Dong Zhuo’s Rivals Unite – 189 A.D.
Han Fu – 7. Ye Strategy:
Han Fu has a tough task as a ruler in Ye. He has the unfortunate luck of having to be sandwiched in between Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and Dong Zhou. His stats are very poor for a ruler. However he does have some things in his favor. He starts off with Xin Ping, Pan Feng, Geng Wu and Guan Chun, decent officers. It is advised that you Appoint Xin Ping as a Civil Officer and use him, Geng and Guan to promote economic growth six months at a time. Pan Feng can train and search (although his political stat is low), and also has over 70 for Army and can use Simultaneous attacks, thus becoming a leader early on for your attack efforts. This is a good starting point especially the three civil officers, but you need more and you need it fast.
First of all, survey your neighbors. You will definitely want to Ally with Cao Cao and Dong Zhou (maybe Liu Bei too) to buy yourself some time. Then, start hunting for quality officers to recruit. Liu Yan can be had in Chen Liu for another Civil Officer, or Chen Gong would prove to be a valuable Advisor (although his 90 loyalty may make him difficult to get). If Yuan Shao (or someone else) takes out Liu Bei in Ping Yuan, immediately search and recruit Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.
Last but certainly not least, view Dong Zhuo’s army. In Luo Yang (unless they moved) he should have a disloyal Wang Yun, Han Xian, and Lu Bu. As for Lu Bu, use the Rebel Plot to get him to damage Dong Zhuo savagely. Better yet, Lu Bu might just join you after you get him to do this (or he’ll become a free officer in a city one spot away from Luo Yang). That should hamper your biggest threat, Dong Zhuo, who normally takes out Han Fu in a few years of his existence. Plus if he joins you, that is a huge recruit for Han Fu.
Simply put, 7 Ye is one of the hot spots on the RTK III map especially in this scenario. It’s a battlefield for most of the top rulers so you have to be smart and efficient in the early years to make sure you are either a) out of Ye, b) have expanded, or c) have the military power to withstand an attack. At the very least, make sure you are allied to your neighbors while you are weak as you do not have the manpower to withstand Cao Cao or Dong Zhuo. Another good idea is if you manage to take the battlefield between you and Luo Yang, you can have a second city in 4. Jin Yang as a retreat pad. Easier said than done though.
By 195 you should have a wealthy economy and some military power. Like most of the weak rulers that take a while to build up, your situation rests entirely upon what Cao Cao and Dong Zhuo do. Cao Cao could be imploding in Chen Liu, and if so, do all you can to best take advantage of the situation (starve him if they’re low on food, recruit disloyal officers, etc).
Either way, stay allied with Cao and Dong until you plan your maneuver, and then you can ruin your diplomacy rating with them via threats. In our particular case both of them became powerful, with Cao Cao moving east through Liu Yong and Sun Qian while Dong Zhuo took over Yuan Shu.
Cao Cao was the first to go as he betrayed us while we were in Ye. This led to us recruiting his guys and charging through Chen Liu, leaving him bewildered and with most of his forces entering our ranks (high-loyalty). Like usual, Cao Cao sets most of his other Cao’s (Ang, Ren, Hong, etc) as Governors so that you cannot recruit them if Cao Cao betrays you and his army turns disloyal. That said this means that it’ll take longer to go through his ranks and he was able to give some of his officers money to increase loyalty.
After turning Cao Cao into dust, we ally with all the members of the east part of the map in hopes of leading a force towards Dong Zhuo in the west. He has a formidable force in Wan and Luo Yang but his other estates are skimp like usual. Dong Zhuo generally has officers like Wang Fang, Li Meng, and Li Bie carrying the majority of his soldiers.
Use this to your advantage by picking Generals with 70-80 War so that you can out-duel Dong Zhuo’s army and use his soldiers to supplement your army! Anyway this is what we do and we chase Li Ju (Dong Zhuo died) to Tian Shui where he can rot away with Ma Teng.
Liu Biao is next as he is generally weak yet full of economic potential. This is key for gaining the military power to overcome Sun Jian and Liu Yan, and keep in mind the longer it takes to get out there the better they’ll be. At the same time, you don’t have to worry about weak rulers such as Liu Yong, Sun Qian, and anyone else that doesn’t have more than a few well-built cities.
7. Ye Recruits:
Yin Kai (197)