Oda: Part 07: 1551-1569: Unification of China

Unify China CB gives free cores, so it's pretty obvious what I was going to do. It's still limited by truce timers, and my allies Dai Viet and Korea were both doing their best to be a nuissance. I tend to be too sentimental about AI allies and almost never backstab them, even when they really deserve it. At least in old patches it made sense, nowadays AI actively tries to undermine you by guaranteeing your targets and such.

Eventually I got tired of Dai Viet, as they not only grabbed some Chinese provinces themselves, they also made 3 Chinese minors their tributaries, and that was definitely too much.

I passed the first reform just one year in, as I had mission for +25 mandate, so I didn't spend even one day at negative mandate, but before I could even think of passing second I got two flood events for -10 mandate in a row. I only passed the second reform in 1567.

Ming was doing its best strat of losing so many wars simultaneously that none of them could get decent warscore, so it would survive longer.

And finally in 1569 I pretty much united China. There's still 8 provinces protected by truce timers, but it hardly matters.

Turning China into a bunch of trade companies not only saved gov cap, it also got me to over 400/gold income, 40% into setting up Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. If I continued, I'd probably get economic hegemony by 1600 or so. I'd probably need to conquer Korea and Brunei for it, as they are major leaks in my trade networks. And Ayutthaya and Pegu for their monuments. Other than that there's no particular direction I need to go.

East Asian trade network is just terrible for everyone. Japan can't go to Malaya without basically conquering China. Chinese trade splits in two and both directions leak. Malaya used to be easy to plug into Zanzibar, but they changed it too, as it goes into Cape, so you might want to conquer India or African coast for what used to be easier.

There's still a small complication that Portugal and Spain both showed up in Malaya and Australia, and I still don't have the Printing Press, but I have 4x the income Spain does, so I'd be able to crush them if I wanted to.

Anyway, I think this is a good conclusion of the campaign.

For some tips:

• as Japanese minor there are early two limitations - mana for coring and AE. Doing some show strength for mana and better AE management could have helped
• if you want to unify it's much better to break alliances and get rid of all other daimyo in the last war rather than be a shogun and wait 10 years before you can start integrating them
• if you play without dev pushing (I don't plan to release that), just no-CB someone in Middle East and vassalize them. If you play with dev pushing, obviously dev push early.
• if you're strong enough for it, it's better to take the mandate early rather than wait for Mingsplosion
• once you have the mandate cleaning up China costs almost no mana and they are all easy wars, so it might be a good time to open second front elsewhere. Ayutthaya for monuments is the most obvious direction

Time for some after thoughts about Asia in 1.35 and the mod setup.

Institution setup I was testing (very slow spread, no dev pushing) really takes over the focus of the game when playing outside Europe. I tried to deal with it in the least cheesy way - try to meet Europeans early, and use knowledge sharing. This suffers from lack of player agency - AI can offer knowledge sharing, but there's no way to request knowledge sharing, so it's basically AI decision RNG, even though for the AI it's pure upside so it should always take it. In vanilla it doesn't matter, as you're far more likely to just dev push anyway, but without dev pushing, poor design of knowledge sharing system is a real problem.

I wanted to give this no-cheese method a try, and it's sort of viable, but realistically early no-CB on some Arabian minor, then either taking over Egypt when Mamluks are busy with the Ottomans, or allying Mamluks or Ottomans, is likely a far better way, and doesn't require any colonists.

And unfortunately all this institution lag didn't quick achieve quite what I hoped. In EU4 there's no way to change tech speed, it all goes through the mana system. Making tech more expensive is the same as applying mana penalty. So nobody in East Asia was even meaningfully behind Europe on mil tech. And since Ming wasn't expanding, it wasn't behind Europe on any tech, even paying 100% penalty for missing two institutions.

I think it's still possible to force slow tech spread with mods with a lot more complex scripting. Some sort of calculate target tech level based on year, tech group, and institution, and just ban going over it by a trigged modifier with +1000% tech cost.

Japan plays pretty much like it did before. There's some new missions, which use the new very complicated mission system, where you need to alt tab to wiki to read mission requirements and rewards. Many missions are: do A, B, or C. But reward varies based on which of these paths you choose, and some of this information is buried in tooltips, some isn't anywhere, and overall it's an overcomplicated mess. I was quite annoyed when I misread the mission which was supposed to give me Echigo gold mine, but the gold mine didn't appear. It was a quick reload, press some buttons in different order, and the gold mine appeared.

I guess if you play the same country over and over you get more choices, but did I ever play any country more than once or twice, other than 1066 Matilda of Tuscany?

Confucian got buffed significantly. It started by being the worst Old World religion in the game, now it's like C tier with the Buddhists.

There are some complicated monument religion rules. Originally religion-locked monuments required specific religion. Now some require specific religion, but some also allow some combination of Tengri-syncretized, Confucian-harmonized, or Buddha-personal-deity, or Fetishist-with-cult etc. Different monuments support different combinations of these extra religions.

For examples none of the monuments in Malaya support Confucian-harmonized, but they support Tengri-syncretized, and I was confused by the tooltips and went out of my way to get these monuments in unbroken state. But the ones in South-East Asia and India mostly support Confucian-harmonized. Why? Probably a different person was responsible for each region.

Arguably if Confucian could get monuments from every religion that would make it quite good, but it's definitely not there.

New China mechanics are pretty decent. There's still the problem that by the time Ming explodes and you conquer China and pass a few reforms it's like 1600 and you're economic hegemon, and what are you even trying to do at this point? If you don't want to wait for Mingsplosion, as Oirats, Korea, Dai Viet, Ayutthaya, or such, then it could be really rewarding to take over China early, but I spent early game unifying Japan, and had to chase institutions.

China more or less unified, just tiny bit of clean-up left to do as Wu was over 100% warscore, parts of Dali were occupied in a different war, and Kara Del and Kham hold some fairly worthless land that's technically China.

Dai-Viet fell into two by event. I don't remember seeing it before. Other than that it's pretty standard map - Korea never moved one province, India turned into a few big blobs, big Transoxiana, South-East Asia fairly close to how it started.

Nothing interesting in religion/culture maps, as I didn't really convert. I harmonized Shinto for free, then Hindu, and I'm almost done harmonizing Pagan. Thanks to monument spam and other bonuses it's actually a lot more viable than old Confucian used to be.

Oda: Part 06: 1534-1551: New Empire of China

My tech was us 8/9/11 to Ming's 11/12/11. Especially the naval gap is awkward, as I need free seas to haul my armies around.

I went with really weird idea group setup, Expansion, Humanist, Plutocratic. Fun thing is that Confucian countries get basically a Holy War CB for finishing either Humanist or Religious. Confucian used to be awful, but I guess they wated to buff i up a bit.

Ming finally pressed the reform buton in 1538, and their disaster started to slowly tick up, but I had no patience for that. 21 mandate Ming already fighting some minor war against Oirats and Orochoni was good enough for me.

In the first war Ming was still very much able to defend itself, so I beat them up just a bit, took Beijing, Canton, and two other forts.

