62 replies to this topic

[TMPikachu]

I hate how in every Western war game the Chinese faction is always the brute force or mass production side, in this case with the banner armies.

the imagery of elites are taken up by Japanese Samurai and mobility by Mongol raiders :0


It can change though. More little kids play Dynasty Warriors than Age of Empires.

More little kids associate Chinese warriors with DO NOT PURSUE: LU BU! and "his GREEN DRAGON IS 100TONS" Guan Yu

so the movement of Fantasy Heroes tranlsating to an elite army is possible in the future. It worked for Samurai

Edited by TMPikachu, 13 November 2007 - 12:08 PM.

[KevinX94]

Then again, I suppose if they made China historically accurate, the game would be severely unbalanced. China would have to have superior firepower and technology, an economic bonus due to advanced agriculture, and cheaper units due to the size of Chinese armies at the time.

[Qing Feng]

Having had the chance to play The Asian Dynasties, I find that the Banner Armies system for the Chinese is more of an inconvenience, rather than an advantage that allows you to mass units and overwhelm your enemy. In large skirmishes with Hard AI opponents (I never play online) whose armies are roughly the same size as mine, I find that Chinese armies are just as good as their European (or native American, or other Asian) counterparts; UNLESS my enemy's army is mostly cavalry (I find that the Chinese aren't too good against cavalry, even the banner army that's designed with anti-cavalry in mind fares poorly against them)

Of course, looking through my shipment deck, I find that there are a LOT of unit upgrade cards, so perhaps that explains why my Chinese army can take on enemy armies of the same size (could be possible, but I doubt it)

And now, onto the artillery. Unlike infantry and cavalry units, you can train the Flamethrower and Hand Mortar units individually, although there are banner army options which include them. 5 flamethrowers do wonders against infantry, and can knock down a good number of buildings. Hand mortars, while you'll need a group of about 10, can wreak havoc on enemy artillery (thus sparing your infantry from being massacred), and with their long range capabilities, can take down buildings with ease. Flying Crows, while they are deadly, are not my favourite artillery unit, as they move slowly, take too much time to unpack for battle (similar to how trebuchets in AoE2 need to unpack), and you can't train them, you can only get them through home city shipments, or an age-up wonder which produces them very slowly.

As for the Chinese single-player story campaign, which deals with the 1421 hypothesis, I was disappointed with it. The only natives they deal with are the Aztecs, and after the campaign, the Chinese 'clear the beaches of any sign of their presence' and set sail to go home. Also, while the storyline involves a treasure fleet, there is no mention of Zheng He, or any historical figure, as opposed to the storylines in the original game and in the Warchiefs, where the main characters meet people like Washington or Bolivar. Oh, and while the story is set in 1421, the flag of the Qing Dynasty flies over all of your buildings

[dej2]

Qing Feng

Thank you for the informative review.

________

On the AoE forum... Im hearing a mixed review on the Chinese faction.... other players say "They are weak and cavalry units of other factions own them" and other players complain the Chinese faction is too strong with overly powered units like "disciples" and "hand mortars".
________

I guess again other people don't like the Chinese because, "we are too weak"... yet others say, "we are too strong". (Hey it sounds just like the world we live in today...)

Edited by dej2, 26 December 2007 - 11:03 AM.

[red_pr!nce]

Chinese banner armies are powerful, especially with the combination of amassed Forbidden Army and Imperial Army at your behalf. They would beat any European, Native American, or other Asian war parties. I've tested the Chinese against Russians, British, Turks, Indians, and Japanese. The battles were mostly won by numbers, thanks to banner armies. You don't need to build Barracks or Stables (which will cost time and villagers). Playing the Chinese works better if you are economically powerful, so you can train a lot of banner armies with the relatively similar speed as the Europeans train two military units.

