How to efficiently break Ming?

[SeraphLance]

In my latest MP game as Jianzhou/Manchu/Qing, I had an enormous amount of trouble breaking Ming. I wasn't able to do it until about the 6th war, when roughly 2/3rds of their country was already under my control. With other large countries, I make it a goal to drive up their war exhaustion and cause revolts, then carve a line through them with annexed provinces to keep the country from managing its rebels. With ming though, there are two problems:

1. Call for Peace. This is an issue with other really large nations too, but because ming is so absolutely massive, I get CFP *way* before coming even remotely close to full occupation most of the time.

2. Mandate of heaven. That damned -5 unrest means that even with 20 war exhaustion, none of their provinces have any revolt risk at all. I know the mechanics behind the mandate, but it's driven by legitimacy and stability, neither of which I can influence at all.

Is there a way to make Ming lose the mandate, so that I can cause it to collapse? I feel like if I've formed Qing and have started annexing large swaths of the country, it should be a given that they lose the mandate. As is, it's the most ludicrously-stable country I've ever seen.

[Surimi]

Ming will almost certainly lose the mandate eventually. Even as a player doing all the right things, it's hard to keep it all the time. Regenies, for example, cause you to lose the mandate of heaven and it's very unlikely you'll get through a whole game without a regency.

You actually don't need to "break" Ming. Ming's unique disadvantages mean it gets very little benefit from any province which isn't the correct culture and religion. This means that although Ming is huge, as long as you keep taking Han Confucian provinces each war will weaken it to a far greater degree than any other country in the game, and it will rapidly become extremely weak.

[SeraphLance]

I didn't see ming lose the mandate until ~1630. By that time, I controlled all of northeast, northwest, west, and central china, leaving only the coasts. My empire had stretched all the way to former Qara Qoyunlu during the treaty cooldowns.

The problem is that Ming is a single massive country, and the provinces have very high warscore cost. I want to break them so it doesn't take 250+ years to annex their country, since I'll be able to wage multiple wars in the same 15-year timeframes.

In earlier versions of EU4, you could just make Ming spit out half their country as a released nation, but that's not possible with all the new micro-nations. 1.8 also had LA affect warscore cost, which I assume made Ming conquests dramatically more reasonable given their LA floor, but that's been removed as well for some reason.

[Kitten Food]

Originally posted by Deep Hurting:

Regenies, for example, cause you to lose the mandate of heaven and it's very unlikely you'll get through a whole game without a regency.

You actually don't need to "break" Ming. Ming's unique disadvantages mean it gets very little benefit from any province which isn't the correct culture and religion. This means that although Ming is huge, as long as you keep taking Han Confucian provinces each war will weaken it to a far greater degree than any other country in the game, and it will rapidly become extremely weak.

Some of this information is not correct (sorry!). Regencies are not a factor when it comes to the trigger requirements of retaining/losing the Mandate of Heaven modifier. However, if Ming has a regency and the heir's claim is weak/average...then you will see a guaranteed Mandate of Heaven loss when that ruler ascends to the throne. The only way a regency can trigger the loss is if legitimacy drops below 60 while it is active. This can happen since regencies cause legitimacy to drop by 2.0 yearly, but this can be mitigated depending on marriages and other modifiers.

Religion also isn't a factor since that does not affect income value and Confucian already has a high tolerance of heretics. Heathen (animist) religions are all but eliminated within the first 15 years from 1444.

Culture is not an issue either since Han has been eliminated and replaced with "regional" cultures/jurisdictions. The primary culture of Ming, Jianghuai, is concentrated in their central location of Nanjing now.

While conquering Ming would be easier when the Mandate is not in effect, it isn't a challenge to conquer as a unified Manchu. The problem lies with patience and monotony. Ming will permanently lose the Mandate of Heaven when under 20 provinces, so the fastest way to ensure this occurs is to force them to release nations. Released nations will be easy to conquer as Qing and may even ally with you to help in future wars.

So them retaining the Mandate isn't ludicrous, since it isn't about losing or winning wars. The triggered mechanics are all working fine and dandy. You just got stuck with an alternative history of the formation of Qing, one that didn't involve Ming becoming unstable before Manchu striked.

