Let's Play Destiny of an Emperor II #40 (Chapter 4) - Eye of the Tiger

[@Nekosage]

Going up for the thrill of one bite! ... Wait a second. 8:24 - 8:33 - This is quite the beefy boss fight.

[@Metalders]

Nice, Zhuge Liang finally broke the 1000 soldiers' limit!

[@MrMatthias]

Wow, that was a pretty intense fight!

[@Pheehelm]

So, what can I say about today's episode in relation to the novel? 4:17 This is a decent introduction to Huang Zhong. Sixty years old, but still a mighty warrior who's been defending Changsha since Liu Biao was in charge. Zhuge Liang warns Guan Yu not to take him lightly. He's described as "a man who could pull a bow of over two hundred and fifty pounds yet never miss a shot." 5:26 Zhao Yun and Zhang Fei took Guiyang and Wuling respectively, each with three thousand soldiers. Guan Yu insists he'll only need five hundred expert swordsmen. (Zhuge Liang tells Liu Bei to follow him with more soldiers in case things go wrong.) Guan Yu and Huang Zhong duel for a bit until the latter recalled by governor Han Xuan. The next day they have another fight, which ends with Huang Zhong falling off his horse. By this point Guan Yu respects him to much to take the easy kill, so he lets him retreat to...wait, Wuling? The book says he retreats "back to Wuling?" That can't be right. Liu Bei already had control of Wuling by this point. (This explains something that baffled me during Episode 36 -- in the novel, they don't follow Ma Liang's prescribed order exactly, so Capcom changed his advice to what they actually did. Interesting.) Afterwards, Han Xuan reminds Huang Zhong he's a crack archer and suggests Just Shooting Him. By this point, Huang Zhong can't bring himself to kill the man who spared him, so he feigns shooting a couple arrows by plucking his bowstring, then lands another arrow harmlessly in Guan Yu's helmet. Han Xuan realizes what's going on and orders Huang Zhong executed. He's rescued in the nick of time by Wei Yan. Wei Yan originally wanted to work for Liu Bei, but when he couldn't find him, settled for Han Xuan. _"The governor, however, offended by his easygoing manner and his inattention to ceremonial affairs, chose to let Wei Yan remain idle in the neighborhood rather than give him the position his talents warranted."_ After rescuing Huang Zhong, Wei Yan mobilizes the people against Han Xuan and personally cuts him in half with a single blow. (Nobody liked Han Xuan to begin with. It's said he "was widely hated for his unstable temper and an unfortunate tendency to kill whoever displeased him.") Afterwards they hand over the city to Guan Yu. Incidentally Wei Yan had one brief appearance earlier in the book. When Liu Bei was retreating to the Southlands, he tried to rest his followers at Xiangyang, but Cai Mao and Zhang Yun ordered their archers to repel them. Wei Yan took up the fight from inside, trying to open up the city for Liu Bei's followers, but was checked by Wen Ping, and the resulting battle was so brutal Liu Bei decided to give up and go somewhere else. 8:31 Han Hao isn't mentioned during this part of the novel, but Cao Cao has a general by that name who shows up a few times around the time Zhuge Liang orchestrates a decisive victory at Bowang. He's last mentioned in that story arc being sent into headlong flight by Zhang Fei. A while after this part of the game, there's a Han Hao mentioned (possibly the same one), who the Moss Roberts translation describes as "younger brother of the surrendered general Han Xuan." That doesn't make a lot of sense, because you may recall from the previous paragraph that Han Xuan is not surrendered but dead. The translation on 26reads instead calls him "the brother of Han Xuan, the late Governor of Changsha." That said the Moss Roberts version has him go on to vow to get revenge for his murdered brother. (He fails -- Huang Zhong cuts him down effortlessly.) "Yan Ling" should be Yang Ling. He also works for Han Xuan. Before Huang Zhong sets out, Yang Ling claims to have a plan to capture Guan Yu alive. He dies in the next paragraph. The cause of death is "attacked Guan Yu in battle." 17:45 Zhuge Liang distrusts Wei Yan, figuring if he'll betray one liege lord he'll betray the next, and immediately orders his execution. Liu Bei overrules him. Zhuge Liang never totally gets over this, and one of the last things he does before dying is leave a contingency plan in case Wei Yan betrays them. (Which, to be fair, he does, but they got a lot of good work out of him in the interim.)

[@AzureIV]

8:24 Enemy Forces: 15,500 soldiers Allied Forces: 6,195 soldiers Almost three times as many soldiers.

[@CosmicRPG]

Why i feel something bad gonna happen like a plot twist.

[@PlusmaGun]

*Changsha Castle* the place where the biggest drama regarding the *Zheng Letter* happens, but I explain more about it next time. While I really like the overhauling *Wei Yan* got in both his portrait and sprites, his Strength is buffed and he now gets more soldiers upon leveling up, plus his general soldier count is also really good, but the fact that his 136 Intelligence and the great Agility that he had from the first game are both neutered hard, is very concerning! He's essentially just a worse *Zhang Bao* (who is *ATROCIOUS* when you first get him) in this game, but at least you can put up with Wei Yan at this point in the game. *Zhou Cang* is three to four times less the quality of Wei Yan, so indeed ban the bandit bye-bye when Changsha is all squeaky clean. By the way, at Level 22, Wei Yan has 1312 soldiers, which is only 5 less than the permanent amount of the soldiers he had in the previous game at 1317. You almost had it, Capcom!

[@HCBailly]

Wei Yan is one of my favorite characters in the game. He's by far the best axe wielder and is usually one of my top physical attackers. His low INT is also useful for party buffs without being quite as vulnerable as Zhang Fei. Unfortunately, Zhang Bao is outclassed by other spear wielders, and there's only so many unique spears to go around.

[@xenu4life]

Not to tell you how to do your job, but I've noticed that in a lot of these fights at castles, you almost always multitarget Yan Re. Wouldn't it be doing around 1200 damage if you only hit a single enemy with it? Last time I played through this game I'd generally single-target the low-intelligence generals with it a couple times and take them out almost immediately.

[@HCBailly]

That's not a bad way to go, though I prefer multi-targeting for a few reasons. Tactics deal more total damage when multi-targeting, because the algorithm divides the damage among the number of targets minus 1. I'm pretty sure that the number of targets is recalculated per living enemy, so if a multi-targeting tactic kills one enemy, it'll deal significantly more damage to each subsequent enemy. Single-targeting tactics also don't auto-target to someone else if they die before it is used. Also, the highest potential accuracy is 15/16, and the 1/16 miss happens surprisingly often, so I'd hate to put everything into a single tactic hitting or missing.

[@DQMaster777]

:)

[@danielwhite2178]

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