That’s so important for China!
Controversial take warning - China is not weak in the early game.
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It really is not. They get 3 unit shipments, a Castle shipment that improves Castles, all the necessary Crate shipments, and a shipment for 2 Villages that solves their pop issues.
What China is, is weaker then the behemoths: Japan and Sweden, which are grossly OP.
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How to Fix China Age 2:
The balance team should unlock all the german trickles, that is food trickle, wood trickle and coin trickle in the german consulate by Age 2. French consulates has all 3 crates of 500 wood, food and coin unlocked by Age 2. If the German consulate trickles were unlocked, then you could spend your export on those trickles aswell as make use of 20% less food for banner armies to make a lot of banner armies in Age 2.
As it is, the only viable Consulate for China is brit consulate, also because Redcoats fill the Musketeer role which China doesn’t have and because Intervention is a very powerful shipment. But Brit consulate is also the only viable consulate because it provides a great use for your export. The german consulate has no good way to spend your export in Age 2 apart from food trickle. The Doppelsöldner are a bad investment and there is no reason to buy them with your export since you already have Pikemen and Age 3 you will get Changdao. Doppelsöldner are a redunant unit, unlike Redcoats.
The Russian consulate is also never used because 10% faster settler production is a weak bonus. The balance team should consider adding a 10% cheaper settler bonus ontop of it. And change the Intervention shipment to send Dragoons from Russian consulate.
The French consulate is only used for its crates, which is fine. Grenadiers are terrible units and not a single civ uses Grenadiers.
Together with these Changes, aswell as the Card Saiga Herd, China will have sufficient economic power via trickles in Age 2 and can use Saiga Herd as a unique way to have access to hunts and get an advantage over other civs in a game of attrition, once the hunts on the map are contested.
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I agree. You already have to wait to accumulate Export as it is.
No, it is Russia, by far. You get Cossacks (no good Age 2 Hand Cavalry, so Cossacks help a lot), a Blockhouse that can train Banner Armies, a Fort that can train Banner Armies, and a Factory.
Russian Consulate is the best for China, by a wide margin.
No single China player has chosen Russia in the recent competitive games, instead they have always chosen British consulate (Mitoe has chosen German consulate for Age 2, but switched to Brit come Age 3 for Intervention).
No one is using the Blockhouse, thats a joke. Just build a 2nd War Academy.
Factory is of course being used, but no one invests export into a Fort in a serious game. The only faction to even use Forts is Inca, because their Fort can go invisible which is lowkey overpowered.
Yeah I’ve only seen Russia been used in long treaty games for a quicker boom.
PS: Btw devs, if you are reading; please don’t forget Swedish consulate.
The blockhouse is a bit underrated atm I feel, it could stand to be a little bit cheaper but you can forward it for map control, it is cheaper than a castle and can train the castle banner armies as well.
Cossacks are also a little more viable in age 2 since CKN dominates other infantry but the musks acts counter cav
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The blockhouse that is shipped doesn’t allow the Chinese to make cossacks or musks, only banner armies. Unless you are talking about the unit shipments, I really wish they enabled the option to train cossacks or musks.
China can get cossacks from the consulate with 10% boost hp and atk so its good enough anyway
Cossacks are decent, however in a FF play by China the British would still be a better ally in most situations.
I’m a China main, in fact almost all my games in DE and Complete Edition are China and I’ll give my 2-cents on it.
We all know China can’t win a supremacy match by doing a Commerce rush, their units would just die quickly… Most China players either get to Fortress Age by FF and win or die trying. Their opponents mainly spam musks and hussars to overwhelm or diisrupt them in Commerce Age, China’s own cav is very weak and cannot mass enough Chu-ko-nu early only to wipe out musks.
Know this, the goal of an FF China is to amass a death ball ASAP, we are not looking to delay any further because China is either going to be rushed by a civ in commerce age or face off an opposing FF with stronger eco.
The slow age up times does not allow China to play for too long… I do realize by choosing Porcelain Tower we do lose 8 arqs to defend against a quick commerce mass but with town center units and monks, the Chinese player should be able to hold off unless the opposing civ masses cav in Commerce Age and in that case we just send pikemen and hope for a well-timed pop and scream at our delayed FF.
In a FF China, we normally see Summer Palace and Confucian Academy age ups. Some like me would go with Summer Palace and Porcelain Tower because the resource generation is worth more than 8 Arquebusiers in the long run. I like to think of the former as a naked FF if China is aiming to rush their opponent while they’re getting to Fortress. In an ideal situation where China safely gets to Fortress, it will be at the 7 - 8 mins mark.
Let’s assume Fortress Age was just reached, by now China would have around 400ish export. 700 gold and wood were sent (1 consulate, a village, a market, and war academy is built). Usually a trade post is built during age up to Commerce Age. At least 1 shipment available by the time Fortress is reached.