[SeraphLance]

Releasing nations doesn't really work anymore. The only reason to do so is because you can release nations that are more than 100% worth of warscore. if the nation is less than 100%, you're better off just annexing the provinces directly and creating a vassal.

With the overhaul of ming cores, there's no huge, sprawling releasables anymore, so the gain is virtually nonexistent.

Anyway, it sounds like there's no way to get around this short of luck. From a *realism* perspective, it's absolutely ridiculous that Ming can get hammered so bad for so long and not lose the mandate of heaven. From a strict gameplay perspective, I feel like it really trolls Qing pretty heavily, turning it into Yet Another Reformed Steppe Horde. Qing's chinese claims expire LONG before they have any chance of conquering it all.

[Kitten Food]

If you want realism, the chance of Qing ever forming would be completely based on luck...which it was...and taking over "all" of Ming would take almost 90 years regardless (as is historical).

The gain is actually quite large now and it is based on factual mechanics..not opinions. Since you are able to release more land or take more land, thanks to autonomy, splitting the costs between diplo annexation and coring is quite easy and very fast. It depends on the idea groups chosen and working with the mechanics that are given to you. Culture acceptance is also faster with Manchu vs Ming, since the acceptance rate is much higher than the loss of acceptance.

The purpose of the claims is to give Qing a strong foothold into Ming territory within a time frame not to give an 'unhistorical' its-all-yours trigger. Most of the Qing rapid annexation was due to defections in the Ming court, which would be lovely to see somehow in a future patch. The latter part of the Qing conquest was literally conquest and less diplomatic intrigue and bargaining.

The only nation in this region to recieve even more ridiculous 'hammers' is Ming, with the culture changes.

I advise the player to go to the paradox official forums, where some really great (and up to date) strategies for Manchu conquests lie. Most agree, its much easier now.

[SeraphLance]

I do visit the official forums, and there's little topic on Manchu strategies in 1.9

1.9 fundamentally changed a lot of things I'm not sure you realized. The biggest is that LA no longer affects warscore costs. Now, the ONLY things that affect warscore costs are admin efficiency and the diplomacy idea. As such, without those, Ming's annexaction cost is exactly what it is in the province display = 909% warscore. This means that, played optimally, You will need at least 10 wars, or 9 15-year peace treaties. That adds up to 135 years, without counting time actually spent warring. Realistically, you're pushing 200 no matter what.

The problem isn't that its *hard* (it's really not, even the first war against ming is easy -- just tedious), but that it takes forever. In 1.8 it was much faster due to the LA warscore modifiers. Pre-1.8 it was much faster because you could basically split ming in half in one war.

[cz]

Haven't fought a war against Ming recently myself, but surely you can force them to lose the mandate of heaven by sitting on top of a 100% occupation until they go bankrupt?

[SeraphLance]

Originally posted by cz:

Haven't fought a war against Ming recently myself, but surely you can force them to lose the mandate of heaven by sitting on top of a 100% occupation until they go bankrupt?

It's a possibility. I don't think I've ever actually been able to fully bankrupt a country, even in earlier versions, but I can certainly try. How do I avoid a Call For Peace though? It's not like I can just weather that much war exhaustion indefinitely.

[Lord Lambert]

sit back and wait :P

[Funsize]

Originally posted by SeraphLance:

1. Call for Peace. This is an issue with other really large nations too, but because ming is so absolutely massive, I get CFP *way* before coming even remotely close to full occupation most of the time.

You can avoid the Call for Peace (CFP) and keep the war going until rebels spawn. CFP is war goal and (I think) 60% warscore. Just leave the wargoal until the very end.

Originally posted by SeraphLance:

2. Mandate of heaven. That damned -5 unrest means that even with 20 war exhaustion, none of their provinces have any revolt risk at all. I know the mechanics behind the mandate, but it's driven by legitimacy and stability, neither of which I can influence at all.

Is there a way to make Ming lose the mandate, so that I can cause it to collapse?

Ming's legitimacy and stability are not something you can control. Also, 20 war exhaustion (WE) directly translates into 20 unrest. How can there be no unrest at 20 WE, especially in the wrong culture and religion provinces?