Edit (James): Added a poll so it doesn’t go away—phpBB bug.
Some of the reasons I love this game:
-It helped transform me into a real RTK player, someone who tries to use strategy for victory. Previously on IV, I use to gather the most absurd sized army on the planet and conquer cities, adding new additions to my forces and completely abandoning the city to move on. I called them "raiding parties" but it was more like "total destruction parties." I could clear the map and then spread out into the cities, but never develop them. On VI, you had to hold a city after you conquered it and couldn't simply move out. This made me be more patient and turned me into as much of an economic and trickerous strategy player as a military brute. From there on out, I've taken into consideration turning and planting officers, spying, sabotage and many other things in every RTK game that I play, as well as the benefits of fully developing the land.
-The officers are represented very well on RTK VI. Because of the dreams, they get a proper personality profile and on this game, officers are actually loyal to who they are suppose to be loyal too, unlike any other RTK game. This makes officer interaction more fun for me and heightens the duels when you can get two familiar officers together such as Guan Yu and Zhang Fei in the 200 A.D. scenario. It strenghtens what the family bonds were really like then and makes it fun to be the head of a clan with your bevy of extended family members and loyal retainers. Even in the new RPG-ish games, I don't think the officers have ever been more accurately portrayed than in RTK VI.
-The full-map view. I love the map on this game. I get to look out over the entire country of China while I execute my commands and get a look at every event taking place. The newer games have a decent map view that focuses in on the castle much more. They're nice, but I prefer to be able to look at the whole land at once and see my flag spread over castle after castle.
-The character portraits and stats are some of the best I've seen. When I think of Cao Cao in my mind, the portrait used in VI is always the image that comes to mind and that rings true with most officers. The stats are also some of the best all around, though a couple characters such as Cao Ren, Hong, Yue Jin, etc. got shorted, they still did a decent job, though I like how they did it on X as well. Still wish there was an option to edit stats.
-Civil/Military phase. I'm huge on organization, so I find it nice to have it where you can complete all of your common tasks and order all of your military attacks at once, but carry out those assaults in a separate phase. Maybe less realistic, but a function I found interesting and a good addition to the game.
-Introduction movies/events. Something new from RTK IV. I loved watching the little movies that introduce the scenario from each ruler's perspective, even if I have them all memorized now. Getting to watch the characters move around and see certain ones in unique robes was a nice addition. It made sending an envoy and conducting duels more real and better to see them from a 3D perspective.
-Speaking of duels, RTK VI has the best of the series. Some skill and luck are involved in them and you have some decent control over the character. X also has great duels and in a way it's a throwback/upgrade of the RTK VI system.
Ok, that's probably enough for now.
