If you look at the Greek chronicles, you need a complete reskin of all infantry and cavalry lines to fit the setting.
They don’t want to do the work (or did not finish), but still want the money.
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Also there would be an expectation they would have a new architecture set given that the Greek civs and Persia got new sets.
A shame as I really think China could do with a new architecture set, the new castles are welcome but the East Asian set overall still looks too Japanese to me.
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Meh just mix graphics
Use the envoy instead of the light cav, and give it wings for the Hussar
You can keep the early two archers and give the Chu Kop Nu skin to the arbalest
And use Asian infantry heroes for the militia line (maybe the Liao Dao and Jian?) and remove the lion from the pikemen shirt
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Ancient unit skins still fits a lot. Its far more universal aside Swordsman line than the base Middle Age units which are European by design. Only later Swordsman are closer to Hellenic style while Militia, Man At Arms is fine.
I don’t want to be the doomer, but we’ve seen a trend of cutting corners for a few years already. When did it start?
The “innovative” variant civs in AOE4?
The Malta civ in AOE3?
Mountain Royals with fewer contents, lower quality but higher price?
V&V with almost all-recycled free contents, few tweaks, poor quality voice acting, and even reused cutscenes?
Now, chronicles civs bundled with a mainline DLC re-using the same assets?
It does not feel right. This is a huge downhill path. And I fear it will get worse.
EDIT: and I’m tired of arguments like “but they are good ideas!”. They are good ideas that the devs were forced to come up under the pressure of cutting corners. I have full confidence they’d rather not use their wits to salvage unfinished work and stitch them together then make it look less terrible.
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Ornlu has explained it in more detail, but most likely the choice for 3K instead of other Civs in that region was made to ride the current hype for it.
The reskins and architecture of chronicles already came from the Romae ad bellum mod (if I recall correctly) so it’s very doubtful they are willing to do all that for a 3k chronicles.
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They could still make a new spin-off for the Three Kingdoms content, a spin-off that more similar to the base AoE2 civs than the Greeks in the Chronicles, if they had been willing to.
That will be a even better idea. If the Three Kingdoms content is sold well, they can keep adding other factions from the Three Kingdoms story as new civs into this spin-off.
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“But at least the Three Kingdoms give a good representation of the diversity of Han Chinese culture and history!”
Wei had a Xianbei unit and a Xianbei wonder. Xianbei were a major enemy of Cao Cao, and they later established the Northern Wei that had nothing to do with Wei despite the name. And the Tiger cavalry wears the pelt on his head. Are you kidding?
The same thing with Shu. Chariots phased out long before the three kingdoms. Shu did fight chariots used by southwestern peoples, in Romance, but that’s again their enemy not ally.
“But what if it represents them subjugating their enemies and hiring them as mercenaries?”
Well what about making the jaguar warrior a Spanish UU?
The Wu “fire archer” was originally showcased as a SEA unit. The look is not very Han Chinese either (like the moustache).
Then meanwhile Khitan has Tangut castle and unit (camel catapult), and we already talked about that a lot. It’s difficult to make such mistakes out of ignorance. You need to deeply research Tanguts to find those pictures first.
This is not “doing great work to appeal to the Chinese market”. This is a lot of unfinished things hurriedly scrapped together with few thoughts or efforts, like V&V.
If it’s just one or two units that seem hurried (like it has always been), people can cope with it. But this is almost half a DLC.
WE has been a mess for a few years.
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Ahh I did not realise that arctecture already existed, that makes sense as they seem very hesitant to make new architecture sets for the main game. Heck they don’t even seem to entertain the idea of swapping what sets existing civs use like giving the Persians Central Asian.
AOE 2 HD added the African set and Indian one over its life but DE has just added the Central Asian when it released.
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AOE3 really harbingered many of those things. Now it all pieces together.
- The Maltese civ. Most of it were reused campaign assets and units from the other civs. Only three of its units has new voicelines. The hero speaks English.
- Winged hussar as natives. Who on earth would design a winged hussar only to use it as a native? If you want to represent Polish “natives” you have a lot other choices.
- Similarly, a lot of Eastern European units coming with the Mediterranean DLC.
- A lot of units using AOE2 voicelines.
And also AOE4 variant civs. However you like it or defend it, it is objectively a means to reduce cost.
Not saying they are bad ideas, or don’t make any sense. I don’t want to debate on how each of them “makes sense” because I know they do.
But from a creative perspective, these all feel like the best compromises under the pressure of cutting corners, and quantity over quality. The devs did their best, maybe, but within a failing framework to begin with.
Welcome to the era of civ carpooling.
But AOE3 had sufficient space to dump those scrapped work (native, mercenary, consulate, card, etc), while AOE2 not much. You have to give the Tangut castle and camel catapult to some other civ. You might be thinking you should’ve not ditched AOE3 
It is very likely that management has been constantly intervening more with the game development in the past few years. And that never is a good sign.
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Chronicles is a polished version of the Rome at War mod made by Capture Age.
3 Kingdoms is a DLC made by Forgotten Empires. It’s likely that the Chronicles team didn’t want those civs to be part of Chronicles because they already have their ideas for China (Han).
Also 3 Kingdom civs reuse some of the civilisation/team bonuses used in Chronicles so Chronicles would have repeating bonuses despite only having 6 civilisations.
I even thing Chronicles units would look better then AoE2 units in the 3 Kingdoms setting.
The Paragon would look much nice in Asia then the Champion.
The (Elite) Guardsman look better then the very European looking Pikeman and Halberdier.
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Maybe I’m misremembering things but it seems whenever a mod is done or in development, an official dlc or game comes out.
Now I think it’s pretty much confirmed…an unfinished chronicles is forced into a regular DLC…ruining both.
Especially considering people have been long expecting the regular DLC they promised for two years.
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This is feeling more like two DLCs cobbled together now. An unfinished East Asian one that likely was supposed to have the Khitans, Jurchens & Tanguts. And this Chronicles one.
It reminds me that when TW3K got terminated, CA promised the next TW3K game to placate the playerbase, which eventually got cancelled silently due to CA’s internal crisis.
People here have been able to tolerate all the strange DLC for years because there was a promised “bread and butter DLC”, and it turned out to be a huge let down when it finally came.
Same 3K…same story…
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Everything in chronicles are made brand new nothing was ported over from the mod.
Mod is based around the roman empire chronicles is way earlier than that era.
So actually there’s pretty strong evidence now that the 3k stuff started as a chronicles-esque dlc
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The models are all remade but the concepts for the civilisations and units are carried over from the mod.
The mod also used a lot of AoE1 unit sprites.
I assume that they want to tell a story in Chronological order so they started before Rome and now continue in the time line with each new DLC.
The next one will likely begin with Alexander and then maybe already touch the Romans with Pyrrhus.
It will probably be the 3rd DLC that focuses on the Romans though.
I’m honestly kinda surprised how this whole thing happened.
Maybe they will backtrack and move remove them from ranked again now.
It will probably be comparable to Chronicles, but without the Chronicles label and without new regional skins for military units, and with the civs in ranked.
I wish there was an ancient East Asian architecture set, with inspiration from the East Asian Bronze/Iron Age architecture of AoEDE/RoR, that would be neat. More fitting for 3K than buildings of feudal Japan, and also useful for a potential Han civ in Chronicles. I don’t know if there will ever be an architecture “crossover” between FE and CaptureAge campaigns, though.
Strings imply that part of the campaigns might even take place in the late 2nd century. The Chronicles regional skins would probably also be more appropiate than the medieval ones. I like the common land units for being overall more generic in appearance, with both European and Near Eastern influences.