In the Chinese campaign, I guess Admiral Wang Jinhai is just an antagonist fictional character, as well as a protagonist Captain Huang and Lao Chen. In the game, they were involved in Zheng He's treasure expedition across the Indian Ocean, but they were left from the bulk of the fleet and stranded on the Americas. In this campaign, Zheng He didn't find the New World, as the 1421 theory is supposed to be. His boys did (Admiral Wang Jinhai and his men).

The Japanese and Indian campaign have more 'realistic' base in history than the Chinese campaign, anyway.

Edited by red_pr!nce, 30 December 2007 - 06:56 AM.

[Qing Feng]

On the AoE forum... Im hearing a mixed review on the Chinese faction.... other players say "They are weak and cavalry units of other factions own them" and other players complain the Chinese faction is too strong with overly powered units like "disciples" and "hand mortars".

While I wouldn't say that the Chinese are weak (far from it), but when I play on Hard against 7 computer AIs (free for all), the ones that give me the most trouble are Napoleon and Frederick the Great, both of whom tend to use lots of cavalry in their assaults (Napoleon likes to use Hussars and Cuirassiers, while Frederick likes to use War Wagons). As for the disciples and hand mortars, while I don't amass disciples, I can see why some people get frustrated against disciples (I personally find they die way too easily). Hand mortars on the other hand, I like using them, mostly because it's cheaper than a flamethrower (plus hand mortars have a much larger range), and it's a lot easier to obtain than a flying crow (plus, flying crows move too slowly across the battlefield). Personally, if hand mortars were to be weakened in a future patch, I'd like to see changes to either the flamethrower (in terms of population taken up, and maybe a bit cheaper) or flying crow (faster travel speed).

Chinese banner armies are powerful, especially with the combination of amassed Forbidden Army and Imperial Army at your behalf. They would beat any European, Native American, or other Asian war parties. I've tested the Chinese against Russians, British, Turks, Indians, and Japanese. The battles were mostly won by numbers, thanks to banner armies. You don't need to build Barracks or Stables (which will cost time and villagers). Playing the Chinese works better if you are economically powerful, so you can train a lot of banner armies with the relatively similar speed as the Europeans train two military units.

Victory on numbers and a good economy can be attained by almost every faction. I've done it with the Germans and their Uhlans, I've done it with the Sioux and their Axe Riders, and I can do it with the Chinese and their infantry. While the disadvantages of massing banner armies is not very present in the Forbidden Army, as both units are melee units, try massing the Old Han and Territorial Armies. You'll find that the Qiang Pikemen and the Changdao Swordsmen will die first, leaving your Chu Ko Nu and Arquebusiers vulnerable. I've tried hiring units from the Consulate, the Monastery, and from various Native trading posts to replace my fallen Qiang Pikemen and Changdao, and so far, the natives option looks the best, although it's not guaranteed that you'll get melee anti-cavalry natives every time.

[天武桓皇]

Nah; Korea is always added in the expansion in American games.. sadly THIS IS THE EXPANSION; so I doubt Korea will be added. I always wanted to play a new version of Hwachas or Turtle Ships

Actually, Korea was in the first RoE game as "Choson."


Which was the only nation I've played

[dej2]

proof from "Ensemble Studio" that China is truly overpowered in Age of Empires III. Looks like they are preparing a patch to weaken the Chinese faction to fix the balancing issues.

The Asian Dynasties Patch: After several months on the market the China civilization is the most popular, especially in any tournament where prize money is involved. Expert China players are able to get a sizable army engaged within six minutes and are hard to stop at that point. If China is not available to play, then the Dutch or the Sioux are popular alternatives, which is interesting because that gives us one strong civilization at this point from the original game and each expansion pack.

Edited by dej2, 22 January 2008 - 10:36 PM.

[JB_Xyooj]

Then again, I suppose if they made China historically accurate, the game would be severely unbalanced. China would have to have superior firepower and technology, an economic bonus due to advanced agriculture, and cheaper units due to the size of Chinese armies at the time.

