[1.8.1] Getting My China On - Suggestions?

[Landwalker]

As my present campaign as Bohemia-turned-Germany winds to a close, I'm starting to entertain the victim nation that I'll command in the next play-through. I'm thinking that I might like to give a non-European nation a shake, and my interest is trending towards the great lands of China. Having never played in that theatre in EU4 (let alone in 1.8.1), I now appeal to the hive mind for feedback on a few questions I'm facing.

1. The first and most critical decision: Who to play as? Ming certainly looks big and obvious, but I don't know how worthwhile they actually are. There's also grabbing one of the Manchu Khanates and going for a Form Manchu > Form Qing approach to my Chinese ambitions.
   
   At first blush, I like the Manchu national ideas a bit better. A bit stronger on the military side, as well as that very, very nice -20% Core Creation Cost. On the other hand, there's certainly a lot more of a hill to climb (at least, so it appears) if I'm starting off with one of the Manchu khanates. The Manchu also don't receive the unique Ming government, which might be a plus or a minus (I have no idea, having never encountered it).
   
   
2. National Ideas? Administrative seems like a no-brainer for Chinese conquests, since there's going to be a *lot* of coring in my future. Influence? I don't know how available vassal-feeding is in the Chinese theatre. Any other ADM or DIP ideas that should get a close look?
   
   
3. If I'm going Manchu, which khanate? Haixi starts with the best ruler and doesn't seem to be significantly behind the other khanates in terms of Base Tax or Land Force Limits, despite being the smallest in province count.
   
   
4. Strategy? What are my problems going to be? Where should I be looking in terms of expansion? Defense? My inclination is to work my way down into southeast Asia and get a stranglehold on those sweet, sweet trade goods. What about Japan? West?
   
   
5. When and how should I be looking at Westernization? How miserable is the process going to be? How can I get my tech-greedy hooks into it as soon as possible?
   
   
6. What am I forgetting?

As always, thanks to all in advance for any advice.

 

[Prom_STar]

I've played Ming for all of 10 minutes. Could not stomach the inward perfection nonsense. In contrast I've played a couple games as Manchu and they're great fun. With 1.8, the ideas are better and China is richer so Qing becomes a real powerhouse.

Haixi is the easiest start. Ally Korea, vasalize Jianzhou, profit. Admin ideas are totally worth it, both because of the stacked core cost reduction but also because without having to pay for reinforcements (Manchu tradition) mercenaries are very powerful. There are plenty of possible vassals to feed in China, so influence can work. Would've made annexing Shun a lot quicker for me. I found trade very useful in my game to get everything properly steered toward Beijing. Quantity saw my manpower reach past 1 million and my force limit was in the 650s. I took exploration because even gutted by autonomy, free land is free land. Also it makes your name bigger. Religious gives you the best CB in the game against just about everybody (since no one else is Confucian) and it'll let you convert Muslim land.

My strategy for westernization was to punch a corridor one province wide through Russia until I had a border with Sweden. The actual process couldn't have been simpler. Manchu gets -2 global unrest. Add on a theologian and you've completely negated the +5 from westernizing. At maximum it takes a bit over 17 years.

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

I've played Ming for all of 10 minutes. Could not stomach the inward perfection nonsense. In contrast I've played a couple games as Manchu and they're great fun. With 1.8, the ideas are better and China is richer so Qing becomes a real powerhouse.

Haixi is the easiest start. Ally Korea, vasalize Jianzhou, profit. Admin ideas are totally worth it, both because of the stacked core cost reduction but also because without having to pay for reinforcements (Manchu tradition) mercenaries are very powerful. There are plenty of possible vassals to feed in China, so influence can work. Would've made annexing Shun a lot quicker for me. I found trade very useful in my game to get everything properly steered toward Beijing. Quantity saw my manpower reach past 1 million and my force limit was in the 650s. I took exploration because even gutted by autonomy, free land is free land. Also it makes your name bigger. Religious gives you the best CB in the game against just about everybody (since no one else is Confucian) and it'll let you convert Muslim land.

My strategy for westernization was to punch a corridor one province wide through Russia until I had a border with Sweden. The actual process couldn't have been simpler. Manchu gets -2 global unrest. Add on a theologian and you've completely negated the +5 from westernizing. At maximum it takes a bit over 17 years.

