Romance Of The Three Kingdoms
 

Ok, this is not really a "OMG I LUV DESE GAMS" thread because the only Romance Of Three Kingdoms game I have played was back on the SNES and I was so young that I only recall some graphics and not knowing what the hell was going on.

But it seems to be the closest you're going to get to Civ on the PS2.
I'm just checking to see if anyone has really played these games indepth/enjoyed them and I wanted to know what the basic elements of the games are.

It seems to be on a small scale than Civilization, with more emphasis on direct trade/diplomacy/warfare than Civ did, which is definitely fine by me, in fact I consider that to be cooler than the generalized Civilization mechanics.
Can anyone fill me in more about these games and hopefully their history? I'm thinking about buying 1 or 2 of them for the PS2, but considering the fact that they're pretty expensive it's not something I'm doing lightly, especially since finding the PS2 games that were most prominent in their time is becoming rarer and rarer because the system is at the end of its life cycle.

You may want to check out Romance of the 3 Kingdoms again. For what little it's worth, in my opinion it really isn't anything like the Civs. Notable differences:

Civ lets you create cities or buildings in cities. Romance doesn't.

The lowest level of Romance control is hero-level based. Heroes can actually take your turn and double, triple, etc, the number of activities you accomplish. But Civ is province-based.

Romance lets you take over a number of enemies and have them work for you simply by having having a higher value of some sympathetic number than they've got. In Civ, you don't get that option.

War is fought on a strategic map over a month in Romance. It's automatically resolved in Civ.

Your goal is to conquer everybody in Civ. Your goal in Romance is to get the Celestial Mandate, then to destroy only one specific enemy. The others don't count at that point.

One important game element in Romance is traveling warriors for hire. There's nothing like that in Civ.

Similarly, there's no equivalent to Civ's technology research in Romance.

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In Romance, you play one of a number of bandit leaders who has a few other bandits working for you, and control of a number of provinces. Your goal is to work up your provinces, please the people, induct recruits from them into your armies, train and take over provinces. Meanwhile, you're trying to get other powerful bandits to come work for you. Some you will declare as brothers and sisters, giving you extra leaders who can win provinces on their own. Your main enemy, though, is an evil figure high in the government who already has powerful armies and either has many of the best bandits working for him, or in prison. (If you win a province from him, you can free them and try to convince them to work for you.)

If I had to find any game that was like Romance of the 3 Kingdoms (other than other KOEI titles), it would be King of Dragon Pass, a fantastic RPG/strategy hybrid that got very little store presence. Well worth purchasing.

It sounds fine.
Which one would you recommend for the PS2? There's like five or four of them for that system alone.
I don't know if you've played it yet, but are the ones for the PSP any good?

Confession time: I confused 2 excellent KOEI titles that I used to play a lot, Romance of the Thre Kingdoms, and Bandit Kings of Ancient China, in my last reply. So my comments above apply to BKAC.

Now, Romance is a lot like BKAC is many ways, but it's less linear. There's no time limit, and no ultimate bad guy. You can forge alliances, stab your allies in the back, and hire on wandering samurais to act as your generals in a variety of capacities, though other daimyos will be trying to bribe them to leave your employ.

Personally, I think Romance is an excellent game if you're into building and researching, which are the hallmarks of Civ. I'd recommend it above Civ for the PS2, especially the later ones which add a few features. Definitely worth checking out on the PC, as well.

Yes I started a game of Bandits of Ancient China once (not really in the series but in the end same thing) and as Borodin says it's not really Civ-like. It has strong RPG elements and has battle tactics. Looked great.

I agree. Each of the old KOEI titles had strong RPG elements that really set them apart from so many other turn-based strategy games of the period. Some generals/bandits you encountered were only susceptible to one kind of tactic if you wanted them with you. A couple would show tremendous valor, but betray you quickly. Some would always fall prey to an offer of a duel, ending a battle prematurely for your entire side by losing. You could pretty much tell which ones would act in this way by reading the elaborate biographies in the manuals, since their game behavior was based on the "hints" KOEI provided. This made the games in some ways a lot like Chris Crawford's older titles, especially Excalibur (someone should do a PC conversion of that) and Siboot: Trust and Betrayal, where written content helped flesh out game behavior.

I'm going to settle on the latest one I think because of the unique art style.

My high school history teacher had us play CIV as a history lesson. He was weird!

Anyways to respond to the post, I definetelly played Romance 3 to death. I beat it with Cao Cao on the first scenario once. I played multiple original rulers (my favorite).

The interface is old and does not tell you what is going on very well, i just downloaded it today, havent played it in 10 years, but I spent all day with it. You should consider there are 3 main things to worry about, your cities, your armies and your leaders. To get more leaders, you can search, capture (in war), sometimes recruit a wandering guy, or spy on enemy and recruit. Loyalty is the number 1 rating you should worry about, and rewarding leaders is what you will do all day. When you leave a city behind (you cant manage more than 1 or 2 at a time otherwise the game is SLOWW) you want to make sure his loyalty is 100, otherwise an enemy might recruit him (steal city bloodless).

Second is city itself. Developing the 4 areas help 2 resources, food and money. Food can be made into money, but basically you want just enough so your troops dont starve (about 100k for 20-30k troops is minimum). After that, develop the economy. Money buys advanced weapons, horses and the 2 crossbows, money also drafts troops. Developing, training or whatever, is most efficient when you spend more time doing it, 6 months is max. Civil officers can do civic things for 6 months, military officers can train 6 months, advisors and generals can do both, but only 1 month at a time. When possible, have 3 civil officers develop for 6 month spans. Harvest comes in July, taxes come in January, you will get a feel for the development cycle.

Lastly troops. Have enough to defend at first, and build up your city. Once you get some cash, buy xbows or horses at 40gp or less and outfit as many soldiers as you can with them. Train them to 100, and rally them to 100 moral. Remember drafting takes citizens out of your city, and decreases the aproval rating. Give food in small doses, 100-1000 multiple times to get it back up.

Spy on your foes, take their leaders by recruiting, know when you can attack and when you should build. Spying for 6 months will let you see loyalty!!! It is a very easy game once you get the flow, and its addictive!!!

PS you buy the advanced weapons so you can take a like sized force, say 40,000 troops, and devestate a 40,000 troop army who is defending, and only lose 20% or so. Tactics are important if you want to roll your oponents!!