The Case for, Eventually, China

[MrCDexterWard]

I too would love to see China in game at this point in time, but if the devs do an expansion based on china I see it as something that will be towards the end of the games life cycle. Johan has stated that the main reason he doesn't want more start dates is because of the massive amount of upkeep required for them every time the map changes or a new system is added, hence I believe that a massive map expansion would be something the devs would only do once they feel that most systems and map redoes (major ones anyways) are set in stone. Plus it wouldn't cause a heavy shift in development attention from the rest of of the world as it would be towards the end of development when all of that should have been taken care of.

Either way though, I feel that Imperator and its era is the prime time to add China from a gameplay standpoint (similar government/army systems and balkanized region) without it being a completely different beast from everything else (i.e. CK2 time frame).

 

[Jamey]

It doesn't toke years for CK2. And it's faster than before. Also it wasn't the provinces, who slowed CK2 down, but the amount of chracters.
Also a seperate East Asian game wouldn't sell to Paradox audience. They will never do this. Also this game would have the same problem: A magic wall in the west,

As the number of characters in CK2 scales with the number of provinces, saying that it scales by the number of characters is equivalent to saying it scales by the number of provinces.

 

[Chevaresqye]

As the number of characters in CK2 scales with the number of provinces, saying that it scales by the number of characters is equivalent to saying it scales by the number of provinces.

Not really, since the number of character per province does not need to be the same across the map. Area like China with less number of notable character per province can be represent with less character,and therefore the impact on performance would be a lot lower.

 

[Thrake]

But if you add China then the question to add the rest of Asia will also arise, as well as the addition of the entirety of Africa.

In essence I've got nothing against such an addition, however unlike in EU4 or titles about modern history, there is no significant interaction beetween distant parts of the world. So I feel like it makes little sense to just add more and more to the map to have tags that we will never interact with. So of course you can say that China interacted with central Asia but then it's back to the initial comment, then China also interacted with Japan and South East Asia,... so eventually the map has to been cut a bit arbitrarily. Right now we can recreate Roman as well as Alexander's conquests which is more than enough I'd say and fits the era.

I'd rather see a game dedicated to Asia with Europe cut out and have it feel even more different. It certainly has enough content for a whole game.

 

[Zerodv]

But if you add China then the question to add the rest of Asia will also arise, as well as the addition of the entirety of Africa.

No and no, there is no logic there for having all of Africa just because you added China, on one sides we have a well documented region full of states, on the other we have a region mostly known through archaeology with little mention in writings(thus lacking names for states, cultures and some other basic information).

The rest of Asia in of itself as no need to be added, maybe up to Japan eastwards and up to Malaysia southwards, to have the China-India trade but it's not strictly necessary as many important states arose after the game period.

 

[Thrake]

No and no, there is no logic there for having all of Africa just because you added China, on one sides we have a well documented region full of states, on the other we have a region mostly known through archaeology with little mention in writings(thus lacking names for states, cultures and some other basic information).

There is no logic here either because even part of the current maps are poorly documented. You also did not address the part on adding parts of the map just for the sake of it.

 

[Zerodv]

There is no logic here either because even part of the current maps are poorly documented, like in Eastern Europe. You also did not address the part on adding parts of the map just for the sake of it.

It's not "for the sake of it", China wasn't isolated from Central Asia during this period and migration of groups like the Yuezhi among others is not irrelevant for the development of Central Asia and possibly India and Persia.

Also Eastern Europe is virtually empty of states or a wasteland so I'm not sure why you think that those make a case for Africa or the rest of Asia.

 

[Teljannin]

I personally disagree with the post, and believe that China does not belong in the game.


Imperator Rome is a game focused at heart on the experience of the ancient Mediterranean as viewed from the point of view of the Greco/Roman perspective, thus the name Imperator Rome. Every nation depicted had either some form of interaction (either trade, or war) with the romans or Greeks.


