The Case for, Eventually, China

[icedt729]

I'm sure that, like CK2, Imperator will probably get several DLCs expanding the on-map cultures and possibly adding new start dates before there are any map extensions in any direction. Because of the huge gulf between the Frankish feudal model that CK2 was built for and the centralized empires of the Tang and Song, the decision was eventually made to represent China as an off-map power rather than as a playable batch of titles and characters. However, in Imperator's timeline we do not have this sharp divide between Chinese and Western societies- as a matter of fact China and the Mediterranean are strikingly alike throughout this period (if you don't believe me, take a look at the works of Prof. Walter Scheidel at Stanford: https://web.stanford.edu/~scheidel/acme.htm).

Imperator's timeline, which takes us from the wars of the Diaodochi to the reign of Augustus, runs from the critical phase of the Warring States period through to the decline of the Western Han in China. The mechanics already being developed to suit the Mediterranean and the rise of Rome's empire are a comfortable fit for Chinese antiquity- massive levied armies; colonization and conquest; the building of roads, canals, and border defenses; and the growth of massive cities fed by trade. Here I'll lay out a few relevant points for how China could be implemented well within the framework of Imperator: Rome's design and mechanics.

The Setting

In 303 BC, the first so-called Vertical Alliance against Qin has recently fallen apart, leaving the main seven kingdoms and the several smaller states with effectively a diplomatic clean slate. The young King Zhaoxiang of Qin has taken the throne after several years of instability, and although historically his long reign would see Qin become the dominant power in China, at this point it is still unclear whether he can effectively manage his kingdom and exploit the infighting of the other six states. Qin has their densely-populated heartland on the Wei River valley, as well as the arid, hilly, partially-Sinicized highlands west of the bend of the Yellow River and the rich but, again, only partially-settled regions of Ba and Shu in the Sichuan basin. Careful development of these borderlands will be just as important for Qin's future conquests as military strategy will be.

Although by 303 BC Qin already has a slight upper hand over the other states, it still has major rivals and faces a number of looming potential threats. The largest of the Warring States, Chu, has vast manpower and resources at its command but struggles to manage its widely-dispersed population and numerous tribal minorities, as well as a strong and independent aristocracy that resists centralizing reforms. The Three Jins- Han, Wei, and Zhao- are great military powers with capable generals and ministers, but their risky location in the middle of China calls for cunning diplomacy. Qi, with its prosperous capital Linzi, is the economic and intellectual center of Warring States China, but has not been a significant military force for several generations and needs to rebuild an effective army. And Yan, the borderland state to the northeast, has plentiful room for expansion and development if they can fend off the stronger states to their south for long enough. The Qiang people to the west and the Xiongnu to the north are still fragmented, but historically would go on to become major threats to Chinese borders.

In short, 303 BC presents multiple gameplay possibilities and diverse potential outcomes. There are seven major states which, while reasonably closely-matched, each have their own unique political, cultural, and geographic qualities. There are also a few small states in their midst (notably Lu, Song, Zhou and Zhongshan) for those challenge-seeking players, and on three sides there are numerous tribal peoples, both nomadic and agrarian. In geopolitical terms, the setting offers enough variety and dynamism to be a worthwhile inclusion.

Politics and Warfare

As I noted above, there can be very serious challenges in making one game model very diverse political or social structures- CK2 being ill-suited to contemporary China being a strong example. But we're fortunate that the basic mechanics we know of so far for I:R make for a very reasonable fit for China through the Warring States, Qin and Western Han periods. In many respects, the Warring States kingdoms were much like the Diadochi kingdoms, with power concentrated in the ruler's court, politics dominated by a small number of elite families, and borders set by the march of their armies. Greco-Roman provinces correspond nicely to Chinese commanderies. In the same way that "laws" model the social and political reforms of Rome and other Mediterranean states, they can also model the various reforms pursued by the Warring States and, later, by the unified Qin and Han empires. The POP system, while already abstracted to cover the variety of the Mediterranean, Central Asia and India, are about as good of a fit for China as they are for Rome- the need to juggle agricultural productivity against military manpower was just as pressing in China as elsewhere.

In terms of the military, I:R's military traditions can also be neatly applied to the Chinese case. The three branches could correspond to the North, the West and the South- distinct Warring States kingdoms in the early game, and distinct frontiers of the Han empire from mid to late. The Northern tree, corresponding especially to Zhao, Wei and Yan in the early period, would emphasize chariots and cavalry that were suitable for fighting in the Central Plains of China; later it could provide more bonuses to fortifications or logistics to mirror the strategy used against the nomadic hordes along China's northern frontier. The Southern tree corresponds to the Chu style of warfare, where swordsmen and crossbowmen dominated the hilly, marshy, forested terrain of the region and riverine fleets fought up and down the Yangzi and its tributaries; later to the conquest of China's extreme south, which leaned heavily on colonization, road-building, and light infantry warfare. Lastly the West corresponds to the Qin military approach, marked not by any particular tactical specialty but by extremely efficient systems of mass mobilization, transportation and logistics, military discipline, and rewards for performance in battle that motivated the low-ranking soldiers; later it shifts towards the Han strategy towards the 'Western Regions,' where small mobile armies built up a system of tributaries and clients along the trade routes through Gansu and the Tarim Basin.

I'll build the case further in later posts, but I think this is enough to get the thread rolling. I'd like to invite everyone's feedback, questions and criticisms. I'd also greatly appreciate any and all attention from the devs, if they happen to take a look at this.

 

[icedt729]

Interesting read. I'm not much of a historian, but i'm interested in what the trade good and population density compositions would look like if you could provide that later.

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. I'll dig around online to see if I can find any good ones in the meantime.

