Some Feedback on 1.33.X changes to China

[Genomega]

First of all, I've been enjoying the changes to Celestial Empire, while there are still some areas I feel like that should be patched up, everything else so far has been positive from a player interactive approach.

In my current Kandy playthrough, I actually made it strategy to get get into China one form or another as taking the Mandate when Ming is in Decline can be a massive boost now with the reworked 'Unify China' CB. Being at war now gives you cores on provinces in the China Super region so that means you can essentially get 1000 Development free if you take the Mandate in the first war (Of course this also requires actually getting a border to take the Mandate which in my case, involved taking a province from Wu to border Ming). In the past, like Oirat runs you would actually want to destroy the Mandate and never take it because lets face it, the Mechanic itself can be quite a detriment due to things like Devastation affecting Mandate growth. HOWEVER, I'm now much more interested in taking the Mandate now and consider it a trade off just for the fact alone I get free cores on the region when taking a province, not just territorial cores but full blown cores! I will admit this is quite fundamentally broken, but I mean the goal is to become the new Emperor of China, so you must rule China.

There are some changes I would recommend however...

1. Emperor of China in Name Only needs a bit of a rework, the only #2 of Chinese accepted cultures is wayyyy to easy at this point. The Disaster should also require you own a percentage of the Development in China. Considering you get cores now, I recommend a number between 100-300. I should also think there be a reason to fire the disaster too, so for example a potential event in the disaster could offer the chance to convert to the Chinese Culture group (Adopting the culture of the largest Chinese culture in your country at the time). Overall this disaster should be spiced up a bit, but I admit this could also cause issues with the AI.

2. Shun currently emerging too strong: Shun in my game on top of other games I've seen on the forums is benefiting from Ming taking Provinces from the Hordes when their Force Tributary wars. While I get that it was changed again to allow taking provinces if you have the Wargoal selected, I honestly believe this needs to be tuned down a bit. If anything, Ming shouldn't be taking that much Mongolian land in the early game.

3. Possibly bring back the old Celestial Empire factions? This is more of a wishlist thing if anything, and I know Johan in particular had expressed in the past that he despises the Faction system, but the more I look at some of the events that are now disabled for if you own the Mandate of Heaven DLC, the more I think they should be readded. Heck they can even be reworked to have a impact on the Mandate system such as impacting Meritocracy and Mandate generation. However I also admit that originally the entire Mandate system was designed to 'succeed' the faction representation at the time back in 1.20

4. Extend Meritocracy to the Chinese Warlord Governments: With alot of the original Celestial empire events now no longer exclusive to Ming I think its time to extend the Mechanic of Meritocracy as well. Not needed necessarily but it might be a unique flavorful thing as it would allow you to build a bureaucratic structure before becoming Emperor of China as you do start with 50 Meritocracy when becoming Emperor. Also, if this is done please prevent nations other than the Celestial Empire to use the Decrees, as it stands now from a Modder perspective, any nation with Meritocracy can use those decrees (AI only).

5. Mandate Generation could use a second look at in 1.33.1, mostly due to alot of the previous events being reenabled, when Ming was in its disaster it was gaining loads of it from events (Such at +5 at a time). Personally I'm more in favor of a modifier growing the mandate over time instead of flatly increasing it but that just my personal opinion. Mandate loss from loans should be on a 1 by 1 basis instead of every 5 loans in my opinion as well.

Overall, the changes are a positive in the long run. Theres actually a reason to take the Mandate now as you get access to the Unify China CB and thus, free cores over China. While even now Hordes may consider burning China to the ground with Razing, it does open the mechanic to Monarchies in Asia. Multiplayer Balance I'm a bit concerned for I'll admit but after all, the Mandate can still be a hinderance if you gain alot of Devastation.

(I will update this Post later with Screenshots of my current Kandy Game)

 

[Manwe_Sulimo]

I have the feeling that Ming is still far too stable, I am just sitting for several years with all of it occupied at 0 Mandate and only 2 tiny rebellions spawned. +5 unrest is just not enough, with most of the land being accepted culture and religion and no separatism no province has positive unrest until bankruptcy AND huge amounts of WE (which gets cancelled after the war due revanchism).
The higher Tolerance with the buff to Confucianism probably contributes too to this over-stability. IMO the unrest penalty should be raised to +10 or even +15 at 0 Mandate, but raise the Unrest reduction at >50 Mandate as compensation. If Ming is at 0 Mandate, it should really not require the player to intervene even further to spawn a single tiny rebellion.

On a side-note: This is an issue with EU4 in general, dangerous unrest is tied to expansion via OE / Separatism, the internal situation might worsen this, but does not really cause rebellions on its own, making large nations too stable.

Edit: OK now I am quite positive its a bug, 2 more years without a single rebellion have passed, basically all of Mings provinces have +30 unrest.

 

[kdsw]

huge amounts of WE (which gets cancelled after the war due revanchism)

You can always wreck them and white peace which gives them none, or just take a little money.

 

[sauron1600]

I have the feeling that Ming is still far too stable, I am just sitting for several years with all of it occupied at 0 Mandate and only 2 tiny rebellions spawned.

The thing is, a few (or many?) patches ago, rebels became much weaker because their size depends on the province's manpower. Which is why most rebellions in Ming are tiny.

It doesn't matter that much if unrest is 15 or 30 as long as its above 0 because Ming will squash the rebels easily. Then those rebels won't rise up for 10 years.

Despite being at 0 Mandate, Ming will still be able to defeat the rebels one by one because they occur every 10+ years, occur separately, and are tiny.

