I am a 1600-elo China main, who posted about it before. I make these tables to illustrate point better, to not confuse people again.
Change
1v1
team(3v3,4v4)
Comment
Village to Tang
Useful for early defending
N/A
Less need to go Song
Granary to Song
Wood cost too high
Less need to go Yuan
Reduce the cost and nerf the bonus
Pagoda to Yuan
Hardly matter
good if you have relic
Of little importance
IO price/ time changes
Nerf China to the ground
Fast 2nd TC will be postponed for at least 20 seconds
What the hell?
Ancient Tech price increase
Any chance to finish that in 1v1?
Of little importance
Random nerf, why?
supervising -50%
hard hit
hardly matter
hard, but acceptable
Here is my thought about current China’s problem and suggestion:
Problem
Suggestion
Weak against early aggression
+1 Worker - 50 food at start
Weak in balancing food(IO cost 150 food, and only trains in TC, means that China has less worker for more IO)
Make Granary more useful. Or make IO viable in Imperial Academy
Extremely Weak Age 4 Landmarks in 1v1
Re-design GreatWall, Spirit Way.
Extremely Weak Yuan and Ming buffs
30% reduction to 2nd landmark to make dynasties more accessible. Reduce Song effect to 20%
Weak Fire Lancers
Remove landmark sniping as its characteristic, instead make it a fragile flanker. Add its cost to match Knight, but give back its AOE charge and buff HP/damage
Strong Grenadiers in super late game
Reduce HP/AOE to make it weaker against cavs
Strong siege mass in super late game
Change +20% range tech to +10% range, +10% damage for gunpowder units. Sieges overall should have more population cost.
Strong tower rush
Move Stone Wall and Stone Tower to Age III
Exceptional strength in Pure Naval and Strong in hybrid maps
Reduce HP of Baochuan
Tech with reduce 20% attack interval for cannons cost twice than Rus same tech
Change the bonus to 30%, or reduce the price.
In all, the PUP changes lack foresight and nerf China to the ground, which is already a weak civ in 1v1. It does not help China early game, while reduces its flexibility, and even makes dynasties nearly useless except Song.
China-main players may have to take a break from the game after these devastating so-called buffs to the civ…
Thanks for the reply and glad to see you agree with most of my points.
One addition for village though:
With Village moving to Tang i’d rather choose 2 TC over Song, since the 2nd TC cost 700 resources while providing greater village producing speed, and shelter. Or just even fast castle.
As I will keep Tang longer, it makes more sense to build village in Feudal near gold mine or outlier mills(boar, deer). We all know that using 125 wood on village in Dark Age is ridiculous.
I agree with all of your points and I notice many of Chinese landmarks are problematic. I strongly advocate for a landmark rework.
For example, let’s go in depth with Spirit Way:
It is a landmark that buffs only dynasties units: Zhuge Nu, Grenadier, Fire Lancer.
By the time SW is available, it’s fair to say Zhuge Nu would be pretty useless. Thus realistically speaking SW only helps Grenadier and Fire Lancer.
Grenadier requires another 2400F + 1200G expensive investment to unlock which is not a good investment in 1v1. Similar thing can be said for fire lancer. Keep in mind any nerf to FL or Grenadier would also be an indirect nerf to this landmark. FL has already been nerfed, and Grenadier is next.
Would it be better for Spirit Way’s bonus to straight up generate a meaningful amount of gold, buff resource gathering or unlock extra pop (200+ pop)?
Reduce damage buff but apply buff to every wall section
2/5
Barbican of the Sun
Too strong early on if used offensively, irrelevant in late game
No-build zone around TC; enable upgrades similar to keep; provide speed or attack speed buff similar to English or Mongol buffs; can research unique Chinese tech or act as an arsenal
2.5/5
Imperial Academy
Not useful early on because tax rate is weak, also tax rate is massively reduced by wheel barrow
Just delete the China CIV and start over at this point. Was a good idea but not in play.
no use even thinking of playing China after PUP patch hits. NO CIV SHOULD HAVE EXTRA RANGE ON SIEGE. ITS TO UNBLANCED. MORE health or little more damage yes!! RANGE NO
My personal opinion is that Chinese landmarks should be weaker than its counterparts in other civs, since China has the change to build both of them.
Like Barbican is a weaker version of Kremlin, Imperial Academy is weaker than Aachen Chapel. However i think at the moment these two are pretty balanced, and most widely used in China games.
Astronomical is meh without supervision in Age III, but will be definitely overpowered if supervised. On the other hand, Imperial Palace is situational and weak in 1v1 games, but now pretty useful in large team games, so i still think these two are okay at the moment.
However GreatWall and Spirit Way is ridiculously trash-level in 1v1, and still a joke in most team games.