Yes you can play as any country on the map, and yes half the map is not in the Mediterranean. But the world as presented represented the “known world” as perceived by the ancient Romans and Greeks at time (illustrated by the famous map of the world by Ptolemy). China was beyond these limits and there were only a few echoes of the legendary land of Serica. There was no direct contact recorded until a Roman embassy was sent out in the second century A.D. under the reign of Antoninus Pius


I am not saying that China is not interesting. I am not saying that playing in Asia during this time period would not fun in its own right.


But I am of the opinion that it does not fit in the time frame depicted nor with the scope of this game. It is only until the late middle ages and Marco Polo that the horizons of European nations expanded to a more global view. Having a Chinese army invade Syria or Roman armies fight the Chinese is ahistorical, and to me utterly immersion breaking.


I would like to play ancient china at some point but it would best be served by its own independent Ancient Asia IP.

 

[Thure]

I personally disagree with the post, and believe that China does not belong in the game.


Imperator Rome is a game focused at heart on the experience of the ancient Mediterranean as viewed from the point of view of the Greco/Roman perspective, thus the name Imperator Rome. Every nation depicted had either some form of interaction (either trade, or war) with the romans or Greeks.


Yes you can play as any country on the map, and yes half the map is not in the Mediterranean. But the world as presented represented the “known world” as perceived by the ancient Romans and Greeks at time (illustrated by the famous map of the world by Ptolemy). China was beyond these limits and there were only a few echoes of the legendary land of Serica. There was no direct contact recorded until a Roman embassy was sent out in the second century A.D. under the reign of Antoninus Pius


I am not saying that China is not interesting. I am not saying that playing in Asia during this time period would not fun in its own right.


But I am of the opinion that it does not fit in the time frame depicted nor with the scope of this game. It is only until the late middle ages and Marco Polo that the horizons of European nations expanded to a more global view. Having a Chinese army invade Syria or Roman armies fight the Chinese is ahistorical, and to me utterly immersion breaking.


I would like to play ancient china at some point but it would best be served by its own independent Ancient Asia IP.

No DIRECT interaction. Indirect there was important contact. Just saying Xiongnu for exemple. Also a contact WAS possible with Persia and India which are both on the map already.

 

[PDX_Gorion]

I just wanted to tell you we have read the thread and will keep reading the comments.

While personally I like the idea of an china expansion, I can say we have no expansions planned at the moment, and we are working hard toward an release and after that we will look for expansion ideas. I will NOT (and can not) promise anything, but I can thank you for providing an interesting read about chinese history, which I didnt have much knowledge about.

 

[Koramei]

I just wanted to tell you we have read the thread and will keep reading the comments.

While personally I like the idea of an china expansion, I can say we have no expansions planned at the moment, and we are working hard toward an release and after that we will look for expansion ideas. I will NOT (and can not) promise anything, but I can thank you for providing an interesting read about chinese history, which I didnt have much knowledge about.

In years of China threads in CK2 and now Imperator, I'm not sure I've ever seen a dev actually comment on one before, so thanks so much! It's really relieving to know they get at least some notice.

One of my books has very good population density maps for various points in Chinese history, but unfortunately I'm in the middle of a move and my books are all boxed up.

Just out of personal interest, what book is this?

 

[JWSIII]

Very strongly support this

 

[Traum77]

I personally disagree with the post, and believe that China does not belong in the game.


Imperator Rome is a game focused at heart on the experience of the ancient Mediterranean as viewed from the point of view of the Greco/Roman perspective, thus the name Imperator Rome. Every nation depicted had either some form of interaction (either trade, or war) with the romans or Greeks.


Yes you can play as any country on the map, and yes half the map is not in the Mediterranean. But the world as presented represented the “known world” as perceived by the ancient Romans and Greeks at time (illustrated by the famous map of the world by Ptolemy). China was beyond these limits and there were only a few echoes of the legendary land of Serica. There was no direct contact recorded until a Roman embassy was sent out in the second century A.D. under the reign of Antoninus Pius


I am not saying that China is not interesting. I am not saying that playing in Asia during this time period would not fun in its own right.


