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A Tale of Two City-States: A Venetian-Novgorodan AAR

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Hello all.

After a brief foray back into MTW2 (still playing, but only MP) I've come back to the breath of fresh air that is EU3.

I really enjoyed reading the multi-country aars by Storey and Anldriq and thought I'd try one myself. I'll be playing Novgorod and Venice, partly because they both have unification goals (Russia and Italy), and partly because they're big enough I can hope the AI doesn't kill them off early when I'm not playing them.

Other than country unification events, I don't have too many set goals for either. I may come up with some criteria for designating a winner at the end of the AAR (country ranking, maybe?).

Basic rules:

-Vanilla NA, all settings to normal.

-I'll alternate between them at ten year intervals, starting with Novgorod.

-This will mostly be a gameplay aar, although I may slip into bad narrative from time to time. :p

-If anyone has any suggestions for goals to evaluate their progress by, I'd be happy to hear them.

Anyway, I'll be starting the game up in a little while here, and hopefully will have the first real post with screenshots up in the next day.
 
This will be interesting, what will you do after you unify both countries?
 
That's a very good question, the answer to which I haven't quite figured out.

I'm thinking of trying to conquer territory roughly corresponding to modern Russia for my Novgorodan game.

With Venice I'm a bit less sure. It might be interesting to revive Venetian territorial interests in Greece and the Mediterranean islands. I could make a mini Roman Empire stretching from Italy to Constantinople.

I'm open to suggestions, though. :)

Note: This will be my first experience with the 2.1 patch. It will be interesting to see what's changed since I last played.
 
I'm pretty bad with merchants, but if someone can come up with some trade-related goal, I'll give it a try. Maybe going after set COTs? I'm thinking post-unification COT number 1 for both could be Constantinople. :)

Anyway, the new patch is installed so it's off for Novgorod's first turn!

I'll try to get the first update for the turn up tonight.
 
Novgorod: 1453-1463

Alright, after one power outage and a first attempt at playing the Novgorodan turn cut short by a massive invasion by all neighbors, I came back to attempt number two looking for blood.

I have two targets. Tver, which was the first faction to DOW me in the failed game, and Moscowy (I can't help but think that w should be a v, but it isn't in the game), who had followed them into the fray with their massive armies. Only after Moscowy wrecked my armies did my other neighbors close in on me like jackals.

Since Moscowy is by far the bigger threat, I start my game by DOWing them, putting me a -3 stability. I know they begin with two of the best starting generals in the game, and a much higher manpower pool than I do, so I abandon my customary cautiousness regarding inflation and mint 100%. It suddenly strikes me that Novgorod makes a lot of money each month. I know this may seem obvious, but their end of year tax didn't strike me as all that great for the country's size. Apparently tolls from the COT and some decent production resources more than makes up for it. Despite training some 20,000+ troops for the war, over half expensive mercs, I never lose money each month.

I queue up new troops in most of my provinces, as well as hiring a ton of mercs, and close in on Moscowy, only pausing briefly to accept an offer to join the Hanseatic League.



I kind of saw my move on them as quixotic, but I'm pleasantly surprised to see Moscow sending their main armies after my fairly worthless eastern territories, not even connected to my capital. Without facing an army larger than a couple thousand men, I quickly take two of their provinces, including Moscow itself. My main force moves east to Vladimir, defeating a decent sized force led by one of their better generals with the help of a few lucky dice rolls, while a large merc army takes their western provinces. Pretty soon, I have taken all of their provinces, while they've only successfully assaulted my three easternmost ones. I manage to vassalize them and get three provinces out of the peace deal, including Vladimir, a requirement for forming Russia. All within three years of starting the game.





After that victory, Novgorod is starting to look a bit more like a proper country, with shorter borders. I spend most of the next years trying to recover my stab, hiring a couple advisors to help with it, and even investing in stability. I get my first national idea, and decide to g for a military one, Military Drill. I figure with so many planned enemies around, my men can use the extra morale. Rebellions seem to be much more serious in 2.1, and I have to keep arm maintainance at full to be able to take out the large (4,000-10,000) rebellions in my new territories.

