So what new mechanics would need to be added for China?

[Arcvalons]

We already have absolute crown authority, max centralization, and imperial administration with viceregal duchies. CK2 can totally do a bureucratic non-feudal realm.

 

[Rags17]

I'm definitely no expert on China but at the very least you need to have mechanics for massive public works (the Great Wall, the Grand Canal, various irrigation and water control projects), the Mandate of Heaven (a new succession rule based on current ruler's Piety/Prestige or other factors) and the public service (eg Imperial civil service exams).

The first mechanic simply has to create some effect that spans two or more provinces. For example, a Great Wall defence would create some form of physical barrier to troop movement across a province barrier and could come in various different level (eg rammed earth wall, wooden palisade, great stone wall etc). Note that this mechanic could also be useful in the West (eg Offa's Dyke) so I'm not sure if this should be technological, cultural, or a bit of both.

The second mechanic would be a simple succession mechanic that looked at the current holder's Prestige and or Piety score to determine if a change of dynasty is warranted. Of course various random factors out of the player's control would have to be included, if the Yellow River breaks its banks again then the Emperor would be blamed regardless of whether or not his irrigation works were up to the task or not. Again, not sure of the actual mechanic, but it would essentially be a succession mechanic that would only be available to members of certain cultural groups (Han Chinese, others ?).

The final mechanic could be something that the player could invest in that would cost money and time (ie player input), but would increase the ruler's demesne and or vassal limit. A strong, healthy public service could deal with many vassals, but once the system started going corrupt things could go to hell in a handbasket pretty fast. Current equivalents would be the Decadence or Moral Authority mechanics - they don't mean much until certain lines are crossed then it takes serious work to recover. In the case of Civil Service or whatever it's called rather than war that would mean more investment in universities and civil service schools and action required by the ruler to break up various bureaucratic factions (Confucianism ftw ! NO, Legalism ftw !).

All in all the new mechanics shouldn't require too much coding, at least not compared to the new mechanics introduced by RoI or the upcoming Horse Lords. They would also have the advantage of fleshing out Western and Muslim play, for example by the aforementioned Offa's Dyke, Dutch irrigation works, or Byzantine Civil Service.

Just one last point. I did a bit of reading on China in the Wiki (we all have to start somewhere, eh ?) and it looks as if no matter what is decided there will probably end up being a LOT of debate and disgruntled players regarding the final determination of Chinese "culture" and "religion".

Chinese assumptions in this regards don't line up with Western concepts - Confucianism is more of an ethical system rather than a religious one, so the concept of "heresies" etc would have to be reconsidered. At the same time, Chinese were more concerned about race than the west so culture groupings may have to take into account language and race as well as certain class considerations, cf India. All doable of course but just another layer of complication that would have to be considered.

 

[Will Steel]

A full scale bureaucracy is what you would need, with appointed governors, defined provinces, professional armies, a ranked nobility, imperial examination system and so on.

The same mechanics could then be used in India and on ERE, considering India until 1206 had a complete bureaucracy within kingdoms (minus imperial examinations and ranked nobility) with professional armies. So did ERE throughout the game timeframe.

Feudal system doesn't really depict ERE, India and the Muslim world right. China, if it is there at all, will be a different kind of gameplay.

EDIT: Sigh, ignore the poor troll who disliked this post, he is just on a disliking spree targeting every single post of mine.

 

[darthfanta]

You will need a food system and a population system.Once the population explodes and there isn't enough food,all hell would be loose.

 

[VolitionNewlove]

We shouldn't define some magical wall between what currently exists and what does not exist, but gameplay within the current map should be improved first. With the Pala Empire playing the same as Feudal Europe (but with a couple of learning-based mechanics based around the Buddhist religion,) or with the Abbasiyah Caliphate playing the same as Feudal Europe (but with duchy revocation and unchangable succession laws,) or with the Eastern Roman Empire playing the same as Feudal Europe (but with the mere 'option' to give duchies temporarily to your otherwise Feudal lords,) I don't think the implementation of China would be very good at all. Even within Christian Europe, we have a one-size-fits-all mechanic based around the High-Late Middle Ages Feudalism, with Dark Ages Anglo-Saxons, Imperial Axum, and post-Christianised Kiev each playing like a Western European Feudal count in the 14th Century.