In 1544 Yue and Wu separated from Ming, and this time not even as marches like before, but already independent. Is this a new thing in this patch? Then Shen became independent, and it almost screw up my plans, as I lost any border with Ming inside China. I still had a small Ming border is Manchuria - Orochoni rebels almost seceded messing up the campaign, but Ming cleaned them up with its last surviving troops.

I had some truce with Ming so I used the time to clean up Malaya. Dai Viet dragged me into a war against Yue and Wu.

And finally truce timer expired and I was able to take the mandate and all provinces with monuments.

Now I'm the new China, and I haven't really checked what the patch did to China mechanics, so who knows what's going to happen.

End of the first Ming war. I took 2/3 Chinese capitals and gave them some time to fall apart. Ming was still quite strong and 100%ing them would have been a lot of effort.

Two big wars, one with Ming, and one with Yue/Wu Dai Viet dragged me into

China after Ming gave up the mandate. Now I just need to take over China, and also Ayutthaya for their gov cap monument.

Oda: Part 05: 1512-1534: Westernization

I got into my first war against Ming, the plan was to attack Jianzhou, bring Ming in, and Korea on my side, then assault their capital and white peace them as soon as possible.

This went wrong right away. Ming managed to reach Jianzhou's capital before I finish the siege. On the other hand somehow Dai Viet decided that it's willing to join the war.

80k dead Chinese, 11k dead Jianzhou, 34k dead Japanese, 28k dead Koreans, 8k dead Vietnamese later, as well as 37 sunk ships on my ally's side, and 10 sunk ships on Ming's, I got the white peace, and broke Ming's two most important tributary relations.

And then Korea accepted becoming Ming's tributary again just after the war. WTF AI. At least Dai Viet didn't, so it wasn't a total failure. And Korea-Ming trust dropped from 100 to 60, so maybe next time it will work?

Age of Reformation started, and Ming triggered their Golden Age. Well let's see how golden it really is.

Portugal reached the Cape before me. Maybe I could ally them and get Renaissance this way? Mamluks got Renaissance as well, so that's another country I could ally. I gave Portugal far too much money to secure the alliance, but it's unfortunately up to AI if they offer knowledge sharing or not.

Once I allied Portugal I gave up on further expansion into Africa.

It finally paid off in 1524 when Portugal decided to knowledge share, for a small cost of 13 gold/month, which was a nice increase of their 33 gold/month income. But then I had 4 gold mines to pay for it - two in the Malaya, and two spawned in Japan.

Knowledge sharing only spreads to capital state, and that was less than 10% of my total autonomy-adjusted dev, so I basically had to dev push my capital state. Or I'd need to wait another decade for it to spread to next few states.

Finally in 1529 I embraced Renaissance, and Portuguese Colonialism started to spread in my capital as well. Now that plan Africa is dead, I'm setting up a colonial nation is East Australia, while my tribal trade league is in North Australia, so they shouldn't fight each other.

With that problem solved, I thought I'd fight Ming, but I wanted their crisis to trigger first. The way it works is that they need 80+ mandate, then they press reform button, lose 70 mandate, and the disaster starts ticking. Unfortunately Ming had really poorly timed earthquake event costing them 20 mandate from 70 to 50 or so, delaying the whole disaster for quite a while. Then Ming went just over 80, but got some -5 event. Come on Ming, I know you want to trigger the crisis.

So I went back to Malaya to clean up most of the remaining Sunnis.

I embraced Colonialism in 1534, also from Portugal. I'll probably need to do the same with the Printing Press. And yet I'm 6 techs behind Ming who has zero institutions somehow.

Right now I'm mostly waiting for Ming to trigger the crisis. If they keep delaying I'll setup some Colonial Nation in Canada, or maybe revisit that idea of conquering Madagascar and Egypt.

Aceh and Majapahit are my vassals officially. Brunei and Sulu as well, they just don't know it

The rest of the countries will get cleaned up once truce timers finish.

Spread of Renaissance is even slower than in my AI only test games, mostly due to Cyprus-Mamluk disagreements slowing spread into Egypt by decades.

In retrospect I think no-CBing some Arabs as soon as I had Japan unified, then rushing Egypt would have been far faster than what I did.

Colonialism is very slowly following Renaissance. I paid Portugal some ridiculous pile of gold to get both ahead of the queue. I hope Portugal gets the Printing Press quickly too.

Oda: Part 04: 1498-1512: Confucian Japan

Paradox keeps nerfing Exploration ideas and buffing Expansion. Exploration used to have 2 colonists and the only way to explore the map. Expansion was just 1 colonist and some trade stuff instead. Then they moved the 2nd colonist from Exploration to Expansion, added buying maps, stealing maps, and now as long as you have any colonists you can buy explorer from your merchant estate. That interaction has a bunch of restrictions, and 3rd colonist is nice, but unless you go full colonial rush like Portugal, I think the meta is to take Expansion only and just not bother with Exploration at all.

This is a bit of a problem as now I want two paper idea groups in a row - Expansion to get to Europe, and Admin for more gov cap. Meanwhile I'm quite good with bird mana, and literally overflowing with sword mana even after paying 50% extra for each tech due to not having Renaissance.

Well, it got even worse. I accepted event chain to flip me Confucian. It's not a good religion (used to be literally the worst in game), but it has some new mechanics, so why not. And Confucian apparently really wants Humanist for extra harmony and harmonization speed, so I took that second instead of admin. Expansion into Humanism, what a weird combo.

And even worse, now I want Expansion, Humanist, Admin as my first three idea groups. This is going to hurt.

I got Shinto harmonized for free from event (otherwise switching would be ridiculously painful), and the first one I picked for harmonization was Hindu. There's some bonuses to harmonization speed, so it will take about 25 years per religion.

Somehow, and it really doesn't make much sense, I was able to setup a trade league with Australian OPM tribes. The whole Australian trade was wort like 1 gold, but at least I'm doing something new here.

I kept expanding in Hindu parts of Malaya, so Sunnis (and one Theravada country) won't care. It's going really slowly as I'm trying to minimize both mana and AE cost, and it's not really a priority. There's a lot of money there, but I'm already nearly as rich as Ming at 98 income, with two gold mines about to get captured as soon as truce timers expire, and Farm Estate manufactory spam will soon start paying off.

My route towards institution reached the Maldives. But now there's a problem. There's no uncolonized islands near Arabia, so I can either get legit CBs on Kilwa (or even worse Madagascar or India) and very slowly get from there to Egypt. Or just no-CB someone. But if I wanted to no-CB, I could have done this 50 years ago and saved so much mana. I don't even need any coring range, there's exception for vassals on same continent, so an Arabian vassal in Asia would let me core there (no-CB wouldn't quite work in Africa).

I might go the Kilwa / Madagascar route. There could still be some opportunity to reach Arabia from there with enemy alliance networks, and there's a few gold mines there.

I finally managed to convince Korea to join my wars, so I took some land from Orochoni, while Koreans ate the attrition to fight Orochoni ally Oirats. It's not about the land at all - it's about border with Ming I'll need to challenge them soon. I think I'd have decent chances against just Ming, unfortunately my armies and fleets are split between Manchuria, Malaya, and soon maybe Africa.

