Russian Cheese! An Expansion Test AAR
Index:
Chapter I: The introduction. You are here. Click to experience recursion.
Chapter II. 1444-1488. Elementary blobbing. In which the principalities fall one by one.
Chapter III.1502-1531. Of Love and Destiny. In which Lithuania ceases to be a problem.
Chapter IV. 1537-1568. Go West. In which several Khanates are annexed.
Chapter V. 1581-1597. A Matter of Time. In which Xenophon is fondly remembered.
Chapter VI. 1607-1656. I Believe! In which Ivan takes the piss.
Chapter VII. 1656-1689. Everything Must Go. In which Boris waxes wroth and disturbing maps are discovered.
Chapter VIII. 1693-1730. Luck and Skill. In which the most outrageous personal union, ever, is formed.
Chapter I: An Introduction
The Lord God spake unto the peoples of the Earth, saying:
“Come forth and receive eternal life”,
but Ivan came fifth and won a toaster.
The Lord God spake unto the peoples of the Earth, saying:
“Come forth and receive eternal life”,
but Ivan came fifth and won a toaster.
A Note to the Reader
Patch 1.2. raised a considerable amount of debate on the forums and I found myself having to recheck some of my assumptions and conclusions from the beta, where I had had insufficient time to truly put 1.2 through the wringer due to real-life obligations. In particular, the many claims that rapid expansion were a thing of the past, and the talk about the inability to maintain allies and the inevitability of being locked down by coalitions making every war a coalition war made me dedicate a weekend to testing out this out.
As my country of choice, I went with Muscovy, because nothing says expansionary lifestyle like “it all belongs to Mother Russia”. It lies in a target-rich environment and blobbing is its destiny. For difficulty, I went with AI bonuses and a hard AI to make the AI willing to attack me.
I normally do not start out playing majors, as it makes the game too easy, but for this particular test it seemed appropriate. If the problems described were general, they would also occur for Russia, and if not, not. And regardless of the problems showed up, I would have a blast fighting wars not so much by ingenuity as by piling on the bodies.
I decided that the primary focus of my test would be on rapid – or at least moderately fast – expansion by means of vassalization through war or diplomacy coupled with feeding vassals provinces, while also colonizing Siberia using Expansion ideas. I would not use/abuse the revolt system to help other countries be overrun with rebels for defection purposes. As fun as the latter is, it would pretty much defeat the purpose of the test.
For a pure conquest game based on vassals, you should choose Diplomatic Ideas instead for the diplomatic relations and the reduction of unjustified costs. (Or in the case of Muscovy/Russia better yet, get both.)
Note that this is not a WC attempt. These days I neither have the time nor the patience for attempting that sort of thing and am happy to leave that particular brand of fun to the players who do have the time. There will be no seat-of-the-pants playing here: Only deliberate and systematic expansion.
My conclusion by 1597 when hotfix 1.2.2 arrived and changed the equation by making AE much less of an issue for allies and fixing the fire-phase bug that resulted in amusing levels of casualties, was that the most outspoken in the general forum population had, as is so often the case, severely overstated the negatives of 1.2 and 1.2.1. – but that while I could not agree with them on the expansion issue, they did have several good points with respect to how fun it was. I happen to find the particular type of challenge presented by 1.2 fun (juggling numbers), but I can easily see, upon reflection, how this might not be universally shared.
With these words, onwards with the show. This AAR will be rather shorter than my usual AARs with more sparse chapters and no gripping drama, but, on the positive side, it is quite likely that it will be finished rather than abandoned once something else grabs my fancy. If nothing else, I can call a halt any time after 1597 on the grounds that the original test was concluded by that date.
Setting the Scene
Picture a room that is comfortable or, let us say for the sake of argument, comfortable under the circumstances. For the two people currently inhabiting it, the room, while perhaps not ample, is not cramped either. It has got air conditioning and perfect temperature control, but no windows. For obvious reasons. It has two doors, one leading to the bathroom and lavatory, because there are some experiences that were not meant to be shared, and the other leading elsewhere.
The room contains the essential furniture and fixtures, several crates full of maps, some food to snack on, and a table upon which one of those maps is currently being examined carefully by the room's current inhabitants, Ivan and Boris. They like to think of themselves as devoted seekers after knowledge, explorers of the mysteries, delving into the depths of history to uncover the truth, and treading the paths not taken, rather than as the high-functioning dysfunctional individuals they used to appear to everybody else before they withdrew from society, and, who knows, they might be right.
Available evidence suggests otherwise, however. After all, they are in a room full of maps and 21,347 wheels of Circassian cheese. These things do not happen by chance.
Ivan: This is a most splendid map, Boris. I believe that it, of all the maps we have found, comes closest to the point of divergence. In fact, based on this map I suspect that it might depict the point of divergence itself, set down for posterity.
Boris: What makes you say so? Certainly wildly unlikely things happened after this point, but looking at the previous century, it was replete with implausible – dare I say ahistorical - events as well. What is it about this map that so convinces you?
Ivan: That somebody has scrawled “And so it begins...” on it.
Boris: And in a terrible handwriting too. You may have a point.
This is Muscovy in 1444. Strong and peaceful. One of the two will change.
“...It is an ill-kept secret that Russians are always named Ivan. Except when they are named Boris. This is known not only in western Europe, it is known as far away as in Hollywood, but the government hushed it up! Now, one might rightfully ask how Russian society can function using only two names, and the answer is that they cheat. Russians are masters of deception and playing the long game, so most Russians go through life pretending to be named something else in order to confuse their enemies, but make no mistake, beneath the innocently deceptive exterior there lurks an Ivan – or a Boris, as the case might be.
Now, one might well think that that makes the Russians who claim to be named Ivan or Boris the most trustworthy of all, since they do not go through life lying about their very identity, but that would be a fatal mistake. That is just what they are counting on. At least 92% of the Russians known to the world as Ivan are, in fact, Boris in disguise, and vice versa.
And as for the Russian women, who generally pretend to be named innocently deceptive names such as Natascha or Tatiana and none of whom reveal themselves to the public as Ivan or Boris, those are the most dangerous of them all.” - Excerpt from "The Ravening Russians".
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