WinterGod
Mortal
posted 13 December 2019 11:34 AM
EDT (US)
1 / 9
Chinese civ is beyond fixing. There are so many problems with them. First of most of the myth units are re-using models, and codes.
White tiger is clearly is a normal nature unit with Anubite code.
Jianshi is using the Troll regeneration power
Quilin is using the Caribou attack animation, and looks like an over grown re textured nature unit.
Vermilion Bird is a strange copy of the Phoenix, and fire tornado anim looks just bad, and its very over powered.
Dragon turtle is clearly the War turtle with a different head.
Monkey king is just an overgrown monkey unit.
Azure Dragon is using the Chimera fire attack.
Pixiu is Nemean lion.
Terracotta Warrior is the Atlantean Automata.
War Salamander just looks like a different Crocodile
Almost 5 of the Myth units look like ordinary Nature Units, with little originality.
God Powers are also unimpressive, Inferno and Bramble are beta god Powers that belonged to Egyptians and the Greeks.
The other original god-powers are all things we have seen or done before. Timber- Call to Arms - Great Journey are just lesser versions of the older god powers: Prosperity, Great Hunt, Flaming Weapons. Year of the Goat is the Dwarven mine copy. Earth Dragon functions more like the Nidhogg. We can't even attack it with melee.
Let's see what Chinese actually bring:
The Tsunami God Power, geyser, and Nu Wa's recreation God Power. Amphibious units, Mounted Archers. Let's compare all this to the Atlantean civ.
Blueshirt
Mortal
posted 13 December 2019 12:18 PM
EDT (US)
2 / 9
For me the Chinese are just not an enjoyable civilisation to play. Maybe on first look they seem okay but the more you use them the more you realise they are not serious contenders compared to the other civilisations. The pluses are outweighed by the many minuses.
Draco_Wolfgand
Mortal
posted 13 December 2019 03:40 PM
EDT (US)
3 / 9
I will agree with you on the somewhat lame myth unit designs, but I have to disagree with you on the God Powers:
Great Journey works COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY from Flaming Weapons iin so many levels. Well... Okay, they both temporarially boost a given stat of your units, so on this, they are similar. But on another hand: Flaming Weapons is a straightforward God Power with a straightforward use: To let your army stronger for the duration of a battle.
Great Journey is a bit weirder: It wont do much to help you win a fight directly, but it can, for a example, let you retreat from a fight more easily: Let your army go through the distance between your base and your enemy base faster( And in rushes, that can matter sometimes ): And, since it affects even civilian units, it can even be used to let your villagers run away faster. It also acts as a temporary buff to Mounted Archers in particular as they rely a lot on kiting tactics.
I dont even know from where you got it from that Call to Arms is a "lesser version" of Great Hunt. As for Timber/Prosperity and Year of the Goat/Dwarven Mine... Yeah, I can kinda see where you are coming from, but frankly it hits me as a bit of a nitpickety complaint. I mean, I could make a similar argument about, say, Gaia Forest vs Year of the Goat( Though, Gaia forest is actually used more for defense then for the resources it gives you ).
I will agree I personally prefer the Atlanteans over the Chinese, though. Part of it may be bias because I loved the Atlantean campaign but felt the Chinese campaign was comparably "Meh". It doesnt have a lot to do with the civilizations theirselves, I know, but it does affects my image of then a bit.
WinterGod
Mortal
posted 13 December 2019 04:58 PM
EDT (US)
4 / 9
I know what you mean, but that's just absolutely lazy god power design for an expansion.
Odin's Great Hunt, multiplies the number of the huntables and herdables, while Call to Arms multiplies the number of the soldiers and villagers. I am a modder and I created a god power that multiplies the number of villagers without knowing this god power. - I also created another god power using the Sentinel code. It creates six farms instead sentinels around your town center. It's just the kind of god powers that modders can create with ease.
We already had bronze that increased the unit defense, and Flaming weapons that increased the attack, increasing the speed was the next logical step.
Same with timber. Ra's rain speeded up the farms, Isis's prosperity, speeded up the gold production. Timber was the next logical step. It speeds up the wood production. It's super lazy god power design in my opinion. I am not being that Nitpicky, I was expecting more.
Let's compare these to do real Aom expansion. Implode sucks units inside and creates a blast. We see lots and lots of special effects. Tartarian gate, comes from the ground and creates spawns until the gate is destroyed. Vortex teleports all the army units from one place to another.
Chinese Age 3 God Powers are very weak compared to other cultures. Let's compare the geyser to Skadi's frost, or Apollo's underworld passage.
As for the Atlanteans: Hesperides Tree creates the bonus unit dryads, Chaos turn your units against one another, Carnivora creates a whole new unit, and spider lair works great as a trap. Gaia forest creates an actual forest.
I can't even think of a strategic use for half of the Chinese god powers. Why would anyone need 10 goats in the Mythic Age?
Most of the Chinese God Powers are not even that destructive. Overall this culture feels very half hearted, and unpolished.
On their down, I don't mind some of the god powers too much. But I honestly wouldn't put Great Journey to Heroic Age, and if the other god powers were more impressive I wouldn't have minded this type of god powers.
Aom community created far more impressive mods than this culture
I was especially horrified with the campaign, the Chinese Palace was decorated with Greek Columns, Olympian tiles, and the trojan walls. What hell happened there. They didn't even bother to implement special animations or models for the campaign units. Villagers were slowly walking away from the explosion, while the re-used music was playing in the background. Chinese Underworld uses the Egyptian model, like what happened there? Were they so lazy that They couldn't create one or two Chinese Columns, city tiles, or special models for the campaign. According to Steam Aom EE has close to 1 million owners.
WinterGod
Mortal
posted 13 December 2019 06:06 PM
EDT (US)
6 / 9
You know what you are right about that. I was confused. I just tested it in game.
Legendary Raider
Mortal
(id: avaget)
posted 14 December 2019 01:54 PM
EDT (US)
7 / 9
we can go on for months discussing exactly chinese at the core are - the design flaw
let's take monks for example:
original developers of aom (ensemble studios) _deliberately_ did not include
monks from their previous game (aoe2) because (and that is the reason as mentioned by
ensemble's dev ES_DeathShrimp): "monks" are not fun to play with because conversion timer
gets reset if the unit you're trying to convert gets too far and not fun to play against
because you lose units you spend time and resources creating
so.. on one hand we have the makers of age of empires 2, making aom and deciding not
to include monks - and on the other we have chinese..
Draco_Wolfgand
Mortal
posted 14 December 2019 07:41 PM
EDT (US)
8 / 9
Fair, even in AoK I found monks just annoiyng and avoided using then whenever I could.
Ubermode1
Mortal
posted 10 January 2020 08:18 PM
EDT (US)
9 / 9
Because they are generally quite underpowered compared to other civs, apart from monks. monks are unbalanced because they do not have an equivalent from other civs - literally impossible to balance.
people cry and moan that they are overpowered, when in fact they are not at all. people just don't know how to play them, or play vs them. the balance patch has fixed the shennong siege bonus so you cant just 6 minute fh and make a few fire lances for a quick victory vs most now and apart form that they have no out and out strengths. they have a decent late game, but will still lose vs greek and egypt, generally.