Marcus Dion and Digital Legacy Networks present...
ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS VII
Visitors Guide/FAQ v1.1
Created 07/01/2002
(no, there ain't no fancy artwork. It ain't the drawing that matters, it's the
content.)
Romance of the Three Kingdoms VII, the 7th in a franchise of one of the best
strategy games ever created. It has maintained a niche following in the United
States, but has been continuously popular in Korea, China and Japan. This
guide hopes to focus on one of the newer aspects of the game: Visiting
officers. You could always talk to/visit officers and generals, but never
before have there been so many options within which to do so. Because of all
of the difference nuances that you have to keep in mind, I decided to put them
here.
First, it's important to know a few things. For one, you can visit ANYONE in
the game. If a character has enough AP (Action Points), then you can go and
meet up with someone. You really should do this often, as it has a number of
benefits. People that have good Bond (the number between 1 and 100 that
determines how close two people are) perform together on the field and with
city development; they Visit each other often to pass along helpful hints,
invite each other hunting, or give special abilities. There are also 'special'
officers with special abilities, and I'll get into those later.
Here are the three different types of interactions:
VISIT
Visit is the command that allows you to simply go and talk to a person. This
command has many advantages. First, it gives you the opportunity to meet other
people. If the person you go to visit has a visitor, they will introduce you,
which lets you bypass the normal introduction and get to know both the first
person you met as well as the person they introduced you to. This type of
networking lets you get to know big hitters off the bat.
Second, there is a chance they may ask you to go hunting. Randomly, you may
encounter a tiger. A duel scene starts with you and the tiger going at a
"Paper, Rock, Scissors" method of sorts. If you win, you get added Fame, on
top of the Bond increase. If you lose, you might not get the Bond increase.
Third, it's the 2nd highest way to raise Bond. If you're low on money, this is
the best way to go. It's costly on AP, but it is well worth it.
GIFT
Gift is the sending (not delivering) of a $200 gift. It has its upsides and
downsides. One positive to using this command is that it's the fastest way to
increase Bond; sometimes going up to 40+ Bond each! One negative, however, is
that the money comes from your personal account, not the city account. This
means that if you're playing as an Officer, it may not be that easy to make use
of this command, as your money stash is going to depend on your Wages under
whatever Liege you serve. This command should really only used in two
circumstances. If you're playing as a Liege, Warlord, or a highly paid
officer, I would use it to quickly make friends of your fellow officers, in
case you need to stage a coup, or to sway individual opinion on who should take
over if the Liege dies. Or, if you're playing as a Liege and you have no
subordinate generals (or very few), you can use the Gift command to make some
quick friends, which also helps to influence other officers joining your cause,
while at the same time saving a little AP for other uses.
LETTER
Letter is exactly what it says. You send a letter to the officer that you
select. Letter's primary use is as an "ice breaker" of sorts. If you're
meeting a general for the first time, and their Bond is 0, and they're in an
enemy city, they're a very good chance you'll be turned away at the gates if
you try to VISIT or send a GIFT to them. The only way you'll be able to get in
to see the officer is to send a few letters to catch their interest. Once
they're sufficiently interested, they'll say something like "maybe it would be
rude to turn them away" or something like "we should meet sometime" or they'll
reply to your letter and say "we should meet and talk" or something along the
line. In any event, you'll know. Then is your cue to send a GIFT or to make a
VISIT, whichever is more appropriate for your situation.
===================================================================
As you meet people, you will find that different people have different, special
abilities. There are 4 distinct ones: Doctor, Oracle, Critic, and Wealth.
These are all explained below. When you VISIT (not GIFT or LETTER) one of
these, they will use their special ability to benefit you. This is a random
occurence, so you may need to VISIT them more than once in order to get them to
use the ability.
(Sub Note: The officers below are from the Yellow Turbans scenario, the 1st
one, and are provided for example and name use purposes. To see all of the
generals with a particular ability, during gameplay, press L2+R2+Select, select
"Add Player Officer", and in the list, hold Square and at the top, pick
"Skill6", then let go of Square. This will show the 4 special abilities. Do a
sort by moving the cursor (with the control pad) over to the special ability
you want to sort by, and press L2. All of the ones that have the ability will
be near the top, and will have an "O" underneath the ability.)
