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Nothing, not even the reversal of time will stop the Genoese from getting their bizarre desires fulfilled!
The next update is going to be a pure historical update of the same type I occasionally did in Nostalgia Freaks. If anyone asks, I've been meaning to do this type of update for a while, and this AAR has more of a historical slant than that one ever did.
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Genorussian Culture In the Early 15th Century
Further passages from the writings of Vasilli Montagna, a crucial player in Slavic historiography:
The Asian steppes had always been overrun with nomadic confederations of varying effectuality - at best, the Mongols, at worst, a few isolated Pechenegs or Cumans or whoever. It wasn't worth dwelling on. The area was a crucial part of the overland Silk Road. If you didn't have access to the steppes, you couldn't walk through Central Asia and the Tarim Basin to reach China. You could always try to charter a boat, but ever since the 7th century AD, Islamic merchants had a virtual monopoly on such access, and the Christians of Europe usually had religious objections to that sort of thing.
When the local steppe nomad began adopting Islam, it caused growing consternation amongst the merchants of Europe, given that trade with China was one of their major sources of income. When the upstart Genoese decided to strengthen their trading presence in the area, they got rather enthusiastic, and Genoa drowned in the gifts of a thousand petty European princes (more accurately, about 5-6 of them).
The gifts went straight into either the Genoese Expeditionary Force (synonymous with 'army of doom' according to the remnants of the Golden Horde), or basic infrastructure designed to assist them. Given that the average division of the Expedition outnumbered substantially the locals in any area they operated in, logistics were always going to be a problem. One solution the Genoese discovered (and first implemented during the reign of Donato de Ferrari) was to force European-style agriculture on the local Tartars.
Over the next few years, this substantially improved the amount of food Genoese soldiers had access to; a few shreds of grain and vegetables went to the Tartars as well. Energy levels improved, and birthrates skyrocketed as the locals decided they needed a cheap source of labor to grow more crops, start making money, perhaps start participating in the Genoese markets. Death rates remained high though due to what is sometimes referred to as the "medieval hellhole" effect, which took the edge off population growth.
Either way, demographic shifts tend to affect societies more than they let on, and the Genoese 'colony' quickly outgrew the ability of administrators in Liguria, and later the earliest administrative centers in Kaffa and Azow. The conquest of Stavropol (which was even in the 14th century an important center of trade) left Genoa with a pre-built administrative center to handle such needs.
For the most part, the Genoese overseas is heavily Tartarized, as ethnic Italians remain a very small minority in the area. Attempts to politically favor Italians (prevalent in the late 14th century) resulted in major revolts. While Ambrogio Durazzo was able to prevent these through pure intrigue, The government in the region uses Catholicism and proto-capitalism as its primary means of control in the region, which has created a situation where the local aristocrats can easily gain wealth and prestige for following Genoese directives.
Peasants are not as lucky - the agrarian ones suffer from laws forbidding traditional sheep grazing, and this has caused no end of social strife. While the Golden Horde was not a very secure or advanced government, they at least did not particularly interfere in the locals' needs. They would probably be fondly remembered once they no longer could claim any territory as their own. Their successor states like the Nogai and Kazakh hordes were also doing poorly, but it was harder to tell since they weren't as horribly overextended.
In short, it was not only that the Tartar lands were very backwards, but also Genoa because came from one of Europe's intellectual capitals that the Genoese were able to set up a working system, if one that gave much of the plunder to the locals.
The beginning of the 15th century also saw the growing incorporation of ethnic Russians into the Genoese colonies. As of 1430, they were not present in enough numbers to work against the Tartar majority, but their urban centers were more easily converted into seats of administration than the yurts of the steppes. This, however, is best discussed separately.
Montagna's works were exceptionally popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries, but they fell out of favor as a result of the Tartar independence movement of the 1880s; he was by then criticized heavily by its members for underemphasizing the role of ethnicity in historical interactions. More mainstream critics have also moved on, claiming he fails to understand how Genoa interacted with its 'civilized' European neighbors, such as Novgorod and Poland. The former also had a strong mercantile/proto-capitalist tradition that could have been used to influence vast swathes of territory - including but not limited to the Russian appanage.
