Chronicles of a new Divine Wind player

[StephenT]

Had read that you could send settlers in but if you have to do that for every province it would become horribly expensive and time consuming to reach a thousand settlers for each one

That's what you have to do.

The settlers grow by themselves, so you do have the option of sending a single one per province then just sitting there for a few years as it slowly grows to 1,000. You have to stay at war with the horde all that time, and if they recapture the province they burn your colonist and it all goes to waste, so keep a garrison there. Sending multiple sequential colonists speeds up the process, if you can afford it.

 

[Kepheren]

On this day of our Lord, July 1st 1452, the Russian nation was born. All is not well though. There is saber rattling to the east as the Golden Horde begin sending threats. There is also uncertainty to the west as the Teutonic Order, one of Russia's allies, is getting totally nerfed by Poland, Hungary and Lithuania. Even as they eat up TO territory Lithuania is losing it in the south to an independent Ukraine who seems to be at odds with everyone.

To the North Sweden is gathering allies like Denmark, France and England. Not sure what they are up to but they definitely hate the Russians so it can't bode well. Thus far Russia is surrounded by enemies, still has primitive tech and an uncertain future....very much like actual history. On the plus side I did experiment with the colonists the last time Kazan was acting the fool and they are now part of the Russian nation. If we can catch the GH tied up on enough fronts they might face a similar fate.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

To answer the earlier question my land tech is five but approaching six. I reasoned that a national idea or two would help me level the playing field a bit so most of my money is going into government research. As for the Hordes how exactly does one fight them now? I have conquered Kazan twice but the only options I get are to force admission of defeat or take tribute. Nothing there about taking land and I had occupied their whole one province country!

Had read that you could send settlers in but if you have to do that for every province it would become horribly expensive and time consuming to reach a thousand settlers for each one. Besides, in their first war with the Horde Novgorod managed to get two provinces from them...the ones which later became Pskov & Kazan. They managed that in less than two years so there must be something I'm missing there.

Well if at 1450 you have LT 5, you fail badly. I think lama would agree with it, as so ywhtptgtfo... At that year you need to have LT around 8. But i suppose because you are muscowy, it is not so easy to do so. But there is a way to made it - just take land tech advisor.

Also, before you start beating horde when it belongs, you should consolidate your power - take your russian cores, start trading a bit if you can, and then build AN army.

But you MUST colonize horde, asap, so you NEED to colonize everything you can at the same time, also it may be costfull, more to say it WILL be costfull. But you must do it, as otherwise you will have to fight strong hordes for next 100 years, or fight rebels in their land you occupy. You can't get provinces from them in peace deal, so you just need to colonize the,

On this day of our Lord, July 1st 1452, the Russian nation was born. All is not well though. There is saber rattling to the east as the Golden Horde begin sending threats. There is also uncertainty to the west as the Teutonic Order, one of Russia's allies, is getting totally nerfed by Poland, Hungary and Lithuania. Even as they eat up TO territory Lithuania is losing it in the south to an independent Ukraine who seems to be at odds with everyone.

To the North Sweden is gathering allies like Denmark, France and England. Not sure what they are up to but they definitely hate the Russians so it can't bode well. Thus far Russia is surrounded by enemies, still has primitive tech and an uncertain future....very much like actual history. On the plus side I did experiment with the colonists the last time Kazan was acting the fool and they are now part of the Russian nation. If we can catch the GH tied up on enough fronts they might face a similar fate.

Well, here as I sad, consolidate, take back your cores, and beat horde back into hell when it belong. Good advice - don't colonize the provinces near astrakhan at first wave of colonization - those are mostly wool, low tax provinces. Take those provinces in siberia-kazan (furs, gold, iron, cooper), and crimea (crimea = salt + wine + ports + iron + nice tax). Also when fighting sweden, take finland from them - THIS will greatly cripple them, as despite its low tax, those provinces all got furs as resource, so they bring most of sweden income(sweden got realy low tax, so it mostly need to take cash from production - it starts mercantile, so it is not best for trading.)

