King of the grain (Lithuania AAR)

[Swistaczek]

After hundreds of hours of playing EU3 I realized I never played as Lithuania, so here it comes. Since it can be fun experience, I decided to do an AAr too, it will be my second one. Im going to play on 5.2 latest beta patch on hard difficult, 50 land spread, 25 sea spread, normal aggresivnes and random lucky nations.

Here's our country :

We start with -1 stability, low prestige, low cash, big russian rebelion and war with agressive Golden Horde. We are also under personal union with Poland, which isnt that bad, because they will protect us, as least they should.
Most of our provinces are low base tax, wrong culture, wrong religion, grain producing useless pieces of lands, only a few (Kiev, Minsk) offer some cash.
After looking at our sliders I get small heart attack.

With awesome 5 decenstralisation and 3 narrowminded westernization is far far away. Our first move is towards centralisation, to get some more cash.
We leave advisors as there is no money to be spared on them. We split armies in half and march towards rebel scums while Hansa invites us to trade league, we accept in hope for trade station event.

First battle against rebel is won, our merchants try to use the ongoing chaos and demand increased privileges, we refuse of course.

Polish reinforcments arrive and we push rebels out of our country, but the cultural difffrences between our two nations dont help.

With rebels defeated and Golden Horde fighting on multiple fronts (Georgia and Musocwy) we jump in and try to capture important province of Kharkov.

We move our national focus to Polesia to cover more provinces and reduce RR.
Our stability rises to 0 but it drops immediality, no, not comet this time, something worse.

-3 stability, +10 rr everywhere, with wrong culture and relgion, 4 decentralisation it means almost 0 cash from provinces other than lithuanian.
Golden Horde makes peace with Muscowy and Georgia and focues all their strenght on defeating us, their army beats combines forces of Mazovia, Poland and Lithuania in First battle of Poltava.

While war rages peasants protest and revolt all around the country, we try to calm down the situation by giving them more freedom (+2 towards free subject) and tolerating heretics (-100 relations with pope).
Golden Horde destroys remaining Polish forces and pushes towards undefended Lithuania, meanwhile Russian rebels defeat one of our armies.

High council decides to grant autonomy to russian people in Smolensk and Bryansk, we will deal with them after Tatars are defeated.

Second battle of Poltava but this time Polish-Lithuanian forces defeated Tatar army. Russian break their promises and rebel once again.

Third battle of Poltava and once again we defeat Tatar army, but rest of their forces is laying siege to border provinces, and we lack manpower (and so does Poland).
10 June 1404 is a bad date for the Lithuanian Kingdom, this day Novogrodian republic declared war on Lithuania. Polish monarch cowardly refused to help us and Lithuanian nobles elected new king, Jonas I Albertas Sapieha, he will be the one to lead Lithuania thourgh this crisis, or die trying.

//The situation is very bad, I will try to bribe Golden Horde with tribute and do something with Novogorod, without allies,manpower and at 2 wars other nations will see us as an easy prey, so we shall expect backstab from Muscowy or Teutons.

 

[PrawnStar]

I've tried Lithuania a couple of times - it's a tricky starting position so I'll look forward to seeing how you play it.

Subscribed

 

[Swistaczek]

PrawnStar
I will try to play as best as I can, 5.2 manpower is not helping however.

Here's part two of adventures of Kingdom of Grain (Lithuania) ruled by King of Grain (King of Lithuania).

Union with Poland dissolved and now we are alone. Rebels and invaders walk everywhere and we dont have manpower to stop them. Let's try to get rid of our arch-enemy : Golden Horde first.

I will have to mint like hell to don't bankrupt but at least we have southern border secured.
We get new mission to get RM and relations above 100 with Poland, in exchange we will get 1 stability, sounds good.

Novogrodian forces fight rebels for us, we also get new heir with weak claim and good dip rating.

Tver rises to power, we spot this and make an alliance, sadly they are not interested in fighting Novogrod... for now.
Without manpower, cash and with revolts everywhere we are forced to accept a peace offer that will change game completly.

While this seems like a good idea (lower stability cost, most of our provinces are already Orthodox, we will conquer russian who are Orthodox too) I wanted to try to stay Catholic for role playing reason.

Rebels everywhere force us to release Smolensk as vassal, these provinces were brining 0 income anyway.
Releasing Smolensk doesnt solve situation as massive rebelion starts at Kiev, we are forced to release other countires.

Now only peasant rebels remain, we accept their demands and get +1 towards free subject.
We are now totaly out of manpower and big rebel stack appears in Kiev, few years later province defects.

Our good DIP rating yields benefits as we get claims on rivals.

With new core on russian land we get them as accepted culture.
In 1413 we get an alliance offer from Muscowy and we gladly accept.
Meanwhile we recreated alliance with Poland but it collapsed shortly after due to Teutonic invasion.

