Chinese build order: Song Dynasty opening

[ARCAGNELL0]

Premise

Hello! It will not take much to know that I'm fairly new to AOE4 and am incredibly rusty at playing Real Time Strategy games, but I nevertheless bought this game after watching Turin start streaming it on YouTube and here I am.

I mainly tried to play Abbasid in the first...35ish hours in 1v1 skirmish, then got bored (and frustrated) and switched to the Chinese since they looked a lot more fun (there might be a vein of masochism in my civ choices, since they both do kinda suffer in the meta currenty), which brings me to this discussion I wanted to start.

I've recently had a VERY informative discussion with what I can only assume are much more experienced Chinese civ players about the ins and outs of the faction, so I wanted to create a separate discussion that will EXCLUSIVELY talk about a specific build order which I discussed with the folk in that thread, namely Cacomistle and Gundalf.

Without further ado, here's the actual reason for this discussion to exist:

Song Dynasty Open

The premise of this open
This is primarily to allow the civ to be rather flexible in what it wants to do against a variety of enemies, especially if the opponent plans to apply early 1 Town Center pressure. This build also should provide quite a big booming potential if the player can indeed transition to double TC and then go Castle age.

The "quirks" of this open
1)What this build does not do however is particularly endorse the use of the Repeater Crossbow unit, the Chuge-Nu.
While it can actually pose quite a threat against enemy archers and men at arms, possibly even rams (at least more than normal archers, especially if you have the upgrade advantage) the unit itself is prohibitively costly, sitting at a total of 120 resources (60 food, 30 wood and 30 gold) and can quickly turn an eco advantage you get from the Song dynasty into a resource pitfall that loses you the game
2)Apart from the real dynasty bonus we're looking for, the -35% villager production speed, the Dynasty also allows us to build a unique building, the Village. It increases the population limit by 40 despite only costing 100 wood to construct, making it twice as efficient as normal houses.

What's also interesting (and I have seen no case of it being used in such a way, anywhere) is that the Village also comes with 10 Garrison, potentially allowing a savvy Song Dynasty expert to use them instead of Keeps to keep villagers safe in case of light raiding, as they cost the same amount of wood as a Keep, without of course having any offensive/defensive upgrades of their own and no high vision range that sees though Stealth Forest. It does have 2000 health and 50 ranged armor tough.

Detailed build order
I've decided to include a full list of the town center activity and the villager shifting from building to other resource to make it as detailed as possible. You're welcome to provide me with what you think are better versions of builds that also use the Song Dynasty!


Edit: thanks to Cacomistle for providing a better build order pursuing the same thing, here it is :)

1. 5 vills to food, 1 vill to wood, lumber camp and mill near the berries are immediately built
   
2. Advisor is the first thing coming out the TC and it immediately goes to supervise the mill
   
3. 7th, 8th and 9th villagers go to food
   
4. Sheep are immediately moved to the mill and prioritized over berries by the villagers
   
5. Imperial Advisor needs to be microed to collect tax and drop it off every time the Mill reaches 20 tax
   
6. 10th villager builds a minig camp to gold, 11th villager goes to gold aswell
   
7. 12th and 13th villagers go to food, bringing the total of food villagers to 10
   
8. Barbican Of The sun begins building at 2:55 with 3 of the 10 food workers
   
9. 14th villager goes to food
   
10. 15th villager goes to gold, bringing the total of gold villagers up to 3
    
11. 16th villager builds a house and goes to food
    
12. 17th and 18th villagers go to fodd, bringing the total of food workers once the first landmark is completed up to 14
    
13. All 3 gold villagers are pulled to build the Imperial Academy at around 4:35
    
14. 19th villager goes to food, bringing the total of food villagers to 15 just before 6 villagers are pulled from food to wood, making it 7 wood villagers
    
15. 20th and 21st villager go to gold, bringing the total gold villagers once the ones building the academy return to 5
    
16. Imperial Academy finishes at around 5:40, thus beginning the Song Dynasty

And thus the "Song Dynasty Open" for the Chinese is concluded with somewhat of an open end, allowing anyone to choose what they want to do next. I have only done little skirmish practice (against the AI) to record what I was doing and to try and bring the landmark timings down as much as possible.

