if kong is rong I don't want to be right

Dian Wei is my boy

never forget when you’re about to pick Liu Bei for the sake of having Zhang Fei on your side that Dian Wei shows up like two years into the campaign and fucks everyone’s shit up

I just managed to fight a war on two fronts by sticking him in an extremely underfunded retinue of archers along with this non-combatant administrator lady I poached off of Gongsun Zan (and who kept threatening to leave if I didn’t give her something better to do so I made her a general out of spite) and having him duel, then execute, every leader who came after us.

Meanwhile Cao Cao and the Super Xiahou Brothers are chasing down every yellow turban and Han empire deserter they can find (including an accidental bout of surprisingly successful naval combat when I misclicked) rather than pursue any imperial ambitions because shaking down old money is the only way I can seem to stay in the black

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I also just levelled up to the point that I could appoint my own chancellor and gave the job to said female general because she still wouldn’t stop complaining and somehow she’s still able to do this job while nominally commanding all of Dian Wei’s extremely shitty and unnecessary soldiers?

this woman is going to wind up running the entire empire on paper. Squeaky wheel gets the grease!

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my ancient Chinese sitcom army currently consists of:

  • rich narcissist who decided that filling an imperial power vacuum was an “I’m not getting any younger” sort of decision and who has somehow enjoyed an unbroken string of military victories
  • his friend, who actually knows how to fight
  • his friend’s brother who turned up out of the blue after we started winning, who has a buff called “blazing saddles,” and who is constantly coming up with paeans about how much he loves war
  • an extremely enthusiastic bodybuilder who joined my army for no stated reason and who has been responsible for every crucial border defense
  • Ju Dou

our favourite hobby is selling food to Liu Bei because he seems to have more money than sense and regards anyone who will engage in commerce with him as a really standup guy

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Dian Wei’s army literally ran out of arrows in the last fight and he still won

I am going to take over an entire country on the back of a thyroid imbalance

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I wonder if I missed my chance to recruit Zhang Liao, I let Dong Zhuo’s garbage sons kill him rather than head out that way and Yuan Shao promptly declared war on me instead

when does Zhongda turn up

I’m playing Cao Cao (obviously) but with both the campaign and the battle difficulty sliders on hard because it was too easy below that

How many of the battles do you delegate? I love these games but ever since Empire the standard tools of battle just drive ennui into my heart. Warhammer picked it up and I was hoping Romance mode would here, but I don’t know how many of these I’ve got in me.

about a third, and if I find myself doing more than that I put the game down for a bit, and even so they almost never last more than five minutes

I did find the early game a bit of a slog before cracking the second rank but it lightens up just when it’s getting to be too much

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I entered into a formal alliance with Liu Bei and every turn he has a new friend he wants to bring into the alliance and every time I say no.

I really love abusing poor Liu Bei’s AI

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friends are all the man had give him a break

the personalities are just so good in this

Liu Bei is clearly wired in such a way that everyone can only be a good person and I am clearly not a good person

meanwhile the only one I’m actually afraid of is Yuan Shao because he has more money than I do and even though he is cordial on the surface he keeps paying people to go to war with me, and I foolishly sent my number one guy Dian Wei to defend my prestigious Luoyang rebuilding effort and I need to like… hire mercenaries to show up and prevent all these minor lords from walking right into my temples, except I can only afford to hire academics and give them spears and hope for the best

I hope Liu Bei doesn’t find out about any of this or he may realize he’s on the wrong team

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I am running this campaign like a university dean who became a warlord by accident

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my only other ally is a minor lord whose name I can’t remember who was really excited that I wanted his daughter to marry my cousin

the Han have retreated to a single rump state to spend down their massive fortune like white Russian aristocrats

no one can be bothered to invade Zembla

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also for anyone else playing Total War ROTK I strongly recommend setting the battle difficulty equal or greater than the campaign difficulty (at least medium/hard; I’m on hard/hard and finding it engaging but barely doable) – the battles lean toward being slightly too easy, and hard allows for really fun dramatic upsets with adequate tactics, so that your decision-making for “should I simulate this battle or play it out” can be reduced 90% to “does it think I’ll win on paper?”

Zoomed out enough I can be indecisive, overwhelmed with choice and am only experienced in finishing a few tactics/RTS type games.

I also really like challenge but in the case of a game like this would rather some things be brisk instead of drawn out. Would you say Medium is not too much a pushover and still requires you to engage with the general scope of tools?

medium for the actual campaign is totally reasonable; I’m not sure I would recommend the battles below hard period (but you don’t need to turn off pausing or any of that unless you’re a real RTS head)

I’m very much in my snes/psx replays zone atm, but once I can get it cheaply will put some real romantic hours in.

Well now I want to see Romancing Kingdom Memes that I won’t understand.

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I’m on hard/hard and (again) I find myself doing about 90% of battles because the auto-resolve isn’t nearly as efficient as I can be (ranged seems to be really underrated by the AI).

However, as often happens, once I get sucked into a game I care deeply enough that I don’t mind doing the (still rather fun) RTS fights. I’m glad to still have some of the ‘special unit’ flavor left over from Warhammer, though it’s otherwise pretty plain; I’m having the most fun scrambling the Peach Tree Boys between different fronts of rather rude neighbors while my buddy Kong Rong just twiddles his thumbs.

Luckily an exorbitant bribe got him into my coalition long enough to declare war on the three-full-stack-strong Yuan Shao parked outside my cities. When Shao saw this he sued me for peace and didn’t tell Kong Rong and neither did I. So new Kong’s flailing over in his little corner and I finally have some breathing room to pretend to be friends with Cao Cao while racing him to eat the last of the Han territory.

(it’s really very good)

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