Romance of the Three Kingdoms (video game series)

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Romance of the Three Kingdoms for the Nintendo Entertainment System

Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三國志, Sangokushi^?, lit. "Records of Three Empires") is a computer and video game that originated from Japan. It is a series of turn-based computerized wargames by Koei. Eleven editions of the series have been published in Japan and Chinese-speaking countries in East Asia. The Japanese title of the game is Sangokushi.

The games are based on the events of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Records of Three Kingdoms in China during the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

Gameplay mainly revolves around managing numerical statistics, each representing an attribute of a city or character. For example, a city will have statistics indicating the amount of food stored within its walls, its vulnerability to disasters such as floods and earthquakes, how content the people are, and so forth. Characters have statistics to reflect his/her fighting prowess, intelligence and loyalty to his/her ruler among other attributes. Most players will spend more time on improving these statistics than waging war against neighboring territories, as the artificial intelligence of the other rulers tends to be peaceful unless the player attacks them first, or unless they have reached a point of the story where war must break out. Even during such situations, rampant warfare is discouraged, particularly during winter.

Editions VII, VIII and X were compounded with RPG aspects, allowing the player to play as a ruler, an adviser, a prefect, a general or a vassal, whereas the player can only control the ruler in other editions. In addition, different characters have various skills to aid them in combat, such as the ability to lure a group of enemy soldiers away from the others or to trick them into retreating.

There are also several spin-offs based on this series, including the more combat oriented Dynasty Warriors and Dynasty Tactics, which is a combination of Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Koei also published three biographical tactical role-playing games based on three characters in the series. They are Sangokushi Eiketsuden (Liu Bei), Sangokushi Koumeiden (Zhuge Liang) and Sangokushi Sousouden (Cao Cao).