How to Get Started as Sun Jian | Early Game Legendary Difficulty Playbook Patch 1.7.0 

God, I’d forgotten how powerful Sun Jian was.

I know you posted this almost a year ago, but I just want to say I deeply appreciate how thorough you are in your videos. I’ve learned so much. I haven’t played a total war game since Rome II- and I was horrendous at it back then. I’m taking my time with this, getting completely immersed in the setting. Your guides have helped me have a great time. The learning curve is steep, and I’m a sore loser, so these guides are keeping me playing. Thank you.

Trivia: It's a powerful weapon, keep it close Me: *has Percy Jackson movies flashbacks*

Sun Jian and even more so Sun Ce, just have such good faction mechanics/bonuses and they start next to some of the best commanderies with lots of unique officers. Easily the strongest faction in the game.

I always wished Sun jian starts as a vassal to Yuan Shu. Would be historically accurate and a very interesting start.

My new fav TW3K RU-vidr! Really knowledgeable and binge worthy videos. Keep up the good work you deserve way more subs

Nice video! BTW, the imperial seal event triggers after you conquer 3 regions, you can be playing turn 20 with only 2 regions in your posesion without the event pops out.

Fatuous lord next please!!! Keep up the magnificent material

tyvm, this is what I was waiting for.

These guides are so good because you explain the reasonning behind your decisions. I learn so much about the game, even if I don't follow the steps exactly.

Good stuff mate. Nothing like starting a campaign with that many unique units!

Ah yes, Sun Jian, one of the faction i was looking up to use once i own the game. because sadly, i have no money now :( . But thanks to you, i know what to do before i'm playing it. Because you also give the guide that's updated with the game mechanic update. So thank you.

As an old TW player, exploits are actually the spice of life. Loop all the way.

New that we have got some Han out the way, maybe a bandit faction next? The queen needs some respect

the Granting Independence strategy is 500 IQ move, I would say

Quan Rou was a good administrator for Wu in history, joining with Sun Ce for a dutiful minor role

As a Taiwanese 3K player, I am having a little hard time to go through the whole English guide since there is not much Chinese guides out there as the option for me. But the thing that amazes me is that your chinese pronopunciation is so freaking good. Thanks for this awasome guide. Keep it going.

At about 52:00 you mention that Lu Fan "gets along" with both Sun Jian and Huang Gai. This reminds me of the challenge that I set myself in a World Betrayed Sun Ce game: No Conflict Allowed! All members of the council had to get along with all other members and all armies had to have leaders that got along with each other. In short, you were never allowed to see a red X on the faction screen or in an army. (I was allowed to have administrators that didn't get along with Sun Ce and/or his council, because that doesn't cause a red X.) It was a fun game. I exiled my brother to Taiwan at some point (and then granted him independence) and married my mother off to some other faction leader (when Sun Ce stopped getting along with both of them), and had to divorce my first wife, which was especially amusing. But I managed to obey the rule from beginning to end, even leaving a few council slots open for quite a long time. You should try this.

Excellent updated guide..especially mentioning Cao Cao's damn constant scheming. Almost appears that the AI cheats as he just schemes and schemes constantly against you somehow. Anyway, thanks again! ST is the only Tuber that I will sit and watch for an entire hour on a single video. An hour worth it if you are gaming one of the best Total War games out there currently!

I usually rush to get Shangyong weapon craftsmen on turn 2 and recruit my other generals to get the rest of Changsha. Its pretty much the same timeline as your guide but the difference is I don't invest much into building since I have Lady Wu and Cheng Pu on the field. Be aware though that the biggest disadvantage of Merc Cap Retinue is they need to be summoned in the commandery where you have a Merc Outpost which isn't very practical

Great guide thank you

great guide as always, I literally starve your videos on this point

By the way, if play as He Yi you can actually play with living Sun Jian...I alway start eliminate Liu Biao's vassals and then himself, coz don't want have big trouble with Liu Bei on late game.

I think in all my 500 hours in the game, I’ve never fought sun jian in the field 😂 but great guide, will definitely give him a try

I am watching this in preparation for a head to head campaign I am doing with my friend tomorrow, I am playing Sun Jian and he is playing Liu Yan, wish me luck!

Aaaah finally ! My favorite faction 💪 The faction with which if you’re too friendly with everyone, you’re in trouble hhh (‘cause you need some enemies to keep the faction mechanics good)

I would love another Sun Jian campaign with this new patch

This guide is really good. Cheesey but unique. Very powerful faction, it seems.

