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Romance of The Three Kingdoms
Zombiemambo
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During the late-second century in China, a rebellion known as the Yellow Turban Rebellion, combined with the fall of the Han Dynasty, China was thrown into a time known as the Three Kingdoms period. During this time, three Dynasties, the Wei, Shu and Wu, fought for control of China. And thus began the Romance of The Three Kingdoms.
Based on the historical novel of the same name, the game focuses on the many important figures in Chinese history as they battle for the leadership of China. The game has gone through numerous iterations, with XI being the latest. While the early games focused on battling, the later games added roleplaying elements in which you could choose to play everything from a wandering Ronin to a powerful Warlord, with your ultimate goal to reunite China under one banner - namely, that of your leader's.
I only have experience with VII on the PS2, which is a mere $9.99 used, so that's all I have good information for. At the beginning of the game, you choose a scenario, such as the Yellow Turban Rebellion, and play out the events that took place during that time. Then you choose a character, such as an Officer or a Prefect, and serve your liege faithfully (or overthrow him and rule the kingdom yourself). Each turn takes place over one month, and during that time you can send letters or visit your friends (it's highly important to have a strong bond with your liege, and if you're relationship with an enemy officer is strong enough you can get them to defect to your side), patrol your city and help the villagers, train your skills or get a tutor, improve the conditions of your city, drill your troops or attack any neighboring regions.
The role you choose has a very large impact on the core gameplay. As an Officer, you must rise through the ranks until you can become a Prefect or Warlord and command Officers of your own. Until then, it's important to hone your skills in combat, should your Liege order you to march into an enemy's region, keep strong bonds with fellow Officers, Prefects, Warlords and especially your Liege (if you don't have a good bond with your Liege or Prefect, they will not allow you to drill troops or improve the city). If you're loyal and prove your worth in battle, your Liege will upgrade your rank until you are a Warlord or Prefect. And should you serve your Liege faithfully then, you might even be named his successor.
The overall goal of the game is the unification of China. As Liege you must keep your people happy and attack your bordering territories in order to have a greater hold on the country. As a Ronin, you can wonder the land freely and train yourself, or find a Liege you are happy with and join his army as an Officer. Warlords and Prefects handle a collection of cities and order Officers around.
Battle plays a big part in the game, and is one of the most exciting aspects of the game. As Liege, you can command a 'march' into enemy land and try to take it for yourself. Officers can act as Tacticians, planning the overall strategy of each battle. This plays a very large part in determining victory or defeat, and if you're army outnumbers the opposition but has a poor strategy, they are destined to fail. The battle ends when all the enemy officers are captured, retreat or surrender. Afterwards, the Liege can offer them a place in his army, release them or execute them. With the troops diminished, Officers must recruit wandering Ronin and train them into fierce warriors, and keep the villages and cities in good condition.
One of the biggest downsides to the game (VII, that is), is that if you're not a Liege, Warlord or Prefect, you'll be spending a lot of time training and improving the city, until your Prefect asks you to aid him in battle. Most of the game's "roleplaying" elements consist of increasing a stat that seems to have no immediate effect, and visiting the people you need to suck up to in order to command troops. However, at higher levels of play, it can be an exciting game.
This thread is an all-purpose Romance of The Three Kingdoms discussion.
Based on the historical novel of the same name, the game focuses on the many important figures in Chinese history as they battle for the leadership of China. The game has gone through numerous iterations, with XI being the latest. While the early games focused on battling, the later games added roleplaying elements in which you could choose to play everything from a wandering Ronin to a powerful Warlord, with your ultimate goal to reunite China under one banner - namely, that of your leader's.
I only have experience with VII on the PS2, which is a mere $9.99 used, so that's all I have good information for. At the beginning of the game, you choose a scenario, such as the Yellow Turban Rebellion, and play out the events that took place during that time. Then you choose a character, such as an Officer or a Prefect, and serve your liege faithfully (or overthrow him and rule the kingdom yourself). Each turn takes place over one month, and during that time you can send letters or visit your friends (it's highly important to have a strong bond with your liege, and if you're relationship with an enemy officer is strong enough you can get them to defect to your side), patrol your city and help the villagers, train your skills or get a tutor, improve the conditions of your city, drill your troops or attack any neighboring regions.
The role you choose has a very large impact on the core gameplay. As an Officer, you must rise through the ranks until you can become a Prefect or Warlord and command Officers of your own. Until then, it's important to hone your skills in combat, should your Liege order you to march into an enemy's region, keep strong bonds with fellow Officers, Prefects, Warlords and especially your Liege (if you don't have a good bond with your Liege or Prefect, they will not allow you to drill troops or improve the city). If you're loyal and prove your worth in battle, your Liege will upgrade your rank until you are a Warlord or Prefect. And should you serve your Liege faithfully then, you might even be named his successor.
The overall goal of the game is the unification of China. As Liege you must keep your people happy and attack your bordering territories in order to have a greater hold on the country. As a Ronin, you can wonder the land freely and train yourself, or find a Liege you are happy with and join his army as an Officer. Warlords and Prefects handle a collection of cities and order Officers around.
