Muscovy/Ruscovy: ARGH LITHUANIA!!

[heliostellar]

They are a constant pest. Is there an effective strategy to keep Lithuania focused elsewhere? I think one mistake that I made was fabricating all the claims that I could on Novgorod, one of which got detected and then resulted in a shotgun wedding with them and Lithuania. Other thoughts?

 

[Isaios]

Only to ignore them untill you've eaten Novgorod and the Tartar Hordes, at which point you outnumber them significantly and can be killed with Russian Winter warfare relatively easily.

If you've got the money to burn, support rebels, as they've got loads of religious/nationalistic rebels.

 

[heliostellar]

Only to ignore them untill you've eaten Novgorod and the Tartar Hordes, at which point you outnumber them significantly and can be killed with Russian Winter warfare relatively easily.

If you've got the money to burn, support rebels, as they've got loads of religious/nationalistic rebels.

Hmmmm, that's a good point. I haven't really taken advantage of the Russian Winter yet... I like this.

 

[Dakilla TM]

Lithuania is very prone to nationalist and religious rebels. Catholics are a minority, and so are Lithuanians. Try to support nationalist rebels, or better yet, find them in a losing war and attack them when they're weak!

 

[Variton]

Hmmmm, that's a good point. I haven't really taken advantage of the Russian Winter yet... I like this.

Currently on a Russian game (ironman, normal). Actually it is the third one as two of the first games I failed miserably (on ironman, hard).

Go slowly at first. Grab only a few provinces of Novgorod. In all my three games Lithuania did ally with Novgorod quite soon, so be sure to start war with Novgorod on day one. When they are eventually allied with Lithuania, focus on expanding east and annexing your vassals. Time is on your favor.

Lithuania may nevertheless try to attack you. Partial solutioun: Ally Sweden, he's good one to have when war comes with Lithuania + Novgorod.

When Lithuania + Novgorod alliance finally ends (for reason X) and Sweden is your ally, you can grab as many provinces of Novgorod as you like. Or if you have expanded east, time will come that you can take on Lithuania+Novgorod+Poland quite easily.

I found religious ideas a good one to have for eastward expansion as you would want to convert a lot of provinces.

 

[MadDjinn]

It's better to just go for the throat early game.

if the Ukraine hasn't kicked out yet, grab a province or 2 in the first war vs. Lithuania. Not too many to get major AE, but enough *1 to create the Ukraine. The next 2-3 wars will be you forcing Lithuania/Poland to give the Ukraine cores back (no AE, so it's a good 'burn AE' war).

If the Ukraine has a province somewhere (anywhere from Hungary to your border), then take the stab hit and vassal it while you're at war with Lithuania/Poland. It's worth it.

If Ruthenian rebels are wandering around, either the Ukraine or you will get the provinces. Vassal the Ukraine and you get the provinces (though they are usually Ukraine cores, so hand them back ASAP).

It should only take 1 good war to push Lithuania into a Peasants War. Sit back and support various rebels to watch them hand provinces away.

Novgorod is pretty straight forward.

take 100% first war - focus on Finland cores and a path to it. Kick out Finland (to reduce AE)
Novgorod + Tver enter a coalition against you.
Attack Tver
Take ~100% more from Novgorod. they should only have their capital left at this point.
Kazan/etc enter the coalition.
Attack them. Take Novgorod and Tver in the next war. If Kazan, remember the Perm Core.

--- Fail mission to subjugate. Bug in the subjugation code, but you only miss out on a bit of prestige. The free Fabricated claims are still worth taking the mission.

Use Finland to take cores back from Sweden (if they went independent).

keep going...

 

[gajop]

Kazan/etc enter the coalition.

Kazan won't get any AE if you take russian/chirstian lands (different culture and religion group).

@OP:
With Muscovy it's probably best to attack Novgorod early, as well as Ryazan and Tver. Avoid Lithuania - they tend to have strong allies or be in a PU under Poland. Wait for hordes to weaken themselves in the first few wars (they tend to be waging wars nonstop in my games).

 

[Incompetent]

Ignore them if you can. Once you get enough of a military advantage over the Hordes, you can expand east like a madman and then destroy most of your European neighbours with sheer numbers. The only reason to push West early as Muscovy/Russia is if a golden opportunity presents itself, such as the opportunity to claim a throne or release some country that has a huge number of cores for you to feed back to it.

If Poland integrates Lithuania, that's even better - you can release them and then feed their cores back. If Lithuania remains independent you can do the same trick with Ukraine, which doesn't give quite as many cores, but gives you most of what you want.

