Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!


Review & Download

Wow - awesome review and sounds like an intriguing game.

Great work on the mega update, Tom. Everyone's waiting with tongue hanging out to see what'll be up next . :kosta:

Great mega update! :ok:

These games are great!

No kidding?

Personally I hate strategy games, but the KOEI games are just amazing ^_^

The only sound effects for this game is from the PC speaker..
There's no music..

The game might seem hard, due to the odds stacked against you in the begining..

Tip :

though you might wan to hold for a someone with better stats, my advise is to get a sworn brother as soon as someone with half decent stats come along..

You could control a prefecture /battle when a sworn brother is present..
this extra ability to micromanage pays off in the long run..

dun fret about the wastage of the status on a average/crappy guy, Even on the highest difficulty level you can have 5 sworn brothers/sister , and 10!! on the easiest setting


Trick :

move a 600-800 men army headed by a sworn bother/sister into a undevloped prefecture ajacent to Gao Qiu's , with less 1/3 month's worth of food in battle..


Gao Jiu will surely threaten to attack, ignored the threat, .
of course he'll attack , with a full 1000 men .and food that'll last for 1 month in battle..

dun engage.. try to exhaust as much of your own food as possible and dragged the battle for as long as possible to exhaust their's .. then retreat you army...

Next turn , they have a Huge army with little food in a piss poor prefecture..,
if you did a good job, the army will starved to death in the following months..

as a bonus, you can also now attack the much weaken ( minus 1000 defenders) position..

a note about loyalty...

Loyalty will drop gradually every month (hardly noticable if the commander has very high intergrity )with a BIG drop in January every year..

therefore,it's not a good idea to recruit heroes in December

The Rate at which Loyalty drops depend on the Commander's (sworn brother, your hero) Integrity stat..

However..
The "FEAST" command (raise loyalty and body) works better (raise more Loyaty) with commander who has LOW integrity..

work it out yourself how take advantage of this..

the safe level for loyaty is 40 , there's no need to raise loyaty to 100, so save the money for something else..

though you might wan to hold for a someone with better stats, my advise is to get a sworn brother as soon as someone with half decent stats come along..

Provided the sworn brother/sister you get has a stronger value than you in one of your weaker stats. Because then, you'll be able to use them to acquire bandits strong in that stat, who otherwise wouldn't deal with you personally.

But if you like the game play then you must try the CDROM version of Celtic Tales: Balor of the Evil Eye. Superb voice acting with digtal music and sound-effects in isometric view.

Just wondering, but i have the original cartridge for the NES and i'm wondering if it is possible to make a back up of it. Know anything?

Also, i'm looking at this game, and I cna't get it to run, I will probably be able to get it working, but just in case, do i need an emulator or something?

:bye: :bye:
This does sound like an intriguing game, it was a fascinating
time in Ancient Chinese History, the warring kingdoms,
what a universe of history all its own, thanks for getting
this one for us......will be intriguing.

:ok:

How does one get the Imperial Edict?

this is a beautiful game. loved playing it many many years ago, and still remember it.

By taking over enough territories and holding them.

Hey, can I ask how you got it to work?

Bandits was one of the first games I ever played, it was on a computer we got given. My brother and I figured out how to play it from scratch, with no manual or anything. Now I'm trying to play it again so I've transferred it to this computer but I can't get it to work. When I try and run it I get the message "Disk Error - Hit CR" and I think it is trying to read from the floppy drive. This computer is running Windows XP by the way.

And also, whoever asked, to get the Imperial Edict you have to get to 250 popularity. It seems a lot, but it can be done once you know what you're doing

Some questions answered for the benefit of this group:

Firstly, I played this game back in college in the late 80s on the Macintosh. That was when it had those great and goofy sound effects. A friend of mine found it - I never did find the apple game and just ended up with the PC version later on which only had the PC beeps and bings but no music.

Secondly, even though my friend got the game, I ended up being one of the first to win at it - without the manual, we were finally able to figure out what you needed and what to do...

So, here are some of my notes on this great game that I played too many hours on...

1) you are given your choice of 5 scenarios, each one has advantages and disadvantages. I find, for a beginner, to play the earliest scenario and use a character like Lin Chong. Again, this is only my preference and you can play any other character you want.

The reason for the 1101 start is that you will have more time before one of the possible end-game scenarios kicks in (I'll explain that shortly) and you will want as much time as possible to accomplish your goal: to catch Gao Qiu.

Keep in mind this is THE goal of the game. Not the take over of all the prefectures, not to amass every general in the game, just one objective: capture and kill Gao Qiu.

Preventing you from doing this are a number of issues: 1) in most scenario options, you start out as a single bandit outlaw without any men or supplies, 2) Until much later in the game, Gao Qiu is UNTOUCHABLE - this will be explained shortly, 3) finally, you only have until the late 1120s (1127 I think) to catch him. If you don't by that time, the Northern Horde will come into China and decimate the country - which means game over for you.

So how do you meet the objective?

You need to develop, grow, develop and grow. Once this cycle gets you strong enough, you should be ready to meet the objective.

Now, let's explain that last statement.

As I said earlier, I like starting with Lin Chong - He has Strong War and High Integreity but only medium courage and mercy. Hey, he was an officer in the Army before he was framed....

*** Please Note: I do not remember if it is Prefecture 9 or 10 - if I'm wrong and it's 10, then replace 9 with 10 and 10 with 11 in this exercise as I am doing this from memory and haven't played in a couple of years. ***

Anyhow, I take him in the first scenario - he is an outlaw and on the run in a prefecture 2 away from P#9 (prefecture 9). I use the first couple of turns having him run away to P#9. Once there, I have him Settle in.

The reason for this is that this prefecture does not border any opponents so will allow him to develop. There are also a number of heros that come through here so, once Lin has some money and supplies, he can start recruiting heroes. He should really wait a full year before doing this as he does not have any money or food yet.

