Rise of Three Kingdoms Version 5.6 (Guandong) Update news

Greetings once again, everyone!

I need to start off by stating that this, with pretty much 99% certainty, will be the last update for Rise of Three Kingdoms. I said something similar years ago, but the mod is now leaps and bounds more complete, stable, and comprehensive than at any other point in it's development. I also had lofty ambitions and a mountain of ideas in regard to how I wanted to Three Kingdoms game to look and play, so there was always a never ending list of improvements to make, bugs to correct, and content to add. After 10 years and putting thousands of hours of time into the mod, I feel confident that it is something I can call complete. While there is still that 1% chance of a patch in the future (thanks to my OCD), it wouldn't be anything more than fixing any outstanding bugs and minor fixes. So, with that said, here is an image of the Wolves of the Frontier, as I had recently fixed the pattern and color of their horse barding.

Now, let's get into the real content of this article: the v5.6 Update contents.

One of the first major additions to the mod, is the inclusion of the Guandong Coalition. While the 190 campaign is much more sandbox than the 194 campaign, it was always a point for me to include the Guandong Coalition, being that it is one of the most well-known events in Three Kingdoms history and lore. How the event works is at the start of the second turn in the 190 campaign, if you are playing as one of the select group of factions historically involved in the Guandong Coalition, you will get an event to join or decline the coalition. Outside of the historical participants, others who either declined or were asked to join (Tao Qian, Liu Yu, & Gongsun Zan) are given the event if controlled by the player. Those who had no role in the coalition (Liu Yan, Lu Kang, the Heishan, etc.) will just be given a notice of the coalition's formation and will not be given the event to join. If you accept joining, your faction leader will be given a special trait and you will declare war on Dong Zhuo along with the other participants. If you decline, you will receive a significant amount of money and greatly improved relations with Dong Zhuo. The coalition members do not becomes allies because Medieval II's alliance mechanics cannot represent the historical dynamic between the coalition members and also, if a large group of factions in the same region were all allied, it would seriously throw off the balance of the game and result in a whole lot of inaction. In addition to all this, an event was created to notify the player when Dong Zhuo is killed. While it doesn't affect the game per se, it is a very good RP element and something I believe most characters would be interested in knowing about when it happens. Below you can see a screenshot of the initial Guandong Coalition event, followed by the notice of Dong Zhuo sleeping with the fishes.

Unlike pretty much all previous updates, this one does not have a lot of pronounced new content, like the above Guandong Coalition event or new units or an overhaul of the campaign map. While there is quite a bit of minor new content, most of the update involves bug-fixing, overall polishing, tying up loose ends, and filling in any of the gaps that were missing in content. One such gap that was filled was experience gains and penalties for Acumen and Benevolence, most as a result of a character being a city governor. Essentially a system of scaling experience (lower trait level receives more experience) was created for city governors in regard to what they do with the city and how they manage it, which affects both Acumen and Benevolence. The system is designed so that any trait gains will be seen over the long term and are more visible to characters who have the room to improve. So a character with 3 Acumen could bump it up to 6 over the course of 10 years or so, while a character that has 6 Acumen may only see it improve by 1 or not at all. Also, Benevolence will take a relatively major hit (again, scaling) if a character exterminates a settlement after capturing it. Another piece of this update is the significant expansion of names for captains and agents (merchants, diplomats, etc.). Previously, if a faction was a hereditary one (Liu Clan, Cao Clan, etc.) then every character would have the exact same surname. So if playing as Cao Cao, every captain and agent would have the Cao surname, which is a bit immersion breaking to see all of a faction's characters have the same surname. Now, however, captains and agents will take their names from a pool of nearly 6,000 names, while family members will still almost always use the respective clan's surname. As an example of this, below you can see several captains and agents with a wide variety in their naming.

As I mentioned before, the changes for this update are fairly extensive, and far too much to explain here, so please check out the complete changelog on the update's download page for a full list of changes.

The Version 5.6 (Guandong) Update can be downloaded here and has instructions on how to properly install the patch (point installer at Medieval II Total War folder).

IMPORTANT NOTE: You must have the Rise of Three Kingdoms v4.5 Full Release installed prior to installing this update. This update is NOT save-game compatible (will break saves).

Happy gaming!