China - Qin Shi Huang Thread

[Callonia]

True, but committing even a single “layer” of tiles to the Great Wall is already a pretty significant opportunity cost. By the time you’re adding in second and third walls, you’ve essentially sacrificed half a city’s land to fortifications.

It doesn't really feel like a significant opportunity cost to me because the outermost hexes tend to be unworked by the city unless its something awesome enough to assign a citizen there. They generally will be empty until the city has the population to work on third ring.

To build it, it simply means there's a pretty tough enemy that concerns China enough to build a great wall to keep trump out and make him pay for the wall . And then throughout the ages, the need for a wall in a specific hex will generally fade as you want to build something else in it's place.

Of course this is all speculation, I don't know how quickly a population can grow to cultural growth in Civ6. If precedent holds, Culture grows quicker than population unless you feed the city hardcore.

Something which I only can find out when the game comes out.

 

[AriochIV]

It doesn't really feel like a significant opportunity cost to me because the outermost hexes tend to be unworked by the city unless its something awesome enough to assign a citizen there. They generally will be empty until the city has the population to work on third ring.

In the ancient and classical era, when you'll probably be building it, your civ borders probably aren't extended to the full three tile radius.

 

[hellohithere]

It seems to me you would have two options as China. First a hard and fast expansion, using the extra builder charge and the Eureka bonus to rack up a bunch of early game bonuses. The second, to expand slower and use the extra builder charge to rush early game wonders. The great wall seems like it has value late game if you go cultural victory, but overall it seems like China is designed to get off to a fast start (either tall or wide) and use that advantage to snowball a lead.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

This China looks very synergistic and interesting, if broken as all hell.

Just imagine rushing the great library as China: Megeurekas on ALL ancient and classical techs

Great Library doesn't give eurekas... it speeds up research.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

China seems like a good Civ for those who like to always be #1 in research every game.

I notice that the UA of every Civ so far except England involves a mechanic that wasn't in Civ 5.

America = faster government legacy bonuses = governments weren't in Civ 5.

Egypt = faster wonder construction next to rivers = only possible because wonders are outside the city now.

Japan = improved yields from adjacent districts = districts weren't in Civ 5.

China = improved eureka bonuses = eurekas weren't in Civ 5.

It definitely seems like Firaxis is designing UAs that take advantage of the game's new features.

 

[Cyon]

All civs so far seems OP
Which means it balanced
Reminds me of a board game I like : Marco Polo where all players have really powerful abilities, which makes them fun and diverse to play with.

 

[Thormodr]

All civs so far seems OP
Which means it balanced
Reminds me of a board game I like : Marco Polo where all players have really powerful abilities, which makes them fun and diverse to play with.

Yes! I was thinking the same thing. The Voyages of Marco Polo is a wonderful game and all the character abilities seem utterly broken when you see them for the first time.

The asymmetry is really cool and the characters seem well balanced. If they can manage the same for Civ VI, it'll be a wonderful game, too.

 

[rastak]

Yes! I was thinking the same thing. The Voyages of Marco Polo is a wonderful game and all the character abilities seem utterly broken when you see them for the first time.

The asymmetry is really cool and the characters seem well balanced. If they can manage the same for Civ VI, it'll be a wonderful game, too.

Never played that, sounds interesting. I have a bunch of board games too.

 

[von_Wurttemburg]

Seeing China got a brand new UU give me the confidence of we Germany can get rid of the boring Panzer UU too!

 

[footslogger]

Wasn't part of the benefit of the GW that it acted like a road for troops to move along it as well? So the whole wall wasn't garrisoned but defenders could react quickly to threats. Would make for a nice extra bonus..

I like the suggestion that defenders can move along the wall as if on a road, the more so if invaders receive no movement cost to crossing over the wall. I would like defenders on the wall to have one extra tile line of sight too.

 

[Paramecium]

Seeing China got a brand new UU give me the confidence of we we Germany can get rid of the boring Panzer UU too!

I think the probability is quite high, if Barbarossa is the german leader, we might get a special german medieval unit and if it's true that most Civs wont have 2 UU, the germans might get another Unique. Maybe the Panzer might return with some other german leader.


But back to china. I am not just seeing the possibility to turtle with china, the Great Wall might be even used in offenses. Until now it is quite unclear if you will have enough ressources or time to invest in massive builder training to support attacks and we even dont know how likely it will be to capture enemy builders.
But if you can support with china enough builders additional to your army, you could conquer an enemy city and directly forty your frontline to the remaining enemy, until you have crushed his armies. If the AI is still a bit same like in Civ 5, you might just have to wait for it to come you in the case of a war, so you can get full advantage of the wall.