I can't call Korea or Dai-Viet into a war against Ming, as they're Ming tributaries. However I can call them into a war against another Ming tributary, to break that relation. At least for Korea there are some good options, less so for Dai Viet, but I'll try to figure one out.

Ottomans got Renaissance. The Mamluks are almost ready to get some loans and press embrace button, except AI doesn't actually try to speed embrace institutions like a human would. Somehow the Golden Horde got it before the Mamluks, so it's now very slowly spreading into Persia.

Majapahit, Bali, and Deli are my vassals, and Brunei technically isn't, but I use them as one

It took me a while to get border with Ming, but I plan to only challenge them once they start falling apart, so there's no rush. Manchu lands are annoying as I can't make a trade company there as it's same "subcontinent", and I can't convert them as Confucian penalties for conversion are huge, so I'll be tanking -7% religious unity from just that small area.

Oda: Part 03: 1477-1498: Island Hopping

I went Eastern Plutocracy, as Elective Monarchy is only worth it for countries that can have PUs, and the other two choices are boring. We'll get some new alternatives later thanks to our mission tree, and even more if we conquer China.

In a normal Japan game, at this point your goals are dev pushing for institution, maybe preparing to spawn Colonialism, and destroying Ming for fun But there's no dev pushing here, no spawning institutions outside Europe, and waiting for them would take forever. I need to reach Europe somehow.

There are quite a few possible ways:

• meet Europeans in the New World
• conquer my way through steppes to Eastern Europe
• conquer my way through Malaya to the Middle East
• conquer my way through Malaya and Africa to Western Europe

OK, maybe that last one is a stretch. But going for Malaya makes perfect sense, and eventually it will be great for trade.

I allied Korea, and I thought I'd use them for some casual Manchuria conquest, but it turns out they took inward perfection, and it would cost them 1 stab to accept call to arms, so they have -50 reasons to accept. At least I found the world's worst ally, even worse than England. And in any case, I can't make trade companies there, so it would cost far too much gov cap right now, and I'm really low on mana.

I wanted to do colonization towards Malaya, but natural colonization with being friendly to the natives is unbelievably slow, so I started politely asking the natives to relocate somewhere else, and taking some land for extended coring range.

As most of my conquests are Animist and Hindu, nobody really cares - Sunnis in West Malaya hate them anyway, and Hindus in India are too far to be bothered.

Renaissance reached Cyprus, and that's where it stopped. Normally Cyprus-Mamluks relations are friendly, so it should quickly spread from Cyprus to Egypt, but Mamluks allied Cypriote rival Karaman, so Cyprus doesn't like them, and that completely stopped spread of institutions over sea tiles. At least until Ottomans beat Karaman so hard they stopped being a valid rival for Cyprus. Current projection is that it will reach first Mamluks' province in 1506, decades later than it should.

I hoped it start spreading to East Africa by now, and also that colonization would get me to at least the Maldives by now. Oh well, I'm not that far behind yet.

Ottomans have enough Renaissance present that they could just press the button, but they won't take the loans for it. Poland and Denmark both with Renaissance and beating up Muscovy, so there's a small chance it might spread this way as well.

Right now my plan is to keep island hopping to East Africa, setup a CN in Australia (for free Colonialism, but only after I get Renaissance), and keep pushing in the Malaya. There's definitely a major conflict between reaching Europe for institutions, and getting border with Ming before it collapses.

Japan has 4 monuments, but they're all very weak. I started upgrading one of them to level 1, it just gives +0.5 prestige, another gives +0.3 legitimacy, another +50% prestige from battles, and the last basically nothing until tier 3. These are very weak bonuses, but the point is collecting all monuments, and it will add up.

South part, I got Brunei and Dai Viet as allies, Ayutthaya and Ming as rivals, Sulu into tiny my trade league, and Bali as vassal (so I don't destroy their monument by conquest). I'll want Majapahit as vassal for monument as well.

Short term I just need colonial range to reach Egypt. Long term I want 2 gold mines, all South-East Asian monuments, Malacca node's great trade, and land route to China.

North part, I got Kamchatka for extended range, but Manchuria plan got cancelled as Korea wouldn't help me, and I discovered it's part of the same subcontinent as Japan, so no trade companies allowed 

Oda: Part 02: 1457-1477: Unification of Japan

After getting rid of bugged samurai, and diring free company, it was time to contine my conquests. I was at the point where together with allies I'd be about matched with Ashikaga, but it's better to unify as much Japan as possible before taking the shogunate.

In 1462 it wa stime to declare "War for the Emperor", that is for a new shogun. I managed to ally 6 daimyo, and Ashikaga only had 3 loyal ones (and it annexed one more), but my alliance was rivaling each other, and not too stable, so waiting would have made it worse. It was 22k vs 10k troops, Ashikaga just waited too long to challenge me, and now it was too late for them.

There's a 10 year break before I can start annexing vassals - that's why the way to speed form Japan is to not take Kyoto, but to annex every single other daimyo first. In the mean time there were 100k rebels to kill.

I was briefly a great power, but then Renaissance happened in Europe, kicking me off the list. It was spreading extremely slowly, 27 years in it was barely in Venetian Crete, Genoese Azov, and Portuguese Ceuta. Constantinople got it too, but it's not enough for Ottomans to embrace it yet.

For foreign policy, Korea and Ming rivaled me, and I had Ryukyu and Ainu to deal with, just for the sake of mission tree. Ryukyu just voluntarily joined my realm, but Ainu was Orochoni's vassal somehow, and Orochoni had a lot of allies including Oirats. But here's a thing - horses can't swim.

Unfortunately the science of horses didn't reach the unwashed barbarians, and instead of just surrendering the islands, they kept trying to make horses swim, so I had to invade them just to flush their boats and sink them. That somehow didn't bother them at all either, horse people just don't care about boats.

What impressed them a bit more was Ming invading the Oirats, and dragging most of the hordes into it.

To unity Japan I need to annex all daimyo-vassals, not all subjects. So I thought diplo-vassalizing Ryukyu - who's not a daimyo - is fine, but they flipped to daimyo, delaying unification of Japan, by only by a few months. Well, this was definitely not a speedrun.

I kept Oda ideas, as they're probably better than Japanese ideas. Now I have to make two decisions.

First, which government to take now that Shogunate is gone - Feudal Nobility (boring), Autocracy (boring), Eastern Plutocracy (it's going to really complicate things with gov cap), or the new Elective Monarchy (not to be confused with Polish Elective Monarchy; it would be really good in Europe if I could PU random countries, but I can't). I think I'll go for Eastern Plutocracy.

And second, which idea group to take. Exploration and Expansion are the only real contenders, because I need to reach Europe to get their institutions in reasonable time, and because I just got my gold mine and dumped all my bird mana into it, Expansion is the only one I have mana to get.

The optimal way to speed run Japan is to break all alliances, and just keep expanding until Ashikaga plus all other daimyo are under 100% warscore (it only works if Ashikaga didn't annex too many yet). Actually going for the war the intended way means 10 years delay before I can start annexing daimyos, but this is not a speed run. 

