A Dysfunctional Relationship: Let's Play Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI

First, let me extend an apology to Mr.Pappy Longstocking for shirking the queue again and starting two weeks past my scheduled month. Lots of things happened in June, and I had some technical difficulties getting this going. If I ultimately futz this up I promise to ban myself from lping ever again. Maybe. No promises. With that said, let's get this show started!

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Let me tell you about a man I once served when I was young.

It was a time of chaos and tragedy, love and passion, noble heroes and treacherous villains, and other assorted generalities of that nature. Any man with a shred of ambition took to the field, vying for control of the land. Some were in it for fame and glory, some for the good of the people, and others simply for power. I was there merely to serve.

My name is Master Steve. My name is in no official histories, but I was at one time a tactician and politician of some renown...

Welcome to Romance of the Three Kingdoms (ROTK), eventh edition! ROTK is a long-running series of turn-based strategy games based upon Luo Guanzhong's novel of the same name. Set in second-century China, it chronicles the fall of the Han dynasty starting in 169 to the land's eventual reunification in 280. It's also single-handedly kept Koei books in the black for over two decades.

Of course, we'll be having none of that "historical context" business. We're in it to see a bunch of Chinese dudes beat each other up with numbers, giving history the middle finger the whole way there.

I will be playing this game mostly blind. ROTKXI is not an entry I have a lot of familiarity with. I had originally intended to do VII, but ultimately getting a PS2 emulated proved a little too technical for me, and this is the only version to actually have a English release on pc. So I very well might crash and burn on this LP part way in, but darn it we're gonna have a fun time in the process and maybe, just maybe, learn a little something about ourselves and each other.

But before we can begin, I need a name. Actually, I will need many names before we can begin, but for now, one will do: Our protagonist and hero whom Master Steve will serve...



Twelve character limit between both first and last names. Which is lame, because other entries in the game allowed a good eight or ten per name. In the interest of keeping things fun and sensible, I don't adhere to Surname/Forename format. Example: I would not name Darth Vader "Vader Darth". Because that would be stupid.

Actually, I need a second thing while we're on it: A portrait. I am not resigned to playing as a laconic-looking youth fit for a webcomic (yet).

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you your 169 Generic Chinese Warlords!

Dudes - Group A


Dudes - Group B


Dudes - Group C


Chicks - Group A


Chicks - Group B


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Lay it on me Talking Time. Who will our leading man or lady be?

Why would you do this to yourself.

Group C, B1. Guan Yu up in this bitch.

Dudes A H1 named Wu Tang.
Or Dudes A F2 named Tingle.
Or Dudes B D4 named Pancho Sombrero.
Or Dudes B C2 named Chin Strap.
Or Dudes C A5 named Mighty Ted.

I'm down with following Guan Yu into battle.

We gotta use eyepatch lady (Group B, E3) at some point.

Also somebody gotta be called Long Wang

Addenum: Dude B-H3 looks awesome

Addenum 2: B-H3 is Long Wang I mean

I wasn't going to cover this until my next main post, but a quick note for everyone: Any names (and portrait combos) that do not become our liege will become ai controlled officers in the game. The game has 150 user character slots.

Dude Group A, Warlord F2. I would die for that man and for the anachronistically racist jokes that will be made about his teeth.

Chick Group B, Warlord E3 is a cyclops, and as such is the most interesting-looking female option.

Failing either of those, Dude Group C, Warlord C1 is obviously Santa Claus.

I too would be willing to follow this man and defend his honor against the inevitable teasing of all the other warlords when he whistles through his teeth when he talks (assuming that there is some chinese sound that would produce the whistle sound that an "S" would in english...)

if chinese won't produce a whistle while you talk, I vote for chick B-E3 or Dude A-B3 for maximum pirate attitude.

Chicks B E-3. One-eyed warrior woman ftw.

Group B, D-3 looks like a fun guy. It's like he's saying, "Hey, who farted?" knowing full well that he who smelt it dealt it. Also, why is it that you have men ranging from late teens all the way up into their 70s, but all of the women appear to be exactly 20 years old? Where is my Battle Crone?

