Hello there, I hope that everyone are having a great day.
I opened this topic to make a suggestion to create a Chinese Mercenary Contractor age up politician for the Russians.
This politician would enable the training of Iron Troops, Manchus Horse Riders and Rattan Shields. I think that this will add to the game historical aspect, improve the balance and add more variety. Because:
On the historical part: Well I don’t want to make this post too long, but Russia and China are neighbor countries and have a long history on their relationship, and this new in-game politician for Russia can illustrate this well.
If you have interest in reading more about it, I will link a wikipedia article bellow. (As I think this article is a nice introduction to the issue, and have a lot of further references on it).
On the balance part: There are a lot of topics discussing this on the forum already. But I think that Russians have a hard time on the end game due to their infantry being weaker than the other civilization counterparts, and by not having a unit that is particularly good at dealing with Dragoons. (Since Strelets have a low range).
So this politician helps the balance because:
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The Iron Troopers solves both the problems mentioned above, being both a very strong infantry unit and a unit that is effective at killing Dragoons.
Also, in my opinion this adds more variety to the game, since Iron Troops are slightly different than skirmishers, so they will be a more interesting addition to the Russian army compositions instead of a Skirmisher type of unit like the Jaegar, for example, that a lot of other civilizations already use it.
Iron Troops, on the other hand, are not a very often used at the moment, despite being a quite good unit. -
The Rattan Shields are a infantry that acts as a substitute for cavalry. Which means that Russia can possibly make armies compositions without having to build Stables, this will take full advantage of the their unique building, the Blockhouses, on the process.
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The Manchu Horse Riders is also a nice unit for the Russians, as they have the same speed as a Dragoons and can kill them.
Also Russia have two cards to upgrade cavalry units.
Is very common to see Russian players using the 9 Manchu shipment in age 3 because they synergize well with the civilization, and also not less because is the only unit that Russia has available that kills Dragoons effectively. -
I also think that having good but coin heavy units like those available, might incentivize Russian players to add cards that improves the gold gather rate on their deck, like Royal Mint, Cigar Roller, Textile Mill and Rum Distillery.
This will add more variety since those cards are not very often used by Russia, except when they want to make Halberdiers or mass Cannons.
Now, there is a problem: The current artwork of the Mercenary Contractor politician may be “too European”, and a new artwork featuring a Chinese man might be required to implement this change.
And I understand that this might be somewhat of a burdensome for the art team, as they may be busy with things that I’m not necessary aware of.
But I sincerely think that the proposition is good overall.
I will put some portraits that I think could be a good reference for this politician artwork, in hopes that this helps/inspire in some way or another:
What are your thoughts about that? I’m looking forward to hear other users opinions and suggestions about this.
