After Cao Pi's defeat, at 1:14:57 (18:56 ahead)
I spent last week figuring out how the random encounters worked, so I could bruteforce them as well:
Encounter chance per ground type:
Bridge, castle: 0
Grass, roads: 1/32
Forest, caves: 1/16
Hills: 1/8
Number of enemies:
2: 2/16
3: 4/16
4: 5/16
5: 5/16
- 1/4 chance for the first enemy to be a general (1/2 in Shu and later)
- 1/4 chance for each following enemy to be a general, only when the previous enemy is
- Higher id generals have slightly higher odds to show up, since they're listed first and picked by [random % total in list]
- Enemy forces (rebel, pirate, etc.) depend on the ground types in the 3x3 area around you, but will always be rebel forces in Shu and later
Each step (except on ground types without random battles) also changes the random values, with different results depending on surrounding water/hills/mountains, so this could allow even better All-Out manipulation by trying different step delays before each battle ... but there's so many possible results that finding the best one would be just about impossible. Random battles could be avoided better as well, but bruteforcing every path in the game would be a lot of work for just a few frames each time ...
So, with this, I got Zhou Yu with a single rebel force, only waiting a few frames. I also got Tai Si Ci and Lu Sun alone in one battle (about 1/10000 chance), with only 5 steps + 24 frames! I picked them up since they both have over 10000 HP and good stats, and will definitely be more useful than Ma Dai and Zhu Ge Liang.
I eventually lose Yi Xin and Bei Ji, so the strategy usually goes like this:
- Wipe rebel forces with All-Out, unless it takes too long
- Use An Sha on each general (except immune ones)
- If there's immune/untargeted enemies, use Ji Mian
- To determine who does what, I go by agility rather than INT, since the turn order is harder to manipulate (and matters as much) than success rates (this is why I don't use Zhu Ge Liang's 255 INT, his agility is too low)
Hong Shui does nice damage but takes too long compared to All-Out (or even Ji Mian when stopping rebel forces), even with how much defense they have now, so I didn't use it. That and TP is actually put to good use now with An Sha and Ji Mian, enough that I needed a refill on the way to Cao Pi.