DOCTOR
The DOCTOR ability is natural with a few generals, and can be bestowed using
the Medical Book of Hua Tuo. What it does is, if you visit a ruler that has
this ability, they may heal you if you're injured or sick. If you happen to
have this ability (i.e. you're one of the rulers that has it naturally, or you
have the book), you can visit people that are hurt or sick and heal them, or
when people visit you and they happen to be hurt or sick, you can heal them.
Some officers that have this ability are:
- Hua Tuo
- Yu Fan
ORACLE
The Oracle ability is rare, but nonetheless there. It serves a few purposes.
Its primary purpose is to be able to tell the longevity of an officer. If you
visit an officer with this ability, they may tell you of someone who is near
death - either by natural causes or by someone's blade. Or, they may tell you
your life span and/or extend it. If you happen to have this skill, then you
can extend the lives of others. Oracle, in conjunction with another ability
called Mystic, lets you use the Illusion skill in battle.
Some officers that have this ability are:
- Yu Ji
- Yu Fan
- Zhang Bao (of the Yellow Turbans, not Zhang Fei's son)
CRITIC
The Critic ability allows certain officers to critique other officers. This
results in an increase of fame, sometimes cash. When your officers talk about
a "reknowned critic", this is what they're talking about - an officer that has
this ability. There are quite a few critics in the game.
Some officers that have this ability are:
- Xu Shao
- Wang Can
- Xu Jing
- Kong Zhou
- Cui Yan
- Sima Hui
- Sima Lang
- Chen Qun
WEALTH
The Wealth ability is available to a selective few officers, and basically
serves 2 purposes. One, when an officer visits an officer with this ability,
the officer with the ability may give money to the visiting officer, wanting
nothing in return. Of course, you have to be careful, because if you try to
VISIT an officer that has this ability, and that officer just happens to be a
Prefect or Warlord, and they happen to offer you a position with their Liege
and you refuse, they could ban you from the castle. It happens. Two, the
officer that has Wealth gets extra money aside from their usual Wages, which is
always nice.
Some officers that have this ability are:
- Wang Kuang
- Mi Zhu
- Mi Fang
(Sub Note: To find out where any of these officers are, follow the steps above
in the previous subnote. Then, after you've sorted by the special ability
you're looking for, take it off of Skill6 and put it back to the original.
This should tell you the ruler and the city name.)
======================================================================
TRAINING
Another nice side effect of making good friends is the fact that you can then
train under that friend. So long as you've "broken the ice", so to speak, you
can train with them. But as always, it's better to train under someone with
100 Bond. If you're able to, make friends with a lot of the people that have
what you don't. For example, if your Intelligence isn't as high as you'd like
it to be, befriend such officers as Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi, Hua Tuo, Xun Yu, Jia
Xu, Guo Jia, Lu Su, Zhou Yu, etc. That way, you can train with them and
drastically increase your stats. They may even teach you one of their tactics,
but it doesn't happen often.
======================================================================
CHARM
Your CHARM rating affects how well you interact with the different people you
Bond with. Consequently, your CHARM Experience also goes up every time you
interact with someone. So if your Charm isn't where you'd like it to be, make
sure you do a lot of VISIT, GIFT, and/or LETTER.
======================================================================
*SOME THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND*
- It'll be harder for you to visit someone as an officer, because of the lower
AP. If you can get or you have the Zeal ability, it'll be much easier.
- Give money only when they have nothing special to offer and you want to get
the Bond maxed quick.
- If they have a special ability, chances are they won't use it for you after
the Bond hits 100, especially for Critic.
- Don't give money that you need for other things, such as weaponry and items.
Use VISIT if you need to increase the stat.
- Make sure that you 'break the ice' with LETTER first. Not doing so might be
a waste of precious AP points if you get turned away, so make sure you do so
with LETTER. It only costs 10 AP.
- Make sure that you are friendly with everyone in your city. If you ever have
to hold a coup, this is how you have allies. Also, it helps your performance
together in battles.
====================================================================
For a clean print version of this FAQ, visit
http://terralogic.tripod.com/KOEI/, and go to the Media Section. It will be
posted before 07/03/2002.
This guide is Copyright 2002 Digital Legacy Networks. This work may not be
copied, sold, distributed, or otherwise reproduced without the express written
consent of its owner, Marcus Dion. Any violation of this trust is punishable
up to the law in your area. Please don't plagarize. If you want a copy, you
can get a copy for yourself, but don't take credit.