Wait, I thought Internal Perfection and Faction effects have been nerfed?

 

[wingzero890]

If you start as Yeren you will reform into the muslim tech group. With the manchu ideas you will research tech faster than everyone in ROTW.

 

[Denkt]

The faster you westernize the better off you generally are, more so for ming who will then get rid of alot of penalties, after westernization you should be much more powerful, so for Ming start with exploration and get a European province in a war.
You can get rid of exploration if you want and get other ideas instead.
Becuase you are so powerful you can likely do without any military idea, humanism can be a good pick for stability, adm, religious, diplo and especially influence is good if you want to expand fast, use yourself and vassal to split up rebels and overextension and you can expand many times as fast as you can do with only yourself without any loss in stability.

Manchu khanate, you should probably make atleast one of the other khanate a vassal that way you can expand faster and have less burden on your adm points so you can get ideas faster and get as much use of your cbs as possible however I don't know much about eu4 hordes.

 

[Landwalker]

As a follow-up question, how outrageous is it, in terms of difficulty, to take out Ming after forming Manchu? Is it the sort of objective that's even somewhat reasonable?

 

[wingzero890]

As a follow-up question, how outrageous is it, in terms of difficulty, to take out Ming after forming Manchu? Is it the sort of objective that's even somewhat reasonable?

Extremely easy especially if you do it as Yeren, who reforms to Muslim tech group if they stay shamanist. When you become the Manchu your religion automatically changes to Confucian too, so it's potentially one of the most powerful nations in Asia. When at war with Ming, just smash their armies over and over again, loot their southern lands, and reap the profits.

The real challenge is managing OE and revolts. You will never be able to take all your claims before they expire sadly.

 

[GabbyDieJaeger]

As a follow-up question, how outrageous is it, in terms of difficulty, to take out Ming after forming Manchu? Is it the sort of objective that's even somewhat reasonable?

I've never played a Manchu game, but if it's anything like the way it was with my Japan game, conquering Ming isn't hard at all. Just very, very tedious.

 

[rayyuri]

I've played one Qing game and one Ming game in 1.8. Here are my comments:

1. Ming looks huge but it's very weak. 50% LA plus Inward Perfection, they have only 35k manpower and quite low income for such a huge territory. But if you be careful they are still easier to play compared to Manchu tribes. For Ming, you must westernize early to get rid of the debuff, but as Manchu/Qing you can play more freely.

So in general, Ming is slightly easier... Playing Ming always gives you a special challenge. Manchu tribes are more challenging in military aspects.

2. I don't usually have Admin ideas early. I use vassal feeding all the time, and in 1.8 it's even easier. Especially, as Ming you want vassals to take all foreign lands so that you can westernize easily. Because of the 1.8 rebel change, Humanism ideas help a lot in the westernization process, especially for Ming.

For my Ming game, I took Exploration first to block Russia and step into Africa and South America in order to westernize. Then Humanism. After westernization you can take whatever that suits your playing style. I usually take double Military ideas to battle the westerners, but there are many choices. If you are going into central asia then Religious ideas are also very helpful.

3. I like Jianzhou. First it's historical. Second you can easily conquer Korea to boost your power early.

4. As Ming, you need to westernize, and block the Russians. Get a port into Indian Ocean from Burma region and colonize Maldives-Cape-Kongo-Brazil to reach the west. Conquer Manchu/Oriat/Mongolia to block the Russians. Fighting the hordes early can be quite challenging but still doable, you need to be careful.
As Manchu, just follow their historical conquest -- unite the tribes, subjugate Mongolia, subjugate Korea, then go an pass the great wall to the south. Block the Russians if you want as well.
You can easily conquer Japan after westernization.

5. As Ming you must westernize. Having Humanism ideas will make the process quite smooth. As Qing you can do that earlier or later. Westernization can start as early as 1550s. Finishing westernization before 1600 is not very difficult.

6. Just a hint for Ming game... Your armies are weak before westernization. Use your vassals carefully and cleverly and let them fight for you.

 

[ashmizen]

As a follow-up question, how outrageous is it, in terms of difficulty, to take out Ming after forming Manchu? Is it the sort of objective that's even somewhat reasonable?

