1458-1475
I sat there, waiting for the timer to get my GH war back in full motion. My ADD prevented me from doing so patiently however. I mumbled and scowled at the screen, unhappy with my slow progress compaired to my last several Muscowy games. I looked at my ship building progress. Still over 10 ships to go before matching Sweden's fleet, and the ships were already running close to 100 for a Carrack because I was so far over my naval force limit. I decided to cancel mission rather than build a fleet that cost more than my army for 5 naval tradition.
Sweet! One thing I like about Russia. Until you hit the factory tech levels, you tend to get tons of conquest missions. I still had a timer for peace on Lithuania as well, but at least it was better than going bankrupt building waaaaay too many ships. I'm Russia! Not England! Looking around, I see Poland has switched back to Catholicism. Bah! Those Poles just weren't co-operating with my grand expansion plans very well. A couple more years clicked by and then the timer was up. I rushed across the border and my assault stack captured two provinces in less than a month. My army was up to 54k at this point, with 4 50/50 10k stacks and one 13k infantry+1 cav assault stack.
Huge stacks of Horde armies started to build up much like before. My land tech was now 9, giving me an advantage that proved to be more than the Horde armies could stand. By this point I'd lost and recruited more generals several times. It's easy to keep tradition high with so much blood spilling out all over the place, so all were good with 4-6 shock and 4-5 speed. I was beating the Horde good this time. Too good! Poland decided to restart their war with the Horde. Lithuania finally broke free of their PU and found themselves at war with the Horde. Unfortunately, it didn't work out well for Poland, who had their army destroyed, and quickly got wardec'd by all their neighbors. Crap! My PG had expired on them, so they were on their own. TO wanted in on the action, and called me along as well.
Seeing as how I was going to be fighting Lithuania, I decided to wardec them before accepting the call for TO. This way I could use my own CB and not get pounded with Infamy. This was how the map was looking at that time.
Everything was going fairly smoothly, except TO didn't defend their own turf from Castile at all. I worked over Lithuania and took my prize as quickly as I could. I made a mistake however in not forcing them to break alliances or give up cores. That would haunt me in the not so distant future. And what was my next mission? You guesed it, naval race vs Sweden! Again...
I tried sending troops in to kick the Spaniards out of TO territory, but before I could have much effect, TO buckled and ceded two provinces! I beat them all down and wiped out all the invaders, then called TO back in, getting them to break truce even, to try and get them to siege back their two provinces, but they did not, and peaced out again soon after. Such whimps! I captured both provinces and proceeded to beat up every counter attack Castile sent to retake them. I was hoping to build the warscore up to over 40, then demand they agree that the Pope has a terrible hat and switch to Orthodox. Over the next few years I was getting close, but eventually something 'big' happened. Before that however, my PG on Poland now in place went active with a call to arms.
Always the same culprits causing trouble! I again beat up their armies a bit and again let the other participants do the sieging. While this was going on, I got a boundary dispute.
As things started to wrap up with Bohemia, I let them off with a white peace. As much as they were annoying me, they were still Orthodox, and still HRE, so it was best to keep them as intact as possible, at least for the time being.
I had a scare for a minute when I saw this one. It's never a good thing to have your heir die when your King is old. He might not have the greatest stats, but a regency is always a worse alternative!
Everything was going smoothly again. I was beating up the Horde handily, and expanding to take most of my cores back without much trouble. The only hold up was the slow trickle of colonists. I'd usually have them going in 4-5 provinces at a time to allow as much colonial growth as possible. And then, something unexpected. Lithuania decided they wanted their cores back! And they were allied with Sweden and Austria, both of whom had done some expanding of their own.
First, I wardec'd Sweden with my own CB. This would add Hungary to the war, but Castile, DOTF for Catholics, was already at war with me, so not a major issue.
Then I made Peace with Castile. I took Memel, and let them keep Osel since they like the crappiest provinces for some reason, and I asked for a huge chunk of money!
I made peace with the Horde in a way that would wreck their economy, but more importantly, repay me for the years I had to pay them money!
And that... is where my second war with the Horde comes to an end. Russia is currently leading the world in land tech.
These are my current borders, and the nations I'm now at war with:
This is the current religious map:
This is an 'average' province as far as what I've been building in my provinces.
All my manpower heavy provinces (about 40-50% of total) have training fields or will get them soon. My medium and long-term strategies require many manpower buildings. These buildings increase demand for Iron and copper, which will be my most common goods by the time I expand to Eastern Siberia. My high land tech means I will get weapon factories first, which will go into the iron and copper provinces, further increasing demand. As manpower also determines how many factories you can build before they get expensive, the more manpower buildings I make, the more factories I can build. Long story short: By 1550 or so, my iron and copper provinces with factories should be worth more than gold producing provinces.
