So let's talk about China then...

[AsparustheSaiyan]

Yesterday I made a discussion thread about Rome. Well today I want to talk about another civ I really like. China.

Now unlike Rome who were always great and got nerfed in Gathering storm, it's been quite the opposite story for China. Throughout the majority of R&F and vanilla china were considered by many a below average civ. They had potential but there was something that always stopped them from being great. Originally, it was a lack of early wonders that were either any good or worth building, or it was that the crouching tiger being terrible or the great wall being just as bad.

However, fast forward to gathering storm and there are plenty of early wonders for China to grab and in the most recent patch the great wall has been buffed to a point where it's worthwhile placing now.

At the start of gathering storm I placed china in the A tier, but thanks to this change I have since moved them into high A tier with the potential to be S if the crouching tiger ever gets improved.

So what do we all think of china now then? They have had quite the journey haven't they?

 

[Bibor]

putting leaders into tiers leads to tears. Why human nature to classify things by arbitrary power, why?

 

[AsparustheSaiyan]

putting leaders into tiers leads to tears. Why human nature to classify things by arbitrary power, why?

We as humans like to have better understand Inga of things and one of the best ways to do that is by placing things into good and bad categories for our own learning.

 

[Gwelengu]

I think China is interesting because I like the idea of a civ that specializes in getting the early wonders that would benefit their situation the most and give them an advantage. However, other civs already can use chops to advance the wonders they want, and there are often areas you want to chop anyway to make room for districts or mines. I don't know the math, but I think chops might even be stronger than 15% of the production using a builder charge for most of the early wonders. Granted you can use the chops for anything(and save the chops for whatever you want), and you do get a free builder charge with China, but that doesn't necessarily make them the best at building early wonders. Just maybe more reliable.

Being able to build an early canal is really fun but highly situational. The boosts to inspirations and eurekas is a solid buff to science and culture. The Great Wall is a nice improvement for some money and culture where you have room to place it.

I don't really understand what makes China top tier, though. Not that it needs to be! It seems like a fun civ to play. But nothing seems like it's all that straightforward as say, bonus production culture and faith from the Maori with a strong unit and no resource requirement. There are many civs that I feel have much stronger bonuses that are easier to utilize.

Again, not that it matters, but I don't really see how China is top tier, not that it needs to be. Like I said, a middle tier or even low tier civ can still be a fun challenge to play, and I often try to choose weaker ones because I find playing to their strengths and making them work more fun.

 

[Sagax]

China’s entire kit can be described as: Mediocre at best UA, UU, and now okay-ish UI carried solely by the very powerful LUA.

The day they give China an alternative leader with less impressive LUA will be the day China says Hi to England.

 

[Jkchart]

Yesterday I made a discussion thread about Rome. Well today I want to talk about another civ I really like. China.

Now unlike Rome who were always great and got nerfed in Gathering storm, it's been quite the opposite story for China. Throughout the majority of R&F and vanilla china were considered by many a below average civ. They had potential but there was something that always stopped them from being great. Originally, it was a lack of early wonders that were either any good or worth building, or it was that the crouching tiger being terrible or the great wall being just as bad.

However, fast forward to gathering storm and there are plenty of early wonders for China to grab and in the most recent patch the great wall has been buffed to a point where it's worthwhile placing now.

At the start of gathering storm I placed china in the A tier, but thanks to this change I have since moved them into high A tier with the potential to be S if the crouching tiger ever gets improved.

So what do we all think of china now then? They have had quite the journey haven't they?

China has always been good IMO.

Their abilities are what make the civ, especially after Eurekas and Inspirations were reduced in power, that ability got more powerful (mathematically). Some people swear to DEATH that Liang puts China's LUA to shame, but that's for one city building builders...China will ALWAYS get an extra builder charge, and coupled with Liang, Pyramids, and late-game policies, I think they can get 8 builds out of a single builder? Plus, you don't have to chop to get early game wonders thanks to their LUA. Those abilities alone make China amazing.

I'm sure early canals is fun but I haven't played China in GS and it's not exactly something to hang a strategy on.

I'm more keen on The Great Wall than most. It has difficult placement requirements, but I've had a few long ones that provided healthy gold and tourism, plus they are always good as forts. It's certainly more useful and easier to come by than a fort since you build them with builders.

The only thing that I'm not a fan of with China is the Crouching Tiger. I get that Firaxis is trying to shake things up rather than have every civ do the same thing every time with its uniques. I'm sure France only ever having a Musketeer has been annoying to French players, and then we've also had Mongolia with the Keshik every game. But the Cho-ko-Nu should've been the unit again - perfectly unique, distinctly Chinese that plays to the idea of China as an invention-heavy Civ, and a crossbow replacement which we lack so far in the game. The Crouching Tiger with one range is kind of useless, even if a tad stronger, and I'd rather build crossbowmen with 2 range any day than Crouching Tigers.

 

[Disgustipated]

Haven't played China in a long time (since civ of the week). They aren't bad by any means, they just aren't that interesting. They don't have any exciting dynamics. It's like a vanilla civ, but better. Though I admit I don't utilize the wonder build thing too much, I feel like if I don't expand early enough, I will lose out.

