I find using the ledger for that, or the buildings button on the upper left hand corner of the screen, quite easy, even for a very large empire. If you haven't been using those two parts of the interface, that should solve your problem. If you have, and are still having problems, I don't know what to tell you.
I will have to check this out. I use the ledger, I just didn't use it for the purpose. Does it give me a list of provinces and let me buy buildings on those provinces?
Don't build buildings once your empire gets large. The cost of Monarch Points is not worth the reward.
Why is that? Because buildings either increase manpower or increase your wealth. Large empires are in no need of money and in no need of more manpower and if they are then they are doing something wrong.
Buying 60 armories in accepted culture provinces increases your base manpower by 1500 I believe. But instead of wasting 600 Military Power on 1500 manpower you could buy a single tech (in western tech group without any modifiers)
Two things.
First one being I play the game two different ways depending on my mood. One that removes Monarch points cost for buildings so they only cost cash. Then there is zero reason NOT to buy them. So in that case what you said doesn't apply. I typically play with a bunch of mods in that case, as well as the Extra Idea Groups and Tenth Idea mod. The other way I play is MORE vanilla with those two mods (cause I quite like the additional ways to play and more dynamic environment they give), n which case buildings do cost manpower. In such a case I don't buy buildings as much, aside from stuff like Temples, Constables, Armories/Barracks/Etc in select provinces to reduce the cost of buying troops, occasionally Trade Power buildings (something like a market place in the Bordeaux provinces in Spain because I generally leave France a long, but my rule of thumb is trade power buildings in an area where I have no intention to take 100% of the node so I need the extra trade power), and then certain buildings on the beneficial trade goods provinces. In such a case what you said applies. I also play on a higher difficulty so it's much slower to expand. Such a game with Korea by 1650 is impossible.
The second fact is that money has no value. That's the thing one must keep in mind. That's WHY buildings have Monarch points. However, if you are playing Korea, or even Brunei/Japan, or a Horde, well, essentially Monarch points have much less value than they would if you were West/East or even Ottoman. Adm is the most valuable, to get the Idea groups unlocked since there is no extra cost. But if you are Korea for example, Westernizing takes ages and ages. next to Japan, they are probably one of the hardest nations to Westernize with unless you quickly rush to africa, which I don't like cause I would much prefer locking out SEA from foreign powers VS sticking a province next to them while they put one in my area of domination then proceed to crush me. Them having massive attrition to even get to Aceh makes it impossible for them to ever assault me. Due to this, you spend most the game with that huge, huge tech cost. So monarch points have......little value as well. Few reasons for that. First being just the massive cost. You don't wanna stay ahead. It's BETTER to stay behind. You want to be 8 techs behind europe. That way you can westernize upon meeting them. Korea is a bit more unique due to their insanely low tech costs compared to the rest of Area. -10% from their ideas. Plus, if you let the Ming, or whoever get ahead of you on tech, it lowers your costs. So you save more from that modifier for getting behind than you would if you stayed ahead. So either get the techs before them (let's take a rough estimate, 950 cost for the tech), or you can wait for the neighbor bonus, and with the amount it saves you (depends on the neighbor bonus, say 5, or 10%), -10% from that 950, you could buy builds+that tech. So you get the same tech+save monarch points which you can spend on buildings. So what's the point of getting ahead on tech? Zero. It HURTS you. Especially as Korea, or Japan. Who are you fighting? There is no one to fight as either of those countries (once you PU the Oirat, take out the Manchu who are significantly behind due to their modifier, and Korea/Japan). If you have no experience in the region, Ming are arguably the least aggressive nation in the game, and end up having a harder time preventing Zhou from breaking. They are no threat, and even then a ming that is 1-2 mil techs ahead of you a joke when you have 100k manpower, defensive ideas, and they can't get into your lands due to the insane attrition they take in siberia. You just throw stacks of 30 at them until they break. You are the Asian russia. You cannot lose. Dip techs are useless, and you always get behind anyway due to Exploration+Expansion ideas for your 1st and 2nd ideas. So you are already massively behind, which is good cause then the techs cost 500 VS 950 they normally cost. So why spent Monarch points on Dip tech VS buildings? Adm, as I said, is the one valuable one due to the ideas they let you take. But really, Temples+Constables VS Adm tech 6? What does Adm tech 6 gives you? Nothing that valuable over buying those buildings. And again, this is Asia. You want to stay AT LEAST 8 techs behind the west. In the game I mentioned, I was 2 techs behind Mil, 6 on Dip, 2-3 on Adm from Portugal. The tech leader doesn't matter. All that matters is how behind portugal you are, and they are never the tech leader anyway. As long as you get Carracks, combined with Korea's +10% heavy ship combat ability, 60-70 carracks will dwarf anything korea can throw at you, even if they are 5-8 dip techs ahead. So why would I care about those techs?
