China

[Don_Quigleone]

Having played a bit, I'm pleased to see some of the changes, particularly the first few steps at including a fully fledged Taiping Rebellion.

However I think a few more changes really need to be made, including:

1. Split up the East Asian culture group, with Japanese and Korean in their own individual group, similiar to the setup seen in Magna Mundi for EU3.
2. Make China the Union state for Chinese cultures, tolerating all Chinese (not just Beifaren and Nanfaren).
3. Perhaps make the Chinese Union State a seperate tag from the Qing Dynasty, so that China can properly revolt from the Qing, and fight a later civil war.
4. The Taiping could be one form of the Union state, with perhaps it being the name of a theocratic government.
5. With the above, implement a theocratic government type, to be used in the above in particular, but perhaps in other places too. In all respects it behaves as a reactionary presidential dictatorship, though with a unique name and flag. I'm not sure if this is possible with the current engine though.
6. A monarchical government in China could simply be a new Dynasty, like the one Yuan Shikai attempted to (and failed) to implement. It's possible name is up for debate. Maybe Later Ming Dynasty, though Ming revivalists were few and far between by this point, particularly after the Taipings.
7. Taiping should be a one party dictatorship, with even chains to reform should they win.
8. Taiping should not be fighting merely to survive. On Independence they should always fight to eliminate the Qing, and at least assume rule over the Chinese Heartlands, if not the whole thing.
9. Taiping and Qing should not be able to exist at the same time, except at war. If the Taiping win, the Qing should collapse, perhaps forming Manchuria, with other parts going to other remaining ethnic states (EG Mongolia). That or the Qing should be annexed to the Taiping. It's not a secession war a la the American Civil War.
10. Taiping should perhaps have a unique religion, but this may be unneseccary considering the game doesn't focus on religion much. Protestant is fine.
11. Taiping should start with some social reforms, they were a radical proto socialist movement in certain respects. On the other hand their rule was quite haphazard at best. Your call.
12. Change the Chinese revolters. Increase their number so that there's at least one for every region. In case of Qing Collapse, they should all be driven to civil war to form the Union state. They could also revolt against a potential Taiping victory. They would also have each of the ethnicities as their primary cultures, thus preventing their getting assimilated away.
13. Chinese Union State could start with just cores on Core China, claiming the rest of modern day China with Irredentist decisions. They could recognise certain foreign claims for some kind of benefit (EG recognizing russias claim over vladivostok).

That's just a bit. I'm not a Chinese expert, but that's the stuff that leaps out at me. Some of it may not be possible with engine constraints, particularly government trickery.

[Hibernian]

2. Make China the Union state for Chinese cultures, tolerating all Chinese (not just Beifaren and Nanfaren).
3. Perhaps make the Chinese Union State a seperate tag from the Qing Dynasty, so that China can properly revolt from the Qing, and fight a later civil war.

That sounds good to me. Or at the very lease China should have the ability to get rid of the Manchu as their primary culture, I suggested that China should get Beifaren and Nanfaren as cultures if it is no longer any kind of Monarchy. i.e. if the Monarchy is gone, then so is the Manchu domination (that's what actually happened after the revolution of 1911, after all).

[ZomgK3tchup]

That sounds good to me. Or at the very lease China should have the ability to get rid of the Manchu as their primary culture, I suggested that China should get Beifaren and Nanfaren as cultures if it is no longer any kind of Monarchy. i.e. if the Monarchy is gone, then so is the Manchu domination (that's what actually happened after the revolution of 1911, after all).

This is not necessarily true. The Empire of China founded by Yuan Shikai was a pro-Han monarchy. Though it didn't last long, there is certainly the possibility for the restoration of ethnic* Chinese rule.

*Ethnic referring to Han Chinese, represented by Beifaren and Nanfaren cultures.

[Don_Quigleone]

This is not necessarily true. The Empire of China founded by Yuan Shikai was a pro-Han monarchy. Though it didn't last long, there is certainly the possibility for the restoration of ethnic* Chinese rule.

*Ethnic referring to Han Chinese, represented by Beifaren and Nanfaren cultures.

