Crimson snow- Muscowy AAR

[Edgewise]

I've never writen an AAR before, so it might be somewhat bland. I'm not going for a story so much as just a report on my experience as the game progresses. The game will be 5.1, difficulty hard, all other settings default, single player playing Muscowy. I will attempt to expand to Warsaw Pack borders circa 1980 as quickly as possible and possibly go beyond. I will try to stamp out the heresy of Catholocism and make as much of the world Orthodox as possible.

Edit: I forgot to lay down the rules. I won't save-reload unless it's a game breaking situation, which I don't see happening with Muscowy at any time. I won't edit save games or mod in something, or use console commands. What happens will be the result of luck or lack there of, personal player strategy, AI randomness, and the game code as it is in 5.1. I will attempt all missions if I reasonably am able to complete them.

[Edgewise]

Mission, annex Yaroslav. In order to do this, I needed to attack from Tver. If I invaded from my own lands, Tver would likely attack and reach Yaroslav first. Diplomats were sent to Proclaim guarantee on Yaroslav, request for alliance with Teutonic Order, and request Military access from Lithuania and Tver. Alliance and Military access all accepted.

I had several advisors to pick from. I chose a lvl 4 statesman and a level 2 Army Reformer. Slider shift -> centralized. I started building more cav units.

As I moved my army into Tver, Smolensk rebels entered my territory. I sent one regiment into Lithuania to siege the rebel held Mogilyov and sent the rest into Yaroslav after a declaration of war with my last diplomat. After eliminating the Yaroslav army, I lay siege to their capitol while regrouping my troops in Moskva, next to the rebel army.

[Edgewise]

After annexing Yaroslav, my next mission was to vassalize Tver. The rebel forces had moved into Bryansk after capturing Vyazma. I didn't attempt to retake Vyazma, but instead cancelled military access with Tver and invaded. We were both allied with Teutonic order, but they were preoccupied in another war so neither of us called on them. Golden Horde moved into Nizhny Novgorod with a large stack while I was fighting Tver. I decided to offer them a tribute to give myself some breathing space for now. I scorched earth in several provinces first to drive the 'cost' of tribute down before making the offer. My war with Tver ended soon after with an assault that captured captured Tver, forcing them to accept me as overlord.

I broke siege on the rebel held territories several times durring 1400-1402 in an effort to make sure they held long enough to break free as a nation. With one of the provinces they would claim being mine, I'd automatically be at war with no infamy for total annexation. When this eventually did occur in 1402, I was able to gain Smolensk and Bryansk as well as recovering Vyazma by annexing the newly formed Smolensk.

The next mission was to annex Ryazan who was allied with Novgorod, who was allied with Poland, who was allied with Lithuania. This could turn out badly if timed wrong. Luckily, things were going well at this point for Poland against the Golden Horde. So well, they decaired war on Mazovia, and this drew them into a huge war which broke their alliance with Novgorod. At that moment, I attacked Ryazan, calling on Tver and Teutonic Order, who both answered my call. Novgorod answered the call as well. Denmark then declaired war on Teutonic order, along with Holstien, Sweden, and Norway.

I destroyed the Ryazan army and left sieging forces behind while my army went to drive off invaders from TO's territory that managed to get through the Teutonic Navy. Teutonic Order sent their land forces to engage Novgorod in a siege warfare standoff where two fairly evenly matched stacks sieged provinces next to one another, so neither assaulted. Tver sent small groups of 1-2 regiments into Novgorod territory to lay siege, which ultimately made the difference. After Ryazan was annexed, Novgorod was behind in warscore by over 20 points. They agreed to revoke their core on my territory for peace. Denmark soon struck a white peace as well leaving me at peace in 1407. I canceled the mission 'protect against Golden Horde' at the end of hostilities, and my new mission was to stop the religious persecution going on in Lithuania.