 

[Kepheren]

I have had a land tech advisor, level three, for the last twenty years of game time. For the most part my rulers have stunk up the place in regards to miltary skill and I've had to play ugly games with my finance sliders to stay solvent. Plus I do have an army. Built another stack just before becoming Russia. Now have one fifteen regiment stack in Moscow, two five regiment stacks at opposities ends of the empire to mop up revolts, one seven regiment stack keeping Kazan pacified (their revolt chance is ugly) and a ten regiment stack standing guard on the long horde boarder.

Have also got my five merchants in Novgorod so economy is a bit better. Can at least slow the rise of inflation, support my troops, put up a building every couple of years, etc, etc. Horde army still out numbers me nearly three to one so am waiting for a bit to start the big dance with them. Every couple of years they wind up in another huge war anyway.

 

[brifbates]

Have also got my five merchants in Novgorod so economy is a bit better. Can at least slow the rise of inflation, support my troops, put up a building every couple of years, etc, etc. Horde army still out numbers me nearly three to one so am waiting for a bit to start the big dance with them. Every couple of years they wind up in another huge war anyway.

With LT 5 and Mil drill you can fight at 1:3 odds if you are smart about it. Let their armies come to you and you eliminate them one at a time. The key thing is to watch out for their 5 and 6 pip shock leaders and avoid getting high we. I'd probably wait for them to run into another succession crisis before attacking though. Note that your colonists count double for settling horde lands so it goes a lot faster (only 5 colonists per province vs 10). You will run into problems with long-occupied territories as the "occupied" modifier appears to affect both colonist chance (the tooltip number appears to be quite inaccurate when sending additional settlers to an existing settlement) and colony growth.

Things could be a lot worse than Sweden being allied to Denmark, France, and England as none of those nations will have an easy time projecting power into Russia. Your first move should probably be to gobble up the Ukraine before the GH does. You really don't want the horde to get a border with one of the HRE powers as they are liable to start taking your Russian lands. Your first goal is to cut the westerners off from the horde lands entirely-it's your backyard and you don't want any intruders.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

If horde get bordered by hre, you just conquer provinces in such direction that prevent them from colonizing too far.

 

[Kepheren]

Well, I'm getting worse at properly recording the details off all this. Went on a marathon playing session yesterday covering about thirty years and forgot to write it all down as I went. hmy: Will give you all the readers digest condensed version here and will consider leaving off this going forward. I like the advice and feed back but it seems I'm short changing the folks willing to listen to me babble if I don't supply enough details.

Anyways inflation became a huge issue because I couldnt stop minting money to support large army. The Hordes brought the issue to a head with repeated threats so I got irritated with them and finally attacked. As someone suggested above it is indeed possible to fight them at three to one odds with a bit of care. First war one and I picked up a bit of territory out of it. Hordes are still massed at the border but I get a bit of breathing room.

Knowing they will come back though I need to keep a good sized standing army. Sweden and Teutons are now hating on me though it hasn't come to war. Poland renounces our alliance, Lithuania is fracturing and I force the Ukraine into a PU....which lasts all of two years before they break it and get a new king. (still not sure how that works. as the leader of the union I would have thought I would get SOME control over their actions. )

Even more disturbing is the great white blob that is Austria from the west. The Ottomans have totally fallen apart at the seams and Austria now borders the Hordes in the south. Not good for the home team. Even worse I don't have to wait for Austria to go hunting Horde lands. The Golden Horde declares on me, Austria, whats left of the Ottomans and even a couple of Muslim countries I can't even see yet! It's like a sudden death wish came over them. Their stability is horrible and they are fighting rebels as well as everyone else who borders them.

The war lasts almost fifteen years. Am stunned my war exhaustion didn't go through the roof but if the truth is told we never had to work too hard. Sure a tiny stack of Horde soldiers would maneuver around me and try to siege something but since it was never larger than three regiments it was easily dealt with. To be honest the serious fighting was over in about three years and the rest was just skirmishing and sending out colonists.

