The Case for, Eventually, China

[诸葛孔博]

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 @NaiveCarto said we add China region to IU and use system of HRE to show China's political and diplomatic situation in that era.

Many players think that China is a difficult area to produce because, first, China has too large a provinces, so that in EU4 there are many ways to limit the expansion of the already unified regime in China.
This is actually a better solution in the historical context of IR or IU. At this time, China is in a state of long-term political separation, just as in the early modern Europe and Japan in the Shogun era, although these countries in China There are cultures and religions that are shared, but political entities are independent of each other, so provinces is not a big problem.
The second is the ambiguity of Chinese historical data. Compared with European producers, it is more difficult to obtain second-hand information about China than to read Chinese materials directly. This is like the Chinese MOD production team wants to make a European linguistic materials for Chinese translation are largely required for European MODs.
If this is needed by the IR/IU production team, you can contact us and the enthusiasts who are active in the forum to provide research by relevant sinologists.

 

[icedt729]

I'm working on the next installment, but in the meantime I want to make a few replies:

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.

Thanks for relying! I have a lot of confidence in the dev team's ability to set their own goals and priorities, so I'll just continue laying out the case for including China and leave the decision up to y'all. I've been working on a comparative history of Rome and China as a hobby for the past several years, so I've done quite a lot of research on the subject and can recommend primary and secondary sources if there's any interest.

Just out of personal interest, what book is this?

It was China: A New History by John Fairbank. It doesn't devote a lot of pages to pre-Tang history but it does have a very nice set of population density maps, including one for the Han period.

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.

I think the performance fears are based on the fear that the devs haven't learned anything from Rajas of India and all the optimization they've done since. I'm pretty sure they took some lessons away from all that work so I'm not particularly worried.

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.

Actually I'd be willing to help out with that translation, even just as a proofreader. I'm a native English speaker but I've read through chunks of 史记, 汉书 and 左传.

 

[Torneberge]

I've been working on a comparative history of Rome and China as a hobby for the past several years, so I've done quite a lot of research on the subject and can recommend primary and secondary sources if there's any interest.

No fret about it since I think you were aiming this towards the devs, but I'd definitely be interested in any source if you feel like throwing them out there. I've also been working on something related to this thread but my knowledge of China itself has been mostly learned as I go so I'm sure I have some big holes still.

 

[Apate1]

If they add China I wonder how the mega campaign will play?
Your country is unplayable because it's not on the map Ck 2

 

[Thure]

If they add China I wonder how the mega campaign will play?
Your country is unplayable because it's not on the map Ck 2

There will be no Mega Campaign at the first place because there are over 700 years between IR and CK2.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

If they add China I wonder how the mega campaign will play?
Your country is unplayable because it's not on the map Ck 2

There's already a pretty serious time gap, I doubt that CK 2 will be the game you eventually end up converting IR games to once the age of migrations is in.

 

[NaiveCarto]

Actually I'd be willing to help out with that translation, even just as a proofreader. I'm a native English speaker but I've read through chunks of 史记, 汉书 and 左传.

Thanks, now we are busy with prepareation of the final Exam in this month, so this translation is halted off. While, I am extremely delighted if one profession could help us.

 

[Chipmunk216]

A Chinese expansion would make it seriously tempting to expand the game's timeline, given that the Three Kingdoms period took place in the first couple of centuries AD. And let's be honest, we all want a longer game (and maybe, one day, expansions with multiple bookmarks) anyway.

 

[Comrade Kalle]

I would absolutely love something like this for IR

 

[Nyrael]

A Chinese expansion would make it seriously tempting to expand the game's timeline, given that the Three Kingdoms period took place in the first couple of centuries AD. And let's be honest, we all want a longer game (and maybe, one day, expansions with multiple bookmarks) anyway.

Not really. Imperator's gameplay ahould allow you to conquer most of civilized world before it ends. So extra time is pointless.
And if you do model the Imperial Period prperly, players will be all "Whaaaa why is my pretty empire falling apart whaaaa why can't I paint map anymore waaaah why PDS force all these civil wars waaaah". Some of us would like it, but honestly most people would be buthurt. They can just put a "Continue playing" button for those who want extra years, like they did in EU4.

 

[Gurkhal]

Not really. Imperator's gameplay ahould allow you to conquer most of civilized world before it ends. So extra time is pointless.
And if you do model the Imperial Period prperly, players will be all "Whaaaa why is my pretty empire falling apart whaaaa why can't I paint map anymore waaaah why PDS force all these civil wars waaaah". Some of us would like it, but honestly most people would be buthurt. They can just put a "Continue playing" button for those who want extra years, like they did in EU4.

