I thought Novgorod would be easy!

[hitchens]

I read somewhere that forming Russia was quite rewarding so I decided to give Novgorod a go. I started of my claiming a few cores from Muscow and the surrounding states right from the getgo and then started to get my economy going. So from nowhere Sweden decided to invade together with England, then Norway decided to also have a go, then my neighbors (Ryazan+Ptolsk(sp?)) decided to attack, and before I knew it Denmark and Spain decided to attack me as well.

I tried to give Sweden a few provinces but it didn't accept, instead Sweden demanded a whole bunch of provinces that would give it ca 25+ infamy IIRC. My war exhaustion was 18 and my economy was in the negative every month so I had a billion loans. Inflation was in the 10's. This was when I had one national idea and land : 6. Basically I lost the game only a few years in.





I guess I'm doing it wrong?

 

[DanubianCossak]

Are you playing vanilla or some mod?

What youre describing strangely reminds me of my own experience playing Novgorod, only in my own mod. I was wondering what went wrong with most major powers attacking me out of blue, and then i realized i was playing on highest aggression setting, which makes AI go insane.

 

[Dustman]

Taking major beating in a war is like drilling a bull. All your neighbors attack eventually.

Diplomacy is important in the beginning even for large blobs, like England or Burgundy. Try to keep good relations with most of your neighbors or find a good counterbalance, like allying with Bohemia to contain P-L threat. General Winter must be used to greatest effect - only few provinces can support many troops, and scorched earth at winter is wonderful. Freeze and starve your enemies whenever possible. I like to start wars in September-October as Russian - few months required for enemy build up and move into your territory, and when they come, attrition eats them alive.

All of your large neighbors have higher manpower than you, can support more troops, and, being Catholic, have strong allies.

To sum up: Novgorod is not the easiest to form Russia. Try Muscovy.

 

[Eh up me duck]

Yeah Novogorod is powerful but their neighbours hate them. Plus early-game they have the horde on their doorstep. It can be possible to be outnumbered 7/8 to 1 at times. Get ready to abuse the Peace mechanic.

 

[El Jojo]

I guess that there's a bit of luck involved, if you get dogpiled early it's tough to resist.

You need to be aware of the CB other nations have on you. If Sweden gets a border dispute and a core on you, they will come for it, expect it and try to counter it with alliance or a good defensive war. Still Inflation + focused counter-attacks usually works to delay your opponents enough for them to accept a white peace, or a concession of defeat.
Being pro-active helps, don't wait for Sweden to attack, if they have troubles attack them and force them ro release Finland etc.

Why would Spain attack you ? Through alliances ?

Thing is, before you attack the hordes you need to secure your flanks, because the moment the AIs see that you're at war with a nation with 80k troops, they think you're in trouble and they dow which can be used, by the way, to induce attacks. You wait for the auto-dow from the hordes, but you know they're in trouble so they'll be willing to insta-peace, you wait for your opponents to attack, make peace with the horde and now you can wage war without a CB against your nasty attackers, force them to release nations, or take provinces at reduced infamy.

 

[Comradebot]

Well, as Novogorod there is zero rush to face the Horde early on. You start with a truce and paying them tribute, so typically they'll be content to just leave you be so long as the cash flow continues. Use that time to unify the Russian states under your banner, and maybe make some preemptive strikes against Sweden or the Teutons... and try to ally with the other. With one of them sufficiently smashed and the other watching your back, you can usually be worry free about the events to your west.

 

[Comradebot]

And remember: even at the start, most of the Russian provinces are big and poor. Don't be afraid to scorch the earth and retreat east.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Taking major beating in a war is like drilling a bull. All your neighbors attack eventually.

Diplomacy is important in the beginning even for large blobs, like England or Burgundy. Try to keep good relations with most of your neighbors or find a good counterbalance, like allying with Bohemia to contain P-L threat. General Winter must be used to greatest effect - only few provinces can support many troops, and scorched earth at winter is wonderful. Freeze and starve your enemies whenever possible. I like to start wars in September-October as Russian - few months required for enemy build up and move into your territory, and when they come, attrition eats them alive.

