The F Plus conquers ancient China!

[chai tea latte]

e: quoting since new page

Half of you wanted to focus on internal improvements and defensive works, while half of you wanted to charge Liu Biao and finish him off, so I’ve split the difference this year.

As usual, Shell Game wants us to teach people the arts, and what better art than architecture? I’m sending supplies north of the river so we can build walls along the edges of our territory. This becomes easier when Zhuge Jin renews our alliance by ceding Liuan, which sits across a narrow neck of land between mountains and the water. If Yuan Shao wants to come south towards Lujiang, he’s going to have to march through some very unfriendly territory.





Meanwhile, we’ll cross the Yangtse again and attack Jiangling, with our newlyweds and Princess Diana Memorial Ballpit Poster leading the way.



The length of the march gives Liu Biao time to send reinforcements. The battle is a close-run thing. It would’ve been even closer if Chai Tea Latte didn’t fight Wang Wei and kill him, sending all his men a-scatter.



Ke Bineng and Chai Tea Latte eventually run out of soldiers, are wounded, and have to flee. Diana takes the city and tries to hold out against panicked Liu Biao forces. We contribute to the panic by sending spies to lower their morale.




Fortunately, we get Liu Biao to run away, and we get time to reinforce the city. Even more fortunately, we win the battle at just the right time: the city has a bountiful harvest, we find a legendary bow in the city, and the great doctor Hua Tuo shows up to heal our wounded officers.





As usual, we’ve picked up a few new officers, but there are three that I’m really excited about. Sima Lang joins us to handle domestic affairs, and Lemon manages to steal one of Yuan Shao’s mightiest warriors, Zhang Liao. And in accordance with Jim and the Mammograms’ request to continue the emboobening of our forces, we’ve brought in Bu Lianshi.



Speaking of Yuan Shao, he’s starting to breathe down our necks. He’s finished off his rebellious warlord and is sending expeditions towards cities just north of us. His officers are close enough that we’re getting opportunities to sabotage them.




The situation as of October 199.




Options include:

1. Lujiang is well-defended, and Yuan Shao will probably make a move for it sooner rather than later. Send our best soldiers there and prepare to fight on our turf.

2. Yuan Shao has men on the march towards Shouchun (lime green, Zhuge Jin) and Guangling (purple, Zhang Chao). We can wait for him to take one of those cities, then storm it before he gets the chance to recombobulate.

3. Our alliance with Zhuge Jin runs up in three months. If he can hold out that long, we can backstab him when the alliance ends and hope that we get Shouchun before Yuan Shao. This would give us dibs on Zhuge Jin’s officer corps, which includes some real heavyweights like Dian Wei, Zhou Tai, Xiahou Dun, and Cao Cao.

4. The same, but with Zhang Chao, whose alliance with us runs up in six months.

5. Liu Biao still lives. We might be able to capture Xiangyang without leaving our other cities too exposed, but we might not be in position to do so until next summer.

6. Some other option.

Whaddya think?

2. We can win a war if we have to, but 2 seems smarter than 1 to me, and more pressing than 3-5. It's time to begin engagement on the northern border, and I can't think of a better way to start than picking apart stragglers and getting a city for our trouble.

[Shell Game]

Entreat our closest ally to establish a joint defense against any attackers and take this time to shore up our infrastructure. Having such concerns taken care of will make option 2 much easier I believe.

It'll make a great book.

[Cheapskate]

Entreat our closest ally to establish a joint defense against any attackers and take this time to shore up our infrastructure. Having such concerns taken care of will make option 2 much easier I believe.

It'll make a great book.

Joint defense is sort of an option: so long as we have an alliance with someone, we can march our troops freely through their territory. So we could extend our alliances with Zhuge Jin and/or Zhang Chao and send some of our generals to support their defense.

[Shell Game]

I think then if we attempt to plan a more longterm offensive we should renew our alliance with Zhuge Jin.

If things are going well for us when the Zhang Chao alliance expires we should consider finally writing him out of the history books.

[Cheapskate]

Before we return to the cheerful world of Fake War, where everyone has fun strategizing and the only people who get hurt are digital simulations of people who died 1,800 years ago, I should note that there’s now a Three Kingdoms-themed restaurant in Scarborough, Ontario.

Now then! Our plan is to engage Yuan Shao as he takes on our minor neighbors to the north. To execute this plan, I’m sending our best fighters north of the river, and letting superstar builder Frank West build more beautiful, beautiful fortifications near Lujiang.