That's probably how it would come down. I for one can't understand why people would like the Rome of Classical Antiquity when he Rome of Late Antiquity is infinite more interesting and much more things are going on. But I think that the quoted text above pretty much nails it. It will be up to modders let us try to save our empires painstakingly created in the 300 BC to 0 AD period from the internal rot and decay of the system and ambitions of selfish generals.

 

[Chipmunk216]

I agree that it's a lot easier to make rapid empire-building fun than long-term empire-maintaining (which is why I ultimately wouldn't be surprised if the devs don't change the timelime), but I think it would be entirely doable (though not trivial) to make playing large empires balanced and fun. If you have to spread your troops thinly to keep order, even local conflicts with barbarians can become very difficult (c.f. the Dacian Wars, the Illyrian Revolt), and there are always opportunities for grand-scale crises like that of the Third Century. Just holding a realm together in CK2 is (sometimes) a wild ride, after all.

Depending on how the game is balanced, I don't really worry about conquering the whole world before the end of the game anyway. That usually only happens in Paradox games through hyper-focused gamey strategies that I've never bothered with.

 

[Thure]

That's probably how it would come down. I for one can't understand why people would like the Rome of Classical Antiquity when he Rome of Late Antiquity is infinite more interesting and much more things are going on. But I think that the quoted text above pretty much nails it. It will be up to modders let us try to save our empires painstakingly created in the 300 BC to 0 AD period from the internal rot and decay of the system and ambitions of selfish generals.

Roman Empire has a big problem. It would bea big blob ruling over the whole meditarrean realm and without many other options as playable tags.

 

[Chipmunk216]

Roman Empire has a big problem. It would bea big blob ruling over the whole meditarrean realm and without many other options as playable tags.

Well, there's always new barbarian tribes from the forests and steppes. The question is whether Paradox could find a way to make them legitimately challenging other than just sending giant stacks of doom at you.

 

[Gurkhal]

Roman Empire has a big problem. It would bea big blob ruling over the whole meditarrean realm and without many other options as playable tags.

Well, there's always new barbarian tribes from the forests and steppes. The question is whether Paradox could find a way to make them legitimately challenging other than just sending giant stacks of doom at you.

The size of the Roman Empire wouldn't really be a bit problem since, as mentioned by @Chipmunk216 there are many and many different barbarian tribes, in the west, east, south and north of the empire's borders. In addition to at least two civlized kingdoms in the form of Armenia and Persia. I don't know if you've played Attila: Total War but it does a good job of showing just how many different groups there are, ready to tear into the weakening empires, both west and east, and that no part of the empire is secure from attack.

And add to this military vulnerability also domestic problems with economy and demograpy and corruption in the leadership, and it looks to me like a very interesting scenario to play in.

 

[Thure]

Well, there's always new barbarian tribes from the forests and steppes. The question is whether Paradox could find a way to make them legitimately challenging other than just sending giant stacks of doom at you.

It would still be an era without some of the famous Ancient powers. No Seleucids, no Ptolemids, no Greek City States, no Carthage, no tribes in Gaul like the Avernii or Helvetii, no Judea etc. etc.
Fir the variety the current start date is way better and more interesting. A Roman Empire/Late Antiquity should be it's own game with own mechanics.

 

[Jia Xu]

Having China would be a lot of fun.

 

[Austregisel]

Maybe another China-centered game would make more sense, I personally love Chinese history, even though I'm Brazilian, and relatively play the mods on CK2 and EUIV adding it, it would be good for Paradox to get another market, but the possibility of the Chinese government to ban the sale of a game over china, as they already do, games, movies and music, so I think the maximum we will have is mods at least for now.
But the point that bothers me the most about this is that when the player unifies China, there is no way he can stop, there are no mechanics that reproduce the decadence of the empire, so I think I: R finishes so early in the beginning of the first century, because when the Empire was formed, you have little time to conquer the world, unless you did it well before, it would be an infinite blobing, just as I unify China in Imperium Universalis (EUIV)

 

[Thure]

But the point that bothers me the most about this is that when the player unifies China, there is no way he can stop, there are no mechanics that reproduce the decadence of the empire, so I think I: R finishes so early in the beginning of the first century, because when the Empire was formed, you have little time to conquer the world, unless you did it well before, it would be an infinite blobing, just as I unify China in Imperium Universalis (EUIV)

What's the difference with every other empire in this game? The whole game is about empire forming and blobbing and deal with internal issues.

 

[Gurkhal]

It would still be an era without some of the famous Ancient powers. No Seleucids, no Ptolemids, no Greek City States, no Carthage, no tribes in Gaul like the Avernii or Helvetii, no Judea etc. etc.
Fir the variety the current start date is way better and more interesting. A Roman Empire/Late Antiquity should be it's own game with own mechanics.

But other famous ancient and early medieval powers would be in. The Sasanians, Goths, Vandals, Huns, Franks etc.

But I also agree that there would need to be some special mechanics for the Late Roman Empire.