Crimson snow- Muscowy AAR

Russia is always at war. At least when I play Russia. It took so long because I was trying to cause his territory to flip to rebels. It's easy to occupy, it's hard to have rebels occupy then protect the rebels while not killing them, etc. Once I got some of his territory to flip it was easy to march 20k troops down.. I have well over 100k after all.

1516-1528 The quiet time.

There were no wars besides with the Hordes. Milan became HRE and undid some of my religious work. There were no calls to arms, no pleas for help, and no 'Bohemia decided to invade' messages. It was pretty boring. I cancelled my mission on Budjak knowing it would take a long time yet for me to be able to build a colony there. I was given a couple 'improve defences in province X' missions, and then a conquest mission on Lithuania. After my WE dropped significantly, I westernized, then moved the capitol to St. Petersburg for 3 stability. With so much peace and tranquility, I focused on internal developement heavily. My colonies were doing much better as well with the 6 admin regency. I decided to use spies to steal the two Lithuanian provinces that were seperated in the south to complete the mission and get a core on one.



My army tradition had declined substantially. Worse, my generals were all dying off. With my total force size continuing to grow, I was going to need to do some major warmongering. While I pondered this, events started to shift and slowly but surely, the wheels of war began to turn.



England forced the release of Finland. Now Finland had my cores and became the target of my conquest mission for the non-core provinces. Most annoying of all, they weren't Orthodox! Problems that would need to be corrected. And so with that, I plunged the western world into war.

1528-1545 Western War wind-up

I started with a war vs Finland. Sweden and England both left them to stand alone. Cowards!



The war was too short to bother with a second picture, but I forced them to go Orthodox so they would be fit for annexation later. Then Prussia started a war and drug me along. Sweet!



Castile didn't get the memo last time about getting out of my hemisphere, so I decided to start a fight with their ally to kick them out again. This was also because Portugal had claimed throne on Byzantium and got them in a PU. Portugal in Thrace just wasn't going to work.



I already had Mil access from OE and the Mams who were losing a war vs Spain and Portugal, so I just went in and started slaughtering Spaniards.



My Tech advantage was nearly gone at this point because I'd hit a level where you get no bonus for a couple levels and the cost to get through them is high, and I'd spent years recovering stability from events and westernization. Still, I won because they were Iberians and we were Russians, and all belongs to mother Russia! Does all belong to mother Spain? No. I assaulted a few captured provinces to help out the battered Muslims while hunting down Spanish armies.



I started a couple other wars here and there. England and Sweden joied with Milan, and were sending troops to help me regain my tradition. The map was looking something like this:



Still, this was pretty laid back. My WE wasn't even reaching 1, and my expansion to the East was going as fast as I could get colonists. At this time, my army composition had changed. My cav was almost as cheap as my infantry with my sliders as they were, so I had some small pure cav stacks of 4-6 running around killing rebels in the east. With the advent of level 2 forts, the assault stacks were not needed anymore, at least until I started invading into India. They were replaced with siege stacks of 5 inf/5 art. My 'basic' stacks remained unchanged, 50/50 infantry/cav, and I had some combined stacks of 10 inf, 5 cav, 5 art, and I usually would attack with that and break off the arty stack while the other continued chasing down troops.

The Swedes were good, but their one 20k stack was only the size of 1/6 of my force at this point, if that.



The English troops were about on par with the Spaniards, and came in smaller quantities.



I Wasn't really invading Sweden or trying to do anything with England just yet, but the troops they provided for my training was reason to keep this war going for some time. While this was going on, another border friction with Lithuania, and they were down to being an OPM.

Burgandy had been growing in strength for some time. They were crushing everything in their path, and eventually their path took them into my sphere. A quick check revealed they had an army roughly the same size as mine, at the same tech, with good generals, and probably better sliders.

