How to Get Started as Gongsun Zan | Early Game Legendary Difficulty Playbook

[@Braindance98]

One of the coolest factions and leaders

[@bosbanon3452]

Also the misserabls

[@barrettus]

I re-installed the game via Steam 2days ago. Still haven't launched it yet because I am watching your videos. Cheers!

[@SFDPSFDP]

Very nice guide for Gongsun Zan! In my game Gongsun Du attacks very early which is a blessing IMO so that you never have any threat in you rear later on. One important trick in legendary IMHO with Gongsun Zan is to use military and agriculture at first, because you can get consistently high income by selling just 1 food for 10 turns to all factions that are poor in food (can get on average 100ish per turn for every customer, from 50 to 200+ depending how bad they need it, so if you sell to more than 10 different factions, it is a nice boost ). This gives a superior income compared to building up an industry and commerce based economy early game ( heavy investments) from what i experienced and cheaper to build up food and admin early but you need to discover factions . Military because you can appoint administrators who will sit with their full retinues in the border city then put some watch towers that add garrison so you do not have to defend any border city, they will all have a full stack army garrison for free, so you can always push forward. Also the military techs will help for resplenishing and getting the upgrades for cheaper cav ( horse pastures) and give you tons of seasonal retinues and more armies. I like this strategy with Gongsun Zan because eventually, the goal is to have all the land north and east of the yellow river on the map asap so that all your land are super easy to defend. Then once you have all this land with a better income, you can transition the economy to more industry and commerce more smoothly.

[@NTLuck]

One thing to note is that the reinforcement range exceeds the circle around the army since the game engine just doesn't expand the circle to match your actual reinforcement range. Another fun way to use White Horse Fellows is to give them to generals with fire arrows and you can burn towers really easily with them

[@lesdeuxanes6203]

Everytime I try and do this my White Horse fellows get decimated by the towers and end up routing.

[@redcastlefan]

Yuan shao is like an evil troll under a bridge. You can't cross the bridge without him popping up. I have avoided The gongsun campaign just because of him. Especially when the game just came out and he'd vassalize half of china before you were able to secure a decent base. Also I remember how zhao yun was even more OP when the game came out with the no fatigue and fast as hell bonus.

[@willo9372]

Excellent as always

[@EchoZeroJJ]

I made alot of mistakes early on. This was a really helpful guide. Thanks!

[@rahidyousufi6077]

Love all the early playbook guides, keep it up!

[@StalkRay]

With the love MTU has given to GSZ, it is now fun to play again, will start a GSZ playthrough soon

[@HAMSTERPOESJE]

Definitely worth it! Grab Luo Jun, Wen Chou, Yan Liang, Zhang Xun and Zhou Yun and you are unstoppable.

[@charliemosley8025]

I’m just finishing up my Gongsun Zan campaign and I’ve had a blast with him! My economy is insane (mostly thanks to Taiyuan) and I got some great characters (though sadly no Zhou Tai). I would recommend using a mod to give you some more administrators when you hit emperor though, since only having 2 after the inspectors are taken away is a bit annoying!

[@super_7710]

I find Gongsun Du only betrays you when he has no where else to expand.

[@joedudgeon3943]

started my first gongsun zan campaign a few days ago, think it's one of my favourite campaigns so far, finished off Liu yu then both Zhang yan and gongsun du broke there non aggression pacts and declared war on me right as yuan shao took bohai, ngl they had me for a minute

[@HAMSTERPOESJE]

Favorite faction for me! Unfortunately there’s the bug when hitting Emperor rank (or oversight considering his faction). You keep the Inspectors that are already assigned (they do switch to new positions in the court overview but are still visible as inspectors in the commandery itself), but you can’t reassign them to new commanderies and you have no regular administrator slots available. Really bummed me out and made me halt my campaign. 😩

[@saiien2]