Regarding trade goods, almost all of the goods mentioned in the Trade dev diary are produced somewhere in or near China (exceptions are things like woad, glass, or papyrus). Silk was the major international export, since silk production techniques were virtually unknown outside of China until well after the end of I:R's timeline, but the volume of internal trade was very high and regional trade supported the growth of major cities in China just as it did in the Mediterranean (in the Warring States period, these were mainly state capitals; by the early Han they had the imperial capital Chang'an plus the Five Metropolises). Salt and iron production were staples of the economy and the state finances; stone was less important because construction was mainly in wood, rammed earth, or bricks rather than quarried stone and writing was done on silk, cloth or wooden slats rather than on papyrus. But it's particularly important that horses were only readily available in the band of grassland contested between the Chinese and the nomads. Han's westward expansion during the time of Han Wudi was motivated in large part by the need for horses to supply the Han cavalry in their wars against the Xiongnu.

It's also worth noting that elephants were indigenous to what is now southwestern China, and although I don't know of references to them being used in war during I:R's timeframe they certainly were a few centuries later. They could add a little more variety to warfare in the region.

Icedt729 might want to talk about the Xiongnu and Mongolia so I won't go into it too much, but the consolidation of Chinese states and their encroachment onto the steppe was the direct cause of the Xiongnu unifying and posing such a potent threat to the Han Dynasty; as a game mechanic I think it's practically ideal--the Chinese states will be fighting insularly for the first half of the game, and then unify only to find the Xiongnu have now emerged as a peer to whoever managed to win.

I probably should have led in with the Xiongnu, since including the eastern steppe would be just as important an addition was China proper and would arguably have more impact on the rest of I:R's map. I decided to leave them out just because we haven't had any dev diaries that deal with nomads yet, so I don't know if they're going to just be "regular tribals with horse archers" or if there are special mechanics planned for them. Either way, the Xiongnu are the prototype for all later steppe empires and were responsible for displacing the Yuezhi into Central Asia during the I:R timeline, leading to the destruction of the Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms and the rise of the Kushanas in their place. The Han-Xiongnu rivalry was truly epic in its own right and regularly spilled over into the Tarim basin and Ferghana valley, which are already on-map.

 

[icedt729]

They should also add Taoism, Confuscianism, Mohism, Legalism (I know it's a philosophy, but it would be best represented by a religion within the game's mechanics), and Chinese Folk as religions to mess around with. Maybe add a Mandate of Heaven system too. Also a few Rice Kingdoms in Japan (with Shinto of course) and Indochina & Burma for China and India to Duke it out colonially.

I don't think the Baijia philosophies should be treated as religions, for several reasons. One, most of our classifications of the different philosophers (Daoist, Legalist, etc) are not divisions the philosophers themselves would have recognized; they were invented later by Han scholars. Second, we have very little indication of these philosophies (which were oriented towards the state or at least the literate elite) had much impact on the masses; how would we even decide which pops were Mohist or Confucian? There wasn't much of a regional character to them either.

I'm more in favor of them being character traits that impact stats, possible events and decisions, or potentially even the political/ military options available (for example, a Legalist ruler may have access to laws modeling their harsh criminal code; a Confucian might be more focused on bolstering Legitimacy or reducing unrest). Key ministers and even rulers did adopt Baijia philosophy as elements of their rule; but there should really only be one popular religion in China. I'll address this in more detail in an upcoming post.

https://www.totalwar.com/total-war-three-kingdoms
Already a game about that time period due in 2 months

Three Kingdoms starts two centuries after I:R ends. Not the same time period.

 

[icedt729]

I've noticed that a lot of posts in this thread revolve around the timing of various events in Chinese history. There are also certain suggestions that I have for China content that draw on historical events that I can't assume the average user here is familiar with. So for the next entry in my case for China (eventually), I present...

A Short Overview of China, 304 BC - 9 AD

Qin's Rise to Dominance

Spoiler

In the first post of this thread, I introduced the key states at the start date- Qin, Wei, Han, Zhao, Chu, Qi and Yan, plus their minor state and tribal neighbors. In Qin, King Zhaoxiang (personal name: Ying Ji) is in his early twenties and only a few years into his reign, which had been preceded by a bloody succession crisis and a major defeat at the hands of an anti-Qin alliance. With Qin in poor shape, conflict shifted back to Chu, the largest and most populous of the warring states, against a shifting alliance often centered around Wei or Qi. Under Zhaoxiang, Qin cunningly switched between supporting one side or the other in order to undermine major alliances and to gradually increase its territory. By the 270s Qin had become a dominant power and was advancing on all fronts, driving Chu out of their ancient capital in the southeast, breaking into the Central Plains and toppling the Zhou in the northeast, and conquering the Rong state of Yiqu to the west. When King Zhaoxiang died in 251 BC, Qin had already achieved a superpower status comparable to that of Rome's after the Second Punic War, ruling over roughly half of Warring States China. The other six states had succeeded in maintaining a balance of power amongst themselves at the price of allowing Qin's power to spiral out of control.

Spoiler

After two very brief reigns, Zhaoxiang's great-grandson King Zheng (personal name: Ying Zheng) assumed the throne at age 13 in 246 BC. After famously surviving an assassination attempt by Jing Ke (a story adapted, very loosely, into the movie Hero), he would unify the Warring States and proclaim himself Emperor before the age of 40. He ruled the Qin Empire for over a decade, launching savage preemptive attacks on the Xiongnu nomads and constructing massive public works, but after his death in 210 BC, the Qin court once again disintegrated into infighting and succession struggles, and at the same time a general revolt broke out across the empire. Commoners rose up against heavy tax and labor duties, and former nobles of the old states proclaimed their own kingdoms.

