I am a conqueror I Chinese player.
First, I want to talk about my feeling of the game: With the several latest patches, the Chinese civ almost lose its characteristics: the nerf of farm, palace guard lost more health compare to others, nestbee is too weak and nearly benifit from chemical technology…
Beside, after buffed of other civ archer(such as the move speed of HRE archer, range of Mogel archer), Zhuge Nu even not good as other civ’s archer, because Zhuge Nu get short range, lower speed. This makes spending 600 resources to enter the Song Dynasty to unlock Zhuge Nu unworthy. BTW, in age III, Zhuge Nu attack heavy armor unit cause 3 damage, but archer also can, archer have longer range and faster speed… So why we need Zhuge Nu?
Fire Lancer, Oh man, why we cost more resource and get a slower speed, lower armor horseman, even cannot agaist range unit?
Grenadier, now it cannot add attack because of the change of chemical technology, and it can be more easily killed by 6.5 range archer.
While I playing Chinese civ, the special unit even not good as the normal unit.
Thus, Chinese need be changed a lot!
Second, here is some advice(just imagine):
-Landmark can add some special technology. ex. Barbican of the Sun can make the tower’s additional arrow get more damage agast heavy armor, similar like Malian’s (just a example). Palace can get free monk in Tang Dynasty, like Xuanzang’s Journey to the West (it is real history), or get free palace guard(Palace maybe should have Palace guard) (this also a example). Chinese need more strategy
about Landmark, but now, while I in Age I, almost choose Imperial Academy. Building Barbican of the Sun is just for Song Dynasty. In Age II, choose Palace of Clocktower have less different in later game.
Dynasty maybe should unlock new army technology. most of normal unit have no technology.
Maybe new unit or remake some exist unit. You know, compared to the original game, ENG get new unit in Age IV; HRE get faster unit; Delhi get new horseman and elephant; Ottmans get new horseman, Cavalry Archer and early cannon; Mongel get new Knight and Hunter, Rus get new Spearman from Kremlin, Malian get 3 advanced units, Zhu Xi get early units. As the oldest civ, perhapes it need something new.
Last, but not least.
The most important things of the game is interest. But Chinese civ is not interesting enough, you can play it well ONLY with your super game skill INSTEAD OF some creative strategy.
China is totally a mediocre civ now (after chemistry change), I’m a Chinese/ZXL main and I got ur feeling. Like what I talk about from another thread.
Gunpowder units (what China used to proud of) are nerfed to the ground, and their other units are just vanilla, simply affected by Dynasty bonuses is not enough, especially when ZXL get unique tech to affect their universal units.(ex: Roar of the Dragon for spearmens, Dali horses for stable units, etc.)
Consider what you say about dynasty units and my experiences, if they lost their advantages, they just simply design as a ‘buff provider’ by get themselves killed, thats not good at all.
You don’t go song just for zhuge nu, you go song for the faster villager production to do a 2tc boom. Zhuge nu are a bonus.
Zhuge nu are very strong, normal archers get most of their damage negated by high armor units but zhuges attack in bursts of 3 so each individual attack will do at least minimum damage this makes zhuges much better vs armored units than normal archers. The dps of a zhuge is also much higher than a normal archer vs anything.
I agree with fire lancers they are just bad and need a buff. Grenadiers are a niche unit that is very expensive you won’t be massing these very often, just mix a few in to your army for some additional aoe damage.
Barbican is already better vs armored units due to hand cannon slot having high base damage. Palace is fine as it is, just FC into palace then supervise a stable and use the palace to kill all the exposed vills with your knights.
I disagree that they’re not interesting, china is 1 of the most unique civs with a ton of options.
Zhuge Nu only have higher dps than archer in AGE II and AGE IV(after fire arrow technology), in Age III, it is weaker than archer. And dont forget it, other civ’s archer almost have some benifit: like ENG longbow, Dehli attack speed, HRE move speed, Mongel range… cost 600 reasource to unlokce Zhuge Nu or cost 600 rescource get 8 more archer, here are two choice. Choosing Zhuge Nu only can shown its benifit than archer after several minutes(maybe Zhuge Nu over 30-40?), it will cost too much time and the opponents get Age III.
I’m all for adding new tech to China, it’s the best option both in terms of practicality and fun. As an example, the Palace Guard’s AOE attack tech is totally worth returning to right now, while the unit wields a two-handed long-handled weapon, thus a moderate increase in range and a small increase in attack power makes sense, and now that infantry are weak, this addition won’t make them OP. the ZGN and Fire Lancer are currently unimpressive, and new techs could be added for them as well. These techs could be considered to be put into either the 4th era landmark or the 3rd era palace, btw, the palace landmark is a bit weak right now, it should be considered to add features like it could be used as a landmark to train exclusive units faster or to automatically collect taxes in its area of influen
I have also fed back this issue in this topic. I believe that after Age III and Age IV, China’s units become very inefficient. This is similar to your viewpoint. Should China be buffed in Season 9?
Here is the graph of win rate over time. As you can see, for a long period of time after entering Age III and Age IV, China’s win rate is quite low. I believe that this data from 134,442 games supports my viewpoint.
Go Song is quite dangerous plan, it means taking more risks when farming(especially in this knight dominating patch). If opponent catch this time to prevent me farming and I’ll better surrender.
Zhuge Nus are bonus indeed, but they still weaker in late-game comparing their other range unit(updated archers and handcannoneers). I spam them only when before late Age III, cuz their short range couldn’t make them get rid of their ‘buff provider’ roles.
I agree what u said about fire lancers and grenadiers.
Most of its interesting part about China is in late-game, early stage is basically ‘turtle and fight back’, and most of China civ player couldn’t survive in the mid-game (its worse now because we cost more time and resources to wall up than before).
Instead ZXL have several agressive plans in early stage, comparing with that, China have less options and fun than its variant.