Dude, you don't know what you're asking. I'm the kind of person who gets crippling indecision when I have to choose one name for one protagonist. Don't even ask me what happens when I play a Bioware game...

I'm going to treat this like bingo and call out random numbers.

Guys A3, Girls G2, Guys H4, Girls C1, and Free Space.

I like the style of DudesA:B2. But I could also throw in a vote for pirate chick (ChicksB:E3).

Man, I thought I'd be the only one. Pirate lady all the way.

I also vote for pirate lady. Make sure she rolls skills fit for a pirate.

Also a name like a pirate. Name her after Aika if you have to.

I'm also a proponent of naming every single character in the game Jackie Chan.

WERE YOU AWARE OF IT: The female roster is actually every past and present member of Hello! Project. IT IS TRUE.

Dude A:C1 is obviously Junichiro Koizumi in disguise, but I think we're better off with "Crazy Eyes" A3 because he can stare his opponents into submission.

Master Steve, all the rest ladies... just because. Straight pimpin' thru classical China.

O hay, this.

I've flip-flopped for the last two weeks about the tone I want this to take, and while I rather like the idea of something more character and story oriented, I think we'd all just be better off if I just focus on playing the friggin' game and talking about it.

So, with all that being said, let's get this thing started!... in a few days. For now though, I give you your Heroes and would-be uniters of second century China:

Long Wang



LDR: 45
WAR: 73
INT: 31
POL: 44
CHR: 63
Skill:Pike General - Stronger pike attack vs. weak unit

Mighty Ted



LDR: 57
WAR: 54
INT: 82
POL: 64
CHR: 61
Skill: Covert Plan - Stronger Strategies vs. high INT unit
--Sworn brother to Jim

Serious Jim



LDR: 45
WAR: 75
INT: 21
POL: 43
CHR: 39
Skill: Iron Wall - Regular damage from joint attack
--Sworn brother to Ted

Wu Tang



LDR: 37
WAR: 27
INT: 42
POL: 53
CHR: 25
Skill: Negotiator - Easier to use Debate in diplomacy

Comb Stranger and I clearly think alike, but too bad it doesn't quite fit the character limit...
Poncho Sombre



LDR: 42
WAR: 61
INT: 47
POL: 47
CHR: 53
Skill: Archer General - Stronger archer attack vs. weak unit

There's already a Guan Yu in this game, but hey, why not two?
Real Guan-Yu



LDR: 86
WAR: 91
INT: 68
POL: 66
CHR: 93
Skill:Cavalry General - Stronger cavalry attack vs. weak unit

Our laconic placeholder...
Salty Nuggets



LDR: 43
WAR: 42
INT: 47
POL: 53
CHR: 28
Skill: Efficacy - More Spears, Pikes, Bows produced
--Best Friend of Reggie

And his best friend
Reginald Dao



LDR: 27
WAR: 21
INT: 41
POL: 21
CHR: 30
Skill: Prayers - Abundant harvests more common
--Best Friend of Salty

Proving that Bongo is a man after my own heart...
Santa Claus



LDR: 92
WAR: 80
INT: 76
POL: 51
CHR: 72
Skill: Sweep Asunder - Lowers will of attacking enemy

Tingle



LDR: 29
WAR: 41
INT: 59
POL: 54
CHR: 23
Skill: Feng Shui - No locusts or plague in city

Chin Strap


LDR: 88
WAR: 86
INT: 62
POL: 61
CHR: 88
Skill: Fortitude - With few men, 50% chance of no damage

This one's for alexb: I found a page of portaits I forgot to post and it's the best I could do...
Battle Crone



LDR: 26
WAR: 59
INT: 20
POL: 30
CHR: 44
Skill: Escape Route (Officer not captured when defeated)

Of course we have...
Master Steve



LDR: 55
WAR: 53
INT: 68
POL: 83
CHR: 41
Skill: Negotiator - Easier to use Debate in deplomacy

And finally, last but certainly not least, I give our hero and Xiahou Dun's biggest fan evar...
Ling Lian



LDR: 87
WAR: 82
INT: 68
POL: 58
CHR: 79
Skill: Benevolent Rule - Loyalty of officers never decrease.

