Sangokushi Legion

Sangokushi Legion (三國志レギオン) is a free-to-play Romance of the Three Kingdoms mobile game and one of the projects that celebrates the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Kou Shibusawa brand. It was originally one of the projects scheduled to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series. Micro-transactions are used to purchase Hermit Gems, the in-game currency for limited rare gacha roulettes and other paid content.

Kazuhiro Echigoya is the producer. The social game was first announced during Koei Tecmo's Network Business Strategy Conference in 2014 with Guruguru Dungeon Nobunyaga, but this game's development was stalled due to programmer reassignments and design disagreements. Design keywords for this game are "metal strike" and "fantasy" to better distinguish itself from the company's other Three Kingdoms themed works. Wei characters have the most metallic designs, Shu characters wear natural materials like fur or feathers, and Wu characters expose the most skin due to living in the warmer southern regions of China.

The gameplay greatly resembles Sega's Sangokushi Taisen series.

Services ended on October 6, 2017.

Plot
During the Yellow Turbans Rebellion, the immortal hermits Zuo Ci and Hua Tuo tire of the constant warfare harming the human realm. They entrust the protagonist, a nameless player avatar who befriends the hermits, to pose as a wandering strategist to several warlords while searching for other hermits. Their goal is to find a hero who is worthy of ending the wars. The overall narrative roughly follows events as they occur in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Gameplay
Before battle, the player must create a battalion of generals. Five battalions can be created, but only one can be used for battle. The maximum amount of characters per battalion is five, and they must fit within the 30 cost limit. Cost ratings are often higher for the stronger characters, so it is up to the player to balance between using them or common characters. The auto formation option (おまかせ) gives the player randomized battalions that fit the cost with characters they currently possess.

The player can choose to fight battles in either Story (the main story against AI opponents) or Versus (PvP). Each battle costs energy to start which is set by the player's castle level (avatar level). If the player levels up their castle, their energy will be restored or stacked upon their current amount. Energy can be restored by using Hermit Gems or by waiting. It takes three minutes of real time to restore one energy.

For each battle, each participant is placed on opposing sides of a battlefield. Each side has a gate to their headquarters and two camps in the field. Characters are used to defend either structure. Victory is achieved by weakening the gate's resilience, which is noted at the top of the battle screen, within the time limit.

Story battles must be won by completely overwhelming the enemy's headquarters. Versus battles are ended by either bludgeoning the gate down or by having the healthiest headquarters when time runs out.

Camps are currently positioned next to a player's gate. A character from either side can claim it simply by moving on top of it. Any character who is on top one of their camps will have higher defense against enemy attacks and will gradually restore their lost troops. One ally camp restores one slot of the command gauge every fifteen seconds. The command gauge—the yellow gauge at the bottom of the battle screen—can be used to bypass countdown timers for defeated characters or to use officer strategies, the bottom left-hand circular icon.

Orders are done by tapping on an individual character portrait and dragging it to a target destination. Certain officer strategies requires the player to highlight a character and aim the direction of their officer strategy in order to activate it. Characters who are still in the base can march if their icon is normal; it will take a few seconds for characters to advance into the field. Any enemy unit within a character's attack range will be attacked automatically.

Two or more characters can potentially join their units together. Drag a character icon over another character's icon to make them a vice commander. All five characters can potentially combine into a single unit. Unless the character has the "Vice Commander" special skill, this will consume a portion of the command gauge that is based on a character's cost. The leader will be granted a substantial troop number and military boost if the fuse is successful. Immediate drawbacks include the loss of characters to dispatch and the instant defeat of all characters within a combined unit should a single character within it fall in battle. Vice commanders also can't use their officer strategies while participating in a combined unit.

Should the player desire, orders can be set to manual, semi-auto, or auto. Semi-auto lets players decide when to use their battalion's officer strategies. Auto will decide everything for the player. In either order type, the player can still direct their characters to their liking. Zooming in can be done by pinching the screen; zooming out is done by spreading fingertips out.

If the player loses Story battles, they can pay 50 Hermit Gems to instantly continue. All ally units will be rejuvenated and the command gauge will be maxed out at twelve slots. Battle positions of all units will remain the same as they were before the continue.

Versus battles are live battles between two randomly selected players. Fame, gold, gacha tickets, and strengthening maidens are given to whoever wins. Losers may gain fame and gacha points. Fame can raise a player's rank; one rank gives the player Hermit Gems based on their awarded rank. If one player quits the game or if their connection is lost during the match, they automatically forfeit and the remaining player will receive the standard victory benefits. The player can review battalion tactics from battle replays that are collected each hour or from their own battle history.

Related Media
The Twitter campaign gave voice actor autographs at different intervals. Autographs are from Ayana Taketatsu (Sun Shangxiang), Tomokazu Sugita (Liu Bei), Katsuyuki Konishi (Zhuge Liang), and Tomokazu Seki (Cao Cao). Three lucky participants could win for each voice actor.

Koei-Tecmo sponsored Japanese Let's Player Gunisuke to create a let's play video regarding this game. It's done in the uploader's typical yukkuri jikkyou style.