Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX
General FAQ v1.6
March 30th, 2004
by: Video Z
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Plans
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Adding information on endings if I can recieve very accurate
information on them.
I'd also like to add challenge scenario pointers. So anyone
who feels confident in their challenge skills would be
welcome to help out.
Whatever is brought to my attention.
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Table of Contents
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1.) Territories/Provinces
2.) Ruler Ranks
3.) Officer Ranks
4.) Tactics
5.) Unit Formation
6.) Training, TP, and you
7.) City Commands
8.) Strategies and information
--Luring forces
--Effective use of officers
--Having a mallet
--Taking facilities
--Economic development
--Using Employ
--Playing defense
--Morale
--Assigning ranks
--Infinite TP trick
--Releasing prisoners
--Tribes
9.) Endings
10.) General FAQ
-Closing-Copyright-Blah-
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1.) Territories/Pronvinces
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Q: What significance is a territory?
A: To get anywhere as a powerful force in Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX you
will have to attain rank for your ruler. The first rank that you have to get
is Lt. Governer. You can get this initial rank by having conquered, and held,
an entire territory/province (each city in it) and at the end of the season
the Emperor will pay you a visit and bestow upon you the important rank you
have to get first.
Q: Are some territories better than others?
A: Most certainly for the purpose of getting rank. If you want to become
Lt. Governer fast you can take Si Li, Qing, or Jiao because they each have one
city. Jing is a horrible province because it's huge.
Q: Hey, I got the entire province but I'm not promoted, what gives?
A: You have to wait until the end of the season. At the end of the season
you will be paid a visit by the esteemed Emperor Xian (or at least his envoy)
and he will promote you.
**************
Quick List
**************
1) Bing
--Jin Yang
--Shang Dang
2) Ji
--Nan Pi
--Ping Yuan
--Ye
3) Jiao
--Jiao Zhi
4) Jing
--Chang Sha
--Gui Yang
--Jiang Ling
--Jiang Xia
--Ling Ling
--Wan
--Wu Ling
--Xi Cheng
--Xiang Yiang
--Xin Ye
5) Liang
--Wu Wei
--Xi Ping
6) Qing
--Bei Hai
7) Si Li
--Luo Yang
8) Yan
--Chen Liu
--Pu Yang
9) Yang
--Chai Sang
--Hui Ji
--Lu Jiang
--Mo Ling
--Shou Chun
--Wu
10) Yi
--Cheng Du
--Han Zhong
--Jian Ning
--Jiang Zhou
--Yong An
--Yun Nan
--Zi Tong
11) Yong
--An Ding
--Chang An
--Tian Shui
12) You
--Bei Ping
--Ji
--Xiang Ping
13) Yu
--Ru Nan
--Xu Chang
14) Xu
--Xia Pi
--Xiao Pei
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2.) Ruler Ranks
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To get the first rank, which you must get before any others, you
need to have a whole province under your control for a season.
Granted ranks are what you will be able to assign subordinates.
You keep the ability to use all previous ranks on promotion.
Rank: Lt. Governor
Repute: 0
Granted Ranks: Lv. 7 Minister x 4
Lv. 7 General x 4
Rank: Governor
Repute: 200
Granted Ranks: Lv. 6 Minister x 4
Lv. 6 General x 4
Rank: Regent
Repute: 300
Granted Ranks: Lv. 5 Minster x 4
Lv. 5 General x 4
Rank: Grand General
Repute: 500
Granted Ranks: Lv. 4 Minister x 4
Lv. 4 General x 4
Rank: Chancellor
Repute: 600
Granted Ranks: Lv. 3 Minister x 4
Lv. 3 General x 4
Rank: Duke
Repute: 800
Granted Ranks: Lv. 2 Minister x 4
Lv. 2 General x 4
Rank: King
Repute: 900
Granted Ranks: Lv. 1 Minister x 4
Lv. 1 General x 4
Rank: Emperor
Repute: 1000
Granted Ranks: Prime Minister
Minister of Exterior
Grand Commander
Supreme Commander
Foreign Minister
Knight General
Vice General
Minister of Interior
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3.) Officer Ranks
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Stipend is the officer salary paid every 10 days
Rank Troops Stipend Pol/Int adjust
-------- ------ ------- --------------
Lv. 8 General 15,000 4
Lv. 8 Minister 10,000 4 +1
Lv. 7 General 20,000 8
Lv. 7 Minister 10,000 8 +2
Lv. 6 General 25,000 12
Lv. 6 Minister 10,000 12 +2
Lv. 5 General 30,000 16
Lv. 5 Minister 10,000 16 +2
Lv. 4 General 35,000 20
Lv. 4 Minister 10,000 20 +3
Lv. 3 General 40,000 24
Lv. 3 Minister 10,000 24 +3
Lv. 2 General 45,000 28
Lv. 2 Minister 10,000 28 +4
Lv. 1 General 50,000 32
Lv. 1 Minister 10,000 32 +4
Prime Minister 55,000 36 +5 (to all)
Minister of Ext 55,000 36 +5
Grand Commander 55,000 36
Supreme Command 55,000 36
Foreign Minist 55,000 36 +5
Knight General 55,000 36
Vice General 55,000 36
Minister of Int 55,000 36 +5
Increasing an officer's rank will make him more loyal
Decreasing obviously has the opposite effect
Promote automatically increases the rank of officers who have
existing ranks
Individual lets you do it yourself
Vacancies fill in what isn't used for you
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4.) Tactics
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High exp helps tactics to succeed.
