The Qing Thread: How to play them best ?

[KFC-AI]

Dear all,

Thank you very much for your tips and comments. I did not expect this thread to become so popular.

Please note that I haven't been playing for a while, and my tips do not consider the newest updates and DLC. I have now cut some content to make this a more general guideline. Apologies for any mistakes I may have made, as I have never played version 1.7.

I have been playing as the Great Qing, and so far, I am still trying to figure out the best strategies. Can you please share any tips you have? I play with the AI set to normal aggression.

Here is what worked for me in the following order before update 1.7:

Ally with Russia early: Secure Russia as an ally to defend against potential British threats. War with the UK is often unavoidable. With update 1.6, you can choose to have an early war and defend your capital until the British tire out. I have never figured out how to fix Qing after losing the Opium War.

Tax luxury goods: Tax every luxury good while keeping military and government budgets low.

Build universities: Establish 15+ universities first to catch up with technologies.

Expand construction sites: Build 30+ Construction Sites. Next, progress towards iron,
lumber, tools, coal, steel, engines, and then railways.

Expand tea and opium production: Increase your Tea and Opium production.

Develop industry: Slowly build up your industry. Before establishing a large railway
network, lack of infrastructure will be a huge problem for Qing.

Rush key technologies: Prioritize Line Infantry and Railways.

Manage internal politics: Avoid upsetting the Scholar Officials/Landowners too early on.
Unban opium: Unban Opium as soon as you finish the Opium Crisis.

Address bureaucracy issues: Be aware that the Qing will have a problem with low bureaucracy capacity given the number of government administrations needed. Build up your heavy and paper industry first before expanding government buildings.

Expand carefully: Go slow and try to control Korea first for its lead and lumber. Vietnam is also a good choice for annexation as they are an accepted culture.

Shape China's fate: Feel free to shape the fate of China the way you like. However, I would not recommend going for wealth voting first, as it would be extremely difficult later on to pass census voting, while making a large portion of the population very angry.

Defend China: Remember, China has the most war potential out of all nations and can defend itself easily against encroaching colonizers. However, it can still be hurt by internal strife or a large coalition such as Russia, the British Raj, and Spain.

Additional Tips:

Improve Qing’s economy quickly:
Build as fast as you can and drive your economy forward with increased demand for iron, coal, wood, etc. But NEVER have so much construction going on that you go into debt. Once you stop construction, your economy will crash due to the decreased demand for building materials.

Minting and Taxation:
Once your economy is going, start to build up your government administration to increase taxing capability. However, the Qing empire is already the largest economy in the world, so another way to fill your coffers is to simply grow your economy as fast as possible to collect income from minting.

Gain recognition fast:
Ally with Russia to protect against Britain, then defeat Prussia. However, I have heard that 1.7 has completely changed the rules. A friend of mine finds it quite hilarious. Like, what, the Qing army has liberated India, burned down half of the UK, but somehow they are still not recognized as a great power?

Diplomacy and Expansion:
Given the size of Qing, you are perfectly fine being a peaceful power. However, the Qing empire will have a severe shortage of lead, lumber, rubber, and oil in the late game.
At the same time, the Qing Empire is an unrecognized, non-Western power, which means that most colonial powers will be extremely aggressive toward you. A coalition between the UK, Russia, and Spain is quite dangerous, especially since the Russian AI is determined to conquer part of China.

[Mentat]

A minor question, has anyone actually fully mitigated the tax debuff in Qing's provinces? For me, even with lvl 25 government building fully equipped with telephones, there is still a large amount tax loss.

[Mentat]

Originally posted by KFC-AI:

Hey I have a question, is it better for Qing to have close borders ? During late-game I have mass migration after unlocking multiculturalism.

No, even closed border cannot stop migration. I triggered heavenly kingdom due to some Holland and Scottish protestants appeared in some of my African provinces even with closed border on. But I usually go with cultural exclusion and migration control, with the massive Han pop, as long as there are jobs, provinces of different culture will be flooded with people of primary cultures (oversea colonies) While the entire eastern Asian pops will be accepted by cultural exclusion. With a huge portion of POP still being peasants, when they adopted Fascist ideology, keeping multiculturalism will see a lot of radicals.