My problem with China, is that as things are, it wouldn't be China. with the world outside of Tribes (which appear to be very-much based around the Germanic tribes,) Steppe Nations (which aren't even out yet, so it's not really fair to judge them yet,) Republics (and all Merchant Republics, being the only ones which are playable, still only play like the Italian Republics in the mid-to-late portion of the game's timeline,) Theocracies and Holy Orders (which are unplayable, and are badly represented outside of Christian ones,) every single realm functions in that same goverment type which not only historically represents only a few kingdoms in the game, but doesn't even work for the two added start-dates of 789 or 867. No matter how many religion-based mechanics are added, they still fail to address the core problem.

 

[Will Steel]

You summed it up pretty well, Pte Baldric. Exactly what I was thinking.

A China in this game can be there but it will neither feel not work like one, and it won't be historical at all. Already the game is pretty badly stretched and even those who didn't have feudalism at all (Palas, Pandyas, Abbasids, ERE etc.) have to be played like a high medieval French feudal lord. Plugging China into CK2 doesn't do it justice just like plugging India into it doesn't do justice to it either. But the only difference is that India had open contacts, trade, wars and cultural exchange with Muslim world and so it HAD to be in the game.

Better still to make a game about China/East Asia, since it is an extremely interesting place. They could make it a unique game with mechanics gameplay appropriate to China/East Asia and not the 14th century western European feudalism. At the same time developing the existing CK2 area to the fullest.

As I posted in the other thread, they could make a CK3 and expand the map to a limit, and build it on an updated, more optimized and adapted engine so that later on allows them to release DLCs and patches that increase flavour, add events, add new features/mechanics, aesthetics and generally flesh the game out. They could, as already said, develop the engine for especially this kind of development process. It would be profitable too, now that they have experience with CK2.

 

[Runite]

inb4 celestial government + internal factions = 40,000 troops max

pls dun add sino

 

[icedt729]

You also need a mechanic to separate military and civil authority. Standard practice for Chinese dynasties was to give local and provincial officials no military powers whatsoever and keep all manpower and military resources directly under the central government's control. During times of crisis or serious dynastic decline, they would start letting the governors raise troops as a stopgap measure. This could be very roughly modeled through the levee laws but only if there were new factions and diplomatic actions for the governors to press for military authority- but I think the changes should be more abrupt than just sliding down one notch on the scale from "sovereign gets all levies" to "sovereign gets 80% of levies." If the governors succeed in pressing this demand they should be able to raise significant levies and retinues right away. Expanding on the "commander" honorary titles to make military commands into more significant professional posts would also be nice, since generals were important people but generally outside the administrative hierarchy (in CK terms, landed titleholders).

I'm strongly in favor of some kind of Mandate of Heaven mechanic because I think it's necessary to model the very abrupt shifts that could happen in China depending on the dynasty's performance. During the good times there was very little trouble keeping the bureaucracy in line and maintaining central control over the armed forces, but in a crisis you suddenly have a lot of governors and generals demanding concessions, even hereditary privileges. I'd like to see an event-based system that would make the Mandate fluctuate between firmly established, shaky, and entirely lost, with a major impact on vassal behavior and revolt risk. When your grip on the mandate is weak, you should start getting demands to make viceroyalties hereditary or to cede military authority to the governors, and when the mandate is lost there should be many claimant and independence factions. Peasant revolts should also proliferate. This mechanic would be difficult to balance well, since it necessarily needs to involve elements of chance, but it should basically rest on performance in wars or rebellions, resolving succession crises, and otherwise keeping the state peaceful and stable.

