How to Get Started as Zheng Jiang | Early Game Legendary Difficulty Playbook Patch 1.7.1 

Ah, I remember the head scratching moments when I was trying to figure her faction out. Definitely the hardest start, but when you finally get the first tribute she snowballs the biggest.

I followed this guide and although it was my first Legendary/Legendary campaign (only played hard/hard before) somehow in ended up with a very nice North West base and had like 30k tribute per turn since most smaller Factions were super afraid of me and the big ones took just a few crushing defeats to convince. After that (because you never build tall) I didn't know what to do with all my cash and started instant construction to a good build on every new town. By turn 150 when i conquered all of China i had 15 Million Coins. So yeah one of the coolest Factions if you want to Focus on Battles

Ah yes, the notoriously most difficult faction in the early game, and personally, my favourite to play. Migration is definitely a good tactic with this faction

To keep loot low from the beginning you could split then re-merge the 2 armies to get that hefty unit transfer "penalty"

Nice, just finished a Zheng Jiang campaign myself but was still curious just to see some potential strategies for future Zheng Jiang Campaigns

I think you should keep yinli at least.. he’s affordable once you slide the tax slider all the way left (yes you can do this from turn one). Lend him red sisters to make him unbeatable in duels with his starting tenacity of steel, and give him terror skill using early blood dragon which combos well with scare (I think he even comes with a feared trait). Before long, he’ll also have poison volley! He will be quite the mini lu bu.

Lubu with a full stack. Always waiting for me

From the moment you said "we're going to migrate to the west" I was wondering "what about the looters though". Cool that you covered them as well. Such raids are probably one of the worst additions to the game. I've played Zheng Jiang myself and didn't try to migrate, instead I focused on getting a high-experience army with high-experience generals by fighting difficult battles against Dong Zhuo (Lu Bu basically beelined towards me from the start for some reason) and other neighbors, which allowed me to get some fat tributaries and a good army early on. This involved quite a bit of tactical cheese, so your way definitely sounds much easier than facing everyone head-on :)

From experience, Zhang Yan is usually completely beaten by Gongsun so rather than worrying about him, you should just prepare for an inevitable arrival of a new threat

I used to love playing as bandits before Fates Divided. But the absence of Faction Council - mainly, the inability to reset a general's skill tree - is such a huge turn-off. Some generals tend to always end up with shitty trees. Like Lu Bu usually misses out on the Vanguard tree's speed and charge boosts, so even with the Legendary Red Hare, he could be slower than other generals with common horses.

the fact tha you can almost have 50% replenishment in just a few turns is crazy i think i will try out but with yan baihu since he is my favorite

You can definitely beat up the Dong in the early game once you arrive into Shuofang. Just save up as much money as possible, colonize the provinces, but prioritize the early army a bit more than the Town itself, only invest in the counties. I beat up a Lu Bu full stack with the use of the garrison, full stack in ambush, and three generals in the county as bait with patience. Really doable but looks very daunting seeing Lu Bu march at you.

You can actually pay factions in the demand tribute with either food or a mercenary contract (but not both, UI kept blocking the other). That really helped the snowballing in my 1.7.1 campaign, factions with -8 acceptance for tribute could just get a 20 food dump from the huge bandit surplus. Probably an oversight, but it's never getting patched now... Also, I'm a big fan of rushing Chang'an with Zheng Jiang to get the emperor in the 190 start. The Han vassal is worth ~4k income with her tributary boosts, which is a huge deal if you get it somewhere in the turn 8-10 range. You'll probably have to beat Lu Bu's army, but Zheng Jiang can outduel him with help (for me it was Mending + Wisdom of the River + Chen Gong). People have said the emperor leaves immediately for the bandits but he never did for me. Not sure what's going on with that one, maybe he needs to come of age first?

46:50 lmao i think the game was counting your garrison units as well

You always aim for the desert while I always aim for the opposite corner, getting zhang yan is super easy latest patches

Thats aYou have great guides on your channel and it's really helpfull that you explain the little mechanics with them aswell. It never came to my tought to just bannish these terrible start characters :D

Looters actually can spawn at wuwei too if you take it and they raze my city a few times just because i forget to place army on my low lvl city there

I have 400 hours in this game and I never realized you could rush construction... oh boy,..

I’ve Ben waiting for this one :)

Funnily enough if not playing Liu Bei, Dilu is also in the animal tamer pool.

is 194 the Lu Bu start? She was pretty tough to get going at that start when we tried. We find the loot/ movement connection is super punishing for Bandits. Almost to the point that it makes them unplayable.

