Dong Zhuo’s Rivals Unite – 189 A.D.
Cao Cao – 10. Chen Liu Strategy:
Cao Cao the AI and Cao Cao controlled by you are two completely different entities. That said, some of the same pitfalls exist for you that are also a pain for the CPU 189 Cao Cao. First of all, Cao Cao gets a ridiculous amount of Wei soldiers out of Chen Liu, Pu Yang and Xu Chang. This is good and bad as if you recruit them all, you won’t be able to build up your economy (yes, even if you build economy every month you won’t be able to keep up). So what’s the best way to start Cao Cao’s scenario?
Even if he doesn’t start off in rich cities, Cao Cao has the sheer force and ability to expand his domain right from the beginning. After all the soldiers are trained and their morale is high, take out Qiao Mao and / or Kong Zhou. This will net you two more cities and you won’t see much resistance. Careful of Dong Zhuo. You can Ally with him if you want, but chances are he’ll take out Han Fu in Ye and Dong Zhuo / Yuan Shu will move into Xu Chang (if you don’t first).
Also note that when you run into Dong Zhuo, get Lu Bu to Rebel as soon as you can. That helps immensely. Tao Qian should have a rich domain in Xu Zhou and some soldiers in Xia Pi. When Tao Qian passes and Sun Qian takes over, you should probably take over Xu Zhou as no one will be there except Civil Officers and Zhang Kai. Needless to say, moving east for Cao Cao is very easy.
Moving north and west might be a little harder, but moving west is more crucial to asserting your power. Dong Zhuo has a tough force in Luo Yang but it’s a rag-tag bunch with weak abilities and most of his good officers either die early (Hua Xiong, Li Ru, Fan Chou) or are disloyal (Dong Cheng, Zhu Jun, Lu Bu) to him. In 195 we were able to go straight into Luo Yang and take it, and from there it was a chase to push Dong Zhuo out of Chang An. Liu Biao meanwhile took out Yuan Shu and is ruling in Wan so we allied with him for the time being. Liu Bei has a tough force and Sun Qian has a formidable one also, so we wait on those issues.
Liu Biao betrays us as we were chasing Dong Zhuo away. He took Luo Yang, but we took Wan and then re-took Luo Yang, chasing Liu Biao. His soldier count was low from those excursions so we’re able to take Xin Ye and even Xiang Yang easily before he runs to Jiang Xia to get some help. We take out both and Liu Biao splits to Lu Jiang and Yong An and is basically done. During all this time, we’re building our forces in Ye, Pu Yang and Chen Liu in hopes of being able to take out the east and north soon. The soldiers in the south are running low but still enough to continue pushing their respective directions.
Sure enough, we’re able to move to Jin Yang and then Dai Xian, recruiting Zhao Yun and Hao Zhao along the way. Gongsun Zan is an easy take and again Yuan Shao’s lack of aggression has him wasting away with too many officers and too little money. Liu Bei is the only one who has his shit straight up in the north, so be careful of him. He even got a hold of Zhao Yun when we moved Zhao Yun near Liu Bei and he deserted our ranks. Liu Bei has such a good position with around 100,000 soldiers that we take out everyone around him, going completely out of our way to get Kong Rong and Gongsun Zan first.
In the south, Sun Jian was easy to take out as we got down there early (in addition to his previous clashes with Liu Biao weakening him). This is the same case for Liu Zhang in the southwest, as the rulers who can move fast (like Cao Cao / Dong Zhuo) can get to these far-away rulers faster and in turn will have less resistance to deal with. During our excursions with these two, Ma Teng took out Li Ju (Dong Zhuo’s remnants). This leaves only a weak Ma Teng, Liu Yong, Wang Lang and a decent Liu Bei.
First we drop 100,000 on Liu Bei at Ping Yuan to make him submit. Then we roll some of our army to Liu Yong and some to Ma Teng to mop up these weak pretenders. With Cao Cao at the helm, you should be able to finish this much faster than 201 AD but I took my time and enjoyed it because Cao Cao is so dominant that it’s nice to have an endless supply of quality advisors and generals and not have to worry about anything else. Despite starting off with only one city, it’s hard to find a better situation than Cao Cao’s.
10. Chen Liu Recruits:
Xun Yu (189)
Du Xi (189)
Xiahou En (189)
Lu Qian (189)
Cheng Yu (189)
Fu Gan (189)
Dian Wei (189)
Lu Jian (189)
Dong Heng (190)
Liu Ye (191)
Guo Jia (192)
Xun You (192)
Xiahou Mao (193 with Xiahou Yuan)
Xu Zhu (195)
Cao Anmin (197)
Lu Zhao (199)
Sima Yi (199)
Sun Li (200)
Han Fu (200)
Zhu Zan (200)
Dian Man (201 with Dian Wei)
Xiahou De (203)