Chapter 8: Hello to a new neighbor, goodbye to an old one
February 1550: We add Transylvania to our SOI. Another Western Influences Resistance event -- again, I'll take the lower revolt risk for now.
April 1550: Gold in Berezov! New to DW, discovering your trade goods also gives you a magistrate.
May 1550: Benign Neglect again, with 100 more gold. This event has already fired like a dozen times.
June 1550: God wants a level 2 fort in Ufa. Joke's on you, God, if that is your real name, because I'm already building one! Centralization move, which of course, means I lost a stab point. As always.
July 1550: I'm not really hurting for prestige, so when a 3* High Judge comes on the market for -.9 revolt risk, I take it.
October 1550: Some nobles decide to revolt, via event. They will not be missed.
January 1551: God wants me to take Lappland now. It's part of Denmark, and honestly, it's almost totally worthless, so I'm not too keen to jump on the bandwagon. A quick test showed pretty much all of Europe would have declared war on me anyway
June 1551: Another group of regional nobles get frisky, this time in Idnakar. They aren't terribly bright, because I've already got 20 regiments sitting there.
October 1551: Denmark and Pskov become part of my SOI.
December 1551: Austria loses her religious turmoil. Hopefully she doesn't get uppity.
January 1552: Transylvania rejects my alliance proposal.
February 1552: Berezov is now an official province of the Russian Republic! [Note: I honestly lose track of colonies becoming provinces, so this will be the only mention. The one thing I do mention is trade goods, so you'll get some idea of when and where I colonize.]
I also remember to cancel my mission in Denmark. God now wants a Textile Manufactory in Kostroma. I don't why I didn't start on it right away -- I had cash on hand -- but I didn't.
June 1552: Alexei Spiridoff is reelected. Popular guy, but not with the Clergy, who want me to move Narrowminded. I agree.
January 1533: We discover how to make cannons a lot smaller, to thunderous applause. This shall be a new era in Russian military might!
I go with the defensive option, since the difference is +1 Defensive Fire, -1 Offensive Morale, and +1 Defensive Morale from Offensive Musketeers.
February 1533: Production 17.
April 1553: Georgia is simultaneously at war with and allied to Qara Koyunlu. That probably makes for an awkward war.
June 1553: Minsk goes reformed.
October 1553: Kasimov gets fortified.
October 1554: The Nogai alarm clock reminds me it's been five years since I've killed their army and taken their land.
November 1554: Oh hai Ming!
January 1555: The stupid border friction CB event fires for Nogai. Seriously, Hordes don't use CBs, so this is kind of dumb.
April 1555: Kiev gets the fortification bonus, making it even more awesome. My high quality troops also give me 10 prestige.
May 1555: Kazakh give me money for peace -- I'm cool with that, since I'm not sure exactly where Ming is.
June 1556: Production 18. Another four years, another victory for Spiridoff.
September 1556: Finnmark de-cores. Meh. I'm sure Russia will survive without a base 1 tax province I'd have to fight half of Europe for, when I can get plenty of those in Siberia for no fighting.
July 1557: Uralsk defects.
October 1557: People are mad about one of my bailiffs. I tell them to suck it up and walk it off, at the cost of five prestige.
January 1559: Baybaktu defects. My military engineer dies. I wish I could tell you who replaced him, but I forgot to note it.
March 1559: Bersh defects. That's enough Nogai land for now.
April 1559: Production 19.
May 1559: We discover Fur in Obdorsk. Not as thrilling as Gold, but hey, it means more money for me!
June 1559: If I'm going to get into the Levant, I either need to get rid of Georgia or ally with them. I choose to ally for now.
July 1559: Georgia wants me to help them with Iraq. I end up getting nothing out of this war except some prestige from winning sieges, but it's okay.
September 1559: Calvin Coolidge was right. The best thing to do
is nothing, since I pick up another 100 gold for benign neglect.
March 1560: More angry reactionaries. I buy them off again.
June 1560: The Kazakhs infiltrate parliament, and gain army tradition for it. Good for them. Alexei Spiridoff will root out the corruption when he feels like it, since he's been re-elected yet again.
August 1560: The Kazakh war starts and ends very rapidly, again for tribute.
October 1560: My university in Nizhni-Novgorod gives me some extra cultural tradition.
January 1561: GB and Castille go to war over a Trade Dispute. Could be interesting.
February 1561: Novgorod jumps on the fortification train.
May 1561: Bohemia tries to send spies to Siberia, but they get caught and I get a CB. It's nice to know they haven't forgot me. I also declare war on Sibir (Holy War). They are allied to the Timurids, who quickly realize they don't border me, honor the call and then leave me alone. Seems like a lot of paperwork. My goal here is to grab a couple of provinces so I can colonize and map the rest of Siberia.
March 1562: I kill the few remaining troops Sibir has. Another move towards Centralized, another stab hit. Ho-hum.
