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[jon2189]

Hello all,

Despite the contents of the following sentence, this is not a brag topic.  I just beat ROTK XI with Yan Baihu on the final scenario and do feel a tad bit proud, but after soaking up the glory of victory, I ruminated over the biggest complaint most fans have of the ROTK series: difficulty.  With this in mind, I was curious what the community felt was the most difficult scenario to play in the ROTK game universe.  For me personally, it was playing as Shu in the 235 scenario of ROTK IV; never was able to beat that one.  How about you folks?

[The White Horse General]

I have two, Yang Hu, and Lu Kang, aswell as the event with Hua Tuo in ROTK8, can't seem to trigger either of them, lulz.

[Rivus]

I have always played as created force/officer.

I guess I could, you know, go back and try to play and completely challenge myself.

[El Jefe]

I didn't try all of them, but I imagine a few warlords were challenging in III...I managed to work fast and secure a basic kingdom for Qiao Mao before he died, but it was a bit of an exact science. Kong Zhou was a little easier as his military stats were better, but again, he had to do specific actions to get off on the right foot.

[wah matu]

I have two, Yang Hu, and Lu Kang, aswell as the event with Hua Tuo in ROTK8, can't seem to trigger either of them, lulz.

....I agree wit da General...but I would add it really depends on which game ur plyn......7,8,9,10,and 11 all have diff. quirks to deal wit' ( a.i. behaves diff ) but Chi-Bi as Xuande is difficult, playin' as Zhang Xiu after Dong burns da capital is extremely difficult( anyone for that matter unless your Cao or Yuan Shao ),....Shu late is also extremely difficult cuz Wei and Wu have significant officer advantages in #s and skill......I've won as Ma Chao starting from his revenge on Mengde....not as easy as you might think.......there r others that I'll add later when I think sum more...

[El Jefe]

I've won as Ma Chao starting from his revenge on Mengde....not as easy as you might think.......

Which game? XI? I'm playing that right now and I would say it's slow but not really that challenging. Time is your biggest enemy. He is by far the weakest force in that scenario, but he has enough to turn things to his favor. Without changing the lifespan settings, however, I do see him being nearly impossible to play for the win.

[wah matu]

Which game? XI? I'm playing that right now and I would say it's slow but not really that challenging. Time is your biggest enemy. He is by far the weakest force in that scenario, but he has enough to turn things to his favor. Without changing the lifespan settings, however, I do see him being nearly impossible to play for the win.

....8......on 9 & 11 hiring officers is easier so like u said as long as u do all of ur domestics and keep a fair amount of troops( 30-50 k ), and sufficient manpower time is really your only obstacle...on ROTK 8 individual relationships and family ties weigh more heavily on force loyalty......which is needed on 8 because u only can control 1 person at a time but up to 8........never done that cuz it's overkill...too easy if u control more than 2 characters.

[Rozalia]

In 8 the most challenging are:

Playing as Gongsun Zan in the final scenario before his death death because while you start with 40K soldiers, that  Yuan starts with 200K!?! In the early Scenerios its actually pretty easy because if you join the allied forces against the Dong, Yuan will run out of food and you can just curb stomp him whilst gaining his huge forces so you basically auto win. But in the latest Scenerios you don't have that so its a hard battle. I once got pushed all the way to Lao Dong (Took it with a force of 5k lol) but I managed to come back with a crushing counter attack.

Overall Gongsuns forces are actually pretty good in battle its just Yuan has a lot more officers and soldiers.

Gongsun Yuan in the finalish scenerios is a good one. Forming a Coalition with Liu Chan and Quan is the easiest way but a lot of the time they just will not help you meaning you have to do it yourself. Your officers are crap and even if you win one battle, the next with will an even bigger uphill battle.

Yan Baihu isn't all that hard in 8 really. Just take out Wang Lang and then rush Liu Yong (hiring at least one of Yong's officers makes it all a lot easier).
When thats done a alliance with Yuan Shu pretty much means you're curb stomping Sun Ce. Your biggest threat Yuan Shu will then be killed off so you can safely hold up in the south.

I don't know why people say Liu Chan is hard. With Fu, Ba and Cheng Du connecting each other you have unbeatable defences regardless of how many soldiers Cao Rui has. Seriously I've had him border me with 500K soldiers and he didn't dare attack. Just pillage his forces/wait for him to run out of food and you can then defeat his forces easily.

[DontPursueLuBu]

I suppose one way to inject challenge might be to take an obscure free officer with poor stats and forge and win (as the Liege) by the time you die.

In the RPG ones, when you're a lone officer with poor stats, it makes everything that much more difficult.  It might be easy to join a strong force and coast your way to victory, but what's the fun in winning glory for someone else?  Fire up RTK7 and begin the reign of Cai He (or some other miserable sod).

Speaking of which, I've read the final scenario of RTK7 is hard to win because there are so few officers left to cover all the terrain.  I've never tried it.  Might be interesting to try and win it, with the force starting with the least total officers.  Play as the Liege too.  It's much, much, much more difficult to acquire officers as a liege than a prefect or warlord in 7, since you have to rely on high-bond officers to find them for you (if they're outside your capitol that is).

I bet RTKXI would be tough if you began a new kingdom with 1 officer.  Impossible, maybe, if the AI turned aggressive.  Can you do it?  Can you do it with a new officer, having <= 60 points in stats?  A skill-less officer.

After all, RTK games are big sandboxes, so you shouldn't feel guilty about inventing your own situations and scenarios to suit your play style.