Let’s talk about the consulate: Keep in mind in the fortress age, +20% hit points and attack are given to any Consulate unit as opposed to their regular counterparts.
British passive: All land units would get 7% boost in hp, this will help China because their units are already fragile.
Russian passive: Settlers are trained 10% faster. This is somewhat useful if China is able to get more than 1 TC up and running. In fact this is necessary for China to achieve a boom. However in a FF play, this does not serve us that well.
Scenario 1. (British Ally + Intervention) Consulate Army
The standard play would be to train one batch of 6 musks and send Intervention for 9 more musks. This give a total of 15 musks. (Worth 1125 food and 375 gold)
Scenario 2. (British Ally + Intervention + 300 Export) Consulate Army
If China is able to delay to maybe 9 minutes and instead of training first batch of musks opts to send the 300 export card and Intervention; after reaching 800 export, they can train the 9 musks and a falconet. Add in Intervention and China now has 18 musks and a falconet. (Musketeers worth 1350 food and 450 gold and the Falconet worth 100 wood and 400 coin, a total of 1350 food, 100 wood and 850 gold)
Scenario 3 (British Petards)
Really? You could try to snipe a TC early on but good luck if your enemy stops them…
Why British?
Scenario 1 and 2 gives China a decent amount of anti cav and if taking Scenario 2, falconet is very useful because at Fortress Age, artillery is very hard to get. Flying Crows train very slowly and flamethrowers suck. Hand mortars would probably be more useful as most European civs by Fortress age ship / make cannons before attacking the Chinese player. If you are able to survive to 8 minutes without significant pressure, scenario 2 would be worth it and would aid in any early Fortress fight.
A death ball comprised of Territorial armies, upgraded Mongolian armies (Steppe and Keshik if a Castle is built), British units (our musks are stronger than opponents, will tank for our arque and chu-ko-nu), disciples and monks would be enough to destroy most enemy armies. Add in the 7% hp boosts and constant free armies from Summer Palace and we’ll have a frightening death ball. This army is still susceptible to artillery, massed artillery will wipe out the precious musks so play around them or try to tank and use Steppe Riders to possibly clear them.
Scenario 3a. (Russian Ally + Intervention) Consulate Army
We train a batch of 4 Cossacks, send Intervention to get 6 more. We have a decent army of 10 Cossacks worth (750 food and 750 gold). The 20% buffed Cossacks are really strong and in fact can be used as anticav against the opposing civ because let’s face it, CHINA has no reliable anticav at this point unless you upgrade the Keshik early on or start training expensive Forbidden/Imperial armies with your resource starved FF economy (this is why I usually age 3 Porcelain Tower). If we’re going to bring up China’s pikemen and changdao, they just get squashed by enemy infantry. Anyways this army is good against any light infantry spammable civ. However, against most European civs a lot of Musketeers will absolutely murder your Cossacks, the Caroleans will wipe them out before they even get close and if you’re playing against Portugal, you may find yourself possibly dying to a Dragoon army.
Scenario 3b. (Russian Ally + Intervention) Blockhouse shipment
Anyways, we ship a blockhouse early on in Commerce age, send Intervention to get 6 Cossacks. We have a 6 Cossacks worth (450 food and 450 gold). You do get a blockhouse which doubles as a war academy and castle (minus the artillery), instrumental to defending against an early Commerce rush but any enemy rush with several cav would inevitably delay FF, a cav army will overwhelm your cossacks as opposed to the 6 musketeers that would be able to fend off cavalry better. If you do intend on fighting in the Commerce age with this blockhouse as a forward base, you may be able to pull it off, but your units would be very fragile. I would rather goes as the British and build a castle early on in Commerce age when playing against a Commerce rush heavy opponent like Russia or Ottomans. Later on in Fortress Age, your army will be weaker without the HP buff unless you switch to British but then that would cost export too.
Scenario 4 (Russian Ally + Intervention + 300 Export) Army shipments
If China is able to delay and sends the 300 export card and Intervention; after reaching 800 export, they can train the 6 Cossacks and a culverin. Add in Intervention (6 cossacks) and China now has 12 Cossacks and a culverin. (Cossacks worth 900 food and 900 gold and the culverin worth 100 wood and 400 coin, a total of 900 food, 100 wood and 1300 gold is provided by this play)
We now have 12 cossacks which may die easily to massed fortress age musks/caroleans but at least a culverin to defeat artillery. Our death ball will have less units because we only got 12 cossacks as opposed to the 18 musks you would have gotten but the army would be less susceptible to artillery. We don’t have the land units HP boost unless we make a quick switch to ally with British but we may not have the export or time.
Why Russia?
If you are playing against a less aggressive civ and may want to go FI or be able to out economy them, then you may attempt to ally with Russia. If you are against a light infantry civ like Russia or maybe against a China too, you can use the Cossacks to your advantage.