 

[MiniaAr]

It's better to just go for the throat early game.

if the Ukraine hasn't kicked out yet, grab a province or 2 in the first war vs. Lithuania. Not too many to get major AE, but enough *1 to create the Ukraine. The next 2-3 wars will be you forcing Lithuania/Poland to give the Ukraine cores back (no AE, so it's a good 'burn AE' war).

If the Ukraine has a province somewhere (anywhere from Hungary to your border), then take the stab hit and vassal it while you're at war with Lithuania/Poland. It's worth it.

If Ruthenian rebels are wandering around, either the Ukraine or you will get the provinces. Vassal the Ukraine and you get the provinces (though they are usually Ukraine cores, so hand them back ASAP).

It should only take 1 good war to push Lithuania into a Peasants War. Sit back and support various rebels to watch them hand provinces away.

Novgorod is pretty straight forward.

take 100% first war - focus on Finland cores and a path to it. Kick out Finland (to reduce AE)
Novgorod + Tver enter a coalition against you.
Attack Tver
Take ~100% more from Novgorod. they should only have their capital left at this point.
Kazan/etc enter the coalition.
Attack them. Take Novgorod and Tver in the next war. If Kazan, remember the Perm Core.

--- Fail mission to subjugate. Bug in the subjugation code, but you only miss out on a bit of prestige. The free Fabricated claims are still worth taking the mission.

Use Finland to take cores back from Sweden (if they went independent).

keep going...

I followed quite a similar strategy in my own Russian game, and it seems it's a great road to success.

• First I claimed Tver and annexed it, then I took the subjugate Novgorod mission.
• I took Ingermanland, Kola and Arkhangelsk in the first war, and released Finland. They accepted Kola immediately (same religion, same culture group) and I could vassalise them pretty quickly.
• From Ingermanland, I fabricated a claim on Nyland, which allowed me to DOW Sweden when they started their independence war against Denmark. I asked for Nyland (wargoal) for myself and give back Osterbotten and Finland cores to Finland. I then fabricated a claim on isolated Savolaks to get another CB before giving the province to Finland. The reason I was not able to give back all Finnish cores is that for once I did not get greedy and wanted to take my profit before Sweden lost its war. I could have gone for the last three remaining cores, but insight is still 100%.
• I warred against Novgorod some more, but they were more or less alone in the coalition against me. (I think Ryazan joined, even better as I vassalised them in another coalition war).
• In between wars I noticed that Kazan had some Uralic rebels and was at war against GH/Uzbek or something. I immediately put a diplomat supporting rebels, with max funding. The rebels took the two Uralic provinces and even if kazan was able to defeat them, they could not take the provinces back before defecting to Perm. So no early war needed against Kazan, lucky me.
• To avoid a growing coalition, I improved relations with Lithuania to max, then Kazan, which prevented them to join one, or only for a few years.
• I annexed Perm as soon as possible, and as i took Expansion first, I was able to start the long trekk through Siberia very soon. By 1578, the Pacific was reached and by 1615, the whole Siberian coast was mine, including Sakhalin, the Kurils and even Hokkaido/Ezo. No Iberian Siberia in my game, a great relief. I'm going to try to colonise California, to teach them a lesson.
• In the third war against Novgorod, I was able to vassalise them and gave them back some provinces I took previously, even if the coring was almost over (98%ish). This was me being greedy again. :happy: Increasing relations was a pain due to the high Aggressive Expansion penalty, but I was able to diploannex them before ADM 10, so no real delay here.
• To deal with Lithuania, allied with both Denmark (and its two unions) and Poland, I declared war on Sweden with the claim on Savolaks. With two armies parked in Osterbotten and Finland, Scandinavian armies were easily defeated through the crossing penalty from Aland and obliterated when they retreated by a clever move of my merchant navy in Finland blocking the strait. A lot of stackwipes there. With Savolaks as wargoal, behind my defensive line, warscore increased pretty quick on that front.
• As Lithuania was called as an ally, but Denmark remained warleader, Poland wasn't called in. This allowed me to go for a 100% separate peace against Lithuania, against which I concentrated the main part of my army. I took Smolensk (I had a claim) for myself, had them release Polotsk that I vassalised soon enough, and took one province with a Ukrainian core (I think Kiev directly, but I'm not sure). I released Ukraine when the peace with the Scandinavian was signed, giving Finland all it's remaining cores.
• Then I could declare on Lithuania directly 5 years later, but due to the truce still going on with the Scandinavians, they were not called in. Poland still joined, but by that point I had a MIL tech advantage (7vs 5 and 6) which allowed me to crush them. I separatly signed peace with Poland giving back Ukrainian cores and did the same with Lithuania. In the next war, all Ukrainian cores would be given back (except those cores in Hungary) and the annexation process could start.
  