Thanks for this video. I really like Gongsun Zan mainly because of his position however it can be too hard aswell if you are too slow with expanding to the south. I usualy got cut of from other parts of China because of Yuan Shao. He makes constant coalitions or vassalise others which I plan to conquer. Usualy I end the game with a few commanderies in the north when I attack him and this is the end for me because he has like 5 or more vassals which join him. And it's absolutely impossible to defeat all of them. They will just steamroll you with their much superior numbers. By the way thanks for explanation. I usualy thought that Gongsun Du is my brother or something :D

[@Zwijger]

I have to believe the White Horse Fellows being so cheap in terms of upkeep with a great ranged weapon was not an oversight, as they also specifically buffed their fire rate or ammo (too lazy to look it up right now) on one of the 1.5.x patches, and their cost matches the written patch notes as well. Their ranged weapon is also the Onyx Dragon weapon, which seems unlikely to have been given to them unintentionally (edit: okay just noticed you talked about this point later on in the video). Seems like they basically want the unique units to be extra special for this faction, which I like for a faction lacking a resource to play around with. do really love that you kept the unit in this particular guide though, I think I also mentioned I love keeping it myself on one of the other guides. Another thing about the early game buildup, I personally did the math and found it's the most cost efficient to upgrade the iron mine the first time when you have "your economy grows" immediately, then upgrade it the second time with the mine cost reduction (-20%) and pay 500 gold to get another -20% cost reduction and -1 turn of buildup. It might seem better to wait for the discount from the reform even for the first upgrade, but the 100 gold per turn+ one turn less to upgrade means you are actually hurting yourself slightly by waiting for the reform on your first upgrade.

[@SeriousTrivia]

the tip on the iron mine is nice. I think getting that garrison size up earlier might also allow you to actually take Liu Yu it earlier cause you can technically sandwich him with 2 armies plus that garrison when he first marches in

[@nasserkraides3982]

Great video 👍 keep it up and have a great day

[@ouziqi198]

And once Yuan Shao conquered Bohai's fishing port before you, that is a game over :( edit: Never mind just watched the rest of videos. Going straight for Zhang Yan and Zheng Jiang seems to makes things much easier. I always go straight down to wipe Yuan Shao out of the map before he become too strong lol. Just a TONS of tough battle with INFINITE army flooding from every single direction.

[@kavyankitmishra1160]

I think you can assign inspectors from commandries even after becoming emperor its option is on the upper left corner of the commandry ui

[@SeriousTrivia]

I am pretty sure they are gone after you hit emperor and the court switches but I am not 100% sure maybe someone else can clarify on this cause it would be pretty neat if you can still use them after hitting emperor

[@SeriousTrivia]

I actually had someone test it from my discord and they confirmed that this does not work and inspectors are gone for good. Even if you assign them from the admin icon they become ministers in your court without becoming admins

[@SimpleReally]

I love these videos, keep making them

[@rapeepathpetchrung1819]

Speaking about Gongsun Zan, I have read in the game forum long ago that he was a genral under Liu Yu in the campaign against warlord named Zhang Ju who proclaimed himself as the new Emperor in year 187, and I'm very interest to know more about the event. Unfortunatey I found only little information about it. Hopefully you can cover his backstory one day :)

[@SeriousTrivia]

Yep and even at the start of the game, Gongsun Zan was basically a general under Liu Yu until he framed and murdered him

[@VSharKS72]

My tips for gongzun zan campaign. First : make trade pact with gongsun du. Second : eliminate liu yu. third : take bohai. fourth : eliminate gongsun du.

[@TsunamiWombat]

Once you take out Liu Yu, what do you recommend to be done with the Gongsun Du? Should you betray him and seize his land?

[@SeriousTrivia]

He is not very threatening so I would actually keep him as a trade partner as Liaoxi isn’t too profitable either and just wait for him to get tired of living and declare war on you

[@SinaSharifzade]

1- looping no longer works, they go straight inside the town, and sometimes they even burn the towers. 2- Literally everyone you meet, declares war on you, I can beat Yuan Shao, but later, I will have a 2 front war with some random guy in the west and Cao Cao (and most of the time Liu Bei) in the south and they send endless stacks.

