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CHINESE
A huge feudalistic empire, with advanced scholars
and tacticians, the Chinese were an advanced military power whose victories
were many and defeats rare. Pioneering some of the greatest weapons
and tactics in medieval warfare, the Chinese were ahead of the world
as a culture and a military force.
The Chinese of Age of Kings are a civilisation with broad-ranging tech
tree strengths and few weaknesses, they make a fast, deadly team to
play, but require a fair level of skill to use to their full potential.
--Chinese Bonuses--
Farms +45 food
Start with +3 villagers but –150 food,
-50 wood
Town centers support 10 population
Research cost of technologies costs 10% less
Feudal, 15% less Castle, 20% less Imperial
Demolition ships +50% HP
Farms +45 food
Fairly self explanatory bonus. Makes Chinese farms that little bit more
effective. Saves a little wood on farming. And of course, being the
team bonus, it applies to everyone, not just the Chinese player.
Start with +3 villagers but –150 food,
-50 wood
At first this seems a little bit of a stupid bonus, all it does is give
you three more villagers, but takes away the resources for them. “What’s
the point?” You might ask. Simple: speed. Victory in Age of Kings
is all conditional on speed. And starting with those extra villagers
means their economy starts faster and grows faster than everyone else’s
possibly can. The -50 wood compensates for the TC population bonus explained
below.
Town centers support +10 population
This offsets the extra villager bonus, in that without it you would
be instantly ‘housed’, or at the population cap. The penalty
is losing an extra 20 wood to balance this. Still, it’s the price
to pay for speed. Still, many people overlook the fact that while booming
each Town Center you build is saving you building a house both in terms
of resources and time. Another small contribution that makes the Chinese
the generally more speedier civilisation they are.
Research cost of technologies costs 10% less
Feudal, 15% less Castle, 20% less Imperial
One of the better bonuses in the game, the value of this is immediately
apparent, reducing the cost of every upgrade - if only minutely. Therefore
not only being able to afford techs earlier and more easily, but the
Chinese is saving critical resources that make advancing to the next
age faster; another contribution to the Chinese = speed theory.
Demolition Ships +50% HP
This bonus looks suspiciously like an afterthought on the part of ES.
Basically your Demo Ships have 75 HP instead of 50, and your Heavy Demo
Ships 90 instead of 60. Though as Demo Ships cost 50 gold and can’t
even take out a galley-line unit in the same age in a single hit, they’re
pretty useless. The basic rule of the seas is that massed galleons rule
all. Demo Ships only really kill Fire Ships but are more expensive.
Go figure. You can use Demo Ships in various creative ways such as trying
to do some mass damage to enemy Galleon hordes and increase your own
chances of success, but ship formations lessen the likelihood of success.
You can also use them on aggressive stance to annihilate groups of units
trying to cross shallows on maps such as Continental, or use the Demo
Ships attack vs Buildings to kill enemy docks quickly and easily. However,
if there’s a *real* use for the Demo Ship I have yet to discover
it.
--Chinese Strengths--
The Chinese are a ‘generalist’ civilisation.
Lacking little on other civilisations, but also have little advantage
as well. However, even without bonuses
Archers
The immediately apparent attribute of the Chinese military is their
Archers. They have access to fully upgraded Archers, Skirmishers and
[almost FU] Cavalry Archers – which are now more efficient with
the patch providing extra attack vs the Spear line. Archers are the
practical option through Feudal and Castle because gold is so much easier
and faster to collect than food, which also requires wood to supply
farms.
As well as the obvious Archers, Skirmishers (and less obvious Cavalry
Archers) the Chinese unique unit, the Chu Ko Nu is a cheaper and therefore
more practical option in the later game, despite being a statistically
less effective unit than the ordinary Archer line. (Though, interestingly,
more effective against buildings and siege. Far more effective.) It
is also a psychologically devastating weapon to some players due to
the visual effect of its rapid though almost harmless extra arrows.
Infantry
Chinese don’t lack with Infantry either, tossing out fully-upgraded
Champions and Halberds. Not much to comment on, except the more options
the better.
