Game Mechanics

An explanation of the game mechanics and how they work, this is not a manual, nor an beginner's guide, instead, should be used more as a reference for the mechanics that may have already been perceived by you, or that you are curious about.

This guide will be updated with corrections, besides corrections from things I may have gotten wrong, or learned/confirmed with time.

Basic Concepts - Rarity

Things like Weapons, Items, Gems, Ways of Lifes and so on have Ranks, which are represented by colors. These are the same as Dynasty Warriors 9.

1 - Common - White
2 - Uncommon - Green
3 - Rare - Blue
4 - Legendary - Purple
5 - Epic - Yellow

Basic Concepts - Reputation

There are 6 types of Reputations:

• Brave - Sword
  
• Commanding - Flag
  
• Ingenious - War Fan
  
• Eloquent - Parchment
  
• Benevolent - Face with stars
  
• Evil - Face with thunder

Unlike 7 Empires where these Fames would determine your Stratagem Tree, in here, you are not tied to 1 Reputation, meaning you can get them all at max in one playthrough, and by doing that, you also unlock all Titles unlockable for your character for your character.

Although less important here, but it's interesting to point out, each of these have "opposites", they are as follows:

• Brave vs Ingenious
  
• Commanding vs Eloquent
  
• Benevolent vs Evil

Reputation will influence your playthrough in the following points:

Interaction with other characters will be easier or harder to improve.

All characters have certain personalities (Way of Life, determined by their Title), and you trying to interact with them will result in more or less points depending on your Reputation levels. All characters have 2 reputations they like, and 2 they dislike.

The formula is, considering P1 and P2 the positive traits, and N1 and N2 the negative traits:

• - (N1 + N2) / 2 // Rounded down
  
• + P1 + P2
  
• + 3 // For the interaction

For example: Liu Bei likes "Benevolent" and "Commanding", but dislikes "Eloquent" and "Evil".
Your levels are Brave 7, Commanding 9, Ingenious 6, Eloquent 6, Benevolent 7 and Evil 5.

• - (6 + 5) / 2 = 5.5 ~ 5 => -5
  
• + 9 + 7 = 16 => 11
  
• + 3 => 14

So by interacting with Liu Bei with these levels of Reputation, you will gain 14 of friendship when calling him for a lunch.

If your Reputation is full Level 10, all interactions will add 13 regardless (20 - 10 + 3 = 13)

With Math, the max you can get per interaction is 23 (20 -0 + 3), but the minimum is capped at 1, so even if you have the worst compatibility with an officer, it won't go below 1

So who you will be able to befriend early on will suffer some influence based on what status of your reputation you will level up first.

Makes it easier to Recruit officers

Similar to the above, with the same settings, there is a similar calculation, that will improve or lower your chances of Hiring a new officer.

The formula is, again considering P1 and P2 the positive traits, and N1 and N2 the negative traits:

• - (N1 + N2) // Rounded down
  
• + (P1 + P2) * 2

So for the same example above with Liu Bei:
Your levels are Brave 7, Commanding 9, Ingenious 6, Eloquent 6, Benevolent 7 and Evil 5.

• - (6 + 5)= 11 => -11
  
• + (9 + 7) * 2 = 32 => 21

So when trying to recruit Liu Bei with these levels of Reputation, you will gain 21% more chance of him accepting it (It appears right next to the the character's title icon). Which is already boosted by having any interaction.

This also means that the highest values are 40% boost, with minimum being -20%. if the value is negative, it will subtract 20% from the amount. But will all Reputations at Lvl 10, you will always have 20%.

Also in the matter of Recruitment, your relationship also influences increases your chances.

• E: 0%
  
• D: +20%
  
• C: +50%
  
• B: Unknown
  
• A: Unknown
  
• S: +100% (Assuming)

Thus, with a base of 40% to recruit someone, you add the boost of your current relationship, plus the final percentage in regards to your reputation, and you will get how much of a chance you get to recruit that officer. Direct Relatives start in Friendship C, so they are very likely to be very easy to get in your team early.

Unlock new Titles / Ways of Life.

More information about these in the next section.

Titles

Titles can be confusing, so you have to have in mind that there are 2 independent Ways you will face Titles in the game:

• By NPCs: The title you set on your CAW and the titles other officers have. They determine these characters actions and preferences, and if there is an exclusive command they unlock, then they too will be capable of using that command.
  
• By the Player: The title set up on your CAW, or the titles the other officers have naturally are irrelevant, because as the player, you start as an Ordinary Man, and can unlock other titles, that can then be set on your CAWs for the uses that are going to be described below.

Titles offer Unique Secret Plans, unlocking them will also reward you with a new Secret Plant and possibly new types of units beyond the basics Sword, Horse and Bow.

Unlocking new Titles Grades will also increase the amount of actions you can do on strolling (Starts at 3).

To unlock new Titles, you have to level up different reputations:

• Rare (Blue): You need at least one status, either Benevolent or Evil at 2, and any of the other 4 at Lvl 2. There are 6 of these. You can now do 4 Actions on Strolling.
  
• Legendary (Purple): You need Lvl 5 into different reputations, there are options for lost of combinations. There are 12 of these. You can now do 5 Actions on Strolling.
  
• Epic (Yellow): You need Lvl 10 in 2 reputations, most combinations just the same. There are 12 of these. You can now do 6 Actions on Strolling.

There is a list of Titles next to the option to select the one for your CAW, and you will see a large amount of Epic Titles. Those are for the unique characters, and can only be unlocked when using them. Also, the DLC CAWs also have exclusive WoLs for themselves with some very unique values. So if you want to use those on your CAWs, you have to play a campaign with the character whose Title you want. (Of course, you have to unlock that title on the run, it's not just finishing as fast as possible)

Multipliers

Equipped Titles will grant you multipliers at gaining reputation. It's important to point out that all Titles are either Benevolent or Evil, represented by the twinkles or the purple thunder at its icon.

• Rare: +50% to Benevolent or Evil (-50% to the other), 50% to one Fame (-25% to its opposite).
  