Liu Bang and the Early Han Empire

The most important warlords to rise up out of these rebellions were both Southerners from Chu, but came from opposite class backgrounds. Liu Bang, who would go on to found the Han state, was a commoner who had only ever held a minor local office. His ally-turned-enemy, Xiang Yu, was a scion of the Chu high aristocracy, born into a line of hereditary generals. When the Qin capital was taken in 206 BC and the dynasty officially toppled, Xiang Yu held the upper hand, and true to his noble background he set about re-establishing a patchwork of kingdoms with himself as bawang- hegemon or overking- and other nobles and ministers as local rulers. This arrangement is referred to as "the Eighteen Kingdoms" in later scholarship.

Liu Bang, being an important warlord but also a peasant and an erstwhile threat to Xiang Yu, was given a state to rule in the remote west of China, where Xiang hoped he would not cause much trouble (this kingdom was centered on the Han river valley between modern Sichuan and Shaanxi, hence the name "Han"). Unfortunately for Xiang, the Eighteen Kingdoms exploded into open war almost immediately as the ambitious new kings turned on each other. Before long it was down to just Liu Bang and Xiang Yu themselves. In 202 BC, the same year as the Battle of Zama in Africa, Liu crushed Xiang's forces at Gaixia. The wounded Xiang committed suicide and the victorious Liu declared a new empire: the Han.

In setting up his dynasty, Liu Bang took a lesson from the failure of Xiang Yu's eighteen kingdoms: if you were going to grant others lands of their own, you need to be sure to keep enough for yourself to maintain your military and political dominance over them. He chose to rule as huangdi or emperor, as King Zheng had, rather than as bawang or overking like Xiang Yu, founding the new capital Chang'an near the old Qin capital and establishing a centralized bureaucracy accountable directly to him. But he also saw the need to reward the generals and ministers who had carried him to victory in the wars against Qin and Chu. To satisfy them, he carved the eastern part of China- prosperous and cultured, but relatively weak militarily- into vassal states for them to rule, while holding the strategic western part for himself. The system worked, and Liu Bang and his successors were able to gradually split up and rein in the vassal kingdoms until they became provinces by another name.

Where Liu Bang's policy was less successful was in dealing with the nomads. Following their brush with the united Qin Empire in 215 BC, the Xiongnu peoples had come together in a powerful steppe confederation under Modu Chanyu (also known as Maodun). Modu expanded this confederation into a true nomadic empire, the first of its kind, during the post-Qin years of civil war in China, bringing all the nomads between the Pamirs and the Liao River under his rule and launching ever-larger raids into what was now Han territory. When Liu Bang led a large counterattack into Xiongnu lands, Modu's army isolated and surrounded them, utterly destroying the Han army at the Battle of Baideng in 200 BC. Liu Bang barely escaped with his life, in a rout that presaged Crassus's disaster at Carrhae a century and a half later.

After this catastrophe, Liu Bang could only choose appeasement. Han instituted the heqin or "harmonious intermarriage" policy, buying the Xiongnu Chanyus off with Liu princesses and annual tributes. The infantry-based levied army inherited from Warring States models simply wasn't effective at either resisting nomadic raids or at defeating their armies in open battle and it would take generations for a new Han army to emerge.

Emperor Wu and the Han's Critical Age

After Liu Bang's death, the Han state was nominally ruled by a series of weak emperors while Liu Bang's wife and her Lü clansmen actually controlled the court. The first emperor to rule without the overbearing influence of the Lü clan, Emperor Wen ( lpersonal name: Liu Heng, reigned 180-157 BC) was a diligent administrator who slashed taxes and labor duties, scrupulously managed the state's budgets and stockpiles, and instituted the earliest form of appointment-by-examination. His successor Emperor Jing (Liu Qi, reigned 157-141 BC) followed suit, and the relative peace, political stability, and good governance of these decades led to extensive economic growth across the empire.

Emperor Wu (Liu Che, 141-87 BC) brought about a new era for the empire. Where his predecessors had favored a Daoist-influenced, minimalist approach to government, Emperor Wu wanted an activist policy towards economic, military and diplomatic affairs. Where Wen and Jing's lax policy had allowed the power of local elites to expand, Wu brought back central control. As part of his new approach to rule, Emperor Wu also endorsed a Confucian philosophy of government even while looking to Legalist precedents as models for specific policies- this combination would come to dominate Chinese political practice for millennia.

65 years after Liu Bang's defeat by the Xiongnu, Emperor Wu was the first Han ruler to turn the tables on them. From 135 BC onwards, Wu repudiated the heqin intermarriage policy and launched an all-out offensive against the Xiongnu empire. At great expense, the Han state built up a true cavalry army capable of operating for long stretches on the steppes, and over years of bloody and costly fighting they succeeded in breaking the back of Xiongnu power. By 119 BC Han forces had annexed the Hexi Corridor in Gansu, enclosed the rich pastureland of the Ordos region, and driven the Xiongnu north of the Gobi Desert. This ushered in a new era of trade and diplomacy between Han and Central Asia, the beginnings of the Silk Road.

Wu's conquests also took in China's southern borderlands as far as northern Vietnam, as well as parts of the Korean peninsula. The price of this expansionism was a series of major tax hikes which strained the agrarian economy. The registered population fell as people sought to evade enrollment and thereby dodge taxes, further straining the imperial treasury. Wu also became increasingly paranoid and despotic as his reign went on, conducting several bloody purges and, most famously, sentencing the historian Sima Qian to castration for speaking in defense of a purged general. The later part of his reign was marked by peasant unrest and by violence in the capital.

Spoiler

*

Although Wu's reign ultimately ended in overreach abroad and tyranny at home, he had reshaped China and its place in the world permanently. His conquests had brought all of what we now consider "China Proper" under Han rule; he established permanent diplomatic relations with Central Asia and Iran; he broke the power of the Xiongnu Empire; he turned the oasis states of the Tarim Basin into Han satellites. In the long term, he also unwittingly laid the groundwork for the rise of Confucian scholars as the dominant political class in China.