[@SeriousTrivia]

looping still works. even if they go inside and burn down all the towers the best they can get is a draw and not a win. The whole point of this strategy is to not meet Yuan Shao until you secured the flank. Sure you can beat him but more vision of the map means more enemies so don't expand out until you have established yourself in the corner of the map

[@SinaSharifzade]

@@SeriousTrivia The problem is, Yuan Shao meets me, if you peace him out, he will betray you.

[@vincently1995]

Gongsun Zan, the White Horse General

[@kpatterson7009]

Serious Trivia, what unique characters would you prioritize playing as Gongsun Zan?? Especially with the new patch.

[@SeriousTrivia]

I mean I figure its never a pick and choose type of situation but rather who you can get. I mean all the new generals that were added into the north (Yuan Shao's group) are nice to catch and take over. But the typically strong ones like Zhou Tai are still nice too but mostly it is luck with recruitment pools early on.

[@willval21]

Interesting how Gongsun Zan is not as relevant historically as Gongsun Du but the former is playable in the game. Probably due to the Romance novel and Liu Bei being friends with Zan.

[@SeriousTrivia]

Everything Liu Bei touches turns into gold from romance. Gongsun Zan, Tao Qian, etc

[@TJRex01]

I really hope Gongsun Du gets a unique model soon

[@bosbanon3452]

@@SeriousTrivia liu Yan pr liu zhang don' t get so many attention, Liu Yan , Liu Zhang's father, the original lord of Yi Province was a strong man , even he almost.created a separatist movement

[@milesdavis607]

@@bosbanon3452 funnily enough that you should mention him... just a few months later lol

[@sillyheadphone]

The game fixed this looping way of battle strategy, I’m unable to even zoom in the city if I leave and can only reach half of the city.unable to loop around anymore.

[@SeriousTrivia]

no...it still works. you just camera locked yourself to another unit so the battle realism was pulling your camera.

[@sillyheadphone]

ok thanks man. still a beginner this game. Just bought August this year.

[@foxlaszlo]

How would you recommend building an army around the white horse fellows? Is an all mounted army viable? Thank you

[@SeriousTrivia]

I prefer to use them as a distraction force. So you would want to hold a frontline in the back with your melee and siege weapons and then maybe run four white horse fellows to just spread out and harass and force the AI army to spread out and chase you. This allows you to force the AI to make bad decisions and ease up the pressure on your main army as they make quick work of whoever actually made it to them then you can close rank on whatever remains. It’s a divide and conquer tactic. Running all white horse fellows can work but it limits your options (like you can’t siege well or you can’t deal with enemies running a ton of melee cavalry)

[@lesdeuxanes6203]

So question, You like to build a lot of state workshops. I love state workshops, but I tend to try and group all the same buildings together. I understand building the private workshops but why a state workshop rather than say a marketplace?

[@SeriousTrivia]

the best synergies in the game is state workshop, inn, and private workshop. The private workshop far outproduce the marketplace which is at least a good 5th or 6th building option. You can't upgrade it past level 3 before small regional city and it has upkeep. The purple building gives you a discount for building blue buildings and you want base income whenever possible. There are tons of better commandery guides on the channel too where I spell out the math behind it if you are interested.

[@lesdeuxanes6203]

@@SeriousTrivia Thank you, that makes a lot of sense. I run into that problem a lot where I spring for the market place and then I'm stuck with a small city and can't build it any higher until I grow the city like 3 more times which is daunting. I didn't think about the Purple discounts to the blue buildings so that's good to know. Thanks!

[@BIGmlems]

been absorbing gongsun du asap though ive yet to try that on legendary.

[@BIGmlems]

also my unit make up is almost entirely of white horse fellows and azure dragons with a juggernaut thrown in for shits and giggles.

