ORDERS-
Spend 1 Jack on growing the economy (see story below).
Have 2 armies and 1 bear continue attacking the Swedish barbarians. Meanwhile, have 2 armies attack the Hittite/Bulgars in the south, to regain land lost them in their suckerpunch attack on us.
Finish Russian Vodka wonder. GRAAAAH!
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By 400 AE, Russian forces would have made great gains in the Nordic regions, completely destroying the Finnish barbarians and finally making landfall on the Swedish coast, despite heavy native resistance. This endeavor was made possible by the compound impact of the famed Russian bear cavalry and the development of Bronze-age technology in the military. The conquest of the Nordic barbarians was never ultimately in doubt - what was surprising was their subsequent assimilation. With the end of the Petrov line in Petrov VI (who was determined to be a weak leader and was replaced by the war hero General Grigori), a new strategy was taken with the barbarians.
Previously, the barbarians had been isolated from Russian society and this isolation drove many a disgruntled conquered person beyond Russian borders, where they would shore up the numbers in Russia's many neighboring barbarian states. One example of this would be the Hittite barbarians in the Balkans. After being pushed from Anatolia, they united with Ukrainians who were pushed from their native land and coalesced into a strong barbarian presence in Southern Europe. These new barbarians - though they continued to refer to themselves as Hittites - were called by the Russians Bulgars. A similar occurence happened in the north as Finns who were pushed from their land joined with the remaining Finns who had not yet been conquered, and the like was true with the Swedes. It was clear the Petrov style of conquest, although efficient in its destruction and establishment of the feared 'Russian hordes,' did not address the barbarian question sufficiently.
Grigori's approach involved a combination of integration and assimilation. Captured barbarians would be reduced to peasants, forced to work a plot of land under the watchful eye of their Russian masters - as their family would across generations. Three major "work centers" were created, which became pivots around which the engines of this new system (called 'serfdom') would turn: there was Kiev, in the Ukraine region, which was the least populated on account of a decrease in the Ukrainian population since its conquest; Smolensk, west of Moscow, where the conquered German populations were relocated (as well as some Swedes shipped); and Petrograd, located in former Finland, where the Finnish barbarians were concentrated (and in the greatest number). The original establishment of this system would begin a long gruelling process for economic growth in Russia, and some historians have noted that this variant development of a form of slavery alongside Carthage (with whom the Russians had no contact) would herald the later rising of Russia's onto the world stage.
- Johann Pulitzer,
A History of the Ancient World