Ad augusta per angusta - a Moldavia AAR

That's because good things happends to nice guys (usually). And I'm the nicest of them all. All those that I had beheded, impaled, broken on the wheel, etc, deserved it.:unsure:

Hello and welcome to a new update.

I’ve just succeeded in my quest for westernization. But I was still half way through, because a country cannot be fully civilized without being initiated in the most modern ways of inflicting damage, pain and misery to others. So, next on the to do list, was Military Modernization. For the moment that was not possible because I didn’t meet the Centralization requirements. What was possible though, was changing the form of government to Administrative Monarchy, and this I did.
Now, that we are part of the developed world and because we are such an altruistic people, we want to let others to enjoy the benefits of civilization; and since we are so advanced and refined, while the others are not, it is our mission from God to show them the ways of the civilized man (even if they don’t want or care much about it). And who could be more suitable for such a process than a OPM nation that has nothing but a tiny army to protect them: Bosnia (we have a core in it from our previous ownership of the province). They are allied with Ukraine, guaranteed by Croatia and, being catholic, Lithuania will probably join them as the defender of the faith, but still, this war would be very one sided.
Once we’ve identified the lucky beneficiary of our philanthropic policies, all we need is arm ourselves:


I was so confident about the outcome of this war that I didn’t bother to call my allies (most important Byzantium and Denmark). And for a time it seemed I was right: war broke out in July 1612; in August Bosnia accepted annexation and Croatia soon followed in December 31, 1612, accepting peace, with them becoming orthodox, our vassal and losing all their cores. But this blitzkrieg came with a cost: I had to concentrate all my European armies in the west, while the Lithuanians and their allies (Crimeea and Nizhny Novgorod) were going loco in the east. By February 1613, when my armies finally arrived on the eastern front, it looked like this:


So I had to start the long process of taking back my provinces, but I was frequently harassed by the lithuanian armies. After one year Kanem Bornu also join the fray, DOW me in February 1614. This war was not a problem, I had them paying their way out with 250 talers, after six month and one successful siege of Timbuktu.
The Lithuanian war on the other hand was progressing very slowly. I recovered my lost provinces and conquered three of their own, but with their huge realm this was not enough for peace (I wanted Cherson), so I asked Dennmark for help and they join in, despite the fact that they were already involved in a war against Bohemia.
By November 1617 I reached the only province of Crimeea (Kouban) and made them my vassal and two month later I reached level 22 in Government tech, which gave me another idea, my choice was “Divine Supremacy” so I can get a small increase in missionary; I desperately need those with so many provinces having a different religion.
May so called “very one sided war” against Lithuania and Nizhny Novgord was still progressing very slowly, even with the Danish help. It was not until January 1620 that I managed to get the small Russian state out of the war with a white peace; even so and despite my 40+ warscore, Lithuania would not give me Cherson for peace. So I had to stability hit them from +2 to -3 with some undervalued peace offers; only after that they agreed to my condition: passing Cherson to me ( I have a core on it) and paying 175 talers. This was in June 1620 and I was hoping for a long period of peace, so I will get my manpower up and my war exhaustion down. But it was not to be: three month later, Denmark called me in their war against Bohemia, Milan & Co. I accepted and here I was at war again. After another three month, the situation looked grim:


But I was lucky (though I was also dumb). The leader of their alliance was Milan and they were in another war against Castille and trampled down by them so they offered me a whiate peace which I was more then happy to take.
As for Bohemia, I would’ve never thought they have such a big army. So I checked the ledger and got horrified: they had 190 k troops


This makes me realize that my choice for "Divine Supremacy" as my last National Idea was a mistake; as was my renouncement of the "Military Drill" idea. I should have stayed with it and choose "Grand Army" for a 33% bigger army. Changing my National Idea at this moment will cost me dearly since I need 14 months to recover one point of stability (because of all the provinces with wrong religion I own). And, since I need maximum stability for military modernization (I will meet all the requirements in 1629), changing any of my National Ideas now will be out of the question. I just hope that Bohemia will be involved in all kind of wars for a long time and forget about my existence.
Anyway, I was finally at peace, so I took the opportunity to pass two religious decisions: "Declaration of Indulgence" which increased my Stability costs by 5%, but also gave me +1 tolerance for heretics and "Act of Uniformity" with a decrease of missionary costs and +0,4 missionary/year. I also passed the "Dissolution Act" which slightly moved my slider towards Free Subjects. I also put all the missionaries I got to work, first in my European provinces and then in Africa (sending missionaries is something I will do every time I'll have one available)
At the beginning of 1622 my settlement of Serbia was finally successful and the province's culture turned romanian, followed a few month latter by Nis. This two events also gave me back a one colonist/year increase (putting me at +2 colonist/year) so I started colonizing two free provinces I've spotted on the South American coast: Sao Tome and Surinam. Immediately after my colonists arrived, I moved my National Focus to Sao Tome to speed up the colonization process.
By the mid 1623 I was at war again: Byzantium DOW Lithuania, asked for my help and I joined in. This war however was much shorter than the previous one; by the end of 1624, they accepted peace by surrendering their claims on both Bessarabia and Cherson and releasing Qara Koyonlu.
In may 1626 Alexander VII died and Constantin II took his place on the throne with Grigore as his heir


Soon after Byzantium dragged me into another war, this time against Persia and heir allies: Durani and Morocco. After three years of fighting, in 1629, Persia had to release Dulkadir for peace. While at war, Sao Tome (producing sugar) became a city, giving me access inland, to Minas Gerais. I sent one colonist to it and another two to Demerara and Cumana. Also, some of my missionaries managed to convert Oltenia and Bosnia back to orthodoxy.
Two month after the war had ended, I was finally ready for this: