Ming strategy?

I'm not sure you've played Ming in 5.1 from some of your comments. By the time you can start a war (mostly likely by call to arms) all SE Asia has level 1 forts.

The point is the factions from DW have done a good job in balancing Ming and making it a challenge when human controlled. One balance is that the slider set needed to keep faction balance neutral aren't that great in themselves so that is a neat trade off.

It looks like in 5.2 there are a couple of late game ways out the faction/celestial empire system. But I'd say on balance it works fine. Yes it is a bit frustrating to play as it seems like you are often in a PU/Regency but its a fun different game to a usual EU experience

No, I haven't played Ming since 5.0. I play for fun and for some resemblance to history, and this is neither, so why would I play it? When I play non-Ming countries, which is always, I mod out Ming's factions and let it do its thing, for better or for worse.

"Balancing Ming" and "making it a challenge" are in the eye of the beholder. I don't think it's "balanced", I think it's "gutted". ("Balanced" compared to what, anyway? Spain? Bavaria? Riga? Byzantium?) I don't find it "challenging" at all. It "works fine" if what you mean by that is "Ming's going to do nothing until they collapse." I find the slider system to be hyper-gamey: if I'm going to be that gamey I'd rather stop pretending the game I'm playing has any resemblance to reality at all and play "Risk" or Chess or Go. And what's the point? the decision to move to slider positions where you will move from one faction to the next frequently is not a hard decision where you make a choice between different strategies, but, rather, it's the only good strategy. Well, another good strategy is simply to go for Westernization ASAP regardless of faction issues on the way, but that kind of defeats the purpose of playing with factions in the first place.

I can imagine a faction system that I'd like. For example, two factions. One of them, call them the Eunuchs, can do all the things a normal country can do, but it has a penalty to stability cost. That faction is supported by positive stability in static_modifiers.txt, and by the ruler's MIL and DIP, and, ideally but I don't think this is feasible, by government tech. The other faction, call them the Bureaucrats, would only be able to build buildings and place merchants. It would be supported by negative stability and by something else, I'm not sure what, but number of provinces controlled would be nice. So, run your country well and you can go on foreign adventures. Bad ruler and, well... Which is pretty much how it worked for them historically.

It doesn't help that the "joke" about the Buddhists (if you really think that's funny) is in extremely poor taste.

The lack of forts in southeast Asia would be a problem even if Ming didn't exist. It makes it ahistorically VERY easy for these countries to conquer each other at the start of the game, not just because it's really easy to annex your one-province minor neighbour who has no fort, but also because your neighbours are spending their money to build forts, meaning they're not building as large an army as they might. So the map of the region changes a lot right for no historical reason at the beginning of the game (whether the "start of the game" is 1399 or 1800). It's also a real advantage for a player country, since the AI plays as if it had forts whether it does or not. So this should be fixed - all non-colony provinces should start the game with forts - regardless of Ming's situation.

But as far as Ming goes, no, it's not OK that southeast Asia will have forts by the time a player Ming can invade them. Ming should, by default, invade them around the time it historically invaded them, not 100 or 150 years later.

Screw the devs and use a mod. I have been playing since DW came out and Ming has been no where near fun/entertaining until I started modding. Not that it was ever fun/entertaining to play Ming before DW, but frustration certainly ain't better. (it is funny however that DW is the failure that brought me into modding)

Trust me, 100 game years of waiting in boredom is not worth it. You may have found something worthy of your interest for now, but after staring at your screen and reading all the things happening around you(Ming) for minutes, you will find it absurd that the dev came up with such a ridiculous game feature and false advertised it.

Try a mod, or mod yourself. A strategy like doing almost nothing for nearly 100 game years just to westernize and start actually playing should not be forced upon players by some faulty mechanisms.

Like dragonizer pointed out, my Ming AAR Yin, Yang and the ugly shows that Ming is completely playable and even fun to play (at least in version 5.0/5.1). In the AAR I have colonized all of North America and eventually conquered all of Europe and India. I must admit that it is now a bit harder to Westernize than with the version using the AAR and you can no longer use a republic government, but still I am confident that Ming is pretty much as playable as back then.

