Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Box cover of the DOS version (1989)

"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is a turn-based strategy game first released in 1985 for the PC-88, and the following year for a number of other Japanese home computers.
The original title was "Sangokushi" (三国志), which translates to "Records of the Three Kingdoms", and is also a Chinese historical text  written by Chen Shou in the third century, and covers the late Eastern Han dynasty (184-220 AD), and the Three Kingdoms period (220-280 AD).

Incidentally "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (which is the English title of the game) is the title of a 14th century novel by Luo Guanzhong.
It is not clear why the title was changed for the English release, but in any case both works covers the same period in China's history.

Sharp X6800 (1988)

The Three Kingdoms period

In Asia the Three Kingdoms period is basically as popular as the Arthurian legends are in the west. (With the obvious difference that there are no definite evidence of King Arthur and Camelot actually having existed in history.)

For those of you unfamiliar with this historical period, here's a (very) short summary.

The oath in the peach garden;
When Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Gyan Yu swore an oath of brotherhood.

The Han dynasty was in decline. The de facto power was held by ten eunuchs of the court, not the child emperor.
Led by Zhang Jiao, the religious cult "The Way Of Supreme Peace", whose members wore yellow turbans to identify themselves, rose in rebellion against the corrupt government.

The rebellion was quenched, but some warlords decided to depose of the eunuchs themselves.
One of these warlords was Dong Zhou. He takes control of the capital and deposes Emperor Shao and enthrones Liu Xie as Emperor Xian of Han. Thus essentially making himself ruler of the land.

As Dong Zhou was a cruel and selfish despot the country continued to suffer and a coalition to depose him was created, consisting of several prominent warlords of the land.
When the coalition was successful the they disbanded, and the warlords each returned home.

The chaos of the land continued, but out of the chaos three men, who all desired to unite the land under their own rule, eventually manages to establish their own kingdoms, thus splitting china in to three.
Cao Cao, a former general of the Han, founded Wei in the north.
Sun Ce, a descendant of Sun Tzu, founded Wu in the south.
And Liu Bei, a distant relative of the Han emperor, founded Shu in the west.

DOS (1989)

When was the game first released?

English Wikipedia (and nearly every other online resource) lists the game to first be released in 1985, but was it in fact released in 1986?

The Japanese Wikipedia lists the PC-88 game to be released 10 December 1985, but the loading screen of the game itself clearly states it was released 10 December of 1986.

Loading screen, PC-88 (1986?)

The 13th game in the series was announced as "the 30th anniversary", and it was released in January of 2016.
You could conclude that this fact together with the date in the original game itself would be enough to prove it was released in 1986, not 1985. However the 30th anniversary collectors box containing the 12 first games of the series was released in 2015.
Incidentally the game 三国志ツクール (Romance of the Three Kingdoms Maker) was also announced as "the 30th anniversary" and it was released 10 December 2015!
Furthermore nearly all information online about the series as a whole, and the first game itself, states it was all started in 1985.

I haven't found any articles discussing this inconsistency, so should we trust the makers of the original game and conclude it was made in 1986, or should majority rule and the conclusion be that it was in fact released in 1985?

Considering the overwhelming evidence pointing to it having been released in 1985, I for one think the date in the original game is a simple typo.

Story

The game itself doesn't have much of a story, since events unfolds differently once the game is started depending on the players actions.
The instruction booklet does give an overview of the historical events, and an introductions to some of the more notable people, to put the game in context.

The game has 5 different scenarios, beginning at different points in the events that took place during the historical period though.
I found it somewhat peculiar that some of the scenarios (specifically #2 and #3) starts at years in between years of significant events. This may of course be to let the players recreate or avoid similar events during their own gameplay.
(of course I'm not a scholar, and my shallow research might have missed some significant events of those years).

DOS (1989)

1) A Chaotic World

Takes place 189 AD, when Dong Zhou has taken control of the capital, making himself the ruler of the land.

2) The Emergence of Cao Cao

Takes place 195 AD.
This is the year after Liu Bei succeeds Tao Qian as governor of Xu province. 

The following year (196 AD) Cao Cao will find Emperor Xian of Han in the ruins of the old capital in Louyang and bring him to Xuchang, where the new capital is established.

3) The opening of a New Age

Takes place 201 AD.
This is the year after Sun Quan succeeds his brother Sun Ce as warlord of Jiandong.

The following year (202 AD) Yuan Shao dies, and Cao Cao begins his campaign to reunify northern China.

NES (1989)

4) The Battle of Red Wall

The year 208 AD was when the battle of Red Cliff (in other games often referred to as 'the battle at Chi Bi') took place.

The naval battle saw the allied forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei miraculously defeat the superior fleet of Cao Cao, who was made to retreat, effectively stopping his southern campaign.

5) Age of The Three Kingdoms

Takes place 215 AD.
Liu Bei takes control of Yi Province, and Cao Cao takes control of Hanzhong.

Now the land is effectively divide in three with Cao Cao ruling Wei in the north, Sun Quan ruling Wu in the south, and Liu Bei ruling Shu in the west.

Amiga (1989)

Gameplay

The game was Koei's third game. A turn-based, historical strategy game, in some ways similar to their previous game 信長の野望 Nobunaga no Yabō (1983).

