Beta Chinese Discussion

[Hazza54321]

People have been doing tp china for years. Shows how fit you are for this role.

[Garja]

And you were wrong clearly. TP FF hasn't been a thing even when other civs like Fre and Ger already adopted the TP in their build. The merit of the TP for China is mostly for semi-ffing. The 2 village FF with TP in transition to 3 is very comparable.

People have been doing tp china for years. Shows how fit you are for this role.

Yes, but they have been doing no TP for as many years.

[Hazza54321]

i was responding to GS but yeah true

[Goodspeed]

People have been doing tp china for years. Shows how fit you are for this role.

The thread I linked is from 2015 and it shows pretty clearly that 2 village China was still meta. Mitoe and H2O both argued for it, and they were the main people playing China competitively back then. I remember arguing for the TP build then and before then, and always meeting plenty of resistance.
So idk what "years" means in that sentence but it's actually a relatively new thing in the meta.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Like 2 years.

[zoom]

I think that the Keshik and Steppe Rider (two unviable units) buffs, as well as the Mongolian Army (consisting of these unviable units), are highly unlikely to cause a balance issue. In case they do, I'm happy to tweak or revert them. I consider the Black Flag Army somewhat risky, and will be monitoring it, with intent. For starters, in order to reduce its riskiness, it will be receiving the following nerf:

– "Black Flag" banner-army increased from 3 Changdao Swordsmen and 2 Meteor Hammers to 4 Changdao Swordsmen and 2 Meteor Hammers; cost increased from 285f, 350c; train-points increased from 31 to 33

Let's test that, and tweak it further, or revert, if there is reason to. Like with most changes, I might consider reverting it, later. Right now, though, I want to find out what its impact is. Please try to keep an open and unbiased mind, and test things with a neutral attitude, instead of refusing to test things with a negative one, based on speculation.

[deleted_user0]

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.

They werent really. And with 2 villages, only confucius acadamy 8 skir builds are viable. Cuz with tower you just get destroyed. The herdable fatten nerf really is a 30f nerf for the 1st goat. So its irrelevant.

[deleted_user0]

And you were wrong clearly. TP FF hasn't been a thing even when other civs like Fre and Ger already adopted the TP in their build. The merit of the TP for China is mostly for semi-ffing. The 2 village FF with TP in transition to 3 is very comparable.

People have been doing tp china for years. Shows how fit you are for this role.

Yes, but they have been doing no TP for as many years.

Ppl only did 2 village 8 skir ff. Porcelain tower became viable only when ppl made tp in trans. Then some ppl figured u can do tp in age1, i remember ppl trying with 300w etc. Then they just went fk it. 2v and tp instead of 3v and tp is better. 2 village 8 skir ff is decent. But its not strong and most civs can beat. Mostly, its just super predictable.

Besides, since you guys love this argument. Im just going to claim that fixed crates are a chinese unique civ feature and changing it goes against the design of the civ. I will lose all faith in the patch teams ability to balance if this gets changed...

[deleted_user0]

People have been doing tp china for years. Shows how fit you are for this role.

The thread I linked is from 2015 and it shows pretty clearly that 2 village China was still meta. Mitoe and H2O both argued for it, and they were the main people playing China competitively back then. I remember arguing for the TP build then and before then, and always meeting plenty of resistance.
So idk what "years" means in that sentence but it's actually a relatively new thing in the meta.

Its almost 2020 now... so its at least 3-4 years. And actually h2o never played much china nor really understood the civ. And mitoe only started playing china back then and mostly parroted h2o anyway at that time. I played kynesie in toutnament also early around 2016, and iirc I made tp in transition because it was tibet and i wanted all the yaks, but i already was doing tp age1 builds. Also mitoe changed to age1 tp builds as well now. Its just incomparable.

[Garja]

And you were wrong clearly. TP FF hasn't been a thing even when other civs like Fre and Ger already adopted the TP in their build. The merit of the TP for China is mostly for semi-ffing. The 2 village FF with TP in transition to 3 is very comparable.

People have been doing tp china for years. Shows how fit you are for this role.

Yes, but they have been doing no TP for as many years.

Ppl only did 2 village 8 skir ff. Porcelain tower became viable only when ppl made tp in trans. Then some ppl figured u can do tp in age1, i remember ppl trying with 300w etc. Then they just went fk it. 2v and tp instead of 3v and tp is better. 2 village 8 skir ff is decent. But its not strong and most civs can beat. Mostly, its just super predictable.

Besides, since you guys love this argument. Im just going to claim that fixed crates are a chinese unique civ feature and changing it goes against the design of the civ. I will lose all faith in the patch teams ability to balance if this gets changed...

Well this is not true. Procelain tower is what h2o used to do with China every single game. And at that point TP wasnt a thing even in transition. It became a thing when meta became more lax so that you could squeeze in extra greed stuff.

As for fixed crates, they are indeed a unique china feature and I'm fine with leaving as it this.
It is definetely not the most fair thing to the other civs.

[Mitoe]

Still, it is clear that [China] has certain fundamental problems, and warrants more changes than most, overall.

In my opinion, it is healthy design that China has these "problems." It's what makes them unique. You have a weak Colonial with weak units, and so you must go Fortress. To compensate you have a very strong Fortress Age with solid units and great shipments, but this comes with a compositional weakness in that you can't necessarily mass the exact numbers of units you would prefer, giving you disadvantages in skirm battles and a harder time kiting or dealing with cavalry later on as you don't have a great dragoon unit, for example.

