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Some questions answered for the benefit of this group:

Firstly, I played this game back in college in the late 80s on the Macintosh. That was when it had those great and goofy sound effects. A friend of mine found it - I never did find the apple game and just ended up with the PC version later on which only had the PC beeps and bings but no music.

Secondly, even though my friend got the game, I ended up being one of the first to win at it - without the manual, we were finally able to figure out what you needed and what to do...

So, here are some of my notes on this great game that I played too many hours on...

1) you are given your choice of 5 scenarios, each one has advantages and disadvantages. I find, for a beginner, to play the earliest scenario and use a character like Lin Chong. Again, this is only my preference and you can play any other character you want.

The reason for the 1101 start is that you will have more time before one of the possible end-game scenarios kicks in (I'll explain that shortly) and you will want as much time as possible to accomplish your goal: to catch Gao Qiu.

Keep in mind this is THE goal of the game. Not the take over of all the prefectures, not to amass every general in the game, just one objective: capture and kill Gao Qiu.

Preventing you from doing this are a number of issues: 1) in most scenario options, you start out as a single bandit outlaw without any men or supplies, 2) Until much later in the game, Gao Qiu is UNTOUCHABLE - this will be explained shortly, 3) finally, you only have until the late 1120s (1127 I think) to catch him. If you don't by that time, the Northern Horde will come into China and decimate the country - which means game over for you.

So how do you meet the objective?

You need to develop, grow, develop and grow. Once this cycle gets you strong enough, you should be ready to meet the objective.

Now, let's explain that last statement.

As I said earlier, I like starting with Lin Chong - He has Strong War and High Integreity but only medium courage and mercy. Hey, he was an officer in the Army before he was framed....

*** Please Note: I do not remember if it is Prefecture 9 or 10 - if I'm wrong and it's 10, then replace 9 with 10 and 10 with 11 in this exercise as I am doing this from memory and haven't played in a couple of years. ***

Anyhow, I take him in the first scenario - he is an outlaw and on the run in a prefecture 2 away from P#9 (prefecture 9). I use the first couple of turns having him run away to P#9. Once there, I have him Settle in.

The reason for this is that this prefecture does not border any opponents so will allow him to develop. There are also a number of heros that come through here so, once Lin has some money and supplies, he can start recruiting heroes. He should really wait a full year before doing this as he does not have any money or food yet.

From the time he get's to P#9 until the end of the year, he should be hunting every month and giving food to the prefecture when he can't hunt (each action uses stamina and when a char's stamina goes down to 0, no direct action can be done - only actions like giving or taxing can be done)

By December, his poplularity in P#9 should be around 70s. This should be enough to get him some gold in January. The second year in P#9 should be spent recruiting heroes, giving money as loyalty, and continue developing P#9.

NOTE: not all heroes are recruitable at any given time; Popularity, your main char's mix of traits (integrity, mercy, compassion) also play a hand; if you are not sure if you can recruit a hero, use the "check the bones" option and that will tell you what your chances are.

SIDE NOTE: Popularity is VERY IMPORTANT - you gain it when you have at least 70 support in any prefecture, you gain it when you rid the prefecture of wild animals, and under other special events, you also gain popularity (If I remember, I'll list at the end of this a couple of the events that gain you popularity) You also need 250 Popularity to get the Imperial Edict to challenge Gao Qiu - once you get the needed points, that following January you will get the edict.

Anyhow, at the end of your second year you may have 2 or even 3 heroes in your employ and the prefecture building up nicely. Now, the only disadvantage in P#9 is that there is no armor/weapon maker so you will have to go to P#10 for this which is down from p#9. Don't go down there with less then 4 heroes having 100 men each (I should also mention that before you leave your prefecture, all your heroes should have 100 men and 100 training. In the early part of your fighting this will be essential for winning)

The reason you want to be careful is because right next to this prefecture (with the weapon smith) is one held by Gao Qiu's men. you will want to fully arm your heroes and probably lead them yourself into battle this time. Even though you should outnumber Gao's men, they are strong fighters in this prefecture and will be holed up in the forts.

Alternatively, you can go first to the prefecture in the far left corner of the map and, once you get the support of this 3rd prefecture ( did I neglect to say you should get the popularity of p#10? well you should do that too!) then you should be able to recruit the 4 heroes in this place - a couple of which are good fighters and will only help your cause.

Once you feel ready (and have enough heroes and men to fight) take on gao's prefecture down here. Don't use too many heroes - no more then 5 or 6 at the most or the enemy will run away - and at this point, you'd rather have at least one of those men in your service - which will happen if you fight with enough force.

I'm not going to go into great detail of war tactics on this post; if someone asks a question about them, then I'll list a few....

Once you've succesfully fought for this prefecture, then you wil have a LOT more gold and food to work with and can quickly bolster your troops. Then you will be ready for the next cycle of expansion, war, recruit, expansion, war, recuit...

I find that I go from the far left (center), downwards, towards the right, and then back up to the upper right before getting 250 popularity.but i usually get the edict by 1120 - giving me 5 or so years to finish up.

If this quick and dirty overview helped, please let me know by either email: ohtneb@hotmail.com or Icq# 193297183.

Good luck to all of you.

PS: events raising popularity - getting the two prefectures in a row to the right of #23 - those were the hide outs of the original bandit kings and you will get around 100 points for raising support in those prefectures to at least 70. Also parties - which I have No Clue about how to effect, tend to raise popularity a little.