This war was going to be a long one, but I would make it something of a cold war for the first couple decades of it. Keeping them in a war until I could mount a serious offensive would likely halt their warmaking with other nations. They'd send huge stacks up to 25k or so, and hit me in the North and South, as well as attacking my vassals and allies. I had my armies arranged into 'quick response' forces of 20-25k, and I'd go counter-attack them where they appeared. I sent a scout force through to their border to see how quck there defensive response was and... well about 80k troops were sitting there waiting for me to attack. I was actually just getting started with my warmongering, but the map was looking like this at this point:

Deus Eversor said:

so awsum. So this reformation of sorts, will be a shodown between reformists and orthodox?

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Oh, where I'm at atm, Orthodox are way way ahead, trust me. These posts are 2-3 days behind my game. I'd add more, but need to wait because of the screenshot limits.

1545-1575 30 years of war with the west.

Things with Burgandy were in somewhat of a stalemate. I'd destroy his frequent incursions into my space, or the space of my allies. I'd get driven out of his territory by impossibly large piles of stacks all bearing down on my invasion force. The warscore was building very slowly in my favor, but I wasn't able to hold anything when he could mobilize his 130k or so troops in full force against me, where my army was spread out fighting five or more wars at any given time, leaving me maybe 20-30k so spare against this blobbing French terror.



A new Monarch arrived who finally had a 7 admin, allowing me to finish westernizing if I could get my sliders in order. I'd managed to get several out of order through events or decisions and hadn't shifted centralization far enough yet to make it happen, but his heir would give me a second chance incase he didn't live long enough. I also switched to Admin Monarchy.



By taking the colonial adventured idea, I'd been making much better progress Eastward, and the horde lands were almost at an end. My colonies were reaching ever closer to the East cost of Siberia and I passed 100 provinces in 1550.



My strategy against Spain was not having much impact. I'd battered his armies and let the Muslims take and hold his provinces, but always they'd peace out with nothing. Several Spanish-Muslim wars were fought and ended without a single province being removed from Spain despite my constant destruction of Spanish armies. For things to get anywhere, I was going to need a new strategy. First I peaced out Portugal and annexed Byzantium. There would be no heretics inheriting Thrace! I also had a new King and a new heir by this time.



On another front, Prussia had gotten into a war with Austria and given up their alliance with me in order to make peace. I tried to remake it, but they were no longer interested, so I claimed their throne instead.

With Spain, there'd be no more waiting for rebels who'd then lose to the Mamaluks and OE who'd then give the provinces back to Spain in a WP. Finally, I just started holding all these provinces, and marching down into North Africa to take provinces there as well. I started working a lethal combination of high WE and -3 stability into something that could bring the colonial giant to it's knees. I considered holding them in a squeeze until their empire started falling apart, but I did want the new world to be Orthodox after all! They were a part of that plan, if they could just be pushed in the right direction.



With Spain finally driven out 90% and at war with OE and the Mams, I turned my attention to Prussia. It had been a long time comming, but at some point, they were going to be in my line of fire. The strong alliance we'd had kept them in my protection when I could give it, but now that period was over, and it was time for them to begin the process of becomming a part of Russia.



With the beginning of this war, I was suddenly at war with almost every single country in the West other than the Spaniards. Bohemia and Austria were against me, as were their half-dozen vassals. Even Milan and Hungary were against me. French minors were against me. It was awesome! I'd anticipated most of this, but I had well over 100K enemy forces in theater, and I had maybe 70k of friendly troops. Poland threw their 18k stack around forcefully, despite being woefully behind the big western nations in tech.



The first year or so was brutal. Huge armies collided all across my western front, and deeper into the German minors where our vassals were battling it out with one another. I had a couple of worried moments when I had a pair of 20k stacks wiped out with bad rolls or just getting hit with too many reinforcements, but my army building industry is second to none with about a dozen regimental camps and many more provinces having buildings up to 2 or 3. It took maybe two months before freshly built replacement stacks were assembled and moving into the fight.