From the time he get's to P#9 until the end of the year, he should be hunting every month and giving food to the prefecture when he can't hunt (each action uses stamina and when a char's stamina goes down to 0, no direct action can be done - only actions like giving or taxing can be done)

By December, his poplularity in P#9 should be around 70s. This should be enough to get him some gold in January. The second year in P#9 should be spent recruiting heroes, giving money as loyalty, and continue developing P#9.

NOTE: not all heroes are recruitable at any given time; Popularity, your main char's mix of traits (integrity, mercy, compassion) also play a hand; if you are not sure if you can recruit a hero, use the "check the bones" option and that will tell you what your chances are.

SIDE NOTE: Popularity is VERY IMPORTANT - you gain it when you have at least 70 support in any prefecture, you gain it when you rid the prefecture of wild animals, and under other special events, you also gain popularity (If I remember, I'll list at the end of this a couple of the events that gain you popularity) You also need 250 Popularity to get the Imperial Edict to challenge Gao Qiu - once you get the needed points, that following January you will get the edict.

Anyhow, at the end of your second year you may have 2 or even 3 heroes in your employ and the prefecture building up nicely. Now, the only disadvantage in P#9 is that there is no armor/weapon maker so you will have to go to P#10 for this which is down from p#9. Don't go down there with less then 4 heroes having 100 men each (I should also mention that before you leave your prefecture, all your heroes should have 100 men and 100 training. In the early part of your fighting this will be essential for winning)

The reason you want to be careful is because right next to this prefecture (with the weapon smith) is one held by Gao Qiu's men. you will want to fully arm your heroes and probably lead them yourself into battle this time. Even though you should outnumber Gao's men, they are strong fighters in this prefecture and will be holed up in the forts.

Alternatively, you can go first to the prefecture in the far left corner of the map and, once you get the support of this 3rd prefecture ( did I neglect to say you should get the popularity of p#10? well you should do that too!) then you should be able to recruit the 4 heroes in this place - a couple of which are good fighters and will only help your cause.

Once you feel ready (and have enough heroes and men to fight) take on gao's prefecture down here. Don't use too many heroes - no more then 5 or 6 at the most or the enemy will run away - and at this point, you'd rather have at least one of those men in your service - which will happen if you fight with enough force.

I'm not going to go into great detail of war tactics on this post; if someone asks a question about them, then I'll list a few....

Once you've succesfully fought for this prefecture, then you wil have a LOT more gold and food to work with and can quickly bolster your troops. Then you will be ready for the next cycle of expansion, war, recruit, expansion, war, recuit...

I find that I go from the far left (center), downwards, towards the right, and then back up to the upper right before getting 250 popularity.but i usually get the edict by 1120 - giving me 5 or so years to finish up.

If this quick and dirty overview helped, please let me know by either email: ohtneb@hotmail.com or Icq# 193297183.

Good luck to all of you.

PS: events raising popularity - getting the two prefectures in a row to the right of #23 - those were the hide outs of the original bandit kings and you will get around 100 points for raising support in those prefectures to at least 70. Also parties - which I have No Clue about how to effect, tend to raise popularity a little.

I've always found that the easiest course upon starting the game was to go into voluntary exile, after first raising the loyalty of whatever heroes you had with you. Target an empty province that borders on empty provinces: the northwest corner of the map (#1) is the best.

As you travel through various provinces to get there, try looking at the stats of masterless heroes. If you find any that are low, attempt to get them to join you.

Declare your status as a leader while still in province #2, and drop off a newly recruited hero there--it's directly to the east of #1. It's also untouched by other occupied provinces, so it can safely be occupied and built up without fear of threats or invasion. One Big Tip: any hero you appoint a governor (the person in charge of the province) will never defect, so leaving your hero with the lowest loyalty in province #2 makes sense. They'll hunt and get taxes, and pay themselves first to raise loyalty. Meanwhile, you can settle another low loyalty hero directly south of province #1, and south of that, if need be.

Typically, I build up my forces while recruiting better heroes in the surrounding empty provinces. The more provinces you declare as your own--having them reach a level of 40 in loyalty for "official recognition," the better. Note, I typicaly take them to 30-36 or so, then deliberately gift the people with enough to hit in the 52-56 range. That way, there is no chance of revolt. At 40-46, you're almost guaranteed the people will hate you, and soon.

The more provinces you grab, the higher your rating. The higher your rating, the more likely you are to recruit masterless heroes. Give the better ones lots of men, arm them and train them, then spy on other occupied provinces, and attack one that isn't fully occupied to the teeth. Conquer it and try to grab as many enemy heroes of decent quality as possible; doesn't let them retreat off the screen. Once the battle ends--hopefully, with you victorious--raise everybody's loyalty repeatedly, and move all your heroes back to one of your own provinces.

Transfer men from less effective heroes to one with strong attributes, and try to make a hero with high integrity, courage or mercy a brother/sister. If you succeed, you'll be able to move them to another province, and gain an extra move each turn in which you can act through them. The more brothers/sisters you have, the more moves you can take in any given turn. But you're limited on the number of brothers/sisters you can recruit, so choose wisely.

By what year do you end up getting the imperial edict?

Usually about 5-7 years before the game conclusion. I've never run out of time, if that's what you mean. The ending is largely a case of isolating Gao Qiu, then drawing off large numbers of his armies with a very weak, poorly supported hero who raises a neighboring province enough to get the enemy's interest. After doing that a bit, I surround Gao Qiu with my some small armies--so he has no other province to move to, and escape--then attack with my best forces (making sure at least one hero is left behind).

jus wondering.. how do u create a save directory for the game?? i'm running it using dosbox.. but not sure how to create a directory to save games..
anyone can help??

You do it from within the game. Just choose the option that lets you save a game, and exit. When you leave DOSbox, that saved game will still be there.

This review is little inaccurate. KOEI wasn't founded in 1988 - it was american branch of the company. KOEI itself was established many years before '88 (in 1978, to be precise). Also, user interface wasn't that revolutionary - remember about Nobunaga's Ambition, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Genghis Khan, all three developed earlier than Bandit Kings.
All in all, the game is very good, although quite hard. That's why KOEI gave up this title and never released the sequel.

