It is said that the production team is still studying how to modify FL recently. Before they decide, I can provide some reference ideas.
Eastern civilization at this stage: Mongolia,Delhi Sultanates,Rus and Abbas all have Cavalry Archer, but China does not. In fact, China’s popularity of Cavalry Archer is second only to Mongolia.
And China has too many close combat cavalry. They should have a long-range cavalry as a supplement.
Since the label of China is “gunpowder civ”, it is advisable to change the fire lance to “handgun cavalry”, which really exists in Chinese history and conforms to the historical span of aoe4. The most important thing is that the production team does not even need to re model, because it can be seen from the loaded image of the campaign that this is the early setting of FL: a cavalry that operates handgun on a horse.
As for the balance of the game, of course, it is also essential. As a cavalry shooter, the loading speed of this branch must be the slowest among many cavalry shooters, the cost is the highest, and the training speed is also slower. At the same time, as a cavalry shooter, he will cooperate with his own siege advantage (or cancel this point directly, and give the siege cavalry to Mongolia), making him an expert in rear support and harassment.
Extended reading:
As early as around 300 BC, China implemented a national policy called “胡服骑射Hufu riding and shooting”. Since then, riding and shooting have become the qualified standard for testing Chinese cavalry.
In the thousands of years of war with nomads, the Chinese learned and popularized riding and shooting. Especially after the rule of the Yuan Dynasty, the cavalry of the Ming Dynasty had a large number of bow and arrow cavalry.
Bows and arrows are almost the standard configuration of cavalry in the Ming Dynasty. Everyone uses bows. Of course, as a game, it can be designed as a handgun cavalry with more gunpowder characteristics.
I agree it is a gun, but it had too short of a range due to being a “new weapon”.
It didn’t fire singular bullets or small balls, but it used small shrapnels that are sharp.
This is why AOE4 made Fire Lancers melee cavalry with a close-range “Fire Lance” attack.
I think it is pretty accurate, but its charge damage is too low as the unit cost is too low.
Maybe they should increase the cost and that could lead to a bit more HP, DMG, and ARMOR.
In fact, it is not accurate. The weapon FL uses now is called “梨花枪(Describe the wanton bloom like a flower)” in Chinese. The powder cartridge on it is not the explosive effect in the game, but constantly spraying sparks to burn and interfere with the enemy, and waiting for opportunities to attack with Lance. The most important thing is that it is not a cavalry weapon at all, but pure infantry equipment.
This is a typical stereotype. China’s history spans a wide range, and each period is different. In fact, in the 1000 years or so from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty, the heavy cavalry and heavy infantry dominated the Chinese battlefield. They belong to the same level as the Byzantine troops, and are much “heavy” than the Western European troops that widely used the lock armour at the same time.
As for your claim that the casualties of the Chinese army are greater, do you have any data to support this claim? Most of the wars in Chinese history were Chinese VS Chinese. How did you come to this conclusion? Moreover, China had developed agriculture in ancient times and possessed most of the land suitable for farming in East Asia, so it was able to feed more people, and the size of its army was naturally larger than that of other places. However, this is totally different from the so-called “Chinese Army overwhelms its opponents by relying on the mouth of Pang Da Ren”, because the opponent of the Chinese army is still the Chinese army, and both sides have a large population.
In fact, the Chinese army defeated the Japanese army on the Korean Peninsula twice in the Tang Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, both of which defeated more foreign enemies with fewer people.
In the earlier Han Dynasty, there was the saying that “一汉当五胡”, which means that a Chinese soldier can deal with five nomadic soldiers, so you need to realize that there is often a big gap between the real history and stereotype.
The concept of Chinese light infantry you mentioned should be a phenomenon after the widespread use of gunpowder weapons and the gradual withdrawal of armor from the battlefield in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
The phenomenon of farming in peacetime and taking farm tools to the battlefield in wartime exists in most parts of the world. Because of the limited productivity in ancient times, few countries can maintain a large number of break away from agricultural production professional soldiers for a long time. The weapons such as Bill and halberd in Europe are evolved from farm tools. Therefore, according to your standard, almost all civilizations in the world are “its main army was made of farmers (light enemy)”.
Once again, it is a common feature of medieval armies to enlist peasants to fight. It is only because China has a large population that it has become a stereotype.
His statement is not precise. Except for the northern and Southern Dynasties, the Sui, Tang, Jin and Yuan Dynasties (less than 1000 years in total), China is not really a cavalry civilization in the true sense. Typical images of ancient Chinese Army should be an Infantry Corps that pays attention to bows and crossbows and heavy armour.
However, cavalry has always been very important to the Chinese army. In other periods, although there were not many heavy cavalry like those in those dynasties, a limited but well-equipped elite cavalry force would also be built.
Sounds interesting, like, make FL not a full archery unit, but give them range advantage, like Abbasids phalanx. Maybe, make them more micro-dependent, like longbow, which, is microed properly, can outplay even MAA. Making it full archery unit is not the right call, i guess, due to Chinese standart siege-grenadier setup… But being used as second row of cavalry just behind knights sounds unusual!
Pictures are more like a actual fire lance. Yes its a one form of “gun” but nothing like we know today or what came later. More like one shot explosive tube that was just charged at enemy to start melee etc.
And you forgot when China was conquered by the Mongols. They had less than 200,000 people and conquered Chinese dynasties that are 20x-100x times bigger xD
By the way, when the Mongols attacked Asia and Europe on a large scale, China was the country that insisted for the longest time (as long as half a century).
And not only the Mongols, but also the Manchus conquered China, that is, the Qing Dynasty.
However, the two dynasties have a combined history of less than 400 years, and China has a history of at least 4000 years.
Which only exists till pup changes hit live. After that no one makes siege as goal of winning game just to take few keeps down / outposts and even then trebs are better at it and grenadiers will never be made again
These ideas and pictures are great, but lazy relic can hardly accept them. There are a lotta model mistakes still not being fixed (like all nation’s spearmen are using gisarme), why do you think they will build new models for new units? To be honest, I don’t want to be so negative like this, but relic almost exhaust all my patience during the past eight months. But if you can insist on appealing for your idea, I will still cheer for you.
In the history of China, many ethnic minorities established their countries on Chinese soil. China is a multi-ethnic country, so they are also part of the Chinese nation. The Xianbei people have also established a dynasty in China. The Mongols and Manchus are also two constituent peoples of China. Maybe China is so shining. Some people who do not understand Chinese history always like to exaggerate the low probability events in Chinese history.