I do like the idea of making things more viable overall. Things like grenadiers and halbs, for example, are units that many civs are supposed to specialize in, and instead they're completely worthless. I don't want to make them overpowered or anything, but making them less garbage ("garbage" is the key word here--it should still probably not be very good in most situations) than they already are can only be good for the game, IMO.

However, when it comes to China I think that those weaknesses need to be in place--they keep the civ unique and prevent them from being unstoppable. Some small buffs to certain things (like 3 population flamethrowers) is fine, but a 25% DPS buff to Keshik is a pretty huge buff, and adding 2 new banner armies to the War Academy can only serve to help them overcome their compositional shortcomings--which I don't think is the direction we want to go. I understand that those banner armies were pretty horrible, and I don't think it's a bad idea to change them, either, but at the very least they should remain in the Castle, not the War Academy.

– 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.

Steppe Riders and Keshiks are really not THAT terrible (definitely not good, mind you), the problem is mostly that it's hard to mass enough of them to matter without sacrificing something else from your composition. However I really don't think that 25% more DPS is a good idea. It's just too much.

Granted, it is really annoying that you can't really rush or do anything with Steppe Riders in your opponent's base because minutemen have a 2x multiplier. A reasonable buff without making things overpowered would be to simply remove the siege unit tag.

I don't think it's a problem to include them in Reforms, though. That card is kinda just meh right now, and I think this is probably a better approach to making the card more appealing than adjusting the numbers on Reforms even further.

On the contrary, lacking options to counter cavalry, beyond unit shipments, seems problematic. It's simply a matter of balancing the army's strength.

Really the whole "China has a weakness to cavalry" thing is a myth. It's only true in the Colonial age, and even then it's not an issue, really--at least, not in the sense that it doesn't exist, but more in the sense that it fits well balance-wise. If you make cavalry against China you're going to lose almost every time.

– 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

I don't really understand the purpose behind these changes?

Really China is in a fine spot in terms of balance on the current version of EP. In general I think we should stay away from changes that would heavily affect balance with them for now.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I totally agree with Mitoe.
I feel like the EP7 standardizes the game by trying to make every unit and every shipment the same. But imo, the game is so interesting because each civ has strenghts and weaknesses.

Buffing iron flails while nerfing meteor hammer doesn't really make sense for this reason. As China, you always have to wonder whether you want to go for the the skirm+pike AND the cav army against skirm/goon or jan/abus or for the skirm/flail army so you don't have pikes.
And honestly it's not an easy choice. I believe that against Otto you should go for the skirm+fail army because you don't need the pikes, so in some situations this army is viable, but here you might make China too flexible. This lack of flexibility is what makes China counterable and interesting as Mitoe said.

I felt the same way about the coyote shipment buff. The 5 coyote shipment is definitely viable and sometimes having it in deck won me games, so why make it as viable as the other shipments when it is viable ? Same for 4 flails tbh, sometimes I've won games because I had 4 flails in decks and it was all I needed to snowball a fight.

[zoom]

At this time, based on collective feedback, I think that a more limited scope, with a greater focus on essential balance changes, is a good idea. Thus, I am currently expecting to make the following changes:

– 100w removed from starting crates; dynamic (“random”) starting crates added
– Keshik hand and ranged attacks decreased from 10 to 8 [revert]

For the former change, a compensatory buff might be desirable, considering it's a significant nerf, compared to any other start than wood, before. Adding a second goat might be an option.

[Goodspeed]

Add a food crate maybe

[deleted_user]

At this time, based on collective feedback, I think that a more limited scope, with a greater focus on essential balance changes, is a good idea. Thus, I am currently expecting to make the following changes:

– 100w removed from starting crates; dynamic (“random”) starting crates added
– Keshik hand and ranged attacks decreased from 10 to 8 [revert]

For the former change, a compensatory buff might be desirable, considering it's a significant nerf, compared to any other start than wood, before. Adding a second goat might be an option.

why change the wood crate? I don't think china is ever top civ, no point in nerfing it

[[Armag] diarouga]

What?

[Cometk]

@zoom if I’m not mistaken, this means that China will start with 200f 200w, plus a random food or wood crate, is that correct?

[Garja]

Just don't touch China starting crates for the moment. Make random crates for China in the beta and we test it. And give also adequate time span since it needs extensive testing.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Just don't touch China starting crates for the moment. Make fixed crates for beta and we test it.

Fixed crates ftw.

[Garja]

Lmao I mistyped I meant the exact opposite.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Lmao I mistyped I meant the exact opposite.

Too late.

[n0el]

At this time, based on collective feedback, I think that a more limited scope, with a greater focus on essential balance changes, is a good idea. Thus, I am currently expecting to make the following changes:

– 100w removed from starting crates; dynamic (“random”) starting crates added
– Keshik hand and ranged attacks decreased from 10 to 8 [revert]

For the former change, a compensatory buff might be desirable, considering it's a significant nerf, compared to any other start than wood, before. Adding a second goat might be an option.

I’ll play exclusively RE if this happens.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Same tbh. China is very enjoyable to play, just revert all these changes.

[deleted_user]

There is huge demand to implement fixed crates for all civs, but are we going for opposite with removing fixed crate of china for what? really? poll results are irrelevant it seems.

[Goodspeed]

Can we try to be a little more mature and constructive about it guys?
Another way of expressing your opinion is by stating you strongly disagree, and why. The why is important.