by Ashley Shankle

Created on: January 26, 2009

Koei's Chinese historical simulation series, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, has survived since the days of the Nintendo by pandering to a very niche and dedicated market in both Asia and in the West. The latest installment, Romance of The Three Kingdoms XI (RTK XI) was released in the United States with the same advertising whisper as the rest of the series and then quickly detected and snatched up by fans.

While most of the gaming community is unaware of the RTK series, every gamer is familiar with Dynasty Warriors, which is also based around the Three Kingdoms period. Although the stories are similar, the gameplay is anything but. The RTK series is a turn-based civilization/war simulator - a far cry from Dynasty Warrior's action-packed gameplay.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI follows the history of China's greatest heroes in their stuggles to obtain power of the country after the fall of the Han Dynasty. In this installment the player is held to solely control an entire force, as opposed to being able to build a character's way up from mere peon to divine ruler in RTK X. This holds true to the pattern of the series in recent years of switching between default ruler play and preference of power play.

The vast bulk of the game is spent on the map giving orders to your officers, managing cities, constructing buildings to boost your cities' output, and waging war against enemy forces. Each ruler and officer has their own distinct attributes, skills, family background, and history. While some may be able to strategize and help with the development of the player's empire, they probably will not be of much use in battle. Even deeper into that, every character has varying levels of aptitude in six varieties of weaponry on top of characteristic skills to aid in domestics or combat. Every one of the 780 characters the game hosts is unique.

Besides the staggering number of default officers, the game also character creation mode. The player is given a huge amount of choices in creation and the possibilities are almost endless. There are choices in character gender, portrait, model, age, family history, friends and enemies, base stats, weapon aptitudes, skills, and personality traits. Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI has the most in depth character creation mode in a series that has become known for its character customization.

Besides micromanaging towns and battles, there are duels and debates for the character to engage in to prove themselves or take victory. The duels

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