Compatibility helps tactics chain together for higher damage.
******
Type: Foot
Will Trigger On Facility?: No
Tactics: Strike
Assault
Melee
Notes: Something I don't use too often unless I happen to be Liu Bei.
Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are incredible when paired with melee tactics. In
my opinion this isn't too useful when compared to others. It's not bad,
and will certainly save your life if you have experienced officers in
the category, but I'd use it only if you had no other avenue.
Palleon says: Wu has a lot of good foot tactic officers, Lu Meng, Sun Jian,
Zhou Yu, etc. Almost none of them are proficient with horse tactics, so if
you play Wu, you will get a lot of use out of the lure formation.
******
Type: Horse
Will Trigger On Facility?: No
Tactics: Sortie
Charge
Onslaught
Notes: Highly useful. Why? Mallet formation. Put a few powerful
officers in this formation, add in onslaught, and you have a death
machine that is nearly unstoppable. Onslaught is also the highest
damaging tactic of the four 'attack' tactics (Foot/Horse/Horsebow/bow).
******
Type: Horse Bow
Will Trigger on Facility?: Yes
Tactics: Mounted
Running
Flying
Notes: Its ability to attack facilities is a saving grace, otherwise not a
jaw dropper. I do; however, suppose you could master this branch to not
be countered as not many generals have that great of exp in this category.
In a wedge formation this can be put to good use as a unit with two purposes.
Cover and attack. Tactics that trigger on facilities can win wars quickly.
******
Type: Bow
Will Trigger on Facility?: You know it, baby.
Tactics: Volley
Barrage
Arrowstorm
Notes: The king of assisted sentry-siege tactics. This thing will fire
out of and into facilities. It fires from tower and wing formations with
ease. Arrowstorm will also trigger from gates even if you don't have it!
It should be noted that bow tactics will only trigger from those built
facilities that specifically say it allows volley or barrage use.
******
Type: Navy
Tactics: Ramship
Arrowship
Warship
Notes: Ok, so it's very limited where you can use it, and you won't
be taking cities with it, but if your officers have insane Navy exp (Wu
comes to mind) you can certainly be a terror on the high seas, holding
ports with very little effort. A chained warship Steel Ram is certainly
something to behold :)
******
Types: Siege
Tactics: Tower
Ram
Catapault
Elephants
Notes: Tower and Ram should be your main tactics when you want to take
a city. They should be accompanied as well, personally I like Wing units
to be with my babies. Tower with several arrowstorms is something that
will certainly see a city brought to its last lags within a few days.
Also, don't be afraid to use Rams, if you take a city defense to 0 you
will automatically gain about 120 defense to that city and all its troops.
******
Type: Protect
Tactics: Bargain
Golems
Dismantle
Shield
Notes: To be honest, I've never even used Golems or Dismantle. However,
bargain is quite an asset considering its exceptionally low cost to learn
and it is a huge money saver. They even stack! So if you send several
officers in a unit with bargain to build, you can drop the price of any
structure heavily. 5 officers with bargain can make a 2000 gold fort
become a 571 gold fort. And it's a passive tactic, so you don't have to
'use' it. Shield is also -very- awesome. It makes
you immune to confuse, mislead, and disrupt.
******
Type: Scheme
Tactics: Confuse
Trap
Cajole
Illusion
Notes: A branch I often feel is overlooked. Trap does some pretty heavy
damage to units, and can be used on water, confuse is just plain ownage,
and illusion is really good as it is a chance of confusion + damage.
Cajole.. eh.. it's just overshadowed by the other -- better -- tactics.
It's really good when it works, though, because it makes the enemy
soldiers defect which you can more or less think of as causing them damage
and healing you at the same time. Confuse can also be used in a ship.
******
Type: Ploy
Tactics: Taunt
Rally
Magic
Heal
Notes: Taunt will lower enemy morale, but not nearly as much as if
you won a duel. Rally can give you a hefty morale bonus at the times
when you'll most need it but I can't seem to find a way to trigger
it as often as I'd like. Magic is an area effect attack that does
ok damage with a nice side effect of morale dropping. Heal can give
a rather large recharge to your wounded soldiers giving back ~4500
or so of them. All in all, I'm always more concerned with having
something else like a scheme, so my experience mainly comes from
these being used on me. Rally and Heal can be used on ships.
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5.) Unit Formation
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Makes all the difference in effectiveness of your unit.
******
Formation - Cross
Unit: 15
Sentry: 10
Walls: 10
Defense: 10
Move: 12
"Foot tactics trigger easily"
Notes: I'm not much a fan of the infantry tactics. Someone
should send some information in. Hint hint. Again, if you have
people such as Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, you can put this formation to use.
Wu officers apparently have good foot exp as well.
******
Formation - Lure
Unit: 12
Sentry: 10
Walls: 10
Defense: 12
Move: 10
"Foot tactics trigger easily
Easier to capture enemy officers"
Notes: A formation I've used maybe twice. I don't favor the
capturing officers in this fashion. It's also slow, so if you're using
it to hunt down a unit, he's probably going to get away if you use this.
I don't use foot tactics either (obvious enough yet?).