I think there should also be some tweaks to intrigue and diplomacy to show the importance of palace politics. When the Mandate is strong, the disarmed and non-hereditary administration doesn't cause much trouble, but the emperor's many wives and inlaws, the harem eunuchs, and the many imperial princes all liked to use their proximity to the emperor for their own advantage. Concubines and their relatives ought to be very eager to scheme against each other and their respective children. Getting themselves named regent or moving their offspring up in the line of succession would be main priorities. An event chain for a concubine to first become regent and then officially declare herself emperor, Wu Zetian-style, would be awesome. Anyway I think it's important that the geopolitical stability of a unified empire be offset by a serious amount of palace scheming, with the potential to degrade the dynasty's mandate if managed poorly.

Lastly, religion! Given the importance of religion in CK2, it needs to be done right in China. I would personally like to see a Chinese religion with traits for the major sects and philosophical schools- at absolute minimum, Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism (at the most extreme, there should be a Chinese group with those three as branches). Why should Chinese Buddhists be under the Chinese umbrella and not lumped in with Indian and Central Asian Buddhists? Because of (1) syncretism and (2) political reality. Indian and Chinese Buddhists should be sympathetic towards each other and have certain events and mechanics in common, but Chinese Buddhists still belong firmly in the Chinese spiritual and philosophical sphere, not the Indian one. It would be wrong to put Chinese Buddhists into the Dharmic group while leaving other Chinese religions out of it, and even more wrong to treat all Chinese religions as Dharmic. Furthermore Chinese Buddhists should have no trouble intermarrying with Confucians but considerably more difficulty in marrying with Jains. Likewise they could easily have a change of heart and become Daoists but are not likely to convert to Hinduism. I think this is very important to get right in China in order to reflect the diversity of belief and thought without drawing arbitrary lines or turning it into a zone for unrealistic holy warring.

EDIT: Also, I'd appreciate some attention for how Chinese states are named. Dynasties did not take their names from geography (like Europeans do in-game) or from their own surnames (like Muslims or Indians), and only occasionally re-used names from previous dynasties. Successor states generally used geographic names (Wu, Min, etc) so that's simple enough, but when they became contenders for reunification they would proclaim a dynasty. This was also true of states that had non-Chinese rulers, like the Liao, Xi Xia, Later Jin or Yuan. I'm in favor of having a single de jure "Empire of China" at most start dates (two during the Jin-Southern Song partition) and, whenever a faction forms it, they get an event pop-up allowing them to choose a dynastic name from a set of appropriate options. Better yet, forming de jure China could require the claimant to have already formed a titular dynasty (as powerful Chinese states almost always did). The old titular empire would be destroyed but the de jure empire would take on its dynastic name.

Alternatively, you could get the same variety in dynastic titles by just changing the localization of "Empire of China" based on culture. Mongol rulers get Yuan, Jurchen founders get Jin, founders from southern China get Ming and northerners get Song, etc. This system is a little cruder and less realistic but it would be simple to implement and would avoid the blandness of just seeing "China" on the map, or the confusion of successive dynasties all using the same old name.

As a final note, the Yangzi needs to be navigable.

 

[Paragon707]

Better optimization so those who play the game on lower end pcs wont have them burst in flames upon the release of China

 

[Arcvalons]

If you think about it, Mandate of Heaven worked like how Decadence works in the game.

 

[toroltao]

Also, I'd appreciate some attention for how Chinese states are named. Dynasties did not take their names from geography (like Europeans do in-game) or from their own surnames (like Muslims or Indians), and only occasionally re-used names from previous dynasties. Successor states generally used geographic names (Wu, Min, etc) so that's simple enough, but when they became contenders for reunification they would proclaim a dynasty. This was also true of states that had non-Chinese rulers, like the Liao, Xi Xia, Later Jin or Yuan. I'm in favor of having a single de jure "Empire of China" at most start dates (two during the Jin-Southern Song partition) and, whenever a faction forms it, they get an event pop-up allowing them to choose a dynastic name from a set of appropriate options. Better yet, forming de jure China could require the claimant to have already formed a titular dynasty (as powerful Chinese states almost always did). The old titular empire would be destroyed but the de jure empire would take on its dynastic name.

