Ming strategy
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- Ming
My own opinion (Garrett): Just vassalize everything and take the most valuable of provinces, annexing everything will make your research costs ridiculous, having south east asia as a bunch of vassels allowed me to beat the spanish in north america and burgandy in the carribean.
And going across the pacific = HARD w/ Ming
Playing as Ming gives you both definite advantages and definite disadvantages and is a huge challenge. If you think you have mastered Europe, give Ming a try. Vastly different strategy is required due to your technology issues. You can still be very successful, however, and take over an amount of territory that would be impossible from any other part of the world. Controlling all the territory from Japan to India is very possible, not to mention a solid foothold in the New World. Try that with a European Power!
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[edit] Advantages
- Strong economy with good revenue
- Aside from Japan, no major dominant foes in reach of you
- Lots of unoccupied territories around you that are ripe for colonization
- A huge armada of ships to begin with
- High Troop Limits
- Densely populated territories
- Lots of terra incognita to the West give you a temporary buffer against stronger countries
[edit] Disadvantages
- As you are in Chinese tech group (+100% research cost), and since you have so many territories, research will be painfully slow
- Extremely difficult to recover from stability hits due to slow research
- No colonists; your annual number of colonists will start out in the negative
- There doesn't seem to be a "China" event trigger, so you remain Ming for the duration of the game
- Your neighbors practice a large number of different religions which makes revolt an issue when you take them over
- Trade is difficult
- Tax revenue is hard to come by with Confucianism's 50% penalty, especially in conquered territories
[edit] Strategy
The key to playing Ming is to avoid drops in stability at all costs. I kid you not, it can take 10 years to increase your stability one level should it drop. If you plan on colonizing, you will need to start moving the Narrowmindedness slider fairly early on. The stability hit almost doesn't make it worth it, however.
The first step to Ming is use your massive armies against someone who you can attack without reducing stability. From a strategic perspective, try to begin by dealing with the enemies that are in the borders of what is now China (such as Manchu). Insult them, warn them, do whatever it takes to get someone to declare war on you. Ming is so powerful that you can fight several of the surrounding countries at the same time without repercussions. Once you have consolidated China, head towards southeast Asia. There are lots of easy to take territories in what is present day Vietnam and Burma. At this point, your BB will likely be very high, so you won't have to worry about having to declare war on others :-) Fortunately, there is a lot of terra incognita in Western Asia that will act as a buffer from the more powerful enemies to your West.
One you have made a dent in Southeast Asia, it is time to head towards the territories of Korea. There is a good chance that they will have already declared war on you, so you don't have to worry about the stability drop. Remember to plan all of your attacks so that you can annex the territories of the alliance members before your alliance leaders. This way, you can win multiple territory gains very quickly.
Once you have Korea under control, and you have place enough troops to the west to deal with unrest and the attacks of some of your weaker neighbors, you need to concentrate on increasing your Land technology. A lot of the territories you will take do not have forts, so you will spend a lot of time chasing your enemies around the countryside undoing the damage they have done. Fortunately, you will have a HUGE number of territories by this point, so there won't be a whole lot of damage done in the long run. Just remember to divide and conquer: deal with your enemies one at a time and sue for peace individually. It is generally pretty easy to get a white peace even with high BB.
Once you have a firm control of the mainland, head for Japan. Japan is a very powerful enemy, and should not be taken lightly. When you land troops, land in force. Several of the territories are extremely populated and very wealthy, so they can raise an army in a hurry. Many of the territories to the North will not have forts. Take a handful of them, and then try to siege the capital. You should be able to get a good foothold in Japan in this way. Be advised however, that Japan will declare war on you every chance they get. You will need to land enough troops to take them out quickly. One advantage is that you can travel around most of the Japanese islands without a boat due to their close proximity. This makes fighting much easier.
