Wouldn’t that be really weird, even if it has religious basis?
This is Age of Empires, not Age of Mythology.
My aim was to preserve a hint of the Tiger training in a more thematic way. I explained it and some alternatives in this comment:
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Maybe Indians and Native Americans should simply not have the ability to train wild animals. At the very least I’ve never heard of either group doing that. 
I like your post in general, would like to see some mechanics changed as many of us.
@UpmostRook9474 , @Moonshadow7475 chill, relax. Don’t know why you are against his ideas so “hardly” while we don’t agree in all things.
We do agree that Asians need a “rework”. Also while “terms”/names change they basically are the same.
While I like the ideas of both @M00Z1LLA and @UpmostRook9474, specially the idea of a samurai explorer with different weapons.
I believe the original “template” of explorers (from Euro civs) + monks is quite bad combo. Don’t know why they did it that way, since Asians seems to not be as religious (or fanatics) as other cultures at least for me.
That said, Asians should use a “template” more like American’s or Africans, since Prince’s and Daimyos have “similar” roles as Generals/Governor’s. Plus Asians didn’t as far as I know “explored” as much as others.
So from that point a figure of General is far more appealing than a monk or explorer, then we have the issue of auras, recruitment. I made a post about reworking them and I really like the auras.
That’s said, my thoughts:
Auras: should scale start weak and get stronger with each age.
Auras could also be diversified, to defense, attack and economics, since each Daimyo did different things in their respective life’s.
Recruitment: should be reduced to 1 unit per Daimyo, ex: Motoda able to recruit only Yumi for example.
Or
Delete recruitment from them altogether.
Or
Add a function to not be able to train units with them near x radious of an enemy base.
Respawn mechanic, I think this one should be different not because “reusing” a mechanic from Africans but because each Daimyo is named after a Historical figure, while Prince’s are kinda generic.
Thus they should behave as other explorers and not “die” and respawn but instead have ransoms and lie there till rescued. That also would fix the issue with the shogunate being the only way to respawn them.
Shogunate: should be as the Agra fort, a unique Fort. And Asians should have Forts too. They have the Castle but it is like the center building of Castle not the whole castle as perse.
Tea house: I think there’s another post about it, I like the idea of having a specific saloon type. I believe that each civ should have a Church and Saloon.
Able to hire ninjas (instead of spy) and monks from this. Other units could be included like Geishas for Japanese.
My preference would be for the unit roster to be linked to what’s available at the Dojos and/or Shogunate. I think you could do one unit by default like your example, but it could be expanded by the special buildings. That would give more value to those buildings and give opponents the ability to deal a meaningful blow by destroying those buildings. Something similar could be done with a Chinese “general” and the Summer Palace wonder.
I don’t really see a need to be hung up on keeping them so historically specific. Daimyos were pretty common and could be more generic if they fill the hero role. Since they are such a powerful unit, I’d be hesitant to give them an immediate ransom respawn. The African style timed respawn could better moderate the power of Daimyos by making players wait for a cooldown to finish.
I should have linked that post to here since it’s related. I’ve expanded on the idea more in this post:
Well, here we don’t agree.
Daimyos were common yes, considering all the provinces/clans that Japan had. Though, I wouldn’t use the word “common”. The thing is that they are named and they reflect specific people both in name and visual.
That said Japanese in very few occasions held other Generals captives, this what could also be possibility is that for them to not have ransom, and force us players to “rescue” them.
Making the daimyo and the so-called Kannushi the scout unit that can be had from the start is a terribly bad design. Once K dies, villagers have to move away from TC very early to build shrines, hurting the economy pointlessly. The important point of needing 2 monks/samurai explorers is that the map can be explored faster to discover animals, and if one falls, there is still another to continue building shrines. As a powerful unit with the ability to strengthen and train, the daimyo won’t even really die because of becoming a hero, should not be in when the game starts.
The design of the Chinese Prince is even more disappointing to me. The nobles of the Qing Dynasty did not have fiefs, and were only nominally the owners of the army. Giving up an otherwise rather distinctive and interesting leader-member relationship in order to achieve what is actually incorrect historically is a total unnecessary waste.
He claims to be free from stereotypes, yet wants Indian monks to be “reincarnated” as animals. Even depriving the identity of African heroes, just for some unnecessary gimmicks. The changes to the wonders have not changed the fact that the wonders themselves are stereotype, and their too much binding with heroes also loses the flexibility of strategy. Too many unnecessary changes, and we don’t actually need that, there are other ways to improve Asian civilization while maintaining many essences of the existing designs.
I admit that he has a passion for history and culture, but in this thread I can’t agree with his understanding of game design, the ability to design games and the level of detail with which history is considered. For a variety of reasons including the above, even if this thread got more Likes than my ideas, I still don’t think those ideas are more practical than mine. No offense to you and him, but sorry.
