From my point of view, compared to other civilizations, China gives the player less sense of reward. China has the least capable landmarks, and even if you can build more landmarks than other civilizations, it is expensive and unattractive (except Song Dynasty). In 1v1, no one goes to Ming Dynasty at all, even Yuan Dynasty few people reach it. Granary is expensive and provides weak ability, 250 wood is deadly in castle age, no one will use it at all. At least The changes to villages are good, after the reduction, villages become common in 1v1.
The biggest problem now is the poor ability of landmarks in China, because you can build two. But due to the lack of enough attraction and expensive price, no one will build two landmarks in 1v1. If developers give more practical Dynasty rewards, and if the cost of the second landmark is reduced, we will see more people using the Chinese dynasty system in 1v1, otherwise they are just decorations.
6 Likes
too much hyperbole in your remarks IMO; you can watch high level players ON STREAM go for granaries; aka Leenock, 3dbee, grubby, szalamii, demuslim?, etc. I would concede I hope granaries were a TOUCH cheaper.
Also ming IS reached decently enough in 1 v 1; Yuan in the other hand is niche. Rather than cheapen the cost of dynasty they should buff the perks of going dynasty IMO;
strengthen the zhuge nu IN CASTLE (extra walk speed and or range; or maybe an additional burst shot?!); give the pagoda and the fire lancer something; maybe the pagoda generates a much higher and noticeable amount of tax and the fire lancer gets more base HP or a bonus vs villagers? or a bounty for setting things on fire?
IMO china struggles to get established; but if you get going and can stablize… china start causing trouble. Also this chart of 1 v1 rank ladder of > = GOLD supports my hypothesis.
PAY ATTENTION TO THE 30-34 MIN GAMES. Already over 50% win rate with large sample of games played in that time interval.
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RANK >= GOLD (5/2/2022)
I change my mind!!! something needs to be done to level this line; something that stays true to the identity of Chinese in this game. IMO
Cheapen the village from 125 wood down to 50-75 wood;
IMO it should be standard to open up village first instead of a house and have it NOT delay your age up by anything significant AND the reward of the village in terms of wood saved should kick in sooner than 5-6mins into the game. This change alone will speed up the progression for China allowing for faster defenses and/or aggression play.
Allow Imperial Officials to be affected by the 35% bonus production of the Song Dynasty;
Because Song Dynasty is extremely standard and happens pretty quickly, it is UNLIKELY you’ll have all 4 IO’s out before Song Dynasty hits. And even IF you had all 4 IO’s out, it’s unlikely you’d have efficient use for all 4 that early into the game (5-8 minutes into the game).
DOUBLE THE IMPERIAL ACADEMY AURA
This landmark is extremely functional but the aura is not big enough, especially mid to late game where all the spaces are practically used up and you’d have to start deleting your own stuff to optimize high usage production/drop-off buildings. Also early game having the ability to hit your wood line food and stone/gold would be extremely pivotal and pretty much function as a flat 10% buff/rebate.
Granaries need to be cheapen from 250 wood down to 175 wood
This civ is already designed around base building and defense so I understand we don’t want the civ to be completely self sufficient in base (cough* enlgish/mongol cough*), but the granaries take a little too long to get established AND they don’t pay-off in terms of WOOD spent until you get them in the proper configuration. If the price is reduced to 175 wood per, you’d have a situation where 12 farms + granary which worth 13.2 would cost 1075 wood WHICH is the same cost as 13 farms + 2 mills and the BONUS would be you save 1 villager immediately!! This would make it so that IFF you caNNOT get the optimal 3 granary configuration you’d still save 3 villagers and NOT over spend on wood. And if you CAN build the optimal granary config you’d get the bonus of saving 6 villagers and additional wood! This would make the granary always favorable while not making it an immediate use.
Lastly nerf China late game via ming dynasty grenadiers. I suggest an HP nerf from 150HP down to 125HP; This would make a gren mass die to 4 mango shots.
EDIT
last last!! Ming dynasty needs an AUTO TAX technology OR have it be part of the ming dynasty bonus!!! make it so each building that has tax will submit 20-30 of its tax pool PER MINUTE. This will allow IO’s to be used very late game for production!
2 Likes
If you are buffing this much of early game then there needs to be a lot of late-game nerfs. From Palace Guard that can run at the speed of knight but with not being countered by spear to dirt cheap fire-lancer which will be bigger issue with granaries.
My Proposed China Changes
I have my own thread for proposed changes but I will list my main points here.
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Dynasties Dynasty Landmarks costs are reduced by 10% stacking with each dynasty previously achieved
Song - 10% cheaper, if Song built then Yuan 20% cheaper, if Yuan built then Ming 30% cheaper to build.