Before you ask - yes, I have considered the continuation of this AAR in Victoria 2, but only if I end up playing through to 1820 (or maybe 1836, since D&T extends the timeline). There's no easy way to convert modded EU3 to even Victoria 2 that I'm aware of, so it'd require a lot of modding. Might be worth it, though.
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Episode 10: Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses
"Can we move the capital now?" asked Miran's personal servant, Giannettino da Novi, for what was almost certainly the millionth time (or at least in the high nine hundred thousands). Earlier in his life, Miran would have rejected such a request. These days, he merely ignored it.
Part of ruling over as much territory as the Republic of Genoa did was knowing what to ignore and when to ignore it - obviously, very little of the land could be properly ignored, so it was really more a question of delegation. As it expanded ever further from its administrative center in Liguria, the Republic's scientific and technological knowledge was pushed to the brink.
Something of a shipbuilding revolution was taking place in Western Europe; while the theoretical knowledge often came from the Low Countries or from the rest of Italy, only the largest nations had the resources to build such ships.
Genoa could safely count itself as a 'large nation', anyways, and shipbuilders on the Black Sea were beginning to experiment with ships more befitting of the Genoese.
The overseas was business as usual, with further centralization of authority, forced conversions, and other policies intended to create loyalty and/or fear in the Tartars, depending on whatever was considered more economically useful.
The first few caravels the Genoese navy built were deployed to protect supply shipping in the area, primarily because the only other major nation to rely on that sea (Byzantium) was supposed to be an ally. Once a few stray pirates were sunk, the ships were declared a success and placed in harbor to look menacing until the next naval operation was planned.
"Can we move the capital now?" asked da Novi for what was definitely the millionth time.
"Yes, we should start making preparations. I've found a good location."
Miran's servant hit the ground with a low thud and lay there for a few minutes.
"Where are we going?" he asked when he'd recovered from his fainting spell.
"It's a long story. We need to take it from the Russians first."
The Genoese conquest of Russia was reaching similar levels of ongoing intensity to what the Golden Horde had suffered for the last few decades, and the Byzantine Empire was beginning to express reservations about their northern neighbor.
The reservations boiled over. Byzantine/Genoese relations had been relatively friendly due to the nations' shared fight against Islam, but once Genoa turned its attention away from the Mongol successor states and towards the Russian principalities, the Greeks had rapidly backpedaled on what might've become a long alliance.
Back in Italy, most of the Genoese figured it wasn't worth paying so much attention to heretics, even if they were busy trying to push the Muslims out of Anatolia.
The problem was that the Empire maintained a massive fleet of doom that could severely infringe upon Genoa's ability to administer itself barring substantial reform.
Byzantium has a navy second only to England! That's kind of a problem when your overseas is larger than the average European kingdom.
The Greeks, however, were too busy sinking war galleys to prevent Genoa's allies from landing a few thousand troops in Greece proper. The only question now was whether they would land in Liguria and cause devestation on a scale not seen since the days of the Savoyard Brigand Band.
"If Byzantium invades our capital, we are going to have to surrender, lest they burn us to the ground," Miran cautioned, even when news of Moscow missing an army reached his ears.
Instead of Genoa proper, though, it was the Knights of Rhodes who invaded; for reasons unknown they attempted to land in Corsica first.
Meanwhile, the armies of Moscow were located and revealed by friendly Kazakh peasants - this alone would provide justification for Genoese conquests for decades ("If we take over, they'll at least be competently administrated.")
Because of this minor oversight, Moscow was shattered and prevented from properly administering its northern reaches, but by the time the treaties went through, properly Greek ships had made their way to Liguria.
Miran Shah took Genoa's option of last resort. While it drained the treasury, he was able to rile up thousands of peasants (under the leadership of crazed idiot nobles) in Thrace.
Once Miran could confirm his money had not went to waste, he made a deal with the Byzantine Empire - their withdrawal from the war for assistance with the rebellions, and Novgorod was left to their own devices. On the other hand, the Teutonic Order and Sweden withdrew from the war after demanding what remained of Novgorod's Baltic coastline, so the war began to take on the characteristics of a fierce duel, dragging on into the 1440s.
In the end, after a few encirclements the Genoese were able to demand further territorial concessions from Novgorod, and preparations for an escape from the Italian peninsula continued.
During this period, Miran received a sober warning that even Russia wasn't particularly safe, as the Teutons angered an English diplomat and were promptly subject to an overwhelming invasion. Meanwhile, England's holdings in France were on the verge of dissolving into instability, as the various powers of Europe sought to protect what little remained of France.