This makes a lot of sense, since both series became part of Koei's "Historical Simulation Series", which came to include a wide range of similar strategy games, including "Genghis Khan" (1987), "L'Empereur" (1990), and "Liberty or Death" (1993), among others.

The game was praised for it's complexity, and the fact that it required following the advise of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" in order for the player to be successful.
In fact one of the sequels starts with a quote from "The Art of War".

The success of the game lead to it spawning numerous sequels and spin-offs, making the series Koei's flagship title.

MSX (1986)

(For those who never heard of Sun Tzu: He was a military strategist living in China 544-496 BC. He wrote a guide on warfare called "The Art of War", which has remained popular even to the modern day.)

The object of the game is to take control of all of China before the set time period ends. If the time ends whoever is the most powerful wins the game.

The game can be rather slow, and require long-term strategies for the player to be successful. Furthermore the majority of the gameplay will focus on politics rather than battle.
It takes a lot of preparation to wage war, and it is not really possible to fight battle over battle, and trail-blaze through the country to win (as many players of the boardgame "Risk" tend to do).

The battles can take rather long too though, but on average the player will spend more time building up their army and territories, and focusing on politics, than they will fighting.

PC-88 (1985?)

Some people estimate that an average playthrough would take roughly 10 hours. Considering the fact there are 5 scenarios, each with a number of playable factions, that's a lot of gameplay.

To be exact, in the first scenario there are 8 playable factions, in the second there are also 8, in the third there are 7, in the fourth there are 5, and in the fifth there are 3.

8+8+7+5+3 = 31

And if each playthrough takes roughly 10 hours that means potentially 310 hours of gameplay!

(Although I doubt any player would be so thorough as to play through every scenario as every faction)

Something rather unique (especially for the NES game) is the fact that the game supports up to 8 players!

The number of players is restricted by the scenario played though. Only the first two scenarios supports 8 players, where as the last scenario for instance only supports 3 players. This makes since of course, since there are only 3 forces in the last scenario.

Famicom (1988)

The players takes turns giving order to each province controlled.
The land can be developed, armies raised and trained, rice traded, the province searched for unemployed generals, alliances made, etc.
If the master has daughters, marriages can be arranged with masters of other lands in order to strengthen the bond between the countries.

Loyalty is an important part of the game. If the people of a province has low loyalty towards their master, they might produce less resources, and even rebel against their master.
In order to raise the peoples loyalty you can give them rice.
A general with low loyalty can easily be swayed to join an enemy, and if that general happens to be a governor of a province, that province will also fall into enemy hands.
In order to raise a generals loyalty he can be awarded a gift, of either a book or a sum of gold.

Rice and gold are the resources of the game.
Gold is used to give to generals, to either recruit or raise loyalty, as well as develop the land of a province, and buy arms for your army.
Rice is arguably the most important resource, as it is used as payment to hire soldiers, as well as feeding your army during combat.

Amiga (1989)

When a combat starts, the invading army must bring gold that can be used to recruit enemy generals of low loyalty, and rice. The rice decreases every turn, and if it runs out the attacking player looses the battle.
The rice must also be placed in the battlefield, and if the defending player manages to take control of the rice, the attacker looses.

Any army that looses all their generals, by having their soldiers reduced to 0, or by fleeing, will loose the battle.
The attacking army is also successful if he manages to simultaneously control all the defending players castles in that province. Different provinces have different amount of castles.

In other words the attacking player have two ways to win (defeat all generals, or control the castles), whereas the defending player have three ways to win (defeat all generals, take control of the rice, or the rice run out).
Clearly it is much easier to defend a province than to attack.

Conclusion

As stated previously the game received extremely positive reviews, and continue to do so.
The sequels differ from the previous entries in the series enough so that each game stands on their own, and isn't just and "upgrade" of the previous, which is probably why the first entry in the series has been remade several times.
For the Super Famicom as "Super 三国志" (Super Sangokushi) in 1994.
For WonderSwan as "三国志 for WonderSwan" (Sangokushi for WonderSwan) in 1999.In 2004 for J2ME in South Korea. In 2016 for Windows, available through Steam, simply as "三国志" (Sangokushi), although this game is actually not a remake so much as a Windows port of the original game.

For such a successful and popular series it's odd that two of the games in the series (#5 and #12) where not released outside of Japan.
And it's a big shame that most of the series was not released in Europe at all.
The first one to get a European release was #8 in 2004 for the PS2 (19 years after the conception of the series). The next was #11 in 2008 for Windows, and the third #13 in 2016 for PS4 and Windows.

Super Sangokushi (1994)

I'm not entirely certain if all of my readers would consider this a rare game, but it certainly is to me, since it was never released in Europe (Not until 2016, when it was released worldwide via Steam, but it appears to only be the Japanese version).

The game might not have aged terribly well (although the Sharp version did have amazing graphics!), but this is a definite piece of gaming history and will certainly appeal to hardcore strategy gamers and retro gamers alike.

Pricing

If you want to buy the game, the Steam edition is set at €12.99.
For the NES game about €7-9 for a used incomplete copy (cartridge only), €16-40 for a used complete copy, €70 for a used complete copy in mint condition, and €100 for a new factory sealed copy.
Famicom for €5.
About €15 for either the MSX (cartridge only) or the MSX-2 version (complete).
€2.5-4 for Super Sangokushi.
€5.5-13 for Sangokushi for WonderSwan.

MSX complete set (1986)