Should I claim the Mandate of Heaven or destroy it as Qing?

[Magis]

1607: I own all of China and a single independent chinese state of Liang exists as the emperor of China. I've warred them for their last provinces and soon all of china will be under my control. Should I annex them and destroy the Mandate or claim it from them?

[Victrixy]

Claim it. You will get some great bonus from being Emperor of China.
But make sure to have most of your neighbours as tributarties (especially the ones with high development) because you will start off will low mandate after you claim the Mandate.

[tinisiyo]

Don't claim it, It's real pain to hold everyone around you as tributaries especially if you border some great powers like Ottos or Russia or any other big blob/

[Neutrino Bomb]

Originally posted by Victrixy:

Claim it. You will get some great bonus from being Emperor of China.
But make sure to have most of your neighbours as tributarties (especially the ones with high development) because you will start off will low mandate after you claim the Mandate.

don't listen to this guy, he has no clue what he's talking about. destroy the mandate trust me

[football5680]

Don't claim it. It's annoying and will just slow you down if your goal is to keep expanding.

[Magis]

Yeah tbh I tried it and had to load back a save it ♥♥♥♥♥♥ me up so bad. Revolt risk got up super high, trouble getting tributaries. Gonna just annex em. Thanks for advice ppl

[PhantomCat]

If you play it right you can get some great bonusses out of tributary states and the mandate. You can easily capture some smaller european powers as tributaries nowadays with them chartering company around asia, possibly landing next to you, being the emperor makes them much more likely to accept tributary status. There are a lot of neat benefits to being the emperor.

Still, it requires quite a bit of micromanagement while still building up the reforms. In my experience, once you complete the 5 reforms it's all a piece of cake. If you are able to tople Ming, you're probably able to handle the celestial throne.

[Flying High]

Originally posted by Victrixy:

Claim it. You will get some great bonus from being Emperor of China.
But make sure to have most of your neighbours as tributarties (especially the ones with high development) because you will start off will low mandate after you claim the Mandate.

Don't. Mandate is bad.

[Victrixy]

Originally posted by Magis:

Yeah tbh I tried it and had to load back a save it ♥♥♥♥♥♥ me up so bad. Revolt risk got up super high, trouble getting tributaries. Gonna just annex em. Thanks for advice ppl

I did warned you about starting off with low mandate -_-

Originally posted by ICON_RES_HORSE Neutrino Bomb:

don't listen to this guy, he has no clue what he's talking about. destroy the mandate trust me

What do you mean I have no clue? By being the Emperor of China, you can reform and pass decree to give you a base of -20% core-creation cost, and by taking admin idea, you will get -55% core-creation cost.
And when you have 100 meritocracy, you gain +50% foreign spy detection which it is quite helpful in late game to prevent others to slander your merchants, sow discontent or other shenanigans. Also 100 meritocracy give you -25% advisor cost, so you can promote your advisor to level 5 and get even more meritocracy per year.
All it takes is some micromanagement.

[luckymarine]

Kill it with fire.

Or isolate Ming as an OPM inside you and let him keep it til the end of the game.

[Magis]

Originally posted by Victrixy:

Originally posted by Magis:

Yeah tbh I tried it and had to load back a save it ♥♥♥♥♥♥ me up so bad. Revolt risk got up super high, trouble getting tributaries. Gonna just annex em. Thanks for advice ppl

I did warned you about starting off with low mandate -_-

Originally posted by ICON_RES_HORSE Neutrino Bomb:

don't listen to this guy, he has no clue what he's talking about. destroy the mandate trust me

What do you mean I have no clue? By being the Emperor of China, you can reform and pass decree to give you a base of -20% core-creation cost, and by taking admin idea, you will get -55% core-creation cost.
And when you have 100 meritocracy, you gain +50% foreign spy detection which it is quite helpful in late game to prevent others to slander your merchants, sow discontent or other shenanigans. Also 100 meritocracy give you -25% advisor cost, so you can promote your advisor to level 5 and get even more meritocracy per year.
All it takes is some micromanagement.

Even with those benefits doesn't seem thaat worth it.

