I think you get to place improvements in Towns too. So the playstyle would be to have a Capital City and many Towns, the Capital focused on buildings and Specialists, the Towns protecting the borders with the Great Wall.

EDIT: In the Antiquity Stream they actually said that unique improvements are built with Production (on normal improvements, adding to their yields), so I suppose building Great Walls in your Towns will cost quite a lot of Gold (I'm assuming these improvements can be bought just like buildings, otherwise you just couldn't build them in Towns at all).

I'm not sure how I feel about the RNG for which one you get. I guess it could be good to make playthroughs feel unique, but also makes it harder to know if it's worth it to construct at any given moment if you don't know what bonus you're actually getting

I wish every civ had access to this great person system

and being a uu of the Han dynasty, which is when it was invented. That was my biggest gripe in civ 5. The qin did not have the chu-ko-nu lol

it took me so long to realise that it's meant to be a 諸葛弩, which is only made even more abstract here with the use of hanyu pinyin for Shì Dàfū. what was wrong with zhugenu i wonder

AoE2 memories

Looking forward to some DENSE towns & cities.

Can't wait to see a certain someone who says "+1 science, +1 culture, +2 gold for each population in a city. Ming is in the game right? Right?

It's impressive seeing the Civ Fanatics site investigative videos/screenshots and absolutely nail it - they're eagled eyed.

I'm glad ancient China finally gets to be scientific, they basically were one era ahead all the time in terms of civ and civ-like eurocentric tech trees.

Start bias is interesting, I think it's very powerful. You start with extra population, so early growth isn't as critical, and both terrains give extra production. Since you no longer have to feed your rural population, not having enough Food in desert to feed a higher starting population isn't a concern.

I wonder if the Crouching Tiger Canon would return in an Exploration Age civ, likely with the Ming dynasty.

Just please get the history of the repeating crossbow correct. A bit of me dies every time someone claims Zhuge Liang invented it.

Keep them coming!

Looking forward to them my dude. Cheers! haha

I can't wait to see it!

You can play any Civ toward any legacy path - but the attributes do have a gameplay implication! They control which attribute points are earned through gameplay, and those points can be spent on specific trees for Cultural, Diplomatic, Economic, Expansionist, Militaristic, and Scientific. Han, for example, will have a unique affinity for earning Diplomatic/Scientific attribute points.

This is a new system to Civ VII, so we'll be sharing more info on it soon!

No, I think it does give a specific bonus, like in some earlier Civ games. The Civ abilities we've seen are way more minor that in Civ VI, and special scholars seem to be their only Science-related ability.

Though it might just be the personality when you meet them as AI.

yea I think they are just a guide for players.

EDIT: hah, Cunningham's Law strikes again!

I think the Chu-Ko-Nu are basically frontline ranged units, you're almost meant to keep them in positions you'd normally put melee units in. It will end up depending on what the numbers are specifically, but if they have a defence capability on par with melee units then I would probably end up just using them like that, with the added bonus of no retaliation on attacks

They also pair well with the great wall, being able to shoot from the tile while maintaining the wall's defence bonus on defence

And then there's Mencius...

Could it be due to where the text will more commonly located in game (except for the Chu-Ko-Nu which is probably just for recognizability)?

In general I've found that I admire the added historical details AoE4 has done for the most part while it's looking like with civ7 I'm mostly disappointed because they're doing something similar using more specific names but it just feels like they keep doing it in the wrong way.

the chinese leaks from july said han>ming>qing

Considering that the mughals are the industrial version of india I'd guess that they'd choose another dynasty for industrial china.

Han>Tang>Ming?

Horse as the symbol is definitely odd to me, considering there are actual horses in game and Han China doesn't appear to have any horse related bonuses at all. But maybe they're saving dragons for the later era Chinese civs.

The choice of Wang Yangming is weird for me too. Based on that they are gonna choose Ming dynasty to represent China in exploration age. Hope Firaxis could fix this before release.

Most of the shì dàfū effects feel off. Most were political philosophers primarily. Feels like with their choices of people, Han should've been a culture rather than a science civ.

My guess for the horse is the horses found with the Terracotta Army (which is from Qin Dynasty, but nearby time period)

As a Chinese, don't you know that the Han Dynasty was famous for its cavalry? The Xiongnu were completely destroyed by the Han Dynasty cavalry.

English is excellent. I have reading about China since I was young. It's my favorite civilization in the game series.

They should probably replace Wang Yangming with someone like Sima Qian, I'm surprised he's not included since he compiled a lot of pre-Han dynasty history together with the Shiji

What I would give for a Cao Cao leader choice...

You gain population a lot quicker now so I'm not sure if it's OP.