******
Formation - Wedge
Unit: 13
Sentry: 10
Walls: 10
Defense: 12
Move: 16
"Horse and Horse Bow tactics trigger easily
Allied tactics trigger easily"
Notes: My second favorite formation. Having horse tactics
trigger often, high movement, good unit damage, chaining occurs
often, good defense and it is all in one neat little package.
Sign me up, man. This can be sent with horsebow tactics as well
which can crush forces with efficiency, and can then join sieges
because horsebow can trigger on sentries! Good stuff.
******
Formation - Mallet
Unit: 15
Sentry: 8
Walls: 10
Defense: 9
Move: 14
"Horse tactics trigger easily
Duels trigger easily"
Notes: My personal favorite. I love this damn thing. This
particular tactic is very blitzkrieg style with its 9 defense.
Why would I use it? Extreme damage output. Putting high WAR
officers with horse tactics will make you unstoppable because
you will be lowering morale of all enemies, and pounding them
into the ground.
******
Formation - Wing
Unit: 11
Sentry: 15
Walls: 10
Defense: 11
Move: 10
"Bow tactics trigger easily"
Notes: A great support to towers. Fires off bows good and
has good built in sentry damage. Stable alone if you're
trying to take a city without siege.
******
Formation - Sniper
Unit: 12
Sentry: 12
Walls: 10
Defense: 12
Move: 10
"Bow and Horse Bow tactics trigger easily
Sniping triggers easily"
Notes: Never used it. Having the ability to snipe officers
doesn't feel worth the pretty average stats of this formation.
If you're wondering what snipe does, it is like an instant
wounding of an enemy officer.
Palleon says: Wounding officers gives you a big advantage in
taking a city, if you get the commander, you will do even more
damage to the troops inside. Also Palleon seems to like
taking snipers in place of towers and using horsebow in this
formation.
******
Formation - Quick
Unit: 9
Sentry: 9
Walls: 10
Defense: 7
Move: 20
Notes: As its name suggests, its fast. I don't use this a
great deal either. I prefer transport. This will find a
good use when you really need the officer to make it to the
desired location along with his troops, that's all.
GeneralGuan officers this advice: I use it to pick off retreating
units from other battles. Another use for quick is if you engage a unit
(you're defending) with a slow formation (lure, cross) and the attacker
was in something fast like wedge, you can send out a unit in quick
formation from the city to catch up with him if he retreats before his
unit is destroyed, or from another city that's close by. Pulling back
and changing formations will waste a lot of time.
******
Formation - Guard
Unit: 9
Sentry: 10
Walls: 10
Defense: 15
Move: 8
"Low chance of confusion
survival rate increases."
Notes: I have no idea. I've never even considered it.
GeneralGuan offers this advice: Guard is good for defending
(its slower than siege). You would use this when you are using all
advisor type officers (that way nobody has to be in front to be at
risk for a duel)
******
Formation - Tower
Unit: 10
Sentry: 40
Walls: 10
Defense: 7
Move: 9
Notes: Pure ownage against sentries. Bow tactics work
very well in this too. Use it on cities with low numbers
of troops inside. GIVE IT AN ESCORT UNIT TOO.
******
Formation - Ram
Unit: 10
Sentry: 10
Walls: 40
Defense: 8
Move: 9
Notes: Opposite of tower, except use it on cities with
low defense, and no easy to trigger bows. This puppy
will need you to escort it as well.
*****
Formation - Catapault
Unit: 15
Sentry: 20
Walls: 20
Defense: You're already dead.
Move: 9
Notes: Pathetic defense. The only time this even seemed
within the remote vicinity of appealing was sieging the tribes
and I needed a little more firepower. To get a catapault
to not try and charge the enemy and actually fire from range
you will need a calm officer.
*****
Formation - Elephant
Unit: 20
Sentry: 10
Walls: 30
Defense: 12
Move: 9
Notes: Hard to get, expensive, and will be destroyed by foot
tactics, yet, it actually isn't so bad. It's a siege formation
that will defend itself. Not too bad.. if you have it.
*****
Formation - Ship
Unit: 10
Sentry: 10
Walls: 10
Defense: 10
Move: 12
Special Tactic: Arrowrain
Notes: Can use the arrowrain tactic, but you likely won't be
seeing it often because if you're in this ship I'm not so
sure that you even have good navy exp. I'd suggest using it
for transportation only if you have people with higher exp.
******
Formation - Ramship
Unit: 15
Sentry: 10
Walls: 30
Defense: 9
Move: 13
Special Tactic: Wood Ram
Notes: A few of these will acquire you any port you set your
heart on. Ports have very low defense as it is, so as long
as you have officers who will listen to you when you tell them
to JUST attack the port you'll win the fight quickly. Though,
in truth, it's pretty damn good in unit to unit combat too.
******
Formation - Arrowship
Unit: 13
Sentry: 10
Walls: 10
Defense: 12
Move: 10
Special Tactic: Arrowgale
Notes: Its arrowgale tactic will fire into cities, which would
be real nice if you could actually attack a city, but you can't.
Best you can do is hope you do a drive-by on them. I generally
prefer the Ramship to this, it's better at taking ports, faster
and with more unit damage.
