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Nice work, but you should have defeated Japan.
The main reason I didn't throw too much at Japan is that I don't want to interfere too much, I'd like to see how the dance between the Shoguns and Daiymo's play out.

There is plenty of time to take revenge.


Suggestion: you could add "change from start" to your little stat breakdown at the end of each post, it would be interesting to see just how significant the compounded improvements from each ruler end up being.

Nice update, I'm looking forward to the next.

And i secon the Rabid's suggestion.
Consider it done.
 
Episode 4: the long and prosperous reign of Hongguang I


1472-09-25HongguangItothethrone.jpg


As you can see, Hongguang isn't the best emperor there ever was. And with EU3's tendency to let good rulers die young and bad rulers live long, we're stuck with him for some time.


1476-01-23levyevent.jpg


The year is 1476. This is another nice Bureaucrats event. We can either boost the manpower of a province while strengthening the Bureaucrats or increase the province's tax base and weakening the Bureaucrats. I normally choose the first option in provinces were I intend to build army buildings and extra tax in all other provinces. The influence factor is still insignificant for the time being.


1477-12-01heirhongguang2dies.jpg


At December 1 1477 Hongguang II dies. Well, he was old and like his predecessor, quite mediocre. What did raise a couple of eyebrows was that the emperor sought solace in a strange and foreign religion, praising the Christian God.


1477-12-02Longwuisawesome.jpg


Which was apparantly a smart move, as a day later the Lord rewards our griefstricken emperor with a very impressive boy, Longwi. For the first time in a long while we have an heir whose hair isn't grey and it's a genius to boot!

1477-12-23regencyforlongwu.jpg


And Hongguang reacts to this good news by dying two days before Christmas.

Code:
The reign of Hongguang Ming (1472-1477)

			Current value		Change during reign		Change since 1399
Provinces		56			0				+2 (+3.7%)
Yearly income		1518 ducats		+70 ducats (+4.8%)		+680 ducats (+81.1%)
Yearly income/province	27.1 ducats		+1.2 ducats (+4.6%)		+11.6 ducats (+74.8%)
Inflation		0%			0% 				0%
Maximum manpower	105K			+4K (+4.0%)			+16K (+18.8%)
Army (inf/cav/art)	39 regiments (28/11/0)	0				0
Navy (B/S/g/t)		53 ships (40/0/0/13)	0				+4 (+8.1%)

Next episode: Longwi looks westward
 
Longwi looks westwards, eh?:D Like in war or westernization?:p
 
Huh, with the bureaucrats (or eunuchs) in power, regencies don't seem to have any impact on the game, other than their stats. They really are just another ruler, you just know exactly when they'll 'die'.
 
Huh, with the bureaucrats (or eunuchs) in power, regencies don't seem to have any impact on the game, other than their stats. They really are just another ruler, you just know exactly when they'll 'die'.
You're certainly right, but with one caveat: during a regency your Legitimacy will drop by 4%/year. With my chinaware trade dominance modifier this isn't a problem, but in the future there could be situations where a regency can lead to a lost Mandate of Heaven. Having a regency during Mandate of Heaven Lost basically means that your Legitimacy will hardly rise during the regency.
 
The new China gameplay is quite interesting. Rather than overpowered, it seems to me like a transformation of China into something completely different than European nations in the game, sacrificing flexibility and dynamism for tranquility and inner strength (which I guess kinda makes historical sense).
 
Episode 5: Longwi looks westward



The first thing that we do is look to the west, as promised.


1480-03-16Alookatthewesternborders.jpg


Ah, a big Bihar, not something you see every game. Although, in Divine Wind the Hindu states are much more prone to expand. Between Lan Na and Khmer you can see the expansion of Manchu.


1480-09-10plutocracyplusone.jpg


In 1480 the Bourgeoisie requests priveleges. I think hard and long and eventually choose to move +1 towards Plutocracy because I want to weaken the Bureaucracts. For now.


1480-10-08bureaucratpower.jpg


Not that it helps much, though. The Bureaucrats are so powerful that they can even change the laws of arithmetic.

Also, the nobles aren't that pleased by my decision.


1480-01-03Noblesarepissed.jpg



In the eighties of the fifteenth century nothing much happens. In 1482 Examinations take place again and provide us with some well needed magistrates. The Mongols invade us twice and are easily defeated. Nonetheless, the world is impressed enough by our victories that we always gain 5% Prestige for each time we capture enough yurts.

This uneventful decade closes with a bang, however.


