Republic of Russia: A Novogorod DW AAR

[Avindian]

Feedback​

Played up to 1433 -- another update is forthcoming. Got my first hit of the "cascading alliances" problem everyone complains about -- a minor one, but it does have me worried for the future.

Boris -- You're right, I just hope I don't run out...

Ashantai -- Thanks for the feedback!

Eber -- I think they are supposed to get some kind of bonus to WE, but I've done quite well for myself picking up the Horde's trash, as you'll soon see

Iwanow -- If you jump on Muscowy quickly and deny her the minors, you can actually do quite well. Not sure if it'll be part of this update or the next, but Muscowy pretty much ceases to be a problem.

 

[Fenrir 1576]

Really?!? I don't know if I like that. So does this mean the Horde always have high WE? I feel as though this a system that is easy to manipulate. It's great for Russia though.

Yeah, they also redid the WE system for hordes, they get no considerable WE until someone comes on by and roflstomps their armies and occupies the entire country, at which point they get picked apart by everyone.

 

[Avindian]

Chapter 2: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Horde​

Before I start, I've noticed I haven't been giving dates, which I will presently start doing.

I had this decision all the time in HttT and never knew what it was for. It turns out, it removes foreign cores from your territory! (This is for Yaroslavl, I think). It takes two magistrates and must be bordering your National Focus.

February 1402: Before I use the above event, I take out a small loan in homage to Naggy.

November 1402: I hired a 1 star diplomat to help with infamy burn -- no one else available and my cultural tradition isn't super at this point.

January 1403: I've burned a good bit of infamy at this point. I look around for a target, and look what I see...

If you can see it, the 10 regiment stack in Pensa is the entirety of the Muscovite army. I use my reconquest CB in March for my core in Kostroma. I had to wait for my renewed maintenance to take effect.

March 30, 1403: My first election! I go military and get 3/8/9 (A/M/D). Pretty pleased with that. My new ruler leads my main army (14 regiments -- I usually try to go about even with cavalry and infantry, but since infantry is cheaper, I have 10 infantry and four cavalry). As a side note, how exactly does tactics work, and does it even matter this early in the game (Land 3).

March 31, 1403: War!!!

It looks like I'm outnumbered, but some of those troops are in Georgia, and the Golden Horde is kind of in the way, so I doubt I'll see them.

June 1403: Muscowy is beaten quickly -- I really only want the one province now, and since the Horde is rampaging through Muscovite territory, as soon as it falls, it's mine. God decides my new mission will be to match Venice's fleet. God's a funny guy. I cancel it and get one to fortify Olonets, which I was going to do anyway.

September 1403: Georgia offers white peace. Since you can't ask for military access from a Horde in DW, and also since I'd lose half my army on the way, I accept.

October 2, 1403: You know things are going badly when Pommerania declares war on the Teutonic Order -- and wins a province (Warmia).

November 23, 1403: Ryazan WPs out with Teutonic Order, mostly because they're probably bankrupt again since the Horde has occupied them.

March 1, 1404: Noooo! How can I possibly win now? (TO had just vassalized Riga, that's why half of the HRE is at war with them.)

March 3, 1404: Two days later, I get what I wanted from TO.

I didn't want to annex at this point, since I was worried about overextension. I later realized I should have looked at the Wiki, since I had just about zero chance of getting it. It would have given me a total of four non-cores, and I'm much too small at this point to trigger it. Oh well. This will at least keep TO from taking it again, since we're allies.

March 9, 1404 -- Smolensk declares independence from Muscowy. I ally them.

May 8, 1404 -- I get my first truly awesome advisor -- a 5 star diplomat, who quickly replaces the old one (in DW, you can only have one of any type of advisor).

February 1405 -- My old ruler dies, I go military again, and get the exact same stats, 3/8/9. If the name wasn't different I'd swear they were the same guy. Perhaps he faked his own death and assumed a new identity because of gambling debts or something.

April 1405 -- Smolensk loses a province and is vassalized by Moscow. They never called me to arms -- probably because I'm still in truce with Moscow, and you can't get called to arms if you're in a truce.

Nothing terribly exciting happens until April 1409. Lots of exciting things happened after then, but, in my infinite wisdom, I forgot to take screen shots. :wacko:

The rest of this update won't have any pretty pictures, I'm afraid, but it will cover a lot of ground, since I intended there to be two more updates. Won't let it happen again.

