-Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX: Challenge Scenario Guide-
Welcome to my first strategy guide. I was browsing through GameFAQs, ign.com,
and others, and I couldn't find any tips at all on beating these, sometimes,
annoying challenges. So, I decided to start one with the knowledge
i've obtained through playing them.
First off, i'd like to thank VideoZ for his guide,
if it weren't for that, it would have taken me quite
a bit longer to grasp the game at a decent level.
Secondly, I really don't care what you do with this guide,
where you post it, save it, host it, blah blah blah.
I don't even care if you use my name,
but it'd be nice to be credited.
Thirdly, i'd like to thank KOEI for making the Romance of the Three Kingdoms
series. It's an extremely great collection, and one that I never seem to get
bored of.
Additions: Fixed mispellings pointed out by Carps Tail. New challenge scenario
completed upon the aid of MzWalke_Mubuli, thank you very much. Grammar is still
imperfect, will be checked and fixed at a later date. Cao Cao is still a prick,
regardless of how many great feats he had.
Now, onto the guide.
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[Normal]
-Defense of Nan Yang-
Difficulty: Hard
Ruler: Zhang Xiu
Province: Wan
Conditions: Defeat Cao Cao
Or rule all of Wan, Xu Chang, and Luo Yang
Okay, I know what the game says. It says that this scenario is
pretty hard, and if you're anything like me, it definitely can be.
I must have tried this a good 30 times and was only disappointed
to have Wan crumble, and me be defeated. Cao Cao's forces here are
endless, or so it seems, even with the intelligent Jia Xu
providing you with ploys to weaken him.
When you first start, you'll notice you have three officers.
Real impressive, huh? Zhang Xiu's war isn't great, nor his
leadership, but he does have the nifty tactic
Onslaught. Then there's Hu Che'er, who really sucks.
His war sucks, his int sucks, his pol sucks, his leadership sucks.
He sucks. Your grandmom would probably be able to take this guy on.
But don't fret, he's useful. Then there's your warlord,
the great Jia Xu. His intelligence is 98, his politics is 85, his
leadership is 81, and his war is...unimportant.
Here's the deal, because you don't have much time before that prick
Cao Cao decides to launch what seems like an impossibe to beat large force.
Number one, let's go back to basics. You're short of officers, so get some.
There's the Yellow Turban gang inside the Employ screen. Gong Du, Zhou Cang,
Zhang Kai, Pei Yuanshao, Liu Pi, Liao Hua. You'll find the most desirable ones,
you can't recruit, but once again, don't fret. At this point,
anybody is useful. The main people you'll want to get here are Liu Pi,
Zhang Kai, and Pei Yuanshao. Zhang Kai may decide to enlist by himself,
but most of the time he doesn't, so don't bet on it.
If you can't recruit them all, still, don't fret. There's plenty of
talent where that came from. Next, you want to draft and drill up.
Make sure you have exactly 34,000 troops, and 100 morale.
You won't have time to do this when Cao Cao attacks. Next, search Wan,
Jia Xu should tell you it's a splendid idea. If he doesn't, do it anyway.
You should come up with Wen Pin. Recruit him, he may say no, but just
try again next round. Keep at him with Jia Xu, he'll give in, but if it
takes too long, forget about him.
Keep in mind what Cao Cao is like. He loves to make people defect,
so reward your new recruits, and give them rank. One may defect anyway,
even with a good 90+ loyalty, you can afford to lose one. Next, search again,
around May you'll come up with Gan Ning and Li Yan. Gan Ning and Li Yan
are useful, but you can do without them as well, recruit them if you can.
Chen Dao and Wei Yan are also in Ru Nan, Jia Xu will mention there's
talent there, search if you want, but you don't need them.
From here, the biggest tip is DO NOT go into battle with Jia Xu,
and DO NOT attempt to attack any of Cao Cao's provinces. If you have
Jia Xu with you, and you get caught, he dies of wounds taken in battle,
and you lose. Finally, Cao Cao attacks. He'll attack with two or more
units, maybe 23,000 from himself, and 15,000 from Xiahou Dun/Xun Yu,
and also Zhou Cang with 10,000. Mislead who you can, but chances are,
probably no one. Leave Jia Xu inside, and gear your people up in Wedge form.
Fortunately for you, Cao Cao isn't depending on you to fight back,
so he sends all Towers/Catapults/Snipers. Zhang Xiu should head up
the formation with Onslaught. Next, use all your others, and give
them all Sortie, yes, even if they have charge. Your party should
consist of Zhang Xiu, Liu Pi, Zhang Kai, Pei Yuanshao, in the least.
Don't substitute them if you have them. If you don't, go ahead
and substitute. Also, if you have Gan Ning, don't depend on him dueling,
he'll lose, he always loses. Leave him on standby, (if you can)
with a rescue party. He can run in and Melee for a distraction
or quick kill.