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Sorry, but tiger training is absurd. Tigers can’t be trained to obey commands. They can be tamed and they’ll not hurt you, but they cannot be trained.
Even if I accept your reincarnation thingy (which I don’t because I think it’s silly in a game about war, and is frankly very cheesy and stereotypical in this context) , trained tigers were never used in war because tigers cannot be trained.
You might say it’s fun for you to see tigers being trained. But a lot of “fun” things were removed because they are not historically accurate (war chiefs converting guardians) and just because it’s fun doesn’t mean it’s right.
This discussion comes up because the current devs are trying to add more historical flavor to the civs while being as realistic and accurate as possible. They seem to care, so it’s worth writing about.
What’s so bad about allowing the Indian explorer to train some human unit with the exact same cost and stats as a tiger?
Or make ‘release tigers’ an ability of the explorer. Can deploy tigers in an area of the map. But these tigers will attack any friend or foe.
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I honestly don’t care if they totally remove tiger training. With the “Reincarnation” tech I was spitballing ideas for making Gurus something that’s unique from the other generic priest units. Occasionally getting tigers from that was a way to soften the suggested changes for people that did like the pets. A less stereotypical way to have reincarnated Gurus could be to theme it after the Sikh succession of gurus. That could be a simple as having Gurus respawn a number of times for free, or could be something like giving an invincible healer hero.
None of these things you mention would actually be issues.
- A Kannushi would be able to scout just as well as any other explorer
- Healers can garrison to avoid being killed and even if one gets killed, Kannushis could be easily retrained from existing Shrines
- You obviously wouldn’t have full power Daimyos in age 1. Having their powers gradually unlock through cards or wonders could balance out having them as heroes.
The specific name/title is not important. Whatever you call it, a military or noble leader is far more appropriate than a Shaolin Monk. Whether that’s a general or a prince (who did actually lead armies) isn’t really important.
I want Gurus to have mechanics that are distinct and interesting so that they aren’t bland generic healers. Reincarnation is just one idea but there’s obviously alternate potentially better ways to make them unique.
This is for balance, not “unnecessary gimmicks”. A Daimyo hero could potentially get out of hand if you can quickly and cheaply ransom them. A timed respawn would put a damper on that.
It’s also not depriving African heroes. All the different heroes have a distinguishing special attack (crackshot, friendship, stun, confusion).
I think we’re in agreement with the majority of our ideas, especially when it comes to what features of the game deserve to be changed.
My post is just a little more concise and less far reaching in terms of changes. Limiting the scope of the suggestion to just changes to the monks and trying to keep how they play as similar as possible helps keep things more palatable. Although I should have probably gone further and not tried to preserve the tigers.
For people who like pets and taming treasure guardians, I think they could/should reintroduce that ability through a new unit, an “animal tamer” or something like that. He could be an European-styled mercenary/outlaw.
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I like the suggestions. I’d for them to move away from ‘mystical East’, and be a little more respectful to the Asian civs.
Asian equivelents to Taverns would be much better - the whole Repentent tags to their outlaws is unnecessary fluff for them to be hired from a religous building.
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I only touched on the idea in the post, but I made a much more detailed suggestion for that here:
Agreed, kinda like an European circus animal tamer would be cool
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Giving this thread a poke - I believe it’s something that is very much worth discussing still - especially if one day we are lucky enough to gain another Asian civ to play!
I’ve always liked the Monasteries and Tavern suggestion especially as it has always been an odd (even offensive) design choice for the Asian civs to recruit mercs from holy buidlings. Tavern-equivelent buildings were widespread and wasn’t (strangely enough) a European phenomenon! A simple insert religious building and appropriate Tavern-like building with their respective, standard (‘Euro’) use intact is the way forward. As a minor point, it does mean we can lose the ridiculous ‘Repentent’ prefix for paid-to-kill mercs!
I also concur about the Hero replacements - royalty (or royalty-equivelents) work well.
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Another possible alternative for the Chinese hero could be a Tusi. Tusi were chieftains who ruled over the various ethnic minority peoples spread across China’s borderlands on behalf of the central government. This leadership role in the borderlands is very analogous to their Explorer counterparts. Tusi didn’t necessarily have to be part of the ethnicity they ruled, and there were some Han Tusi and even some women in the role.
Tusi also have the advantage of coming with a convenient and iconic replacement for Disciples. The ethnic minorities the Tusi ruled over served as auxiliary troops, most notably, the Wolf Warriors. Their armament of sabers and swallowtail shields and attire of turbans and light armour would be a perfect fit as shock infantry. They also were drafted to fight the Wokou so a support unit that hunts down treasure guardians would be appropriate, and being native auxiliaries, they could still work as a zero population unit with a build limit (but maybe with a native tag). The only drawback is you wouldn’t be able to get them by punching a bear.