Fun and Balance removes all land bridges, so both sides' forces on other islands weren't very relevant, the fighting was mostly on the main island.

Japan has a new Shogun

I did some landings. It would be nice if I could send some spies to Pijin to see provinces around it for safe landing, like I can in CK2. I only needed to do this as I hate sitting years waiting for war score timer to tick.

Japan, formed with all the islands from Kurils and Sakhalin to Okinawa. I'm actually allied with Korea, Brunei, and Dai Viet, friendly towards Ming, and I have no real plans of expanding there until Ming starts falling apart. It could be a very peaceful Japan, just colonizing for a while.

Oda: Part 01: 1444-1457: Sengoku

Playing Oda, with a twist. Fun and Balance obviously, but also:

• institutions all start in Europe and spread really slowly
• institution cheats (notably in Korea and East Africa) disabled
• dev pushing for institutions completely disabled
• ahead of time penalty is just 1%/year nont 10%/year, to let most advanced countries run ahead further
• and unrelated to that, "revanchism" reversed so it's actually bad, so losing wars screws you a bit (not that much)

So it will start like a normal game, but it will turn increasingly painful as it goes.

Oh and Fun and Balance makes daimyo phase specifically harder thanks to two extra relation slots.

Playing Japanese daimyo is fairly easy, except Ashikaga can declare war on you if you're 10+ provinces, so either some caution is required when crossing the threshold, or just going all in before Ashikaga figures out what's going on.

Oda starts with one 10dev province. So focus on paper, mana privileges, and go! There are three possible targets - but Toki has level 3 fort, and I don't have 9k troops, so that's really out. So just take the easier of the two others (Kitabatake and Tokugawa) and open Sengoku era!

Then Date-Nanbu war stared in March 1445, and it all went on. I got coalitioned in 1449, as I wasn't really paying attention. This stopped by expansion for a while, with just 7 provinces and 52dev total. I didn't particularly need bird mana at that point, so I dev pushed myself a bit to 59dev.

After a few years break, I went back to expanding, and by 1457 I had 16 provinces and 138dev. That makes me the strongest daimyo in Japan, but I'm definitely not strong enough to fight everybody else at once, and I'm out of manpower already.

Actually I was wondering why I'm out of manpower. After some experimentation, it turns out Japanese samurai units take twice as much manpower as they're supposed to take to reinforce due to a bug.

I guess I'll need to just not use the samurai, and in the mean time hire some mercs.

Looking back, here's a few ways I could have done better:

• avoid coalitions by not taking non-cobeligerent land that early
• don't hire samurai until they get fixed
• hire free company early

Starting in Owari east from Kyoto. In real life 1444 Oda was a vassal of Shiba clan, but EU4 doesn't do multi-level subjects, and in any case they got independent in 1452. IRL clan Oda very briefly held the shogunate under Oda Nobunaga.

Ashikaga was too slow, and Sengoku is pretty much over with one clear winner. This time I didn't make a mistake of letting anyone else become too big.

Tianxia: Part 05: 817-819: Emperor of Japan

Japan in the mod has two titles e_japan and k_chrysanthemum_throne, and three states:

• same person holds both as Tenno - this is early bookmark game start
• one person holds e_japan as Shogun, and another holds k_chrysanthemum_throne as religious head - this is late bookmark game start
• same person holds both as Tenno, but there's a permanent regency, as intermediate between the two

So since I was given claim to e_japan, I thought I could take it over as shogun by force, relegating current Tenno to purely religious position.

Japan needed a stable government, so I declared war for it, hoping to get the shogunate.

Miyoshi regent vs Yamato tenno is terms of support

My forces outnumbered Tenno's forces, which were also conveniently stuck in Mongolia, and could only go back in parts on small number of ships he had.

It was fairly easy win.

And then the mod bugged out again, and somehow not only gave me e_japan (which would make me a shogun), but also k_chrysanthemum_throne, so I became the Tenno, and replaced the original dynasty on the throne.

To be honest, my heir is grandson on a previous emperor on mother's side, so it's not even that weird.

I think this is a great point to finish this campaign.

I became Tenno instead of Shogun due to yet another bug, oh well

Also Japan was renamed Miyoshi due to another bug

Some conclusions:

• mod utilizes base CK2 mechanics very poorly - whole East Asia starting with vassal wars banned in first month makes it basically unplayable as vassal
• mod's new content (Japan regency, shogunate, new society) is full of breaking bugs, and I had to fix one issue after another
• I had some troubles with the map - mod understandably adds a lot of tiny provinces to Japan, but they're too difficult to see and click; outside Japan this issue is minimal
• there's a weird bug that makes coats of arms float very high above each province, which makes things look very confusing on high zoom - and that makes tiny province issue a lot worse
• however, other than those two issues, map is actually very nice
• I'm not sure which bookmarks are supposed to be playable, most late dates seem broken, but 769, 867, 936, and 1066 look ok
• mod's Confucian Bureaucracy government type really shouldn't be in the game, and definitely not in Japan, or early start Korea - which were both very feudal. Maybe China and very late start Korea (1392+, so beyond even last start date). It's basically all upside over feudal, and it's not even historical.
• some weird things that happen were due to interactions with other small mods (notably Fitna Fracture destroyed Tang China due to prolonged stalemate in civil war), but these feel like positives rather than negatives

I guess I could give it another go somewhere else like China, Korea, or Spice Islands.

Tianxia: Part 04: 804-817: Regency Period

I changed my mind about game rules, as it was way too easy to be a blob, so I changed demesne settings to half size. It's actually even worse than that, as it rounds down, so 7 becomes just 3. If that causes any major issues, I might revert that.

I had ten years to go before emperor became an adult, and I wasn't really expecting much resistance from other vassals until then, so it was time to expand position of my clan.

Or actually, why should celestial emperor ever bother running day to day administration of Japan? He has enough religious obligations to do. Many of my fellow daimyo fully agreed with me on this. I'm not following through on their support yet, but I appreciate the claim.

One of my vassal counts had a claim on a duchy in Korean Manchuria, and what kind of Japan campaign would it be without a little invasion of Korea.

Daimyo Fujimoto of clan Fujiwara tried to take over the regency, but failed.

I went Japanese Feudal government type for flavor, even though it's pretty much a strict downgrade. I gave my 3 sons county each, so they can practice some rulership before they get their duchies on inheritance.

I somehow got myself into a war against my grandson, as his father and me both tried to get Shikoku, and his father died.

I did some duchy and county conquering, and then I discovered there was literally a button "transfer vassal from liege", at cost of 1000 prestige to transfer anyone I wanted. Sadly there's a 10 year timer for that.

I became infirm and bedridden just as new emperor was reaching adulthood.

I was expecting the new emperor to demand end of regency, but instead he declared war on the Uyghurs of Mongolia for Manchurian coast, but then he was murdered by I have no idea whom (might even be the Uyghurs). In the end Khitans of Shiwei took all that land from the Uyghurs of Mongolia anyway.

My (obviously non-dynastic, the title is dynasty-locked) grandson became the new emperor. Meanwhile I was still consolidating my control over Japan, reaching about 2/3.

My grandson died of depression after just over a year on the throne.

