Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 17th of January 2023 - Emperor of China

[PDXBigBoss]

YESSS! HYPE!

EDIT: Will the Eununchs estate be exclusive to Ming or available to every emperor of china?

Every Emperor! Woop Woop!

 

[PDXBigBoss]

Will none Chinese that took on the mandate have access to this new mission of EoC?

Yes! Chinese Warlords will get Ming's second part tree (about internal and mandate affairs) available to them upon taking the Mandate!

 

[Johan]

Great content! One question: will it be a free content, a part of a new DLC, or a part of one/more of the previous DLC's?

part of new dlc

 

[PDXBigBoss]

It's lovely, cuz china was outdated for a long time and fortunately, more stuff will be added for modders to compliment the patch with some cool ideas. I'm worried about AI tbh but we will see how it goes the same thing with balance.

So far in our nightlies Ming survives around 20% of the time. In most cases a resurgent Warlord takes their place and sometimes we even see a Manchu / Qing takeover

 

[PDXBigBoss]

Are any changes to the Ming factions planned? I've always felt like insted of the Mandate completely disabling them it could instead use them in a different manner (with different modifiers).

My original plans were to include the factions in some capacity but in the end, due to time constraints and design dead-ends etc I decided to instead scrap the factions and have Eunuchs as a far-arching looming threat

 

[PDXBigBoss]

It is good to see you improving some of the older trees and content instead of focusing on some of the more obscure nations. I have one question about Ming/Qing: How much content Ming gets that Qing doesn't get? I always find it bit unfortunate if from "maximizing content" POV you are better off picking Qing over Ming.

So you see the top part of Ming's tree ? That is unique to Ming. Warlords have their own missions in the same space. The second part is common for Warlords/Qing/Ming when having the Mandate. Then, Qing gets a unique THIRD part at the bottom, only for them

The problem here is: How long does the "Fragmented China" period last? I think having a divided China for 100 years is very immersion-breaking...
Also, it's weird that Manchu-Qing only takeover "sometimes", considering they were the historical outcome. Personally, i'd prefer a 20% Ming survives, 20% a warlord takes over and 60% Qing forms.

I assume it doesn't really last long because taking the Mandate grants access to Territorial Cores on all of China so I can imagine it's not that hard to reunite the majority of the domain, even for an AI.

 

[PDXBigBoss]

Hey everyone, wanted to pop in and read through the last few pages I missed yesterday. I wanted to tackle some interesting points raised as well as a couple of concerns c:

Potosi... Now that's the word I never expected to hear from the China missions.

(Not sure if you know this but I will type it up because I find it interesting) Interestingly, the Spanish Empire - which at the time controlled Potosi, supplied the silver for Ming demands, which was used to enact tax-related reforms (they were not successful and silver lost its value in China if memory serves right) this is reflected in the game.

Is the Celestial Emperor still barred from being the revolution target in the new update?

Yes! Although I would love to see people try to cheese around that

@PDX Big Boss Some issue I have noticed with the presented changes:
1, Later Jin is a historical term used by historians to differentiate the Aisingoro Jin and the earlier Wanyan Jin, the former would never actually refer to oneself as such as it degrades its prestige in practice. Renaming the tag as Jin or Great Jin would be more culturally appropriate.
2, I noticed Qing lost their missions to conquer Xinjiang and Vietnam, both historical targets of the ten great campaigns, with the former succeeding and having lasting impact to the defined Chinese border, and was critical for the Qing at the time to consolidate their hold on the mongols.

This is incredible feedback and I am very thankful for this. I will try to look into it once we get to fixing bugs and ironing out these quirks, thank you so much!

Nice to see that the Chinese region is getting extra content.

I have a few questions abt the update.
1. Will there be a new national ideas for the Chinese warlord tags since only Shun, Miao and Dali has unique ideas right now?

(would be nice to at least see the 3 Feudatories of Qing, Tungning/Taiwan (would make a gd maritime / colonial tag) and Xi (which rebelled against Ming just like Shun))

(also minor tags like Qin and Yan might have military national ideas whereas other cultural tags like Jin and Tang would be gd at trading and economic respectively)

2. Can you guys look into some of the existing events for Ming / Chinese emperor since if iirc some of the events for the spread of Catholicism in China has really specific requirements (like European tag needs to control at least 4 provinces in China, because in the old days Taiwan would stay uncolonized until the Europeans showed up) which makes them nearly impossible to fire in single player.

(it was kinda frustrating for me who tried to do a Catholic Ming run once and the event never fired)
(also Portuguese missionaries got to Ming and Japan around the same time historically and but in game it is far more likely to see a Catholic province in Japan than in China)

Edit: Catholic China would make a gd achievement for the new dlc, maybe called "Heavenly Kingdom"

1. This would have been a nice addition but unfortunately no. Ideas take time to make, get right and need a lot of localization.
2. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I will take a crack at it when / if I have the time
As for your edit, that sounds cool but it was not in my plans!

hello，I believe that the tasks tree of the Ming Dynasty lack influence on the southwest (Myanmar) region. The influence of the Ming Dynasty on Myanmar was enormous, and it lasted until the decades before the collapse of the Ming Dynasty.1444 Opening time: The Ming Dynasty is carrying out the third battle of conquering Lushuan.I hope to add tasks such as the Luchuan War to reflect the impact of the Ming Dynasty on Myanmar.

The mission tree is not the only way to showcase progress and story-telling in the game, please do not go into the new content thinking it will include every aspect of the history of an Empire that spanned nearly 3 centuries!

@PDX Big Boss Will Yuan have acces to Chinese (Ming) missions if they take Mandate and become EoC? And the last one will Yuan get some unique missions?

Unfortunately no :/

Currently, the AI warlords have access to territorial cores in China too, but they will never unite. You can test it in any game, it mostly happens like this:

In our nightlies they are most often united by a Warlord

Also one last thing from Qing missions, is there a mission to conquer Central Asia, or at least part of it @PDX Big Boss as Qing?

Qing goes only as far as Tibet if memory serves right

Any changes to the tributary system? Especially a consistent way to obtain them beyond having a border. Currently, if you start as Ming, you need to conquer outside to expand your influence sphere. Also, will an outsider (like for example Uzbek-Timurid-Mughals-Japan or any other) be able to claim the mandate like before? and will they gain access to the mechanics-missions like a Chinese warlord. Also, will this update have a beta stage?? Will the interactions between Europeans and China change-update or is it out of the scope?

Given that this is the Ming dev diary, I will say this: I chose to respect the -1000 malus *in most cases* I do not want to spoil the surprise but there is a mission for Ming that will put them against some very powerful would-be tributaries, with which Ming does not border!

Is it possible to give the Chinese Warlords an Independent Republic path? Like a Republic of China route.

Unfortunately no but as a player I like this idea and I firmly believe that these interesting paths are what gives the game such replayability

Since it seems that mandate groth is being changed, I suggest that the penalties for having low mandate also be change. My primary concern is that, should Ming take defensive, they can end up with a massive amount of morale, making them difficult to take on even when they're at 0 mandate.

I believe the current maluses for Mandate are fairly well done. However, we may take another look at them to at least make sure we are happy with their current state. We got this!!