Alternatively, you could get the same variety in dynastic titles by just changing the localization of "Empire of China" based on culture. Mongol rulers get Yuan, Jurchen founders get Jin, founders from southern China get Ming and northerners get Song, etc. This system is a little cruder and less realistic but it would be simple to implement and would avoid the blandness of just seeing "China" on the map, or the confusion of successive dynasties all using the same old name.

I like this idea, but I think "claiming a dynasty name" should be a forced event that happens whenever a realm reaches a certain territorial/force limit threshold within "de jure China/China Proper". This way you don't have to have separate empires of China. When this happens the ruler is forced to form and name a "titular dynasty" through a popup event. I think this would be a better option to stop the player from gaming the system. I also don't think the player even needs to form a "de jure China", they should just have "dynasties", regional governors, regional military governors, etc, similar to the hordes are only able to have empires in HL. This is because I don't think "empires" and "kingdoms" really apply to China like in the rest of the world, only dynasties and independent states. When rebels got really strong they just declared themselves new dynasties, or states. What I'm suggesting is that every dynasty should simply be empire types...

I'm also against having localizations based on culture. What happens when you play a custom character with Norse culture in China? It's better to just let the player name the dynasty whatever he wants which allows more customization and personalization. Forming China shouldn't be based on culture. Any Chinese independent ruler/rebel/governor that obtains enough land or some other sort of quantifier within China Proper will be forced to declare an empire level dynasty. AI formed dynasty names should all just be randomly generated using pinyin format regardless of culture, since that's the modern convention anyways.

External realms that invade China and also obtain enough certain quantifiers (territory, income, population?) should be able to form a dynasty, for example if Turks, Koreans, or Vietnamese conquer enough within China they get an available decision on whether or not to form a dynasty. If they do their government switches to Chinese, and characters within the realm start to become Chinese as well due to sinocization.

 

[darthfanta]

An expansion on what icedt729 said:I think one of the things that's necessary is that not devolving some military command to certain provincial officials should be more expensive than if they did some of the arguments right before the Three Kingdoms period was that by promoting inspectors of provinces(who held no military command) to Governorship(who held military authority over their provinces),it would be less costly to put down rebellions because the local governors can coordinate and manage provisions within their provinces to put down rebellions or fight off invasions without having to direct all of that from a substantial distance.Fighting abilities of armies also needs to be increased when military commands are devolved.Early Tang was extraordinary efficient in terms of fighting ability because commanders had great discretion in how they want to conduct a war.

You will also need a defection system.After battles are won,you generally see a lot of Chinese soldiers,especially the captured ones,defecting to the victors.

Hopefully,they finally managed to make a system where the martial stats of commanders actually have a significant impact on whether a battle is won.China is full of situations where a much smaller army somehow beats a larger one.Xiang Yu for example wiped out a Qin army of 400,000 soldiers with just 60,000 soldiers.


Another thing that's required is naval battles and the ability to blockade rivers like the Yangtze to prevent enemies from crossing--the Song managed to fight off both the Jurchens and the Mongols by doing that.

 

[toroltao]

An expansion on what icedt729 said:I think one of the things that's necessary is that not devolving some military command to certain provincial officials should be more expensive than if they did sne of the arguments right before the Three Kingdoms period was that by promoting inspectors of provinces(who held no military command) to Governorship(who held military authority over their provinces),it would be less costly to put down rebellions because the local governors can coordinate and manage provisions within their provinces to put down rebellions or fight off invasions without having to direct all of that from a substantial distance.

Another thing that's required is naval battles and the ability to blockade rivers like the Yangtze to prevent enemies from crossing--the Song managed to fight off both the Jurchens and the Mongols by doing that.

How would you go about incentivizing the distribution of territory to military command? If it were up to me, "commanderies" would be set up as duchy titles that the emperor can give out and revoke with some sort of point system, maybe prestige or "Confucian Points" that you can gain through rituals and decisions, etc. Maybe Chinese emperors could just have very low demesne limits, or get substantially less levies without commanderies, or higher revolt risk, etc. How about all of them? Then laws can decide how much prestige or religious points emperors need to revoke commandery titles.

