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Persia all at once is something like 15 BB points. Nibble and you get the whole thing for 1 lone point. Question of style I guess.
Thanks. That was excellent advice. Unfortunately I chose another strategy and am now around 1600 (IOWs my AAR is lagging badly 
), but I guess I can perhaps do so later.
), but I guess I can perhaps do so later.
1548 to 1564; The end of the beginning.
Figthing several fronts at the same time was beginning to become the order of the day. By 1548 it was war on two seperate fronts: versus Prussia/England and versus Sibir.
No, make that three: revolts too! As I once noted in 1558 revoltrisk reached an alarming level as the battle ebbed and flowed. I'm not quite sure how warexhaustion is calculated, but obviously it's more than a function of time (in war). In 1558 Welikia could be seen to have a revoltrisk of 24%! The smallest part, actually was religion (catholic), while warexhaustion really weighed. Welikia had just been captured from PL and perhaps inherited their warehaustion? Another typical point of trouble was Astrakhan, but I was generally ignoring it since the sibir troops had a prepference of going there. I had the Astrakhan rebelcity under siege in 1548 and recaptured it, but lost it again later. As usual I didn't find the rewards for prompt rebelslaying very high.
It was a messy process in any case to battle Prussia with rebels breathing down my neck in Welikia, Kurland and Livonia (occasionally the rest of the baltic coast too). The Danzig fort was a tough nut to crack, but Danzig eventually surrendered in 1550 and as it was the only province of Prussia, Prussia was annexed. As usual I should perhaps have worried about the warnings that protestant countries were going to be alarmed about it, but at that time, getting rid of Englands waging war was more important.
The annexation of Prussia yielded our navy 2 warships and two transporters that had kept slipping away unharmed from our navalbattles. Very nice!
The next DoW came in 1551 and from an unexpected and unwelcome angle: Crimea. I know that it probably doesn't scare anyone to hear, but at this time it was an event of considerable concern. Crimea had been doing next to nothing for most of the century and had simply hoarded army. I could see about 150k in 3 armies in the borderprovinces alone.
The crimeans wasted no time and promptly invaded Donetsk with a 60+k army. A large part of this army was artillery and Donetsk surrendered within few months. The crimean army continued its' advance as did their other armies (they were delayed by terrain though).
Understand it, that at this point warexhaustion was killing me, loans were piling up and I had hurried my campaign against Prussia in order to be able to end all wars shortly after with Sibir with the gain of Irgiz. However, even with the usual help from Father Frost, it would do a lot of damage before those crimeans could be turned around.
For these reasons, I broke off from my usual stiffneck policy and accepted the crimean peacedemand for Donetsk. Donetsk was in a bad position for defending anyway and it was a small province. An affordable price to pay and a province that I planned to reconquer later. Peace was signed in 1551.
War with Sibir then continued and eventually lead to the desired peaceterms of Irgiz.....only just too late to bring me total peace.
Before the dust could settle, Poland-Lithuania were back for more rash. Allthough troubled, I was happy to accept the chance to get Tula at last. The PL effort was even more bleak than it used to and Spain did not show up with any considerable force. During this war I managed to lay siege to and conquer a number of PL cities - including their capital. They generally tried to go in the direction of Kurland, Prussia or Welikia and in general ended up fighting hordes of rebels. In the midst of the turmoil it was nice to note in 1558 that at least all nationalism had gone from the rebelplagued Kurland!
A new enemy was now ready to join the fray: Persia declared war in 1555 and dragged Portugal, Venice and the Hanseatic League with them into the battle. Apart from the HL, the allies did not interfere and the HL were shut out (except for seabattles) when I made peace with PL sometimes around 1560.
And guess what: finally Tula and Smolensk were offered! The corridor to Moscow which the PLs had used a few times (unsucessfully though) had been shut.
The persians were not at all holding back. Fortunately their attack was much complicated by a lot of revolts in Astrakhan (muslem tolerance zero) which was the provinces that connected Persia to Russia. Persia did manage to lay siege to Astrakhan and Orenburg, however.
The peace on the northern front made a difference with an increasing cashflow that even allowed me to start paying back my loans. I like to get rid of them when they are due so they don't become too costly. A few of them had allready been extended and were at 12% interest.
I think it is fair to say that the AI didn't do very well in this case. Allthough it did deploy up through my territory, it didn't actually send large enough armies so I was able to build up armies in the unsieged provinces, gather them for a counterattack and push the persians back. Russia was gifted by one leader, Kourbski, in this period, but due to the usual zig-zag DoWs, I was reluctant to send very much army from the north to the south. Perhaps the rebellions in Astrakhan cut off the AI reinforcements?
Persia did manage to capture Astrakhan, and moved their army on. Then rebels rose again and recaptured the city to Russia! Nice!
Eventually I managed to defeat their few armies which had been much reduced by attritions and counterattack into Aserbadjan, conquering the city. At that point Persia offered a white peace. A meager performance by a fairly strong enemy, but I guess they took a marginal chance when Russia was at war with PL? I accepted quickly as footsteps from a foreign diplomat carrying a DoW could almost be heard on the stairs of the Zar palace.
By 1564 Russia was in a historical situation: peace all over the empire! That was the end to about about 30 years uninterrupted war!
