Anybody tried to survive as a Livonian Order?

[Maerd]

Livonian Order is a very hard start because it's located right between Moscovy, Denmark/Sweden/Norway monster conglomerate, Poland, and Lithuania and all of them will want your land within the first 50 years after the start.

So, I tried several times and got brutally butchered by surrounding powers but finally managed to survive initial onslaught... Here are my thoughts:

1. The game suggests you to ally with Teutonic Order. While it's historically correct, in the game it's a death sentence. Most of the surrounding nations declare Teutonic Order as a rival meaning you won't have other allies and you're doomed. Better rival it too and delay the everybody ganging up on you event. TO won't attack you because their hands will be full.
2. Denmark with its unions with Sweden and Norway will eventually want Ösel via a mission and will come for your Livonian soul even if their relations to you are above +160 but the first action of the game should be improving relations with it to form a temporary alliance to make sure Lithuania won't attack you.
3. Improve relations with Poland and ally with it because even if Lithuania wants your blood it is destined to be PUd by Poland and by the time Poland will want your territory it's already your ally and you should keep it busy with wars to make sure they won't get some interesting ideas about your land.
4. Ally with Riga but fabricate a claim for an attack of opportunity if it's going to be forced out of all alliances you just annex it.
5. The initial expansion itself is not that problematic till Novgorod exists. Using missions you can get some freebies by fabricating a claim and taking Ingermanland and, may be, Neva. It needs to be done before Moscovy will grab them for themselves and they start to do it almost immediately. Getting a border with Moscovy early is a suicide, so you need to make sure you capture Novgorodian provinces as a buffer between LO and Moscovy. Also it's very important to keep Torzhok for Novgorod because it's blocking access from Moscovy to it's Pskov vassals. Then wait for Moscovy to make a piece deal first and take provinces strategically that there is a layer of Novgorod between LO and Moscovy. Normally it's Neva and Ingermanland that you take. This war must be fought with Denmark as an ally because you not only don't want to waste your troops but also it prevents Moscovy from grabbing too much of Novgorod lands.
6. Next war is against Moscovy. LO won't have allies in that but it must win... why? because LO is annexing Pskov and if you did everything right Moscovy itself cannot help Pskov because the access is blocked by their rivals: Lithuania and Novgorod. So you just daringly DOW Pskov/Moscovy with the CB of conquest of Pskov or Ostrov provinces. Take those provinces and wait a war score to tick to your victory. This war is very good not only because you took land but because you also get truce with Moscovy, which is extremely handy for your next campaign against Novgorod.
7. So, at this time you should have an alliance with both PL and DNS (Denmark+Norway+Sweden). At the first opportunity attack Novgorod and vassalize it. Moscovy tends to ally with Denmark at this point and right after Novgorod is gone Denmark will REALLY will want Ösel (-95 relation hit) and most likely break the alliance and select you as a rival... happy times... your force limit is only 9 + Novgorod vassal with strictly inferior troops gives about 8 and DNS combined is over 40, which includes OPd Swedish terminators.
8. Then the Judgement Day comes one way or another... I prefer to start it myself as an offensive war against Moscovy because when you succeed you have great options to feed your Novgorod vassal. PL should be on your side but even on my successful attempt it bailed out of the war after a costly manpower exchange with DNS and Moscovy. I was left alone against DNS and Moscovy but they had serious problems with war exhaustion. So, I outwaited DNS till it had enough and WPd out too. Continuing war with Moscovy despite heavy pillaging drove me bankrupt because I had to hire mercs above FL to make sure I won't be overwhelmed and I noticed Moscovy was also sporting an Army over the FL but due to higher tech I managed to finally beat Moscovy and restore Novgorodian lands almost completely. During the doomsday war with Moscovy I even managed to get 2 Prussian provinces from Teutonic Order when I saw it was attacked by Poland and left without any troops, so I just took freebies. Right after the big war ended I happily bankrupted but with way more manageable position than before and PL still allied to me.

So, what's your take on Livonian strategy? I succeeded survival on my 5th or 6th attempt... in comparison, starting as the Knights Hospitallers who has one province was way easier and I made a huge empire on my first attempt due to allied Venice. Here everybody is your enemy. Even Poland if I stopped keeping it busy with costly (for them) wars immediately tried to grab my lands.

 

[Nunn45]

Ive tried Riga a few times, always seemed to end up having poland blob and ally my opponents then they or them attacking me in a massive gank...

 

[Maerd]

It's sort of unintuitive but Riga might be easier because you can ally DNS and it doesn't want your province... right away at least. DNS very badly wants Ösel, which is a huge problem for LO.

 

[Thesian]

In the cheese department, consider the Livonian Order borders the HRE via Kurland and the Baltic Sea and has a Germanic primary culture. It can join the HRE at 132 relations with Austria.

