Demo Ships +50% HP civ bonus removed: I’m curious to see which civ they’ll give this bonus to. It could be one of the five new civs, but then again I don’t think Khitans, Jurchens, or Tanguts are suitable for this bonus cause none of them were naval powers historically. IMO this civ bonus would be most suitable to a new SE Asian civ, either the Chams or the Javanese.
AFAIK there’s no recorded use of demolition ships (historical fire ships) in Javanese usage, but there is one during the Portuguese attack on Melaka in 1511, used by the Malays against the Portuguese armada. So IMO the bonus is better suited for the Malays than the Javanese. The Malays also used fire ships (demolition ships) against the Dutch in the 1700s.
The fraud Thirisadai that the devs tried hard to cover/justify should be cleared, with the tanky naval unit assigned to Javanese civ. The whole Chola navy debacle has been identified as hoax by an Indian historian. The large size of Thirisadai reflects the true size of Javanese jong, which is the main Javanese warship. Also, the Borobudur ship model used by Thirisadai is sourced from the Borobudur temple, made by the Javanese Shailendra dynasty.
The Chola empire which is reflected by the Dravidians, is more like a land-based empire with a focus on infantry and elephantry. The maritime aspect of the Cholas instead refers to the Tamil merchant activities and a narrow 50-year timeframe when the Cholas invaded SEA. The 50 years is a small window compared to the 1000 years of the Chola dynasty’s existence. Making the Cholas/Dravidians a naval civ is like making China/Ming Dynasty a naval civ because of the 30-year small time window (Zheng He expedition). In the newly-released Civilization 7, Ming Dynasty is not made a naval civ because of this logic/reasoning.
Original post by benithisrael, all thanks to him for letting us know the existence of the new book!
