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 nels1031 wrote:
Looks like a hit so far, setting a concurrent player record for the franchise by a fairly large margin on Steam. I certainly didn’t expect that.

I played a few turns as the military centric dude whose name escapes me, he starts in the top right corner of the map. It was “Records” mode and all I really did was feel out the controls and features, as well as get the graphics pumping on my machine. I’m digging it so far, though I will scrap this Records campaign and go for the Romance mode this extended weekend.

Only had a few hours with it last night, but looks good so far.

Some of the romance character abilities might need to be toned down (I think a yellow healer forced my general to flee from a duel... somehow. Or I really misclicked on something), but largely i m very impressed.

The 'red' reforms feel fairly necessary at the moment- picking up better replenishment and fewer mustering turns makes a huge difference.

Also playing with extreme unit sizes (240 infantry), no performance problems.

I'm really liking how it seems to be getting rave reviews from most and a really positive reception!

 Overread wrote:
I'm really liking how it seems to be getting rave reviews from most and a really positive reception!

Yeah, the reception is really positive so far.

I'm pretty impressed with it, though Southern China really needs to be something other than free territory for anyone at the Yangtze. I settled down with a He Yi campaign after trying Ma Teng for a few turns and Gongsun Zan for 40 or so (he seemed too easy). Moving south is the best move, as it gets you out of being completely surrounded by hostiles. But as the campaign went on, the inevitable war with Sun Jian happened, and the amount of provinces we both have is utterly ridiculous- restoring settlements has nothing but a gold cost, so its a huge slog across slow terrain. My replenishment bonuses have turned it into something of a steamroll/chase, and whatever is going up north (ie, actual China of this period) has nothing to do with either of us. We both get attacked by other people, but we're both ignoring it as its too far from our war (my economy is tapped with four full army stacks)

The end of Sun Jian is pretty much inevitable (I've killed all three of his known children and his wife at this point, but haven't seen himself since the initial battle across the Yangtze, where I stole his seal and promptly gave it to Liu Bei for peace). But even before the Great Southern War, the big problem with He Yi is I felt really disconnected from the major conflicts and players. Part of it is the diplomacy restrictions, but also the war for the throne of China just doesn't matter- its all about building up and trying to subdue one neighbor at a time while their bizarre alliances shift and transform (I got to see Kong Rong vassalized, liberated and vassalized again over the course of a single end turn.) Losing settlements temporarily doesn't really matter (especially for He Yi and his +100,000 population bonus whenever he takes a settlement). The real restriction for He Yi is characters- the unit captains the Yellow Turbans can recruit just don't measure up in romance mode.


---
But yeah, loving the game, but Southern China needs a rework. Historically it had very small and lawless settlements that weren't worth much in this period. None of that is reflected in the current setup- its easy territory to snowball with. And I suspect either AI restrictions or the fog of war keeps northerners from diving very far into the regions below the Yangtze.

Right now Gongsun Zan is my main campaign. Just using him to learn the mechanics and such. I figured being situated at the very northeast is a somewhat unassailable base to build up my forces. Its great fun so far.

Seeing a complaint -

Apparently Yuan Shao is vassalizing nearly everyone around him early in the game. This includes both the minor factions, and the major factions. This *might* be triggered by going to war with him.

Keep in mind, though, that "going to war" with him can include being at war with a different faction that Yuan Shao then vassalizes or forms a coalition with, causing him to then be at war with you.

Since this is happening very early in the game, players are unable to effectively fight back against the amount of troops being thrown at them.

Finally downloading the game and planning to play a little tonight.

I think I'll try Ma Teng or Sun Jian first, but I also want to try Gongsun Zan.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:

But yeah, loving the game, but Southern China needs a rework. Historically it had very small and lawless settlements that weren't worth much in this period. None of that is reflected in the current setup- its easy territory to snowball with. And I suspect either AI restrictions or the fog of war keeps northerners from diving very far into the regions below the Yangtze.

