How is Liu Bei "meant" to be played?

[12o6u3]

Liu Bei gets a few story missions that suggest that, after Tao Qian dies, you should head west and unify with Liu Biao. But that seems like a very counter-intuitive move (you can defend your position in the east pretty well) that probably wouldn't work anyway (unify seems too finicky to build a strategy around, right?)

I don't especially think the game should prioritize historical fictional accuracy, but what moves should a Liu Bei player make if they want to follow the spirit of the story, unify with Liu Biao, and I guess end up with Liu Bei controlling the SW, Cao Cao controlling SE, and Yuan Shao controlling the north?

[Fried Noodles]

It's hard to force a unification with Liu Biao. There's no guarantee that you can pull it off even if you do push west.

You can play however you want. The game is a sandbox.
You can try to diplomacy cheese a unify, but it might also require an ultimatum.
I know that the AI Liu Bei will automatically confederate Liu Biao's faction on the turn that Liu Biao dies, but that can sometimes take 100+ turns as he's not that old at the start of the campaign.

[JustaGamer]

Originally posted by 12o6u3:

But that seems like a very counter-intuitive move

Because that's exactly how they're designed for. Pretty much every "historical" objective push you to do dump things that put you in bad spot or overextended. Depending on your angle, you can view them as good design if you think they intended to challenge the players and push you out of the comfort zone. Or you can also treat them as bad and counter-intuitive design meant to screw player over.


Personally I lean toward the second angle, since traditionally the total war series is always designed with an extreme heavy bias against the players. Just about everything it want you to do, it's because those things will greatly increase the chance of you losing.

[Weeeii]

Never burn any place down to the ground. Never betray any faction in diplomacy. Build friendly relationship with any faction whose leader's last name is Liu. Have merciful thoughts even facing enemies that are against you. Pay attention to public order and take good care of your people. Do not fear being defeated as you can always start fresh new. Always remember to fight for Han Dynasty.

This is basically the image of Liu Bei in the novel of Romance of Three Kingdoms.

[12o6u3]

Originally posted by Weeeii:

This is basically the image of Liu Bei in the novel of Romance of Three Kingdoms.

It may be how Liu Bei is portrayed in the novels, but in this game it doesn't help you follow the story missions...

According to this gif on wikipedia[upload.wikimedia.org] Liu Bei has no territory from about 199 until Liu Biao dies in 208-209...Can you even play TW that way? Even if you can survive for almost 50 turns without territory, it sounds like it'd be really boring and I wouldn't want to rely on that as a strategy to magically end up with Liu Biao's territory at the end...

Maybe you're supposed to spend that time conquering L Biao's neighbors and gifting the territory to him?

[Fried Noodles]

Originally posted by 12o6u3:

According to this gif on wikipedia[upload.wikimedia.org] Liu Bei has no territory from about 199 until Liu Biao dies in 208-209...Can you even play TW that way?

You start out regionless in Mandate of Heaven.
The game gives you a 50% discount on army upkeep while you have no territories which stacks additively with Liu Bei's 50% discount on militia infantry upkeep.

I have played games as Liu Bei in MoH where I tried to go as long as I could without any land to my name.

When Pingyuan was handed to me by an event, I just let the Yellow Turbans conquer it.

I did not combine Guan Yu and Zhang Fei's armies into Liu Bei's starting army. Instead I hired on six more generals as they became available and roamed the north side of the Yellow River with three full-stack, free armies.


You CAN play this way. It's silly, but it works. ;)

[12o6u3]

Originally posted by Fried Noodles:

You CAN play this way. It's silly, but it works. ;)

Huh, that is fascinating, it would be cool to try sometime...

[Weeeii]

Originally posted by Fried Noodles:

Originally posted by 12o6u3:

According to this gif on wikipedia[upload.wikimedia.org] Liu Bei has no territory from about 199 until Liu Biao dies in 208-209...Can you even play TW that way?

You start out regionless in Mandate of Heaven.
The game gives you a 50% discount on army upkeep while you have no territories which stacks additively with Liu Bei's 50% discount on militia infantry upkeep.

I have played games as Liu Bei in MoH where I tried to go as long as I could without any land to my name.

When Pingyuan was handed to me by an event, I just let the Yellow Turbans conquer it.

I did not combine Guan Yu and Zhang Fei's armies into Liu Bei's starting army. Instead I hired on six more generals as they became available and roamed the north side of the Yellow River with three full-stack, free armies.


You CAN play this way. It's silly, but it works. ;)

There is more than that. It even gives you 50 army supplies per turn when you have no territory captured. Therefore, you can travel across the entire map without having to worry about any supply issue. You can go all the way towards the southwest of China as Liu Bei when the game begins. This can help you avoid direct conflicts with most of the major factions in the middle and the northern China. Besides, the factions that are on the west part of the map are generally weak and easy to defeat. Therefore, it is a good region to develop your strength without placing yourself into a situation of having enemies both in front and rear.