[Edgewise]

At this point, I'd been using all my investment to reach the point where I could adopt my first idea. Lithuania and Poland were both still strong in their war with the Golden Horde, who was only now beginning to focus on them with significant force. I decided to wait for my idea and let my war exhaustion decline before fighting what I knew would be a tough war. Poland had succeeded in vassalizing Mazovia and reformed it's alliance with Novgorod, as well as adding Bavaria, Castile, and the Papal states to the list.



Once I reached government 4, I picked Military Drill, as did Poland. Now, there could be no more waiting. Poland was attempting to make progress against the Horde, but in the time they could send out a few colonists in one place, the Horde would take a province elsewhere. Slowly, Poland and Lithuania were losing ground. I declared war without calling allies to shield Teutonic Order from Castile. I did call them in late in the war, but close enough to the end that Castile wouldn't be able to do much damage. In the early stages of the war, the diplomacy map was very red.



I concentrated my forces on Lithuania long enough to capture Chernigov, then sent half of my army to keep Novgorod from doing too much damage in the north. I called on Tver, who started sending small groups to the north one or two at a time much the same as in the last war. I played cat and mouse on both fronts, taking out small units while avoiding large ones, and preventing larger stacks from assaulting anyplace, and then I got extremely lucky!



After destroying the main army of Novgorod, they were willing to accept peace. I hadn't taken Vetluga yet, but I'd built up enough warscore to ask for it at the peace table. This would help me later I knew when the time came to vassalize Novgorod, bringing the total cost down below 100 warscore.



With a major player out of the war, Poland was also ready to give up Cherginov.



In large part due to the fight Poland had ongoing with the Golden Horde, I was able to save my Orthodox brothers without too much trouble. I didn't take Polotsk because the core there would give me a reason to attack again later, and because I could get it for no infamy in the next fight.

[Ashantai]

A nice start! Well done.

[Edgewise]

With the taking of Chernigov, my next mission was pretty obvious.



A five year timer put a hold on my progress. I guarenteed Poland, Lithuania, and Novgorod in the meantime to make sure nobody else would upset my date. While I waited, I got lucky several more times. Not slightly lucky, but more luck than I normally get in a century of gameplay. After Poland made peace with the Golden Horde, I sent a spy to finance patriots in Kursk while it was cut off from support because of the new border of Lithuania.



This happened first. I never see this, because in every other Muscowy game I've played, I always force religion on Lithuania and Poland in the first few years.



Then it happened again! In addition, I got a vetran's home. I normally get one as Muscowy/Russia, but not this early in the game. I was too excited to remember taking a screenshot.

I did a bit of diplomacy here and there as well, but at this stage as Muscowy, I generally stay away from involvement in foriegn affairs other than war.

[Edgewise]

Tick-tock, tick-tock. I waited for the five year timer to run out. I had hoped Teutonic Order would start a war with Riga so I could get the 'Window to the West' mission, but no luck. Instead, they started a fight with the Ottomans, who were getting the crap beat out of them by two hordes. Still a few months to go on my timer, I accepted the call to arms and raised war taxes so I could have a little cash to fund my rather large army at full strength for a while. Then, the time came. I had a provlem however. I needed to fight two wars with the same group of nations! I needed my cores from Lithuania, and I needed to force Novgorod to recognize that Merchant Republics are un-russian, and they deserve to be vassalized. My solution? Two seperate wars. I was going to fight them all at once either way, so I might as well get the benefits, right?

First I declaired war on Novgorod, and waited one day for Poland to join.



Next I declaired war on Lithuania, and called in TO and Tver on this one.



I had made a terrible error in my calculations however. I overlooked the fact that all the 'other' Poland allies would not be in the Novgorod fight, and some of them would be in the Lithuania fight, which put TO in an extremely bad spot.

Overall, this war was much harder than the last. I had to call TO and Tver into both wars, and within a short period, TO was overwhelmed and released Pskov and Gotland to make peace with Novgorod. Novgorod called in it's new allies against me. I was becomming increasingly uneasy about my rising WE and the huge piles of enemy troops moving throughout the theater. It was nearly impossible to destroy enemy armies because there were so many stacks moving around supporting one another durring retreat from a lost fight. I chased several armies into a 'pile' of stacks sieging Rzhev that had a unit number of 40 at one point just in that single province. When Kursk finally defected, it came with another 7k troops and a 2-2-2 general which made the difference in a couple tough fights.