I'm in August 1433. Going from memory, I've had five wars. I have a war in 1409 (no CB) with Muscowy, TO, Smolensk, Sweden and Georgia (alliance leader) to get some more provinces. First, I annex Smolensk. TO and Sweden white peaces out. Muscowy gives me Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, releases Murom and Smolensk. Georgia WPs out.

I get a border friction CB on Polotsk for Mogilev, which I take pretty easily (allies for Polotsk were Ryazan and Lithuania -- Lithuania got hit with peasant war, while Ryazan was occupied by the Horde).

Ukraine, a tribal federation released from Lithuania, gives me a tribal conquest CB, so I take Poltava and Chernigov.

After some infamy burn, I DOW Muscowy again (no CB) to take Moskva. Sweden, Lithuania, and TO answer the call. I annex Muscowy and white peace out with the others.

My next to last war was incredibly scary -- I got a conquest CB on Minsk from a mission. Lithuania's been pretty much irrelevant for the most of the game, so I DOW, thinking it'll be a walk in the park. Lithuania has support from TO and Sweden (alliance leader). I take Minsk and Vilna (to get war score up) and end the war, thinking I can just wait out the rest.

Then I get the infamous cascading alliances. TO makes an alliance with England, calls them in, and then England subsequently calls in three or four German minors. Pskov helps me take some TO territory and Sweden WPs out, but it takes a lot of punishment for me to beat England -- and I use "beat" loosely. Despite nearly 2-1 odds and the same tech (4-4), I'm getting decimated in casualties. I hired a Commandant for extra discipline, but it didn't help much. It must be superior Western units. Anyways, I inflict enough damage on England that I can concede defeat and survive, but that was awfully scary.

My last war, by comparison, was the subjugation of Pskov, which took five seconds since she had no allies.

I also moved a slider toward centralization. It looks like Westernization will take a while -- not only do you have the slider requirements, but you need a Western neighbor with a tech lead of over 20 (combined, I assume) in DW, and I'm only a tech or two behind most of the West at this point. I took my first NI, National Bank, got a couple more trade techs.

That's where I'm at now. I've accomplished all my short term goals, and I have all the territory I need to form Russia, I just need to wait until Moskva cores (1461 or so, if I remember right). I'm going to play until at least 1450 in the next few days, do another update, then a State of the Republic post in 1450 so you can see how things have changed. Any requests there, apart from your standard maps and charts?

UPDATED: I figured it out, thanks to the tech support forum. It turns out I did have the screen shots, but they were under the compatibility files (for some reason). Going forward, I know this, so we should have all the screen shots we want going forward.

 

[Avindian]

Yeah, they also redid the WE system for hordes, they get no considerable WE until someone comes on by and roflstomps their armies and occupies the entire country, at which point they get picked apart by everyone.

Good to know -- thanks for the information!

 

[gela1212]

Since we don't have any screenshots, I can't be sure on this, but I'll share my experiences with the Novgorod game I just finished.

First off - The new buildings are you friend. Right around the time I formed Russia, I was the richest nation in the world, simply because I was specializing in production tech (I switched to land after getting all the production buildings).

Second - Your probably inevitable war with the horde is likely to hinge on one or two battles. I'd suggest getting some really good generals before fighting them, unless they're being torn apart by Lithuania/etc. as they sometimes do (though most of the time they manage to get most of their neighbors to pay tribute).

Third - Around the time Hansa switches from merchant republic, you'll probably start to notice Novgorod having a ridiculous value, and most of europe, now being covered in cots from the death of trade leagues, dropping. This will probably force you to issue a lot of embargoes to keep free trade nations from knocking you out of your own CoT, as everybody will now want to trade in Novgorod.

 

[Fenrir 1576]

Good to know -- thanks for the information!

Sure, anytime mate.

 

[Ashantai]

Nice update...but shame about the lack of pics. Very interesting though!

 

[Avindian]

Feedback​

gela1212 -- I've just begun to scratch the surface of the new buildings -- pleased that there's no longer revolt risk penalties to constables. Not sure the armory is all that impressive though. I will surely keep an eye open for the merchant republic phenomenon -- if I stick with one. I ideally need a little more breathing room on for westernization -- I need -2 and merchant republic keeps me at 0. Good tip on the Horde. One odd thing -- I have a core on their territory, but it won't let me do anything about it, i.e. no CB. Not saying I want to go after them now, but I'd like to at least have the option.

Ashantai -- More pics will be on the way on the next update, now that I've got it sorted out.