On the other hand, that might, to a degree, be purposeful. While the South of China was not as well developed at the start of the Three Kingdom's Period, the era is when the south started to become much more developed. Because of Shu and Wu southern China emerged from the period as a very well developed region that would become vital to the Jin and Sui dynasties. The difficulty in crossing between northern and southern China is why Chi Bi was such a significant battle. One doesn't simply march north/south and conquer, a trend that first emerged in this era and became increasingly significant in following centuries.

My point is, it isn't simply a matter of 'march south and conquer.' Its simply a matter of 'march south and pick up free territory with a single commander and zero troops.' The only time you need to fight down there is if you're at war with someone doing the same thing.

Yeah, sure a gold cost is involved, but money is a simply matter of cycling ancillary and food trades, even if you don't get an economy running.

There should be all sorts of supply, low population penalties, public order and other problems and there are none. Its a snowball area, pure and simple (and a huge one). None of the historic barriers to building up the region are there.

Voss wrote:
My point is, it isn't simply a matter of 'march south and conquer.' Its simply a matter of 'march south and pick up free territory with a single commander and zero troops.' The only time you need to fight down there is if you're at war with someone doing the same thing.

Yeah, sure a gold cost is involved, but money is a simply matter of cycling ancillary and food trades, even if you don't get an economy running.

There should be all sorts of supply, low population penalties, public order and other problems and there are none. Its a snowball area, pure and simple (and a huge one). None of the historic barriers to building up the region are there.

Oh. That's completely different from what I thought was happening. I should probably poke around at that when I get the game in.

That's weird. Something that would probably spark a lot of conflict in a PvP game, but is just weird in a TW game.

Voss wrote:
My point is, it isn't simply a matter of 'march south and conquer.' Its simply a matter of 'march south and pick up free territory with a single commander and zero troops.' The only time you need to fight down there is if you're at war with someone doing the same thing.

Yeah, sure a gold cost is involved, but money is a simply matter of cycling ancillary and food trades, even if you don't get an economy running.

There should be all sorts of supply, low population penalties, public order and other problems and there are none. Its a snowball area, pure and simple (and a huge one). None of the historic barriers to building up the region are there.

Nearly all Total wars have this problem though, some locations are just secluded enough and easily maintained in nearly all games, etw had french and dutch Guyana, Napoléon had the whole ottoman empire up for grabs if you wanted, warhammer II depends on the map but the one Lizard Lord down south in the corner off the map get's 90% off the time not even to see Chaos.
Also population mechanics to reflect that situation would basically lead to the reimplementation of the old mechanic.

Some comments -

The narrator/advisor is HORRIBLE. Her intonations are awful and eyeroll inducing. And while I don't profess to be an expert in Chinese pronunciations, I've *NEVER* heard anyone talk about "Lur Bu" or "Urine Shao". There are times when an unwritten 'r' sound appears following a vowel - Chibi is one of them - but I'm pretty sure that Lu Bu and Yuan Shao aren't supposed to have them. Also, I'm puzzled as to why they decided to go with a vaguely British accent for the narrator/advisor when everyone else that I've heard has a vaguely Chinese accent. They should have done all one or all the other. I don't ordinarily mute the advisor in these games. But I'm probably going to do it in this one.

Started the Cao Cao campaign to get a feel for things. Then restarted as Sun Jian. Had four warlords who had declared war on me early on (three of them scripted - ironically, the fourth one was the one that I'd just gotten a HUGE scripted diplomacy bonus with). One of them - Liu Biao died in battle, and Liu Bei immediately confederated his territory. I'm guessing that's a scripted (or pretty high probability) thing, given that's more or less what happened historically (albeit when Liu Biao died of natural causes). And that's fine. But it's a bit weird when it happens barely three years into the game...