Good old game, there's a trick to get infinite money in the game but takes forever to do it

I had the old Nintendo version of this game. It was one of my favs.

Suggestions for new players:

1. Play an early scenario, and try to expand in the west, where few people have claimed prefectures. Unless you want to be attacked, always stay at least one prefecture away from Gao Qui's territory. The imperial forces never try to take empty areas; their domain only expands if they decide to attack a bandit-controlled area.

2. Don't be too picky about sworn brothers early on. You need them to allow you to issue commands in prefectures where your chieftain is away from. A sworn brother with low integrity can be good for throwing Feasts... (Golden Lotus as the sworn sister of Hairy Priest is just wrong... :ok: )

3. Don't bother with duels, especially if you're the attacker. Your body points will probably be too low to win by the time you reach your opponent...

Duels are a pain in the behind. I suggest avoiding duels unless a nearby opponent general has a low body value at the moment. Unfortunately, it's impossible to avoid accepting a duel, because it's entirely up to your challenged general. And I"ve been in situations where some of my healthiest and finest generals were challenged, and lost.

Some tips of my own (sorry for any problems reading that, my home language is german):

If you start in 1101 and take Li Chong:

Move to the upper RIGHT province (#5 i think), it has a weapon smite inside! Settle and start increasing the wealth or other things ... also go hunting to have at least 200-300 food ... also use rest to have at least 40-50 power! In December give ALL your food to the local population to increase their happyness to over 50 ...

In january you will have some food / gold, immedeately move into town and recruit every hero wanna follow you, in february take about ~200 gold and most of all the food with you and move over to prafecture #6 (to the south), leaving the recruited guys alone in your home country!

The thing is: the pc can perform MUCH better in increasing the wealth, recruiting guys, train your troops, increase hero happyness etc. ALONE! The pc can do those things in one month, you can only do one thing in a time!

Move on with this strategy move over #8 to #9 and #11! Province 7 and 10 are hold buy other PC guys (working also against Gao Qiu, but not very well, #7 has very low heros, so you can crush #7 later on get a well build up province, and #10's leader isn't very well, he 'll have about 7-8 heros inside his province but are below 40 population happyness!

Keep in mind your own heros will only stay in countrys when they are below 3 heros or have no free countrys to move to!

So send one of your crappiest heros to #4, move him without any money/food to prevent him from coming over province happyness 40! Collect spare heros in province #6 (has also smite), but every time WITHOUT your main guy!!!

Your pc heros will train troops only if theres another strong enemy beneath so if you want to lets say crush #7 to have a peaceful back, you will have to move your mainguy li chong (or a brother of yours) to your #6 province, train them up, build weapons in town and attack (and crush) #7

Some additional tips:

IF there is a strong enemy beneath you (mostly some of the evil guys) which have mostly an abundant mass of heros, and you need new ones use these tactics:

Defend one of your countrys with no more than 700 men and at least your main guy or a brother, if he wanna attack you to early bevor you're ready pay the money the want, you will have enough money very soon in the game! So if he attacks, the evil guy only have 30 turns to crush your whole army!

So here we go: lets say your province has 4 castles ... so you put 4 armys into your castles and hold 3 armies as reinforcements not in battle! The evil armies will rush on and attacking your castles, as your forces where smaller in size bevor the war, the evil armies will mostly have absolutely no training and are easy to wipe!

But you stay in your castles and let him come ... if you are short to get captured (one of your heroes, you let him run into one of your other provinces. sooner or later one of the evil guys has very less peoples left or no peoples left (the red number shown instead of the white!) than about ~ 30-40 (his hero power he try to escape (run away)), you attack him and bring him down to power zero!

If the enemy is too strong you come in with reinforcements and move around hiding before the evil guys ... after battle you will have about 3-7 heros captured and about 80% of them will join your ranks, immedeately after move out with your mainguy/brother to let the pc reinforce the armies, give money to the new heroes in only 2-3 turns ...

Thats all, the others told also good tips also use them!

Mydgard

This is a favorite game of mine as well. Its based on a classic Chinese story. One translation is called Outlaws of the Marsh, it pretty good. The full version is something like 105 chapters. Very lengthy.

Geez, I thought I was the only one who loved this game...Guess not! The only game I've played countlessly and it's never the same game twice, I love it.

Just thought I'd give a tip from a "professional" player...yeah right! I have passed the game with every single hero on NES. First off, River Dragon Sucks! The only way to win in the time limit is to flee to 39 and 40 and build from there. Second of all, I've heard no one mention the fact that Faceless in the NES version in preficture #2 is able to be recruited right away while your still in exile! He's by far the best person hands down to recruit and brother, the only thing is though you have to make it to preficture 2 before March of the first year, otherwise he flees to 3, 12, or 1! After you recruit him, rest the entire year in preficture 2 until Feb. of the next year. Then settle in #2 in February, then you can hunt for food in march, sell it in in may, and give to Faceless in June. Follow those three simple suggestions and you'll be off to the best start.

NES version facts:
1. People come and go but only at the change of the seasons. i.e. spring, summer, winter and fall. So don't rush to recruit someone when they first appear, unless you have nothing better to do.
2. The best prefictures to settle in when you begin the game are: 2,13,22,39/40 all of these have the ability to buy arms, ships or both. This is critical in building your armies.
3. Waiting for people to come to you is impossible. After you make your fisrt brother go on a recruiting spree with your main charecter. Travel to all the empty prefictures you can get to and try to recruit some heroes. Just recruit, give to em, and move to the next one. Rumoring in the downtown will point you in the correct path when recruiting. Multiple rumoring will yield different people who want to join you and where they are located.
4. Fighting beast builds your "heart" and gains you popularity in recruiting. Do it as much as possible.