Why not separate commanderies into two titles, civil and military? Military governors grant more levies and lowers retinue upkeep but higher risk revolt, while civil governors grant more income and lowers revolt risk.

 

[toroltao]

Lastly, religion! Given the importance of religion in CK2, it needs to be done right in China. I would personally like to see a Chinese religion with traits for the major sects and philosophical schools- at absolute minimum, Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism (at the most extreme, there should be a Chinese group with those three as branches). Why should Chinese Buddhists be under the Chinese umbrella and not lumped in with Indian and Central Asian Buddhists? Because of (1) syncretism and (2) political reality. Indian and Chinese Buddhists should be sympathetic towards each other and have certain events and mechanics in common, but Chinese Buddhists still belong firmly in the Chinese spiritual and philosophical sphere, not the Indian one. It would be wrong to put Chinese Buddhists into the Dharmic group while leaving other Chinese religions out of it, and even more wrong to treat all Chinese religions as Dharmic. Furthermore Chinese Buddhists should have no trouble intermarrying with Confucians but considerably more difficulty in marrying with Jains. Likewise they could easily have a change of heart and become Daoists but are not likely to convert to Hinduism. I think this is very important to get right in China in order to reflect the diversity of belief and thought without drawing arbitrary lines or turning it into a zone for unrealistic holy warring.

I think religious marriage problems could be solved by simply forcing anyone with Chinese culture to only marry each other, regardless of religion, while the dynasty rulers can marry off their female offspring for political purposes.

 

[Will Steel]

EDIT: Also, I'd appreciate some attention for how Chinese states are named. Dynasties did not take their names from geography (like Europeans do in-game) or from their own surnames (like Muslims or Indians), and only occasionally re-used names from previous dynasties. Successor states generally used geographic names (Wu, Min, etc) so that's simple enough, but when they became contenders for reunification they would proclaim a dynasty. This was also true of states that had non-Chinese rulers, like the Liao, Xi Xia, Later Jin or Yuan. I'm in favor of having a single de jure "Empire of China" at most start dates (two during the Jin-Southern Song partition) and, whenever a faction forms it, they get an event pop-up allowing them to choose a dynastic name from a set of appropriate options. Better yet, forming de jure China could require the claimant to have already formed a titular dynasty (as powerful Chinese states almost always did). The old titular empire would be destroyed but the de jure empire would take on its dynastic name.

Alternatively, you could get the same variety in dynastic titles by just changing the localization of "Empire of China" based on culture. Mongol rulers get Yuan, Jurchen founders get Jin, founders from southern China get Ming and northerners get Song, etc. This system is a little cruder and less realistic but it would be simple to implement and would avoid the blandness of just seeing "China" on the map, or the confusion of successive dynasties all using the same old name.

Actually, historically the Indian naming system is completely different from that of the Muslims, it is just that it was very complex so they basically decided not to implement it and made the in-game Indians put '-id' like Muslim rulers in front of their names.

To begin, you had to look at the caste of the person in question, since that defines his/her position in the society is. The lower castes won't have surnames relating to rulers, while the upper castes won't have the surnames common with merchants, and so on. Brahmins had a completely different set of nomenclature, much more formal than the rest. Later by 12th century, subcastes had fully appeared and they had their own nomenclature system.

Secondly, if he was Kshatriya (the ruling caste), he would have to trace his ancestry and determine what Vedic-era clan (Gotra) he is from. Two people from the same Gotra/clan were not allowed to marry if I recall right. The Gotra formed a part of his full surname. The Gotras are not dynasties, but had been like that back in 1200-600 BC.

Thirdly, in many regions (like entire southern India), location formed a part of the surname. In the end the nobleman's surname would contain the name where he was from or where his estates were. But this practice was more common with commoners and lower caste people, especially farmers.