July 1562: Land 19. I can now build regimental camps! I don't, but I could. I also make peace with Sibir.
I had no idea I could annex the whole thing. Might as well, they've got a couple of Gold provinces and it does solidify my borders.
September 1562: This is another cool Russian decision. You get a free Conquistador (5 tradition) and a colonist. Since I don't have (and probably never will have) QftNW, it's pretty much the only way to colonize Siberia. You can reenact it every time your old Conquistador dies until you've mapped out Siberia in its entirety.
January 1563: Castille takes more Ottoman territory. This is starting to get annoying.
February 1563: People want a stable government -- I need to avoid stab hits whenever possible, so I have to discard a little government research (392 ducats isn't a big deal, about three months if it's fully funded).
March 1563: Provence pays off Castille, to the tune of 518 ducats.
April 1563: A new country, Mentese, declares independence from the Ottomans in southern Asia Minor. I note this because it's new to DW. Denmark warns me, with causes most of the country to burst into laughter.
January 1564: Government 20.
February 1564: Georgia calls me against the Ottomans and Syria (who can't reach me). Sure, why not, I'm bored
In reality, I'd love to try and take a bite out of the Ottomans, even if I can only devote one army to the effort. I ask for and get military access from Transylvania. Chernigov also turns Russian. To end a busy month, Prussia warns me.
March 1564: Trade 17.
April 1564: Since the Nogai still bother me, I kill their entire army and occupy the remaining two provinces. Soon, the Nogai will join the countries that have disappeared from the map to feed Russia.
May 1564: I ask for MA from Bohemia, since they only have one province in Asia Minor, but it's right in my way. This could also be a useful canary if Bohemia gets restless.
August 1564: Ming and I are officially neighbors, as they take Altai from the Kazakh Horde.
I now get Holy War against them as well. I'd like to wait until I've finally modernized, but I could DOW Ming at any time now. Maybe they'll even collapse for me!
October 1564: Pegaya Orda will produce Copper. Narym, on the other hand, is Grain.
November 1564: Siberians are really mad and revolt. They are, as usual, quickly suppressed.
December 1564: More Grain, this time from Kulunda.
June 1565: Government 21.
December 1565: I pass the Judiciary Act, for -1 RR, +.05 diplomats, and -3% to my tax modifier. Remembering how out of hand things got when I westernized, I can only imagine how many rebels I'll get when I finally modernize. I also make peace with Ottomans. The only province I could get to easily was Silistria, and by the time I got through the Caucasus Mountains and into Asia Minor, I lost half my army. I did capture Thrace, but since it was still the capital, I couldn't take it. I end up with peace for 50 Ottoman ducats, which is honestly pretty irritating. I'll clearly need to be closer to Ottoman territory to effectively fight them in the future.
January 1566: Burgundy takes territory from Denmark, putting them close to Scandinavia again. Stupid Burgundy.
October 1566: Ust Yurt finally defects. One more province left! I've got a lot of WE from the "war" against the Ottomans (I never actually fought any soldiers), so I have to give Nogai a reprieve. I demand tribute as usual.
January 1567: Kholm gets 50% more defensiveness.
March 1567: What's better than a 1* Master of Mint? A 4* Master of Mint!
May 1567: I start construction on a Weapons Manufactory in Yaroslavl. You may ask, what about the Textile Factory? The truth is, I forgot about it. I do eventually build it, but I'm not generating huge amounts of cash and can usually only afford one at a time. I just think that Weapons Manufactories are more valuable.
February 1568: A new leader for Russia, since Spiridoff finally died. Gavriil Petrov is an awesome solider and diplomat, but a mediocre administrator (5/8/9).
June 1568: The HRE passes a new reform. They're still a long way from enacting any new or exciting reforms, so I don't worry too much, but I do keep my eye on things (I think it was the Gemeiner Pfennig). One interesting thing in DW is that you can demand the HRE revoke its last reform in a war, which I think has happened a couple of times in this game, since it's pretty late to be only one or two reforms in.
November 1568: People sample new religions -- I get a little more Narrowminded.
May 1570: Denmark collapses again. There's now a Norway again, so they DOW Norway to recover some of their lost territory. I get Government 22 and a new NI -- I take Bureaucracy.
June 1570: Land 20. Agricultural Revolution in Narym. More base tax, and in Siberia, that's a huge deal. Manchu gives Ming a little more land. Also, glorious Kamchatka is discovered!
I've got a couple of inland provinces to discover, but now Russia at least has knowledge of some water that empties into the Pacific Ocean.
May 1571: Fur in Kuznetsk.
August 1571: With two more provinces (Kamnuskoye and Yakutsk), Siberia is now totally mapped.
September 1571: More resistance to Westernization. You'd think by now they'd realize Westernization isn't going away.