*A note on the map: the green line marks the maximum extent of the Xiongnu Empire. Light orange marks Han territory at the start of Han Wudi's reign; darker orange marks territorial gains. The brown region in the Tarim basin indicates vassal states.

The Liu Clan Loses Control

The emperors immediately after Wu tended again towards moderation and a light touch, relaxing the burdens on the populace while investing heavily in the state's legitimacy and cultural prestige. The economy not only recovered but flourished, with the nomadic threat greatly reduced, new farmlands opened, and trade routes expanded and deepened. But like the Lü clan during and after the reign of Liu Bang, the imperial consort clans once again started to extend their control over court affairs.

Starting from the reign of Emperor Yuan (Liu Shi, 48-33 BC), the clansmen of Empress Wang gradually extended their reach, with some gaining high appointments through their close connection to the emperor, then helping their friends and relatives to climb into the middle ranks beneath them. Many of these Wang ministers served ably and responsibly, but their growing network undermined the authority of the Liu imperial house while threatening the political prospects of the traditional nobility and the professional bureaucrats.

Things came to a head under Emperor Cheng (Liu Ao, 33-7 BC). Only periodically interested in matters of state, Cheng would sneak out of the palace disguised as a commoner to enjoy the city life in Chang'an, eventually taking a dancing girl from the city, and her sister, as concubines. He placed great trust in his uncles and cousins in the Wang clan, ennobling several of them, granting them high civil and military offices, and generally deferring to them on policy. Cheng raised Wang Mang, a distant cousin, to the highest imperial office in 8 BC, then promptly died of a stroke.

Wang Mang became regent for the underage Emperor Ping in 1 BC, and used his newfound power to drive all opposition out of the capital and lay the groundwork for his eventual usurpation. A learned man, Wang fabricated omens and prophecies that showed the Han was reaching its natural end and that he was Heaven's chosen successor in order to smooth over the coming transition. In the end, it came down to murder- Wang Mang poisoned the young Emperor Ping and, after a brief period as "acting emperor," he formally abolished the Han and proclaimed his new Xin state in 9 AD. The house of Liu had fallen.

 

[icedt729]

Next installment: how the current known mechanics fit China. First, the mechanics we already know, as described in the dev diaries:

Monarchies (Dev diary #33)

The Legitimacy and Succession Crisis mechanics are an excellent fit for the Chinese states, as both the Qin and Han royal houses illustrate (alternating between strong, long-lived monarchs and periods of disorder). At game start, Qin under King Zhaoxiang is in a condition of low Legitimacy and Stability but with a young, high-stat ruler- its manpower reserves are greatly reduced by Freemen unhappiness but will recover as long as Zhaoxiang avoids major setbacks early in his reign (as he did historically). More generally the need to maintain legitimacy and avoid succession problems were universal for Chinese rulers.

Tribes (#35)

At game start, what is now the far south of China was populated by dozens of petty tribes (referred to in Chinese sources as the Hundred Yue). By the time of Emperor Wu (mid-game) the region was dominated by three large chiefdoms- Yelang, Nanyue and Minyue. Likewise the steppe went from many small clans to one sprawling confederation under the Xiongnu within a century. In short, the tribal groups surrounding China had a tendency to become more centralized, and to form larger stable groups, as time went on. The Centralization and Tribal Federation mechanics all seem like effective ways to model this process, which was also at work in the Korean peninsula (where true states emerged) and among the Qiang chiefdoms in the northwest.

Religion and Omens (#24)

It just so happens that, as in Greco-Roman religion, divination was one of the most important public and private aspects of Chinese religion. A wide range of techniques were used, from oracle bones to the Yijing to the interpretation of natural events, and were applied to matters of state and to the overall legitimacy of the ruler and his policies. The only difficulty in applying the current I:R religion mechanic is the lack of obvious deities for the Chinese religion, but there was a wide range of different sacrifices (to ancestors, spirits, sacred mountains, etc) whose names could be mined for equivalents.

Civil Wars and Independence Wars (#16)

This area is a little trickier. The distinction between civil wars fought over the empire as a whole and independence wars fought to shear off a part of it is an important and necessary distinction; the challenge is in drawing up the cultures and cores (are there cores in I:R? if not, what is the closest equivalent?) in such a way that both are possible in a realistic way. After Ying Zheng's death, the most important rebels wanted to carve up the Qin empire, not take the whole of it for themselves- but this type of regional/ noble resistance died out early in the Han period, not to return for centuries.

The above list is clearly not exhaustive, but it hits several points that I wanted to clearly emphasize. In my next post I'll identify some of the particularities of China that could use additional mechanics, and make suggestions about how those mechanics could work.

 

[icedt729]

Now I'll note what I see as possible China-related mechanics, in order of importance:

1. Concubinage (high priority)
In Chinese practice, rulers and aristocrats almost always had several concubines. The children of concubines could and did inherit, but were (theoretically) always second to any of the primary wife's sons. This system was partly responsible for China's byzantine court politics, with the multiple in-law clans and their various offspring and kinsmen all attempting to influence matters of policy and succession. For a western comparison, see how the polygamy practiced by the Argead kings in Macedonia worked out for them.

2. Fiefdoms (moderately high priority)
We already know of several types of vassals or dependencies in I:R, but what I'm proposing here are more like unremovable governors than tribute-paying subject states. I see two main applications for this mechanic:
- First, it models the fiefs handed out by Liu Bang to his supporters, which continued to exist throughout the Western Han even as their autonomy was gradually curtailed.
- Secondly, it could model the strong aristocracy in Chu, who were largely responsible for the state's failure to bring its full resources to bear against the other Warring States.

Essentially, the idea is that the transition from feudal order to centralized bureaucracy is a tricky, gradual one. The Qin empire gave out no fiefdoms and made no concessions to the nobility- as soon as the great conqueror Ying Zheng died his empire was shattered into the Eighteen Kingdoms. Xiang Yu overcorrected, giving too many fiefs to too many disloyal people- before long they destroyed each other too. Then Liu Bang finally got it right, giving out enough to satisfy his key supporters and the nobility writ large, but keeping enough for himself to keep military and political dominance.