[KFC-AI]

Originally posted by Mentat:

A minor question, has anyone actually fully mitigated the tax debuff in Qing's provinces? For me, even with lvl 25 government building fully equipped with telephones, there is still a large amount tax loss.

I gained a lot of money but putting governmental buildings in my states with the highest gdp or taxed goods. Can anyone confirm if I will get more consumption tax by putting my admin building in a state with lots of tobacco farms ?

[KFC-AI]

Originally posted by Mentat:

Originally posted by KFC-AI:

Hey I have a question, is it better for Qing to have close borders ? During late-game I have mass migration after unlocking multiculturalism.

No, even closed border cannot stop migration. I triggered heavenly kingdom due to some Holland and Scottish protestants appeared in some of my African provinces even with closed border on. But I usually go with cultural exclusion and migration control, with the massive Han pop, as long as there are jobs, provinces of different culture will be flooded with people of primary cultures (oversea colonies) While the entire eastern Asian pops will be accepted by cultural exclusion. With a huge portion of POP still being peasants, when they adopted Fascist ideology, keeping multiculturalism will see a lot of radicals.

Hmmm, I just find it strange how lots of migrants from Europe floods my factory while there are still millions of Han or other Chinese around, creates unemployment I think.

[KFC-AI]

Originally posted by Tman:

The economy is circular. Constructing buildings to returns profits which you take to build more industries. Interventionism is key. It adds alot of new money to that circle just like minting especially when the demand for every good is fulfilled. So just keep constructing and never stop. I try to reach a point where the investment pool is always chewed up by construction capacity after which your gdp becomes a vertical line.
Militarily, China's main competitor is the East India trading company. Starting troops aren't very good. Try to rush the next tier asap which will usually cause UK to backdown or lose the opium war. Armed forces political party gives a bonus +30% offense and defense if they have clout and are happy usually with increased military paychecks. Attacking Australia ties up UK troops there and then rushing to London will repeatedly win you wars even though China is several military tiers behind. Make sure you have a reasonable fleet size.
Bureaucracy is a nightmare for the huge population. Best you can do is maintain high throughput bonus.
There are some really nasty surprises late game essentially making you a pariah. Lategame economy is all about oil and how efficient you can make that circular economy while providing goods to the military. Oil is difficult to get if you're a pariah and likewise it is your rival's weakness preventing them from getting powerful units.
Final tip, build one university in each province after setting up your construction industry.

I just build 20 in a pack, are 1 in each better ?

[KFC-AI]

Originally posted by Elizabethan-Carolean:

Found the answer! I looked at your suggested screen with nothing found then decided to go to my country modifiers (flag -> modifiers tab). I have 20% aristocrat investment pool from scholar-officials Noblesse Oblige bonus trait.

You need at least 10 loyalty, Aside from their loyalty from endorsement I have a bonus +5 loyalty from 36% of the interest group being loyalists. Not sure how easy it would be to deliberately get them to 10 approval on purpose early in a Qing run.

I think for Qing, it is good to suppress the landowners in the very beginning, they are quite annoying and will oppose most of your reform attemps.

[Mentat]

I do not think landowners should be suppressed too hard. Yes, they will oppose most of the reforms, but suppressing them too hard will increase radicals which eventually triggers civil war. With the development of industry, they will soon fall out of power, just avoid recruiting generals belong to that faction is enough. I am in 1880 in my recent play through, still a constitutional empire, yet the influence of landowners has been reduced to 5.6% without any active intervention on my side. Even the heir to the imperial throne belongs to the the peasants' group, Liberals and army are the most powerful group with industrialists following them.

