Hey, I just want to say thanks for sticking with me on my second run of this game. I hope some of you are trying it out, I think it's one of the most overlooked entries in the series and it does a lot that I think other strategy games could learn from.
PS - so far this has been way easier than Yuan Shu. I seriously did not expect that Yuan Shu game to be so hard. I haven't been afraid of losing once because I had that dam, but with Yuan Shu I had no fail-safes and there was a lot more pressure. I've also never expanded as quickly as I did in that Yuan Shu game. It was seriously one of my best games ever : (
Anyway -
Chapter 2: Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gongsta
When we left off, Cao Cao was attacking Tao Qian's city of Xiao Pei. It looks like he's recovered the strength he lost when Chen Liu, his starting city, was taken by Han Fu and that he's expanding back in that direction. Tao Qian has a lot of territory but not many soldiers or competent personnel; he's almost assured to lose this battle. Cao Cao's capture of Xiao Pei will threaten Han Fu from both sides - on the west from Dong Zhuo and on the east from Cao Cao. If Han Fu can keep it together, and he's got very good officers now, he may come out on top. Also in the picture are Kong Rong's troops. They're not involved with any of the fighting and are traveling south, presumably to capture the free city of Chai Sang. Bad news Kong: Sun Jian is also sending an army there and he'll get there way before you would.
Back in our newly captured city of Bei Ping, Li Tong recruits the first of Gongsun Zan's prisoners, Guan Jing. He's not great, but he's got the highest intelligence of anyone we've got and he's the only person who qualifies to serve as an adviser. I appoint him even though I know most of his advice will be garbage. We've still got 13 prisoners left to recruit. Hopefully I'll be able to get the Gongsun family (Zan, Yue, Fan and Xu), who are good cavalry generals, and Tian Yu, who has pretty strong stats all around, before they escape.
That was fast. The very next turn, Gongsun Yue escapes from my prisons. That stinks because he's an S-rank cavalry general with the White Rider skill which lets him fire arrows while commanding a cavalry unit.
An envoy of the emperor comes and bestows the title of lieutenant governor on Gongsun Du.
He doesn't seem too enthusiastic though.
It's been about a month since we've moved in so it looks like the neighbors are coming to visit. Zhang Yang, the warlord to our immediate east, has sent out some units from Ji. This is a lot of guys to deal with early on because Bei Ping only has about 12,000 soldiers right now and not many good officers, but there's also a very narrow pass leading from Ji to Bei Ping that will make defense easy. Hopefully I'll be able to hold the pass and confuse Zhang Yan the enemies.
Heck yeah. Li Tong recruits Gongsun Zan just in time to join the defense of Bei Ping. He's a very good cavalry general who will be the backbone of our army at least until we conquer Yuan Shao, which won't be for a while.
Gongsun Kang recruits Tian Yu, an officer that excels in pretty much all areas. He's also got higher intelligence than Guan Jing, so I replace him with Tian Yu. Guan Jing sucked and was wrong about almost everything, not that this guy will be much better.
Gongsun Zan and Li Tong head out of Bei Ping with 8,000 men. Mu Shun will probably make it through the pass before they get there, but it's not a big deal. One really bad thing though is that I don't have much food. Both units only have enough food for 100 days, 10 turns, and Bei Ping has hardly any food left. This might get really bad.
Mu Shun makes it through the pass but Li Tong confuses him and Gongsun Zan attacks for nearly 1,000 damage. No idea where Zhang Yan went. It looks like he's off building archer turrets on the other side of the map. That's fine for me - he would have been the only real threat in this battle.
Gongsun Zan and Li Tong push the still-confused Mu Shun even further away from Bei Ping. I'm also able to recruit Gongsun Xu, Gongsun Zan's son. He's not great, but he also has the White Riders skill and an S cavalry ranking, so he'll be useful for a while. Zhang Yang's other units seem to be taking their time. I receive word that another unit is on the way, but it's small and led by a terrible officer.
Awesome! I had totally forgotten that I ordered Gongsun Gong to research Drill Cavalry. Drill Cavalry increases the base statistics for all cavalry units, making them that much more effective. Gongsun Zan and Li Tong continue to beat on Mu Shun. The Drill Cavalry tech noticeably increases their damage.
