Niahak's Place

For decades now, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series has been a gaming comfort food for me. Its more traditional, ruler-focused entries are relatively simple grand strategy games. Complexity comes from the vast supporting cast of history, with even the earliest games having hundreds of officers. Koei assigns various stats to officers based on what they did either in the novel or in historical documents (typically splitting the difference a bit where they disagree). This typically means that, like the Paradox grand strategy games, there is a massive set of playable options with varying degrees of difficulty. The player can either try and role-play or break the mold of history from the start.

In 2000, Koei released Romance of the Three Kingdoms VII. This was the first entry to allow playing as a subordinate (or free) officer, allowing you to influence things as a “bit player”, more like a Crusader Kings count under a duke. The RTK officer play entries involve take a more restrictive, but also more focused view than Crusader Kings – while intrigue can happen, it’s not as much the focus beyond officer rebellion/recruitment. As a subordinate officer, you receive monthly goals set by your governor. You can also play as an advisor, governor, or viceroy (commanding your own sub-force although still not able to do your own diplomacy). Romance of the Three Kingdoms VIII came out a year later, with more focus on inter-officer relationships (marriage and sworn siblings in particular). Although I personally favor VII of the two, VIII is one of the more popular entries in the series and thus got recently remade.