Sooo.... Novgorod, The Byzantium of the North as of 1.23

[sigeena]

In any case, you fight defensively, so why bother with the Trade Dispute when you can call your allies into a war for newly vassalised Tver. The allies are non-numerous, but every bit is precious

The trade dispute war is an easily winnable war that is intended for the following

1. Wear Muscovy and vassals's down, via Manpower and WE
2. Gain time for increasing relations with Poland and Kazan.
3. Gain time for Poland to gain Lithuania union. Poland will probably only rival Muscovy when they have Lithuania as a union.
4. Take the initiative on when to start the war. If you choose to DoW Tver first, there's also a probability that Muscovy will DoW Novgorod while the NOV-TVR war is ongoing. And this will scupper the start. Only ally you can get at game's start is Ryazan.

I actually enjoyed Arumba's video for giving me the idea of doing the trade dispute war, and further how to fight effectively in the Luki- Novgorod pocket. He didn't really execute it very well but the idea was correct.

 

[YuriiH]

1. Wear Muscovy and vassals's down, via Manpower and WE
2. Gain time for increasing relations with Poland and Kazan.
3. Gain time for Poland to gain Lithuania union. Poland will probably only rival Muscovy when they have Lithuania as a union.
4. Take the initiative on when to start the war. If you choose to DoW Tver first, there's also a probability that Muscovy will DoW Novgorod while the NOV-TVR war is ongoing. And this will scupper the start. Only ally you can get at game's start is Ryazan.

1) You do the same in regular Defend-Tver war.
2) The same in the regular war.
3) The same in the regular war.
4) This one is a bit vague, but in 90% Muscovy prefers DoWing Tver when it sees Tver's troops are wiped out.
About allies, Livonian Order may also be your immediate ally. Also Odoyev and you can release TCs if you're not very happy with your numbers.

The only difference between Trade War and Defensive War is that you need to win battles vs. unsiege Tver's unfortified province (target of Muscovy).

However, the efforts and time in the first kind of war forbid getting Moscow and some other lands, and the latter kind of war enables getting anything.
Well, there is another Trade War plus: you can loose it and loose only money/prestige, but the Arumba's strategy is not about loosing the trade war, right?
You are expected to win it with a bare margin for a 6-year truce to give Muscovy time to go for Hordes and get Denmark's alliance, making it harder to win vs. its new lands and allies, or not?

 

[Coffer]

1) You do the same in regular Defend-Tver war.
2) The same in the regular war.
3) The same in the regular war.
4) This one is a bit vague, but in 90% Muscovy prefers DoWing Tver when it sees Tver's troops are wiped out.
About allies, Livonian Order may also be your immediate ally. Also Odoyev and you can release TCs if you're not very happy with your numbers.

The only difference between Trade War and Defensive War is that you need to win battles vs. unsiege Tver's unfortified province (target of Muscovy).

However, the efforts and time in the first kind of war forbid getting Moscow and some other lands, and the latter kind of war enables getting anything.
Well, there is another Trade War plus: you can loose it and loose only money/prestige, but the Arumba's strategy is not about loosing the trade war, right?
You are expected to win it with a bare margin for a 6-year truce to give Muscovy time to go for Hordes and get Denmark's alliance, making it harder to win vs. its new lands and allies, or not?

While the rest is pretty tough to disagree with (besides the difficulty factor), the Kalmar Union is pretty incompetent, with the awful troop AI being especially painful for them. If you can snatch Poland as an ally while they snatch Denmark, that's a victory for you. And that's if they even get Denmark, which in my recent experience they don't as they inexplicably seem to prefer the Livonian Order this patch (I've done a number of test runs with multiple nations in the area and in 90% of those runs, with or without my contribution, Muscovy became friendly towards LO and refused to even look at Denmark outside of directly attacking Sweden), who is extremely easy to deal with.

 

[Efgrafich]

That Arumba tactic heavy relays on AI exploit when it just drop siege when see incoming battle nearby (even vs 1k stack). And in 1.24 patchnotes pdx claims to fix it, so that tactic should be kinda outdated, as muscovy just siege you down entirely very quickly (but i did not check it).

 

[Coffer]

And in 1.24 patchnotes pdx claims to fix it, so that tactic should be kinda outdated, as muscovy just siege you down entirely very quickly (but i do not check it).

It's not fully fixed. It's harder to abuse, but the majority of situations I saw in 1.23 I managed to replicate in 1.24 as well.

