Why doesn't china have gunpowder units?

[Yoda Nobunaga]

This isn't just complaining, I wanna know the real balance considerations for withholding guns from the Chinese. Would they make the Chinese OP? The UU obsolete? If China had all the gunpowder things how would that affect balance?

[BirbNotBird]

UU is definitely not obsolete somewhat due to extra damage from extra arrows.

Not sure the reason for no gunpowder units, could be that Chinese was one of the first civs back then in OG AOE2 (Maybe even before HD) so there was lack of information at the time?

Otherwise devs are aware of that too. In Le Loi, the Chinese players spawn handcannoners through triggers in the map.

[Heimdall313]

Old civ, before there was that much focus on gunpowder. Same reason Britons don't have Hand Cannons; it's a "foot archer" and the range buff would be obnoxious. Britons, the likely inventor of Thumb Rings, also doesn't have Thumb Ring because 100% accuracy on top of their high Atk and range would be pretty killer.

Its rare to add a unit to a civ, especially one that's very old like China. Mongols getting Steppe Lancer is a counterexample, and the first few weeks of Steppe Lancer was incredibly OP. Even now, after a lot of balancing and changes, the power spike that Lancers bring in Castle Age has really gravitated them towards Castle Rushes, whereas previously a Mongol Men-at-Arms -> Longsword rush was a serious thing fueled by the Hunting bonus.

My thing is, Chu-Ko-Nu aren't that impressive (but I admit, shameless Arb spammer) and the Elite upgrade is probably the biggest resource waste in the game. You get +5 HP and a 9s faster build time for 760 Food / 760 Gold.
Hand Cannons wouldn't really break anything, Chinese have solid Arbalests to do most of the work while Heavy Cav. Archers, Heavy Camels, Champions, Halbs, and Cavaliers have pretty much all the important tech (Champs miss Gambeson, HCA misses Parthian Tactics) to do what you need to do.
Chinese also don't have Siege Engineers, which is also kind of hilarious considering the Mongols quite specifically kidnapped and conscripted Chinese siege engineers in their campaigns.

Chinese are by no means bad, its is kinda funny they miss Siege Engineers, but for Hand Cannons, the Chinese didn't really use things like cannons much, they had all kinds of crazy contraptions like fire lances and the big firework boxes that look like beehives that shot a s***load of small rockets in random trajectories just for intimidation, but putting gunpowder to iron tubes was something that happened west of China more or less.
Turkish cannon batteries would raid Roman storehouses for lead, since the methods for separating lead from iron (which is pretty important when you need to make good steel) was a key technology of the Romans that was lost for centuries during the dark ages before rediscovery.

Britons, Celts, Chinese, the old civs are kinda behind the times in some ways but they still work. Vikings have lorded Island maps for decades, Byzantines got Cannon Galleon swapped for Dromon which is a weird thing but it works.

[Yoda Nobunaga]

Escrito originalmente por Heimdall313:

Old civ, before there was that much focus on gunpowder. Same reason Britons don't have Hand Cannons; it's a "foot archer" and the range buff would be obnoxious. Britons, the likely inventor of Thumb Rings, also doesn't have Thumb Ring because 100% accuracy on top of their high Atk and range would be pretty killer.

Its rare to add a unit to a civ, especially one that's very old like China. Mongols getting Steppe Lancer is a counterexample, and the first few weeks of Steppe Lancer was incredibly OP. Even now, after a lot of balancing and changes, the power spike that Lancers bring in Castle Age has really gravitated them towards Castle Rushes, whereas previously a Mongol Men-at-Arms -> Longsword rush was a serious thing fueled by the Hunting bonus.

My thing is, Chu-Ko-Nu aren't that impressive (but I admit, shameless Arb spammer) and the Elite upgrade is probably the biggest resource waste in the game. You get +5 HP and a 9s faster build time for 760 Food / 760 Gold.
Hand Cannons wouldn't really break anything, Chinese have solid Arbalests to do most of the work while Heavy Cav. Archers, Heavy Camels, Champions, Halbs, and Cavaliers have pretty much all the important tech (Champs miss Gambeson, HCA misses Parthian Tactics) to do what you need to do.
Chinese also don't have Siege Engineers, which is also kind of hilarious considering the Mongols quite specifically kidnapped and conscripted Chinese siege engineers in their campaigns.