As long as we have alliances with Zhuge Jin and Zhang Chao, we might as well whittle down the forces sent to conquer them. For that, we’ll need expendable forces that move fast. We need barbarians. I’m sending Shanyue cavalry units to engage the attacking armies. These men are easily replaced because as long as we maintain perfect relations with the Shanyue, they’ll send us reinforcements four times a year.





We’re also using some espionage to keep things competitive, such as sabotaging morale and inciting more barbarians to get upset with Yuan Shao.




These cavalry attacks are enough to fend off the first wave of Yuan Shao’s attackers.



But while Zhuge Jin and Yuan Shao are fighting, Xu Jing moves east and finishes off Zhuge Jin. We’re allied with him, so this isn’t a catastrophe.



The second wave of Yuan Shao’s invaders sweep into Guangling and defeat Zhang Chao, but at quite a cost.



They’ve set themselves up to become the victim of a counterattack, and that’s just what we’ll do. Sauce, Jim and the Mammograms, GirlKisser420, and The Lizzerd will cross the Yangtse to attack from the south, while Mr. and Mrs. Chai Tea Latte are joined by Yu Jin as they take the land route from the southwest.




Guangling doesn’t stand a chance.



But this doesn’t mean Yuan Shao is on the run: far from it. He’s been campaigning in the west, where he’s captured the imperial capital of Chang’an and got himself promoted to Grand Minister.




The fall of Zhuge Jin and of Zhang Chao brings a bumper crop of unemployed officers, so many that I couldn’t list them all without boring you to tears. Our best hires are super-genius Chen Qun, star poet Kong Rong, Cao Cao’s mighty cousin Cao Ran, and talented all-rounder Chen Deng. We also brought aboard Xun You, who was allegedly “known for keeping a very low profile and hiding his true talents and achievements behind the façade of a foolish, cowardly and weak person.” Welcome aboard, Chinese Columbo!

The peace dividend south of the Yangtse continues to pay off. Wu’s prospered so much that it’s now the first Massive city in China, and Jianan’s expanded as well.




The year ends with Yuan Shao making another run at Shouchun. This time he’ll likely capture the city.





Options for next year include:

1. Yuan Shao might be able to take Shouchun, but he might not be able to hold it for long. Lujiang and Guangling are well-positioned to surround and crush his forces. This would complete our conquest of Huainan Province and give us an XP bonus and a discount on espionage actions.

2. Move northward along the coast with an attack on Xiapi, which isn’t well-defended and would be easy for us to fortify after capture because there’s a river and a mountain range to its west. This would get us the geographic advantage for Xu Province, which improves the power of our city fortifications.

3. Focus on defense and make Yuan Shao fight on our (heavily-trapped) turf.

4. Liu Biao is down to two cities, neither of which could withstand an attack if we wanted to expand in the west.

5. Some other thing.

Here’s to another year of glorious conquest!

[Shell Game]

We should engage in propaganda demoralizing the weakest of Yuan Shao's outer territories. They need to resent him more and also read our poetry.

Otherwise make chai decide what we do military-wise

[GirlKisser420]

Option 1 is a very clever opportunity, I say take it

[Dr. Buttplug]

Option 1 is good, we can take Souchun and make it as costly as possible for him to take back. We can also pursue option 2 if he choses not to pursue Souchun. I do think these can be part of a strategy to pull him into our territory where our previous efforts will make things demoralizing and costly for him to pursue us.

[Cheapskate]

With Shouchun sure to fall to Yuan Shao’s forces, we line up invasion forces at our borders to ensure that we can take the half-defended city after its fall.




Sure enough, under the leadership of the mighty general Zhang He, Yuan Shao’s men take the city, and we rush to besiege it before reinforcements can arrive.




The Lizzard fends off the reinforcing army, and we march into Shouchun after a fierce battle.




This victory is a big one for us. It confirms our control of Huainan Province and wins me a promotion from the Emperor. Plus, we find the city’s jail is full of officers captured by Yuan Shao, whom we hire to work for us.





A few months later, I level up, which means I get another advisor. This one is going to give me more actions per turn—not that I’ve been running out of actions often, but it means I get a few more officers searching cities for cash, officers, and weapons every month.




My promotion to Grand General lets me hand out promotions to you all as well, and now we have enough ranks available that even Lemon gets a title!



Control of Huainan Province lets us conduct espionage at half-price. This dovetails with Shell Game’s arts program: first you teach the people how to read and write, then you teach them how to forge insulting letters in Yuan Shao’s handwriting.



A steady diet of false information is all it takes to start pulling in some of the best officers Yuan Shao has. The following dudes all have big parts in the novel and have great statistics.