• Legendary: +65% to Benevolent or Evil (-50% to the other), 65% to one fame, +25% to another, -15% to either of the remaining 2 fames (0% to the remaining one).
  
• Epic: +80% to Benevolent or Evil (-50% to the other), +80% to one fame, 50% to another, and 25% to either of the remaining 2 fames (0% to the remaining one).

The values shown when you are selecting your monthly order or large secret plans are already calculated from this, this means that at any point you can change your Title among your unlocked ones to maximize your Fame gain, although that is going to take some annoying micro managing to do. This is also true for Secret Plans at the start of Battles, you can change the Title before the battle, and see the values changing in the "Secret Plan Info" option.

Drop Rates

Titles will also influence your drop rate / gifts. The rates are fixed by rarity, but each of them will push different types of stratagems, so if you want a more specific stratagem, check out some list with their rarity and type. (May build one myself in the future)

• Common: 100% Common
  
• Rare: 30% Common, 40% Rare, 30% Legendary
  
• Legendary: 10% Common, 40% Rare, 30% Legendary, 20% Epic
  
• Epic: 5% Common, 20% Rare, 45% Legendary, 30% Epic

Identifying by Icon

The title's icon already is a representative of their "Way of Life" setting (from 8 Empires). All of them are either Benevolent or Evil.
Benevolent = 2 twinkles
Evil = 2 purple thunders

The other 3 icons are (For lack of better translation right now):
A simple Headgear = Mighty Warrior
Headgear with a tail = Brave
Strategist Hat = Sage

You can see it in all main characters that have their unique Ways of Life fixed. I haven't exactly understood how they are supposed to mean, but the way I interpret it is:

• Mighty Warrior - Goes to the frontlines, like Lu Bu, Xiahou Dun and Guan Yu
  
• Brave - Is a recognized strength, but is more of a leader to the army, like Liu Bei and Cao Cao, although Zhao Yun is also here. For some reason, figures like Dong Bai and Xiaoqiao are in setting too.
  
• Sage - Is either a pure strategist or a straight out politician, like Chen Gong, Xun Yu, Zhuge Liang, and the non fighters like Diaochan.

In regards to CAWs, do not forget to change their initial Way of Life in Edit Mode after you unlock them, this way, they will appear with the selected Title during new campaigns, which will influence their NPC behavior.

All officers (Originals, Generics and CAWs) will start with a Common WoL when you start a campaign as them, so you unlock the rest away, with Originals and DLC CAWs having one Unique Epic WoL that only they can unlock.

Weapons

First, you need an "Artifact", they have 5 rarities, and one elemental attribute.

There are 7 attributes, just like the main game, thus you will be able to unlock 7 Artifacts for each rarity, a total of 35 Artifacts:

• Non-Elemental
  
• Fire
  
• Ice
  
• Lightning
  
• Wind
  
• Slash
  
• Poison

Depending on the rarity of the Artifact you will be able to have more slots to add Gems.

There are Gems for each of the 7 attributes, but there is a new Gem type called "All" (The icon looks like it's Shining), which will boost the level for any element. Not aligning the gem with the element will get you the perks of the gem, but nothing on the attribute, so keep that in mind. Non-Elemental doesn't have an element, nor a level to fill up.

The Artifact will determine what element you will have on your weapon. Keep this in mind, so even if you add Slash Gems onto an Ice Artifact, you will only get Ice, so be sure to set it up with other Ice/All Gems.

There is also no restriction on gem rarity on lower level Artifacts, so you can have 1 Epic Gem on a 1 slot Common Artifact. This means that after you start getting Epic Gems, you may just want to sell everything lower...

However, although you can have a Common Weapon with an Epic Artifact, you cannot have a Common Artifact outside a Common Weapon (You will unlock the weapons and bows automatically once you get a Artifact of a new rarity). This means that if you want to lower your attack power, you can have an Epic Artifact, and select a lower rarity Weapon. But you cannot select a higher rarity weapon with a lower rarity artifact. This will be useless information for over 95% of you reading this, but there may be some weirdos out there.

Gems have random status effects, and can be equipped on the Artifact, so prepare yourself for the hell of random gems from DW9, where you have too many that you don't care anymore and have to sell, although here selling them is discarding, because they value 0 gold...

Secret Plan

You can set up to 4 Secret Plans, you use them with the Guard button (L1 or LB), and a directional input. They will grant a variety of effects in the battlefield, but unlike 7 Empires or 8 Empires, there is no summoning of external entities like healing or archer towers, or catapults, nor can you turn bases into something else.

I tried to keep track of it, but I didn't get very stable conclusions, but it felt like some of them (if not all) may use your troop count, although you can still use them even when it's zeroed, they are just going to be very hard to charge again though.

There are different types of Secret Plans:

• Attack: Effects like: Releases an Elemental "Spell" in your surroundings (Each attribute has different Ranges and AOE, but they are the same among multiple cards); Embeds an element to your weapon; There are also negative effects like reducing effect or taking longer to charge the more you use it; There are also cases of taking a small chunk of HP for a higher level effect. So be careful.
  
• Self-Enhancement: Effects like: Increasing your Attack/Defense/Speed; Sometimes tied with a recovery of HP.
  
• Ranged-Enhancement: Effects like: Increasing Attack or Defense of Allies (usually tied with a Self-Enhancement effect [the bad ones too]).
  
• Recovery - Effects like: Instantly recover HP; Instantly recover Musou; Gradual recovery HP; Recovery of allies' HP
  
• Special - Effects like: Increase the Secret Plan gauge for the other 3 cards or temporarily disable compatibility of your unit (the "Sword > Horse > Bows > Sword" thingy)

The cards also have "costs", with higher Rarity cards costing more.

In DW8 Empires we had a bar with a number of "ticks", and the cost would decrease a number of those ticks, meaning you would have to wait to have enough to use the stratagem. But we don't have such bar anymore, so Cost seems to be related to the amount of enemies you have to kill to charge them again. (meaning, even Common cards have use having lower effects, but more constant to use.)

