Dong Zhuo’s Rivals Unite – 189 A.D.
Dong Zhuo – 11. Luo Yang Strategy:
Dong Zhuo is one of the top choices in this scenario. The idiocy the AI employs with him will be gone with you running the show. You’ll reward Lu Bu until his loyalty is 100 unlike the AI. You’ll take better care of your cities and your popularity, and the powerful base of Luo Yang will help you cement Dong Zhuo’s place in history. One thing to keep note on though, is that others simply won’t Ally with Dong Zhuo, so you’re going to have to do it the hard way and overpower everyone instead of waiting for them to betray you. Fortunately, Dong Zhuo is one of the few rulers who really does not need much strategy with his starting advantage.
Specifically, you’re going to want to send all your Hong Nong officers to Luo Yang except Xu Rong. I usually then populate Hong Nong with Governor Dong Cheng, and three poor Civil Officers to get the Economy up (make Huangfu Song a Civil Officer to help your ranks). Try to make sure there are 3 each at Luo Yang and Chang An, if not more. As for your force, you should have plenty of soldiers with Hong Nong combining with Luo Yang, so spread them among Dong, Lu Bu, Hua Xiong, Zhang Ji, Li Ru, Fan Chou, etc.
Train them and build up Luo Yang and in no time you should have a formidable force. Also, use the Search command monthly regardless of whether you’re still finding officers for that particular year. Eventually, you’ll stumble across the Hereditary Seal which will take Dong Zhuo’s 42 Charm and turn it into 100 Charm (+15 Pol too).
Gauge your aggressiveness on Cao Cao. If Cao Cao is still stuck in Chen Liu after a few years (like in our case) then move to Xu Chang and take him out. The faster Cao Cao dies, the easier this scenario will be for you. After he dies, go after Han Fu, Qiao Mao, and Kong Zhou if they aren’t gone already. Assuming everything goes fine, you can probably then work on Yuan Shu. Sometimes it’s easier to take out Yuan Shu first, mainly with duels so that you can use his soldiers to give you an edge heading into the center, but it’s not entirely necessary and it could work against you. In our particular quest, we used Yuan Shu’s soldiers we acquired from duels to propel us into Chen Liu after transfering the soldiers to our more loyal officers. This was a huge boost that sent Dong Zhuo into the forefront in the early 190’s, allowing us to head to the center and not look back.
As stated in the opening, Dong Zhuo’s main issues are that no one will Ally with him (even if you offer the Hereditary Seal!) and that cities / officers are disloyal to him. This can all be cured by having the Hereditary Seal and a lot of money to reward officers (which you can both do in Luo Yang). The fact of the matter is, the military strength is already there and several Civil Officers are present to aid you in your development endeavors. More importantly, Dong Zhuo’s rise to power will be so sudden that rival rulers won’t have the resources that they do when you are different rulers that take longer to build up. While Dong Zhuo doesn’t have an officer database like Cao Cao, he still has enough quality soldiers and if you can spend some time getting Yuan Shu / Cao Cao’s officers loyal to you, that’ll make conquering the south and Liu Yan and Yuan Shao that much easier.
The rulers in the center and east are absolute jokes for Dong Zhuo’s massive army. Again, once Cao Cao folds, the others shouldn’t be a threat militarily. Qiao Mao, Han Fu, and Kong Zhou should be complete pushovers.
Tao Qian gives way to Sun Qian and can have a decent army, but usually not by the time Dong Zhuo can get over there (195 or earlier). Same goes for Liu Yong; still too early for him to do anything, and Wang Lang / Yan Baihu aren’t going to be able to do much to stop you either even if you gave them another 5 years.
Yuan Shao as you can see has a nice little estate in the northeast. Fortunately he also has a disloyal Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, so having a loyal Guan Yu will make things that much easier. Yuan Shao made some nice moves in this scenario and didn’t get hauled up in Nan Pi, so he actually has a few cities of note with Nan Pi and Ping Yuan but he’s thin besides this and he does have disloyal soldiers everywhere. After the destruction of the eastern rulers, we garrison those armies in Xia Pi to joint attack Bei Hai with our Ping Yuan army. The same goes for Nan Pi and Yuan Shao is reeling. As you can see, Liu Zhang and Liu Biao still haven’t expanded at all, so it’s due time to rotate the army in that direction.
Liu Biao already has nice cities in terms of Economy and such, but still no Military Power. Sun Jian is still very raw, which is rare as I usually get to Wu last.
It’s still early though as Sun Quan hasn’t even appeared yet and Sun Jian is still alive for that matter! He only has Chang Sha but moves into Wu Ling once I near him in Jiang Ling and Jiang Xia. He has 100,000 or so, which is solid for one city but not good for our huge army at this point.
Liu Yan is in a position similar to Liu Biao, with great economic power, but conversely he actually has some military power in Cheng Dou. Still, we station Lu Bu and Xiahou Dun over there to duel their best warriors (who also have the most soldiers). Zhang Ren and Lei Tong and Wu Lan go down like feeble creatures.
Unfortunately, just as we near Ma Teng (the last city is Xi Liang), Dong Zhuo passes. Dong Min is already gone so naturally nephew Dong Huang is next on the list. This could happen earlier and would severely cripple your quest (as Dong Min and Dong Huang are significantly weaker). Of course, you could appoint someone like Guan Yu and completely change the reign, but that wouldn’t be what Dong Zhuo would want not would it? All that’s left is to steamroll Ma Teng.
Dong Zhuo can dominate if you get powerful early. If you wait too long, he’s going to die and other rulers are going to get more powerful like Cao Cao, Sun Jian, etc.
So, use Dong Zhuo’s massive military advantage to put the pressure on some rulers early on before they have the time to develop a solid foundation. Rule well and utilize the power advantage you have, and you can win this one early.
11. Luo Yang Recruits:
Li Xian (191)
Lu Chang (191)
Zhang Yang (191)
Wang Fang (192)
Li Bie (192)
Li Meng (192)
Chen Jiao (194)
Wang Chang (195)
Zhuge Jin (195)
Cui Yong (195)
12. Hong Nong Recruits:
Shang Hong (195)
Song Guo (196)
Xu Huang (196)
13. Chang An Recruits:
Yang Mi (195)
Yang Qi (195)
Zuo Ling (195)
Wu Xi (196)