From then on, the fiefdoms were gradually brought under ever more central control, first by removing all kings who were not of the Liu imperial house; then by splitting and shrinking them; and eventually by asserting the authority to appoint officials within the fiefdoms, essentially turning the title "king" into a sinecure with no actual power. In order to mirror this process, I argue it would be better for these fiefs to be a special type of territorial office or governorate within one tag, rather than as tags of their own in a kind of vassal relationship with the central court.

In balance terms, since Chinese unification is likely to happen more quickly than a Mediterranean or Central Asian one, the need to manage fiefs could enrich Chinese empire management and lower the risk of them simply steamrolling all of their smaller neighbors too early on.

3. Philosophical Schools (moderate priority)
As in the Hellenistic world, this was a great era for philosophy and social thought in China- the great thinkers Xunzi, Mengzi (Mencius) and Hanfeizi all lived in the early part of I:R's timeline- and these thinkers plied the Warring States in search of rulers willing to apply their philosophical principles to government. It would be a shame not to incorporate them in some way, whether as progressive sets of Laws or decisions, as itinerant characters seeking office in the States, as a kind of equivalent to CK2's education traits or in some other form.

One of Qi's great strengths was its Jixia Academy, where the state paid philosophers to take up residence, hold debate and put their works to writing; Wei was a great producer of Legalist scholars, including Shang Yang (who went to Qin and reformed their government); Qin produced no great thinkers of its own but did a fairly good job of poaching talent.

I would caution that conventional labels like Legalist, Confucian, and Daoist have had a long history and their use in, say, a Tang context or a Ming context may be very different from what it was in the Warring States, Qin or Han. This can make it challenging to determine exactly what they meant at any given time, and what their development signifies. I can elaborate on this further if there's interest.

4. Navigable Rivers and Canals (moderately ow priority)
Chinese rulers of the Warring States were keen to the advantages of water transport, so while only the Yangzi was large enough to bear large naval battles (as in the Chu-Wu wars before I:R or the Three Kingdoms period after), the Yellow, Wei and Huai rivers were all used extensively for trade and transportation. The Yangzi was also linked to the Huai by a major canal, built before I:R's start date expressly for the purpose of moving troops and supplies. Canal-building of a more limited scale went on throughout the period, supplying cities with fresh water, irrigating farmlands, and facilitating trade and communication. It would be nice to see these implemented in some way.

5. Noble Titles (low priority)
This would be primarily a flavor feature rather than one that impacts gameplay in a big way. Basically some characters would hold a noble title, bringing with it an income and privileges, while others would not, and their income and status would rely more heavily on their official careers. This reflects the distinction between the nobility, who held hereditary ranks that could only be given or taken away by the ruler, and the scholar-officials, who did not have any hereditary status and would fall back into obscurity if they did not continue to hold appointed office. In some ways this is similar to a distinction between true Patrician families and the families of "New Men."

There were five traditional ranks, from lowest to highest: nan 男 or baron, zi 子 or count, hou 侯 or marquise, gong 公 or duke, and wang 王 or king. By Warring States times the distinctions were minor, so there's no need to include all five. For Warring States kingdoms, the ruler himself is a King (wang), a holder of a fief (see my "fiefdoms" suggestion) could be ranked as a Duke (gong), and noblemen without fiefs would be Marquises (hou). For a united empire, the ruler is an Emperor (huangdi), the holder of a fief is a King (wang), and a nobleman without a fief is still a Marquis (hou). This could be made more complex but it's really not necessary.

A few more notes on Chinese feudalism: one, although Chinese households divided the family property on inheritance, a noble rank could only be passed on to the eldest son, with other sons receiving either a lower title or none at all. Enforcing primogeniture in titles but partible inheritance in property kept titles from proliferating uncontrollably and wore down the economic might of the nobles over time. Two, while fiefs were an important part of Chinese governance at the time, most noblemen did not hold fiefs in the sense of lands that were under their administrative/military control. Most were instead granted the tax revenues from a set of households- simply an income and not an actual position of authority. So in game terms a Marquisate is simply a salary (income going to them rather than to the state) and not a governorship or other political office.

In game terms, this means that the limited batch of families in the realm will include the royal clan itself, several persistent "noble" families who will linger around due to their ranks even if not gainfully employed, and several "scholar-official" families who rise up on merit and will disappear again if none of them are given an office within a certain timeframe. While the nobles themselves can be a liability, it will be necessary to have a certain number of titles and/or fiefs given out in order to maintain Legitimacy, character Loyalty or Citizen happiness (this need could possibly be reduced over time through technological advances, Laws, etc).

Additionally, I have a more "out-there" recommendation:

-Passive raiding/ border tension
This would be a global mechanic rather than a China-specific one. Essentially, under certain circumstances a province under the rule of an agrarian state that borders a province ruled by nomads will be subjected to low-level raiding. This would reduce happiness and income in the settled province while increasing it in the nomadic one. Good relations between the settled and nomadic state could reduce the effect (but not eliminate it), while bad relations would make it more extreme; the settled power could defend against it by building fortifications or attaching armies, while the nomadic power could increase raiding power by attaching troops or possibly setting a "raid" governor policy. The idea is to make these nomad-settled borders more complex and volatile, impacting China-Xiongnu relations but also Iran, India and parts of Europe.

 

[icedt729]

Having seen the subject mechanics in the latest dev diary, it does look like Chinese fiefs could be modeled as subjects with a mix of attributes from feudatories (manpower gain and culture-group restriction) and satrapies (tax gain, military tradition and monarchy requirements). Flesh them out with a few flavor events and they should work pretty well.

