Beta Chinese Discussion

[zoom]

Please discuss anything relating specifically to the Chinese, in this thread. The following are the current changes to the civilization:

– Shaolin Master cover mode added; passive-aggressive abilities chance no longer increases to 30% (from 20%) when reaching Colonial Age [revert]
– "Old Han Reforms" shipment now includes Keshiks and Steppe Riders; renamed "Old Dynasty Reforms"
– Keshik hand & ranged attacks increased from 8 to 10, respectively; obstruction radius decreased from 0.79 to 0.65
– Steppe Rider speed increased from 6.75 to 7.25; obstruction radius decreased from 0.79 to 0.65
– “Mongolian” banner-army changed from 3 Keshiks and 3 Hand Mortars to 2 Keshiks and 2 Steppe Riders; cost changed from 495f, 270w to 230f, 170c; train-points decreased from 30 to 25; moved from Fortress to Colonial Age and from Castle to War Academy
– Iron Flail hand attack increased from 19 to 20 (damage cap increased from 38 to 40); hitpoints increased from 292 to 320
– Meteor Hammer attack decreased from 29 to 25
– “Black Flag” banner-army changed from 3 Arquebusiers and 1 Flamethrower to 4 Changdao Swordsmen and 2 Meteor Hammers; cost changed from 170w, 425c to 380f, 350c; moved from Castle to War Academy; train-points decreased from 40 to 33

The following changes are currently being considered:

– "Manchu Combat" shipment now includes Steppe Riders and Iron Flails
– Flamethrower population cost reduced from 4 to 3
– Village fattening rate increased from 25% to 50% before Fortress Age [revert]
– Disciple train-time increased from 7s to 11s [revert]

[Cometk]

very, very excited

[Garja]

Ahah seriously this is like the biggest buff a single civ has ever received in the whole history of aoe3.

1) You want to give China both changdao+cav and keshik+steppe armies. This removes the clearly intended loophole in China banner army mechanic which is meant to make it both challenging for the China player and somewhat manageable for the opponent. Now China combo is very easy to balance and the result is clearly that it will be OP.
2) I don't know why steppes should have more speed than regular cav. At least for sowar and zamb there is the fact that they're camels. This makes no sense and the unit doesn't deserve such buff.
4) I'm also not sure if keshik needs an attack boost. All its stats seems fine. Obstruction radius also is not necessarily a buff.
5) Manchu combat becomes like the best freaking upgrade in the game? lol
6) FT population to 3 makes sense.
7) herdable fattening rate revert makes sense.
8) disciple train time revert makes sense.

9) Old dynasty reform sounds fun, I can be on board with that. Then again notice that it just makes more sense to go old han + forbidden army in late game. So in the end it's more of a fancy change than anything else.

[n0el]

Good changes, makes a lot of things useful that weren't, and helps China deal with cav in age 2. Not sure that any of the potential changes are needed.

[Mitoe]

– Shaolin Master cover mode added; passive-aggressive abilities chance no longer increases to 30% (from 20%) when reaching Colonial Age [revert]

Fine

– "Old Han Reforms" shipment now includes Keshiks and Steppe Riders; renamed "Old Dynasty Reforms"

I like this

– Keshik hand & ranged attacks increased from 8 to 10, respectively; obstruction radius decreased from 0.79 to 0.65
– Steppe Rider speed increased from 6.75 to 7.25; obstruction radius decreased from 0.79 to 0.65

I feel like this might be unnecessary. I don't think China's Colonial should be buffed much. It should remain weak.

– “Mongolian” banner-army changed from 3 Keshiks and 3 Hand Mortars to 2 Keshiks and 2 Steppe Riders; cost changed from 495f, 270w to 230f, 170c; train-points decreased from 30 to 25; moved from Fortress to Colonial Age and from Castle to War Academy

Not sure about this change overall. I also don't think it should be moved to the War Academy; I would rather change the description of the castle.

– “Black Flag” banner-army changed from 3 Arquebusiers and 1 Flamethrower to 3 Changdao Swordsmen and 2 Meteor Hammers; cost changed from 170w, 425c to 285f, 350c; moved from Castle to War Academy

This is way too good, IMO. Especially if moved to the War Academy.

I don't think 3 Arqs and 1 Flamethrower needs to be changed maybe?