Once it is all said and done I gobble up seven more provinces including Tambow, Samara, Perm, Pensa, etc, etc. Sadly the Austrians are now a long snake like thing winding up into the horde lands to the Crimea. There is now a south horde land that Austria and I will be contesting and a north horde land that I should be able to eat up later at my liesure. Am hoping that I can at least cut off Austra from reaching Astrakhan and claim the COT for myself later. Not too sure how well that will work though. Austria has slightly better land tech (10 to my 8) and loads more money and allies. My economy is getting a bit better but now I border other nomads who look ready to give me grief and can't buy an ally.

Inflation may be getting better but the need to concentrate on that aspect of life is hampering the rest of the empire. When I save inflation was 16.1 and my prestige keeps dropping like a stone. Game says something about uncontested claims so I guess that is the cores I have but dont control yet? Had to take national bank as my second idea and with that, lowering maintenance during peace, a decent master of the mint and keeping the slider near the bottom I can start lowering it some. Is still going to be a long, grueling process I think.

 

[brifbates]

Once it is all said and done I gobble up seven more provinces including Tambow, Samara, Perm, Pensa, etc, etc. Sadly the Austrians are now a long snake like thing winding up into the horde lands to the Crimea. There is now a south horde land that Austria and I will be contesting and a north horde land that I should be able to eat up later at my liesure. Am hoping that I can at least cut off Austra from reaching Astrakhan and claim the COT for myself later. Not too sure how well that will work though. Austria has slightly better land tech (10 to my 8) and loads more money and allies. My economy is getting a bit better but now I border other nomads who look ready to give me grief and can't buy an ally.

Inflation may be getting better but the need to concentrate on that aspect of life is hampering the rest of the empire. When I save inflation was 16.1 and my prestige keeps dropping like a stone. Game says something about uncontested claims so I guess that is the cores I have but dont control yet? Had to take national bank as my second idea and with that, lowering maintenance during peace, a decent master of the mint and keeping the slider near the bottom I can start lowering it some. Is still going to be a long, grueling process I think.

The other hordes generally aren't a huge problem. You have better tech, more manpower, etc. What I would do is beat/assault (1 province usually does it) Nogai & Kazakh until they agree to concede defeat. Crush and occupy Sibir (assuming it broke free) which will give you access to colonize Siberia.

Your prestige issue is claims that are uncontested which means you and your vassals don't own them and you aren't at war with the current owner. Sweden needs a beat down so you can get the cores in that area. There may be some in Lithuania, and there are certainly lands the Horde started with that you need. Austria is going to be a problem if they got to the Crimea ahead of you because they are now sitting on your cores. This is why I always start occupying the Horde as far west as I can and head straight south, you can't let any westerner get into your yard.

 

[Kepheren]

What you say made me curious so I booted up the game to check a few things. It was highly educational to be honest. Didn't realize till I went through the ledger thingie that I'm now the worlds top producer in furs.

More to the point though I remember it was mentioned that there was an event or mission that triggered a lot of cores so I was kind of surprised to have this problem. No event happened but I guess these are the ones that came about from forming Russian nation. Went through and checked all the provinces nearby but outside my borders. No need to worry about vassals since at this point I not only don't have vassals, allies or even pen pals. :/ I am the parriah of Europe at the moment.

Found thirteen provinces that I have cores on that are outside my nation. The Crimea isnt a core for me at this point but the Horde does have seven of these. Teutonic Order and the Ukraine have two and Polotsk & Smolensk both have one each. No wonder prestige started dropping so fast when the war ended. *doh*

At least I dont have to fight Sweden or Austria just yet. Got all of the Swedish held cores in the last war I guess. Now I suppose I'll take a breather, wait a bit for the horde to start another war (they seem to like doing that) and see if I cant gobble up some more of those. The others held by European powers are a bit more troublesome. Sweden, Poland, Bohemia, France and England have all sent insults and warning. Guess I grew to fast for their liking. If I try to start war anytime soon it could quickly spiral out of control.