[KFC-AI]

Originally posted by Mentat:

I do not think landowners should be suppressed too hard. Yes, they will oppose most of the reforms, but suppressing them too hard will increase radicals which eventually triggers civil war. With the development of industry, they will soon fall out of power, just avoid recruiting generals belong to that faction is enough. I am in 1880 in my recent play through, still a constitutional empire, yet the influence of landowners has been reduced to 5.6% without any active intervention on my side. Even the heir to the imperial throne belongs to the the peasants' group, Liberals and army are the most powerful group with industrialists following them.

OMG the Taiping Rebellion just happened to me in 1917, sure I have lots of radicals due to dumping state religion. But the hell can 1% Christians took over most of my states. Women can vote in my country and multicultrualism is a thing.

[KFC-AI]

Originally posted by Elizabethan-Carolean:

I've been playing Qing exclusively so far with restarting runs as I learn more & more & think of different strategies to test. Yesterday I got the latest into a game into the 1870s (I'm not looking to complete a 1936 game as I deliberately test & learn).

I'm sure there are several ways to play Qing, what I'm away to type is not 'the way how dare you not do this' but this has worked for me so far:

- Adjacent land markets require 0 convoys, this makes a big market like Russia really nice to trade with while you use your convoys on tea & silk to Britain from the start of the game (these two exports will take all your convoys anyway, that's how profitable they are).
- You start with a level 4 tools factory in Beijing, switch your lumber industry to level 2 production method to fix your deficit as you do the following point:
- You start with so little construction sectors that you are still in the green with using them all, yet the more of them you build the more lumber you need to get the most construction out of them. Start by building construction sectors until you can produce 2-3 at once then build one lumber mill all the time to keep lumber cheap. Stop building construction sectors when you just step into the white of budget. Low white allows healthy growth that isn't too quick to cause problems in the medium-long term.
- You can build more construction sectors as you economy grows into the green.
- - Consumption tax luxury goods, maybe one higher level of actual taxation to keep building construction sectors & lumber mills for faster growth.
- Tea & Tobacco plantations out the wazoo. Until the predictive profit for tobacco has gone.
- Continue building tea plantations while you now build industry (tooling workshop, one food factory, etc etc). Also start your domestic arms industry now.
- When I typed tea & tobacco plantations out he wazoo I aint saying ignore opium, banana & even two cotton plantations you may build for profit, of course make profit on them as well, but it's about where most money lies.
- You have two states with bonus to agriculture production, one by Chongqing I can't remember the name of currently & the other is Shanxi. Make use of these bonuses.
- You may ban opium in the 1840s & have it be ignored by Britain. Not saying this is a 100% guarantee, but the later it is, probably because you've grown your own opium industry, Britain really doesn't seem to care. I think it's worth tolerating the crisis for 4-10 years over being a punching bag.
- You now get to decide when to make a diplo play against a great power to become recognised. Obvious modernise your army first. There's nothing wrong playing Qing into the 1850's still unrecognised.
- Do not attempt to improve government administration until a) paper shortage fixed, & b) for 2-3 decades, it is better to increase GDP directly with current tax capacity despite the penalties. A good time to start thinking of expanding government admin is when expanding agriculture lacks projected profits.

Hey, sorry to bother you again, but is there a way to force my vassals or puppets to make certain productions ?

[Midas]

In my actual run, i build up the construction sector first, so tools and iron so i could switch to the bedder building agenda. Always build to the max that i am around +/- 0 cashflow. After the sector whas established, produced more paper, started to develop my pop needs and than go for factories. After 1860 around, i started militarization, so guns, artillery, ammunition, ships and started my war to become a great power. Atm i am at a bip of around 1.000.000.000 with a construction output of 2k points per week and a cash flow of 20k and producing more and more buildings. Its also important to get to agrarismen and than to Laizie Fare to get as much construction money as you can out of your pops, so snowballing can start.

I personaly dont rely on exports, more on internal market use, cause i dont whant to check my market every 5 minutes.

