Maybe I should give up Chinese civilization

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

As a Platinum-level player who mainly plays the Chinese civilization, my current experience with China is that it almost feels like a civilization without special units.
The image below shows my gameplay situation after the version update on November 19th.

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I can tell you that the unit I use the most now is the horseman, next is the archer, and then is the spearman. Since China now has almost no advantages in Age III and Age IV, I must gain sufficient advantages in the Feudal Age. For example, when facing OTD, I must quickly deploy troops to prevent the opponent to the Castle Age. I usually spawn horseman instead of advancing to the Song Dynasty to get the ZGN, because it costs 600 resources to enter the Song Dynasty, which is TOO SLOW. As you can see from the image, the average time for each game is only 20 minutes. In fact, the longer the game goes on, the lower my win rate with China becomes, which is different from previous versions.
Why is this happening? Let’s look at China’s distinctive units inAge III and Age IV now.
The first one is the fire lancer, which costs 1800 resources to unlock. It has lower armor but consumes more expensive resources. In Season 9, I never chose it.
The second one is the NoB. It currently has a bug (often stop fire), and compared to the previous version, its damage is not high, which leads me to almost never choose it.
The third one is the Palace Guard. The Palace Guard is usable, but not strong. This is because infantry was nerfed in the previous version.
The fourth one is the Grenadier. Honestly, if your opponent’s strength is comparable to yours, you actually don’t have enough resources to enter the Ming Dynasty. This special unit is difficult to unlock, let alone use.
So in the third and fourth ages, due to the lack of powerful units, the Chinese civilization struggles to win large-scale battles. If you want to win, you must gain an advantage in the Feudal Age.
So I want to ask, isn’t such performance conflicting with the Dynasty system? Why did I not gain stronger units and technologies after spending so many resources to enter different dynasties?
Therefore, the Chinese civilization is currently “sick”. You need higher gaming skills and more gameplay experience to defeat your opponents.
Finally, I want to say that if a civilization needs very skilled players to win, then that civilization does not deserve to win.

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What do you mean, it is infact the most unique Civilisation in the game. No other civ has as many distinct units as you yourself listed.

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Dude, having it and using it are two different things.

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I mean technically it has about the same amount of unique units as most civs. Like french have crossbow and knight as unique, english only longbow and wynguard units in imperial, HRE only landsknecht. So it clearly isn’t necessary to have tons of unique or special units in order to win.

China has many unique mechanics and other advantages. 2 tc song is absolutely worth the 600 resources in return for all the additional tax and ability to create IO’s from the academy and the additional defense provided by the barbican, aside from that you’re getting much faster villager production which rapidly recovers the 600 res invested and you also get access to granaries.
Aside from song you get +20% extra res drop off with IO’s and tax which is huge. Later on you get ancient techniques tech for another eco boost.

The best way I’ve found to go 2tc song is to make a granary and supervise it which allows for immediate farm transition as you’ll have another IO supervising wood for an extra 20% and with 1 supervised granary you are getting +30% food income from farms, this alleviates the biggest weakness of the 2tc song build which is running out of food.

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What you said is actually part of what I was trying to say.
Think about this statement, “So it clearly isn’t necessary to have tons of unique or special units in order to win.”. This is really saying that you are using the good economy of the Chinese civilization to crush your opponent at the same level of matchmaking. It’s quite understandable, for example, you can’t win one longbow using one archer, but if you have a good economy, you can beat a longbow with two archers.

Undeniably, Chinese civilization does have a good economy, but the economy is the only thing worth mentioning. Imagine the extreme case, if a civilization has a very good economy, but that civilization doesn’t have any UNIQUE units, then isn’t there something wrong with that civilization, this is what I call ‘‘sick’’.
After reading your comment, I think you also have some understanding of Chinese civilization. Do you think Firelancer, NoB and Grenadier are not a problem in this version?

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I think just NoB and palace guard would be enough unique units but chinese are lucky to also have zhuge nu, firelancers and grenadiers as well as the longest range HC with the unique tech. Consider these units as nice optional extras that you’re lucky to have as an option.

Chinese isn’t just limited to a 2tc song build, you can go song and then do a zhuge nu feudal push or do a FC into imperial palace, supervise a stable to get knights out fast and then use the palace ability to find all the exposed villagers.

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The gameplay of Chinese is indeed very flexible. As a player who mainly chooses Chinese, this is a fact that I have to admit. In fact, I have tried the Tang Dynasty + Fast Castle, +Palace + Knight, and it’s quite fun. Although I really want to continue discussing the gameplay of the Chinese civilization with you, that’s not the main topic I’m here to talk about.

