WHAT THEY WERE AIMING AT
Hard Fights in Games of The Romance of The Three Kingdoms
Two for the PC engine, four for the personal computer, and one for the Sega Saturn -- seven game softs of the story I bought, and completed some. I'm crazy about those military games, probably caused by the attraction of the story. When I bought the first one for the PC engine, I tried it with the manual right beside me.
Liu Pei's virtuous parameter down
The rule is simple. You should win all 47 prefectures to unify the land China. However, the way is delicatelly difficult. Wars are the strong element in the game, but home administration is also important. You should care about domestic industory, people life and so on. Monarches of prefectures which surround yours always watch your domains' conditions. If they are inferior,enemies would surge with troops. And if you have chosen Liu Pei to play as I did (you can select the monarch you like to play) your prefecture is only one when you start. I let myself concentrate on home administration in the first dozen turns, growing the national power. (In the game you can do one command in a turn)My first war was successful. You can exert different shemes such as setting fire to enemies' ammunition depot or food one. I used them many of them, many times to make conditions to turn out to my advantage. And then I found an odd thing.
Each character has parameters for their properties -- martial power, intellectual power, life span, virtue, and so on, and the max numerical value for each is 100. Liu Pei, my character, is not strong martially, and not intellectual, either. He is quite virtuous -- that is all. That is his only strong point and the parameter was 99 when I started the game. But the value had reduced to 33 in the middle part.
Polygamy
In the game there is an unique system. You should give money or food to increase your retainers' loyal parameters.If you offer a certain sum, a woman appears which will be given to him as his wife. So if you gave a specific retainer a big bonus plural times, he 'll have wives.
The Operation to Recover K'ung-ming
The forth soft was for the personal computer. The rule was similer, but you can do as many commands as you like in a turn. I chose Liu Pei to play this time, too. K'ung-ming must have appeared in 207, following the history, but he didn't around then. I continued the game, thinking strange. And I found him finally. Not in my administration, but in Sun Ch'uan's. I don't know exactly, but vaguely guessed that some conditions should be needed to win him in my administration.
I made operations to draw him to my position. There are several ways to appoint generals. I let Liu Pei go and ask him politely first, but he denied. A big sum I brought next time, which moved him. Therefore I could gain him, though unsatisfied with the system that K'ung-ming moved by money.
Editing function
There is the editing function in the game. It is to increase or decrease any parameters of generals and prefectures as much as you like. It is, surely, a foul play. But I used it. As you change parameters greatly, generals respond to say something. If you increase them to almost the max, the generals say, "Thank you," or so like. In the opposite case, the generals curse, saying, "You'll pay for this!" or "I wish I could die in the field."
Unifying the nation
The sixth soft was different a bit in the rule. The scenario went as the history did until the middle part of the game. K'ung-ming died in the middle of the fifth expedition to Wei, but he game gave him a longer life, describing the further story. He defeated Ssu-ma I, and realized Liu Pei's dying wish to revive the Han dynasty.
It is against the historical fact. But so what? All the three kingdoms disappeared and characters in the story died. All is the past. But what they were aiming at touches us feverishly even now.
