Rebels without a pause - a Tribal AAR

FEEDBACK​

Derahan - The lack of knowledge of much of Russia is both annoying and weird. At some point I'll have to push troops into the big White and hope they come out alive. Tricky if there's a big army marching the other way!

Zolotaya - Feel free to comment but it's nice to know I have readers along for the ride.

Brandenburg III said:

PrawnStar, don’t you know? Very Hard is actually Very Easy.

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Oh no don't mention the whole Very Hard is Very Easy thing - I don't think I can cope with a repeat of that debate :rofl:

Good to have you along again - I enjoyed the Egyptian AAR.

hebelecan - I'll make a note not to watch movies while playing

Chapter Three​

This war is simply too early. Pushing into northern Russia will cost me a lot of attrition and war exhaustion. My large numbers of unfortified provinces makes it easy for Novgorod to pickup war score and inflict war exhaustion on me.

The early exchanges go well with 5000 Genoese troops ran down and defeated before winter sets in. Small forces will be left to carry out the sieges while the field armies head north for a spring campaign in 1402. Novgorod’s troops mill around for several months but eventually settle into a siege of fortified Idnakar my northernmost province.

The first battle – the Horde’s starting leader is rather good



My first revolt - 15 August 1402



Predictably the first revolt is Georgian nationalist. Georgia spawns uncomfortably large rebel stacks for the early tech levels. The battle is swiftly lost and nationalist RR rises to 11.70. The province is also wrong religion and wrong culture. Even at +3 stab and minimal war exhaustion RR is 16.70%...

I finish off that stack in early 1403 and then 15 May 1403 Alania rises in rebellion again!

I have half my army in south fighting these rebellions and watching for Genoese relief forces. The other half is fighting a defensive battle in Kazan against the main Novgorodian force.

Somewhere along the way I picked up a guarantee from the Timurids which comes in useful in July 1403 when the Hungarians declare war.



I’m out of position and anyway don’t have any troops free to deal with this. The interesting thing is my war exhaustion. I’m playing very carefully to keep all the battles on my territory. Novgorod doesn’t appear to know about General Winter.

The second battle with Novgorod – late 1403



That’s 15 regiments destroyed.

Peace with Novgorod – February 1404



This isn’t great but I pick up some land and a few ducats. Solikamsk is simply part of eliminating the Russians while Azow is right religion / right culture. I need to get the northern army south and soon. The Genoese were already liberating their occupied provinces.

My excellent general dies in a heavy defeat in Azow in the summer of 1404. I’m down 6 provinces by this stage although the situation recovers as Hungary is drawn into a major war in Eastern Europe against Poland/Lithuania.



Late 1404 – Lithuania are fighting my war for me. I’ve stopped the Hungarian offensive, now I hope the Liths will destroy the Hungarian army.

Disappointingly Hungary is able to White Peace out of that war soon after. Midsummer I do the same as I’m facing off against 20000 Hungarians on a narrow battlefront through Cherson. Peace returns although I’ve a Moldovan nationalist rebel army in Budjak to deal with.

I can go back to fortifying my Tartar provinces now peace has resumed.

FEEDBACK​

dinofs - One nice feature of being firmly stuck over the BB limit is that the neighbours come calling

alexon47 - The Khan does not do fertiliser; it's undignified.

Wolfhashat - Timmies are pretty positive but the Ottos aren't too keen on me.

Rhadok - You're playing that new-fangled HttT so I don't think my IN musings will help too much. I'm still pleased to have another subscriber though

spock2 - As long as they stay in the PU with Poland they are OK afterwards they become a problem.

sprites - Yes it's part of being on VH - I'm over the BB limit even at 0.

Davout - I try to avoid giving up provinces if I can but if I end up heavily beaten then that's what will happen. Ideally isolated Tartar provinces I can spy hit with patriot rebels :rofl:

I've generally avoided Georgians after I got talking to a girl in a bar who wanted to show me photos of her guns.

anweRU - Thanks for explaining RR - I rarely get that deep into the detail.

The general wasn't my Khan so no tsc yet. GH start with a very good general.

aldriq - It's fairly quiet! and yes that counter might be pretty big by 1821 if I get that far.

Chapter Four​

1406 starts with a warning from the Ottomans. That’s not good as I only have the troops to fight on one front as well as rebel control. Georgia warns me a couple of months later.

I’m going to try and use the pagans in Surgut for a bit of cultural engineering.



I want to try and paganise all the highlighted provinces so that I can culture flip them. It might seem a bit extreme to try and convert Uralic and Siberian culture provinces to Tartar but in test games I was constantly spammed by hostile spies.

The trick will be to run an unfunded missionary in Surgut and hope for Pagan zealots who’ll hopefully wander around force-converting the unfortified wrong culture provinces. Afterwards I can convert the pagan provinces in the usual manner.

Alania rises in nationalist revolt in mid January 1407, still unfortified the province immediate falls.

Budjak rebels in August 1407. Even cored and at +3 stability revolt risk is +5.

Nogai declares war - October 1407



That’s a pretty idiotic call as I’m still guaranteed by the Timurids. I peace out Chagatai in March 1408 for 261 ducats after the Timurids march a doomstack through the Himalayas. That’s four more forts and a couple more regiments. Unfortified Nogai has already been overran.

Peace with Nogai – March 1408



I’m vassalising Nogai as a ‘Get out of Jail’ card in the event of serious defeat. Better to release a vassal than surrender provinces.

Russian Revolt – October 1408



This is straightforward. I don’t really want to spend money buying off rebels when I could just kill them instead. The only downside is that my nearest field force is babysitting the construction of a fort in 9% revolt risk Uralsk. Let’s hope I don’t get an uprising there in the next seven months or the financial gamble will fail.

The Timurids collapse hard in March 1409. The Turkish provinces defect to the Ottomans and we get full size Persia, Baluchistan, Khiva and Khorasan. The road to India is suddenly a lot clearer.

I’ve also completed my fort building outside those provinces targeted for paganisation. Temples are the next construction programme but there’s no hurry as the big stab hits for westernisation are still a long way in the future.

Azow revolts in September 1410, right culture/right religion so the rebels are peasants and it’s the province where my main army is stationed. That appears to be the signal the Hungarians needed.



Muscovy, Brandenburg and Venice join Hungary while the Timurid remnants rally to my cause.

On the 4th November 1411 even as my armies march to war...



Bugger