That's exactly my intention. One of several outcomes should be a new ethnic Han dynasty, rather then the Qing, who were considered "foreign".

[Rylock]

That sounds good to me. Or at the very lease China should have the ability to get rid of the Manchu as their primary culture, I suggested that China should get Beifaren and Nanfaren as cultures if it is no longer any kind of Monarchy. i.e. if the Monarchy is gone, then so is the Manchu domination (that's what actually happened after the revolution of 1911, after all).

I believe Naselus already put that event into the game. China switches Primary and Accepted cultures to Beifaren and Nanfaren as soon as it's not an absolute monarchy.

[Naselus]

yes, China can already get rid of the Manchu. SSeveral of the other ideas listed are impossible, such as forcing a permenant war between CHI and TPG. I don't really think China should be a union, either; tho splitting up the Eastern culture group is probably a good idea.

[Naselus]

What I would suggest is possibly giving Qing China a new tag, and only giving it cores in Manchuria. That'd cut the Chinese army size down heavily as they wouldn't have cores all over the country. Then, we could add in some events etc to allow any of the potential Chinese states to 'become China' if they fulfill some (very tricky) conditions.

[Don_Quigleone]

yes, China can already get rid of the Manchu. SSeveral of the other ideas listed are impossible, such as forcing a permenant war between CHI and TPG. I don't really think China should be a union, either; tho splitting up the Eastern culture group is probably a good idea.

I'd simply give both members a "civil war" or similiar CB. That, or if Taiping and Qing peace out, Qing should get an event whereby they fall apart. Also, Taiping should be given cores on independence on all of core China. As it is the Qing usually wins, so this isn't a problem. But it would make the few times the taiping win more interesting. I also think a Union tag would be appropriate here as the Chinese republic was a Nationalist driven thing. If India is a Union, China should be as well. However not all of China's ethnic groups should be within the Union, or part of the Chinese groups. In particular Tibetans, Mongols, Uyghers and maybe Manchu shouldn't be part of the Chinese "group". But Haka, Min, Beifaren, Nanfaren etc. should all be part of it. Some of the non core group could be added as accepted cultures by event or decision later.

What I would suggest is possibly giving Qing China a new tag, and only giving it cores in Manchuria. That'd cut the Chinese army size down heavily as they wouldn't have cores all over the country. Then, we could add in some events etc to allow any of the potential Chinese states to 'become China' if they fulfill some (very tricky) conditions.

I'm not sure how well Qing would do with so few cores. However they should certainly lose all their cores if they lose, maintaining cores only on Manchuria and maybe Mongolia. Qing's massive army is not innaccurate to the game.

Also, perhaps if the Qing transition to any non-monarchical government form they should have an event forcing them to either become China, or become Manchuria and cede independence to Chinese revolters.

Tags:

QNG= Qing Dynasty/Manchuria. Having a small Qing dynasty in Manchuria would be plausible. Could also be called "Empire of Great Qing".
CHI= New Dynasty, Republic of China etc.
TPG= Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace, Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, or some variation. Taiping Tianguo isn't really the correct way to go in English. Again, as an alternate form of CHI it also works well.
Various other revolters would be necessary, but I'm not sure where. One for each Chinese subdivision seems a decent way to go, and will prevent assimiliation.

[Naselus]

The inaccuracy in China's army is that it wasn't really a standing army - it was a militia force and was not really soldiers, but more like policemen. Moreover, it was so fragmented and unreliable that it's not at all correct to represent it with 400+ units. It would still have a huge army if we cut the cores, but 100 units rather than 400 - this would prevent China from successfully annexing all of Indochina and drop it's military score from 2nd to somewhere more appropriate, like 10th. When China really did build a powerful army, it created the Warlords and destroyed the country.

China had been a unified nation for 2000 years by this point; India had never been unified. So while India IS a union nation, China isn't really. Also, if Pan-Nats can revolt, they tend to dominate the revolutions that occur; this would prevent China fragmenting into warlordism. And finally, it would allow for a GP Chinese subnation to sphere and peacefully annex the rest of China, which is not appropriate for the 50 years of bloodshed and mayhem that China went through to reunify itself. Union Nations have too much baggage to be practical, and tbh they're a bit like satellites - they're poorly implemented and cause more problems than they really solve.