******
Formation - Warship
Unit: 15
Sentry: 20
Walls: 20
Defense: 12
Move: 11
Special Tactic: Steel Ram and Arrowgale
Notes: Really really high stats. Not really a jack of all trades
though, because it is better than Ramship at unit combat. Steel
Ram is something you don't ever want to get hit by, much less get
chained on. If I'm taking a port with lots of troops I try not to
use this too much, because it'll arrowgale into the port killing
all my would-be soldiers. You may like it though, if you don't
really care about taking enemy soldiers as your own.
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6.) Training, TP, and you
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An officer must gain experience before he will be able to train;
experience can be gained through combat and drilling.
Leadership experience will increase by fighting battles in general,
repairing, drafting, and using the Rescue plot.
War experience will increase by fighting duels, by triggering foot,
horsebow, horse, bow, and navy tactics, using drill, raze, and raid.
Intelligence experience will increase by using ploys and schemes,
as well as patrolling, alienating, mislead, disrupt, and rescue.
Politics experience will increase when you use trade, farm, buy,
sell, search, employ, and any Diplomacy command.
Facilities you take, with the exception of man-made facilities, will
earn you TP. Causing economic damage to a city when you take it
will lower the amount of TP you gain when it falls. Try to keep
your sieges short and deadly. A long drawn out battle will cause
heavy damage to trade, trust, and farming, which isn't just bad for
you because now you have a crappy destroyed city, but you also didn't
get much TP for it.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Palleon offers this tip: As for TP, if you take a city and do not get max TP
from it (you can see on the city information), repairing the city will
RAISE your TP, up to the cities maximum. If you take a city with 200/800
defense, you'll get say 50/150 TP.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Anubis offers this tip: I would like to correct that if you take a city and
do not receive full TP for it, you DO NOT get the TP as you repair the city.
I know this for a fact as I've taken a city and gotten 0 TP for it and had
0 TP to begin with (after having used it all), and I didn't get any TP until
I started using tactics and took a different city.
Also, I have taken all five barbarian cities in one game and gotten less
than 100 TP each time due to demolishing the walls on each, and although all
five eventually made it back up to 500, I never ever gained those TP.
Basically, when you take a city, you gain its current value in TP, and if you
lose a city, you lose its current value in TP. One nasty trick you can do,
though, is force an enemy to siege you long enough to drop city TP to 0, wait
for it to be restored, lure their units out, and take it back with Towers; you
then gain over 100 TP most of the time because you lose none and gain some upon
taking the city back. The only way to get close to full TP for barbarian cities
is to lose it to one of the other rulers after using all your TP and then taking
it back, gaining the TP back again.
I should add that what I've said here is for the PS2 version. It may be different
in the PC version. At any rate, in the PC version, you don't get the TP as you
repair the city. There are other strange things you do get TP for.
First off, I think you gain TP as you improve it domestically and/or whenever you
get a "super" increase when developing. I've seen this because I can start as
Nan Man with 10 TP (and the city starts with full TP), and without ever fighting
once, I'll have over 20 TP in a few turns. You also gain TP for using tactics and
even more for combos. I think it's 1 for each person who uses a tactic, meaning
an "Ultra" combo with 5 people nets 5 TP. Other than that, the single best way to
gain TP is to recruit city commanders, as you get a bonus for taking the city
from another ruler and recruiting and getting a commander and getting the city
at the same time. I think I've gotten 180 from a 150 city before doing that.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
TP is then used to teach officers abilities and tactics. When you
teach an officer a tactic, it can be as cheap as 8 TP for confuse
and as expensive as 120 for Onslaught or any third tier tactic. TP
can also be spent to raise an ability point of an officer by 1 to a
maximum of 100. To raise an ability point by 1 it costs 10 TP.
You can have up to 1000 TP at which point it won't increase. You
will also lose TP for losing cities, gates, etc. So spend your TP
quickly and wisely.
Charms will triple the amount of ability and tactic exp gained.
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7.) City Commands
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Facility
All facility actions can be performed by a maximum of 5 officers
per 10 days.
Patrol: Increases trust and repute. Trust will increase population
which will also increase your draft pool size. 50 gold per officer
who you send to patrol. Intelligence based.
Trade: Increases trade. Trade will raise the monetary income of
the city. Politics based. 50 gold per officer.
Farm: Increases your harvest. Harvest happens in July, and ONLY
in July. 50 gold per officer. Politics based.
Repair: Increases defense. 50 gold per officer. Leadership based.
Draft: Increases army size. Leadership based.
Drill: Increases morale of army. War based.
Buy: Buys food if merchant is in the area. Politics based.
Sell: Sell food to a merchant. Politics based.
****************************************
Military
March: Order troops to move, or attack, your chosen destination
Build: Order officer to build a structure. Lit up areas show
where building a structure is possible. Bargain will reduce
the cost of all structures.
Transport: Send troops at high speed to another location. The
officer in charge of the unit returns to where he was originally
after successful delivery.
****************************************
Personnel
Call: Choose an officer from another location to move to this one
Move: Choose an officer at this location to move to another one
Search: Selected officer searches target. Will yield results such
as finding another officer, gold, items, people in need. Something
for your officers to do when you don't have anything else.
Employ: Attempt to enlist another officer. Something to get real
familiar with. (see - "Using Employ")
****************************************
Plots
Alienate: Lowers loyalty of an opposing officer. Very hard to do
against a smart officer. If you see you're successful against
someone with 100 loyalty, and they dont' drop, don't be at all
discouraged. 100 loyalty is a pain to get out of 100, and you can
probably be sure the ruler is rewarding him if he's really a great
officer too.