Chinese are by no means bad, its is kinda funny they miss Siege Engineers, but for Hand Cannons, the Chinese didn't really use things like cannons much, they had all kinds of crazy contraptions like fire lances and the big firework boxes that look like beehives that shot a s***load of small rockets in random trajectories just for intimidation, but putting gunpowder to iron tubes was something that happened west of China more or less.
Turkish cannon batteries would raid Roman storehouses for lead, since the methods for separating lead from iron (which is pretty important when you need to make good steel) was a key technology of the Romans that was lost for centuries during the dark ages before rediscovery.

Britons, Celts, Chinese, the old civs are kinda behind the times in some ways but they still work. Vikings have lorded Island maps for decades, Byzantines got Cannon Galleon swapped for Dromon which is a weird thing but it works.

The English would keep using longbows even into the 1500s for a fair bit so them not having guns I think suits them. Guns would also ruin their identity, me thinks, as the typical "medieval society" one might imagine. The current Celts are outright in the wrong game, but I don't think they're behind the times necessarily. They all have their play identity.

China, however, I feel like has its identity ruined by NOT having guns. They did use primitive hand cannons and things like fire lancers were not uncommon. The Song would also use grenades thrown by trebuchets quite often, a technique Kublai Khan would use steal and against them.



Anyway, what I seem to glean from this is that there's no balance issue if they got hand cannons, the reason they don't have them is "just cuz"?

[Bob of Mage]

Well all the Far East civs seem to have been ignored compared to other areas. China, Japan, and Korea, all still lack a campaign.

[WingedKagouti]

Escrito originalmente por Yoda Nobunaga:

China, however, I feel like has its identity ruined by NOT having guns. They did use primitive hand cannons and things like fire lancers were not uncommon.

If the weapons they used were primitive versions of the hand cannons portrayed in the game, that would be a point against the Chinese having hand cannons. Otherwise you have a hefty argument for every other civilization getting a buff to their hand cannons.

It may be more accurate to give them bombard cannons, as that seems closer to the weight, power and/or use of the most common historical Chinese gunpowder weapons.

[Devang]

They're not going to have Bombard Cannons. The civ is designed around having a weakness to Onagers

For a period in DE they had Redemption and were given Block Printing for historical accuracy. So they were able to convert Onagers with 12 range Monks. This was changed in the very next patch with them losing Redemption instead

The civ was originally designed on a pre-firearms dynasty, similar to how they were Shang in AoE1. I can't remember the name right now. This was changed to a more generic 'Chinese', but the civ design stuck. Their usage of gunpowder in a more primitive way is emphasized by the Rocketry unique technology

At this point, I mean with the tech discount nerf, giving them Hand Cannons would be an inoffensive buff. The relationship between Chu Ko Nus and Hand Cannons would be the same as Janissary and Hand Cannon. The Hand Cannon is an anti-infantry specialist, while the Chu Ko Nu / Janissary is the generalist unit with high DPS. Unlike the Janissary, the Chu Ko Nu would have the advantage of costing wood instead of food. I'd even go so far as Hand Cannoneers recieve +2 attack from Rocketry

[Ls-Meleko]

20 magic monopoly dollars say the devs totally know this and probably want to break up the Chinese civ into smaller parts like they did with the Indians.

[Banzai]

Well, the Chinese did have gunpowder units, but then that idiot Wan Hu used it all to make a fancy rocket chair and *boom* now they're unbalanced.

[Tak]

Chines have gun power units on AOE4, AOE 2 only has like 1 unique, japan on AOE4 has like 10 lol

[Blackout4711]

"Britons, the likely inventor of Thumb Rings, also doesn't have Thumb Ring"

Not saying to be difficult, but I really don't think Britons invented the thumb ring, it was being used in central asia and the near east for thousands of years.

[Blackout4711]

Give Chinese a second unique unit; Fire Lance, stand in for a hand canoneer but with some technical changes for balance and make it still great unit, situationally a little different from hand canoneer. Why not, they've basically already done this with Persians for their Paladin replacement.

[Blackout4711]

It could be available in castle and be like a hand canoneer but shorter range or more drop off in accuracy for range but higher damage and/or slower reload or something idk, so its stronger countered by archers but great up close, nothing really balance breaking particularly with the current meta but a fun unit.

edit: im making a whole post on this i think i like this idea that much

[Yoda Nobunaga]

Escrito originalmente por Banzai:

Well, the Chinese did have gunpowder units, but then that idiot Wan Hu used it all to make a fancy rocket chair and *boom* now they're unbalanced.

Hehe. now the chair is unbalanced.