Fourthly, if the nobleman in question was under a lord, the lord's surname and dynasty would form a part of his surname. Kinda like both China and Japan where clan retainers adoped the surnames of their patrons/lords. But this was not always the case, usually only when person in question didn't officially have any rulership titles, was part of the court nobility of some empire or kingdom, and had the previous generation also serving the same dynasty.

Rajputs adopted all of their surnames and traced their lineages from the 4 basic dynasties of the ancient - Solar Dynasty (Suryavansham), Lunar Dynasty (Chandravansham) and many others. Other rulers over India had their lineages from ancient kingdoms of 600 BC and earlier (called Janpadas), and in name adopted their surnames (for example Ishvaku Vansham).

And sometimes, noblemen had surnames that reflected their status and supposed job. For example last last classical Imperial Dynasty of India, the Pala, had all emperors adopting the name 'Pala', like the two great emperors Dharmapala and Devapala. 'Pala' means 'protector', and they adopted it considering that they came to power by winning an election and actually considered themselves to be 'protectors' of the people rather than their rulers, probably influenced by Buddhism since portraying themselves as arrogant overlords would sit well with their religion.

This is why, as I said, Indian naming system was so complex that it cannot possibly be put into the game without taking too much effort and at the same time using more RAM. Indians never put '-id' in front of their surnames, but in-game they have to be heavily simplified and use that system because of no other alternatives available.

 

[Rags17]

This is why, as I said, Indian naming system was so complex that it cannot possibly be put into the game without taking too much effort and at the same time using more RAM. Indians never put '-id' in front of their surnames, but in-game they have to be heavily simplified and use that system because of no other alternatives available.

Speaking as I guy with a little bit of coding knowledge this doesn't really sound like much problem at all. A crapton of complex coding, but once it's in place really easy to implement. Remember that actual calculation (eg Do x unless y, z or a, unless b OR c and d, Unless j etc) is hard to describe but easy for computers to actually do. If Indian naming systems have (say) half a dozen rules and exceptions then no big deal - make up the system and let the game work it out on the fly.

Don't forget that the calculation to determine a new name is a one off thing, once it's done its done so in actual usage its only a tiny, tiny fraction of all the things that the game handles every second.

 

[Will Steel]

Speaking as I guy with a little bit of coding knowledge this doesn't really sound like much problem at all. A crapton of complex coding, but once it's in place really easy to implement. Remember that actual calculation (eg Do x unless y, z or a, unless b OR c and d, Unless j etc) is hard to describe but easy for computers to actually do. If Indian naming systems have (say) half a dozen rules and exceptions then no big deal - make up the system and let the game work it out on the fly.

Don't forget that the calculation to determine a new name is a one off thing, once it's done its done so in actual usage its only a tiny, tiny fraction of all the things that the game handles every second.

As a guy with zero knowledge about coding but having edited some files (making personal mods) for EU3 and Vicky2, I think you are completely right there.

Crapton of extremely complex coding would be required indeed. But then it would put too much detail in India compared to rest of the world.

EDIT: Lol, look at the poor troll disagreeing with me post for no reason. What a lowlife.

 

[icedt729]

I like this idea, but I think "claiming a dynasty name" should be a forced event that happens whenever a realm reaches a certain territorial/force limit threshold within "de jure China/China Proper". This way you don't have to have separate empires of China. When this happens the ruler is forced to form and name a "titular dynasty" through a popup event. I think this would be a better option to stop the player from gaming the system. I also don't think the player even needs to form a "de jure China", they should just have "dynasties", regional governors, regional military governors, etc, similar to the hordes are only able to have empires in HL. This is because I don't think "empires" and "kingdoms" really apply to China like in the rest of the world, only dynasties and independent states. When rebels got really strong they just declared themselves new dynasties, or states. What I'm suggesting is that every dynasty should simply be empire types...

I'm also against having localizations based on culture. What happens when you play a custom character with Norse culture in China? It's better to just let the player name the dynasty whatever he wants which allows more customization and personalization. Forming China shouldn't be based on culture. Any Chinese independent ruler/rebel/governor that obtains enough land or some other sort of quantifier within China Proper will be forced to declare an empire level dynasty. AI formed dynasty names should all just be randomly generated using pinyin format regardless of culture, since that's the modern convention anyways.