Another point to take in is the number of Stars in a Secret Plan, as you get repeated ones, they will rank up like this:
1 Star > 2 Stars > 3 Stars > 4 Stars > 1 Big Star

However no visible improvement is seen besides "Gotta collect them all". Cost is not reduced, Rarity doesn't change, nor are the effects changed.

If you get them a 6th+ times however, you get 100+ Gold instead... Quite miserable.

Large Secret Plans

At the start of a battle, you and some officers may offer a Strategy for the battle, these Secret Plans also build up your Reputation and friendship with the officer, the number of the stars is the difficulty. It's important to point out not all strategies are equal in how they hit the enemy or protect you.

The Large Secret Plans will involve a small mission, they usually range from:

• Capture 3 or 4 specific bases.
  
• Protect 3 or 4 specific new non-named officers (Engineers, Taoists, etc)
  
• A mix between Capture, Protect and Defeat non-named officers.
  
• Defeat a specific number of enemy officers (named and non-named) that will come at you.
  
• Defeat a number of enemies while protecting a non-named officer.
  
• Guide non-named officers to a certain location, protect them from an ambush.

Some example of these strategies (Names are provisional until we get an official English version):

• Night Attack: You have 3 minutes to claim 3 specific bases with no enemy generals around, if you accomplish it, all enemy generals will appear weakened.
  
• Juggernauts (Attack) / Ballistas (Defense): Protect 3~4 engineers for a determined amount of time, both from generals or exclusive enemy spawns that will aim specifically for each of these engineers. Once summoned, a number of Juggernauts / Ballistas based on the number of saved engineers will spawn and support you for the rest of the battle.
  
• Summon Elemental Beast: Either protect summoners, or capture specific bases, once finished, a Elemental Beast will support you for the rest of the battle.
  
• Elemental Field: Similarly, either protect or capture mission, once finished, the field will spawn Elemental attacks for the rest of the fight (Ground Explosions for Fire, Icicle rain for Ice, Thunder Storm for Thunder, Tornadoes for Wind, and Poison Swamps for Poison. No Slash).
  
• Allied Reinforcements: Get 3 non-named officers to the meeting point, but non-named enemy officers will spawn there, so do help them.
  
• Lone Attack: Spawn alone in battle, and kill 3 specific officers or capture 3 specific bases, once you accomplish it, all your officers will spawn strengthened, but if you fail, they spawn weakened.
  
• Grab the enemy's attention: Kill a number of enemies while protecting a spawned officer.

The enemy also has their own strategies, which will raise a sub-mission similar to the ones you have to do, but for the enemy side. They usually start slight before yours is ending or after it has been finished, possibly related to how many enemy officers your have killed. Also, sometimes, after failing one time, the enemy may try another Secret Plan (Usually Bandit rioting). There are 3 exceptions I found that they use and you can't:

• Missions to capture 3 bases, but your real mission is to find a Ringleader, and kill it, meaning, you can finish this in your first capture depending on your luck.
  
• The enemy sends messengers to call for reinforcements, but besides the messengers, you also have to take a base. So long as the base is the enemy's hands, more messengers will spawn.
  
• Elemental Beasts will be summoned instantly, and wreck havoc. Just order everyone away from it, and try to deal with it if you are confident. They are the "Do not pursue Lu Bu" of this game at first, and you will likely die the first times. It takes some time, but you get used to fighting them with better weapons and level.

In any case, all of these missions are either time based, are on the survival of the mission targets.

Fighting Elemental Beasts

Unlike other characters in the came that you can mash and stagger, Elemental Beasts aren't as easy, and they can pack a big punch (They can't OHKO (One Hit Knockout), but they will instantly leave you at 1HP at worst, so THKO (Two Hits Knockout)). Worst yet are their Ranged attacks, with my opinion the Flame Tiger being the worst.

To win, target the enemy to keep him always in check, and keep some distance. After he attacks his surroundings, try doing a combo, but Roll away if it feels like he plans on doing something. Rinse and repeat, taking to long may get other Generals to join the fight, which won't be helpful at all.

Sometimes specific inputs will appear, telling you to do a Break, Stun or Launch attack. Do those and they will be stunned, but be careful of the timing, if you are attacking in another way, you may lose the chance.

The Lightning Bear is slower and easier to deal with, the Lightnings are easy to predict, and his attacks are open.

The Wind Wolf will summon tornadoes around himself constantly, just keep away from those, or try to approach where they are not.

The Flame Tiger can release a Fireball from his face straight forward himself, it will explode even if no one is there, it can also summon explosions from the ground right under you, so jump away as soon as you see it, and keep on jumping until you are safe. And if he starts summoning fireballs all around himself, run away from him and wait for those to explode.

A mistake may just cost all of your HP when you are starting the game, or you are fighting in a disadvantage.

Family Members

• Father/Mother - If you CAW was created at the end of another playthrough, they will be tied to those parents. This means that when you play with that character, parents start with a high favorability parameter, easily making them 100%. You just need to meet them and invite them into your party. In battle they also have unique phrases about their role as father/mother, or their child prowess in battle. But that's all there is, I think you can also get them as Sworn Siblings (I had the option show, but I already had everything filled), although you can't marry them. Some Original Characters also have parents, like Cao Cao's sons (Cao Pi, Cao Ang, etc), Guan Yu's children, and Sima Yi and Zhang Chunhua's sons. The parents can also be Generic Officers, like Wang Yuanji's father Wang Su and Cai Wenji's father Cai Yong.
  
• Sworn Sibling - This time you can have 3 of them instead of 2. They will always be with you, and never be your enemy. Their favorability will always maxed too, this means that they can never be hired by another Kingdom, and if you leave yours, they will leave together with you. But they can die (in battle to get a specific Event, or executed among captured soldiers), and that slot cannot be filled with someone else.
  
• Spouse - Same rules as a Sworn Siblings, the different is that they stand by your side on meetings, and you have a child in the post credits of your game, so they will influence the child.