Raze: A war based plot that lowers defense by setting the target
ablaze. Can be wounded if you fail. Countered by a commander
with high leadership.
Raid: Steals gold from a facility. You can free prisoners of
yours as well. War based. Countered by a commander with high
leadership. Can be wounded if you fail.
Rumor: Countered by intellingence. Lowers the relations of two
forces other than your own. Useful for instigating wars, and
getting people off your back.
Mislead: Send a unit back to its main base with misinformation.
This can be used to buy plenty of time to prepare for an attack.
Countered by intelligence and shield.
Disrupt: Makes the enemy lose formation and basically renders them
helpless. Disrupt removes the use of tactics from the disrupted unit,
and they can't receive new orders. Countered by leadership and shield.
Great to use anytime.
Rally: Raise morale, and give the excited condition to your own
unit. If the excited condition wears off, you will be hit with
a huge morale drop. Use with caution.
Rescue: Raise one of your own units by 3000 troops. The facility
that you use this from must have 3000 troops. Very good to use
on the field.
****************************************
Diplomacy
Gift: Send another force a gift to raise relations. You can send
food or gold. Politics based. If the gift is not accepted you will
have worsened relations. Don't use carelessly.
Request: Ask ruler to launch an attack at the desired location.
Will have better success if allied with the forces that you are
asking for aid. Use when in need of support.
Exchange: Politics based act that will ask to release a prisoner in
turn for a prisoner of their own.
Warn: Politics based act that demands the surrender of an opposing
force. Depends on repute as well. Difficult to get to work, but
worth it if you can. You receive all remaining territory of the force
as well as everyone employed by him.
****************************************
Commands
District - Set a viceroy to rule a city in your stead. Used when
you just can't be hassled to worry about cities not even at war.
Warlord - Set your advisor. High intelligence is extremely important
in the accuracy of his remarks.
Rank - Promote or demote officers.
Reward - Spend 100 gold to raise the loyalty of 1 general. Additional
100 gold can be spent to raise loyalty of multiple officers.
Award - Give an item to a general for a healthy stat and loyalty boost
Seize - Take an item from a prisoner or general. They will have
a grudge against you and a loyalty drop.
Execute - Send a prisoner to the axe. HANG HIS BODY ON THE FOUR
CORNERS OF YOUR EMPIRE. SET A DAMN EXAMPLE... er..
Dismiss - Get rid of Liu Chan, Liu Zhang, Cao Xun or any other ignorant
fool who thinks he can serve under you.
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8.) Strategies and information
------------------------------------------------
*************
Luring forces
*************
If you've ever advanced on a facility and thought to yourself "Man, only
if they'd attack me first it'd be easier." then this tactic is for you.
This is a strategy that has always worked for me. Also some opponents seem
smarter than others, so this may not work on everyone, but it's worked on
Ma Teng, Zhang Jiao, Yan Baihu, Liu Zhang, and Yuan Shao.
When advancing on a heavily defended city, you need to have 3 facilities in
fairly close range. A good example of what will work is if the enemy has
Pu Yang, and you have Guandu + Chen Liu or Hulao.
Let's say for instance there are 70,000 men in Pu Yang, and you only have
100,000 and don't want to take potentially heavy losses, or even face
reinforcements and lose. Use Hulao (or Chen Liu) as bait. Consolidate most of
your forces in Guandu, leaving maybe 10,000 at the other facilities. More than
likely the computer will launch an assault on your "opening" which is right by
your main force. You can easily intercept and wipe them out now since they'll be
in some kind of siege formation.
I'm sure you see the point. Let the AI see a breach in your defense, and they'll
try and capitalize on it if they can.. but the trick is to have a nearby
facility they have to pass by to ambush them with. Lowers sentries of
defenders drastically.
*************************
Effective use of officers
*************************
Never put a general in a unit "just because". It's a waste of resources. You
need to always have a reason for putting an officer in a unit. Try to keep
officers together who were historically compatible with one another, and that
also have similar tactics.
Guan Yu + Zhang Fei
Zhang Liao + Lu Bu + Gao Shun
Yu Jin + Yue Jin
Sun Ce + Zhou Yu + Sun Quan
Lu Meng + Zhou Tai + Gan Ning
Liu Pi + Zhou Cang
There are a few examples of generals whom get along well and will be effective
in the same unit. Generally people who belong historically to the same faction
will have a match within the faction, and generally good compatibility with
everyone who also naturally belongs to the faction.
Also, father/son/brother relationships automatically make for great compatibility
so use that information well.
Don't spread out what tactics you have. Consolidate. Don't put random generals
and give them all tactics such as volley, sortie, shield, onslaught. Put generals
who at least have the same tactics so they can chain together for incredible
damage.
Also, in the early game, don't have an officer do nothing. You can always let
a general search a city. Even one with low politics has a chance of doing
something helpful such as raising repute by beating on some thugs.
********************
Having a mallet unit
********************
Actually, having a unit in the formation of mallet isn't going to win the war alone.
But it is probably the best support unit I can think of. Putting only generals
with high war, and horse tactics will cause many duels and damage. Duels will
crush the opposing forces morale, then allow you to curb stomp them accordingly.
Putting a high intelligence general with confuse really makes this shine.
*****************
Taking facilities
*****************
The only way you're going to unify China is by taking cities of the other forces.