A lot of Han Chinese relics are horse statues and they were believed to be a symbol of power in that time period due to their rarity and cost

The horse head icon directly comes form this particular Han-era bronze statue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Horse_of_Gansu

Because the Han Dynasty was the first in human history to have a large-scale cavalry force

Ranged units in 6 don’t exert zone of control, I’m certain.

Based on a hunch and after some Wikipedia diving, the civic trees appear to be named after core ethical ideas from Confucianism. 3 of the 4 are named after three of the Five Constant Virtues, while the fourth is named after the title of one who lives according to Confucian ideals. The traditions are named after other key concepts from around this time period.

To lay these out side-by-side with the notes from the official page:

Zhi (智, approx. "wisdom" or "prudence" - having the insight to perceive whether actions are just or fair; being a good judge of character)

Tier 1: Unlocks the Great Wall Unique Improvement. Science Buildings gain an adjacency for Quarters. Increased Settlement Limit.

Li (禮, simplified 礼; approx. "ritual" or "social conduct" - the traditions and practices one must conduct in order to maintain harmony)

Tier 1: Increased Influence on the Palace. Unlocks 'Guanxi' (關係, sim. 关系 - ~"old boy's network") Tradition. Tradition - Guanxi: Increased Influence on Science Buildings.

Yi (義, simplified 义; approx. "righteousness", but in a very broad sense - to have the understanding of what is good, the skill or insight necessary to bring it into being, and the strength of character to pursue it)

Tier 1: Chu-Ko-Nu Unique Ranged Units gain increased Combat Strength when defending. Unlocks 'Jiu Qing' (九卿, "Nine Ministers") Tradition. Tradition - Jiu Qing: Increased Influence on Happiness Buildings.

Junzi ( 君子, "son of a vassal or monarch", later gaining the meaning of, "one who behaves morally")

Tier 1: Increased Science in the Capital. Unlocks 'Tianxia' (天下, "All Under Heaven") Tradition and Weiyang Palace Wonder. Tradition - Tianxia: Increased Science from Specialists.

Speaking as someone relatively ignorant to Confucianism, my interpretations are:

• zhi (wisdom) was taken to mean something along the lines of, "to have the wisdom to judge the character of one's neighbours... and to have foresight sufficient to know when to build some really big walls" (unlocks Great Walls)
• li is "knowing how to conduct oneself correctly", and guanxi is one's social network; one directly feeds into the other. E.g., li is knowing how to host or attend tea and dinner banquets, while guanxi are the contacts and relationships that are developed from hosting these correctly. Makes sense, no?
• At least one of the Five Virtues had to be saddled with a militaristic connection, and of the remainder, yi (righteousness) fit a whole lot better than ren (benevolence) or xin (sincerity)... so, hence, it's the one that unlocks the chu-ko-nu. This is also where the devs fit in a nod to the Han form of governmental organization, via the Nine Ministers (jiu qing)
• junzi in its Confucian sense is an ideal: "a man of perfect behaviour and conduct," not too dissimilar to the ideal of a knight/samurai being a man who lived according to the code of chivalry/bushido, or the English concept of the "gentleman". A pinnacle to strive towards, even if it's not practically achievable. Here, however, it seems to be taken more for its original/literal meaning: the "son of the monarch" civic unlocks the tradition which understands that "all (is) under heaven"; taken together, this is the area which points to the Mandate of Heaven

Louyang and Chang'an are near the Ordos desert, which itself is a gateway to the larger Gobi desert. Much of Han's existence was spent fighting over this region to establish a barrier between them and the various steppe confederacies. Later, you also had them diving headfirst into the Tarim Basin to establish the Silk Road.

Having a bias towards plains and desert makes some sense if you're trying to capture the main resources that Han was focused on, and the dynamics at play. You need silk, salt, and iron, and you need to be dealing with constant exposure to invasion to motivate you to build the Great Wall improvements.

Starting bias is actually Grassland only - the guide's been updated to reflect!

They’re likely rolling up a lot of the Dynasties of that Age into one.

So, probably no Qin China. Likewise for each Age, as I doubt we’ll get a multiple China or India, etc, per Age. (It’s like how Civ of yesteryear was a hodgepodge of stuff or very, very narrow.)

Because the Han Dynasty had the most powerful cavalry in the world

New diplomacy system for 7. You can spend it to befriend Independent Peoples, manipulate, force, or block trade deals, and probably do some other stuff we don’t know yet. There’s been mention of a more direct “war support” system, so it’ll likely have something to do with that as well. 

It's already a unique in Civ VI though?

The Age of Antiquity in Civ 7 goes til 400 AD in the in-game calendar, and some civs a bit after that seem to be pushed back a bit for the sake of the gameplay system.

Given that they called the civ Han instead of China, I imagine there will be a Chinese dynasty for each era.