Spirit Way has a good mechanic, but it only affects ZhugeNu(not quite useful in Age IV), FireLancers(Trash) and Grenadiers(Too expensive to get to Ming). I think cheaper dynasty may help it a bit. or we should allow Palace Guard & NOB to enjoy reduction cost as well(like 20% for dynasty units, 10% for PG & NOB)
GreatWall is just a failure by design. Instead of buffing walls’ HP, it should grant time/cost reduction of walls, and grant all units a buff near the wall(not on the wall). It will be much better if it applies to towers as well, while the bonus itself should be mild(like 10%).
There are so many problems about landmarks and Chinese landmarks are only a small part of them. To be honest i 'd prefer devs to focus on new content since re-balancing will not attract left players.
+10% range is pretty decent, since Chinese cannons will still be out-ranged by culverins, while out-range other normal cannons. However it seems a bit weak, considering the resource cost and civ advantages. That’s why i think another 10% damage bonus is preferred.
Do note that after changing +20% range to 10% range, China has no advantage in artillery since no culverin. Give China culverins and we will love to see the range bonus changed to damage bonus.
Nest of Bee and Mangonels should have more population cost, i would say 5.
Not so much now that supervision is nerfed to 150%. They could increase the Clocktower siege counterparts train time, then allow supervision again so in the end it trains 20% faster or something like that
I think the overall balance for siege should come before Rus Springalds. Mangonel and NOB should definitely not have 3 as pop cost. Change it to 4, and we may analyze the balance for siege again.
Personally i’d prefer to give a damage bonus to Rus Springalds and remove the additional range, as Rus is already very strong late game. However, Rus Horse Archers needs some love, and i will love to see Rus hunter cabin cost 25 wood less. But just my thought.
Unlocking the buildings earlier is effectively new content. Because most games don’t go to imperial age and most games don’t go to Yuan Dynasty, so Pagodas are never used and granaries are almost never used. Both have such a high investment and they are unlocked quite late into the game, so they do not have a lot of time to pay off.
However the nerfs to Granaries are so severe they are not even worth using. They were unusable before PUB patch and they will stay unusable if thesen nerfs go through. They need to be 15% buff for 150 wood investment, else nobody will build them. They are a worse investment than regular farm techs and you already have to pay 600 ressources upfront just to get them.
The biggest issue however are the IO nerfs. These are destroying Chinese earlygame, the civ with the weakest earlygame devoid of any civ bonuses. These IO nerfs must not go to live servers. Especially not given the abundance of earlygame buffs and bonuses to other civs. For example:
French saving 25 wood on each drop-off building + faster villagers
English +50 starting wood must not go live, they already gain +300 wood from Age 2 Landmark
HRE start with +40% gather rate from the first prelate, meanwhile IO is only +20% and now its getting nerfed?
Abbasid and Delhi haver Berry gather rate faster than Deer
Rus doesn’t need to mine any gold in Age 1 and can build scouts without stopping villager production
The upcoming patch is so full of nerfs to the Chinese it’s disgusting. There’s only one single buff and that’s the line of sight for the Barbican. (I don’t count the buff to the imperial palace because: imperial palace! Hahaha!) Everything else is just a nerf. Some minor like the village and ancient tech and some heavy and destructive like the IO crap. And even the carry capacity for hunters is an indirect nerf. If these go through I can only recommend to learn a new civ. I’m practicing the French and Mongols right now. They seem pretty interesting.
I don’t think china is as bad as people make it seem like. We should wait for new update to come. One thing I would say is dev are not up to date when it comes to meta. I feel like Abbasid buff was totally unnecessary as they were A+ tier civ in N4C and in latest patch. They keep buffing civ and forget that they are balanced and other civs might need attention. It was same for Dehli. First they kept nerfing and then buffing every patch. Devs needs to calm down and make minor changes to balance the game.
actually i think dynasty buildings one age in advance will resulting in utilizing dynasty less.
The devs are yet to realize that Yuan & Ming dynasties are too expensive in any competitive solo game, and China lacks early advantage to survive to late game.
I will be very happy if devs decide to revert all PUP changes, then China is weak but still playable. I don’t wish China to be Delhi-level OP, or trash.
However, if they insist on PUP changes, I would suggest:
IO time/price change should definitely be removed.
Granary should cost 150 wood.
In this way China will be much better. But dynasty mechanic will still remain useless.
I have played PUP for more than 10 games(solo & PVE).
With IO time/cost changes China early game is abysmal, since China will lose 10 second to train an IO, and have to make mill, lumber camp, mining camp with only 150 wood at start.
In current meta China can
go Age II quickly without mining gold.
Train 2 IO early to provide versatility in Feudal
Neither of them can be done after PUP, and most China starting strategy is delayed more than 20 seconds due to IO changes. It dooms the civ, which is already terribly weak in early games.