That being said, time for the next installment:

Chinese Warfare from the Warring States to the Han

The general arc of Chinese military development is similar to what we see in Mycenean, Classical and Hellenistic Greece. The introduction of bronze and the chariot gave rise to a small warrior elite who had access to precious horses, chariots and bronze weaponry. From around the 6th century BC the spread of iron casting and improvements to weapons and armor then made the infantry an effective arm of the military, revolutionizing warfare. Later still, shortly before the beginning of I:R, true cavalry was adopted, although it did not completely displace the chariot until the very end of the game's timeframe. The whole period was marked by armies becoming bigger, better-organized, and more professionalized, in a race to build the most efficient war machine.

Weapons and Tactics

Spoiler

Heavy infantry of the Terracotta Army

The terracotta army buried with Qin Shihuang gives us an image of what a standing army of the Warring States would look like- distinct companies of heavy infantry, cavalry, archers, crossbowmen and chariots, led by a hierarchy of junior officers under the general at the top. Most are equipped with iron and leather lamellar armor, and the main melee weapons are long double-edged swords, spears of various lengths, and the distinctive Chinese polearm called the ge (usually translated as "halberd" or "dagger-axe"). These standing units, which were armed at state expense, given thorough training, and regularly replenished by fresh conscripts, provided the core of campaign armies which would be bolstered by short-term levies from the population at large (many of whom would have already served in the standing units for a number of years, and therefore already had some training or even combat experience). A year or more of formal training was common.

Military writings dating to the Warring States period show that generals of the time already had a keen understanding of the different capabilities of the troops under their command. Chariots seem to have been favored for frontal attacks against disorganized or wavering infantry, but only if the terrain was favorable; cavalry was regarded as less effective than chariots in head-on strikes but faster and able to move across rougher terrain. For the infantry, by far the largest arm of the armies but also the one with the most uneven quality, proper discipline and the careful selection of battlegrounds was stressed. Field fortifications, siege equipment borne on carts, and the importance of reconnaissance, espionage and proper supply also figure.

It's also worth noting that the Chinese crossbow was a key military technology that almost totally displaced recurve bows due to the tremendous draw strength they could make use of (the more powerful ones being drawn with the feet and both hands) and the relatively short training needed to produce a skilled marksman with it. The Chinese also used cast rather than wrought iron, which was brittle but could be produced very quickly and cheaply through repeated use of standardized molds. The Chinese experimented with forging cast iron or blending cast and wrought iron together, allowing them to make progressively higher-grade metal, until by Eastern Han times (shortly after the end of I:R) they found the techniques to consistently produce true steel. Metallurgy could be regarded as another technical advantage that Chinese armies had over their contemporaries elsewhere, alongside the crossbow.

Organization and Leadership

Spoiler

A classic Warring States sword, belonging to a King of Yue

As noted above, Warring States armies generally had both a core of conscript-soldiers serving terms full-time in standing units, and ad hoc units raised from the general populace as needed. This meant that the core source of manpower was the small landowner who provided his own arms, like in a Polybian legion or a Greek militia. Some states offered privileges and tax exemptions to those who could provide a full kit and perform physical feats in armor; Qin invented a whole hierarchy of ranks and perks that could only be attained by killing enemies in battle. The high tempo of warfare during the period meant that, in addition to those who had cycled through the standing army and received formal training there, a large swathe of the adult male population were combat veterans.

Leadership of the army increasingly shifted away from hereditary officials in most states and towards a class called the shi, usually rendered as "knights" or "gentlemen." This was a group made up of the unranked junior members of noble clans and of literate, upwardly-mobile commoners, and they filled the new, meritocratic military and administrative bureaucracies. They brought a more pragmatic and unchivalrous attitude towards warfare than the old chariot-riding elites of the early Zhou, since their status rested on knowledge and technical skill rather than on hereditary privilege.

The total population of the Warring States was in the tens of millions, and by the 3rd century BC army sizes in the hundreds of thousands are reported for major battles like Yique and Changping. Raising, training and supplying such large armies was a tremendous organizational challenge, and these challenges spurred on Warring States governments to maximize efficiency.

Western Han Developments

Spoiler

Western Han foot troops

With Liu Bang's victory over Xiang Yu but defeat at the hands of Modu Chanyu, the Han state had less and less need for an army effective at fighting other Chinese, and more and more need for one that could fight Xiongnu. In order to do this, they needed cavalry, especially horse archers. Chariots and massed infantry were too ineffective against nomadic armies for the logistical burden they created- so chariots were gradually phased out while the infantry took on a new role as defenders of border walls, frontier towns and military colonies while the enlarged ranks of the cavalry took charge of the battlefield.

In order to pay for this new cavalry army, the Western Han government began to accept scutage payments from the populace in lieu of conscripted military service- this scutage was used to pay for salaried professionals able to undergo long, rigorous cavalry training and to spend long careers on the frontier. So while conscription was legally still in effect, many households paid their way out of it and those conscript-soldiers who did serve had a less critical role and saw less combat. Society as a whole became less militarized. The new frontier armies, like Marian legions, were a social class and interest group unto themselves. This was the army that Emperor Wu used to shatter the Xiongnu Empire and spread Han power into Central Asia, Indochina and the Korean Peninsula.

 

[icedt729]

Cultures, Pops and Tags

In 304 BC, there was a strong, shared Chinese identity (in those times called Hua 华 or Huaxia 华夏; the modern term Han 汉 hadn't been coined yet) that nonetheless had significant regional differences in spoken dialect, material culture, music and the like. These regional differences are mostly known through archaeology or anecdotes in written sources, so the boundaries are not known in great detail and there is a great deal of room for interpretation and informed guesswork. In addition to the unambiguously "Chinese" populace, there were also non-Chinese living in state societies (like Yiqu, Zhongshan and the former kingdom of Yue), in agrarian tribes (like the various Man and Baiyue peoples), or as nomads (like the Qiang, Xiongnu or Donghu), across a broad range of ethnolinguistic groupings (Culture Groups). That is to say, the in-game Warring States would be populated not just by "civilized" Chinese pops, but also non-Chinese civilized and uncivilized ones, and the mix of these different cultures, culture groups and pop types will be important for modeling (and balancing) the various Warring States. Here, I'll do a region-by-region breakdown of my suggestions for the demographics of each area, as well as the tags that I believe should be present there.