[KFC-AI]

Originally posted by Midas:

In my actual run, i build up the construction sector first, so tools and iron so i could switch to the bedder building agenda. Always build to the max that i am around +/- 0 cashflow. After the sector whas established, produced more paper, started to develop my pop needs and than go for factories. After 1860 around, i started militarization, so guns, artillery, ammunition, ships and started my war to become a great power. Atm i am at a bip of around 1.000.000.000 with a construction output of 2k points per week and a cash flow of 20k and producing more and more buildings. Its also important to get to agrarismen and than to Laizie Fare to get as much construction money as you can out of your pops, so snowballing can start.

I personaly dont rely on exports, more on internal market use, cause i dont whant to check my market every 5 minutes.

I also mostly rely on my internal market given how little the internatonal market actually uses.

Very intersting, why agrarisim ? I never sued that, used interventionalism instead.

[Midas]

The problem is that in the beginning you have many aristrocrates, so its easier to get there first. After that step, and the building of many more agrar buildings, and the tech that givey you the ability to get investors to any building, you can get them into agrar buildings, what reduces the cashout, but gives more jobs + investment posibillities, than the next step for lazi fare is much easier when all your farms/plantations etc get to the wall street and you get instatntly a millions of capitalists more.

[The Nichtnochter]

I've attempted another run as Qing & would like to share new things I've learnt as well as reply to a few things asked of.


Laws & IG:

I do not seek to min-max as I play I do not care to go for multi-culturalism. I like to keep the Landowners strong with many agricultural expansions. When I play Qing I seek to enrich the Manchu people first & even the Han is an afterthought.

It personally does not interest me to make every run into a multi-cultural full-welfare state where everyone in the world wanting to immigrate into.

I therefore cannot give advice on such things, I simply like that (semi-)role play as Qing was a Manchu Empire thus I'll keep it that way. You do you as you play Qing however you want.


Vassals & border expansion:

There is no way to control what your vassals produce, the AI will attempt to fill holes in the economy though.

-I like to vassalise Kokand & Sikkim fast.
-Kashmir (Sikh Empire) starts with an arms industry. CONQUER IT. Maybe vassalise the rest if you care to.


Opium war:
War support needs to change. I got into the opium war in the 40s & set my goals as:
-recognition
-reparations
-release EIC
-take treaty port Singapore

I did everything but release EIC as war goals. What do I mean by that? When go to the screen for a war & hover over one side's war support you get the breakdown for whats affecting their war exhaustion.

UK's war exhaustion said 'cannot go below 0 because they hold their capital & the following war goal has not been took: liberate EIC'.

EIC isn't in the war & I am not occupying London as early-game Qing. It is impossible to make UK go negative. The devs NEED to change this. Especially since I occupied Singapore yet the moment UK set ONE FOOT into Beijing I was going negative war score. Remember, the war screen told me I succeeded to take all but ONE of my war goals (the impossible one since EIC isn't in the war so I can't occupy them). I succeeded 75% of my war goals before UK took ANYTHING.

UK took one province & I've lost. The devs need to change this. Qing should be able to win on the defence, not need to take London.


Economy:

I seek to concentrate industry around Beijing first & Manchuria 2nd; with Chongqing & the rest of the coast allowed to industrialise 'zipper-like' with the other priorities. Every state outside of these exist for resource/agriculture only.

Note on lumber: by default new lumber mills produce hard wood, the Qing market does not need hardwood until an arms industry requires more or if you're expanding your navy. All new logging camps should manually be set to softwood only for more production. Also, I've said before but remember to put your logging camps to use tools; but only your starting camps as the tooling workshop in Beijing can only supply that much plus a few livestock level 2s for meat.

For construction sectors I like to expand the three states you start with into level 5, then build 1 construction sector in every state for the small construction speed bonus in each state. The best way to go about this is build one construction sector before a state builds anything else. This requires micro-managing construction priorities but I think it's worth it.

I have experimented with auto-expand. I went through Qing's starting industry & have compiled the following list on what I set as auto-expand. A lot is, but something i kept fully manual.

