They are just damn op
They cost 200 food and are being able to be trained after 6:30
They beat any age2 unit HARD and you need like at least 4 times the ressources in spent in units to even TRY and CHALLENGE one SINGLE monk.
Meanwhile that civ obviously gets access to age3 units like crossbows and lancers at the same time, because they are age3 already.
Please beta-test your game before you release this.
I’m pretty much done with the devs honestly.
While most of the post seems to be about Zhu Xi being able to FC too easily, I do agree that the monks are a bit overtuned. (Also technically archers beat them eventually since they move slower than them). IMO the biggest issue is they just do too much damage. 15 base damage with .75 attack speed is just ridiculous, they out damage knights against most targets while also not taking bonus damage from any unit (which makes them unreasonably tanky).
Imperial officials even make it so being constrained to the landmark is not that inhibiting (especially paired with the low 20 second production time)
I do agree with your post, also I would like to see something done about them being able to compeletely skip feudal age too!
A game like this isn’t easy at all to balance in advance.
Pretty sure they will gwt nerfed in next patch.
If i had to guess maybe tang dynasty reduces from 15% to 10%.
And monk reduce hp a bit.
I just fight against them, and I was surprised who is killing me 
Yes, it seems, that these monks are very strong
Shaolin Monks are certainly an interesting unit, but this unit should not replace the palace guards as Zhu xi’s main force.Nerf the Shaolin monks and let Zhu Xi’s palace guards get battle-hardened technology.
They also got an active skill that reduces their damage from ranged.
The only way I can kill them is with 5-6 onna bugeisha, spears, archers, horseman, all of them are pretty ineffective against him.
Also I think that is not good that a civ can just skip feudal as fast. With some builds like japanese fast TC you get to feudal like in minute 5:50, and then 5 seconds after zhu xi is in castle collecting all relics and getting sacred places.
thats the main problem, any feudal aggression is nearly useless, a few monks and a lancer and your small early army is gone.
Maybe you could kill some villagers, but who cares, they already at age3, gets nearly all relics, its very frustrating.
How can a naked shaolin monk is good against range?If they were good against meele i can understand they can do kung fu to deflect meele attacks but ranged attacks too really?Its so weird.
Reduce range armor to 0. Remove iron skin and make it an imperial research. Problem solved. They can beat melee all they want, good luck with archers.
Zhu Xi’s monks don’t need to be nerfed, just limit its production rate, for Zhuxi, the most important thing to nerf is its zgn rush, but this will cause Chinese, the second last on the rank ladder, to become weaker.
So i suggest bring zhuxi’s archer back, and limit zhuxi unlocking zgn until song dynasty
It need to be nerfed, there are certain civs that literally can’t kill them in feudal. With abbasids I struggle a lot to kill them, I can only kill them with 6 or more onna bugeisha with japanese.
A religious unit that only costs 200 food killing and tanking units that doubles their value… It’s a joke.
I will reduce their HP, made them light so archers can deal damage on them AND maintain his ability, so they can reduce ranged damage income for a limited time. Also I will reduce a bit his damage but increase damage vs religious unit, they are supposed to counter other religious units, not fight a samurai.
Imagine a semi nakd dude who claims he knows kung fu fighting a fully trainded samurai with fully heavy armor and a katana and still winning… Wtf is that.
Since they are limited to castle, it would be fine if they were basically unkillable by feudal units. They are tied to a landmark and so hard to mass. The only reason it’s an issue is because of Song/Tang Dynasties making early farm transition and FC builds just too quick/strong.
yea 6:30 castle timing, so you nearly always fight with feudal units against themand tbh its a joke. They just skip feudal and you cant really punish this style.
5:52 is the fastest castle I’ve seen, you can literally have near 4 archers and these overpowered beasts are catching relics.
I think a good nerf would be to just reduce HP to like 150 (from 170).
I think they are designed well, just a bit too overtuned. Reducing HP would not make them obsolete at all and they would still perform the same role, they would just die a bit more early in battle.
tbh this nerf would never be enough.
I think its a good start, Shaolin monk aren’t as strong as people claim they are. They get completely crushed by knights.
Even if they deleted the monks, it doesn’t really fix the issue of Zhu Xi’s rediculous FC and by far the strongest farm transition in the game. It’s so strong that pro players are opting to not even take deer.
It’s not like feudal armies are going to perform much better against castle PG + Zhuge Nu’s. What feudal unit can handle the faster, cheaper palace guards (compared to monks). At least you can kite/run away from the monks since they can never catch vills or archers.
I was also in the impression that zhu xi need a huge nerf on their dynasty before. But considering 2 things i changed my mind: 1) Their win rate isn’t that high. 2) they are quite bad in imperial age.
I think a small nerf such as not applying defensive structure to the song dynasty (it seems like a bug anyway tbh) would be good enough to nerf their eco. Shaolin need to be tuned as well.
I think the whole concept of zhu xi is that they have a huge tempo advantage, but they need it because they lack in strong tech and strong units, especially late game.