With a slightly better idea on how things worked early on, I restarted the Sun Jian campaign so that I could take a slightly different tack to the first few turns. I got to the attack on Jiangling to cross the river. And this time, instead of cramming everyone through the same gate, I split my army into two, and sent my other general with his units to hit the other nearby gate and seize those towers so that they'd stop shooting at me. He got soundly defeated. Further, the units in my main force barely won against their opponents. This was not helped by things like the axe infantry that I sent to chase the enemy archery unit who literally stopped RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE ENEMY ARCHERS just before those archers left the town. In the end, the only unit left in the town was the enemy leader, who kept running all over the place on his horses. I moved my remaining units up to capture one of the towers that was allowing him to do this with impunity, but my units turned and ran just as they reached the control spot. This left me with just Sun Jian and few of the men in his retinue. The enemy leader in theory could easily take Sun Jian (his remaining unit was over twice the seize of Sun Jian's), but he wasn't interested in closing with me. So I made an unrestricted run for the town square (since there were no guard towers there), dismounted, and seized it.

And that was when I belatedly discovered that seizing the town square does NOT win the battle for you. It merely gets rid of a morale boost that the defenders would otherwise receive.

/sigh


I've been playing Records mode. The game apparently doesn't bother to track which mode you wanted to start in last time. So I have to remember to set it from Romance to Records every time I start a new game.

The game defaults to having your troops run when you issue them a movement order. I turned this off for two reasons. First, in Records mode, exhaustion apparently plays a bigger role. Running across the battlefield to attack your opponent will quickly exhaust your troops. So I had to click off the "Run" button whenever I issued a Move order. Second, I've yet to find a way to force my units to stay in formation when moving. They'll be in formation at the destination. But if you tell them to run, then they'll all move at best speed when moving. And since the generals are all mounted, this causes them to get out in front of their foot troops.

This is a Bad Thing(tm) when you're close enough for the enemy to attack you (whether via bows or charges).

Ten-strong cavalry units at the start of the game is rather odd, imo.

Trebuchets are awesome. They run out of ammunition very quickly. But while they've got it, they'll seriously mess up your opponent's day. And if the enemy units are massed closely together (as they usually are), then the terrible accuracy isn't as big of a problem as it might otherwise be.

And that was when I belatedly discovered that seizing the town square does NOT win the battle for you. It merely gets rid of a morale boost that the defenders would otherwise receive.

Recently i went down with a Spree of total wars, the shift between the main Center just providing morale was done in Attila allready (which is kinda Amusing because sometimes you just need to not have the Center). On one hand it is great on the other, only if you have as indepth sieges as Attila had.

Not Online!!! wrote:

And that was when I belatedly discovered that seizing the town square does NOT win the battle for you. It merely gets rid of a morale boost that the defenders would otherwise receive.

Recently i went down with a Spree of total wars, the shift between the main Center just providing morale was done in Attila allready (which is kinda Amusing because sometimes you just need to not have the Center). On one hand it is great on the other, only if you have as indepth sieges as Attila had.

I've got Attila, as well as both of the Warhammers. But it's been a while since I played out a siege in either one. So I didn't remember the change. Regardless, it was annoying to be caught off guard by it.

I found a switch to allow you to have all of the voices in Chinese (presumably Mandarin), including the advisor/narrator. MUCH better. And I noticed that the Chinese-language advisor pronounced both Lu Bu and Yuan Shao as I expected she would, and not like the English-language advisor does.

Seriously, CA? Lu Bu's only the best known warrior of the era (aside from maybe Guan Yu). How exactly does your quality control not catch the fact that the person who delivers the English language opening montage is SCREWING UP HIS NAME!?

I've run Sun Jian's Jiangling battle two more times, and lost both times. It doesn't make any sense. I'm fighting against halberd troops with axes. Advantage axes. I've got medium infantry versus his militia or light infantry (I don't remember which). Advantage medium infantry. And I'm still losing. The only thing that I can figure out is that maybe his archers (incidentally, archery in this game is indirect fire, which gets a bit absurd when the archers in question are quite literally firing over the buildings in multiple blocks of the town to hit your troops - and no, the archers in question are not elevated) are absurdly effective. He's got two units of archers in that fight (along with the guard towers), and I can't get to either one of them until I wipe out his infantry first. During the last battle, I sent a unit of nearly full-strength halberdiers around the front of the town to capture the unguarded guard towers to one side so that they'd stop shooting at me. One of his units of archers was positioned not far away, but behind a barricade, so melee troops couldn't directly get to it. I expected my unit to reach the capture point with some losses, but otherwise largely intact. Instead, when I checked on it again, the last half dozen or so men (out of 40) were fleeing, after having been routed apparently just short of the capture point. My best guess is that a single unit of militia archers essentially melted my unit in the short period of time that it took to march from one entrance to the other.