 

[brifbates]

More to the point though I remember it was mentioned that there was an event or mission that triggered a lot of cores so I was kind of surprised to have this problem. No event happened but I guess these are the ones that came about from forming Russian nation.

Yeah, you get a pile of cores when you do the "form Russian nation" decision now. In previous expansions it was an event (and there was a later event that added even more cores which I'm pretty sure was removed).

The warnings aren't too big of a problem except Poland and Sweden since they may actually border one of your targets.

Quickly grabbing the cores from TO, Polotsk, Ukraine, and Smolensk shouldn't be too big of a problem as long as they don't have inconvenient allies. Since you can use reconquest you won't worsen your infamy state by just grabbing your cores from them and the provinces will help your economy pretty quickly. Astrakhan and your cores are definitely priority targets for the next round with the GH as well as cutting off access for anyone besides you.

 

[Kepheren]

Teutonic Order & Polotosk do indeed have inconvenient alliances, promises to their independence, etc. Another case of half of europe trying to keep me hemmed in. :angry: I did find an intriguing possibility though when I checked them out. Smolensk is a Muslim tribal culture at the moment & is only guranteed byt Ukraine. I try declaring on Smolensk (which is only one province) and only Ukraine comes to help them. I have both their armies out numbered by one stack of mine.

The war goes as planned and I absorb Poltava, Chernigov and Kursk for only a slight bad boy bump up. That is the good news. Austria got to get back into a war with the GH about a year before I could. Am scared at first that they will push way into my area but they only take the two closest provinces to them and start colonising. I lose the core Kharkov to them, at least for now, but do manage to get into the war and cut them off from going any further into Horde turf.

Since I'm in it with the Hordes again I've learned my lesson. Am colonising the provinces first that will cut them off into going deeper. Once I have the blockade up will also colonize Astrakhan and then all the rest of the areas I'm holding. At the moment I hold all the remaining Horde lands I can see, though small straggling armies slip in from Tobrok (sp?) and Kurgan whic are still hidden from me. These are quickly dispatched and I think it will soon be the end of the hordes. Since I'm not really taking war exhaustion I might as well hold them till I get all my cores and all their real estate so this silliness wont come up again.

That will leave me four more cores to pick up, one each held by Austria, Polotosk & the Teutonic Order. Pskov has become independent but is guranteed by five nations in the north. Guess it will take me twenty years or more to get enough colonists to gobble up the mongol remenants. At least then the few I have to get wont be such a drag on my prestige.

Oh...and probably the best benefit. Since I occupy Astrakhan I can finally get merchants in fairly easy. That has increased my income a great deal and the way my stuff is set up inflation is slowly going down. Now if I can just get my crap in line to westernize this may all improve before long.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Bad thing, you are losing crimea, as crimea is very wealthy. But i think you at least learned a few lessons out of this.

 

[Kepheren]

And still more.......

The year is now 1508 and I have occupied all Golden Horde provinces and colonized all but the eastern most five into my empire. A few more years and they will be mine as well. New nomads have sprung up to irritate me like Nogai, Sibir & the Timmurids (sp?) so I will have a long job ahead of me in expanding and keeping my asian borders safe. First the Horde though because they have been a thorn in my butt for so long that I just want to see them DEAD. :angry:

The rest of europe has marched on it's merry little way. I've lost a couple of the european cores to their time being expired but not too worried about it just yet. Am hoping one of my western neighbors, most likely Austria, will get enough of a tech advantage that I can spring board off that to westernize. Other than that, just garrisoning those borders, letting them kill each other will I march eastward eating nomads. The lands are poor but I'm trying to build them up a bit with buildings when I can and now economy is a bit more stable.

nuff for now. If I play anymore tonight will gooble up Kurgan & Toblosk.

 

[brifbates]

And still more.......

