Civ: Han Chinese

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

The Han Chinese

 

(Above left to right: Liu Bang, Han Xin, Wei Qing, Wu of Han) 

 

(Above left to right: Minister, Healer, Han Peasants, Conscript Laborers)

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[d34d svn]

 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Han chinese team bonus as of a26: 10% trade international bonus. 

idea for han team bonus:

• Centralization: CC trains citizen soldier inf 20% faster, cavalry 10% faster and women 5% faster.

Han dynasty was notable for having a strong centralized government.

[Gurken Khan]

20% sounds like a lot.

Anyway, Silk Road shouldn't be a team bonus AND a tec.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, Gurken Khan said:

20% sounds like a lot.

Anyway, Silk Road shouldn't be a team bonus AND a tec.

The gameplay effect that is attractive is how players will handle the early eco. The overall eco effect shouldn't be as strong as romans (-10% barracks train time, but usually players have 3 barracks by around 5-7 mins), but there is a time value where the CC is a bigger proportion of a civ's eco.

I'm envisioning a good variety of ways to use this, like 0 barracks fast p2 builds, a basic boom, protective infantry early, early infantry pushes/tower war or other things.

Maybe the only conflict is what happens to the han "super cc" upgrade.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

https://lkchensword.com/shop-1/ols/categories/han-dynasty-202-bc---220-ad

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

What do y'all think of adding Empress Lu Zhi for a hero? She was a very strong ruler, brutal even. 

 

 

 

And then, how she'd look in her Empress Dowager form:

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

   

 

 

We need ideas for Han Xin and Wu Han.   Global Aura, a Ranged Aura, a Special Technology, and an Upgrade (usually to a mount, but sometimes some other kind of upgrade, such as Empress Dowager for Empress Lu).

[Thalatta]

4 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

We need ideas for Han Xin and Wu Han.   Global Aura, a Ranged Aura, a Special Technology, and an Upgrade (usually to a mount, but sometimes some other kind of upgrade, such as Empress Dowager for Empress Lu).

The Hero naming nomenclature is quite inconsistent. For example, one is "Liu Bang" "Emperor Gaozu", and another is "Emperor", "Wu of Han", when I think that last one should be (considering how the first was written) "Liu Che" "Emperor Wu" (adding "of Han" seems unnecessary given the faction in question). The others, following this nomenclature, would be "Lü Zhi" "Empress Gao", "Han Xin" "God of War" and "Wei Qing" "Grand General" (where I swapped the last one, and I don’t think "God" is a good translation for "Xian").

 

I'll just check characteristics for the Heroes you asked for. I'm not sure if some things can be done so I give a few extra ideas. As usual, I leave exact values to you.

 

Using "The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han" by M. E. Lewis for Emperor Wu:

Builder (Global Aura): faster construction ("The last great builder in Chang'an was the fifth ruler, Emperor Wu", "renovated the two existing palaces and filled out the space within the city walls by building three new palaces. He also constructed a massive sacrificial center to the northwest of the capital", "filled it with dozens of new structures, carved out a large artificial lake, and erected statues of the Weaving Maid and Cowherd stars", etc).

Despotism (alternative Global Aura): if the Han are more a quantity over quality civ, this would double down on that by penalising somehow all units, in exchange of a metal trickle as a function of civilian population ("The wars of Emperor Wu required taxes that drained the meager resources of the peasants", "Mercantile wealth was taxed at twice the rate of land, so merchants seeking to protect their wealth bought up real estate", "Thus, large numbers of peasants ruined by the government had to sell their land to merchants and officials pushed by the same government into buying them out. The result was social inequities on a vast scale", while "old ruling houses that had formed the Warring States elite. Such families had served as figureheads for many of the rebellions against Qin and had been forcibly resettled in the capital. They were eliminated during the reign of Emperor Wu", "moved these powerful families to the capital region, he forbade their living near one another precisely to avoid this kind of dangerous alliance").

Expansionism (Ranged Aura): attack bonus ("the emperor turned his attention outward", "Decades of peace had given the Chinese time to develop a new style of army based on cavalry and crossbows that could successfully engage the Xiongnu in the field. In 134 b.c. Emperor Wu finally undertook to destroy the Xiongnu through military action").

Cult Reform (Special Technology): healer and Hero buff bonus ("introduced several new cults, most importantly those to the Grand Unity (Tai Yi) and the Empress Earth", "describe Tai Yi as the embodiment of the state of non-differentiation that existed prior to the division of the world into Heaven and Earth, yin and yang").

Market Supply (Economic Bonus needed?): slow barter price depreciation ("Emperor Wu established an "equal-supply system" intended to stabilize prices by buying up products when they were abundant and cheap and then releasing them onto the market in times of scarcity").

