Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX; San Goku Shi IX; 三国志９

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Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX, a single-player strategy game which mixes traditional gameplay with key RTS genre map concepts, is the ninth installation in Koei’s historic series, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. You assume the role of a ruler (historic of fictional) as you manage your kingdom, officers, and economy through diplomacy and war—all in a bid to reuite China under your flag.

Characters and events in Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX are inspired by the namesake novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Yanyi; 三国演义), written in the Ming Dynasty, 14th century, by famous Chinese author Luo Guanzhong. Events in Romance of the Three Kingdoms are, in majority, based on historic government records from the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history—a chaotic period marred with civil war as famous warlords fought amongst themselves for control of China—and further romanticized through storytelling, folklore, and the mind of a brilliant author.

Release Dates and Links
Three Kingdoms IX Updates
Three Kingdoms IX FAQs

Release Dates and Links

Release Information, Game Information, and Site Links (external).
NTSC = United States and Canada, PAL = Most of Europe and Australia.

Three Kingdoms IX (Windows) Release and Purchase Links:
Asia: 3/4/03; NTSC: Translated; PAL: Translated
A translation patch for the Chinese version is available here.
Three Kingdoms IX (PlayStation 2) Release and Purchase Links:
Asia: 12/20/03; NTSC: 2/24/04 (); PAL: No Release
Re-released with PUK (Power-Up Kit) in Japan on 9/02/04.
Search: "Romance of the Three" +"Kingdoms 9" … (Google) (EN)
Search: "三国志９" OR "三国志IX" +"台湾" … (Three Kingdoms IX) (Google) (JP)
Link: Three Kingdoms IX Official Home Page (Koei) (EN)
Link: Three Kingdoms IX Official Home Page (PC, GameCity) (JP)
Link: Three Kingdoms IX Official Home Page (PS2, GameCity) (JP)
Link: Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX (Sanguogame) (CH)
Link: Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX (Samgugji) (KR)
Link: ~~Romance of the Three Kingdoms Translation Project (Patch) (EN)~~
Forum: Three Kingdoms IX Discussion Thread (Scholars of Shen Zhou) (EN)
Forum: Three Kingdoms General Discussion (Scholars of Shen Zhou) (EN)
Forum: Three Kingdoms IX Discussion (GameFAQs) (EN)

Section Updates

11/13/06: Our old Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX Portraits Preview page has been taken offline and now redirects to the Complete Collection of Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX Portraits. All links have been updated accordingly. Sorry for the eight-month inconvenience!

3/24/06: Good news for old fans of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX Portraits Project: we have taken the full collection of Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX portraits and placed them online, here at Kongming’s Archives, in the new Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX Portraits Collection. Unlike the older Portraits Project, the new page features the ability to click on any portrait to open a higher resolution version matching the PC version’s in-game size. If you see any name errors, please post them to our forum or email me. Enjoy!

2/25/05: Linked game information to our database and made new additions (e.g. Google, forums). Access new information through the resources and links above.

3/12/04: Added the Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX Secret Officers Guide based off a plain text version by Ben Hutchinson. The guide is still missing some officers, but they should be added in upcoming days. In the mean time, if you have all the required information for any of those officers, please let us know. Updated the FAQs.

1/12/04: Added Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX Events FAQ by Douglas Lee.

1/11/04: Updated front page display and information, added FAQs and Walkthroughs.

7/14/03: Thirteen new Screenshots.

7/8/03: Six new Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX screenshots have been added (thanks to Xiahou Mao/Rob). More will be added in days to come as they are sent in. Unlike the previous screenshots, these feature partial English translation, so you can get an idea of how menus and battle work in some cases.

12/20/02: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX Portraits Project is focused on the goal of collecting and translating every portrait found in the game. We are nearly complete with this goal, and are now working out the final translation issues. Visit if you can assist with this task, or to simply want to see some portraits.

Spawned from the portraits project, a full collection of Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX avatars are now available on the avatars page, enjoy!

12/6/02: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX screenshots page now includes 27 new 640x280px images. Also made several additions to the links in News and Information.

10/20/02: Two new screenshots have been added to the screenshots page (third row) and a collection of preview portraits have been included in a new portraits page.

10/5/02: Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX page completed and this game is targeted for a Winter 2003 release in Japan, China, and Korea. Check this page for some screenshots; stop by from time to time for updates.

Jonathan Wu translated the screenshot captions from originals at the Chinese SanguoGame site so you can better understand them. I helped as usual by distracting him.