External realms that invade China and also obtain enough certain quantifiers (territory, income, population?) should be able to form a dynasty, for example if Turks, Koreans, or Vietnamese conquer enough within China they get an available decision on whether or not to form a dynasty. If they do their government switches to Chinese, and characters within the realm start to become Chinese as well due to sinocization.

I agree that this is probably the best way to handle it, but the devs seem pretty committed to the "all kingdoms belong to de jure empires" approach and multiple de jure Chinese empires is worse than just one with numerous possible titular empires. I do think that any sufficiently large state in China, especially one that controls a traditional capitol, should declare a dynasty, whether by event or decision. The culture-based naming is very sub-optimal but, again, is better than just seeing "China" on the map.

I think religious marriage problems could be solved by simply forcing anyone with Chinese culture to only marry each other, regardless of religion, while the dynasty rulers can marry off their female offspring for political purposes.

This would prevent non-Chinese ruling clans from intermarrying with Han nobles, which would cause an awful lot of problems for Xia, Yuan and Liao besides being unhistorical. Making special rules for rulers would be clunky and go against the general design of the game so far, I think. I'd much rather tie these kinds of things to the Chinese religious group or the Chinese government type than mess with the cultural situation, especially since you've got numerous successful non-Han dynasties in this period and cultures like the Zhuang, Viets and Koreans who are not even close to ethnically Han but still have all the important Chinese political and religious trappings.

 

[toroltao]

This would prevent non-Chinese ruling clans from intermarrying with Han nobles, which would cause an awful lot of problems for Xia, Yuan and Liao besides being unhistorical. Making special rules for rulers would be clunky and go against the general design of the game so far, I think. I'd much rather tie these kinds of things to the Chinese religious group or the Chinese government type than mess with the cultural situation, especially since you've got numerous successful non-Han dynasties in this period and cultures like the Zhuang, Viets and Koreans who are not even close to ethnically Han but still have all the important Chinese political and religious trappings.

You're right, I hadn't thought of this. My main concern is that marriages will work in the same way as in Europe, since marriage alliances weren't a particularly prominent part of succession politics in China. A ruler didn't marry their daughter or son to so and so and therefore gain a claim on someone else's territory, so that subject will need some looking into. On the other hand emperors did basically send their daughters off to placate hordes. This leads me to think that political marriages should be downplayed. I also don't really like the idea of a "special" Chinese Buddhist group if you know what I mean, so a government related marriage schematic sounds good.

The culture-based naming is very sub-optimal but, again, is better than just seeing "China" on the map.

Is there really benefit to this instead of just using a randomly generated dynasty name? I know that certain cultures like Khitan, Jurchen, and Mongol had their own dynasties, but they could have named it anything else as well, so I don't think a specifically cultural dynasty naming process is necessary. As for the player, it should be possible to name your dynasty like with custom titles.

 

[Will Steel]

How will the game handle religion though? China is a special kind of mix where the old religions exist and new ones are fused into them. Tang did persecute Buddhists later on just before collapsing, but China in general was ruled by Confucian rulers with many Taoist advisors and a population that accepted all those religions.

Currently, rulers in India go crazy with conversion sprees. In real history, classical Indian society was renowned to be extremely tolerant of every religion or sect, and at least until 13th century, everyone was left free to choose his own religion without fear. There is no record of proselytizing or forcefully imposing any religion on people by the emperors and kings of this era, and all the religious change (Jainism and Buddhism starting large, slowly diminishing until Hinduism becomes dominant by late game) happened naturally after reforms in Hinduism end of the Buddhist Pala Empire.

Imagine 'Chinese Buddhist Revolts' or 'Chinese Confucian Revolts'. Those are as farcical and ahistorical as 'Indian Buddhist Revolts' and 'Indian Jain Revolts' and so on. I doubt Chinese Emperors sent their chief courtiers to 'convert' majority of population to Confucian.