Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI: The beauty of glorious death in combat ... in ancient China

Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdom XI still feels fresh despite being the 11th game in the series. The story revolves around the military generals of the late Han Dynasty in China, and plays similar to Sid Meier's Civilization series, where players control cities and armies in turn-based combat over a strategic map. The game borrows its storyline from history but relies on the novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms to fill in plot points; including some fictional characters found only in the book.

Strategists of the Three Kingdoms

Players will be able to control famous generals including Liu Bei, Zhuge Lang, Cao Cao, Lu Bu, Sun Jian and many more. Generals, known as officers in the game, are the player's lifeline. Each action in the game requires at least one (but up to three) generals to use, whether it's recruiting troops, transporting resources, or negotiating a ceasefire.

This is an excellent touch, generals come with traits that determine what they are best at; for example charismatic officers will be able to recruit more troops per turn, while officers with a high war attribute will better at drilling troops. Additionally, players can also grant titles to their officers, ranging from "Gatekeeper" to "Senior Advisor" and many more. Entitled officers receive benefits such as increased troop command size and attribute bonuses. There are more than 50 titles in the game.

Some officers also have special abilities, which can have useful effects in specific situations; for example, the ability "Iron Wall" helps prevent the officer from being ganged up on by only receiving one unit's damage in a combined attack, and the ability "White Riders" allows the officer's cavalry unit to shoot arrows.

Since it's a turn-based game, many players will be familiar with the concept of action points. Action points determine how many actions the player can take in one turn, the player receives action points each turn based on the number of current cities under control. Most actions take 20 points, while from personal experience on normal difficulty, a player receives 40 points per city, per turn.

Players will also be able to develop technology with technology points (TP). TPs are generated by almost every action in the game, with more given for military actions. Capturing a rival's city wields the highest TP reward by far.

Additionally there are two resources in the game, food and gold. Gold is the game's primary resource, players will need to use gold  for almost everything: to build facilities for cities, recruit and arm troops, pay officers' salaries, research technology, even in prisoner exchanges. Farms produce food to sustain troops and although gold can be used purchase food from the market, it's important to note that the designers have made the market's prices fluctuate, so players almost pay up to three times more when prices are high.

The Emperor's Final Order

The game's requirements are very low, but players will be glad to know that the map is fully 3D and rotatable. This game is perfect for those who want a detailed and historically accurate strategy game about the wars of the late Han Dynasty. To be honest, with all the mindless hack and slashes out there, this is quite a relief. Definitely your money's worth.

If this sounds like a lot, it's because it is. The learning curve for this game is steep. Beginners should complete the tutorial before starting a game, however, the tutorial only brushes the surface of the game.