Cao Cao’s Forces Scenario – *** Difficulty
Target 1 – Take West Watchpost in 5 minutes.
Target 2 – Take North Fort and East Fort in 10 minutes
Target 3 – Player maintains 70% of Life
Strategy – These targets involving sustaining your Life level can be annoying and this one is no different. Unless you have a character built up well past the normal level in which you’d play this stage (think level 10-15) you probably won’t be able to achieve it, unless you are good and / or conservative. Most of these types of targets don’t require you to have 70%, but so it goes. Completing task 1 and 2 can be difficult without a quick horse to go from one side of the stage to the other.
The watchpost in the southwest is your first destination. Xue Zong and Xu Sheng will have to be taken out first, and then you’ll have to ring the glowing green gong on the southmost ship. This allows you to reach the southland and then jump off to the west to swim over to the watchpost.
Back on the other side Zhu Zhi should be around here. Now you’re either going to have enough time to go after Zhuge Liang, or you can keep heading east to the two forts for Target 2.
The former is harder to achieve as Sun Shao, Lu Meng, Yu Fan, Lu Su, Zhuge Jin and Zhuge Liang are all messing around up at the altar. This is a tough group to beat, and you don’t really have all that much time to kill Zhuge Liang. Even once you do, the fire attack is still likely to occur. If you’re really making good time and have a few minutes to go, you can go to the East Fort. You’ll have to be quick and hope that your allies took the North Fort too (which is likely actually). Pan Zhang is over by the East Fort, and Ma Zhong, Lu Dai, and Zhou Yu are just north a bit.
If you started in the northeast with Pang Tong you could have followed him to where he defects and then kill him (his defense and such is boosted). Zhou Yu and friends would be over here as well.
Sun Quan’s Allied Main Camp is generally abandoned by Sun Quan and his subgenerals (Han Dang, Quan Zong, Dong Xi and Zhu Ran). They make an attack on your base with Lu Fan, Huang Gai, Su Fei and any other Wu survivors. Fortunately this means you have help once you start to whittle down their forces.
Allied Forces Scenario – *** Difficulty
Target 1 – Huang Gai succeeds in burning Cao Cao’s ships.
Target 2 – Take West Barge and Central Barge in 10 minutes.
Target 3 – None of your units withdrawo
Strategy – As with any objectives that involve not having your units withdraw, you will need to bounce from one place to the next when allies get in danger. All while taking the central and west barges within 10 minutes and making sure Huang Gai doesn’t have anyone stopping him from the fire attack.
Generally you’ll start in the southeast or south, so taking out Li Dian at the nearby west base should be your first move. Zhang Yan, Jia Kui and Xu Huang then come north of here. Meanwhile, Zhu Ling, Man Chong and Han Hao are battling Lu Meng to the west. Yue Jin also ambushes Zhuge Liang’s unit and you need him alive for the wind prayer (good for morale). The best course of action is to take out Li Dian as fast as possible, then go west to take out the Zhu Ling / Man Chong / Han Hao triumvirate. At this time Zhang Yan and Jia Kui are at the south base where Li Dian was. Take them out and then race to Zhuge Liang’s altar.
Yue Jin should be here as he ambushes Zhuge Liang. Xu Huang is probably not too far behind. You must do this to protect Zhuge’s prayer being interrupted. If you can get it off fast enough, race into the Wei fleet and take the central and west barge as you probably won’t have another chance to do so before the 10 minutes is up.
By the time you finish Huang Gai will be heading to the center via the east side. You must aid him here as Jiang Gan and Yu Jin are near the east base, then as you go west you’ll come across Niu Jin, Jia Xu, Chen Qun, Lu Qian and Xu Zhu. Huang Gai will run past and burn Wei.
Your morale should be pretty high at this point assuming this has all been done somewhat fast. Now take your horse and go up the hill where Pang Tong defects and jump into the North Fort. There’s probably somebody like Dong Zhao or Cao Zhen in here. But quickly get into Wei’s fleet to save any attacking allies like Cheng Pu from Zhang He, who’s is one of the few Wei generals whose morale goes up from the fire. He’s dangerous and he may have Xu Shu or Cao Hong hanging around him.
Once the center is cleared you’ll have Cai Mao to the east and Jiang Ji / Yang Xiu to the west. Cao Zhi is sent to attack you to the east while Xun You, Cao Zhang and Cao Cao are in Cao Cao’s Main Camp. Not long after your assault, they’ll abandon their main base. While the ‘no units withdraw’ target may seem daunting it’s pretty easy so long as you race around early on to save generals, as once the fire attack happens your morale skyrockets.
Lu Bu’s Forces Scenario
Target 1 – Defeat Cao Cao and Sun Quan in 10 minutes
Target 2 – Defeat Zhuge Liang
Target 3 – None of your units withdraw
Strategy – Okay this is another wild Lu Bu stage. Since Zhuge Liang starts off on the map you’ll want to take him out soon. He doesn’t stay on the stage long. First though take out the first batch of enemies like Yue Jin and Zhuge Jin so that your allies can go south a little bit via the east path. Then go take out Zhuge Liang. From there your obvious destinations are the two leaders since you have 10 minutes to defeat both of them, a tall task considering you have to race across the stage.
I tend to jump off to the north after defeating Zhuge Liang and then take out Cao Cao. Neither of the rulers are powered up defensively in this battle. Though if you defeat Cao Cao, Dian Wei gets powered up (assuming he’s still alive). Likewise if you defeat Sun Quan, Zhou Yu will be powered up if he’s alive. Thus before taking out Cao Cao you might want to save yourself the trouble and take out Dian Wei first before he gets powered up.
After Cao Cao is defeated, Sun Quan will begin to charge the Wei fleet, especially if the fire attack succeeds. Zhou Yu will be to the south so you can take him out before Sun Quan. Unfortunately that’s not enough, you have to defeat every general. Just follow your forces to ensure none of them dies, but they’re pretty tough.