[@aimannorzahariwod]

Using your wife as bait, classic strategy :)

[@captaindarkwolf1626]

They increased the white horse upkeep and made heir early of age

[@Ytaccount821]

There must have been some sort of update, Liu Yu doesn't leave his settlement no matter how many turns you wait in ambush stance

[@SeriousTrivia]

Yes this is on a older patch

[@Ytaccount821]

@@SeriousTrivia yeah there was an easy work around, I just baited their army with a lone hero and retreated from the fight, they tried force March back to the city but we're just out of range so I took it with gongsun

[@TobyTheTank]

Where is the blue blade?

[@SeriousTrivia]

Technically Cao Cao should have it

[@Doragonkuraudo]

@@SeriousTrivia Right, they patched Zhao Yun so he doesn't start with the Blue Blade, he'll get it in an event (around the time of the battle of Changban i believe)

[@mageofviolet2274]

Umm, What Gold Weapon would be better for Zhao Yun ?

[@SeriousTrivia]

probably a spear

[@mageofviolet2274]

@@SeriousTrivia yeah.. There's no Blue Blade at the Start anymore.

[@thomascheng1116]

Hi Trivia, I just bought this game, is Gongsun Zan suitable for a beginner? If not, which campaign would you suggest to play?

[@SeriousTrivia]

He is suitable. He doesn’t have a complex mechanic and if you follow this guide here to get a good start and avoid getting overwhelmed in the early game by Yuan Shao who is likely to give you the most trouble, you should be fine.

[@thomascheng1116]

@@SeriousTrivia Thank you so much!

[@TJRex01]

He has a pretty good map location, too, you can just go south.

[@bedouinknight9437]

My favorite character

[@9thCrusade]

i just started this campaign and i realized i have different traits on song jinting tian kai and yan gang. did they change that?

[@SeriousTrivia]

they might have in the patch or are you using any mods?

[@9thCrusade]

@@SeriousTrivia i only use the better battle camera mod.

[@SeriousTrivia]

Then it was probably changed in the patch

[@9thCrusade]

@@SeriousTrivia damn ok. now the wife has +5% corruption. meh

[@SeriousTrivia]

@@9thCrusade in the beginning that is not going to matter. 5% times 0 is still 0

[@sanjikaneki6226]

liu yu didt come out at all and only camped in that town for some reason

[@SeriousTrivia]

Could be a patch change

[@sanjikaneki6226]

@@SeriousTrivia 1) wow that was fast reply 2) well i reloaded the a save and started recruiting while u were waiting so i got the timing more or less the same(time of liu yu complete conquest) 3) you said the bandits in the W are week but that apparently are not the 2 axe guy went with more or less a full stack and conquered the large town SE of the lumber mill and somehow he is dealing massive dmg in battle

[@SeriousTrivia]

you can just loop them around your towns and all it would take is a general. Bandit lack good cavalry so they would next be able to catch you and your towers would do all the work

[@sanjikaneki6226]

@@SeriousTrivia not realy sure what you mean there, on the map or in battle ? also i also did a few other tests if i delay my attack on him 1 turn the turbans take the lumber-hut and the axe guy goes in raiding in the province the the E and i will tut him off from his domains will this force him to attack me in the town or will this make him wander deeper in my land ? btw this is on hard difficulty

[@SeriousTrivia]

Check some of the other starting guides (like the outdated one on Kong Rong) to see how to defend towns with just a general or the recent Cao Cao tutorial series has a few episodes on looping the enemy around towns (in battle maps)

[@bosbanon3452]

The game should include Gongsun Du Campaign agaisnt Ancient Koreans

[@jamesfreeman7954]

The Chinese in ancient times were badass nowadays they're just laughed at 😂

[@bigmac8309]

white horse fellas

[@d1halberdgnoll963]

YAN GANG 2020

[@MrMeoow91]

tbh, playing on Romance is kind of cheating...but it really plays into the Romance of 3 Kingdoms.