As the year continues, Yuan Shao appears to be doing most of his campaigning in the west. He’s left his east coast cities packed full of soldiers, so we’re building fortifications to protect us from attack.



Peaceful development continues south of the Yangtse.



Cao Cao commands Xu Jing’s remaining army, but he can’t keep Yuan Shao out for long. Runan falls just as the year ends, wiping out Xu Jing.



It’s now October of 201.






Possibilities include:

1. Play vulture again and drive southwest from Shouchun to take back Runan. Runan is in a mountainous area, so an advance would be slow and would have to come from Shouchun because the mountains to the city’s south are impassable. Some of Yuan Shao’s best remaining officers (including Liu Bei) were recently seen entering the city and if we’re lucky, we might capture them.

2. Xuchang is directly to the west of Shouchun and was stripped bare to support the Runan invasion. It only has 9,340 men left, and we wouldn’t have to cross a mountain range to get there.

3. Yuan Shao is making a move for Xinye, in Liu Biao’s territory. If we attack west from Jiangxia, we could capture the city first and open up a route over the mountains to Runan, letting us launch a two-front attack later. This would also give us control of Northern Jing Province, which would let everyone earn experience faster.

4. Liu Biao left Xiangyang almost completely undefended to deal with Yuan Shao. An attack from Jiangling could crush them. This route would also give us control of Northern Jing. In fact, we could probably do both this option and another option without stretching our forces.

5. Sun Ce is attacking Cai Mao in the south. This fight could give us an opening to expand our holdings south of the Yangtse.

6. Lakes and canyons north of Shouchun make it a good natural boundary. Cover the area with fortifications and wait for Yuan Shao to come to us.

7. Some other option.

And if it matters, our spies tell us that Yuan Shao hasn’t been feeling so good lately…

[chai tea latte]

4 and 6 imo - keep adding provinces to our fold, and preparing the battlefield for the real showdown.

[Shell Game]

This dovetails with Shell Game’s arts program: first you teach the people how to read and write, then you teach them how to forge insulting letters in Yuan Shao’s handwriting.

Finally, you understand.

[Cheapskate]

With the showdown with Yuan Shao looking inevitable, it’s time for some battlefield preparation in the north. Master builder Frank West, escorted by Chai Tea Latte, begins work on a series of defensive works north of Shouchun and Guangling. By the end of the year, nearly every northern approach to these cities will require a march past enough concealed pits, fire traps, and arrow towers to make a dead pharaoh jealous.



Meanwhile, Diana leads a group of soldiers to Liu Biao’s capital of Xiangyang. Sadly, he’s had plenty of time to hedgehog up himself, so they’re delayed by numerous traps. A second team follows up shortly after.




Yuan Shao’s got the same idea. He’s marching on Xinye, the only other city left in Liu Biao’s hands. It’s no match for him.



The siege soon ends, with Xiangyang in our hands, Liu Biao routed and in captivity, and Northern Jing Province under our control.





Of course, this means we now have a new frontier with Yuan Shao, so Diana heads north to fortify the most likely approach.



Yuan Shao isn’t content, though. He’s sending his mightiest generals to finish off his half-brother, Yuan Shu…



…when he dies. With two heirs. And when you’ve got two heirs, you’ve got no heirs.





Yuan Tan dies in combat relatively quickly, but his retainers try to hold on.



Is this an opportunity for us to capture Xinye during the chaos?



…no. Yuan Shang sends Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Wen Chou, and Zhou Tai to defend the city. We’re screwed, and we’re forced to retreat.



But what opportunities do we have? Well, we can poach officers who were happy to serve under Yuan Shao but not under Yuan Shang, and we’ve got two good ones. Really good ones.




We can also try to incite revolts by municipal governors. We’re successful in convincing two different city governors to declare independence. Shen Rong is behind enemy lines and is probably not going to last long, but our old pal Lu Bu might stand a chance.




We’ve got a few other talented and/or good-looking people presenting themselves for service.





Away from the front, Sun Ce finished off Cai Mao, and Lujiang continues to grow.




Here’s the situation as of October, 202.






Options include:

1. Lu Bu holds Runan, but he doesn’t have enough men there to resist an attack. We could move west and take the city, and if we’re lucky, get him to work for us.

2. Ally with Lu Bu and help him by charging west from Shouchun and taking Xuchang, just to his north.

3. Xinye is full of soldiers and seriously powerful generals, making it the most logical staging area for Yuan Shang to attack either Yuan Shu or Lu Bu. Wait for that attack, then make an opportunistic attack on Xinye. This would give us complete control over Northern Jing Province and win me a promotion from the Emperor.

