Title: Different Ways To Play The Legend of Cao Cao
Short Title: Ways To Play LoCC
Original Author: Lady Wu
Description: The Legend of Cao Cao, a game released almost a decade ago, offers many ways to play the game. This guide outlines other avenues to play this versatile game that would present newer challenges in the game, should you find yourself bored with the regular style of gameplay.
What to do after getting all three birds in LoCC? Chinese gamers, having played the game for close to 10 years, have come up with multiple challenges (some saner than others) for this game. Here I will post a list of the ones I know of.
- The keys to keeping your level low are utilizing your allies as much as possible, and taking advantage of the alternative victory conditions (such as retreating at Xuzhou or Puyang 1 or Chibi). This is actually more expensive a route than you'd think, since you'd have to spend a fortune buying food to feed your allies with (using healing spells will give you exp). When you must gain exp, try to give it to the officer with the highest level---the exp gained per action depends on the difference between your officer and the target. A level 6 Cao Cao hitting a level 1 Turban will yield a lot less experience than a level 3 Cao Hong hitting the same enemy.
- So the deal of this challenge is to keep your officer's levels as low as possible, while letting their gear gain experience (since you get stat fruits from selling maxed out store gear). These are self-contradictory goals, so there's quite a bit of skill involved to make this happen! Once you have enough fruits to feed your people and optimize their stats, you'll need to level them up as fast as possible in order to reap the benefits. But at the end it's worth it---people have "bred" super-Li-Dians that are more powerful than Pang De.
- You're allowed to use beans and rice and medicines and seals and such, but can't equip anything. Sell all your gear and spend the money on rice and potions!
- Here is a walkthrough in Chinese, for doing a nude run in the blue path. Basically, you want to keep the average levels as low as possible, and use tactics as much as possible. It's pretty crazy!
- Unfortunately, the current English patch has a bug that prevents XZJ from unlocking the items for you. Yeah, yeah, I'll get around to fixing it some time. But anyway, many people have reported maxing everyone's levels by Chibi, without item unlocking.
- Someone at the XYCQ forum wrote a walkthrough here. Even if you can't read the text, there are enough spectacular screenshots to wow you. There's crazy stuff like finishing Dingjun in 3 rounds, Chengdu in 2, and Chibi in 1. This person did Jianye (red path) in 2 rounds, but elsewhere on the forum someone had posted screenshots of finishing Jianye in 1.
- They way they did it was by maxing out everyone's level by stage 16 and taking the unlocked items. They also let Guo Jia die, which gives you two Books of Sorcery. With that, you can have up to 4 people casting Return! Basically, all you need is a bunch of people casting Return on Xun Yu, who casts Phoenix and burns the daylights out of the enemy. Occasionally you need to use Return on Sima Yi to let him Sandstorm over and over again. Liu Ye is also useful for area attacks.
Article was created by Mikhail. Content was reproduced with the permission of Lady Wu
The Low Level Challenge
- The point of this challenge is to pass the game at the lowest possible level. I actually don't know what is the record average level, but recently someone proved that it was possible to get a level 3 Sima Yi. (Since the level of new officers depends on the average level of the existing officers, this means that it's possible to have most of the team at level 3 by the end of the 31st stage (Tong Pass)!- The keys to keeping your level low are utilizing your allies as much as possible, and taking advantage of the alternative victory conditions (such as retreating at Xuzhou or Puyang 1 or Chibi). This is actually more expensive a route than you'd think, since you'd have to spend a fortune buying food to feed your allies with (using healing spells will give you exp). When you must gain exp, try to give it to the officer with the highest level---the exp gained per action depends on the difference between your officer and the target. A level 6 Cao Cao hitting a level 1 Turban will yield a lot less experience than a level 3 Cao Hong hitting the same enemy.
The Low Level + Fruit Challenge
- The stats gained by each officer at level up depends on the basic stats of that officer and their unit type. For example, Cao Ren's basic STR is 88. Given the S growth rate in for STR in cavalry units, he would gain 4 Attack per level if his STR is 90 and above, and 3 Attack per level if his STR is below 90. This means, the sooner you feed him a Fruit of STR and raise his basic STR stat to 90, the faster his Attack stat will grow. If you feed him a Fruit of STR at level 3, by the time he's at level 50 he'd have 47 more Attack than if you hadn't fed him anything! (That's almost like half a level 3 Steel Spear!)- So the deal of this challenge is to keep your officer's levels as low as possible, while letting their gear gain experience (since you get stat fruits from selling maxed out store gear). These are self-contradictory goals, so there's quite a bit of skill involved to make this happen! Once you have enough fruits to feed your people and optimize their stats, you'll need to level them up as fast as possible in order to reap the benefits. But at the end it's worth it---people have "bred" super-Li-Dians that are more powerful than Pang De.
The "Nude Run" Challenge
- In this challenge, your guys don't get to equip anything. No swords, no robes, no jewels, no nothing. They get to run naked on the battlefield and try to win.- You're allowed to use beans and rice and medicines and seals and such, but can't equip anything. Sell all your gear and spend the money on rice and potions!
- Here is a walkthrough in Chinese, for doing a nude run in the blue path. Basically, you want to keep the average levels as low as possible, and use tactics as much as possible. It's pretty crazy!
The Max Level Challenge
- How fast can you get everyone up to level 50? Some crazies have done it by Part II (i.e., max out everyone by the 16th battle, Invasion of Xuzhou). This involves asking Xu Zijiang for the 6-level bonus AND getting him to unlock all items at the beginning of the game.- Unfortunately, the current English patch has a bug that prevents XZJ from unlocking the items for you. Yeah, yeah, I'll get around to fixing it some time. But anyway, many people have reported maxing everyone's levels by Chibi, without item unlocking.
The Speed Challenge
- What is the least number of rounds you need to finish each stage?- Someone at the XYCQ forum wrote a walkthrough here. Even if you can't read the text, there are enough spectacular screenshots to wow you. There's crazy stuff like finishing Dingjun in 3 rounds, Chengdu in 2, and Chibi in 1. This person did Jianye (red path) in 2 rounds, but elsewhere on the forum someone had posted screenshots of finishing Jianye in 1.
- They way they did it was by maxing out everyone's level by stage 16 and taking the unlocked items. They also let Guo Jia die, which gives you two Books of Sorcery. With that, you can have up to 4 people casting Return! Basically, all you need is a bunch of people casting Return on Xun Yu, who casts Phoenix and burns the daylights out of the enemy. Occasionally you need to use Return on Sima Yi to let him Sandstorm over and over again. Liu Ye is also useful for area attacks.
Article was created by Mikhail. Content was reproduced with the permission of Lady Wu