Ling's name was chosen via the random name generator due to you people not following orders and refusing to give me any names to give our heroine (except for Sprite, who at least had the heart to try). The name generator is pretty much a grab bag of period appropriate Chinese names that the game throws together at random, which can result in amusing things like "Chan Chan".

Coming Soon: The game starts in earnest and a primer on characters, relationships, and stats...

Serious Jim had better win this war.

Even ancient Chinese soldiers are afraid of getting on Santa's naughty list!

I kinda like our hero being the one character with a serious name. Now I can imagine her sitting around contemplating what fools she's surrounded by should she ever fail.

Cool. Though you're being entirely too harsh on the lady. She's a Battle Cougar at absolute worst.

Making characters was the only part of these games I ever liked.

This has got to be the greatest cast ever assembled. Ever.

Seconded.

*inappropriate giggle*

Oh geez how I did I not catch that. /facepalm

A few changes before we begin!

• Battle Crone's name has been changed to Battle Cougar. Except I only just now realized I spelled it "Couger". Oh well!
• Wu Tang's ability has been changed to "Invention" since giving him an ability based on INT was stupid because he is stupid.
• Tweaked a few stats

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Currently, we do not have any rival force in particular. We do not have friendly relations with any particular force. You must remunerate the officers with gold - revenue comes in monthly. You will also require food to maintain your armies, and this comes in every season. Be careful not to run into any shortages. The last force to remain standing on the continent will become the supreme ruler of the next generation. If you would like this conqueror to be yourself, it's time to begin strategizing.

Please give us your orders.

Thank you, Master Steve, I think I will!

Welcome to the kick off post of Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI! For our game, I have chosen the scenario "Rise of Heroes", a fictional scenario that basically throws all the various leaders and factions of the era onto one map and let them have at each other. It still heavily favors principles like Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and the Sun family, but everyone starts with a single territory and equal resources. One of the series great failings is that it's never had a true "random" mode, just a batch of preset scenarios that generally always turn into the same one or two main powers coming out the winner.

But enough of that! Here is our starting prefecture, the humble little city of Yong An.



Aw, isn't it cute? To the lower right is our minimap. As you can see, our city is situated in the southwestern portion of China (the dark blue box). Other colors are cities claimed by our rivals. We have a few neighbors in our vicinity, who we'll take a look at later. Our immediate surroundings offer us good protection: Forest and mountains to the north, rivers to the south and east. Across the eastern river is the unclaimed harbor of Wu Xian.

Right clicking on Yong An will bring up a quick and dirty summer of what's going on in town



A lot of the information, displayed left, is pretty self-explanatory. In the interest of learnings, let's go through them all the same.

Gold: How much money the city currently has in its coffers
Food: How much food is in the granaries
Order: The stability of the city and the province as a whole. Low order causes production to suffer and can cause instability and native uprisings.
Facilities: We haven't built anything yet, so we have no facilities up and running. Right now we have squat.
HP: How much damage the city can take before it will fall in a seige.
Troops: How many soldiers are stationed in town.
Will: The training and discipline of the soldiers. Lower will soldiers will fare more poorly in battle and be more apt to fall into confusion.
Spears, Pikes, Bows, Horses, Rams, Towers, Ships: The quantities of the various weaponry we will be employing in the field.
Revenue, Harvest: How much Gold and Food the city is generating. As noted by Steve, this accrue every month and season, respectively.
Rate: The going buy/sell rate for Food.
Officers: How many of our officers are currently stationed there.
Prisoners: How many enemy officers we're currently holding.
Free: How many ronins (unaligned) officers are skulking about like jobless bums.

Follow Steve's advice, our first order of business will be to appoint our strategist, found under the Sovereign command.



Our strategist will give us sage advice and, based on his knowledge and expertise, give us suggestions and vague odds on our various plans and schemes during our playful romp in China.



The game defaults to the officer with the highest INT. I see no reason to argue. Congrats Steve!



Steve takes the occasion to indulge in a little false modesty.