Let me know what you think of this build, I'll be sure to listen and correct/modify the build order with something as flexible but more efficient, should it be so!

[ARCAGNELL0]

Ok...uh, the build seems to work nicely in terms of pure eco powerhousing, but I still got to get around fielding a proper army that lets me survive....

I'll just have the screenshots speak for themselves on this one I think. He had mass cav and I was still getting my bombards and cav of my own to hold the line, could not produce it in time sadly. Then again rus eco in these forest maps is just bonkers. I could not even contest the relics, of which he got all 5. Sigh.

I did not go for spears since they can't really hold the line all that well, but I should've put a few of them in the comp to try and stop cav a bit more.

Another mistake in my comp I think I did was to go for ranged firepower (crossbows) instead of just massing more artillery, namely springalds. Oh well, that's a lesson for next time.

[ARCAGNELL0]

And here's the screenshot dump of that same match. Took me a while to figure out how I could post it without too much clutter....

https://imgur.com/gallery/CmOc9ic

[ARCAGNELL0]

This is one strangte coincidence, AussieDrongo just released this video of TheViper playing as Chinese against the French on Boulder Bay where he does actually go into a song dynasty, 3 TC (!) boom. Quite hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkSVIZXNpn8

This has got to be the greediest Chinese play I've ever seen.

[ARCAGNELL0]

Sigh, it's almost as if I am 100% screwed if I fight the good old, crayon eating english longbow rush with rams. What do I even have to do, get 20 vills on food and spam horsemen out the whazoo or somethign as soon as I hit Song dynasty?

I litterally had a 46 vills by the time he had 31 when we were both at one TC and I still got ran over. Can't seem to even trade remotely favourably with gun emplacement turrets and horsemen. All this bloody practice and I can't even manage to beat an english player gong fast feudal and just spamming the damn things, not even moving between shots....

https://imgur.com/gallery/7vMqNrQ

I'll just try and get as many vills on food while an advisor overseeing a stable is just vomiting horsemen then, only choice I have apparently. Absolutely histerical.

[Harris]

Originally posted by ARCAGNELL0:

Sigh, it's almost as if I am 100% screwed if I fight the good old, crayon eating english longbow rush with rams.

Having played some more Chinese games and reading our productive discussions, I think Imma go back to my beloved English. And there's a ton of reasons for that:

1) They are more consistent, and hinge on very little contesting of anything. They don't need professional scouts nor get any particular mileage out of their relics like some civs do.

2) Their economy is solid and reliable at all stages of the game. Maybe it's not the most powerful early on, but late game when China is run out of deer and has to make a costly transition to (rather ineffective) farming, English has long since set up their farms and is making a tidy sum of gold out of them.

3) There's less micro and apm intensity for the same (or better) rewards. No officials to manage, no scouts to hunt, just put vills to farms and forget they exist.

4) English gets good units from very beginning (age I m@a is phenomenal), and can go all-into m@a if they so choose. While Chinese need to rush age III before they're even able to build anything decent.

My thoughts on the Song build (given that I was actually doing this for all this time lol) is that it's just a resource sink that doesn't give you anything substantial in return. Rushing Zhuge Nu could work if that was a cheaper unit, or a better performing one - but as it stands it's just not worth it.

I'd suggest you try playing extremely aggresive with Chinese early for a change. No dynasties, only 1 TC, spit out tons of archers and spears and try to disrupt his eco as much as possible - see where it gets you.

[ARCAGNELL0]

Originally posted by Harris:

Originally posted by ARCAGNELL0:

Sigh, it's almost as if I am 100% screwed if I fight the good old, crayon eating english longbow rush with rams.