But I am of the opinion that it does not fit in the time frame depicted nor with the scope of this game. It is only until the late middle ages and Marco Polo that the horizons of European nations expanded to a more global view. Having a Chinese army invade Syria or Roman armies fight the Chinese is ahistorical, and to me utterly immersion breaking.


I would like to play ancient china at some point but it would best be served by its own independent Ancient Asia IP.

I agree an Asian-centric game would work best for China (though I think Tang-Ming dynasties timeframe would be better), but the frame of I:R would work just fine for the region in the ancient world as well.

To most of your points, the Devs have to draw a line somewhere, and there are many who saw no point in India, since Rome never directly touched that either. Yet the devs choice to include India implicitly makes clear that the "Rome only" view isn't what the game is about - it's about a plurality of views (not just European) interacting, that's why you can play any nation in the game. That's a fact that no doubt contributes to EU4s popularity as well (especially compared to CK2s early days when it was Christian kingdoms only).

Also ahistoricity is the entire point of this, and all Paradox games. Chances are 99% of single player games wouldn't have China blobbing out enough to interact with Rome, but the player could make it happen - that's why a great many of us play these games in the first place, to create alternate histories that are otherwise impossible.

 

[adhd_lama]

A terrific idea for an (enormously) ambitious dlc, I just hope that it wouldn't risk a Chinese ban of the game. Having the opportunity to both play as a nomad and invade China and play as a Chinese nation and unite it is a step up from EU4's timeframe and arguably even better than if they made a game about the mongols in China. I wonder though how much research about obscure regions of China, Southern Siberia and Tibet is readily available to western game designers.

 

[Austregisel]

I think it was the creator of the mod Imperium Universalis already talked a long time you want to do an equivalent in Imperator Rome, then mod with China or on China, Warring States and Three Kingdoms think will be the maximum that we will have.

 

[Prometheus_1]

I hope to see an expansion of the map to Include all of Asia , although Japan was of no interest at the time, but the above Han map is not very reliable , it was more of a dotted control than a full terrirorial one.

 

[DàbiànLājīdàrén]

Why wouldn't they have China? I don't even see the point of not having China in vanilla release. This isn't CK2 with millions of character interactions.

 

[Woifee]

Actually I don’t see amy reason for not adding china except performance issues. But we will see how the performance works out wenn I:R is on the market.

Not every tag has to interact with every other tag. In CK2 I often ignore wast regions of the map. Lime the steps. I don’t care about them. Or India. And when I play in Persia I don’t care about western Europe.

But there are plenty of good reasons not to add China in CK2. And they are all argued to death in the hundreds of china threads. Just look them up.

 

[Stuckenschmidt]

I have no doubt in my mind, that China will come sooner or later. But I hope later. And that, contrary to the Crusade DLC "Holy Fury" for CK2, we don`t have to wait six years for core mechanics to get fleshed out, while having the awesome opportunity to play a "Aboriginie Invasion" DLC in the meantime.

 

[NaiveCarto]

I just wanted to tell you we have read the thread and will keep reading the comments.

While personally I like the idea of an china expansion, I can say we have no expansions planned at the moment, and we are working hard toward an release and after that we will look for expansion ideas. I will NOT (and can not) promise anything, but I can thank you for providing an interesting read about chinese history, which I didnt have much knowledge about.

As a Chinese, I wish in one day there would be a Chinese-region expansion of IR.
We Chinese have a great mod of states between the total Chunqiu-Zhanguo period until China got united by Han, named Wending( 问鼎 ), which based on EU3.
And a group that I have took part in, have made a good transplant of it into EU4, as an additional part of Imperium Universalis, the great mod on EU4.Now my group is trying to translate it to English, so it can be offered to this mod.
I hope this could help IR's expansion in one day, and after IR comes to its release date, I believe there would be many mods to make great improvements on China region.

The map of our old project, Imperium Universalis China overhaul project:
about 608 provinces to express the China during Chunqiu-Zhanguo period.

@诸葛孔博 he is who in charge of the latest project for translating our special addition to English, to Imperium Universalis group. You can ask him for more information.