There are 2 units in the game that have been removed from the Chinese techtree Bow Cavalry and Qing Rider, both are fully functional in the Scenario editor, have their own stats and attack bonuses. The Bow Cavalry doesn’t receive Medium/Heavy/Champion upgrades from neither Cavalry nor Archers but the Qing Rider does get Cavalry Upgrades and even has the visual changed for those upgrades.
The Bow Rider has bonus damage vs. Infantry and Archers, which seems pretty strong for a ranged unit.
The Qing Rider has bonus damage vs. Archers like you would expect from a cavalry.
I wonder how late in development those 2 units were cut from the game. Maybe the Chinese originally had unique units for each Major God like the Greeks? I could see the Tiger Cavalry and ChoKuNu being unique units. The White Horse Cavalry kinda looks like it filled the gap of both removed units to some degree.
It would be strange for one Major god to have a human unique unit when the other two don’t.
Also if they would have planned to use them in the future they would have likely not made them accessible in the Editor.
It’s really cool to see them not scrapping the units and giving us access to them in the editor instead. I wish they did that with Extended Edition the units that were removed in Retold too.
Hippocrates, Khopesh Swordsman, Bogsveigir and Onager could all be really useful in a lot of scenarios.
I don’t think most people miss the remove Chines units from Tale of the Dragon though.
They are used in the opening cutscene of the Campaign Mission 6: Reality’s Collapse. I hope it can be useful for some future Mythic Battles or custom scenarios at the very least.
Damn, it sucks that these were removed. I was really looking forward to a horse archer especially. It feels odd that China doesn’t have access to any cavalry units until the Heroic Age.
Unless I’m misunderstanding the files, it looks like Bow Cavalry is upgraded with cavalry upgrades but visually changes with archer upgrades. I guess they never implemented it properly.
I’m kinda torn about how much I like the Chinese units.
I like their Classical Age units and generally limiting Cavalry in Classical Age is kinda of an AoM thing. It’s not supposed to play like a Cavalry heavy game for the most part unlike AoE2 or AoE4.
But some units are just kinda too similar.
The Fire Archer and Cho Ku Nu feel like they fulfil the same role. Yeah the Fire Archer does a little more damage against buildings and has a little more bonus vs. Infantry but that doesn’t feel too different.
The 2 cavalry units also feel like similar. The Tiger Cavalry is mostly just better then the White Horse one and they even cost less Gold which makes them more affordable in the late game.
I don’t think that another generic cavalry unit would have made it any better.
The Bow Cavalry would also compete with 2 already existing archer units.
Maybe if the Cho ku no and the 2 cavalry units should have been unique units while the Qing Rider and Bow Cavalry are the generic ones.
Oh ok interesting.
I hope they fix that, even if the unit is not actually trainable. A useful asset for custom scenarios.
and i have to say i personally agree with the majority of his criticism (about 60-70%)
some things i personally agree with:
iconic horse archers are missing (i mean atlantean can have their turma too)
Javalineer even looking great like all other units with a cool idle still feel not as fitting as horse archers
fire archer again looks cool but chu ko nu should be THE go to archer option
wooden ox looks adorable and creative but stuff like this makes the civ more “special” than the other civs
there could have been at least one bipedal myth unit (but i personally like the ones they took really much stil norse who nearly has too many bipedal myth units has at least a couple fourlegged ones)
chinese sages are cool but seem to replace monks which should be quite important)
fuxi nezah hero is really damn cool but it feels a bit odd its the onely hero with an evolve system and the other heroes not)
siege units looks and feel a bit weak - especially for a civ which nornally should have stronger siege
cav is overall really great but even their abilites/passives are cool they also give the unnecessary “more special” vibe to the civ than other civs who don’t have military units with a special passive/ability
favour system could have been more engaging but it fits the vibe of the civ and is better than EE version
very consistent overall style
great designed myth units
Baolei could have been called Bastion which would bring it more in line with the other civs more approchable names (like fort, palace etc.)
aquatic myth units are a really good choice
Shennong design looks good
titan is now the only titan with voicelines (even he sounds really cool its odd since the others sound more feral)
Hou Yi should be with Chang’e which hopefully comes later with a DLC
upgrades to military camp and machine workshop are cool ideas but feel unnecessary/redundant
campain is way better than EE one but characters could have needed more depth
overall chinese is well rounded and great but more “historical accurate” than other civs which feels maybe a bit too grounded (this was a point i never thought about but he might be right (?))
what i also wasn’t aware of is that the iconic nine-taild fox is missing (but i also assume this unit might come later)
these are the things i kept in my head he pointed out i overall agree with.
other stuff i personally don’t agree with are that:
Li Jing and Yang Jian should be gods and not heroes
toatie should be more ape-like /(i personally think it has one of the most creative and cool designs)
some GPs are not good/fitting
Its ok Fuxi looks old /(i personally think either NuWa should look older or Fuxi younger)
Kuafus don’t really fit /(i personally like the idea!)
i really like the titan choice and its model-desgin
Sun Wukong has to come /(i personally think it would be cool but not important since it seems there is mostly another timeline covered but since they are not completely mythological accurate who knows maybe he will come as a hero)
what are your opinions to the points in his video? do you think some stuff he mentions will be changed or not?