• Taking Expansion first gave me the crucial additional relations I needed, and the colonist. I also built an embassy as soon as I could, and basically had at least one vassal being annexed all the time, if not two.

Hope this can provide some useful information. (a lot of Russian threads this days. :happy

 

[panionios]

They are a constant pest. Is there an effective strategy to keep Lithuania focused elsewhere? I think one mistake that I made was fabricating all the claims that I could on Novgorod, one of which got detected and then resulted in a shotgun wedding with them and Lithuania. Other thoughts?

The most effective strategy, is when they get under a PU with Poland (which happens 90% of the time). They can do nothing and it is up to you when it will be the right time to attack. Clearly, your game is in the 10%.

In any case, irrespective of whether LIT enters a PU with POL or not, you should always ally with POL and maintain the alliance for as long as necessary (break it when you decide the time has come to take on the Poles). If attacked, you have a strong ally (esp. if in a PU with LIT) who will always come to the rescue when defending and most of the times will join you when attacking.

If LIT is independent and makes the mistake to attack you (usually they do if in a coalition against you - idiots!), you'll walk all over them. Getting 100% will be like a walk in the park. Release Polotsks and Smolensk and take a single province with UKR core. Lithuania will never recover from that loss and will no longer be a threat.

BTW, why did you fabricate claims on Novgorod? When starting the game, one of the three missions is the "subjugate Novgorod" mission.

 

[sinkingmist]

I haven't really taken advantage of the Russian Winter yet...

In Soviet Russia, the land feeds on you!

 

[Alblaka]

Alternatively, ally Poland and wait for the PU, making Lituania your pseudo-ally as well?

 

[Ratanka]

if they attack you before you conquered novgorod you did something terrible wrong but neverless

burn the provinces near the border and ,move back take the fights defensly in winter and beat them with pure manpower

no one can beat russia because of the winter, just burn all provinces so they cant conquer shit ^^
its what udssr made in 2nd ww too xD

 

[DanubianCossak]

Play my mod, simple as that. Lithuania WILL fall apart

 

[Straigthtsilver]

Lithuania as a whole is a paper tiger if you're going against them as Muscovy. They can be beaten even with a day 1 DOW if you effectively use Russia's horrific winter attrition and Muscovy's excellent starting general. Once you have either Kazan or Novgorod under your belt and a few vassals annexed, Lithuania shouldn't pose any problems at all even with Poland backing them up.

 

[Colossal_Elk]

If Lithuania gets depleted manpower by other wars (probably vs Ottos/Crimea) and their war exhaustion climbs up, the entire country becomes a hotbed of endless rebellions. Happened in my Georgia campaign. I called them into a war vs Otto and suddenly half their country was getting striped black.

 

[MadDjinn]

Kazan won't get any AE if you take russian/chirstian lands (different culture and religion group).

they will because they are your neighbour (weirdly Serbia can as well).

edit:

here's a Muscovy start that worked well (the one I described earlier).

When I went to finish Tver, the Livonian Order was in a coalition against me. So that brought them in, despite the fact that they were in individual wars vs. Denmark/Norway/Sweden and Poland/Lithuania. Poland vassaled the Livonian Order, when mean that both Den/etc and I were now in wars vs them.

I got 3 provinces for 'free' during the war due to Ruthenian rebels. I took the stab hit to vassal the Ukraine (it had started in one province near Moldavia) to ensure they didn't get too big to vassal.

Now Sweden is free (due to Denmarks prestige hit) so I can happily force them to return cores to Finland. Denmark integrated Norway, so when I force them to return cores to Sweden (once they are my vassal) I can start forcing them to give cores back to a new Norway. Go Iceland invasion!

 

[Alerias]

Go Iceland invasion!

Laugh as you may, I love to make Russia into an early colonizer. Biggest problem with Iceland is to get it in coring range. Once you have that, North America is wide open.

 

[MadDjinn]

Laugh as you may, I love to make Russia into an early colonizer. Biggest problem with Iceland is to get it in coring range. Once you have that, North America is wide open.

My plan is to take a norway core and force Denmark to give everything back.

Faster than trying to core it myself. Plus, that gets me Orkney, so.. Russian invasion of London!


amusingly the AI in France found a way to get a coalition against them. They took a couple HRE provinces from Burgundy and 1/2 the HRE + Denmark is winning a coalition war vs. them.


edit: oh, and the Peasants War ripped Lithuania apart. The Polotsk rebels took 1/2 the Lithuanian provinces by themselves.