4. We might be able to bait Yuan Shang into crashing into our defenses with a judicious application of salami tactics. Grab a few outlying villages, then run away, and if they don’t send an army to recapture them, start fortification.

5. Sun Ce’s cities of Changsha (southeast of the Yangtse gorge) and Wuling (southwest) are small and aren’t well defended, but they have favorable defensive terrain.

6. Jianan’s up to a hundred thousand soldiers, which means that a long march south to take Shi Xie’s city of Nanhai would likely be successful.

7. Holds up the letter D in one hand and a cardboard cutout of a fence in the other.

What say you?

[Shell Game]

Defense. We need to consolidate what we have within during the turmoil without.  Shore up our weaker cities' fortifications and invest in internal development. With any luck, we'll be in a lovely position to snap up any weakened cities after the dust clears and in the meantime we're in a perfect position to be salvaging castoffs and defectors. Also make us look enviable. Make people beg for our lovely, literate rule.

[Dr. Buttplug]

We should do what we can to capitalize on this chaos. We should ally with Lu Bu and help him expand, we can crush him easily later if need be. For now he is in an excellent position to be very useful to us.

[Cheapskate]

Our plan to bail out Lu Bu with an attack on Xuchang hits a snag: as soon as we march out of Shouchun, Yuan Shang sends his soldiers driving towards the now-lightly-defended city.



We turn right around and set up our defenses behind our line of arrow towers and fire pits. Cao Cao’s great intellect lets him forge orders to convince enemy troops to run right into the fire trap.



Soon enough, we’ve got them on the run.



But Lu Bu can’t hold out forever, and he knows it. He can face the penalty Yuan Shang gives to people who rebel against him… or he can beg for our lovely, literate rule. Which one of our envoys convinces him to do.



We send a fast-moving relief expedition to counter the attack on his former city of Runan (which he’s now governing for us). Yuan Shang’s attack collapses when we convince the fearsome commander of his fortress city of Xinye to declare independence.




Two more of Yuan Shang’s generals will take their chances on their own.




In all the chaos, Ma Teng’s men sneak east from Xinjiang and capture the imperial capital.



We’re really on a roll now. Our capital city is growing and I got promoted again.




But that’ll be the last promotion I get from the Emperor. When Yuan Shang takes back the city, he deposes Emperor Xian. The Han Dynasty is no more.



As we’re now culturally dominant and militarily competitive, many of our neighbors recognize that they’re doomed, and follow Lu Bu by surrendering.





The best part of Shi Xie’s surrender is that we now control Jiao Province. We can send merchant ships to the faraway land of Tianzhu. They’ll bring back lots of money and other goodies, and any officers who go away on trade missions will get a lot of XP while they’re away.





We’re now a big enough threat that everyone who isn’t us or allied to us (so everyone except Sun Ce) join a coalition to attack us.



We’ve continued to pull in some talented officers, like the mighty Gao Lan, the happy warrior Ling Tong (who seems like husband material for any of you ladies who want to get married), the great administrator Jia Kui, and—for those of you who are encouraging the continued recruitment of stacked ladies—Zhang Chunhua.




Li Jue and Yuan Shang are both advancing on Shangyong, our westernmost city (the one that Yuan Shu used to govern, which is lightly defended). They’re also making a move on Shouchun, which I’ve marched out to defend. However, the attack on Shangyong has left Xuchang vulnerable, so Chai Tea Latte is leading a counterattack from Runan as the campaign year begins.







Some ideas for the next year include:

1. The bulk of Yuan Shang’s forces are in the eastern cities of Xiaopei and Xiapi. If we take Xuchang, we can proceed west to Wan and make it easier to link up with Shangyong in the west. This would also give us majority control of Jingzhao Province, allowing a trade route to Anxi.

2. Same, but go north to Chenliu, which would force Yuan Shang to have to cross the Yellow River twice to maintain control of his forces, and give us boundaries with the minor warlords Guo Yuan and Guan Ping, either of whom could be attacked (or convinced to surrender when the coalition disbands).

3. If Shangyong survives, we could mount a counterattack against Li Jue and take Hanzhong to its west. The city isn’t well defended and Li Jue doesn’t have many talented officers.

4. Try to bait one of Yuan Shang’s best-armed cities into attacking our prepared defenses, then try to counterattack and see if we can seize the city.

5. Fight defensively and opportunistically until the coalition dissolves, then befriend minor warlords so that the next coalition isn’t as powerful.

Whaddya say?