It works for the Russians but not for the others like the Chinese however.
Simply and generally renaming the mercenary to “Mongol Warrior”, “Mongol Cavalry”, “Mongolian Horseman”, “Mongol Archer”, or even just “Mongol”, could be fine and fit the most of situation.
Well, if the Manchu can be a consulate unit as I stated, the cost of export will become a natural limitation. It’s not easy to gather a bunch of them.
Call them Mangudai, come on, you know you wanna…
Why would you add Ming units to the Mongolian Army? If I have to spell it out, this is what I’m suggesting:
Ming Army - 2 Qiang Pikemen, 1 War Cart (3 pop unit)
Mongolian Army - 2 Steppe Riders, 1-2 Keshiks (stronger 2 pop version)
Forbidden Army - 2 Iron Flails, 2 Keshiks
Black Flag Army - ??? (Maybe a new unit from Southern China?)
The civ is China, not Qing. There’s no need to rigidly follow the Qing banner names.
Yes and no. The Ming one is poorly named given the units in it, but others like the Castle Banner Armies do have some logic with names of armies from the borderlands where Castles would be located.
You’re making it sound like it wouldn’t have worked. Wagon forts are a tried and true tactic for countering steppe armies.
You can’t be serious… Might as well have the whole Chinese cavalry be Steppe Rider 1, Steppe Rider 2, Steppe Rider 3, etc. There already is a generic steppe cavalry with ambiguous ethnicity to cover exactly what you’re talking about. Adding a second one is silly.
Why does everyone seem to hate the inclusion of any sort of unique or distinctive units? The whole point of different civs is that they’re different. The unit roster doesn’t need to be a perfect mirror of what was historically the most common army composition. It seems like people in this thread just want to do some kind of Chinese nationalist roleplay with extremely boring units like “Bowmen” and “Steppe Archer”. There’s lots of cool and unique elements in Chinese history and it would be a shame to not include all that interesting stuff.
It is medieval, as is Keshik. But as a homage to AoE2, it’s interesting and meaningful.
Simply renaming the Ming Army to something like Frontier Army would solve the problem you think it has.
Having pikemen and mounted archers on the border makes perfect sense.
Surely wagon forts can works for countering steppe armies, but what I stated is that the Chinese in the Ming have no outstanding achievement of using war wagons on the steppes. If we talk about the achievements of wagon forts in Chinese military history, it was agianst the Xiongnu before Common Era. The Ming knew it could work, but they just had planned to do it and had hardly ever actually executed it because of the peace with the Mongols. War wagons did not play any impressive role for the Chinese in the timeline, that’s it.
I don’t actually care that much about the name. I just wanted a more generic name for the mounted archer to avoid a specific ethnic background. I don’t mind if it’s called like “Frontier Rider”, “Nomadic Archer” or even “Chinese Horse Archer”.
Do you want to satisfy yourself by filling the Chinese civ in the game with certain fantasies? This attitude is essentially the same as that which made monks and spectacle the core themes of Asian civ. You want the Chinese to actively have war wagons just because you think it’s theoretically useful tactic against nomads, which is akin to making monks superhero for the Chinese just because the monks of a particular temple have a famous martial arts tradition. The former ignores the actual situation of Ming military, and the latter ignores the actual situation of Chinese religion.
Put aside the repeating crossbow which has a different meaning for the franchise, war wagons were not important to the Chinese in the timeline. Replacing the horse archers with wagons for the Chinese is somehow like replacing the hussars with knights for the Europeans. This way does not clearly improve the accuracy of Ming military, but brings additional balance challenges.
The Hand Cannon Cavalry based on the Guan Ning Cavalry of the Ming is pretty cool too, and even more important than wagons for Ming. The heavy-armed elite frontier warriors of Ming were skilled in mounted archery, and used hand cannons on horseback to carry out close-range bombarding and melee striking on the enemy.
Either the shock infantry Meteor Hammer or the Hand Cannon Cavalry are cool and good alternatives to the cavalry Meteor Hammer, without the need to move the mounted archer and bringing more balancing work.
I understand you wanting civs to be more historically accurate and almost every time I come to the forums it’s to talk about that as well, but the real life leather gun was barely used and the real Sebastopol mortar was straight up unusable, and I barely see any complaints about those. Even the Leonardo Tank doesn’t get any complaints anymore (that I know of). I do hate the monk heroes and want the Asian civs to lose them, same with the current Monastery and the Repentant tag, but I think a bit of fantasy here or there would be fine. At the very least giving Chinese war wagons to the Chinese is better than giving the Chinese war wagons to Koreans and claiming they represent hwachas. Or giving a Roman stereotype of Pictish warriors to Medieval Celts.