[football5680]

Originally posted by Victrixy:

Originally posted by Magis:

Yeah tbh I tried it and had to load back a save it ♥♥♥♥♥♥ me up so bad. Revolt risk got up super high, trouble getting tributaries. Gonna just annex em. Thanks for advice ppl

I did warned you about starting off with low mandate -_-

Originally posted by ICON_RES_HORSE Neutrino Bomb:

don't listen to this guy, he has no clue what he's talking about. destroy the mandate trust me

What do you mean I have no clue? By being the Emperor of China, you can reform and pass decree to give you a base of -20% core-creation cost, and by taking admin idea, you will get -55% core-creation cost.
And when you have 100 meritocracy, you gain +50% foreign spy detection which it is quite helpful in late game to prevent others to slander your merchants, sow discontent or other shenanigans. Also 100 meritocracy give you -25% advisor cost, so you can promote your advisor to level 5 and get even more meritocracy per year.
All it takes is some micromanagement.

Core creation cost doesn't mean much when the only effective way to play is by conquering through vassals so that you are never bordering another strong country who is not your tributary. The whole mandate mechanic exists so that Ming doesn't just conquer the world so the tiny bonuses mean very little. If Ming was just a normal monarchy at the start of the game, they would almost always end up owning half the world.

[Magis]

Originally posted by Deus Vult:

Originally posted by Victrixy:

I did warned you about starting off with low mandate -_-


What do you mean I have no clue? By being the Emperor of China, you can reform and pass decree to give you a base of -20% core-creation cost, and by taking admin idea, you will get -55% core-creation cost.
And when you have 100 meritocracy, you gain +50% foreign spy detection which it is quite helpful in late game to prevent others to slander your merchants, sow discontent or other shenanigans. Also 100 meritocracy give you -25% advisor cost, so you can promote your advisor to level 5 and get even more meritocracy per year.
All it takes is some micromanagement.

Core creation cost doesn't mean much when the only effective way to play is by conquering through vassals so that you are never bordering another strong country who is not your tributary. The whole mandate mechanic exists so that Ming doesn't just conquer the world so the tiny bonuses mean very little. If Ming was just a normal monarchy at the start of the game, they would almost always end up owning half the world.

Good points. And do vassals count as tributaries? Just curious. I don't think they do, just can't remember

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

Originally posted by Magis:

Good points. And do vassals count as tributaries? Just curious. I don't think they do, just can't remember

Your Vassals don't count as Tributaries (for Tributary interactions and number of Tributaries Mandate gain modifier).
However, your Vassals don't count as "bordering non-Tributary". So you lose no Mandate for borders with your Vassals.

That is the "normal" way to play an expansionist EoC: Keep Tributaries along the borders you don't want to expand into at the moment (e.g. India), conquer in another direction (e.g. Steppes). If you border a bigger Mandate-draining nation (e.g. Russia) release a vassal and feed him the border provinces. In future wars feed the vassal, annex him and create a new one along the new border.

If you are big enough and collect small Tributaries (in my Qing game American Natives surrounded by my CNs worked wonders) your only "big" mandate-draining neighbours worth of creating a border vassal are probably only a big Indian nation, Russia, maybe Timurids/Mughals and Ottomans (depending on your expansion and goals for the game).


Edit: And my proposal regarding the original question:
Take the Mandate, become EoC. It might not be the best government but it surely plays very differently. Just for the gameplay experience it is worth a try (or instead play Ming next).

[Neutrino Bomb]

Originally posted by Tulduil Iphukiir:

Originally posted by Magis:

Good points. And do vassals count as tributaries? Just curious. I don't think they do, just can't remember

Your Vassals don't count as Tributaries (for Tributary interactions and number of Tributaries Mandate gain modifier).
However, your Vassals don't count as "bordering non-Tributary". So you lose no Mandate for borders with your Vassals.

That is the "normal" way to play an expansionist EoC: Keep Tributaries along the borders you don't want to expand into at the moment (e.g. India), conquer in another direction (e.g. Steppes). If you border a bigger Mandate-draining nation (e.g. Russia) release a vassal and feed him the border provinces. In future wars feed the vassal, annex him and create a new one along the new border.

If you are big enough and collect small Tributaries (in my Qing game American Natives surrounded by my CNs worked wonders) your only "big" mandate-draining neighbours worth of creating a border vassal are probably only a big Indian nation, Russia, maybe Timurids/Mughals and Ottomans (depending on your expansion and goals for the game).


Edit: And my proposal regarding the original question:
Take the Mandate, become EoC. It might not be the best government but it surely plays very differently. Just for the gameplay experience it is worth a try (or instead play Ming next).

Yeah let's see you WC with that /s

[Pozz]

Why would it be harder to so WC as emperor of China? Vassal feeding very lucrative in general, and that is how you expand as China anyways, you conquer large areas of land and make a vassal at the border.

All it requires is that you plan ahead a tiny bit.