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Age 3 Landmark Buff Imperial Palace offers vision to military units as well
Make this landmark more useful as of right now it offers no value when you could just scout instead. As compensation for this buff increase the cooldown.
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Ming Dynasty Taxes can now be dropped off at Outposts & Keeps
Right now Ming Dynasty only offers Grenadiers and 10% military HP buff. That’s not nearly enough to merit dropping 3600 resources. This bonus would also allow taxes to be used in the late game because as of right now they become useless due to long travel times to TC and Imperial Academy.
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Imperial Official Limit Each Dynasty achieved increases Imperial Official limit by 1
Gives greater incentive for going through the dynasties as well as an ability to catch up and react to an opponent after dropping resources to age up twice. Not to mention Delhi & HRE can train an unlimited number of their economic support units whereas IO are limited to 4.
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Imperial Academy The Imperial Academy now trains Imperial Officials
Makes this landmark useful for jump starting their economy as well as staying relevant throughout a game. As currently this landmark is only used for the first 10-15 mins or so.
I fully explain my ideas on my topic page if anyone wants to check them out.
3 Likes
Those discounts are waaaay to strong. IMO; a 10% across the board…okay but a progressive discount??? phew!!!
Imperial place is for raiding and having LOS means you can charge animation into those revealed villagers even after your vision is gone. If every 2 minutes you could see your enemies military comp and positioning? AND their vils??? I mean how much overpowering do you want China to be?
Lastly IMO you didn’t address the issue China has which is low win rate when the game is between 15-25 minutes which basically means feudal early castle. What’s a 10% discount on song gonna do to help (60 resources saved???)
Now compare that 10% song discount to a 50-75 wood village!! Immediately at the start of the game you can drop a village and get a defensive position AND significantly impact your wood requirement transitioning from Dark to Feudal.
Example of a 50 wood village means you could age up sub 4mins if u skip the lumber camp! AND NOT BE HOUSED soon after. This alone could mean you could macro all your villagers on food and gold and get immediate dynasty! On the other hand that wood saved legit would offset the cost of a military building for early harassment!
Hey I appreciate your feedback, here’s what I think in response.
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The Dynasty Discounts would only stack if a previous dynasty was achieved. Therefore your first dynasty would be 10% cheaper, second dynasty 20%, third dynasty 30%. So you’d have to age up twice a total of three times in order to receive this bonus. Dropping 1800 resources to pick up Yuan is rarely done and dropping 3600 resources to pick up Ming is never done aside from 3v3s and 4v4s. This is done to encourage a Chinese player to go through all the dynasties. As currently ‘ageing up’ twice as China is only consistently done in Age 2 for Song Dynasty. I personally have never seen a professional game where the China player has gone to anything but Song. This mechanic seeks to change that and encourage a player to use one of the core mechanics China is built around.
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The Imperial Palace idea is just an idea I’ll admit, I just want to find a way to make that landmark marginally useful because simple scouting and map awareness (where are my opponents gold mines and woodlines?) completely does the job IP is supposed to do: helping with raiding; for basically free.
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I don’t believe or want China to be a strong civ in feudal. The game design of China is to build up an economy via micromanagement with Imperial Officials, go through the Dynasties, and achieve victory. China has more than enough defensive options for Feudal, they’re just hard to play. Maybe a Barbican bonus within range of your own TC (in order to avoid offensive Barb strats) would be nice. But with my changes as Song the 60 resources saved means much more early game, most likely achieving Song by the 5 min mark if rushed for. Plus if all my changes were implemented a Chinese Song player would receive 5 IO and the Imperial Academy would train those officials. Leaving China with a very strong defensive position.
I’m not trying to make China overpowered or even ‘meta’ with these changes. I want to embrace the identity that the devs have given the civ because they’re so unique and fun. I just want my changes to make the unique mechanics China uses make more sense to actually use in a match. Again for my full thoughts on my proposals please check out my thread where I flesh out my reasonings.
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IMO, you’re not addressing the win rate issue over game length presented in the chart above? If you look at the charts on QS and Rank you’ll notice the same trend? Any game that’s shorter than 25min CHINA struggles to get any wins close to 50%. A pro player Leenock, an extremely methodical/macro base building player top 8 EZ!! He STRUGGLES the most trying to pull off a 2 TC song dynasty vs early aggression. Marinelord, another top player suggested once in his stream that 2 TC song dynasty is NOT viable at high level vs AGGRESSION (which is the name of this game). With your 10% discount on Song Dynasty it doesn’t do anything IMPACTFUL to establish China’s foothold.
IMO the changes should be focused on the area where the civ hurts the most, so while I will agree to some late game changes that can definitely benefit the faction, I think we should hone in on the early game STRUGGLES first.
The Imperial Academy building IO’s is a good idea.