I'm not sure why additional chinese rebels would be needed; they're fine using the nationalists for the subdivisions, and we've seen games where the warlords break off through them.

I think I'd rather just give 'breakaway' states a core on Beijing than all of China; half the point of China is that it's too vast for anyone to really gain full control of. Having 'proper' China cores everywhere and the option of becoming China if you control all the cores, are civilized, and independent should do the trick.

Qing being destroyed by event if they peace with Taiping is a no-go, since the AI will not understand it and will still WP half the time. If we can push the TPG/QNG balance closer and maybe switch both CBs to annex then they might fight longer, but there's no certainty.


We changed the name from Heavenly Kingdom to Taipingguo. I honestly don't care what it's called; I was perfectly happy with it called TPG to be honest :P


Revolters don't prevent assimilation, and China can't assimilate anyway as it's an unciv.

[Don_Quigleone]

The inaccuracy in China's army is that it wasn't really a standing army - it was a militia force and was not really soldiers, but more like policemen. Moreover, it was so fragmented and unreliable that it's not at all correct to represent it with 400+ units. It would still have a huge army if we cut the cores, but 100 units rather than 400 - this would prevent China from successfully annexing all of Indochina and drop it's military score from 2nd to somewhere more appropriate, like 10th. When China really did build a powerful army, it created the Warlords and destroyed the country.

That's true, but I can't think of a better way of representing them, it doesn't really fit the engine. The armies also prevent western nations from completely running rampant over China, which was an issue in Vanilla, even with giant Chinese armies. I've never personally seen AI china go on a conquering spree myself, outside of a little of Burma, which is somewhat plausable.

China had been a unified nation for 2000 years by this point; India had never been unified. So while India IS a union nation, China isn't really. Also, if Pan-Nats can revolt, they tend to dominate the revolutions that occur; this would prevent China fragmenting into warlordism. And finally, it would allow for a GP Chinese subnation to sphere and peacefully annex the rest of China, which is not appropriate for the 50 years of bloodshed and mayhem that China went through to reunify itself. Union Nations have too much baggage to be practical, and tbh they're a bit like satellites - they're poorly implemented and cause more problems than they really solve.

Similiar to what you've done with Scandinavia, don't allow it to be formed with the conventional decision. Likewise, give China unique Pan-Nats that only rise under certain conditions, similiar to Italian Red Shirts. Instead require to have dominance (IE own) certain core areas, while sphering or owning the outlying ones. This should I think be fine. So you might have to own Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangxi and maybe Chonqing, but going after the entirety would be unnecessary.

You could also provide different versions for the AI and players.

I'm not sure why additional chinese rebels would be needed; they're fine using the nationalists for the subdivisions, and we've seen games where the warlords break off through them.

Just provide more revolter states in the regions that don't have them. Particularly, the eastern 3 rivers basin have almost no revolters.

I think I'd rather just give 'breakaway' states a core on Beijing than all of China; half the point of China is that it's too vast for anyone to really gain full control of. Having 'proper' China cores everywhere and the option of becoming China if you control all the cores, are civilized, and independent should do the trick.

Yeah, or you could provide a Chinese warlording CB, to encourage warring among them.

Qing being destroyed by event if they peace with Taiping is a no-go, since the AI will not understand it and will still WP half the time. If we can push the TPG/QNG balance closer and maybe switch both CBs to annex then they might fight longer, but there's no certainty.

This would need to be dealt with per balance, but I can't see the Qing being able to maintain their rule in the rest of China if they allow the Taiping to survive. Obviously the AI can't understand it. It may also be possible to script the AI to fight to the death. I know it can be done to an extent in EU3. An event causing breakaway nations to revolt in both the TPG and Qing if there's a stalemate might be the best way to go, as both states would have lost their legitimacy if the other survives. Both could have rump states remaining that could take part in a warring state period. This could also provide Europeans an opportunity to carve up China as well, which would be realistic. China was already almost carved up in real life.