Nomenclature is tricky here, and it may take some creativity to create a good, descriptive name for each needed culture. There's also plenty of room for debate on my conclusions here, so I invite feedback and criticism from other posters on this.

I wrote and posted this from my phone, but I'll be drawing maps to accompany this and will edit them in when I'm able to.

North China

This area, centered on the Yellow and Wei rivers, is the center of mass for the Chinese culture group and to six of the seven major states, plus a number of smaller ones including Lu, Song and Zhongshan. The Chinese cultures of the area are, in my opinion, best divided into Western (Qin or Guanzhong, centered on the Wei River Valley), Central (Zhongguo or Guandong, in the middle reaches of the Yellow River), Northern (Jin or Sanjin, in the upland states of Wei, Zhao and Hann), and Eastern (difficult to name, but centered on Qi, Yan and Lu; could maybe be split in two).

In addition to the Chinese majority, most of the states of North China also had a non-Chinese minority; Chinese sources do a poor job of describing them in detail but we are still able to do a rough division. In Qin (excluding their lands in Sichuan, which I'll describe in the South China portion) the main minority are Rong people. In the Three Jin region, the Di are the primary minority, but in Zhongshan they made up a particularly large part of the population. Yan starts with small numbers of Di, but historically conquered large territories populated by Donghu and Gojoseon people in the game's early decades. Qi would have its own small, well-integrated Yi or Dongyi population.

Only the area immediately around the Yellow River would have a purely Chinese population, but many of the Rong, Di and Yi pops should be slaves and freemen rather than tribesmen; they had been in close contact with Chinese governments for centuries by then, and caused these states little trouble during this period.

Regarding tags, besides the independent states the only ones I would recommend adding are ones like Zheng, Teng and Cao, small but densely-populated former states of the Central Plains who had been important in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, and Dai, a former kingdom of the Di in Shanxi which would briefly resurface as an independent state under Xiang Yu's feudal system.

South China

Although South China only really has one independent tag in 304 BC, its cultural and political setup is unique and arguably more complex than the one in North China. The Sichuan basin, only brought under Qin rule in 316 BC, was formerly home to two non-Chinese states, Ba and Shu, each deserving of their own culture and tag. The northern part of Chu, centered around modern Hubei, was home to a distinctive Chinese subculture (both Liu Bang and Xiang Yu would hail from this Chu culture), but most of their sprawling territory to the south and east was much less Sinicized.

The eastern territories in modern Jiangsu and Zhejiang had been home to powerful and sophisticated non-Chinese states, Wu and Yue, and had only been brought under Chu rule in the 330s BC; besides some Chu citizens the population should be made up almost entirely of freemen and slaves of Wuyue culture (there could hypothetically be some Wuyue citizens, but even in the old Wu and Yue kingdoms the elite was quite sinicized, and should maybe be rolled into the Chu Chinese culture for simplicity's sake). The southern territories, around Hunan and Jiangxi, had civilized settlements of Chu people (or, in North Jiangxi, Wuyue people) at favorable points along the major rivers, while the rest of the land was inhabited by various Baiyue or Nanman tribes, a number of whom ought to have tags available to them.

The most important takeaway here is that, in Sichuan and the Lower Yangzi, there ought to be substantial populations which are both "civilized" and culturally outside of the Chinese group, each with a tag available to them (Ba, Shu, Wu, and Yue).

The Far South

The parts of modern southern China that were outside the reach of the Warring States- modern Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan- plus the Red River valley of modern Vietnam, which would come under Han rule in later centuries, are not well-attested in this period but we know enough to broadly draw some cultures and tags. Although all of the tribes of the region were referred to by Chinese under the umbrella terms "Baiyue" and "Nanman", we now know that they included peoples from at least four different language families- Tibeto-Burman, Tai-Kadai, Austronesian (related to Taiwanese aborigines, Malays, Polynesians, etc) and Austroasiatic (related to Vietnamese and Cambodians).

Naturally, the fact that we know the area was quite diverse culturally, and yet we only have a limited set of imprecise names to describe them with, means this area calls for some creativity. These cultures, once drawn out roughly, can be grouped together on the basis of a good guess of their linguistic identity, or they could be grouped together on a geographic basis.

Although these areas should be overwhelmingly tribal, low-centralization, and low-civilization at the start, by halfway through the game the region was home to a handful of strong regional chiefdoms and even something like a proper kingdom in Nanyue (Guangdong, Guangxi and north Vietnam).

The Steppe

Major nomadic peoples to the north of China included Iranic groups like the Yuezhi and Wusun, proto-Mongols like the Donghu, Tibeto-Burmans like the Qiang and, of course, the Xiongnu, whose linguistic identity is not well-understood. Meanwhile, Manchuria and the Korean peninsula were inhabited by proto-Korean tribes who would found Gojoseon, Buyeo, and finally the Korean Three Kingdoms. For this region, I recommend grouping the Iranic tribes together with the Scythians and other related cultures already in-game; the Qiang nomads could be grouped with the Rong and Di, some of whom have given up their nomadic ways; the "other nomads" of various proto-Turkic, proto-Mongol, Yeniseian, etc origins (mainly Xiongnu and Donghu) ought to be a group; and then another for the semi-agrarian peoples of Manchuria and Korea.

