How to beat China or Japan?

[Scroogie]

I'm interested what bad match-ups these two civs have (especially what to do as France against them).

I feel like China can always FF and scales incredibly well in Fortress/Industrial and their two standard wonders give them basically 12 vills for free. You cant rush them well because villages, you cant outboom them much because wonders, you cant really outmicro the insane deathball and you cant outscale them usually. Also they are a lot harder to raid. So what do i do lol?

Same with Japan, with the new more agressive builds their rush/ rush defence is quite strong and they outscale with units and economy pretty quick. Again, how to deal with that?

The same is probably true with India (except Falc weakness, which the other tad civs dont have i think), although most players my level dont play the civ to the max i feel. What's wrong with the TAD civs? xD

Compared with e.g. Germans, also thought to be among the top civs, they have a glaring no-musk weakness in age2, are relatively raidable (not in-base eco forever or 20 garrison points) and after early/mid fortress they dont scale with insane upgrades. So theres at least a plan (even several) and hope.

[chris1089]

Interesting you say that, because I'm unsure as to the timings to hit China on if you decide to play it out to fortress. I'd appreciate some guidance from someone who plays the civ well.

[Scroogie]

Interesting you say that, because I'm unsure as to the timings to hit China on if you decide to play it out to fortress. I'd appreciate some guidance from someone who plays the civ well.

I don't think you need to hit any timings, just ship 2-3 unit shipments (according to what you scout) and after that upgrade shipments and slowly move onto opponents hunts? Rarely will someone attack into the Chinese army, and you can make a fight happen whenever you want with ranged mele cav snaring and changdao following up.

[[Armag] diarouga]

China is a top civ but it loses quite hard to Brit and Iro. Fre, ger also do ok.

Against Japan, you can win with any civ but too long to explain how.

[harcha]

once upon a time i was also interested in the same question. that's why i started playing japan. and now i play china. that is really the best way to learn the weaknesses.

[chronique]

I'a m pretty sure at equal level, china shit on every no rush civ. This civ is just broken age 3 and age 4 with no weakness after 7min. Cant be raid cause village, unbealivable wonder mean unraidable eco again (like others said, its a free 12 vili), litteraly broken age 3 ship (in term of value this is have no sens), broken merc too. And their age 4 is no comment.

[IGNDontay]

I'a m pretty sure at equal level, china shit on every no rush civ. This civ is just broken age 3 and age 4 with no weakness after 7min. Cant be raid cause village, unbealivable wonder mean unraidable eco again (like others said, its a free 12 vili), litteraly broken age 3 ship (in term of value this is have no sens), broken merc too. And their age 4 is no comment.

so would you say a bad player could be carried by the civ itself ? for example if the opponent wasn’t able to decisively crush china before they got to age 3 and the unit shipments start the death ball. or maybe you did siege china down but they still ran a settler away to build a village in the corner of the map to ship the units and pop out of nowhere with a ball.

[Riotcoke]

China is a top civ but it loses quite hard to Brit and Iro. Fre, ger also do ok.

Against Japan, you can win with any civ but too long to explain how.

Explain how, Kaiser needs to know

[Scroogie]

China is a top civ but it loses quite hard to Brit and Iro. Fre, ger also do ok.

Against Japan, you can win with any civ but too long to explain how.

Mind outlining a strat in France v China? Rush or Pike semi or cav semi? Also what unit composition should you go for in early fort (late fort is a lot of cuirs afaik)? Should you try to raid and avoid combat?

[chronique]

@IGNDontay No, a bad player can't be good with china (and to be fair, china is not the eaziest civ), but when you have some fondamental, china is, to me, the strongest civ. You can monobuild, all of your age3 shipement unit are op mean realy eazy to adapt, you need one militaty building for all type, you have broken wonder (ez at macroing and alows you to save some in base res and idle time), village are op for saving vili mean not ez at rush and not ez (barely impossible) at raiding, village make your shipement pop always in a safer place, and their explo are realy strong.

The only weaknest is that you can't always make one unit type but to be faire it's not realy matter, their shipement are so good and they have so many unit that pop from everywhere, so you are never in lack of something.

[Hazza54321]

I think france gets nuked by china, and germans are very hard to micro vs them so it probably is even, ger favoured if they micro like a god

[IGNDontay]

@IGNDontay No, a bad player can't be good with china (and to be fair, china is not the eaziest civ), but when you have some fondamental, china is, to me, the strongest civ. You can monobuild, all of your age3 shipement unit are op mean realy eazy to adapt, you need one militaty building for all type, you have broken wonder (ez at macroing and alows you to save some in base res and idle time), village are op for saving vili mean not ez at rush and not ez (barely impossible) at raiding, village make your shipement pop always in a safer place, and their explo are realy strong.

The only weaknest is that you can't always make one unit type but to be faire it's not realy matter, their shipement are so good and they have so many unit that pop from everywhere, so you are never in lack of something.

okay okay. not “bad” but it could carry a mediocre player who learned china.

[RefluxSemantic]

@Scroogie ep or re?

[I_HaRRiiSoN_I]

Play brit, ez pz

[Zeke]

tbh France vs China is an ok matchup for France (maybe slightly China favored), depending on the map, you can either go musk huss rush (only work on low resource map), stagecoach or eco-semi. skrim goon would be a good choice in early fortress and add cuirass later on (sometimes not adding cuirass work well, if ur opponent is going to send manchu)
for japan with the new strat, musk semi would be safe in most case, try more to kill shrines for both hurt eco and pop ur opponent, push to jap's tc in early fortress if japan follows up

[Scroogie]

@Scroogie ep or re?

EP

[[Armag] diarouga]

once upon a time i was also interested in the same question. that's why i started playing japan. and now i play china. that is really the best way to learn the weaknesses.

Fair point.
It takes a lot of time but when you play Japan you realise that it has many weaknesses and you feel like your opponent missed his window when you win.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I'a m pretty sure at equal level, china shit on every no rush civ. This civ is just broken age 3 and age 4 with no weakness after 7min. Cant be raid cause village, unbealivable wonder mean unraidable eco again (like others said, its a free 12 vili), litteraly broken age 3 ship (in term of value this is have no sens), broken merc too. And their age 4 is no comment.

From my experience, people don't punish China hard enough for ffing.
You shouldn't go for a 5huss semi, you can achieve a lot in colonial before you age.

[chronique]

@[Armag] diarouga I dont know how you can punish china if you cant kill his vili tbf, its not rely important if you delay his age 3 becouse your are delay too by playing age 2.

[harcha]

@chronique i see that you haven't played china... china don't care about villagers, they only care about villages.

[chronique]

What do you mean?

[harcha]

i mean killing a village or two will hurt china far more than killing 3 vils or 4

[chronique]

@harcha i am agree ^^

[[Armag] diarouga]

As harcha said, killing vills doesn't matter as much, but you can slow down your opponent. Like with 10 musks/5 huss you can already achieve a lot (kill his TP, iddle him and slow down his age up, maybe even kill 1 or 2 villagers) while 5 huss aren't going to achieve much.
I'm not saying that you should go for a 10musk/5huss semi every game but it is often worth to make more units in age 2 against China as it will slow him more than it does slow you. You need to make musks though because else a 9pike shipment will hold.

[zoom]

Just resign until there's no wood spawn.