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Zaporozhie: the Product of a Sich Mind

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mlepkows: I did a search for the term Lahi and found its origins to be a bit obscure. Variations of it seem to be applicable to a wide variety of Eastern Europeans, including Ukrainians in fact. Well, you live and learn! Anyway, I'm glad you are reading this AAR even if I am not being too kind to the Poles. :p

RGB: Oh, now you're opening up another can of worms! Is the word "Russkie" actually based on the Russian word for "Russian"? Never thought about it before, but I imagine it's quite likely.

Lord E: I have to say I was pretty surprised, first at the offer of Poltava from Lithuania, then at the White Peace offer from Poland. Having won multiple battles against small infantry forces with my all-cavalry Host I did have a repectable warscore, even when Zaporozhia was under Polish occupation, which I suppose explains it.

stnylan: Welcome! I really have no idea how large an Empire I'm going to manage to build, and whether 1.2 will change that at all, but I'm having fun learning the basics.

JaxomCA: I was very tempted to try to get Podolia from Poland in this war, but as I mentioned the Russians seemed to have lost interest and I could see it all going horribly wrong. Accepting the WP seemed more prudent!
 
March 14th 1573, The Sich

Aha - how exciting, a call to arms from our friend Yuriy! Who could it be, I wonder? Let's see… Kazan… Er, right… Well, of course I do know exactly where Kazan is, but for the benefit of you readers I will just consult the Sichipedia to see what it says. Here we are…
Kazan An annoying infidel nation several hundred miles to the east on the river Volga, just west of the Ural Mountains. Kazan's annoyingness resides chiefly in the fact that it is full of despicable Muslim Tatars, and is therefore not worth conquering. This is particularly irritating because the Kazan Tatars are too stupid to build any fortifications and can therefore be easily overrun in a couple of weeks.

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Well this sounds like it should be a wheeze for the lads. I will just summon our newly appointed kickass general, Mykola Palahniuk, and get him to muster the troops. And lets do it quickly this time, or the Russians will have the whole place annexed before we even get there…


May 27th 1573, Mordvar

Well, hats off to General Palahniuk, who managed to muster the host and get us here to southern Kazan in record time. In fact, it's kind of eerie - the entire place seems to be completely deserted. Where are the Russians? Where are the Tatars, for that matter? Could it be some kind of a trap? Anyway, the General is going to stay here with half the army, while I ride north to Saratow with the rest. Perhaps we will find some signs of life there. I know the Sichipedia said this place was a pushover, but I didn't think it would be quite this easy…


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Some typical Kazan Tatars​
 
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Part II
by General Mykalo Palahniuk

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June 12th 1573, Mordvar

Well, I suppose I had better explain. My name is General Mykalo Palahniuk, commander-in-chief of the Zaporozhian Host. Our beloved leader Dmitri, alas is no more. All I can ascertain is that our Hetman was engaged in an operation to evaluate the hospitality of a Tatar settlement. No doubt this took great courage, but alas it seems that Tatar hospitality is similar to Zaporozhian hospitality. In any case, we will be sure to mete out an appropriate response to this outrageous act as we overrun this worthless nation over the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, long live our new Hetman, Ivan I, son of Dmitri! I fought alongside him in the Polish War and I can assure you that he is a fearless warrior, though not perhaps blessed with a very large brain. This of course is not usually a problem in Zaporozhie.

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Ivan keeping the lads entertained while on campaign in Lithuania

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August 4th 1573, Simbirsk

Well, I'm glad to say the Tatars put up at least one fight during this rather tedious campaign, but it's all been a little too easy. For some reason the Russians have pretty much left us to it. So now, with the entire country under Cossack occupation the Tatar Chief is being forced to pay 50 ducats, which will make us richer than we have ever been before! So it has not been entirely without benefit. There was a moment of panic among the troops when the rumour went around that we did not have military access to get back home again. However it seems that someone thought of requesting this from the Tsar at some point, so we will be heading back to the Sich pretty soon.
 
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Raid! Yes!

Did you loot and pillage also?
 
50 gold - riches! :)

At least someone is learning from the Polish experiences.
 
You are getting rich it seems 50 gold that is impressive. That campaign went quick I think, you could even have annexed the heathen country, but I can understand that you didn’t want it so it was better to grab gold from them, nice gold that can be used to increase your armies even more.
 
Where did a land as poor as Kazan get 50 ducats? You did not take even one province or even vassalize them. Was this part of a Sich mind that this action would cause the noble Cossacks relations with Russia to plummet faster than you can say tartar hospitality?

I do express the hope that this will not became a habit in going to war and losing the hetman.
 
