The Ming nerf has made the game better

[TenshiN]

Ming is an absolute pushover now, at least in my first post-patch game as Oda. Even though i have an atrocious amount of military boosts from Ideas+Shinto+Independent Daimyo, but they don't even care to update their border forts now. With my 80k troops, i blitzed through Shenyang and Beijing in 2 years, which only had lv2 forts in 1595, with a modest fleet of 20 carracks+10 galleys being enough to make their ships a non-issue. And i peaced out for 67% worth of provinces in the end, despite only having to face their armies twice, which were comparable in number with mine. Its sad that the one of the 2 countries that posed an actual challenge before, is gone now.
Though i agree that merc-ing up from tributaries was BS

 

[Salix]

Ming always lacked at fleet power and and anything todo with navy... In my first game they killed themself being aggressive and then passing a reform. But in the other games, they seem stable.

And now the endboss discussion, again. Beg for a harder difficulty. My approch would be to make blobbing and sustaining Blobs much harder.
Or ask for a Quing to happen.

Another difficulty thing. There are player, that not playing this obsessive[not me], they should also have a fun game. And if those want to play with a experience player, both should have fun. [Me and my friends].

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

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.

I understand that Ming appears to be better (but not really) from a Historical POV (I even said it during one of my streams) however they did it at the expense of making the game much, much easier for any player (...) For example Ming was always beatable by Jianzhou ~6 years into the game but I deemed it too expensive and somewhat risky (...) to be good gameplay (…) In 1.24 I would be a fool to pass on the Ming free monarch points mine, the only thing that I need to do is wait until they hit 0 mandate that they won´t be able to defend themselves. The irony is that these changes won´t basically do anything if what you wanna see an is AI Qing (or whatever) ruling over all of China; the same mechanics that currently make AI Ming a paper tiger will also undermine any AI tag that takes the mandate; so it is back at square one wrt History but hey the EoC now can´t defend himself. Great improvement huh?

Oh btw they do explode very, very quickly if that is what I want them to do (...)

 

[Reman]

I understand that Ming appears (but not really) to better from a Historical POV (I even said it during one of my streams) however they did it at the expense of making the game much, much easier for any player (...) For example Ming was always beatable by Jianzhou ~6 years into the game but I deemed it too expensive and somewhat risky (...) to be good gameplay (…) In 1.24 I would be a fool to pass on the Ming free monarch points mine, the only thing that I need to do is wait until they hit 0 mandate that they won´t be able to defend themselves.

If you're worried about the game being too easy at VH difficulty, a better solution would be to just increase the bonuses or make an even harder difficulty like Impossible. This would give the players primarily seeking a challenge what they want while still allowing a shift towards more historical outcomes that the mandate nerf provides. We get the best of both worlds that way.

The irony is that these changes won´t basically do anything if what you wanna see an is AI Qing (or whatever) ruling over all of China; the same mechanics that currently make AI Ming a paper tiger will also undermine any AI tag that takes the mandate; so it is back at square one wrt History but hey the EoC now can´t defend himself. Great improvement huh?

I agree this is a problem. Taking the mandate is too much of a poison pill right now, and I think some mechanic changes would be in order to help enact a proper transition. Things like the Ming actually losing all their tributaries when they lose the mandate, and decreased mandate loss from all sources for a period of time after taking the mandate could go a long way to improving things when another power can actually get ahold of the EoC.

 

[Novacat]

Some observations:

- Because the Mandate of Heaven is so difficult to build up and keep, it is often insane to willingly take it at all. The main issue is the neighboring tributary requirement, even a single non-tributary with sufficient development will tank your mandate hard, which results in the situation in that you are better off not taking mandate at all. IMO, the tributary requirement should be replaced by an HRE-esque requirement to have all Chinese provinces. In addition, devastation should have a much higher impact on Mandate. This will prevent Ming from falling apart just because a European neighbor refuses to kowtow, but also make it so that successfully raiding/winning wars against Ming tanks their mandate hard.

However, someone who recently took the Mandate should have a grace period, as well, at least enough time to finish eating Ming.

- Manchu is a one-trick pony dependent on its banners. Right now, the most powerful states in EU4 tend to have very powerful NIs, an overpowered special government (See: Russian, Ottoman, and Prussian governments), and a religion that gives useful bonuses. About the only strength Manchu has is its NIs, and even then, NIs tend to only kick in mid-game and even then Manchu is still missing +5% Discipline that every other major power has.