Next order of business is to make sure everyone's cool with their means, so let's venture into Reward menu, found under the Personal command.





As you can see, every officer serving under me has a "loyalty" rating, from 1-100 which I can bolster by giving them a bonus. Lower loyalty increases odds of them deserting or betraying me. It's pretty easy to keep your peeps happy and maxed out, which pretty much ensures they'll never turn against you, barring perhaps being captured in battle and facing imprisonment or death. Or if their just self-serving jerks. Loyalty can also wear over time and being demoted, but that won't be an issue for me with Ling's "Benevolent Rule" skill.

As we can see, most of our guys are pretty stoked about serving Ling. The only folks not 100% for her are Jim, Cougar, Wu Tang, and Salty. Anything over 80 is usually okay, but let's give 'em a tip, just to be on the safe side.



400 gold!? I gotta give these guys 100 a piece? Fine, whatever.



You'd better.

Next up is to get our troops into top fighting shape! Our soldier's Will is currently at 80, which is pretty good, but I'm a perfectionist. Time to Drill the troops, a command found under the Military menu.





For any given task in the game, the player is generally allowed to choose up to three officers to perform it, and skill in each task is bound to a certain stat. Proficiency in Drilling is determined by a characters WAR stat. By default, the game chooses the three highest available in town.



The results of committing Real Guan-Yu, Chin, and Ling to Drilling will raise our troops Will to 94 and cost us 20 AP...

Oh, AP? Right. AP is Action Points. AP is accumulated every turn based on your liege's LDR stat and... probably a few other things? I'll have to look it up (as I said, mostly blind). I'll get back to you guys. In the meantime, let's train us some troops.



Chin offers the troops some truly inspiring words.

We have no more AP, so we're pretty much done for this turn!

Everyone else gets their turn now! Outside of actions immediately relevant to you (like being attacked), and a Big Deal event, like a rival force being a eliminated, it's all pretty instantaneous.



Shoots, brah.



We've gained a little gold from monthly revenue, and lost a little food our whiny commoner soldiers need food to survive. We've also accumulated more AP, which means we can do things! My first order of business is to give Cougar and Jim another bonus because apparently they aren't satisfied with just one. I also finish Drilling our troops, bringing them to maximum fighting effectiveness! Now it's time to get the ball rolling on making our land work for us and get some facilities developed.





Welcome to the development menu! Here we can select the various buildings we can construct. A rundown of their functions...

Market: Increases Gold income
Farm: Increases Food income
Barracks: Allows city to conscript troops
Smith: Allows city to forge spears, pikes, and crossbows
Stable: Allows city to train war horses
Workshop: Allows seige weapons to be built
Shipyard: Allows ships to be built (duhhh)
Mint: Increases effectiveness of neighboring Markets by 1.5x
Granary: Increases effectiveness of neighboring Farms by 1.5x

First thing we want to do is get more Gold rolling in, which will allow us to do things like conscript more troops, placate neighboring warlords, and suck up to the Emperor. And probably give Serious Jim more bonuses. Once again, we can select up to three officers to a task. The game by default picks available officers with the high POL stats. Each turn is about ten days, so with a finish time of thirty days it'll take Steve, Ted, and Chin about three turns to finish the project, during which time I can issue them no other orders. I have other plans for Chin and don't want him getting stuck with domestic duties, so I swap him out for someone else that won't compromise development time. (Thirty days is about the fasted you can shoot for.)



We can build on any brown space around a city. Let's decide to place the Market in a place where it might benefit later from a Mint. Now, let's build us a farm.

Assigning characters with lower POL will result in longer development times.



Like so. What would take Steve and Co. 30 days is going to take Salty and the gang almost twice as long. Whatever, so long as the job gets done.



Next up is a quick Inspection of the city, which will raise the city's order.





For our final order of business, I assign Wang, Real Guan-Yu, and Poncho to build us a barracks so we can force the citizenry to fight for us.



Poncho is not above a little brown-nosing, it seems.

Turn in, turn out. Ling, Chin, and Reggie wrap up Inspections, maxing out Yong An's Order. It'll deteriorate over time and when we conscript troops though, so we need to keep an eye on it.