I will eventually get around to playing them in GS, but other than early canals, have they been changed any? Canals I almost never build anyways. Why sacrifice an all important land tiles which I never seem to have enough of?

 

[Jkchart]

Haven't played China in a long time (since civ of the week). They aren't bad by any means, they just aren't that interesting. They don't have any exciting dynamics. It's like a vanilla civ, but better. Though I admit I don't utilize the wonder build thing too much, I feel like if I don't expand early enough, I will lose out.

I will eventually get around to playing them in GS, but other than early canals, have they been changed any? Canals I almost never build anyways. Why sacrifice an all important land tiles which I never seem to have enough of?

I don't build too many canals. I find the greatest use for them when I have a few scattered lakes that, when settled with the right cities, allow an inland industrial city to become a main seaport to create my navies at. That's my favorite use for them. The trade benefits can be nice, but I mostly use them for military/strategic purposes, and its only when a) I plan it in advance, or b) if there becomes an opportune reason to use one.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Throughout the majority of R&F and vanilla china were considered by many a below average civ.

Well, that's because many players are also below average too.

I mean I'm not trying to be cocky here, since lots of the players that regularly post here are better than me but people that just spew off builder charges randomly by building useless farms or something aren't going to appreciate what China has to offer. And when they spew random nonsense like "Liang replaces China's ability" then they can just be ignored. I'm not really sure if I have to spell it out, but geez, maybe you could pick another governor instead of having to hire Liang durrrrrrr.... instead of just mindlessly doing the same thing regardless of civ or map. This a'int Rocket Science; leave that up to Seondeok.

It's kind of like people look at Scythia and go "Oh, they're strong but dependent on horses" when their combat bonus applies to all units or notice Sumeria's War Carts but not how strong epic quests really is. Basically, yes, stuff that hits you in the face is more noticeable but it doesn't always just apply to that. And really, I think people need to look at things a bit more closely than regurgitating what's been said since vanilla, because a lot of it is no longer true-- if it were even true in the first place.

 

[kaspergm]

Still crying tears over the fact that placing a long, beautiful, coherent, great wall is so damn hard to do, and when you finally do it, the payoff is not even that great.

 

[S1AL]

China is great. +33% worker charges until Feudalism (at which point it's +20% and still fantastic), and effectively +20% science and culture as long as you're hitting inspirations and eurekas. Against the cheating higher-level AI things get a bit harder to evaluate, since you can't count on getting wonders even with the bonus.

Great Wall is whatever, Crouching Tiger is a joke.

It's a huge shame about GW, too... So many things that could have been done, like making it function as a road.

 

[kaspergm]

It's a huge shame about GW, too... So many things that could have been done, like making it function as a road.

... or as a wall.

 

[S1AL]

Hey, it functioned as both... But, honestly, forts in this game are kinda weird mechanically. Not really a fan.

 

[Krajzen]

China would be fine now if Crouching Tiger got buffed. Like wtf is the purpose of this unit. Why does it even have that useless low range. They really should have range buffed to normal 2 and even then they'd just be hardbuilt alternatea alternate with +10 ranged combat. So on top of range buff they could get something more, such as city/district attack bonus.

Buff CT and China is fine.

@AsparustheSaiyan could you please do such thread later about Khmer? I'm considering this almost the worst civ in game (barely better than Canada and Georgia), wondering if I'm mistaken.

 

[The Highwayman]

I've always thought China was strong. Builders are by far my most constructed unit in every game. To get an extra charge on top of every single one is so good. I'm a big fan of building an early wonder, usually the Oracle. China lets me build it while my cap builds my first campus or the government plaza while preserving chops for either settler spam or a later wonder. No chops for the Petra? No problem. Any other Classical wonder sitting around a little too long - rush a builder with faith and it's likely yours with little effort.

Dynastic Cycles is pretty underrated, at least early to mid game. Shaving five or so turns off of Political Philosophy (without relying on City State or resource luck) is solid. Every turn saved really adds up in any victory type, and I'm a big fan of getting to key techs and civics faster. It can be as good as one makes it in regards to scoring eurekas and inspirations.

The Crouching Tiger sucks, as Crossbowmen mixed with the cavalry/melee I'm likely to build early defend just fine usually. I think I see what they were going for, but I'm probably just building one for era score and putting it in a city center on the border of my empire. Not much impact.

The Great Wall has been kinda wonky in my experience. I would always rather build a basic improvement until late in a culture game when I spam it for tourism (flat Petra tiles or Natural Wonders are of course exceptions). I'll try out the new yields and see, but it likely won't see a lot of work until late game.

Still, two great all purpose abilities carry the Civ nicely while the Great Wall offers at least some fun placement strategies or supplement the gold income post patch.

 

[Halcyan2]

I've always liked China, but only for their Leader ability.

The extra bonus from Eurekas/Inspirations is uninspiring. I think the Crouching Tiger and Great Wall are terrible.