There is no need to copy me exactly, you may decide different states, decide to only auto-expand certain resources etc. Further more, auto-expand is less efficient at building the more profitable expansions first, thus manually looking at your construction queue & sending things to the top with alt + click is a suggestion (logging camps are really needed for this).

The following is everything I choose to build into auto-expand:

State specific:
Sichuan: whole state at least 1 of each available agricultural building
Shanxi: whole state at least 1 of each available agricultural building

(tea & tobacco are done in these 2, these states have an agricultural bonus)

Agricultural Goods:
Rye Farms: Tomsk & Tuva
Banana: Shaozhou
Cotton: Shengjing
Dye: all 5 available states
Kashmir (if took): Millet farms

Resource goods:
Fishing warfs: everywhere available
Sulfur (can wait until level 2 paper production method): Shangdong & Hebei
Lead (can wait until level 2 glass production method): Beijing & Shengiag
Iron: All three Manchuria states; focus Outer as you can build ports for infrastructure before railways are available
Coal: Same as Iron (used to set street lights to level 2 in urban centres from the start of the game)

Industry:
Arms: Chongqing (expand Kashmir first if took)
Food: Shengjing
Furniture: Beijing
Glass: Hebei & Nanjing
Paper: Chongqing & Hebei
Shipyards: Only manually expand Guandong if needing more war ships; build new shipyard in Shandong & set to clippers only
Textiles: Shangdong & Zhejiang
Tooling Workshop: Beijing then Chongqing
Steel (can wait until level 2 tool production method): Shengjing

Beyond this, there are some states that only have livestock as the only agricultural good; may as well expand them automatically since that agricultural land cannot be used for anything else:

Outer Manchuria, Monan, Urga, Uliastai, Ili, Ngari, Qinghai & Alxa

That's it!

[Mentat]

Originally posted by KFC-AI:

OMG the Taiping Rebellion just happened to me in 1917, sure I have lots of radicals due to dumping state religion. But the hell can 1% Christians took over most of my states. Women can vote in my country and multicultrualism is a thing.

Personally I think the Taiping rebellion is a trash in this game. The trigger is a joke. Because it seems to me the rebellion always triggers because I have some protestants immigrants from some really odds places. So my plan is to assimilate them with religious education. In my current run till year 1917, it hasn't fired. I have religious school and compulsory primary schools with education investment at lvl4, with cultural exclusion and immigrants control, everything is good. Do not push reform too hard, on the paper they are good, but having to much radials will kill the Qing. With the exception of early game serfdom abolish, landed voting. agrarian reform, professional army, colonial resettlement (colonial is just my personal preference,too grab central Africa for rubber, sugar, coffee production ) . others can wait. Push them to hard will destabilize the country, Keeping most factions at least on neutral standing is good.
As for annexing vassal, a diplomatic play is needed, your relation with your vassal cannot be too high,

[KFC-AI]

Originally posted by Mentat:

Originally posted by KFC-AI:

OMG the Taiping Rebellion just happened to me in 1917, sure I have lots of radicals due to dumping state religion. But the hell can 1% Christians took over most of my states. Women can vote in my country and multicultrualism is a thing.

Personally I think the Taiping rebellion is a trash in this game. The trigger is a joke. Because it seems to me the rebellion always triggers because I have some protestants immigrants from some really odds places. So my plan is to assimilate them with religious education. In my current run till year 1917, it hasn't fired. I have religious school and compulsory primary schools with education investment at lvl4, with cultural exclusion and immigrants control, everything is good. Do not push reform too hard, on the paper they are good, but having to much radials will kill the Qing. With the exception of early game serfdom abolish, landed voting. agrarian reform, professional army, colonial resettlement (colonial is just my personal preference,too grab central Africa for rubber, sugar, coffee production ) . others can wait. Push them to hard will destabilize the country, Keeping most factions at least on neutral standing is good.
As for annexing vassal, a diplomatic play is needed, your relation with your vassal cannot be too high,

I think I have figured out how to beat this. While I was still a monary, I simply went for total seperation and cultural enclosure, this way the Taiping was still not triggered until ... 1910.