All of your large neighbors have higher manpower than you, can support more troops, and, being Catholic, have strong allies.

To sum up: Novgorod is not the easiest to form Russia. Try Muscovy.

Well in single player maybe. But in multiplayer, novgorod is easier, unless you got very weak polish player. Anyway, i rly dunno how you got attacked by sweden, denmark and castille... unless you attacked a catholic state. Because spain is Defender of the Faith, which make it most annoying country in the world. But as one stated in game, playing on lower agression, is making countries to make less idiotic moves.

 

[Comradebot]

Well in single player maybe. But in multiplayer, novgorod is easier, unless you got very weak polish player. Anyway, i rly dunno how you got attacked by sweden, denmark and castille... unless you attacked a catholic state. Because spain is Defender of the Faith, which make it most annoying country in the world. But as one stated in game, playing on lower agression, is making countries to make less idiotic moves.

Castille is the one that gets me, here. Sweden and Denmark very well may have been allied (heck, Denmark might've still had all its PU's intact), and the Scandinavian states have a tendency to go after Novgorod.

Castille... I can only figure the OP ran into some crap luck and they were allied with the Norse.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

I know the pain. They sent 45k troops in my current russia game, so i ragequited few times, and reloaded... damn idiot AI. DOF is too cheap.

 

[hitchens]

Posting from phone so quotes cant be done so I'll try to reply in chronological order.
Im playing vanilla with all settings on normal.

Diplomacy is very hard because the catholics seems to hate me because of the religius penalty and lack of prestige. I got an alliance with poland early, but they never honored it . Castille was allied with Denmark. Norway was allied with Hansa and Brandenburg IIRC.

I never used scortched earth. Sorry for all the typos.

 

[beckdawg]

It's really easy to get dog piled especially when people have CB's on you as mentioned. It's also about when you do things. In the case of sweden, you want to attack your toughest stuff first because they are in a PU with denmark.

The other thing you have to watch out for is cascading alliances. It's not just who you attack. It's not just who they are allied with. It is also who the allies are allied with. Also without knowing the exact situation, it might have been war capacity. If the AI senses weakness they will attack even without CB's. Often that's when your war capacity is low.I've had times where I was in control of a war with near full occupation but low WC from massive stack battles and had someone come in for no reason other than perceived weakness. Being that you're in Russia, that very well could be what's happening because attrition can be pretty brutal.

 

[panionios]

Actually, Muscowy is far easier despite having to fight the GH. Firstly, it gets all the necessary missions to form Russia. Usually, the first mission you'll get is to annex Ryazan. Secondly, from my experience (and it always happens), when I start in 1399, by April 1400 (max. May 1400) the GH will always accept defeat (without tribute) which means I have 5 years to annex Ryazan, Yaroslav and subjugate Tver.

Novgorod is extremely easy to deal with (usually comes to the rescue of Ryazan). I only need to ally myself with the Teutons who will keep them busy while I annex Ryazan. Then I will also join in against Novgorod making sure that I release Finland and gain 1-2 provinces so that when I get the vassalize Novgorod mission, the score for doing so will be less than 100. At the same time, with the GH preoccupied with their war against POL-LIT, they will accept just defeat (for the second time) which is fine by me.

By the time the GH appears on my doorstep for a third time, I am more than capable of handling them since I am bigger and they are "exhausted" from all these wars.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Actualy you strat with muscowy is wrong. You should pay tribute day 1, because this way you will have free hands until you are ready to deal with them. As the tribute will be low, (0,9 ducats monthly), when you grow in power it will stop being a problem for you to defeat it. Anyway good tip : you can PU tver, while conquering other russian state with mission. Then just remove it core on tver, relase it and do vassalize tver mission. This will allow you to get mission for conquest of lithuanian province(preferably smolensk) quicker, and you will be able to do tver mission anyway.