As peace descended upon Russia, another benefit from the failed persian attack could be harvested: Astrakhan had fallen below 5k and was converted into an orthodox province. The major troublemaker was gone.
With this outcome I had gained a favourable border to the muslim countries because there was rivers much of the way. There was still a small Sibir nation that I needed to get rid off, but I was waiting for them to do me the favour of DoWing so I hadn't to (Russia gets only 1 diplomat per year which is better spent at other tasks). In the meantime I began TPing the territories between the Caspian and Black seas. One province had chinawares, which added nicely to the Novgorod CoT.
In all, I for the first time felt confident that I was safe. With the current stregnth I had proven that I could fight off all the attacks of the kind I had seen untill then. Untill then...
Ending stats 1564:
Provinces:38 (plus TPs). Added: Eastern Prussia,Smolensk, Tula. Lost: Donetsk.
Army: 128/18/53
Navy:5/13/2
Wars: NONE!
Alliances: none
Income: 1133/y, 1 loan
Tech: 6/4/4/4
Figthing several fronts at the same time was beginning to become the order of the day. By 1548 it was war on two seperate fronts: versus Prussia/England and versus Sibir.
No, make that three: revolts too! As I once noted in 1558 revoltrisk reached an alarming level as the battle ebbed and flowed. I'm not quite sure how warexhaustion is calculated, but obviously it's more than a function of time (in war). In 1558 Welikia could be seen to have a revoltrisk of 24%! The smallest part, actually was religion (catholic), while warexhaustion really weighed. Welikia had just been captured from PL and perhaps inherited their warehaustion? Another typical point of trouble was Astrakhan, but I was generally ignoring it since the sibir troops had a prepference of going there. I had the Astrakhan rebelcity under siege in 1548 and recaptured it, but lost it again later. As usual I didn't find the rewards for prompt rebelslaying very high.
It was a messy process in any case to battle Prussia with rebels breathing down my neck in Welikia, Kurland and Livonia (occasionally the rest of the baltic coast too). The Danzig fort was a tough nut to crack, but Danzig eventually surrendered in 1550 and as it was the only province of Prussia, Prussia was annexed. As usual I should perhaps have worried about the warnings that protestant countries were going to be alarmed about it, but at that time, getting rid of Englands waging war was more important.
The annexation of Prussia yielded our navy 2 warships and two transporters that had kept slipping away unharmed from our navalbattles. Very nice!
The next DoW came in 1551 and from an unexpected and unwelcome angle: Crimea. I know that it probably doesn't scare anyone to hear, but at this time it was an event of considerable concern. Crimea had been doing next to nothing for most of the century and had simply hoarded army. I could see about 150k in 3 armies in the borderprovinces alone.
The crimeans wasted no time and promptly invaded Donetsk with a 60+k army. A large part of this army was artillery and Donetsk surrendered within few months. The crimean army continued its' advance as did their other armies (they were delayed by terrain though).
Understand it, that at this point warexhaustion was killing me, loans were piling up and I had hurried my campaign against Prussia in order to be able to end all wars shortly after with Sibir with the gain of Irgiz. However, even with the usual help from Father Frost, it would do a lot of damage before those crimeans could be turned around.
For these reasons, I broke off from my usual stiffneck policy and accepted the crimean peacedemand for Donetsk. Donetsk was in a bad position for defending anyway and it was a small province. An affordable price to pay and a province that I planned to reconquer later. Peace was signed in 1551.
War with Sibir then continued and eventually lead to the desired peaceterms of Irgiz.....only just too late to bring me total peace.
Before the dust could settle, Poland-Lithuania were back for more rash. Allthough troubled, I was happy to accept the chance to get Tula at last. The PL effort was even more bleak than it used to and Spain did not show up with any considerable force. During this war I managed to lay siege to and conquer a number of PL cities - including their capital. They generally tried to go in the direction of Kurland, Prussia or Welikia and in general ended up fighting hordes of rebels
. In the midst of the turmoil it was nice to note in 1558 that at least all nationalism had gone from the rebelplagued Kurland!A new enemy was now ready to join the fray: Persia declared war in 1555 and dragged Portugal, Venice and the Hanseatic League with them into the battle. Apart from the HL, the allies did not interfere and the HL were shut out (except for seabattles) when I made peace with PL sometimes around 1560.
And guess what: finally Tula and Smolensk were offered! The corridor to Moscow which the PLs had used a few times (unsucessfully though) had been shut.
The persians were not at all holding back. Fortunately their attack was much complicated by a lot of revolts in Astrakhan (muslem tolerance zero) which was the provinces that connected Persia to Russia. Persia did manage to lay siege to Astrakhan and Orenburg, however.
The peace on the northern front made a difference with an increasing cashflow that even allowed me to start paying back my loans. I like to get rid of them when they are due so they don't become too costly. A few of them had allready been extended and were at 12% interest.
I think it is fair to say that the AI didn't do very well in this case. Allthough it did deploy up through my territory, it didn't actually send large enough armies so I was able to build up armies in the unsieged provinces, gather them for a counterattack and push the persians back. Russia was gifted by one leader, Kourbski, in this period, but due to the usual zig-zag DoWs, I was reluctant to send very much army from the north to the south. Perhaps the rebellions in Astrakhan cut off the AI reinforcements?
