Let me begin by saying I love the changes Art of War made to East Asia. The new Jurchen tribes, a less pathetic AI Ming (though not perfect), more tags, more NIs, more interesting colonization, etc. It's been a lot more fun after pre-1.8 Asia got a bit bland.
Ming in particular is more fun in player hands. Pre-AoW you kept the Eunuchs in power 90% of the time, only flipped to Temple during war, and only flipped to the Bureaucrats when you needed to build/increase stab/get an heir/get more advisors. At the same time, the new autonomy system combined with Ming's 50% autonomy floor creates some interesting decisions - do you reduce the autonomy of newly conquered provinces, or risk open rebellion? Rebellion for Ming is somewhat easy to keep down thanks to the Mandate of Heaven, but once those rebels pop, boy are you in trouble.
That being said, I have a couple of suggestions for making Ming even better.
1) Reduce the impact of ruler legitimacy RNG. Currently, if you get an average or poor-legitimacy heir, you had better hope you can kill him and get a new one before your ruler dies. And if the poor-legit heir is female, it's game over. Recovering legitimacy during a regency council is nearly impossible, thus permanently (pre-westernization, at least) leaving the Ming game in the hands of the dice gods + those delicious but all too infrequent Ming legitimacy events.
Suggestion: code the Celestial Empire government to only give strong claims to heirs. At the same time, add some events that force the player to make decisions between sacrificing hefty gold sums/MPs/trade power/etc., or giving up some legitimacy. The events could be flavored with disaster text or the rooting out of corrupt officials, thus forcing the state to expend resources managing its realm or letting these routine affairs languish while risking unhappiness. It would hand control of the game to the previously powerless player while retaining deep strategic and tactical decision-making.
This will replicate the historical functioning of the Mandate of Heaven, whereby a ruler who governs poorly is considered illegitimate regardless of pedigree. There is also historical basis for the Ming lineage only producing strong-claim heirs thanks to an adaptive state and flexible traditions of succession. By the time period of the game, the Ming emperors had become largely palace-bound and the state functioned thanks to a complex (though highly factionalized) bureaucracy. Take for example the Tumu Crisis: in 1449 the Zhengtong Emperor (Ming's awful 1-1-1 starting ruler) decided to lead a campaign against the Oirat Mongols. His army was utterly crushed and Zhengtong was captured. The court in Beijing, though fearful that the Mongols would attack, installed Zhengtong's half-brother as the emperor and continued to manage affairs. When the Mongols released Zhengtong, he was placed under house arrest by the new emperor, until Zhengtong launched a coup some years later and retook the throne. Throughout all this political turmoil, however, the pedigree of Zhengtong's half brother was hardly relevant. A similar situation occurred in 1524 when the Zhengde Emperor left no children to succeed him. It was a simple thing to install Zhengde's cousin as the Jiajing Emperor; the only controversy was when Jiajing refused to be posthumously adopted by Zhengde and instead insisted his own parents be elevated as imperial forefathers.
2) Reduce the supply limit of Siberian provinces.
Right now, by the time Russia becomes a threat, the supply limit of the Siberian regions is absurdly high. It's a trivial thing to march 20k, 40k, or even 100k troops across Eurasia. This is absolutely silly and ahistorical; it also renders the Chinese region far more susceptible to attack from a sedentary empire than was plausible, and allows Ming players to drive deep into Europe as early as the 16th century. The Jurchens and Mongols threatened China for hundreds of years because of their ability to live off the steppe land as nomadic peoples, but supplying an infantry-based army over the huge stretches of Siberia, even in the 19th century, is silly.
Doing this will make it so Ming players are not forced to take Exploration/Expansion first in every game in order to cut Muscovy/Russia off. The East Asian game then becomes much more dynamic with other idea group options.
3) Replicate the tribute system. I could go into detail about how the tribute system actually functioned, but I'm still trying to figure out myself how it could go into the game. Perhaps the game could include a unique relations option similar to subsidies that would transfer gold from Ming to a tributary state. In exchange Ming could receive prestige/legitimacy bonuses. The balance of the game would be maintained, since money and prestige are both fairly easy to come across, and the legitimacy aspect could tie in with my first suggestion above.