Having played some more Chinese games and reading our productive discussions, I think Imma go back to my beloved English. And there's a ton of reasons for that:

1) They are more consistent, and hinge on very little contesting of anything. They don't need professional scouts nor get any particular mileage out of their relics like some civs do.

2) Their economy is solid and reliable at all stages of the game. Maybe it's not the most powerful early on, but late game when China is run out of deer and has to make a costly transition to (rather ineffective) farming, English has long since set up their farms and is making a tidy sum of gold out of them.

3) There's less micro and apm intensity for the same (or better) rewards. No officials to manage, no scouts to hunt, just put vills to farms and forget they exist.

4) English gets good units from very beginning (age I m@a is phenomenal), and can go all-into m@a if they so choose. While Chinese need to rush age III before they're even able to build anything decent.

My thoughts on the Song build (given that I was actually doing this for all this time lol) is that it's just a resource sink that doesn't give you anything substantial in return. Rushing Zhuge Nu could work if that was a cheaper unit, or a better performing one - but as it stands it's just not worth it.

I'd suggest you try playing extremely aggresive with Chinese early for a change. No dynasties, only 1 TC, spit out tons of archers and spears and try to disrupt his eco as much as possible - see where it gets you.

A shame really but I can't really blame you. English are more or less the best turtle faction that also gets disgusting early game pressure potential and some of the bets late game economies in the game with those farms that generate gold, which basically more or less incentivizes you to do some good onl knight spam supported by longbowmen and hand cannoneers, all the while you're slow pushing the enemy with a train made of walls and keeps.

I just hope China gets at least part of the love it sorely deserves in this upcoming December patch.

Aaaanyway, in order:

1)English are the crayon eater of AOE4. I've said this multiple times. They probably have the least amount of required micro and macro out of all other 7 civs. I don't think they deserve to be so strong with so little effort but they are, they really are.

2)I personally really transition to farms while playing China once I'm into late castle and I've run out of both deer and berries, usually before I mount my rather committed first offense, since that's the perfect time to have your vills require less babysitting. English can most likely switch to a farm ecomomy right after they run out of deer, especially considering how cheap their farms are and how strong they get overtime.

China is more or less a burning fire that eats at the resources of the map from the beginning of the match to the end, while England can more or less pick and choose its food supply and can endure hardcore, gold costing unit spam just with farms most of the time.

3)I think it goes even beyond that, as even their combat units will get themselves into trouble a lot less, especially the longbow which gets a lot of mileage out of its superior range keeping it out of trouble most of the time even when they're left to their own devices.

4) Good units? England probably gets the best feudal unit roster after France, it's not a coincidence most people play english, only know how to do a ram push with longbows+men at arms/spearmen, barely even know what the game is like beyond castle age and still climb up the ladder like it's nobody's buisness. Civs like Abbasid, China, Delhi and possibly even the HRE have very, very little tools to contest that.

Given both the player using English and the one using one of the 4 civs above have the same skill level, the English has an overwhelming chance of beating its opposition with a ram rush as soon as the council hall goes up.


Your discussion about song dynasty:
Going right into Song after placing the first landmark that got you into feudal is, as you put it, a really wonky tactic that can be accomplished by other civs a lot more easily. That said, it actually gives you quite a good shot at beating rushes (unless they're done by the english with a modicum of foresight, mixing spears into your longbowman blob and all that) since your eco will outperform the enemy almost right away.

I've found that entirely forsaking gold and stone to just get as many villagers into wood/food to get out as many horsemen and archers as you can, possibly with an advisor on both archery range and stable will give you a fighting chance, it's just that it's so much micro compared to basically any other civ. It's actually mental.

Still, I am starting to get the hang of it, little by little. I've just had a Chinese mirror and I will admit I got a little cheeky; since I went for the usual Song into double TC and then proceeded to boom hard, so hard that by the time my opponent went into imperial I already had 200 pop and was knocking at his walls with some 10 battering rams across several directions, to then just storm in with the most cookie cutter composition, Palace Guard + Lancers in a 1.1 ratio. I don't think he expected me to forsake gunpowder entirely and I managed to overwhelm him completely.