After wiping out Bohemia's army, they offered peace, and having nothing to gain from them otherwise, I accepted. They in turn saw Austria was in trouble because they were at war with me still, so attacked the Austrians. The Austrians were down to a couple small forces running away from my troops, and they asked for a white peace, which I also accepted. The other players in the war were largely allowed to go in peace, but I decided to convert and/or vassalize a few other nations. Once all of this was sorted, I finished my war on the terms I had intended.



I then turned my attention on Burgandy and Burgandy alone. I peaced out with the last neighboring horde and the various small skirmish wars I had been in. Right as my troops started marching over, a new Czar with and heir.




I forced him to spread his armies out and started engaging them on his turf as much as possible. Battles were fierce, and casualties were high. I was having a real problem with reinforcing. Even when I'd win the fight, he'd have 50K more troops to back up his stack and push me further out or wipe my already beaten up stack. By this point, he'd become the HRE and was really going crazy with his total troop strength. I decided to pull out my forces into a defensive posture again and regroup, and think of a new strategy.

My economy at this point was running very well. My cored up iron and copper provinces that had been built up were bringing in more cash than my gold producing provinces, and by a good margin. I destroyed my COT in Samarkan to make the one in Astrakhan go up to just under 2k, making it easier to push competetors out of my monopoly. My sliders were off on trading bigtime. I'd gone free-trade in the early game as events fired to generate some income back when I was Muscowy, and it hadn't payed off much. Now it was proving to be costly, making it hard to purge everyone else from my COT's.

I checked up on Finland, and they'd finally finished purging their heretics, so now it was time to begin incorporating them. It was over fast, with me grabbing two provinces at no cost.



Back to Burgandy again! I pulled in troops from the North, East, and South leaving behind only what I needed for rebel suppression and getting rid of naval landing forces. I built extra arty, and started spreading my troops around in northern Germany. The Burgundian armies started marching out to meet me in battle, and I was able to out-move his troops and gang up on them a stack or two at a time. I started running up his war exhaustion, and then I called in my naval PU ally Prussia to go after his disconnected provinces.

Finally! I was making progress. The death toll was high on both sides, but especially for him. Even his HRE status couldn't keep his WE down, or his manpower up. I got the score up high enough to start making stab hit demands, and then I won a couple battles that cut down stacks of 30-40k, driving his troop strength under 50k. With several provinces occupied and his total force down, he was ready to give in to my demands!



And it was very nice to see that unlike Austria or Bohemia, who'd been inneffective as an Orthodox HRE, Burgandy immediately started demanding people convert, and they did so. It looked as though my business in the heartland of Europe was over for a while. Italy and Portugal still needed to be worked on religiously, and with the building of a new fleet, England would be within reach.

Annex them? I don't want those crappy Euro-junk provinces! They don't even use the right alphabet. Those backward westerners wouldn't be welcome in the Czar's court. Maybe a couple forced PU's. I don't care about the new world garbage either. Let them smoke their tabacco and drink coffee. In the Russian colonies of Siberia we build things of bronze and steel!

And what do you mean save Western Christianity?? Orthodox is western Christianity, just look at the map! Just a few more Heretics to get rid of, then the Western Orthodox peoples will be safe from the evil Pope and his terrible hat.

1575-1594: The dominance of Orthodox in the West part 1.

With the war comming to an end with Burgandy, I'd already made all my slider shifts and was waiting to westernize my military. As soon as resist western influences was gone, I did so. I like to wait until land 26, but without a sure rank 7 admin heir comming up, I didn't want to risk missing the chance while I had it.



While I was recovering from the stab hit, I annexed Finland using the CB I gained over 100 years earlier in my first war with Sweden. The Burgundian King died in 1578, leaving the HRE title up for grabs. Sadly, it went to Cleaves! A 2pm who happened to be an elector voting for themselves, along with one other Elector, two of maybe 4 1 and 2 province countries that were protestant. My response was very quick. Clearly it was time to clense some Heresy!



