Qin Shi Huang's China should have been a domination victory focused civ

[Gray]

As someone who has studied some warring states period history I find the depiction of Qin Shi Huang to be way too inaccurate in civ 6 and a rather missed opportunity for a more accurate depiction. In history, the Qin state(which then became the Qin dynasty) became a highly bureaucratic state that prioritized militarism above all else, starting with Shang Yang's legalist reforms in 359 BC under Duke Xiao of Qin. The people were mass conscripted and soldiers would get money and political ranks based on how many kills they had in war. Merchants and architects, those that did not contribute to the state were enslaved, and the law was made to be equally applied to all to maintain order. Farming was highly valued because it was essential to supplying troops, those who gave more than average to the state would be exempt from corvee and there were tax incentives made to push a nuclear family model so people would expand out and farm more areas, you get the picture.

While by the time of Qin Shi Huang(238 BC when he was officially crowned) these laws were more relaxed, legalism would end up being promoted as the state philosophy at the expense of all other political philosophies(where their books were burned under the order of Li Si). On top of that he spent his life continuing the Qin trend of militarism where Qin was under total war mobilization under his entire rule, starting with the unification wars against the 6 states and immediately right after unification he made 2 armies. One was made for destroying the Xiongnu(what some people think are the precursor to the Huns) in the north commanded by the general Meng Tian, who was mostly responsible for the connecting the walls of the 3 states Qin, Zhao, Yan into what would be the Great Wall of China. The second army would be for expanding down south under the general Zhao Tuo where he made it all the way to modern day north vietnam by the time the Qin dynasty collapsed. The sum of these 2 armies were proclaimed to number about 800k troops, which is similar to the total troops he used in the wars of unification.

If you consider how china under QSH is played in civ 6, the 2 main victory types that china is advantaged and goes for are either culture or science due to the wonder spamming ability Qin Shi Huang gets with his builders. The great wall tile, which is a massive $$$ boost(and culture) and a defensive tile, on top of the crouching tiger gives off this idea that China is like this insular defensive civilization that keeps to themselves and stalls out to the mid/late game for a win. While some dynasties did act like that(Song/Ming, coincidentally they were some of the worst dynasties in chinese history), Qin was the exact opposite and engaged in punitive expansionary campaigns. Even when Qin built the wall it was primarily meant to forward expand the Qin territory into the Xiongnu territory, contrasting to the different version of Great Wall of China that everyone is aware of today that was built more south and for defensive purposes under the Ming dynasty.

While I get that the crouching tiger and the great wall of china was intended to represent china as a whole and not just one dynasty, if they were gonna do that they should have at least made a Zhuge Liang or some Song/Ming civ leader option. But civ 6 intentionally displayed 2 emperors KNOWN for their expansionary militarism, Qin Shi Huang and Kublai Khan and slapped them with 1 defensive unit and 1 defensive stall tile, on top of wonder spamming ability of the builder and dynastic cycle abilities that inherently detracts from any sort of domination play style. It would be kinda like if Saladin was made to be a militarist state atheist civ leader, or if they removed victoria's naval unit and harbor building ability and slapped them with more redcoat type units, or if they changed the cavalry unit of the mongols to some random siege engineer or naval unit. It's just not too representative of the depicted leaders and their civilization at the time and a rather poor choice of combination.

Even his voice lines aren't too accurate. for he uses the term guaren(寡人) instead of zhen(朕) to say I. The former was used widely by the Kings of the warring states including him, the latter was something he invented to use himself after he became Emperor, and in civ 6 he is depicted as his post unification Emperor counterpart not his King of Qin self.

What Qin Shi Huang maybe should have gotten was a more accurate unit for what he was known for and for what china actually used more in wars throughout history, a Qin crossbow unit(with +1 range because Qin crossbows were known at the time to outrange the bows of all the other states) and maybe a spearman replacement where they use a dagger-axe. Maybe Qin Shi Huang's civ ability could have given him a production bonus based on how many civs he was at war with and instead of the great wall tile giving gold and culture, it should be an entirely defensive tile that can be built anywhere with builders similar to roman legion forts. The gold production of the wall could be offloaded instead onto a civ ability where unit kills grant some gold. Or instead of the wall he could have a unique aqueduct wonder building the Zhengguo Canal that gives massive food and military production boost. These kinds of things would be a lot more accurate to the Qin civilization under his rule.

