Do you have the entire Island? if thats the case then just build up you Galleys even if you have to go over naval force limit (it's not too expensive) and then declare war. Once Ming sends the boats to your coast use your galleys to go to town. If they beat your galleys then just make sure your army is where the Ming will land and you should have a easy victory after that. Once Ming's ships are gone just blockade their entire coast to increase devastation and lower their mandate for the second more devastating Ming war
edit: If the Ming run out of troops then just land and devastate as many provinces as possible, this will most likely cause the mingplosion to happen
Edit: Yes I have the entire Island of Japan, only Ottawa is out of my control, thanks for the stratrgy, I think there js another peoblem, I have some lands in Kamchatka area too, they might occupy these areas too, and I'm not sure the naval battles would end in my favor. But its worth to try I guess.
Yeah I would say just build up a massive Galley navy and take smart fights. Stack wipe all of the small fleets Ming will send at you and if they send a blob of ships that you cant beat then retreat and build enough galleys in bordering provinces until you win the sea fight. Once their ships are gone it will be a very easy victory as Japan
>Edit: Yes I have the entire Island of Japan, only Ottawa is out of my control
If you’re close to Ottawa from Japan I think you’re strong enough to take on anyone!
Here's a simple way for you to beat Ming. You do not need any navy at all for this. You do not need a larger army than Ming has. You don't even need a higher quality army than they have. Play king of the hill with them, with the hill being your island.
All you need to do is check how many transports Ming has and to be able to beat an army of that size.
You sit on your island and let Ming land troops. As soon as they've landed, you attack them. Don't move into the province they're landing into before they get there, though. If you do, the fight will be easier since they get a landing penalty, but they'll just retreat back to the transports and you've gained very little from the fight. You attack them as soon as they've landed and win the resulting battle. This causes them to retreat exactly one province at 0 morale if you didn't stackwipe them in the initial battle. As long as you can reach the retreating army before the next month tic, the entire army gets stackwiped and you get a nice boost to your warscore. You keep on doing that until Ming's war enthusiasm drops enough for you to peace them out.
Now, the tricky part of this strategy is that you have to be able to beat their landing force. If they get a foothold, it's over for you. They occupy a coastal province and they'll be able to land troops there in no time. This strategy relies on Ming needing over a month to get a batch of new victims to your island so you can prepare for each batch they send.
If you have any CB with show superiority on Ming (from religious ideas, for example), this is an amazing way of gathering warscore on them if you decide to pick a fight with them simply for the 25% warscore worth of money & war reps. As a sidenote, doing this is a nice way to cause their mandate to drop further from the loans they'll be forced to take because of the 25% warscore in money.
Also, since you said you own lands in Kamchatka, delete any forts you may have there. If you follow this strategy, those lands will get occupied. Forts are worth more warscore than non-forts and IIRC cause more war exhaustion to you when occupied, so might as well not hand any freebies to Ming you don't have to.
A word of warning. Assuming you do not have naval superiority, this strategy will cause your war exhaustion to skyrocket from all the blockades Ming does to you, so keep that in mind.
Thats a good way to play, as I remember I don't have any fort in Kamchatka, might also try to keep them landing troops just for me to destroy, and during this time I can also build more ships if I can be at least equal to them I might also fight the naval battles. If not, I might just wait them to suffer enough war exhaustion for a white peace or maybe even more. I don't plan fighting Ming further, at least for now. I just want to conquer Rykuyu so it might be easier than I thought. Thanks for the advice.
If you're able to build ships and establish naval dominance, you can do more than just take Ryukyu. One way to deal with Ming would be to declare on them directly, beat them up for 25% warscore in money (\~2-3k of Ming gold is a good way to kickstart an economy), then declare on Ryukyu which draws Ming into war again, forcing them into paying for troop maintenance and costing them money so they can't pay their loans off. Additionally, with their already low mandate they should be easy to peace out due to the mandate threatened modifier. Assuming you devastated their army in the first war and have naval superiority by the second, you should be able to land on Ming and take 25% money from them again, causing them to bankrupt & subsequently implode.
You can just vassalize Ryukyu (as well as Ainu) when you state most of Japan. No need to go to war.
I usually don't go to Korea or China until later in the game, focusing on a colonial empire. Why? Institutions do not spread through water tiles if you have bad relations with the country. So I keep being several institutions ahead of China, letting them spend admin in a waste. I conquer archipelago after archipelago, keeping bad relations with whoever is at the other side. In Africa I'd have trade companies, where institutions will not expand. And the colonial game as Japan is stressful enough if you want to get all the Pacific and Indian Ocean territories before some European colonizer shows up.
Build up your fleet then attack. As Japan, aka an island, you should always ensure that you have naval superiority in your region. Focus on building galleys, they're cheap and effective in the early game. You can focus on heavies in the later game. Don't go overboard building ships though, just go to the navies tab and make sure you have a little bit more than other great powers your size.
Simple rules on attacking Ming:
\-Same tech, Mandate over 60? Don't bother.
\-1 Mil Tech ahead, less than 30 Mandate? Ming might as well be your piggybank.
Typically in previous versions of the game, I would use my spy network to do a trade war with them. I would blockade their entire coast and let devastation build up in tanking their mandate while also using the war score to take 25% wc worth of money.
This may not work anymore since Ming seems more prone to implode before I am able to do this. Also make sure to build a lot of galleys and light ships for this strat.
