China is way too strong

[swilhelm73]

For the third game in a row, China is leading in a VIC GC.

Its 1881 and they have 200 factories, 77% literacy, and almost 300K in the bank.

Last game they finished with 12K victory points and an easy win.

I wonder how many of the VIC 1.02 WM problems are wrapped up in China becoming a dominant power and sucking up resources that should be going to mid lever Western nations...

 

[unmerged(9078)]

The same problem here. Usually China wins with 13k VP, which are far more than the UK can reach. China seems to be way overpowered in v1.02
They always lead in industrial rating, it's crazy. Cut them back!

 

[OriginalRafiki]

Normally China should have a pretty hard time industrializing in 1.02 (I've never seen an industrialized China in my 1.02-games). Has someone been peddling techs to them?

Rafiki

 

[swilhelm73]

Normally China should have a pretty hard time industrializing in 1.02 (I've never seen an industrialized China in my 1.02-games). Has someone been peddling techs to them?

Rafiki

Well, I haven't sold techs since v1.01, so I haven't been doing so.

I can't swear that the other AIs haven't sold China techs, but with 77% literacy China has been investing *alot* in research. They were something like 14/6/7/7/7 roughly.

Taking a look at their country it seemed there was no more then 1 RGO laborer in each province - the rest were c/c's or soldiers.

All they need really is freedom of trade to build 50 gazillion factories once machine parts start to appear on the WM. They've got the money and POPs from the sheer size of their country.

I should note, China has become a major power in every VIC v1.02 game I have played so far...

 

[OriginalRafiki]

Strange. I can only speak for my own games, and there China never comes very high in prestige, so that might cause them to have problems getting machine parts which in turn gives them problems with industrializing, I guess.

On a related note; China seems to lose the Opium War in my games. If in your games, for some reason, they win it, perhaps that gives them prestige to get machine parts early, which in turn sparks the industrialization boom?

Just firing off random thoughts here, hoping something hits.

Rafiki

 

[Varyar]

I haven't seen China become particularly powerful either in any of my 1.02 games, although I always kick them a little extra by giving them -1000 prestige and -50 research points from the beginning.

 

[Darkrenown]

Strange. I can only speak for my own games, and there China never comes very high in prestige, so that might cause them to have problems getting machine parts which in turn gives them problems with industrializing, I guess.

On a related note; China seems to lose the Opium War in my games.

Same in both cases in my games.

 

[unmerged(11929)]

I've never seen China to be super strong even in earlier versions. They could hold off the Brits and the Russians in the earlier versions, and maybe took Korea every now and again.

In 1.02 they always lose to the Brits.

 

[OriginalRafiki]

In 1.01, I often saw a gargantuan China, but 1.02 changed that quite solidly, at least for my games.

Rafiki

 

[OndGud]

My china has a industry rating of 26 and I even handed then railroad + freedom of trade and 5-6 others to boost economy/industry, that was 10 years ago heh(can't see either factories or a single railroad built). Must be smoking to much opium over there to bother industrializing.

 

[unmerged(2695)]

Somebody write up a Taiping rebellion event for China!

The Chinese AI is acting in a rational manner. Of course, if Cina had acted in a rational, "western" manner - as Japan did - it would have been a superpower in 1920!

 

[unmerged(7916)]

Superpower

In the 3 GCs Ive played, China becomes waaay to strong. It is 1900 now and they have triple the industry of the UK and a standing army of 450 divisions. There prestige, however, is -300 something... so where are they getting the machine parts to build allthere factories with negative prestige?

All I know, is Im trying not to piss them off... they scare me!

 

[unmerged(24197)]

well

I'm embarrassed to say then that when I play as China I get my butt kicked by Russia every single time and end up bankrupt. It doesn't matter if I improve relations with them, build my army or not, or invade tibet (or someother small country) or not.

 

[SickMonkey]

in a recent game (i played sweden) china ended up with a final score of 53645 points. the 2:nd, russia, had about 4700 points.

after loading the game as china, i noticed that the ai had built about a dozen level 50 (!) fertilizer and ammo factories. of course, almost none of them were actially producing anything, due to sulphur shortages...

 

[unmerged(3921)]

I think China is one of those countries where there is a large variance in results. This is because of how the the game events are modeled - they are all dependent on the results of the first Opium War. When you have so much riding on something that happens so early in the game, you have an environment for big variance in results. It's not clear to me whether this is either good or bad from a gameplay standpoint (and its entirely unprovable whether this is historically accurate or not), but it does lead to one conclusion - you gotta pay attention to what happens in the first Opium War. And if the UK loses, you as the human player probably need to do some planning to supress China to prevent it from becoming the #1 power later in the game.

 

[unmerged(24157)]

If China wins the Opium War (which is entirely possible since its usually still dragging on 15+ years later when the Crimean War starts - I've seen a First Opium War that lasted till 1861, to which Britain committed hudreds of divisions, depopulating India in the process) that prevents a whole series of events firing that degrade Chinese prestige pretty severely.

A China with positive Prestige istn' very hard to industrialize, even if its not Civilized.

 

[swilhelm73]

And if the UK loses, you as the human player probably need to do some planning to supress China to prevent it from becoming the #1 power later in the game.

Well, I don't think my 5 M person Argentina is quite ready to take on a China with 400 M people and better Army and Navy techs...let alone the (literally) millions of free troops China would get from partisans. :wacko:

 

[dralizaar]

bah china isnt much trouble they maybe get strong 1 in 4 games i play whether i get involved with them or not. My most recent game however I decided to take em on as Java...after I unified indonesia all of africa and all southeast asia arabia, egypt, ottoman empire. I invaded china with 210 divsions many of which were reserves mobilized solely to hold down partisans while my all cavalry main armies rushed all over taking things fast as they could. Took roughly 3 years to annex china ..within another year i took korea and 1.5 years later japan...Uk dowed me once and i managed to hold the line in india long enough for them to offer me white peace Currently its 1882 and im gearing up for my drive into india to start knocking out all the uk puppets and allies plus grab as much of british india as i can while simultaneously 20 cavalry invade persia fromt he west...hopefully I will make my land bridge. No other nation even comes close in prestige to me atm <im past 12k> im making 16k a day after military main education crime fighhting social defence all at max are paid. China can be annoying to fight mostly due to partisans but really they arent hard to beat in the field with a properly desgined and managed army. If i could do it with Java I think any medium or major power should be able to beat them much easier

 

[unmerged(20981)]

I have seen China with 6 1,000,000 man armies!!!! that is larger then my whole population! Then they have a few 100,000-900,000 man armies walking around. It is ridiculous. They drove the britich and their allies out of India! It was quite and odd sight. I think the partisan system needs to be re-worked.

 

[Gaijin de Moscu]

Interesting observations on China... they are always big loosers in my games, despite my constant feeding of technologies to them. Somehow they just don't catch up.

But 53,000+ VPs and 61,000,000 armies??