you mean, more inmersive? 
I have some suggestions for Chinese. Chinese IO collects taxes from other buildings and drop them into TC, but villagers who directly put resources into TC don’t get any taxes. This creates a series of problems. First China had to put down a mill and build an IO at the beginning of the game to collect taxes. The second is that in order to receive tax money, villagers must work in areas far from TC. This makes them vulnerable, especially against the French cavaliers. So IMO, Chinese villagers should get tax directly when they drop resources into TC, which will give Chinese a fast economic boost in early game. It also makes Chinese villagers safer. I think this will be more effective than the changes for mentioned in PUP.
That would mean china would not build the early mill; they would just eat sheep under the TC and also NOT make the early IO since the tax is being collected automatically. Next the 2nd TC if they’re going Song 2 TC would also be build along some resources line. Lastly building farms around the TC would be incentives for the auto tax function and inherent safety! Back to the early game though, not having to build that mill means you save 10s which legit impacts your timing especially if you’re doing a BBQ/TR and it would save you even more time if you can skip the early IO by directly collecting the gold at the TC; by my estimation you’d have the res to go to feudal (single scout, no early IO, no mill, just gold min and house) @ 2:10-2:20 LEGIT?! And building china already builds fast, you’d take 1 min to cross the map then 20s to drop the BBQ? 3:30-3:40 BBQ rush in the key location would be cancer! Alternatively faster Song Dynasty, faster boom; lastly faster FC…
I think this idea is too strong.
Chinese should get an upgrade which makes all tax generated on a supervised building automatically turn into gold without having to gather it.
What this would do is the following:
Imagine your standard Chinese game. Your starting mill has 300-800 Tax gold stored, which you are never going to collect. However, if you research this upgrade, all further tax is immediately converted into gold. This way, the Tax will stop accumulating. One IO can constantly supervise and collect incoming tax. Another IO can collect the tax which is already stored inside the building.
This way you can also collect tax from lumber camps, mining camps and other buildings by supervision when your TC is far away. Because by midgame Tax income decreases drastically once you gather from far away lumber and mining camps.
You mean the FIRST mill you make in the game? The one that’s RIGHT NEXT to the TC? it will have 300-800 tax that YOU’RE never gonna collect???
Isn’t there a way to downvote this silly info so we can stop hearing this guy repeat ill info??
Its plastic league info … It can be true but not on at least a bit decent level.
His idear is broken nevertheless … If all gathered taxes would be turned into gold without need to colect it with IO … We have super buffed enclosures right there.
90% of forum count I. Academy influence like its only connected into first mill+ l. camp and mine camp … What about Blackmisth? First production buildings? Lately in the game also additional mills(granaries) with farms all around? … So yeah … This would be super broken and this IO change (with ability to train them in IA) is change every pro asked for like last 5 months or so. Its good, balanced, still strong but not OP.
You are pretending I said something which I never did and then you are vastly overexaggerating. Please take a moment and read my suggestion again.
You can have a maximum of 4 supervised buildingts at a time. This means only those buildings will turn tax into gold. Not some “super enclosures” like that other guy said. Thats complete nonsense.
Talking about blacksmith: One blacksmith upgrade or any ugprade grants up to 74 gold, which is still gathered in one trip by the IO after upgrading tax carry capacity. And all those expensive upgrades are one-time. I fail to see how this would somehow be overpowered.
What you would gain is a small but constant trickle of 1-2 gold when supervising mills, lumber camps or mining camps or 4-8 gold when supervising production buildings.
None of this is unreasonable. Its a fix to the problem that Chinese is unable to gather tax from far away buildings in the mid to lategame. Many people came up with suggestions for this. Suggestions such as making Keeps act as drop-off points for Taxes for example.
Without such a solution you will never end up gathering hundreds of tax gold from mining camps and lumber camps. And yes, your starting mill also ends up with hundreds of tax gold which you will never collect since tax accumulates faster than you can gather it. Even with the 80 carry capacity.
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Dispite finding that first mill comment ridiculous I love your idea of having supervision work in conjunction with tax collection!! But this would have to be a mid to late game upgrade to be anything close to balanced.