– "Manchu Combat" shipment now includes Steppe Riders and Iron Flails

I'm ok with it including Steppe Riders maybe (although with the buff to Reforms I'm not sure they should be included right now), but I don't think Iron Flails should be included. That makes the card really strong as it already affects Meteor Hammers. I'd like to leave the card as is--a decent card but not one that you're always certain to have in your deck. This buff practically makes it a better version of Western Reforms.

– Flamethrower population cost reduced from 4 to 3

I'm ok with this.

– Village fattening rate increased from 25% to 50% before Fortress Age [revert]

This is a very dangerous buff and really undeserved right now. I don't see any reason to revert this as China is mostly in a good spot right now on EP.

– Disciple train-time increased from 7s to 11s [revert]

I don't really see the point in reverting this aside from maybe simplifying patch notes overall. I'm not really against it but it feels unnecessary.

[Hazza54321]

Why the fuck are we buffing china, and even worse why compositionally.

[Goodspeed]

I like the changes individually but combined they feel very risky. There is almost no predicting, even with many test games, where China will end up on the balance scale after this because entire new ways of playing the civ will need to be explored.

Is this risk to balance acceptable? I think that's a question that needs discussed somewhere, though not necessarily in this thread because it's not unique to the China changes.

[deleted_user0]

i think the banner army changes are unnecessary, and if they do need to happen (keshik steppe i can see, the other seems kinda over the top) then I think they should still come from the castle.

[deleted_user]

I think banner army buffs are not needed at all, china already has one of the strongest III play and I dont think they should be buffed from every aspect and these changes most likely will move china to top tier.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I just wouldn't change China at all, the civ is balanced atm. RE China was just fine also.

I don't know why it was changed so much. Like the cav army got nerfed, then the inf army got buffed to standardize everything. Oldhan got ruined and is not viable anymore. Now, the EP7 tries to make keshiks and steppes viable, while it's really unecessary.

We have to keep in mind that balance comes first. I'd reverst all these.

[Peachrocks]

Yeah, there's way too many buffs here. The civ may need minor adjustments to solve some issues within certain match ups but these are... very dangerous ideas.

Granted I've never entirely liked the whole 'difficult to build cav+anti cav' design and ending up with way too much ranged infantry. Difficult to build EXACTLY what you want fine, but impossible? No. It just shoehorns them in a certain direction and makes them very match up focused. Having said that, that along with all the buffs plus the proposed changes to the castle cards? Yikes. If you want to allow Steppe/Keshik fine, but keep it at the castle.

Keshiks I think need melee resistance rather than ranged, as much as I prefer ranged resistance normally. Their damage output per cost is not that bad, it's just they can't stand against Hussars in single combat and need a meat shield against what they are supposed to counter. If they stay in ranged formation they lose to Hussars per cost in direct combat. Now that's just silly. Being slightly weaker against the units you are supposed to counter is fine but outright losing? Not so much.

[Mitoe]

Can we agree on Dynasty Reforms? Seems like a fun change that won't really affect balance much. The majority of the other changes are unnecessary at the moment and conflict with China's balance/design atm.

[Hazza54321]

Fuck no

[Mitoe]

Alright.

[[Armag] diarouga]

If you remove all the other random changes, I guess we can compromise and go for Dynasty Reform.

[n0el]

I liked @gamevideo113’s idea of keeping those banner armies in the castle but changing them to make them useful. Might be a compromise if some people think giving those armies in the rax is too stronk

[zoom]

As expected, the changes to the Aztecs, and the Chinese, seem to be some of the most polarizing. I wish to explain them, to begin with.

The reason that these two civilizations are receiving such focus, initially, is that they are in the most urgent need of intra-civilization (or "viability") balancing. The internal unit balance, for Chinese, while not quite as shambolic as that of the Aztecs, remains problematic:

– Two of the eight banner armies are completely unviable. Also, the Keshik and Steppe Rider feature only in one army, each, whereas every other Colonial Age unit features in two. Similarly, the Changdao Swordsman and Meteor Hammer feature only in one army, each, whereas every other Fortress Age unit features in two. I don't think the Black Flag Army is necessarily unbalanced. On the contrary, lacking options to counter cavalry, beyond unit shipments, seems problematic. It's simply a matter of balancing the army's strength.
– Colonial Age cavalry units are largely unviable, and lack scaling. I don't see the Keshik being overpowered with +25% attack, or including the units in EP Reforms posing a balance issue.
– The Flame Thrower seems completely unviable.

