The best "faction-mode" game in the series, and has in my opinion, some of the best systems in the series.
The decision to combine the battles and the overall map into one board is smart, i really enjoy how battles work in this one. Where tactics and battles are a great deal about placement, preparation and what types of army you field. Lu Bu on one hand can smash everything to pieces and do crazy damage, however a bunch of archer turrets, a choke point, and some mid-tier guy with 70/100 war can beat Lu Bu.
The dueling and debating mini-games here are the best the series has had. They are easy to wrap your head around, and you actually feel like your input matters, i wish they would just use these as standard going forward.
Downsides? Well, the game's AI can be downright terrible. Weaker factions will attack you once, and then never try to recover. They'll sit with a half-empty city and make no effort to recover while you build up and smash them to bits.
Also, the lack of an option to randomize placement here means that replay-value is lesser than the officer-mode entries, it's still quite a lot to try, but i can't help but wonder how much better it'd be with a randomizer.
The decision to combine the battles and the overall map into one board is smart, i really enjoy how battles work in this one. Where tactics and battles are a great deal about placement, preparation and what types of army you field. Lu Bu on one hand can smash everything to pieces and do crazy damage, however a bunch of archer turrets, a choke point, and some mid-tier guy with 70/100 war can beat Lu Bu.
The dueling and debating mini-games here are the best the series has had. They are easy to wrap your head around, and you actually feel like your input matters, i wish they would just use these as standard going forward.
Downsides? Well, the game's AI can be downright terrible. Weaker factions will attack you once, and then never try to recover. They'll sit with a half-empty city and make no effort to recover while you build up and smash them to bits.
Also, the lack of an option to randomize placement here means that replay-value is lesser than the officer-mode entries, it's still quite a lot to try, but i can't help but wonder how much better it'd be with a randomizer.