After Japan, the sky is the limit. If you have chosen then right advisers and continually moved towards narrowmindedness, you should be able to start colonizing. You can either go for the Russian Frontier to your North, or head to the New World. Be advised, though that you will likely encounter European powers in the New World who have vastly superior land and naval technology. Quest for the New World is a tempting National idea, but your government advances come few and far between, so make sure this is what you want. It will likely be 50-100 years before you can choose another one. Colonial Ventures (to overcome the colonist issue mentioned above), Church Attendance Day (to help recover stability quickly), Deus Vult (to make war easier without losing stability), or Scientific Revolution (to overcome your overwhelming disadvantage in research)are also good choices.
Your other option is to slowly, methodically head West in Asia towards India. There are more wealthy, extremely populated territories that will help your cause. Be warned, however, that you will eventually run into some of the Eastern powers such as Persia and the Ottoman Empire. You will have a huge manpower advantage when you fight them, but also vastly inferior technology. Remember to have a powerful general to lead your armies and attack with overwhelming force.
Another problem is the religion diversity. Like most Europeans that have to deal with many branch of Christianity, if you planning to conquest the neighboring countries of Ming, keep in mind that Japan (and Ryukyu) is Shintoism, Tibetan and SE Asia are mainly Buddhist (but Ming's southern provinces are Buddhist too), Indonesia and Malaysia are Moslem, while states in the India subcontinent are Hindu (along with Bali and southeastern tip of Vietnam). If you're planning to attack westward, you'll find several pagan (animism) provinces. If you're planning to be defensive and building your tech first, you can try to convert those provinces to reduce diversity, and if you do that, don't forget to built several level of fort (just focus on the provinces that you're gonna convert) to help the chance of success. Otherwise if you're believe that attacking is the best defense, you can carefully choose provinces that would not strain you too thin (i.e. avoiding either India or Japan until you have excess money for the missionaries)
The second, longer strategy to adding your territory without war and colonization is by making vassal and then annex them. This takes a longer time because you need to do: (1, 2, 3 doesn't need to be in that order)
- Have a royal marriage, in order to do that the countries can only from the same religious group (i.e. Konfucianist Manchu and Korea, Shinto Japan and Ryukyu, Buddhist Tibet and SE Asia, Hindu India and Bali). That means that this approach can't be done for pagan and Moslem countries (Melayu and Indonesia) around Ming
- Ask them to be your ally (provided you have less than 2 existed alliance) (you probably need to befriend them first)
- Befriend them until 190+ (can be increased through successful royal marriage and alliance)
- Ask them to be your vassal (if failed, repeat step 3)
- Keep the friendship for 10+ years and relationship 190+
- Ask them to be part of your glorious Empire (if failed - most of the time it is -, step 5)
- Repeat step 1 for another target country
[edit] Personal experience
Tell your experience playing Ming - the hardest of the easy states to play with
[edit] Bennylin
I played with unpatched and unmodded game. In vassaling then annexing, first time I played it I succeded annexing the tiny island of Ryukyu quite easily, then I start from the beginning for the second time. This time I failed to annex Ryukyu no matter how nice I asked her, even put a cherry on top of it. While continuing my expansion westward, Manchu was my ally and vassal and she gained several provinces from wars that we went together through separate negotiations. When her provinces were almost twice the original (some require military access trough my provinces), suprisingly she agreed to be annexed by Ming - after dozens time trying unsuccesfully. Voila.. easy catch. So I set my eyes for Korea (and keep trying with Ryukyu), and continue expand westward (Tibet was swallowed by an Indian state, but I gained back most of it) and met the formiddable Timurid empire; finally I (with my "hated throughout the world" BB rating) manage to vassalize Korea. 10 years passed, no one is foolish enough to declare war on me other than the Mamluk in the Mediterranean, I spend the next few decades repeating my luck of annexing Korea "peacefully" as I did with Manchu, but to no avail (at that time I didn't realize the 2 alliances rule, so I keep trying to ally with Japan - my next target after Korea).
Desperately bored with the slow progress and the monotony of the war against Middle East states (where my 30,000 men always fail to take the Samarkand guarded by 5,000 men), I modded the game, annexed Korea, Japan, and Ryukyu, colonized the whole Siberia and Pacific Islands, converted most of Japan, defeated whole SE Asia except Bali, left India almost untouched (for religious reasons mentioned above) and now it's not fun anymore. >.<