[12o6u3]

This is really interesting. Don't you need friendly territory to replenish? What about recruiting? Can you offer cooperation to be Liu Biao's vassal while you're regionless? When you get Tao Qian's territory in 194, do you spend a few years with it to rank up to full Marquis?

[Fried Noodles]

Originally posted by 12o6u3:

This is really interesting. Don't you need friendly territory to replenish? What about recruiting? Can you offer cooperation to be Liu Biao's vassal while you're regionless? When you get Tao Qian's territory in 194, do you spend a few years with it to rank up to full Marquis?

I don't think I've taken this play style as far as 194.
The regionless buff is unique to Mandate of Heaven. It might also only be in effect for as long as the empire is still together.
As long as you're a member of the empire, you can recruit and replenish in any friendly allied territory.

While you and Liu Biao are both members of the same empire, he cannot take you as a vassal.

I've never once had the Tao Qian confederation event happen in Mandate of Heaven. It might not exist.

[Weeeii]

Originally posted by 12o6u3:

This is really interesting. Don't you need friendly territory to replenish? What about recruiting? Can you offer cooperation to be Liu Biao's vassal while you're regionless? When you get Tao Qian's territory in 194, do you spend a few years with it to rank up to full Marquis?

The major drawback of this gameplay is that you won't be able to replenish or recruit any new units at the early stage. I would suggest to avoid most of the battles before you are ready to capture your first territory. Besides, choosing not to help Tao Qian is very essential if you decide to play this way.The event that Tao Qian passes away will never occur if you do not help him, and they will be in war against each other until both of them wants to make peace.And you are right. You can choose to become a vassal of Liu Biao if you want to get the experience of leading a mercenary army (actually this is what Liu Bei did for the first half of his life). To offer cooperation with Liu Biao, his faction needs to at least reach the level of Second Marquis. After becoming a vassal of his, you can replenish or recruit new units in his territory but he will take 20% of your income as the cost. In fact, losing all of your territory isn't the end of the world in this game. There are many different play styles you can explore other than conquering the world. Just like an old Chinese saying that I like, "when there is life, there is always hope." Sometimes, failure is just as charming as success as long as you know what you are fighting for.

[12o6u3]

I'm getting the idea that your best chance to achieve story objectives from the 190 start would go like this:
190-194: Settle in Langya and maybe Dong commanderies. Build up unity, don't spend it on annexing the Han counties (take Langya the hard way). When Cao Cao declares war on Tao Qian, join the war. Don't go on the offensive against Cao Cao, but you can attack his armies when he's threating you or Tao Qian. Inherit Tao Qian's land when he dies in 194.

194-200ish: Sit patiently in your territories, don't expand. Do what you can to build up prestige, hopefully reaching full Marquis. Eventually, you get prompt asking if you're ready to go to war with Yuan Shu (maybe that's at 199). Accept that, prioritize attacking Yuan Shu, and don't defend your territory in the east. If CC decides to attack then, let him have it. I think that's about how the story is "supposed to" go.

200ish-208: Now you're in the west, next to Liu Biao, fighting Yuan Shu, and possibly losing all your land in the east to Cao Cao. From the 190 start, you probably won't be able to maintain much of an army on base income (maybe one full stack of only militia units). You may have to hold on to some land, but form a coalition or alliance with Liu Biao, or accept cooperation with him. Do things to improve Liu Biao's relationship with you. Now things get dependent on opaque and unpredictable game mechanics. Liu Biao should die in 208...will that trigger and event where Liu Bei inherits his territory? Or can you Unify at that point?

I want to try this out when I get tired of my current campaign!

[Sarissofoi]

> How is Liu Bei "meant" to be played?
If you go by the book you need to say benevolence often, dunk a baby on the ground, backstab everyone who house you when posing as gentlemen and eat flesh of unsuccessful hunter wife

[Karla Kolumna]

per questline it's obvious they wanted to encourage you to move west to liu biao. because that just makes historical sense. there is even a region in the west called shut, which is what liu bei created historically.

the problem is they never tested this ♥♥♥♥ and gave you this mission that's basically so retarded it's impossible to fullfill.

so if you want to play historically, you gotta move their manually without quests just by conquest.

if you don't care about his historical region then you can play where you start at and early war yuan shao and cao cao.

[Nero]

You can't play Liu Bei historically because historically he lost. Multiple times. Everything.

Its a sandbox you utter *****. The only thing historical is the starting turn. The moment you press end turn everything will go in an "what if" scenario.

Liu Bei served under Yuan Shao as an officer. You can't replicate that.

[Sarissofoi]

You could do something like that in older KOEI Romance of Three Kingdoms titles(some of them). you could play as officer, get enlisted, make friends then rebel or resign, gather group and supplies and take over some neutral city etc.