That Arumba tactic heavy relays on AI exploit when it just drop siege when see incoming battle nearby (even vs 1k stack).

It's exploit (AI abandoning sieges for no reason) vs exploit (vassalization -> defensive war) either way so that in itself doesn't matter much. It's more about what you get out of it, for which the latter is better.

 

[Stadhouder]

Novogrod is not Byzantium, as neither Muscovy nor Denmark are anywhere near Ottomans at game start and Novogrod has a better defensive position.

The first war with Muscovy is do or die, after that it's actually a pretty relaxed game. Poland is relatively easy to keep as a friend. I don't see the point of delaying Muscovy through a trade league war, war with Muscovy should deliver your some of Muscovite development so that the next war will be easier and you get the snowball rolling.

 

[Gnostek]

i prefer to delay the war on tver til i can secure allies.
Rival tver for the free claim before anything else, because your diplomats are gonna be extremely busy.

From game start, do a spread sheet and calculate which of these nations you can ally sooner: Kazan, GH, Teutons, Poland, Lithuania (if it somehow didn't rival you), Riga, Hungary. Improve relations with the top 2, make sure you have improve relations and +diprep advisor. For calculations, if I recall correctly 4 points of relations is +1 to alliance, and improving relations is better (up to +5/month) the closer you are to 0. So use that to your advantage. Anyway, you should secure one strong ally in less than a year. For the last push, go over force limit on troops, and change the relations advisor to a diprep advisor, to get +5-8 more reasons for alliances

Meanwhile, try to get all the minors to work for you except for tver. Ally ryazan, invite odoyev to trade league, set up a trade city or 2.

Once you and your allies have a 25 body count margin on muscovy+vassals (to make up for attrition and muscovy's general), declare war on tver, and sit on them until muscovy declares war on them.

Once that happens, vassalize, and fight only the battles where their awesome general might turn the tide of the war. If there are no important ongoing battles, carpet siege and use your main stack to safeguard your carpet regiments, otherwise muscovy can get easy warscore and destroy your manpower. Do try to siege most of their forts with only 1 regiment, getting there a couple of days before your allies arrive: they get the attrition, you get the fort. I don't trust ai with forts because they can peace out or empty garrison or leave a siege, hence the 1 man army.

This works unless muscovy dow's on january 1445 with the conquer novgorod mission, which should not happen if you keep maintenance high and get a morale or disc advisor

 

[Siu-King**]

Arumba has video on youtube with a very good strategy for Novgorod, I suggest watching it.

very good strategy to die slower you mean?

That strategy sucks major balls.
bbqftw wiped entire Muscovy army there alone:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/209139940?t=00h53m40s

 

[Siu-King**]

When do people stop using Arumba as a bill board? Arumba and "good" go together as the two positive sides of two magnets. Btw, did he ever finished the BBB? (one of the easier achievements)

he's got lots of die hard fans who don't play the game.

 

[bly08]

I like his personality and enjoy his videos for other games but he once started an Ottoman WC when they had 33% CCR and couldn't finish it. No idea why he's still viewed as an authority on EU4 strategy.

 

[Siu-King**]

I like his personality and enjoy his videos for other games but he once started an Ottoman WC when they had 33% CCR and couldn't finish it. No idea why he's still viewed as an authority on EU4 strategy.

see above.

he's got lots of die hard fans who don't play the game.

if anything, he's one of the earliest ppl to start YTing this game (along with DDRJake), and kept up spamming videos throughout the years (see the Steam guide page of EU4), he never was any good in skill (not even half way decent), but he is influential

 

[YuriiH]

Oh, come on! Arumba is OK for an EU4 streamer, but this is off-topic.
And I think he was just having fun with one of the most non-used CBs, but everyone decided that this is a super strategy

 

[sigeena]

1) You do the same in regular Defend-Tver war.
2) The same in the regular war.
3) The same in the regular war.
4) This one is a bit vague, but in 90% Muscovy prefers DoWing Tver when it sees Tver's troops are wiped out.
About allies, Livonian Order may also be your immediate ally. Also Odoyev and you can release TCs if you're not very happy with your numbers.

The only difference between Trade War and Defensive War is that you need to win battles vs. unsiege Tver's unfortified province (target of Muscovy).