One thing I didn't mention was my current mission -- capture Vyborg from Sweden (for a free core). I have two outstanding CBs now -- that one and the tribal conquest CB on Ukraine (who replaced my two provinces with two more, for a total of four). It's either 1 province for 2 infamy + core, or up to four uncored provinces (at least two of which I should get cores on with Russia) for up to eight infamy (2 per province). I plan on doing both, but any thoughts on where to go first?

Swedish allies are Pommerania, Lithuania, and Burgundy is DotF for Catholics. Ukrainian ally is Georgia, with Lithuania and Ryazan guarantees.

The Ukrainian territory is more valuable, particularly Kiev, but another territory around the (future) St. Petersburg could be helpful for defense purposes.

I've got truces with both, so I can't do much in the short term, but I wanted to get everyone's thoughts on my future direction.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

I would just say : AI is so foolish that without help it can't even form Russia without help. Still when you play as Muscowy it is easier than when you play Novgorod. Whenever i see russia forming it forms only if i help it, or if i destroy GH. The biggest problem with AI forming Russia is just that it got to defeat GH, that is quite hard for the AI.

 

[Avindian]

I would just say : AI is so foolish that without help it can't even form Russia without help. Still when you play as Muscowy it is easier than when you play Novgorod. Whenever i see russia forming it forms only if i help it, or if i destroy GH. The biggest problem with AI forming Russia is just that it got to defeat GH, that is quite hard for the AI.

I think you're right about Muscovy -- I definitely think I would have formed Russia faster, but I wanted to stick with a republic and I don't have any modding skills. I haven't played DW much, but I have seen Russia formed in past games of HttT.

 

[Ashantai]

It's weird, Russia forms quite often for me, I have to say. Especially in DW where hordes are ultimately paper tigers unless Lithuania eats them.

 

[Boris ze Spider]

You have been very fortunate with england, but if worst came to worst, u could scorch provinces in winter and watch them die.

 

[Avindian]

Chapter 3: War!!!!​

All kinds of wars in this update. I'm also up to 1450, so immediately after this post will be a State of the Republic type post.

Not pictured -- At the beginning of this update, I moved a slider toward further Centralization.

August 17, 1433 -- I ask Polotsk, politely, to lose its freedom and independence for all eternity. It, somewhat surprisingly, declines.

Fools indeed.

August 22, 1433 -- Austria takes a healthy chunk out of Poland.

November 1433 -- Milan is next on Austria's table -- this worries me, because I'd hate to deal with HRE Austria.

January 1434 -- Interesting. I end up not taking advantage of it, but I seem to be getting a good number of these.

August 1434 -- I notice that Zaporozhie has broken away from the Horde. Good to know.

April 1435 -- Production tech 5. I've been building constables on the highest tax provinces when I get the cash -- there's no revolt risk penalty like there was in HttT.

August 1435 -- Ukraine declares war on Moldavia. That reminds me to declare war on them once the truce is up.

September 1435 -- You know Milan is in trouble when Switzerland can take a taste (they get Brescia and 15 ducats). I celebrate by declaring war on Ukraine (Tribal Conquest CB).

November 1435 -- Land tech 5. That should make things a little bit easier.

February 1436 -- I occupy Vilna and quickly peace out Lithuania. I'm not afraid of them, but they don't have much I want either. I can't take Grodno for the lower infamy, since I didn't DoW Lithuania.

February 24, 1436 -- Since they're mostly occupied and have no army, Ukraine WPs with Moldavia. Probably for the best.

Jaunary 3, 1437 -- It's about bloody time! There was a revolt in Moskva (Russian nationalists, usually cross over from Ryazan), so I couldn't leave too large an army in theater.

And sweet, sweet peace.

Well, sweet for me. I wanted to annex Ukraine in its entirety, but it was a little too big. Honestly, I just want Kiev, with its 15 base tax ::drools:: but since it's the capital, I can't do anything about it. I take Podolia to split Ukraine in two, thinking they might move their capital. Plus, I can always take Ukraine as a whole after the truce expires.

February 1437 -- Election! I keep the guy I had before -- 6/6/9 -- and will do so at every election henceforth. Until I can westernize, I'm pretty happy with this leader.

October 21, 1438 -- I'm planning another war -- I leave five regiments in Podolia for the likely Catholic revolts until she converts, so I can use the rest of my army in battle. War against whom, you ask?