Persia did manage to capture Astrakhan, and moved their army on. Then rebels rose again and recaptured the city to Russia! Nice!
Eventually I managed to defeat their few armies which had been much reduced by attritions and counterattack into Aserbadjan, conquering the city. At that point Persia offered a white peace. A meager performance by a fairly strong enemy, but I guess they took a marginal chance when Russia was at war with PL? I accepted quickly as footsteps from a foreign diplomat carrying a DoW could almost be heard on the stairs of the Zar palace.
By 1564 Russia was in a historical situation: peace all over the empire! That was the end to about about 30 years uninterrupted war!
As peace descended upon Russia, another benefit from the failed persian attack could be harvested: Astrakhan had fallen below 5k and was converted into an orthodox province. The major troublemaker was gone.
With this outcome I had gained a favourable border to the muslim countries because there was rivers much of the way. There was still a small Sibir nation that I needed to get rid off, but I was waiting for them to do me the favour of DoWing so I hadn't to (Russia gets only 1 diplomat per year which is better spent at other tasks). In the meantime I began TPing the territories between the Caspian and Black seas. One province had chinawares, which added nicely to the Novgorod CoT.
In all, I for the first time felt confident that I was safe. With the current stregnth I had proven that I could fight off all the attacks of the kind I had seen untill then. Untill then...
Ending stats 1564:
Provinces:38 (plus TPs). Added: Eastern Prussia,Smolensk, Tula. Lost: Donetsk.
Army: 128/18/53
Navy:5/13/2
Wars: NONE!
Alliances: none
Income: 1133/y, 1 loan
Tech: 6/4/4/4
Very nice outcome with Astrakhan. To repeat my earlier hint, Sibir is ROTW. You get BB points for annexing it, but none for taking it's provinces. Probably your BB is so high that it doesn't matter, but if you take all the provinces in one war and annex the capital in the next your BB is much lower. Also as it is ROTW your conquistadors can be very deadly there.
nice to be able to rebuild things. I just created an Astrakahan problem for myself. Russia, I think, has 2 great advantages: cheap infantry, and lots of colonization in Sberia.
And even at thge moment you seem to have sufficient money, which always makes solving other problems a lot easier.
And even at thge moment you seem to have sufficient money, which always makes solving other problems a lot easier.
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1569-1583 (part 1): Russian colonialism
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Before I return to the main action that also takes place during the same time, I think it may be better to cut it into two seperate theatres: Russia and it's colonial ambitions.
In 1564 I had received Strogavov, a conquistador, and by 1569 two more had followed (Mosalski and Hetman). At this point I had almost achieved the first goal of my game (to secure the russianshielded provinces) and was beginning to look seriously into the second. Partly for the task itself and partly as a way to try to secure a continued build-up of the russian economy.
The most obvious approach is of course to explore Sibiria as some of you have allready suggested. Having three conquistadors available, 2 of them were assigned to bypass Sibir and go east (after a short time exploring the area between the Caspian and Black Sea).
There's nothing much to tell about that during this period as it was simply a matter of wading through lots of low agression unowned provinces (they do attack occasionally though). No matter the size (so it seems), the expeditions would always be decimated into a <1k size within a few years. So reinforcements had to be brought forward and THAT is bulky. Lots of native attacks.
AFAIK provinceressources are fixed, right? Well, midways through Siberia there is Angarra, which has gold. It was therefore a natural ambition for a greedy Zar to give a colony in that territory toppriority and a chain of TPs were therefore building in that direction. This process took years, but eventually - in 1573 - Angara was colonised.
The last conquistador, Hetman, was send to the Baltic coast to embark on some ships headed for Africa. An absurd idea, I guess, but none of the seacharts I had conquered had revealed any seaway to Americas and nothing more of Africa (AFAIR) than I allready knew. So the only possible option was to head for westafrica and land in Tassaret.
Doing so at naval tech 4 was a questionable task. I had been testing the approach in adavance and discovered that attrition would be positive allready before Hetman had entered the North Sea. Really bad news. Russia had no allies and even if it had had, it did not have a war so there was no resupply option on the way.
Lost ships were to be expected, but the exact extend could hardly be foreseen so Hetmans expedition was going beyond 'point-of-no-return' without knowing if he could actually make it. Men of the right stuff!
Initially I had just 2 transports and had expected it to be enough together with a few warships. Now there was no war, however so sending along warships to certain shipwrecking seemed awfully wastefull. Therefore I build 2 more transporters and increased Hetmans expedition to 4k, a disposition that was later to prevent a small disaster.
Hetmans expedition seemed to sail awfully slow and spent like 2-3 years on getting from my westernmost port to the Sea of Canarias. The debarkment also lasted months - or so it felt. Eventually Hetman landed in Tassaret, which was unoccupied and, looking over his shoulder, he could see the last of the 4 transporters sink into the Sea of Canarias barely a week after he had landed. Hetmans expedition was down to some 2.5k. A colony was set up at Tassaret with the purpose of getting a port there....unfortunately Hetman hadn't really surveyed the area: Tassaret has no usable location for a port!
The only possible solution was to move on to the neighbouring Nouadibuh (spelling?) and set up a harbour there, which was done.
