Title.
I am all for Early Handcannoneers, though giving that Unit solely to House Lancaster and not at least also to China seems like an oversight. It was first invented and first used in China after all. Should they not be the Civ that gets access to that unit first?
Given the nerfs to gunpowder units China got in general, to me that feels like an easy fix. I mean… it is THE Gunpowder Civ. Why not?
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Because don’t you know? The true early gunpowder technology civilization was apparently the English!
Joking aside, they kind of butchered China. The civilization featured more gunpowder elements earlier on before it got nerfed (Pyrotechnics) to the ground, and it kept happening again and again with Fire Lancers, Nest of Bees, Grenadiers and their Keeps. The only “early” gunpowder element to their civilization, are the handcannon slits, which are completely worthless.
The thing is, there are other things that made China powerful. Like their economy. The developers decided to prune everything Gunpowder-related and kept some generic ass gameplay for China intact to compensate. You couldn’t convince them to buff China because every pro player would lose their minds, as they are pretty powerful right now… But, they’re not powerful in the right areas for the fantasy that they’re suppoused to represent.
In other words, developers just kept pruning the fantasy out of the civilization because of balance.
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Well put… I very much agree with your sentiment. I feel the same - catering the balance to not upset pro players sucked out the fun and unique aspects of the game. Really hope the devs find a way to put back some of the Gunpowder-related aspects into the Civ. It just felt more fun, when China had an Identity instead of bland generic gameplay.
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Devs definitely had the idea to gave Chinese early handcannoneers. I mean, they even made the early handcannoneers voiceline.
I once unpack their voiceline data (SoundSpeechChinese.sga) and find out they got the Age III voiceline for handcannoneers. Sadly I can’t get those screenshot because I deleted these unpacked data, but you guys can check out this mod name 军团与军团长 , Chinese in this mod has a gunpowder unit with this voiceline.
I dare to say it was the feature of Chinese, but too unbalance and it didn’t show before release. With the opmistic view It should be avaliable I suppose, look at Ottoman, Landcaster and Zhu Xi’s legacy, they got gunpowder range unit in Age III, and there will be a chance to make Chinese gain this advantage too.
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In fact, I suggest they turn China’s Handcannoners into some kind of highly specialized unit like Janissary.
You can give it a highly gold cost to prevent them from spam, and you can also make it easy to be counter with.
Then you can let it being able to be trained in earlier ages.
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The short answer is: Balance at the game’s release (Season 0) and the Variant problem.
The long aswer, is a analysis of 7 parts:
1).- The problem of limited Unique Units in the first 8 civs
When the game came out in 2021, it was unknown how the counter system would turn out, so the goal was to provide a certain “Balance” to all civs by “LIMITING” the number of unique and cool units they could have. I’m not kidding:
- The English had 3: 1. Villagers with bows, 2. Vanguard Men-at-arms, 3. Longbowmen
- The French had 3: 1. Royal Knight, 2. Arbaleister, 3. Cannon
- HRE: 1. Prelate, 2. Early Men-at-arms, 3. Landsknecht
- Abbasid had 3: 1. Camel Archer, 2. Camel Rider, 3. Iman (while except for their name, they didn’t have any abilities)
- Delhi had 3: Melee Elephant, Range Elephant, Academic.
- Mongols had 3: Mangudai, Khan, Early Horseman
China was no exception; as a bonus, they had 1 EXTRA unique unit in the dynasty unit than other civs. Note: You could only have one dynasty unit at a time:
- China had 4: 1. Imperial Officer, 2. Nest of Bees, 3. Palace Guard, 4. Dynasty Unit (Zhugenu, Fire Lancer, Grenadier)
And that’s the true reason why many civs didn’t get more unique units, including the early hancannoner for China.
And what happens?
The problem with this is that this “supposed” balance didn’t last:
- The reality was that regardless of the civ’s unique unit count, what mattered most was the “Macro” and economic bonuses.
- This is why the HRE, which gets its economic bonus from the prelates, may have lacked almost any unique military units, but it was more efficient than many other civs.
This wasn’t the same with China, which had the problem of being very vulnerable to rushes, and worse, lacking stable units, making it effectively “Very Weak.”
I suppose China was an attempt to represent a “Long Time Period” civ (900-1650), trying to represent ALL of its ages within that long period, even though their military composition varied greatly. I think this would later justify making DANES with their Viking period and post-Pagan Christian period; but now we’ve seen the terrible limitations of “Prohibiting” already unlocked unique units.
Because of this, China changed: by Season 1, all Chinese dinasty units were unlocked forever and not locked again when you change of dinasties.
2) Limited Unique Units Wasn’t the Answer
If in the future they wanted to release civs like the Japanese, Mali, and Inca, they couldn’t continue limiting the number of unique units and early units, much less to something as small as 3.
That’s why, starting in Season 3, with the Mali having 6 unique units, the initial idea was scrapped; And in fact, they started giving “more unique units” to the original civs (English, Mongols, Rus) to improve the balance between civs.
HOWEVER: As Beasty once said about video game development, making new unit designs and other things, “It costs a lot.” In fact, Relic started its production of new units by adding campaign units (King, HuiHui Pao, Wynguard Ranger), which was seen as a way to save resources.