Winter changes to Spring, Bei Ping has a minor harvest that we'll likely need to capitalize on soon and Li Tong defeats Mu Shun's unit. He doesn't capture the general, but at least he's removed one threat. Fang Yue and Bian Xi are still just standing around - I have no idea what they're doing. Maybe they're exploiting my lack of food.
Fang Yue finally makes it through the pass, only to be confused by Tian Yu and ambushed by Gongsun Zan. Zhang Yang is throwing a lot at this battle and so far has lost 8,000 men. I've lost about 100. He wasn't particularly strong to begin with, so this could be the beginning of the end for him.
Zhang Yan (not Zhang Yang!) finally makes it to the battle, using a breach attack that kills over 1,000 men and moves him through Gongsun Zan's unit. My plan is to challenge him to a duel and capture him. He's far too good a general to face head on. He refuses the duel offer but Li Tong does manage to confuse him.
The next turn, Gongsun Zan challenges him to another duel while he's confused. This time it's successful and they begin the fight. Gongsun Zan has a slight statistical advantage, but he's got another advantage over Zhang Yan: he has a bow that allows him to feign retreat and then shoot Zhang Yan while he's running. The damage from the bow has a chance to lower Zhang Yan's war stat.
Zhang Yan and Gongsun Zan go blow for blow, but then Zhang Yan triggers his spirit stance and gains a full bar of spirit energy. This could be bad but I'm not too worried - Gongsun Zan's bow should win this battle.
Zhang Yan wastes his spirit energy on improving his attack strength. Gongsun Zan seems capable of dodging and deflecting most of the attacks. Only two attacks later, he triggers his own special defense which makes him temporarily invulnerable.
Zhang Yan unleashes a mortal blow attack which deals quite a bit of damage to Gongsun Zan. He's got two full bars of spirit energy now. It's almost time to unleash the bow...
Gongsun Zan starts fleeing the battle...
...but turns around with his bow just as Zhang Yan starts chasing him. The bow deals huge damage and critically wounds Zhang Yan, lowering his stats. But the fun isn't over yet. Gongsun Zan follows it up with two mortal blows, which knock Zhang Yan out. The duel is won.
Gongsun Zan isn't able to capture Zhang Yan though. Too bad, he's a great general and would make a good asset to our force.
Tao Qian dies of old age. His successor, his adviser Chen Gui, is polarizing and causes a number of his officers to leave.
Liu Yan dies on the same day! His successor, his son Liu Zhang, is somewhat less polarizing but also less competent. This is bad for both leaders, but especially bad for Liu Zhang. He's a very bad ruler and usually makes decisions that stifle his force's growth. Chen Gui generally tends to be an even better ruler than Tao Qian. He reinforces the cities that Tao Qian captures and expands much more conservatively. It may be too late for Chen Gui, though - Cao Cao has taken his city of Xiao Pei and threatens him further.
The battle isn't going well for Gongsun Zan and Li Tong. They both retreat back to Bei Ping to reinforce and hopefully draw Zhang Yan closer so more strategists can confuse him.
The plan works. A bunch of strategists I recruited from Gongsun Zan march out and confuse Zhang Yang's armies. Gongsun Zan and Li Tong retreat to Bei Ping to train troops and get more food.
Gongsun Zan and Li Tong reemerge from the city and finish off Fang Yue's unit. They're not able to capture him but he's not that great anyway.
Gongsun Zan and Li Tong push Zhang Yan farther away from the city, allowing me to transfer some officers back to Xiang Ping. Xiang Ping is already fully developed so it doesn't need anymore development. Anything it produces can immediately be pushed to the frontlines.
Gongsun Zan and Li Tong finish off Zhang Yan. All that's left is Bian Xi now. I've been able to keep them constantly confused and they haven't done any damage to me in a few turns.
Meanwhile to the south, it looks like Kong Rong's troop that we saw marching through Tao Qian and Cao Cao's battle is attacking Liu Biao's city of Jiang Xia. I have no idea why he's doing this.
This is really, really bad. I hardly have enough food to keep up the current defense - I absolutely don't have enough to maintain it. Maybe if I transfer some soldiers and food from Xiang Ping I'll be able to hold out. Either way, Yuan Shao's soldiers are significantly higher quality than Zhang Yang's. Maybe I can somehow convince him to call a ceasefire.