I shall make Viborg mine! Pommerania, Aachen, Lorraine, and Holland also join the fray for Sweden.

October 28, 1438 -- Bohemia -- HRE at this point, joins the war, and becomes alliance leader. Crap. I hate cascading alliances

November, 1438 -- What's left of Poland decides to join in -- Poland will make absolutely no contribution to the war effort against me.

December 30, 1438 -- I get what I came for.

[/IMG]

January 1, 1439 -- God decides Moldavia is next on the menu (mission w/ subjugation CB). Let's get through this war first.

February 1439 -- My old 6 star diplomat dies, I quickly hire another one (with the help of my magistrates).

May 1439 -- Here's the theater of battle right now. That's Lithuania in Polesia, with large Bohemian armies pacing back and forth on Lithuanian territory (why? I have no idea).

[/IMG]

I scorched Mogilev at this point -- I thought the war would continue on a lot longer, and didn't want to lose Minsk's tax production, since it's my third best province (behind Novgorod and Moskva). I tried to enter Polesia to break the siege, but quickly discovered, to my dismay, that the moment I did so Bohemia's 20+ regiments were going to join the battle. Instead, I bring down my other army, which is on Novgorod right now, and wait for a good moment to attack.

July 3, 1439 -- Blast! Ukraine just collapsed. Why does this matter, you ask? Because Ukraine reforms as a merchant republic (with no CoT, that's quite a trick). That means no more reduced price territory Ukraine also refuses to switch capitals, the bastards.

May 28, 1440 -- A boon! While my army whittles away at Polesia (now 40 regiments vs. 20 Lithuanian/Bohemian regiments, who are inflicting serious casualties with their Western units and higher discipline [I assume] ), I discover that Lithuania has had enough and wants peace.

This has two congenial outcomes -- first, obviously, it gets rid of Lithuania. But Bohemia now doesn't have a direct line into my territory and the mostly Lithuanian contingent of the army on Polesia leaves! Resulting in:

The death of the remnants of 15 Bohemian regiments! Take a peek at my army here -- that army had 40 regiments at one point

I'm actually feeling pretty good about getting a white peace out of Bohemia.

July 1440 -- Not any more.

My manpower has been seriously drained by this war, and now, as you can see, we've got landings near Novgorod. My armies need time to recover, and just don't have it.

August 1440 -- I am forced to surrender to Bohemia.

September 1440 -- At least I can still beat up Moldavia! Time to use my new CB! ::crickets chirp::

March 1443 -- Ryazan gets a CB on me for Border Friction -- some how, I don't think they'll do much about it.

April 1443 -- Get "Aristocrats concerned" event. I have to take the 10 prestige loss here, since a move towards aristocracy will put me over the threshold for Merchant republics.

October 1443 -- Notice there weren't any war updates? Yeah, see, I'm a dolt. Golden Horde was occupying Moldavia when I DoWed, and since GH wouldn't just end their war, nothing actually happened. Three year white peace kicks in, now I get to wait another five years to vassalize Moldavia

November 1443 -- My master of the mint pays off with the inflation reduction event. Huzzah! My merchants are so pleased they give me 100 ducats.

August 1444 -- My last slider move towards Centralization for now. I'll try to move a bit toward Innovative (or possibly Quality) for my next move.

October 1444 -- Ingermanland becomes Russian.

May 1445 -- Did you think I was idle during this period? Well, I mostly was, but there was something I was pursuing.

Why Denmark? Well, here's one reason:

Denmark still has all of her territories, (except Gotland), and what's more, made Sweden release Finland, who is also allied to Denmark. Denmark should be very useful, both for their army (not much) and their navy (bingo!), which should help prevent those nasty landings in Northern Novgorod should I go to war with an appropriate power.

August 19, 1445 -- Here's another benefit: Western Arms trade (+6 to Land Tech, -1% to Prestige) from bordering Finland.

April 1446 -- Land Tech 6.

May 1447 -- Dogpile on France! It's a bad sign when you have to pay off Savoy to the tune of 150 ducats.

August 1447 -- Austria and Bohemia make France release a bunch of minors. So long for now, France!

November 1447 -- Government Tech 5.

September 1448 -- Podolia converts to Orthodoxy. Also, trade tech 5.

October 1448 -- Time to die, Moldavia! The Golden Horde can't save you now!

November 1448 -- Insult from Finland. You must want my Finnish cores! Let's see you do something about it.

