Romance of the Three Kingdoms XII

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XII brought the Koei series another graphical and systemic transformation - the hexagonal map of the previous installment was replaced by smoother, less structured battlefields, and the game focused on making the controls accessible to a wider audience, including releases on consoles and in a touch version for tablets, which was a fairly unusual decision for a traditionally PC-oriented series and a sign of an effort to reach casual players as well.

Once again the player takes on the role of a ruler of a Chinese territory and deals with a similar mix of economic management, diplomacy and military affairs as in earlier installments, but the twelfth entry simplifies a number of systems in favor of a faster pace of play and a clearer user interface that can also be controlled by touch. The turns of individual states pass faster than before, and the game puts more emphasis on short, easy-to-follow sessions suitable also for players who do not have time for campaigns lasting dozens of hours. Battles emphasize the personal abilities of generals and their so-called tactics, that is, special abilities usable directly in combat, which shifts the emphasis from the pure numerical superiority of armies toward the more distinctive personalities of individual commanders and their individual strengths.

The reception of the twelfth installment was more mixed among longtime fans of the series than for previous entries - they appreciated the effort at modernization and accessibility, but many of them missed the depth and complexity they were used to from earlier installments with a more elaborate economic layer. Even so, Romance of the Three Kingdoms XII remains an interesting experiment that showed the direction in which Koei tried to open the series to new players outside the traditional circle of historical strategy fans, even at the price of a temporary departure from the deeper simulation, to which the series returned in the very next installment, released several years later and with a noticeably larger amount of content.