How to survive as Liu Chong 190?

[NvMe 令]

No idea why his faction is labelled easy since its actually one of the hardest starts in the game.

Yuan Shu, He Yi and Cao Cao all have very dangerous stacks that tunnel down on you.

Some of the strats ive seen online tend to boil down to rushing down Cao cao and yuan shu, but not a single mention of He Yi? He can build up a full stack insanely fast and you cant """rush""" him down since He Yi's last settlement is just out of reach by about a turn which allows whatever army is garrisoned there to come out plus with reinforcements to just swarm whatever army you have

Rushing down Yuan Shu is pretty easy, however, He Yi and Cao Cao will basically undo your progress as when you take one of Yuan Shu's settlements one of yours will be taken by He Yi and Cao Cao.

Havent tried rushing down Cao Cao yet but having He Yi such an extreme threat plus Yuan Shu planning to declare war on your back at any second i cant imagine this going well for you.

Is the only thing you can do is just pack up and run to the South? Honestly its going to feel like a He Yi campaign which is not what i picked Liu Chong for.

ANSWER:

After doing a few runs of 190 Liu Chong, ive found out the catch that makes or breaks your campaign: Whether or not you take the Chen farmland that you are told to take on turn 1

Taking the farmland means He Yi will directly go after you with his stack which can easily snowball into dozens of turns wasted fighting him and replenishing even if fought cleanly. Even if you take all or most of He Yi's land, you are now in a bad spot since your main army stack is way out of position down south. No matter what you do with Cao Cao (trade deal, 1 food trade, non aggro pact,etc), he will betray you no matter what (his cunning trait seen in the diplomacy screen isnt lying) so you will have to fight up in the direction of the north. However Yuan Shu will also likely to try to snatch land as well and this can get very messy even if you have Show of Force since its very unlikely you can have a viable second army set up since you're getting hit from both sides.

However, if you ignore the farmland and build a decent army to take the Han empire lumberyard above you (spend a turn or two to replinish), you can have the Han Chen farmland are a buffer to give you time and let you know when He Yi is coming. While at it you can easily build exp to unlock Show of Force. Once you take the lumberyard, Yuan Shu is likely to just be in the middle of trying to reach to it and on march if you're lucky. This is now a great time to catch him on the next turn since his army will be very tired.

Once you beat his main stack, make your way down and take his land before Liu Biao does. After that, you can start to take He Yi's land in a anti clockwise motion. If all goes well and He Yi does not go north torwards your capital, you should end up at the Chen farmland you're supposed to take, by this point Cao Cao has already decleared war on you and you can now match his armies with Show of Force and some Chen units (you should have some trade routes going on by now). Once you beat Cao Cao and Tao Qian you've basically won since this is where the snowball starts and you can expand where ever you want.

[Milites]

Never tried Liu Chong on 190 scenario, but I'm pretty sure that difficulty label is bullshxt, as it always was

[NvMe 令]

I could only find a lot of info about his MOH start which is apparently super easy, but damm the 190 start is probably the hardest start in the game, i really dont see how anyone can actually survive without looping and when im not playing as him AI Liu Chong has never expanded much at all and usually gets stomped in around 20 turns or more.

Factions with the "everyone around you wants you dead" gimmick usually have something to balance it out like He Yi having insane replenishment and cheap high morale units, but Liu Chong just feels like Han Sui and the other minor ai factions with unique character art for the sole purpose to be a stepping one to be crushed and go "wow! a unique crossbow? neat" when you auto delegate some battle and have it dropped.

[Milites]

Is that possible to sign non-aggressive pact with Cao cao? My personal opinion is always to first deal with the yellow turban factions because they cannot be parleyed with. As for the Han warlords, no matter how belligerent they are, I could at least persuade them for peace by giving them benefits, money or territory.

[NvMe 令]

Yes, however i noticed that both Cao cao and Yuan Shu both really like to break deals since you seen as "weak" so you have to do the trick where you give them one coin each turn to calm them down

[Milites]

Originally posted by NvMe 令:

Yes, however i noticed that both Cao cao and Yuan Shu both really like to break deals since you seen as "weak" so you have to do the trick where you give them one coin each turn to calm them down

Yeah... both of them are treacherous bastards

[NvMe 令]

Originally posted by Milites:

Originally posted by NvMe 令:

Yes, however i noticed that both Cao cao and Yuan Shu both really like to break deals since you seen as "weak" so you have to do the trick where you give them one coin each turn to calm them down

Yeah... both of them are treacherous bastards

Im normally a huge Wei simp but god when you're not playing as him he is completely infuriating to go up against


After losing my hair for a few hours i managed to break out of the "death spiral in 10 turns" syndrome that factions in the middle of the central plains suffer from.

He Yi is your biggest threat, a bigger normal faction can easily stop He Yi from snowballing but you are more of a quality vs quantity early on.

The first 3 big battles with He Yi was pretty tense and Liu Chong and his crossbow can actually do some serious damage by peppering generals from a distance. The last battle which wiped He Yi off the map was so hairy that it took a couple of turns to get back to full strength and having 3 units of Chen royal guards really came in clutch against almost 6 units of peasant swarms along with a few heavily damaged spear guards and Ji militia.

Those Youxia units are going to be a huge pain to get over since you can have your entire army surrounding a Youxia unit on all sides and they would still manage to cause a few of your units to rout.

Another thing to note is that you wont be having much Calvary at all early on which might be a personal thing since your unique cav is so insane expensive until you can get 2 trade routes to not cripple your economy by having some horsemen.

After wiping He Yi i took Yuan Shu's jade mine and then took the Han lumberyard, demanding surrender when you can really helps you save a few turns on replenishment. Then Made peace with him and took a trade deal since all he had was that trade port and wall next to the Emperor.

