Pre-unpause update is coming shortly, once I've uploaded the pictures.
So here's how we start. Manchu to the north, seperating us from Ming, so the east. Ming's likely to start moving towards Russia via the various horde nations in the way, but they're the major player in the area. Across the Korean sea, we have Japan. Note that it's comprised of 5 factions - the emperor (red), the Shogun (blue) and 3 Daimyos (green, orange and yellow). The latter 4 are going to fight amongst each other, so we're going to take advantage of that, although each faction can field a larger army than we can, and if we go to war with Japan, we go to war with all of them.
Farther afield, there's a scattering of smaller countries. There's possibilities of conquest there, although nothing's guaranteed. Just to the south of this screenshot is Brunei, the big blue blob of the east. Their navy far outnumbers ours, but if we can change that, we have a good possibility of getting some land, since they don't have any forts.
Korea is heavily centralised, which is good, since it means more money and less slider moves to westernise. We're also heavily aristocratic, giving bonuses to the rate at which we gain diplomats, the cost of cavalry, the shock stat of any generals we recruit and a slight lowering of regiment costs. Our high serfdom lowers the cost of stability, which is good, and the cost of infantry, also good, but raises the costs of other technologies, which is bad. I'll be leaving this one where it is until I don't have any more useful moves. We're right in the middle of Innovative/Narrowminded, giving no bonuses or maluses. Innovative lowers technology costs and raises stability costs, as well as lowers the missionary gain rate. Narrowminded increases the rate of missionary gain, while raising technology costs, decreasing stability costs and increasing colony growth rate. We need to be more innovative to westernise, but I'm going to be leaving this slider alone as well and relying on the first National Idea to move towards innovative. Mercantilism gives more spies and increases the chances of your merchants getting a spot in centres of trade you own, while decreasing trade range and the chances of merchants getting a spot in other centres of trade. Free trade is pretty much the opposite, and that's what I'll be pushing for. More trade = more money for technology. Offensive gives bonuses to the morale of your armies, and the shock stat of generals, and maluses to fort defense and cost of artillery. Defensive gives bonuses to the siege stat of generals and the cost of artillery, while giving a malus to moral of armies. I'll be going defensive, since having every general with a point in siege makes sieges go far faster. Land/Naval gives bonuses to forcelimits, morale and costs of the relevant area, while giving maluses to the cost of the other. I'll probably centre this one, then ignore it. Quality/Quantity does exactly what it sounds. I moved towards quality with the first slider move.
Once stability reaches its maximum of +3, I'll be investing fully in government technology. We'll fall behind everywhere else, but once we get to level 4, we'll be able to take our first national idea, which will gradually trigger events to move us towards innovative. After that, I'll probably stay fairly balanced, with trade tech being invested in less, since there isn't much opportunity to make money from it for now.
Malacca is in red because our trade range isn't high enough to reach it. This can be solved either by moving towards free trade or increasing our trade tech. I'll be sending merchants to Nanjing first, then Kyoto.
The king has average stats, A/D/M 5/5/5. His heir's a little better, but neither of them are good enough to westernise, which needs 6 admin skill. I hired the only 2 useful advisors we started with.
Long term goals:
-Westernise. We're relatively close, but we need a neighbour in the latin tech group.
-Conquer eastern Asia. - Might get tricky, unless Ming collapses.
Short term goals:
-Get some more land. We don't have enough to challenge any of the big boys yet.
EDIT: I'd spoiler the update, but it's not doing what I'm telling it to.
Poll