Of course, this requires absolute discipline regarding domestic sliders and yes, the first century you will not see that much action, but as soon as your sliders are balanced, you can do a lot with Ming. You just have to except that Ming is weaker than on paper (f.e. the Faction system drastically reduces the amount of magistrates for useful purposes) and that with bad luck (f.e. an unbalanced monarch) you can be severely set back.

In short, the Faction system is a huge improvement compared to previous efforts to limit Ming. The system also requires a completely different way of playing, which I like. Of course, if you play Ming like an eastern France or Spain, it will be very frustrating, but if you accept the balancing act and reduced amount of control, it's quite fun.

colinljx said:

Not that it was ever fun/entertaining to play Ming before DW.

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I did more than 15 WC with MING in IN it was great. :ninja:
Westernized and nonwesternized.
It was my favorite country to play.

dragonizer said:

I did more than 15 WC with MING in IN it was great. :ninja:
Westernized and nonwesternized.
It was my favorite country to play.

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15 WC... You LOVEd Ming for sure~ veteran players like me have been playing EU3 for far too long that an large empire like Ming no longer holds much entertainment value without mods... which is why I was so happy about DW before the release and completely disappointed afterwards. (both shogunate and faction showed up half broken as the main features of DW)

BritNavFan said:

No, I haven't played Ming since 5.0. I play for fun and for some resemblance to history, and this is neither, so why would I play it? When I play non-Ming countries, which is always, I mod out Ming's factions and let it do its thing, for better or for worse.

"Balancing Ming" and "making it a challenge" are in the eye of the beholder. I don't think it's "balanced", I think it's "gutted". ("Balanced" compared to what, anyway? Spain? Bavaria? Riga? Byzantium?) I don't find it "challenging" at all. It "works fine" if what you mean by that is "Ming's going to do nothing until they collapse." I find the slider system to be hyper-gamey: .... Well, another good strategy is simply to go for Westernization ASAP regardless of faction issues on the way, but that kind of defeats the purpose of playing with factions in the first place.

But as far as Ming goes, no, it's not OK that southeast Asia will have forts by the time a player Ming can invade them. Ming should, by default, invade them around the time it historically invaded them, not 100 or 150 years later.

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Since you've not actually played Ming heres some hard information, from a game I've played and you can even cross check to information provided elsewhere on this forum:

first DOW - 19 May 1407, same post has a war I started with Manchu & took their recent gains from the nomads (with hindsight this was a mistake);
first call to arms - 8 January 1410, led to gains in SE Asia and, there were level 1 forts everywhere
completion of westernisation - 4 May 1645 - note this does not remove the factions.
Later, not yet reported in the AAR I diplo-annex what is left of the Manchu and change govt from Celestial Empire (but still keep the factions).

So you may not like the way Ming is set up. That is fine, your choice. But please avoid comments that are simply not the case.

colinljx said:

Trust me, 100 game years of waiting in boredom is not worth it. You may have found something worthy of your interest for now, but after staring at your screen and reading all the things happening around you(Ming) for minutes, you will find it absurd that the dev came up with such a ridiculous game feature and false advertised it.

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After 100 years ie 1499, I had large chunks of Borneo, bits of the Malay peninsular and Assam as well as client kingdoms in parts of SE Asia I didn't want to control directly.

Now all this is in 5.1 and I believe the mechanisms in 5.2 will change things again. Not least that full westernisation will end the factions.

The net effect is Ming, player controlled, is very powerful but its hard to apply that power. I prefer that balance to EU2 when it was just too weak and earlier versions of EU3 when you could rampage across the globe.

colinljx said:

veteran players like me have been playing EU3 for far too long that an large empire like Ming no longer holds much entertainment value without mods...

