Part 15: Chapter XIV: Yet Another Case of Aquaphobia in an RPG

Chapter XIV: Yet Another Case of Aquaphobia in an RPG



A few steps into the new land, and we are attacked by the official adviser of Sun Quan, who apparently likes going on long strolls with armies, opposed to attending to more political matters. This man is also Zhuge Liang's older brother, although the two do not, or will not even acknowledge each other's presence.



Much like before, game comes before plot, so we decide to raid a dungeon in the north-western part of Wu before we're supposed to.





Puts you in mind of the path to Rhone in Dragon Warrior II. -shudder-



This cave is quite obvious about dead ends, and really only has one key item, and lots of spooky commander fights.







At this point, silly units are compensated with high soldiers, making fights much more disturbing than they should, but we truck on regardless.



Ah, the passive aggressive former adviser of Wu, whom Zhuge Liang plays like a puppet! He's quite handsome, but other than that, lacks troops, meaning he isn't as bad as other commanders in the area.



Quite literally, this is salt that can be refined to be explosive. I don't care who you are, but this is awesome in the making!



Fighting the strong for some time means gaining levels, in which our soldier bar evolved into a lovely blue.



Da Re also evolves into the strongest fire tactic available, which will be used sparingly, as it's expensive as hell, and warlord battles will soon begin to take a completely new way of fighting them.



Thus Zhuge Liang being a tactician for cheap, effective group healing.







Huo Shen in action, which works like a hit all Da Re. Although TP saving will become important, we're in a dungeon, and do not have to preserve resources for stomping gates, so using it once and awhile helps, especially if you're trying to gain levels.



Upon exiting the dungeon, going back to Jingzhou to heal, and returning to Wu, we go south of the dungeon to begin our expedition.

"Prepare to die!"



We already met, and laughed at Lu Su, and Gan Ning?



Although he is actually a very prestigious naval commander, he's a mook in the game, especially after having to go through all those scary encounters in the cave.



I like to use Huo Shen once to clear out the extra units, and bring down some of Gan Ning's hit, it makes the battles less tedious if there are only two enemies attacking you opposed to having to sit through an extra three other people's attack animations.



Although Lu Su may not be a top of the line dude, he and pretty much every other tactics user at this point know and can use a hateful tactic called Ji Mian, which has a 100% hit rate for the entire party.



What it does is it cancels out ALL physical attacks, making everyone who entered "Attack" do nothing. Worse off is this tactic can last for quite sometime. Usually, you can simply switch everyone to use tactics, or supporting items as tactics aren't influenced by Ji Mian.

This is more so an introduction to the bull shit Wu decides to pull in upcoming battles, but I have bullshit plans to pull on every single warlord battle myself.

"A canal was built from Lake Poyang to block the southern pass."

"Why don't you just block the canal?"

Yes, because blocking canals is common knowledge that one should be ashamed if they do not know how to do so! How we will do that:

"Do you want to know how to clog the canal?"

Yes
No

"If you blast Mt. Poyang with a special powder, the canal will be filled with earth and sand. Just mix pale saltpeter, an old branch which has lived over 1,000 years and my sulfur. Go find an old branch and some saltpeter and I will make it for you."

I guess it wasn't really a good idea on Wu's behalf to try and stop our progress by building a canal right next to a village whose residents are all conveniently obsessed with blowing things up..

"In the past we found a lot of saltpeter in a cave north of here."

"You're looking for a 1,000 year old tree? There's one in my backyard."



How convenient, and it's worth a note to say that every person who helped us find stuff and give advice were all old men. Respect your elders kids, you never know if you may need them to blow up a mountain for you or not!

"Ok. Now a dash of this, a little of that... Here you go. Blasting powder!



The old man leaves us, and..



This is an era when making bombs in public was completely fine, let alone making it for the advantage of the enemy.

"Suddenly, the earth shook and the mountain burst as if from the blow of some mighty demon."



The man casually comes strolling back with soot possibly covering his face. He's obviously the coolest NPC in the game.



Boats weren't badass enough to cross a whole tile of water, nor was hiring a carpenter to build a bridge in three seconds. Clearly, the best choice was just to blow it up.



Luckily, the enemy camp isn't too far from the town. Prepare for fun fights!

"To the battlefield! Destroy Liu Bei's army!"



I didn't learn my planned tactic yet, whoops lol, I guess I'll have to stick to brute tactical force.



Zhou Yu is by all means not a push over in anything he is in, so naturally in this game, he is like a genius with Da Re, Ji Mian (which he greatly enjoys spamming), and more dangerously, Wan Fu (100% healing), meaning he has to be dealt with ASAP. Thankfully, his troops are still on the lower scale in the grand scale of things.





His buddies are rather on the smart side too, meaning getting them with tactics might be a tribulation.



While he did get the team with a Ji Mian, I took the risk and made everyone go all Huo Shen, and in the process Zhou Yu as well as the other two commanders lost a lot of troops enough to be dealt with easily.

Sadly, looking at all the troops we're gaining in level ups these days, our good friend, Pang Tong will quickly fall into disuse, as he is not a tiger general.



This is a supporting tactic, but it's also the best spell in the entire game, keep it in mind for the next major battle.



This provides +10 A.P over the Battleax, which is a good thing, seeing as A.P will no doubt prove to be central to upcoming fights.

"Wu Castle is defended by Zhuge Liang's brother, Zhuge Jin."

"You're from Jian'an Castle? But how did you cross the canal?"

The sky was pink with 8-bit explosions! How did you not see it?



Wu consists of a long snake like path with rivers everywhere, sort of like that marshland in Earthbound Zero, only without robots n' shit attacking. Instead, we are consistently attacked by creepy men with slightly varied bushy beards.



"Crush them!"





This fight is just Zhuge Jin and his two dopey buds, meaning the age old tactic of killing Zhuge Jin off first, then picking off the helpless commanders is employed. Because of the lack of INT, Huo Shen is used needless to say.



Nothing really exciting to see here, move on!



Zhuge Jin: second violin to his brother, and well known food hoarder.

Will the south land be settled any time soon? Read on.