Dong Zhuo’s Rival Unite – 189 AD
tao Qian – 18. Xu Zhou Strategy
Tao Qian is a classic in the early RTK scenario. Might be one of the most Civil Officer heavy rulers in any scenario. 18. Xu Zhou starts with Chen Deng, Chen Gui and Mi Zhu. This should allow you to get the Economy up real fast (1000 by 191 easy). 17. Xia Pi is less fortunate, with a disloyal Che Zhou that will take some time and money to make happy. Sun Qian is at Xia Pi also, a great Civil Officer (high Charm (90) often means he ends up leading the army after Tao Qian’s early death (~195)).
Train with Zhang Kai and Spy on 33. Jian Ye. Taishi Ci is who you want; he has an 85 loyalty so it may take some luck, but it’s do-able especially when trying with Sun Qian. He should have the Governor’s-share of soldiers too, even if Liu Yong displaced him as the Governor there in favor of Chen Heng. You should be in a good position to take Jian Ye and Shou Chun now if you wish, or sit back and survey what is going on in the busy section just west of Xu Zhou.
Qiao Mao is likely gone and you’ll probably see some combination of Cao Cao, Dong Zhuo and Liu Bei warring around here. Try to Spy as often as you can to find Officers that switch forces and are disloyal; Tao Qian’s region isn’t exactly officer-rich so you need to do this to acquire more members. Especially watch for Zhang Fei or Guan Yu, in case Cao Cao gets them at Puyang or something. They would be a boon obviously and Guan Yu would be a prime successor for Tao Qian. Another worthy officer that pops up around Puyang is Zhou Cang and he is not loyal to Cao Cao (Shu alignment) so recruit him definitely (Tao Qian as you see is especially lacking in powerful generals sans Taishi Ci and Che Zhou who may have left you by now).
Cao Cao is worth Allying with because you wouldn’t survive an onslaught from him and this way if he does attack, you can just get backed up to Xia Pi and his betrayed officers will be disloyal. In the meantime though they are very loyal, only Liu Yan and Chen Gong can be recruited (Chen Gong is very hard to do at 90 loyalty).
Kong Rong at Bei Hai I usually leave alone while working on the southeast. He rarely acquires enough soldiers to bother to attack anyway, though it’s still worth training your Xia Pi soldiers and keeping them ready in case. If you have Taishi Ci there as Governor with his Liu Yong initial soldiers, you should be set for defense. Liu Yong is definitely the first one you want to conquer and without Taishi Ci, should be weak. Only qualms with this is that you’ll probably send Liu Yong either to Runan or Lujiang and then involving Liu Biao or the central lords to you. I’d suggest taking Liu Yong out in Jian Ye so he is forced to flee to Lujiang; it’s then pretty easy to just leave Jian Ye with troops to deal with a weak Liu Biao attack.
With Liu Yong gone, Yan Baihu and Wang Lang should not be much longer. As weak as they are, it’s a relief to clear out Wu and Kuaji and then just worry about Jian Ye as the main port to the center + south. Even Shouchun would not need troops in this event (assuming Runan is still open).
Now you can hold Liu Biao off at Jian Ye and plot to take over the northeast, cleaning that area up. This turn through it was Kong Rong who took over Yuan Shao and Liu Bei’s region. Che Zhou had left me for Kong Rong’s forces and he is one of the leaders (of about 60,000 total troops between Nan Pi, Ping Yuan and Bei Hai). Nothing insurmountable when combining the forces that took out Wu. Remember throughout this that if you find Guan Yu, Zhang Fei or Zhao Yun, they will be very high loyalty for you (if Tao Qian or Sun Qian is your ruler).
Once Sun Qian’s forces take the northeast, you will have nothing to your back. Just the center and west to go, and Liu Biao’s weak forces near Jiang Xia / Chai Sang / Lu Jiang. With Cao Cao and Dong Zhuo warring, it is a luxury to be on the other side of this war and be able to pick apart at Cao Cao’s forces as the holes start to show themselves (whether he is imploding in certain provinces or just weak after an attack).
Yuan Shu was over-taken by Dong Zhuo so after Cao Cao’s demise, it took a few years to round up and train enough troops to put the army on par with Dong Zhuo. Remember to look for Lu Bu and get him to revolt and then join you. If it has taken you long to get in position vs. Dong Zhuo it’s possible he died naturally and Dong Min or Dong Huang took his place, both of which are big downgrades from Dong Zhuo. But if the lesser Dong’s are not around then Jia Xue is likely the ruler and then it becomes a bit more complicated. Jia Xue is in Chang An and that is always a huge economic juggernaut and will likely take some effort to win (though there are less soldier-types there, and some of them may be in An Ding too). As mentioned earlier Dong Zhuo took out Yuan Shu in Wan, so taking Wan forced Dong Zhuo to flee north. This meant Xin Ye was an open city so that we stayed away from Liu Biao on that end for now. We can deal with him Chang An is taken.
But once Chang An is taken, Dong Zhuo (or whoever is left) will go fleeing towards An Ding and then Tian Shui. This may bring Ma Teng into battle to squash the remaining members of the Dong Zhuo army. Ma Teng does nothing in Xi Liang besides train his troops; the economy rarely goes past 350 so there is never much progress over there. But they are warriors and trained, so taking out Ma Teng will take a bit out of your soldiers there. It’s a good time to re-group though, as there is not much of China left to take.
There is Liu Zhang in the southwest, who probably hasn’t done anything either unless he went chasing Dong Zhuo’s remains in Xia Bian or Han Zhong. Liu Biao had moved over to Lu Jiang so he was in the vicinity of our army at Jian Ye; time to move a more substantial force over there and prepare for a push.
Lu Jiang and Chai Sang were weak, being led by Huang Zhu, Chen Sheng and Zhu Guang. Liu Biao had a little more at Jiang Xia and Jiang Ling, but the real force was at 24. Xiang Yang. This is Liu Biao’s capital and it generally has a 2000+ economy by the time you get there (assuming you had a ruler in the center). But again, not many talented officers to lead in Liu Biao’s group besides Wen Pin and Pang Tong.
So that leaves Sun Ce and Liu Zhang as our last opponents. Sun Jian had just died, and Sun Ce was out in Gui Yang. Spy on the Wu army as they tend to take over the entire south but leave most of their troops in 1 or 2 of the cities. It’s not quite Cao Cao’s forces, but it’s the next step down and they had a lot of time to sit there and build up (assuming they did so in an efficient manner).
18. Xu Zhou Recruits:
Jian Yong (194)
17. Xia Pi Recruits:
Cao Bao (189)
Xu Shang (195)
Zhang Zhao (196)
Zhang Hong (196)