Comments? Thoughts? Ideas?
Ming in particular is more fun in player hands. Pre-AoW you kept the Eunuchs in power 90% of the time, only flipped to Temple during war, and only flipped to the Bureaucrats when you needed to build/increase stab/get an heir/get more advisors. At the same time, the new autonomy system combined with Ming's 50% autonomy floor creates some interesting decisions - do you reduce the autonomy of newly conquered provinces, or risk open rebellion? Rebellion for Ming is somewhat easy to keep down thanks to the Mandate of Heaven, but once those rebels pop, boy are you in trouble.
That being said, I have a couple of suggestions for making Ming even better.
1) Reduce the impact of ruler legitimacy RNG. Currently, if you get an average or poor-legitimacy heir, you had better hope you can kill him and get a new one before your ruler dies. And if the poor-legit heir is female, it's game over. Recovering legitimacy during a regency council is nearly impossible, thus permanently (pre-westernization, at least) leaving the Ming game in the hands of the dice gods + those delicious but all too infrequent Ming legitimacy events.
Suggestion: code the Celestial Empire government to only give strong claims to heirs. At the same time, add some events that force the player to make decisions between sacrificing hefty gold sums/MPs/trade power/etc., or giving up some legitimacy. The events could be flavored with disaster text or the rooting out of corrupt officials, thus forcing the state to expend resources managing its realm or letting these routine affairs languish while risking unhappiness. It would hand control of the game to the previously powerless player while retaining deep strategic and tactical decision-making.
This will replicate the historical functioning of the Mandate of Heaven, whereby a ruler who governs poorly is considered illegitimate regardless of pedigree. There is also historical basis for the Ming lineage only producing strong-claim heirs thanks to an adaptive state and flexible traditions of succession. By the time period of the game, the Ming emperors had become largely palace-bound and the state functioned thanks to a complex (though highly factionalized) bureaucracy. Take for example the Tumu Crisis: in 1449 the Zhengtong Emperor (Ming's awful 1-1-1 starting ruler) decided to lead a campaign against the Oirat Mongols. His army was utterly crushed and Zhengtong was captured. The court in Beijing, though fearful that the Mongols would attack, installed Zhengtong's half-brother as the emperor and continued to manage affairs. When the Mongols released Zhengtong, he was placed under house arrest by the new emperor, until Zhengtong launched a coup some years later and retook the throne. Throughout all this political turmoil, however, the pedigree of Zhengtong's half brother was hardly relevant. A similar situation occurred in 1524 when the Zhengde Emperor left no children to succeed him. It was a simple thing to install Zhengde's cousin as the Jiajing Emperor; the only controversy was when Jiajing refused to be posthumously adopted by Zhengde and instead insisted his own parents be elevated as imperial forefathers.
2) Reduce the supply limit of Siberian provinces.
Right now, by the time Russia becomes a threat, the supply limit of the Siberian regions is absurdly high. It's a trivial thing to march 20k, 40k, or even 100k troops across Eurasia. This is absolutely silly and ahistorical; it also renders the Chinese region far more susceptible to attack from a sedentary empire than was plausible, and allows Ming players to drive deep into Europe as early as the 16th century. The Jurchens and Mongols threatened China for hundreds of years because of their ability to live off the steppe land as nomadic peoples, but supplying an infantry-based army over the huge stretches of Siberia, even in the 19th century, is silly.
Doing this will make it so Ming players are not forced to take Exploration/Expansion first in every game in order to cut Muscovy/Russia off. The East Asian game then becomes much more dynamic with other idea group options.
3) Replicate the tribute system. I could go into detail about how the tribute system actually functioned, but I'm still trying to figure out myself how it could go into the game. Perhaps the game could include a unique relations option similar to subsidies that would transfer gold from Ming to a tributary state. In exchange Ming could receive prestige/legitimacy bonuses. The balance of the game would be maintained, since money and prestige are both fairly easy to come across, and the legitimacy aspect could tie in with my first suggestion above.
Comments? Thoughts? Ideas?