The year is now 1508 and I have occupied all Golden Horde provinces and colonized all but the eastern most five into my empire. A few more years and they will be mine as well. New nomads have sprung up to irritate me like Nogai, Sibir & the Timmurids (sp?) so I will have a long job ahead of me in expanding and keeping my asian borders safe. First the Horde though because they have been a thorn in my butt for so long that I just want to see them DEAD. :angry:

The rest of europe has marched on it's merry little way. I've lost a couple of the european cores to their time being expired but not too worried about it just yet. Am hoping one of my western neighbors, most likely Austria, will get enough of a tech advantage that I can spring board off that to westernize. Other than that, just garrisoning those borders, letting them kill each other will I march eastward eating nomads. The lands are poor but I'm trying to build them up a bit with buildings when I can and now economy is a bit more stable.

nuff for now. If I play anymore tonight will gooble up Kurgan & Toblosk.

Nogai, assuming it is just its base provinces isn't really a priority to take. Just smash their pitiful army, assault a province, and demand they concede defeat if you don't want the war. You can also go further and get a couple ducats tribute but I find it generally isn't worth it. Kazakh is a bit of a bigger problem but until you want to start thinking about driving into India the same scenario works.

A lot of those provinces really aren't worth taking until later on. If you do take them then westernising becomes more problematic as you have to deal with more wrong religion, wrong culture, poor provinces when regaining your stability. Better to use your colonists on the Siberian lands and getting right culture/religion provinces with potentially valuable trade goods than more grain and wool.

 

[Kepheren]

Yeah, I was reaching about the same conclusion. Have found that keeping a decent sized stack near the borders of Nogai or Qara Quanyu (yeah, I know the spelling on that one is way off. Its the one south of Georgia, or at least that is where they have expanded to at the moment.) usually serves to make the wars very short. They march in a stack to sieze one of my provinces, I move around them and into their turf and can siege a lot faster. Even if they take mine the quickly capitulate once I win a siege.

The big, nasty problem is the Timmurids. They are a lot tougher nut to crack and a lot of their turf is still invisible to me. I dropped four stacks on them though and sieged out six provinces while my explorer mapped some of it but they seem to have more troops than other nomads, slightly better tech and a lot worse temprement. A lot like the hordes before I and Austria tag teamed them. Only colonized and kept one of theirs though. Was considering selling it to someone to form a buffer state. Unfortunately that would have to be to another nomad if anyone and that will just be changing one problem for another.

At the moment, and this is subject to change, my plan is to try to get a decade of relative peace to drive down inflation and spend my money on buildings instead of colonists. If I can start making more money on my decent provinces and make the worse ones a bit more viable then it wont be so bad. Naturally I'll be fighting the nomads intermittently but hopefully it wont be too bad. The Golden Horde is a memory and Sibir, with its one province, is one or two colonists away from following them. Then I might start pushing east again if the nomads havent been too big a pain, or going after them one at a time full force to gobble them up whole or get a buffer state between me & them.

As for the Timmurids if I were to try and conquer one outright it would be them. The CoT in Samarkand is tempting to acquire because I can't build a decent one anywhere in the territory I have now. Novgorod & Astrakhan provide good revenue but it wont be enough to match the western powers if it comes to that. Austria sends me a diplomatic insult like clock work every three years but I've ignored them, Sweden and Poland in the push eastward.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Well, i think best is to colonize all altaic culture provinces, as those you can easily get converted into russian culture when you convert them to orthodox, and much of their provinces got decent trade goods, Also, conquer china when you get your economy strong enough to put up an army of like 50k to deal with the chinese, while keeping another like 150 troops to defend from europeans.

I think conquering samarkand is a good plan - wealthy cot it is, and it brings you way to conquer like whole asia. And it gives you better position when there are no more hordes, so you can get some breathe.

 

[Kepheren]

Finally figured out how to take and post a screen shot. Pardon me if it dosent work properly.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Well, it is not best russia i ever saw. But not a bad work. Try not to fight with more than one horde at a time, unless you fully occupy a horde - still when you fully occupy a horde, you just don't need to count that as fighting. Fully occupied horde = your territory, yet not colonized. Do not peace out with a horde you wholly occupy, as you can just even not use the troops, and set maintenance to 0. There might be some revolts popups, but when revolt start you can set maintenance back to normal.

