Destiny of an Emperor: Huo Hu’s Adventure

[James]

Greetings everyone!

Working with Niahak over at LordYuanShu’s Forum we have figured out how to hack the Destiny of an Emperor game ROM. Again, with thanks to Niahak (I wouldn’t have done this if not for his advice and exploration of hexadecimal values), I have created a hack to the Destiny of an Emperor we’re all so familiar with.

It started with this simple post:

What Really Happened


And now we’re making a challenge for everyone to enjoy. Remember the no leveling challenge we went through earlier? This one will be a little more insane. It was also inspired, in large part, by Taishi Ci 2.0’s fanfic/comic Fate of a Rebel, which should be read by any Destiny of an Emperor player. Aside from making enemies much more powerful and adding a few unexpected goodies (Xiahou Mao will get a kick out of one of them), many once-suck officers will now gain level-ups all through the game. Even if you want to play normally, this ROM will be much more challenging than the regular DoaE release.

To start, Download the Patched Destiny of an Emperor ROM File
(This ZIP file includes four items, a Read Me, the original Destiny of an Emperor ROM, an IPS patcher, which would normally be used to patch the original Destiny of an Emperor ROM, and, as a courtesy, a pre-patched version of the Destiny of an Emperor ROM.)

Launch the pre-patched ROM and you’re ready to play!

Huo Hu Challenge
(These rules may change as we play through and get a feel for the game).

1) Guan Yu and Zhang Fei must be killed or placed out of combat action before you face Zhang Jue.
2) Liu Bei may be used until he leaves your party.
3) You must hire and use Song Yong and Song Ren at all times.
4) You may use the following officers in your active party: Song Yong, Song Ren, Mi Zhe, Chen Deng, Yang Jin. (Others possibly soon to come).
5) You must hire Huo Hu when you see him, and he must always be in your party. Don't worry, he will be the most powerful team-member of all.

Enjoy! Maybe some other folks are interested in the adventure?

I will post my progress.

[James]

This is my first post over at LYS’s forum.

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Haha… suddenly that is actually kinda intimidating. On to battle!

I’ve just started really playing through this myself. Shall we consider adding some beef to the Song Brothers? Not to make them actually good, of course. Just to make them a little less useless! This is their adventure, after all. Song Yong in particular is just a wandering glob of suck.

I also wonder if we should use the likes of Guan Ping or Zhou Cang in this little challenge with the stipulation that Huo Hu, Song Yong, and Song Ren must be in the party? Those fellows are actually kinda decent, though. But with beefed up enemies, I have a feeling challenge will abound.

[Lordyuanshu]

A couple things.

1. Huo Hu is awesome. Using Yan Re I was ability to finally defeat Nan Yang. It's fun having a tactician that also has by far the highest STR of the group.

2. Wang Gui (Luo Yang) and Zhou Chao (Chang An) should be a part of the main group - assuming they are in your particular game.

3. Guan Ping and Liu Feng are too good to use imo, despite their activity in Fate of a Rebel.

4. Don't add anything to the Song bros. No reason to beef up perfection. Them leveling up is all that's necessary.

edit - I'm in Jingzhou now, and I see you gave Liu Du almost 2500 soldiers! scary. Even Jin Xuan was hard, but Huo Hu is a beast with the Trident now.

[James]

Buy a bandanna or two at the start! They are really nice. 50 gold for 10 AC. I gave one to Mi Zhe and Chen Deng. I’m thinking about giving a pair to the Song Brothers as well. When you consider it, they will be working all the way through the first three portions of the game. Even before you face Yuan Shu you don’t get five bandannas in the cave.

1. Huo Hu is awesome. Using Yan Re I was ability to finally defeat Nan Yang. It's fun having a tactician that also has by far the highest STR of the group.

2. Wang Gui (Luo Yang) and Zhou Chao (Chang An) should be a part of the main group - assuming they are in your particular game.

Yeah, Wang Gui and Zhou Chao should be worthy additions. I do hope they appear in my game. I’ve already forgotten which one of them tends to vanish at times. Han Zhong, I think, can also receive level-ups. He’s not really a part of the comic, though, so I’ll leave him out.

3. Guan Ping and Liu Feng are too good to use imo, despite their activity in Fate of a Rebel.

Yeah. Guan Ping, especially, is a beast.

4. Don't add anything to the Song bros. No reason to beef up perfection. Them leveling up is all that's necessary.

Haha. I can’t wait until Song Yong sinks his sword into Sima Yi’s robes.

edit - I'm in Jingzhou now, and I see you gave Liu Du almost 2500 soldiers! scary. Even Jin Xuan was hard, but Huo Hu is a beast with the Trident now.

The tough one will be Han Xuan. I didn’t do a whole heck of a lot of beefing up, there, but even a small amount of beefing up makes that battle a serious threat (as if it wouldn’t have been already). I’m looking forward to facing that challenge.

[Niahak]

I'm glad I was able to help out some.

Modding DOAE is actually surprisingly easy; with a bit of work it wouldn't be hard to create a general editor, though I don't have the motivation at the moment.

