In about 1500 hours I've never played Ming as I'd often read they were super boring if you played "as intended/historically".
Have things changed a lot (I'm thinking with all the new mission trees) that would make Ming exciting/enjoyable to play now?
Convince me why I should or shouldn't try them out!
Posted Jul 24, 2023, 7:31 PM UTC
Ming is a paper tiger. If everything goes well early game you can excel and even tributary the world. If everything doesn’t go well you’re gonna have a bad time. I recommend starting out with admin ideas it gives eunuch loyalty and stability cost reduction. You’ll want both and to keep a little admin power on hand to keep your stab up. Ming can be played a few different ways so check out your mission tree and good luck.
why admin ideas? Court Ideas are so strong on Ming for mandate growth and also loyalty for all factions.
You will stab up a lot. The stability cost reduction will be extremely useful. Court is also strong but isn’t as useful mid to late game when loyalty, influence, meritocracy, and mandate is a non-issue. You could always get both.
I made only a run and it's really funny if you want a sandbox and super easy experience. They start rich af, with no real threats around you and high mandate gives op bonuses. You have to deal with some bad events and rebellion but nothing special. NB that my run was previous Domination, so maybe Ming now are different from a sandbox, but i doubt
Oh no, they are very different with Domination.
Yay? Better or worse? I don't have dominion yet and i don't know if its worth buying
It’s a cool DLC if you have the spare funds, it adds a ton of flavour to so many countries to varying degrees, and really expands gameplay as any country with estate changes. But to Ming? Yes, the Eunuchs as an estate are the most interesting unique estate gameplay wise, and keeping them loyal is a challenge
Playing ming is like playing the one Mission of the Protos in starcraft. You know they all die by the zerg but you wana try it anyways.
Except in this case you can actually win lol
I tried once.... "nah let's play Qing again, better color".
If you like China/Chinese history sure
Otherwise Qing is the more enjoyable experience.
Mind is not to be played. Mind is to be destroyed.
No, they are extremely boring. I've formed Qing and Yuan. Once you take the mandate its boring af.
I have not played Ming post-domination so I'm not sure how much it holds true anymore (considering the AI seems to struggle keeping it together a lot lately) but for me playing Ming was a lot like playing Ottomans - because you start Rich and Powerful you can sorta decide what you want to do and what sort of arbitrary goals you will pursue.
I'd often set up goals of trying to stomp out European Colonization by getting the Americas, Oceania and the pacific islands before them (very hard even if you get tech and cash advantage) or some other goal like just conquering the entirety of Asia (Big Russias being really the only obstacle to this, sometimes big Vijayanagar or something in India but most often Russia)
With Ming you usually just get so much Tempo that you don't often get as other nations in the region because you have to spend time gobbling them up in the first place (to have access to the same level of resources at least)
Ming is like Ottoman but flip 180 degree. At the start of the game you suck. But if you manage to survive from you( yes,from you) until the age of absolutism then you will become a god with ton of massive buff from mandate of heaven,your mission tree,and estate
Try going colonial with them and get 100+ tributaries. That was a chill game (once the crisis is over) but my favorite one in 1200h
I know I'm biased because I love Chinese history, so I'd recommend playing them for the roleplay and not the min-maxing
The only appeal to Ming over Qing or Yuan is going colonial. By the time the hordes have consolidated, unless you’re being really sweaty and non maxing, Spain and Portugal have fiended over ever last colonizable province in the world and you’ll be stuck with like Alaska and a few islands. But Ming starts out in a great position to colonize, plus they get a celestial reform for an extra colonist. Just keep devastation low and make sure you always have a couple hundred admin in the bank at all times to stab up in emergencies.
Sweat engaged.
I tried it after the latest DLC with the new disasters etc., dunno if I just got lucky but it didn't really feel challenging at all as long as I actively whack-a-moled all the disasters (ming cheat code: deving a province massively reduces devastation)
No, never
I have 1500h and had never tried Ming before domination. I always thought of it as a boring country with no flavour.