Scorpions
With Rocketry providing an extra 4 attack to Chinese Scorpions, and
extra 25% damage done. These make evil little machines all the more
deadly than your average Scorpion. Although Chinese lack Siege Engineers,
which means their Scorpions miss the extra range and attack vs buildings,
a group of them is still capable of mowing down hundreds of units without
taking a hit.
Bombard Towers
Available only to 6 of the 18 civilisations in Age of Kings, bombard
towers are a terrifying prospect to deal with. They increase the odds
of victory on any battlefield, and consolidate gained territory for
longer. Being cheaper than castles, it’s not such a loss when one
is destroyed. Plus they have 11 range and deal 120 damage a hit. While
expensive and not in all games a viable option, bombard towers are a
distinct advantage to any player. Chinese also have the advantage of
their Bombard Tower upgrade being 20% cheaper; which saves them a little
on the expensive price tag that goes with it.
--Chinese Weaknesses--
Being a ‘generalist’ civilisation,
there isn’t any real military lacking to highlight for the Chinese.
Rather they just get no significant military strength. Heh. While they
lack Hand Cannons, they get Arbalests which fulfil the same roles, while
they miss Hussars, their Light Cavalry are better than most. And so
on…you think you can do better, YOU write the damn article. :p
--Through the Ages--
In the Dark Age the Chinese player is instantly
ahead of the other players with his +3 villager start that has saved
him over a minute of production time. He queues a villager with his
remaining food and only places one house. He has the option of tasking
all the remaining villagers onto ‘straggler’ trees or sending
one or two to help the scout find your starting sheep. After your next
villager is out, the Chinese payer is already out of resources and has
probably only just found his sheep. He takes advantage of this gap to
research loom now, which allows him to boar hunt earlier, possibly even
at this moment if he knew where his boars were. The rest of the Chinese
dark Age proceeds as normal, though about 1 minute accelerated on other
civilisations, which leaves the Chinese with the option of strengthening
his economy and adding a vil or two before Feudal, or taking advantage
of the speed and going straight away.
Moving to the Feudal Age, we arrive in the
Chinese’s strongest point in the game. Intensive farming allows
him to do a Scout Cavalry rush with four or five Scouts, as well as
his original, or gold mining allows him to produce a classic Archer
flush; and any other variation of the Feudal offensive available. Even
more controversial, he will try and produce a ‘mock flush’
where he attacks initially with a handful of Archers and places a tower
in an obvious position, hopefully sending the enemy into a panic, and
thus weakening him while he towers up and builds Skirmishers. At the
same time, the Chinese player has castled instead. Basically the Chinese
player should have no excuse to have to defend a flush when he could
be executing one himself. Check my award-winning strategies collection
for more on how to flush.
Now into the Castle Age, the Chinese player
evaluates the success or failure of his flush, and decides what to do
next. If his flush was successful and not beaten off, he buys himself
a Mangonel or three and goes through the simple process of finishing
the enemy Town Center. If not, he places a castle and fortifies the
remnants of his forward base. He gets the Crossbow and Pikeman upgrade
and begins building both. He’ll overwhelm his enemy with these
cheaper units rather than more expensive Knights, which he uses few
of, mainly for constant-pressure raiding, discouraging raids against
himself, and mopping up the occasional tower left over from the Feudal
festivities. If the Chinese player fails to wipe out his enemy quickly,
he should focus on trying to force a stalemate while he booms quickly
and attempts to get to Imperial before his enemy and avail himself of
the wider range of options available.
Should the game extend to the Imperial Age,
the Chinese player now as limitless options at his command, and so should
have a very careful overview of his enemy’s tactics before making
critical upgrade decisions. Halberds are a must anyway, as they cost
no gold past the upgrade and a good boom following from Castle Age will
let him field hordes of them. Arbalest is probably a wise upgrade as
he likely has many Crossbows surviving the Castle Age. However, if at
this stage he begins to need more Archers, he’s wiser to invest
in Chu Ko Nu, which are extraordinarily powerful even without the Elite
upgrade, which provides hardly any extra power at all. As well as this,
the Chuks are cheaper and therefore easier to field. You might look
seriously at building Scorpions now so that when you get the upgrade,
you’ve already got some around.
