Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX General FAQ v1.6 March 30th, 2004 by: Video Z ------------------------------------------------ Plans ------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------ Table of Contents ------------------------------------------------ 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- ------------------------------------------------ 1.) Territories/Pronvinces ------------------------------------------------ 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 ------------------------------------------------ 2.) Ruler Ranks ------------------------------------------------ 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 ------------------------------------------------ 3.) Officer Ranks ------------------------------------------------ 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 ------------------------------------------------ 4.) Tactics ------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------ 5.) Unit Formation ------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------ 6.) Training, TP, and you ------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------ 7.) City Commands ------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------ 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.