Use siege formations. You will not get anywhere fast without using any type of
siege. In fact, if you do manage it, you're going to take heavy losses and
will not be able to continue war very well.
The most favorable thing I do is take two tower units, one wing unit, and one
mallet unit. Put anyone with bow tactics in the tower unit and wing unit, and
your absolute strongest generals in the mallet - with horse tactcis if you are
able. Make sure your two non-siege units are set to attack on site. So they
will provide cover to the towers. Adding in confuse and shield tactics to
the mix will increase overall effectiveness.
This is by far not the only thing you can do. Maybe even more effective if you
have the officer base to do it is to use wedge unit of horsebow tactics instead
of wing. Your lower sentry damage is offset by the fact that you can use
the tactics on the facility itself, and you're still capable cover.
If you're having trouble facing massive reinforcements you're going to have to
get in close with a facility of your own. Building one near the enemy causes
them to come out, and try to counter you, at which point you can launch a
counter attack when your facility finishes. Now they have lessened defenders,
and you're closer to your destination (hopefully). If you cause a city to
fall before reinforcements arrive they will generally retreat.
Ports fall easily to rams due to their lack of significant defense.
Confuse will trigger on facilities -- very useful.
If there's a whole ton of troops in a single city, and you build a
facility and counter the first wave. They'll probably keep trying to remove
you from their territory as time goes on. It's one way to wear them down.
If you're feeling slightly more underhanded you can build a facility or take
a port. When the AI decides to try and evict you don't try and intercept.
Instead wait for the defense of the facility (ports and camps are really low)
to hit a low value. The lowest possible you can get without losing it.
Then bail. Leave the facility. Then attack it yourself. You should get
it back soon, along with all enemy troops that were occupying it.
It's rather cheap but it can be a lifesaver. It won't work if the enemy
brings a tower unit though. You'll take too many losses in troops.
********************
Economic Development
********************
First and foremost, it's really a waste to attempt to max farm and trade
from the start of the game. You don't really see the benefit in the short
game, and by the time you would see a benefit, you probably have so many
cities that you're so rich you can't spend it all. The closer a city gets
to reaching peak value in a stat, the slower it goes up, so you start
spending way more money than you're getting back (for about a year).
A good idea is to get the trade/farm within about 100 of maximum and stop.
I personally believe this will get you the best return for what you put in.
Trust is another story. I like to get trust as high as absoultely possible.
It will increase draft pool and repute. Two highly important things for war.
You can't wage war effectively without an army and generals with high ranks,
after all.
************
Using Employ
************
If you want to be effective, you gotta have talent. Talent isn't always
easy to come by, especially in later scenarios. It really makes it loads
easier to recruit people whom you are compatibile with. Hell. Sometimes
they'll even come knocking on your door. High politics isn't always
going to get you whoever you want. Listen to your warlords advice on
who you send. Try everybody and see if your warlord gives you a nice
and positive response.
Having high repute, especially the highest in the game, can be an
unbelievable asset in recruiting anyone. Officers flock towards those who
are famous throughout the land.
Recruiting prisoners will take some time if they have high loyalty,
which will drop over time. Also they have a high chance of escaping
at pretty much any time. As for my experience goes, don't try and
recruit children of a ruler. I haven't been succesful with it. I'm
not entirely convinced that you will be either.
Killing a ruler will often make everyone under him nearly unrecruitable.
You should be cautious like that. Executing has the wonderful effect of
pretty much shattering loyalty, but the officers under the ruler seem
to develop this hidden 'grudge' against you that you can't see. The same
thing if an officer leaves your force or defects, or if you steal an
item from a prisoner. These all seem to develop a sort of hidden factor
of hate. Over time this goes down, so all is not lost forever.
Also, recruit anyone even mediocre EVEN IF YOU DON'T WANT THEM. It
won't penalize you to have them, and it stops the enemy from getting
them.
***************
Playing defense
***************
Speaking in general, it's usually much smarter to play defense and wait
for your enemy to exhaust himself before you make your move. If only
for the simple fact that he won't have as many troops to defend himself
now.
The AI will not attack facilities way stronger than its own. If you want
to have forces at the ready, but they have tons too, use my luring
forces strategy to your advantage.
Another way to lure enemies is to build a facility in their range. It
seems that nothing will piss them off more than building a camp near
their city.
AI -will- ignore the possibility of reinforcements arriving to aid you.
As logic as it may sound, don't use guard to defend. You want to wipe
out all opposing forces, not get into a slap fight that lasts 2 months.
So use your strongest tactics and formations.
DON'T LEAVE A FLANK EXPOSED -- EVEN TO AN ALLY. Allies aren't always
going to be allies. Enemies go after weak facilities and will even
march for months to get to flanks that are available. You can remove
all forces from a city that has no hope of being attacked with no
worry, but at least leave a capable defense force on all front lines.
******
Morale
******
A unit with low morale is a dead unit. This goes for you and the
other forces in the game. If you lose a duel, rally quickly or
pull that unit out of there. They're deadweight now. Duels are
important because they will raise your morale, and cripple the unit
who lost. Morale drains over time, but drains slowly for people
who have an officer with high leadership. You -cannot- offset the
low morale of your troops with more troops. You'd have to have at
least 6 times their number to beat them at 20 morale versus 100.
And even then I'd be awful surprised.
