Romance Again?....Anyone?

[madgamer2]

If you have been in computer games for a long time you may remember a great game that Koei came out with called "Romance of the three Kingdoms". The first one was an outstanding game for its time.
There follower a long list of them up to #10. None of them were even close to the first one.....till now. The company was bought out by someone and Koei is on its own website now selling updated versions of there games and some new ones also. The designer of the first one has brought up the first one to a great new version.
The catch is that it is download only with no box, manual, no CD. It has a very good and sometimes funny series of tutorials that if finished give you a lot more generals to choose from. The game is only $19.95. Anyone who loved the old game or likes good historical multiplayer games will like this one. Even with the tutorials and having played the original will love it.
They offer two places to download it and I recomend that unless you like direct2drive.com you get it from the other site.

MMadgamer

[Grell]

I own the original Romance as well. Can you give me a link to the download site?


Regards,

Grell

[cdbeck]

I think the only place to get RotTK XI is on Direct2Drive.com (at least for US buyers, I believe that Europe had a physical box release). I have it, but let me warn those who are thinking about it, this game is COMPLEX (deceptively so, from look at feel of the UI) and takes TONS of time to play. Be prepared for Uncommon Valor and near War in the Pacific playing times on medium/large scenarios (and that is even against the AI). It takes loads of planning and lots of time to execute any maneuver, and you will constantly need to micromanage your empire as well. Like UV and WitP, logisitics is a major aspect, you have to make sure that your troops are fed. Compound that with the fact that towns do not share resources into an imperial "pool" and you have the added challenge of transporting food or gold to "hot spots" in your empire, not to mention staffing critical towns with the proper leadership.

The officer system is crazy complex as well. Officers have tons of stats that are used in different actions or to lead different types of troops. Some have "perks" that give special abilities to certain actions. Recruiting officers is easily as complex and important as, say, building a baseball team in Out of the Park Baseball or Matrix's own sports management sims. It can be quite daunting.

Now, all of this stuff is highly fun, if you are into this sort of thing. The turned based battles are a treat and are rather well done (mind you, they take place on the map, so you STILL have to manage your domestic empire during battles). I just wanted to warn people who might think "Ha, a TBS wargame that first came out on the PS2, that must be wargaming light." Not... at... all... RotTK XI is hardcore as most of the Matrix games, in fact it is more hardcore than some. Even the demo doesn't give a real account of exactly how hardcore this game is. If hardcore strategy that takes oodles of planning, a good amount of micromanagement, and will gobble your time is what you want, then you can't go wrong with RotTK XI, especially at the price.

BTW, for those that understand this, and I don't, the PC release of RotTK XI does NOT comes with the PK add-on that was put out for the console version. Don't ask me what that means, but it seems to have cause some consternation. Much of this surrounds the updated diplomacy engine of the PK add-on.

SoM

[BoredStiff]

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort

Not... at... all... RotTK XI is hardcore as most of the Matrix games, in fact it is more hardcore than some. Even the demo doesn't give a real account of exactly how hardcore this game is. If hardcore strategy that takes oodles of planning, a good amount of micromanagement, and will gobble your time is what you want, then you can't go wrong with RotTK XI, especially at the price.

Say "hardcore" once more and I think a certain somebody's gonna come over here and give you a stern talking to.
Word.

[DuckofTindalos]

And then they can go talk to you about your avatar, BS...[8|]

[sol_invictus]

I played and really liked Genghis Khan 2 way back when but never gave the Romance games a try for some reason. I tried the demo for this new release and didn't care for it much at all. It just seemed silly to me and a bit too "kiddy". I would not use the term "hardcore" at all, at least so far as a historical strategy game goes.

[cdbeck]

Yeah... the "kiddy" thing is totally off the mark. I will admit, the demo seem rather childish and simplistic. That was the tutorial. The game, however, throws you into the deep end and you suddenly realize that you have 4-5 cities, several armies, 20-30 (or more) officers, several building choices and the idea of where to put them and what cities need to have them, getting supplies to and from cities, four main army types, two siege engine types, two boat choices (not for sea battles, for getting your amries over rivers and lakes), having to keep order high while recruiting (which lowers order) and spending out the nose for weapons, taking into accout the seasons and harvests to make sure everywhere has enough food, diplomacy with a huge amount of factions vying for China, hiring new officers, tons of different tactical moves and "special attacks" based on the level of your general and the discipline of their troops, oh... and the ability to build traps outside of cities to blow up, slow down, or snipe at your troops. If I had played this as a kid, I would have cried myself to sleep.

In fact, I would say that the complexity of RotTK XI borders on being Crown of Glory or Forge of Freedom. Sure, there are fewer unit and resource types, but you didn't have to deal with personalities (the officers and generals) in those two, nor did you have nearly as much logistical planning between cities that do not connect to any universal stockpile. The tactical battles play out similarly, without some of the complexities of CoG's formation system, but with more complexity regarding just what sorts of attacks, special and otherwise, can be ordered. The game is WAY more complicated than it looks. In fact some wargamers over at Gaming Trend were commenting on just how long each turn takes, not to mention how they tended to never quite be able to finish the scenarios! And these are guys who regularly play Matrix Games of all sorts.