I found myself at war with 2-3 other German minors, a couple of whom were not Orthodox. I converted one of those, along with Cleaves. I left a majority of Electors now voting for Orthodox countries for the first time.

My decision to finish westernization came at a good time, because soon after I did so, I got a new ruler who would have halted the process. She came with an excellet heir however, and I was excited to see my patch of bad Czars was comming to an end!



My attention now turned to the South. Persia had many rich high manpower provinces, and as a strategic location, it's exceptionally good. Holding that territory would give me a launch point into Africa, India, or the Holy lands of Mecca and Judea to the West. It would also make all my conquests in those regions remain land connected to my capitol, which is not the case for western nations comming by sea. With a troop movement that put 60k of my forces on the border, I started the war!

The Persian armies and their allies fought hard and used the terrain well. My tech advantage and my pair of excellent generals were just too much for them to hold back. In the end, I forced the Persians to give up 5 provinces, putting me in possition for my next attack.



I looked closely at the current situation in the regions surrounding Russia. It looked as though the OE was doing alright, despire needing several provinces in Asia minor to really become whole again. They'd taken Rome and seemed to be holding off most foriegn threats. I decided I'd stop protecting them for now. The HRE looked very up for grabs with no nation having more than one Elector backing them. I really wasn't sure who'd get it next.

With my first war with Persia over and a timer ticking down, I decided to become somewhat more friendly with all my old enemies who'd now been converted. I got millitary access from many nations and marched 40k troops down into Spain to sit on Portugal's border. They were getting on my nerves. They'd claimed the thrones of 2 Orthodox nations, and seemed likely to get both into a PU. A big blast to their prestige and a forced conversion would both make this less likely due to prestige loss, and less of a problem since they'd be Orthodox. It sounded like the perfect solution!



The Portugese and English troops performed much better than expected. I'd lost a few generals in recent years and was down to two so on many occasions, my armies fought with no leader. I even had a couple of armies wiped out! With England taking the lead in the war as defender of the Catholic faith, I focused first on Portugal and Venice, and repelled attackers from my allies across Europe. I also began a naval campaign of trying to pick off small chunks of the English navy where I could. It didn't take long for me to force Portugal to accept defeat.



Just as things seemed to be going well, a new HRE that meant trouble.



I paused and looked at Bohemia. Over the last few decades, they'd gotten cores on almost every province they had a border with. I counted 7 or 8 just between my vassals and myself.



I knew I was about to have a fight on my hands. They now had 5 NI's, all land-war related. The tech difference was insignificant, giving no morale or tactics advantage. They had two generals, one of whom was excellent, and about 60k troops. My border with them had only 10k defenders, as all my western front armies were deployed as far away as Portugal. Almost as soon as this set in, the call came, and the war began.



My troops in the Balkans had done well. I forced Venice to convert and started moving 20k towards Bohemia. I hastilty built another 10k to add to my small token force that was there. With only two generals, I recruited a third whos stats were quite bad for the tradition he'd been born at, and threw him into the fight. Almost imediately, my first 20k troops to arrive were in trouble. He came hard with 30k at my force and had the advantage in generals and in die rolls. My troops were routed, and he chased my stack down and wiped it out.

Bohemian armies also destroyed Pommeranian and Prussian troops that entered the fight, horribly outnumbered. Most of the Prussian army was in France, sieging British territory there. Only Poland had a sizable force left in the fight. Bavaria had a 25k stack, but they never brought it home from an earlier war, so it remained where it was, completely out of the fight.

It took a few months, but I eventually had significant forces arriving in theater. I had to recapture a few provinces for my vassals, and then lost another stack trying to take on his general with no leader of my own. This picture was right before that fight, and the moving stack is seconds away from being wiped.



My bad luck was really on a roll. In the span of less than 6 months, all 3 of my generals died. I recruited 2 more who would themselves die within a year or two after that. It was like my generals were all being poisoned or something! I got the 'poor government policies' event for the 5th time in a row... seriously, 5 times in 10 years. Each time, 1 stab or 1200ish coin. It could have been worse, I was making more than I could spend so it was lost surplus.