His barely born baby, my great-grandson, became the new emperor, it's 6th emperor since I started my rule (and I guess 8th since I was born).

Meanwhile in China, after Tang collapse, the strongest realm is Jingdong, which is ruled by my son in law, with my grandson as an heir.

So sorting by realm strength, my family now rules:

• 2 Japan - my grandson, with me as regent
• 5 Jingdong - my son-in-law, with grandson as heir
• 6 Lombardy - my former son-in-law (my daughter died), with my grandson as heir

As well as a lot of duchies within Japan by my sons and grandsons. And I'm still at my first character, Habsburgs would be envious.

Lands controlled by clan Miyoshi are twice greater than lands loyal to the baby emperor

I was sort of expecting to be asked to resign regency as soon as previous emperor became adult, and back then I'd probably concede, but at this point, it's silly to pretend Japan can be ruled by anyone other than me

I'm not even sure what's my plan after I take over Japan, after the very slow start I thought it would take a few generations, but then again I also thought I'd be dead by now, but RNG was kind to me

The slow start was partly caused by not even remembering all the game mechanics (such as plotting for duchy claims)

Tianxia: Part 03: 795-804: King of Chubu and Owari and Regent of Japan

Empress Shotoku, aunt of my wife, died of slow fever epidemic at age of 73. Emperor Sanjo, my brother in law, died at young age of 32 after just a two your reign, fighting Northern barbarians personally. They were both great emperors, and I was on great terms with both.

After Sanjo's heroic death, the empire should rightfully ass to his nephew Shirakabe, who's cousin of my heir, and separately also my son in law, and overall a great guy.

Unfortunately that didn't happen, and due to some obviously illicit shenanigans, a lustful glutonous drunkard dwarf Kameyeama got the throne. Even worse, he's so remotely related to previous emperors, that he has no meaningful connection to my family either.

So I started faction to make me a permanent regent of Japan. Unfortunately this comes with two problem:

• mod's code for this faction is completely broken, and it took me far too long to figure out the issue and fix it (it uses supported_claimant checks, but that only works for claimant factions, so it was always false)
• most people really like the emperor, even a really shitty one, due to massive stack of opinion bonuses every emperor gets

Well, I can do it myself, I just need a ton of money, so raiding Korea time it is again. Now I had enough ships to arrange two raiding parties at once. But Korea is not that rich - after collapse of Tang, there's a much better raiding target - China!

I thought about rushing this, and hiring mercenaries to push my regency, but instead I invested all the loot into buildings in my demesne.

The new emperor got a revolt against himself, but the revolt leader was my rival, so obviously I rejected his plea to join him.

I also got involved in a bunch of minor fights over my vassals' rightful claims to various neighbouring counties.

My primary heir's wife died, and I got him a daughter of Mongol khagan as a wife, but I first gave her a good tumble myself. In this way my grandson (and next heir) is actually my son.

I got camp fever, and I was waiting to either recover or die. In that time emperor Dameyeama the Drunkard died in some kind of an accident, new emperor being a 3 year old kid. This instability would be great if I could get out of bed to exploit it.

After I recovered from very long illness, I organized three raiding parties this time.

I found out that while emperor is a minor, I can't make a faction to become permanent regent, but I can do a plot to be a permanent regent. Except just like the faction, code for the plot is also broken! This is like a pattern with this mod.

This time the problem was that instead of checking that potential plotter is not same dynasty as the emperor, code was checking that plotter is not same dyansty as himself, which meant nobody could be a potential plotter.

After fixing the code, I became the regent, and since emperor was under permanent regency, I was able to make myself a king of Chubu and Owari, whatever that is.

This means that other local daimyos could also try to form their own regional kingdoms.

With this I had over a quarter of Japan under my direct rule, and I don't plan to stop there. I want to be shogun of it all, with emperor as just purely religious position. This however might take some time.

Other vassals might also try to replace me as regent, or abolish regency and restore direct rule. The emperor can also demand that at cost of just 2000 prestige once he reaches adulthood in 10 years - but I'll remain a vassal king so that's fine I guess.

Clan Miyoshi ascended from a single count to de facto ruler of Japan, but the gains still need to be consolidated

Meanwhile Roman Empire completely collapsed due to civil war.

I also hope I don't need to fix any other mod code. It's been far too many times already.

Tianxia: Part 02: 786-795: One Duchy Per Son

The Empress kept undermining me, this time by creating new duchy, and giving it to my 4-county vassal and previous daimyo of Tosan.

Then she tried pressing my another vassal's foreign claim, which would let him go. Fortunately that got absolutely nowhere.

To apologize for my previous raiding, I betrothed my youngest daughter with prince of Korea. I arranged a lot of other marriages for my 3 sons and 6 daughters.

I tried in vain to befriend everyone in Japan to get them to support my claim on duchy of Echizen, with no luck. So I destroyed it by force.

Tang Empire of China collapsed. That was unexpected mod interaction between Tianxia and Fitna Fracture - Fitna Fracture sets up competing realm or shatters it completely if it's in long going civil war.

The Empress recreated it right away, and I was about to get angry, but she gave it to me. So 17 years for the first duchy, just 3 for the second.

Daimyo of Owari died in suspicious circumstances, and the lords of Japan agreed that as protector of Ise Grand Shrine, I should be the daimyo of Owari as well. So third duchy came in 2 years.

My damn society tried to force me to waste another 2 years of my life going for another pointless trip to other side of the world with no reward whatsoever. I already did it once, and I didn't even have a mission or anything, and there was no reject button. This mod is really disappointing quality. Anyway, I need to figure out how to join the Hermetics or Ghost Gatherers with next character.

My realm was hit by Slow Fever and Measles which I got both at the same time in spite of being on this trip abroad. I also got wounded on the trip, again. I thought I was done for, but somehow I recovered.

I arrived in China, and was forced to take 5-part Confucian classics exam to be able to duel that great warrior. I failed the test, really didn't feel like paying 500 gold bribe (that's 4 year of my income) for a chance to fight that bastard, so I left for home.

The Empress finally died, and new Emperor is married to my daughter, while I'm married to his sister. That didn't last long, as he died in combat fighting Northern barbarians. King of Korea died too, so that marriage failed as well. That meant two daughters I didn't know what to do with, so I sent one to marry king of Jingdong in China, and another to marry king of Lombardy, whatever that is.

The new emperor Kameyeama is a lustful dwarf and a drunkard. That reminds me of someone.

Now we reach another mystery. Emperor of Japan has special government type, but Japanese vassals have 3 possibilities:

• Confucian Bureaucracy - can hold castles and cities; +1 piety a month; no religious revocation or wrong religion penalties
• Japanese Monastic Feudal - can hold castles and temples; +1 piety a month; Shinto only
• Japanese Feudal - can hold castles; mostly like normal feudal; no religious revocation or wrong religion penalties

Everyone in Japan starts as Confucian Bureaucracy, and it's possible but difficult to switch to either of the other two. Now I can see why someone might want to switch to Japanese Monastic Feudal, as holding temples is interesting, but why would anybody ever switch to Japanese Feudal?

