Dong Zhuo Reigns Supreme 189 AD
Qiao Mao 9. Pu Yang Strategy:
Here we have maybe the toughest ruler to use. Qiao Mao is right in the middle of firestorm, soon surrounded by the baddest warlords around. He passes away very quickly (April 190 in this play through). Problem is, there is no one to find searching in Pu Yang in 189. Might as well spend the time training and then Ally with Cao Cao. You may wish to Ally with Dong Zhuo or Yuan Shao if they get close quickly.
In 190 though there is Man Chong, so hopefully you get lucky and get him quickly. He’ll be a decent replacement and he allows you to actually do some things in the short term. If Liu Bei has been defeated by Yuan Shao, this is actually great news because it means we can recruit Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. Guan Yu would be the ideal successor when Qiao Mao dies, but you could do worse than Man Chong that’s for sure (really high Charm is nice, and he’s Wei-based so his quest will be like Cao Cao-lite). Other gems can be found in 7. Ye where you can get Guan Chun or Geng Wu (they have 80-85 loyalty for Han Fu and will be worse if Dong Zhuo or someone else takes it over). Working on your economy is paramount to your success so acquiring Civil Officers early allows you to get going and field a formidable army.
The above underscores the good part of Qiao Mao’s starting position; if you can just stay alive, plenty of characters will be around one way or another. Allying with the enemies around you works best, because it does take Pu Yang a while to become an economic power + in turn have enough soldiers to ward off an attack from one of the big three (Dong Zhuo / Cao Cao / Yuan Shao).
Cao Cao was vulnerable in this one, as he stood by as Dong Zhuo took over Ye, Xu Chang and Ru Nan. Yuan Shao had taken over Ping Yuan, Xu Zhou and Xia Pi. But Cao Cao was stuck in Chen Liu with his entire army, until he decided to invade Kong Zhou. Cao Cao won, but his forces were spent. I then revoked the alliance and used the chance to take Chen Liu, since with Man Chong all of those officers would be loyal. Only Cao Cao and some stragglers were left in Qiao (cut off the retreat of those from 10 Chen Liu by taking 53. Ding Yao). This took a bit of our forces to finish off all the Chen Liu troops so no finishing off Cao Cao at the moment.
One thing to keep in mind is with all the characters that come out of Pu Yang, it becomes costly to afford them all. Many of them are simple / generic military officers so feel free to ignore some of them (though most are Wei-based and thus loyal to Man Chong). Zhang Liao and Zhou Cang are the excellent generals that will make all the searching worth it.
After a few years of city progress, it was time to expand in 196-197. Yuan Shao’s allies were weak and disloyal to the east (Xu Zhou, Shou Chun and Xia Pi) so they were easy targets. Even still, Yuan Shao had 7. Ye and the entire northeast. Liu Yong was in Jian Ye but actually had 50,000 soldiers so I allied with him with plans to deal with him later. It had come time to slaughter Cao Cao in 20. Qiao and take all of his nice items like the Luminous Soul, Treatise of Meng De, etc.
Meanwhile, Dong Zhuo was being over-ran in the west-central by Yuan Shu. YS took Luo Yang, Chang An and Xu Chang. Xu Chang was worth sending a bunch of forces to, so that I could secure the entire central for the Qiao Mao / Man Chong army. But whoever is in Luo Yang will have quite an army. Look for Lu Bu in this region. Remember, even if his loyalty is high he’s prone to rebelling, so make an effort to do so. It’ll weaken the city he is in, and he may join you outright afterward.
