Check what Sun Jian, Huang Zu, and Cai Ma has in terms of ancillary. Sun Jian will always have a builder/imperial seal.If they have good stuff proceed, if they dont restart your campaign so they get new items.

First things first go to the family tree and make Yuan Anyang the heir, put Yan on assignment stimulate market. Little later in Anyang's tree she gives -25 redeployment cost factionwide, add to that with Yuan Shu's that's -50 percent off, Then trade with Cai Ma, go to receive marriage and marry Yuan Anyang to Cai Zhaong give him anything you want, you will get it back later in the turn. The reason? His first two skills are amazing: 10k splash damage and 25 percent chance to capture enemy officers are just too good to pass up.

MANUALLY do the battle otherwise you may just straight up kill Jia, try to feed kills to Yuan Shu so that he can level up at least next battle Jia's first 2 skills are also amazing, night battle/flaming arrows and wisdom of the river, -100 melee dodge/armor.

Employ him then move your army to the mine and besiege it. Auto resolve it and claim the place. Trade with Cai Ma and Huang Zu all their gold/ancillary's in return for giving them money each turn. Disband all retinues, make Yang commanding general and move them right outside of the mine, then on Yuan Shu select swap retinue, get Anyang/Cai and take them outside the army.Trade your newly acquired mine to Liu Biao for cash/ancillary and then declare war on him.

You now wont be paying anything to his vassals and you got all their money. Use Yang to siege. Afterwards disband all retinue and move Anyang/Cai as close to Chen's farmland on regular stance while still in your land, lastly swap Yang with Zheng and disband his retinue as well.

Afterwards trade with Sun Jian. In this order:select demand support for legitimacy, military access THEN form coalition, get both of his guaranteed ancillarys and trade him your unwanted ancillary's, if you need to give him more just give him lumps of money. Once that's done sell anymore unwanted ancillary's to him by selecting pay me per turn. you gain more in the long run and extra income is nice.

GO TO WAR CO-ORDINATION and make him target Jiangling. if you don't for some reason he wont take it over, in my older campaigns i didn't order him around and his army stayed near there doing nothing even 20+ turns later.

For buildings make a state workshop, don't forget to put all your new ancillary's on your guys.

Turn 2

Recruit 2 strategists you have left on the strategist, swap ji militia on Jia and fill his retinue with all archers, Zhang Cheng fill witharchers except keep one slot open for trebuchet next turn, which costs 1k and lady Feng archers as well. If you can't afford all them then that is fine. Recruit Yang on Anyang and take over chen's farm, then go to diplomacy Kong Zhou, request a trade agreement and for them supporting your legitimacy, should could around 2k {worth it}, then disband the all the generals at chen's farm.

End turn

Ps. While you could take over Liu Biao's city this turn by doing the strategy for turn 3 but instead you would need 4 generals, by doing that you create a problem... aka the Han's Xu Huang's army will stay at Shangyong, this is bad for 2 reasons, 1. You are gonna try to blitz your way through there and Xu is a tough SOB. 2. If he stays there then you cant capture him... meaning you cant recruit him.

Turn 3

Choose to follow the story.

Recruit only one unit aka a trebuchet now and put your army close to Xiangyang, split your army and recruit Yuan Anyang, move your 2 strategist army and siege Xiangyang. Split your new army and put the strategist back into the strategist army, as for Yuan Anyang's army put in Cai Zhong and Yang Hong and reinforce your siege army, manual battle this.

Battle strategy: place your army at a wall where your reinforcements isn't coming. Use your reinforcements force to sneakily get into the city. To do this dismount them near the wall and hover over the wall to climb. then open the gates and grab your horses. use your archers with the fire arrow ability to destroy the towers, then move your crossbowman up to start sniping enemy units with your archers. Once your army is harassing the enemy, you can safely start pushing your strike force into the victory point. the enemy will only send their cav/infantry units at you and since you have 3 generals on the victory point they can't take back the victory point while your generals are on it.

The picture is only for reference.


You should see Xu in your new land... IF XU's SATISFACTION IS BELOW 60 proceed, if it isnt then i would highly recommend restarting your campaign, yeah its a pain but his satisfaction being green is super rare.

Disband Cai Zhong, move Yuan Anyang/Yang Hong right at above Xu to block him from going north, this will more than likely cause him to go between the mountains. Go to war coordination and select changsta's tradeport for Sun Jian, this allows him to get another trade agreement... which means you get extra cash from him. He may not do anything, if worse comes to worse when Liu Biao orders Cai Mai to join their war send Sun to Cai's capital.