After saving up a colossal gob of cash, Miran finally ordered the relocation of Genoa's administrative capital, but not to Vladimir as everyone had expected.
"We have to impress upon the old Novgorod that their time is over! I am renaming this city Vyaschy Novgorod; you may not understand it, but the stupid, weak Russians will."
"Vyaschy Novgorod" means "Greater Novgorod". I think. Synonyms aside, it looks good to my eyes.
Miran Shah was getting more brazen in his old age. He was also getting increasingly sick and frail, but that was nothing new. On the other hand, when he collapsed while walking through Vyaschy Novgorod, the doctors that administered to him learned he'd had a stroke. It paralyzed the left half of his body, although it'd left his intellect mostly unharmed.
"I should've known this would happen! The nightmare I had so long ago came true," he explained to Giannettino once he'd been relocated to the closest thing Vyaschy Novgorod had to a hospital. Unfortunately, only having half of his mouth to speak with made Miran very hard to understand, so he had to repeat himself several times and speak very slowly in order to get this across.
"Oh, come on! Don't tell me you think leaving Genoa killed you." Giannettino responded once Miran had made himself intelligible. Shah had been a superstitious fool all of his life, although if you placed him with his peers - the other rulers in Italy by his reckoning, he at least didn't believe the nonsense about the ghosts of the Durazzo family haunting cannolis.
"Regardless, the future belongs to Russia. The English and the Austrians eye our homeland and seek to bring all of Italy under their rule. You've got to continue expanding north. Don't stop until you reach the Murman sea..."
"You mean the Baltic, right? Or maybe it was the Barents- wait, me?"
"You... you should run for the office of Doge. You've been following me around for 20 years. You know how the office works. I bet you'd get some support," Miran told his manservant.
"Are you sure that isn't the stroke talking? I don't know a lot about administration."
"What have you got to lose, Gian? You're actually an Italian. I'm sure they'd like you."
da Novi had to pull in all of the favors he'd earned, but he succeeded in winning the election by having the biggest bribes. He was declared Doge on October 17th, 1442 - 20 years of backbreaking, tedious labor in Shah's service had paid off handsomely. It took him a few months to get settled in Vyaschy, and he was overwhelmed by the wealth and splendor that had made its way there before him.
"The Pope wants me to bring the full might of Genoa down on Jerusalem, the Doge's council wants me to extend trade, the Ceba family wants me to force the Nogai Horde out of Sarai, and I have to watch some petty prince get married to a Byzantine noblewoman! I have to admit, I'd rather not do any of it," da Novi said to his own manservant (because old habits die hard).
"I wouldn't bother with the local taverns. They don't have Italian wine in their cellars," responded the new servant.
da Novi immediately changed his mind and decided that he in fact did want to strengthen the local trade networks.
Probably worth noting that the local Russians are trying to engage in their own crusades against the steppe nomads. They should have started earlier, don't you think?
Most definitely, but then they're just Russians. Probably drunk on cheap vodka (because the GenoRussians drank all the good stuff).
You should have an entry later on when the Russians force ably seize the government from the Italians
The irony, of course, is that early Russian 'crusades' benefit me a little, since once the Russians core and convert former horde provinces (at least if they're originally Tartar culture), they become Russian, making it easier for me to usher in a cultural shift. Of course, the states would also be stronger and harder to take over after that.
I plan to discuss this series of events in some fashion, although I get the feeling it'll be more of a gradual process, as the Russians slowly but assuredly begin to outnumber the Tartars.
This week's episode is postponed due to publicity work infringing upon my ability to play EU3. I should really consider playing in larger chunks, but I like to write as I play on the grounds that it helps me remember things.
10/28/2013: Furthermore, in light of unforeseen demands on my time, this AAR is going on indefinite hiatus.
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He's got to form Russia somehow. Just because he started as Italian doesn't mean a thing. A little cultural shift never hurt anyone (well, anyone that I care about). You know the cliche: shift happens. 
He's got to form Russia somehow. Just because he started as Italian doesn't mean a thing. A little cultural shift never hurt anyone (well, anyone that I care about). You know the cliche: shift happens.
Yes,and create a Big Russia,with an Italian Doge :3