When Monopoly meets the Three Kingdoms.
The Millionaire of 3 Kingdoms is a series of computer board games developed by Taiwanese company T-Time Technology. The gameplay is similar to the classic Monopoly board game, but being based on the Three Kingdoms, it also has a lot of tweaks: Like the Monopoly game, you roll a dice (or a wheel) to move across the board, though instead of directly purchasing a town you'll be investing in generals and armies into the town to occupy it. When you step into an opponent's town, you can also choose to refuse to pay the rent and engage the opponent into a duel battle or an army battle, and walk away free if you win. If you are well-prepared, you can even try to take down the whole town by force! However, should you lose, you will have to pay more rent, and if you can't afford the rent, one of your generals will leave. Your goal is to defeat all other opponents by forcing their generals to leave them and make them go bankrupt.
Games in the series:
- The Millionaire of 3 Kingdoms (DOS, 1994)
- The Millionaire of 3 Kingdoms 2 (DOS, 1998)
- The Millionaire of 3 Kingdoms 3 (Windows, 2002)
- The Millionaire of 3 Kingdoms 4 (Windows, 2004)
- The Millionaire of 3 Kingdoms 5 (Windows, 2008)
The games from M3K2 through M3K5 were re-released for Steam, with M3K2 being released as an Updated Re Release made with the Unity engine. The other games get some adjustments as well.
See also Three Kingdoms Story, a series of Turn-Based Strategy games created by the same company.
Tropes:
- Absurdly High Level Cap: The games tend to end before your generals reach level 10. Most games have a level cap much higher than that, with some people recently discovering that in M3K5 your level can exceed 100 for example.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: In the waiting room, generals that are friendly towards you can often beg you to hire them when clicked on. In M3K5, you can also try to do this to generals to appeal them.
- All the Worlds Are a Stage: In most games, the largest map is called "The Whole Country", which is a very large map with most of the major cities. It's also the final stage of the Story Mode (which is called "Ruling the World"), and you typically fight against the other two masters plus another character there.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: In M3K4 and M3K5, you can't bring all generals with you, you can only bring some and leave the rest in the waiting room or deploy them in a town. You can change your party formation in a town or the waiting room.
- Artistic License – History: Sometimes, a general's relationship or stats don't match what they actually had during the real history. For example, Guo Jia, a general who has never participated in any water wars, has his water stat being his best stat in M3K5.
- Art-Shifted Sequel: M3K5 has a very different artstyle from the previous games: while the first four games already have these ancient Chinese characters in more cartoonish styles than most of the Three Kingdom-themed works, in the fifth game most characters look like teenagers with identical faces and hairs in different colors, and some of them even wear animal suits. The story is also quite bizarre, like Sun Quan trying to rule over the world for a contract so he'd be an Idol Singer when he constantly stutters in his speeches.
- Back from the Dead: Starting in M3K3, you can revive generals that have died for some gold in the clinic. You can even revive generals that didn't belong to you before, though some generals can only be revived by masters they're loyal to.
- Battle Cry: Generals can choose to participate in army battles directly in M3K4 and go fight enemy soldiers themselves. When doing so, they can unleash a battle cry to kill some enemy soldiers with each use, and generals with a specific battle cry ability can unleash multiple battle cries in one battle.
- Betting Mini-Game: There are casinos on the map where you can bet money on dices, chess pieces or horses for money. In M3K4, you can additionally buy items in horse racing to help your horse win and earn more or just to hinder your opponents.
- Boring, but Practical: In 5, some pets' abilities are simple, but useful:
- The "patch" or "comfort" ability restores some health for one of your generals. They trigger fairly frequently for your generals to stay healthy unless your pet has low health.
- The "dig", "collect" and "stunt" abilities give you cards, resources and gold respectively. The latter two are especially helpful, since a pet with the collect ability will basically nix the need to occupy a resource spot, and stunt gives around 3,000 gold for each use for a fairly high chance.
- Cast from Hit Points: To use a card, you have to select a general and they'll spend some of their HP depending on the card to use it. The higher their intelligence is the better the effects will be.
- Copy Protection: If your copy of M3K5 detects itself as a pirated copy, generals will level up much slower than usual, and you'll encounter the random event where you get fined for playing pirated M3K a lot.
- Deadpan Snarker: A lot of the dialogues and even the game's messages can be quite snarky, like the game calling your general a Dirty Coward for refusing to accept a challenge.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- In the first two games, you can sell your soldiers for gold. Since soldiers' prices may vary, this actually makes a very good way of gold income.
- Also in the first two games, towns don't have a specific terrain type and army battles use a random tarrain stat.
- In the second game, you can occupy a town without assigning a general to it. If a town has no generals, they won't be able to charge opponents rents, and opponents can either ignore the town or take it down. In later installments, withdrawing or killing all generals in a town will cause its owner to lose it.
- Fake Special Attack: It's possible for a general to unleash a joke attack as their Limit Break that has an animation of a crow twirling in the air and falling down, dealing Scratch Damage to the opponent. Sometimes it has names like "The Mighty Phoenix".
- Game Over: Losing in story mode will show an additional cutscene that acts like this, like a screen with injured armies in the background and descriptions on what happens to your master and your kingdom after your lose, or your master cleaning up the game board or being imprisoned.