Again, Korea is in such a unique position where Monarch points have zero value to you. There are zero threats in Asia after you take down Manchu. That's it. Manchu and you are #1. Once you take out japan (which is insanely easy due to being able to blockage the straights in 5 of Japan's provinces), you have Naval superiority over the ming. And once you colonize Siberia you have Manpower/Force limits over Ming. SEA colonies give you gold over China. And, that combined with their horrible internal stability issues and their joke aggressiveness against anyone, Korea is god level invincible. Your biggest threat is Russia, but once you colonize Siberia they have ONE province bordering you. Fort Level 4+That 500 gold defensive building with 4-5 stacks of 15 units means Russia is absolutely not going to do jack crap against you. Nor do they want to.
Let me explain why Korea is in such a uniuqe position. While I agree what you say applies to say, Castile who needs to stay up in Mil tech with France, and Dip tech with England, Korea doesn't have that issue.
Korean Ideas are so, so drastically incredible. People praise Prussia, which is great an all, but Prussia has Military based Unique ideas surrounded by Austria, Scandinavia, Russia/Poland/Commonwealth, France, and even England and Castile if they care to bother you. Korea has zero threats or rivals and no one to stop them. -20% build cost (which combined with Economic Idea's means you get such a huge value from buying buildings as them, this combined with why i said monarch points are valueless means buildings are SUPER valuable), +25% trade power to dominate the asia trade game entirely with your 80+ trade ships, -5% tech cost which not only allows you to stay ahead on Military tech early game, but lets you dwarf Japan/Manchu when it matters so that you can steam role them into becoming invincible in asia+upon westernizing means you are 100% always the tech leader, -10% stability cost for constant 3 stability for this massive empire that has zero religious issues (aside from Japan which is Shinto, everything is either Buddhist or Confucian so you A. don't need to worry about zealots. B. can easy convert with those tiny stability costs), +10% production efficiency that not only lets you out pace the EUROPEANS when it comes to colonizing, but allows you to outpace Russia more importantly so you can get that 1 province gap that blocks them from Siberia entirely), +5% heavy ship combat ability which means 100% naval dominance, and even the europeans have a hard time fighting you pre and post westernization (navy are always equal), especially if you are against portugal. Maybe Netherlands/England, but Portugal? They are a joke and a half. +10% manpower puts you ahead of russia and ming china, even before zhou breaks off, -10% Idea cost, which means you have such a massive excess of monarch points, +10% nation tax+-20% building cost+another -20% buildcost means you have so much money to throw around it's a joke, and finally +10% infantry combat ability so that the Eastern Tech group units from Russia, and the Ming military (when you do inevitably decide to down Han china) is really not that big of an issue.
Take all of that with Korea's typical Exploration>Expansion>Economic>Defensive/Plutocratic ideas and really, it's such a joke. you are getting a solid 50% production efficiency. You get 4 merchants total from all of that (unlike portugal, castile, england, who want to take trade idea's to get that money, Asia's unique set up for trade (being such that you move your capital to Beijing, and there are only TWO nodes which go into Beijing's Node. Nippon (100% control, no merchant), and Hangzhou. So you pull from Hangzhou, pull from Canton up to Hangzhou, collect from Beijing, and that last merchant you shove into Philippines to collect there. Then the national decisions for +1 merchant gives you another if you maybe wanna pull into the Malayan Area from Phillipines, and Collect from Malay assuming you took out all of the nations in that trade node, which, are a joke to take down. Plutocratic's very useful for a country like korea where it gives the perfect merchant amount+keeps stability between Confucian/Buddhist, and Morale is always nice, production efficiency for faster colonizing, -1 national revolt risk (again added to the tolerance of heathens, your permanent 2-3 stability due to Korea's low cost to buy stability, no revolts in your massive nation), manpower recovery from it means you literally can throw troops and you recover your massive manpower pool faster than you burn it in battles against Ming/Russia. And Economic Idea's are a must for large, colonizing nations, with the eventual 6-8 gold mines you end up with as Korea. (1 native to Kai in Japan, 1-2 that you get in Siberia, and the 5 in East Africa). So Economic are a MUST as Korea. And they are frankly extremely synergistic as well. (Production efficiency+build cost=fast colonizing, easy building buying). Combined that with any of the trade good bonuses and you are so overly powerful.
So yeh, I hope that at least explains why Monarch points have no value as Korea (you want to stay behind, and it's easy to catch up once you westernize, and idea costs are so valuable/cheap so you have a lot left over), and why buildings are so easy (-40% buildcost, the 500 cost buildings become 300). Even saying all of that, I was ALWAYS 6 or so years ahead on Mil tech. And Mil tech is the only tech you really "want" to stay ahead in, simply so you don't end up 5 behind Russia and they steam roll you, even with your manpower. But again, manpower buildings are the last you buy anyway, aside from a few cost provinces that you buy your actual troops in (the 100 mil power in those ~10 provinces per building set is worth what they save you).
Maybe I have no idea what I am doing though. I have 400 hours, but frankly I could be entirely wrong and someone could explain why. I am open to being wrong on all of this XD
