Guillermo11
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2018
- Messages
- 15
Ehm... Was looking to post this somewhere and I can't find any better place, so here it goes.
This is my main worry right now. Playing as China in Marathon/Parangon results in this monster who discovers the scientific method before the mongols spawn. AND this is while being technologically BEHIND India.
The only way I could more or less keep the Indian technological pace was by getting 77+ spionage per turn, allowing a confucian city to be culturally stolen and getting a few spies, to keep stealing technologies from them (trade routes + state religion + espionage difference).
That and abusing the UP to research religious techonologies (lower part of the ¿medieval?¿Late classical/early medieval? tech tree) since they were left behind so I could exchange them for higher than the research they costed, something that won't be possible after the UP change. Also had to sell every aditional resource for extra income (sometimes as low as 2 gold per turn).
So there are three issues:
India and China are way too powerful. Not that I don't like it, with China (and the east) being historically richer/more densely populated for most of our written history, but colonizing Siberia up to the Urals while having caravels in 600ad and Galleons before 1000 ad is a bit too much
.
Second, Chinese best moves are unhistorical. Currently, the best Chinese fourth city is actually the Mongol capital and the best solution to the barbarian problem is constantly destroying the silk route (due to the barbarians coming from Persia). China has no hope to compete with any power later on if they don't colonize Manchukou, Mongolia, the fertile areas beyond the mountains and get the cows next to the Urals. Countering the horse archers/keshiks with anything but cavalry of your own is next to impossible, cho-ko-nu's being weaker in open terrain with no way to defend themselves. The only viable solution was relaying on their suicidal tendencies by placing them on a nearby hill and waiting for them to attack. Had they decided they wanted to raid my improvements I would have been hard-pressed to find a solution.
Third, meritocracy is useless. Sorry to say that, but even as a long term option citizenship is better (to accelerate the growth of new cities by doubling te production from shopping forest). Afterwards, centralism + regulated create a Nanjing producing more than 300 science and 100 gold. If even an empire that expansive benefits more from centralistic civics than from meritocracy, then something is wrong.
I could have posted his on the "Chinese UP" forum, but this seems to be a bit more widespread than that (seeing as I could barely make use of the UP between the cultural contact with India and the late medieval era).
As for suggestions, I propose we switch meritocracy from the its current form to something on the lines of:
Maintainance High
+ Great Specialist Yield +2 food +1 health + 1 happiness +3 GPP
+ 2 food from Paddy Field
+ 25% food in all cities
+ 4 health in all cities
+ 8-10 unhappiness in all cities
+ 2 happiness per library, university,
+ 1 happiness per farmacy, forge, courthouse, barracks, weaver, theater, post office, security bureau, etc.
+ 2 happiness per confucian academy, confucian Guozian
+ 50% battle experience
Increased effects from great person buildings
Increased instability from barbarian loses, increased unhappiness instability.
Stability with central planning, monarchy, egalitarism, isolationism, monaticism and secularism.
Now, I know this is way too extreme, unlikely to get implemented and so on, but I can't figure any other method to send the Eastern civilizatison on the "Build high" route without crippling their competitive potencial (being tired after university may be the cause for that tho). The competition with centralism is high in that regard, so anything too weak won't cut it. This kind of principle would be an enormous boost in power to any civilization that takes it, but any undeveloped cities will become far weaker, any new city will considerably increase the maintainance cost (especially with high inflation) and trying to switch out of it will cause mass starvation (and an economic depression of epic proportions), reflecting that, while pre-mongol goverments were meritocratic, change was often considered a great risk.
While it would boost Chinese power in the early renaisence, it would be a great deterrent to their expansion, which may have the desired effects later (relative stagnation during the late renaisence) on while, at the same time, giving them extra power during the industrial era when more specialist and more yield from them get available, creating the "Asian tigers" effect and allowing them to recover prominence.
If you add that highly populated cities will have powerful trade routes, it would offer two powerful paths: centralism + regulated trade + tributaries or meritocracy + merchant trade + isolationism (this last one needs a boost too, since tributaries yields more commerce just by the lower maintainance and the +25% trade route yield).
Ehm... afterwards it would only be necessary to make barbarians more likely to pillage improvements before assaulting (it would greatly weaken the chinese and indians and encourage an early Great Wall construction) and add a + 100% city maintainance in cities with less than 1000 (at normal speed) Chinese culture in the Chinese UP and you have the desired effect.
Maybe there is another way, maybe I am exagerating.
I know this is a long shot (a way too influential principle) but it may be another way to approach the issue.