About timurids, main problem is that they got great territory and armies. So what you need to do is not to occupy them, just instead, to kill of their armies. Occupy just border provinces, and maneuver them out, kill off their troops, and help the rebels to tare them into pieces. When they are broken, just occupy all the altaic culture provinces, and colonize them. I pretty much done this, and got nice russia myself.

Kazakh, seem to be weak, so you can just occupy them, as so, with sibir. you should also occupy>colonize nogai, as it will help you in breaking down the timurids.

Also, try to do what is in your power to weaken austria and poland. Try to take crimea from austria when you will be able, and conquer kiev, polotsk and pskov.

With quara koyunlu, just same as with timurids - but conquering quaras, will be much easier. Also, good that you conquered georgia, as their provinces are quite wealthy, and quite often swap their culture to russian if you hold them long enough.

Also, use magistrates, if you can't on buildings, then on culture. When your culture is nearing 100, just make an advisor - don't matter if you have all advisors you want, when you do, and another country takes the advisor after year, you gain some money from it, so it helps out your economical situation. Never let magistrates to be at 5, as they are very precious, and having them at 5, means you lose certain amount of the growth you get.

 

[brifbates]

Finally figured out how to take and post a screen shot. Pardon me if it dosent work properly.

Those Tims are kinda scary for that point in the game but you should still be able to easily handle them as long as going to war with them doesn't trigger a western dogpile.

I generally just blow up Samarkand when I take it. It makes Novgorod & Astrakhan worth more in the long run and uses fewer of your merchant placements. It generally plummets in value when you capture the province due to the CoTs in Persia anyway. You really only want to have fewer, bigger CoTs as a mercantalist.

Your bigger (much bigger) problems are going to be Sweden and Austria. Poland isn't looking like a neighbor you'll be happy with either but at least you can keep up with them in tech. If Austria pulls their usual "we're emperor forever" routine things could get very ugly.

 

[Kepheren]

Those Tims are kinda scary for that point in the game but you should still be able to easily handle them as long as going to war with them doesn't trigger a western dogpile.

I generally just blow up Samarkand when I take it. It makes Novgorod & Astrakhan worth more in the long run and uses fewer of your merchant placements. It generally plummets in value when you capture the province due to the CoTs in Persia anyway. You really only want to have fewer, bigger CoTs as a mercantalist.

Your bigger (much bigger) problems are going to be Sweden and Austria. Poland isn't looking like a neighbor you'll be happy with either but at least you can keep up with them in tech. If Austria pulls their usual "we're emperor forever" routine things could get very ugly.

Tims are indeed scarey and are rapidly becoming my biggest problem. Logged in again for a little while and got a whole year of peace. Managed to start up about seven buildings before first one and then the other nomads started in on me again. Was handling them all pretty well till the Tims pulled up a stack over 40 strong and overwhelmed the 12 regiment stack I was sieging their province with.

That is my fault for not watching to see that it was coming but since I had three other nomad groups running amok at the same time I missed it. Hell, even lost Sibir because I had to pull out the army that was protecting the colonists to fight a large revot that popped up nearby. While I was doing that a revolt popped in their province and it wound up burning my colonists. hmy:

Fortunately as Russia I could build a lot faster than they could. Let the Tims run amok for a bit to smack the others and then combined all my stacks in the east to one that was fifty strong. It marched over them with little difficulty. Am leaving that on their borders to keep them from being quite as big a problem but had to build more for the other borders. Is seriously cutting in on my finances for getting buildings up.

Now I am about ten years from being able to westerenize. Only requirement left is get my innovative up a point but don't get another slider move for a decade. Barring a good random event will have to wait for the normally scheduled move. That said I hesitate to take more territory yet because the stability drop is going to be wicked. Guess I have to just keep building churches, get as good an artist as I can and just try to keep the nomads in check until thats done. Damn but they are a pain in this version!