The Chaotic Era Ends 194 AD
Ma Teng 16. Xi Liang Strategy:
To me, this is Ma Teng’s easiest scenario. 201 AD and 208 AD are too tough to consider since Cao Cao is already established and no matter how fast you rise, he is still a tough power to deal with.
But the 194 AD scenario for Ma Teng has several things in his favor. Starting off, the biggest thing is Li Ju at 13. Chang An. Half of his force hates him and is between 70-85 loyalty. Thus we should leave the wasteland of Xi Liang immediately. Take all of your troops, everything else and move from xi Liang to Tian Shui and then to An Ding. I guess you could go to Xia Bian but then you would have to deal with two other forces as well. Tian Shui has Li Kan if you search, but not worth the stop. We’ll have ample officers soon enough.
Immediately Spy on Chang An when you get to An Ding. Start training all of your soldiers with some military officers. Then start recruiting Li Ju’s officers like mad. Zhong Yao, Yang Mi, Yang Qi, and Yang Biao should be who you set your eyes on first. They are great at domestics and can get the An Ding Economy up and running fast (not to mention harming Chang An’s potential at growing). Yang Biao will be hard to get but is possible; the other two Yang’s are very easy, as is Zhong Yao.
There are some nice generals available in Li Ju’s forces too. Zhang Ji, Dong Cheng and Zhu Jun are easy to get. The big prize here of course is Jia Xue, but he is not an easy one to recruit. I believe his loyalty is around 90. Worth the effort though because you will then have an advisor. Also grab Guo Si as he has 76 loyalty but Li Ju will keep 1700 soldiers on him so that’s worth stealing.
You now have roughly 16 officers and can get An Ding looking decent soon. You also probably got ~5000+ soldiers from Li Ju’s forces, so train those up and you should have a force formidable to his without needing to draft anyone. After you are fully trained you can build up An Ding for a while or just take out Li Ju (unless someone else has after he was weakened). If you wait too long he will re-group (he gets some loyal military officers like Song Guo and Li Xian but doesn’t get anyone decent in Chang An until 197 AD (Wu Xi)).
The real war will start once you get close to Cao Cao.
As mentioned before 194 Cao Cao is a bit of an enigma. He generally always expands east very easily, but Hong Nong almost always self-destructs (too many officers / soldiers, too little economy / money). Hong Nong often times gets 10-20k soldiers so always spy on there to know what is going on with Cao Cao. If he has a disaster situation in Hong Nong, you will notice in January the officers loyalty beginning to drop. You can then recruit them once they are around 90 or less. Might be wise to Ally with Cao Cao during this as this gives you the insurance of ruining his entire force’s loyalty if he betrays you and it also means he can’t expand west and Hong Nong will be screwed.
However it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Cao Cao overtakes Yuan Shu in Wan and then you will be facing him on two ends. Might be worth working your way west and having a stand-still with Cao Cao while you hold Chang An and keep him allied (of course if he betrayed you, then recruit his officers and take him out. Hong Nong alone will be a ton of officers including Governor Xiahou Dun). Anyway, if he doesn’t betray you then Zhang Lu in 38. Han Zhong should be easy fodder.
After that, remember Li Hui’s distrust towards Liu Zhang. Li Hui is generally the Governor at 40. Zi Tong so you should be able to recruit him, though it make take some tries with good Charm characters. He is a Shu-loyalty character so he will be high loyalty for Ma Teng likely (along with the other Shu generals here). Besides Li Hui, only Yang Huai is relevant here (sneaky useful with 70 Army for Simultaneous attacks).
After this depends on what Liu Zhang decided to do. Sometimes he’ll stay in Cheng Du and keep most of his officers, making it huge with a ridiculous economy. In this particular game he stayed in Cheng Du but moved most of his allies to Jian Ning (which he sometimes likes to do). Unfortunately for him Jian Ning did not get enough time to build up, so they were not much aid during the Cheng Du siege (and only Liu Zhang + Ma Han were in Cheng Du). A good trick is to surround Liu Zhang in battle, and if you capture him, let him go. With any luck you can then invade 44. or 45. the next month, wherever he flees to (there is a chance he still has 0 soldiers left if he didn’t get a turn to go after your invasion).
Capturing Cheng Du and Liu Zhang’s army is important because most of his forces will have a high loyalty to you, even if they were high with Liu Zhang (because they are all Shu-alignment just like Ma Teng). Also remember that Pang De is able to be recruited at 199 at Xi Liang, so don’t forget to send him to the front lines. The added forces should give you a good angle at Liu Biao’s forces, who have likely taken over the south (Sun Ce seems to implode often in this 194 AD scenario though it’s possible he has the Jing Zhou region too). Or Ally with Liu Biao and head for Cao Cao, if you have not done so yet.
Of course, Cao Cao might have made a move at this point, betraying you and ruining the loyalty of his officers (if you allied with him after taking Chang An, like I suggested). Also as mentioned above if this happened and you recruited Xiahou Dun at Hong Nong, that amount of soldiers (probably 60,000-120,000 at Hong Nong for Cao Cao) should be more than ample for leading a mission vs. Cao Cao. Even if you don’t do this route, taking over Cheng Du and acquiring those officers should put you on closer to even ground with Cao Cao.
16. Xi Liang
197 (Ma Wan)
198 (Yang Qiu)
199 (Pang De)
15. Tian Shui
194 (Li Kan)
197 (Han Sui)
197 (Cheng Yi)
198 (Zhang Heng)
Ma Teng is badass. As long as you can find a way to get money and Civil Officers, the Ma’s have the war part down.