

Life is a rich tapestry and human history is full of interesting times, but the Three Kingdoms period stands out thanks to Luo Guanzhong’s novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

It takes its name from the division of China into an uneasy three-way split, which then imploded spectacularly, largely because people are people. “Three Kingdoms” is the historical shorthand name for a period of about 60 years in Chinese history when the Han dynasty collapsed and everyone decided to get a piece of the pie for themselves. Nevertheless I’m here today to talk about Romance of the Three Kingdoms 13 because I’m a great big old Three Kingdoms nerd. I’m not very good at or experienced with strategy games. I’ve not played any of the previous 12 games. I haven’t finished the game successfully even once. I found it very difficult to start playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms 13 - and then, as with so many strategic simulator sandboxes of this kind, I found it very difficult to stop.

Why would anyone do this to themselves? And while we're asking questions, how do we stop?