Text is harder, but it's possible with some effort.
Anyone who wants the details can check out this post over at LYS. It's basically just editing values associated with generals, so you can change their attributes, look, and soldier amounts.

[James]

I want to edit the text. That would be really cool. Even simple stuff like Huo Hu’s introduction. Or Yang Jin—he should speak like a pirate. And it would also be fun if Sima Yi cursed Huo Hu for his defeat.

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I’ve armed my dudes at LYS’s suggestion.

I figure I’ll be giving Huo Hu the best equipment I can come up with, so I went ahead and purchased a Leather for Liu Bei (ultimately to be given to Huo Hu). Armed with good equipment, and an extra level I saved up after getting beat down by Zhang Jue in the first battle, the boss battle wasn’t too tough.

[James]

Wow… Yuan Shu was tough.

I don’t seem to remember his attack power being so high, let alone his defense. Is it just me, or are the Song Brothers responsible?




I couldn’t kill Yuan Shu! How about that. It offered the cursor once, and when I clicked, the screen remained with no cursor. I clicked again and the battle ended. Confused the hell out of me until I realized that Zhang Fei was dead so Huo Hu could fight and serve as my strategist. I guess if Zhang Fei is dead he doesn’t manage to surround Yuan Shu so you can kill him!

Not good. Ji Zhou just became a little scarier...



Poor Song Yong…

[Lordyuanshu]

Oh you recruited Lu Bu. He must have been sitting in your billeting then? You should have fought him at Nan Yang, it's a good time.

You gave Lu Bu an insane amount of soldiers in that last fight. The thing I notice most about these soldiers increases is that I run out of TP fighting these guys.



During Shu I advise killing off the bro's and Zhu Ge Liang, and then using four characters. It's a good challenge.



I just passed "Hui Ji" fortress. Huo Hu learns An Sha now and he's a machine.



Best of all, once you get in Wu you can skip Zhang Bao and Guan Xing, opening up that fifth spot again for Mi Zhe, Chen Deng, Yang Jin, Zhou Chao, etc. By the way, I suggest using Zhou Chao over Yang Jin if you actually found him - that 140 STR isn't bad.

Song Yong has a Scimitar now!

[James]

Oh you recruited Lu Bu. He must have been sitting in your billeting then? You should have fought him at Nan Yang, it's a good time.

I wasn’t originally going to but I went through the cave in which you meet Guan Ping. Out of habit I picked up the Golden Key and I realized that I’d be carrying a junk item around for the rest of the game if I didn’t recruit Lü Bu. I pondered it going through the following territories and decided to go ahead and use it. I was actually looking forward to facing that battle with Lü Bu in it.

You gave Lu Bu an insane amount of soldiers in that last fight. The thing I notice most about these soldiers increases is that I run out of TP fighting these guys.

Yeah, Lü Bu’s final battle should be even more traumatic than Capcom made it, me thinks. Did you run out fighting Lü Bu? I’ve noticed the TP thing, too. I’ve run out in a few battles myself and a few elixirs have carried me through the last portions of the challenge. Thank heavens for Huo Hu—he’s the heavy hitter in the party. I imagine Wu will be tough, but Wei will be the real nasty adventure.

During Shu I advise killing off the bro's and Zhu Ge Liang, and then using four characters. It's a good challenge.

Hmm… I guess that’s all you could do within the boundaries of the challenge. Can’t use Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, or Zhang Fei. Now I’m looking forward to Shu. How as Luo castle?

I just passed "Hui Ji" fortress. Huo Hu learns An Sha now and he's a machine.

That picture is priceless. Zhou Yu probably never saw that coming.

Best of all, once you get in Wu you can skip Zhang Bao and Guan Xing, opening up that fifth spot again for Mi Zhe, Chen Deng, Yang Jin, Zhou Chao, etc. By the way, I suggest using Zhou Chao over Yang Jin if you actually found him - that 140 STR isn't bad.

Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Yang Jin’s intelligence is low enough that it doesn’t make much of a difference. The head-hunters and water-crushers later in the game could make short work of either officer.

Song Yong has a Scimitar now!

How much damage is he laying down?

[James]

I conquered Jingzhou before moving up into Yuan Shao’s territory this time around. I usually do Yuan Shao’s territory first because I love having Zhao Yun in my party. Even after the modifications to the ROM, Yuan Shao’s territory was not very difficult while armed with swords.




And now, Lü Bu!



Zhuge Liang is in my billeting for the first time I can remember.

Edit: I don’t remember the Yan Yan battle ever being so difficult! I killed Yan Yan quickly enough. A few Da Res and some beatdown and his life was over. I think someone cast Wuo Jian somewhere along the way because Da Re started to suck. Fa Zheng, though, smacked me around like a red-headed stepchild. He used Ji Rou to increase his own team’s defense and then canceled my own Ji Rou out. And whenever I got him low he healed the whole team. I ran out of TP, Power Pills, Elixirs, and came pretty close to losing the battle.