We are too weak to stand against Bohemia,Teutons,Hungary and Russians.
Poles are now weak and alone, this is good opportunity to press our claim on Lublin.

We lose nasty +10 rr modifier, meanwhile Bohemia makes peace with Poles, we annex Lublin shortly after.
Now we will take small look at Europe :

 

[PrawnStar]

Ouch! There was some pain in that update but the end of the peasants war should give you a chance to recover. At a guess you've quite a few cores to reclaim.

 

[unmerged(58610)]

There was lots of pain in what Lithuania went through. You did the right thing converting to Orthodoxy and centralising looks to be you're slider change ffor many years to come. Settlement policy in non-Lithuanian cultures
provinces also seems like good idea. Getting firm alliances with your neighbours not just the Orthodox ones, Ukraine excepted, but also with Teutonic Knights and Hungary. If you are able to successfully reclim land from the Tartars, you'll need colonists for that.

Survival and keeping your head down, strengthening the ountry and being opportunistic would be my choices for the next decade. You may decide to chart a more adventurous course. Good luck. I have a feeling you're gong to need it.

 

[ve3609]

ow! That hurt! but you can regain strength and then annex those old vassals once you're strong enough

 

[Throne]

Some nasty luck, but some excellent events and a killer king to boot
Shouldn't be too hard to get back on track

 

[Ramidel]

Subscribing.

Also, now that you have such a force of vassals, you should probably ally with them and use their armies to help press your claims on your non-vassal neighbors. Then you can repay your vassals by conquering them, of course.

And when the Reformation hits, you can convert to Protestant! After all, if you turned your coat once...

 

[Swistaczek]

PrawnStar
Yea, that +10 rr from peasant's war was really nasty, without it I will get a lot more cash and lot less rebels.
Chief Ragusa
Centralisation will be my main focus until im like -3,-2.About setlement policy : im still too much worried about rebelions,my manpower is dead.
ve3609
That's the plan.
Throne
The key is to get manpower back, then we can roll over everyone around.
Ramidel
Im afraid I will be innovative when Reformation strikes thus no missonaries for converting.

 

[Swistaczek]

Now with stable situation and new powerfull ally (Muscowy) we can begin reclaiming our cores, we started with Poland, next target is Novogrod.

Their combined forces are 26k infantry and 10k cavalary (Byzantium cannot reach us so remove like 10k soldiers).We have 14k cavalary and 36k infantry. Muscowy sends us sweet 2.09 war subsidies.

We destroy their 9k stack and run away from a 14k one, meanwhile Ryazan is completly occupied.

Another russian state subjugated.

Core province and 95 ducats, sweet.
Now we can either attack Tver (guaranted by Muscowy and Novogrod) or Teutons (hated by everyone), we pick Teutons who are at war with English, Pommeria, Riga, Hansa and much more.
We will use conquest CB from a mission to save Lithuanian people, our core is in their capital so we cannot claim it... now.

Bohemia and Hungary are both locked from us so we need to focus only on Teutons.
Hungary is alliance leader, we destroy Teuton armies and carpet siege, Bohemia white peaces.
We also finally reach 4 gov lvl, It's rather obvious which NI we will pick.

In next few months Teutons surrender.

Sadly Samogitia has been already converted to Prussian culture.
After those 3 wars we are finnaly close to positive prestige.
Hungary whitepeaces soon after and we get new mission to vassalize Riga.

We should be able to westernize in this century (at least sliders should be in position).
Also notice how we moved from 5 serfdom to 3 serfdom thanks to peasant rebelions.
Russian guarantees on Tver have expired so we attack them (they are allied with Poland and Moldavians which are weak).

Some more cores.
Peace with Poles and minions : Tver will cede Rzhev, Moldavia will become vassal and Poland will renounce claims on Lublin and pay 21 ducats.
Almost all of our techs are 4 (only trade is 3), our inflation is 1.8 and we still pay 1.3 ducats to Golden Horde each month.
In 1426 new round of war with Hordes begins.

We concede defeat powerfull Crimea (they field 14k tech advanced army) and let our minions strike at Golden Horde.

We still had core on Kiev (It defected via rebels) so expect huge cash boost.
Durning the war our great king dies and his heir takes over.

Will he be as great as his father? We will see.

 

[Ramidel]

@Swistaczek: Protestants don't need to be narrowminded to get missionaries; also, when the Reformation hits, a lot of your provinces will convert on their own.

Just something to think about.

 

[chgrogers]

I would like to see you Roleplay the Orthodox angle. Since it was a major concession maybe you should see embrace it and see where it takes you. Good luck it looks like you have regained your feet. Lets hope those claims keep coming.

 

[Legolas]

How the tide has turned. Great work on all fronts!

 

[Swistaczek]

Ramidel
I forgot about awesome +missionary decisions for Protestants, anyway, I'd prefer to stay with Orthodox, I like them.
chgrogers
Im not good at roleplaying because of my bad english.
Legolas
Thanks mate!

