Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV guide: Secret officers and custom characters

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV (RTK 14) lets you unlock secret officers such as Liu Bang, the founder of the Han Dynasty when you complete certain scenarios. Additionally, you can create countless custom officers and warriors. This guide covers secret officer unlocks and character/officer creation.

Note: For more information, check out our Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV guides and features hub.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV: Unlockable secrets

Several secret officers can be unlocked when you beat Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV‘s scenarios. These include the aforementioned Liu Bang as well as his rival Xiang Yu. Ying Zheng/Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, is also unlockable. Here are the various unlocks per scenario:

• Yellow Turban Rebellion: Liu Bang
• Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalition: Han Xin
• Warlords: Xiang Yu
• Battle of Guandu: Yu Ji
• The Three Visits: Kong Qiu
• Assault on Hanzhong: Lu Shang
• Chu Shi Biao: Ying Zheng
• Gathering of Heroes: Yue Fei

Officer creation

Speaking of talented officers, Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV has several free DLCs that you can obtain. The Ancient Officers pack and the Atelier Ryza pack provide historical officers from other periods or anime-themed characters.

If you want even more characters to join the fray, Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV lets you create your custom officers from scratch. Many of the concepts have already been detailed in our empire management guide and combat guide, so we suggest you give those a look. Still, we’ve got some helpful tips for you.

Doctrine/Policy

For your custom faction leader, pick the “Noble” doctrine to have a balanced set of administrative policies. Select “Strengthened Armed Forces (level 5)” as your policy. Additional created officers should have support and domestic policies.

Tactics

Though you can select multiple tactics, only three can be active when you march out (depending on the formation). Tactics are divided into those that use STR or INT, and they’re either used to deal direct damage or cast buffs and debuffs.

You could opt to have hard-hitting attack skills such as “War God” (Guan Yu’s) or “Enemy of All” (Zhang Fei’s). Similarly, there are tactics like “Brocade Assault” (applies the disorder status) and “Great Peace Magic” (applies all status effects and replenishes wounded troops).

Formations

As mentioned in our Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV combat guide, some army formations tend to be useful throughout the campaign. The speed of the Awl formation is great for beelining for cores and cities (though you can’t use tactics), the Crane formation lets you occupy more hexes as you advance, and the Arrow formation has the highest damage output. Give some of your custom officers Ram formations to aid you when capturing gates.

Traits

You can select up to five traits, and you’ll see my selections in the image below:

Those are for generals who’ll be on the battlefield often. However, many of your officers should stay in cities to continue development. You can pick traits such as “Lawful/Cornerstone” (public order), “Tax Collector/Wealthy” (gold), and “Agriculturist/Harvester” (supplies).

Also, give your ruler the “Chronicler” trait; other officers should get the “Scholar” trait and a doctrine that matches your ruler’s. These will increase the amount of doctrine experience earned.

Bonds

Don’t forget to assign relationships for all your created officers. Sworn siblings, relatives, children, and spouses all provide benefits to tactic activations via links.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV is available via Steam. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.