First of all, I apologize that this text is from an AI translation, so there may be awkward or hard-to-understand sentences. While researching historical records of the Ming Empire, I discovered that the Ming court allowed local authorities to retain a portion of tax revenue to respond to natural disasters or fund infrastructure projects—such as building bridges and repairing roads. This led me to think about tax mechanisms in games.
In many games, Mongolia can use stone to speed up troop recruitment, and the Holy Roman Empire can repair buildings. Perhaps taxes shouldn’t be limited to functioning as gold alone: the ability for imperial officials to transfer taxes is already a great feature, but we could expand on this further. Taxes could be transferred not only to town centers but also from town centers to other locations. Additionally, taxes could be actively used to obtain certain buffs:
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In barracks, they could accelerate troop training speed, or even equip soldiers with better gear (granting attack or defense bonuses to all soldiers trained within a specific period);
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In defensive structures, they could reduce damage taken temporarily;
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In economic buildings, they could motivate villagers to increase gathering speed for a set duration;
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The same logic could apply to research buildings, and so on.
Beyond this, we could add unique units for the Chinese civilization. China has a long history of using crossbows, and among all dynasties represented in games, the Song Dynasty’s crossbows are the most renowned. One such weapon is the “Shenbi Gong”“神臂弓”—translated here as “Divine Arm Crossbow” (even though the Chinese character “gong” literally means “bow,” it refers to a crossbow in this context). Just like the Eastern Roman Empire’s Greek Fire, this famous weapon was ultimately lost due to excessive secrecy. Its power was so formidable that even the Song Dynasty’s enemies marveled at it.
Another notable unit is the “Jingsai Army.” “静塞军”Since the Song Dynasty’s adversaries excelled at cavalry warfare, the Song court raised this elite force, comparable to the Eastern Roman Empire’s cataphracts. The name “Jingsai” “静塞"means “securing the frontiers,” and historically, the army lived up to the emperor’s expectations by defeating invasions from the Song’s enemies.