Victoria 3 – The Qing Dynasty: How to Play Them Best

The Qing Dynasty Guide

So I have been playing the Great Qing and so far I am still trying to figure out how to best play them, can you guys please tell me what tips you guys have? I try to play with the AI being on normal aggression.

Here is what worked for me in the following order:

1. Try to get Russia as an ally early to defend against possible British threat.
2. Try to tax every luxury good you have while keeping military and government budget low.
3. Vassalize Burma and other South Asian States early on.
4. Build 30+ Construction Size.
5. Expand your Tea and Opium production.
6. Slowly build up your industry.
7. Build 30+ University to make sure you catch up on technology, especially those that expand your taxation capacity and infrastruture.
8. Use the size of Qing to specialize each state for one kind of production, since there is an economy of scale bonus.
9. Rush for Line Infantry and Railway.
10. Never pisss off the Scholar Officials / Landowners too early on.
11. Remember to un-ban Opium as soon as you finished the Opium Crisis.
12. Remember that the Qing will have a problem with low bureaucracy capacity given the number of government administration they need.
13. Remember to incorperate your states!

How to make the most money out of tea / tobacco export?

I haven’t sat down & did the actual maths on growing production vs fixing admin deficit for taxation penalty, I’ve moreso done it by feel. I missed out that you also want to increase your convoys at some point for the tea & silk exports to Britain. Perhaps switch between a shipyard & ports at the same time as going hard on agricultural construction?

The thing is with building government administration is the lack of paper you start with & that it costs money to run. This is why it is simply more profitable at the start as Qing to increase your GDP to increase what penalised tax you do get. Getting 40% of a smaller number growing it into 40% of a bigger number is still a profit of course. That’s why I go ham on building all those agriculture building after construction sectors & lumber mills.

Then building more convoys for that tea & silk trade is better than government admin buildings as you still have the paper shortage. So we’re looking at a strategy of:

1. Construction Industry
2. Agriculture & Export (Shipbuilding/Ports) Industry
3. Industrial, Arms, & Admin Industries

The longer you plan to wait to become recognised the longer you can delay your arms industry too. In my last run yesterday it was in the 1870s I started building government administration buildings…. you need so much. I mean SO SO MUCH of them. Literally hundreds in the whole country. I didn’t finish. Certainly though, building them in your states with most GDP % is better.

Maybe, just maybe building one gov admin building in your biggest GDP % state while building either agriculture or industry (step 2 or 3) would work? Needs testing. & keep building one until that penalty goes away then go onto the 2nd biggest GDP & state etc. Just like you want to keep building one lumber industry as you build construction sectors to keep the price down & in supply.

Finally, during step 3 while you’re building more tool manufactures you also want to build iron mines, they loop into each other, but also use the excess iron to slowly level your construction into iron-frame buildings for even more construction. The loop of iron needing tools & tools needing iron is super super important… I learnt that the hard way building other industries early one.

So far, I’ve always got myself into deep debt & interest as Qing. This is my fault & I need to learn more to know how to balance growing with an acceptable budget. It’s OK to go into small debt for a bit faster growth but I’ve yet to thread the needle well with it.