I was finally able to hunt down that large roving stack with the nasty general and finish it off with my leaderless stacks by hitting him too many times with too many stacks. One thing that I would always have was the ability to crank out 30k troops in a couple of months (I have many level 5 army buildings at this point) and have that army kicking him in the face soon after that. And that is why you can't ever beat Russia in a land war!



Another idea. And at the moment it arrived I had no generals. All had died as mentioned before, about 5 in the last couple years, and about 10 in total over the last ten years. My tradition was very low from recruiting so many short lived leaders. My next NI was thus picked out of my immediate need, not really for long term strategic goals as most others had been.



My war with England had been going very well up until the point where Bohemia started trouble. At that point I had to slow my advance against the English to a crawl while I pulled forces back to deal with Bohemia and their vassals. The reborn Byzantines had been a thorne in my side durring this war, sending out a prolific number of armies and having a good sized fleet despite being only a single junk province... Rhodes. Upon closer examination I realized why! They had a COT on that tiny little dirt pile.

I'd planned to release Byzantium long ago after taking Thrace from Portugal, but the rebirth of the tiny nation made that impossible. I'd hoped they'd get annexed, but they soldiered on through a variety of wars over the last couple decades, and now seemed to be a fairly stable and durrable nation. I decided I would vassalize them and sell them my Greek holdings before they cored in a few more years, but Thrace I would keep for myself, having heavily invested in buildings there already.



And that... is where I will leave this update until tomorrow. It's super late and I'm probably going to see 20 spelling errors when I look at this tomorrow if I bother to read it then.

Tallfellow said:

Looking forward to the next update, it really looks like nothing can stop the Russian Bear!

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I think I passed that point a good while ago tbh. The challenge was never a matter of survival, but instead a stamping out of all heretics and expanding into a rediculous blob that meets or beats Warsaw Pact cold-war boundaries. I'm also trying to be tech leader before the end by using the land buildings + iron and copper + weapon manufactories to have investment so obscene that I can do so.

1594-1599 The dominance of Orthodox in the West part 2.

After destroying the Bohemian stacks and chasing down the 1-2k armies they had sieging, I captured most of their provinces and forced a punitive peace taking two of their three Polish provinces. I planned to sell these to one of my Polish vassals soon after.



With the defeat of Bohemia, I again started pushing against England. Picking off small English fleets where I could, I was now only 1 big ship behind them in our total fleet strengths respectively. I'd waited until Galleons were available, then pumped out about 25 to add to my 12 carracks, giving me a potent naval force that had superior ships to the British caravels and carracks. I captured all the British holdings in Greece and France, as well as their allies and vassals on the continent. I started converting them, and letting the British WE climb until they began to crack.



Another changing of the guard, a new HRE was selected. Austria! It was clear to me that the OE was going to be in trouble soon, and Austria had already invaded the Turks. The Austrian army shot up to over 200k in size, actually passing my own army in terms of troop strength.



The English hit me from all directions by sea, trying to break my grasp on their continental holdings. I was unrelenting, and destroyed their armies anytime I was able to reach them.



They struggled fiercely, but their greed for territory had put too much of their land in reach of my armies. Like a wolf that had it's prey by the throat, my armies held their death grip until the English had no choice but to accept my demands.



I was punitive in the peace negotiations, demanding they convert and empty their treasury. Soon after their defeat, Burgandy invaded, intent to become the new super-France by kicking out the English. They had a fleet that rivalled the English.

In the year 1599, some 200 years into the game, I've sold four provinces to vassals, putting me right around 136 total provinces. I'm ready to continue my push into Persia and then into India before 1650. My colonies are just on the verge of reaching the Pacific. I'll likely join the HRE and use PU's to inherit the provinces I want from the empire, and then switch to a republic to avoid becomming the HRE myself. If I do serve a short term in this office, I'll use it to finish purging the herteical Catholics and their cousin religions.

