Cao Cao’s Power Expands – 201 A.D.
Ma Teng – 16. Xi Liang Strategy
Ma Teng in 201 AD is often times overlooked, because the AI Ma Teng even on Advanced rarely will do anything. Generally this is because Xi Liang and Tian Shui are such shitholes (especially in this scenario – see recruits below) in terms of the developing land, economy, flood protection, etc. Ma Teng has basically no true Civil Officers until Xun Yun comes into Tian Shui nearly a decade later. So what should you do? Staying put is not really an option. Take all of your soldiers from Xi Liang and Tian Shui and put them in one large force, numbering around 50,000. Train them in Tian Shui for a while and bring your best officers, like Ma Teng, Ma Chao, Ma Dai, and a loyal Pang De (give him lots of money – it’s worth it) to An Ding.
If you spent the time to look at Cao Cao’s army (you shouldn’t because you don’t have time as you move your forces) you’ll notice how weak he is across the middle. In my quest, he had nothing on the west part of his domain besides a decent group (20,000 soldiers) at Wan, in case Liu Bei tried something. Charge through Chang ‘An, Hong Nong, Luo Yang and Wan. I allied with Liu Bei and Zhang Lu during this to buy some time on that those ends. Still, Chang An is the portal to the northwest so it must be well fortified at all times just incase Zhang Lu betrays you or gets over-ran. Recruit as many disloyal Cao Cao officers as you can, you need as many officers as you can get with Ma Teng’s top-heavy but thin force. Cao Cao still had most of his soldiers (70,000) in Shou Chun, attacking Jian Ye.
It’s up to you as to where to go, as you can take out Zhang Lu, Liu Bei or Cao Cao. Liu Bei was getting some heat from Liu Biao so I pincer-attacked Liu Bei, mostly because his officers have a high loyalty towards Ma Teng (or any Ma for that matter). Once Liu Bei is done, you can basically make Ma Teng your new “Shu” ruler. I was chasing Liu Bei around Xin Ye and Shang Yong, and afterwards I moved out of those two and out of Wan so that I wasn’t near Liu Biao. A decent force was left in Chang An incase Zhang Lu betrayed me, and I moved the entire army besides that to Luo Yang.
Again, Cao Cao was still pretty weak in the center. He had some in Ping Yuan, pushing the weak Yuan Shang back further. We decided to attack Ye, Pu Yang, Xu Chang and Ping Yuan, saving Yuan Shang for now. This got Cao Cao pissed and he sent some of his Xu Zhou goons to attack us in Pu Yang. Didn’t work, and we captured a lot of them. Unfortunately, Wei officers aren’t loyal to Ma Teng at all, so you’re almost better off killing some of them so they don’t bog you down economy-wise or run the risk of them returning to Cao Cao later.
Cao Cao had lost Xia Pi and was stuck in Xu Zhou, Shou Chun and Ru Nan. Ru Nan and Xu Zhou eventually went down, and we allied with Yuan Shang so that we didn’t have to worry about getting attacked while we were putting Cao Cao away.
Cao Cao was tough having around 80,000 or so in Shou Chun. Decided to wait a little, build up, and then go after him. Luck had it that Sun Quan attacked Cao Cao a bit, so that gave us the edge and the timing to go finish him off. We then allied with Sun Quan and set our sights on the northeast.
Yuan Shang is a fool and he’s probably locked himself up in Xiang Ping. Most of his officers were disloyal already, and he had the audacity to betray us in Ping Yuan (we put like 5000 soldiers there to bait him). This made it easy to recruit the following Yuan Shang governor’s; Zhou Yu in Bei Hai, Chen Zhen in Nan Pi, Xun Chen in Bei Ping and Chen Lin in Dai Xian. Yuan Shang was left with a decent amount of soldiers and the weak economy of Xiang Ping. We got Gongsun Du to Rebel and soften him up, and then we attacked him and purified the northeast.
Sun Quan time. Wu is the last tough adversary with Liu Biao’s average forces to the south and Liu Zhang’s territory, which is just a nuisance to go through. Sun Quan was dealing with Liu Biao in the south and Cao Cao (before we killed him). He had some time to recooperate as we were Yuan Shang-ing it in Xiang Ping, so Jian Ye had 100,000 soldiers. We took our best Shu officers (Guan Xing, Zhang Bao, Guan Ping, Zhou Cang, Zhang Fei, etc) and dueled 4 or 5 Wu officers to lessen the soldier disparity. Once Jian Ye went, the ball kept rolling through Wu and Kuai Ji. Sun Quan was dead, leaving the idiotic Sun Shao to save the Wu army. This didn’t happen as Liu Biao took Chi Bi and the Sun family had no where to go. Chai Sang and Lu Jiang were ours, and all that was left was Zhang Lu, Liu Zhang and Liu Biao.
Liu Biao‘s army was as weak as ever, with no notable generals to bother us. Despite a high economy and decent soldier amounts, he couldn’t withstand the talent of the Ma family and the Guans. We had successfully circled around to Xin Ye and Shang Yong, capturing the entire map except the west. We had to chase Liu Biao a little around Gui Yang and Nan Hai, but it got done.
Liu Zhang had a formidable force in Yong An, so we wanted to Ally with him and bait him into attacking Shang Yong. He took the bait and it was off to the races, recruiting his army. Again, they’ll be loyal to Ma Teng as Ma Teng leans towards the Shu part of things. Careful though; Liu Zhang will have a built up empire if you left him to the end like I did, so you’ll want to recruit his officers or it’ll be a tricky situation.
Zhang Lu was still hanging out in Xia Bian and Han Zhong as we were liberating Liu Zhang. By the time Liu Zhang died and Wu Yi took over, even Zhang Lu had a decent force. Wu Yi was all that was left of Liu Zhang’s empire and he died by himself in Zi Tong. We had successfully gotten to both sides of Zhang Lu, with Han Sui holding down Chang An with a decent force to pincer attack the fool. Zhang Lu had a lot of quality Wei officers like Yue Jin, Dong Heng and Xiahou Dun, but that wasn’t enough to stop the 150,000-200,000 that we had surrounding Han Zhong. The last open city was Xi Liang (we left it open), and Ma Teng had China locked up in 210.
Ma Teng is someone who can be a very good ruler or very bad ruler depending on how you play him. In this particular scenario (and in most) it pays to be aggressive. Ma Teng never has Civil Officers so being patient and buliding up a city just isn’t a viable option.
Take advantage of what he does have, and that’s a lot of soldiers and horses to start off, not to mention some great Generals in Ma Dai, Ma Chao, Han Sui and Pang De. After a year or two of training and building up loyalty, move all of your soldiers to Xia Bian or An Ding and start your journey. You’ll have to stop a few times but the 50,000 Ma Teng starts off with is quite the advantage.
16. Xi Liang Recruits:
none
15. Tian Shui Recruits:
Li Kan (201)
Xun Yun (210)