Beating Ming is easy, taking provinces in a war deal is easy too (although taking all of Ming will take multiple wars over many more years than historically). In my Jianzhou game I beat Ming without forming Qing yet. The Oriat Horde is actually a bigger threat and harder to beat in my game.

The problem is absorbing the land - I imagine without cores, but only claims, it's probably pretty crazy. I haven't tried yet in my game.

Some basic math - 20 Dip to core (-25% = 15 Dip with claim, which you will have with Qing), OR 10 Dip to vassalize, per base tax. China has some 400+ base tax, so that would be some 4000+ Dip, give or take, assuming you are able to break Ming into pieces you can then vassalize.

So basically Coring china will take at least as long it would to earn 4000+ Dip points, and put you behind some 5 Dip techs, assuming you get no Dip ideas or build any buildings.

Given a 3 Dip ruler, and a +2 advisor, 4000/8/12 = 41 years just to earn the Dip points to Core all of China.

I think this is the biggest problem with China right now - historically Qing took all of Ming's lands fairly quickly, and Cored them extremely fast - Once they got the Mandate from Heaven, they basically got full income and stability in all of the Chinese lands. As it is, you would need some 50 years to vassalize pieces and core it all.

Qing should get two events, one that gives Cores on all of north China, and then another that gives them cores on all of south China.

 

[Prom_STar]

Wait, I thought Internal Perfection and Faction effects have been nerfed?

The penalties are not as strong, though now you have 50% autonomy everywhere. I found Ming easier to conquer post-1.8 than it was before, even though the individual Ming soldier is now stronger (90% discipline instead of 75%). I just don't like playing so hamstrung. Much rather start small than be big but with a ton of penalties.

If you start as Yeren you will reform into the muslim tech group. With the manchu ideas you will research tech faster than everyone in ROTW.

This requires you to take the reform government decision. You can otherwise skip it. Manchu makes you a Chinese tech monarchy.

 

[ashmizen]

The penalties are not as strong, though now you have 50% autonomy everywhere. I found Ming easier to conquer post-1.8 than it was before, even though the individual Ming soldier is now stronger (90% discipline instead of 75%). I just don't like playing so hamstrung. Much rather start small than be big but with a ton of penalties.



This requires you to take the reform government decision. You can otherwise skip it. Manchu makes you a Chinese tech monarchy.

The penalties are not strong, but the faction benefits are weaker as well. They used to exceed the penalties, so as one faction, you actually got tech FASTER than any other Asian country. Temple faction made you stronger at fighting than normal, etc etc. Now they just make you neutral in that one category, instead of being better.

Also, the new 50LA kills Ming. It's a 50% nerf to manpower, income. The 50% nerf to manpower is really bad, as Ming has these huge armies that cannot replenish at all, and the AI likes to get dragged into 10, 20 year old wars and end up with constantly 0 manpower as it gets eaten up by various powers (Vietnam owning half of China, hmmm...)

I'm not sure why the 50LA for Ming was needed, maybe a 25LA would be better. Not sure why Qing would be so much better at getting manpower from China than Ming, or why Ming still has the same force limits as before but a tiny manpower pool, when it had by far the largest population in the world to draw soldiers from.

Sure, Ming is absurdly powerful once westernized, and westernizing is now super easy and short, so it basically encourages gamy play with Ming to explore and westernize above all else.

 

[Denkt]

You can get as low as 6 dip per base tax for vassal annexation by picking influence and admistration to get a policy that lower annexation cost.

Im not sure about the free core thing, it would make Qing get rolling so fast, such a powerful nation that it will be unstoppable for anyone but the most powerful nation which likely are not close to be a threat allowing Qing to basicly get all Asia and India in short order.

 

[Less]

In my game as Yeren I went Exploration/Influence/Quantity. Exploration just cause free land, Influence because feeding multiple vassals in a single war to take what would be over 100% OE worth of land is great, and Quantity because I like cheap troops and more of them. In retrospect Exploration was a gold drain that was barely sustainable for the first half and for the second half I had essentially limitless money, but that's what I went with.

Immediately attacked Haixi to Vassalize, then did the same to Jianzhou and Korchin. Didn't rush to diploannex anything but Haixi, bided my time and wore down my neighbors.