I sat there, waiting for the timer to get my GH war back in full motion. My ADD prevented me from doing so patiently however. I mumbled and scowled at the screen, unhappy with my slow progress compaired to my last several Muscowy games. I looked at my ship building progress. Still over 10 ships to go before matching Sweden's fleet, and the ships were already running close to 100 for a Carrack because I was so far over my naval force limit. I decided to cancel mission rather than build a fleet that cost more than my army for 5 naval tradition.
Sweet! One thing I like about Russia. Until you hit the factory tech levels, you tend to get tons of conquest missions. I still had a timer for peace on Lithuania as well, but at least it was better than going bankrupt building waaaaay too many ships. I'm Russia! Not England! Looking around, I see Poland has switched back to Catholicism. Bah! Those Poles just weren't co-operating with my grand expansion plans very well. A couple more years clicked by and then the timer was up. I rushed across the border and my assault stack captured two provinces in less than a month. My army was up to 54k at this point, with 4 50/50 10k stacks and one 13k infantry+1 cav assault stack.
Huge stacks of Horde armies started to build up much like before. My land tech was now 9, giving me an advantage that proved to be more than the Horde armies could stand. By this point I'd lost and recruited more generals several times. It's easy to keep tradition high with so much blood spilling out all over the place, so all were good with 4-6 shock and 4-5 speed. I was beating the Horde good this time. Too good! Poland decided to restart their war with the Horde. Lithuania finally broke free of their PU and found themselves at war with the Horde. Unfortunately, it didn't work out well for Poland, who had their army destroyed, and quickly got wardec'd by all their neighbors. Crap! My PG had expired on them, so they were on their own. TO wanted in on the action, and called me along as well.
Seeing as how I was going to be fighting Lithuania, I decided to wardec them before accepting the call for TO. This way I could use my own CB and not get pounded with Infamy. This was how the map was looking at that time.
Everything was going fairly smoothly, except TO didn't defend their own turf from Castile at all. I worked over Lithuania and took my prize as quickly as I could. I made a mistake however in not forcing them to break alliances or give up cores. That would haunt me in the not so distant future. And what was my next mission? You guesed it, naval race vs Sweden! Again...
I tried sending troops in to kick the Spaniards out of TO territory, but before I could have much effect, TO buckled and ceded two provinces! I beat them all down and wiped out all the invaders, then called TO back in, getting them to break truce even, to try and get them to siege back their two provinces, but they did not, and peaced out again soon after. Such whimps! I captured both provinces and proceeded to beat up every counter attack Castile sent to retake them. I was hoping to build the warscore up to over 40, then demand they agree that the Pope has a terrible hat and switch to Orthodox. Over the next few years I was getting close, but eventually something 'big' happened. Before that however, my PG on Poland now in place went active with a call to arms.
Always the same culprits causing trouble! I again beat up their armies a bit and again let the other participants do the sieging. While this was going on, I got a boundary dispute.
As things started to wrap up with Bohemia, I let them off with a white peace. As much as they were annoying me, they were still Orthodox, and still HRE, so it was best to keep them as intact as possible, at least for the time being.
I had a scare for a minute when I saw this one. It's never a good thing to have your heir die when your King is old. He might not have the greatest stats, but a regency is always a worse alternative!
Everything was going smoothly again. I was beating up the Horde handily, and expanding to take most of my cores back without much trouble. The only hold up was the slow trickle of colonists. I'd usually have them going in 4-5 provinces at a time to allow as much colonial growth as possible. And then, something unexpected. Lithuania decided they wanted their cores back! And they were allied with Sweden and Austria, both of whom had done some expanding of their own.
First, I wardec'd Sweden with my own CB. This would add Hungary to the war, but Castile, DOTF for Catholics, was already at war with me, so not a major issue.
Then I made Peace with Castile. I took Memel, and let them keep Osel since they like the crappiest provinces for some reason, and I asked for a huge chunk of money!
I made peace with the Horde in a way that would wreck their economy, but more importantly, repay me for the years I had to pay them money!
And that... is where my second war with the Horde comes to an end. Russia is currently leading the world in land tech.
These are my current borders, and the nations I'm now at war with:
This is the current religious map:
This is an 'average' province as far as what I've been building in my provinces.
All my manpower heavy provinces (about 40-50% of total) have training fields or will get them soon. My medium and long-term strategies require many manpower buildings. These buildings increase demand for Iron and copper, which will be my most common goods by the time I expand to Eastern Siberia. My high land tech means I will get weapon factories first, which will go into the iron and copper provinces, further increasing demand. As manpower also determines how many factories you can build before they get expensive, the more manpower buildings I make, the more factories I can build. Long story short: By 1550 or so, my iron and copper provinces with factories should be worth more than gold producing provinces.