Why no love for China?

B

Bulldog Bats

King
Joined
Oct 18, 2013
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701
I don't hear much talk about China as a civ, but I love playing them. The papermaker helps with gold early on while allowing you to catch up on science, and the military bonus of the double-tap chu-ko-nus is great. Rush to them, and you immediately add about 1/3 to the size of your army (sucks when they lose their range when you upgrade them, but I transition to other range weapons). They also get experience faster, and the improved great generals all add up.

What am I missing?
 
Eh, half the time China is in a game with me, they wind up with only 3-5 cities, and lack motivation and resources to really do anything. In all the games I'v had them, they usually sit moping around at the bottom of the scoreboards. Quite ironic, as China is one of the worlds superpowers now :p
 
China seems to really go for Tradition, although tey have fewer cities they do tend to have really populated cities.
 
I'm not talking about playing against them, but playing AS them. The only real negative I see is that their bonuses run out earlier in the game, but I would prefer the bonuses then, when you need a boost to help you catch up to the AI's start over you. Those chu-ko-nus are monsters for the time, and the double taps remain even when you upgrade.

I just hang out until I get them, and then suddenly my army goes from middle of the pack to unstopable - let's me surge to the lead. Only problem I have is when I get a massive invasion before that occurs.
 
You can rush pretty well with China.
Honor Great General, some Archers and melee units for the first Civs.
Then you will uppgrade your experienced Archers to chu-ko-nus which will likley finish of the rest of the civs.
All the extra generals you get can be used for citadels, literaly building the Great Wall allowing you to keep your war at one front.
The Papermaker will not only help you Tech but also fund your army.
 
I've never gone honor with them - always went Tradition so I could get my infrastructure set. Did defense (if necessary) and barbs for promotions, then waited for the C-K-Ns for my first rush. May have to try the earlier rush to knock off my continent even earlier. They were so strong all I do is build a couple of melee units to take cities. With a line of those, not much need for a meat shield.
 
There's a lot of "meh" for most of the Vanilla Civs, not just China. Like you said, China is pretty darn good overall. It's certainly not in the lower tier. But because its mechanics have been around so long and, as newer, shinier mechanics have been introduced, it just doesn't hold the same sway.
 
I never have liked China much. This is likely due to domination being my least favorite victory condition. They don't have anything special to help with science or culture. As UBs go, paper maker has to be one of the least interesting. In BNW keeping gold flowing isn't much of a problem. Although, having a double firing machine gun is pretty sweet.
 
China is a really good civ. They're relatively simple and not as exciting I suppose as some others, but they are mid-top tier in my opinion in pure effectiveness. They are ideal early/mid game warmongers that can transition in to anything late game. The paper maker saves them gold, which is very nice for warmongers to be able to do, the Cho-ku-nu is one of the strongest UUs in the game, and the great general bonus just makes their army more effective.

Basically, yes, China is a very solid civ.
 
Jampine said:
Eh, half the time China is in a game with me, they wind up with only 3-5 cities, and lack motivation and resources to really do anything. In all the games I'v had them, they usually sit moping around at the bottom of the scoreboards. Quite ironic, as China is one of the worlds superpowers now :p
Click to expand...

They were quite OP at first, but they got nerfed, and never tweaked back. Now they are stuck in middle. Still fun to play tho, but AI isn't the greatest. Instead of fighting, Wu usually does nothing, most of the time unfocused.

as the player. Dunno, I don't mind China. I use them for tech victory since PM is descent and CKN are great at defense (not that much at offense now). If it comes to some forceful expansion, they can be rather fair at warring (CKNs will steal clear the job and you can citadel bomb everything when you no longer need GWG).

I think they can be good agro civ now, since Honor got some boost in latest patch (mainly, faster GWG spawn which should work well with China's UA)
 
Ummm, am I missing something?

China have always been a top tier civ, and I've not seen anyone say otherwise. I've had some of my best games with China, albeit I have not played them since BNW came out. I still need to foray into Deity level on BNW, and China would probably be the civ I would pick for this due to their immense uniques.

7-8 Crossbowmen can defend a large empire. Imagine what 7-8 Chu-ko-nu's could do!
 
It is widely acknowledged that China is a very solid civ in this game: strong, but not OP. And this is exactly why nobody discusses it a lot.

Indeed, why have a 10-page discussion about China when you have insane Zulus, cheesy Poland, Indonesia with Pangea and Kris issues or Byzantium that barely manages to get a religion?
 
Highest score I ever got was with China. Went massively wide. Paper maker made me rich. Then I went tall. Built spaceship pretty quickly.

They're still a strong civ - the Chu Ko Nu is a beast as well.

But - their AI is weird. They should focus on aggressive territorial expansion and then self-defence (not aggressive war - just aggressive settling) but instead they go tall for some reason.
 
China's a top 10 civ for sure, it was definitely more popular when people played Pangaea more, and was a top 3 civ in Vanilla. Since naval AI has gotten to be as competent (or as incompetent) as land military AI, more and more people have been playing land-water balanced maps... so China's not an obvious choice.

You get so many extra GGs and can build stupidly complex and deadly traps with them. If you like war, China's one of the more fun war-civs to plays as, as its bonus actually requires you to do things and it lasts all game long.
 
bcaiko said:
There's a lot of "meh" for most of the Vanilla Civs, not just China. Like you said, China is pretty darn good overall. It's certainly not in the lower tier. But because its mechanics have been around so long and, as newer, shinier mechanics have been introduced, it just doesn't hold the same sway.
Click to expand...
^this. and

Sagax said:
It is widely acknowledged that China is a very solid civ in this game: strong, but not OP. And this is exactly why nobody discusses it a lot.

Indeed, why have a 10-page discussion about China when you have insane Zulus, cheesy Poland, Indonesia with Pangea and Kris issues or Byzantium that barely manages to get a religion?
Click to expand...
^ this
 
Please don't use tier systems, its a very bad way to look on a Civ in my opinion.

China do have really serious advantages.

Better Generals, not only are Chinas Generals twice as good, the bonus all Chinas troops can get is pretty much imposible to get for any other Civ.
Chinas troops will all with some few exeptions be stronger then the troops from any other Civ.
Their is no way other Civs can make up for the stronger generals.
Promotions?, China can get them to and as well as any other civ with the exception of the Zulu.
Tech?, China can Tech as good as most civs and their military advantage could mean they get more cities and land = more people = more Techs.

Getting more generals is also very usefull and should not go unnoticed.

The Paper maker replace a building that you basicly get in every city anyway.
Its +3:c5gold: advantage over the libary may not sound much, but what if you got 10 cities 20 cities even more for large empire this building can give you a 50+ gold for China, a very good and usefull building that really fits aggresive expansion play which the UA is made for.

The UU is very good for what it can do and its really improve the things it uppgrades to.
 
adwcta said:
To plant? You know, strategy and stuffs.
Click to expand...

Except I have more GG's then I know what to do with - without China's UA. This makes China's UA worthless to me. Now if they had part of Sweden's UA where you can gift GG's, it would be a different verdict.
 
China is a damn solid civ and probably my second favourite to play. Agree that the AI plays it poorly (but no news there!). I'd play as China more often but the background music gets on my nerves after a while...
 
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