We changed the name from Heavenly Kingdom to Taipingguo. I honestly don't care what it's called; I was perfectly happy with it called TPG to be honest :P

When every other name in the game is in English, it seems odd. It would be like calling the Qing Da Qing Guo. Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping or Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace seems the best approach to me.

Revolters don't prevent assimilation, and China can't assimilate anyway as it's an unciv.

You introduced code that prevents populations from being assimilated if they are on a core with them as primary culture. It's more of a case if China civilizes. It should also generally be possible for China to completely fracture, rather then only partially fracture as it can now.

EDIT: China (and Uncivs generally) could be forced to rely on mobilizing for soldiers, they could also be given a modifier negatively effecting irregular soldier's abilities (as these soldiers don't have guns), but also their supply requirements, to partially account for their not needing guns. This could also be simulated by giving some early army techs big irregular soldier bonuses, and shift base irregular abilities downwards accordingly. Uncivs could also get something increasing the number of regiments they get, or increasing their mobilization impact, per balance.

I think this would be a neat solution, combined with making it slightly more difficult for Uncivs to get soldier pops generally.

[Naselus]

No, giving uncivs mobilized armies is a no-go again, as the AI doesn't really understand that either. But simply forcing Qing China to live with the majority of it's provinces uncored would prevent it from creating the unimaginably huge doomstacks it uses in warfare.

I don't think Chinese pan-nationalists are remotely realistic for the period, tbh; drop the union nation ideas as they're neither practical nor worthwhile. China should be trying to tear itself apart, not pull itself together.

If the Qing had a separate tag, then everywhere in China would be eligible to revolt as nationalists of one kind or another; the only risk is that they'd get split between and never revolt at all - which is yet another reason to avoid pan-nats.

As far as we know, AI scripting jsut doesn't work in V2.

Chinese Warlord CBs are a good idea to set the whole lot of them battering away at one another. I'm thinking of throwing together an event chain for the gradual breakdown of China anyway, when TPG happens; but it mustn't be inevitable.

[Don_Quigleone]

No, giving uncivs mobilized armies is a no-go again, as the AI doesn't really understand that either. But simply forcing Qing China to live with the majority of it's provinces uncored would prevent it from creating the unimaginably huge doomstacks it uses in warfare.

Far as I can see, the AI uses mobilized armies decently, but you know more about this then me.

I don't think Chinese pan-nationalists are remotely realistic for the period, tbh; drop the union nation ideas as they're neither practical nor worthwhile. China should be trying to tear itself apart, not pull itself together.

Chinese pan nats should be late game. Either due to foreigners holding Chinese "soil" (in which they probably should be patriots but...), or after China sunders. It shouldn't be the same as German pan nats, and should require some form of enabling events. Either way, maybe it shouldn't be labelled "Union State", but it should tolerate every Chinese minority.

If the Qing had a separate tag, then everywhere in China would be eligible to revolt as nationalists of one kind or another; the only risk is that they'd get split between and never revolt at all - which is yet another reason to avoid pan-nats.

So long as potential revolters don't overlap, I see nothing wrong here.

As far as we know, AI scripting jsut doesn't work in V2.

. Paradox needs to do some more bug whacking.

Chinese Warlord CBs are a good idea to set the whole lot of them battering away at one another. I'm thinking of throwing together an event chain for the gradual breakdown of China anyway, when TPG happens; but it mustn't be inevitable.

Sounds right.

[Naselus]

OK, here's my current design plan on this:


Add in QNG - 'Imperial China'. They get cores on Manchuria and the area round Beijing, but nowhere else, and own all of China at game start. QNG cores would also prevent TPG cores spreading to them.

Add in a new decision allowing any Chinese primary culture nation to form China if it's civilized and owns all of China's cores, or has the cores in it's SOI.

Allow Warlord cores to spread once China has one of the 'civving' techs, provided Taiping has happened. Prior to this, I don't want them to be present on the map. The Warlord cores cannot co-incide - so if a Warlord already exists in a province, no other warlord core can spawn there, and Warlord cores must be contiguous. The cores spread more quickly the more civving techs that China has. Each warlord Tag would be given it's capital core by event named after the warlord; after that, cores would spread in more or less the same way as TPG, but without a CON requirement.