Now you like your chen's farm right? Sadly you not gonna keep it, the AI for this game is a bit wonky in that they become like this or like that once you do certain things, for example normally your third land would be Luoyang's lumberyard, useless to be honest.. and that land means enemy's will try to target you through there, anyway once you take that land or chen's Cao Cao will suddenly become agressive towards you, if you didnt grab them land he would never attempt to take Chen's land... which i find funny considering after how many total war games there is the AI is still hardwired to do certain things... anyway trade the farmland to kong Zhou and request 3 food and some cash.. you could trade it for Cao Cao but he will declare war on you anyway, doing this will cause a buffer between you and Cao Cao, now take all his cash/ancillary's and give in return money per turn, EQUIP ALL ANCILLARY's! If you don't instead of declaring war on you this turn he will try to pay for your ancillary's... which you took from him.

The reason why you want to be at war with Cao Cao is that he is hardwired to always turn against you once, once he exhausts himself he will gladly accept peace... by that time Yuan Shao your annoying brother will have declared war on Cao Cao, you using Cao Cao as a buffer since Yuan Shao is unpredictable across my various campaigns, whats consistent is if you meet him he will try to bully you.

Build up the shrine and Nanyang's settlement.

End turn

FIRST: For reforms focus on the yellow path, character salary kills your income, choose eunuch secretaries and MAKE CAI AN ADMIN now! Demolish the patrols building at Xiangyang.

Split Yang from yuan and move Anyang as close to Shangyang in normal stance, recruit Shu and split Anyang from Shu, this allows him to not be behind her causing alot of movement points trying to bypass her, anyway it is possible to win with just the generals, make preparations aka hire units if you want and siege Shangyang with Shu and put Anyang on marched stance, put her into Shu and split Shu so that he keeps his movement points once the battle is over. Upgrade the settlement and disband Anyang. Move Shu as close as possible to Shangyang's lumberyard,

Make a manual save by editing your save file, this part requires RNGjesus.

Move Yang as close as possible to Xu and recruit all archers, then hire Cai and split Yang from Cai, recruit all archers on Cai, move strategists to reinforce and MAKE CAI THE ONE WHO ATTACKS, Due to Cai Zhong's capture chance Xu Huang has a 27-39ish percent chance to be captured, if he isn't the commandering general whos being targeted/targetting his skill will not activate...even though the tooltip doesn't say anything about it. The first battle is predetermined in terms of if you capture, the second battle aka once he retreats differs each time, if you didnt get him the 2ed time reload. Recruit Yang Feng if you can as he is also helpful. Once you recruited Xu congratz! You got a powerhouse.


Move the strategist army as close as possible to the border, move Cai marched stance into Yang, then split Cai from Yang, refill the ranks of units that are at 0 for everyone. Send Yang as close as possible to the border.

PICTURE OF THIS IS BELOW.

Don't forget to send Sun to attack Cai's capital.

End turn.

Turn 4.5

Liu Biao should have targetted Yang, retreat. He will stay right there and this allows you to 2v1 him next turn.


Turn 5

Make sure you can hire a general at Nanyang's settlement later in the turn, the big dong will have a pitiful army attacking you this turn. Easy to repel. Anyang may have a skill point, put it in flexibility,

Make a save and try to get Yang as close to Liu without triggering the battle screen, recruit Anyang and fill her with archers,make sure everyone is in reinforcement range and send Yang's army at Liu. Win the battle and send strategist/Cai to be able to reinforce the next battle. Battle Liu and see if you can siege the toolmaker. If you cant dont worry...

IMPORTANT:Royalty gets a tiny movement points when they have no retinue's and they solo. Apparently it seems when you win the battle you move where the enemy was costs 0 points, giving you just enough movement points to initiate battles.

Picture is an example of the royalty thing.


If you cant siege it then split Anyang from the army letting you siege, send Yang/Cai marched stance into Anyang and reinforce the place with the strategist army. Once you conquer it, march stance the strategist army and swap them with Anyang's army, disband all the generals that arn't strategists. Refill your units that are 0 and keep a slot option for Lady Feng's retinue.

Hire a general at Nanyang and recruit at LEAST 1 archer, this causes the enemy to spawn differently during the upcoming siege. IF you have any other generals like Xu for example, recruit him at Shu and siege Shangyang's lumberyard, split Shu so he keeps his movement points after the battle. DO A NIGHT BATTLE!!!.