Then, great luck yet again. After a back and forth fight against 3 army stacks from Poland which I won but lost more troops in, they offered white peace. Almost instantly, both wars turned in my favor. With the withdraw of the 25k+ strong Polish army with military drill and their 6 shock general, my 29k force turned into a world beater, at least in the theater. I rapidly routed and wiped out several stacks, and forced Lithuania to give up both of the provinces I had cored. My manpower was down to 40%, so it was a welcome voctory to see another 8k or so enemy troops withdrawn from battle.



England, peaced out in my war with Lithuania, ended up in a war against Novgorod and Byzantium. Poland joined their ally, and fight between Poland and England went back and forth in Ingerman and Neva for months. Novgorod and their 18k troops along with a few troops from Pskov were all that was left. My strategy against Novgorod had been to start in the East so I wouldn't damage their economy too much, and not wipe out there army, or England would just blanket them. If I went for their heartland first, they'd run out of money well before I captured all their provinces, and with no tribute money, GH would invade.



After crushing the small army of Pskov, I sieged their capitol and forced them to return to the true faith.



As I worked my way inward, I was able to force Novgorod to engage the English for lack of any other direction to go. Eventually, England made peace and took a couple provinces from Byzantium.



Durring this war, I used my standard Russian army composition. My fighting armies at this stage are 50/50 infantry/cav, or 100% cav in certain conditions, and my assault stacks are always 100%infantry+1 cav.



Finally, many years and a rediculous amount of casualties and war exhaustion later, the war finally came to an end.



I was able to capture the last few provinces fast enough that Novgorod did not go bankrupt and get invaded by the GH, so all-in-all, a hard war to fight, but with exactly the outcome I'd intended. I spent a year or so rebel bashing for Novgorod until they could get their army rebuilt, and of course my next mission was to annex Novgorod, with a 10 year timer.

[homy_dog34]

Nice going! You are well on your way to being a Russian superpower

[Saint Alexios]

Good read so far. You are getting some amazing luck with all of these core events! Looking forward to next update.

[Edgewise]

Good read so far. You are getting some amazing luck with all of these core events! Looking forward to next update.

Yea, it's going pretty well so far, but I normally am further along at this point believe it or not. I usually have broken the Poland/Lith PU and force religion on both, important since I am going to be getting innovative to westernize soon, and missionaries won't be available. I also haven't gotten the Window to the West mission or the Conquer Finland mission yet because for whatever reason, my last war with Denmark (not posted up yet) they did not call in Sweden, and TO never attacked Riga which is the first time they've ever -not- attacked them very early that I've ever seen, and all the provinces I've gotten so far would have come to me once I formed Russia, so it's a very lucky start, but in terms of where I'll be at 1450 or so, I'm behind my 'normal' advance with Muscowy. The unholy alliances I've had to deal with have also slowed me a bit, but I gotta say it is nice to have mostly cored provinces, and this game is providing lots of fun.

[Edgewise]

In the 10 year 'lull' I had contemplated many possible uses for this time. Force a PU or 2. Find a way to jump into someone elses war someplace and vassalize someone. The possibilities were open it seemed, but none of those would happen. I considered these options while letting some WE bleed off, and letting my manpower replenish.



I was feeling quite smug and content, and even started sending out merchants, knowing my high prestige and market share would give them a good chance at success.



Reaction. For every action, there is one. My bad decision in the last war was now going to cost me, big time. When I drew TO into my last war, they had to release Pskov and Gotland. Thier timer was up, and they wanted to get that core back on Gotland. My timer however was not, since I only made peace with them when Novgorod signed away their freedom.



I had to man up on this one. I'd put myself in this position, so there was no backing out. Denmark I knew would join the war, and with them would likely come Sweden. With Sweden would come the conquest mission for all of Finland. With a grunt and a sigh, I pressed the 'accept' button, and watched WE jump up 5 points or so instantly, while stability dropped 5.