My income is slightly eclipsed by adding the next 3 biggest economies combined, rising when I'm at war as this drives up the value of all my iron and copper. The new Austrian HRE is the only nation that could field more troops. I established the Russian Patriarch, making sure all know that Orthodox is the one true religion and Russia is the heart of that faith.



My land tech is still the best in the world, but it won't give an advantage really until I hit 26.



So that's the first 200 years of progress, hope it was worth reading!

Fyregecko said:

Great effort; I always enjoy seeing Bohemia get taken down a notch (mostly because they like backstabbing Poland and grabbing Horde territory if they aren't stopped.

And you do know that 'English' and 'British' are two very different things, right? The mixing of the two is a pet hate of mine since, being a Scot who works with lots of English people, I'm often on the receiving end of it.

Anyway, that aside, good work. It's made me fancy trying something similar, though maybe as Tver for a bit of variety (and for the potential awful puns).

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My appologies. They're 'Brits' now because they formed GB. Before they were English. I considered making them release England as part of the peace, but that would only be entertaining and not in keeping with my original goal of making Orthodox the only Christian religion recognized by a state. I can't control how well these countries go about enforcing this in their provinces however.

1599-1615 The quest for India begins

I forgot to mention in my last update that not just my generals were dying, but my super 7-6-7 heir died also and was replaced with mrsuxalot 4-4-5 heir. Anyhow... time for the update!

England did not bounce back gracefully from their defeat. It was unfortunate for them that they wouldn't convert at 50 warscore, but instead forced me to beat their country to the point where it might collapse. Such is the way of the AI. Rebels captured all of Ireland and many of their colonies were in revolt. Spain was having a similar problem, so bent on getting directly under foot with their random conquests into my expansion space even as much of their non-Iberian territory was under the black flag of revolter control. Kicking the crap out them just wasn't enough apparently. I decided over the next few years it was time some of these problematic nations had a more sensible ruler who would guide them to prosperity. Someone like... me.

In the year 1600, I carried out my mission which was to vassalize Armenia. I also forced them and their ally neighbor to embrace Orthodox. My next mission was to build a weapons factory. Apparently the dozen or so I had wasn't enough to please God. And I can understand why, with so many iron and copper provinces, I clearly should have at least 15 by now. I started the build, but cancelled the mission because I was hoping for a mission that would give me a CB+ core someplace. Instead it was a mission to improve defenses in province X, which I started to complete. My armies had been moved over towards Persia in preperation for my attack. The next mission: University in Tver. Build started. Then... something happened, an opportunity I could not pass up. Bohemia had a weak heir. It would be almost a decade before he rose to the throne. That gave me a time table. had been working on our relations over time, so they accepted my royal marriage proposal.



And so it was. I had about 9 years to prepare. I looked at the alliance chain that would evolve if a war broke out. I figured on 300k enemy troops with Austria jumping in and all of their combined vassals and allies. I had about 220k total, about 70k of which I could put on that front without worry of invasion or revolt someplace else. It was still possible to win those odds, but I'd need to prepare the battlefield well in advance. I'd reached the ability to build level 3 forts by this time, so I started to do so all along my western border. My plan was to draw in the enemy forces and let them start sieging, then engage them one army at a time. With my peculiar dying general problem (still going on) I wasn't going to be able to win by fighting fair and free-for-all. I needed their stacks to stop moving before striking, and that would require forts that they couldn't penetrate easily.

This proces was going to take time, so I went back to my Persian invasion plan. Persia was allied with some nations I wanted to stay more or less friendly with, so I attacked their ally instead.