• Siblings / Nieces / etc - These are not in any menu, however, all characters sharing at least one parent are treated as siblings, this means that, if your CAW is a child of Cao Cao, in every playthrough, Cao Pi, Cao Ang, Cao Shang, for example, will recognize you as a sibling. You cannot marry, nor get them as Sworn Siblings. Children of siblings (Nieces) are also recognized. It's unknown for how many generations it works (Grandparents/Grandchildren, and so on), also unconfirmed if it works upwards too (Uncles/Aunts)
  
  Sworn Siblings and Spouses will sometimes call you to give you presents, certain characters can give you unique gifts, like special horses (Red Hare with Lu Bu, Guan Yu or Dong Zhuo, Shadow Runner with Cao Cao, Hex Mark with Liu Bei or Pang Tong, and White Horse with Zhao Yun).
  
  Like in DW7E (I never confirmed this in DW8E though), your family members may suggest you "large scale" options, such as going Independent. Just like in DW7E, you don't lose the resources when someone else suggests it, you also won't get the bonus and demerits that would happen if you were to have selected the option yourself.

Child

Unlike the previous recent games that added this concept, in DW9 Empires, a Child only happens at the end of the game, so they will always appear so long as you are married, unlike before where you had to wait until they appeared to then finish the game.

Thanks to the new highly customizable system, the child will have facial characteristics of their parents, even if at least one of the parents are not CAWs, so that's an improvement (Careful with Lu Bu's children, mind you, you have been warned).

I did an experiment, created 2 officers, Min and Max, Min has overall Black Colors (0,0,0), all sliders to minimum, and also first base. Max is overall in White Colors (255,255,255), also sliders to maximum, and the last base for parts that require it (like Eyebrows).

I have created 3 children (through CAW Synthesis) from each sex (6 in total), and checked the results. I can't guarantee that the results will be the same when the child is born from Main Character officers, but overall, there was no "average" result, as in, there was no gray color, and sliders and bases were either "min or maxed".

• Skin color: Usually opposite gender, can be either though.
  
• Outline: Base is usually opposite gender, sliders are from same gender
  
• Eyes
  
• - Eyebrow: Either one, but type and sliders follow the same origin
  
• - Eye: Either one, but type and sliders follow the same origin
  
• - Eyelash: Follows same gender parent
  
• - Pupils: No heterochromia. Same gender parent (first eye)
  
• - Nose: Either parent.
  
• - Mouth: Either parent.
  
• - Ear: Either parent (Sharp Ear reset)
  
• - Accessory: Usually, same parent, but can be mixed.
  
• Hair: Style is same gender, color is opposite. Accessory is from same gender
  
• Makeup: Everything is from gender
  
• - Cheek: Blush opacity may be different
  
• Figure: Same genre
  
• Underclothes: Same gender parent, but color is from opposite gender
  
• Armor: On synthesis, I got same armor on same gender, but color based on opposite. On child between CAW and Main Character, armor and color were from the opposite gender.
  
• Action: Either

For children from Main Officers, because it would hard to test them, since you essentially have to save before the final mission, finish it, do your tests, and repeat the process all over again, thanks to finding out that there is no "average" parameter from the tests above, I have found out while I was copying on a notepad the parameters between male and female, to compare them, that every time you change between Male and Female, the parts will be randomized again.

This means that, if you have all the numbers for your CAW, you can copy the values that are not the same, and keep on randomizing until you get the remaining values (keep in mind, both sides will appear on both genders), so with this, you can collect all values exclusive from the Spouse., leading to a CAW closer in appearance with them.

Overall, there is a feeling that, the Editor can replicate quite well the faces of Main Character officers, mainly female ones since they are not as extreme as some of the male characters.

Another thing is that the child will appear straight in the Edit Mode, meaning you have to give it a name, so although it will give you a full on character just lacking a name, you can still completely edit it, including changing gender (which you couldn't before), so essentially, the game gives you a Male and Female versions of the child, and you can select which one you want, but the one that appears first is random. One thing you can't edit is the Ability Type that determine the Base Status.

But keep in mind, you cannot change the gender after the character has been saved, only this first time.

As explained before, children start with higher favorability from their parents and siblings, there are also unique interactions. Beyond that, there is a chance their base status may come as an advanced Ability Type, especially Genius which is the highest ranked for base status, meaning that, if you want to make strong CAWs, you may want to base them from children instead of making them from scratch.

There are other advanced Ability Types, so you will have to try out, as I have no idea how to control that. I do accept suggestions on how to better control the results.

Children also inherit a sum of both parent's Weapon Proficiencies. Example: Father (3 Star Swords) + Mother (3 Star Swords + Big Star Projectiles) = Child (Big Star Swords + Big Star Projectiles).

From Memory checking, the default 3 Stars are equivalent to the number 500, and a Big Star is 1000, so although the numbers are not shown, you can interpret that a child with them would led to at least half proficiency of that weapon.

CAW Base Stats

When creating your CAW, or your child is born, an Ability Type can be selected during creation (Children will have it fixed). There are 5 basic parameters, with the remaining ones only being obtained by Child Officers:

ID	Name (temporary until official)	HP	Atk	Def	Spd	Bow	Extra Info
0	Normal	275	275	255	150	250	Available from start
1	Powerful	275	290	240	150	250	Available from start
2	Vicious	275	305	255	150	250
3	Defensive	275	260	270	150	250	Available from start
4	Iron Wall	275	275	285	150	250
5	Swift	260	275	255	165	275	Available from start
6	Godspeed	275	275	255	180	300
7	Heavy	290	275	255	130	250	Available from start
8	Heavy (2)	305	290	270	130	275
9	Adept	290	290	270	165	275
10	Genius	305	305	285	180	300	All status are maxed

The IDs are used in the internal memory of the game. Those in the know will understand. This also reveals that they mistranslated the superior "Heavy" type into the same name, so you will have to check the status to know if you got the right one.

Weapon Proficiency

All characters have proficiency on certain weapons.