I get an unexpected opportunity when Tver attacks my ally Yaroslavl in my verylast year of Novgorod's turn. I gladly join the war at no stab hit and vassalize Tver. Hopefully it's only a matter of time before they and Moscow are diploannexed, then I'll only need one more city to form Russia (problem is, it's help by Lithuania :wacko: ).





Novgorod is left in 1463 in pretty good shape, having grown by some 30% and gained two vassals, as well as having 102 Ducats in the bank and slowly filling up the merchant pool at Novgorod itself.

A parting pic of Novgorod, with the map in diplomatic mode.



Thus ends installment one. Comments and criticism are appreciated.

Next update I'm off to see how much the AI has screwed up Venice!

Edit: Would anyone prefer if I did the AAR as a narrative rather than a gameplay AAR?
 
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Very good start,I would have rather built up economy and then when had a casus belli attacked muscowy but it seems your rather more brutal method did the trick :D .As for your coming war with lithuania good luck.
 
Truth be told, I'm usually not a very aggressive player in these games. But after taking it slow on my first try and being ganged up on my all my neighbors, I felt a little revenge was in order on try 2. :D

jambojones said:
Very good start,I would have rather built up economy and then when had a casus belli attacked muscowy but it seems your rather more brutal method did the trick :D .As for your coming war with lithuania good luck.
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Good to see you back Zimfan! Intreresting choice of countries. Both are trading countries, do you plan to keep them that way? You'll probably have to, as the AI seems to steer you in that direction.
 
Russia and Italy as merchant republics would be very different and cool.
 
safferli: Thanks! After completing that period where I did nothing but play EU3 game night and day, then needed a break from it, I think I'm ready to keep a steady presence here.

My wife picks out the countries for me in these games (I find it means I can play more :p ) but I usually offer a few suggestions for her to choose from. Venice and Novgorod made the list because as AI countries they tend to do reasonably well in my games. I'll probably keep them as trading countries, and eventually plan on taking Constantinople with one of them (I'm thinking of making the game a race to unification, then Constantinople).

spl: Yeah, with half of Moscow's territories taken, and their being vassalized, I feel a bit better. Luckily I have decent relations with the Order, and gave them military access, but we'll see. It's not like that often stops the AI from attacking, and I hear it's more aggressive in 2.1.

rcduggan: I think that's the plan for now. I'm not great with merchants, but I think I can get each to dominate their COT, and hopefully more after.
 
Zimfan said:
My wife picks out the countries for me in these games (I find it means I can play more :p ) but I usually offer a few suggestions for her to choose from. Venice and Novgorod made the list because as AI countries they tend to do reasonably well in my games. I'll probably keep them as trading countries, and eventually plan on taking Constantinople with one of them (I'm thinking of making the game a race to unification, then Constantinople).

spl: Yeah, with half of Moscow's territories taken, and their being vassalized, I feel a bit better. Luckily I have decent relations with the Order, and gave them military access, but we'll see. It's not like that often stops the AI from attacking, and I hear it's more aggressive in 2.1.
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I barely ever see Novgorod do well, since you have no need to worry about the Teutonic order then I suppose Crimea or Sibr are some nice looking targets.
 
spl said:
I barely ever see Novgorod do well, since you have no need to worry about the Teutonic order then I suppose Crimea or Sibr are some nice looking targets.
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They usually survive in my games, but rarely get very big. With Moscow cut down to size so early, we'll see if I can change that. I think once I consolidate the Russian culture groups, I'll start looking south at Crimea.

Speaking of the Order, I'm going to read a few more chapters of that Teutonic Order AAR on the front page, then play the Venetian turn.
 
Zimfan said:
Is anyone else as shocked by my thickness at not realizing that with these two particular factions I could have carried the joke in the title further by making it "A Tale of Two Cities"? :eek:o
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You can always pm coz1 to get the thread title changed. ;)
 
A tale of two city-states, no less.

Interesting...two of the most eminent merchant-republics of Europe, guided by the same destiny...
 
That was a quick and good start against Muscowy, it's a matter of time before you trigger the event, expanding east will be more difficult.
 
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