That was an investment of app. 3k men (9d), 4 transporters (88d) and two colonies (230d at least), in all about 320d and what did Russia gain by that? Nothing much, really. The trade value of the slaves that those two colonies hold are very low and the natives that were present in one of the provinces sacrificed themselves into a hopeless attack against Hetman.
But at least Russia did get a port to use for resupplying mission around Africa and to India? No! A stupid newbie mistake had made me overlook the fact that Hetmans exploration would not reveal the seazones of the coastal provinces as I had expected. Hence when he reached Louga, his way was blocked by a portugese colony and no russian fleet could enter the incognita seazones nearby. If there had been a fleet, that is. Hetmans ships had sunk off the coast of Tassaret so he couldn't go back!
I guess it's a typical newbie mistake to overextend like that and trying to colonise in every direction. Those 300-400d might have been better spent in the short run on the siberian area? I see the same 'mistake' in the PL AAR too, though ofc, PL doesn't normally have the alternative of going and colonsing Sibiria instead.
Sitting in Tassaret without options to go back or to get reinforcements, Hetman had time to think things over. His thinking came to an end when the portugese attacked Tassaret in 1572. By that time his force - after having explored down to Louga - had shrunk to 1.5k and the portugese were attacking with a force of similar size, though with half being cavalry.
However, the initial battle was with debarking portugese troops so they probably lost due to a beaching penalty? In any case, Hetman prevailed, suffereing little more than a few hundred casualties. If I had stuck to the original expeditionsize of 2k, Hetman would have been killed and the colonies lost - ie. 400d down the drain.
In ½ a year or so the portugese would alternate between fleeing to Nouadibuh and attack back into Tassaret untill they were eventually completely destroyed.
The background for the portugese attack is explained in part II....
---------------------------------------------------
Before I return to the main action that also takes place during the same time, I think it may be better to cut it into two seperate theatres: Russia and it's colonial ambitions.
In 1564 I had received Strogavov, a conquistador, and by 1569 two more had followed (Mosalski and Hetman). At this point I had almost achieved the first goal of my game (to secure the russianshielded provinces) and was beginning to look seriously into the second. Partly for the task itself and partly as a way to try to secure a continued build-up of the russian economy.
The most obvious approach is of course to explore Sibiria as some of you have allready suggested. Having three conquistadors available, 2 of them were assigned to bypass Sibir and go east (after a short time exploring the area between the Caspian and Black Sea).
There's nothing much to tell about that during this period as it was simply a matter of wading through lots of low agression unowned provinces (they do attack occasionally though). No matter the size (so it seems), the expeditions would always be decimated into a <1k size within a few years. So reinforcements had to be brought forward and THAT is bulky. Lots of native attacks.
AFAIK provinceressources are fixed, right? Well, midways through Siberia there is Angarra, which has gold. It was therefore a natural ambition for a greedy Zar to give a colony in that territory toppriority and a chain of TPs were therefore building in that direction. This process took years, but eventually - in 1573 - Angara was colonised.
The last conquistador, Hetman, was send to the Baltic coast to embark on some ships headed for Africa. An absurd idea, I guess, but none of the seacharts I had conquered had revealed any seaway to Americas and nothing more of Africa (AFAIR) than I allready knew. So the only possible option was to head for westafrica and land in Tassaret.
Doing so at naval tech 4 was a questionable task. I had been testing the approach in adavance and discovered that attrition would be positive allready before Hetman had entered the North Sea. Really bad news. Russia had no allies and even if it had had, it did not have a war so there was no resupply option on the way.
Lost ships were to be expected, but the exact extend could hardly be foreseen so Hetmans expedition was going beyond 'point-of-no-return' without knowing if he could actually make it. Men of the right stuff!
Initially I had just 2 transports and had expected it to be enough together with a few warships. Now there was no war, however so sending along warships to certain shipwrecking seemed awfully wastefull. Therefore I build 2 more transporters and increased Hetmans expedition to 4k, a disposition that was later to prevent a small disaster.
Hetmans expedition seemed to sail awfully slow and spent like 2-3 years on getting from my westernmost port to the Sea of Canarias. The debarkment also lasted months - or so it felt. Eventually Hetman landed in Tassaret, which was unoccupied and, looking over his shoulder, he could see the last of the 4 transporters sink into the Sea of Canarias barely a week after he had landed. Hetmans expedition was down to some 2.5k. A colony was set up at Tassaret with the purpose of getting a port there....unfortunately Hetman hadn't really surveyed the area: Tassaret has no usable location for a port!
The only possible solution was to move on to the neighbouring Nouadibuh (spelling?) and set up a harbour there, which was done.
That was an investment of app. 3k men (9d), 4 transporters (88d) and two colonies (230d at least), in all about 320d and what did Russia gain by that? Nothing much, really. The trade value of the slaves that those two colonies hold are very low and the natives that were present in one of the provinces sacrificed themselves into a hopeless attack against Hetman.
But at least Russia did get a port to use for resupplying mission around Africa and to India? No!
A stupid newbie mistake had made me overlook the fact that Hetmans exploration would not reveal the seazones of the coastal provinces as I had expected. Hence when he reached Louga, his way was blocked by a portugese colony and no russian fleet could enter the incognita seazones nearby. If there had been a fleet, that is. Hetmans ships had sunk off the coast of Tassaret so he couldn't go back! I guess it's a typical newbie mistake to overextend like that and trying to colonise in every direction. Those 300-400d might have been better spent in the short run on the siberian area? I see the same 'mistake' in the PL AAR too, though ofc, PL doesn't normally have the alternative of going and colonsing Sibiria instead.
