Liu Bei recruiting Lady Mi on 190 start- how does it work?

[Etchings]

I have tried a dozen times now without any luck.

She supposedly starts in Tao Qian's faction. When I confed with him, she's no longer there.

I've installed a mod that shows where every character is on the map. I've chased her all across China wiping out the factions to which she nominally belongs, but she shows up neither in the pool of officers to be recruited nor the option to recruit, rather she goes onto another faction the next turn. I've tried to use a trainer to unify with factions, but again, she is not there.

I've also tried at least 5 vanilla starts. Upon Tao Qian's death and Liu Bei's inheritance, she is gone. Typically, Mi Fang is also gone and sometimes Mi Zhu, too.

I just simply do not understand aspects of this game. I understand there is supposed to be a sand box aspect to Total War, but this is less sand box and more incomprehensible, impossible to interact with major pieces of the game. It's like someone let you drive their sports car and insisted you'll have the best driving experience wearing a blindfold.

What I really don't understand is the games insistence on putting certain things on blind rails. The most interesting part of this period are the characters, the relationships, and the ability to influence this part of the game is absolute garbage. If you're going to make it event driven and stick to the historical script, do that. If you're going to allow players to sandbox, then give the player options to influence that system in intelligible ways. Right now, we are getting the worst of both of those worlds.

At this point, I would prefer a system of drafting characters from a common pool in which a character can decline based on who is offering what they are offering.

This game is in a terrible state.

[Rex]

Characters won't join your court through confederation unless one of three conditions are met. 1) They are currently deployed as a general. 2) They are a relative of the faction leader. 3) They are actively spying for your faction.

I don't believe any other bond or fondness has an effect on your recruitment from factions confederated this way. Some officers will, however, join your recruitment pool after confederation if they have a fondness for your faction. Unfortunately, this is one of the weakest aspects of the game, and it leaves a lot to be desired if anyone wishes to follow the storyline from a 190 start.

Something else I observed when trying to recruit Lady Mi is that she's not actually related to Mi Zhu or Mi Fang in 190 as she should be, which means they would not be your distant relatives even if you were successful in recruiting her and marrying her.

Similarly, Xiahou Dun and Xiahou Yuan were said to be cousins of the Cao clan, but do not receive the same distant relative status.

These are things Creative Assembly could definitely work on.