Formable Tags and Union Cultures

The Han dynasty is one of the most influential and important empires in history, even giving the Chinese people their modern ethnonym, but the fact that the Han state came to be at all was a bit of a fluke and really can't be modeled with existant game mechanics. It also saw a blending of the Warring States regional cultures, a reinforced common identity, and a hardening of attitudes about the divide between Chinese and barbarians- but under current mechanics, we would see assimilation into the culture of the conquering State rather than a fusion into a new culture. Basically I think the best solution would be to set up a Han Empire formable tag, and a Han culture melting pot for the Chinese culture group.

Other strong candidates for formable tags are the Korean kingdoms, Kushanas/Guishuang for Yuezhi who conquer parts of Central Asia, and maybe some Easter eggs for difficult achievements (like reforming the Shang dynasty if you unify China as Song, ruled by Shang descendants).

 

[icedt729]

Western culture: Yongzhou (As the name is used in the book Yu Gong), though Guanxi is a fine name as well
Central culture: Guandong is fine (Zhongguo is too broad, according to Xiong Qu, Lord of the Chu); or, by the same logic, Yuzhou.
Northern Culture: if you play in to Yu Gong, Sanjin is the only name that makes sense.
Eastern Culture: I would agree to split this, though not sure where the line is — either along the Taishan or near the Qi-Yan border. May I suggest splitting this into three? Sishui in the south, Qingzhou in the middle (though it covers part of Yanzhou as well) and I don't know what to call the culture in the North.

The Yu Gong idea is really interesting actually, although we'd have to be a little flexible with the geography if we're going to match it up to the cultures I have in mind. I wouldn't want the Three Jin to be grouped in together with Yan just because Yu Gong says they're both in Jizhou, for example. I'd also lean towards Hanzhong having the same culture as the Wei River valley even though it's in Yu Gong's Liangzhou. But I'm really having a tough time finding appropriate geographic names for Yan and Qi in particular.

West: Guanxi or Guanzhong (Yu Gong: Yongzhou)
Central: Guandong (YG: Yuzhou)
South: Jingchu (YG: Jingzhou)
North: Sanjin (YG: Jizhou?)
East: Qi region- ? (YG: Qingzhou)
Northeast: Yan region- ? (YG: Jizhou?)

I'm also interested in your opinion on how to place Lu and Langye culturally, and what you think about classing the Yue elite as either in the Chinese group or outside of it.

Tags: Xue, not marked in usual maps in this period, should be a subject of the Qi, ruled by either Lord Ying "Jingguo" or his son, the more famous Lord Wen "Mengchang". We know it is partially autonomous due to Lord Mengchang being able to retreat to Xue and maintain neutrality in the coalition war against King Min of Qi. Similarly, some other states should exist as subjects of the great powers, like Anling for Wei; but I have no time nor ability to list them all (or pinpoint the position of Anling).

Lord Mengchang's Xue sounds like a very good candidate for some kind of vassal status- could you elaborate a bit on Anling and the others? I have a copy of 左传 on hand so I could look into it myself if you point me in the right direction.

For states that you've listed:

Zheng: maybe formable by Han if the ruler is no longer surnamed Han?
Teng: Teng isn't gone yet in 304 BC?
Cao: No additional information here.
Dai: There should be another way to bring Dai into the game.
King Wuling, ruler of Zhao at the start of the game, has established his second son He as Crown Prince. But he felt bad for his elder son Zhang, and had a proposal to split Zhao in half and make Zhang king of Dai. Naturally that did not take place in history, but this is a Paradox game.

I should clarify: to the best of my knowledge, Zheng, Cao, Teng and Dai do not exist in 304 BC. I'm recommending that they have cores (or whatever Imperator's equivalent of cores is) so that they have a chance of reemerging.

In 301 BC, Qin attacked Shu and killed its Marquis, for supposedly poisoning the food sent as tribute to the King of Qin. I would say that this is enough proof that Shu should be its own starting tag, though a vassal of Qin; after all, the Marquis of Shu is a brother of the King of Qin at game start.
Ba is not recorded as having its own Marquis doing anything strange at this point, but there is no reason to assign a Marquis to Shu while keeping Ba an integrated part, so Ba should probably be its own starting tag as well.

This is another good point. This goes back to my earlier post on the Chinese feudal system- should these marquisates be represented as a special kind of governorship, or as a type of subject state?

Yue isn't gone yet. Yue has an outpost in Langye (see my correction to my own message above), as well as the states of Minyue and Ouyue being formed by the descendants of the Yue.
Also, Nanman probably needs to be split into Pu and Ganyue; Ganyue in the east wedged between Ouyue and Baiyue, with its (though nonexistent at game start) Gan state; and Pu in the west near Ba, with no tags that I can name.

I also missed the late fall of Langye, and had assumed Chu swallowed up the entire Yue state in one go. That could actually make for a really good challenging start.

I was waiting until I could draw up some maps before I started getting into the weeds on the divisions of Baiyue and Nanman, but I think that Ouyue in Zhejiang, Ganyue in Jiangxi and Minyue in Fujian is the way to go- Pu, I couldn't say, so I'll defer to you on it. But in game terms, I couldn't really say what should start out as a tribal tag and what should be uncolonized. What's your take on that?

You can add Hong Bang and Au Lac as tribal confederacies in Vietnam, though it is not required that you recognize either of these as historical; also, there is the state of Fulou in modern day Huizhou, Guangdong. Other interesting sources are the Lü's Spring and Autumn Annals, as well as Vietnamese books which, while containing some figments of imagination, can reveal what people think were there in the Middle Ages.

And, naturally, Jin (the one in China, not the one in Korea). There is also another branch of Shang descendants ruling in Gojoseon, known as the Ki clan.

Considering how loose things have been for much of what they've already got in Imperator, I don't see any reason not to include the semi-mythical Viet states and Gija Joseon. A Korean-led Shang restoration would be achievement-worthy.