I forced them to break alliance with one another, then moused over Bohemia to see where I was at. *Gasp!* Their heir had died! In now said on Monarch death, personal Union with Russia. This was a problem. Unlike my previous situation, this otucome could not be predicted. Only if his king died before my Czarina would this happen, and his King was probably 20 years younger. Also, only if he had no new heir before he died would this happen, another possibility was quite a risk to wait on. I hurried my frenzy of fort building in the hope that I'd be ready in time. I also finished building the University and then got the mission to vassalize Armenia's former ally, who was now Orthodox and giving me mil access.



I had the money, but not the magistrates! It was taking too long to build all the stupid forts to level 3 that I would need built up to hold back a 300k attacking force. I hit Persia again while I waited, this time taking some of India and selecting a critical national decision.

Bah! The Spaniards! again in my way! After I wiped out the Persian Army and started moving around sieging everything, there was Spain, sieging a couple Persian provinces from the water. And of course he peaced out taking a province directly in my way. If you're not a betting man I'd say you could still place your money on another war with Spain and not consider it a gamble. (The grey province between my two groups of green provinces is Spain.)



And the mysterious illnes killing my generals, now going on for about 20 years. Not one has lived for more than 2 years. With battlefield commisions, Vetran's home, and wars all over all the time, I still can't keep tradition high because I keep spending it on generals... and still have none.



I got a boundary dispute, yay! And I actually declined. Not often, but once in a while you find a province you really just never want to own. Low population, low manpower, 1 base tax, grain. Need I say more? With my colonies reaching the East coast of Siberia, I took the oportunity of a +2 stab or +10 prestige from an advisor bonus to switch NI's. I went for shrewd commerce practices in place of colonial ventures, which combined with EITC gave me a nice boost to kick other countries out of my COT's... and keep them out. You'll see soon why that's such a big deal if you don't already. Just as my preperations for taking on the mother of all armies was getting close to completion, this!!!



As the new HRE he'd have no backing from Austria, but if I didn't move soon he'd have his own 100k ready to face me. I couldn't wait! I had armies moving in, but he was already building new stacks. I just went for it with whatever I had on hand.



I also had a time table to keep in India. No time to wait there either! I again attacked Khorasan and took some territory. Now my holdings in India were connected to the capitol, and I could pour armies down into the region.



My timing with Bohemia had turned out to be perfect. I had no generals on hand to fight his 60k army, or even a 60k army! I had called in allies, so I gathered 20k and watched. He sent a big stack up to siege in Pomerania, and another went to break a siege made by 4k from one of my vassals. I sent my stack to reinforce my vassal, using his general to give my troops a chance. It worked well. I chased the Bohemian army and it wiped. His other stack broke siege and started comming down. Again I backed up a vassal army who's general won the day, and again the Bohemian stack was wiped. Soon after the war got started, my Czarina died leaving the throne to suxalot. If I'd waited a few more months, I would have lost my claim! I never thought I'd be glad to see suxalot take the throne, but he was a he! I looked at the electors, most of whom were now Orthodox. I started sending lots of gifts all over the place! Once Bohemia fell into a PU, the HRE would change hands again. And crap me, but Burgandy attacked cleaves with a mission to vassalize. I needed my war to end before theirs or they'd have more electors voting for them. While this was ongoing, things had definitely gotten worse than I realized for England!



I'd have to do something about those uppity Irish peoples, make them give up on the Pope who didn't even live in Rome anymore! But first, I had other business to tend to. And this is a picture of that tending!



I cringed and muttered. I grumbled over what was a very long in game day, taking about 1 second of real life time. But a long second! Then it happened!



Exactly! That's what I thought too. So. I need another 150k or so troops to reach my new force limits. That will take a long time, like at least 3 months. (about 20ish arsenals atm) Burgandy has no heir and agreed to my RM proposal even with a -174 relation, go figure. My first 3 convert or die mesages were agreed to. I spent 2 magistrates to make my capitol imperial territory so I will inherit with cores. I got Imperial ban on a couple peoples. Looks like I got some work to do yet in Europe!

And... this is Russia. Getting pretty blobby now. I'm close to reaching my stated mission objectives for this AAR.