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That is why house rules and not breaking them are important. I have been playing EUI since 2000 and EUIII since 2006.
Just because I didn't join the forum till Apr,2012.
Don't assume that I am not a veteran player!!!!!!!

people don't realize 100 years go by really quickly when you've got 'nothing to do', but most people seem to consider not conquering half the world in 100 years as having done 'nothing'
here's kongo, a nation many would never play because 'you can do nothing'

miraculously, I didn't die of boring during this, maybe because it only took 30 minutes and I was quite satisfied afterwards? imagine that?

Nice Kongo up there, as long as Portugal doesn't steamroll u~

"Nothing to do" caused by a lack/elimination of options is really the main downer of DW. EU3 is a grand strategy game, but it's the Role-playing feel that really sucks you in for hours/days/weeks/months/years, which is why ppl write AARs. Once you have succeeded several attempts with your favorite nation at regional/global domination, there is really nothing to do but trying out random countries and role-playing them, and role-playing is probably the thing that brings the most fun for the longest time, let it be a historical Hapsburg/Russia, or an unrealistic Burgundian Europe/Prussia America. By imposing artificial bans on human players rather than only the AI, the devs took away the fun of playing Ming, rendering it worthless for those who expected some Role-playing value.

Kongo may be another matter, but 30 min spent on watching shows I didn't have time to watch is way better than staring at Ming in DW. (not to mention 30 min on modding DW)

colinljx said:

"Nothing to do" caused by a lack/elimination of options is really the main downer of DW. EU3 is a grand strategy game, but it's the Role-playing feel that really sucks you in for hours/days/weeks/months/years, which is why ppl write AARs.

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My personal feeling is that the game could use more elimination of options. We all know the ai has loopholes that a player can readily exploit but even with those it really shouldn't be possible for an OPM to complete a world conquest. It should be more than a little difficult for a major power to do so. With the current completely unlimited action availability the game quickly devolves into a historically implausible mess in most games. Sure it's fun to steamroll Europe as Albania or restore Byzantium once in a while but some people find dealing with a more restricted tool set a more satisfying challenge.

While I seriously doubt that the factions come close to representing the actual historic situation within Ming, they do make playing Ming more challenging as you have to actually deal with internal matters more than the usual "keep a few rebel stomping stacks in each region" gameplay. I'm sure even a brief search will find times in history where powers that be in a nation were forced to not do things they wanted because the nation wouldn't support it. This is an aspect of governing that really doesn't exist in the standard game. You can do anything as long as you keep your rebel stompers in order...

The unlimited sandbox style is fun, to a point, but having options beyond that point is not a bad thing IMO. Sure you can impose house rules (and in general I do) but unless you go to extremes they really don't alter the gameplay to make Poland feel like a different experience from Aceh.

As much as I would like to use mods that enforce restrictions from time to time for challenges, the raw EU3 must be a completely sandbox to attract most potential players. The same way that MMtG can never pay off Paradox as much as a EU3 expansion can do. The things that continue to make EU3 fun after role-playing is over are events/decisions/missions. For me, the missions are the only thing that gets me playing at this point(like quests in RPG), an aspect of the game that the devs have deemed unworthy to improve/upgrade, which modders are not even allowed to help them with because changing .exe file is not permitted.

IMO, if there will be another expansion/standalone, it should expand upon aspects of the game that are entertaining. Not more random events, not one-time decisions, but a more controllable mission system and some nation/culture/tech specific missions. If the engine can't handle too many missions, I don't mind having less unpredictable events.

Steamrolling is unimportant? OPM should be impossible to do world conquest? Guess what, potential players/buyers won't even take a look at EU3 if those are true. Be realistic, no game can be tailor made for you or anyone, not even MM. Some options must be exist because that's what a sandbox stands for. Limitations like a restrictive faction system upon every single empire larger than 50 provinces are welcomed, but bans like a prohibitive faction on Ming alone devalue the game.

maxirage said:

But nope, there's not a single reason you'd ever want to play an Eastern country, as they're always worse at everything.