I do still want the Portuguese to lose the organ guns and the Tupis to lose Tupi Animal Lore though. Fuck Tupi Animal Lore in particular.
“We’re gonna remove the stereotypes in the game. No, not Tupis giving you access to an animal they never domesticated or the Hurons being named after the way the French called them instead of Wyandots.”
Using AoE2’s mistakes as an excuse is strange. They are different games.
Yes there are many such cases.
I personally would rather not change the current cases rather than add to them, especially when we are discussing how to “fix”.
We still have many cooler and better solutions, so we don’t have to choose wagons that even the Chinese themselves are not really familiar with. They are not a unit like Flamethrower and Flying Crow that are already existing, and they don’t have a special meaning like Chu Ko Nu to the series that I am willing to tolerant.
I’m not? I complain about those all the time too.
Actually, why not simply replacing the Meteor Hammer with a Mounted Fire Lance?
I feel like that’d solve the issue of the unit having short range and technically not being ranged.
A generic named steppe cavalry that avoids referencing a specific ethnicity already exists. Creating a “Steppe Rider 2.0” is redundant and silly.
Requiring every single unique unit to be ultra common defeats the purpose of unique units. War Carts were used and even just the plans to use them gives insight into the Ming military. The fact is the Ming cavalry was generally poor compared to their neighbours so they usually resorted to hiring them to fight each other or paying them off. Giving them a “cavalry” that’s an armoured cart pulled by a mule illustrates that.
Sure these guys could be an option, but they’re also an outlier for the Ming. This kind of elite cavalry only became possible when the Ming declined to the point where border generals organized their own household troops. Guan Ning cav could at least be an okay way to include three-eyed guns without needing to shoehorn in an infantry version.
The main problem is they should probably be either a ranged heavy cavalry or strong melee light cavalry, but both are a supremely unworkable unit type. Something like the charged ranged attack of Oromos might work but it would need a huge multiplier against artillery to not be detrimental. Or they might be reasonable with both the heavy and light cav tags to let them also counter heavy cavalry.
This is very clearly a false equivalency. War Carts that actually were used is in no way comparable to Monks punching bears to make Disciples.
That’s what Guan Ning Iron Cavalry (管寧骑兵) essentially are. They had a three-eyed gun they would shoot from short range and then use as a club/spear in melee. It would probably be the least intrusive way to nix Meteor Hammers and keep a similar role being a heavy cavalry with a charged ranged attack.
Aren’t fire lancers a bit dated at this point?
They are, but the very similar Iron Cav M00Z1LLA mentions covers it as they were use in the earlier ages in AoE3’s timeline.
Yeah as soon as my opponent start canon spamming it’s gg with China. Hand mortars are the worst culv in the game by far. I would die for an European culv as China, and since I cannot even reliably switch my economy to export, it is not like I can reliably get enough culvs from the Russian consulate either (which could also be a good solution if they expand on your options to invest on consulate armies on the mid-late game)
To me it should be a principle applicable to all regular units, just as I have also raised the idea of renaming or even replacing the present Rajputs and Gurkhas. This does not mean that the mounted archer can have a name under a specific ethnicity just because the Steppe Rider is already generic. The mounted archers guarding China’s borders were not all Mongolians or Manchus.
The Chinese civ already has enough unique things. I can’t convince myself that it’s accurate to see wagons that were hardly used bacoming a main unit. Probably as silly to me as making the Indians have camels instead of horses as the main cavalry. It might be easier to accept if the wagons were something like outlaws or mercenaries, which also can explain their solidity and strength far different from the Chinese regualr units.
When you used the inaccuracy as an excuse to replace the mounted archers in the Ming Army, you should not ignore the fact that wagons are even less accurate than mounted archers in the Ming Army. Or, if you think the only inaccurate thing about the mounted archer is the name, then renaming is the only option, because respecting existing viable gameplay is definitely the best solution, rather than intentionally introducing something even more inaccurate (regardless of whether it’s cool or not) and bringing more work to development and maintaining balance.
But Ming was indeed declining in the timeline of AoE3.
Rather than the wagons, those frontier cavalry who were proficient in bows and hand cannons were Ming’s most important force against the steppe people, guarding the border brilliantly from the Mongols and Manchus until peasant rebellions within the empire.
