SeanKelson's Romance of the 3 Kingdoms Walkthrough SeanKelson@aol.com By SeanKelson Table Of Contents 1---Introduction 2---Game Basics A. Setting Up the Game B. Flow of Gameplay C. Combat 3---Combat Strategy 4---Other Information A. Contact Information B. Licensing C. Credits -_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~ Section 1: Introduction -_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~ This walkthrough is over the Nintendo game Romance of the 3 Kingdoms. The game is a strategy game in which you play a group of people in an ancient culture. Occasionally, sections of the culture enter unrest. In this state, they can be attacked. Romance of the 3 Kingdoms is a strategy game, especially in the way of combat strategy. In the combats, you have terrain and army units to deal with. You must conquer the enemy's castles while defending your rice. When you are invaded, you must capture the opponent's rice without allowing them to invade your castles. This walkthrough details the components of Romance of the 3 Kingdoms and strategies for playing the game. This walkthrough covers the full game, as there is no different scenarios for Romance of the 3 Kingdoms other then ones that just involve a different placement of kingdoms. -_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~ Section 2: Game Basics -_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~ This section details how Romance of the 3 Kingdoms works. The Game Basics section includes how to set up a game of Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, and how the game progresses as it continues. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- A: Setting Up the Game -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- When you start Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, you will get to customize your game if you choose to start a new game as opposed to loading a previously saved game. You will get to choose from a series of options. The options you get to choose from are described here. The first option you get to select is which scenario you will play. There isn't much difference in the scnearios. The only difference in them is the locations of kingdoms. The second option you get to choose from is the number of people that will be playing. If you want to observe how the opponent plays, you can choose to play with zero human players. Or you can play with up to seven people, a rare thing you can do in most games that makes the game rather fun. After choosing the number of human players, you will get to choose which leaders the players will play. You will also get to take a chance game at getting statistics for your leader, which help determine your leader's condition and battle outcome. You'll be able to retry at the chance game if you wish, but I just recommend proceeding with what you have. The game revolves more around strategy then around how good your leader is. Following choosing leaders for characters, you will get to choose the difficulty of the computer. You will also get to choose whether the computers are warlike or rational. Choosing warlike will make them attack a neighboring area that has gone into unrest almost all the time, whereas making the opponent rational causes them not to try to engage in combat as much as the prior option did. After this, you'll get to select whether you want to watch the detailed battles that do not involve you. If you're trying to learn strategies for the game, I recommend you watch the computers fight each other. It's a good way to learn how to win battles and how to lose. Now you get to confirm all your selections and then you can get on with the real part of the game. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- B: Flow of Gameplay -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- This game goes on in a series of turns. Each turn, a kingdom gets to enter commands. On your turn, you will get a menu with several options on it. These are options you can use to do various things such as negotiate or recruit armies. You can also see the statistics of the state. You can use one option each time you are affected by unrest. All of the options are described below. MOVE - Move allows you to move generals around to different states. Use it to move generals around and position them to be ready to attack or defend against an attack. WAR - Begin battle with a neighboring state. You will proceed as follows in the lower section, Combat. If you win the battle, you will conquer the territory. SEND - Send functions similar to the move command, only instead of moving generals, you move rice and gold. RECRUIT - The recruit command allows you to increase the size of your army. VIEW - View allows you to discover information about whichever state you wish to. GIVE - Give allows you to give food to your peasants and generals. It changes people's opinion of you as a ruler. DEVELOPE - Developing an area allows you to spend gold on it to make the area a better place. TRAIN - Training allows you to train your army so they are slightly better warriors. SEARCH - Searching allows you to find people you might need. NEGOTIATE - Negotiating allows you to send gifts or make good (or bad) relations with other countries. Sometimes during the course of the game, disasters will occur. Locusts will appear and weaken grain production. Floods will occur and kill people in areas. You can avoid floods by developing your land. Also, sometimes you will have the event of a general dying. If it is your colony leader that dies, a new leader will be appointed. However, you will not have your old leader to assist you in battle. Various other disasters can occur during the game. Things that can happen as a result of these disasters are you losing gold and rice, peasants becoming unhappy, military being weakened, and cities being destroyed. The game ends when one civilization conquers everywhere or the game set time period ends. Whoever is the most powerful person wins the game. