Before even looking at numbers, building heavy cav into an 80% heavy cav / 20% skirm comp breaks fundamental RTS logic. When facing an 80% heavy cav mass, you need massed light cav to counter their main force. You don’t build heavy cav to fight their skirms while their main army rolls over you.
And paying 840 resources for an 8-pop batch that fails to counter 80% of the enemy army isn’t a “best bet” - it’s economic suicide. If any other civ faces 80% heavy cav, they queue 100% pure anti-cav. Forcing China to dump an entire batch into heavy cav that has zero mechanical advantage against other cav is the exact design flaw I’m pointing out.
I did envision the Three Eyed Gunner as a musketeer for Chinese Isolationism.
Shorter range, ans possibly longer reload, but with more projectiles that deal higher damage.
I didn’t realize you meant a handheld version. In that case, that makes sense for it.
I still feel like a range of 10 is a bit too short for it, though. It’s hard for me to imagine a rocket pod having less range than a musket, unless the fire arrows it fires are loaded with very little gunpowder.
The gun itself could be real since Koreans learned how to use gunpowder weapons from the Chinese, so naturally, if the Chinese were using flame throwers, it would make sense that the Koreans would have used them as well. But, I feel like the inclusion of the “flamethrower” in that book is more likely meant as a record of weapons that had been used throughout Korean history, rather than evidence that it was actually still in use in the 19th century.
If we only look at the textual and illustrated records, Qing China also had descriptions and illustrations of flame throwers in compilations of weapons used throughout history, which were published in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The last actual recorded use of a flame thrower in Korea seems to have been near the end of the Goryeo Dynasty, around 1380.
My concept for the Three Eyed Gunner consisted on it having Soldado-ish stats, but it’d fire Chukonu style, IE 15 damage 3 times in a row (for a total of 45, 1 less than Soldado which is just 2 Musketeers put together.)
As always, it all depends on what the rest of China would look like. But a China split concept might as well deserve a thread of its own.
Notice how you completely ignored the core argument: building heavy cav into an 80% heavy cav army breaks fundamental RTS logic. Selective quoting doesn’t fix a bad strategic decision.
And even in the isolated sandbox scenario you tried to set up, staging a test where you artificially idle the Hussars to waste their 1.5 ROF damage output isn’t proving “control skill” - it’s throwing a clip.
As your second clip shows, as soon as the Hussars actually attack-move, their raw stat superiority wins the fight.
Relying on Iron Flail splash damage or Meteor Hammer range in a tight scrum doesn’t offset the math: 8 Hussars cost 1,600 total resources (640 coin), while 2 Forbidden Armies cost 1,680 total resources (720 coin).
You are spending 80 more coin for a mixed heavy cav composition that loses an attack-move fight to basic Hussars and carries zero anti-cav multipliers. Staging idle Hussars doesn’t change fundamental combat math.
Just like your earlier point about liking BHG’s 2007 unique units, saying Meteor Hammers “handle it pretty well” ignores basic economic math. Barely scraping through a staged sandbox fight while spending 720 coin against 640 coin Hussars isn’t "handling it well’ - it’s paying a gold premium for worse stat efficiency. Novelty shouldn’t replace functional RTS mechanics.
Well, that can always be balanced… the content of TAD hasn’t been touched since 2007, so they have to focus on Asia in the next DLC (if it seems they’re going to include Persia or something from the Dagestan region)…
I would actually lean into the siege trooper thing - like abus or if you want soldado. Have him train in the Castle and yeah giving him two pop would propably be smart.
Also, a full civ split is definitely off the table. The devs have made it repeatedly clear that no civ splits ever, are gonna happen (whether for Germany, India, or China).
Sadly, number tweaks don’t fix structural mechanics. You can tweak health or attack numbers all day, but as long as the system forcibly bundles unit types together, the underlying flaw remains.
Stat balancing adjusts efficiency after you choose what to build. It doesn’t fix a system that deprives you of the basic RTS choice of what to build in the first place.
That’s why I proposed making China train infantry in batches (similar to Russia), get a Stable, and train cavalry standardly like every other civ in the game.
You can then preserve the iconic Banner Army system in the Home City as mixed military shipments. In fact, all of China’s standard unit shipments could be structured as Banner Armies - bundled, but more resource efficient (and without forcing every shipment to cost food).
We already have these so-called Banner Armies as shipments in place:
Just add the current Banner Armies from the War Academy and Castle to this pool, adjust any current army cards that don’t make sense to ship, and you end up with a clean, functional design that preserves the civ’s identity without breaking basic unit composition.