Gongsun Fan, another good cavalry general I had hoped to recruit escapes.
Zhang Yan is coming back for more too. Bian Xi has been reduced to 400 units but he's too close to the approaching Yuan Shao army so I pull back and allow him to retreat.
There are 30,000 men heading towards Bei Ping. Gao Lan, Wen Chou and Zhang Yan are all very good generals. Bei Ping only has 15,000 men and very little food at the moment, but there's a supply convoy with 12,000 men on the way and lots of horses. Hopefully if we're able to hold out long enough until the convoy gets here, we can pull off a victory.
I have no idea what to do. I manage to confuse Gao Lan but I probably can't confuse Wen Chou because he has a strategist with 80 intelligence in his unit. Wen Chou will annihilate whoever I send out there, even Gongsun Zan. There are no tricks I can pull here. Maybe if I can duel Wen Chou with Gongsun Zan and capture Wen Chou's strategist, I'll be able to confuse him and wipe him out.
For now, I concentrate on Gao Lan. Gongsun Zan shoots Gao Lan with his bows and Li Tong pushes Wen Chou away from Bei Ping.
God, what a turd. Wen Chou confuses Li Tong's unit with his strategist. At least he didn't use charge or kill anyone.
Gongsun Zan rides out and challenges Wen Chou to a duel. This is going to be extremely tough - Wen Chou has 11 more points of warfare than Gongsun Zan does. This battle isn't about Wen Chou though, it's about his strategist. If I can kill or capture his strategist, I'll be able to disable Wen Chou. There's almost no chance Gongsun Zan can beat Wen Chou himself, so he focuses on spirit to raise his energy for when the strategist rides out.
This is going well so far. Wen Chou almost immediately gained a full bar of spirit energy, but his strategist, Feng Ji, rode out and wasted it on defense. I immediately switch Gongsun Zan to spirit. If I can trigger a spirit energy boost, I'll be able to take out Feng Ji quickly with 2 mortal blows and one bow attack.
Shit, Wen Chou comes out just as Gongsun Zan is about to gain that last bar of spirit energy. Gongsun Zan and Wen Chou dueled in real life when Yuan Shao took Han Fu's city of Ye. Wen Chou wiped the floor with Gongsun Zan and would have killed him if Zhou Yun, who would go on to become one of the great heroes of Shu, hadn't intervened.
Gongsun Zan has 3 bars of spirit energy left, enough to pull off a musou attack. He'll start by feigning retreat...
Ahaha, terrible picture but the feign retreat deals heavy damage. It doesn't manage to take his war stat down though.
Neither did musou, but it wounds him terribly. Now Gongsun Zan only needs one or two more good attacks.
No! Wen Chou retreats from the battle before Gongsun Zan is able to land the finishing blow! Wen Chou loses a few troops but retreats largely unscathed. This was a victory I was counting on.
The battle continues after the duel. The enemy gets a free turn because of a stupid mouse glitch you sometimes get when you initiate duels and they deal significant damage to Li Tong. Yuan Shang attacks Bei Ping with his siege tower and deals huge casualties. The supply convoy is getting closer but it probably won't get here in time. Gongsun Zan knocks Wen Chou down to only a few hundred troops at the expense of most of his willpower while Li Tong takes tons of damage from everyone around him. I send out almost all of my strategists to confuse people and it works, but it takes a lot of tries.
And then Han Fu dies. Qiao Mao appoints himself as Han Fu's successor which causes a number of his critical officers to leave.
Gongsun Du rides out of Bei Ping with 1,000 soldiers and finishes off the critically weak Wen Chou. With Wen Chou no longer in the way, it allows the supply convoy to enter Bei Ping. Gongsun Zan travels west of the city and challenges Zhang Yan to a second duel. This guy won't stop fighting!
The fight starts out pretty well for Zhang Yan. He gets a bunch of good hits in and triggers his attack stance. Almost immediately afterward though, Gongsun Zan triggers his defense stance and blocks a bunch of Zhang Yan's attacks.
Zhang Yan unleashes a mortal blow but it doesn't do much damage because Gongsun Zan still has his defense special up. He's got quite a bit of spirit energy now. He gets one last hit on Zhang Yan and then goes for a feign attack...