Enter revolt mapmode.



Now my bad luck was on a steak. For reasons unknown, Denmark never did call in Sweden, and I never did get my mission for Finland. Yet. Just as I was digging my way out, It came time for a slider shift, and I lost another point of stability.



The high revolt risk wrecked my income, and I was minting with armies at 10% maintenance, and my troops were getting beat up by rebel stacks. Pictures not shown due to shame. My mighty army was kicked around by peasants! WE now danger close to my limit was going down very slowly because I was at war. I've always said "Ignore WE as Rusia, it's just part of life as Russia!" but combine WE with negative stability, and they form a vortex of suck. Stability rises very very slowly at high WE. My old King couldn't bear it and died.

But!!! His son is about as good as it gets for a monarch. I hope he lives for a very very long time, because his son is pretty much the opposite in stats.



TO waged war for several years against Denmark, largely ignoring the original target of Gotland, who got a white peace. Go figure. Soon after this war was over, Mazovia, recently un-vassalized from Poland and then guarenteed by me, gives the call.



Largely recovered from my earlier 'troubles', I accept without hesitation. I ramped up military readiness, and waited for one day. Like clockwork, Lithuania joined the war. I sent my armies racing across the border with my 2 shock 4 maneuver general to crush the Lithuanian army while they were at low morale, and moved on towards Poland, my true goal.



Poland had been a hardcase since taking Mil Drill. They beat down most of the invading armies from a massive pile of nations that all had a stake in Mazovia. TO peaced out after their 15k stack was wiped out, and Castile, an ally of Poland, started landing stacks on TO turf. Bohemia, the HRE himself, peaced out for a few coin after assaulting one province, both of his stacks in red morale and in retreat. Mozavia was annexed. My armies arrived and got beat up pretty badly. Mil dril combined with a 6 shock general and 25k troops is no joke. He's also had a tech advantage of 1. I threw my entire force against his lsat big stack, using a rotating army tactic to wear him down. One army would hit and fight while a second is inbound. The first army withdrew with a third inbound. Last time I had to do this was playing an Indian nation against Portugal with a 10 level tech gap.

Finally, as my first army was comming back in on it's second trip, his morale broke, and he was driven back. I already wiped out his smaller 2 stacks, so this was his last stand. Once his army wiped, I sieged most of Poland, and sent my most battered stack back to recover, and my healthiest stack to go chase down the rebuilt Lithuanian army. Eventually I get what I came for. Force religion and release Mazovia, the guy I was protecting in the first place.



I recalled TO back into the war by the very end of it, and they somehow got into a war with Bohemia, which they are losing, and I'm hoping that they call me in at the time I'm posting this.

[tamius23]

I'll follow this - it looks interesting.

[Bazti]

Really nice progress west and nice to see some spreading of the ortodox faith.

[Edgewise]

1430-1438

I had a couple options. I could watch Bohemia slash apart my ally TO who was currently watching over Prussia for me while I waited to annex Novgorod and form Russia, or I could intervene. A little investigation and I discoverd that Bohemia had started the war against Brandenburg. I knew intervention would set me back in my overall goals for expansion, but I was annoyed by the Bohemian warmongering. Warmongering in the East is for Hordes... and Russia!



I cleared Bohemian armies from TO territory first.



I intercepted an incomming 15k stack and slaughtered them in Pomerania. I was intent to purge some Heresy. My 2-2-2 general died, and I never made my new King an army leader. I looked at my land tradition, and realized I was overdue.




It's hard to complain about a 6 shock general, but I actually prefer speed and attrition mitigation for penetrating into enemy territory. I smashed through several armies and split my force to siege minors who'd ended up in my war. While this was going on, Sweden, recently free of their PU with Denmark, violated my sphere of influence. I sent my reserve stack to their border and declared war.



I cancelled my mission on Novgorod, giving me what I'd been looking for for a while.