 

[zodium]

1) Join the HRE. This is optional, you can skip it if you want to make the game harder. Ally Denmark and try to help them keep Norway and Sweden under PU, for now.
2) Eat TO. This should happen as soon as they can be. Once they've been eaten, you are big enough to be a contender.
3) When Muscovy attacks Novgorod, attack them too. It denies crucial cores from Muscovy and gives them to you instead.
4) Once Denmark integrates NOR/SWE, declare war and release them as small vassals, then feed their cores back.
5) Rotate between Muscovy, Denmark and Poland. Try to focus your direct conquests on Poland immediately to avoid Local Nobility penalties down the road.
6) Flip Reformed or Protestant and form Prussia. You get Prussian ideas, but you keep the Theocracy. Prussian Order!

Timing is huge for LO, so it's important to play aggressively. Denmark will eventually want your provinces, but not right away, and by the time they do, you can either be huge or in the HRE or both.

 

[Maerd]

2) Eat TO. This should happen as soon as they can be. Once they've been eaten, you are big enough to be a contender.

Hm... Teutonic Order has twice of my force limit and without an ally it would be very damaging to take. It also allies itself with Riga, which is not good. Allying with Poland makes Poland take most of its land, allying with Denmark is long enough, so it's barely possible before Russia invades Novgorod bu then they won't help with 2 wars at the same time...

Timing is huge for LO, so it's important to play aggressively. Denmark will eventually want your provinces, but not right away, and by the time they do, you can either be huge or in the HRE or both.

In my several attempts Denmark pretty much wants Livonian land right after the first war with Novgorod, meaning it's withing the first 10-15 years. After that it was always allied with Moscovy and they then attacked at the first opportunity.

 

[Aigars]

Well my start is most of time rival riga (check missions) take claim one. rival TO(get claims on Memel and Ost). i dont rival Novgorod since it tends to be Joker it can fall to moscovy or it can slap it silly(i do make 2 claims on em). I only rival them once i see moscovy are ripping them apart and then i rival them and annex or vassalize them but i take lands for finland i let finland out(for me finland ALAWYS gets god like rulers avg is 13 MPs hell i have seen 6/6/6 even).
usualy by end of making all claims i have joined HRE i know its cheasy but hey all the bonuses make it worth it and alliance with austria helps.
First i always take riga then its TO or Novgorod up to who DOWs who i just go in for claims on TO and take em sometimes i claim Warima to. but you have to be agresive when chance presents yourself. Oh if you can get Alliance with Poland-Lit to since they can be great help in wars against muscovy since you want to kill em.
Idea wise i go Rel, Exploration, Quantity and up to what i want from game.

 

[zodium]

Hm... Teutonic Order has twice of my force limit and without an ally it would be very damaging to take. It also allies itself with Riga, which is not good. Allying with Poland makes Poland take most of its land, allying with Denmark is long enough, so it's barely possible before Russia invades Novgorod bu then they won't help with 2 wars at the same time...


In my several attempts Denmark pretty much wants Livonian land right after the first war with Novgorod, meaning it's withing the first 10-15 years. After that it was always allied with Moscovy and they then attacked at the first opportunity.

Denmark wants your lands when they get the mission to take it, so they never want it right away. If you don't feel comfortable fighting TO alone, wait until they're attacked and siege their provinces before the original attacker can--all you need is one regiment to claim siege ownership. (Like I said, timing is huge.) Viable survival with LO is mostly a matter of having the right message settings, namely popup-pauses for DOWs on/by all neighbors. You will have to fight off a superior enemy at least once, probably Poland/Lithuania, so success is a matter of being able to acquire mass rapidly before that point and then grinding them down by attrition to crush them. The early game is mostly watching the neighbors for defeats and claiming sieges like a vulture.

Also yeah, joining the HRE is a huge help and the only reason not to do it is if you have some RP reason not to.

 

[Nunn45]

TO always gets into early wars that it wont likely win, abuse that to get a ton of its territory or wait until after its lost half its land and eat the rest.

 

[Grave Digger]

In the cheese department, consider the Livonian Order borders the HRE via Kurland and the Baltic Sea and has a Germanic primary culture. It can join the HRE at 132 relations with Austria.

This is the best way to stay alive in my experience.

 

[mercenarybraces]

I had a very successful run with livonian order a while ago, but it all depends if you can still get moscowy as an ally at the start. I allied Moscowy and declared war on novrogod before they could and called them in so that I was war leader I then took as much land as I could from novrogod and peaced out before moscowy could taking land and giving them none. I then repeated this again. After that moscowy managed to declare their own war on novrogod, I then declared my own, waited for them to take land from novrogod which left then small enough for me to vassilise myself I was then big enough to take on Muscovy 1v1 though I waited until they were in another war to attack them and gave novrogod their land back and started eating them myself. It was pretty easy from there. This was in 1.6 though. It just all depended on that first alliance.
Sorry for any errors typed on my phone