Battle hints:
1. When your being attacked, only place the number of heroes on the field equal to the castles you have. When one goes, just reinforce (in the castle of coarse). This will maximize the damage you do and the minimize your casualties.
2. To weaken Gao Qiu, build an army in a adjacent preficture. Make sure you have 100 training and arms, and then move enough heroes out to make yourself appear weak. i.e. Keep 4-6 heroes in the preficture to defend (5 is usually perfect). If Gao Qiu has superior numbers (not strength) he will threaten and attack. Then wipe the floor with him (using the first hint) and capture all the heroes that you can. I once captured all 10 of his heroes while only losing less than 100 men.
3. Set him up! If you can capture the leader of the battle you capture all of his heroes and men that are still on the battle field. Think of way to lure the captain in and swarm him with all you got...be cautious though. If you don't capture him in one attempt he will flee! This may be done by reinforcing your troops not adjacent to, but within charging distance of the captain. i.e. 1-2 squares away.

Anything else you wanna know I could probably tell you cuz I know the game inside out. Also, saving before a battle is the best way to cheat to victory. If you lose, RESET!!! And try again, or don't repeat the same stupid mistake twice.

The background of Bandit King is actually not really a time of warring states. The game is based on Shuihu Chuan, a.k.a. Outlaws of the Marsh, a long, epic Chinese novel about, well, bandits. Sort of a Robin Hood type of story, if you will.

Yeah, but it's an extremely easy read. It's more like a series of linked short stories than a novel.

Five things (1-3 on game play, 4-5 on setup/documents)

1) The two most important territories in the game are #10 and #20 (Jun and Ji). It takes a while, but you need to take them over. When you occupy them both and have support in them high enough you create a special mountain lair. This makes your popularity sky rocket.

2) If you don't know who would make a good brother and who wouldn't, the easiest way to find good people is to use the people that you can select from when you start the game. They tend to lead their own territories. Corner them, capture them, imprison them, and then recruit them. One time I decided that I wanted to hold onto wizards, so I made them all brothers. It didn't work very well...especially since you bothers tend to do more work than other people and you need wizards to have "body" left in battles.

3) Invite to lair is a great command... it costs money and you have to have enough space in your castle to except everyone, but it works well. Zhu Wu (the spelling might be wrong on that) is probably the most likely to accept an invitation early on. You do need to have several territories and some popularity, but you can probably invite him to join you before you could even recruit any other wizard. It also works to invite people who would be good brothers. You get their people and a good brother out of it. Well worth the few hundred it costs to make the offer and the few thousand to get them over.

4) If you can't get it to work, go to the dosbox tutorial on Abandonia. http://www.abandonia.com/main.php?nav=index&FAQ=1 It shows step by step everything you need to do. If you don't have the emulator set up correctly, it won't work. Their are a few different executables. The file you need to run is Koei.exe.

5) If you want the instruction book, map, files that work etc. Go get get 'em: http://www.abandonia.com/games/502/downloa...ncientChina.htm. Just follow the links. I find that replacementdocs.com is very slow. Right click on the link you want to download and click "save to disk." Trying to view them online doesn't seem to work for me.

the last guy who posted something about where to get manuals proposed one place.
but, here's another site which you might wanna take a look at (mind you, i've never been to this site--- it's been proposed by abandonia itself though).

http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.1978

Great game its hard to believe this was made in 1989. I started playing this game when I was 9 years old and hardly could understand a word in English (luckily my dad was addicted to it) If you really like this game I recommend you get the amiga version and play it on a amiga emulator. Graphics and music are way better on it and you can also use a mouse.

Same goes for Genghis Kahn btw

Some tips I havent read so far:
-A hero can use magic when his intelligence is 80 or higher
-Wizards can only use magic when the weather is clouded
-Heroes have a chance to directly hit an enemy hero when their dexterity is above 82 and they need 60 to shoot
- Almost every action a hero makes will give him experience
- When you try to recruit a hero and he refuses you will lose popularity this is why there are bones (took me a while to find out)
- In the beginning divide your heroes you can send heroes to an emptry country and they will build it for you it might help to set orders to internal affairs. Just dont stack your heroes in 1 country since you can only use 1 every month. Also when 1 heroes works all the others will gain +5 body (so the ideal number of heroes to build a country is 3)

Link for amiga emulator http://www.winuae.net/
If you cant find the game on google I can send it with email.

It is a shame that the pc version of this game is crappier than the amiga 500 version i still have somewhere. I remember some of the tunes and sound fx were really cool. (I think the graphics wer 256 colour too?) Awesome game as far as gameplay goes, really detailed, spent hours on this one once upon a time.

You can download the manual here:


http://vimmslair.com/


Enjoy!


:ok:

You receive the Imperial Edict with 255 popularity. If you play a western leader, then take over the west of the continent, you'll probably have the edict by the time you take over Prefecture 19. If you play a Eastern leader, you MUST have pref. 10/20 in order to make this work, as with most of the warring happens on the Eastern side of the map.

I think the fastest I've beat this game was in year 1115 scenario 5 welcome rain.

Being that you get the mountain lair automatically, I just waited until that happened then I fled to pref 13 and started building there.

Another way to get off to a fast start in Scenario 1 is ...

Make it a 5 player game, and have all of the bandits mass in pref 13 (or whatever state you wish). Follow these Steps (Note, the names are from the Nintendo Version)

1. Chose Hairy Priest, Tattooed Priest, Leopard Headed, Blue Face Beast, Nine Dragons. When selecting stats, always try to aim for the highest stats possible.

2. Take everybody and flee to Pref. 13 recruting all who will join you on the way. First person who gets there is usually Hairy Priest, and the last one is usually Blue Faced Beast.

NOTE: Red Eyed Lion, Hued Leopard, and Faceless will be obtained this way easily. Those bandits are usually key for setting up your 10 Bandit Prefecture for expansion.

3. Settle with Hairy Priest (after recruting Red Eyed Lion in Pref. 17) and begin hunting for food.

4. Settle with Tattooed Priest and achieve victory by duel. If Hairy Priest has higher strength than Tattooed Priest, then Tattooed Priest's abilities are all raised by 1.

