Romance of the Three Kingdoms & Nobunaga's Ambition, good?

[Erik_Twice]

These series have been around for a very long time and they seem something I would enjoy. However, I don't know if they are actually any good. Reviews are mixed (or "mixed by video game standards") but it's not a genre I would trust reviews of.

Anyone has played games in the series? Any thoughts?

[Nemoide]

I haven't played any of them, but I've been curious about them myself. Part of me wants to play Nobunaga's Ambition before I get around to Pokemon Conquest, since in Japan it's a crossover of both series.

Are the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games story-based in any way? Does playing them in order matter? Or are they just updated versions of the same premise, like the Caesar games?

I like turn based strategy more than real-time strategy, but I'm by no means an aficionado of the genre. I've been afraid of these series being too hardcore for me, but I really don't know!

[Jmustang1968]

They are classic Koei games and play like so. You own territories, govern them, defend them, move armies, attack etc... in a turn based structure. I really enjoy those games, but they are very slow and can be tedious.

[Ack]

Let me preface this by saying I totally suck at Nobunaga's Ambition and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

That said, they are excellent games where you must build and maintain an empire. Both series cover specific historical periods, so you are always tied to a similar roster(though it generally expands over time), and their systems evolve, but you are always going to be taking over the same areas and watching the same historic events unfold.

Nobunaga's Ambition is set during the Warring States period of Japan's history, the Sengoku era(1467 CE - 1603), when rival clans vied for power to become shogun of Japan. Nobunaga Oda got the furthest during his reign, but he actually died before Japan was unified. His successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, maintained the Oda empire and launched invasions of Korea in an attempt to build an empire in China, but this ended up resulting in failure and squabbling between Oda commanders. Ultimately these squabbles resulted in the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, which resulted in victory for Tokugawa Ieyasu, thus cementing the Tokugawa bakufu. The Tokugawas ruled Japan as shoguns until the 1860s.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms focuses on the Chinese novel of the same name, supposedly written by Luo Guanzhong. The historical novel mixes history and mythology, but it covers the collapse of the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms era that resulted, where Wu, Shu, and Wei battled for dominance(169 CE - 280). Ultimately none of the states were successful, as a Wei commander named Sima Yi ended up rising to power and establishing the Jin dynasty, which lasted until 420. The Dynasty Warriors series covers the same set of conflicts, so if you have ever played any of those games, you're familiar with the basics.

Koei has developed several other strategy series over time. Some of these might interest you more:

Genghis Khan series - The Mongols build their empire across Asia and into Europe and North Africa(1206 CE - 1368).

Rise of the Phoenix - Set during the Chu-Han contention, 206 BC - 202 BC, in which the Han empire rises from the remains of the Qin dynasty.

Liberty or Death - British and American officers square off during the American Revolutionary War(1775 CE - 1783) for the fate of the 13 North American British colonies.

[skyknight]

Ack sums up the background pretty well,

My bros and I have play most of them (RTK IV~, No's Am from Iron Triangle on ~) and in Traditional Chinese (which we imported), each in-game system changes from one to another, i.e. RTK VII and VIII let you role play as a wander warrior, subordinate, governor, adviser, and lord (but only one player at a time!), RTK IX and most of others can allow multiple players take turn.

Nobunaga's Ambition has been single player, turn-based all along. Yes, each game will take up to 40 hours to unify the land - which after playing Total War: Samurai, is quite redundant (none of the 3 JP Unifiers actually controlled all the land directly).

Each series has at least 800(!) generals spanning decades for you to recruit in your fraction, but be aware if you played the Warriors too much, you might be disappointed about the ability ratings and historic accuracy, i.e. Guan Yu's sons have much lower ability ratings than him, Sanada Yukimura never fought side by side with Takeda Shingen.

But one of the common critiques for both is the low AI, unbalanced combat tactic abilities (there is a damn good reason to have good generals instead of massive troops), but dang, these series sells well in East Asia.

[Erik_Twice]

Wow, great posts guys, thanks!

So which games in the series would you recommend? I tried out ROTK IV: Wall of Fire and I liked what I saw, even if I have no idea of what I'm doing (I should really have read the manual).

[Ack]

Wow, great posts guys, thanks!

So which games in the series would you recommend? I tried out ROTK IV: Wall of Fire and I liked what I saw, even if I have no idea of what I'm doing (I should really have read the manual).

For Nobunaga's Ambition, I would say start with Nobunaga no Yabō: Zenkokuban, otherwise known as Nobunaga's Ambition: National Edition, or just Nobunaga's Ambition for the US SNES, Genesis, and NES release. It is one of the easiest games in the series to find outside of Japan, and it took the original and then added a 50-province mode to let you fight for all of Japan as opposed to only part of it.

As for Romance of the Three Kingdoms...ooph, tough question. They all have quirks, and even hardcore fans of the series go back and forth about which is the best. If you have access to one already, just stick with it I'd say.

As far as Koei strategy games are concerned for 16-bit machines, Liberty or Death is considered the pinnacle in the US.

[Jmustang1968]

Ive spent a lot of time with Liberty or Death and Ghengis Khan. Both fun games.

[skyknight]

You may want to pay attention with the English release of Nobu's Am on PS4, PS3, and PC later this year.
http://www.gameinformer.com/games/nobun ... -fall.aspx

Otherwise, RTK XIII is schedule to be release later this year in JP for the 30th Anniversary of RTK series.

Earlier releases had fewer generals to recruit and fewer scenarios to select from, FYI, but you can look at PS2 series, I think they can had for cheap.

And not to side track, but I do have a PSP Japanese RTK V if anyone is interested - would require you to understand JP pretty well.

[skyknight]

Wow, great posts guys, thanks!

So which games in the series would you recommend? I tried out ROTK IV: Wall of Fire and I liked what I saw, even if I have no idea of what I'm doing (I should really have read the manual).

For the series there are two main phases of gameplay, economy (city building) and war (conquest and capture generals).

RTK IV was pretty bare-bone in terms of economy, all you would need is a couple of generals that have high POL (politics) to improve the STAT of the city - Farm, Business, and Flood Prevention. But you do need to recruit soldiers (to booster your troop numbers), which lowers the Loyalty of your city, thus requires generals to booster Loyalty time to time.

In the mean time, especially if you play the scenarios that is set in the early periods (189~200 AD), you will need to pay attention to recruiting free generals, cuz you will need capable generals (not always the best) for each of the city you hold. (This applies to all RTK and Nobu's)

Diplomacy is good to prevent other warlords ganging up on you, but don't expect the GRAND ALLIANCE marching down towards the common enemy - RTK never had a stand alone grand battle between the Eastern Alliance against Dong Zhuo, only EVENTS!

Battle in the earlier series were all grid base, it is not just about surrounding your enemy, but making sure your generals have abilities to do special attacks and tactics to reduce your loss and do extra damage.