--Advantageous alliances--
Mongols
Speed and speed, these two civilisations can together produce a terrifying
flush of some real power. The Mongols also account for a real strength
in cavalry as the game progresses. And the Mongol Scout bonus makes
the Chinese all the more powerful early on.
Celts
Benefiting the Chinese with the faster workshops bonus, the Celts are
another siege powerhouse, and the strength of the Chinese early on will
afford the Celts the ability to reach Castle or Imperial in good condition
and use extra deadly siege to back the Chinese armies.
--Combined Arms--
The Chinese are not by their generalist nature
a civilisation with real weaknesses in their tech tree; rather weaknesses
spring from a player’s indecision as to which units to use or relying
too heavily on certain units and not others. Striking at these weaknesses
should be a high priority of enemy tactics, as is the game’s nature.
To prevent this you must cover their weaknesses at all costs. This reinforces
my law of AoK: A unit is only as good as your ability to back it up.
In doing this, we create what are commonly called ‘combos’
or using multiple units in our tactics to cover the weaknesses of one
with the strengths of another.
General support and combat unit: Champions
The most practical unit of Age of Kings as I have mentioned in other
articles, Champions constitute raw power when massed. They have no counter
costing less gold. Following your boom, it should be easy to field significant
numbers of these. Where the Chinese player must use Halberds, and even
Camels if he plays a cavalry-reliant civilisation, Champions are what
the Chinese player uses to discourage Infantry-reliant civilisations
from eating his archers.
Ranged assault units: Archers, Chu Ko Nu
Archers are the tactical backbone of the Chinese military, while they
have strengths in other areas, this is the most practical one to focus
on. Basically, in AoK, the more archers the more effective they are.
As I mentioned earlier, which unit you use is entirely dependent on
your gold stockpile and income. More means build Arbalests, less means
build Chuks.
Heavy ranged assault unit: Scorpions
Scorpions are a unit that can dish it out but can’t take it. Because
of this, you have two options, either build tons of them so they kill
all and everything before they get near them, or screen them with other
units.
Anti-cavalry specific units: Halberdiers,
Camels
Anti-cavalry, these cover the big weakness in relying on Archers. While
you may be inclined to rely entirely on Halberds, Camels do a much more
efficient job of dispatching Cavalry. When playing a civilisation heavily
reliant on Cavalry, such as Persians or Huns, Camels are a wiser course.
For a civilisation where cavalry is a peripheral concern, Halberds will
suffice; though in the end it all comes down to personal choice.
--Important Upgrades--
All of them? Bah, here are the more important
ones…
Thumb Ring, Archer range upgrades
Obvious reasoning here. Where the blacksmith upgrades for hand-to-hand
units provide only small increases in power, the change for Archers
is far more significant, providing significant extra range and power.
The Thumb Ring upgrade increases fire rate a little too, and is a necessary
technology to have once you’ve acquired about 15 crossbows or more.
Halberd Upgrade, Infantry attack upgrades
I pointed out the value of the Halberd upgrade earlier on, in that following
your boom, Halberds make highly effective weapons as you’ll soon
get a steady supply of wood and food pouring in. As well, of course,
as the obvious value when combating the cavalry-inclined enemy.
Elite Chu Ko Nu upgrade
I actually advocate NOT getting the Elite Chu Ko Nu upgrade until you
have huge resource surpluses. It adds 10% more hit points, but attack
and range stays the same. It also adds two extra arrows to each volley
the Chuk fires thus slowing the rate of fire and basically making no
change in damage dealt because the real damage by the Chuk is on the
*first* arrow, not the following ones. The following arrows only get
3 damage apiece. Basically the power increase with the Elite upgrade
is *very* small.
--Conclusion--
While almost fanatically played by some, the
Chinese are widely disregarded by others who are put off by the strictly
unique start and generalist nature of this diverse yet powerful civilisation.
I write this in the hope of increasing the following for the Chinese
as a civilisation.
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