Right, to start off I’m a china main but I know not to be blindsided or biased when it comes to talking why they need these buffs, I’ll try and make points but could get lost because of frustration.
China need some early game buffs, now I know the chinese Zhuge Nu are a good unit, 3x shots each time they are fired, point is, they are locked behind basically a 200 gold 400 food cost, now I think that’s sort of fair until I go against someone like the English, if they bring man at arms, i need to have roughly 40 zhuge nu to 1 shot them, and usually MAA’s are accompanied by Lbows so my troops are useless and now they have complete ground, if the French come with their knights then once again even more zhuge nu are needed, they cost 80 resources and are the only viable thing in feudal but I do use micro so they can be ok to deal with if there isn’t more than 10.
Granaries are pathetic, 10% boost for 250 wood? now if you clump them together then you might be able to get a few villagers with 30% extra harvest speed but for 750 wood it should be more, late game i can have my imperials out collecting taxes and having about 20-30 on gold and roughly 60 on food, my food still runs out first, I’m not a beginner to this game, I’ve played them for the past 20 years so I know how to be efficient with economy.
Fire lancers are a joke, they come out with no armour unless put on with the blacksmith, and for some reason people are still wanting them nerfed??? they have poor attack, their explosive spear has basically no radius and more or less scratches units health, I remember in beta when I could 1 shot an entire group of archers, spearmen MAA’s etc… with 50 lancers, now I know completely that was way to much damage but they are now more or less an unusable unit, they cost more than a normal horseman but have less armour and less attack, but fire lancers have more siege, I understand that but an extra 10 is stupid, they are slower, more costly and worse attack than the most basic horsemen.
Palace guards, I’m sorry but not once have I ever thought, damn I wish I could lose some damage/health so these guys could run faster, no… just a simple no, as far as I’m aware, a palace guard was more hardy compared to any MMA’s if I remember right historically, they should have more armour and more health, maybe give them bonus damage to fish because it would probably be more beneficial than the speed.
Nest of bees, now I know this is a touchy one for people, these things are good at taking out groups, yes they have a good spread and good damage, but we don’t get access to the mangonel, that thing pre-patch was disgusting, 4 mangonel’s and all your units just entered the shadow realm, with the nest of bees they are perfectly good where they are, they take about a second and a half to fully complete the fire compared to a mangonel who would just yeet and wipe in 0.2 seconds.
barbican of the sun… why would I want to pay 200 gold and 400 food for a glorified outpost… it shoots like every 5 seconds for roughly 30 damage, when I go against a Chinese player I just walk straight past it, It legitimately does worse than a regular outpost, Now I know it does well with armoured units but by the time its taking it’s 2nd shot they’ve already raided your base and typed GG, can you at least do something so it can be upgraded, The French with their red palace just destroys units, you may as well alt F4 if you walk in front of that thing, your units look like a used dart board after their toe entering its radius.
so all in all I’ll wrap it up, age 2 good archer units until anything armoured comes, age 3 palace guards want to go zoom with wooden swords and fire lancers have firecrackers on the end of their lancers, both become trash late game, zhuge Nu also trash late game as your opponent has probably got armoured units, granaries are pointless, don’t even know why they got nerfed to start with, would rather build 1 outpost with a springald attachment than the barbican and NOB’s are the only thing that’s good until the dev see a single clip of 1 of them taking out 5 archers at once.
Please do something with china, Many civs have their unique things but they are unique and good, every unit for china late game is always below compared to others, apart from NOB’s of course.
p.s. grenadiers and hand cannoneers don’t count towards this, I know all of this seems somewhat jokey but they don’t have anything that is better than something than some civs already got, and by all means I’m open to a debate on it.