I remember all the time when I get a massive empire sun jian would always be like the "final boss" in the south. still don't expand near him to this day

I've never played as one of the historical 3 kingdom progenitors but Sun Jian is probably going to be the one I play first so I can keep Sun Jian alive, he seemed like an okay guy, plus instant merc armies and Commerce bonanza

When you recruited the trebuchets with Chen Gong, you can just recruit the mercenary axemen and then the trebuchets. They will appear almost fully replenished.

love your vids mate. Been playing this game for a few months now, but shockingly never played sun jian lol. love ur wide range of lets play and different series. as a unique character/gear collecter (i love doing this, not sure y) i struggle quite a bit to collect all unique characters (maybe becuz i have no idea how to use spy feature to its fulliest or good way to bring in heroes through annex/unify). if possible, would u be able to make a "guide" or play through on how to collect all (or nearly all) unique characters as well as unique weapon/horses?

An full stack AI army see an city with noone guarding it, next turn there a full stack of mercenary inside the city

Blazing down south actually has me scared cuz once it gets to 197, I get the sudden low emperor's favor and added with the low faction support and poor starting economy, it's a little harder to manage rebellions, characters, and the added corruption

Am happy This is one of my favorite factions

Im sorry but the siege of Chibi is absolutely hilarious to think about 2 guys just bringing a town to a standstill by standing at the entrances. Then they proceed to murder ~80 people each lol

Sun is the best family in any totalwar game. Good faction Leader, great Heir and a great prime minister, all in the family

YOOO- FINALLY!! ❤️❤️❤️

Already played this faction myself, but ended up watching anyway. Had an idea I haven't thought to much about or tested, but I wondered if it would be possible to: 1. Give Liu Biao seal when he asks for it 2. Use the 1 gold gift repeatedly to get the +80 relations with Liu Biao up on same turn 3. Make a trade to get seal back 4. Have seal, but also be able to take and develop Han lands south of river earlier since Liu Biao won't get in the way Trade with Liu Biao or vassal if possible and maybe take trade agreement in tech tree, instead of recruitment cost that wont be needed as much, to use on 1 of the factions discovered during early expansion.

Great Video! Sun Jian is one of the most broken factions with him and Sun Ce's bonus for halving settlement costs, which makes it free I don't know if that's a bug or not, but I love it.

captain retinue is only available in the local commandery to hire. not factionwide

Speaking of cao cao schemes, I once had Han dang as a general with a full stack of cavalry, and he did the scheme which reduces the charge of the cavalry, when I clicked the unit they had literally 0 charge, and when I moved him Han dang just disappeared. From the game. Entirely. With all the items I gave him. And I know for sure he wasn’t a spy because I didn’t get any notification.

It's sad that Sun Jian died early in history, I wanted to see what he could've done before the three kingdoms era

movement heck is still on even after you have taken a settlement

thank you for the amazing pronounciation

I feel like there are some DLC changes I'm missing (I only have the base game): Sun Jian is starting with Stability instead of Bravery, and I don't see the "you lost {x} imperial favor" prompt when winning in battle against a Han force. What am I missing?

I wish you had opined on the "Declawing the Tiger" dilemma. It doesn't seem like there is a good reason to kill off Sun Jian.

Question for serious trivia Lu Bu is impossible to steal from big daddy dong in the 190 start he always seems to be super happy in the faction, even when dong dies he doesn't join rebellions anymore I have played the first 30ish turns in 10 or so campaigns since 1.7 and you just can't steal him or have him crop up in the recruitment pool. Do you have any workarounds? (non modded)

Excellent guide. Thank you. I subscribed. Can you give me some more info? When do I make my son my heir? What skill trees should I prioritize?

When do you put Sun Ce in for Heir? Right away, or when cavalry becomes more available to the Sun faction? As mid-late game approaches, where would you advise the Imperial Capitol sit? I'd like to keep mine as historic as I'm able, but was there a settlement that would have had his ancestors or best economy? I'm loving the lore series and just trying to tie it all up.

how do you fight back liu baio if he does different things, in my game he sailed down the river instead of doing nothing. So in that senario do i just go up and attack him, or let him take the settlement? And if he appears infront of you on land, do you attack him there?

Will you be doing any of the other southern characters? (Like Meng Huo)

Amazing video!! I learned a lot. Quick question. How come the units you recruit for Sun and Gai don't need to be healed? Don't they normally all have to be healed for few turns?

Never had the declawing the tiger event

Small regional city has only 5 build slots but you have suggested to build 6 different buildings at this level which is not possible

Anyone ever get closer to historical storyline? And settled it in 3kingdom (shu,wei,wu)?

Its been so long since i played sun jian, but i read somewhere that if u play sun jian campaign, u can replinish units even in enemy territories? is this true by any means? im only up to the 10 min mark, so apologies if u mention this somewhere later in the video

with 7 characters total in the Imperial Court with Understanding Skill + reforms that grant 1 additional rank for each unit type (provided i'm not misremembering), it'd be possible to get rank 9 recruits; wouldn't rank 9 mercenary retinue recruits be much more powerful than mercenary captain retinues to the point of making said captain retinues obselete?

have you consider doing an exile of taiwan playthrough where you sail there and colonice it from turn 1 and make it your capital

Can change Sun Jian's weapon for 1 turn, more discount

Seeing the seal reminds me: they listened to you and gave it to Cao Cao in the 200 campaign. Still waiting for Yuan Shu and Liu Hong to get it in their campaigns, though. Shouldn't there be eight or so seals anyway?