Sitting in Tassaret without options to go back or to get reinforcements, Hetman had time to think things over. His thinking came to an end when the portugese attacked Tassaret in 1572. By that time his force - after having explored down to Louga - had shrunk to 1.5k and the portugese were attacking with a force of similar size, though with half being cavalry.
However, the initial battle was with debarking portugese troops so they probably lost due to a beaching penalty? In any case, Hetman prevailed, suffereing little more than a few hundred casualties. If I had stuck to the original expeditionsize of 2k, Hetman would have been killed and the colonies lost - ie. 400d down the drain.
In ½ a year or so the portugese would alternate between fleeing to Nouadibuh and attack back into Tassaret untill they were eventually completely destroyed.
The background for the portugese attack is explained in part II....
If you send transports to the coloy one at a time they will all get there intact. You could then put to see, board the ships, return to Russia through the colony and get your Conq back home. A 16th century Dunkirk. Although the colony will be useful when you get explorers and higher naval tech I suspect it will be enemy occupied by then.
Why would the transporters get there intact if I send them one at a time? I exactly grouped them because I had experienced that singleship fleets were sunk alltogether. That way the cargo is lost whereas if there are more ships, they drop off one at a time and the cargo remains (albeit reduced).
????????
????????
The percentage loss is the same regardless of how many ships there are. This means that one ship can go further than two ships before losing the FIRST ship. The second ship in the other expedition would still make it further than the single ship, but because with one ship it's all or nothing you can go further loss free. Basically the first ship in the two ship expedition will be lost when the accumulated attrition reaches 50%, but a single ship can go on beyond that (I think it's around 90%, but I'm not sure). The second ship on the 2 ship would then get to accumulated attrition 95%.
But this still means that you need to group if you want your cargo to survive? Or else it will be a gamble which ship to put your conquistador in. It probably also means that if it is a long-range expedition that one ships isn't expected to survive, the group needs to be at least 3 ships (if a fleet of 2 performs just as well as a single ship).
Btw.: what's the risk galleys will sink in open oceans? I was considering if it might be worth it throwing a number of those into a hazardous expedition and let them take a big part of the losses. They're cheap after all.
If you send the ships one at a time either they will ALL make it, or they will all die of attrition. So when you have the conquistador you will want to have a fair number of ships with him to ensure that he gets there. And 2 ships perform better than 1 ship, they can take twice the accumulated attrition. But the first ship dies pretty quickly, and the second gets the extra range.
I don't think galleys will help in the Russian Dunkirk. I don't know exactly, but I think the whole force suffers the extreme attrition until the galleys die.
I don't think galleys will help in the Russian Dunkirk. I don't know exactly, but I think the whole force suffers the extreme attrition until the galleys die.
One ship at a time won't help you for D-Day. Only Dunkirk, as carried army losses are the same regardless of how many ships are in the fleet (until the last ship sinks at which point everyone dies.
1569-1585 (part 2); The final test of the empirestatus
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In 1570 the polish prince once again loses his head and declares war on Russia. Bookmakers' odds of a polish win is 1:200.
There's absolutely no mercy and war against PL has become standard procedure for the russian armies that are stationed all along the russo-polish border. Each army has an assignment in the event of a war so it's merely a question of moving them there and await the result. As last time, an important part of the counterattack is to conquer their capital, Masovia.
This time, however, there is a special mission of importance too: to capture Danzig and thus cut off the only acces PL has to the Baltic. That way there will hardly be need for worries about a PL navy again. They do have the province of Bessarabia near the Black Sea, but it's a small risk that they'd consider sending fleet all the way from down there.
During this campaign PL has just 2 warships in the Baltic that the russian navy battles several times, but with no particular success.
Allthough the siege against Danzig takes quite a while, the victory is never endangered. Peaceterms in 1571 have 6 russian stars so PL is more or less forced to accept our offer for just Danzig. This offer was made to avoid the endless prolongation like when I wanted Tula.
Russia had sort of things under control by this time and had ia. TP'ed enough to the east to be able to establish a colony in Angara - a goldrich province somewhat into Siberia.
As the overall situation appeared to be relaxed, the quest of taking the last two Sibir provinces (Kurgan and...forgot. The one east of Kurgan) had been postponed untill later. The urge to establish colonies further east was stronger.
Then, something odd happened. Turkey declared war on PL the same year of our peace and the turkish allies followed suite. Very nice! Russias enemies were going to wear eachother down - especially PL would no doubt go down. Russian investments went into the colonisationdrive.
Then, in 1572, Turkey declared war on Russia! What the...? A voluntary twofront war? What had Russia done to annoy the turks? Was this a holy war perhaps?
Shortly after a declaration of war from Persia and its' allies followed. Former ardent enemies Turkey and Persia now sided in the war against Russia.
And what do you know - Sibir also exploited the opportunity to declare war.
Despite standard defense doctrines, most of the border to PL was now emptied for armies that were assembled in larger groups which were to drive south to defend against the muslim hordes.