In previous games, proficiency would indicate how much of the combo string would you be able to use for a weapon, being an static value based on your favorite weapon. This time, however, Proficiency seems to merely add extra Attack and Defense stats to the equipped weapon. It's unsure if it also boosts Elemental effects and so on.

Also new DW9E, Proficiency can be built, and those can be inherited by your child CAW (It's the only way to "save" your Proficiency.

When you are creating a New CAW, or selecting an existing officer, they will have 3 stars of proficiency with the category Favorite Weapon. As you play the game with that weapon, the more you use, it will rank up to 4 Stars, and finally, a Big Star.

As reference, the internal memory have these absolute values:

• No proficiency is 0, and is shown as 1 star. This is the default value for all new CAWs (Non child) and Other Officers that have 1 star in a proficiency.
  
• Half Proficiency is 500, and is shown as 3 stars. This is the default value for any new CAW (Non child) and Other officers on their preferred weapons.
  
• Full proficiency is 1000, and is shown as a Big Star. This is the maximum value you can build up for your character during gameplay.

Child Inheritance

As explained before, New CAWs and other existing officers will have their Proficiency based on their favorite weapon, the exception are Children.

Let's say that you are having a child between your character, a Sword user, that now has a Big Star in Swords, and another with Projectile attacks (3 stars, the Bow category). The child will have a Big Star in Swords, and 3 stars in Projectiles. Even if you select a Staff, which is in neither of those categories, the Proficiency will not change, and your favorite weapon may just end up being a 1 Star weapon.

But the more you use it, the proficiency will be built, and eventually you will get Big Stars in the Sword and Staff categories, and 3 stars in Projectiles. You can do the same with any new weapon, and build up a character specialist in all weapons.

These proficiencies however, cannot be saved on your character, instead however, they can be inherited by your character's children.

In my tests, I needed to kill around 3K enemies in Strolling Mode to Level Up, but in battle, it was more like 2K. It could be that different enemies have different "Proficiency Exp Levels", but overall, doing it in combat is faster, but you can do it on Stroll if you are aiming for unlocking Fast Travel points or something else.

I felt no difference in numbers killed when going from 1 to 2 stars, and 4 to a Big Star, it felt like it was always around the same number, however, if you are not using your favorite weapon, it's possible that using your Musou and Special attacks won't add up to your current Weapon Proficiency.

Battles - Attack / Defense

At the start of each battle, there will be a choice to chose a Large Stratagem.

Depending on the case, you may have no option. Some options, like calling for allied reinforcements, requires being allied to another nation, or calling for own reinforcements requires having other officers available in an territory adjacent to the target. Other Strategies also seem to require specific fames or maybe Ways of Life, although I don't have a proper understand of that point yet.

If you are a Ruler or a Marshal/General, you can order everyone in battle (but Allied Reinforcements). Officers can also be ordered if you have friendship at C with them, even Rulers can be ordered through friendship.

Capturing Points

At the top right corner, you have the troop count for both sides. I still don't have a proper understanding of it, but essentially, with no troops, your Stratagems will take longer to charge, your attacks may cause less damage and so on, so it's not a good idea to have it low.

As usual, you have to dominate the bases, each base has a resistance value at the top center of the screen in Red, and each soldier killed subtracts one from the counter.

• Mob: -1 point
  
• "Captain": -5 points
  
• Catapult: -20 points

If a named official is inside the area during capture, you have to kill them, and if more of them enters, you have to kill all of them, but if you kill them before dropping the points, their death will reduce a large amount of points (Quantity unconfirmed). This is all visible from the Map (Their map icon will have "flames around"), and from the same counter at the top center.

This value is based on a territory Defense Level, meaning, at higher levels, the number is larger (I haven't gone deeply into it, but it seems that the average value would be either 100 or 120 for both sides), this means that, at a Higher Defense Level, for example, the attacking side will have to defeat 160+ points to take over a base, while the Defense side will need to do less than 70 to take back the same base.

Base Types

Unlike previous games however, the bases are not connected, so you can capture any base so long as you can reach it. There are 3 types of special bases:

• Catapult Bases: A catapult will be summoned, and it will attack other bases helping reduce their defenses. They are also the only way to capture bases at the top of the castles. There are usually Catapults inside some major castles, meaning that the Defending side has an advantage with unreachable Catapults at the start of the battle.
  
• Ram Bases: If on the attack side, it will summon a Ram that will move towards a Gate in the castle, and try to open it. You have to clean the way for it to not be destroyed on the path though. They are one of the necessary ways to infiltrate the castle. On the defense side, you have to take them so the enemy loses their capacity to dispatch Rams.
  
• Ladder Bases: Like the Rams, they are another of the necessary ways to infiltrate the castle, unlike Rams that take some time to open, Ladders just have to reach the corner, but while Rams open the gates for sure, you need to climb the ladders yourself to be able to go in the castle, to either do everything yourself, or to open the gates. You will unlock the Climbing option if you reach the base of a Ladder that already reached the Walls. On the defending side, you should stop them, but you don't have to be as worried as with Rams.

Besides these 3, there are 2 more specific bases normal bases:

• Bases on Castle Walls: If there are such enemy bases near you, they will constantly shot fire arrows at you, either on the defending or attacking side.
  
• Bases near Gates: They are there to attack Rams, so on Attack battle, be sure to take them over when you are trying to open the Gates, on Defense battles, defend them.

Battle Rules

As usual, Named Officers can respawn so long as they have Troops on their side. If it's zeroed and they die, they can't respawn, and if you die with 0 troops, the battle is lost.

When your troop count reaches Zero, all Base weapons stop working, I can't say for sure, but this seems to indicate:

• Catapults won't shoot anymore
  
• Rams and Ladders won't move/spawn
  
• Castle Walls will stop defending themselves (unsure)

The Troop Bar also has multiple stages which we can call Morale, there are 4 on each side.
if you and the enemy have the same amount of bars, then there will be no buffs nor any other advantage or disadvantage for either side. If one side has 1 over, they get buffs. If it's a situation of 4~3 bars x 0, the army winning will be super buffed, and their generals will have super armor. So do aim to reduce the amount of Troop damage you do against your enemies, and avoid damage yourself.

