Originally Posted by
Renegen
I played 3 RotTK, I played 4, 6 and 10 I think. They're really great games, they were my introduction to the three Kingdom era. They're strategy games, not at all like the Dynasty Warrior series. You have towns and armies and rival factions and officers and you must take over all of China.
The series are unique strategy games and offer many things other games just don't. Considering its gameplay, it can be very immersive. Let me explain.
In the 10 you can be anywhere from a roaming mercenary to an emperor. If you're a mercenary you can spend your time killing bandits, collecting items, getting strong, making friends with people. One you have a few friends, you might be able to get recruited by a local warlord. In that way, you are oblivious to the world. Your daily life will consist of about 5 cities around you, it works great.
Eventually if you want you can become a governor of a city or a viceroy or a king etc. As a governor for example you only care about your 1 city, so you do everything possible to make it prosperous. As a viceroy or king, you might selectively assign governors but you don't do the governing anymore, you're more of a manager. And you must of course care about the rest of China and establish alliances.
The difference in gameplay is amazing. You should give the games a try.
You of course can choose between hundred of "officers" and they are really well distributed. I remember every friend I made in my area to be closely coincidental with the actual history. You won't find an officer from south east China in the north.
The weaknesses however is that no 2 games are identical. I think 6 had magic or something. So every game is slightly different, the "profession" feature was only available in 10. So every game has areas of improvement they're never dealt with. I can't wait for the next one.