The war itself was not a big deal. Apparantly Turkey let its' allies do most of the fighting as the majority of enemies to arrive on russian soil was crimean, iraqi or cyraennican. The turks were mostly busy fighting the polish in Bessarabia and northwards. The only gain Turkey made readily was the destruction of russian tradeposts in ia. Karakum (chinaware).
Russian troops had been build in the south for holding purposes and were mostly defeated in the southern provinces by invading muslims (including a 15k size army in Astrakhan) while northern armies - with artillery - were redeploying to the south.
By 1574 they were engaged in the fighting and made some progress, but then to the dismay of the russians, PL made peace with Turkey for 1 province.
That disappointment was only slightly aggrevated when PL later the same year declared war on Russia. But it was to be dwarfed by the real disaster when in 1574 also Sweden declared war!
Thus by 1574 Russia was at war with the following countries: Turkey (Crmiea, Cyrennaica, Algeria)
Persia, (Iraq, Portugal, Venice)
Poland-Lithuania (Spain, Hanseatic League)
Sibir
Sweden
Fortunately both Denmark and Pskov dishonoured their alliance with Sweden. That was actually something rather encouraging because an alliance with Denmark had long been desired for strategical reasons.
This situation called for some serious strategic priorities as it was clearly impossible to defend or counterattack everyone. Usually my inferior tech had been outweighed by my ability to field larger armies than my enemy and to outmaneuver the rather rigid AI with corearmies at strategic positions.
However using this strategy on 3 or 4 fronts (if one calculates Sibir as a seperate one) would be impossible. There just wasn't the ressources for it.
The chosen strategy was to try and close down one front at the time in order to narrow the area of conflict as quickly as possible.
PL was weak as ever and no spaniards showed up. The HL ran head-on towards Prussia, but since that was an attack across a river, they suffered many casualties to locally recruited troops. I think control of Prussia did actually go to HL at some point, but I have no note of it.
The usual way of securing a favourable outcome to the war by counterattacking and grabbing enemy provinces was kind of impossible in the south. My forces were more or less spent at defending and the artillery I had was mostly concentrated in one army that operated against PL in order to capture Chernigov, Krementjug and Masovia (in order to gain the two former in a peace).
After the muslims had been beaten back from Astrakhan and other locations (like Samara) where they had penetrated, russian forces managed to cross over to Aszerbadjan and capture that province. That immediately helped turning conditions into the russian favor and a white peace was concluded with both Turkey and Persia. A white peace was also signed with Sibir for the sake of simplicity.
As mentioned above, Portugal used the opportunity to attack Tassaret, but in vain. So the russian colonies survived this war at least.
So by 1582 the war had been reduced to a northern theatre war of which no doubt only the swedish offered any substantial resistance.
The swedes started the war by invading Ingermanland and capturing it after about a year. Their army was not so large in itself (30k), but it had 80+ cannons and the usual, pesky swedish invincibility. Counterattacks with numerically superior forces were all beaten off and actually to an extend where they were later unable to defend when the swedish moved on to Novogorod.
Loosing Novgorod would be a big disadvantage since that province was not only rich in taxes, but also held the only russian CoT where the russians also had a monopoly.
Eventually a large army - 33k - was recruited in Moscow and the army with the russian artillery was released from the PL frontier (after having completed the conquest of the three mentioned provinces and replaced with smaller holding units).
Losses in any kind of counterattack were alarmingly high and as usual wintertimes did a better job than the russian army. It was a race against time with the fortifications of Novgorod crumbling fast while the russians waited for the Moscow army to train to strong status (the PL-front army wouldn't make it in time since it was slow with all that artillery).
Eventually the counterattack was made and allthough it failed, it was enough to convince the swedes to retire from a Novogrod with red walls. Their army then passed on to Vologda (just NE) which was undefeded and without a fort.
The decisive action had now been fought. What reamined was a question of reaching acceptabel peaceterms and that was to take very long. As swedish troops marched uncontested through unfortified provinces of Karelia, Far Karelia and Kola, their peacedemands were always for at least 3 provinces - something which was unacceptable to the russians.
The swedish effectively had one army which the russians couldn't match (the one with artillery). So wherever that went, the russians had to avoid. That led to a lot of sideaction with smaller armies fighting for control of unfortified provinces.
Eventually the russian PL-army arrived and was ordered into Savolaks in order to capture the province and even out peaceterms. It proved to be exceptionally hard and never succeeded - that province under siege only accomodates about 6 enemy (it's a swamp) so attrition losses were high.
Fresh recruits - including artillery - were to take back Ingermanland while the PL-army screened reinforcements from interfering. The third army - originally build in Moscow - had a tough time against the big swedish army that usually camped out in Vologda. It constantly had to be reinfrced to be of any competitive capability.
Eventually the swedes were forced to retreat from Vologda, allthough regrettably they incurred almost no losses to their artillery - despite several attempts that included cavalryattcaks.
In 1583, with Ingermanland and all other russian provinces reconquered and with minor victories in Savolaks and Nyland (though no province captured) plus minor naval victories, Sweden was finally ready to enter a peace for 0 dukats. By this time I had learned to do defensive peacenegotiations when cash was used up and offensive ones just after newyear. It seems that if the enemy wants money for peace, they will settle with what ever you have left. So if you have 500 left, that's what the peace will cost. If you have 0, then you get a peace for 0d (not a 'white peace' offer allthough those two hardly differ in reality).