China was decent in Vanilla but has gotten better with each new Ancient/Classical wonder. In R&F they benefited a lot from Liang.

China can essentially rush buy wonders (by purchasing Builders). They can secure you Ancient/Classical wonders even if you are behind. More importantly, they allow you to build wonders in newer cities.

With most games and most civs, in the early game your capital is your best city. You can probably build a wonder there, but it's hard to build wonders in newer, less developed cities. Given the placement requirements of a lot of wonders, that blocks you from a lot of wonders. If you don't have stone near your capital, you probably aren't going to be able to build Stonehenge in a second city. The ideal Petra spots often are underdeveloped until you actually build the wonder so it can take a long time to build it. And in Pangaea games (with limited coastlines) it might be awhile till you build a coastal city, which makes it harder to build coastal wonders.

With China, you can essentially "rush" wonders, much like Caravans (in earlier Civ games) or Supply Transports (in Alpha Centauri). You can rush buy Builders or build them in your capital, to rush the wonders in secondary cities. That lets you actually build Stonehenge or Petra or Colossus/Lighthouse in record time.

 

[Disgustipated]

Playing them right now. The thing is the builder ability is fantastic. The wonder ability I only used on 2 wonders, still better than nothing. And the Eureka/inspiration ability isn't bad, it's just you don't really notice it throughout the game.

I never did build my UU. Pretty much worthless in my opinion. And the great wall is pretty much worthless as well. It's very difficult to forgo good tile improvements for this thing. I didn't actually build the Great Wall until the modern era. That sounds about right.

Still I'm having a very dominant game. Part of the reason is I had room to expand, and my first campus district (which I built in my 2nd city) was adjacent to 2 geothermal fissures and 2 mountains. That really helped out.

But I just can't be tasked to forgoing expansion to build early wonders. I got the Oracle, and that's it. Later on I built the Mausoleum with builder charges as well.

 

[Sostratus]

I really enjoy the wonder and builder mechanic. If you have liang then any early wonder you can build in 20 turns or less, can be built in 5 turns using just one builder. I love builder rushing abilities because it lets me transfer production from one city to another - a basic builder from city A can become 60% of a wonder's cost in city B. Phenomenal for shaving time off of colosseum, petra, machu picchu (always hard to get it seems) and so on. Even in size 1 cities, it'll never take more than 7 turns. (If you're really good you can hoard 1 charge builders and slam a wonder out in 1-2 turns.) It's the transfer aspect that matters here.
I agree with others that the eureka bonus is underrated and often unnoticed.
The real bonus to research rate is 20% times whatever fraction of eurekas you get. This should be at least half. That's a nice passive bonus.

But, I do think the biggest hole in their kit is the UU. I know they wanted to try new things in 6, but the cho-ku-nu crossbowman was always a good staple. They could really have made it scary. If they had a good UU like that, the UI's weakness would be excusable. Maybe not two attacks, we've already seen the warak'aq be a little op... but a straight +5 to the xbow would be extremely versatile and strong, for example.

They also tried to shift Germany away from the panzer. I think that also flopped a bit, although BNW on they seem to really like the Hansa being a production monster. (In a late BNW patch, Germany gained this UB and it gave +5% production for each trade route to a city state in your empire. So you got a scaling 5-50% production boost, in a game where the factory gave +15%. They became amazing. Hopefully this sticks for all future germany civs.)
I applaud them for trying new things but I think some of the bold UUs for established civs (america included) didn't pan out as well.

EDIT: did the recent patch allow Great Wall to work with garrison? Because that really changes things. You can level up a CT on barbs or terracotta army and then dig in to your border walls. Not great for conquering but a very very nice to have in choke points.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Well, here's a game I finished on Immortal difficulty. It's rare I get it to work, but oracling stuff and getting great people is pretty cool. No lucky gimmicks like early science/culture CS's/natural wonders-- did not find any more than 2 CS's until like t150 so the start was kinda crap besides the nice capital, but w/e. And yea finish time was disappointing, but I usually don't care about optimizing already won games. If only I didn't have to kill the Dutch.

So China's good at this thing because they can always boost Drama and Poetry somehow, and don't need liang early either.

Spoiler :

I went Drama and Poetry before Political philosophy (good cuz I can't boost that...) and did Magnus and all Pingala promotions except space of course. I didn't bother with Liang until afterwards since China doesn't need her that fast anyways. Science/Theater is most important. Commercial is nice but not needed, and IZ is because I just like to meme; I guess serious players aren't going to build it.

The other thing is just the Government Plaza. I decided to stop delaying it and just place it down wherever since the benefit of the buildings and promotions are simply too valuable.

I also like the fact that this is actually a coastal start but settling on the coast is for suckers so I didn't deal with that nonsense.

Also, wtf with AI great admirals?

 

[shaglio]

I was very busy at work last week, so I missed the Rome thread. I only now saw this China thread that was started . . . last Thursday (wow, I really am behind!). Anyway, didn't @acluewithout already go through the trouble of making detailed threads for every Civ through R&F? I'm not sure why we needed to start new threads for Vanilla Civs when they already exist on these forums.