Not a pike & musket (post-medieval, pre-imperial , not ever covered before), as some of us hoped? Sigh... this is sad news. Good thing there are other games to look forward to in the next few years.
Also... I can understand the sentiments of people who are actually genuinely excited about this installment, i really can. Good for you. But to me this way they've taken just screams commercialization. It's like i can imagine a group meeting, a sitdown with the devs and some sega officers where they discuss this. Hey, TW:China is the next best thing since sliced bread! Less effort to put in since it's pretty much within the borders one cultural (or at least racial) group, thus less diversity to work on. There's also less effort required for actual historical homework and research both for previous reasons as well as the reason this seems like it's gonna be a heavily romanticized version of that time period.
And last but not least... monetization. A potential huge client pool called China + a reason to put in as many fucking hero units as DLCS as possible... there we go. Perfection. Nothing can't go wrong since most people will be curious about this new setting anyway, not realizing how much they may have actually lost on with the possible other options for new, untouched historical periods and settings.
Shame.