Uh... what?

Generals are mounted in Records mode, along with their bodyguard. A lot of the troops that I'm facing carry halberds. Yes, there's a note on them that specifically states that they're good against mounted troops. However, in every single battle, the first time one of my generals gets into combat with a unit of halberdiers (which is pretty much guaranteed to happen in the battle I'm having trouble with, since all of the enemy melee infantry in that battle carry halberds), I IMMEDIATELY lose that general. The rest of his unit is still present. But the general is immediately taken out (wounded, in this case). That seems a bit odd...

What difficulty setting.
To quote legend: melee is a losing proposition after hard.

I'd imagine that this would be your problem
.

Not Online!!! wrote:
What difficulty setting.
To quote legend: melee is a losing proposition after hard.

I'd imagine that this would be your problem
.

Nope. It's on Normal.

Took another crack at it, and managed to pull off a win.

I'm pretty sure it's the archers, possibly in combination with the Guard Towers. On my unsuccessful attempts, the enemy managed to completely block the entrance to the town with the unit that it positioned at the front of the entrance (there were additional units positioned a little further back, but they weren't physically in the town entrance until after the initial fighting started). As a result, I wasn't able to get units inside past the initial blockade. On my successful attempts, the front-line unit guarding the entrance collapsed in on itself after my initial charge against it, and I was able to slip units past the flank. This allowed me to go after the archers that the AI had positioned just inside the town. It also allowed my units that slipped past to take the Capture Point for the Guard Towers at that entrance.

Eumerin wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
What difficulty setting.
To quote legend: melee is a losing proposition after hard.

I'd imagine that this would be your problem
.

Nope. It's on Normal.

Took another crack at it, and managed to pull off a win.

I'm pretty sure it's the archers, possibly in combination with the Guard Towers. On my unsuccessful attempts, the enemy managed to completely block the entrance to the town with the unit that it positioned at the front of the entrance (there were additional units positioned a little further back, but they weren't physically in the town entrance until after the initial fighting started). As a result, I wasn't able to get units inside past the initial blockade. On my successful attempts, the front-line unit guarding the entrance collapsed in on itself after my initial charge against it, and I was able to slip units past the flank. This allowed me to go after the archers that the AI had positioned just inside the town. It also allowed my units that slipped past to take the Capture Point for the Guard Towers at that entrance.

Probably the guard towers then.
Sega really fethed them up, even in the old games. In Attila atleast you could burn down the whole village / city to destroy them.

So far, you like the game or not?

Not Online!!! wrote:

So far, you like the game or not?

Mostly. But there are weird little things that are irritants. The narrator/advisor that I mentioned above was one of them. If I hadn't figured out how to get her to stop speaking in English (I switched to the Mandarin voice, but there's also an option to mute her; I'm not sure if the mute option works in the cutscene and loading scene voice overs, though), then I would be much less enthusiastic about playing.

Whenever I get an offer of marriage, the person making the offer has always offered a female to marry one of the men in my group. And the fine text *always* notes that the person that the marriage offer is for - i.e. my male retainer - will go join the other faction. This even applied when Yuan Shu offered to marry someone to Sun Ce, my faction heir. That's not the way that marriages worked in ancient China. Barring very unusual circumstances, the bride should be joining the groom's family (and faction), and not the other way around. Needless to say, I haven't accepted any offers yet.

The "narrative" missions feel clunky. As Sun Jian, you're informed early on in your mission chain that you can either put your focus on the North, or on the South. And then you get a quest to wipe out Liu Biao's two vassal factions, presumably as "revenge" for Liu Biao attacking you to take the Imperial Seal. They're both north of the Yangtze. After you deal with them, you then get a mission to wipe out another, seemingly random, guy (the game's a bit vague about exactly *why* I'm trying to wipe him out) who's much, much further north along the eastern Yangtze. So much for having a choice about which direction to focus on.

