I seem to always die, or take lots of damage from a few hits in normal difficulty. I already maxed out the skill level for atk, musou and def but I still get hit by large amounts especially in chain hits. Is there something to counter this?

Also, I have Diao Chan, Zhao Yun and Guan Ping as my friends but they almost never level up. do i HAVE to singularly control them to level them up?!

Sorry if there are too many questions. x-x

I assume your playing an officer? If so just use suggest during council for the military policy to level them up once every 3 turns/months if you continue to do this. For battle, if you get red health run around and hit him with musou (special) since in red health it auto recharges. Guarding and evading will also help

Edit: You also won't win any battles early on if your a vagrant, so find a ruler till roughly lvl 15.

Haha yep I'm playing as an officer. I immediately joined Cao Cao when I was level 4... a bit too early I suppose. -.-

I'm level 15 right now and Diao Chan is lv 7! Thanks for the advice Arashi.

whoever you play as lvls a lot faster, so if u wanna lvl ur allies faster yes, play as them, but all character lvls are for (as far as i can tell), is number of troops and the health bar growth, dont know if other stats grow any, try training and getting some ability boosts from that, the first one is acctually cheap at around 800 gold i think, so u should be able to get it 1st thing when u start....beyond that be careful not to get sucked into a seize power invasion b4 u r ready, some damn peasents tricked into that b4 i figured the mechanics of the game out...also, being in a faction when u serve ur lord is useful b/c ur faction members will back u up when u make a suggestion to ur lord at council...

how do u choose the commander in the battle becus wen i dont have he ruler in the battle the commander always gos random like wen i want zhuge liange to command a battle zhou yun always ends up doing it

i belive that has to do with the lvls and troops numbers and of course, rank, although i dont see how asstaint gen is higher than dragon gen...(that has happened to me)....