Your target should never be Cao Cao. Have your party attack
someone else. Once you get a unit in the battlefield, Jia Xu
will come up with a plan strictly for Cao Cao's unit and it'll
basically all but wipe him out. At the most, you'll need to
defend Wan at least three times from Cao Cao's unit before you
win the scenario.
If you meet Cao Cao in battle, you should activate the ambush ploy.
Cao Cao will run, and Jia Xu will suggest it's a trap. Take his
advice, don't pursue. Cao Cao will then have 4,000 or 3,000 troops
that you can take out in one go. Switch targets to Cao Cao, take
him out, then go back to the other unit if it's not wiped out already.
If they're both almost dead, now's a good time to use the rescue
unit to take out Cao Cao and return to base.
When you take out the first onslaught, Cao Cao will come again
with more troops, or less troops, depending on how much he
came with the first time. Use the same plan, attack the different
units, let Jia Xu execute the plot. Never fight from inside
the castle. The next ploy should either be Mistress Zou or
Jia Xu's famous exposing the castle's weak point to ambush.
All the ploys, except Mistress Zou, cause Cao Cao to lose
one horse, either Storm or Shadow. Once he loses both horses,
take him out. Pursuit, pursuit, pursuit. DO NOT LET HIM GET AWAY!
Capture him, once the turn is over, execute, and booya, you win.
Congratulations on beating the scenario and unlocking Mistress Zou.
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[Normal]
-Inheritance Wars-
Difficulty: Eaaaaaaaaasy
Provinces: Ye and Nan Pi
Ruler: Yuan Shang
Conditions: Destroy the army of Yuan Tan
Or rule all of Nan Pi, Ping Yuan, Bei Hai
It doesn't get much easier than this. Simple, take out Yuan Tan.
He has two provinces, just like you. Draft to maxium, invade
Ping Yuan. You should have no trouble taking it at all.
Cao Hong may decide to be a prick, like Cao Cao, and invade you.
You could bribe him off with gold, (it may take several tries),
or you could route him, either one works. Eventually,
Cao Hong will offer you a treaty. You can take it if you want a
quick victory, use it, destroy Yuan Tan, and win. Or, you can
take it, build up, request Yuan Tan to use his remaining forces
to take Cao Hong like an idiot, attack Cao Hong with him.
You'll win, Cao Hong will get mad, take him out,
Yuan Tan will have nothing left, and with one city and no
draft pool, he won't hold out long.
And there you go, congratulations, you've not only beaten Yuan Tan,
but the other prick Cao Hong too. You've unlocked Mistress
Zhen, and got a charm added to your collection from the event
triggered in Ye.
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[Normal]
-Battle of Chi Bi-
Difficulty: Easy
Provinces: Chang Sha and Lu Jiang
Ruler: Sun Quan
Conditions: Defeat Cao Cao
Or rule all of Chang Sha, Lu Jiang, Jiang Ling
Now, you have to say to yourself, "How am I going to do this?"
But it's pretty simple, see, because you may have
overlooked the second set of conditions. That's right, you've
only got to take Jiang Ling, and you win! So draft, drill,
don't bother to build. Keep in mind that Huang Gai has a few
troops and officers in Lukou Port already. Drill them as well.
Next, have Sun Quan build a fort directly next to Liu Bei's Jiang Xia.
Take everybody except Lu Xun, Taishi Chi, Sun Shangxiang, and
Zhu Huan. Assign about 1/4 your troops to the fort, and the
rest leave in Lu Jiang for Taishi Chi's unit.This is to divide
Cao Cao's assault between you and Liu Bei so he doesn't sneak
on you and take Lu Jiang while Zhou Yu is on the frontlines.
Use all the plans, and go to Lukou with Zhou Yu, Cheng Pu,
Lu Meng, Gan Ning, Xu Sheng, and everybody else with decent Navy
experience. Take all your troops from Chang Sha there too.
Before the turn is up, have everybody in Lu Jiang
attack the port across from Liu Bei. Wen Pin will run,
don't chase him. After, the movie of Chi Bi should activate.
Next, march with Zhou Yu, Cheng Pu, Huang Gai, Han Dang, and
Pan Zhang with a warship. Take the port just below Jiang Ling.
You'll probably take another port on the way, just march again
right on the next turn. Once Cao Cao begins his massive march,
have Gan Ning, Lu Meng, Xu Sheng, Ding Feng, and Zhou Tai march
with 3/4 of every troop left in Lukou to battle Xiahou Yuan
and others. Mislead with Lu Su and Pang Tong as much as you can.