Koei-Tecmo makes a series of Three Kingdoms strategy games called (appropriately enough) Romance of the Three Kingdoms. They also make a series of strategy games set in Japan's Sengoku Jidai called "Nobunaga's Ambition". I've got one of the more recent of the latter games - Sphere of Influence. In that game, you have the option to pursue certain goals, which will then cause certain important events to occur as they did historically (more or less - and assuming that one of the AI factions hasn't screwed it up in the meantime). I assume that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series does something similar. The TW3K missions feel like CA wants to duplicate the missions from NA: SoI, but without the narrative events that made it all worthwhile. So you're left bungling around trying to perform seemingly random actions (the guy that I got assigned to wipe out after taking out Liu Biao's vassals was some distance away from my territory), instead of focusing on activities that are relevant to your goals. Admittedly, you could completely ignore the missions. But if you do that, then what's the point of having them in the first place?

All in all, I'm enjoying it. But there are little things that make me think that the game could have used more polish.

Eumerin wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

So far, you like the game or not?

Mostly. But there are weird little things that are irritants. The narrator/advisor that I mentioned above was one of them. If I hadn't figured out how to get her to stop speaking in English (I switched to the Mandarin voice, but there's also an option to mute her; I'm not sure if the mute option works in the cutscene and loading scene voice overs, though), then I would be much less enthusiastic about playing.

Whenever I get an offer of marriage, the person making the offer has always offered a female to marry one of the men in my group. And the fine text *always* notes that the person that the marriage offer is for - i.e. my male retainer - will go join the other faction. This even applied when Yuan Shu offered to marry someone to Sun Ce, my faction heir. That's not the way that marriages worked in ancient China. Barring very unusual circumstances, the bride should be joining the groom's family (and faction), and not the other way around. Needless to say, I haven't accepted any offers yet.

The "narrative" missions feel clunky. As Sun Jian, you're informed early on in your mission chain that you can either put your focus on the North, or on the South. And then you get a quest to wipe out Liu Biao's two vassal factions, presumably as "revenge" for Liu Biao attacking you to take the Imperial Seal. They're both north of the Yangtze. After you deal with them, you then get a mission to wipe out another, seemingly random, guy (the game's a bit vague about exactly *why* I'm trying to wipe him out) who's much, much further north along the eastern Yangtze. So much for having a choice about which direction to focus on.

Koei-Tecmo makes a series of Three Kingdoms strategy games called (appropriately enough) Romance of the Three Kingdoms. They also make a series of strategy games set in Japan's Sengoku Jidai called "Nobunaga's Ambition". I've got one of the more recent of the latter games - Sphere of Influence. In that game, you have the option to pursue certain goals, which will then cause certain important events to occur as they did historically (more or less - and assuming that one of the AI factions hasn't screwed it up in the meantime). I assume that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series does something similar. The TW3K missions feel like CA wants to duplicate the missions from NA: SoI, but without the narrative events that made it all worthwhile. So you're left bungling around trying to perform seemingly random actions (the guy that I got assigned to wipe out after taking out Liu Biao's vassals was some distance away from my territory), instead of focusing on activities that are relevant to your goals. Admittedly, you could completely ignore the missions. But if you do that, then what's the point of having them in the first place?

All in all, I'm enjoying it. But there are little things that make me think that the game could have used more polish.

So basically childrens sickness that all modern games have.
What personally annoys me the most is the fact, that the UI is so god damn clunky. no seriously diplomacy UI feels and just looks ehhh.

Yeah. The biggest thing for me is the UI is clunky. Its pretty, but its not an intuitive setup and I can't really put my finger on exactly what the problem is with it.

I think it might be that everything is borderless and highly stylized and its tough to tell exactly what you are looking at without staring for a few seconds.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah. The biggest thing for me is the UI is clunky. Its pretty, but its not an intuitive setup and I can't really put my finger on exactly what the problem is with it.