Sorry if my english is not the great this is not my native language. Today i just star Zheng Jiang campagne in normal + timeless mode (i'm not quite experiment and want to keep my general and not worry with age is much for fun). Everything is going almost what happen in the video. I got Yu Jin and Chen Gong in my run not bad for the start. During Turn 10 (summer 192) i look for spy to see if their a new turncoat and see a offcer cost 3000 gold and 0 upkeep with the name of Zhang Jinglan, this the wife of Zhang Yan. So in a new save i try something. I engage Zhang Jinglan and gain enough points to extract her and continue the guide. During Turn 12 (autumn 192) Zhang Jinglan return in the court and she still marry with Zhang Yan. I divorce her and now Zhang Yan is single now and i try the same thing to the guide of Zhang Yan and try to unify the faction throught marriage. And is the same thing in the guide of Zhang Yan, I need to use the option Issue Ultimatum (because i can't get positive value), but before that I promise him a lot money per turn and get all is money he have in his possession (the turncoat + the divorce cost 4000 so try to regain some money), and that work. I got all is land, army and the genral want to be recruited in the Zhang Yan faction is now in my pool (i got Ji Ling in my recruitment poll and i didn't have it before the marriage). The mission to detroye Zhang Yan it's validated and iI got the next mission to detroye Yuan Shao. I don't know if i want to keep the land and with the east side with a loot of ennemis or sell or lose the land and focus the west side with less faction. This a other way to try to get Zhang Yan in you campagne (maybe that work in the same way for Zhang Yan campagain if you can get Zheng Jiang usband at turncoat). Thank for the guide Serious Trivia.

Just letting you know, you may want to show in the Yan Baihu video that the bottom left of the bandit network does give Nanman units now since the furious wilds DLC. I am pretty sure that is the only change that has happened to the Bandit network tech tree since it was released. Something sort of unrelated but did you know that Cheng Pu and Da Qiao (and I think Xiao Qiao) can access their top left skill without it being connected to already accessed skills? I think they are the only characters that have this happen with them.

Perfect timing! Starting my first legendary campaign with her today! Are you going to be doing these guides for the 190 starting date only or would you branch out to the other ones? (I've been playing a lot of the 182 starting date lol)

You probably just forgot but you can mess with the taxes from turn one to make more money with no downsides

Once you establish that one complete commanderie to the west, Lu Bu comes up from the south with a full contingent and wipes you out.

I learned so much from this video! 🎉

now i really want to see how you play a Zhen Jiang campaign.

you actually can offer food 37:35

Thank you so much for this guide. I followed it almost exactly and look forward to going from here. One question though, how do I heal Zheng Jiang?

Somehow i fucking managed to do it your way, but without mercenary treaty, i got to the same treshhold as you -50 and it wont go down, so i recrtuted as many troops as i could, changed militarny adventage from -9,3 to -6,3, gave her tribute and putted intimidate as well. Belive or not, it fucking worked. Managed to marry her despite the -50 rock stone opinion.

So I don't know what to do now. I secured Shuofang and upgraded it as you did (for the most part). I don't know where to go now. Dong Min is on my southern flank. He has a doom stack there commanded by Lu Bu himself. I sued for peace with him as I don't see how I can handle that if he chose to invade me. To the east is an abandoned farmland and a Han controlled fishing port. Should I expand there? Or do I need to sit tight and build an actual army?

This strategy seems open/free None linear Are some factions more free to create than others? If so, what ones would you say are the most free to do what you want?

Hmm west huh? I don’t know that’s a lil too close to da Dong for me. I still try to attack Zhang Yan early then focus on Yuan Shao.

Really great ST. Thanks!

I really hate when you have to micro manage because the A.I of our generals got brain fried or w/e and decided to not pursue fleeing archers...

who is the jie ling or something, character that you mentioned around 36:00 ?

Cavalry is king - but Jiang herself (and sentinels/strategists) can get only light raider units. So we need more yellow/red generals? On one of my attempts, Lu Bu had Pingding the same turn I got Dacheng :-)

I got attacked by 2 stacks led by Lu Bu almost as soon as I'd taken Sheyang. Big oof. 🤭

What would be your ideal mid game army as Zheng Jiang? Before getting protector of heaven

Can u do one for the expanded map version? I play it in legendary and IDK what to do

I'm in middle of my Zheng Jiang's Campaign, currently beating Dong Zhuo, Gongsun Zan, Liu Bei and Zhang Yan until they gave me tribute. Should i keep them as tribute state or conquer them once i got enough money? She's freaking snowball after i got so many tributes

There is a huge drawback for all bandits i find on my gameplay. Bandits lack of high tier units and heavily depend on research to get good units until reaching king. Dealing with doomstacks of those big boy like Cao Cao, Yuan Shao is such a big challenge for bandit factions. Is there any method to overcome this?

Anybody got any tips, I followed this step by step but on turn 14 lu bu turns up with a full stack 😂

Ma teng declared war on me after I forced him to tribute. And now he no longer pay. Is this a bug or did CA changed the mechanic?

Omg you can do clips in YT .

How the heck do you deal with lu bu when his angry face comes lumbering your way with a full stack?

Did they change tribute to make it end when they go back to war?

Clicked on it fully expecting someone butchering all pronunciation lol

My strat is always marry lu bu

There is a mod that disable looters if anyone don't like them

How to convert han provinces into dong zhuo?

Is marrying Zheng Jiang to Lu Bu simple and easy enough and/or is it worthwhile dealing with Dong Zhuo?

And btw, i still have to pay her tribute even if her faction doesnt exists, wtf ? Is it permament ?

is it possible to become vassal to dong zhou and annex yan baihu by marriage? i believe he doesnt have a wife at the start

This thing doesnt work You will encounter lu bu on the next few turns and he will attack You need to spend a lot of things to make peace with dong min or loose everything This makes people unhappy and rebel agains you You cant do nothing

They raped her tech tree. Used to be my favourite faction by far. Now I dont play this piece of crap game anymore.