Thoughts on handling Ming for Toungoo Empire?

[Ultima_Ratio]

As you can see I've created a checkpoint of sorts to this point where I have all the required provinces except for those of Ming and one held by allied Aytthuya (had a pretty good run so far including a 14-year 4/5/6 queen regency for the current 5/2/5 king and I'd rather not go through the trouble again). Now I'm looking at my options for handling Ming, and judging by the displayed warscore costs (these are accurate, right?) I'll need a 61% score war (-war enthusiasm) to get what is required (douchebags almost fully annexed Mong Yang, taking 2 more Burman provinces and denying me that gold mine). The most important questions here:

1. Keep consolidating or start preparing? Current FL is 27 which can be brought a bit over 30 with some state/autonomy management, and that's probably enough to win battles with soon to be unlocked defensive ideas and tech advantage, but it's only enough for 1 stack and with the long travel times especially to Tibet Ming is going to get some easy warscore occupying whatever land I can't defend. On the other hand I still need that province from Aytthuya after the war so time is of the essence.

2. Declare war or get declared on? Naturally, getting allies (in addition to Ay and Lan Xang some potential allies include Chagatai and Gujarat, and Hsenwi is a vassal... not that they contribute much except a mountain capital for a defensive advantage) would be a boon, but I absolutely hate strategies that involve getting DOWed because it's bloody unreliable (for reference, I already did a test run where Ming never declared in 10 years despite me being in some stupid and exhaustive wars against the Indian sultanates and going neck deep in loans) and those allies would also lower warscore from battles, which I can't really afford. If I were to declare war, I could probably either easily defend the wargoal or I could just go nuts and declare for the Mandate for that sweet 50% warscore reduction. Ming often mothballs forts after exhausting themselves on wars with the hordes (IIRC, neither Chagatai or Oirat is a tributary yet) and it wouldn't be impossible too beeline for Beijing if I bring a few cannons with me, but naturally the problem is I would need to build some forts and hope (and save-scum, I guess) they hold until I get back for relief.

 

[Dominion]

You can't get DoWed on just by having lower numbers. They need to switch into DoW mode, after which you can snipe their DoW. More reliable and way less risky.

Sounds weird, but that's basically how it works. I don't recommend doing it unless doing one of the more difficult achievements or trying to break a coalition because it costs a ton of IRL time.

As a general hint: Always keep in mind that you can go all-out since it's a timed achievement. If you hit the last 10 years and still haven't made it just go crazy with corruption and loans. You're not going to continue the campaign anyways.

Not a single AI nation will be able to fight you since you don't care about a bankruptcy in 1501 and can easily walk around with twice your FL.

And for everything else @TheMeInTeam
He recently did the run and can probably give more specific tips.

 

[Ultima_Ratio]

As usual, things didn't go quite as planned as I was DOWed by Jaunpur instead of Ming (also some trash Indian minors in it that mostly managed to annoy me with their ninja occupation forces), but in the end I managed it. Just went full corruption when the DOW came, built myself 2 stacks with full CW (15/9) and 2 cannons for immediate breaches on sieges. Also managed to take control of allied forces (Gujarat and Lan Xang) with merc 1-stacks to actually make them useful. Had tech advantage on Ming in the beginning, along with defensive winning battles was not an issue, just managing sieges (since Ming was not the attacker I had to occupy all the required provinces, and I also needed Jaunpur's war enthusiasm low). Declared war on Aytthuya before ending the war to avoid dragging Ming back in, peaced out, done. I would've preferred not to cripple myself in the long run, but pretty satisfying anyway.