While this was ongoing, I peaced out with several nations in my French/Bohemian war who were out of reach or too much to take on with only part of my army. Still, I continued clensing Heresy.





As I started to get comfortable in my two war scenario, damn Poland and their Mazovian missions shook me back into focus!



I was suddenly in a pinch. I had My armies in the North and in the West, and closer to home than any of my troops were a combined total of about 35-40k Lithuanian and Polish Troops. For whatever reason, they didn't make any serious move into my territory, but instead sent at least half of their forces into Mazovia. I quickly sent a small force to an adjacent province to stop them from sieging, buying some time for my western army to finish up in Hesse. I completely pulled out my forces from Sweden, leaving the progress of five captured provinces for them to retake without much opposition. Tver, ever handy as they always are, kept Pskov and Lithuania from doing too much damage. I accepted white peace with France and the rest of the nations who'd been fighting me in my first war.



My army in Hesse finished up it's work and started moving to my gathering point near Mazovia, and I made Hesse convert.



With 20k troops finally gathered, I drove out the Polish-Lithuanian forces sieging my ally, but the cost was very high. With each side having a 6 shock general, I was confident, but durring the battle I was punished harshly by the dice.



I thought about taking several provinces. I thought about siting on Poland for 50 years while leaving Lithuania to fight in order to keep the war going so I could drive vassalization down below 100. SOMETHING! Poland was going to be a regular trouble maker if I didn't gut their power right now. With a sigh however, I let reason rule. It simply wasn't time. Yet.



Turning my attention back to Sweden, I forced them to give me Viborg. The mission removed 4 infamy, and gave me an eternal CB to retake the rest of Finland later.



Finally, it was time to get back on track. With the completion of that mission, Annex Novgorod again popped up on my screen. My demand was accepted on the first attempt (after putting every nation I could in range in my sphere) and then I adopted Imperial administration the same day. The next day, I regained 2 stability for completing the mission, and Formed Russia. My next mission: Naval Race vs Sweden. Crap!



With my WE at over 14, 1 colony, and one colonist inbound to Kola (I burned Sweden's stolen colony) I decided it was time to take a few years to regroup, build up, and get ready to start reclaiming some of my rightful territory from the Horde.

[Ashantai]

Wonderful progress! Russia in 1437 is very nicely played. Well done!

[Edgewise]

Hehe, I delayed for 5 years just to go force religion on a few countries, which Bohemia quickly reversed by telling them to revert back. The next update will be interesting, I got a weird combo of 3 wars atm where I'm allied with some nations in one war and fighting them in one of the other wars. I'm 'behind' schedule because I'm not just expanding, but trying to purge all Heretics as well any chance I get.

[Edgewise]

1438-1449

Part of my regrouping process... Annexing Tver.



They had proven very helpful in my previous wars and now it was time for them to become part of Russia. My intent at this point was to go hard into the Golden Horde, but events drew my attention once again to the west. TO called on me to aid in their war against a bunch of German minors. I saw the oportunity for some heresy reduction and sent a stack of troops to go explain why Germans shouldn't follow the Pope. Clearly his hat is terrible.



While I was in the process of explaining the terrible fashion mistakes of their current religious leaders which I expected to be a short event, I found the excercise to be somewhat futile because Bohemia ordered a few of them to revert back, and they did. I could see I needed to take more drastic measures if I was going to be serious about this endeavor. Bohemia gave me the perfect opportunity.



It's one thing to kill a stack or two from the stockpile of Bohemian troops, but it's another matter entirely to take on their entire massive army in their own territory. I won several fights, but the need to withdraw and replenish was reversing any gains I made. While I was winding down the first war, my heir died. I was happy, no 3-4-3 King. Yay!



I was getting nowhere with Bohemia. I just didn't seem to have enough troops to really break him. Victory after victory, I couldn't do anything with because his retreating stacks were always backed up by fresh ones. I pulled back to try sieging one province at a time. As earlier predicted, Poland, at the worst possible moment, decided to attack Mazovia again.