And while people accepted the new unique units, this actually convinced Relic that they could sell new civs with little effort and people would still accept them. But that was a terrible MISTAKE, which brings us to point 3.
3). The First 4 Variants, Zhu Xi Dilemma, and the Beginning of China’s Limitations
As Relic posted in their first variant description: These were versions not so different from the original civs, but with some changes, so it feels like playing the originals but with new strategies.
However, in practice, it ended up being this: Civs that share 80% of the bonuses, units, and almost everything else from the original civ, but BETTER in everything new they add or even “fix” from the original civ. Furthermore, since they’re almost identical to the original, it won’t be difficult to adapt to the improved version.
This was problematic, since Zhu Xi Legacy was truly trying to be China 2.0, with “more useful” bonuses, “more unique units,” and balance ideas that the original civ lacked, but instead of balancing the original, they gave them to the variant as the “ORIGINAL IDEA”: Early Palace Guard and Early Grenadier. This was terrible, as it revealed that NO ONE used the Grenadier, and they had to include it in Castle Age for it to be useful, not even en masse, but as a complementary unit. But instead of adding it to China, they used ZhuXi as a PATCH for China.
This didn’t sit well, and in fact, it terribly limited how China could be balanced in the future.
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If this game didn’t have such huge balances or changes between seasons, perhaps the problem between ZhuXi and China would have been resolved. But that’s not the case, and practically until now, they compete over which technologies to censor from the other and which not, so as not to be equal.
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And let’s not even talk about historical representation, where Order of the Dragon and Joan have serious problems; but here we’re talking about the Grenadier.
4). China and ZhuXi, balance and differences, and imposed limitations.
After 3 seasons, already in Season 9:
- China, ended up being the defensive Turtle Civ, with two defensive landmarks and great in Post-Imperial.
- Zhu Xi, the Rusher civ, with landmarks that induce early attacks, fast castles, and also in Imperial.
Also, they give more gunpowder unit bonuses to China to separate it from Zhu Xi, including a technology for Honeycomb and Handcannoners, which only China has, or the fact that it has Fire Lancer and Zhu Xi doesn’t.
Unfortunately, in Imperial-Age, these differences are actually quite small: Zhu Xi can also summon his own Fire Lancers with improved Horsemen (Dragon Roar), and even Foot-Firelancers with improved Spearmens. They’re even better, since the Horsemen still retain their bonus against ranged units. Furthermore, their Ming bonus gives all his units 20% more attack, including gunpowder units, not to mention the +1 range from the Temple of the Sun.
Interestingly, It was revealed by the publisher that they wanted to give Zhu Xi Legacy even an Early Fire Lancer.
One might ask, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
So, I’m sorry to say that the developers were actually trying to “get rid” of the original civs and only deal with the variants, charge more DLC for better versions, and make this a “pay-to-win” game.
And well, IT DIDN’T WORK, and to this day, people still have a negative view of the first 4 variants; asking for a rework of JoanDArc, more representation of the real Order of the Dragon in the game’s Order of the Dragon, and that China not be left out just to balance to give ZhuXi more things.
On the other hand, at the balance level, it’s a problem: Both China and ZhuXi are excellent for 1v1. How can we add more things to them if they’re so strong right now? Wouldn’t they be even more broken?
5). Earlier Handcannoner: Was there a fear of developing it?
Considering the game’s history, the developers have made every effort to ensure that no civ has Early Handcannoners:
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The Ottomans, who were expected to have the Janissary as an Early Age (III) Handcannoner, instead have a unit with “much less attack,” but a bonus against cavalry; and even in its early stages, weakness to ranged units.
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I feel then, that for balance, they didn’t want to release early Handcannoners for China, even though they could have, and now that ZhuXi exists, it could be the best difference between the two civs.
6). Now in Seagon 10: Early Handcannoner, at last, but fist for Landcaster
And here we are. The funny thing is that I predicted that Burgundy-Netherland, or Flemish, would be the first with Early Handcannoners. However, I didn’t predict that this representation would come in the form of “Imported” Lancaster handcannons from Burgundy, a civ that isn’t yet available, but it’s assumed that if it were ever made, it would have this bonus.
This is curious because China, in theory, developed handcannons before the rest of the world.
Why implement it first in Lancaster? I see several reasons:
- Novelty: New civ, new bonuses, and mechanics.
- Historical references: English-Burgundian alliance in the Hundred Years’ War.
- Forgotten Empires (FE) is the one who planned the idea.
7). Variants are no longer copies of parent civs. Future expectations? Historicity representation win?
From the design of the new two variants, it’s clear that parent civs no longer have to be limited to being the “Template” on which variants are based, or that variants no longer have to be afraid of diverging too much from their parent civ.
In fact, we should take this opportunity, now that FE has allowed Early Handcannons to “exist,” to request that they do so for China as well.
We could also ask for more unique units for China, to differentiate it from its ZhuXi variant.
Of course, we’ll have to wait for the controversy because Lancaster, like ZhuXi and JoanDArc in their early days, is currently broken, or at least the profits from its mansions are too high. Perhaps after a possible patch and update.
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