Battle plays a big part in the game, and is one of the most exciting aspects of the game. As Liege, you can command a 'march' into enemy land and try to take it for yourself. Officers can act as Tacticians, planning the overall strategy of each battle. This plays a very large part in determining victory or defeat, and if you're army outnumbers the opposition but has a poor strategy, they are destined to fail. The battle ends when all the enemy officers are captured, retreat or surrender. Afterwards, the Liege can offer them a place in his army, release them or execute them. With the troops diminished, Officers must recruit wandering Ronin and train them into fierce warriors, and keep the villages and cities in good condition.
One of the biggest downsides to the game (VII, that is), is that if you're not a Liege, Warlord or Prefect, you'll be spending a lot of time training and improving the city, until your Prefect asks you to aid him in battle. Most of the game's "roleplaying" elements consist of increasing a stat that seems to have no immediate effect, and visiting the people you need to suck up to in order to command troops. However, at higher levels of play, it can be an exciting game.
This thread is an all-purpose Romance of The Three Kingdoms discussion.
Zombiemambo on
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I never have been in a position to play one of the games now that I'm old enough to understand the things, but the series does have the distinction of being my first introduction to video game trauma.
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I never did pick up 9. I should probably do that sometime.
RTKX is the best one I've played, but it was the Japanese PC version with a pretty limited english patch. Despite not understanding a lot of what everyone was saying, I freaking loved it.
II, III, V, VII, VIII, IX, X and XI. (all of them on PC)
played III and V most extensively.
Fav hero? Cao Cao. Always hated that indecisive piece of s*** ryubei.
The. Best. RoTK. Game. Ever.
I doubt there's an English version of this game however.
I haven't played RTKVII but I can say that X is much better than VIII. The year now plays out over days, instead of turns. Reinforcing the wall will take you 10 days, your assignments from your liege must be completed in 30 days, etc. It might not sound like a huge improvement, but I by far prefer it over turns. Plus, now the 'world map' is now an actual map, you can see all the cities, the fortifications, armies and officers walking around on it.
As for the downtime, it seems to depend on whats happening. I have been sent to backwater cities right in the middle of my liege's territory but eventually, I work my way up. The start is always pretty slow, especially when you're stuck defending a city that's attacked every second turn. By the end of the game though, I'm usually a viceroy with half the map under my command (unless my liege decides to give a chunk of the land I conquered to another viceroy, the bastard).
RTKIX is a pretty damn good game as well, though it follows the more traditional RTK gameplay, where you control every region and officer.
Picked up IX actually a few months back and love it, but haven't had the time to get too far into it. The Turbans managed to take me out twice in the first scenario, the second time because I did something really, really stupid that would've bogged me down in war with them for a long time if I kept going. Eventually I'll have the time to sit down with it again and get further into it.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI is out for PC. North America, we get digital downloads. Everyone else, you get boxed copies. Either way, this is how the game was meant to be played. It's MUCH prettier than the PS2 version just by virtue of running at a higher resolution, and playing with a mouse makes things go much, much faster.
Anyone who likes a good, deep, turn-based strategy game should definitely pick this up. Koei should be shown that we will buy it if they release it.
Who actually came out on top in the Three Kingdoms period?
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I believe the Wu dynasty did.
Nope. Wei won. Sima Yan (Sima Yi's grandson) conquered Wu, though he had dissolved the 'Cao Wei' lineage before then and declared himself the Prince of Jin or something like that. That was about 40 years after all the main stories though. There really wasn't a winner by the time most of the warlords were dead, aside from Shu being the obvious loser.
RTK XI is only downloadable....where do you get it? I've been all through the official site, they want to tell you everything save how to purchase it.
edit: I found one on Direct2Drive.
It was part of the sort of mini-Renaissance that took place in China for a couple generations following Kublai Khan finishing the very long conquest (it took the mongols 3 generations of constant fighting to conquer China). A large amount of new technology, literature and art forms were either invented or introduced from outside during this time because the Mongols were 1) less xenophobic and 2) made trade across all of Asia safe enough to be practical on a large scale for the first time.
For example, all of the new technology used in the famous Treasure Fleets or in the rebuilding of the Grand Canal during the early Ming dynasty was invented during this same period.
There's no better game to get into the series with than XI. It's certainly one of the most complex entries (as you'd expect), but it has the best tutorial by far. The tutorial will take you a couple hours to complete, and very little of that is redundant information, so while you can still jump right into the game I wouldn't recommend it unless you're good at feeling things out as you go along.
Still, I think it's absolutely worth it. No other strategy series has given me the sense of accomplishment that I get from Rot3K, Civ included. It's got a better sense of place (I'm not really sure how to put that, but the setting just feels much more tangible) than any other strategy game I've played, and when you're familiar with all the characters the battles can take on a much more dramatic air then you'd expect.