For example the first mill make in the game? You generate over 150+ gold at that mill by only 3 to 4 min into the game. If you could auto collect on that mill while superivising WHILE inside double tax aura?!! You could possibly get some 6 min fast castles…I LOVE THE IDEA (broken if allowed in feudal…would have to be a castle upgrade or better yet a yuan dynasty upgrade to encourage that dynasty)…
In second thought they should append your idea directly to the Imperial Academy extra carry capacity. LOOL
Not being sarcastic, this would be more broken than allowing the TC to auto collect taxes because you’d generate sooooooo much gold at a mill or lumber camp inside a double tax zone for at least 7-10min?! Straight‽ China would have HRE inspired villagers!
Please relic implement this so china can be # 1 win rate for at least a week or two!!!
Edit
NOPE NOPE NOPE… your idea is broken if allowed in feudal. check it:
Since we now get IO from the Imperial Academy it means IOs are effectively bonus productivity units similar to scholars are for delhi, not “idling” our TC. So that alone means we legit get 20% bonus villager gather rates rather than the live patch (20% × # of villagers)/(# of villagers + IO) which equals less than 20% bonus and would never be 20% ever !!! IF you factor in that new patch reality with double tax zones and Your idea ?
1 chinese villager gather rate = ( 1.2 × 10f + 2g )/time.
Compare that to a standard villager.
1 standard villager gather rate = 10f/time
That’s a 40% bonus!!!
With wheelbarrow it drops down to 33% when compared to standard villager wheelbarrow but 33% is still huuuggeee!!!
They should start this buff in feudal so everyone KNOWS how strong it is THEN patch it to be unlocked in yuan dynasty!!
patch sumed up in a sentance.
Rip China… that is all
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You are not aware that the developers made an update for PUP?
Chinese (CHI)
- The Imperial Academy Landmark can now train Imperial Officials.
- Developer Note: This change allows China to train additional villagers at the town center, giving them access to more strategic paths early in the game.
This basically gives China 3 more villagers in feudal since they can build Imperial Officials from the Imperial Academy instead of the TC. This change is huge and will make China much stronger in the early game. I suspect that China will be at least A tier after this change.
Bro this guy is 20-30k ranked teamgames only player.
Biggest crybaby on entire forum since december without a single valuable post/comment.
No reason to respond to him or even worse to discuss with him.
I love the change but at the same time bit worried about it, because with the change it increases IA value and makes it necessary for china to always open with it.
IA was already decent economic boost for china and now technically means 6 more villagers if all IO’s are trained from the academy. Wouldn’t be surprising if china moved to fast feudal with IA and skippin IO in dark age to have much better economic standing in feudal
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I forgot to write it in my suggestion, but the idea was you need to research a technology first and the technology would have to be in Age 2 or 3. That way Chinese doesn’t get to automatically collect tax via supervision early on.
Otherwise yes, Chinese would get a crazy economic start from the fast gold collection in Age I and II, but that wasn’t then intention. I simply want Chinese to be able to gather tax from far away places when your IO cannot walk between TC and buildings anymore.
Alternatively if you’re opening up BBQ DEFENSIVELY, yes u get a passive tower but no benefits toward your clearly boom/timing macro; meanwhile Opening Imperial Academy having to add a tower and or barracks is CHEEAP while keeping your landmark eco bonus! Mind you most other civs get immediate benefits from their landmark.
I lean probably towards rushing both out or have to see how things go with timings
China can only gain advantages in the age of empires, however, it often has to face opponents with a certain number of troops, not to mention a large number of fortresses and arrow towers, China needs a unit that can break the balance, not simply use more than the opponent. Need more troops to press over.
From the original design, we can see that the developers have something to break the deadlock for imperial China: the Palace spy, Nest of Bees, the infamous Fire Lancer, the 12-range bomber and the grenadier. However, these things are big Part of it was NERF because of the protests from TG players. Now China is slightly buffed in the feudal era, but it has lost more advantages in the imperial era.
The design of Chinese civilization has now deviated from the original plan, with the most complex system, weak feudal era, but nothing to break the deadlock in the imperial era. Developers need to re-examine the setting of Chinese civilization, not just to please TG and pure NERF everything.
