Publisher: Koei
Developer: Koei
System: PC
Minimum requirements: Pentium III 1GHz; Windows XP/Vista; 256MB RAM; 2GB Hard Drive Space; 1024×768 High Color display; 32MB VRAM; DirectX 9.0c or higher; 3D accelerator Video Card; 16-bit stereo 44KHz
Genre: Strategy
Release date: Available now
Review by: Michael Smith

China is one of the oldest civilizations on Earth, stretching back thousands of years marked by tremendous civil and military upheaval, so it’s not surprising that a game series based on Chinese history would also be one of the longest-running in the history of the industry. Starting on the NES in 1990, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series has appeared on almost all of the world’s gaming consoles, including the SNES, many of the Sega game systems, the first two Playstations, and the PC. In developer KOEI’s latest entry in the series, Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI, gamers are once again transported back to an era of feudal warlords and shifting alliances.

The RTK series is based on an epic historical novel by 14th century writer Luo Guanzhong that covers the period from 169 to 280 AD. In the final years of the Han Dynasty, a warlord pretending to be a traveling healer incited a revolt now known as the Yellow Turban Rebellion, which eventually led to a devastating civil war that divided China into three kingdoms until the nation was reunified in the late 3rd century.

RTK XI is a turn-based RPG in which you control as many as eight individual cities. For each city you begin by establishing infrastructure assets such as farms, markets and military-based structures (workshops, stables, smiths, shipyards and barracks). Farms and markets, once their construction is completed, add food and gold to the cities’ coffers; these are the key items that make success possible. Barracks are the source of your military forces, which are outfitted using items produced by the smiths, shipyards and workshops, while stables provide horses for your cavalry units.

Each turn begins with a pool of action points (AP) that can be used to upgrade each city’s assets. After infrastructure elements have been built, military units ranging from sword-wielding armies to combat engineers can be recruited, outfitted and sent out on their missions of conquest. As they encounter enemy units, your armies can be ordered to attack, either by simply clicking on the target or double-clicking on your troops, which reveals a menu of various strategies that can be employed. The turn ends when all of your AP have been used and all of your units have been moved, but you can choose to end the turn early if you desire. Your AI opponent then takes its turn, after which the cycle begins again until ultimate victory (or defeat) is achieved.