I researched the files trying my best why the hell anyone would take the purely downside decision to go Japanese Feudal. I checked government code, event code, CBs, decisions, dev diary, trying to find any reason whatsoever why someone might want to go Japanese Feudal. And the only benefit I can see it offers an ability to revoke or imprison without valid reason, but you still eat big penalty with all your vassals, so you almost never do this anyway!

This mod has been disappointing again. I'm not even saying that mod can't have bad decisions, or unfinished content, but at least indicate it somehow. The switch costs 2500 prestige and a bunch of extra criteria, and it was so bad, that I was completely baffled what the hell am I missing there.

Anyway, I had three sons, and I wanted to already pick which one gets what. Two were with concubines, and only one with my imperial wife:

• oldest Nobukari gets Wakasa and will be daimyo of Echizen
• middle Akikimi (nephew of previous emperor) will be primary heir, get Echizen, Mino, Omi, and be daimyo of Tosan
• youngest Sumimori will get Ise and be daimyo of Owari

I need to land Nobukari before he gets married, as his wife is a landed countess who's a vassal of my rival, and it would be really messy if he left for her court.

My current heir and lands

4 Keno counties used to be my vassal before he got granted his daimyo title. Then I got those 2 weird duchies North of Keno by some vassal inheritance I was completely unaware of.

I'm still only 42, but I had many close encounters with death, by disease and duelling

Tianxia: Part 01: 769-786: Shugo Tokikai Miyoshi of Echizen

I keep expecting Crusader Kings to expand its map to cover the whole Old World, but somehow neither CK2 nor CK3 ever got there.

People keep talking nonsense about how China couldn't work with feudal system, but it was just as feudal as Eastern Roman Empire or other such places - which is to say mostly, with wealthy landed aristocracy dominating provinces, with small central administration mostly but not completely made out of such people on top.

Fortunately there's mods! So I made a modpack based on Tianxia (not available on Steam Workshop for some stupid reason).

So much of CK2 is locked behind being duke or higher, count start feels like hard mode up to the point where I'm a duke, then it's stupidly easy

Echizen is on North coast, just above big Japan coat of arms

Starting as 769 as count in Empire of Japan. None of them are historical anyway, so I picked count of Echizen, and made custom character Tokikai, of clan Miyoshi.

He's 16 year old, strong, stubborn, gardener, fortune builder, because why not. 4/8/14/5/7. Yamato culture, Shinto religion.

First thing to do is obviously to get myself a wife, and Empress's niece is available. I got some concubines as well.

I joined The Warriors of the Rising Sun, since Hermetics weren't available, and I don't care for monastics or devil worshipers. Also it seems most unique to the mod, not regular warrior society.

I tried seducing some women, including the Empress. It mostly didn't go too great.

Fortunately I started the game with two claims, so I started my first war against a nearby double count for the first.

Then I remembered I have raiding enabled, so I raided Korean and Manchurian coast a bit. One of my vassal barons died in suspicious circumstances, so I got his castle.

It took me a while, but I got 100 piety needed to declare war for duchy consolidation.

I was trying to become a duke, but the Empress created my duchy, and gave it to some total douchebag. I needed to get independence from that douchebag, and I'm no closer to getting my own duchy. It's all been really poor first 10 years.

Osabe, brother of my wife, nephew of the Empress, and heir to Empire of Japan got mature, so I invited him over, and arranged matrilineal betrothal to my daughter (with a concubine; so they're unrelated). It's a longshot, as he's 18, she's 5, he can have concubines, and Japan has special inheritance laws that I don't understand, but maybe something could come out of it.

After my chancellor found out that my family were the historical guardians of Ise Grand Shrine and surrounding county, I went to a war to reclaim it. This was far too slow and far too bloody, and unfortunately all benefits of Ise Grand Shrine go to top level liege not to direct holder.

My 4 counties were spread between Echizen, Tosen, and Owari - all occupied by existing holders. I went on diplomatic mission to get my claim to duchy of Tosan recognized. Then I challenged the daimyo of Tosan to a duel, in which he was slain thanks to my extensive duelling experience at this point - experience which cost me multiple wounds, scars, concussion, black eye, but also brought a lot of prestige.

Then as ordered by my society, I went on a journey to India to find the Sword of Serpents, legendary warrior. Honestly the whole quest line is really stupid, and unless you pick go home option, it has like 90% chance of instant death, and reward is absolutely attrocious - just some decent martial courtier. I reached him, failed to defeat him, so I had to head home - the whole pointless adventure cost me about a year of my life wasted.

I became a steward of Japan. Meanwhile I got a Jewish courtier to whom I gave 100 gold to start trading and made my steward.

I had a lot of daughters, so I setup a few for marriage alliances with other daimyo. Finally I ran out patience, and declared war for duchy of Tosan, against strongest daimyo in Japan, as I was unable to get any other claim. I got my troops (very insufficient), some ronin from warrior society, ally armies.

Somehow I also got 17 skill points in this time, in addition to really high duelling skill

Finally 17 years into the game, I got my first duchy! It's still agnatic gavelkind, but gavelkind isn't really that big of a deal - I have just 3 sons, and I'd lose only 2 counties from my demesne of 5.

Japan is divided into 5 de jure kingdoms (Ryukyu and Hokkaido not included at all). I have 10/22 of one of them and almost could become a vassal king at some point if I conquered a bit more of it, but mod allows this only if Japan is under regency (or China under low mandate of heaven, whatever that is).

For now I'm fine just consolidating my power, and maybe getting another duchy or two. There's no rush.

I'm not really sure where I want to take this campaign long term.

Taiwan Is China: Part 10: 1561-1563: Taiwan is finally China

In an ironic twist, Tibet guaranteed independence of Ming.

I fully annexed Yue in one war, and that made Changsheng my tributary. So two potential coalition members out.

Emperor Dai Viet was allied with Ayutthaya and I really didn't want to break our beautiful alliance that lasted the whole campaign, so I distracted Ayutthaya with some phony Malacca war and attacked Dai Viet for the mandate.

I dev pushed last Sichuanese province to 20dev, even though I somehow wasn't able to full core it. It doesn't really matter, as long as I get to accept any second Chinese culture.

Malacca got beaten and gave us some money with almost no effort on my side. War with Dai Viet was trivial as well - so now they can enjoy falling apart to mandate loss.

All potential coalition members (Ming, Shun, Korea, Wu, and barely Dai Viet) are annexable in one war and have no way to defend themselves, so that will be trivial.

The campaign is won.

And here's the culture mapmode after 120 years of simulation

All China turning into Jianghuai so fast is the thing I dislike about it

Elsewhere spread is reasonably paced

I'm disappointed by just how anemic colonization has been again

So some final conclusions. I'm a bit disappointed by Japanese mission tree. Like there's a mission to take or destroy empire of China - but it's gated behind one to conquer Manchuria - which requires control over every Manchu province directly or through non-tributary subjects. The whole point of China game is to have tributaries everywhere, so that won't work. There's another such in Kamchatka, even though that place is only good for tributaries. Overall, nothing special here.

I really liked playing as a custom nation. Coastal raiding is extremely powerful very early, but rapidly loses value with time, and it's tedious figuring out which provinces were or weren't raided.

