Do I understand military strategy better than Zhuge Liang? Reenacting the Battle of Hanzhong in "Rule the Land": 99% of players are no match for Ma Su!

Mentioning Three Kingdoms strategists, Ma Su under Zhuge Liang’s leadership often brings regretful thoughts. This officer, versed deeply in military texts and eloquent in speech, once offered the ingenious "attack the mind first" plan during Zhuge Liang’s southern expedition and was once nurtured by the Chancellor as a future heir.

However, fate played a cruel trick: in his first solo command at Jieting, Ma Su ruined Shu Han’s northern offensive entirely, becoming synonymous with "all talk, no action."

But is history really that simple? Could the great strategist Zhuge Liang have misjudged so badly? Was Ma Su truly incompetent?

In the historic Battle of Jieting, Ma Su abandoned the conventional strategy of camping on the main road and insisted on setting up camp on the southern hill, reasoning that "holding the high ground would be like unstoppable bamboo breaking through."

From a tactical viewpoint, Ma Su’s judgment was actually quite accurate; controlling the high ground is a classic military principle. His mistake lay in overlooking one critical factor—water supply. War isn’t about short-term gains but prolonged struggle; without steady logistics and fresh water, even the strongest troops cannot maintain fighting effectiveness.

This led to Zhang He’s forces surrounding the mountain and cutting off water, causing the Shu army to collapse without battle and Zhuge Liang to tearfully execute Ma Su in a famous scene.

For players who have never experienced real warfare, we like to simulate classic battles and ask: what if? What if Ma Su had solved the logistics issue and used the terrain advantage to strike decisively—could history have been rewritten?

"Rule the Land," a decade-deep SLG game rooted in Three Kingdoms history, provides an answer with its new "Battle of Hanzhong" season.

In the game, the new season’s map is faithfully reconstructed based on real geography: Qinling and Daba Mountains flank the Hanzhong basin, with the Han River winding through, and roads narrow like chokepoints. Troops can no longer advance in straight lines but must move step-by-step through valleys, plank roads, and slopes. You’ll find that while holding the high ground grants a morale boost called "unstoppable bamboo," ignoring control of passageways will leave those troops cut off from supplies—morale steadily drops and combat effectiveness sharply declines.

At this point, no matter how elite your generals and soldiers are, you cannot reverse the tide of defeat.

Additionally, the new season of "Rule the Land" introduces the "Five-Color Command Flags" system. Each day, 10 random flags must be allocated among three goals: grain storage, taxation, and recruitment; placing three flags of the same color triggers a multiplier effect.

This gameplay isn’t a simple "match-three" puzzle; it forces players to focus on the coordination between logistics and strategy: should you prioritize stockpiling grain for a war of attrition? Or recruit troops quickly for a decisive battle? Or increase taxes to prepare for emergencies?

This directly responds to Ma Su’s "theoretical only" approach—a great commander should not be obsessed with tactical details alone; the real battlefield tests effective resource allocation and strategic vision.

When your allies fight for Dingjun Mountain on the front lines, you might need to sacrifice personal glory to focus on rear support; when Cao Cao’s army approaches, you may have to temporarily abandon certain high grounds to keep supply lines open. Such trade-offs truly reflect the reality of the Battle of Hanzhong and the entire Three Kingdoms era.

Of course, the tragedy Ma Su caused at Jieting was also related to his pride and poor interpersonal skills.

During the Battle of Jieting, he failed to coordinate effectively with his deputy Wang Ping and did not cooperate with nearby allied forces, leading to his defeat in detail by Zhang He. In contrast, Liu Bei’s success in Hanzhong relied on uniting Zhang Lu’s remnants to form a pincer attack against Cao Cao.

The new alliance diplomacy system in "Rule the Land" deeply recreates the diplomatic wisdom of the Three Kingdoms period’s "vertical and horizontal alliances."

At the start, all alliances are neutral; even if secretly allied, without declaring friendship within the system, encounters still trigger combat. Declaring friendship shares vision but exposes troop deployments.

When to reveal your hand? When to conceal strength? Just like the alliances of the Three Kingdoms, victory belongs not to the strongest army but to the commander who masters diplomacy.

Honestly, although many mock Ma Su for being all talk, if we had the chance to travel back to the Three Kingdoms, we might not grasp the terrain advantage any better than he did.

Ultimately, Ma Su didn’t lose because he lacked knowledge of military strategy, but because he didn’t understand warfare itself. Many SLG players today are like modern Ma Su, obsessed with stacking troop numbers while neglecting terrain, logistics, and diplomacy—those hidden factors that decide victory or defeat.

In contrast, "Rule the Land" has adhered to one principle for ten years: the core fun of SLG lies not in pay-to-win, but in strategic competition. The Battle of Hanzhong season pushes this concept to the extreme. Through authentic terrain, logistics systems, and diplomatic mechanics, it lets players think like true Three Kingdoms commanders.

By the way, this season also offers generous rewards.

Participate now in the "Grain Collection and Army Raising" event—if the whole server meets the donation target, you’ll receive 200 Tiger Tokens and 100 General Orders; dynamic portraits of Cao Cao’s "Poetry with a Spear" and Liu Bei’s "Peace Under the Ear" will be available for a limited time at just 2880 Jade Tokens; and by joining the "Flag Raising and General Slaying" sharing event, you can even win exclusive Palace Museum Tang Dynasty collaboration merchandise.

On the Hanzhong battlefield in "Rule the Land," when real terrain constraints, pressing logistical challenges, and complex diplomatic struggles confront you, will you be the boastful Ma Su, or the hero Huang Zhong standing atop Dingjun Mountain, rewriting Shu Han’s destiny?