If civ 7 intends to have Qin Shi Huang again to lead China I hope they will set him to be more accurately militaristic in similar vein of the suggestions above instead of like essentially butchering and erasing the primary characteristics of his civilization.

TLDR: China was historically militaristic under Qin Shi Huang, civ 6 depiction is like a 180 flip to defensive stall with culture emphasis & wonder spam when China should have been domination focused. Qin Empire tv series especially 1st season depicts the Qin with a good degree of accuracy on how it actually functioned, for those that are interested

[colostmy4]

This is a game. If everything in the game went 100% according to history it would probably be a programming nightmare and game play would suffer greatly. I understand your point, but compromises have to be made to make for practical game play. So for Civ 6 they went with more of an emphasis on Great Wonders for China since there were probably already many warlike civilizations in the game.

[Wasteland Project]

I recommend manga and anime Kingdom. The anime has reached its fourth season, Qin Shi Huang is about to be crowned and has enemies at the gates of Xianyang, there are Lu Buwei, Li Si and all the others.

[Gray]

Publicado originalmente por colostmy4:

This is a game. If everything in the game went 100% according to history it would probably be a programming nightmare and game play would suffer greatly. I understand your point, but compromises have to be made to make for practical game play. So for Civ 6 they went with more of an emphasis on Great Wonders for China since there were probably already many warlike civilizations in the game.

Well the thing is I don't think it's even intentional on their part, it's actually a very common misconception among western cultural knowledge that china has like this one singular culture that existed for thousand of years and that includes being passive and looking inward. And yes this is a game and a series that has been going on for decades now hence why they have the ability and time to improve the historical accuracy. On it being a programming nightmare I don't really know how making China under Qin Shi Huang be more warlike is somehow a near impossible task, it's not like they would need to implement any new or game breaking mechanics, like gaining gold from killing units and giving them a new crossbow unit as an example is something that is already in the game and not a hard concept to balance around either.

The excuse of other civilizations already being warlike in the game makes no sense considering many of these other domination civs are in history less warlike than the Qin, there is no reason why those should have been prioritized first over a civilization that actually spent a century not just following the typical tradition of conquering among empires but actually theorizing(legalism) how to fully militarize a populace and conquer the entire world. China under QSH should be considered warlike at minimum at the level of Genghis Khan & Alexander the Great. The way QSH is presented is not just a minor compromise but like I mentioned it's complete 180 flip, like 100% if a civ leader like lets say shaka zulu, ambiorix(gauls) were pictured in like astronaut suits and focused primarily on science and the arts, people would be put off by the insane historically inaccuracy and be like wtf is going on, and justifiably so. Like most other civs on the surface in civ 6 don't seem to have this problem except QSH. On top of that this is also a recommendation for civ 7, I'm aware civ 6 is already a finished and mature game and they're not gonna be updating it at this point, just wish that they would take this into consideration when they try to make civ 7

[Gray]

Publicado originalmente por Wasteland Project:

I recommend manga and anime Kingdom. The anime has reached its fourth season, Qin Shi Huang is about to be crowned and has enemies at the gates of Xianyang, there are Lu Buwei, Li Si and all the others.

Kingdom is alright but it's more meant to be a fictional retelling like the romance of the three kingdoms as opposed to a focus on telling the full historical fact around it. For example I did watch up to the 3rd season of kingdom and Hara made a huge change by throwing out Li Mu as general way too early on compared to when he fought Qin much later in the 230s BC. Li Mu never actually lost a single battle but with the way Hara changed things he looks a lot less impressive. The person leading the coalition war in 242 BC should have actually been Pang Nuan(a general that wrote books not different from Sun Tzu), but they reduced him into being a mindless intimidating warrior instead. Kingdom on its own is ok(I think it would have looked a lot better if they just went by historical fact) but Qin Empire series is a lot more accurate(there are still some inaccuracies but that's to be expected with films) and is more about the politics surrounding what happened as opposed to fighting battles emphasis with Kingdom, they have their own place and should be viewed together imo

[SLG]

Really the developers do not take just in account the ruler they pick to lead the civilization. They look at the whole history of the civilization.

For Example: Greece
Before it was under one ruler, there were warring city-states.
Then they were conquered by outsiders, like Macedonians, Romans, Ottomans, etc.
During its long history, many ideas were developed, like democracy, the sciences, philosophy, etc.