Jianzhou I kept around to feed Korean provinces. Since Korea was allied to Ming I also took care to beat down Ming a lot. Annexed them next to form Manchu then continued the Ming beat-down. Make sure to walk a 1k stack around Ming for the epic looting.

Korchin is Buddhist and therefore very valuable since you can feed them Mongol/Oirat provinces easily. I kept Buryatia rivaled and around since they were allied to Oirat, continually humiliating them while I fed Korchin provinces.

Annexed and released Shun and Chagatai from Ming and Oirat respectively to feed provinces later, at which point I diploannexed Korchin and hit the button to form Qing and get my claims (which had to be pursued quickly before they are lost). At this point Ming was completely down the toilet after multiple wars with me and Oirat, went bankrupt and had no chance whatsoever. Here's the result, from a post I made in another thread.

On the matter of invading Ming, turns out you can annex quite a lot even without ADM efficiency:

Ming went bankrupt, which gives more autonomy and the revolts themselves give more still. Virtually every Ming province is at 100% autonomy (horrifying IMO, and I'll get nothing from it for years which is probably fairly realistic). Shun, Chagatai and Miao are my vassals so I plan to vassal feed everyone rather than full annex for obvious reasons. I'm not even using Diplomatic ideas to get this. Theoretically I could have simply vassalized Ming, but that would give me -200 aggressive expansion, so good luck integrating them, and a bankrupt Ming with 100% autonomy would be a complete hell to police while also being completely useless.

Here's me after parceling out land to vassals:

We all have about 200% overextension, should be fun with rebels.

Good news for invading Ming as Qing is that you CAN take far more OE then you think, since everything is claimed, your ideas reduce the cost further, and they are all provinces of your religion (soon to be accepted cultures too). Assuming you have ADM to immediately core you'll have 0 unrest in about a year.

 

[Incompetent]

The Manchu also don't receive the unique Ming government, which might be a plus or a minus (I have no idea, having never encountered it).

Celestial Empire with Inward Perfection is the worst government type in the world. There's also the 'Mandate of Heaven' mechanic, which is actually a curse placed on the land: it doesn't give you any good events while you have it, but if you trigger 'Mandate of Heaven Lost', you'll get hit by a series of bad events in addition to the greatly increased revolt risk. Your government might be shackled to Local Autonomy and Inward Perfection, but the rebels suffer no such disabilities.

The only silver lining is that Celestial Empire doesn't prevent a direct Westernisation, unlike some other bad governments. Once you have Westernised and clamped down on Local Autonomy, you are obscenely rich and powerful, and the game becomes trivial (in SP, anyway).

 

[unmerged(463193)]

Wait, I thought Internal Perfection and Faction effects have been nerfed?

paradox nerfed it slightly but it still exists as a nerf and is very noticeable. in fact, they added the 50% local autonomy nerf, so ming is much weaker than they might seem at first glance. the main advantage ming has is that it is stronger than all of its neighbors in the beginning. if ming started in europe next to actual superpowers like france or austria, it would not survive longer than 50 years.

Ming is pretty fun to play if you dont mind dealing with all the nerfs, especially if you can westernize early through gamey methods (colonize africa/americas to border west europeans) since that removes the 50% LA and inward perfection and makes you a superpower.

 

[Denkt]

Ming only has like 1/4 of its power it could have without the penalties.
It is still a very powerful country with 1/4 power, westernized Ming is maybe upwards 6 times as strong as starting Ming with the same land.

 

[Petrucci]

Ming only has like 1/4 of its power it could have without the penalties.
It is still a very powerful country with 1/4 power, westernized Ming is maybe upwards 6 times as strong as starting Ming with the same land.

Dat math!

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

Dat math!

Clearly, Westernization increases your power by about 50% in general.

 

[JohnnyAlpha]

I ripped Ming apart with 1/4 of their troops and manpower with a simple strategy.

Let them come to you. A 42-strong stack of Ming troops sat on one province taking 6% attrition every month. Using scorched earth, you can basically reduce their manpower to zero without fighting a single battle.
They weren't always this stupid but by the time I actually engaged them, they were broken into enough stacks to mop up easily, and had no reserves.

Start sieging provinces and watch the nationalist rebels spawn.