I even A-moved my battering rams across his base almost all in several directions (man that thread in which I raged about my units running around the enemy doing nothing taught me quite a few tricks lol), which resulted in basically half his forces chasing the rams around his own base while my Palace Guard was searching for his combat units and my cavalry was cleaning his base of villagers. It was really fun overall. He even tried to mass convert my all melee army some 4 times while all of this was going on, cheeky until the very end!

Ah yes I also completely forgot about relics this time around too :P

https://imgur.com/gallery/ihoBaFV

[Antpile]

Originally posted by ARCAGNELL0:

Sigh, it's almost as if I am 100% screwed if I fight the good old, crayon eating english longbow rush with rams. What do I even have to do, get 20 vills on food and spam horsemen out the whazoo or somethign as soon as I hit Song dynasty?

As someone who has done quite a lot of china 1on1s, the answer I had to learn very painfully and stubbornly is: Don't rush Song dynasty.

Just don't.

I mean, you can maybe get away with it against someone who isn't playing england or france. But against either of those civs, just don't do it. Yes, it only takes an extra minute or two to get to Song and then you have a big civ building advantage after that... but in that minute or two you will get yourself into a hole you can't climb back out of.

Either of these civs will hit feudal at around 4:30 with a standard build order. They will then rally their landmark that builds their units outside your base and begin building units. You'll have a knight or longbows on your wood villagers by a little after 5 minutes.

You MUST have your own units by this time. Spears against France. Archers or horses against England.

If you try to go for a second TC or Song, you will very likely lose. By the time you get it, they'll have units already stacked up and already forcing you off of wood and stuff here and there. So now you have even less wood to make your own archers or whatever while also needing to catch up to the 7 or 8 bows he already has out. And he's making more while you are making your own.

More than likely, it's too late.

Instead, slow down your feudal a tad to start gathering wood earlier. Even 2 guys on wood early will stack up a pretty decent bit by the time you hit feudal. You need enough to drop an archery range and start overseeing it the second you hit age 2. Make that English guy roll up with his first 3 or 4 archers to see you've already got 6 or 7.

That's it. That's the only way. Fit Song or a second TC in when you can while skirmishing with them. Or just skip both and go to castle age first, then worry about that second TC.

[ARCAGNELL0]

Originally posted by Antpile:

Originally posted by ARCAGNELL0:

Sigh, it's almost as if I am 100% screwed if I fight the good old, crayon eating english longbow rush with rams. What do I even have to do, get 20 vills on food and spam horsemen out the whazoo or somethign as soon as I hit Song dynasty?

As someone who has done quite a lot of china 1on1s, the answer I had to learn very painfully and stubbornly is: Don't rush Song dynasty.

Just don't.

I mean, you can maybe get away with it against someone who isn't playing england or france. But against either of those civs, just don't do it. Yes, it only takes an extra minute or two to get to Song and then you have a big civ building advantage after that... but in that minute or two you will get yourself into a hole you can't climb back out of.

Either of these civs will hit feudal at around 4:30 with a standard build order. They will then rally their landmark that builds their units outside your base and begin building units. You'll have a knight or longbows on your wood villagers by a little after 5 minutes.

You MUST have your own units by this time. Spears against France. Archers or horses against England.

If you try to go for a second TC or Song, you will very likely lose. By the time you get it, they'll have units already stacked up and already forcing you off of wood and stuff here and there. So now you have even less wood to make your own archers or whatever while also needing to catch up to the 7 or 8 bows he already has out. And he's making more while you are making your own.

More than likely, it's too late.

Instead, slow down your feudal a tad to start gathering wood earlier. Even 2 guys on wood early will stack up a pretty decent bit by the time you hit feudal. You need enough to drop an archery range and start overseeing it the second you hit age 2. Make that English guy roll up with his first 3 or 4 archers to see you've already got 6 or 7.