On Attack Battles:
Upon opening the gates, the non-captured enemy generals will appear one last time next to the Main Enemy Officer. But the defeating the main enemy officer is all that is necessary to end the battle. Although rare, there are some Main Enemy Officers that may advance to the front, causing the battle to finish earlier.

If you are able to invade the inside the castle without the proper methods (be it by cheating or by exploits, such as Xin Xianying Ultra Jump [or anyone with her weapon, really]), you will find that all enemies are technically invincible, and you won't be able to do much, not even being able to open the Gates yourself.

Thus, there are 3 ways to trigger the event that spawn the Boss (if they stay inside the castle, which is normal for most bosses, but not all) and disables these invincible enemies inside the castle, allowing thus you to finish the battle in victory:

• Get a Ram to open the gates.
  
• Get a Ladder to reach the gates, and you must be near it to unlock the hook.
  
• Capture the Wall bases to unlock the hook, however, those can only be captured with Catapults. Neither arrows nor climbing in alternate ways will work.

On Defense Battles:
You have two ways of defeating the enemy: Capture the enemy's Main Base. Capture the bases surrounding it (usually 3), and the Main Enemy Officer will not be able to respawn anymore.

You can use both tips to understand your own strategy on how you should defend against Enemy Tactics, so never let the enemy take bases close to your main bases.

Units

Each unit type has a characteristic, with the main ones being Infantry (Sword), Cavalry (Horse) and Archer (Bow). This is also relevant for when you go to battle.

Infantry wins against Cavalry, who wins against Archers, who wins against Infantry. (If you can't remember the order, there is always a graph in the Pause Menu to help you remember).

Besides that, Infantry powers you up against Enemy Officers, Cavalry makes it easier to take up bases, and Archers allow you to use a unique command among allied Archer units. Other bonus Unit Types also exist for the player with their own characteristics, although it's unknown how they fit in the "Rock Paper Scissors" deal above.

When you approach another allied officer in battlefield, you can use "Up" to get them to Escort you. Besides allowing for Dual Musou, and having them near you, this also allow you to borrow their unit type, meaning, if you are facing a Sword Officer, but you have a Cavalry Type Unit, you can get an Archer to Escort you, so you will be an Archer, and after you win, you release the function.

Empires Mode - Basics

A reminder of the basic parameters.

• Gold - Besides required to some orders, you can buy gems and arrows.
  
• Supplies - Besides required to some orders, you need it to invade other territories (Not defend).
  
• Monthly Gold Income - Once you gain a territory, or work under the ruler of a territory, this will indicate how much Gold you will passively get each month (turn). You also require this to hire more officers. You can still get this value in the negatives, meaning it will eat up from the savings (Gold).
  
• Monthly Supply Income - Once you gain a territory, or work under the ruler of a territory, this will indicate how much Supplies you will passively get each month (turn). You also require this to hire more officers. You can still get this value in the negatives, meaning it will eat up from the savings (Supplies).

Council

Each 6 months, from the moment you join a Kingdom (Be it as a ruler or not) there will be a Council with decisions on what to do for the remaining 6 months. Each option will give you a certain amount of EXP, and if you complete all of them, you gain that.

As a Ruler you can define them yourself, as a Strategist, Marshal or General, you can always give a counter proposal, that may be denied. To gain the bonus Exp, you have to complete all tasks for that period.

You can select up to 3 Objectives + 1 Invasion, in a total of 4 Objectives. You have to complete these 4 to gain the Bonus, hence, it sometimes may be better to select less, if you are unsure if you will be able to accomplish the tasks yourself.

Although this would induce you to only select Invasion in case you are planning on doing it, if you select Invasion, but don't start the battle, your vassals will still do it, and cause Damage to the Defense Levels of the enemy territory (This also means that they won't appear on Strolling Mode, so if there is someone who is trying to call you, but you don't want to trigger the scene, that's the moment you can go there).

Invasions

Another important point is that you have a number of troops under each character/general, based on your level, so they will define how much Supplies your and each of your generals will weight on each sortie, so it doesn't matter if you have 8 generals with maxed troops, if you only have supplies to send 2 of them to battle.

When an officer joins into a new Kingdom, that count will be reset back to 0, and will build up slowly as normal each month, or if you use orders to recover it faster. This rule also includes extra territories that you got by defeating a ruler, even if they did not enter battle and saw no fight, the moment they join your Kingdom, their troops will be reset, so they will be weak and incapable of defending the extra territory.

Defense battles

Unlike previous Empires where you could use troops of adjacent territories to defend from an attack, in the current build at least, that doesn't work, so you will need enough officers to fill in the places close to enemy territory. This also means that if a vagrant group rebels inside your territory, and you have only some random general in that territory (the minimum necessary), you either let them take it, or waste a turn to move soldiers there to defend.

Invasions from other Kingdoms will usually take only a single month, and if failed, it will only drop the defense level of the territory instead of being taken, however insurgencies take more turns to be finished by themselves (2 turns if Defense Level is 99, 3 turns when on a lower level). Having High Defense on your territories is always a good deal.

Similar to Officer's Troop Count, Territories also have Defense Levels, and once they reach 0, the territory will be taken by the invading or insurgent force, otherwise, like in cases where you get multiple attacks at the same time, you have to weight on which is more important.

Empires Mode - Strolling

In this mode you get to interact with other characters, raise your friendship, visit places and so on. All landmarks, waypoints, towers and so on (Hideways have their own rule, explained ahead) that you unlock will remain unlocked for every playthrough ahead (used to teleport), so you are free to run around as you wish, although there isn't much to do in this open world anymore.

All relevant parts of Strolling mode can be done through the Menu. Strolling is fully and completely optional.

You have a number of Actions that can be done in one turn (the number can be seen at the top right of the menu).