I’d probably have the cavalry use a normal hand cannon with a single larger caliber instead of three-eyed gun with a smaller caliber, as I want it to be able to reasonably and intuitively bombard the enemy at close range through siege damage that ignores resistance, so it can be very effective against artillery as like the current Meteor Hammer.
Whether to introduce the infantry Three-eyed Gunner is another matter. But its potential musketeer type is very helpful to the Chinese, and it would be appropriate as a unit available at the consulate.
It is fine for the ranged heavy cavalry when the range is as short as the Meteor Hammer.
It’s 關寧/関宁, not 管寧. Those Chinese characters have their own meanings, refering to the “Guan-Ning-Jin Defense Line”, a series of fortifications on borders in present-day Liaoning Province.
Because of its specific regional context, simply naming it Hand Cannon Cavalry or Huochong Cavalry could be better and easier to accept.
Infinite shipments of single artillery should be added in every European allies. (Meanwhile, the Dutch shrine goats should be removed, and replace the Meiji Restoration with herdable shrine deer in Japanese Isolation.)
In addition, following the Mysorean Rockets approach, Asians could ba able to spend resources to ship in some European-style artillery to be manned by locals.
Chinese:
Indians:
Japanese:
I’m not sure I’m a fan of making Asian units even more generic. They already suffer enough from not representing the diversity of the region well enough.
This is indeed worth thinking about. For me, having regular units named after specific ethnic groups seems even less diverse. It excludes any possibility of ethnic groups other from them acting the unit.
It is as if all the melee swordsmen in India were from the Rajput communities and all the riflemen were from the Gurkhas community. The Steppe Rider doesn’t have this problem, but the Keshik is medieval and has a clear Mongol background. Inca units present a similar problem, but I don’t know enough about the Incas to suggest a rename.
On the contrary, there is fine with mercenaries under ethnic names, and it may even be appropriate. It emphasizes the special service and contribution of particular ethnic groups to the empire.
The presentation of diversity is a challenge. Somehow it can also be unpleasant when we are overemphasized by others that we are different from others.
I think Asia and South America would benefit from having a lot more minor civs, but these regions would need a lot more maps, since the current devs want minor civs to fit at least four maps (and South American and Asian maps cover a lot more territory when compared to other regions, which I think should have been fixed ages ago).
Edit: now that I think of it, these two regions also suffer from a lack of mercenaries and outlaws.
The overwhelming majority were. As for the border cavalry that weren’t, those are depicted as Steppe Riders. Adding a second Steppe Rider unit does not make things more inclusive and only detracts from the more specific Mongol/Manchu unit.
Nothing is inaccurate about War Carts they are real historical units. They would not detract from more common cavalry types either since China already has 4 cavalry units to cover the rest. If I said China should have War Carts as their sole cavalry unit and ignore the rest, that would be comparable to how India has no horses, but that is not what I’m saying.
You’re really walking back your good ideas. Isn’t the three-eyed gun the signature weapon of the Guan Ning cav? Now you’re saying not to go with a famous unit with a cool weapon and instead do something generic and bland. Specifically Guan Ning cav would be much more interesting and iconic than a generic hand cannon that seems more reminiscent of archaic fire lancers. All that needs to be done to keep the function is a multiplier vs artillery. Something like a charged attack with ~8 range and x4-5 vs artillery would do the trick even with ranged damage.
Thanks for the clarification. I was assuming it was the same since that defence line was where they were based out of.
I mean, you said the mounted archer in the Ming Army is inaccurate and you want to change it, but you forget or ignore that the Ming used mounted archers far more than wagons so actually letting the Ming Army keep using the mounted archer as a regular unit that is used often is more accurate than introducing the wagon to replace the mounted archer for reflecting the reality of their military.
To be honest, the only reason I choose the single larger caliber than the three-eyed is because I feel the three small calibers of the latter would fire small projectiles rather than a larger ball, cannot have an intuitive visual effect of bombarding better than the former, while the capability of bombarding is exactly where I think such a unit can be very cool. In my imagine, it would bombard like an artillery ignoring target’s resistance, so that’s why it should work well against units with high resistance like artillery, and the short effective range of the single larger caliber is just like the short range of the current Meteor Hammer so it could be a suitable replacement. (It might be able to fire at a longer range but the damage and accuracy could decline when it’s too far.) However if it is a three-eyed gun, I fear it might become a unit just similar to the Carbine Cavalry.
New mercenaries from Native American empires or confederacies are absolutely worth introducing.
I have some idea about them in a draft about Native American reworks, but I just hesitate to create the topic or not.
[you should create a topic.
