Evidently me posting stuff did not come to fruition. To be honest, tutorial stuff and painstakingly taking screenshots and trying to remember what to grab while on a timer and then labelling them got tedious after some time, and I’m more interested in the strategy side of Sanguosha. Of course, that’s because I’m afforded the privilege of knowing how to read Mandarin. But whatever, I decided I’m going to post whatever I like even if people can’t understand it because of a lack of the foundation I so wanted to provide.
So if you’re interested in things you might not understand, read ahead. Fair warning, it’s long.
Perhaps what is the greatest uncertainty in Sanguosha is the cards. Whose cards? For one, everyone else’s cards, whether they are friend or foe, because you are simply not allowed to see them. That is in the moment, a slice of the present. But there is also another uncertainty in cards: the future cards. Under normal circumstances (usually without activating character abilities), you don’t know your friends’/enemies’ future cards, what the future judgement card will be, heck, even your own. Yet cards can change everything. Even a single card can turn the tide of the battle dramatically, and I am not exaggerating, which is why people can be so desperate to prevent their enemies from drawing cards.
However, we can know something about cards, present or future. Present cards of others can be revealed (e.g. 火攻, keeping track of what people draw and discard), and future cards can be guessed. We know the card deck; it is the same for every game of that mode, though it may differ across modes. ATTACK【杀】is the most common card; there are more ATTACK【杀】s than DODGE【闪】s in the card deck; there is only one card for each weapon, except for the Repeating Crossbow【诸葛连弩】of which there are two in all modes save Kingdom Wars; etc. Knowing this information, we can make informed guesses or outright gambles, whichever way you put it.
What cards do you keep at the end of each turn? What cards do you discard to activate an ability? When do you discard which card? When do you choose to exchange your health for cards, and when do you not? Should you always Dodge the Attacks thrown at you?
For less advanced players, the answers may be simple. You keep defensive cards (Dodge, Peach, Negate) at the end of your turn. You discard cards you have in excess to activate an ability, and if you have none of that you discard “useless” cards like Lightning and Harvest. Always sell your blood unless you’re going to die, or alternatively, never sell your blood because you don’t want to die. Always Dodge Attacks.
But sometimes the gamble is too enticing. You have to choose between certainties and uncertainties - certainties of sacrifice, uncertainties of the reward to be attained.
I recall a 1V1 game long ago where I played Huang Gai, who can lose 1 health to draw 2 cards. In one turn I had many ATTACKs in my on-hand cards, and to bypass the usual limit of one Attack per turn, I would want to equip the Repeating Crossbow. I realised it was near the end of the card deck, and I hadn’t seen the Repeating Crossbow either equipped or discarded. Maybe it was in my opponent’s on-hand cards or I didn’t notice it, but I decided to gamble and activate Huang Gai’s ability. Fortunately, my gamble paid off and I drew the Repeating Crossbow and slaughtered my opponent. Yet it wasn’t without risk, because if I failed I would be left with many ATTACKs I couldn’t use and potentially only 1 health, i.e. one stab away from death. The certainty was my loss of health, the uncertainty was the cards I would draw.
Yet, gambling doesn’t always pay off. Today, I played a 2V2 game (event, so they put in some new rules) as Xu Chu, the Breaking Boundaries version. Thanks to my partner Cao Rui, I could use an additional ATTACK for potentially devastating damage. At some point, I decided to discard an ATTACK to activate an ability (not part of Xu Chu’s regular abilities, btw), thinking I would be able to draw another one and that DODGEs are more valuable. Unfortunately, that did not happen, and my intended target, Li Ru, survived. My partner called me out for this mistake. I had traded the certainty of having two ATTACKs for the certainty of having a DODGE and the uncertainty of drawing another ATTACK, and it was not right. But hindsight is 20/20, one might say. Well, I don’t quite know either, but I can make some hypotheses.
2V2 is typically short, so you don’t have to think so hard about the long term. You kill those two people you already know to be your enemies, you win. If both you and your partner dies, both of you lose. So perhaps it wasn’t as important to keep that DODGE when I still had a good amount of health, and it was more important to finish off Li Ru, who posed a threat to Cao Rui. (If you want elaboration, you can ask. You can also pm me for a recording.)
However, you’re on a time limit, and it’s annoying to be kept waiting. That’s why experience is important, so these things come to your mind much more quickly and automatically than if you’re fresh to them.
Yet, these uncertainties, alongside the hundreds of playable characters, also make Sanguosha have so much replay value. It’s what makes it challenging but also gratifying to win, knowing you have succeeded despite all the unknowns. And in my opinion, an even greater uncertainty in Kingdom Wars makes that mode even more exciting: the uncertainty of what characters the players have. But that’s for another day. Maybe I’ll post more in the future, but that’s uncertain too.
TL;DR Stuff that is applicable to many games.
