Romance of the Three Kingdoms III 189 AD Liu Bei

Dong Zhuo's Rivals Unite - 189 A.D.

Liu Bei - 6. Ping Yuan Strategy:

It's hard to tell whether Liu Bei is underrated or overrated in this scenario. He starts off with only Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, and he is next to the juggernaut Yuan Shao. Often times Yuan Shao will take his massive army and conquer Ping Yuan right away, which is very bad if you're Liu Bei. Other than that, Liu Bei can build a formidable army if given the proper amount of time.

99 charm is nice, and you'll be able to raid 5. Nan Pi of some quality generals right away. Chen Lin and Xu You (along with Shang Lang / Free Officer) should be procurred for economy-developing purposes, while Gao Lan and Zhang He can join to add some more muscle. Before you do all of this though, ally with Yuan Shao to buy yourself time, and if he does invade you, hopefully you can stave him once and then you can raid him of his army after their loyalty drops. Chances are though, you allying with Yuan Shao will cause him to go after Gongsun Zan or Kong Rong, or do nothing at all and implode in Nan Pi. Below you is Qiao Mao and Han Fu, who will both be taken over by Dong Zhuo or Cao Cao probably. Either way, these are cities you are going to want to pay attention to as there will be quality generals going in and out of them that you may or may not be able to recruit.

In this particular case, some strange things happened. Dong Zhou took over Cao Cao very early in 191 AD. This eliminated a huge future threat. Yuan Shao had upwards of 100,000 soldiers in Nan Pi but didn't have the city to finance them; in turn his officers turned disloyal and we took them from him. Ping Yuan was actually built up nicely at this point and we used Yuan Shao's soldiers to take over Nan Pi and finally Dai Xian. During this, Kong Rong asked to ally with us so we allowed him. Before we moved out of 3 Dai Xian, we hung around long enough to find Zhao Yun, arguably the best officer in the game. We still had a lot of soldiers left over so we chased Gongsun Zan from Bei Ping and then threatened him when he was at Xiang Yang. He joined us willingly and guarded Bei Ping and Xiang Ping for us while we moved the rest of the army back to Nan Pi and Ping Yuan to build up further.

Han Fu of all rulers had taken over the center, leaving it weak for when we felt the need to attack. Kong Rong is still our ally but we're sniffing his domain in Bei Hai because he's still relatively weak compared to what we have. We'll let him live for a year longer or so. Eventually though, we take the Nan Pi force with Ping Yuan as reinforcements to take out Kong Rong. The northeast is now secure, and we'll ally with Sun Qian and leave Bei Hai half-covered, while we move onto Han Fu and Dong Zhou to the south.

Han Fu has Cao Cao's ex-forces, and they are actually loyal. Dong Zhou meanwhile died and Dong Huang took over in Luo Yang. This made the central easier to take over, and Han Fu was really a pushover. As we took the center over with our talented and built-up army, we left a decent amount of forces in Ye and Xu Chang. To get rid of one issue, we get Lu Bu to rebel in Jin Yang, and then he went into Exile due to poor economic funding. This gave us enough time to scrap our alliance with Sun Qian, and we performed a pincer attack from Xu Zhou and Bei Hai to take over Xia Pi. Sun Qian's forces were loyal to him but they like Liu Bei too.

Liu Yong was pushed into Shou Chun with Wang Lang taking Jian Ye. Neither are anything that'll stop us, so we basically have the entire east part of the map, with Lu Jiang open. This allows us to focus our entire force in Ye and Xu Chang. Time to push west and mop up Dong Huang and Yuan Shu (and Liu Biao eventually). Yuan Shu has a powerful army in Chang An, but again, once we get Wan and Hong Nong, Chang An became easier to lay siege.

After that was finished, we went after Liu Biao in Xin Ye and captured him there. We killed him and Pang Tong took over; the soldiers became a bit more disloyal and we got the Governor Huo Jun to join in Shang Yong. This allowed us to cut off Pang Tong's retreat, so we swallowed up the powerful citadel Xiang Yang.

During all this, Liu Bei was in Luo Yang searching for the Hereditary Seal. It's not really necessary with Liu Bei as his Charm is 99, but the Political boost helps. Anyway, Sun Ce and Liu Zhang are the two issues left. We leave Liu Zhang for now, but Sun Ce had taken over Jiang Xia and Jiang Ling. Fortunately he's rolling out Liu Biao's ex-troops, who hate Sun Ce, and in turn we are allowed to recruit the Jiang Xia Governor. Combined with our Xiang Yang forces (and our friends who recently moved into Lu Jiang) we are able to push Sun Ce's force to the southern part of Jing Zhou. His forces are strong and his officers have great ability, something we would have expected from Cao Cao had he survived the dangerous Han Fu. Still though, use Personal Combat on Sun Ce's best warlords and that'll give you the edge, assuming you're bringing your top Shu officers in Guan Yu, Zhao Yun, Zhang Fei, Zhou Cang, etc.

This leaves Liu Zhang, who had since taken over Han Zhong and Xia Bian (from the fleeing Yuan Shu). We ally with him as we bring all of our forces to Chang An or Yong An. Liu Zhang has upwards of 150,000 soldiers in Cheng Dou and little else anywhere else. Still though, that 150,000 is nothing to scoff at, so try to get a pincer attack from Zi Tong and Yong An. Instead though, our Yong An forces push through Jiang Zhou and Cheng Dou, while Wen Chou at Chang An just holds that front from Liu Zhang's Han Zhong/Xia Bian forces. After Cheng Dou goes, the ball is definitely going downhill for Liu Zhang, as we wipe out his forces in Yun Nan and Jian Ning, killing Liu Zhang in the process. By the way, we threatened him a few times before we broke the alliance, of course.

The illustrious Ma Han takes over as the ruler in Xia Bian. Our Cheng Dou forces number 170,000, something that Ma Han or Ma Teng can't do anything about. So we take these forces and move them to the northwest and conquer Ma Han's Shu-army remnants, and bulldoze that idiot Ma Teng who couldn't build up a city to save his life. In 201, China belongs to Liu Bei.

Not a hard scenario, but it can be tough at first. Yuan Shao is always issue number one, while Cao Cao can become an issue. It depends on how long it takes to build up a substantial force. If you can somehow get Yuan Shao's high-soldier officers to join you (either through an alliance betrayal on Yuan Shao's part, or through end-of-the-year loyalty drops that he has due to poor economy), you'll have the forces to make an immediate push. If you can't pull this off, Yuan Shao will probably fight you to a stand-still, making you build up your forces even more to take out Gongsun Zan, Kong Rong or anyone else. Once you secure the northeast, Liu Bei's high Charm and his officers high overall ability make it easy to take over the rest of China.

6. Ping Yuan Recruits:

Shang Lang (189)

Wang Fu (196)

Zhao Lei (197)