That's it. That's the only way. Fit Song or a second TC in when you can while skirmishing with them. Or just skip both and go to castle age first, then worry about that second TC.

Yeah that sounds about right for countering french and English. I may have to just give up on booming unless I'm 100% sure the enemy is not pushing me much in feudal. A shame really since it just is not fast enough to be worth it against 5 minute timer pushes.

I guess Song Dynasty, a second TC or even both can come once I'm sure the pressure has been taken off and the enemy retreats.

That said, rushing to castle for the juicy Palace Guard is not a bad idea either. I guess my build order needs to grow more varied. I think it's for the best to throw my booming dreams in the recycling bin when I'm against france or england and see the telltale signs of a push coming.

[Harris]

I'm not a believer in any build orders, as that makes you a dog that only knows one trick. If you are not flexible and don't consider who you're up against and what map is it then you've a weakness easy to exploit.

One thing to agree upon though - while China is very tempting to boom with, build slowly and collect all those boni along the way - you will be punished for that, and you will be punished hard.

If you're really into dynasties, grenadiers and what not you best shift to 4v4 which tend to last longer and people are less inclined to go all-in on you come age II. And even then, it is not uncommon to be rushed there - even double or triple teamed. If you're not building an army early that means you'll neither be able to defend nor come to help of your teammates.

Of course, since you don't bother with dynasties, since you don't use zhuge nu or fire cav, since you barely know what grenadiers look like, since playing builder bob is fun but won't win you games you might start wondering - what's the point playing Chinese anyway? And then you'll probably come back to something decent like English the way I did :P

[ARCAGNELL0]

Originally posted by Harris:

I'm not a believer in any build orders, as that makes you a dog that only knows one trick. If you are not flexible and don't consider who you're up against and what map is it then you've a weakness easy to exploit.

One thing to agree upon though - while China is very tempting to boom with, build slowly and collect all those boni along the way - you will be punished for that, and you will be punished hard.

If you're really into dynasties, grenadiers and what not you best shift to 4v4 which tend to last longer and people are less inclined to go all-in on you come age II. And even then, it is not uncommon to be rushed there - even double or triple teamed. If you're not building an army early that means you'll neither be able to defend nor come to help of your teammates.

Of course, since you don't bother with dynasties, since you don't use zhuge nu or fire cav, since you barely know what grenadiers look like, since playing builder bob is fun but won't win you games you might start wondering - what's the point playing Chinese anyway? And then you'll probably come back to something decent like English the way I did :P

I'll completely agree with your initial statement, and the rest of the post too really. China is currently too much micro and brain gymnastics in order to obtain an often inferior result to another civ going very close to just attack moving his entire 1-2 unit type blob into yours, melt it and win the game.

Oh and I just noticed this lovely piece of news. I guess I can get my ELO to above 1100 again once China gets buffed and some civs, notably France, get knocked down a notch :)

Age of Empires IV Winter Update Coming Next Week

I wonder how big the Chuge-Nu cost reduction is. It's currently 60 food 30 wood 30 gold. Having the overall cost reduced to 100 or something could make it useful having it cut to 90 or even lower could actually turn mass Chuge-Nu into a viable tactic in a variety of situations, especially if you combine it with Lancers and let the repeater crossbows cut through spears.

[Harris]

Just had a lovely 4v4 where our China guy rushed Song, was only able to vomit out a couple Zhuge Nu and build a thin palisade for protection.

Meanwhile the enemy was French, double English and Abbassid. They are likely SWAT members by trade, since they were extremely coordinated and specialized - French built only knights, two English built only longbows and Abbasid only built some 10 rams. And all of them came at once at poor China, playing Cities: Skylines in his corner of the map. Proving how Song is not viable even in team games.

