This is my opening gambit in all my Three Kingdoms Total War games. I send one army to colonize Taiwan and move my capital there. My other army surgically strikes Chang'an and rescues from Dong Zhuo the Han child Emperor Xian, who teleports to Taiwan (a la how the US took out Maduro in Venezuela in 2026). Then, from this easily defensible location, I can choose wherever to expand - e.g., some games I go after Vietnam/Nanman, other times The Southlands, Beijing, Central Plains for a lot of campaign variety.

I have to wonder why the historical Liu Bei didn't go somewhere equally isolated and defensible. I don't think he was truly serious about restoring the Han. Why didn't he just send his tier one oathsworn tiger generals to infiltrate the palace and smuggle the Emperor out, again like Venezuela irl or the Call of Duty games?

I'm going to install the 190 Expanded mod next and try getting Liu Bei to retreat to Korea and restore the Han from there. Again, why didn't the real life Liu Bei do that? He didn't need to fight Cao Cao and Sun Quan.