And if the setting and history really interests you, I HIGHLY recommend the unabridged Moss Roberts translation of Three Kingdoms. You can get it in paperback for relatively cheap, and it comes in four volumes so you're not lugging around a tome. For a centuries-old unabridged Chinese novel it's remarkably gripping, and shows just how far back the "page-turner" format really goes. You're never more than a few pages away from something badass happening, and the more you read the more you understand why Koei has been able to wring so many games out of it.
Whichever game it was... that's the latest one I played, never tried the rest. I think I might get XI, the other one gave me hours and hours of fun.
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only other i played was VIII for the ps2 i picked up in Dubai (selling EU games o_O)
compared to most strategy, this game tops it all, its got depth and width, and clearly the stuff to fill it.
As a huge fan of the book i found this game a real breeze to slip into.
I think this does both Justice to the Book and the real history too, as opposed to Dynasty Warriors, which is still a barrel of laughs
Also, not related to any of the games but Cao Cao has always been my favorite "hero." He's certainly an asshole, but an incredibly intelligent and interesting one. Liu Bei is a Boy Scout of the highest order and the entire Sun lineage is remarkably dull.
I think they both do justice to different aspects of the book. Romance certainly covers the massive scope and the ebb and flow of power over the decades, but Dynasty Warriors captures the book's... flourishes better. Remember, Lu Bu being a whirling dervish of blades and death was all there on the page long before Koei made him the tank that he is in their games. Romance is too impersonal to really convey the sometimes intense action of the book, and Dynasty Warriors is too fragmented and limited in scope to really capture the sprawling nature of the epic, but together I think they do a good job of giving a very, very broad impression of the novel.
Hmm, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head, i think its the acting in DW that kinda makes it laughable. As opposed to ROTK's speech, my friend actually commented n said they speak in 'classical chinese' they spoke back in the age of the Three Kingdoms, which i thought was a nerdy but awesome cherry on the cake
Well, the novels in general don't mesh well with a lot of things and Wu is pretty much either ignored or massively effed up in like... every adaptation of anything. The main thing is villifying Wei, especially Sima Yi. Most historical evidence suggests that he was really really fucking lazy and had to be threatened into service, where he tried to lay low. The rest of the generals (on all sides really) were just so fucking incompetent that he ended up rising through the ranks.
Yeah, the acting is utterly horrible. I was thinking more in lines of gameplay and such.
oh god no, the game itself was a real treat, i recently thundered through 6 again (or 5 if people are gonna be technical) i think Lv Bu's voice was a bit hit n miss, though his costume (along with ...well everyone else) was incredible.
Off topic, did you check out the 2 recent RO3K films 'Resurrection of the dragon' n 'Chi Bi'?
im guessing you obviously have =p
i do agree with you on the cancelling out of Wu, n the main sides being Wei n Shu, making Cao Cao out to be some sorta super villain n Liu Bei the knight in shining armour,
when really Liu Bei was a massive baby who kept crying all the time if he got into a mess, making Guan Yu N Zhang Fei stick up for him, n Cao Cao although suspicious should've actually been the emperor, seems with more n more research n thought going into the 3 kingdoms history, alot believe Cao Cao was the 'True Emperor'
Guan Yu was hardly a prize either. Bastard couldn't keep his temper in check if his life depended on it, and it frequently did much to the chagrin of everyone in his immediate vicinity. I also seem to remember Zhang Fei kicking off quite a shitstorm by stealing something or other (either food or horses) right within the first hundred or so pages, but it's been some time since I read that particular section so my memory is a bit fuzzy. Either way, why Liu Bei and his merry band of misfits are the novel's heroes I'll never know, but it does get quite tiring to watch Liu Bei "oh no I mustn't" his way to the top.
Sun Jian's red hat is anything but dull.
And I've always like Sun Ce, if only mostly because of Zhou Yu.
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Was Red Cliff as awesome as it was hyped to be?
Not awesome enough to get released in the US at any rate. At least without massive hacking with a hatchet.
Well, the two films are getting cut up a ton and condensed into one, which won't be out for another couple months.
Also... Sega keeps uploading these clips from some game to their youTube channel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuDQFa_6g50
I have no idea what's going on, but thinking about Cao Cao's forces trying to roll out of the way of cavalry makes me laugh. So do the horses flying gracefully through the air as they're killed for that matter.
Resurrection of the Dragon doesn't look particularly good, though. You should check out Curse of the Golden Flower. It's not Three Kingdoms, but it is fuckawesome.
Shit, I might actually have to try one of these fuckin' things for once
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There's even a demo available.
I believe the demo is the tutorial, which would be a good thing. There's actually a good chunk of content in it, and it does a good job of easing you into the mountain of stats and abilities you're going to be juggling. Just don't give up and you'll get it in no time.
It's also worth mentioning that I've actually been playing the thing for most of my replies in this thread. It's a fantastic game to play windowed.
the title of the game isn't in korean,
which one is this?
my favorite one is the one made by Capcom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDxRJ7eRtBg
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