Tips for the lumberyard: Use fire archers on a set of towers and then move your infantry near the entrance to the settlement, let the archers do their thing and quickly rush Xu into the victory point, try to get the victory point yours then move xu back where your army lies, funny enough the enemy won't try to recapture it when their army is fighting someone. Usually their morale would be at around 15 now, your ability is -18 morale, include the archers fire arrows grants a -5 morale as well, you can basicly insta route the enemy. Disband Xu's units then himself and move Shu marched stance as close as possible to baxi's toolmaker.

End turn AND quickly pause the game, make a save before the battle of Nanyang's settlement for a better chance of capturing enemy officers.

Tips: In case you forget/didn't know/etc..: I HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading through this:
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1764136182

Its someone else's guide and i just gotta give credit to them, yes they don't have every tip [cough i provided some in the comments].

War: Moving your army Southwest and take Han territories/other faction's territories. Don't bother trying to regain the emperor, the benefits is getting around 3k income from the Han as your vassal but everyone will declare war on you so they can resume conquering their territories. Don't expand directly south as Sun Jian is gonna be your buffer/ally for the majority of the game. Expanding North isn't worth it due to meeting other factions early that causes them to more than likely declare war on you since your considered weak to them. Expanding East likewise will get you into trouble, you don't want to encounter Yuan Shao this early... hes a pain. Cao Cao will either take Chen's farmlands or He Yi will. Battling He Yi take his lands or sell them to Sun Jian.

Dangers: Normally turn 10-12 or so He Yi will declare war on you, use Sun Jian as reinforcements with a newly formed army, Be warned that He Yi will have 3 armies, 1 at his mine and 2 near his city. Once you expand West you will encounter a few minor factions, more than likely they will declare war on you. but with your strategist army/ Xu Huang you should have little difficulty. The Dong will not present a threat to you most likely. Other threats are random but do keep in mind of Gong Du being near you.

Diplomacy: Throughout your turns make sure you are making Sun Jian take over your enemy's territories. Once you have access to spies put one into Dong's faction so you can see his land allowing you to discover the other factions quickly once you seen other factions recall your spy and repeat or keep him there, he may be useful. When you meet new factions you don't think you going to go to war with so soon try to get money/legitimacy from them in exchange for food. By turn 26 i reached Duke, making over 60 legitimacy per turn. Legitimacy is used for boons to your economy/recruiting generals. Check every turn to see if you can employ any legendary generals, if you cannot afford them cash wise you can recruit them as council lords. By turn 16-18 Sun Ce will be an adult, Divorce Lady Feng and marry her to Sun Ce, hes a strong character and this also allows you to get his friend event Zhou Yu. When you Encounter Liu Bei you may be able to marry Zheng Fei to a lady of yours, highly recommend since he is considered high tier. To Gain more female generals asap do this: faction leader single-seek spouse, divorce the spouse, then adopt her. All for 7k, you can repeat once per turn.

economy: this will be short since there is debate over the best, You can min/max but going Southwest nets you lots of food, sell the food to factions you encounter.

reforms: Focus on the yellow tree hands down, improving your economy is a must, get reforms that reduces character salary. I avoid Blue since your not focusing on trade agreements since your surrounded by Han lands... the other factions surrounding you will try to kill you so...yeah. I would focus on Purple or Green afterwards to get their elite units. As for red yeah the benefits are good but by the time you finish yellow you will want a overpowered unit, purple gives you amazing melee units while green gives you access to a unit that is infantry while having a bow with them. best of both worlds.

Misc/End:

If you reading this then thanks for reading my guide. I'm constantly tweaking this guide for the best possible moves.

Turn 6: captured luoyang's lumberyard/baxi toolmaker, got to second marquis.
Turn 7: captured baxi's town/ba's farmland/badong city
Turn 8: captured shangyang weapon craftsman, cao cao gets to close to luoyangs lumberyard, i sell it to kong zhou.
Turn 9: captured baxi lifestock farm.
Turn 9.5: battled cao cao at nanyangs settlement... only lost 13 soldiers and they lost 1300+... towers are op. sidenote i was able to capture Xiahou Dun.
Turn 10: captured chengu farmland, wuling rice paddy, wuling settlement
Turn 11: captured chengu town, fuling town, chengu armor craftsman, wuling livestock farm,chengu salt mine. ruman iron mine
Turn 12: Got to marquis on the start of this turn.