I think it might be that everything is borderless and highly stylized and its tough to tell exactly what you are looking at without staring for a few seconds.

Most grueling i find when you try to do the diplomacy things and the small information you kinda want visible, is all hiden behind small little things and the scrolling down or up is annoying as all hell.

Getting a lot of weird diplomacy requests in this game. Like factions that I couldn't even find on the map telling me to be their vassal, or requesting 1 credit every months for 10 months for one of those add-on characters.

I've also done a few aborted playthroughs where the fat dude who seems to be this settings main villian has been killed within 20 turns, which triggers a cutscene. That's not the driving force behind me stopping these playthroughs, its usually me just making bad choices or just exploring options and starting over, but its still weird to see. With no familiarity to this setting, I don't know if that's supposed to happen so early or not. Definitely seems like a big deal, as no other faction gets a cutscene when I've seen them obliterated.

All in all, despite me not having any emotional investment in this setting or its characters, I'm having a decent amount of fun and don't regret my purchase. But it does feel a bit raw in some aspects that a little more TLC or patches could help out with. Not sold on the 3 characters + retinue mechanic for army building, for one.

Yes, the tyrant Dong Zhuo dying ~15 turns into the game is normal. Given the game's opening crawl and opening map overview highlight the fact that he's taken over a regency and functionally kidnapped the child emperor and set himself up as a tyrant, him dying is indeed a big deal.

It puts the warlords opposing him into 'free-for-all' mode.

I agree that the UI is very pretty but often time hard to read. I think they went a little overboard this time, compared to Shogun 2 which managed to be very stylish while still being very intuitive. I'll probably get used to it but right now it's kind of an annoying thing. The over map has the same issue. It's very pretty but clearly reading it at a glance is hard for me.

Other than that though, I'm liking it.

Voss wrote:
Yes, the tyrant Dong Zhuo dying ~15 turns into the game is normal. Given the game's opening crawl and opening map overview highlight the fact that he's taken over a regency and functionally kidnapped the child emperor and set himself up as a tyrant, him dying is indeed a big deal.

It puts the warlords opposing him into 'free-for-all' mode.

Well, the warlords opposing him were already more or less at each others' throats before he died. But his death was a significant event historically. So it belongs in the game, even if it doesn't always happen like its supposed to.


It's probably worthwhile to give a quick background to the events at the start of the game. There's a lot of history that's important to understanding what's going on, and the game just skips right over it all. So with that in mind...

The dynasty at this time in China was the Han Dynasty, widely considered to be China's Golden Age. Unfortunately, by the late second century, the dynasty was losing power. The landowners were becoming more and more powerful, and the central government was becoming mired in corruption. Additionally, a group of court officials - The Ten Eunuchs - had effectively seized power in the capitol city of Luoyang. They used this power to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of the country. During this time, a group of brothers (led by Zhang Jue) established themselves more or less as Taoist faith healers, working to aid the common man. They taught a philosophy called "The Way of Great Peace" that was based on a book called Taipingjing, or "Scriptures of the Great Peace". In addition to the faith healing, Zhang Jue and his followers taught that a yellow sky would replace the blue sky, and the Han Dynasty would be overthrown when that happened. They apparently plotted a rebellion based on this prophecy. But the Han government got wind of their plans before the scheduled launch date, and Zhang Jue was forced to trigger the rebellion a month early in March 184. The rebels wore yellow cloths on their heads, which is how the rebellion got its name.

The rebellion affected a huge swatch of territory. It reached from the northern border, clear down to the Yangtze River. It ran from the eastern sea shore, to Louyang in the west. And it extended south of Luoyang well past Nanyang, and out to roughly two thirds of the distance between Luoyang and Chang'an. It took nearly a year for the rebellion to be completely supressed, with the Emperor issuing an edict announcing the rebellion's end in February of 185. Even so, localized flare-ups continued until early into the next century. And while the rebellion had been suppressed, that only happened at great cost. There was a lot of damage to the local infrastructure, and many local officials were murdered by the rebels.

