Most fun time period?

[Atomsk]

Which time period do you recommend or is the most hectic? 182 CE, 190 CE or 194 CE?

[forumcrybaby]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2707655191

next for me is 194 then 200. The vanilla campaign sucks and its impossible to get even a fraction of the officers that you would get for each faction and the Yellow campaign is very poorly down...IMO.

[Tisiphone Edge]

194 is probably the best since every major faction has enough land to expand easily. In 190 many of the factions are too small to get an empire going and in 200 Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, and Sun Ce have too much of a head start for much variation.

[Nits1251]

194 in my opinion is the best startdate. The 190 start is usually very slow and takes time for other factions to grow and expand, while in 200 you have cao cao,yuan shao and sun ce that are very strong and all ready dominating, the one startdate i rarely even look at is 182, but everyone has their own taste i guess.

[lemurs2]

Wow, I am the exception. I like 182 and 190 best. The YT campaign in 182 is fun, and 190 gives a clean slate to grow for every faction.
You will also find that several factions are all about trade, also much of the tech tree, and in the later scenarios there is no one to trade with.

[Caveman3rd]

me it 182 as you have more choices and more enemy to fight the only down side for me that when u do 182 start date if you not got ride of yellow faction it some what mess up 190 start date i would like to have the different faction you have at 182 to be around in 190 start date if you know what i mean instead of all those han faction

[Sqrt(-1)]

Originally posted by lemurs2:

Wow, I am the exception. I like 182 and 190 best. The YT campaign in 182 is fun, and 190 gives a clean slate to grow for every faction.
You will also find that several factions are all about trade, also much of the tech tree, and in the later scenarios there is no one to trade with.

No, I absolutely agree. I think the best part of any TW game is starting from one or two regions, overcoming the early struggles and slowly building up. There is also the most variation in how a campaign plays out, because everyone has a chance.

190 has the most going on and the "fairest" start for most factions. I also like 182 for how different it is from the 190 start.
The 194 start is very similar to the 190 start, except that all factions are a bit larger. The big selling point is that you can play as Lü Bu and Sun Ce, who are really cool. For other factions I prefer 190.

[lemurs2]

Cool, I am not the only one.
For my taste, I prefer Lu Bu as an antagonist not a protagonist, so I do not worry about playing him. My wife regularly hears me curse Lu F'in Bu !

[Cao Cao Mengde]

194; which frankly should have been the vanilla start.

[lemurs2]

Why 194? People I talked to in Rot3Ks forum thought 200 should have been the default start. I am asking out of curiosity, not because I disagree.

[sarge430]

I like the 190 myself. I love playing as Liu Bei and slowly over a few hundred turns moving west makeing sure all the right generals are in the right factions (with the sandbox). I have managed to have pretty accurate locations for all 3 kingdoms including capitals in Chengdu, Jinaye, and Ye.

[Cao Cao Mengde]

Originally posted by lemurs2:

Why 194? People I talked to in Rot3Ks forum thought 200 should have been the default start. I am asking out of curiosity, not because I disagree.

194 has the factions as we know them mostly set up- but without being so powerful that you don't have some of the interesting outliers unavailable as viable options in terms of gameplay. Once you get to 200, a lot of the fun folks- Yuan Shu, Lu Bu, Gongsun Zan etc- are essentially out of the picture, or nearly out of the picture such as Liu Biao.

194, China is still very much in chaos, but the actual direct link from the foundations of the period to the actual 3K is already laid. The conflict of Guandu can easily still happen in a 194 start. Sun Ce is the true founder of Wu, as Sun Jian historically really wasn't much more than just Yuan Shu's general. The characters are mostly serving with the factions that they are famous for serving. And yet, there is still very much room for twists and turns for sandbox play. You get a more substantial foundation for your playthrough; while still being able to tell your own story.

Also, you'd be able to avoid the problems that this game DID have- start dates that were too close together with little genuine change in the political landscape (since linking events just never worked). As the game is, we have a 182, 190, 194 and 200 start dates. Far too close together. I personally would have done 182, 194 (vanilla date), 207 or 209, 222 and finally 240's.

[Elfie]

182 might have been fun if it transcended into 190 in terms of goals, but unfortunately it is all about "turbans vs the empire" even if game goes past 200 and all turbans are destroyed.
So despite its being very fun in terms on economic development and empire building "from scratch" (except if you play the Emperor), it is sadly overall underwhelming because of lack of transition after turbans are defeated.

190 is the classic start and have most of the heroes still alive so its canonical and imo best start date. Also,it is truly a start of Chaos so if you like building alternate universes it is the best since none of the factions having major advantages, even Sun Ce AI can be organically wiped out by the White Tiger AI (Yan Yu).

194 is a good choice if you want "peak three kingdoms as described in books" by that start date. Because in 190 start Yuan Shao for example could be wiped out before you even get a chance to meet his faction, in 194 it is not the case.

To prevent lords death and game going into generic mess past 220, I recommend play with "12/24 turns per year" mods, especially if you start in 194.

[forumcrybaby]

Originally posted by Elfie:

182 might have been fun if it transcended into 190 in terms of goals, but unfortunately it is all about "turbans vs the empire" even if game goes past 200 and all turbans are destroyed.
So despite its being very fun in terms on economic development and empire building "from scratch" (except if you play the Emperor), it is sadly overall underwhelming because of lack of transition after turbans are defeated.

190 is the classic start and have most of the heroes still alive so its canonical and imo best start date. Also,it is truly a start of Chaos so if you like building alternate universes it is the best since none of the factions having major advantages, even Sun Ce AI can be organically wiped out by the White Tiger AI (Yan Yu).

194 is a good choice if you want "peak three kingdoms as described in books" by that start date. Because in 190 start Yuan Shao for example could be wiped out before you even get a chance to meet his faction, in 194 it is not the case.

To prevent lords death and game going into generic mess past 220, I recommend play with "12/24 turns per year" mods, especially if you start in 194.

Use TUP/MTU and there are no generics...at least for a very long time as long as you don't go to heavy with the executions as I tend to do being overly frustrated with the completely anti player AI.