I must admit that I was wrong. I played until 1600ish to get the achievements: hold the British Isles, have one tributary of each faith and some other religious achieve I cant remember.
I didnt expand much outside of the China region and instead focused on playing tall and finishing my mission but also enacting decisions as the emperor of China. Was actually one of the more enjoyable runs that I have had lately and would recommend others to try it.
Eventually you can turn tributaries to vasalls as the emperor of China and I expanded outside of China using that mechanic. And of course I had colonists.
Keeping the country intact with the mission tree made it enjoyable. I ended up being the strongest nation with the highest development and taking Britain was an easy task.
Try it out!
It is a good time to play Ming.
There is always something to do. You can expand like crazy not thinking of coalitions or sit tight passing Mandate reforms and going through missions, then make everyone your tributaries and have unlimited mana points.
In 1620-1650 it may start getting boring, as most of the challenges are gone, but that is EU4, same happens to almost any country.
The beginning and missions are extremely interesting and powerful.
Now ming is kinda cool. I had a game with two wars only: first with oirat, second with GB for Achievement.
Rest was: colonize, make a tributary, charter land, make a tributary, convert into vassal, annex vassal.
Different breed of game
You can try it at least once, and may enjoy unique, peaceful style of play. Basically, you need only war war - with Oirat at the very beginning. After that, you can just go full colonial and don't go to war for the next 100 years. Although I recomend to conquer two gold mines in the Malacca nodes - the will be greatly boosted by one of your missions. Also, a short war against Japan is recommended, to steal other gold mines.
Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who responded, as always this community has been helpful and insightful!
no
I'd never consider Ming boring. Incredibly frustrating (because sooner or later you end up with the Mingpocalypse) but never boring.
What do you like about it? What's bad about it? Tell me about Mingpocalypse (which i've witnessed as a bystander by not first hand).. what does it mean as a player?
Ming have a lot of really cool things like the Celestial Reforms, the imperial decrees, and the ability to harmonize religions. But doing almost anything has a big cost - celestial reforms cost 1 stab and 70 mandate - and eventually you will trigger the Crisis of the Ming Dynasty.
I'm sure there's a way to get out of that disaster, but I've never managed to. Huge stacks of rebels and you end up deeply in debt, but you basically need to be out of debt and have no rebel-controlled provinces to even make any progress on undoing the disaster.
And then on top of it, there are the natural disasters that drive up devastation (which can lower mandate). I'm sure it's do-able, but not by me.
You can build yourself a hugbox as ming through strategically gimping Potential threats (i.e. preventing Manchu from forming, cutting down oirat, nabbing Tibet) and building tall. I was able to come out of that crisis stronger than I went in, because it can only fire once. You also need to save up some mana and maybe Merc up. Loyal tributaries will fight rebel stacks or unsiege provinces and getting ample fortifications (which your national ideas and special military reform are geared towards) will really take some pressure off of you with regards to the devastation and province-control. Ming can still be played a lot of different ways but my favorite thus far has been just building tall and dominating economically by pumping out tons of valuable goods.
Actually, it is quite easy to get of of the disaster. You need about 120-160 k troops and stockpiled 5k of gold.
Be prepared to disaster to trigger. Forts covering every province, troops fully drilled. when the distaster starts, set corruption reduction to max - it will be a huge loss of cash, but that's it. Every peasant rebellion event gives you 5 mandate. You need low corruption + no rebels + 75 mandate + less than 5 loans to get rid of the distaster. quit simple.
Thanks. That's what I meant by "not by me" - it takes a level of trial and error (and learning) that I doubt I'd ever put into a Ming game. But this is really helpful!
If you have low mandate, it becomes increasingly likely that you'll get massive rebellions, and your troops are way weakened so it's a lot harder to deal with literally any enemies or rebels. You can also get massive penalties if there's an unchecked horde near you. Usually how you topple Ming as a Jurchid tribe is get big and refuse tributary requests. Then they just fall apart on their own and you take their land and money.