- Have a Nice Death: In M3K4, when a master loses, a comedic message will appear describing how they died, like being mauled by a bear, Driven to Suicide after being caught reading porn or being hit by shooting stars. In M3K5 this only happens if the master dies and not when they go bankrupt, as the message will simply say that they are broke when the latter happens.
- Idiot Crows: Literally the animation of your general's joke attack.
- Infinity +1 Sword: Once a game, when you buy all the weapons in the weapon shop at once, special weapons like the magical cudgel will show up. They're the actual strongest weapons in the game.
- In-Game Banking Services: There is a bank on the map that allows you to deposit and withdraw gold, while giving interests based on your deposit. You can't directly use the gold in the bank to pay for stuffs, but the gold there is also safe from being stolen by card or event effects.
- Instant-Win Condition:
- In M3K2, you can also win by occupying all towns on the map.
- In M3K5, no matter what the current winning condition is, you'll always win after finishing a landmark.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: In duel battles, generals will run away if their HP is low enough, and every general has their own runaway HP value. However, if an enemy's attack is far too powerful, it's also possible for a general to die (unless they have certain abilities; in fact, one of the ability is to make a general not to run away until they have no HP AND not die from the attack either).
- Lady of War: M3K3 introduces female generals that can kick asses just as hard as male generals do. They even have their own Noblewoman's Laugh instead of the typical male laughing sound.
- Lethal Joke Character: Liu Shan is this in M3K4 and M3K5. In M3K4 his stats are mostly low, but he has a very good intelligence growth, and he is one of the only two characters that can use the "Guest to Host" item (which lets you occupy a town directly). In M3K5, all of his stats have good growth.
- Limit Break: Starting from M3K3, in duel battles, generals have a limit bar that, when filled, will allow them to unleash a special attack.
- Luck-Based Mission: Every general has a specific chance for unleashing certain kinds of Limit Break, so it's possible for a strong general like Guan Yu (he has quite a high chance to use the bird attack for his strength, actually!) to lose against a weaker one if he gets too unlucky and unleashes too many weak attacks. The same goes for army battles, since the traps and army formations are randomly generated.
- Magikarp Power:
- Liu Bei generally has this playstyle; while he starts with the fewest generals and below average gold and soldiers in most games, many of his signature generals are some of the best generals in the game, and he also has good luck stats so he is more likely to accumulate resources by moving.
- Liu Shan in M3K5 starts with terrible stats across the board, but they all have very good growth, and after leveling him up for some levels he'll actually be decent at least.
- Obvious Rule Patch: You can't revive generals that are hostile towards you in the clinic, so that you can't just get anyone with 3k gold.
- Promoted to Playable: Some characters initially appear as enemy NPCs and become playable masters in later installments, like Dong Zhuo was only an enemy NPC occupying some towns in the first game, but is a master from M3K2 onwards. In M3K5, even some generals become playable, like Zhuge Liang the Squishy Wizard (so you don't need to worry about him being shot dead by arrows anymore!), Zhao Yun the Magic Knight, and more, and they can continue to appear as generals if they aren't a master in a run.
- Regenerating Health: Generals slowly recover their health outside of battles.
- Roll-and-Move: You roll one or two dice, a wheel or a slider with a marble to move.
- RPG Elements: In these games, your generals are like "traditional" RPG party members and can engage in battles, level up and equip various equipments.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: With the exception of some generals that will only ever be loyal to their master, most generals can appear in the waiting room for you to hire even if they're hostile towards you (indicated by them insulting you if you click on them and them usually listing themselves for obscene prices). You can hire them anyways if you have enough gold (to their annoyance), and they'll serve you normally afterwards.
- Secret Art: In M3K4, some items are exclusive to certain generals, usually very powerful ones.
- Secret Character: In M3K3, Himiko will only be playable in Free Mode after you beat the Story Mode with any master, where she appears during the final stage.
- Shout-Out: One of the secret weapons in M3K3 is Sun Wukong's magical cudgel. It also returns in later games as a common (and weaker) weapon.
- The Smurfette Principle: In the later three games, the final stage pit Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Sun Quan and a female master against each other instead of Dong Zhuo (who would be fought early on): Himiko in M3K3, Princess Longcui in M3K4 and either her or Lady Zhurong in M3K5. Himiko and Princess Longcui are also the only female master in their respective games, though they have a handful of female generals that can also join other masters' team.
- So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: If a general leaves your team or dies, they take their equipment(s) with them.
- Stop Poking Me!: Shopkeepers do not like you clicking on them too much in their shops and will tell you to stop if you do.
- Take That!: The 2022 Steam re-release of M3K3 and M3k4 adds a few references to more recent world trends and events, such as a town having a population increase after same sex marriage is allowed, or your general catching coronavirus and losing some HP.
- Trap Master: In M3K3, you can assign a counsellor during an army battle to set traps on the battlefield to kill enemies. In M3K4, it's the general doing this instead, with a higher intelligence allowing for more traps to be placed. The traps can even damage the enemy general if they choose to join in the fight themselves.
- Undying Loyalty: Some generals will be firmly loyal to one master and won't even appear in the waiting room for other masters to hire. They're also the last to leave your party if you are losing.
- Video Game Stealing: Some generals have abilities that allow their master to steal gold, soldiers or cards when walking past other masters.
- We Cannot Go On Without You: Starting from M3K3 it's possible to send your own master into a battle. Should they die in battle, they instantly lose regardless of their gold or generals.
General Zhuge Liang read too much TV Tropes. His Intelligence drops by 4 points.
