Destiny of an Emperor Challenge

[James]

Did it correct itself after that battle, or is that happening pretty much every time you face off against a high-soldier Wei officer? I’ve never seen that before, but I have to say—it is pretty interesting to encounter yet another DoaE oddity.

[Lordyuanshu]

Yeah it got fixed. It was only when the bar was light yellow (before the light blue).

Yay - level 39






After the Final Battle....



Couple things you could do to get less EXP although you'd still probably be on level 39.....

- Somehow avoid Lu Bu in Shu. Not sure how to do that, maybe buy Smoke Pots throughout the entire region until you get to Cheng Du?

- Fight Han Zhong once (which I did), but with 1 rebel force - again, doesn't affect gaining a level or not, just lower total EXP.

PS - Wei is pretty easy other than the first and last Sima Yi battle, if you ask me. This was most difficult for me in Ji Zhou (Wen Hun gate battle/Ji Zhou castle) and Wu (before you get An Sha) - Specifically Jin Du, Po Yang, and Hui Ji.

[James]

Things like the Lü Bu battle will make a noteworthy difference in experience, but by the time you are on your way through Wu or Shu the biggest variable that may determine your final level will actually be the sort of rebel forces you have found moving through the game. A rebel force with 1,400 soldiers, for example, will provide more experience than a rebel force with 1,000 soldiers event. This is the main reason why, when following this strategy, I sometimes wind up with Zhuge Liang on level 16 (rare), and more often than not, on level 17 (it comes down to a difference of less than five hundred experience).

The Wu battles were probably the most difficult for me so far. The Yuan Shao region battles are also hard, but I’ve gone through that step of the game, under these conditions, enough times now that I pretty much have those steps down perfectly.

What emulator did you use for your game?

[Lordyuanshu]

Well I have 5200 or so EXP to the next level so I assume that wouldn't have changed anything.

So with these Rebel Forces, do they actually add units or do the units just have random soldier levels? Guess I never noticed that...

And I only use FCE-Ultra for NES.

[James]

I’m on my way!



And yeah, so far Wei hasn’t been too bad. Sima Yi will present the tough battles.

Well I have 5200 or so EXP to the next level so I assume that wouldn't have changed anything.

So with these Rebel Forces, do they actually add units or do the units just have random soldier levels? Guess I never noticed that...

And I only use FCE-Ultra for NES.

As far as the rebels go, I don’t remember if their units actually change—but they might. I would have to compare my battle screenshots from this trip through to the battle screenshots on KMA. What does change, however, is the number of soldiers in each rebel unit, and those changes can actually result in quite a variable experience level. One would conclude that much of it should balance out over the game, so I would be surprised to see a large experience difference, but 5,000 is certainly within the range that can be affected.

Would you be interested in either sharing your save file with me, so I’ve got a save file on Windows (I use Macintosh mostly), or perhaps even with Kongming’s Archives?

[Lordyuanshu]

Definitely. I uploaded it onto my forum so you can grab it there whenever you like; I hope I did it right and chose the right save state. It should be after defeating Sima Yi for the final time.

Good luck, I'll be interested to hear how you do against Sima Yi with your party.

EDIT - Will add before Sima Yi also.

[James]

I will post as soon as I am finished!

Do you have a saved game just before beating Sima Yi as well?

Edit: Excellent!

[James]

Just about there! Ce Mian was kind to me… this round with Sima Yi wasn’t too bad.

[James]

Ah, I now stand atop the corpses of Sima Yi’s men, prepared to usher in a new dynasty! I got tired of having to walk back and fourth through the caves at the end of Wei because I wasn’t strong enough to double-up battles like Xun Yu and Sima Yi, but it wasn’t a big deal. Sima Yi gave me a tough battle at the end—mostly because the worm slipped in a Wan Fu (as shown in the screenshots)—but I have to say Wei wasn’t the worst part of this challenge.

What was? Wu. Dealing with the likes of Zhou Yu and Cheng Pu.

Once you get An Sha the rest of Wu isn’t that bad. Once you get Jiang Wei, moving through Wei isn’t too horrible. Although that Ru Nan battle with Sima Yi can be rough. He was happy to use Bei Ji not only on himself, but his men as well, and I must say this—they hit hard when you are on such a low level.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself!




You know what would be really messed up for the challenge?
Having to face Sima Shi and Sima Yi without a retreat in the end for the victory!

- - - - - - - - - -

Game Complete Save Information
Nestopia (Macintosh OS X) 1.2.9

Level: 39
Money: 26,020
Food: 642,221
Exp: 304,452

Save Location: Rebuilt Luo Yang

Zhang Bao
- Nu Long [240]
- Plate M
- Steel H

Zhao Yun
- Halberd [250]
- Plate M
- Steel H

Jiang Wei
- Wan Sheng [190]
- Plate M
- Steel H

Guan Xing
- Bo Ye [190]
- Plate M
- Steel H

Ma Chao
- Qing Guang [240]
- Plate M
- Steel H

Zhuge Liang
- Crossbow [130*2]
- Plate M
- Steel H

[James]

Interesting exchanges between Lord Yuan Shu and me at his forum:

He slipped in a Wan Fu and you STILL won? Impressive, I don't know how you would have the TP. I agree with your battle assessment though.