Currently, there are some issues with China’s Dynasty system. The unique units of different dynasties are either too weak and unnecessary to produce (like the Fire Lance), or powerful but have no opportunity to be used (like the Grenadiers). Although these units may be options, they are not utilized in most matches (99%). Compared to ZXL, ZXL’s dynasty units are very flexible and useful, which is what dynasty units should be capable of.

Getting back to our topic, it’s the lack of unit power that makes it difficult for China to gain an advantage after AGE III and AGE IV. Because when both sides’ troops have equal value, China struggles to win large-scale battles. This makes the Dynasty system seem even more redundant. I’ve spent a huge amount of resources unlocking various dynasties (except the Ming Dynasty, as it’s basically impossible to enter), but I still can’t guarantee enough strength in frontal engagements. This is unreasonable.

For example, if I use the Chinese civilization against the most common opponent, English. In the previous version, after entering AGE III, if you had five NoBs, you could stabilize the battlefront and then use Palace Guards to raid the enemy’s farms from the sidelines to gradually gain an advantage. But in this version, if you let English reach AGE IV, large-scale battles are almost impossible to win. (~! Seriously, if in this version, with equal troop value, you can defeat English as Chinese after AGE IV, I hope you can tell me your troop configuration.)

So in many matches, as I said, “If you want to win, you must gain an advantage in the Feudal Age. So you need higher gaming skills and more gameplay experience to defeat your opponents.” Due to the Dynasty system, China should be a civilization that becomes powerful in the late game. Currently, its late-game strength only exists in the imaginary Ming Dynasty (from the update on November 19th to now, I haven’t entered the Ming Dynasty once).

I don’t know if you agree with me when I say, “If a civilization needs very skilled players to win, then that civilization does not deserve to win.” The Chinese civilization is indeed in such a situation.

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It depends what units you are using, zhuge nu are 1 of the highest DPS archer type units that there is in the game. Your palace guards sacrifice attack for HP and with yuan dynasty speed bonus they are the perfect unit for raiding enemy eco. You cannot however expect to beat english maa with them in a straight up fight.

Vs english it’s really no different than vs any other civ, vs their maa make crossbows, springalds or knights, vs their longbows make horseman, palace guards and nest of bees.

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It’s hard to disagree with what you’re saying, in the latest data the Chinese are at the bottom of the ladder matches in 1v1 and 4v4 as well as quick matches in terms of win rate (except for 1v1 quick matches, but they’re also second to last). China’s current unique units have become completely useless after round after round of nerfs:

The earliest Firelancer was extremely OP, and now it’s almost indistinguishable from a regular horseman with its ridiculously low aoe charge damage.

Palace guard was one of the few barely usable units in the last version, but it’s attributes on its own aren’t great, and in this version it’s even more completely outclassed by knight.

Grenadier did much more damage at the earliest than they do today, and now you need a fair number of them to gain an advantage on the battlefield - so why not use Mangonel?

NOB is bugged and is now a complete waste of resources, or you’re willing to spend more ops to get it to force ground attacks on the battlefield - very tiring and mediocre return.

ZGN: Please use the ZXL version.

What else is there besides these?Handcannon?True, it’s not bad, but handcannon’s overall combat effectiveness has been nerfed since it couldn’t benefit from chem techs, and for China, it lost the advantage of first damage from chem techs, and only has a range advantage. That said, nerfed.

Bombard, with its faster rate of fire and a handful of higher HP versions of the bell tower, isn’t bad.

And to be honest, without Ribauldequin and Culverin, I don’t think China currently has any advantage in gunpowder weapons.

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I agree about the gunpowder part of what you said.
Regarding gunpowder weapons, I think NoB is even worse than Mangonel in this version; Grenadiers are hard to unlock; handcannon is available but expensive and far less powerful than last version; as for Bombard, it’s not as good as Trebuchet under this version. So gunpowder, which is one of China’s characteristics, has a low presence as well.
I think China as a growing or accumulating civilization , she should be able to strong enough in the late stage of the game, just like in the season 8. But based on my experience of hundreds of games this season, I think China is now more inclined to get the advantage in the early stages. Because like we stated, her unique units are not powerful in AGE III and IV, which seems to go against her positioning a bit.

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Now even if the officials can oversee the clock tower it won’t help, the production team should at least have the NOB, firelancer and grenadiers strengthened to a certain level if they think China is unique in gunpowder, consider having the palace add extra techs to these three units. For example, NOB and Grenadiers can ignite the ground, and Firelancer goes from an inferior horseman to a unique unit with high damage.

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