However, the efforts and time in the first kind of war forbid getting Moscow and some other lands, and the latter kind of war enables getting anything.
Well, there is another Trade War plus: you can loose it and loose only money/prestige, but the Arumba's strategy is not about loosing the trade war, right?
You are expected to win it with a bare margin for a 6-year truce to give Muscovy time to go for Hordes and get Denmark's alliance, making it harder to win vs. its new lands and allies, or not?

The intent of the first war (Trade Dispute) is to gain time to pull the trigger on 2nd (Vassalise Tver-Defensive) with lesser risk. Would you prefer to fight the Vassalise Tver-Defensive along with PLC and Kazan in 1450 or with just Ryazan and 2 minor TCs in 1445-1446? Odoyev consistently allies Tver. LO is a hit and miss when it comes to alliance, they tend to rival Novgorod as consistently as they ally you in game starts.

Timing wise, I don't think you lose more than 3-4 years with the Trade Dispute opener. Again, the Trade Dispute kicks off in Jan 1445, and if timed correctly, (Poland getting Lithuania, PLC rivalling Muscovy, both Kazan and PLC getting topped up relations), you'll peace out by end 1448. Then allying PLC and Kazan, before DoW Tver and timing the Vassalise Tver- Defensive around 1450.

Things that can go wrong, Poland not getting Lithuania. I have seen this but when I changed my attitude to Poland to Threatened, Ottomans become friendly to a potential alliance.

 

[YuriiH]

Would you prefer to fight the Vassalise Tver-Defensive along with PLC and Kazan in 1450 or with just Ryazan and 2 minor TCs in 1445-1446?

Any tactics where you need to rely on your allies is lame, because of the bad AI. If there is anything which can be done alone, I do this alone. And Novgorod is certainly the country that can pull off everything alone.

And again, why not declaring the Regular War (reconquest) instead of the Trade War if you fight defensively? Because of the exploit of the AI leaving sieges and therefore you win 90% of battles?
Moreover, fighting a Trade War with Muscovy you may get declared by Livonian Order, Denmark and even Tver When it comes in a Tver defense war, you may buy off the Denmark Union and fight Livonians later, but in a Muscovian Trade War you are just screwed. You may give money to Denmark but it won't pay off in terms of efforts for the Trade War. And certainly, you can't leave Livonians "for later" as you need peace to ally PLC/Kazan.
Again, Kazan or PLC (especially) may enter another war and just dishonour your call to arms. Or get declared during Tver-Defense war and peace-out soon.
So, all the tactics with peacing out and immediately allying PLC/Kazan goes to the pit drain

For the Trade-War-tactics, many stars should align (because of reliance on AI). If something goes wrong, you get into the same position as in Tver-Defense war.
While in immediate-Tver-Defence-tactics, it all depends on you alone rather than on the stars. Plus Muscovy may get declared by Kazan/GH which will make the war end easier.

 

[William Shakens]

Ok, so in an unlikely and lucky start, Livonians were friendly towards me so I allied with them and after making Tver a vassal (eventually became a strong march) I held the fort for a while with no DoW from Muscovy or Denmark. I was able to befriend Poland so everything looked peachy. I went to war against Muscovy got a few provinces made them release all their vassals. Everything looking good.

Only, Poland turned out to be a disastrous ally, always under siege from countless rebels, lost their PU with Lithuania, and after a little while, Hungary PUd Austria (yes, Austria as the Junior) and for some reason has managed to kept them in check, so has Denmark with Norway (integrated) and Sweden (defeated in independece war). So, Hungary and Ottomans have been pounding on Poland Non-Stop... with help form Muscovy, who happens to be long-time allies with both Ottomans and Denmark. Of course this triple-threat alliance has kept me from doing shite most of the time,

I've been doing what I could, expanded towards Siberia via Perm, conquered Pskov and some other Russian minors, Livonian and most of Teutonic Order, a few Polish and Lithuanian provinces... I allied with Bohemia and Pomerania who are decent... alas, not decent enough. Rebels seem to have the upper hand in every country I ally. So, Bohemia was having a hard time, Muscovy DoWed me in 1542 and maaaaybe I would have been able to win with my other allies vs them and Denmark + Sweden... no way I was going to win against the Ottomans who have most of Levant, Egypt, Southern Poland and Ukraine... so, Muscovy has destroyed me, took whatever they wanted and everything looks pretty bad from now on.

So, in the end, I overcame, albeit with some luck, the hard start, only to be all but steamrolled 100 years later.

