Well most of the nations that have been played in recent AAR's are not 'officially' playable either. But my understanding is that you can play any nation with just a few easy modifications to a file with a text editor. So if I am right, those playtesters who have done AAR's on the Knights Hospitalars of St. John (Rhodes), etc. or the Papal States, should have no trouble setting it up to use China as a country to play. However I think that somebody said that non-european countries do not have the ability to spend their money on technology improvements, therefore they would be stuck at whatever technology they start the game with.
Am I right about this, anyone care to comment? If someone would do a quick AAR as china and tell us what options are availible to you. If you cant spend money on technology is there anything you can do to improve your forces or basically are you only able to spend your money on hordes of obsolete soldiers. I still think it could be fun to play that way, so im interested in if it is feasible at all. Does china get any leaders? Do they get any colonists, merchants, diplomats, etc? How hampered would you be playing them. I would think that among the non-european nations, at least they would have a pretty good chance of doing well because of their sheer size and wealth. But if they get no leaders, merchants or diplomats, then i guess i can see that what they could do would be quite limited. Still they could raise huge forces and try to expand into the provinces near them with equally obsolete soldiers, and maybe overwhelm the europeans by sheer numbers when they come (or shrewdly play them off against each other with alliances).
And can any of you tell me how hard it would be to add a few colonists, diplomats, and merchants to a country that didnt have them with the text editor. Is it just as easy as changing a country so you can play it, or would things like this require 'real' programming? What about leaders. I am not interested in 'cheating' by adding superhuman leaders to an already great power like Spain or France, but i would like to add a little bit of survivability to an Asian country to give me a unique game experience. Maybe i would play a Indian principality and unite India. Or play China and try to keep the europeans out of my sphere of influence. If China has no colonists for instance or diplomats, that would seem to be an afterthought. I mean with China's population problems it should be very easy to think of them having colonists if they had a government that was looking outward in that way. I know that in the century before the game starts that they were very active and sent naval expeditions across the Indian ocean, etc. So it seems like they should be able to have some of these options as a player country without really doing violence to the historical authenticity of the game.