Producer Kazuhiro Echigoya from Koei Tecmo gave more details about Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV‘s upcoming Diplomacy and Strategy Expansion Pack in an interview with 4Gamer. The add-on, and the Nintendo Switch port of the game, were revealed on August 24, 2020.
As a series first, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV expansion pack will add four major Eurasian nations that the Chinese factions can trade with; namely, these are the Roman Empire, the Parthian Empire, the Kushan Empire, and India. But Geographical Advantage is the biggest new feature that also determines who can trade with these nations. The opportunity to contact the nations will only be available by conquering certain provinces.
For example, the faction that controls the southern Jiao Province can trade with India and obtain war elephants, while the owner of Luoyang will get the privilege to interact with Rome. You also need to send an officer who excels at diplomacy as an emissary in order to quickly build relationships with the nations.
The five nearby foreign tribes: Wuhuan, Xianbei, Qiang, Shanyue, and Nanman, will return again in this expansion. As with their prior appearances, players can choose whether to conquer or ally with them. But just like foreign empires, factions will need to control specific territories to unlock diplomacy with these tribes, such as Liang Province for the Qiang tribe or You Province for Wuhuan.
The foreign tribes are very powerful and they can raid any factions that don’t have a non-aggression pact with them, turning controlled lands back to neutral. However, they will be susceptible to ploys and status ailments, due to their low Intelligence stats. Conquering these tribes is also possible, but is not required as part of the main objective to unify China.
War Chronicles is a new mode added with the Expansion Pack that highlights famous battles in the Three Kingdoms era, such as the Battle of Guandu. Maps and features in this mode are abridged so that players can focus on clearing the battle objectives. Scenarios in this mode can be cleared in a short time—around 3 hours at most—and a score will be given at the end for players to compete for high scores.
Finally, Echigoya also talked about the new release of Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV for Nintendo Switch that will come bundled with the expansion pack. It will have a touchscreen control support and the autosave feature is also quicker, so it becomes much easier to play the game on the Switch.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIVÂ Diplomacy and Strategy Expansion Pack Bundle will be released this Winter for the PC, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. The base strategy game is currently available on the PC and PS4, and it has shipped over 300 thousand copies worldwide.