5. Keep hunting for food and settle with your next Good Fellow. As he will usually have higher body than the guy who owns the Pref and will achieve victory easily.

6. Keep in mind, you won't be able to recruit any of the captured Good Fellows after victory, just imprision them. Once you get usually a popularity of 41, all but Leopard Headed will join you.

7. Keep doing this until the man you're ready to achieve victory with remains and all other players you used are imprisioned. Usually by the end of the first year or a few months into the second, this is complete and you can begin your expansion with your lower bandits like Faceless, Rabbit Spearer, Hued Leopard etc. I always move to 14 first to get Unstrung Bow and leave him in 14.

8. Expansion is pretty simple. Just leave Faceless in 13 and move around as you wish giving food until the popularity reaches 55 and then move to the next state. I usually leave those who arne't archerers, or who don't have a str of at least 70 or above.

9. By year 1106 or so, Chief Advisor makes his way to your country, you should have more than enough popularity to obtain him. He joins around 80 popularity.

10. Battle Axe comes in 1108 January. Same with him, 80 to recruit.

11. I was able to recruit Immortal Luo with a popularity of 350. I owned just about 30 of the states. He's not worth it, Wily Warrior is to me, the best Wizard in the game. He can expend 10 points of body during a battle and still be able to cast magic two times. Cloud Dragon can only expend 4, Great Intellect can not move without only casting magic once. War Scholar is good to recruit just to make sure that Evil Gao Qiu doesn't get him, but I usually leave him in a state by himself.

12. The best general in the game is Little Li Guang, and I usually work on getting him capable of using magic (intel 80). He's a one man force. Thunder Spark is good also.

Anyone know if map is available anywhere?? including attributes of each area (armury, boatyard, castles, etc) ??

Thanks.

This game is great, I've beaten it hundreds (if not thousands) of times and it never gets old. Here is some input:

Character stats:

Body: Affects how rested a hero is. Almost every performed by a hero takes body (some take a lot –such as invite to lair), and some restore body (such as feasting a resting). It should be noted that bandits recover 5 body per month if no action is performed (up to the maximum amount). When a bandit’s body gets too low he will refuse to do any commands that consume body. When a person’s body in battle drops below 10, he is basically comatose and cannot function until his body reaches 10 (it will increase by 2 each day).

Hint number 1: In battle, take advantage of bandits with low body. Put a fireball on a bandit if he has body that is below 10 or is dazzled from magic. Not only will his men die off, but the fireball will take away his regenerating body, making him absolutely helpless.

Strength: Primarily used for melee/charge command in battle; it is a significant factor in determining how many men you lose and how many men are lost from the opposing side. It is also the only stat that determines how effective a person is at the working flood/land/wealth. It is a secondary factor is the hunting command as well as going on an expedition.

Dexterity: Is the single stat that influences archery. A dexterity of a least 40 is required to extinguish fireballs. A dexterity of at least 60 is required for the archery command. A dexterity of 85 is required to have a chance to injure the bandit controlling an army in battle (reduce his body). This stat is also the primary stat in hunting and training. There is also a dexterity requirement for making ships/arms (don’t remember the numbers off hand). Dexterity along with wisdom is also used for the solicitation command.

Hint number 2: Take full advantage of bandits with 85+ dexterity. Even if the bandit does not have any men, still bring him if you have room. Although the amount of men that you kill with archery is dependent upon the number of men firing arrows, the chance to critically hit a bandit is not. A high dexterity bandit should shoot at people with 80+ wisdom first. It takes a minimum of 50 body to cast magic. If you can critically hit him a couple of times his body will probably drop below 50, effectively making the mage worthless. You can also target a very tough bandit. If you are lucky and critically hit him 3 or 4 times, he will be very low on body. The use of a fireball is then awesome.

Wisdom: This stat influences a number of things. First of all, a wisdom of 60 is required to make a fireball. A wisdom of 80 is required for magic (double range) and 90 for triple range magic. Wisdom also determines how a person is affected by magic. A higher wisdom rating will reduce the changes of being hit by magic, the amount of men lost in a successful magic attack, and the number of days that a bandit is dazzled by a successful magic attack. Wisdom also determines the percentage of provisions that are successfully delivered from a remote prefecture. As mentioned earlier, wisdom also helpful when using the solicitation command. There is also a minimum wisdom requirement for making weapons (again, I don’t remember the values off hand).

Personality traits:

There are 3 personality stats. They are important for several reasons. First of all, they determine attitudes of bandits toward you. The highest personality trait of a bandit is the most important one. If you are trying to recruit a bandit and his highest personality trait is lower than your personality trait, no penalty is imposed on recruiting him. If his highest personality trait is higher than your value, you receive a penalty for recruiting him.
This is hard to explain, so here is an example: You are Lu Zhi Shen, and you have sworn brotherhood with a bandit that has a personality of 88 courage, 72 mercy, and 63 intelligence. You are trying to recruit a person downtown who has stats of 60 courage, 51 mercy, and 69 mercy. The person’s highest stat is mercy which is 69; since this is his highest stat, he will value that above the other two (and value it solely as far as the game is concerned). Your mercy is only 63. Thus he will be slightly more reserved to be recruited by you. A person with a mercy of over 69 might be able to recruit this person downtown with a popularity of 30, but your brother who has a mercy of only 63 will might need for you to have a popularity of 45 before he can successfully recruit the person downtown. This effect dramatically increases as the difficulty lvl increases.

This personally effect is also seen with bandits loyalty. This time however, a bandit’s loyalty is affect by your stats and not your sworn brother’s stats. If your main characters mercy stat is above 69, your bandits loyalty will not decrease as fast.

Personality traits along with popularity affect the probability of inviting another bandit to your lair. If the hero being invited has a main personality stat that is lower than your personality value, he is more likely to accept your invitation. Note: this is only dependent on your main character’s personality, not the person that you send as the negotiator. Who you send makes no difference whatsoever.