Yep, and just barely, too. I was expecting to die, but the next Ce Mian I cast carried me through over half of Sima Yi’s life. I ran out right there at the end (13 TP is a vicious taunt when looking across the battlefield at Cheng Yu, who was kind enough not to collect any heads or, perhaps worse, Wan Fu himself). I ended the battle with 9 TP after a final heal.

1 - Po Yang. I went through this in the Japanese version just recently and it was no easier. In both versions I just felt like the time that I won (2 out of 20 or so) I got really lucky. I've never been able to recover from Ji Rou by Chen Pu. Zhang Zhao is another variable who can destroy your party if he chooses to Bei Ji himself or his friends and use other spells. Bu Xi sucks pretty much but he can Li Jian your stupid officers.

I think that battle might very well be harder than Zhou Yu. I’ll have to get a better feel for it the next time through, because I got pretty lucky on my first battle with him. The Cheng Pu battle, though—that was truly tough. After getting slaughtered a few times I just basically went back home and rethought my whole strategy. I was fortunate enough not to have to deal with Ji Rou in the following battle. If I was playing with the ability to hire a few officers, Wu is probably the place where I would consider doing it (and Zhou Yu would probably be one of the people I hired).

2 - Ru Nan. The Sima Yi battle. I think this is the hardest Sima Yi battle by far under these circumstances with how low-level the army is. Both times I've succeeded I went after Xu Zhu and Dian Wei first and then Sima Yi. I can never afford the TP to use Ce Mian from the beginning so I have to hope that Sima Yi doesn't foil my plans while I'm taking the other two out.

That’s interesting. On my way through, in battles like this, I relied on Ce Mian to deal with the super strategist, and I most completely ignored the warriors. Jin Xian, after all, is a very cost-effective way to heal your party. Do you use Bei Ji on your warriors? That might be the difference. I cast it on the heavy hitters of my party, and that makes a big difference when fighting. Also, now that I consider it, that might also be the difference. My party has a higher attack power than yours because I am using that dolt Zhang Bao. This increases my fear of tactics, but gives me greater strength in battle.

3 - Hui Ji. Zhou Yu. Again, another battle that I just got lucky on and didn't have to deal with Hong Shui or An Sha or Ji Mian from Kan Ze and Zhou Yu.

I fully expect to be resetting my game a few times when I return to this battle.
One Hong Shui there must be horrible. Two must be a certain game over.

4 - Gate east of Bo Hai. I always have bad or no armor on at this point since I'm anal about not spending money until the end. Because of this I tend to die often here if the two dummy's attack the same officer. Xu Shou always seems to be overly conservative for some reason.

I always come here with some armor upgrades on my weaker warriors, and I always have at least two Resurrects on hand. The armor upgrades give someone like Zhao Yun the ability to take a hit or two, and the Resurrects are almost always used well before I reach Yuan Shao.

5 - Ji Zhou. Bad armor and Lu Bu don't mix well. Also I've never done this with Yuan Shu there and although he's not much at this point in the game, I think he'd make the battle much harder.

Probably a similar situation for me, relative to my previous quote. I can only imagine how hard these battles must have been when you are not allowing yourself to shop! Some armor on my weak guys helps to defeat Lu Bu with no casualties (though sometimes a death or two happens simply because someone attacks the same person Lü Bu did). This combined with a multi-target fire attack, and a wonderful all-party-heal, actually made this battle easier for me than Xu Shou. And yeah, I bet Yuan Shu would indeed complicate that battle quite a bit.

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Yeah that's crazy [the fact there was an experience difference of 15,00 between our games]. The Pang Tong battle shouldn't be much more than a few thousand. I can't imagine the rebel forces swayed the other 8000 though...You skipped the Pirates and Lu Meng right?

I have no idea what level I had Zhuge at. And yes, I'm beginning to think it is just random for TP.

I’m pretty sure it is the rebels, actually. When I was writing my walkthrough I was logging information on experience gains after battles, and I found that number-shifts in the rebel forces actually caused quite a bit of variation in a battle’s experience gain. I didn’t fight Lü Meng or the pirates.

To make things even more interesting, a look at my old experience notes show that my battles with Pang Tong (who has a totally random number of rebels) averaged around 930 exp and my battles with Lü Bu (I think his rebel total is set) averaged 2,500. That means there is an experience shift between our games of roughly 11,500, and no obvious explanation for the difference! The Pirate battle averages around 15,000 experience in and of itself (which also tells us that if you do that battle, your hopes of hitting level 39 are most likely shot up).