War and Diplomacy

Do everything you can to capture as many enemy officer as you can in the early battles. This is especially important if you start with few officers (*cough* Liu Bei *cough*). You don't want to enter a battle being outnumbered 4 to 8...

Recruiting

• The first thing you should do when you start a new scenario, is to scan for new officers to recruit. Start by checking your officer list (R2 button) and check the friend list of each officer for names in "white" (Green are with Liu Bei, Red with Sun Ce, Blue with Cao Cao and White are still unaligned). When you find an unaligned officer you want to recruit, simply appoint your officer as en envoy and send him. Try to acquire officers with good skills at all cost. Skills like menace, strategy, spy and other 4-stars rating skills (check the "Skills" page) can help you tremendously.
• Next, do the same but with the civilian(L2 button). Because officer A might have B in his friend list, but B might not have A in his friend list. Anyway, when A meets B, recruiting take place. Ok, enough with the algebra... So just look in the civilian list for officers who have friend shown in your faction color (ex : green if Liu Bei, etc..)
• If possible, try to recruit any civilian not aligned (L2 button). Even if they are weak, it has many benefits. First they could be friend with another strong officer. This will also prevent other rulers from recruiting them. Finally, recruited officers will be added to your officer database.
• Your envoy can go in any city within range so it might takes a few turns to reach their destination. Don't forget to move them each turn ! Take the habits of using the R1 button, to review all your armies and envoys.
• If your envoy visit an enemy city on his trip, he has a chance of getting recognized by the guards and if so, will return to the capital. Envoys with the "Diplomacy" skill are always allowed to pass freely anywhere.
• When your envoy has recruited the new officer, simply "release" him and he will teleport to the capital immediately.

Armies

• The number of officers you can appoint in your armies is directly related to the number of cities you have under your control. So if you have only one city, you won't be able to appoint a lot of officers, even if they are free and available.
• A level 0 officer start with a maximum of 2000 soldiers. Each level gained raise the maximum by 1000 soldiers.
• One army is composed of four officers : A commander, a strategist and two generals. The commander has to be an army leader (shown by the flag under its portrait). I usually choose an officer with high LEA to lead an army. Don't put a weak officer in this spot because if he gets defeated in battle, you'll automatically lose the battle. You strategist should be an officer with fairly high INT so you can use trumps in battle. Whenever possible, try to have a strategist that can use the "Builders" units. Your two generals should be officers with high STR.
• Review the tactics used by each officers. For each officers, try to take as much different skills as possible. You'll have more opportunities to get an officer involved in a combo if he has [Raid], [Charge], [Pierce], than if he has [Raid], [Charge], [Charge].
• Try to use unit type that raise the primary quality of your officers. For example, Rangers are the best for making LEA commanders, Cavalry for making STR officers and builders for your INT strategist.
• Put the items you find to good use !
• The first thing I do when I start a new scenario is to disband all my previous armies and reform them. This way I can place the new officers I've recruited last chapter in my main army. Start by forming 2 strong armies with your 8 best officers. They will be your main strike force and if possible always have two spies coming along with them. ("Envoy" with the [Spy] skill take part in battle so you can have a total of 10 officers on your side in a battle). Then make two other armies with your next 8 best officers. They will be your secondary army used when you need to capture many cities to reach an objective. In the later chapters, I also make a third army that will act as a backup to the main strike force or the secondary army if they need to rest away from danger to regain their troops.
• If you can, try to put officers who are friends in the same army. Randomly, when they move on the map, interaction between the two could occurs, resulting in an always positive bonus.
• If your army lose many soldiers in a battle, let it rest a turn or two. Resting in a fort (the grey bricks) will not restore soldiers, you must be in a city. The best recovery rate you can get is when the officers aren't in an army and simply resting at the capital.
• If one of your officer is defeated in battle he will return automagically to your capital, leaving an empty spot in your army. If you have a backup army, disband the injured army and reform it in your capital a few turns later. Don't reform your disbanded army until everybody is ready to go. A general in an army will replete it's soldiers much slower than a free officer.
• After each battle, you officer gains some experience with the troop type he is commanding. Check to see if a new troops have been unlocked and switch to them if wanted.

Planning

• As I have said earlier, the number of officer you can use in your army is factor of the number of cities you have under control. So when you have the time to do so (or if you have a weak army doing nothing, send them to as much vacant cities as possible). At the end of each scenario, you'll often gain and/or lose cities, but any cities not affected by the inter-scenario story and already controlled by you will remain under your control.
• Check how much time you have to complete your objective. If you have 8 turns to do something you can do in 4, that means you have 4 more days to conquer vacant cities (where you could find powerful items), recruit new officers and raising your officer's levels. To make sure you don't have bad surprises, start by almost completing the objective, i.e. Move your army just beside the last city you need to capture to win the scenario. Also, it's not always wise to wait until you have one turn left. For example, in one case, I waited until the last turn to capture the enemy city, so I move my army on the enemy city and "End turn", but then I see that the enemy general also moved he troops toward my army. Result, the battle took place in my fort instead of in his so even if I beated him, I lost the scenario because my army was not in his base !!!
• Perhaps the most important tips : Always save your game before ending your turn ! This will save you tons of frustration if things don't go has expected. For example, if you get a very crappy terrain to fight on, just reload the game and the terrain layout will be different.
• When you start a new chapter, save your game in a dedicated slot that will remains untouched until you finish the current scenario. It is always useful to be able to restart a scenario when something goes wrong with your planing (Oh no, I have 1 turn left and I need 3 turns to reach my objective. I also have only one saved game from the previous turn, so you can call me stupid...).
• As with most Koei's games, you can press L1-L2-R1-R2-Select-Start simultaneously to reset the game. It is much faster then pressing the reset button as the game will stay loaded.
• You'll want to develop the new officers you will recruit. The way to do this is to place them in an army and send the army to attack Normal and/or Enemy kingdoms. This means that even if your current objective as Liu Bei is to demolish Sun Ce, nothing prevent you from attacking Cao Cao ! Launch an attack with your backup army so they can gain deeds and levels. If you feel unsure of the outcome, do it toward the end of the scenario. (When a new scenario begins, all armies are completely refilled with soldiers) So your officers can be defeated without serious consequences. Just make sure they don't get captured by the enemy !!!