Yes, I think that in independence mode, since there are no shipments, the HC banner armies can be created by default in the castle… but yes, the other option is good too…
Designing core civ mechanics around independence mode is putting the cart before the horse. The game is mainly balanced around standard Supremacy where Home City shipments exist and have a unique impact.
In a no-shipment mode, China would simply train single-unit infantry batches and standard cavalry directly from buildings, just like Russia or any other civ does when shipments are disabled.
Glad you agree the core proposal works for the standard game, though.
That wont happen, it is the civ feature, and as many others have advantages (sinergy between units on s0ecialized banners) and disadvantages (forced to train 2 units)
Stop aiming for their removal because it wont happen. It would be a comoletely different civ, not chinese anymore.
Notice how every time the mechanical math and production flaws are addressed, the argument shifts back to an appeal to emotion or tradition (it won’t feel Chinese anymore).
A civ’s identity isn’t defined by a clunky building UI that forces you to buy units you don’t need - it’s defined by its unique roster, age-up mechanics (wonders), and historical identity.
Look at the German civ: their signature mixed-composition mechanic (free Uhlans attached to shipments) lives in the Home City, while local buildings still let you train single-unit batches like normal RTS production.
Moving Banner Armies to Home City shipments does the exact same thing for China. It preserves the thematic unit-synergy as a shipment power spike, while granting standard RTS tactical choice at local production buildings.
Refusing to fix a broken mechanic just because “it’s always been that way” is not a valid argument.
The German bonus is HC Ulhans, the Chinese one is banner armies. If you remove banner armies you are removing the chinese bonus. Thats it
You want them to play like any other civ which is not AoE3 philosophy.
And yes, we can be nostalgic BECAUSE IT IS A DEFENITIVE VERSION OF A 2006 GAME, YOU CAN ADD THINGS AND AESTHETICS BUT NOT REMOVE THEM, OTHERWISE IT WONT BE THE SAME GAME
Thank you for proving the point. Admitting that your argument rests entirely on nostalgia rather than mechanical design confirms why this discussion keeps looping.
Moving Banner Armies to the Home City doesn’t remove the bonus—it repositions it into a strategic shipment power-spike, exactly like the Germans shipment-driven Uhlan mechanic.
Balance and design improvements in the Definitive Edition exist to make the game better to play, not to preserve outdated UI friction out of nostalgia for a 2007 expansion.
And yet improving batch size would immediatly mechanically fix banner armies as i have brought up for all armies that have cav in them, add in unlocked other banner armies after certain shipments and voila.
Somehow you don’t accept that because you insist that you should be able to produce singular units. I have another issue for you there, do you know that the Steppe rider only requires coin. Mono ressource builds are already an issue, you’d have to completely rebalance the whole chinese roster in cost, making the banner armies a far more elegant and even historical solution.
Also it’s a cheap cop out to complain about mechanics for not beeing allowed to build units one by one, the russians are also not allowed to do so, it’s an opportunity cost mechanic, you get over large sizes in a batch but it’s mixed.
You threw three distinct points at me, but two of them are built on completely false mechanical premises
1. The Russia Comparison is a False Equivalence
Russia’s batch system applies only to infantry, while their cavalry is trained in standard, flexible batches. Crucially, Russia always trains single-unit batches (pure Strellets, pure Recruits), giving them 100% control over unit type. China is forced into mixed-unit cavalry/infantry batches, forcing you to waste resources on unit types you don’t need. Comparing Russia’s single-type infantry batching to China’s forced mixed-unit composition completely misses the mechanical reality.
2. The Steppe Rider / Mono-Resource Argument is Backwards
Claiming single-unit production breaks balance because Steppe Riders cost only coin is putting the cart before the horse. Adjusting individual unit resource costs is standard balance tuning; using a clunky, forced-composition UI to gate a single unit’s cost structure is terrible game design.
3. Adjusting Batch Sizes is just a Band-Aid
Tweaking batch sizes or locking more fixed combinations behind shipments doesn’t fix the core flaw—it just bloats the UI. Local buildings should provide direct tactical responsiveness, while mixed-army composition belongs in strategic Home City shipment power-spikes.
And yet you have NO controll over numbers for infantry, point still stands partially which of course you will never aknowledge as seen in this thread.
Irrelevant, since current and historic balance is around the banner armies, breaking them up will inevitably lead to a massive issue in regards to rebalancing that you underestimate vastly. So no, it’s not cart before horse. Your position can best be summarised “that damn the consequences” does not exist as an issue. It does.
It does not, what you describe is in essence removing an opportunity cost on a civ that has already a 10 % increased pop space and multiple other strengths without compensating the mali, when the issue is indeed the price efficency on the units, ergo better (bigger) batches would directly solve the issue at hand.