March 1449 -- Moldavia pays the ultimate price -- vassalization. Next up on God's agenda, conquering Tula from Ryazan. Since Ryazan is also occupied by GH, I learn my lesson and wait patiently for my chance.

This brings us up to January 1450. State of the Republic is coming next!

 

[Avindian]

State of the Republic: 1450​

The mighty Republic of Novgorod!

The blue OPM is Murom. That's the Horde occupying all three Russian minors on my southern border.

The advisers to Novgorod --

When the Commandant dies, I'm going to temporarily hire a Theologian to introduce Church taxes, then hire another Commandant until I have Quantity/Quality at zero.

My economy --

I've had to mint a bit to afford my wars, so I'm currently working on burning off my inflation. Thanks to that Master of Mint event, I'm burning off .30 a year now. For the most part, all technologies are equally useful at this point, so I'm just swapping sliders when one is done to the next closest one (except navy technologies).

Sliders and NI --

It'll be a while before I get my next idea -- I'm thinking Military Drill or maybe even Colonial Ventures for my eventual war with GH. We'll see where I'm at at that point. Next slider move will be towards quality, since I want to get rid of the discipline penalty. Western powers are eating me alive with casualties right now. Some of that is probably unit type.

My army --

I think the other part of my problem is too few cavalry. For a long time, I've been too poor to afford much cavalry, so I usually go infantry heavy. My economy is getting a lot better now, so I'm wondering if I ought to swap out some infantry for cavalry. I'd like to get some tactics bonuses as well.

Pies --

I have exactly one Catholic Province -- Viborg. I'll get a whole slew of cores after I form Russia (and yes, I'm counting the days), which should eliminate most of that.

Comparative economies --

Number two in the world isn't too shabby.

The CoTs --

Venice, Hansa, and Genoa are all embargoing me, which keeps me out of their COTs. I'm honestly not sure what the red lettering means -- I thought it was trade range but I'm trading in Ile-de-France but I can't trade in Alexandria.

Worldwide armies --

#11 in the world. The only country I actually border in this list is the Golden Horde, although I'm getting closer to the Ottomans.

Finally, a map of the world --

Anything else you guys want me to add for future SotR?

 

[Avindian]

Feedback​

Ashantai -- This is my second DW game (the first one was a test Novgorod game that I gave up on because of rebels), but it does seem to be fairly easy to form Russia.

Boris -- That's what I'll do, but so far I've just dealt with England the once.

 

[Ashantai]

Fantastic work! Congrats!

 

[TekcoR]

Welcome to the Writing with the StAARs Competition! Though you are a late entry, it is still exciting to see people entering! Good luck!

 

[Avindian]

Feedback​

Ashantai -- Thanks!

TekcoR -- Glad to be part of the contest!

I'm in 1509 right now and I'm losing a bit of heart, to be honest. Here's my problem. Burgundy, at some point, got a Swedish province. Normally, I wouldn't care, but the game decided that Burgundy would get a mission to conquer Karellia. So, every five years, on top of the two hordes DoWing me (Golden Horde and Nogai, who is now my neighbor), Burgundy joins in the fun, with its bevvy of German minor support. The war exhaustion is eating me alive. To make matters even more "fun," Bohemia decided to DoW me too, just as I finally peace out with Nogai and Burgundy. And to top it all off, I'm at -2 stability because I westernized before all this happened, and the war exhaustion makes recovering stability worse, which causes more revolts, etc...

Here's what I propose, if it's all right within contest rules and my loyal readAARs don't mind.

I'd like to reload an earlier save and, essentially, cancel Burgundy's mission. I think it's a weird fluke that it got the mission in the first place. I'll also hold off on Westernizing until I've at least eliminated one of the two hordes, if not both. Apart from that, I will deal with events as they come. I think I have a 1501 save that would do nicely.

I've got about three updates worth of material right now -- two standard updates and the 1500 "State of the Republic." I'll do at least one tomorrow, and all three should be done by the end of next week. I do like to play ahead, though, so I'd like, if possible, everyone's thoughts within 48 hours. If you know of some other way to burn off a lot of war exhaustion quickly (10+ at this point), please let me know.

That's all for now -- update tomorrow!

 

[Fenrir 1576]

Yeah, HRE members in Scandinavia doesn't sound too good, and since the AI virtually never cancels missions, I think you'd be up a creek without a paddle for a long time if you kept going as is. I personally wouldn't mind a bit of editing to remedy the craziness.

 

[foriavik]

Great AAR thus far, keep going!