How much more are you going to nerf Ming?

[genyuab]

First of all, game balancing is not an excuse as Ming is usually banned in MP games.



Now let’s talk about gameplay:

Ming has the shortest mission tree in the top 20 countries players pick. While over 20 countries can tame the dragon in their mission tree. Ming’s claim through mission tree is only a fraction of the sphere of influence of it and its predecessors.



Although designed as the HRE in the east, the EoC does not fit its position. The mandate is difficult to maintain for new EoCs. Compare with HRE, the five reforms, the decrees are much weaker, not to mention meritocracy is rather useless than legitimacy for large empires as well as Tributaries must be neighbouring EoC(SE Asia: How did we become tributaries then?)



Confucian can harmonize all other religions. Sounds OP right? But it takes about 30 years to harmonize ONE religion and another 20 years to get harmony value recovered. Usually you cannot harmonized all religions until 18th century. Furthermore, if you as a Confucian country established a colony, this colony starts with 0 harmonized religion. Even if you harmonize all the religions, the buff is still quite low and the decision related to Confucian is close to none.



With the most recent DLC that focuses on Sub-Sahara, you can see many new features added, many nice buff added, especially for Catholic, and, a debuff again for Ming, Crisis of the Ming Dynasty. The severeness of this newly-revised disaster basically rendered Ming’s only special feature, the EoC, paralyzed.



Many people would say “If you are an old hand, you can do this and that blah blah blah” trying to prove Ming is not being targeted. Just look at Byzantine and Timurid which were pretty much over by 1444 and Mumluks annexed by Ottomans later on can get a good chance surviving if played by players and, and make a comparison. While most of the government type provides the governing capacity of multiples of 50, Celestial Empire gives a strange 470. Does the 30 more governing capacity mean so much for you developers? In addition, how comes the 1000+ total development of China sub-continent calculated when India have over 2000 and West Europe even higher?



The fall of Ming is not a unique phenomenon for China, it is very common for big empires: taxation cannot match expenditure. This is still happening nowadays. So do not just hard code game setting so that Ming must die. As one of the 20 top player’s choices, Ming deserves an overhaul.


Add on Nov 15: For those who disagree, point out a few other nations in-game that have the "characteristics" I mentioned above and prove me wrong

 

[Terixis]

Ming is fine. If a human is playing as Ming it's completely unstoppable because you can easily avoid the disasters, and if the human isn't playing Ming why would they want it to be stable? A stable Ming is terrible if you're playing in Asia and aren't a horde, why do I need to fight Ming and its endless army to take the one province from Ayatthuya that I need to form Malaya as a Hindu?

Ming historically collapsed during EU4's timeline anyway.

 

[InvisibleBison]

First of all, game balancing is not an excuse as Ming is usually banned in MP games.

Why do you think game balance doesn't matter in single player?

 

[EmagDrolBot]

The removal of mandate loss for non-tributary borders and the addition of Confucian monuments were both massive recent buffs to Ming. Playing Ming now is far better than it used to be. No disaster is going to make up for starting with over 1k dev and having absolutely no one who could stop you from expanding in any direction you please.

 

[InvisibleBison]

First of all, game balancing is not an excuse as Ming is usually banned in MP games.

On further reflection, I don't think this argument makes sense. In games where Ming is banned, whether or not it's balanced doesn't matter; in games where it isn't banned, having it be balanced is a good thing. Thus, even if it's banned in most MP games, it would still be purely a positive for Ming to be balanced.

 

[Reman]

There's probably going to be 2 discussions here: balance in terms of the player, and balance in terms of the AI.

In terms of the player using Ming, the biggest nerf of all time was making them an end game tag. Ming has a mediocre idea set not particularly suited to expansion, so they're capped at 45% CCR if they stay Confucian. They start super big, but they also have some mandatory disasters they need to go through, somewhat counteracting their initial size. Confucianism is actually a pretty solid religion that gets CCR from the EoC and is top-of-the-line in terms of rebel control. Implying it only gears up in the 18th century is erroneous. I think it also got a harmonization speed buff from Humanism recently. Overall, Ming is a mid-tier nation in the hands of a player.

In terms of the AI, though, it's clear that the devs really want Ming to die more often. I'm fine with this in principle, but I wish a Qing or successor warlord would reunify things much more quickly. Balkanized China tends to have a ton of bordergore, and the East is a lot less dynamic when the strongest power is only Bengal-sized.