 

[Coffer]

Ok, so in an unlikely and lucky start, Livonians were friendly towards me so I allied with them and after making Tver a vassal (eventually became a strong march) I held the fort for a while with no DoW from Muscovy or Denmark. I was able to befriend Poland so everything looked peachy. I went to war against Muscovy got a few provinces made them release all their vassals. Everything looking good.

Only, Poland turned out to be a disastrous ally, always under siege from countless rebels, lost their PU with Lithuania, and after a little while, Hungary PUd Austria (yes, Austria as the Junior) and for some reason has managed to kept them in check, so has Denmark with Norway (integrated) and Sweden (defeated in independece war). So, Hungary and Ottomans have been pounding on Poland Non-Stop... with help form Muscovy, who happens to be long-time allies with both Ottomans and Denmark. Of course this triple-threat alliance has kept me from doing shite most of the time,

I've been doing what I could, expanded towards Siberia via Perm, conquered Pskov and some other Russian minors, Livonian and most of Teutonic Order, allied with Bohemia and Pomerania who are decent... alas, not decent enough, Muscovy DoWed me in 1542 and maaaaybe I would have been able to win with my allies vs them and Denmark + Sweden... no way I was going to win against the Ottomans who have most of Levant, Egypt, Southern Poland and Ukraine... so, Muscovy has destroyed me, took whatever they wanted and everything looks pretty bad from now on.

Yeah, Poland is a nightmare right now, absolutely worthless as an ally. I don't fully know what's going on as it's not like they're quite in the same situation as poor old defenseless Hungary (there's no excuse for them to lose two provinces to a near-bankrupt, nearly fully rebel-sieged Poland whom I'd just permanently crippled as LO, yet that's what happened to me just last night), but with or without the player's contribution they suffer tremendously this patch. Even when they win their first war against TO+LO they're often in big debt with 10+ mercenaries afterwards (and that debt will thus just rise and rise and rise), and sometimes they just flat-out white peace. Or worse if you're the one playing TO or LO and you happen to have at least Brandenburg with you when fighting them, because right now you can easily and very reliably bankrupt at least Lithuania, if not both of them, in just two wars. If you can, look elsewhere for an alliance, but odds are you're not going to have much luck and will have to babysit Poland more than you'd like.

Don't get me started on Jagiellon being a 1-mil ruler. Everyone outpaces them on the one tech that matters most. Right now in most cases it's more desirable for Poland to go with a local noble, the only exception being when you yourself are playing Poland. This shouldn't be happening, not as often as it is right now at least. I feel they're in dire need of a tweak or two, at least when it comes to the AI playing them.

 

[YuriiH]

Muscovy DoWed me in 1542

CarthagoMuscovy delenda est before 1500s.
Really, by 1455 you need to finish your first war, by 1480 you need to finish the second war with them, and by 1500 you wipe them from the map (or at least leave them with lands in Steppes and Siberia).

 

[William Shakens]

CarthagoMuscovy delenda est before 1500s.
Really, by 1455 you need to finish your first war, by 1480 you need to finish the second war with them, and by 1500 you wipe them from the map (or at least leave them with lands in Steppes and Siberia).

I totally understand the reasoning but I think I really had my hands tied with their stupid early alliance with Denmark and then the Ottomans. I think every thing that could go wrong went wrong in this run when it comes to diplomacy. All my important allies became embarrassing while my two main rivals were allies... and had the Ottomans behind them.

I forgot to mention the Horde was useful in the first war, but then they entered a stupid war on their own against Ottomans - Crimea to defend an ally and got totaled. It was right after that that Muscovy and Ottos became allies, and kept it so, even when they started to have common borders.

 

[Stadhouder]

Muscovy does usually only develops strong alliance if you leave them strong enough after the first war. If you cripple them enough other AI's won't consider them useful enough for an alliance slot, except maybe Denmark.

Novogrod can solo Muscovy, just sell all heavies and transports, focus MP and merc up. Snipe vassal armies and occupy those. Be prepared to consolidate and loan to buy even more mercs. You will have loans afterwards, as mercs over force limit are expensive, but you don't even exploits.

Once Moscovy is crippled you don't have real threats around anymore. All you have to against a Kalmar attack is focussing on the Danes, while avoiding the Swedes. If you wipe a Danish army the Swedes will develop too much LD to be fighting offensively. Poland is easy to keep good relations with and will cripple itself at some point. So once Muscovy is out you have plenty of time to recover and repay loans.