To be fair in Japan’s case the Ikko-Ikki did play a significant role during the Warring States period - they still changed the name to Sohei Archer in DE for whatever reason, but narratively they do work the best among the civs.
Shrines as houses is very goofy tho.
For the Chinese, it is equally stupid to regard a yurt as a “village”.
A yurt is a Mongolian tent, the dwelling of the northern nomadic Mongolians, and a village is the dwelling of the Manchus and Han Chinese.
I have mentioned this issue before. If they call it a village, they should not use the yurt model, and if they want to highlight the Mongolian elements, they should not call it a village. In any case, it is strange to use a yurt as the basic population building of China.
Although the groups of Sohei did be one of the players in the sengoku period, there were dozens of samurai clans. Making them the core of the civ is still kind of pity, just like making Jesuits and pirates respectively the core of the Spanish and British. If we need to feature the religious fighters in the Japanese civ, it could be better by making them trainable at the Monastery like units trainable at Barracks instead of being the superheroes with invincible powers.
Personally I prefer to let the Sohei Archer become a powerful non-hero unit and belong to the Zen minor civ with sohei naginata. If the religion must be the core theme of the civ, let the Sohei become a different civ, like some people want Jesuits or Pirates to become a civ.
They can be renamed to “Yasiki” (屋敷) or “Ie” (家) for being houses.
Though, generating resources do fit the fact that people often pray for harvest and profit at Shinto shrines.
(I take this opportunity to propose a mechanic, just for fun)
The Chinese should build historically correct Chinese Villages/Houses by default, and with a card called for example “Mongolian Nomadism” the house construction is replaced by Yurts, which are cheaper and weaker, and which together with some other buildings can be packed to move them around the map, like the Mongol buildings from AOE4. It’s not really necessary for the Chinese civilization, but if implemented well it could be a fun mechanic.
You can do exactly this with the Lakota, sending the “Camp Movements” homecity card that let almost all your buildings to pack into travois
I think we’ve had too many discussions about splitting germans into Prussia and Austria and not enough discussions about the need to split China into Ming and Qing.
Ideally there should be one China with Ming units in addition to the Qing ones. But that would entail some pretty big changes.
非常合理的建议，蒙古包模型不丑，就是跟「村庄」毫无关系啊。
假如不打卡的状态下就是普通的几间砖瓦房或者土坯房，打卡之后就变成现在的蒙古包风格，这样就会看起来正常很多。
至于卡的名字我都想好了，就比如说叫「清准战争」或者「大清西征」，打卡之后把村庄的名字改成「行军账」，或者干脆就叫「蒙古包」。
To me what’s funnier is that many of the units are not even Ming or Qing, they are like… Song.
I swear people only like Asian and NA civs because of nostalgia. They’re all awfully designed and a pain to play.
I’m not saying to make them all play like Euro civs, but they really aren’t better than African civs like people here pretend they are.
I disagree. If anything, they’d work better as mercenaries (not even holy site units).
Daimyos are they are now should be removed, since literally nobody likes them anyway, and the name should be reused for an Ikko-Ikki replacement.
Another problem I have with Ikko-Ikkis is most of their default names seem to come from people who were dead WAY before the Sengoku Period even started (and I don’t think making the Japanese be exclusively about the Sengoku Period is a good civ design).
Can fix things like this here, for example:
Wonders for a potential Indian split? - #7 by M00Z1LLA
But I don’t see anything really wrong with their gameplay. The consulate, the wonders, and the way they use livestock (better than the Europeans) are all good mechanics.
Everything in the consulate is overpriced considering it all costs a resource that collects even slower than wood or exp. And what you get from consulate allied is mostly stuff Euro civs get by default and so could Asians. Except for Meiji Restoration, which could work as a revolution but is instead a worse alternative to wonder age up.
As for wonders, I mainly think it was bad idea to base them on real buildings, especially when they clearly didn’t base the effects on the buildings.
I’m also not a big fan of Indian villagers costing wood. In general, I’m not a fan of how wood works in this game.
Phasing out the Song dynasty units like Flamethrowers is probably the best opportunity for introducing a Ming unit.
The role of mid-ranged, rapid fire, area damage, siege infantry would be better filled by troops armed with rocket pods like the Ming used.
They could be the handheld rocket pod version and keep their role as siege infantry. Giving them better range at the expense of needing to reload would make for a more well rounded unit anyway.
Or they could be the bigger, cart mounted version and be a proper artillery unit. But there’s already quite a few rapid fire artillery and it would overlap a lot with a Korean Hwacha on the slim chance of ever getting them as a new civ, so I’d be inclined to keep them as infantry armed with pods.
The old Flamethrower could be a one off shipment as a kind of ancient super weapon with much better stats. A reskinned version could also work for a Cheirosiphon available through a Greek revolution.
The chu ko nu should also be phased out. If it is to be kept, perhaps make it a unique milita unit. What would replace it in the roster? I don’t know enough about Chinese history to suggest something.
I’d also like to see japan get a yari ashigaru or something similar.
Three eyed muskets are the closest to fitting the role of the Chu ko nu without too much gameplay disruption I believe.
Don’t the Ashigaru already use a yari?
The three-barreled gun is much more reasonable, at least it was still in use in the early and middle Ming Dynasty.
Things like Zhuge Crossbow can only be used as toys after the Han Dynasty.
The most famous crossbow in China is the giant crossbow cannon such as the Zhang Crossbow of the Tang and Song Dynasties.
This type of rocket weapon was very common in the early Ming Dynasty. For example, it was used on a large scale in the “Jingnan Campaign” in the early 15th century. However, with the beginning of trade with Westerners in the middle and late periods, European-style artillery and its local imitations quickly replaced this type of rocket that looked powerful.
However, if it is added to the game, it should be a very unique unit, much better than the flamethrower of the Song Dynasty. Almost all Chinese modders who make Ming Dynasty MODs will also add it.
I disagree, the only similarity between the weapons is being multi shot. Everything about three-eyed guns is perfect for a musketeer unit not light infantry. It’s a primitive, short ranged, inaccurate gun stuck on a spear. It would feel very wrong to replace Chu Ko Nus with that.
But they were still used into the Qing era and even most common in the Ming era. I wouldn’t say they were only toys either. There were naval versions and more powerful Korean versions that were used militarily by and alongside the Ming.
I’d say units being unique and iconic should take priority over strict adherence to accuracy otherwise every faction is going to be boring and the same. China without Cho Ko Nus, British without Longbows, etc would really be lacking flavour.
But the British used longbows until about 1585. A significant portion of the first century of the game. I don’t believe the chu ko nu was widespread militarily in the games timeframe. The British used the longbow after most Europeans adopted firearms and replaced crossbows.
They feature in Qing military training manuals so they would have seen some military use if they were training with them.
And they saw widespread non-military use through the whole timeframe. They’re very comparable to Longbows which were only used extremely rarely militarily by a few militias in the game’s timeframe and rely on their iconic use in earlier periods.
