Liu Bei win of course easy la, try use Lu Bu, Liu Yao without adding custom generals.

Liu Bei has quality, Cao Cao has quantity and territory. Sun Jian average.

Try to get as much officers as possible. Xia Pi easily defended. Build archer tower and trap at choke point the set fire, perturb and misinform. If can, let your archer tower tank the damage, and repair it. The goal is reduce the casualty of your army as much as possible. Try capture neighboring cities to pump gold and provision.

I usually start off with weak faction. So I focus on using choke points and towers and arrow so I don't take any losses.

Liu Bei very strong cause have many good generals. I'm talking about Liu Yong, Wang Lang. Usually i have no problem on fending off constant attackers as long i have enough provisions, gold and officers. Number of troops and armaments are not a problem.

Anyway, the good thing about Lu Bu is not his war. The AI sure reject his duels because he is too strong. The Flying General trait is very good but he needs to be accompanied by one smart fellow.

Liu Zhang and Liu Biao isn't surrounded by strong faction and has many empty cities to expand.

Zhang Lu has many officials at start so the difficulty isn't that bad.

Gongsun Du is pretty hard because he had to face Gongzun Zan which is a very strong faction. White Raider trait + S rank calvary + Kin relation multi attacks. Choking tactics won't work well on them, definitely you will take some significant loses before taking Bei Ping. Plus you only have 3 officials. But the good thing is, you don't have worry about back stab by Yuan Shao because he doesn't have a port.

This post has been edited by LittleBro: Sep 17 2008, 10:47 AM

You playing as who? What scenario? Advance or beginner?

Anyway, i usually let them capture the empty port. Fight them on land (archer tower isn't good build drums) and set fire to the port. Divide your army and send some forces and invade weaker factions like Kong Rong and Tan Qian. Cao Cao can't sustain attacks unless he got 5 cities vs your 1 city. War deplete resources and soon he will run out officers, food and troops if he keeps losing to you.

If you are playing as Liu Bei, is pretty easy. Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei sworn brothers assisting each other. Also create many team of officers with only 1 troop assign to it and spam perturb(0 troop lost plus no need to retrain depleted soldier's will). Cao Cao keep invading you good mah, save food, new officers and still gets lots of TP point .

I don't like ceasefire if he is attacking me, cause that is the best way to generate lots of TP point without using AP point early in the game.

Use sovereign>district command. Let AI handle, you'll be surprise how well the manage for you without using your AP points. I always keep my cities above 92++ order if I manage them myself. That is the reason I do not execute enemy generals. You try give Lou Yang/Xiang Ping to AI control, they will give you a big OMFG if you do not ask them to attack or transport! 100000 troops, 50000 gold and 500000 provision after a year or two.

Fortunately, the spawn at a predetermine spot. They can help you defend if you deliberately reduce order to 0. They will bang who ever come close to them.

I think you didn't expand fast enough. Expand faster and try to steal city if they are going to win(last hit cities). Always have one offensive team to concentrate on the weaker front. To generate enormous amount of resources early in the game, make use of City>Merchant command and buy low and sell high. Early rush other cities and make them your own. Sovereign > district command helps a lot. Try to capture large cities, make your life easier.

Also when defending, try not to lose troops. Make full use of every single command. Cao Cao has many excellent officers to begin with, with many S rank, high INT and good traits making battle so much easier than many other faction.

This post has been edited by LittleBro: Sep 26 2008, 04:16 PM

They should make it like total war series. But then again, if this game is going to be represented by 50000 vs 50000 army. I doubt any computer will support it.