The Ming nerf has made the game better

[Reman]

With patch 1.24 the Ming have received 3 large nerfs:

1. They cannot recruit mercenaries in tributaries
2. 0 mandate gives +5 unrest
3. 0 mandate gives -100% mercenary availability

These are great since the Ming has been practically unkillable by other AI's for the last 4 patches.They would consistently use their enormous treasury to bail themselves out of any difficult wars or rebels that appeared, which made the game much less dynamic. I played about a dozen full games over those 4 patches, and I never saw another AI take the Mandate of Heaven even when I had beaten Ming to a pulp. One particularly egregious example occurred during my Mongolia run in which Ming still had 80% of their tributaries after I had crushed them into a landlocked OPM enclave within my borders. I checked back 50 years later and they still had 60%+ of their tributaries (several of which were over 250 development) despite being in an utterly hopeless situation.

Hopefully these changes will move towards fixing that.

I ran an observer game and Ming is definitely not a pushover by any means. Even staying at 0 mandate for a century won't kill them, but it will make them more brittle to long wars that raise war exhaustion. That's probably where low mandate SHOULD leave them. It makes them noticeably weaker, but it's not an autokill situation that I've seen some people say it would be.

Having a more dynamic East makes the game more fun, interesting, and historical. The consistent lack of Qing's rise is one of the last markedly ahistorical points about the game, and it'd be great to see them every now and then.

Obviously, there's still more that could be done:

1. Make it so tributaries don't clear out rebels of their overlord
2. Make it so Ming doesn't immediately make breakaway states into tributaries, especially if they are in the China region
3. Make it so the Unguarded Frontier disaster can fire more consistently for the AI, as any large AI will have switched away from being a horde by the time they're big enough to break free from the Ming

Thank you to the devs who have been listening to player feedback!

 

[Grand Historian]

And thank you for posting this thread.

 

[Piotrzeci]

I really like the -100% available mercenaries modifier. It should make it possible to actually invade them, when they have problems, instead of waiting for them to go bankrupt, because of an army of mercenaries.

 

[Orkonkel]

In my latest game, they dropped to 0 mandate due to Unguarded Frontiers disaster before I even made contact to them. I capitalized and made sure I was able to border them before they managed to recover, and they've been in a perpetual death spiral since.

 

[bly08]

Qing will form as often on this patch as the last one. The more important change is that anyone can tank mandate without doing a thing. The trade off is Ming becomes even more unplayable while EoC is a purely cosmetic mechanic with no real use.

I'm sure the people arguing for historical accuracy won't mind if Qing never forms as long as they can deal with 5 less stacks during their quest to take over Asia with Oman.

 

[bbqftw]

I am really glad this game is being balanced around people unable to kill armies that take 50% more damage.

Just what we needed, 1000 free dev for anyone in east Asia that hits empire rank

At this rate by 1.32 we can start recommending TTM as a good starter achievement

 

[Reman]

I am really glad this game is being balanced around people unable to kill armies that take 50% more damage.

Just what we needed, 1000 free dev for anyone in east Asia that hits empire rank

At this rate by 1.32 we can start recommending TTM as a good starter achievement

This isn't about balancing for players as much as balancing for the AI. If you only balanced for players no obstacle would ever be considered overpowered because players will find ways to circumvent them, no matter how large they are.

In my thousands of hours playing the game I have never ever seen Qing usurp Ming like it did in history. In the very few instances Qing actually appeared (<1% of games) it never even came close to taking over China. I'd like to see the AI actually do it at some point without player involvement.

That's the main reason I like the Ming nerf, because it gets us closer to that.

 

[Siu-King**]

I am really glad this game is being balanced around people unable to kill armies that take 50% more damage.

LOL Goddamn this is why I like you XD

All things aside, it is so easy to kill them in 1.23 since they dont build additional forts anymore.

 

[Dakka]

Though I appreciate the nerf (Ming was grossly overpowered and it was difficult to take advantage of low mandate unless you manually forced it on them rather than have the AI being capable of making a mistake), I don’t think nerfing Ming into the ground is the way to do it. This patch, Ming is fine. Now what needs to be focused on (if AI Qing is the goal) is to greatly improve horde AI. And I stand by this regardless of Qing. The AI is absolutely atrocious at hordes. They are useless and incapable of doing anything after the first decade of the game. The AI needs to be taught how to better manage razing and how to take advantage and better evaluate their troop quality. As of now, it seems as if the AI only looks at offensive action when it has numerical superiority, and does not account for the actual superiority of its troops. If this was added, I feel hordes and small elite countries in general would be able to be more aggressive and better judge when and where to attack both players and larger countries than themselves.

 

[durbal]

Though I appreciate the nerf (Ming was grossly overpowered and it was difficult to take advantage of low mandate unless you manually forced it on them rather than have the AI being capable of making a mistake), I don’t think nerfing Ming into the ground is the way to do it. This patch, Ming is fine. Now what needs to be focused on (if AI Qing is the goal) is to greatly improve horde AI. And I stand by this regardless of Qing. The AI is absolutely atrocious at hordes. They are useless and incapable of doing anything after the first decade of the game. The AI needs to be taught how to better manage razing and how to take advantage and better evaluate their troop quality. As of now, it seems as if the AI only looks at offensive action when it has numerical superiority, and does not account for the actual superiority of its troops. If this was added, I feel hordes and small elite countries in general would be able to be more aggressive and better judge when and where to attack both players and larger countries than themselves.

Horde terrain modifiers is invisible to AI and completely stupid anyway. Remove that first.

