First I wanna start out with the positive changes on China:
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Great job on the Home City customization! You can tell that a lot of effort went into it, specially with the animations and the lighting effect. Pretty mesmerizing.
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Challenges are fun, it actually encouraged me to play the China campaign for the first time in DE.
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Regarding balance, I think that the discount on houses from 190 to 180 is a good place to start.
Now on with the rest:
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There are literally so many suggestions made for China in this forum, some are very good and creative, like playing around with an export gathering improvement or with flamethrowers stats/cost and card order, and yet, you didnât implement any of them. Not even the most popular or conservative, like allowing the TC to give you 2 villagers when you send the villager card.
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The new buffs to cards are not bad, but definitely accessory overall. It should give the player more playstyle options I admit (not necessarily a general buff tho).
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4 months in and STILL no Sweden consulate. This could solve Chinaâs anticav problem later in the game by giving them goon type units like black riders. I already made a suggestion that was pretty popular if you wanna check it out.
Overall I really appreciate that China is getting addressed, I think these little changes are a good place to start. Developers, please if you say that you are reading the suggestions directly from this forum, make it count, thereâs a lot of room for improvement. With enough balance trials and implementations, China could become a super unique and strong civ (without being OP).
Thank you for your work!
6 Likes
Yes,I agreed.I think 180wood itâs good at Chinese stay in age2 and FF
But,The new army need 500 Food??what happen?
Age2 card res â500-600,and the new army cost my 500 res.They must give me 1000 res.
But,They canât.Looking:Chukonus become Arquebusier.I think one Chukunuâ0.7Arquebuiser
One QiangPikemanâ0.7changdao.Arquebusier is 85res,Changdao is 95res.Okey,writing 90res
90*0.3=27
1000/27â36units
You must create 18Chukonus and 18 QiangPikeman can let it nearly.I think you will send 8Chukonus and 9 QiangPikeman
Please tell me.Why I am not FF?
So the card is no science
I think the card need free or can earlyer create Territorial Army
And if you give Chinese a half of Wood and village become 175Wood
I think itâs OK
There are a lot of custom city lanterns, the big lanterns on the bridge are redundant, and the small lanterns are enough.
The effect of lights is not obvious in the dark night.
Rude people shouldnât be in the emperorâs treasure house, it would be great to switch to a rude guard
As someone who has talked and suggested a lot about China, I am first and foremost very happy about the buffs. I think buffing Ckn/Steppe aswell as adjusting the Age 3 card for Keshik/steppe has some real potential. You can disregard the ânew armyâ card in Age 2 which is another huge change, and maybe Keshiks could be used in Age 3 along with mongolian scourge to help against heavy cav. Before this patch, shipping Manchu was the only option.
However, the changes to Flamethrowers are still missing. It makes sense to not change too many things at once. But I hope that the Flamethrower, along with its shipments will get buffed/tweaked in the future. So many people suggested a simple 2 Flamethrower shipment in Age 2 for China, aswell as buffing their range/speed similar to how Abus guns or Gurkha or Jungle bowmen gain increased range with upgrades, to give this unit some use later in the game.
I find the New Army card change lackluster.
In terms of absolute cost (disregarding villager second), a pair Chu + Qiang is only 35 resources cheaper than a pair of Changdao + Arque. For you to get 600-700 resources out of the New Army card in Age 2, you would need 31-34 pairs of Chu + Pike before the conversion. (600+500)/35=31.4; (700+500)/35=34.3. The real cost difference is even smaller than 35 resources per pair if you consider villager second as representative of true cost.
Assuming I do 700 wood as the first card in Age 2, and then 8 Chu card + 9 Qiang card in succession, I would still need to make at least 8 batches of Chu + Qiang to make this worth it. China age up time is probably 4:30 - 4:40 considering the new patch (use to be 4:50-ish), 40 seconds for 700 wood card to arrive (barrack built concurrently), and then 8 batches of Old Han, 200 seconds in total. That already brings me to 8:40 already, and I would need to avoid conflict the entire time to make this card worth it, which is actually pretty unrealistic. In all likelihood, to make this card barely worth it, you will need to stay in Age 2 and fight until the 10:00 - 11:00 mark, which is not a position a China player should be willing walk themselves into. The FF alternative usually has so much greater potential.
In my humble opinion, to make this card at least reasonable, we should do one of two things:
(1) Revert the cost back to 200 food. I understand the logic behind adding 300 food to the cost as Age 2 cards are typically 300 resources less valuable than Age 3 cards. But we are ignoring the fact that this was a lackluster card to begin with. (Very few China player used it in 1v1.) And then when it was an Age 3 card, it had the collateral effect of granting the discipline upgrades automatically. The opportunity cost of keeping your Chu + Qiang in Age 3 would be 300 recourses invested in discipline upgrades. So this card had arguably 300 recourses of hidden benefits, which it no longer has as an Age 2 card.
(2) Alternatively, make it so that this card also unlocks the Territory Army (Changdao + Arque) in Age 2, in addition to the conversion effect.
1 Like
I agree. The 500 food investment is simply too high of a cost. But the fact that you are using a shipment is a much higher cost.
Upgrading Pikes and Chuko Nu in Age III costs 200 wood and 100 coin, or 100 wood and 50 coin, this gives you flexibility. For example, after producing a lot of Chuko Nu in Age 2, you could choose to only upgrade Chuko Nu. Ontop of this, you might have send the standard army hitpoint card in Age 2, which makes them more valuable aswell.
Long story short: There is no need to have Arquebusier and Changdao in Age 2. Arquebus only have 14 ranged damage, x2 against heavy infantry. They are not much better than CKN. You are better off spending your shipment on something else.