Personality affects the ability to recruit a captured hero after a battle. If the captured bandit has a main personality value that is higher than the leader of your prefecture that was victorious in the battle, he will not accept your offer to recruit him
(no matter how popular you are). Once you imprison the bandit, normal recruitment procedures take effect.)

Finally, the personality of your main character as long as the personality of the personality of the leader that you are inviting to your lair is important. If his highest personally trait is higher than your trait, it can be very difficult to invite him to your lair. This is why it can be so difficult to invite Ling Chong or Li Kui to your lair.

This should explain why it is important for you and your sworn brothers should have high personality traits.

Here is a little information about each personality trait:

Courage: As far as I can tell there is no downside to having courage in the game (other than reducing the chance to decline duals in battle). Courage doesn’t really help in any meaningful way either.

Mercy: This personality trait does a few things. First of all it affects solicitation. Lower mercy values result in higher yields for Solicitation (Note: This is determined by the mercy of the commander of the prefecture, not the actual bandit doing the solicitation). A second nice factor of mercy is that gaining support in a prefecture is much easier. The downside of mercy is that it reduces the amount of gold/food a prefecture receives in January. A merciful leader will not take as many funds.

Hint number 3: Make use of the promote command, especially early on when resources are tight. Here is how it works: When one of your prefectures is not directly controlled by you or one of your sworn brothers, it is assigned a leader. If there is more than 1 bandit in the prefecture you can instantly change the leader of that prefecture with the promote command. In January, promote the bandit in that prefecture who has the highest mercy attribute. In December, promote a bandit who has a very low mercy attribute. This way, you will gain much support over the course of the year with a high mercy leader; at the same time you will get tons of gold and food in January by having a low mercy bandit in change when you get taxes from the people.

Integrity: This personality trait helps out training. The integrity of the leader of the prefecture is important, not the actual person doing the training. Integrities downside is that it decreases the effectiveness of feasting.

Ok, I realize that this is getting really long so I'll quit before I go through all the commands and then on to battle strategies.

If you are new to the game, you can try Scenerio 1, which can be terribly easy no matter which bandit you chose. If you are a vetran, you can make this scenio tough by settling on prefecture 29 or 30.

Scenerio 2 is significantly more interesting, but still quite easy. Song Yiang is good for a decent challenge. Again, if the game is too easy for you, avoid settling in easy areas (such as prefecture 2, 7, 13, etc) and try prefecture 4, 29, 30, 44 etc. Shi Jin and Chao Gai are good for beginners.

Scenerio 3 is a fun one indeed. Li Jun and Li Kui can be extremely fun because of their weak personalities and their poor starting position. Li Kui can settle at a whole host of cool places. Try prefectures 7, 33, 32, 36, 46 for a fun but not insanely difficult time. Playing Li Jun can be quite difficult until you've beaten the game a few times with him. Shi Jin and Chao Gai are again good for beginners.

Scenerio 4 This is a great scenerio in my opinion. Song Yiang is so powerful, it's impossible to lose with him. Li Ying is the real gem of this scenerio. He's surrounded and heavilly outgunned. This can be a fun challenge for a bandit kings vetran.

A few personal records:

The fastest that I've ever done in the game (without using any sort of cheats, ie. market exchange glitch, playing multiple players) is to beat Gao Qui in the year 1108. That was with Lin Chong, difficulty lvl 1 (obviously), and scenerio 1.

I have spent several of games focusing on developing specific characters. I have gotten Hua Rong's stats to:
100 dexterity
100 strength
92 wisdom

I have gotten Yang Zhi to:
100 dexterity
100 strength
81 wisdom

wow this is a class post. I was wondering if you knew what difference the difficulty level makes? (other than affecting the number of sworn brothers one could have)

The difficulty setting seems to do a number of things. First of all, you don't receive as much food/gold from your prefecture in January. The citizens roit more on more difficult settings and hereos with low loyalty are more likely to leave you. Another big thing is that often oppenents that you will face will more often maintain their armies with higher skill/arms values. It is also more difficult to recruit hereos that have a personality that is incompatible with yours. It aslo seems like floods/epidemics are more prevalent, but I'm not sure if those two things are all in my head, as I haven't recorded the frequency of these events to evaluate them for stastistical significance.

Hi all, this is also one of my all time favorite strategy game. First played it at around 1992 - 1994 when i was 11, i think. Sorry if I speak horrible engrish, since its a second lang to me. Some alternatives to you guys who cant get the game runs with DosBOX on winxp/2000 is to get a software that can install/set up a virtual machine in your winxp/2000 that loads win98, and runs the game with the virtual win98. OR, just set up a virtual x3/486 machine with old dos version like DOS 4.0 if you are critical on your harddrive's space.

The other way is to set up dual-boot on your machine, and install win98 as alternative to your main xp system. This is because win98 has DOS pre-installed, which required by KOEI's oldschool games to run. I did this several years ago, coz there were no dosBOX available around that era, so to speak. And, the win98 in my machine was loaded only to play the KOEI games, and other DOS base games.

Desperate way is to get a DOS installed in a 1.44" disk and boot your pc with it to play the game. YOu'll get the oldschool feel! :D
A:\KOEI.EXE [enter]

Last thing is, props to abandonia.com for hosting an awesome oldschool-classic-dosgame dl/forum/comunity/etc!! Back to the root of pc game! :ok:

hi the fastest i killed gao qiu was 1109, my brother beat this game in 1108.

here are two tricks for a fast game.

1. start in 1103 and take shi jin. you will start in 25. attack 24 in your first round. it is very easy to take 25. make chen da your brother. stay there with chen da and raise the support not higher than 50. take shi jin, recruit heros and send them to other prefectures. in just 3 years you will have the complete west under your control.