Now things got... weird. I was fighting against Bohemia in one war, allied with them against Poland in another war. I was fighting against Bavaria who was allied with Poland, and both of us were fighting against Bohemia in seperate wars. So, I started to pull my troops back and decided to use them against eachother to my advantage. One of my generals died, and I looked at tradition. Time to recruit!




I hastened my strategic withdraw with several large stacks moving closer to my troops, and let Bohemia go hard on Bavaria, using their work to clense some heresy.



A short time later, I let Poland off with a white peace so I could focus in on Bohemia.



Again I sent troops in, and again they were victorious, and again he just had too many stacks for me to make progress.



I withdrew my forces back to Russia to deal with some rebels and built another army stack before going back with 40k strong. My WE was getting high and I was far behind in my Horde bashing, so I needed to get this over and done with. As I started moving troops back to restart the fight, a new heir was born! Not the man his dad is, but much better than his dead older brother.



This time, there was no pulling back. I chased down every army, killed every last unit, and sieged every province. Bohemia was going to be Orthodox.



I sent troops south to work on the other participant still in this war and realized again how much I needed to start hitting the horde, and soon! They were there sieging with me in the next province.



As the sieges started endeding, I was ready to end this war with a big victory for Orthodox. No more would Bohemia tell nations to return to Catholicism!



A few small steps into a long run of a process, but I was starting to have an impact.



I Looked at the truce expiration flag and realized I was due for another war with Poland, so I decided to take another step to reduce their potential for trouble.



Then I got ready to fight the horde, yet again.

[Edgewise]

1449-1458

I looked at the truce flag. I looked at Poland. I looked at the Horde. As much as I wanted to go for the Horde, I knew I had to get the Poland war out of the way first. Rather than wait for them to initiate the fight this time, I decided I'd go first.



Pskov... time to become part of Russia. I annexed them straight away. I caught Polish and Lithuania sleeping as well, and crushed their armies, forcing Poland to concede defeat.



My WE was still a bit high, never good right before taking a stab hit to wardec GH with the largest army in the game atm, so I let it cool down for a while. Then, I went for it.



At first, a few stacks showed up and I beat them back or wiped them out. One stack here, two stacks there, nothing I couldn't handle.



Very quickly, I'd grabbed a province, and everything seemed to be going smoothly. Then more enemy stacks showed up. And more showed up. A traffic jam of stacks started building up in neighboring provinces, and I knew it was game on. Every time I gained a point of stability, some event would set me back. Over the next several years, all I did was sink cash into stability, but every pop-up was another stab hit.



Still, I was holding my own, picking my fights carefully against a very large enemy force along a very long border. Things were going well, but colonizing is a slow process. With three colonies 'baking', I got a kick in the face.



Ok, no worries. I'll send a portion of my force over to drive Bohemia back. Spreading myself thin made it interesting, but it was taking a toll on my troops who weren't getting any time between fights. I forced Bohemia to the peace table as fast as I could. I let Poland and Bavaria pound them into submission once their army was cut down to size so my forces could return to the fight with the Horde.



It was a pitched battle, but I was gaining ground at the cost of manpower. GH stacks of 20+ were now facing off against my armies usually numbering 10k. I tried to double or tripple team his stacks, but they'd retreat before back-up would arrive. Still, I was feeling good about how it was looking. As I started sieging Kazan, I was again drawn into a war with Poland.



With no CB, no core, no reason at all other than size difference, Poland again attacked Mazovia, now my vassal! With 60K or so GH forces on my Eastern front, 40k or so Lithuanian and Polish troops combined, my battered 40k army was overloaded. I finished off the last colony I had going in Pensa, and then made peace.



I was irritated at Poland this time. The AI is just too dumb to recognize when something is not a good idea. I pounded Lithuania and Poland for a while and then decided to take territory. In the Future, these wars were going to come at a cost.

[Deus Eversor]

SUBS, you be my hero!

[Ashantai]

Great work! Dealing with Poland, Bohemia and the GH at once is a great struggle, so major props.