Top 5 tips for a new RoTK player!

[Deej]

So I've finally bought a Romance of the Three Kingdoms game. XIV to be precise! What would your top 5 tips be for a player that's brand new to the series?

[Xiahou Mao]

Employ/recruit as many officers as you can. Especially in 14, the game is much easier when you have a lot of people employed.

Keep your officers loyal! Reward them whenever their loyalty falls below 100. Having your officers poached isn't cool.

Pick your fights wisely. Try not to be at war with all your neighbours. Use diplomacy to pacify people you don't want to fight yet.

Plot out your expansion. It can be helpful to gobble up a corner of China, for example, because then you'll have 'safe' cities that other factions can't attack. This obviously isn't possible if you're starting in the Central Plains, but still something to consider.

Don't pursue Lu Bu.

---

For more specific tips related to 14, terrain is more important in 14 than it has been in any other Romance game to date. You have to keep it in mind when plotting invasions. Marching troops through hills/mountains not only slows down their movement, but also separately increases the amount of supplies they consume, making it a double whammy. This means that locations like Hanzhong, Xiangping and even Runan have strong natural fortifications and are easy to defend/hard to attack. Try to focus on expanding over plains to start if possible, because I can guarantee your first attempt at invading through mountains is going to end in starvation.

[ZhangLiaoFan02]

Same tips as Xiahou Mao provided above on the series on the whole. And as he said, terrains is more important than it was before in Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14. Mountains are definitely painful as you advance which is something that really wasn’t a thing before.

[Gray Riders]

Adding some things to Xiahou Mao's good post:
*You may wonder if giving units only their best tactic is a good idea or not; however I tested this and found that the game seems to check each tactic slot separately; what that means is that having fewer tactics equipped on a unit means it will trigger tactics less often.
*Fire traps and tactics won't usually ignite friendly units (though your units can still walk onto burning tiles themselves like idiots), although fire aimed at gates and cities will sometimes burn your own units. I'm not certain why; I think I recall seeing it seemed to be linked to the unit having a Fire-skill (like Zhou Yu) but I may be misremembering. In any case, fire traps can be useful if you are planning on a fairly static defence.
*Defensive buildings are good. Arrow towers are good, camps and fortresses are good, catapult towers are great, traps are good. The small amount of gold you pay to build an arrow tower is a steal for the damage it does and time it buys.
*Avoid using the Arrow formation when attacking, at least early on when your units are small. It gets chewed up by city defenses.
*Be very careful when attacking; readjust unit orders every turn as needed to avoid any units running ahead or doing something dumb. Instead of going straight for the enemy city your initial orders should be to move to an area on your side of the border so that everyone can move together. Otherwise your fast units might engage alone and you get destroyed in detail.
*A unit cut off from supplies is usually a sitting duck; when defending you can use fast units to cut off enemy units that leave themselves open.

[Ts'aoist]

1. where possible, play as The Man
2. if The Man is not available as a playable character/faction, play as one of the Sons of The Man or as Wei
3. if the above are not possible for some reason, then content yourself serving The Man
4. show the proper respect for The Man
5. most important, have fun

[Lorric]

1. where possible, play as The Man
2. if The Man is not available as a playable character/faction, play as one of the Sons of The Man or as Wei
3. if the above are not possible for some reason, then content yourself serving The Man
4. show the proper respect for The Man
5. most important, have fun

If you're not playing as Cao Cao / Wei, you probably want to do everything in your power to take him / Wei out.

[Sanji Himura]

Good God, where do I start? I'll go with my favorite tips and then eventually work through the rest of the series in another post

1. Don't get Lu Bu unless you know for sure that you can get him loyal. There is a massive bug in the NES version of the game that would have him defect if you gave him a horse. (ROTK 1)

2. If you MUST pursue a Lu Bu-like general in the early game, go after Taishi Ci instead. He has decent stats compared to Lu Bu, but has a 50/50 shot at betraying his ruler. (ROTK 1)

3. Talk to your officers every turn. It doesn't cost energy and who knows, you might get some good ideas out of the ted talks that the officers have with you. (ROTK VI)

4. Working on city stats DOES take up energy. Some, depending on the task, less than others. Give the officers a rest! (ROTK IV and VI)

5. Depending on the game, the titles of Duke, King and Emperor only unlock when you meet certain requirements. Some would depend on the number of cities that you conquered, others would depend on a stat that I haven't quite figured out yet.

Two bonus tips:

1. In officer play titles (ROTK VII, VIII, X and XIII), getting more men under your command is vital.

2. ROTK V and XII, as of the writing of this post, is not released outside of Japan.