Unite a shattered Han China.

Play Cao Cao and hold the centre with the finest minds in the land. Play Liu Bei with one poor city and two sworn brothers. Play Yuan Shao on the eve of Guandu and prove history wrong.

Dynasty Divided is a turn-based grand strategy game. Seasons are turns. Cities are governed, armies are raised and marched, walls are stormed, and every officer on the map has a face, four stats and a memory of how you treated him.

Four starts, four different wars

190 AD: twelve houses rise against the tyrant Dong Zhuo. 194 AD: the realm fragments as Lu Bu, Li Jue and Sun Ce carve out houses of their own. 200 AD: Cao Cao and Yuan Shao, the two giants, face off at Guandu while every smaller house must choose a side. 208 AD: Cao Cao holds the north and Jing, his host is on the Yangtze, and Sun Quan and Liu Bei must stand together at Red Cliffs.

Sieges won at the walls

Most wars are decided at a city's walls, and every kind of soldier has a job there. Garrisons man their walls: archers stand on them and shoot down at anyone approaching, spearmen hold the gates, swordsmen throw back the ladders. Bring catapults to clear archers off a wall, archers to shoot spearmen off it, swordsmen with ladders and shields to storm it. Cavalry cannot climb, but a column of horse rides two cities a season and cuts down anything caught in the open. Read what a city holds, then build the army that beats it. Numbers still count: twice what they hold takes almost any city.

Battles you can lead yourself

When your house fights, the siege opens on the hex field: walls, two gates, forests, hills and rivers, ten rounds to break the garrison or hold it. Lead it yourself, or hand it to your generals and read the account of the fight.

Officers who remember

Fifty-one historical officers with painted portraits and four stats: War, Intellect, Politics, Charisma. They grow with use and fade with age. They resent unpaid seasons and lost cities. Jail them and they may turn. Execute one and his kin never forget.

Allies with a price

Alliances, gifts, lent troops, shared grain and joint assaults on a common enemy. Every house tracks its standing with every other. March on an ally and the treaty breaks the day you leave, and every court in the land turns on the oathbreaker.

Brothers, duels and history

Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei begin sworn in the Peach Garden, and any lord can swear brotherhood with a loyal officer: a sworn man never deserts, fights harder at his brother's side, and avenges him. When two champions meet before a city's walls they may settle it in single combat. The era's great moments, from Guan Yu's ride of a thousand li to the three visits to Zhuge Liang and the fire at Red Cliffs, happen only if their people are alive and in place, and only as you choose.

A living court

Lords die of age and pass their seat to an heir. Young talents come of age as the years turn. Reward the loyal, raise the able to Captain, General or Marshal, and watch the ambitious for signs of leaving. A house with no heir ends.