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- C: Combat -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- If you choose to go into combat from the list of things you can do, you will get to select who is going to fight the combat, how much gold you'll use for the battle, and how much rice you'll use for the battle. The advisor will tell you your approximate odds of winning. After you've prepared for the battle, you get to place your units. You can place them on any of the squares with black dots on the bottom of the screen. After the person in command is placed, you can choose for each general whether you want to control them directly or indirectly. Controlling them directly allows you to select their exact moves, whereas selecting indirectly causes the computer to control them. You can control whoever you choose to control directly and your leader with all of the following options: MOVE - There are two types of moving, entire unit and divide unit. When you select entire unit, you will get to move the unit spaces equal to your current mobility. Moving onto plains counts as one move, onto hills counts as 4, and you cannot move onto mountains. When you divide a unit, you can choose a direction for half of the unit to move and the other half will stay in the space where it already is. Use this for defensive measures. When your unit is divided, your only options for moving will be to regroup. ATTACK - By using this command, you can attack a neighboring enemy unit. You can choose from three types of attacks. You can get advantages based on where your unit is located. If you are defending or attacking from a hill and the enemy is not on a hill, you have better chances. If you are inside a city, you have better chances of winning the combat. After the combat, one unit will have been reduced to 1 strength. One side can also be reduced to zero strength. If they are, you will capture them. FLEE - Use this command to run away to another state. PASS - Causes the unit to not take an action that turn. VIEW - Allows you to view statistics of your generals and of the enemy. RECON - Allows you to view the full map of the battleground. Through the combat, your mobility will increase. This means you can travel farther lengths with the move command in one turn. If your rice is taken, you lose the battle. If you conquer the enemy's castles, you win the battle and get the new state. If either side kills the other side's commander, the battle ends in favor of the side with the remaining commander. If you are being attacked by an enemy, everything is the same as above, except you set up forces around your castles and you will lose in your castles fall, and you will then lose the state to the enemy. -_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~ Section 3: Combat Strategy -_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~ This section includes strategies for combat. Read this section to find out how to make the best of terrain advantages and how to position your units. As you combat, it is important to keep in mind that your two most important things are the rice (or the cities) and your commander. In most cases, your commander will be your strongest person in the army. You'll most likely want to split the commander into two parts (as long as the commander is powerful enough) and use the two parts to guard your rice or castles. In these types of combat, I have found it easier to defend as opposed to attacking. Though typically attacking is easier then defending, I find it easier to defend when the enemy is advancing as quick as they do in this game. Terrain also has an advantage in these types of contents. Defending or attacking from a higher elevation then the enemy gives you an advantage. Also, if you are defending from inside a city, you will have an advantage. The combat advantages should be considered as you place your units in defensive positions. You should almost always place units in high terrain so you survive attacks better. As long as there are defensive positions by your castles or rice, you should place units there and defend the items that will lose the battle for you if conquered. You can also play an aggressive strategy if you so choose. I find this very hard to do, as you must juggle defending your defense of your rice or castles and assaulting the enemy. You'll probably want to be recruiting people for your army before you try playing an aggressive strategy. Recruiting people makes the citizens not like you as much though, so you might want to balance out giving food to the people and recruiting soldiers for your army. Combat in Romance of the 3 Kingdoms is generally very conditional. Mostly, it is based on where you are attacking and what difficulty the computer is. If you are playing a higher difficulty, you probably will want to get a large army so you can defend against an invading army. -_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~ Section 4: Other Information -_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~-_-~ -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- A: Contact Information -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- My e-mail address is SeanKelson@aol.com. I am unavailable to provide help on game-related issues due to the amount of time that has passed since the writing of this walkthrough. However, I would appreciate hearing from you with comments and requests. If you are interested in including this walkthrough on your site, please read the next section. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- B: Licensing -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- As of April 27, 2009, I have updated all of my walkthroughs to be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). This means you are free to redistribute or build upon my work, even for commercial purposes. The only thing I ask in return is that you give me credit for the content you use. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- C: Credits -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Thanks to Nintendo for the NES console and production of Romance of the 3 Kingdoms. Thanks to Koei for creation of the game. Thanks to GameFAQs for being a great site.