2. start in 1103 and take chao gai.
settle in 9.
first round: hunt for food
second round: attack pref. 6.
battle: flee with your heros to 4, 7 and 8 (not with you wizards). Now, there is no escape for yan shun, make magics with wu yong and gon sun sheng and after this make fireballs to burn down his army. you will win with just the wizards against yan shun (ca. 120 men). you will have pref. 4,6,7,8, and 9 after two months and with 6 a good pref + new heros after the fight.
let the wizards rest a lot and attack pref. 5 (anyone will settle there). attack this prefecture not the same year. wait to jan 1104, because of the gold and food in this prefecture. you will need it to build an army in 4 and 6. ...

one of the best games i had ever played.

have fun!
kobold

Just about one of the best gems ever from Koei along with RTK2.

Of most of the playable/controlled heroes

Shi Jin ranks as the best character stats wise
Followed I reckon with Yang Zhi, Lin Chong, Wu Song
then Lu Zhi Shen etc etc

The best overall stats Character is Hua Rong with his 96 dex.

Of course then there is Luo Zhen Ren who lets not fool ourselves isn't that good really. However he is probably the one in which you need like over 2xx popularity before you can recruit him.

Gong Shu Sheng + Wu Yong would probably serve you much better.

The key to win battle in this game is FIRE.
Get good fellow with Wisdom of 60+ and you can set fire.
Good fellow with Dexterity of 50+ can extinguish fire.
Have both of these fellows go into the battle, don't attack, just set fire to the enemy in the castle.
When your enemy escape from the castle, extinguish fire, and secure the castle.
Secure all castles for one turn and you will win.

This is my best strategy for this game.

I believe the imperial edict can be had by attaining a popularity of 250 for your hero. To see your heroes popularity go to view hero, by individual. You get 12 popularity points for every prefecture with over 40 support and 5 popularity points for every successful wild animal hunt that the citizens complain about. The 5 points is permanent but the 12 again is dependent on your support for that individual prefecture.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Borodin @ Jul 4 2005, 02:39 AM) [snapback]127240[/snapback]</div>

I have played this game over ten years ...... never feel boring (of course, I also play the other games) ...... I like use Linchong who is the best one of all fellows .......

how tough are the beasts compared to each other?
i always assumed, from weakest to strongest: wolf, leopard, tiger, bear.
but the manual doesn't say.

also, i have no idea about the numbers. for example, n wolves is as tough as one leopard?

how many men should i hire to hunt them down?

if anybody knows please share. i've been looking around and haven't found any info. thanks.

As I recall, it was wolf, bear, leopard, tiger. The more people you use for the hunt event, the more likely you'll be to succeed.

Great game, I played this last when I was about 13 or so. Loved it then, but I think (as has been stated) that the amiga version is better than the pc version in this instance. exactly same game play, just looks better!

This is such a great game but every sight on the internet I can download it from ends up being a non-color version. Does anyone know where I can get a color version? Black and white makes the game hard to play

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Fuji @ Mar 17 2007, 03:37 AM) [snapback]283945[/snapback]</div>The downloadable via this site is in colour ( on my PC ( Windows 98, Pentium II + MMX ) anyway ).
If you get it in Black & White it may be due to your system ( the game system requirements info. says that the game plays in B&W on CGA and in colour on EGA ). I presume CGA & EGA are to do with the graphics?

Yes. CGA/EGA are predecessors to VGA, SVGA and modern standards (XGA and whatever else there is now).

The problem with colors can be easily solved by using DosBox to run the game.

I found the answer, do not run install, but install dosbox, get it working , and run koei instead! dont you remember!

Hmm, I run Dosbox on my Mac and it gets me als only a B/W Graphic. Any Ideas?

I have found out that if you open the game using " >MAIN " rather than " >KOEI " you get into the game , but it is Black & White rather than Colour! I thought this may prove useful to someone.

I downloaded and unzipped the files but can't seem to be able to run the game. I get the same errors and don't have a dosbox anywhere. Any hints, please?

thanks

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Jul 10 2005, 09:56 AM) [snapback]129905[/snapback]</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest_noname_* @ Jun 6 2007, 01:10 AM) [snapback]293122[/snapback]</div>Of course you have DOSBox, it's right there on Abandonia's home page. To the left there is written in huge, friendly letters "UTILITIES", and below that a link to programs. Click it. You'll find DOSBox there.

Then I must insist you read the FAQ and all the readmes and topics here on this forum on how to set it up and use it.

I cant create a save file.

one the first page, there is just the error msg that i cannot create a file

I also cant save within the game as it says that i do not have a save file data.

anyone can help?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(shawn @ Jun 11 2007, 04:25 PM) [snapback]293915[/snapback]</div>Are you using DOSBox to run the game ?
If the Answer is "NO" Download from here, install and read the tutorial linked in the download page, the readme with the program and/or read here.

If the answer is "YES of course!" try to be more specific, because a problem like this never happen to me: using DOSBox with standard .conf, never i had this problem :blink:

EDIT : another thing, there is 4 executable file (INSTALL, KOEI, MAIN and OPEN) be sure to launch KOEI instead of the 3 other.

One of the greatest strategy game ever (and forever), I wondering... why Koei didn't make the Bandit King 2 just like ROTK :angry: !? It's more entertaining than ROTK and I play this game with my other brother and friend, and we so competitive to haunted Gao Qiu :titan: . My best regard to Mr. Shi Nai An (the creator of Water Margin) :kosta: .

This is one of my favorite games of all time. Perfect strategy game.

I am still playing on my mac in Classic mode with MAC OS 10.3...
Yes, with the original mac files i bought in 1990.
I hope there will be a classic on Intel Mac or in 10.5

How do you get the game to have color? It's hard to play without the color on the map to tell who owns what.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Oct 7 2007, 11:16 PM) [snapback]315142[/snapback]</div>Use DOSBox to avoid the problem : download the emulator here and, if needed, take a look at the newbie guide here or read the instruction in the readme file of DOSBox itself.

Finally, especially if you are alredy using DOSBox, be sure to launch the executable 'KOEI' instead of the other 3.

If all of this isn't helpfull, try to be more specific (like sistem in use, what do you do to run the game and so on) :)

war controls
 

I have been playing in the game with dos box no problem, but then when I go to war I can't do anything but move the first hero around. It won't let me place him. I tried every key on the keyboard. HELP PLEASE!!!