In 189, Emperor Ling died. Immediately afterwards, General in Chief He Jin (also the late Emperor's brother-in-law) began squabbling with the Ten Eunuchs over control of the government. He Jin and his sister (the Empress Dowager) had a joint Regency, which directly threatened the power of the Eunuchs. He Jin was also supported by the Yuan family, including Yuan Shao, and Yuan Shu. In order to bolster his support even further, He Jin asked a nearby warlord - Dong Zhuo - to come to the capitol with his troops. Dong Zhuo accepted the request, and made his way to the capitol. But before he arrived, He Jin was assassinated by the eunuchs. When Dong Zhuo arrived, the Eunuchs attempted to flee. But Dong Zhuo caught them and brought them back. Simultaneously, He Jin's brother, He Miao, met his end at the hands of his own troops. This left a power vacuum in the city. Dong Zhuo managed to take control of both He Jin's and He Miao's troops. He also convinced a young man by the name of Lu Bu to assassinate the latter's commander, Ding Yuan, and side with Dong Zhuo. This left Dong Zhuo with enough troops to seize control of the capitol. He deposed Emperor Shao, and placed Shao's half-brother, eight-year old Xian, on the throne instead. He acted as Xian's regent, effectively running the country.

In response to Dong Zhuo's actions, the Guandong Coalition formed to oppose him in early 190. Some of the names in the coalition are familiar. Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu were important leaders in it. Cao Cao and Sun Jian both served as lesser leaders under other warlords (Sun Jian led troops under Yuan Shu). Squabbling and in-fighting meant that the Coalition's military forces didn't achieve much, though they did pressure Dong Zhuo enough to cause him to decide to leave Luoyang. Dong Zhuo ordered all of the civilians to evacuate to his home city of Chang'an. He then had his troops loot the buildings and tombs, and finally burned the city to the ground. Cao Cao attempted to give chase with his own troops, but was defeated (this is covered by one of the historical battles in the game). Under Yuan Shu's orders, Sun Jian (who had *always* opposed Dong Zhuo, even before the latter seized the capitol) moved into the vacated capitol, where he discovered the jade Imperial Seal abandoned in a well. Sun Jian fought with Dong Zhuo's forces more than once, and generally performed well on the battlefield.

However, Sun Jian and Cao Cao appear to have been the only two commanders who actually fought against Dong Zhuo's forces. The other commanders wasted their time squabbling with - and even killing - each other. As time went on, it became more and more clear that the Coalition had become one in name only, and it finally collapsed. One of the reasons for this collapse was likely that the Coalition members were unaware that Emperor Xian was still alive. When he was evacuated to Chang'an, the Coalition members had no news of him, and believed him to be dead. Yuan Shao even suggested a replacement emperor (said replacement reportedly threatened to flee to what is now Mongolia if Yuan Shao attempted to install him on the throne). It didn't take long for the various members to realize that if no one was emperor, the replacement would likely be the person who could gather the most military strength. Between that, and the various squabbles, it's no surprise that the Coalition didn't last long.

Meanwhile, back in Chang'an, Dong Zhuo was becoming increasingly erratic and suspicious. His adopted son, Lu Bu, began to worry that Dong Zhuo would turn on him. It didn't help that Lu Bu was secretly having an affair with one of Dong Zhuo's chambermaids. In 192, one of the chief administrators - Wang Yun - with support from Lu Bu, launched a coup de tat, and had Dong Zhou killed. Wang Yun seized control of the government. But this control was short-lived. Wang Yun refused to pardon Dong Zhuo's generals, and they returned to Chang'an at the heads of their respective military forces. Wang Yun was killed, and Lu Bu was forced to flee east. Within a few years, the four generals were squabbling between themselves, and fighting broke out in Chang'an. Emperor Xian managed to use the chaos to escape back to Louyang, where he was met by Cao Cao. Cao Cao took the Emperor back to his own capitol, in Xuchang, and established himself as the official head of the Emperor's government. Emperor Xian held the title. But Cao Cao was the one calling the shots.