About novgorod, it is actualy easy to defeat muscowy, as AI is stiupid, and will just fight with the horde. It is actualy easier than muscowy. You just need to take 3 of their provinces to border ryazan, then vassalize ryazan, and release nizhny novgorod and murom. This way you will gain 8 infamy, but it will prevent russian minors from getting gobbled up by GH, and will give you place for SOI. Then you just need to use conquest/vassalize/annex vassal missions, and lucky cores. Novgorod can easily get very strong economy, by becoming admin republic and trading in all COT's possible. When i last played novgorod i managed to vassalize all the russian minors, and become quite a economical powerhouse.

Anyway i more like to play as muscowy, due it's possibility to form russia realy quick.

 

[panionios]

Actualy you strat with muscowy is wrong. You should pay tribute day 1, because this way you will have free hands until you are ready to deal with them. As the tribute will be low, (0,9 ducats monthly), when you grow in power it will stop being a problem for you to defeat it.

Here is my strategy (though I will try yours in my next game). I completely ignore the GH at the start of the game and go straight for Ryazan. Why pay tribute (the russian states I really poor in the beginning and every last cent counts) when I can just concede defeat? Sometimes I even forget to check the date to concede defeat (usually Apr-May) until I see their armies coming towards me!

The missions are usually Ryazan-Yaroslav-Tver and 5 years are more than enough to complete them. 90% of the times, with POL-LIT bogged down in a war against GH, Smolensk manages to break free and I immediately get a loan and DOW them for PU.

Fighting Novgorod (they always come to the rescue of Ryazan), is really easy. The Teutons will take care of them and then I join in (after finishing Ryazan) with the aim of reducing the score I will need to vassalize them once I get the mission (releasing Finland should be enough to reduce the score, though I get 1-2 provinces just to make sure).

Obviously this means I need to concede defeat for a second time (around 1405-06) but I only lose 5 prestige. Then, I vassalize Novgorod and when the GH appears on my border for a third time I fight them. Sometimes they win, sometimes I win, but I will always manage to get 3-4 provinces.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

My strat, does not greatly differ from yours, but i find it cheaper to pay the hordes, and fight them only when i am russia already - this way i have enough funds to start a full-scale colonization. I managed to vassalize novgorod, pskov, PU tver, conquer ryazan and yaroslavl, plus conquer smolensk, polotsk and mogilev, from lithuania, and managed to make it with having 0 inflation in the end. Wanted to do it with as strong economy as possible, without incurring mass inflation, or taking grand amount of infamy, and without breaking truces. So it was not express russia formation. It is 1428 and i still did not formed russia - but only because i cannot yet annex novgorod diplomaticaly(plus i got mission to conquer finland, and i allways get those stiupid spanish in my way... allways taking novgorod provinces, and cutting me the best retreat route for my troops...). However CTJU, makes manpower harder to recover, so you must watch your manpower, if you don't want to be bleeded out of it, which makes conquests much harder(and longer)...

 

[Emperor Hans]

Novgorod = Forming Russia -> Novgorod v Moscuvy, Muscovy has Liberum Veto = Nice things are unavailable.
Am I doing it right ?

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Novgorod = Forming Russia -> Novgorod v Moscuvy, Muscovy has Liberum Veto = Nice things are unavailable.
Am I doing it right ?

Liberum veto needs 8 WE, which mean you are propably going to lose anyway. Anyway whole liberum veto name is out of space, same with decision. It should be rather something like : "Grant noble privileges". Novgorod have certain advantage over muscowy - it can easily become admin republic, and get grand trade income. And the missions to conquer russian minors are availiable for russia too, so you can just release the states you want to make mission about. Only real disadvantage, is that you will need more time for conquering russian states, and not so easily gain cores on them. Also you will not be able to entact decisions that are availiable for monarchies only(militia act).