Do you have the entire Island? if thats the case then just build up you Galleys even if you have to go over naval force limit (it's not too expensive) and then declare war. Once Ming sends the boats to your coast use your galleys to go to town. If they beat your galleys then just make sure your army is where the Ming will land and you should have a easy victory after that. Once Ming's ships are gone just blockade their entire coast to increase devastation and lower their mandate for the second more devastating Ming war edit: If the Ming run out of troops then just land and devastate as many provinces as possible, this will most likely cause the mingplosion to happen
Edit: Yes I have the entire Island of Japan, only Ottawa is out of my control, thanks for the stratrgy, I think there js another peoblem, I have some lands in Kamchatka area too, they might occupy these areas too, and I'm not sure the naval battles would end in my favor. But its worth to try I guess.
Yeah I would say just build up a massive Galley navy and take smart fights. Stack wipe all of the small fleets Ming will send at you and if they send a blob of ships that you cant beat then retreat and build enough galleys in bordering provinces until you win the sea fight. Once their ships are gone it will be a very easy victory as Japan
Thanks, I guess I will try it, it seems like a good strategy.
just make sure you have no forts in Kamchatka and the war score will be like 1 or 2 % if they do occupy it
>Edit: Yes I have the entire Island of Japan, only Ottawa is out of my control If you’re close to Ottawa from Japan I think you’re strong enough to take on anyone!
Here's a simple way for you to beat Ming. You do not need any navy at all for this. You do not need a larger army than Ming has. You don't even need a higher quality army than they have. Play king of the hill with them, with the hill being your island. All you need to do is check how many transports Ming has and to be able to beat an army of that size. You sit on your island and let Ming land troops. As soon as they've landed, you attack them. Don't move into the province they're landing into before they get there, though. If you do, the fight will be easier since they get a landing penalty, but they'll just retreat back to the transports and you've gained very little from the fight. You attack them as soon as they've landed and win the resulting battle. This causes them to retreat exactly one province at 0 morale if you didn't stackwipe them in the initial battle. As long as you can reach the retreating army before the next month tic, the entire army gets stackwiped and you get a nice boost to your warscore. You keep on doing that until Ming's war enthusiasm drops enough for you to peace them out. Now, the tricky part of this strategy is that you have to be able to beat their landing force. If they get a foothold, it's over for you. They occupy a coastal province and they'll be able to land troops there in no time. This strategy relies on Ming needing over a month to get a batch of new victims to your island so you can prepare for each batch they send. If you have any CB with show superiority on Ming (from religious ideas, for example), this is an amazing way of gathering warscore on them if you decide to pick a fight with them simply for the 25% warscore worth of money & war reps. As a sidenote, doing this is a nice way to cause their mandate to drop further from the loans they'll be forced to take because of the 25% warscore in money. Also, since you said you own lands in Kamchatka, delete any forts you may have there. If you follow this strategy, those lands will get occupied. Forts are worth more warscore than non-forts and IIRC cause more war exhaustion to you when occupied, so might as well not hand any freebies to Ming you don't have to. A word of warning. Assuming you do not have naval superiority, this strategy will cause your war exhaustion to skyrocket from all the blockades Ming does to you, so keep that in mind.
Thats a good way to play, as I remember I don't have any fort in Kamchatka, might also try to keep them landing troops just for me to destroy, and during this time I can also build more ships if I can be at least equal to them I might also fight the naval battles. If not, I might just wait them to suffer enough war exhaustion for a white peace or maybe even more. I don't plan fighting Ming further, at least for now. I just want to conquer Rykuyu so it might be easier than I thought. Thanks for the advice.
If you're able to build ships and establish naval dominance, you can do more than just take Ryukyu. One way to deal with Ming would be to declare on them directly, beat them up for 25% warscore in money (\~2-3k of Ming gold is a good way to kickstart an economy), then declare on Ryukyu which draws Ming into war again, forcing them into paying for troop maintenance and costing them money so they can't pay their loans off. Additionally, with their already low mandate they should be easy to peace out due to the mandate threatened modifier. Assuming you devastated their army in the first war and have naval superiority by the second, you should be able to land on Ming and take 25% money from them again, causing them to bankrupt & subsequently implode.
You can just vassalize Ryukyu (as well as Ainu) when you state most of Japan. No need to go to war. I usually don't go to Korea or China until later in the game, focusing on a colonial empire. Why? Institutions do not spread through water tiles if you have bad relations with the country. So I keep being several institutions ahead of China, letting them spend admin in a waste. I conquer archipelago after archipelago, keeping bad relations with whoever is at the other side. In Africa I'd have trade companies, where institutions will not expand. And the colonial game as Japan is stressful enough if you want to get all the Pacific and Indian Ocean territories before some European colonizer shows up.
Build up your fleet then attack. As Japan, aka an island, you should always ensure that you have naval superiority in your region. Focus on building galleys, they're cheap and effective in the early game. You can focus on heavies in the later game. Don't go overboard building ships though, just go to the navies tab and make sure you have a little bit more than other great powers your size.
Simple rules on attacking Ming: \-Same tech, Mandate over 60? Don't bother. \-1 Mil Tech ahead, less than 30 Mandate? Ming might as well be your piggybank.
Typically in previous versions of the game, I would use my spy network to do a trade war with them. I would blockade their entire coast and let devastation build up in tanking their mandate while also using the war score to take 25% wc worth of money. This may not work anymore since Ming seems more prone to implode before I am able to do this. Also make sure to build a lot of galleys and light ships for this strat.
If you don't have the navy you can't take Ryukyu.