Starting an interaction with someone, or asking them to escort you will require 1 action each. Interactions with an Exclamation Point are actions started by the other side, so they don't count in your actions.

You can increase the amount of actions by unlocking a new Tier of Titles, as explained in the Title section.

Exclamation Point events are usually:

• You are building up friendship with someone, and they want to raise it with you too
  
• Confession / Sworn Sibling Request
  
• Someone selling themselves to join your ranks

The officers that can be found in strolling mode are usually either Free Officers, or officers of your Kingdom that are not executing an order (You can see their faces next to the orders, which will boost that order's effects. So if you see them there, you won't see them on strolling mode).

If you are a Free Officer, you can see and talk with officers all around the map, you can also go all around and enter any city, post at the request board to meet any character. However, the only Hideaway available will be the one in the territory you are currently in.

If you join a Kingdom, all Hideaways in the territory of your Kingdom will be available, with the main one being the territory you are currently positioned at. However all other Hideaways will be locked. You will also be unable to enter cities outside your territory, as all the gates will be closed. This also means that no more talking with Free officers outside your territory, so if you are eyeing someone, either try moving to that territory, and/or don't get invited to any Kingdom that is not from the territory.

A reminder that all teleportable points outside the Hideways will forever be unlocked, so fell free to unlock those.

Extra

If you have an escort, and kill over 100 enemies in Strolling mode, your friend will give you a gift at the end.

It's also possible to trigger a Quest, although I'm unsure what's necessary to trigger it, besides you likely have to be alone.

Another thing you can do, which can be supported by having an escort, is to go catch Bandits or Hunt. Each Bandit will give you 2 Gold, each Hunt will give you 5 amount of Supplies. So it's a way to get free stuff (Kill 500 enemies to get 1000 Gold, which can be gotten with the simplest Money Order, although you do spend 1 turn without interacting with others, but even like that, it's a waste of time)

By killing enemies, you can still can level up, and increase proficiency in any weapon, so it's a good way of trying new weapons in safety. In my tests, however, the amount of enemies I had to increase weapon proficiency seemed larger than when doing it in Territory Battles.

Unlocking Fast Travel Points

By unlocking places on the map, the first advantage is, of course, the ability to fast travel to those places, thus, it's faster to move around the map. The reasons why you would want that are mostly for aesthetic sake, like visiting places to just look at it, or maybe doing some Photo Shoot, or finding enemies to grind on due to a escort mission, or just to collect gold/supplies, grind Exp/Proficiencies.

Another reason is to find more Free Officers. I have noticed that the officers appearing on the menu are only the ones from the main Cities on the regions you have available, however, if you visit the smaller towns/castles, you may find new Officers there.

Ex: During the Three Kingdom's Campaign (After Chibi), I was able to find Dong Bai in one of those small cities on the North, although she never appeared in the selection menu before I found her there. After I talked to her, she started appearing on the menu.

Unlockables

Weapons

All weapon are actually available from the start. To unlock higher rarity weapons, you need to get Higher Rarity Artifacts.

Artifacts

You get them as gifts from allies. Higher tier ones require playing at higher levels of difficulty, besides requiring Ways of Life that increase their drop rate.

• Epic: Play on Chaos
  
• Legendary: Play on Hard
  
• Rare: Play on Normal

That is not to say you can't get Epic on Hard, but as a comparison, in 2 playthroughs I got one single Epic Artifact on Hard, but on one play on Chaos I got the remaining 6.

Horses

Receive them as gifts from specific characters. You should have them as a Spouse or as a Sworn Sibling, although it's unknown if these steps are necessary, they will increase the chance of having them gifting you, with Spouses having many more events to gift you.

• Red Hare (Epic): Lu Bu, Dong Zhuo, Guan Yu
  
• Shadow Runner (Legendary): Cao Cao
  
• Hex Mark (Legendary): Liu Bei, Pang Tong
  
• Ashen (Rare): Zhao Yun
  
• Mahogany/Maple/Chestnut/Birch (Common): Random gifts

Titles

On each playthrough, you will always start with a Common Title, but can unlock new ones through your Reputation levels. All unlocked Titles can be used by your CAWs.

To unlock any character specific Title, play a campaign with said character and unlock that Title with him. You can then create CAWs with those Titles, which will then appear on them as NPCs. You won't be able to use them yourself because of the way the game works.

Gifts

You can gain gifts by:

• Receiving them from Allies when meeting them on Strolling Mode.
  
• On Strolling Mode, ask an ally to escort you, and go kill 100 enemies.
  
• Meeting them on family related events (Spouse has higher rate of appearance, Sworn Siblings have 2nd highest rate).
  
• Sometimes a Sage gives you them (Other times, he asks who you are looking for, and give you 10 Friendship to someone).
  
• Suppress an insurrection in your territory.

Gifts are usually Gems or Secret Plan Cards, as said above, some characters have 1-time unique gifts, so you can use this methods to try to improve your chances of getting them.

Problems / Absent features

Comparing with previous Empires games. Do note that some of these may either be fixed in the future, or added in further updates.

• Although the customization of character has received a great revamp, with some features seemingly working for both Male and Female officers just the same (For better or worse), No more customization of Banners, Custom Soldiers, Custom Horses, Custom Campaigns, even sharing Custom Officers is a mess right now (You upload, receive a "code", and share to your friends, who have to type the code in the virtual keyboard [PC Keyboard not supported] to get it. It doesn't help you cna only share 1 CAW each time.)
  
• Your Officers CANNOT kill the last enemy Officer. I have tested it myself, cheating for Lvl 100 characters in first battle on Normal difficulty, they killed everyone but the final officer, that ended up being killed with a single normal arrows shot by me. However, the enemy may still surrender (I had a battle where it ended just as I got in the castle).
  
• To invade and defend, YOU must join battles. No more winning the game through politics.
  
• No more threatening another Kingdom to surrender.
  
• No more Free Officer missions to build in Fame and connections, you know select orders for fame, or stroll for connections.
  
