The Chaotic Era – 194 A.D.
Liu Zhang 41. Cheng Dou Strategy:
Here we are with Liu Zhang and his well-fortified forces, starting off in 41. Cheng Dou. Unlike his 189 AD Scenario, Liu Zhang actually starts with a ruler near him (Zhang Lu).
First order of business outside of searching around your cities to find officers and building economy is to bring Wu Lan from 44. Jian Ning to Cheng Dou. No point having a talented general sit there and do nothing with 5400 soldiers. Instead send him over to 40. Zi Tong along with maybe some other soldiers and Civil Officers. Spend some time rewarding everyone like 5-10 gold until some of the disloyal allies are in the mid 90’s at least.
Keep a spy on 38. Han Zhong, to see what Zhang Lu is doing. He attempted to attack Chang An and lost, so that was a good time to take the extra soldiers from Wu Lan and attack him. He sent troops to 68. Yangpingguan that were easily dispatched. After this, split your troops up so that you have roughly 5 allies going to war at Han Zhong. If you do this early Zhang Lu will be easy to defeat as he won’t have trained soldiers. Upon defeat, Zhang Lu will flee to Xia Bian, so take him out again there to force him to Tian Shui. Move back to Han Zhong after this (we want to leave Xia Bian open so we don’t have to go chasing Zhang Lu all the way to An Ding. Let Ma Teng do that).
So now our only enemy is Li Ju in 13. Chang An. He probably has quite a bit of soldiers (unless you took out Zhang Lu uber-fast). Still, as you may know Li Ju has plenty of officers that are disloyal and that you can recruit. Zhong Yao, Zhang Ji, Dong Cheng, Yang Mi, Yang Qi and even Jia Xue (though you have to be a bit lucky to recruit him). Even still, Li Ju will have many loyal military officers like Li Bie, Li Xian, etc, and probably more soldiers than you can deal with now (trained too). So spend some time getting 38. Han Zhong built up and garrison the forces there, since there is no other activity.
As you get into the late 190’s AD, 43. Jiang Zhou should have enough soldiers / officers to move on to 42. Yong An. Start building the economy here as this can be a nice spot in case someone flees to Shang Yong, and it also opens up 27. Jiang Ling to you as well (which is probably lightly guarded). I tend to just relax in this area and watch, building up Yong An, while working on securing the northwest. Besides, you have to build ships to even invade 27. Jiang Ling from Yong An (since you could potentially fight at Yi Ling on the water). About this time you should have enough troops to go toe to toe with Li Ju at Chang An. Taking Chang An sets you up well for cleaning out the weak part of the northwest and then moving on to Cao Cao. Cao Cao’s officers in 12. Hong Nong are ones you want to keep an eye on. Hong Nong is usually broke and if Cao Cao betrayed someone his officers will be even more disloyal. But Luo Yang is probably some kind of mecca by the time you get there, so it wouldn’t be an easy climb. Only way it’s easy is if Cao Cao has expanded east and moved his main force from Luo Yang, but in this run through he’s there with about 60,000 soldiers (200 ad).
41. Cheng Du Recruits:
Zhang Yi (194)
Dong Yun (194)
Yin Mo (194)
Fei Guan (197)
Fu Tong (198)
Xu Jing (199)
Guo Yuozhi (200)
Zhang Da (200)
Li Yan (201)
43. Jiang Zhou recruits:
Fa Zheng (194)
Lu Yi (197)
Yang Hong (199)
Liu Zhang is a example of a bad ruler but at same time, a very lucky ruler. Personally, he is very weak, but at other hand, he starts far away of all the other warlord who could cause big trouble (in the central plains, Cao Cao will drive out all the other warlords in few years, in the north, there is anyone able to stop Yuan Shao and in Jing province, Liu Biao and Sun Ce will battle each other countless time, usually Sun Ce lost).
In addition to this, Liu Zhang’s home city Cheng Du is one of the best cities in the map (with a lot of new officers to come, as you post).
It is a pity that KOEI’s new system of AP (action points) in the ROTK XI, because his personal weakness gave him little points and without that points, we take longer time to grow (our actions are limited).
Yea Liu Zhang has it pretty easy. Low downside being far away from everyone. Hard part is, when you are built up enough to go and challenge everyone else, by the time you get to the Central Plains Cao Cao will have a beastly army. But Liu Zhang, as weak as he is, does have a lot of loyal above-average characters. Nobody truly elite but you can win with Zhang Ren, Wu Yi, Lei Tong, etc. Plus, Shu characters are loyal to Liu Zhang.
*an example