 

[BarrosRodrigues]

If you're worried about the game being to easy at VH difficulty, a better solution would be to just increase the bonuses or make an even harder difficulty like Impossible. This would give the players primarily seeking a challenge what they want while still allowing a shift towards more historical outcomes that the mandate nerf provides. We get the best of both worlds that way.

I am not excessively worried with the difficulty but I do think it is silly to give the player a sure fire way to destroy the strongest tag in the game (1444) simply by bordering it (...); this is especially true coming from PDS since they love to nerf every single exploit even the most esoteric ones (...) but with 1.24 they nerfed Ming in a way that it qualifies as an exploit (at least in my book). It also does not make sense from any other POV I see it with the exception of making the game easier for the "forum pros".

I agree this is a problem. Taking the mandate is too much of a poison pill right now, and I think some mechanic changes would be in order to help enact a proper transition. Things like the Ming actually losing all their tributaries when they lose the mandate, and decreased mandate loss from all sources for a period of time after taking the mandate could go a long way to improving things when another power can actually get ahold of the EoC.

Given the current balance Ming losing all its tributaries wouldn’t make any difference whatsoever for an AI taking the mandate, it would still die. The current EoC mechanics were designed to really punish expansion so I still find it very surprising that ppl want to see Historical outcomes with mechanics such as these and a moronic AI. IMO the only way to see what you want to see is through scripts/decisions to bypass many core mechanics and/or bypass the EoC mechanics altogether (for non-Ming emperors with the exception of the CB and permanent claims).

Edit: Ofc PDS can also make the mandate loss for non-tributaries/devastation (again for non-Ming emperors) way more reasonable but that would probably be OP in the hands of a player. Pick your poison I guess.

 

[Incompetent]

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.

EoC is balanced around a slow expansion playstyle for a country that has already taken over most of China. If you prefer to blob, don't do it, nobody is forcing you to be EoC (unless you start as Ming, but then you know what you're getting in for).

On this subject, I think perhaps the Zongdu and Lifan Yuan reforms should be changed, because they're not very useful for ruling China once you've already controlled it for a while. I suggest that Zongdu should give more states + more powerful state edicts, and Lifan Yuan should give better rewards from tributaries.

As others have said, some sort of easier transition for taking over the mandate would also give AI Qing a chance. Would it be fair for the old EoC's tributaries (or at least some of them) to simply switch directly to being tributaries of the new EoC? That's basically what happened historically, with non-Chinese states that didn't care whether the Emperor was Ming or Qing.

Same thing with converting to confucian, it's just an option that screams don't do it.

I feel like converting to Confucian could be a more interesting choice (not strong, but not as much outright self-harm as it is now) if Confucian countries worked as a team to harmonize other religions, rather than individually, i.e. once a religion is harmonized by one Confucian country, it's harmonized for all Confucians. At the moment, if you convert to Confucian later in the game, your religion is permanently weaker than 1444 Ming's would be, because you've lost harmonization time that you can never catch up on.

It's also very weird that Confucianism is the only religion in the game to involve a penalty to Meritocracy. It should be the other way around: the base decay rate of Meritocracy should be a bit higher, but high Harmony should give a bonus to Meritocracy. That way, you actually suffer some disadvantage for being a non-Confucian EoC, rather than the present situation where the game actually rewards the EoC for being Tengri or whatever other barbarian religion he chooses to follow.

 

[The_Meme_Man]

Here everyone is talking about how much of a pushover Ming are, and I cannot even win the Tumu crisis as Oirat.

 

[Dutch Patriot]

Here everyone is talking about how much of a pushover Ming are, and I cannot even win the Tumu crisis as Oirat.

Don't even try. Just become a tributary first, then gobble up everybody around Ming and then kill him.

 

[The_Meme_Man]

Don't even try. Just become a tributary first, then gobble up everybody around Ming and then kill him.

But...

 

[ywxiao]

EoC is balanced around a slow expansion playstyle for a country that has already taken over most of China. If you prefer to blob, don't do it, nobody is forcing you to be EoC (unless you start as Ming, but then you know what you're getting in for).

No, currently it is balanced for a masochistic playstyle, for those who enjoy self inflicted torment.

The point of a feature is so you can enjoy playing and be able to utilize the features that come with the government type, including the permanent claims. If you already have most of China it makes taking EoC even less meaningful.