ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS

 ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS (RTK) is a strategic level conflict simulation
published by KOEI Corporation. This review is based on the MS-DOS version of the
game. RTK for MS-DOS machines requires a minimum of 256K and either two 5-1/4"
disk drives or one 5-1/4" drive and a hard drive, as well as either CGA or EGA.
A 3-1/2" disk version is available either direct from KOEI Corporation or from
Computer Express here on CompuServe (as a special order).

 The scenario is set in China in the second century A.D., a period of
ineffective central government and powerful warlords. RTK allows you to assume
the rule of one of several historical warlords battling for the control of the
entire country and unification of China under their rule and law. In order to
achieve this lofty and difficult goal, you must control all 58 provinces of
China.

 To build up enough power to eliminate opposing warlords, economic, political,
military, and personal selection decisions have to made. Every year is divided
into four turns. The sequence in which each province is accessed is determined
randomly every turn, adding considerably to the suspense of the game.

 The economic phase of the game centers on land values and the resultant
agricultural output and additions to the treasury. Through proper land
improvement, the agricultural and financial outputs of a province can be greatly
increased. Options available to increase output are spending money on improving
land value and undertaking flood prevention work. Floods and other nasty plagues
strike with unsettling frequency and can significantly impact the harvest for a
province in a year. Additionally, taxes can be levied in any province, the
results of which are influenced by the number of castles one has in the
province, whether one elects to levy a special tax on the peasants, and what the
loyalty of the peasants is towards the current owner.

 RTK requires that you make several political choices. Internal political
decisions will influence the amount of economic power the warlord has and the
loyalty of his subjects towards him. His actions will impact the loyalty his
peasantry feels towards him, affecting the number of soldiers that can be
raised, the amount of taxes collected, the amount of the harvest, and the chance
of an internal uprising. The warlord can increase these ratings by donating rice
or gold to the people and can greatly decrease his popularity by levying special
taxes and plundering the province in search of gold, horses, and beautiful women
(well, the game is set in 200 A.D., slightly before our age of enlightenment).

 External political choices include the formation of military alliances with
other warlords, negotiations of an armistice, borrowing of rice and money form
another warlord, the making of a gift to another warlord, or marrying one of
your daughters to another warlord. All of these actions can make you safer from
attack by one of your neighbors, or (should you elect to break your part of the
bargain) get you in a lot of trouble with them. Other unpleasantries you may do
unto them, and they unto you include covert actions in which you can try to burn
another warlords rice stock, spread nasty rumors about him, and confuse his
peasantry.

 When the time comes, the call to arms has to be issued...for the meek certainly
will not inherit China. However, in order to have a chance in battle, it is
imperative that the army is properly trained and equipped with improved weapons
ratings, which can be achieved by mining ore and converting it to weapons. One
of the weaknesses of the game that I have found is that when an army of 500 men
has its weapons rating increased at a low cost, it remains at the same level,
without additional cost, even if another 19,000 men are added to the army. Every
army is lead by a general who is rated in several categories, which modify the
performance of his army in battle.

 Combat is initiated by a warlord invading a province owned by a different
warlord. At that point, the screen changes to a map of the battle ground. Each
army may move (several movement options are available), wait, surrender,
retreat, or attack (four different attacks are available). In order to make
informed decisions about the enemy and its leadership, an intelligence report on
the enemy is available. Combat continues until one side flees, has its
commanding general captured, runs out of rice, or is eliminated. During combat,
generals may switch sides with their armies if their allegiance to the old
master is not strong. This is an interesting feature, because you have to be
careful how you treat the generals and what you order them to do. Abuse 'em and
loose 'em.