Actually that is possible.. I'm a Lvl 49 Chinese Civilization, and my Home City Deck is pretty decked out with Fast Econ, and Cheaper build on the Banner Armies
In many forum boards for AOEIII, many players are having difficulty facing a Chinese Fast Fortress rush... The only problem I have when playing the chinese is keeping the economy flowing

Edited by JB_Xyooj, 21 February 2008 - 07:55 PM.

[JB_Xyooj]

Ah, thank you! These threads helped very much, although I wonder why I couldn't seem to find those threads when I performed the search function.

In any case, have any Age of Empires 3 fans picked this expansion pack up and tried it out? I'm seriously tempted to buy the Age of Empires 3 game and both expansions, instead of waiting for Age of Empires 3 to be bundled with all expansions. But apparently, after reading various sources on The Asian Dynasties, I'll most likely wait until most balance issues are settled.

~QF

I bought it a few months ago... So I can play the Chinese Civilization against the Western Forces... REDEMPTION FOR CHINA!!! lol that was my motto.
Well first time online... I got whooped pretty bad... so their goes my motivation... but that didn't stop me from playing, I'm a level 49 Chinese Civilization at the moment
with a well constructed home city deck... i'll show later after I get the screen shot

Here is 3 screen shot of my colony, and my Ever Victorious victory in a 1v1 skirmish ;D


Thats my Home Town Colony... ;D I dubbed it the Imperial Miao Empire


My Ever Victorious Army a combo of Qiang Pikesman, Chu No ku Crossbow, and Siberian Cossack.

[Qing Feng]

JB_Xyooj,
Leveling up your home city can be a tedious task, and I personally gave up at around level 84. There is a way to reach the maximum level and be able to choose all the cards available for your deck without hours of tedious gameplay. If you go to C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\My Documents\My Games\Age of Empires 3\Savegame , you'll be able to find all your home cities in .xml form in there.

Open the one with your home city's name with notepad, and make a few edits:
1) <level><whatever level your home city is</level> to <level>131</level>
2) <skillpoints>0</skillpoints> with <skillpoints><any high number to make sure you can get all the cards, you can always change this back to 0 if you wish, once you have gotten all the cards></skillpoints>
3) If you want to change the name of your home city, or the name of your hero, it's under <name> and <heroname> respectively.

If course, the above trick only works with single player skirmishes and LAN games...

You say you have Cossacks in your army? Looks like someone's been allying with the Russians

As for making sure your economy runs smoothly, press '.' (the period) to go to any idle workers, and there is a option that allows you to see how many workers you have gathering which materials. Hopefully those tips help.

[JB_Xyooj]

JB_Xyooj,
Leveling up your home city can be a tedious task, and I personally gave up at around level 84. There is a way to reach the maximum level and be able to choose all the cards available for your deck without hours of tedious gameplay. If you go to C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\My Documents\My Games\Age of Empires 3\Savegame , you'll be able to find all your home cities in .xml form in there.

Open the one with your home city's name with notepad, and make a few edits:
1) <level><whatever level your home city is</level> to <level>131</level>
2) <skillpoints>0</skillpoints> with <skillpoints><any high number to make sure you can get all the cards, you can always change this back to 0 if you wish, once you have gotten all the cards></skillpoints>
3) If you want to change the name of your home city, or the name of your hero, it's under <name> and <heroname> respectively.

If course, the above trick only works with single player skirmishes and LAN games...

You say you have Cossacks in your army? Looks like someone's been allying with the Russians

As for making sure your economy runs smoothly, press '.' (the period) to go to any idle workers, and there is a option that allows you to see how many workers you have gathering which materials. Hopefully those tips help.

O.O" REALLY!!!.... and all this time... I been playing countless hours to only reach a Lvl 30 Ottoman.. FARK!!
LOL... sadly this doesn't work in Online Multi Player... heh heh... thats my lvl 49 in Multi.

heh heh... I been using the Russian for quite a while as an ally in online skirmish... afterall they provide a fort
and a factory.... but recently I have used the German more due to their economy trickle.