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Are you really throwing up the image sizes I found as an argument? Do the other way around and find me a large screenshot of the AoE 4 knight icon so they are both large. Better? No, I didn’t think so.
Icons should tell you how your hard earned resources are invested in a better unit. 1, 2 or 3 dots on top of the icon while keeping the rest identical is a very lazy way of doing it. Same goes for blacksmith techs and everything else. In AoE 2, even in a 32x32 icon, I can tell how a Paladin is more badass than a Cavalier and more badass than a Knight. Spectacle, man. RTS games need spectacle because you’re not racing cars at 200mph or blowing shit up. Even a damn icon goes a long way.
To this day I don’t know if the food tech upgrades affect only farms, because the icon is a frickin’ sickle and its description doesn’t clarify if it affects ALL food sources or just farms (and I honestly don’t have time to do a ‘Spirit of the Law’ analysis of collection times). How “Horticulture” or “Fertilization” make me gather food faster from a boar? Let’s just be objective for a moment and accept that is a terrible UI issue right there.
In AoE 2, Mill upgrades pertain only to farm improvements and the icons and names make that extremely clear. You can easily tell at a glance (visually and by name) how a horse collar, heavy plow or crop rotation would improve farming and JUST farming.
Well said.
Can tell you now that China has not been more broken than it ever was in TG’s.(meme)
I have +65% winrate with super one dimensional play. Like devs wanted to remove one dimensional play yet its most effective way to play and no reason to play clunky slow moving siege when player can just smash things with more broken units that is lancers/knights.
Ofc if game drags on into late game I add something else to break deadlock in situations where there is choke point like mountain pass but otherwise. Cant be arsed to even touch china unique things and fun fact. If I played as french I would probably have +20% winrate added to this
You’re . . . missing my point. I’m not saying the Age IV icon scaled-up looks as “badass” as the other icon. I’m saying the other icon will never look like that in a game. It won’t look that crisp. You won’t see all the detail in it.
Beyond that, what you’re describing is preference. I prefer utility over whatever measure of “badass” people find icons. But I don’t disparage those that prefer a different look and feel. I don’t put people down because they don’t agree with me. And please spare me the protestations, we were both active in the other thread 
It’s hard, right? To have constructive conversations about something we care about. But try and assume the best of the other person’s argument, instead of rushing to assume things like I was trying to claim the Age IV icon would be acceptable to you if it were larger. I understand your issues with the icon design (fundamentally). I just disagree.
I’ve never personally had a major issue with the UI communicating information, but I do know people have in general. However, this isn’t the icons. Criticism around the icons mostly relates to “feel” (like you seeing icons from other games as badass, but not the games in Age IV as the same). Criticism around UI information tends to relate to the unit stat cards and what impact they have on gameplay. And it’s valid, for sure.
It stops being personal preference when the icons and the UI affect the gameplay. Plenty of people have said that blacksmith upgrades all look the same and they realize they’ve been clicking on melee upgrades while having only archers on the field.
Or the fact that the sickle with dots doesn’t leave clear if it affects only farms or all food sources. Better visual representation would go a long way. It’s not only “badass” units. You tend to keep focusing on one aspect that favors your argument while conveniently not addressing others (e.g. two images of different sizes I happened to find or the use of the “badass” term).
I try to not put people down either but sometimes evidence just piles up and it’s hard to have mature conversations with people who will manipulate information, ignore parts of it or twist facts just to come up on top (not referring explicitly about you). You be the own judge of the way you counteract arguments.
I find it very tiring that we entered this cycle of constructive/destructive balance changes all the while other parts of the game remain so neglected. People are mentioning China above so let’s forget about UI and talk about how tax gold in buildings far away from your TC or landmark go to waste. Why was that never accounted for when designing the civ? That’s a “let’s do this now and figure the rest later” mindset. Or the almost impossibility to hit Tier 3 golden age with the Abbasid. Why is there no tech to include far away mining camps or towers?
There are oh so many things about the game that I could sit down with the devs and go one by one explaining why it made no sense to change (China in PUP) or that they have completely forgotten about (siege clipping terrain). That’s not even touching core mechanics, but just things that after so many months after release make the game feel so lackluster.
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