Or you may wish to ignore the central and head for the northeast to finish off Yuan Shao, Gongsun Zan and the Dong forces in 4. Jin Yang and 3. Dai Xian. Yuan Shu had killed Dong Zhuo in Xu Chang earlier so Dong Huang was left leading the army in Dai Xian (with not much). The idea was to create a barrier for Yuan Shu, keeping 7. Ye and 19. Xu Chang reasonably fortified, while sending most of the forces up through Dai Xian and then pincer attack with the 9. Pu Yang troops that have been building up for some time. Yuan Shao’s Nan Pi was beefed up considerably, 2000 Economy and 40,000 soldiers. A Zhang He duel win over Wen Chou was key in turning the tide. This left Gongsun Zan in 2. Bei Ping. He was not particularly difficult to dispatch, but it left the troops in this area depleted. But the northeast now can be abandoned save for a few characters in each castle to keep it occupied.
This should have given your Xu Chang and Ye troops some time to build up and ready an attack on 11. Luo Yang. Yuan Shu had close to a 3000 economy there with a number of soldiers. The troops in the northeast were sent to the southeast, through Bei Hai and Xia Pi, to close out Liu Yong, Yan Yu and Wang Lang. Not a very difficult task, and one thing that helped is Liu Yong gained some new allies and he took soldiers away from the dangerous Taishi Ci.
A brutal war was waged vs. Yuan Shu in Luo Yang and Wan. Having Lu Bu rebel and join was a help in reducing Luo Yang’s defenses. Almost the entire army was sent to fight Yuan Shu, save for the group in the southeast that was finishing off Wang Lang, Liu Yong, etc. Yuan Shu ended up fleeing through Chang An which too had a spectacular Economy but little in terms of officers to defend the estate, outside of Jia Xue. We took Chang An and then rested the forces there while An Ding was the last place for Yuan Shu.
On the other end, we worked through Wan and to Liu Biao in Xiang Yang. Our forces in the southeast that dispatched Liu Yong now moved just southwest to Lu Jiang. This allowed for a pincer attack on Jiang Xia, and now all the troops besides the ones in Chang An were in the south. Liu Biao generally has a high economy but his officers aren’t potent enough to stand up to some of the ones you’ve acquired being in the central region. They may be trained well though. Liu Biao had actually taken most of Sun Jian’s territory; Sun Jian only had Gui Yang and Ling Ling by the time we got down there (and both were only like 600-700 Economy so they didn’t have much for soldiers in defense).
Liu Zhang was more annoying to deal with because he was just sitting there this whole time and readying his army. By this time the troops were tired after pushing through the south, but the force in Chang An was substantive after resting there for a while. Liu Zhang did move most of his forces to 45. Yun Nan and 44. Jian Ning, which is usually a stupid move since he spends so much time building Cheng Dou up and then leaves it left to only 2-3 officers to defend. Depends on how late you get over to Liu Zhang but the earlier the better obviously. A good plan is to figure out which castle Liu Zhang is in, and then attack that one. If you surround him with 5 or 6 guys you’ll likely capture him, and then you can release him. He should then have 0 soldiers in wherever he flees, making him an easy kill (even if he gets time to re-stock, he’s still a weak ruler and easy to beat up physically).
All that was left was Ma Teng and Yuan Shu in An Ding, both of which submitted after sending a massive force through Tian Shui and cornering them both. So picking Qiao Mao as a ruler isn’t too bad, you just have to get lucky early on and hope he stays alive long enough to build up a reasonable force and find a decent successor. Man Chong makes the end of the game like using Cao Cao, as all the Wei officers are loyal to him. If you can manage to get Guan Yu though then you have a stronger ruler but one that has all the Shu officers loyal of course. They’re the most likely options but there is a lot of fluctuation using Qiao Mao.
9. Pu Yang Recruits:
Man Chong (190)
Wang Kuang (191)
Wang Kai (191)
Li Feng (192)
Zhou Cang (192)
Zang Ba (192)
Cheng Lian (192)
Wei Xu (192)
Cao Xing (192)
Gao Shun (192)
Song Xian (192)
Hou Chen (193)
Hao Meng (193)
Xue Lan (193)
Xu Si (197)
Wu Dun (197)
Yin Li (197)
Sun Guan (197)