Thanks for reading, anyway.
This is my main worry right now. Playing as China in Marathon/Parangon results in this monster who discovers the scientific method before the mongols spawn. AND this is while being technologically BEHIND India.
The only way I could more or less keep the Indian technological pace was by getting 77+ spionage per turn, allowing a confucian city to be culturally stolen and getting a few spies, to keep stealing technologies from them (trade routes + state religion + espionage difference).
That and abusing the UP to research religious techonologies (lower part of the ¿medieval?¿Late classical/early medieval? tech tree) since they were left behind so I could exchange them for higher than the research they costed, something that won't be possible after the UP change. Also had to sell every aditional resource for extra income (sometimes as low as 2 gold per turn).
So there are three issues:
India and China are way too powerful. Not that I don't like it, with China (and the east) being historically richer/more densely populated for most of our written history, but colonizing Siberia up to the Urals while having caravels in 600ad and Galleons before 1000 ad is a bit too much
.Second, Chinese best moves are unhistorical. Currently, the best Chinese fourth city is actually the Mongol capital and the best solution to the barbarian problem is constantly destroying the silk route (due to the barbarians coming from Persia). China has no hope to compete with any power later on if they don't colonize Manchukou, Mongolia, the fertile areas beyond the mountains and get the cows next to the Urals. Countering the horse archers/keshiks with anything but cavalry of your own is next to impossible, cho-ko-nu's being weaker in open terrain with no way to defend themselves. The only viable solution was relaying on their suicidal tendencies by placing them on a nearby hill and waiting for them to attack. Had they decided they wanted to raid my improvements I would have been hard-pressed to find a solution.
Third, meritocracy is useless. Sorry to say that, but even as a long term option citizenship is better (to accelerate the growth of new cities by doubling te production from shopping forest). Afterwards, centralism + regulated create a Nanjing producing more than 300 science and 100 gold. If even an empire that expansive benefits more from centralistic civics than from meritocracy, then something is wrong.
I could have posted his on the "Chinese UP" forum, but this seems to be a bit more widespread than that (seeing as I could barely make use of the UP between the cultural contact with India and the late medieval era).
As for suggestions, I propose we switch meritocracy from the its current form to something on the lines of:
Maintainance High
+ Great Specialist Yield +2 food +1 health + 1 happiness +3 GPP
+ 2 food from Paddy Field
+ 25% food in all cities
+ 4 health in all cities
+ 8-10 unhappiness in all cities
+ 2 happiness per library, university,
+ 1 happiness per farmacy, forge, courthouse, barracks, weaver, theater, post office, security bureau, etc.
+ 2 happiness per confucian academy, confucian Guozian
+ 50% battle experience
Increased effects from great person buildings
Increased instability from barbarian loses, increased unhappiness instability.
Stability with central planning, monarchy, egalitarism, isolationism, monaticism and secularism.
Now, I know this is way too extreme, unlikely to get implemented and so on, but I can't figure any other method to send the Eastern civilizatison on the "Build high" route without crippling their competitive potencial (being tired after university may be the cause for that tho). The competition with centralism is high in that regard, so anything too weak won't cut it. This kind of principle would be an enormous boost in power to any civilization that takes it, but any undeveloped cities will become far weaker, any new city will considerably increase the maintainance cost (especially with high inflation) and trying to switch out of it will cause mass starvation (and an economic depression of epic proportions), reflecting that, while pre-mongol goverments were meritocratic, change was often considered a great risk.
While it would boost Chinese power in the early renaisence, it would be a great deterrent to their expansion, which may have the desired effects later (relative stagnation during the late renaisence) on while, at the same time, giving them extra power during the industrial era when more specialist and more yield from them get available, creating the "Asian tigers" effect and allowing them to recover prominence.
If you add that highly populated cities will have powerful trade routes, it would offer two powerful paths: centralism + regulated trade + tributaries or meritocracy + merchant trade + isolationism (this last one needs a boost too, since tributaries yields more commerce just by the lower maintainance and the +25% trade route yield).
Ehm... afterwards it would only be necessary to make barbarians more likely to pillage improvements before assaulting (it would greatly weaken the chinese and indians and encourage an early Great Wall construction) and add a + 100% city maintainance in cities with less than 1000 (at normal speed) Chinese culture in the Chinese UP and you have the desired effect.
Maybe there is another way, maybe I am exagerating.
I know this is a long shot (a way too influential principle) but it may be another way to approach the issue.
Thanks for reading, anyway.
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