Ideas to Improve the Spirit Way Landmark

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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(Note: I know China is powerful enough currently, maybe we should nerf it on Tax or Imperial Academy Landmark, or we may change Pro-Scout. But these are nothing to do with Spirit Way’s Redesign.)

Summary of Proposed Changes:

  1. Spirit Way Buff’s Effect and Trigger condition Rework:
    ○ Remove the healing effect.
    ○ Nerf attack speed bonus to 10%.
    ○ Expand the buff’s radius.
    ○ Allow all infantry, cavalry to benefit (not just Range Infantry).
    ○ Changed Trigger condition from “Dynasty Unit Deaths” to “Unique Unit Deaths” (include Palace Guard & NoB).
    ▷ Considerable Compensation: Nerf Battle Hardened Tech to prevent Palace Guard becoming too OP.
    → Goal: Make the buff viable for diverse unit compositions, only in this way, mix of Fire Lancers with other cavalry units can become meaningful. The most common combos, like Palace Guards + Handcannoners, or Palace Guards + Spearmen can also receive benefit from this landmark.

  2. Add Dynasty Buffs Switching Mechanism:
    ○ The Spirit Way can spend resources (e.g., 500 Food or 200 Wood/Gold/Food or other differentiated pricing) to switch between unlocked Dynasty Buffs.
    ○ Add a cooldown to prevent rapid switching like 1 min.
    ▷ Considerable Compensation: Remove its current “discounted tech research” function.
    → Goal: Increase late game tactical flexibility (e.g., switch to Song for villager production, Yuan for raiding, or Ming for pushing in front. And now you can also use the Yuan’s buff to speed up the grenadiers like ZXL already does).

Key Improvements on Spirit Way:

  1. More army diversity (not only Zhuge Nu + Handcannoner) after select this landmark to increase its strategic value.
  2. More Late-game flexibility via Dynasty Buff Switching function.
  3. Ming Dynasty and Grenadiers become more considerable choice.

Reasons for offering these changes:

There are several design failures in China’s late game.

  1. Yuan Dynasty’s bonuses are overwhelmingly preferred, making the Ming Dynasty rarely worth transitioning into.
  2. Zhuge Nu & Fire Lancer aren’t suited for extensive use in late game.
  3. The Spirit Way Buff’s Trigger is restricted to Dynasty Units, offers negligible healing, and attack speed buff only benefits Range Infantry (ignoring melee/cavalry).

Resulting Problems:

  1. Many players ignore the Spirit Way Landmark entirely. The biggest significance of this landmark’s existence lies in its weakness, which allows players to comfortably ignore it for keeping themselves in Yuan Dynasty.
  2. Spirit Way’s buff only work on Zhuge Nu + Handcannoner in most of case, discouraging others army compositions. And it’s difficult for Grenadier to have a chance to play, because even in 4v4 matches, players frequently choose not to reach to Ming Dynasty.
  3. Spirit Way’s discounting on Upgrade Techs also meaningless, because players have no need on Zhuge Nu & Fire Lancer in late game.

As we can see, the Spirit Way landmark was originally intended to boost the pick rate of dynasty units, but it ended up as a complete failure.

It neither enhanced the playability of dynasty units nor delivered the flexibility that should have characterized in China civ. Its flawed design even became a reason for players to intentionally avoid constructing all landmarks, these players will never finish their progression path. This problem is less visible in 1v1 but did problematic in team matches late game.

So I suggest to rework Spirit Way landmark to fix its failed design, addressing the China civ’s missing flexibility and establishing a complete progression tree.

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Honestly, I feel like some of China’s bonuses and technologies were made to fit the style of the Four Dynasties, rather than for historical representation or actual balance.

Spirit Way case

Spirit Way, for example, was a Mausoleum Spirit Way. The bonus it gives is justified considering China’s “dynasty system,” since it “gives +20 HP and +attack speed” to nearby units if a unique unit dies, which would be like a “national spirit” to make units fight better if a representative of a previous dynasty dies, perhaps inspired by “Visit the Maosoleum”.

The problem with this on a balance level is that… it’s just a bonus. It doesn’t do anything more. On top of that, it’s situational. And the discount on upgrading unique units from the dynasties isn’t that useful. And with the Fourth Age landmarks, one would expect a slightly better effect.

I assume it’s because in “THE BETA,” when they first designed the game, they considered that giving China two landmarks per age might be too broken in the Post-Imperial era. Therefore, the power of some of its landmarks was limited (Imperial Palace only lets you see enemy units, Barbican of the Sun is a better outpost), hoping the other would complement it. However, the other 4th Age landmark is defensive, so it doesn’t complement it at all.

Where they did implement this well was in ZhuXi, where the ZhuXi Library allows you to obtain extra technologies for your unique and normal units. And the other one, the Temple of the Sun, gives you passive military bonuses, and you can swap between them.

Ancient Techniques

I’m adding this technology because it also has the problem with Spirit Way, but in a different way.

