care less about achievements, so in my mind that's a victory.

You sound like one of those people that would rather half ass things :P

[Ale is Yum!]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

I believe the only loss condition, short of actually having no settlements or armies left, is in the 182 Mandate of Heaven start period and to let the Yellow Turbans capture 50 settlements including Luoyang.

That's what I thought, thanks.

[JuX]

There is another victory condition. You simply have to conquer the throne cities from the contenders and you win the game. In most cases you can simply rush these capitals with doomstack armies.

When three kingdom endgame is triggered alliances between contenders break by default.

[Multihog]

Yeah, it's rough. I've played on Very Hard three times now. I always get to the late game just fine, when I declare myself emperor. I had a good run with Gongsun Zan just now. Liu Bei was my ally, and we were working together. I had about +200 relationship points to him. I also had Kong Rong as a vassal. I thought I was set for conquering the map like this. I had like 10 doomstacks.

Guess what? Cao Cao out of nowhere VASSALIZED Liu Bei even though Liu Bei was much stronger than Cao Cao, and they were at war. There, that was GG right then because now it's going to be yet another infinite stalemate of beating back full stacks one after another. That's actually how every game has gone: the AI vassalizes everything, and now it's me against the entire world, and I fight about 5 stacks per turn.

It's so ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. It's much, much worse than Shogun 2 Realm Divide because at least there the map was quite narrow, so you could easily push forward. In 3K, you need to defend 360 degrees from constant spam, so something will eventually leak through, and you're instantly dead because losing one farm means your whole infrastructure crumbling.

And if I want a vassal, well, every faction says no and gives me -200 negative points, even if I have 50 stacks next to their final town. I have no idea how to deal with this.