I thought it would inflict significant damage on Ming, but it wasn't really enough. I also discovered that they patched the "blockade impact on siege" so it only affects coastal provinces now. That turns it from amazing into mediocre idea.

Once more, I'd play a lot better if I read nation specific missions and event before starting. As Vijayanagar campaign I could have dealt with Tamils before unpausing and have whole mission tree unlocked. As Japan, I could have dev pushed provinces which will get gold, as I was dev pushing for Renaissance and Printing Press anyway, and that would save me 4000 mana or so.

Not like I had mana issues - that 5/5/6 shoguness from event, who got the throne at age of 16, is still going strong at 64. Whole campaign and only 3 rulers, that's my RNG record. Beyond certain point I was also obscenely rich, so I could afford very high level advisors.

The mod to fix vassal missionaries just works.

Overall it was good fun.

Taiwan Is China: Part 09: 1552-1561: Phuc I Ton, Dai Viet Emperor of China

I crushed Shun before they even setup a proper country, forcing them to white peace Ming.

Wu and Yue started their rebellion, supported by Bengal of all places.

I started my regularly scheduled Mandate War, but that independence war and ongoing Indonesian nonsense prevented me from actually ever finishing it.

Dai Viet decided to take advantage of it and took the Mandate from Ming before I could.

And the reason I couldn't take it is that I need to accept 2 Chinese cultures - but my culture/religion simulation mod spread Jianghuai culture pretty much everywhere. So I only just got one Sichuanese province, which I'll have to dev push to 20 to accept Sichuanese so I can accept the bastards.

Jin, Qin, Liang, and Qi are my vassals

Korea, Shun, Ming, Wu, Yue, Dai Viet, and Changsheng are threats to the Empire - and since there's 7 of them I need to act so they don't coalition me

That weird red blob between Ming and Qin is the last remaining Sichuanese province

There are other ways to get extra Chinese cultures, but they'd all be a lot more time consuming

I don't even border Dai Viet so I can't take emperorship in one war, but I wanted to conquer Yue on the way anyways

Taiwan Is China: Part 08: 1538-1552: Finally a Mingsplosion

Ming just refused to collapse. OPM Changsheng seceded, but that was about it. I think they're helped a lot by my culture/religion spread simulation mod.

My Indonesian allies kept calling me into silly wars. I obliged, sent some ships over, but generally avoided sending any troops.

Fun way to pass time. I keep making strong alliances so I can accumulate AE with impunity, but so far only Ming and Korea are bothered by my expansion

I got gold mine by event, and dev pushed it a bit. That's 14 gold a month, I thought it wouldn't matter a huge deal by mid-game, but it's not nothing.

That reminded me - Ming has a gold mine too. And I got event that spawned a third. If I was better prepared, I'd be dev pushing those provinces for institutions. Oh well.

In another Ming war, they just gave up halfway and disbanded their whole army. I disbanded their navy for them. After paying war reparations they went bankrupt.

Just as I was coring Ming land, my ally Lan Na tried to get me into a war against Lan Xang protected by Ming. That would be fine, except for the annoying "can't core while at war with someone who has core on the province" mechanic. To be honest I don't really see the point of it - probably fixed some exploit in old patch, for all I know maybe even pre-EU4.

Lan Na just casually attacking Ming and winning

Lan Na was completely unmoved by my betrayal, managed to extort 910 gold and war reparations from separate peacing Ming, then it beat up everybody else in war, with only truce standing between them and coalition war.

Then my tributary Udege attacked Korea protected by Ming. I was a bit surprised that Ming took them. Turns out having loans is a huge penalty to accepting call to arms - but being in bankruptcy apparently has no penalty. Paradox logic.

Well, so I attacked Korea, Ming joined because there are no penalties due to being bankrupt - but they separate white peaced day 1 because there's a lot of penalties for the sorry state their country is in. Paradox logic again.

Yue and Wu finally spawned in 1549, costing Ming the whole coastline. And in 1552 Shun spawned, declaring war for Mandate of Heaven on Ming.

I thought Ming collapse would happen a few decade sooner

Oh well, not like I have paper mana to core it

Taiwan Is China: Part 07: 1518-1538: Age of Reformation

I unfortunately had to abandon Solon. I increased my army size to 65k but it was still far less than Ming's 136k.

Ming did the foolish thing of passing first reform and dropping their mandate to 20 while their army was still busy in Solon.

I attacked them for the mandate! First I had to take a detour to deal with Ming's ally Brunei. 2 of their provinces went to my ally Kutai - they might just as well have it if they want them. It didn't take long.

I discovered Ming managed to build a big fleet that could definitely challenge mine. I ended up stronger on seas, but it was far from total domination I was expecting.

On land I invaded Beijing and Canton - and I inflicted a lot of damage, but Ming managed to overwhelm both invasions with sheer numbers. I took Beijing and Canton and some tiny amount of money in the war.

48k peasants and 31 ships were lost on our side - while 102k and 29 ships on theirs. This was most embarassing naval performance.

Kutai called me into some petty war against Makasar, so I sent them some ships for blockading.
Kutai then lost Makasar and 1/2 of provinces I gave them to rebels because AI is awful at dealing with rebels if islands are involved.

My 5/5/6 shoguness even got -10% AE trait. Also +10% construction cost, but it's no big deal.

Age of Reformation started August 1522. And that threw Ming into even deeper crisis.

Ming was still holding it together, but they lost half their army and all their manpower reserves.

1:1 K:D ratio is not a good way to fight Ming

It was my job to give them a big push. I sunk their navy, fully blockaded everything. Armies were not doing too great, but I had secret second army of Ming rebels - Ming can't fight both me and rebels at the same time.

I took just Nanjing area and all their money, which feels like so little, but the goal was mostly to push them deeper into the abyss.

After that I had a detour in Korea. I went so close to clean borders, but I'd go 101% overextension if I connected to Nivkh, so that will have to wait. The whole region will turn into a total bordergore once Ming falls apart anyway.

Ming faced second wave of rebellions, and that really crushed their army, but so far it's holding together as a single country.

The way Mingsplotion typically works is:

• first wave of rebellions, Ming recruits everyone it can, so rebels get crushed, but they end up without any manpower
• 10 year gap due to recent uprising modifier
• second wave of rebellions, Ming throws their armies at rebels, and their army gets smaller and smaller - some rebels even survive that, but they're unable to break the country
• 10 year gap due to recent uprising modifier
• third wave of rebellion, Ming is without manpower, without even a single stack that can take a rebel stack, and there are often some leftover rebels from the second wave. At this point Ming breaks by events - with Shun attacking them for mandate, Yue and Wu turning into disloyal marches, Dali becoming independent tributary
• between Shun war for mandate, Yue/Wu independence wars, further rebel waves every 10 years, and then often Oirats or anyone else joining the pileup, Ming explodes into even more pieces
• then whoever is strongest takes the mandate, and they can't keep it high, so they fall apart as well - without special events

My war was after first wave, but I can see second wave happening and Ming's army is down to 36k with no reserves vs 124k rebels and more coming all the time.