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Of course there is: challenge. Eu3 is not supposed to be a balanced game for every playable nation. Yes, the Eastern nations are weaker but that makes it all the more fun.

I would suggest you get Unam Sanctum and conquer all of Asia with it. When you've done that, use QftNW to get Colonial CB on Christian colonies.

knul said:

Of course there is: challenge. Eu3 is not supposed to be a balanced game for every playable nation. Yes, the Eastern nations are weaker but that makes it all the more fun.

I would suggest you get Unam Sanctum and conquer all of Asia with it. When you've done that, use QftNW to get Colonial CB on Christian colonies.

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If there is some sort of compensation to justify the challenge (some eastern unique positive modifiers), then he probably won't be complaining. As of right now, nations simply become absolute inferior in every way (religion/tech/decision/mission/event) as you go east from Europe to Asia. Thus no fun in long-term game play. (gamers nowadays hate spending too much time on one thing at a time)

The concept of EU3 was great back when it was launched (I was hooked for sure), but the game has been out for so long... In a increasingly competitive market like now, the old "Europe must be superior in every way to create 'historical' outcome" justification is getting old, for both veterans and new comers of EU3.

After all, there is a reason why some hardcore Civ fans never seem to approve the EU3 setting, and Civ does make more money than EU.

colinljx said:

If there is some sort of compensation to justify the challenge (some eastern unique positive modifiers), then he probably won't be complaining. As of right now, nations simply become absolute inferior in every way (religion/tech/decision/mission/event) as you go east from Europe to Asia. Thus no fun in long-term game play. (gamers nowadays hate spending too much time on one thing at a time)

The concept of EU3 was great back when it was launched (I was hooked for sure), but the game has been out for so long... In a increasingly competitive market like now, the old "Europe must be superior in every way to create 'historical' outcome" justification is getting old, for both veterans and new comers of EU3.

After all, there is a reason why some hardcore Civ fans never seem to approve the EU3 setting, and Civ does make more money than EU.

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This goes back to the whole thing about games being tailored to different people. Civ used to be my favorite game hands down, but ever since i started playing EUIII and Victoria II, I have found it different to even pick up Civ again. It just seems so empty, simplified, and overly action-oriented compared to Paradox titles. But that doesn't make it a bad game; everyone would agree that its a classic. Its just directed toward a different audience.

I think that the eastern groups being inferior to the western ones accomplishes the goals of making the game a blend of a historical game and a sandbox style one. Obviously, it would suck if the game followed history exactly every time. At the same time though, it wouldn't be that much fun if every country was equally balanced and you started seeing crazy scenarios like the aztec colonizing southern Africa.

Honestly, I don't think it would be any fun if the Asian countries played on the same footing as the European ones, as this would make the two groups extremely similar to play as. If I'm going to play as an Asian country, I'm going to want an experience that is not only different from playing as a European country, but one that is more challenging, coinciding with the fact that Europe was historically more powerful during this time.

But without enough flavored missions/events/decisions, the majority of "rest of the world" really can't provide the same kind of entertainment value from playing Europe while the challenges are all bland static artificial disadvantages.

colinljx said:

But without enough flavored missions/events/decisions, the majority of "rest of the world" really can't provide the same kind of entertainment value from playing Europe while the challenges are all bland static artificial disadvantages.

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This depends a lot on the person playing. Some people get a kick out of doing things that are more challenging such as just surviving a game as certain nations. Others only enjoy creating the most massive empires. Others want each game to tell a story or just be a new experience.

While I agree that other parts of the world could use some TLC on the flavored events/decisions/missions front, I would contest your point that they don't provide the same level of entertainment value. I personally found my recent Ethiopia game to be much more entertaining than yet another dominate Europe/become HREmp for life, race to dominate the americas, or both game which seems to be what all European nations eventually devolve to any more.

(btw, on that note, can we please get the "make x vote for us" mission changed to not fire for non-HRE nations?)