 

[Swistaczek]

Because of our king's weak claim he starts with low legitimacy and pretender revolt. Our manpower reservers are dead as always, thus we concede defeat Golden Horde and focus on killing all rebels.

Also Crimean Khanate revolted from Golden Horde and threatens us from south, our army is not fully reinforced (as you can see) therfore we must rely on our vassals and allies. Because war with Crimean Khanate started first our army is there and Teutons have free way.

Yet another claims for glorious Lithuania, we now have 2 on Novogorod Republic, 2 on Teutonic Order and 1 on GH.
At the battle of Zaporozhia Crimean Cavalary almost annihilates our army, we agree to their peace offer (End of vassalization of Moldavia).
Few months after peace with Crimea Naples (allied with Teutons) uses now-free Moldavia as entrance into our lands, making chaos everywhere.

The Lithuania did not lost much but is surely weaker, We need at least 10 years to recover our manpower to a decent level.
Another slider move, we move towards innovative (too scared of rebelion from centralisation )
Because of disaster at Zaporozhia new tactics are implented as suggested by our land advisor (-50 ducats, +1 towards quality, 200 land tech).

Poles once again backstab us and once again Muscowy proves to be our great Orthodox friend.

Because we dont want to get border with Bohemia we settle for cash.
In 1438 second war with Crimean Khanate starts but this time we are prepered and destroy them in second Battle of Zaporozhia.

While we colonize Crimea we can also go for Zaporozhia, their vassal.

Something that will speed up westernization, in background : Crimean Patriots make some mess.
While we colonize and carpet siege, in 1442 Poles backstab us... again.

Crimea fully occupied and Zaporozhia annexed, now only problem is Poland.

Our third king and once again his stats are awesome (not as awesome as first king, but still).

 

[unmerged(58610)]

Those backstabbing Poles. Thank heavens for Muscovy. Shame you're going to thank them by attacking them. Good work colonizing Zaporozhia and soon to be Crimea. You've got a border with the GH again. Should be able to get that core colonized.

Do you still have cores on Smolensk and Mogilyov? Poland is probably too big to vassilize - after you take a couple of provinces, it will be next war, unless that is someone else gets them. first.

 

[Ashantai]

You've managed to recover well from the Peasant War, and are now going quite nicely.

Rare to see a Lithuanian AAR...very interested to see where this goes!

 

[sprites]

I'm surprised Trollhemia still hasn't eaten the poles as they usually do.
Good job managing Lithuania , with a lot of rival claims so far!

 

[Swistaczek]

Chief Ragusa
I will try to be friend with Muscowy as long as possible, it's only orthodox friend I have and also I have a lot of land to conquer.
About cores : No, releasing vassals in 5.2 removes cores (which is good idea). I had core on Kiev because it defected via rebels (I released Ukraine when Kiev was occupied by them).
Ashantai
Thanks, things should go well as long as I wont get involved in war with major western power, my techs are pretty bad.
sprites
I guess they are just too busy holding imperial title, Austria and France are nasty rivals.

 

[Swistaczek]

Jonas II roses to throne and his first important task is to deal with Polish aggression. First diplomatic action he makes is making peace with destroyed ally of Poland : Tver.

We have gained powerfull vassal and cut off potential Muscowy/Novogorod expansion route.
Peace with Poles comes year later, they will annual all treaties with Brandenburg, Meissen and Wallachia and release Ukraine in Ruthenia.We did not took any land because we dont want to share border with agressive Bohemia/Hungary, at least now.
In 1445 rich city of Azow defects to us.

Centralisation of Lithuania goes well, but next year our heir dies in an "accident" durning hunt, king suspects some angry nobles did it, but, oh well, he will have anotehr one.

New heir, core on Polotosk and total annihilation of Crimean khanate.
Next years pass rather peacefully, we made peace with Golden Horde and slowly regain manpower.

There is a lot of converting to do.
5 years pass and Golden Horde attacks us, while they have only 10k troops, we + vassals have 32k, plus our 27k manpower reserve.

Poland again, we accept call to arms and prepare to steamroll them once and for all.
Novogorod joins on Polish side and attacks our Russian states.

Thanks to Military drill our army is superior to theirs. Year after the battle we get a slider move and go towards centralisation, at -1 right now.

Poles are not having fun, but before we make peace with them we need to occupy some provinces of Novogorod.

There we go.Now move back to Poland.

We abandon our No-border-with-Hungary-or-Bohemia policy. Next year (1460) we diplovassalize Ukraine.

Overall situation in Eastern Europe. You can see Poland is almost dead and Tatar states revolt just to be annexed by Lithuania. Teutons are still strong and Byzantium is somehow avoiding war with Ottomans.

This is where this update ends, it was short and featured only evil Poles but next one should be longer and more epic.Thanks to everyone reading.