Thing is, China seems to be the meta in 4v4 right now. I see many people going China and spamming bombards and even grenadiers, then steamrolling through the map. However, it a known fact that China is extremely weak early game and should be eliminated before it gains power, so early rushing China specifically is a thing many players do.

This means that in order to survive through early game as China you have to play as you would English - amass some archers, some spears, build up defenses and essentially be ready to play with 1 TC for the whole game without any dynasty nonsense.

[Despiser]

You probably want to start chopping earlier or you can't build anything, including houses, but focus on food. Nest of bees will decimate many units so build as many as you can. Lastly, avoid stopping villagers from a task, just keep building them. Don't rely so much on YouTube videos. Why even play if you are just going to follow a script? Experience is the best teacher. Once you can defeat the AI on hard level you can try MP if that's your fancy. Just be aware that AI exploits may not work on human opponents

[IEPBE]

Nice build

[Harris]

Aussie Drongo's tier list of unique units, I highlighted a moment where he talks about Chinese (12:23):
https://youtu.be/A11IbM9FNhA?t=742

Gotta say I pretty much agree with all the placements. Official has a lot of utility but requires solid micro to get value from. Grenadiers would be S if they actually showed up in games. Palace guard is solid, but nowhere close to being a great unit, it's mostly there to shield artillery. Fire lancer is niche as such can be tricky to get value from. Zhuge Nu is very underperforming for its cost right now and frankly I don't see it becoming particularly good even after it's made cheaper - it still won't be able to defeat those knights and m@a that dominate games. And nest of bees is only good if you've amassed them - at which point you're better off massing bombards or even springalds.

[Cacomistle]

Originally posted by Antpile:

Originally posted by ARCAGNELL0:

Sigh, it's almost as if I am 100% screwed if I fight the good old, crayon eating english longbow rush with rams. What do I even have to do, get 20 vills on food and spam horsemen out the whazoo or somethign as soon as I hit Song dynasty?

As someone who has done quite a lot of china 1on1s, the answer I had to learn very painfully and stubbornly is: Don't rush Song dynasty.

Just don't.

I mean, you can maybe get away with it against someone who isn't playing england or france. But against either of those civs, just don't do it. Yes, it only takes an extra minute or two to get to Song and then you have a big civ building advantage after that... but in that minute or two you will get yourself into a hole you can't climb back out of.

Either of these civs will hit feudal at around 4:30 with a standard build order. They will then rally their landmark that builds their units outside your base and begin building units. You'll have a knight or longbows on your wood villagers by a little after 5 minutes.

You MUST have your own units by this time. Spears against France. Archers or horses against England.

If you try to go for a second TC or Song, you will very likely lose. By the time you get it, they'll have units already stacked up and already forcing you off of wood and stuff here and there. So now you have even less wood to make your own archers or whatever while also needing to catch up to the 7 or 8 bows he already has out. And he's making more while you are making your own.

More than likely, it's too late.

Instead, slow down your feudal a tad to start gathering wood earlier. Even 2 guys on wood early will stack up a pretty decent bit by the time you hit feudal. You need enough to drop an archery range and start overseeing it the second you hit age 2. Make that English guy roll up with his first 3 or 4 archers to see you've already got 6 or 7.

That's it. That's the only way. Fit Song or a second TC in when you can while skirmishing with them. Or just skip both and go to castle age first, then worry about that second TC.

I think you can still do it just fine. Against English you probably want to throw down a stable first, then just make sure to scout (just sit at the edge of their council hall). If they just rally across the map, instead of song supervise out 3-4 horsemen and just kill their longbow for free. Then you can probably afford to be even greedier and get something like fast professional scouts too. You can still have song very shortly after feudal even if you go for a stables.

Against french, knights are a raiding unit, just be prepared to garrison your wood line, maybe build a tower therr. If you garrison in time, they idle you for a moment. Its not that big a deal. I think French is strong because people panic about the knights. If you defend calmly, they get a bit of idle time, maybe a couple vills, and then you can likely counter attack them or kill a knight or 2 after they get greedy and dive too far.