RGB: It was certainly easy money occupying all of Kazan and getting 50d. I'm not sure what income I got from pillaging - I'm not even clear how this works in EU3. Is it somewhat random?

valzoz_p94: I wondered about vassalizing them, but I didn't have 100% warscore, only about 43% or something since they had occupied some unfortified Russian provinces. I could have run round trying to get 100% and vassalizing but I was pretty sure the Russians would end up doing exactly the same after me, so what was the point? In fact it took the Russians 5 more months, but they did indeed strip Kazan down to one province and vassalized them.

stnylan: Quite! Although with relations at +200 I don't think MA through Russia was ever likely to be refused.

Lord E: Yes, owning a bunch of wrong culture wrong religion provinces cut off from my capital seemed like something I could live without. A shame - if only I had some Orthodox Ukrainian neighbours who were so defenceless! :(

Chief Ragusa: Hmm. No idea where the 50d came from. Ill-gotten gains I've no doubt. But I do like this feature of EU3 that you can always get at least 50d out of a peace treaty even if your enemy has nothing else worth taking! :)

J.Passepartout: Alas too late! The Tatars have now come under Yuriy's own protection... Still Ivan is a good military leader (8) so I'm not too upset about the change.

zytrexx: Apparently it's known in the trade as a "kinjal dance". As well as raising morale it also weeds out the clumsier elements of your army. :D

Duke of Wellington: Sad but true, but as I said, it was easy money.

Judas Maccabeus: You got it! Look forward to more pithy definitions from this invaluable resource! :D
 
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March 19th 1574, The Sich

Love is in the air! Yes, it's wedding bells time again. It seems our esteemed Hetman Ivan has managed to get himself hitched with a Russian Tsarina. We were all very envious, especially when we heard she was also a wrestling champion and owned a pondful of pet piranhas. No wonder it was love at first sight when Ivan first set eyes on her. Her name is Olga, and we are very much looking forward to having her around the Sich.

In other news from Moscow, we hear that Yuriy settled up with the gormless Tatars by taking everything but their capital from them in a peace treaty signed two weeks ago. That is, it was signed by Yuriy, and no doubt his Tatar counterpart also managed to make some kind of mark on the paper. Well, good luck to the Tsar welcoming these morons into his realm, that's all I can say.

You may be wondering what's happening on the Pyggy front these days. Well, I'm sad to say that our dear friend Zygmunt has passed away, and Pyggyland is now being ruled by Michal I Korybut. Of course, we have decided the name Hairybutt would suit him much better, so we sent a dispatch to Krakow to this effect. No answer as yet, but we can always hope! Hairybutt isn't King of Lithuania by the way. The Lithuanians probably rebelled against having a King with a name like that and chose some geezer by the name of Jonas Albertas. Still bosum buddies with Pyggyland of course, though - some things never change.

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February 8th 1576, The Sich

Joy of joys - such celebration! Drinking and dancing far into the night! Yes, we received another call to arms from Moscow today - Yuriy has decided to teach the Despicable Infidel Turks a lesson! That's right, we are now at war with the Ottoman Empire, ruled by His Despicableness, Sultan Bayezid II:

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What did you say? Shouldn't we be worried about being utterly squished by this bloated behemoth on our southern border? Um, well, I suppose there is that side to it. Never thought of that, really. And if I might say so, that sort of thinking is not what made Zaporozhie what it is today! (That is, an obscure backwater tribal federation that no-one has heard of…) Anyway, you are forgetting one small detail if you think we stand no chance in a war against the evil Turk - The Zaporozhian Host is now under the command of a certain Mykalo Palahniuk, and even if I say so myself, that has to count for something.

So - bring it on, you worthless heathen scum!

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February 23rd 1576, south of Khortytsa Island

The Turks have tasted our swords. Something tells me they sent a regiment of raw recruits over the border to test the waters. Or maybe it was a thousand unarmed women and children we fell upon, we didn't actually check first. In any case, I don't know who is going to take news of the two day Battle of Zaporozhie to Sultan Bayezid, but when he gets it he's going to feel a chill down his despicable infidel spine…

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That kind of victory is bound to spawn at least three dozen long songs. They'll be still singing of the slaughtering of the Turk in 1998 or thereabouts.
 
RGB: Absolutely! This result of course took me somewhat by surprise... And I've seen at least one other similar result later in the war. Anyone know what causes it? A bug? The battle only lasted two days, and the enemy had at least three provinces to retreat to, so it wasn't that. Still, it gives the boys something to sing about, so who's complaining? :)
 
Perhaps the Sultan just sent over the river some of his enemies he needed culling, and was unwilling to hire an executioner?

Of course, this has the potential to be a very interesting war.
 
But if that were the case it says worse things about the Sultan. He should know better.

And the Cossacks? We're like a force of nature. We can't be blamed for what we do :D
 
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