Now...



Wu Xian is sitting unguarded and unclaimed, and I'm not about to let a freebie fall into someone elses hands. It's time to dispatch some troops, which can be done with the March command under the Military menu.



Ahh, there's a lot of stuff going on in here. In a nutshell...

Officers
When forming a unit, I first choose a leader and can choose two more officers to serve under him, handily combining abilities and shoring up statistical defeciencies. I'd rather keep everyone on the homestead, so I'll send Santa out alone. He's good for it anyway.

Weaponry
Then we choose our armaments: Swords, spears, pikes, crossbows, cavalry, rams, and seige towers. Swords are essentially a generic weapon with infinate quantity. Right now, Santa can field up to 5000 soldiers, but we only have 2000 of each actual weapon weapon and no seige weapons right now. I opt for numbers over weaponry.

Vessels
Should you need to enter the water. There are Boats and Ships. The latter allows for better movement on the water. I can't build ships yet, so boats it is.

Troops, Officers, Gold
What we're sending with him. I max out his troops, send 1000 gold with him, and enough food to last him and his 200 days.

Unit Ability
A basic breakdown of the units power. As you can see, since I'm being stingy and not giving them real weapons, they probably wouldn't put up much of a fight. I'm counting on them not getting attacked until I can send them proper stuff to fight with, so Santa's wits will have to suffice. APT is the units/officer's aptitude with the chosen weapon. Since swords might as well be sticks, no one actually has any aptitude with them. Will is their training, as we already know, and Tactics... uh, I guess we'll find out at some point. We'll learn together!

Base stock
Basically a rundown of what the city will have left after I dispatch the unit





Go, Santa! For great justice!

In the meantime...



Steve and pals finish their market



Salty and the gang finish their farm.



Well, Steve...



You're darn right I do! I don't care what it takes, Santa. If you must sacrifice all our men and yourself then-



Oh. Well, that was easy! I guess the harbormaster didn't mind us just waltzing in and taking over.



Basically, harbors (and gates) act like small towns. They don't produce anything, but they give me a stronghold to place officers, troops, and supplies. It also gives me a good striking off point on the river. Our main concern for now is keeping them fed and getting them properly equipped, so at some point I'll ship them some weapons and more food.

Well guys, we've learned a little about how the game works, built a few buildings, and captured a harbor! Not bad a bad start. Let's take a look beyond our borders and see how our neighbors are doing.



To the southwest, Deng Ai rules in Jiang Zhou. He's got a few buildings going and has eight officers. Nothing too much to worry about. He's got more troops then us, so we'll have to keep an eye on him.



Jin Xuan sits at the throne in Wu Ling across the river to the southeast. He controls Dong Ting and Gong An harbors, but he only has a paltry three officers under his command. I doubt he'll be any nuscense to us any time soon, if ever



Liu Biao in Xiang Yang, to the northeast. Yikes, fifteen officers and he controls Zhong Lu harbor. well. At the mountains stand between me and him. And finally, directly to the east...



Uh.. crap. Now you can see why the "free for all" scenario still favors the main players: It loads them up with the most officers. And considering this is Liu Bei, that means he's got some big names in his stable like Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhuge Liang, and Jiang Wei.

Well, no one ever said this was going to be easy. Can Ling and Co. do it?

NEXT TIME: The promised primer on characters and stats.

GOING FORWARD: Boy putting this post together took a lot more work then I thought it would. Like, a lot more. And it was only a few turns! This is my first real LP post ever, so I'm still kinda bumbling and feeling out how to put it all together. I'm already seeing ways I can speed things up!

Fortunately for all of us, as I get further into the game and I spend less time explaining menus and mechanics, updates should cover more ground and spend less time on the minutia. Micro to macro, as it were. I think I'm going to shoot for an actual game update a week, which means stuff like the character post won't count as an "update".

Yeah, the "here is how stuff works" updates are always the slowest.

But I used to be kind of scared of how dense RotTK games can get (the fact that the rental places/friends I'd borrow from never had any manuals didn't help), and now it looks kind of fun. In a "let's manage the hell out of everything" kind of way.