The 0 key(0/ins) on the keypad allows you to place the hero. The other keys on the keypad moves the heros in battle. If you are on a laptop like I am, enable number lock and then use the fn + key to simulate the 10-key needed to play the game.

HTH

Hi,

I can't get Bandit Kings to run.
I have installed DOSBox, as per instructions
I followed the game mount instructiins provided by Abandonia.
I folloed tips posted by others on this board.

When I get to
C:\>CD Bandit

it asks for the .EXE I type KOEI.EXE

DOSBox shows

C:\BANDIT>

What do I need to do next?

When you're in
C:\Bandit>
input dir /w and look up what you get.

C:\BANDIT>dir /w
Directory of C:\BANDIT\
[.] [..] [BANDIT] KOEI.EXE MAIN
2 File(s) 0 Bytes.
3 Dir(s) 262,111,744 Bytes free.




C:\BANDIT>

C:\BANDIT>

Something is obviously wrong there. You have 2 files (0 bytes??) and another [BANDIT] directory there. You could try C:\BANDIT\BANDIT> and see what you have there. But I suggest you re-download the game and use some proper file archiver (Winzip, Winrar) for extracting the files.

I don't know what you have done, but it's certainly not what I asked you to do, or you got the game from somewhere else..... there is no koei.exe in the AB game, it's koei.com.

Whatever, that's what dir /w should look like: (don't mind the mounts)
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/4247/koei.th.png

What you must do is:
Delete your old \bandit\ folder, it's worthless anyway,
Re-Download the archive if needed,
Extract the included \bandit\ folder in your virtual C:
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/6783/koei2.th.png
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/6316/koei3.th.png
(E:\games\ is the location of my virtual C: )
Remark: I unzip the archived folder in e:\games\ , not in e:\games\bandit\

Mount your virtual C: and

cd bandit
koei

That's it. Can't be that hard I think.
If you need an unzipper that will do the job without problems get yourself
7Zip.
Freeware and really good.

[Edit]
BTW, don't run install, the game is pre installed, ready to run in dosbox.

Hi Shawn, I'd just downloaded the game, having the same problem - cannot create save game - it was cancelled by the programme. Any solutions"?

hi Incappucciato,
Can you attache your koei.conf file, and the batch file to start? - I believe the problem with the creation of savegame is that the game insists on saving it in B: - now most computers no longer have a floppy drive. Please advice.

you can use a virtual floppy drive, are you using dosbox?

Hi R.U.S.S, yes, running from Dosbox. Tried to run dosbox from floppy - same problem - the game simply refuses to create the savedata file.

Formatted but otherwise empty floppy disk IMAGE mounted with IMGMOUNT as drive B.

*raising from the shadows*

Sorry but few months ago i'd buyed a new Pc and, at least for the moment, i haven't played (so downloaded) Bandit King. But i played the version of Abandonia, this means that if you had problem with it i think that even with my files the problem can't be solved :blush:

*returning on the shadows*

Working with DosBox
 

Two questions:

Is there any way to get sound for this game in DosBox?

Anyone know how to place my hero on a map? I can't seem to succeed at it. I'm using DosBox .73

There is no sound in the DOS version. :no:

If i remember well : type in number 3 and press Enter (option settle ... or something similar) and your hero will settle on the province in wich he is actually wandering.

Ref: Help!!! Cant create save disk!!!
 

Hi all!

I have the same problem as some of the other gamers are expriencing. Cant create save disk and save the games. I am using Dos box but the result is still the same. How am I able to create a drive for the game to be save? As the program prompts that I haven't create a save date file to the Hard disk drive. Can anyone help me on this!!!

Bandit Kings character/prefecture editor
 

Hi guys,
I've been a long term fan of this game since first playing it many years ago. Anyway I was bored one day and decided to write a program to edit the scenarios in Bandit Kings so that you can customize the characters and settings. I haven't tested it on anything but my PC but I thought I'd share it as I think it lets you enjoy the game in a different way. I've attached a copy to this post, or alternatively you can get the latest version from the link below.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~benands...BanditEdit.zip

It runs OK for me, but I haven't tested it thoroughly since I don't really play this game.

Great job, I wonder how did you reverse-engineer the data files--did you disassemble the executable? Although the interface could be a bit less dry, and choosing a particular record is hard.

It looks very useful, I think we could add it as an extra, so people can download it from the game page, if that's OK with you?

Sure no problem. Also I'm hoping to release a new version soon which will be able to edit more prefecture settings. Will let you know when its done.

OK, added :)

Hi Japo

Here's the new version of my editor, it can edit more prefecture settings and also has a (hopefully) better interface. Can you update the link on the game page to this new version please?

There's a bug in the website, that we can't remove extras. However I can perfectly add the new version too, and put some pressure on the techs (or not). Unless you plan to do more changes soon, then we could wait?

Hi, I'm not planning any more changes at this stage.

Done

Save Solution
 

SAVING:

Create a "b" drive by doing the same thing you did for your "c" drive. Then set it in the save menu. It will now save.

Hope this helps!

problem with bandit kings
 

Hi evryone,
I do not if there is anyone left here but I have retrieved that game that I loved playing 20 years ago. I have opened with DOS BOX and no problem... until I went to war where no key works (INS/0 and all others) to place the hero on teh battlefied. The keys to move on the battlefield did however work but I can install the hero. Any tip?

The 0 key on the keypad places the hero.

For those unable to save the game.

Remember to select 3. Create save game disk at the start screen BEFORE starting a new game.

BKAC Editor bugs
 

I know this post is really old, but I just downloaded this editor today and found that when I changed the name of the starting heroes and select them to play their prefectures have changed to Gao Qui's and they are no longer playable. The AI is just playing the game... Is there a reason for this?

screenshots
 

Hi i have ripped all charather screenshots from this game Bandit kings of ancient china.

rips are from amiga platform and can be found on my homepage

www.stjernfall.se/bandits