On a side-note: This is an issue with EU4 in general, dangerous unrest is tied to expansion via OE / Separatism, the internal situation might worsen this, but does not really cause rebellions on its own, making large nations too stable.

I think this is quite difficult to implement in EU4. Maybe EU5 can do better here.

Either unrest is given through random events, something like "Let them eat cake" which just feels like punishing the player when they did nothing wrong, or you put that choice into the player's hands, which the player will simply not choose to have unrest.

 

[KAOLAWANSUI]

In theory, this is Ming's problem, not Shun's. He always eats Mongols for no reason, which didn't happen before.
Or let Li Zicheng rebellion lose the Mongolian region, let them become small Mongolian tag, instead let them and shun signed non-aggression?
join a XI Tsg, which would allow Wu and Yue to become independent sooner

 

[Manwe_Sulimo]

The thing is, a few (or many?) patches ago, rebels became much weaker because their size depends on the province's manpower. Which is why most rebellions in Ming are tiny.

It doesn't matter that much if unrest is 15 or 30 as long as its above 0 because Ming will squash the rebels easily. Then those rebels won't rise up for 10 years.

Despite being at 0 Mandate, Ming will still be able to defeat the rebels one by one because they occur every 10+ years, occur separately, and are tiny.




I think this is quite difficult to implement in EU4. Maybe EU5 can do better here.

Either unrest is given through random events, something like "Let them eat cake" which just feels like punishing the player when they did nothing wrong, or you put that choice into the player's hands, which the player will simply not choose to have unrest.

@rebels in general: OK interesting, that explains why rebels where a big issue in my early EU4 days and not really in the last years. I was somehow aware that they made them weaker, but not that they totally removed the size of the country criterion.
That seems to be one of the worst balance changes they could have made, this is extremely punishing towards small countries and makes rebels for huge nations much easier. Given that in the last ~10 versions they were always going back and forth with measures to make blobbing more difficult (the worst attempt Terr Corr), it seems also to be quite contradictatory. Making rebels mean something for large nations would maybe (partly) address the concern raised regularly on this forum that large countries are too stable internally.
Of course its a difficult balance-question how to weigh the impact of rebel provinces dev and the total nations dev, probably the former should be the main factor still.

@Ming in particular: Ok the small rebel size is an issue in general, in my case that would not be an issue as Ming has no armies anymore and is fully occupied. It is more that rebels nearly refuse to spawn at all.
Well maybe its not a bug after all:
I just checked the calculations at the Wiki and apparently the speed at which unrest ticks up is like 1/4 of what I expected it to be. I expected it to be capped at 90 % or so and that most of the rebel groups are not too far away from that. However, the cap is 75 % and without >100 OE, or rebels that are associated with dozens of provinces there seems to be no chance to reach that. From my rough calculations most factions currently have a chance of only 20 % to tick up each month.
I assume they had negative unrest until either the bankruptcy hit or WE got out of hand, so they only started ticking after the war already lasted a while.
That reinforces my point: Ming should not be able to maintain negative unrest at 0 Mandate, especially without any unrest reduction such as Humanism. I understand they can deal with all rebels spawning while their army is still available, but they should at least need to deal with them and not be rebellion-less outside of events / disaster. And in case they get so destroyed as they are now (its my 4th war against them) they should really start crumbling apart.

 

[Ming]

@Ming in particular: Ok the small rebel size is an issue in general, in my case that would not be an issue as Ming has no armies anymore and is fully occupied. It is more that rebels nearly refuse to spawn at all.
Well maybe its not a bug after all:
I just checked the calculations at the Wiki and apparently the speed at which unrest ticks up is like 1/4 of what I expected it to be. I expected it to be capped at 90 % or so and that most of the rebel groups are not too far away from that. However, the cap is 75 % and without >100 OE, or rebels that are associated with dozens of provinces there seems to be no chance to reach that. From my rough calculations most factions currently have a chance of only 20 % to tick up each month.
I assume they had negative unrest until either the bankruptcy hit or WE got out of hand, so they only started ticking after the war already lasted a while.
That reinforces my point: Ming should not be able to maintain negative unrest at 0 Mandate, especially without any unrest reduction such as Humanism. I understand they can deal with all rebels spawning while their army is still available, but they should at least need to deal with them and not be rebellion-less outside of events / disaster. And in case they get so destroyed as they are now (its my 4th war against them) they should really start crumbling apart.

什么

 

[Republic of Mercury]

什么

Not you; the other Ming.

 

[AvengedK1ng]

In theory, this is Ming's problem, not Shun's. He always eats Mongols for no reason, which didn't happen before.
Or let Li Zicheng rebellion lose the Mongolian region, let them become small Mongolian tag, instead let them and shun signed non-aggression?
join a XI Tsg, which would allow Wu and Yue to become independent sooner

Or just give a flag to former steppe nomad land so its harder to blob into

 

[Genomega]

Or just give a flag to former steppe nomad land so its harder to blob into

I wonder how plausible it would be to give it to a randomly generated nation. Like how the Cossack disaster is.

 

[Manwe_Sulimo]

什么

Haha, sorry didn't want to refer to you

 

[EarlKonrad]

Since they added the ability for the AI to buy down WE during wars Ming has been more stable than ever. The fact that they have more points than they know what to do with and will always decrease their WE when they get the change means that rebels will be fewer in number and Ming's economy won't be hit as hard as it used to.

Just wanted to point this out as this single change never got much attention and it has had a big impact in the game since it was made some two years ago.