And when you captured a city, you might even use the new parts of the wall to pay your army. It is still uncertain how good you can get gold in the early game, until now only coasts tiles and special ressources might give gold (and the commercial district). It is good that coast tiles give gold again, rivers dont seem to give them directly (but give boni to the commercial district). We dont know how fast you get that district, we dont know how fast you get your trade route or more importantly more than one.

In my opinion the change in BNW to get rid of gold from rivers and coasts was one of the main factors which hurt early aggressive expansion and conquests because you had to look for other ways to pay your army.

If china gets the wall quite early and the terrain yield still exists if the wall is build, it can help to maintain a bigger army, if you dont get fast enough your trade routes, commercial districts or you cant really use a coast city, which might be the new commercial hubs in Civ 6 especially if there is additionally a river for the commercial district.

Sure, there are still many unknown factors, religion for example, all ressources and their yields. And how likely it will be if you follow the military focused part of the tech tree, if you even get the options to increase your gold income. There will be probably civics which support an aggressive playstyle which give gold f.e. for killing units.

But even if plundering gives you gold, you wont probably use the offense wall spam because you might probably use your builders to get the infrastructure running again. But to be honest, when I wanted to conquer a city in the past I tried to avoid unnecessary pillaging.


Ok, just my 2 cents ...

 

[moopoo]

Predictable reveal, yet interesting regardless. Some random musings about this civ:

- China seems like a bit too much of a one trick ancient wonder pony to me. The Great wall will be eventually finished, and the ancient and classical wonder production will eventually be gone too. Even its UU won't be able to be reflected latter in the game (no promotion to carry over, just lack of resources when building it), and the extra worker charge seems like yet another ability with disminishing returns the further you have advanced into the game

- Its "changing dynasties" UA is the only truthly solid foundation of the civ. It seems like a truthly powerful UA, but I am still not sold on its design. Unlike, say, Egypt's or England's bonuses, it doesn't nudge you to change your gameplay style nor it does synergize with any leader agenda.

In short, China's representation is still interesting, but not as fleshed out as other civs, me thinks.

I daresay China's designed to be a civ that's relatively easy to pick up, and strong on lower difficulty levels. Better tech bonuses, early wonders and better early defence are all good choices for people new to (or not that good at) civ. Looking at their bonuses, they'll be one of my first playthroughs, just coz it'll be easier to make all the wonders and research all the techs and see what's in the game

 

[AriochIV]

Seeing China got a brand new UU give me the confidence of we Germany can get rid of the boring Panzer UU too!

Perhaps Teutonic Knights.

Frederick vs. Saladin, go!

 

[isau]

Now that we know the wall doesn't slow movement I hope there is something more to it than just defense and some tile bonuses. If that's all there is to it, then it's basically Polynesian Mauis that don't require coastline.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Perhaps Teutonic Knights.

Frederick vs. Saladin, go!

This would be amazing.

 

[xxhe]

I think China's UA may be more influential than people are giving it credit for. It makes China a strong science and culture civ, but it allows them to acheive that goal not by doubling down on conventional science sources (like Babylon and Korea in Civ V) but by building a large empire that does a lot of things. I am concerned about the balance, though. A Eureka bonus is a percentage cost reduction, so, to use the most generous interpretation that's been proposed, increasing the bonus from 50% to 75% would cut in half the cost of every tech and civic that China completes the Eureka bonus for. I don't the bonus will actually be that big, but given how fundamental tech cultural progression presumably are to the game, even a fraction of that seems like it could be massively game-breaking. The only remotely comparable bonus I can think of in a past civ game is Machine Assisted Free Will in pre-patch Civ BERT, and even with the bonus contingent on Eureka conditions, that seems like a very ominous comparison.

I agree with you that 50% to 75% is too much. I would predict that it is 50% to 60%, or 40% to 50% (since most of the eureka we saw were based on china gameplay).

 

[stealth_nsk]

I agree with you that 50% to 75% is too much. I would predict that it is 50% to 60%, or 40% to 50% (since most of the eureka we saw were based on china gameplay).

We don't know how many eurekas we'll be able to get in each game. I.e. if you normally get eureka for every tech, China would get +50% science, but if only 10% of techs will have eurekas, that's only +5% - barely noticeable. I expect something in between, so the bonus looks quite reasonable.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Eurekas dont' decrease the cost of a tech, it fills the beakers in.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

Also for China (or actually any civ) rushing the great library means that it will have bonus towards ancient and classical techs, but also less probability for fullfilling less of the required eurekas as you will go faster trough the tech tree.

 

[xxhe]

We don't know how many eurekas we'll be able to get in each game. I.e. if you normally get eureka for every tech, China would get +50% science, but if only 10% of techs will have eurekas, that's only +5% - barely noticeable. I expect something in between, so the bonus looks quite reasonable.

Judging by the info revealed, I think they are not that hard to achieve if you play an expansionism way