 You appoint various generals to head provinces for you and to lead military
expeditions. You must be careful to assign the right leader to the right job, as
each general has his own distinct strengths and weaknesses. You can get a good
idea of their ratings, which change during the game, by reviewing a summary
screen of all generals available to you. Each general is a true, historic
personality of ancient China, and is depicted by a personalized picture (a very
nice graphic touch). Generals may be recruited away from you by other warlords,
just as you can recruit them. Sometimes independent generals can be found in a
state, and other times they volunteer their services to you. It is important
that you find, recruit, and retain as many generals as possible, as they may be
in short supply. In fact, in order to win the game you must control at least 58
generals, one for each province. The allegiance of the generals towards their
current master determines how long they will resist offers to join someone
else's camp, and how well they follow orders.

 Should your warlord be killed, you may name a successor from your surviving
generals, allowing you to continue the game. It is important to name a warlord
with a strong personality as he will influence all his generals and peasants.

 Given the number of options available for every controlled province for every
turn, game play would be slowed considerably when one acquires a large number of
provinces were it not for the ability to put any province on "autopilot." When
this option is enabled for a province, the regional governor makes all decisions
until his power is suspended, he switches allegiances, or he dies. Governors
with reasonably high intelligence ratings make sound decisions which should not
hurt the ruling warlord. Governors tend to place more emphasis on economic
growth than political or military actions.

 The information concerning the status of owned provinces and employed generals
can be displayed in functional summary screens allowing you to assess overall
strengths and weaknesses.

 It is commendable that all the computer-controlled warlords can make all the
choices that are available to the human players. This means that you may
suddenly find yourself the beneficiary of favorable gifts and alliances offered
to you by a computer player. This greatly enhances the feel of the game, as it
is much easier to believe that one is playing against a real person, as opposed
to some circuit board made in Korea.

 In RTK, you can role play the way you would rule a country. Your decisions are
not limited by various factors that prohibit you from taking certain actions
imbedded in the code. If the action is available in the rules, you can perform
it, albeit with varying outcomes. You can discover how _you_ would run an
empire, given dictatorial powers (e.g., it's fun to be able to raise taxes,
rather than just have to pay them year around!).

 The personal characteristics shown by your generals change over time, depending
on what you do and what you order them to do. This adds to the dynamic nature of
the game. You actually feel that you can make a difference: Your character is
not just another (though leading) figure that is precisely pre-defined by the
game designer.

 The game's EGA graphics were crisp and the execution speed good. RTK doesn't
require an 80286 to be enjoyable, despite the large number of computations the
program performs.

 The documentation is good, as it includes a complete explanation of the various
options available, and provides ample historical background. Also included is a
poster with area maps and time charts showing the historical life spans of key
characters; although not essential to the game, it does indicate the commitment
KOEI has to quality.

 I would've liked to have seen military forces that were divided into infantry,
cavalry, and artillery. In a sense, all units appear generic even though their
speed, training, and weapons ratings do differentiate them.

 A mouse or joystick interface would have been a handy addition, particularly
when reviewing a large number of enemy provinces. Pressing keyboard numbers can
get a little tiring when playing this game.

 RTK uses a key-disk protection scheme which many owners dislike because of the
wear on their disk drives. However, KOEI's method goes one step beyond this
initially poor idea: It requires that the disk be in your drive throughout the
game as it checks for the key disk at random intervals. I have yet to figure out
how this multiple access scheme acts as an anti-piracy method.

 The save-game procedure requires you to save the game on a disk (provided b
KOEI) which has room for ten game-save positions. To my knowledge, there is no
way that you can save more than ten positions, as the game won't save to an
ordinary diskette. This is not a significant problem, except for players who
like to save a lot to preserve certain points in the game.

 ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS has this reviewer's hearty recommendation.
Despite the somewhat high price ($69.95 retail), minor logical flaws, and
tedious interface, RTK provides excellent entertainment value. It is an
intriguing, challenging, and interesting study of an era few of us know about.
RTK manages to integrate politics, economics, warfare, and a dose of mass
psychology into an easy-to-learn, yet difficult-to-master game in which you get
to call most of the shots. The pleasant graphics and good execution speed only
add to the enjoyment of this product.

 RTK might even teach you a little about yourself and how you would use power.
Go ahead rule an empire and, for once, feel good about taxes.

 ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS is published and distributed by KOEI Corporation.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253