Once Jiang Ling has about 12,000 troops left, march in Tower
formation with your Zhou Yu unit. Take Jiang Ling, and
congratulations, you've beat the scenario
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[Normal]
-Conquering Wu-
Difficulty: Normal
Provinces: Alot
Ruler: Sima Yan
Conditions: Defeat the incapable Sun Hao
Conquer all of Wu
The most frustrating thing about this scenario is the severe
lack of talent. Your warlord really sucks, and is wrong about
60% of the time. So forget about being all ploy-filled for
this scenario. Focus on just raw conquering. Draft and drill, as
usual. Send Du Yu along with the two others with Strike and give
him the guy with Confuse too. Have them about...26,000.
Next, send all the troops from Yong An in two units. 20,000 tower,
with the arrowstorm guy and barrages, and 10,000 for the
other two.
Jiang Ling is going to take awhile to fall because of Sun Xin,
so don't even focus on that for now. Next, you want to march
on Lu Jiang with two units from Shou Chun. You'll lose this battle,
most likely, but that's okay, you'll severely weaken Sun
Hao. From Ru Nan, go with Sima Yan and his Mounted buddies in one
unit, and assign a bunch of the adviser people with Confuse
, Trap, and one with Arrowstorm in Guard formation. Have them march
on Jiang Xia. You'll lose this battle as well, but it's
okay, because you weaken Sun Hao once again. All in all,
after you take Jiang Ling, you should have roughly 60,000 troops
there after all the wounded heal. Take advantage of the draft pool
there, Sun Hao has a large draft pool, but for some reason,
the idiot doesn't bother to draft.
Now, Sun Hao should have 100,000 troops, if that. Take all the
ports around Lu Jiang and Jiang Xia. Transport troops there,
attack Jiang Xia from two sides. Lu Jiang should send backup,
with about 15,000 troops from Shou Chun, (transfer from Hei
Fei and the port next to it), attack Lu Jiang again. This time,
you should take Lu Jiang easily, and Jiang Xia will fall
right after. Now, with most of everything conquered, he'll
have four provinces left, but you only need to conquer another.
Sun Hao will have fled to Chang Sha. Corner him there,
make sure you capture him. Do not let him run. Once you attack the
port next to Chang Sha, he'll move there with about 5,000 troops.
Arrowgale him a few times, and you've got him. Execute
and you win!
Congratulations.
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[Normal]
-Commander Yuan Shao-
Difficulty: Easy
Provinces: Wan, Xu Chang, Chen Liu, Pu Yang
Ruler: Yuan Shao
Conditions: Defeat Dong Zhou
Rule all of Chen Liu, Luo Yang, and Chang An
First and foremost, this information was donated by MzWalke_Mubuli.
The basic concept here is to split Dong Zhuo's force here between
Hu Lao Gate and Luo Yang so he doesn't concentrate all power in
the gate. So the first thing you want to do is shift Liu Bei
and his forces to the port at Guandu. Make sure to use all of
your troops, this means you must, as usual, draft and drill to the max.
Troops should as as follows -
Chen Liu: 35,000
Pu Yang: 30,000
Xu Chang: 34,000
Wan: 29,000
Guandu: 8,000
All 30,000 troops should be moved to Guandu, along with all officers.
From here, you should have the troops march from Guandu to Mengjin Port.
If you want to get some cheap shots in, you can transfer one or two Wu
officers from Wan and go back and forth from Mengjin to Guandu for some
Arrowgales on Luo Yang. During this, you should have your spare troops
from Guandu march in two units against Hu Lao Gate. Delay their march
by 9 days. You want everybody to arrive at the same time. It's the
only way they'll prevail.
Next, send two units from Chen Liu. Cao Cao's confuse is imperative here.
Once you confuse Lu Bu's unit, he'll be a piece of cake, otherwise, he does
some nasty damage on you. For some reason, Dong Zhuo's cavalry is even better
than the Ma's here. No matter, set up Ma Chao and Ma Teng to move in on Luo Yang
in Mallet formation with Ma Chao heading it up. You'll want to duel as much as
possible for the simple fact they are only delay units.
Have the Sun crew, Jian, Ce, Zhou Yu, Cheng Pu, Huang Gai go in at Luo Yang.
Go with Wedge formation and equip them up for some nasty chains. Zhou Yu
will do fine with Confuse. Delay the Ma march by about seven days.
Leave Mengjin Port by itself. It'll get there first, so you want to make
sure that it's the unit to take down Luo Yang, as it's the closet. So
once Luo Yang has about 12,000 troops left, send them in to deliver the
final blow.
If you haven't captured Dong Zhuo yet to execute, proceed to take Chang An.
Get crazy, too, don't recruit any of Dong Zhuo's officers. Once you capture,
execute! No need to save them, unless you want some gold for them, but there's
really no need.
If this strategy isn't working too well, leave Zhang Fei and Guan Yu behind
to deal with Lu Bu, once he's done, the rest will fall into place.
Congratulations on putting an end to the Tyrant!
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Still underconstruction for the rest. Please send in any information
you might have for me at
[email protected] and i'll get to it.
