Qin Shi Huang is one of the best barbarian leaders in Civilization VI. It’s easy to overwhelm opposing armies with unique technology and the ability to absorb enemy barbarians. He can be a world trader or an isolationist nation at the edge of the continent in his Unifier persona. There are very few nations that can stand up to a well-oiled Chinese war machine. Aside from combat, Qin Shi Huang and the Chinese civilization are great at researching technology.
Qin Shi Huang is great for every general play style, so it’s no wonder the Chinese dominate the top civilization charts for most sources. Capable of running a powerful military, a unique culture, and an advanced technological civilization. It’s because China can run in all of these categories that it has some of the widest range of leaders. Qin Shi Huang, the great Unifier, had early access to cannons and was able to swell his army quickly through various methods.
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Leader Basics – Qin Shi Huang (Unifier)
Playing as Qin Shi Huang’s Unifier persona is like playing a game of chess or checkers, constantly trading smaller forces out for potentially larger gains. In this way, his ability to take over barbarian units sees him trading out weak warriors for spearmen or horsemen. In this regard, he is able to amass a large army quickly by simply allowing barbarian encampments to survive. Their unique ability sees them able to turn one unit into potentially a very large fighting force so long as they are tanky enough. Because of this, it is good for units to be built up in their combat power because sacrificing them will grant those bonuses to all captured units.
Leader Ability – Thirty-Six Stratagems
Acting as one of the best bonuses available in Civilization VI, Thirty-Six Stratagems allows all land units under Qin Shi Huang to convert into barbarian units. This is exclusive to his Unifier persona and allows him to swell his armies quickly by sacrificing a single unit. When doing so, all barbarians in the vicinity of them were converted into Chinese units permanently. This allows obsolete, or weak physical units to completely absorb potentially stronger barbarian armies in coming attacks. This is especially potent during the Barbarian Clan mode, and can easily make Qin Shi Huang the Unifier into one of the strongest leaders available in the game.
Leader Strategy – Show not Tell
Qin Shi Huang’s Unifier persona is best used as a physical military, pulling armies through barbarian tribes that plague other nations. You can convert as many barbarians as you can by building strong city fortifications and smaller weak armies of physical units. This is similar to Harald Hardrada’s Varangian persona in how you use other armies to make yours stronger. As you research more advanced troops, you’ll be able to keep a pocket force of defensive crouching tigers. Qin Shi Huang’s main goal is to appear weak until the right moment to strike with an overwhelming force.
Qin Shi Huang Unifier Spotlight
Leader Religion – Taoism
Unique to Qin Shi Huang himself, Taoism has a specialty building: the pagoda. The only thing they do is provide faith points and housing like normal temples. Thus, their unique religion gives them a difference, the key to holy wars if they want to use that as an excuse to conquer the world. Qin Shi Huang should utilize as many warrior monks as possible due to their ability to add to his army while also weakening the religions of other nations.
Leader Agenda – Sihai
Qin Shi Huang is one of the most unique leaders in Civilization VI, having access to barbarian factions. Thus, they don’t like nations that openly attack barbarian camps; instead, they like those who leave them alone. This mostly boils down to Qin Shi Huang using these barbarian factions as a farm for his own military. It may be hard to subscribe to this level of logic if your own cities are attacked.
You get a golden opportunity when you play as Qin Shi Huang. Your allies won’t attack barbarians if you force them not to, since these barbarians will soften them up. You can force your allies to take poisoned pills this way so they don’t anger their own supply lines. By doing this, you’re protecting your own stock as well as weakening your opponents. Due to this unique double-crossing gameplay style, Qin Shi Huang’s Unifier build is the perfect antagonist for any player in the game.
Leaders of China Pass Art
Special units – Barbarian Converts
Since Qin Shi Huang doesn’t have specialized troops, they have even better potential than military forces. By using his thirty-six stratagems ability, you’ll have a bunch of unique barbarian units at your disposal. First, Spearmen, and then gradually more advanced units. As well as archers and warriors, you might even be able to grab a few naval vessels if you’re lucky. Barbarian clan mode also gives you access to the unique barbarian horse archers. When picking Qin Shi Huang’s Unifier Persona, these unique barbarians will allow you to turn one simple warrior into a limitless bag of potential.
Country Basics – China
China remains to be one of the most versatile nations available in Civilization VI for a plethora of reasons. Using its wide variety of leaders and play styles, you can arguably get away with anything with this ancient nation. The problem lies in where Qin Shi Huang the Unifier has this nation set single-mindedly on defense and barbarian cultivation. That being said, the use of early cannons and the Great Wall of China allows for a perfect choke point between yourself and enemy invaders. In fact, it is this wall and its choke points that will prove to be your greatest asset in nearly every way!
Other Leader Variants
Having one of the largest casts of leaders, the civilization of China has five different choices to your name across four different leaders. Two belong to our main candidate, Qin Shi Huang, two belong to the Mandate of Heaven and the Unifier personas. Next is a personal favorite, Kublai Khan and his powerful technological empire. Next comes Yongle and his unique cultural bonuses. Finally, Wu Zetian proves to be a great pick for spying and espionage games! With all of these choices, it’s great to note that China has a playstyle for absolutely anyone. Just remember that while it is an easy nation to pick up, it is a difficult one to fully master.