It should be added to the explanation of these - compared to earlier - very modest peaceterms, that warexhaustion was really beginning to be felt after 10 years of war.
E.g. in 1583 at one point there were rebellions in the following provinces:Belarussia, Tula, Estonia, Livonia, Kurland, Memel, Prussia and Danzig. A bit of religious and nationalistic unrest made these the typical provinces of rebellion allthough others popped up occasionally.
By 1584 PL agreed to peace, ceeding Chernigov and Krementjug and finally in 1585 the Hanseatic League agreed to a 0d peace.
The peaceresolution with Sweden was promptly followed up by a turkish DoW on Sweden btw. Not that it had ever any consequences for Russia though.
These 12 years of war was a kind of final test that Russia was able to defend its' empire even against rather hopeless odds. The muslim holy war had never posed a really big threat, but had done much damage to the economy in many provinces anyway. In the process of this war, Russia had been forced to take two loans.
I made a status in 1582 to see what the fairly large losses I felt I had sustained, amounted to. It was somewhat depressing to see that by far the largest part of my losses had been due to attrition. Is this ratio normal?
Losses (in k) combat/all
------------------------------
Army: 600/1.900
Cavalry: 60/250
Arty: 4/293
Navy: 30/36
Ending stats 1582:
------------------------
Provinces: 42 (added Angara, Krementjug and Chernigov)
Army: 220/8/86
Navy: 5/4/1
Income: 1080/y
Loans: 2
Tech: 7/4/4/4
Stability: 1 (can't remember what reduced it).
---------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1570 the polish prince once again loses his head and declares war on Russia. Bookmakers' odds of a polish win is 1:200.
There's absolutely no mercy and war against PL has become standard procedure for the russian armies that are stationed all along the russo-polish border. Each army has an assignment in the event of a war so it's merely a question of moving them there and await the result. As last time, an important part of the counterattack is to conquer their capital, Masovia.
This time, however, there is a special mission of importance too: to capture Danzig and thus cut off the only acces PL has to the Baltic. That way there will hardly be need for worries about a PL navy again. They do have the province of Bessarabia near the Black Sea, but it's a small risk that they'd consider sending fleet all the way from down there.
During this campaign PL has just 2 warships in the Baltic that the russian navy battles several times, but with no particular success.
Allthough the siege against Danzig takes quite a while, the victory is never endangered. Peaceterms in 1571 have 6 russian stars so PL is more or less forced to accept our offer for just Danzig. This offer was made to avoid the endless prolongation like when I wanted Tula.
Russia had sort of things under control by this time and had ia. TP'ed enough to the east to be able to establish a colony in Angara - a goldrich province somewhat into Siberia.
As the overall situation appeared to be relaxed, the quest of taking the last two Sibir provinces (Kurgan and...forgot. The one east of Kurgan) had been postponed untill later. The urge to establish colonies further east was stronger.
Then, something odd happened. Turkey declared war on PL the same year of our peace and the turkish allies followed suite. Very nice! Russias enemies were going to wear eachother down - especially PL would no doubt go down. Russian investments went into the colonisationdrive.
Then, in 1572, Turkey declared war on Russia! What the...? A voluntary twofront war? What had Russia done to annoy the turks? Was this a holy war perhaps?
Shortly after a declaration of war from Persia and its' allies followed. Former ardent enemies Turkey and Persia now sided in the war against Russia.
And what do you know - Sibir also exploited the opportunity to declare war.
Despite standard defense doctrines, most of the border to PL was now emptied for armies that were assembled in larger groups which were to drive south to defend against the muslim hordes.
The war itself was not a big deal. Apparantly Turkey let its' allies do most of the fighting as the majority of enemies to arrive on russian soil was crimean, iraqi or cyraennican. The turks were mostly busy fighting the polish in Bessarabia and northwards. The only gain Turkey made readily was the destruction of russian tradeposts in ia. Karakum (chinaware).
Russian troops had been build in the south for holding purposes and were mostly defeated in the southern provinces by invading muslims (including a 15k size army in Astrakhan) while northern armies - with artillery - were redeploying to the south.
By 1574 they were engaged in the fighting and made some progress, but then to the dismay of the russians, PL made peace with Turkey for 1 province.
That disappointment was only slightly aggrevated when PL later the same year declared war on Russia. But it was to be dwarfed by the real disaster when in 1574 also Sweden declared war!
Thus by 1574 Russia was at war with the following countries: Turkey (Crmiea, Cyrennaica, Algeria)
Persia, (Iraq, Portugal, Venice)
Poland-Lithuania (Spain, Hanseatic League)
Sibir
Sweden
Fortunately both Denmark and Pskov dishonoured their alliance with Sweden. That was actually something rather encouraging because an alliance with Denmark had long been desired for strategical reasons.
This situation called for some serious strategic priorities as it was clearly impossible to defend or counterattack everyone. Usually my inferior tech had been outweighed by my ability to field larger armies than my enemy and to outmaneuver the rather rigid AI with corearmies at strategic positions.
However using this strategy on 3 or 4 fronts (if one calculates Sibir as a seperate one) would be impossible. There just wasn't the ressources for it.
The chosen strategy was to try and close down one front at the time in order to narrow the area of conflict as quickly as possible.
