Romance of the Three Kingdoms LadiesGamers

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV: Diplomacy and Strategy Expansion Pack Review (Switch)

Game: Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV: Diplomacy and Strategy Expansion Pack Bundle
Genre: Simulation, Strategy
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam, PS4)
Developers | Publishers: KOEI TECMO AMERICA
Age Rating: EU 12+ | US 10+
Price: US $69.99 | EU €69,99 |  UK £57.99
Release Date: February 11th, 2021

Review code used, with many thanks to KOEI TECMO

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV is the 14th instalment in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy game series by Koei. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a long-running franchise based on the historical novel of the same name by Luo Guanzhong.

Romance of the three Kingdoms LadiesGamers

Diplomacy and Strategy Expansion Pack Bundle

This is the Diplomacy and Strategy expansion pack bundle I’m reviewing. It is the series debut, the first ruler-based Romance of The Three Kingdoms game on Nintendo Switch.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV gives us a take on one of China’s most well-known periods of historical turbulence.

If you’ve never played a game in this series before, which I haven’t, your aim is to conquer China across multiple historic and fictional campaigns and scenarios available. Some of the gameplay is automated, letting you focus on planning and decision making for the officers you control. The map you play on is all of China which is separated by cities and regions with hexagon-shaped tiles.

Romance of the three Kingdoms LadiesGamers
Comprehensive hints

Tutorial and Comprehensive Hints

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV starts with a tutorial, which attempts to explain the process of the game. It can be pretty daunting at first with a sizeable amount of menus to sift through, some of them are quite vague in what they actually do. I found the text a little small to read and there isn’t a setting to increase the size. Even though the tutorials help cover the basics, there are many mechanics and features you’ll have to get a feel for in your first few campaigns. There is a more comprehensive hint guide in the games menu which helped me understand the game much more than the tutorial. In these types of strategy games, I’ve found that the quickest way to learn the finer details of the gameplay is to play the game.

Romance of the three Kingdoms LadiesGamers
Trying to conquer China

Pick A Scenario

Unlike Civilization VI, where you start out with Settler and a Military unit to found your first city, in Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV you start out with cities already founded. In the scenario you pick, you’ll have to choose a dynasty and become their leader. Perhaps you’ll choose the earliest start which is the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Or maybe you’ll choose one of the fictional scenarios.

It’s turn-based play and once the game starts you’ll have to manage all your regions through appointing different types of overseers, deploy marches, merchants, warlord-appointing and policy placements. As well as managing titles, divisions, handling people, foreign affairs, and defending and taking over regions. All this is just the tip of the game, there is so much to the game it is impossible for me to cover it all in this review.

Since your aim is to conquer China it’s best to send your generals marching out, create armies to expand, defend and attack. Then focus each city on production, and start the diplomatic process.

Diplomacy involves engaging with nearby nations, building alliances, knowing when to break them and knowing how to work with other dynasties to deal with the powerful threat.

Romance of the three Kingdoms LadiesGamers
Close up view of a city.

War Chronicles

The Diplomacy and Strategy Expansion Pack is loaded with lots of new possibilities, including trade with great Eurasian empires such as Rome and India, allowing for even broader strategies to unfold on a path to unify China. The expansion pack also introduces cities of foreign forces onto the map. Apart from conflicts in the central area, your armies will now need to deal with intensified border clashes, upping the stakes in every skirmish.

Romance of the three Kingdoms LadiesGamers
On the move!

Some of the new scenarios include The Intentions of Two Yuans, a story that depicts how the ambition of warlords clash after the Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalition collapses. The Conquest of Liaodong, portrays the domination of Gongsun Yuan, the King of Yan, by Sima Yi. The history that is packed into the game is interesting and takes you on a historic journey.

War Chronicles have been added, like a mini-campaign mode, starting on a smaller map and you only have a small pool of leaders to choose from. You’ve got specific victory objectives, limited resources and failure conditions to complete. Once completed you gain a unique officer and a score. The war chronicles are great for a quick game if you don’t have time for a longer play session.

Romance of the three Kingdoms LadiesGamers
Hu Zhi

Included in Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV is an editor which allows you to create your own custom officers. You can create your own characters from scratch, and you can also edit the historically accurate ones provided with the game. And believe it or not, you can even add Atelier Ryza characters into the game for free!

Rpmance of the three kingdoms LadiesGamers
1st page off scenarios

Visuals and Controls

Visuals are great, though not as detailed as some strategy games I’ve played. Though the characters art is gorgeous and very detailed, they all look like they have dropped out of a history book from long ago.
It’s all backed up with a wonderful soundtrack reminiscent of the era the game is set in.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is controlled by the joy-cons, it also has full touchscreen control. The touchscreen controls do work fine, though with the screen being smaller it’s easy to touch the wrong thing. I found the game was more comfortable to play using the joy-cons, and they worked as they should.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms LadiesGamers
2nd page of scenarios

Conclusion

You won’t find the depth of territory or building development that you do in Civilization, but you will find a complete and engaging strategy game.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV is packed, full of different scenarios, with hours upon hours of quality strategy war gameplay. There is quite a lot of nuances to the game which I’m still learning, but if you do stick with it, I think it proves to be a very rewarding strategy game!

Final Verdict: I Like It A LotLadiesGamers Cyber-Shadow

 

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