Great Walls
Country Ability – Dynastic Cycle
Acting as a means of providing extra culture and science to a nation, the Dynastic Cycle is perfect for any play style. Mainly, eureka and inspiration will gain an extra ten percent of their prospective bonus to the technology or civic being researched currently. Additionally completing a wonder will allow a technology or civic in that wonder’s era to gain a eureka or inspiration. This is a powerful means of building up your nation by following in-game tasks, often through city-states or quests. Making China a nation that is best played by individuals who can follow the objectives at the moment.
Unique Units – Crouching Tiger
One of the best bonuses to any Chinese playthrough is access to the Crouching Tiger specialty unit. These give you access to cannons quicker than any other nation and are unlocked through the machinery perk. Being a ranged unit with a range of one, they are primarily great against besiegements as they are perfect city defenders. Not being great for attacking other districts, they were perfect until the advent of Advanced Ballistics as a technology. Costing 140 production points or 560 gold, they are costly but have a range of damage of 50. Available in During the medieval era, they could easily overwhelm knights and siege units, making China easily defended up until the modern era.
Unique infrastructure – Great Wall
The Great Wall was a unique tile improvement for the Chinese. Fortifications like these can be exploited by barbarians and enemy nations to create natural choke points. These simple walls become impenetrable when mounted by Crouching Tiger defenses. If you have the castle civic unlocked, you’ll get gold, culture, and tourism bonuses. Additionally, these walls can be built on any tile type and are perfect for defending your country. If you’re not careful, you can end up trapped on land through winding mazes of walls with these fortifications.
Crouching Tigers
Location Bonuses (True Start)
While China may be on the edge of the world, it is there with a strategic boon. With natural mountains, cold and tropical environments; and marshes and forests that bog down enemy forces China remains well protected. With ample access to water and to defenses like the Great Wall, China can maintain its independence for centuries without encountering an enemy of any sizeable strength. This allows your nation to build itself up, and either trade with the world or stockpile in preparation for it. With plenty of natural resources and ample abilities for growth, China has one of the best starts of any nation at a realistic beginning.
Leader Strategy – Army of Paper
Thanks to his unique ability to take control of barbarian armies, Qin Shi Huang has a near-infinite supply of troops. By constantly taking barbarians and letting them regroup, Qin Shi Huang will eventually overcome his enemies and become the figurehead of the nation. You can always retreat these troops behind your Great Walls and fight a defensive war if these tactics don’t work. While these barbarians fight for you, you can use your Dynastic Circle ability to build technologically advanced armies to crush the survivors of your hordes.
Strengths
Qin Shi Huang’s Unifier persona has a few things going for them that can’t be said for other leaders. For instance, the ability to profit from barbarians without destroying them offers him a unique player mechanic and economy that can’t be underestimated. By using mercenary armies, you can easily protect your own assets without spending all that much on a defense budget. While the crouching tigers and great walls grant China access to the defenses they need to protect against most threats in the modern age. Perhaps because of these early to mid-game bonuses, the only time China truly falls off is coming into the modern age.
Barbarian Conversion
Weaknesses
One of the few places that China suffers is in its economic production and resource management. Because it requires so much of its time to be spent on producing walls, defenses, and large cities, it must give up a fair portion of its strategic resources. For this reason, they are forced into constant resource wars with other nations, or into lengthy trading agreements. Another place where China falls short is in the fact that they often don’t get along with other nations because of their political agendas. They ask others to leave barbarians alone which often attack other nations, and thus push them farther from the political table.
Military Tactics – Onion Offensive
With his technologically advanced forces, Qin Shi Huang’s main offensive strategy is to use barbarian forces to hit his enemies first. Meanwhile, he’ll stock up on Crouching Tigers and great wall choke points. As a result, China’s army uses paper-mache tactics to create an impregnable defense and offensive charge. Therefore, they’re more likely to use overwhelming numbers instead of surgical strikes, doing better in sieges and flanks than head-ons.
Trading/ Politics – Industrial Isolationist
Since China sits in the corner of the world with the ability to build high walls and stay to itself it often does. There’s no reason to interact with a war that’s constantly at war; instead, build yourself up in anticipation of it. That being said, it’s good to build up trading routes from afar by exploring the world on your own terms. Remember it’s better to come across nations yourself than for them to find you. In this way utilize the sea and the land to build your roads, but protect them with your cannons, and high walls.
-source: PotatoMcWhiskey
The Unifier’s Wrath
While Qui Shi Huang may have one of the most unique agendas and abilities available in Civilization VI, he is also one of the hardest leaders to fully master. You must play the balancing act as a supporter of crime and as a leader of free choice. In this way, there are few leaders that have such an interesting duality available to them. However, through your tall walls, and your army of crouching tigers, there are few who can challenge your ethics. Go forth as the warlord of the barbarians, the great unifier of the lands; and spread the imperial name from one edge of the world to the other!
