The position of China in EU IV is a frustrating one. If a more experienced player is playing the country, snowballing is relatively easy, while the AI is all but guaranteed to mess the country up. Paradox look for a middle ground.
With the Origins release, developers have been able to revamp the setup and balance of Africa, and they seem pretty happy with it, in general terms. So with that done, the game is being moved back to the Far East, as there were some balance issues that were not fully resolved by Leviathan although focusing in part on the SEA region.
Regarding that, there was a big discussion on Ming balance in the forums, thus it would be a good idea to tackle it for this patch, and the developers seem to agree.
To combat the "Mingblob", or more often the "Mingplosion", developers implement changes to make it more balanced, so as not to have it be easily snowballed by players, or destroyed if the AI is in control:
- The Celestial Empire now has a sixth reform available which allows vassalizing your own tributaries at the cost of Mandate.
- Confucianism has been buffed:
- All the modifiers from harmonized religions have been standardized in their power compared to other religions.
- Reduced the base Yearly Harmony from 1 to 0.25.- Increased the Harmony cost of harmonizing a religion from 3 per year to 3.25.
- Religious Unity now gives +1 Yearly Harmony at 100% Religious Unity, and can not go above that.
Paradox Interactive
With these changes, the Ming problem seems to be abated, for the time being, though the "Mingplosion" still happens more often than not.