My economy only goes down the drain in a treaty fight... especially when waves after waves of army are assualting one another across the battlefield.... Wood being my number one resource depleting first... I find myself relying too much on my Qiang Pikesmen as they prove to be the better unit then the Changdao. But then I would resort to my Forbidden Army as a resesrve for taking out riflemen.

[Qing Feng]

O.O" REALLY!!!.... and all this time... I been playing countless hours to only reach a Lvl 30 Ottoman.. FARK!!
LOL... sadly this doesn't work in Online Multi Player... heh heh... thats my lvl 49 in Multi.

heh heh... I been using the Russian for quite a while as an ally in online skirmish... afterall they provide a fort
and a factory.... but recently I have used the German more due to their economy trickle.

My economy only goes down the drain in a treaty fight... especially when waves after waves of army are assualting one another across the battlefield.... Wood being my number one resource depleting first... I find myself relying too much on my Qiang Pikesmen as they prove to be the better unit then the Changdao. But then I would resort to my Forbidden Army as a resesrve for taking out riflemen.

As for economy, if you're allied to the Russians, you should be training as many villagers as possible, since the Russians do give a 10% bonus to villager training time. Perhaps after training as many villagers as you need, switch to French allies for their 5% resource gathering boost, that could help your economy, or to British allies to get the 10% hitpoint boost for your land units, so that your units stay longer in the fight. As it stands, many, if not all, Chinese units don't have as much hitpoints compared to their European counterparts (hence why the Chinese have to rely on overwhelming their opponents with numbers; I personally hate that concept, but the designers themselves stated that, and even looking at the stats, the Chinese tend to have less hitpoints than European counterparts).

As for the stats part, it's based off a nice and handy chart on all the units, technologies, and whatnot in AoE3, that can be found at http://aoe3.heavenga...;f=1,35438,0,10

Of course, you also said that you play treaty games. From what I've read on various AoE3 forums, China is not a very good treaty civilization, mostly because of the fact that you have to be offensive early on to prevent your opponents from getting stronger. I somewhat subscribe to that theory, but I've never played any treaty games (with humans or AI), so I really wouldn't know. I think the only strategy I can think of for a treaty match is to build around 10 flamethrowers during the non-aggression period, get them upgraded with shipments and castle upgrades, and hide them near your opponent's base while you build a suitable army to face off against the enemy, and when treaty's over and the enemy is marching his or her units to your base, rush the flamethrowers to take out the enemy base, one building at a time so they fall faster. My preference is to take out outposts first, then unit training buildings, and then the town center. Of course, this is advice from someone who has never played treaty, so take it with a grain of salt.

Edited by Qing Feng, 22 February 2008 - 05:22 PM.

[JB_Xyooj]

My Rating for AOEIII (Chinese Civilization.)

Man looking at my rating, I didn't do so good... LOL, but I manage to pull some successful victories.

[Qing Feng]

My Rating for AOEIII (Chinese Civilization.)

Man looking at my rating, I didn't do so good... LOL, but I manage to pull some successful victories.

Eh, numbers are only numbers, no need to be concerned about your win percentage. If you need practice with managing your economy and fighting battles at the same time, play a 1 v 1 against a Hard AI (or Moderate if you prefer) with a 100% handicap. As you win consecutive battles against the AI, lower the handicap until it gets to %0. Personally, I find it a good way to practice my AoE3 skills. Of course, the Expert AI is very difficult (I believe I lost with a 70% handicap), so I guess I'm still not very good at the game yet.

As for any extra tips to help with your gameplay, pressing 't' automatically goes to your town center, which is very handy when you want to keep training villagers. As for any other important buildings that you should remember, Ctrl-m goes to the market, where you can research villager gathering upgrades, and Ctrl-r goes to the arsenal (for civs that can build arsenals). Ctrl-b leads you to the barracks/war academy, but I personally build 2 barracks/academies, and hotkey them with Ctrl-9. If you already knew these hotkeys, all the more power to you, but if you didn't know them, they're very handy hotkeys to use.