November 1571: Land tech 21 and a new cannon type! Of course, I don't have any artillery, so this is kind of irrelevant.
December 1571: Production 21.
February 1572: Petrov is reelected.
May 1572: Tomsk will produce Grain.
July 1572: I ask Ming politely for Military Access. I want to map out some of their territory, and this will also give me warning if Ming gets sassy.
March 1573: With very little going on, I decide to find out why I keep getting pushed out of Novgorod as a monopoly. Two other nations have 5 merchants there: Pskov and Mecklenburg. I embargo Mecklenburg, just for fun.
August 1573: 100 more ducats from Benign Neglect.
September 1573: Ruthenia is now Orthodox.
November 1573: A boundary dispute, but I think it's with Ming at this point, so I decline, forgetting I'd get some warning if Ming wanted to DOW. I won't make this mistake again.
January 1574: Our last slider move to Centralization. As soon as "Resist Western Influences" disappears and I recover the stab hit, I can modernize. Wait, no stab hit this time? Just a small revolt? Even better!
February 1574: I finally remember that Pskov still has my core and is still independent. To war!
Prussia honors the warning, but I'm shockingly unconcerned -- this is not the Prussia of Vicky 2.
Our diplomats get crossed, because Pskov asks me to honor our now gone alliance (I think I still had a guarantee). I try to join this war too, since I'd love to vassalize Lithuania, but the game realizes I can't be at war and allied with the same power (unless I'm Georgia), so I don't get to DOW. Drat.
March 1574: The end of Pskov. Now all the Russian minors are gone!
Still at war with Prussia, though. I expand the bureaucracy -- I was loathe to do this for a while, because it does decrease your national tax modifier by 5%, but I start to feel a magistrate pinch, and +.25 a year is pretty good.
April 1574: The end of Nogai!
I'm occupying Estland, which belongs to Prussia, but I ask Riga to let me through so I can occupy the rest of Prussia. This should be a good test against a smaller Western power.
June 1574: I realize that I don't have a good enough Admin leader (you need 7) to modernize, so I accept another resistance of western influences until I can get a new leader.
September 1574: I "win" the battle of Memel. I actually was so concerned about the casualties I loaded as Prussia to see if they had Prussian military reforms -- they did not. Stupid Western units.
A core on Abkhazia from a boundary dispute, eh? I know where I'm going after this war
November 1574: I eliminate the Prussian Army. Time to occupy.
Local fortifications in Kostroma. It seems this event (Fortification Effort) actually expires in ten years, but I could have sworn it was permanent. Maybe I have my events confused?
December 1574: Prussia loses independence, Estland, and 25 ducats.
January 1575: Apparently Estland was a bad idea
What's weird about this is that I'll lose it six months later, regain it the next month, and all without any territorial changes. Maybe it's a chance to happen kind of thing, but if I included every time I lost it and regained it, I'd probably have to make a whole update for overextension.
Prussia signs an alliance and I start a Weapons Manufactory in Tambow.
December 1575: Denmark becomes Norway's vassal. I can only sit and laugh.
February 1576: An election! I'd like to modernize (and get rid of Overextension for a while), so I go administrative. I get Fyodor Semenov, 6/3/5. Sigh. At least I lose Overextension.
June 1576: Land 22. I begin sending gold to Switzerland, so I can eventually get an alliance.
July 1577: Fur in Yeniseysk.
August 1577: Kexholm converts.
December 1577: Trade 18.
August 1578: I decide to sponsor Patriots in Abkhazia to see if I can get what I want without war. I get the Patriots, but Georgia finds out and breaks the alliance in September. If you insist...
October 1578: No more military access through Georgia.
November 1578: 100 ducats from the usual place. Manchu also gives up some more territory to Ming in the east.
March 1579: War with Georgia! Wait, a war between Georgia and Russia over Abkhazia? Why does that seem so familiar?
September 1579: I hire a 6* Sheriff, replacing my 1* Commandant, for a boost 0f 6% to my national tax modifier.
October 1579: I kill most of the Georgian army.
November 1579: I peace out for Abkhazia and Kaffa. I wanted Alania too, for the gold, but WE is pretty high in the Caucasus Mountains.
February 1580: I try for another new bureaucratic candidate. Demyan Menshikov, at 8/6/8, is a keeper!
June 1580: Grain in Sayan.
August 1580: I finally start on the Textile Manufactory God asked me for years ago.
January 1581: Alimuly, a Kazakh province, defects. Since I've already got a border with Ming, there's no reason not to continue to expand (well, except for overextension).
April 1581: Border Dispute with Austria -- I have zero interest, so I take the -1 prestige.
June 1581: Switzerland finally signs an alliance with me, which should keep the HRE off my back.
October 1581: Military modernization, as "Resist Western Influences" expires. The land descends into chaos...
That's it for now! Sometime next week, you'll get another update and the State of the Republic for 1600.