• Adjacent troops can't be selected in Defense or Invasion Battles, all your troops must be in one territory. Even if you are Invading with multiple territories bordering the enemy, you can only select the army from One territory, not mixing.
  
• The AI will sometimes go nuts, and even if you order an ally to move somewhere, they will stop midway. Try telling them to do something else, and then try it again. Sometimes the "pathfinder" may also bug out and they won't be able to go around the door, or will continue on their long path to the castle entrance, even if you just unlocked another path nearer.
  
• There is no way to start a Campaign with no unlocked items (besides deleting your save data), thus you always have everything you have gained in past playthroughs.

For the limitations regarding CAW sharing, you now have an option. Check the guide below:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3175407939

Fix to some technical problems

These are a collection of usual problems some people have with the game and possible solutions.

However as of note, I never had any problems myself, so these are collections of solutions that other people found.

- Game doesn't save: It seems to be a Windows Defender problem, this post contains details on how to fix it. https://steamcommunity.com/app/1341200/discussions/0/3955910653938219248/
- Multiple Random crashes: These may vary on setup, usually you would expect it to be related to drivers, specially if you have 2 (APU + GPU).
- No sound: Possibly a DirectX issue, so try running the automatic installers that come with the game.

[エメベアー]

in DW7E I remember betrayal requiring a battle to gain the territory, so I was surprised on how smoothly it went, but I'm guessing since I was already the highest post officer in the territory, the option to go Independent may be different from Betrayal itself, as there was no need to battle (although other officers besides one all moved away)

[エメベアー]

Ì just made an update on the "Family Members" section, as for the first time in my gameplay I got a Sworn Sibling to suggest me independence, something that I last saw only in DW7E. I do admit it took a long time, and I was surprised that I could do it against a family member (child).

To replicate, I was playing with Zhenji. and had joined her son, Cao Rui's Kingdom.

I had just gotten 3 Sword siblings and a husband, and for the longest time, had been refusing Cao Rui's invitation to be a Tactician (I'm trying to unlock the Grand General Achievement, but he never suggests it!).

At one point, my sword sibling Zhang Chunhua suggested going independent. I accepted, and the territory I was positioned immediately became mine (as of note, all of my sword siblings were spread in other territories, they then moved to mine, and only a single other ally remained in my new territory.).

I'm guessing other commands such as Betrayal may be available for this sort of suggestion too.

[Lockhart]

I finally understand how hidden officers work. In some large cities, there are NPCs near a sign post and they give you directions to a hidden officer. I found 10 so far and here are the NPC locations. I did not check for specific timelines.

1. Cai Wenji - Wuwei
2. Dian Wei - Puyang
3. Dongbai - Changsha
4. Lu Xun - Jianye
5. Pang Tong - Jiangling
6. Sima Yi - Luoyang
7. Xu Shu - Wan
8. Xu Zhu - Xuchang
9. Zhuge Liang - Xiangyang
10. Zuo Ci - Ye

I have to rethnk the best titles cause I assumed that title commands worked just like in DW8E.

[エメベアー]

Titles commands, if I'm correct, will unlock the command once you get the title. However, if there is a Ruler objective requiring a Policy you don't have yet (Such as Developments), they will be available temporarily for you to use.

There are also cases where an allied Officer will use a policy that you don't have, in those cases, you can do in that turn alongside them, I have recently notice it when I started a campaign, and saw that I had the Trade Policy, that I was able to use thanks to another officer, and it was gone by the next turn.

I never checked the name of the Village, but yeah, Dong Bai is in that walled town to the northeast of the territory, that's where I had found her. Probably Zhuge Liang can be found in his home during campaigns that don't include him from the start.

[Lockhart]

About Hidden Officers: I finally found 1. Dong Bai is always in Mei, a walled village north of Changsha. I think the locations are fixed. She seems to be there in any scenario where Dong Zhuo is dead. In one of the gameplay show case, Zhuge Liang is a hidden officer. I'll check the scenarios for more as soon as I can.

About title commands, i'm confused. Is it accessible once the a title is unlocked or does the commands appear if an officer in you kingdom has it. I haven't been testing it yet as I'm still unlocking all DLC titles.

I haven't figured out the genius kids yet but I had never gotten without with a playthrough without all 10s in fame.

[エメベアー]

I didn't really check nor remember the later ones now, as I didn't pay much attention due to have been doing other stuff, but I don't think that's a significant one if there is any influence.

Marriage time is my 2nd bet:
- On my 1st, I went for Dong Bai early on.
- On my 2nd I think I went early for Lu Bu too because I wanted Red Hare, however, I may have taken some time to marry him.
- On 3rd, it went early trying to get a Child with Cao Cao for the sake of the Achievement, since he is in most campaigns (I still don't have the Achievement, I believe I may need both father and mother, so this impossible couple made it impossible), so I married early on (also to take over the Kingdom, because I was trying to avoid the Cao family's constant execution of girls (Goddamnit! Poor Daqiao)
- On my 4th, due to the research nature, I of course married each very late, so I had at most 2 or 3 months of marriage.

[エメベアー]

I never did with 2 CAWs. On my playthroughs, at first it was more like <odd number>th campaign I would get a genius.

1st: M CAW1 + Main = Genius CAW
2nd: F Genius CAW + Main = Super Heavy
3rd: Main + Main = Genius
4th: M CAW1 + girls (multiple) = No Genius

[Makakenzou]

Alright then, at least its not something tied to difficulty. Not sure if mentioned before but when you did get genius did you notice if it was more frequent with a Caw and unique unit (ex. Lu Bu) or with two CAWs?

[エメベアー]

I don't think it is, my first playthrough was on Normal, and I got Genius.

The one where I did all the girls (saved before confessing, then doing the final battle for each girl, for my other Guide) was on Chaos, I shall also say that in none of those multiple cases I got Genius, meaning, it's not something of Chance, but likely related to some other trigger, like time married or something like that.

[Makakenzou]

Would the difficulty of the game you beat effect the chance of getting genius on a child?