If you already know strategy games as a genre by heart and have played it through, but still feel like a new experience, Steam find what you are looking for: there is a sale from KEOI TECMO: “Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIII” (PS3, PS4, Xbox One, PC) is on sale for €18. This corresponds to a discount of 70%. Our author Schuhmann reports on sleepless nights with the Chinese mix of strategy and role-playing.
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ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS XIII – Official Strategy Game Trailer
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Mix of Civilzation 6 and an RPG with hundreds of characters
That’s the idea of the game: Romance of the Three Kingdoms 13 is similar to Crusader Kings 3 a mix of role-playing game and strategy game:
As in Civilization 6, it’s actually about “world domination”: You build cities, conquer provinces, wage war or conduct diplomacy. The goal is to conquer all of China. You have the opportunity to start with different historical scenarios, as one of several “powerful” factions: You can not only play the 3 kingdoms that give the game its name, but also bandit leaders, Taoist sects or “wild barbarians” who ride elephants ride.
But this world conquest happens with a strong role-playing accent, because for every action in the game you have to use “officers”: These are leaders, bureaucrats, warriors or strategists
What is special about Romance of the Three Kingdoms: All of these figures are “designed, historical characters” with special abilities and characteristics. So there are no randomly designed NPCs like mostly in Crusader Kings 3, but actually figures with their own biography: Almost every warrior’s biography says how he lived in the novel and how he died.
Fun Fact: A surprising number have been slain in battle by one of the epic’s famous heroes, beheaded for treason, or hanged themselves out of shame after defeat. Rough times prevailed around 210 years after the birth of Christ in ancient China.
You can slip into any role: warrior, trader, ruler or errand boy
This is the highlight of Romance of the Three Kingdoms: You can play any of these hundred different characters, and your role will change accordingly.
Because in Romance of the Three Kingdoms 13 you don’t have to play a “ruler” who rules his country and gives all the commands like in Civilization 6.
You can also play a general or a simple warrior in this universe, just doing his job and seeing where he is. So you can be a part of the mighty machinery and slip into the role of the historical Lu Bu: you are the most powerful warrior in the world, but you will fail through betrayal and the charms of a young woman after you have killed two adoptive fathers at the same time.
Or you can play part of the trio of heroes presented as “the good guys” in the epic:
The counterpart to the three is “Cao Cao” with his clique of generals, strategists and thugs.
To this day, his name is used in China like the devil is in our country. A Chinese proverb says “If one speaks of Cao Cao, then he comes.”
This is how I perceived it: Romance of The Three Kingdoms is currently on sale on Steam for €18, and anyone who pays €28 gets the game and an expansion bundle.
I’ve already spent over 70 hours on the game over the last few days and from a western perspective it’s a strange and extremely exciting chunk.
The most important thing in the game are the officers and that you “get the best”: Because with strong generals and strategists you can win and conquer battles. Good bureaucrats help cities grow and ensure that you have enough money and supplies to keep the war machine running, which is ultimately what it’s all about.
You actually want to eliminate “strong opponents” in order to capture their top people, recruit them and make them work for you.
A popular strategy is therefore to eliminate Cao Cao or Liu Bei with each faction as quickly as possible and grab their top people while their empires are still relatively small.
In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a small empire with top people can outperform a large empire with weak staff.
It is important to stay within the framework of the respective historical scenario, because only then will certain events be triggered that are based on history and lead to certain empires breaking up: As in the epic, first the Han empire collapses and then the tyrant Dong Zhou fell.
A “classic style of play” with rapid expansion often leads to these events not happening, the empire remaining stable and overrunning you with its strong troops: Because at the beginning of the story, many later “stars”, such as Cao Cao, are still working well for the Emperor.
It’s more about really fulfilling the role that the game assigns you and staying within the intended limits, as I found out quickly and painfully.
Although this can also be changed in the options and you can also enjoy a fictional game without the influence of the story.
After hundreds of hours playing western strategy games, I found the game very strange and varied:
What’s exciting are some concepts that are really foreign to us in the West: You first have to play through a historical scenario until the game offers you a “fictional mode” in which all the important heroes of the era are alive at the same time and with roughly the same Starting conditions compete against each other.
My conclusion is: If you think you know every strategy game by heart and if you are looking for a new challenge, you should treat yourself to “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” – it will certainly not suit everyone’s taste, but it is a unique gaming experience , which unfairly goes so far under the radar in the West.
For €17 or €28 you can easily get several hundred hours of high-quality strategy and role-playing fare here. If you only draw question marks after 2 hours, you can always ask for the money back.
The “Comrade” or the “Prestige system” alone are so weird and so unique that you should deal with them as a strategy and role-playing game to see how the Chinese do it.
If you liked Total War: Three Kingdoms, you can delve much deeper into the world of ancient China here. It makes you want to immerse yourself in this strange world with its stories and entanglements.
If the world continues to develop as it has in recent years, it certainly doesn’t hurt to get a better feel for the culture of China.
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