PL was weak as ever and no spaniards showed up. The HL ran head-on towards Prussia, but since that was an attack across a river, they suffered many casualties to locally recruited troops. I think control of Prussia did actually go to HL at some point, but I have no note of it.
The usual way of securing a favourable outcome to the war by counterattacking and grabbing enemy provinces was kind of impossible in the south. My forces were more or less spent at defending and the artillery I had was mostly concentrated in one army that operated against PL in order to capture Chernigov, Krementjug and Masovia (in order to gain the two former in a peace).
After the muslims had been beaten back from Astrakhan and other locations (like Samara) where they had penetrated, russian forces managed to cross over to Aszerbadjan and capture that province. That immediately helped turning conditions into the russian favor and a white peace was concluded with both Turkey and Persia. A white peace was also signed with Sibir for the sake of simplicity.
As mentioned above, Portugal used the opportunity to attack Tassaret, but in vain. So the russian colonies survived this war at least.
So by 1582 the war had been reduced to a northern theatre war of which no doubt only the swedish offered any substantial resistance.
The swedes started the war by invading Ingermanland and capturing it after about a year. Their army was not so large in itself (30k), but it had 80+ cannons and the usual, pesky swedish invincibility. Counterattacks with numerically superior forces were all beaten off and actually to an extend where they were later unable to defend when the swedish moved on to Novogorod.
Loosing Novgorod would be a big disadvantage since that province was not only rich in taxes, but also held the only russian CoT where the russians also had a monopoly.
Eventually a large army - 33k - was recruited in Moscow and the army with the russian artillery was released from the PL frontier (after having completed the conquest of the three mentioned provinces and replaced with smaller holding units).
Losses in any kind of counterattack were alarmingly high and as usual wintertimes did a better job than the russian army. It was a race against time with the fortifications of Novgorod crumbling fast while the russians waited for the Moscow army to train to strong status (the PL-front army wouldn't make it in time since it was slow with all that artillery).
Eventually the counterattack was made and allthough it failed, it was enough to convince the swedes to retire from a Novogrod with red walls. Their army then passed on to Vologda (just NE) which was undefeded and without a fort.
The decisive action had now been fought. What reamined was a question of reaching acceptabel peaceterms and that was to take very long. As swedish troops marched uncontested through unfortified provinces of Karelia, Far Karelia and Kola, their peacedemands were always for at least 3 provinces - something which was unacceptable to the russians.
The swedish effectively had one army which the russians couldn't match (the one with artillery). So wherever that went, the russians had to avoid. That led to a lot of sideaction with smaller armies fighting for control of unfortified provinces.
Eventually the russian PL-army arrived and was ordered into Savolaks in order to capture the province and even out peaceterms. It proved to be exceptionally hard and never succeeded - that province under siege only accomodates about 6 enemy (it's a swamp) so attrition losses were high.
Fresh recruits - including artillery - were to take back Ingermanland while the PL-army screened reinforcements from interfering. The third army - originally build in Moscow - had a tough time against the big swedish army that usually camped out in Vologda. It constantly had to be reinfrced to be of any competitive capability.
Eventually the swedes were forced to retreat from Vologda, allthough regrettably they incurred almost no losses to their artillery - despite several attempts that included cavalryattcaks.
In 1583, with Ingermanland and all other russian provinces reconquered and with minor victories in Savolaks and Nyland (though no province captured) plus minor naval victories, Sweden was finally ready to enter a peace for 0 dukats. By this time I had learned to do defensive peacenegotiations when cash was used up and offensive ones just after newyear. It seems that if the enemy wants money for peace, they will settle with what ever you have left. So if you have 500 left, that's what the peace will cost. If you have 0, then you get a peace for 0d (not a 'white peace' offer allthough those two hardly differ in reality).
It should be added to the explanation of these - compared to earlier - very modest peaceterms, that warexhaustion was really beginning to be felt after 10 years of war.
E.g. in 1583 at one point there were rebellions in the following provinces:Belarussia, Tula, Estonia, Livonia, Kurland, Memel, Prussia and Danzig. A bit of religious and nationalistic unrest made these the typical provinces of rebellion allthough others popped up occasionally.
By 1584 PL agreed to peace, ceeding Chernigov and Krementjug and finally in 1585 the Hanseatic League agreed to a 0d peace.
The peaceresolution with Sweden was promptly followed up by a turkish DoW on Sweden btw. Not that it had ever any consequences for Russia though.
These 12 years of war was a kind of final test that Russia was able to defend its' empire even against rather hopeless odds. The muslim holy war had never posed a really big threat, but had done much damage to the economy in many provinces anyway. In the process of this war, Russia had been forced to take two loans.
I made a status in 1582 to see what the fairly large losses I felt I had sustained, amounted to. It was somewhat depressing to see that by far the largest part of my losses had been due to attrition. Is this ratio normal?
Losses (in k) combat/all
------------------------------
Army: 600/1.900
Cavalry: 60/250
Arty: 4/293
Navy: 30/36
Ending stats 1582:
------------------------
Provinces: 42 (added Angara, Krementjug and Chernigov)
Army: 220/8/86
Navy: 5/4/1
Income: 1080/y
Loans: 2
Tech: 7/4/4/4
Stability: 1 (can't remember what reduced it).