14:29 Please don't make your heir into your wife, it'll scar him.

Hey ST I was wondering, do you know if there’s any historical reasoning behind sun jian having mercenaries? Was there a lot of mercenaries from the South during the 3K era or something?

I found Gongsun Zan to be the easiest start out faction. Nice corner of the map to build up in, learn the mechanics and steamroll out from later.

Do Sun Jian's generals get access to the Tiger Guard and Handmaid Guard when they reach sufficient rank, or are those units exclusive to Sun Ce's faction?

I've only won a few campaigns, and none of them have been on legendary. I exclusively use commanders for heir and nothing else. Is there ever a point in hiring a commander to be an army general? I am genuinly confused as to what they actually provide other than faction satisfaction

Is that general’s satisfaction always the reason for them to left you? Since I just started to play this game so I followed your guid for a while, then I started to play it on my own, and Chong Pu left me after a few turns. Could my enemy did something to cause him left me?

ST can you partner with CA to explain the next patch CA just announced?

I had bad experience play Sun Jian, the heroism not as great as Caocao and Liu Bei's mechanism. Not all the legendary Wu characters joined my court. I had to capture Da Qiao on the battlefield. Then I couldn't marry Da Qiao to Sun Quan as somehow there were related!!! It was really messed up....One of my pet hate is why the game still showing you lost imperial favour after you became emperor? It that still relevant? Have to say I enjoyed Sun Ce's campaign more. Sharing the character experience is very powerful ( using Trivia's term lol). Keep up the good work buddy. Who should I play next YuanShao or Goingsun Zan?

You can actually demand surrender on the second fight. I don't know if on Legendary if they say yes or not. However, on normal difficulty they say yes

You missed the timeskip! If it was intentional, ignore me, haha!

I’m revisiting this vid. Is there any value in setting up Liu Biao to take a treachery hit once he declares war from the event?

This video give me a challange idea, no recalling generals to move, once summoned on the field it need to stay on the field, maybe i will give it a try to see hos stupid it will be :D

would it have been a good idea to offer to support independence for cai mao or huang zu?

Are you using any mods? I found out several times that the game was stopped working for some reasons and this could be because of the extra mods I’m using

How do you get that sweet starting screen? Where the characters are stood looking cool instead of the map?

since we are hitting the HANs factions, upon 197, imperial favor will be very low. How to increase this?

I really curious who steal that unique horse and ancient sword, from who need beat shit? I mean about Sun Ce campaign in 194.

What’s your recommendations for court positions?

I hit Zhou Tai on my character list as well as Lu Fan. How do I use him most effectively?

Have you had a campaign where you had the emperor but chose NOT to restore the Han? Just found out there are actually some long-lasting harsh punishments for that, made even more noticable as you lost all the bonuses from imperial favor. To be specific I was playing Lu Bu and giving up the throne was just not an option, as his whole faction mechanic breaks upon that happening. Basically unless you intend to restore the Han, capturing the emperor will actually hurt your campaign. Ironic they made it this way since that's what historically happened.

Cheng Pu is a beast, in my campaign he beat zhao yun 1v1

Can you still capture Quan Rou in the first battle? I've tried legendary and even easy difficulty and delegating kills him every time... Ive attempted 10 times now (I know you don't need to delegate)

what do you do with yuan shu with his event for the seal?

Why do you recall one of the generals then move the other? Whats the mechanic

Why Lady Wu and Lu Su revert back to the OG portraits? And how do we get Da Qiao and Xiao Qiao? (Ps. I just reinstalled TW3K 🤣, so many changes)

Sometimes I heard character call Dong Zhou as ‘Dong Zei’ or maybe Zai. Why is that? Is it a slang?

Never click that fast xD

Dapatkah kamu memainkan fraksi ini di DLC mandete of heaven , aku sangat menantikannya 😍

Yuan Shao guide soon?

the AI is like, we thought only we are supposed to cheat...

Silly question Sun tzu is from this clan?

How did you get sun jian with bravery

Who snitched on sun jian when he grabbed the seal?

Can you please do how to get started on liu chong in 190

listen at 1.25 x speed for your sanity

You say Sun Jian, but all I hear is weaker Sun Ce

Its sad that sun quan is kinda bad

The first thing you want to do is make your heir, your wife. *Scrolls to 15 year old Male Son.* YOOOOOOOU WHAAAAAT?!

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