Things to Consider
- China’s opponents would usually spam cav or heavy infantry (musketeer) because China cannot adequately deal with cav and most people are hardwired to hit the musketeer button.
- Although China’s economy may be much weaker than their enemy’s during fortress age due to China making a death ball instead of trying to boom or get to Industrial, China can make more of less (their armies are cheap enough to allow China to contend with larger economies)
- Allying with Natives around the map may give China some additional flexibility.
- A build based around “Good Faith Agreements” is fun, you ally with France to get all crates, ally with Germans to get Food and Wood Trickles and queue up armies, and switch to British to get the land units HP boosts. The “Ally with Russia” Button is dusty
My own opinion
I would go with the British as a consulate ally because of the unit compositions China usually faces and because China is more of an infantry based civ rather than a cavalry based one. Their opponents are mainly well guarded against other European civs that would also be cav heavy. China’s weakness lies in its inability to fight cav early game and it is very abusable. It’s not only the units that China needs from the consulate, but its more of the passives. With the British passive, China has a fighting chance.
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See a FF spam powered by a British consulate, I had a horrendous eco in the end but I was able to mass death ball after death ball of troops. Got lucky near the end with my cav killing off his artillery. FF_SPAM.age3Yrec (4.8 MB)
So I do get tunnel vision whenever I fight my battles but one thing I noticed immediately is the lack of settler cards from the Chinese, the only reason my British opponent was able to produce that many units was the settler cards he had. He just kept sending out his musketeers batch by batch in front of my armies… Had I allied with the Russians my Cossack shipments would have been completely useless against this.
I do agree that for like 90% of situations where China goes FF, Brit is the way to go.
But I do think there are some situations where the other consulate options are somewhat preferable, they are niche but I think good to know.
Like for going age 2, I really prefer going german consulate while massing up units then switching to Brit, the -15% food cost and the food trickle (worth only about 2-3 vils) really helps in maintaining constant unit spam, especially if you try to spam from both castle and war academy for like a skirm goon composition.
The french consulate is good if you prefer instant resources but I find its only really useful in GFA + 300 export builds, which are mostly for memes with china.
The russian one I feel have 1 use case only for the most part and that is in using intervention to boost cav mass in age 3. 6 boosted vet cossacks can turn battles when they pop properly and that can combined with the 4 you can get from a regular batch.
If you can also switch to brit after that then thats even better. This mostly comes up in situations where I already have an infantry mass and is trying to mass cav quickly.
I think there is also a porcelain tower rush that China used to be able to do and that can be used with the russian consulate to get both a blockhouse and cossacks though idk how good that is now
I don’t remember the Blockhouse being able to train banner armies… Now I want to go check again.
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It was one of the base changes DE made to China, way back on launch.
I remember reading it and saying: “Finally!”
Only makes sense that a sent-in production building allows you to produce at least some units.
Another thing I just realised about China, or other civs is that Repelling Volley also gives multiplier vs Goons while Counter infantry Rifling only gives bonus vs heavy infantry.
Lol have been playing this for 6 years and only noticed now.
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This is exactly what could make Age 2 China viable. You end up sending 700 wood, then maybe 8 pikes, train a bunch of Standard army and later on you ship GFA + 300 export to send French crates and switch to German consulate for trickles. Its good value, but its obviously slow and you’re staying in Age 2 as China, whereas China wants to hit Age 3 ASAP. So you need to get an advantage like Trading Posts or Water control with your Age 2 play.
I have played this version extensively and the conclusion is, its just too slow and China is too vulnerable in Age 2. However, if the devs were to unlock all the trickles from the german consulate in Age 2, as opposed to having wood trickle locked behind age 3 and coin trickle locked behind Age 4, then China could ship all these 3 trickles in age 2 and have a somewhat decent eco. (Keep in mind they have 0 villager shipments in Age 2 and don’t get 400 wood on age up and the Summer Palace takes a long time to produce banner armies.) They still lack a good heavy cavalry unit and they lack Musketeers. We all know no China player is ever going to get the german coin trickle in Age 4, this is simply not an option and this needs to change.
Flamethrower buffs need to happen obviously, that unit is a joke and no one uses them for good reason. 4 population is way too much (Leather cannons are only 3 pop) and one Flamethrower costs about 70% villager seconds of 1 Falconett. Now compare the effectiveness of both units and its obvious that Flamethrowers are a joke. 3 Flamethrowers are more villager seconds than 2 falconetts, but are nowhere near as effective. Let that sink in.
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Yes, it is possibly to compensate for missing Infantry Breastplate and Paper Cartridge, which improve the HP of Euro units, so they get less hard-countered.
I think its more to help their cav skirm composition, since the skirms will basically shred any goons that tries to attack the cav while the cav charge and snare