It also works based on ancient dynasties: For each dynasty developed, it improves global harvesting by 5%.

But what do they mean by Ancient Techniques? I suppose ancient Chinese techniques improve harvesting. “but with that excuse” they could apply the same to the Aztecs, and all South Americans know it’s false:

  • The Aztecs didn’t have cupellation or deep wells, nor did they extract minerals as efficiently as medieval Europe.

It would be better to describe the actual techniques the Chinese used to have, let’s say, an agriculture that could support such a large population (20% of the world), instead of ambiguous names.

In fact, I would suggest that it only affects agriculture; I don’t understand why it also affects logging and mining. That way, at least it balances out the fact that they are so broken in the post-imperial era.

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Current China Balance, Representation

Currently, and due to ZhuXi’s similarities with China, as well as the dynasty system, it is difficult to fully represent Chinese culture across the four dynasties, especially since the composition of armies varied from one era to another.

In fact, I would say that China currently represents the final years of the Tang Dynasty, the Song Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty, and the early years of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1450). However, it does not represent the entire Ming Dynasty, since unlocking it is not only difficult, but even ZhuXi has grenadiers (no longer a feature of the Ming Dynasty), and their +Attack or +HP bonus is simply a summary of saying “They had better military equipment”.

I would see ZhuXi as a civ that represents Chinese villages with militia, not the imperial army. Because they’re a militia, they only have Zhugenu instead of Archers and don’t even have Handcanonners. The fact that they need Shaolin Monks to defend themselves further confirms this view. They also fill in all the “experimental” weapons invented during those dynasties, and this is most noticeable in the ZhuXi Library technologies.

To represent the Ming Dynasty correctly, they would have to add 5 or 6 extra unique units, which would replace the roles of others. Considering that Lancasters already exist, they could very well make a Ming variant.

Ming variant?

In the future, at least to more accurately represent the Ming Dynasty in all its splendor, with units like the LangXian pikeman, ShieldBearers, Wolf Troops, Arquebusiers, and Mandarin Duck formations, these should have their own variant, and lack the dynasty system (for more novelty). They should be able to build Taoist temples instead of Buddhist monasteries, or choose it based on a Castle Age landmark.

Obviously, it wouldn’t have Spirit Way or Ancient Techniques.

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Spirit Way, balance, remake, etc.

That being the case, I think that in the case of Spirit Way, at least the historical building (Qianling Mausoleum Spirit Way) is OK for the civ, because it accurately reflects the representation of the passing of dynasties in the Mausoleum of the Tang Dynasty (618) that lasts to the present day. It could also be a Spirit Way from any other dynasty, the point was to use an iconic Chinese building as a Landmark (an SpirIt Way)

Regarding its effect, as you say, it could be better, or at least varied so it’s not so broken for Zhuge Nu, but more useful for other unit compositions.

I don’t think that’s going to be possible, given the way dynasties work. In fact, if one of your landmarks from a dynasty you’ve already unlocked, but isn’t active, is destroyed and you rebuild it, you can technically “Revert” to the previous dynasty. That could cause bugs.

Also, consider that Zhu Xi has a Temple of the Sun, which switches between four bonuses for FREE, and that’s considering they retain the extra attack bonus from Ming. So, I don’t see switching dynasties as a solution.

I would rather suggest having more than one effect, such as not just dynasty units, but unique units, or giving better bonuses to dynasty units (cheaper, for example, faster to produce, etc.).

The Real Reason for the Landmark: THE BETA

In fact, when the Landmark came out, in the Campaign, during the BETA, and the premiere, Season ZERO, it had another effect:

“Originally, the Spirit Way made training dynasty units at nearby production buildings 30% cheaper. It also re-unlocked dynasty units”

Yes, originally you could only have one dynasty unit unlocked; the rest were re-locked. So now it makes perfect sense to create a Landmark to unlock the previous units; otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to have Zhuge Nu in Imperial Age.

My Ideas

  1. Reducing the cost of Dynasty units. You know, reducing the cost of dynasty units sounds good. If we combine it with the nerf to Ancient Techniques, so that it only affects farms, it might work.

  2. Unlock ALL Dynasty Bonuses unlocked AT THE SAME TIME. This way, you could keep the Yuan bonuses along with the Ming, and it wouldn’t be so unfair that Zhu Xi can increase the movement speed of his units with the Temple of the Sun while having an attack bonus.

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I believe it’s acceptable, but I’m not sure if current players would like it, as everyone has almost gotten out of the habit of using dynasty units, and China’s Zhuge Nu is indeed not as effective as ZXL’s.

I’ve also considered suggesting such changes myself, but balancing seems extremely difficult. I am not sure if China with both speed and health bonuses is too OP. A possible approach is to nerf these bonuses before stacking them, but that would also make things a bit complicated. That’s why I finally proposed switching dynasty bonuses, after all, this design underwent successful experiments by ZXL.

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