I don't see Chinese going from brooken to broken, with these changes. In fact, I don't think any change, except for Black Flag Army, is likely to significantly impact inter-civilization balance, since I expect Colonial play to remain relatively weak—and relatively irrelevant, compared to Fortress play. I'm happy to be proven wrong, though, and will adapt accordingly. Still, it is clear that the civilization has certain fundamental problems, and warrants more changes than most, overall.

Also, I wish to emphasize the following sentiment:

I don't mind any opinion; only the attitude of unreasonably jumping to conclusions. If you think a certain change poses a balance issue, please try to establish whether it is the case, during the beta. Please abstain from assuming speculation to be fact. I don't think that it's constructive or reasonable – nor is the delusion that the initial beta iteration, is the final full release. I'm concerned with making the patch more successful; not less. The beta will be developed with that in mind, so there's little reason to despair, let alone at such an early stage. Whatever your opinion of any given change, I am only suggesting that you test it, with minimal bias. It seems in everyone's best interest.

[Peachrocks]

The compensation China gets though for its problematic internal unit balance is significant economic advantages in the form of wonders and consulate. It doesn't have wood villagers like India and can still hunt unlike Japan. Sure all civs to a point get a few bonuses here and there but China gets quite a lot of them yeah? At least that's always been my understanding of how the civ is checked and balanced.

[zoom]

fix all crates. or you'll have to turn china in a completely new civ. which basically already happened, so might as well make chinese crates dynamic, but you'll have to add a food crate. or add a wood crate, which potentially will make them super strong.

Yes

I'm for fixed crates, and since this patch is so big you're already losing track of balance anyway, so it's a good time to make potentially impactful changes like that.

I would like to fix all crates, personally, but I cannot justify making such a controversial and fundamental change to the game, with the community seemingly split on the issue. While it definitively would help inter-civ balance, long-term, I do not believe it necessary to achieve satisfactory results.

Chinese crates float, then. How about adding a starting goat, or buffing Village cost, to facilitate? Do you buff Sumptuary Laws to provide an alternative to Northern Refugees?

[deleted_user0]

Buffing sumptuary laws is fine, but adding a goat is useless imo. U need to add a food crate. But anyway, china without a tp is just so trash. I played acergame a few days ago and he did no tp china ff with 2 villages. I watched back the rec and i was just shocked at how much worse it was than i even remembered. He reached age3 at 7.30, which is fine, but his 700w shipment was still otw. He didnt get it until 7.45... and his next shipment he didnt get until 8.45, and it didnt arrive until 40 sec later... and that's with 2 villages. 1 village tp is you can ship 3 cards before you hit age3 also at 7.30-45 AND you have a 4th shipment ready or almost ready. Its such a huge difference.

If you nerf crates, china is going to have only 1 village on 2 other starts. If you get tp in age 1 youll be slow. If you get it in transition youll be slow and vulnerable and it means all the semi ff builds which have been so succesfull in the past few years are history. Because you need 2 villages and a tp to do it. And you cant chop for that as china in transition. This change will completely change how china is played 2/3rd of the time...

Honestly the consistency change of garja is just BS. There are plenty of examples where design consistency is broken because it's a "civ feature". EP broke it for balance reasons as well with port vills. So can't we just accept static crates as a chinese civ feature and move on. This change is just so unnecessary and it will CREATE balance issues rather than solve it... Which i thought was the purpose of the patch.

Don't fall for the strawman that you only have 2 options @zoom. Take the 3rd. If you cant fix crates for all, the other option isnt float crates for all. You can just maintain status quo and do nothing. Literally the only person who wants to change chinese cratws is garja...

[[Armag] diarouga]

Yea, China 2 village is trash lol. As Umeu said, you don't have a 3rd shipment when you reach fortress, 700w is still on the way xD.

Honestly, I'd rather play France vs China on a no TP map because China is even more TP dependant than France.

[Garja]

I wonder how people did back then when TP China wasn't a thing lol.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I wonder how people did back then when TP China wasn't a thing lol.

China was considered as one of the worst civs back then.

[Goodspeed]

Oh people are finally building the TP now?
https://eso-community.net/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=411
I don't think China was considered bad really. 2 village FF builds were still good, especially before the herdable fatten rate nerf.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Not sure about what people thought but I used to think that China was one of the 4-5 worst civs.