1489-06-062ndNIisqftnw.jpg


In 1489 I can finally select a second National Idea. I choose Quest for the New World and I recruit an explorer. Funny enough, you don't need the exploratory Eunuchs in power to be able to explore, a fact I will happily abuse. I give the explorer a ship and send him to India.


1489-12-01Longwutothethrone.jpg


During the great discoveries made in the West, Longwi finally ascends to the throne. To bad we are still four slider moves away from being able to Westernise, as Longwi would be the perfect reformer.

In 1490 we get another juicy slider move. This time I decide to move towards Centralisation, getting a -1 stability hit as confirmation. I have reasons why I don't continue moving towards Free Subjects, which I will explain in a later post. For now it is enough to know that I will attempt an early Westernization, mainly because of the overabundance of Architectural Developments.

While our daring explorer sails ever more westward, in June 1491 we get our second university via a prospering times event. It's for this reason that I tend to keep an artist around.


1492-02-20Europediscovered.jpg


The year 1492 will go into the history books as the year when China discovered Europe after only three years of exploration. A less momentous event in this year is the birth of heir Wanli:


1492-04-16Wanliborn.jpg


His weak stats prevent a Westernization during his life, so we have a bit of a problem here. The apple can fall far from the tree.

Now for something fun: a map of semi-discovered Europe:

1493-01-03StrangemapofEurope.jpg


Why did I take the effort of going to Europe? Well, one reason is that I found it a funny idea to reverse history and let Europe itself be discovered. The other reason is that for Westernisation we need to border a country from a higher tech group and Europe has the best tech group.


1493-03-14Tradetechlevels.jpg


This list shows nation's tech levels sorted on trade tech. The last requirement for Westernisation is that we are at least 25 combined tech levels behind the advanced neighbour. In 1493 Ming is 5th worlwide in trade technology. Not shabby for a country with -60% research speed penalty. As you can see, most European countries have a combined tech level of about 55, while Ming has a combined tech level of 38. The Europeans need to get a bigger tech lead!

But only in the west are discoveries made, the east also sees some exploratory action.


1505-09-01bThePacific.jpg


From this point on it will be difficult to explore further east without having a colony. With my manoeuvre 6 explorer, his ship returns with about 30% health with the last discovered sea provinces. In earlier version of EU3 if an explorer's ship sank, you would still retain the explorer. That's no longer the case in the more recent versions, so I try to be careful and not lose the explorer's ship.

Of course, I only thought about this after losing my first explorer in the Atlantic.

In 1503 I move the slider towards Centralisation, only to be greated by another half-hearted -1 stability hit.


1505-09-01regencyforWanli.jpg


In 1505 Longwi dies, leaving a regency and a nice pretender for Wanli.


Longwi's great contribution to Ming, besides the stunning discoveries of faraway lands, was the expansion of Ming's informal empire:

1490-03-09SoI.jpg


And here's the reason why we would want an informal empire:

1505-09-01cMagistrategain.jpg



Expanding the SoI will be difficult, as adding more countries to it requires at least 20 prestige because I already have so many within my SoI. Also, we are running out of possible targets.


Stats

I have taken the stats for the regency and actual reign together. Note that the economy has doubled without significant trade or land acquisition.

Code:
The regency (1477-1489) and reign (1489-1505) of Longwi Ming (total 1477-1505)

			Current value		Change during reign		Change since 1399
Provinces		56			0				+2 (+3.7%)
Yearly income		1746 ducats		+228 ducats (+15%)		+908 ducats (+108.4%)
Yearly income/province	31.2 ducats		+4.1 ducats (+15.1%)		+15.7 ducats (+101.3%)
Inflation		0%			0% 				0%
Maximum manpower	118K			+17K (+16.8%)			+33K (+38.8%)
Army (inf/cav/art)	44 regiments (35/9/0)	+5 (+12.8%)			+5 (+12.8%)
Navy (B/S/g/t)		52 ships (39/0/0/13)	-1 (-1.9%)			+3 (+6.1%)

Next episode: the even longer reign of Wanli
 
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Logwu looks promising.

BTW, with the forbiddien palace, do you still need a philospopher? Isn' he a little bit redundant?
NOW he is redundant :) I needed the philosopher to gain prestige, as with the Forbidden Palace alone it's too slow. Together with the prestige from forcing the Mongols to concede defeat, I spent dozens of points of prestige on getting my neighbours into my Sphere of Influence. Now that my SoI is quite full, I fired the philosopher.

Really excellent. I'll be following so I can learn how to westernize my Hindustan :)
You've already seen most of the work for Westernization: moving toward Centralized and Innovation. The key to early Westernization, as you have seen, is getting a couple of Architectural developments. Patron of the Arts is therefore extra handy for Westernizing nations.
 