Ahaha, I love this! He follows up with a mortal blow and defeats Zhang Yan.
This time, Gongsun Zan captures him. You won't get away so easy Zhang Yan! It looks like he had a lieutenant general with him, though, and the unit remains under control of Sui Gu, who sucks big time and on his own isn't much of a threat. With the rest of Yuan Shao's army, though, he could hurt us quite a bit.
Li Tong finally regains control of his unit and heads back toward Bei Ping to resupply. On the way he finally wipes out Bian Xi's unit, who has been here since Zhang Yang's initial attack, and captures him. Gongsun Kang rides out of Bei Ping with a fresh unit and attacks Yuan Shang while Gongsun Zan attacks Sui Gu.
Gongsun Kang returns to Bei Ping and is replaced with the slightly better Gongsun Du. Du attacks Yuan Shang and pushes him away from the city. Gongsun Zan pushes away Zhou Ang's battering ram unit, which also has the potential to deal huge damage to Bei Ping. Li Tong gets confused for the fourth time.
I confuse a bunch of the remaining units. Gongsun Zan goes for Sui Gu again and Gongsun Kang almost finishes off Yuan Shao. Zhou Ang starts attacking my markets, which at least keeps him away from Bei Ping.
The next turn, Gongsun Zan immediately challenges Gao Lan to a duel. He accepts.
It's a pretty even match, Gongsun Zan and Gao Lan trading blow for blow. Gao Lan gets in a good hit, which triggers Gongsun Zan's defense stance. Gao Lan does a flurry of attacks but Gongsun Zan blocks them all.
After quite a few bouts, Gongsun Zan finally has three full spirit bars. I would have attacked with three mortal blows sooner, but Gao Lan triggered his special defense stance so the mortal blows probably wouldn't have taken him out.
Aha, but first Gao Lan gets the bow treatment. See how little damage the bow does when he has his defense stance up? Gongsun Zan follows up with two mortal blows and takes him down. Unfortunately, he isn't captured. Back on the battlefield, Yuan Shang starts to retreat but is chased down and destroyed by Gongsun Du.
Gongsun Zan heads south to take out Zhou Ang, who keeps destroying my markets and Gongsun Du attacks Gao Lan, which raises his war stat. Nice! Li Tong rides out of Bei Ping and finishes him off.
Gao Lan is another good cavalry general. Hopefully we'll be able to recruit both him and Zhang Yan.
Li Tong and Gongsun Du finish off Sui Gu and Gongsun Zan attacks Zhou Ang again, who's destroying all my buildings. Fuck you buddy.
Han Hao of Zhang Yang's army pays me a visit. I already know what he wants.
Nnnnnope! Nice try! Meanwhile, Gongsun Zan finally finishes off Zhou Ang's unit before he completely destroys my mint. It looks like it's time to start rebuilding. The battle reduced Zhang Yang's total troop count from around 50,000 to 28,000 and Yuan Shao's from 55,000 to 34,000. I have about 46,000 troops now and Zhang Yang's Ji is looking weak. It only has 13,000 men and very few officers. I've currently captured Zhang Yan, the backbone of Zhang Yang's army and I will meet very little resistance. After I'm done rebuilding and recruiting some more troops, I'm going to take Ji.
Let's take a look at the map.
Although it looks like not much has happened since the last update, a lot is about to happen. Cao Cao captured Chen Gui's Xiao Pei, but Chen Gui is actually about to retake it. The gate that divides Qiao Mao's Chen Liu from Dong Zhuo's Luo Yang constantly switches between the two and it looks like Dong Zhuo has decisively taken it and is heading for Chen Liu. Even if Qiao Mao loses it, he's still very strong. Dong Zhuo is leading an attack on Ma Teng's Wu Wei and will likely take it. Liu Zhang is also holding in very well. He has 190,000 men, only 50,000 less than Dong Zhuo.
Hopefully I'll be able to take both of Zhang Yang's cities next game. He and Yuan Shao are both critically weak right now and it will only take me a short amount of time to recover from their attack. Gongsun Zan was definitely the VIP of that battle - I have no idea how many duels he won but it was a lot. Good job Zan!