In later ages, Tusi could be a way to recruit other troops with iconic Chinese weapons. Lang Xian (wolf brush) could be paired with Wolf Warriors as part of a “Wolf Banner”. Lang Xian were large bamboo spears with layers of bristling spikes. They were unwieldy alone but provided a formidable defense when paired with other units such as in the Mandarin Duck Squad.
Shaolin themed units could be rehomed in the Shaolin Temple as a heavy infantry Shaolin Warrior Monk armed with a Monk’s Spade.
The Rattan Shields currently at the temple could be made into a mercenary styled after the Tiger Warriors.
Finally, the healer could be a Confucian Scholar.
No way. Huge mistake. This is like making the Mohawk leader the hero of the British civilization, or making some American Indian reservation leaders the hero of the United State civilization.
The Chinese dynasties granted border minorities virtual autonomy in exchange for their service and loyalty. Regardless of whether their “chiefs” had Han ancestry or not, they ruled only their tribe.
They fit the definition of mercenary perfectly. They are also explicitly called mercenaries in Chinese sources. They were an armed force composed mainly of Zhuang and Yao people, hired by the Ming Dynasty to fight against Wokou invaders.
I would rather have a card called “Tusi system” that gives the Chinese access to Wolf Warriors and buff them, or introduce a Zhuang minor civ and have Wolf Warriors as its native units and Tusi as a Zhuang hero obtained through its native technology.
“Wolf Banner” is very very strange.
These native soldiers were the Tusi’s personal force and were not classified as the dynasty’s army and therefore were not part of Qi Jiguang’s Mandarin Duck Squad and did not use Lang Xian.
The relationship between the wolf warriors and Qi’s forces is more like a regular army and irregular mercenaries working together to fight Wokou, somehow similar to the French and Hurons against the British.
If I had to change weapons, I would only choose the stick. The stick is actually the most commonly used signature weapon among Shaolin monks, and the absence of a blade means there is no need to kill unless necessary.
Why not just choose an ordinary monk? Confucianism tends to be a philosophy, thought, and behavior rather than a typical religion. Confucian scholars were bureaucrats and are far from suitable as healers.
You’re being hyperbolic, it would be more like giving France a Metis hero which is perfectly appropriate. Even a Tecumseh Explorer skin for British would be absolutely fine in my opinion so I don’t see this as an issue. To suggest that it’s equivalent to American reservations is ignorant at best.
So which is it? Mercenary or native auxiliary? It seems to me they’re quite clearly a native auxiliary. It’s not like the Tusi would have had much choice in whether or not they got called up to fight so mercenary isn’t very accurate.
They’re not exclusive to the Mandarin Duck Squad. Tusi forces like the Bai Gan Bing used them.
Tusi forces were organized under banner systems so it’s not implausible. Two iconic military units with wolf in the name being put under a “Wolf Banner” seems reasonable to me.
But a monk’s spade looks cool as hell.
I’d be fine with that if the role is just a healer. I was just using the AoE4 unit as an example.
Eh, not really. I’m from Taiwan, understanding Chinese culture and speaking Mandarin. I pretty sure that Tusi is really not suitable, and I believe everyone know about Chinese culture would think it is not suitable too. If you really want a supervisor to be the hero, the Viceroy is clearly a better choice.
Based on the worldview, the towns in the game are likely built by immigrants mainly from China proper, Clearly not the ethnic minority peoples’ tribes at China’s borderlands, so Tusi should not lead those towns.
Letting the civ able to access those ethnic minority peoples will be very nice, but just not making them be the core feature of the civ. If it is a civ of Zhuang people, Yao people, Yi people or Miao people, then the Tusi as hero is pretty fine since it is their chief or supervisor.
If you are talking about skins, then every choices may be fine.
Some researches seem to compare the Tusi regions with American reservations. It’s not an opinion of mine. Just forget the American reservations. But I do feel making Tusi as Chinese hero is almost equivalent to make a Native American Warchief as United States hero, a Yakut or Chukchi chieftain as Russian hero, or an Ainu chieftain or a king of Ryukyu as Japanese hero.
Whichever is okay in my opinion. Their background is native but in Chinese sources they are described with “mercenary”. The definition of Mercenary in the game is loose. Actually many Mercenary units were even not mercenaries but the force from other kingdoms or empires.
However, lang xian is the weapon very likely invented by Qi Jiguang, and almost the icon of the Mandarin Duck Squad.
I mean we don’t need a banner army composed of WA units. All banner armies are composed of 2 type of WA units.
Let the Wolf Warrior (actually I’d like to translate it “Wolf Soldier” which may be more accurate) be simply a mercenary or native unit, which would be decent to their background.
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Wouldn’t a Capo make more sense than having the freaking Viceroy randomly walking about on the countryside exploring and grabbing random treasure off the ground?