 

[genyuab]

The removal of mandate loss for non-tributary borders and the addition of Confucian monuments were both massive recent buffs to Ming. Playing Ming now is far better than it used to be. No disaster is going to make up for starting with over 1k dev and having absolutely no one who could stop you from expanding in any direction you please.

Mandate loss for non-tributary borders is not realistic in the first place. Qing as EoC historically bordered Russia before 1650 and did not explode until 1912. And, bordering a non-tributary country was not and never the cause of the collapse of EoC
Addition of Confucian monuments? So do you mean a civilization with at least 3,000 years of history should not even own merely 4 monuments?
As I said, "The fall of Ming is not a unique phenomenon for China, it is very common for big empires", it's better to simulate this mechanism instead of hard code for a single country.

 

[genyuab]

Ming is fine. If a human is playing as Ming it's completely unstoppable because you can easily avoid the disasters, and if the human isn't playing Ming why would they want it to be stable? A stable Ming is terrible if you're playing in Asia and aren't a horde, why do I need to fight Ming and its endless army to take the one province from Ayatthuya that I need to form Malaya as a Hindu?

Ming historically collapsed during EU4's timeline anyway.

Byzantine, Timurids, Poland, most of the hordes and American native, many of the Indian countries historically collapsed during EU4's timeline anyway. So let's put some unique literally-unavoidable and no-benefit-upon-overcome severe disasters on them?

 

[EmagDrolBot]

Mandate loss for non-tributary borders is not realistic in the first place. Qing as EoC historically bordered Russia before 1650 and did not explode until 1912. And, bordering a non-tributary country was not and never the cause of the collapse of EoC
Addition of Confucian monuments? So do you mean a civilization with at least 3,000 years of history should not even own merely 4 monuments?
As I said, "The fall of Ming is not a unique phenomenon for China, it is very common for big empires", it's better to simulate this mechanism instead of hard code for a single country.

Where did I say that those were bad changes? I just said that they were buffs, while you claimed in your OP that Ming has had constant nerfs.

 

[genyuab]

Where did I say that those were bad changes? I just said that they were buffs, while you claimed in your OP that Ming has had constant nerfs.

If everyone including you gets a big amount of money, does that means you are rich? No, it's called inflation. Same idea for monuments. Furthermore, compare with monuments for Catholic, Muslim, and Hindu, the buff of Confucian monuments is rather small

 

[genyuab]

Where did I say that those were bad changes? I just said that they were buffs, while you claimed in your OP that Ming has had constant nerfs.

And you didn't answer my first argument:
Mandate loss for non-tributary borders is not realistic in the first place. Qing as EoC historically bordered Russia before 1650 and did not explode until 1912. And, bordering a non-tributary country was not and never the cause of the collapse of EoC

 

[Reman]

As I said, "The fall of Ming is not a unique phenomenon for China, it is very common for big empires", it's better to simulate this mechanism instead of hard code for a single country.

It's not hardcoded at all though. It's very possible for China to remain under Ming rule for the entire EU4 timeline. It's not even particularly difficult for a player who knows how the disaster mechanics work.

If everyone including you gets a big amount of money, does that means you are rich? No, it's called inflation. Same idea for monuments. Furthermore, compare with monuments for Catholic, Muslim, and Hindu, the buff of Confucian monuments is rather small

This doesn't consider the quality of the monuments though. The Imperial City of Hue is way better than anything the Christians get. Not that I'd be opposed to Confucians getting access to all religion-locked monuments post-harmonization though, as that sounds like a fun campaign that would be powerful without being OP.

 

[Pellucid]

You must not have been here early on when Ming just constantly took over the entire world.

 

[genyuab]

You must not have been here early on when Ming just constantly took over the entire world.

I played EU4 since v1.0 when core-creation can take more than 20 years in late game

 

[genyuab]

It's not hardcoded at all though. It's very possible for China to remain under Ming rule for the entire EU4 timeline. It's not even particularly difficult for a player who knows how the disaster mechanics work.


This doesn't consider the quality of the monuments though. The Imperial City of Hue is way better than anything the Christians get. Not that I'd be opposed to Confucians getting access to all religion-locked monuments post-harmonization though, as that sounds like a fun campaign that would be powerful without being OP.