Palleon offers this rough estimate:
80+ - Above average chance of triggering tactics
60-79 - average chance of triggering tactics
Sub 60 - little to no chance of triggering tactics.
The lower it goes, the less tactics trigger, the less damage you
will do in general, and the more damage you will take.
Morale isn't the only thing that factors into when and how often
a tactic will trigger. But it is an important one.
MORALE AT 100 IS NECESSARY TO WAGE WAR
***************
Assigning ranks
***************
The ranks your officers are given affect many things throughout the
course of the game. Most importantly it determines who becomes the
commanding officer in a unit, city, port, gate, or man-made structure.
Trust me. It's not an arbitrary function that was thrown into the
game with no real purpose. When determining if a unit or facility
can resist an attack like mislead, disrupt, raze, or raid the stats of
your commanding officer and ONLY the commanding officer are counted.
Leadership also doesn't stack when determining the morale drain or
general combat effectiveness of your army. Only the commander counts.
General ranks take priority over Minister ranks when determining the
commander of anything. For example, a level 8 general will be a
commander before a level 7 minister would be. I imagine it's like
this because people who you'd typically give general ranks in the
first place would have much higher leadership than a politician.
Your ruler is always the commander of anything he takes part in.
Minister ranks you don't need to be so careful about. The thing
they help the most is high ranking ministers get a nice intelligence
and politics boost, so naturally you'll want your warlord to have
the highest available Minister rank.
So, with these things in mind, be as wise as you can when handing
out promotions. It could hamper you more than help you to have
certain people wielding the rank of Supreme Commander.
*****************
Infinite TP trick
*****************
TopperCop offers this trick:
Infinite TP trick (for 2P or against a tribe):
Build a few forts or hold a few ports between your cities and a tribe
(or a second player force) at maximum defense. If its a tribe you need
to make them hostile (fastest way is to repeatedly make gifts of like
1 gold or 1 food, which they will reject). The point is to make them
attack you frequently. As they march towards you, use up all your TP.
When they are within 1 turn of reaching your facility, have the officer
march out of the target facility with all troops. In the next turn the
tribe will take over the facility and retreat. Now have the officer march
right back into the facility and you'll get the full TP worth of that
facility, as there's no fighting the defense of the facility will remain
at maximum during the takeovers. Use up this TP before the next wave
arrives. If you can get the tribe (or the second player) to attack a fort
and at least one other facility, the TP you get from recovering them both
will easily allow you to learn tactics like Melee or Onslaught if they can
be learned. Repeat this as much as you want to build up your officers.
The easiest to do this is against Shanyue or Nanman, as there's plenty of
time for them to march before they reach you. On the other hand, you can do
this far more often (and earn TP quicker) against Qiang or Wuwan if you get
the timing down. In my experience it's most difficult to use against Wo.
*******************
Releasing prisoners
*******************
If you so chose to return a prisoner to their force, and not try to
recruit them into your own, there's a few things you should take into
account.
Asking for gold for an officer is a waste. You can never get that much
and you can't put a price on the repute you get for no demands.
Releasing with no demands will raise repute. You can get quite an amount
like this if you keep releasing one after another. You can generally make
about 4 or 5 repute per prisoner. I'm fairly sure the more valuable the
officer the more repute you get for the release.
Also, items. You can ask for items from the opposing ruler. This will
only work with valuable officers. If you try and get the Seven Star
Sword because you captured Sun Lang, Huang Hao, or any other completly
useless officer -- you're going to get laughed at. You'll have to be
holding Guan Yu hostage for something like that.
It's really up to you if something like that is worth it. Do you let
the dangerous general back into his liege's service? Or do you strip
the opposition of a valued item and claim it for your own? Both have
advantages, both have disadvantages. It really depends on the
situation that you are in. I can't tell you which is better.
******
Tribes
******
The most important thing to remember about tribes is that they are
superhuman. Not only do they start with immense numbers of men, but
they'll continue growing (albeit at a slow pace because they never
raise trust) for the remainder of the game. Tribes will still go
to war with you if you're trusted, and you cannot recruit their
officers away from them.
Tribes march in the "---" formation which more than likey has a stat
of 20 for everything, greater chance of allied tactic for everything,
and triggers everything quickly. While I can't prove that, just watch how
fast the tribe moves, how little damage they take, and how unbelievably
frequent tactics go off.
Well, as many people wonder, how do you beat such a monstrosity? Well,
you don't. Not unless you're already some kind of superpower yourself.
The trick is to not fight the officers in their formation, and just send
everything you have and more at their city.
An easy way to accomplish this is gather in a bordering city. I'm
just going to use the Nan Man as an example to take down. Put all
you can muster in Jian Ning (Hopefully at least 140,000 men) while at
the same time having about 25,000 in Yun Nan. Send about 12,000 men
to build a decent defense structure at Yongchang which is slightly to
the southwest of Yun Nan. This should piss the Nan Man off if you're
neutral, and they'll declare war and send all 5 officers to attack
Yongchang, Yun Nan, or both. After they do this send absolutely every
last man from Jian Ning in a Ram or Catapault formation. Pray that
the structures that are being used as bait hold out long enough for
you to take down the city. Send units that are hopefully above 20,000
men too.. because a city with 300,000 sentries is going to sting -- bad.