 

Using the "Records of the Grand Historian", translated by B. Watson, for Han Hsin (Han Xin):

Intransigence (Global Aura): units much harder or impossible to bribe ("When Hsiang Yi heard that Lung Chi’s army had been defeated, he was fearful and sent Wu She, a man of Hsü-i, to attempt to bargain with Han Hsin, but Han Hsin refused to listen").

Leadership (Ranged Aura): large aura with combat bonus ("in leading an army of a million men, achieving success with every battle and victory with every attack, I cannot come up to Han Hsin").

Bait (alternative Ranged Aura): small aura that makes enemies attack, even when garrisoned and from behind walls ("As Han Hsin had anticipated, the Chao forces finally abandoned their fortifications completely in their eagerness").

Dummies (Special Technology): again quantity over quality, unlocks unit that looks like some normal soldier (for other players at least), but it's way cheaper and weaker ("Han Hsin thereupon planted a dummy army and lined up a number of boats as though he were about to attempt to cross the river").

Reprieve (additional "Hero ability" idea): he disappears and is recruited again if HP drops below a certain value, but after this, the probability he will suddenly die increases with time, or something similar if this is hard to implement ("Lord T’eng was struck by his words and saw that he had a brave appearance, and so he did not execute him but set him free". "When he returned to Lo-yang he pardoned Han Hsin and made him marquis of Huai-yin". "Han Hsin, the marquis of Huai-yin, began to plot a rebellion in the area within the Pass. Empress Lü followed Hsiao Ho’s advice and executed Han Hsin").

 

Back to "The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han":

Banishment (possible civ tech, didn't search for these, but there could be ideas in these books): reduce recruitment times, more so if quantity over quality is the idea ("In the centuries following the Qin conquest, the gradual demilitarization of both peasant and urban populations and the delegation of military service to marginal elements of society reversed an earlier trend among the competing states which had extended military service throughout the peasantry. In 31 a.d. universal military service was formally abolished, not to reappear until after the end of the last empire in 1911. In place of a mobilized peasantry, military service was provided by non-Chinese tribesmen, who were particularly skilled in the forms of warfare used at the frontier, and by convicts or other violent elements of the population, who were transported from the interior to the major zones of military action at the outskirts of the empire", "during the last century b.c. the Chinese army began to shift away from peasant levies to an army based on professionals, nomads, and criminals").

Edited 11 hours ago by Thalatta

[Thalatta]

14 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

and an Upgrade (usually to a mount, but sometimes some other kind of upgrade, such as Empress Dowager for Empress Lu).

I didn't pay attention to that part, but for Han Xin an obvious upgrade could be "Marquis of Huaiyin" then. For Emperor Wu you can't really go higher (and strictly, it's a mistake to use that, since that's the posthumous title, but whatever, it would be a headache otherwise), so I guess a mount would be fine, but, although a horse and hunting enthusiast, he probably never rode to battle (maybe Expansionism should be a Global Aura, and Builder a Ranged Aura instead, to keep him more "domestic", in opposition to others like Han Xin).

And, although I'm not really focusing on the Han right now (still at least 600 pages to go for the Athenians, as I've said, things I do to myself), an obvious Unique Tech (or even Unique Building?) for the Han should be the Blast Furnace ("The oldest extant blast furnaces were built during the Han Dynasty", whose effectiveness was enhanced by Du Shi in 31 AD using bellows operated by waterwheels, helping mass produce cast iron, which was already known in China, but unknown in Europe until Medieval times). It could speed up Forge techs and soldier recruitment. Since they are "most efficient at a somewhat larger scale of production", maybe some cumulative effect could be considered in case of making it a Unique Building (https://www.scribd.com/document/248548406/2-Iron-Making, https://donwagner.dk/EARFE/EARFE.html).

Edited 2 hours ago by Thalatta

[Thalatta]

1 hour ago, Thalatta said:

I guess a mount would be fine, but, although a horse and hunting enthusiast, he probably never rode to battle (maybe Expansionism should be a Global Aura, and Builder a Ranged Aura instead, to keep him more "domestic", in opposition to others like Han Xin).

I just realised, even better would be for Emperors and Empresses (only) to upgrade to using an Imperial Carriage (which would be kind of slow). Some of its characteristics, taken from Records of the Grand Historian: "I have always been told that only the most distinguished men of the empire are privileged to ride with the Son of Heaven in his six-foot carriage", "Your Majesty proposes to gallop down a steep slope in a carriage drawn by six horses", "He then began to ride about in a carriage with a yellow top, decorated with plumes on the left side, and to call his orders “edicts” in imitation of the Han emperor, all of which was intended to show that he was an equal of the ruler of China".