Then declared war on Cao Cao and thats where i am currently which is going smoothly. Since there isnt really any in depht overview into 190 Liu Chong i'll just update this post every now and then so someone that has the patience to read a stranger's rambling to get an idea of what happens in 190

[Milites]

Bravo!

[Fried Noodles]

If you don't want to fight Cao Cao early on, you can make whatever diplomatic deals with him you can while also selling him 1 Food for 10 turns.

My typical 190 Liu Chong runs tend to feature a mad dash south: plowing through He Yi and trying to gain visibility of Sun Jian's faction before he dies.

I like to claim Sun Ce as my heir when I play as Liu Chong as I tend to favor large stacks of his unique cavalry unit in the later game when I have the economy for it... and having Sun Ce double their charge bonus is very nice.

[NvMe 令]

Originally posted by Fried Noodles:

If you don't want to fight Cao Cao early on, you can make whatever diplomatic deals with him you can while also selling him 1 Food for 10

This suprisngly dosent work as well as you would normally would for Liu Chong since I had Cao Cao break a food trade deal plus 3 payment per turn and a non agression pact deal all on the same turn in multiple save points which was infuriating

[Fried Noodles]

Originally posted by NvMe 令:

This suprisngly dosent work as well as you would normally would for Liu Chong since I had Cao Cao break a food trade deal plus 3 payment per turn and a non agression pact deal all on the same turn in multiple save points which was infuriating

Yeah, the AI is sometimes unpredictable.
But in my experience it doesn't happen all that often as long as you keep the more annoying factions sweet.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3450970703

I decided to have another go at Liu Chong in 190 on Legendary/Legendary.
I collected my prize just in time!
And I'm still enjoying peace (and a trade agreement) with Cao Cao.

[Azza909]

To me when I played Liu Chong it was pretty easy I go right for the Han capital take the 4 gate passes and that is my defence then I just take my time attacking where I want to attack. The gates are great at holding back the A.I.

Also don't worry about trying to keep the trade port as the A.i have such a hard on for it just let them have it other wise you're just wasting time trying to defend it.

[NvMe 令]

Originally posted by Fried Noodles:

Originally posted by NvMe 令:

This suprisngly dosent work as well as you would normally would for Liu Chong since I had Cao Cao break a food trade deal plus 3 payment per turn and a non agression pact deal all on the same turn in multiple save points which was infuriating

Yeah, the AI is sometimes unpredictable.
But in my experience it doesn't happen all that often as long as you keep the more annoying factions sweet.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3450970703

I decided to have another go at Liu Chong in 190 on Legendary/Legendary.
I collected my prize just in time!
And I'm still enjoying peace (and a trade agreement) with Cao Cao.

I think having a trade deal with Cao Cao will calm down the ai (I didn’t make a trade with him) since each turn his threat level constantly goes to yellow or red, I’ll try having a deal with him on my next run when I try for the trophy achievement.

Originally posted by Azza909:

To me when I played Liu Chong it was pretty easy I go right for the Han capital take the 4 gate passes and that is my defence then I just take my time attacking where I want to attack. The gates are great at holding back the A.I.

Also don't worry about trying to keep the trade port as the A.i have such a hard on for it just let them have it other wise you're just wasting time trying to defend it.

Hmm, going for Dong’s capital might actually be a good idea once I’ve finished pacifying Cao Cao and most of the central plains

[NvMe 令]

Update: next turn Cao Cao got invited to a coalition by Yuan Shao and request assistance against me and then next turn Yuan Shao requested every single member in the coalition against me so basically i was surrounded by enemies starting from the entire north.

Can someone give a step by step instructions on what to actually do as him? How do you rush Cao Cao? If you dont want to rush him whats the game plan after dealing with Ye Yi?

Once you deal with He Yi you are right next to the three of the strongest factions in the game at the start (Biao, Cao and Yuan Shao) plus the 2 vassals below you stop you from expanding so you are stuck until when Cao Cao starts a war with you which snowballs into other factions jumping you.

Seirously, how is Liu Chong considered Easy while Sun Jian is considered Normal?

[Fried Noodles]

It doesn't matter if the AI sends waves of trash after you.
If you're playing in Romance Mode, you've got the General Delete button in Liu Chong's Show of Force ability.

I always prioritize killing as many soldiers as possible with Liu Chong, and having him take as many duels as I can to rush out a level up.

In the early game, force positive relationships with Cao Cao and Yuan Shao if you don't want to face them early.

In my own game that I showed above, I paid for the trade agreement with Cao Cao (gave him a crap ancillary) on Turn 1, rather than taking the free agreement with Liu Dai.

[NvMe 令]

Originally posted by Fried Noodles:

It doesn't matter if the AI sends waves of trash after you.
If you're playing in Romance Mode, you've got the General Delete button in Liu Chong's Show of Force ability.

Actually it does matter since he does not start with it early and even when i mop up a few hundred routed troops he still dosent level up. Ive used it before and it basically solos anything he goes up against.

Originally posted by Fried Noodles:

I always prioritize killing as many soldiers as possible with Liu Chong, and having him take as many duels as I can to rush out a level up.

How many duels for him to level up to 6? Is dueling the starting yellow turban and then mopping up the army and settlement be enough?

Originally posted by Fried Noodles:

In the early game, force positive relationships with Cao Cao and Yuan Shao if you don't want to face them early.


In my own game that I showed above, I paid for the trade agreement with Cao Cao (gave him a crap ancillary) on Turn 1, rather than taking the free agreement with Liu Dai.

I'll give trading with cao cao a try, but what about Yuan Shao? How do you even force positive relations? Do i just give them a bunch of items? In my current save even with a positive relations he would still declare war on me.