This strategy can be applied to almost anywhere. Building a facility
is what is going to make them angry and come after you, and without
officers to defend the city you won't have the problem of them coming
to intercept, or the problem of your officers disobeying orders and
ignoring the city to fight the units themselves. Two rams and two
catapaults can level the city in under a month. Hope that helps.
------------------------------------------------
9.) Endings
------------------------------------------------
What I know about endings is very guess and check and is hardly all
that informative. What I can do is tell you a few things that might help
along your way.
Wu, to me, is the absolute easiest to accomplish great ending results. No
you don't have to be Wu, just have Wu officers. (The Sun familiy is Wu)
The reason is you need good relations, great navy experience, and on top of
that great protect experience. The Wu dynasty excels at navy tactics. Almost
all of them are gods on the sea. Zhou Yu and Sun Quan have good protect exp
or can be trained to have good protect exp.
Zhou Yu as your minister, Xu Sheng And Lu Meng as your war and leadership
generals (pump them up with items if possible), and Sun Quan as your heir
will be a wonderful quartet to rule your kingdom after your untimely death.
You can mix and match as long as you can get about 99 or above of the stat
that is required for the position. Just make sure you use Wu officers, and
if you have any knowledge on history make sure that the heir and the prime
minster weren't bitter enemies.
The things that the soldiers, children, and old men tell you throughout the
course of the game -- such as to develop Yi, Jing, Liang, or whatever province
-- or to subdue Shan Yue or Nan Man -- is a requirement. You will not get
the best ending if you do not meet those goals.
I hope Huang Ding doesn't mind too much, but he said this on the GameFAQs
forums.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"In order to get the best ending you must do the following:
1. Beat 4 tribes
2. Found Wo (Japan) and beat it
3. Developed all the cities in the South to their maximum
4. Choose the correct Ministers and Heir. For the expansion ending, I chose:
Zhou Yu as Prime Minister
Lu Meng as War Minister
Xu Sheng as Foreign Minister
Sun Quan as Heir.
NOTE: Before winning the game, you must train Zhou Yu, Lu Meng, and Xu Sheng.
Make them learn as many tactics as possible. Also, give Zhou Yu the Sword that
teaches Illusion (obtained from Wo); give Lu Meng the Whip that teaches
Elephant (obtained from Nanman); you can give any +10 War item to Xu Sheng.
The best development ending contains:
1. Emperor successfully rebuilt the Great Wall.
2. Cities flourished
3. Defeated the Xian Bei from invading.
4. Birth of the culture of [your country].
HINT:
Prime Minister: Zhuge Liang
War Minister & Foreign Minister: Any one with high Lds & War
Heir: Liu Bei"
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
It's good advice that pretty much covers it all.
------------------------------------------------
10.) General FAQ
------------------------------------------------
Q: Is it better to have one large unit of 30,000, or three small
units of 10,000?
A: I think the great Genghis Khan pointed out that you can be far
more effective in small groups than in large ones, the same will
hold true here. Troops don't really affect damage output of tactics
so the more the merrier. Think of your soldiers as HP more than anything
else. Don't get overzealous though, units try not to occupy the same
space -- So the phrase "cluster f***" might take on a new meaning.
Q: My prisoners keep escaping! Help!
A: To be honest, it's hard to determine what helps you keep a prisoner
captive. Even with max defense they're going to get out, just with
less apparent frequency. The best you can do is repair. Sorry.
Q: I was on trusted, and I still got attacked, what gives?
A: Well, then it must either have been a tribe or that prick Cao Cao.
Tribes will only attack you less if you're trusted, but they still
will have a chance of declaring war. And Cao Cao? He's Cao Cao.
You could never trust him in any Romance game.
Q: Enthrone? Dethrone?
A: Enthrone will net you a hefty 100 repute gain, and dethrone I've
heard can only screw you over. Always enthrone the emperor.
Q: Can I marry/play as an officer/swear an oath of brotherhood.
A: No. You cannot marry with a command. You cannot play as an officer.
Q: How do I get game data for Dynasty Warriors 4 and XL to trigger
and get me my secret characters!
A: Use the same memory card. It happens automatically at New Officer
Creation. No, I don't think there's any other way to get Da Qiao or
Xiao Qiao either.
Q: Where is the "Wo" tribe?
A: Search Langxie at 700 repute. It's the "Gazing past the seas" event
that should trigger. Look in the Event FAQ :P
Q: I have too many troops, why can't I dismiss them?!
A: There's something like dismiss. If you build a camp and withdrawl, all
the troops that were there vanish. Useful if you're pushing two million
men.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
-Closing-Copyright-Blah-
This FAQ is copyright me, Video Z, but I couldn't care less what you do
with it so long as you credit me, or at least don't credit yourself for
my work.
My email is video(-at-)arcknights(-dot-)com. Trying to keep spam down
so replace with proper symbols. Email me questions you might have that
ARE NOT answered in this FAQ and I might add it in as well. Always
looking for information as well.
Well, a few companies have been kind enough to email me anyway for use of
my guides so here's an authorized list:
http://www.GameFAQs.com
http://www.neoseeker.com
http://faqs.ign.com
http://Anyone else that wants to host this with no charge to the reader
The most updated version of this guide will always be at GameFAQs.com
Also, I think the GameFAQs officer stat guide, item FAQ, scenario FAQ,
and secret characters are already covered well, so I don't see a need to
include them here.
I hang out at the Romance IX board at GameFAQs, you can find me there
if nowhere else.