 

[Heindrich]

EUIV completely fails to capture the true strength of nomadic factions, but I don't think the answer is to "buff" them, because nomads are not superhuman warriors either. Steppes are basically useless for a settled agrarian civilization, and nomads by definition have no fixed settlements that you can capture, therefore marching 50k troops into Mongolia to "conquer" it as the Ming is completely unrealistic. You can try to establish military outposts, extend your control, exterminate hostile nomadic tribes, etc... but you don't "own" the steppes in the same way you can own towns and villages.

On the other hand, some of you are a bit too obsessed with Qing. I am all for historic accuracy, but the rise of the Qing was by no means an inevitable outcome, or a reflection of Manchu military superiority that demands more Manchu buffs or Ming nerfs. The Ming were relatively successful in their early conflicts with the Manchu, who only succeeded after decades of massive disasters and unrest in the Chinese interior crippled the Ming Empire, and the Ming army stationed to confront the Manchu defected because Chinese rebels killed the Ming Emperor in Beijing, so the army sided with the invaders in the name of avenging their Emperor.

 

[Badesumofu]

I am really glad this game is being balanced around people unable to kill armies that take 50% more damage.

While I agree that people who struggled to fight Ming at 0 mandate in 1.23 are simply very bad players who should learn the game a bit more - I also think it was a little bit cheesy that Ming could just merc up from Tributaries who weren't even involved in the war. Oh look, another stack of paper soldiers from... somewhere... oh well better chase it around and swat it I guess. Paper soldiers can still de-siege stuff and are annoying. But as you say, a zero mandate Ming is now free land for anyone in the area who feels like taking it.

From a non-powergaming point of view, I like that we now have a plausible path for Ming to fail that happens organically due to game mechanics (and without player involvement), ie it respects causation rather than just being railroaded.

 

[FleetingRain]

Qing is doomed to almost never appear and my guess is half the reason is Jianzhou's mountainous terrain.

 

[DàbiànLājīdàrén]

So what is the point of taking the Mandate now?

On the other hand, some of you are a bit too obsessed with Qing. I am all for historic accuracy, but the rise of the Qing was by no means an inevitable outcome, or a reflection of Manchu military superiority that demands more Manchu buffs or Ming nerfs.

I'd settle for Qing being possible at all. I have over 1000 hours in EU4 and have seen Qing form only once several patches ago. Under the current CoC setup where the Manchus are alliance happy and their troops are trash in the mountains, even Manchu forming is essentially a near impossibility.

 

[Tigerbait]

The biggest block to Qing and even Manchuria is Korea eating them every time.

 

[Siu-King**]

The biggest block to Qing and even Manchuria is Korea eating them every time.

No it's because they frickin raise banners and deleting them and loop.
ends up with 100 corruption and no tech

 

[makaramus]

Qing will form as often on this patch as the last one. The more important change is that anyone can tank mandate without doing a thing. The trade off is Ming becomes even more unplayable while EoC is a purely cosmetic mechanic with no real use.

I'm sure the people arguing for historical accuracy won't mind if Qing never forms as long as they can deal with 5 less stacks during their quest to take over Asia with Oman.

ming shall be allways playable as long as any opm is playable(even athens)
ming is still no doubt is one of most powerfull starts in game. no doubt its weaker now but its still one of best countries for world conquest thanks to free admin points and best for colonial game in asia (make entire american tribes pay tributary to you )

about qing... its ok if they dont form qing but it would be just better to see oirat conquering empire of china or japan doing it? OR KOREA!!! OR ANYONE!!!
I DONT WANT TO SEE YELLOW BUBBLE AT THERE ATLEAST ONCE IN MY GAME!!! JUST ONCE!!!

edit: also keeping positive mandate +reforming eoc is still easier than passing reforms in hre

 

[ywxiao]

ming shall be allways playable as long as any opm is playable(even athens)
ming is still no doubt is one of most powerfull starts in game. no doubt its weaker now but its still one of best countries for world conquest thanks to free admin points and best for colonial game in asia (make entire american tribes pay tributary to you )

about qing... its ok if they dont form qing but it would be just better to see oirat conquering empire of china or japan doing it? OR KOREA!!! OR ANYONE!!!
I DONT WANT TO SEE YELLOW BUBBLE AT THERE ATLEAST ONCE IN MY GAME!!! JUST ONCE!!!

edit: also keeping positive mandate +reforming eoc is still easier than passing reforms in hre

Play more games maybe? I've seen it happen twice in 1.23 alone. VH has a much higher chance of Ming dying if you like it that way.
The EoC is balance solely around Ming, which is a terrible decision. EoC is the equivalent of forming China, but it's a garbage choice compared to forming Mughals, Rum, Russia, etc.
Play as Ryukyu or a Japanese OPM, you can become EoC by 1550-1600 ish, but doing so just totally ruins your game. Same thing with converting to confucian, it's just an option that screams don't do it.

 

[DàbiànLājīdàrén]

Claiming Mandate should give you 100 Mandate for 10 years.

 

[makaramus]

Play more games maybe? I've seen it happen twice in 1.23 alone. VH has a much higher chance of Ming dying if you like it that way.
The EoC is balance solely around Ming, which is a terrible decision. EoC is the equivalent of forming China, but it's a garbage choice compared to forming Mughals, Rum, Russia, etc.
Play as Ryukyu or a Japanese OPM, you can become EoC by 1550-1600 ish, but doing so just totally ruins your game. Same thing with converting to confucian, it's just an option that screams don't do it.

in best case my ming was exploded but then made chineese minors his tributary back... sure now he has 760 dev but he was still balanced after that explosion