And for BoredStiff - "Boobies."

SoM

[mikul82]

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort

Yeah... the "kiddy" thing is totally off the mark. I will admit, the demo seem rather childish and simplistic. That was the tutorial. The game, however, throws you into the deep end and you suddenly realize that you have 4-5 cities, several armies, 20-30 (or more) officers, several building choices and the idea of where to put them and what cities need to have them, getting supplies to and from cities, four main army types, two siege engine types, two boat choices (not for sea battles, for getting your amries over rivers and lakes), having to keep order high while recruiting (which lowers order) and spending out the nose for weapons, taking into accout the seasons and harvests to make sure everywhere has enough food, diplomacy with a huge amount of factions vying for China, hiring new officers, tons of different tactical moves and "special attacks" based on the level of your general and the discipline of their troops, oh... and the ability to build traps outside of cities to blow up, slow down, or snipe at your troops. If I had played this as a kid, I would have cried myself to sleep.

In fact, I would say that the complexity of RotTK XI borders on being Crown of Glory or Forge of Freedom. Sure, there are fewer unit and resource types, but you didn't have to deal with personalities (the officers and generals) in those two, nor did you have nearly as much logistical planning between cities that do not connect to any universal stockpile. The tactical battles play out similarly, without some of the complexities of CoG's formation system, but with more complexity regarding just what sorts of attacks, special and otherwise, can be ordered. The game is WAY more complicated than it looks. In fact some wargamers over at Gaming Trend were commenting on just how long each turn takes, not to mention how they tended to never quite be able to finish the scenarios! And these are guys who regularly play Matrix Games of all sorts.

And for BoredStiff - "Boobies."

SoM

You're making me want to buy this badly... I agree that the demo looked like a kiddie cartoon version of the old games (I loved ROTK 1-3 on the NES/SNES/Genesis, haven't played any since), but from what you're saying, this sounds really nice for $20.

I watched a demo video as well, of course it looks like they've included magical attacks or something in the damn game, why oh why do game developers do things like this to "realistic" themed games? If it's good all around though, that would piss me off but not put me off of buying the game entirely.

The officer juggling, logistics, and etc sounds fun to me. How's the game AI, specifically in battles and diplomacy?

[cdbeck]

Well, I really can't speak to the quality of the AI, as I am pretty much trash at wargames (even if I do like them) and all AI seems pretty good to me. The diplomacy is rather simplistic, even with all of the options. Apparently the AI doesn't react well with diplomacy, not unlike most other complex wargames. Apparently this was fixed with the PK add-on thing that was for the console, but KOEI did not include PK in the PC release. No word on if this will be a future update or expansion or what.

I would say, the price is pretty good, and the game has high production value and a good level of strategy. Yes, they did include magic attacks (they have since nine or so I think) but they tend to fit in with Chinese mythology, so some of that is forgivable. Only a very few officers can use magic attacks, which includes Sorcery and Black Arts, but I haven't ever encoutered one and only know this from reading the forum. So there is a certain "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" aspect to the game, but I think this could be considered the "low magic" of ancient Chinese history.

SoM

[Mac67]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

And then they can go talk to you about your avatar, BS...[8|]

Maybe at the same time that they are talking to you about referring to other posters as "effing retards" and "morons" T...[8|]

Who knows? Miracles might happen.

[madgamer2]

trust me.....I played the original from the first day of release till the day my old dos system went kaput. This is a much better game than the original and was even designed by him as well. He had nothing to do with all the others till this one. For $20 bucks ya can't go wrong.

Madgamer

[mikul82]

Is this available ANYWHERE besides direct2drive?  As usual with games I want to play, they apparently use an annoying "limited installations" DRM system that I refuse to ever pay anyone to be stuck with (at least that what it appears to use on their FAQ page). 

(Not to open the DRM can of worms- nothing anyone here can say is going to change my mind on things in this industry I refuse to pay for, and "limited install activations" is one of them.)

[cdbeck]

I'm pretty sure that Direct2Drive.com is the only place to get it, if you are in the States. I don't remember any DRM when I installed, and usually Direct2Drive lets you download and install as many times are you need to (the limited install thing typically orginates with the game publishers and not Direct2Drive, so you see it in EA games over there, but not every game over there).

That is, at least, to the best of my knowledge. I have been able to DL any game I purchase from D2D numerous times from the My Account page.

SoM

[Perturabo]

"Romance of the three Kingdoms"? Is it a M-rated visual novel or something like that[:D]?

[madgamer2]

For those who did not get it at www.trygames.com It cost $4 more for insurance (what ever that is for) they do however install the WHOLE game including that pesky serial number.

Madgamer

[hadberz]

Romance of the three Kingdoms is one of my all-time favorite games. I played it on my NES back in the early 90s. I also played PTO (SNES) and Bandit Kings of Ancient China (NES). Koei make some truly great games.

I'm temped to grab the demo see if it still has that same great gameplay.