You can see all kinds of weird things in this game. In this case, Ming's rule is not something noticeable. With the current Ming disaster and low mandate, it is not something a normal player can handle, unless you choose not to do celestial reform:

For monuments, it is better to compare in both quality, quantity, and accessibility
this one is really awesome:

And please compare the monument density in different sub-continents:

 

[genyuab]

You can see all kinds of weird things in this game. In this case, Ming's rule is not something noticeable. With the current Ming disaster and low mandate, it is not something a normal player can handle, unless you choose not to do celestial reform: View attachment 773493

For monuments, it is better to compare in both quality, quantity, and accessibility
this one is really awesome:
View attachment 773494
And please compare the monument density in different sub-continents:
View attachment 773495
View attachment 773496
View attachment 773497

And I forgot to mention this lol:

 

[JacobiteJames]

Fi. While most of the government type provides the governing capacity of multiples of 50, Celestial Empire gives a strange 470. Does the 30 more governing capacity mean so much for you developers? In addition, how comes the 1000+ total development of China sub-continent calculated when India have over 2000 and West Europe even higher?
.

The gov capacity is a hot fix to stop them releasing, if the EoC still had +50% local economy and the hard mercs limit then they might have higher dev but for the current patch more dev would just make ming even more powerful

 

[Reman]

You can see all kinds of weird things in this game. In this case, Ming's rule is not something noticeable. With the current Ming disaster and low mandate, it is not something a normal player can handle, unless you choose not to do celestial reform:

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here, but it's really not that difficult to deal with the disaster. The biggest issue is getting hit with +unrest simultaneously from low mandate and the +5 innate from the disaster. Getting to +3 stab and having the -2 unrest advisor should be enough as long as you have normal tolerance levels. You could also just increase autonomy if you're lazy. Once the unrest is dealt with, the disaster is just a series of "slap some peasants for +5 mandate" events. Do that a dozen times and the disaster is done.

If you're worried about the events that spit out nations if rebels control too much land, you can cheese them by manually releasing Wu, Yue, Dali, and Shun with a single province each, which short-circuits the trigger conditions of all the disaster's most punishing events.

For monuments, it is better to compare in both quality, quantity, and accessibility
this one is really awesome:

And please compare the monument density in different sub-continents:

I'd much rather have -10% autonomy everywhere from Hue than the military bonuses from Baku unless I was playing in MP for some reason. Also, that's like Zoroastrian's only wonder.

As for density of wonders, I agree that Europe has way more, but I don't think that means much considering the vast majority have bonuses that are "questionable" at best and "garbage" at worst. I don't think filling up China with a bunch of similarly bad wonders would do much for the game.

 

[genyuab]

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here, but it's really not that difficult to deal with the disaster. The biggest issue is getting hit with +unrest simultaneously from low mandate and the +5 innate from the disaster. Getting to +3 stab and having the -2 unrest advisor should be enough as long as you have normal tolerance levels. You could also just increase autonomy if you're lazy. Once the unrest is dealt with, the disaster is just a series of "slap some peasants for +5 mandate" events. Do that a dozen times and the disaster is done.

If you're worried about the events that spit out nations if rebels control too much land, you can cheese them by manually releasing Wu, Yue, Dali, and Shun with a single province each, which short-circuits the trigger conditions of all the disaster's most punishing events.



I'd much rather have -10% autonomy everywhere from Hue than the military bonuses from Baku unless I was playing in MP for some reason. Also, that's like Zoroastrian's only wonder.

As for density of wonders, I agree that Europe has way more, but I don't think that means much considering the vast majority have bonuses that are "questionable" at best and "garbage" at worst. I don't think filling up China with a bunch of similarly bad wonders would do much for the game.

What I want to say it with the disaster, Ming's only income is half of its taxation and with the increasing devastation, it gets lower over time.
I prefer the military buff of Zoroastrian's only wonder but agree with you about "I don't think filling up China with a bunch of similarly bad wonders would do much for the game." The monument map just showed how unfamiliar China sub-continent is to EU4 dev team.

 

[genyuab]

The gov capacity is a hot fix to stop them releasing, if the EoC still had +50% local economy and the hard mercs limit then they might have higher dev but for the current patch more dev would just make ming even more powerful

But Ming in 1444 is powerful. And what is the point of the 30 less capacity?