I took exploration, religious, and expansion as my ideas. Not taking administrative and trying to conquer China is maybe not the best combination, but so far I failed to spawn any CNs. Not like CNs would help all that much - my trade network situation is awful, and the only way to fix it is to conquer 2/3 of China.

Hopefully the last picture of Ming in one piece

Taiwan Is China: Part 06: 1509-1518: The Second Ming War

It was time for a Ming showdown on my terms.

First I started war with thier tributary Malacca, supported by Kedah, Lan Xang, and Ming. Bengal was their ally, but didn't join as it was part of coalition war against Jaunpur. Jaunpur was winning.

The goal of this was to get Ayutthaa out of Ming's sphere on day one.

Then I started a separate war against Korea, which Ming couldn't protect as it was too busy. The goal is to completely obliterate them.

Order of battle, their side:

• Ming - 86k, 47 ships
• Korea - 25k, 34 ships
• Malacca - 12k, 19 ships
• Kedah  - 8k, 12 ships
• Lan Xag - 4k, 6 ships
• Total - 135k, 118 ships

Our side:

• Japan - 38k, 64 ships
• Ayutthaya - 19k, 13 ships
• Majapahit - 12k, 25 ships
• Nivkh - 1k, 9 ships
• Total - 70k, 111 ships

So they outnumber us on land 2:1, but on seas it's about even.

Ming didn't fall for "this is completely unrelated war" and sent their troops to Korea.

They had plenty of troops to spare to join the Ayutthaya gangbang - something I could only help indirectly with my navy. I felt sorry for Ayutthaya so I gave them half of Kedah in a peace deal.

Ayutthaya got separate peaced and had to give that province back - as well as 4 more provinces to Lan Xang. I tried.

I nearly 100%ed Korea, even getting border with Ming. And border means Take Mandate of Heaven CB.

After that I tried to send my troops to Malacca, but Ming was there. And in Korea. And in China. It's crazy how many peasants they have to throw at me. I had to settle for a white peace.

My heirs were all awful so I always gave them early life swimming lessons. This finally paid off, as I got a 5/5/6 daughter by event, who became shoguness in 1516 at age of 16, without any shenanigans. If you reroll enough times, RNG will eventually be on your side. She's just my third ruler, first two were about average.

Ming figured out the weakness in my alliance network, raised an army of 140k peasants, and declared war on my ally Solon. I could either defend them in what's a hopeless war deep inland on Ming's terms, where my naval strength is completely meaningless, or refuse and lose reputation and an ally. Well, you got me here Ming. But I'll get you later.

Ming took quantity ideas, because it obviously didn't have enough peasants, so now our land force ratio is a lot worse than before

And they're at 88 mandate and growing in spite of my raiding - but it definitely made a difference as they passed 0 reforms instead of the usual 2 by end of first age

I really hope AI presses that reform button, and then they'll fall apart on their own

Taiwan Is China: Part 05: 1494-1509: Colonialism

I had to conquer some Siberian tribes to get range, but I got a small settlement in Alaska, and got Colonialism in Chikuzen.

My colonies in Indonesia are really more bases for pirate operations than for any legitimate activity.

I started building network of alliances to crush Ming. Ayutthaya, Kutai, and Majapahit down South, Solon and force vassalized Nivkh up North, and 2 Siberian OPMs as tributaries to send some men and gold for the operation.

As for ideas, I'm taking exploration and religious. Third will either be administrative if I want to seize China, or maybe expansion if I want to get a lot of CNs before Europeans show up.

Ming so far doesn't seem interested in falling apart. My treasury and peasant pool are both full. Everything is ready for a second fight.
\

I got Nivkh as vassal asd Solon as ally

Ming got Oirat, and Mongolia is Oirat's vassal so in Ming's sphere indirectly

I'm testing my culture/religion spread simulation mod in this campaign

Results look natural enough you might miss what's going on, especially since coloring is by culture group not by culture

A lot of minor cultures like Silesian, Transylvanian, Leonese, and Welsh are gone.

Cultures like Lithuanian, Azerbaijani, and Prussian spread with their overlords

OPMs like Cyprus and Knights converted their peasants

Overall I really like it, except  I think it's a bit too aggressive with China, which is now almost a mono-culture

Taiwan Is China: Part 04: 1487-1494: The First Ming War

As if fighting Ming wasn't enough, Ainu were somehow allied with Ming (and also Korea), and they were mil tech ahead of everyone else, and even had a big fleet with a heavy ship. I miss EU3 sometimes, tech differences made so much more sense back then.

So my first task was dealing with that, and by the time I defeated Ainu and annexed them, Ming managed to land their troops in Taiwan and fully occupy it.

I tried landing in Beijing, but it was a total disaster. Ming hired every peasant in China, doubled size of their army, and kept throwing the peasants at me over and over until it worked, even though it cost them a lot of warscore from battles.

Once my navy was back, I was at least winning that, and I captured a lot of Ming transport ships. So I had some way to land on Taiwan now and face their 21k side army there.

After Taiwan got liberated, whole Ming fleet sunk, I thought they'd come to their senses, but instead they just hired even more peasants and started building a new fleet. I was really exhausted by the war, so I just let them give me war reparations and some petty cash even thought I was at nearly +30% warscore, from battles, blockades, and holding wargoal.

After that I finished diploannexing my last daimyo, conquered OPM Ashikaga, and I could form Japan.

First Ming War ended up with minor victory.

A much more important conflict will be racing Portugal for Colonialism institution

Taiwan Is China: Part 03: 1460-1487: Unification of Japan

After exciting start it was time to take a break and get my country in order. There was a lot of war exhaustion to deal with, Renaissance to dev push, unhappy vassals to placate, and so on.

Initially I had 9 daimyos, but they didn't stop fighting each other just because there was a new shogun.

By the time they were the last daimyo, Hokosawa managed to get 217dev to my 210dev, a really embarassing situation.

I had a small Siberian adventure while waiting for annexations to finish. I lost half of my transports there, I didn't really expect Siberian OPMs to have 10 ships each, that's what EU4 is like after institutions.

And then Ming decided to invade me, claiming Taiwan. You so don't get it, Taiwan will take over China, China will not take over Taiwan.

Anyway, order of battle:

• Ming - 65k, 6 lights, 15 galleys, 21 transports
• me - 25k, 10 lights, 7 galleys, 5 transports
• Hosokawa - 12k, 1 light, 11 galleys, 3 transports

Ming and me have mil tech 6, Hosokawa has mil tech 7, but I doubt very much they'll get involved in fighting. The problem is that my navy is split and ships engaging in totally legitimate trade in Beijing can't come home without running head first into Ming's entire navy.

I definitely cost Ming a lot of mandate, but end result was that Ming never tried any reforms - so they're still going to fight well.

If my navy survives, I'll just do a bit of naval fighting until they get tired of it and then white peace or maybe get some petty cash.

Who's the shogun again?

Once Hosokawa annexation finishes, I'll double in size, right now I'm weaker than Korea, let alone Ming, and only water saves me

I won't be taking Beijing just yet

I should have gotten some allies just for situations like this, but my piracy really annoyed basically everyone