In the very last years of the XIVth century, the cities and territories that joined the protection of the Lithuanians Grand Dukes begined to reconsider their allegiance- with the Mongol threat becoming weaker every days, the main factor -fear- that triggered the mass defection to Lithuania was gone. Realising their position of majority within the fragile Lithuanian state, the Ruthenian and Orthodox populations of the Grand Duchy reclaimed their independence. A compromise was made, and in the last half of the year 1399, the 'duchy' of Kiev was granted autonomy within a loose Lithuanian commonwhealt.
The Duchy of Kiev in the last days of the XIVth century
But with the vassal being much bigger than the lord, it was only a matter of time before Kiev would proclaim its full independence, under the leadership of its first 'duke', Rostislav the First.
Rostislav was a man with alot of ambitions, and enough skills to make his embitions being more than dreams. He considerated his realm to be the direct successor of the empire of the Kievan Rus, the powerfull and quite advanced (culturally and technically) state that existed in the east of Europe a few centuries ago, prior to the Mongol invasions.
Rostislav's duchy, and the land that once belonged to Kiev
Despite ruling on a vast territory, Rostislav still has alot to do to bring Kiev -or Ukraine, as the state was oficially called to indicate more a national sentiment than the domination of a single city - to dominate the region. The country has no proper army yet, the efficienty and the powers of the central government were very limited, and ferocious neighbors would certainly threated the existence of the country sooner of later.
Rostislav was then given by the nobles the mission to create an army for the nation. He also hired skilled advisors to enhance the morale of the army, and to help discovering new trading techniques.
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This is my first real EU3 AAR, and for it I decided to choose an original nation that doesn't apear on the map from the start. Even if the country is quite big already, there is still alot of obstacles on the road, as it will be seen later. I hope that this AAR will be interesting enough to worth taking a few minutes to read it, and it will be written in the same style as above: gameplay but with with some bits of narrative (or historical contextualisation, as I'm not good at making funny or interesting dialogues between charaters. )
This game will be played as Ukaine (quite obviously), on the normal difficulty and agressivness settings.