Once they exist, we fire events to boost militancy. The events and warlord cores disappear once the tag has changed to China. These events would be country events, which cause any_core = whatever to gain 10 mil, and thus spawn huge nationalist uprisings.

Thoughts?

[Don_Quigleone]

OK, here's my current design plan on this:


Add in QNG - 'Imperial China'. They get cores on Manchuria and the area round Beijing, but nowhere else, and own all of China at game start. QNG cores would also prevent TPG cores spreading to them.

Add in a new decision allowing any Chinese primary culture nation to form China if it's civilized and owns all of China's cores, or has the cores in it's SOI.

Allow Warlord cores to spread once China has one of the 'civving' techs, provided Taiping has happened. Prior to this, I don't want them to be present on the map. The Warlord cores cannot co-incide - so if a Warlord already exists in a province, no other warlord core can spawn there, and Warlord cores must be contiguous. The cores spread more quickly the more civving techs that China has. Each warlord Tag would be given it's capital core by event named after the warlord; after that, cores would spread in more or less the same way as TPG, but without a CON requirement.


Once they exist, we fire events to boost militancy. The events and warlord cores disappear once the tag has changed to China. These events would be country events, which cause any_core = whatever to gain 10 mil, and thus spawn huge nationalist uprisings.

Thoughts?

Sounds good. I think that there should be a way for the Qing to gain cores on the rest of China, and there should be an event to remove Taiping cores some time after they are defeated. Also the best name for the Qing is simply "Qing Dynasty", or "Qing Empire".

[Naselus]

TPG cores will be removed when TPG is defeated; QING shouldn't gain more cores but should instead be reliant on becoming civilized to save themselves.

[Naselus]

Also, I'd tie the presence of non-CHI cores in Beijing to holding the Mandate of Heaven - which would force unciv isolation on the bearer. Losing the Mandate would lose the cores, and losing control of the capital to occupation would lose the Mandate.

[Sir Garnet]

When every other name in the game is in English, it seems odd. It would be like calling the Qing Da Qing Guo. Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping or Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace seems the best approach to me.

Indeed. In the prior discussion when shifting away from the TPG label I favored Heavenly Kingdom as the best reasonably compact name that also communicates its theocratic nature for players not familiar with the history. The big progress is keeping it from overrunning the whole country, and building in the basis for warlords who are more than rebel stacks is excellent depth.

[Don_Quigleone]

I think that there should also be some kind of notification event for great powers. Also, Great Powers should be able to side with either side, in return for some form of concessions afterwards. The AI should usually side with the Qing, but of course, players could just choose to support the Taiping.

The main great powers involved would be France, Britain and the USA. Perhaps holding a minimum level of sea technology would make you eligible to intervene (a big element of intervention was supplying weapons and using boats on the rivers, and defending Shanghai with boats.)

[KaiserBenjamin]

OK, here's my current design plan on this:


Add in QNG - 'Imperial China'. They get cores on Manchuria and the area round Beijing, but nowhere else, and own all of China at game start. QNG cores would also prevent TPG cores spreading to them.

Add in a new decision allowing any Chinese primary culture nation to form China if it's civilized and owns all of China's cores, or has the cores in it's SOI.

Allow Warlord cores to spread once China has one of the 'civving' techs, provided Taiping has happened. Prior to this, I don't want them to be present on the map. The Warlord cores cannot co-incide - so if a Warlord already exists in a province, no other warlord core can spawn there, and Warlord cores must be contiguous. The cores spread more quickly the more civving techs that China has. Each warlord Tag would be given it's capital core by event named after the warlord; after that, cores would spread in more or less the same way as TPG, but without a CON requirement.


Once they exist, we fire events to boost militancy. The events and warlord cores disappear once the tag has changed to China. These events would be country events, which cause any_core = whatever to gain 10 mil, and thus spawn huge nationalist uprisings.

Thoughts?

How will the warlord cores spread? What's to keep them from creating super-crazy borders?

[Don_Quigleone]

How will the warlord cores spread? What's to keep them from creating super-crazy borders?

Yeah, may be better to have spread by state rather then province, also for the MTTH to go down the more other cores it borders.