So twice now I've been able to recruit Legendary Commanders (The Bandit Queen and someone else whose name escapes me) and they come to me with 0 Satisfaction, causing them to rebel the very next turn after I spend a pretty penny to recruit them. They come with equipment that I couldn't change to give them items to up their Satisfaction as well. The Rebel Queen somehow took 3 of my kids with her oddly enough. Not a big deal, I have 5 kids, but the near $4K I spent to get the Bandit Queen and her full stack of troops was wasted before I could even send them into battle.

Is that a bug or am I missing something in how they are recruited and kept loyal? Playing as Gongsun Zan, if that means anything.

 nels1031 wrote:
So twice now I've been able to recruit Legendary Commanders (The Bandit Queen and someone else whose name escapes me) and they come to me with 0 Satisfaction, causing them to rebel the very next turn after I spend a pretty penny to recruit them. They come with equipment that I couldn't change to give them items to up their Satisfaction as well. The Rebel Queen somehow took 3 of my kids with her oddly enough. Not a big deal, I have 5 kids, but the near $4K I spent to get the Bandit Queen and her full stack of troops was wasted before I could even send them into battle.

Is that a bug or am I missing something in how they are recruited and kept loyal? Playing as Gongsun Zan, if that means anything.

No jeff, the court said she'd get custody and 3/4 off your income

Probably, maybee check the steamforums though.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:
So twice now I've been able to recruit Legendary Commanders (The Bandit Queen and someone else whose name escapes me) and they come to me with 0 Satisfaction, causing them to rebel the very next turn after I spend a pretty penny to recruit them. They come with equipment that I couldn't change to give them items to up their Satisfaction as well. The Rebel Queen somehow took 3 of my kids with her oddly enough. Not a big deal, I have 5 kids, but the near $4K I spent to get the Bandit Queen and her full stack of troops was wasted before I could even send them into battle.

Is that a bug or am I missing something in how they are recruited and kept loyal? Playing as Gongsun Zan, if that means anything.

No jeff, the court said she'd get custody and 3/4 off your income

Its all good, they were minors and my two oldest sons were already generals. If she wants to take 3 teenage boys and raise them, all the power to her. Would've paid her double.

Only thing that bothers me is that I get the notification that they rebelled and they disappear from the map, giving me no opportunity to kill them all.

 nels1031 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:
So twice now I've been able to recruit Legendary Commanders (The Bandit Queen and someone else whose name escapes me) and they come to me with 0 Satisfaction, causing them to rebel the very next turn after I spend a pretty penny to recruit them. They come with equipment that I couldn't change to give them items to up their Satisfaction as well. The Rebel Queen somehow took 3 of my kids with her oddly enough. Not a big deal, I have 5 kids, but the near $4K I spent to get the Bandit Queen and her full stack of troops was wasted before I could even send them into battle.

Is that a bug or am I missing something in how they are recruited and kept loyal? Playing as Gongsun Zan, if that means anything.

No jeff, the court said she'd get custody and 3/4 off your income

Its all good, they were minors and my two oldest sons were already generals. If she wants to take 3 teenage boys and raise them, all the power to her. Would've paid her double.

Only thing that bothers me is that I get the notification that they rebelled and they disappear from the map, giving me no opportunity to kill them all.

Tw Sega diplomacy and relationship ai, reminds me of rise of the republic pre Patch:

"A CIVIL WAR FOR YOU AND YOU AND YOU T3 SO YOU CAN RESTART"

I figured out my dilemma with legendary characters and recruiting them. You have to immediately give them promotions to up their “Satisfaction”.

The Bandit Queen works for me as a high ranking general and is married to my faction heir.

Having jumped into a Sun Jian campaign to poke around down south, I see what Voss was saying, and it's totally weird. I'm not sure why they designed it this way. I would think these regions should be home to bandits, barbarians, or minor factions, not just empty and free for the taking (well not literally free).

There has to be something broken with Yuan Shao, as someone mentioned above. Its like he gets to auto-vassalize his neighbors and the neighbors of his neighbors without even getting into a war and dominating them into accepting vassal-hood. Its probably the most annoying thing I’ve run into so far in this game.