I really like the change to the chinese start. I reall didnt like the +2 villager start from the PUP a few patches ago.
After not playing chinese for a while, I build 1/3 of a house at start and complete it at 9pop with the 8th villager, and regulary get housed at 15 pop because of having other thins in mind.
Starting with 15 pop cap ease the chinese start so I do not get housed at 15 pop anymore.
Since the change basically gives 25w (house cost) to 33w (house cost building time), I want to say the following:
If chinese get too strong at high Elo because of this, I would rather have chinese start with an additional -25w (total -75w -200f) rather than completely reverting this change. Even though I am usually very conservative about balance changes.
I like it too but the LOS is the real unspoken gem. Seeing 33% more area is so big for finding early boars, deer and sheep. The 6 villagers just eat through sheep so fast, that it is paramount that you find some more ASAP. I had some really abysmal games with Chinese on certain iterations of Arabia when I just couldn’t find everything.
The pop also helps when adding more TCs. You can boom so much without wasting resources on houses. Go gigaboom in teamgame with 4 additional TCs… 60 more pop, make villagers for ages.
Idk about buffing Chinese LUL
It’s two really nice bonuses for early game, and if you don’t get damaged early on with Chinese, you are in a really good spot.
I have a similar idea. Remove the heavy camel rider from their tech tree and give them a 2nd UU (for instance a flamethrowing siege infantry) to help them better countering siege in late game.
About Chinese, do you see them finally get BBC or HC at a certain point ?
In a recent challenge they had BBC available in siege workshop and it give some hope !
Appart from a historical point of view, I feel like Bombard Cannon could be needed because right know they have nothing to counter siege onagers (No redemption, onagers with less range, average cavalery, no BBC) and they don’t have a crazy late game.
Devs could even tweak the tech reduction bonus to make it like a flat 10% to compensate, to tune down their imp power spike but give them a better tool for the long run.
I don’t think they need HC. Though from a historical POV they should have it, in terms of gameplay their Chu Ko Nu already serves a similar function as HC, hence it isn’t really needed.
As for BC they could have it, I think currently they’re too weak against siege in late game. Alternatively they could have a 2nd UU to deal with siege. I propose the Fire Lancer, which would be a flamethrowing siege infantry trained at the Siege Workshop in Castle Age, and deals bonus damage against siege units and standard buildings. This unit could also become a regional unit of East Asian civs should the devs decide to make a new East Asian DLC by adding in civs such as the Khitans and the Jurchens.
Or maybe they could have their civ bonus demo ships having 50% more HP removed and replace with a new anti-siege bonus to compensate for their lack of anti-siege units in late game. The demo ship bonus could be given to a new East or SE Asian water civ instead, such as the Chams or the Javanese.
Then how you counter the deathball of Chu Ko Nu + Halbs + Siege Ram on arena if they the have the tool to deal with Onagers? Alt f4? lol
Halb+Onager is the way to deal with chinese and that is a weakness by design, you just can’t add something to fix some historical innacuracy without breaking something (Chinese lost Redemption when got Block Printing because that gave a clear answer to that weakness).
Since the technologies discount nerf Chinese stopped being too dominant for 2k, and that’s why they are getting buffed to help lower ELO players exactly otherwise they wouldn’t get this buff.