I didn't choose PotA so I just changed to it when I got a +2 stability event. It's 1502 in my game and I'm at 0 innovation so I've got about 30 years to go before I can westernize. My Hindustan is pretty big so I guess I'll spend that time building temples and figuring out which province I want to take to get a tech neighbor.

My current monarch (who's pretty new) and his heir both have high enough admin. That said they'll prolly die within two weeks of each other a year from now.
 
Ofc ur crappy king will reign forever.
That's always a possibility. Well, it makes Westernization a bit more difficult, as otherwise Westernization would be too simple.

I didn't choose PotA so I just changed to it when I got a +2 stability event. It's 1502 in my game and I'm at 0 innovation so I've got about 30 years to go before I can westernize. My Hindustan is pretty big so I guess I'll spend that time building temples and figuring out which province I want to take to get a tech neighbor.

My current monarch (who's pretty new) and his heir both have high enough admin. That said they'll prolly die within two weeks of each other a year from now.
I don't think temples are a good builidng, unless you have nothing else to build. They ony pay for themselves after regaining 10 stability hits (per temple!), while for example a constable in a tax 4 provinces pays for itself in 50 years.

With that said, I've build some temples in this campaign. Ming under Bureaucrats gets a ridiculous amount of magistrates and with my low tech I'm running out of more useful buildings to construct. i don't expect to build any temples after Westernization.

Wow nice!

Very interesting AAR
I'll start my first game as Ming pretty soon because of what you are doing
It's very nice to hear that this AAR has inspired you, things like this keep me motivated to continue
 
I see your point about temples but might they still be good as the first step in the chain of government buildings? Courthouses, which are next in line, reduce RR which I believe means the recovery of tax revenue assuming a province has RR to begin with. I'm speaking from info gained from tool tips rather than experience so forgive me if I'm wrong.
 
I see your point about temples but might they still be good as the first step in the chain of government buildings? Courthouses, which are next in line, reduce RR which I believe means the recovery of tax revenue assuming a province has RR to begin with. I'm speaking from info gained from tool tips rather than experience so forgive me if I'm wrong.

You're of course not wrong, but I happen to have another view on this :)

In my opinion, having a level 6 building is about 5 times as good as having a level 4 building. Specialization is key with the new building system. I think constructing buildings without developing them to level 6 is a bit of a waste. For example, I don't think building a dock only for its production bonus is good, because you could have used that magistrate to develop a province towards a level 6 building. The main exception is the constable and perhaps the next few Production buildings, as they pay for themselves quite quickly and at that point in time you don't have many other options for your magistrates.

So if you would build temples and courthouses in 3 provinces, you deny yourself a level 6 building in say Production, giving you far more extra income and stability recovery speed than those temples and courthouses. The point is not that temples, courthouses or other building are bad but rather that you could use your magistrates in a better way. In general the Government line of buildings is very weak overall, but even for the other lines I think the strategy of specialization is key.

Of course, if you have 5 magistrates and no better options, it's not a bad choice to build temples, as I did in this campaign. It's just an inferior option.

Keep in mind that this is all just my opinion. I'm sure that lots of people have completely different ideas on what to build.
 
Episode 6: the even longer reign of Wanli


1507-04-06Wanlitothethrone.jpg


In 1507 Wanli rises to the throne, bringing with him a disappointing heir named Longqing. Although Longqing isn't that bad, his ADM is 5, just one point short of being able to Westernize. Frustrating, as this might mean that we have to wait for a decent monarch to Westernize for some time.

At least in the same year a prospering times occurs and we get yet another university.

And with that, Wanli decides that's enough reigning for him and dies in 1509 at the tender age of 18.

1509-01-06regencyforLongqing.jpg



Idiot.


Stats

Code:
The regency (1505-1507) and reign (1507-1509) of Wanli Ming (total 1505-1509)

			Current value		Change during reign		Change since 1399
Provinces		56			0				+2 (+3.7%)
Yearly income		1766 ducats		+20 ducats (+1.1%)		+928 ducats (+110.7%)
Yearly income/province	31.5 ducats		+0.3 ducats (+1.0%)		+17.0 ducats (+109.7%)
Inflation		0%			0% 				0%
Maximum manpower	119K			+1K (+0.8%)			+34K (+0.4%)
Army (inf/cav/art)	44 regiments (35/9/0)	0				+5 (+12.8%)
Navy (B/S/g/t)		52 ships (39/0/0/13)	0				+3 (+6.1%)


Next episode: a new World