The Unification of Russia - A EU2 AAR

[Dell19]

The Unification of Russia
The kings of Muscovy, Novgorad, Suzdal, Ryazan, Pskov and Tvar all had the same dream, to unite the Russian nations under their leadership to create a glorious nation of Russia which would one day control vast lands and to finally shake off the presence of the Mongols. The Muscovian king knew that it was his right to become the leader of Russia and knew that the only way that this would be achieved was through war against the other claimants.

As the new Muscovian king came to power he was eager to cancel the vassalisation that the Golden Horde still held over the nation but first diplomats were sent to Ryazan to improve relations with the southern Russian state as it was secretly hoped that this would keep them from declaring war against us when the eventual war against the people of Novgorad began. Suzdal, our northern neighbours, our natural allies and also still vassals of the Golden Horde, declared war against Novgorad and made early progress in the north.

As soon as possible Muscovy joined the war and moved armies into Novgorad territory. After years of war the Muscovian armies had captured all Novgorad’s provinces with the help of Suzdal and Pskov. Eventually a peace was signed where Novgorad would become our vassals and we would gain their established provinces whilst they kept their colonies. This marked a great stage in the unification of Russia as the Muscovian nation had become the largest of the Russian nations and had finally been able to cancel the vassalisation with the Golden Horde.

The next 10 years saw Muscovy enter an alliance with Suzdal and they became our vassals, however it soon became clear that they would never accept to peacefully join our nation unless we gained more provinces so war was declared. It was time to fight the Golden Horde who had a huge army but were beginning to be ravaged by revolts. Each year in the war Muscovy gained provinces. First we gained the neighbouring provinces and then the gold mine in Samara was captured, perhaps the true aim of the Muscovian king. Suzdal had captured two further provinces, which meant that we would have to take the Golden Horde’s capital for them to be willing to give us the provinces we had conquered.

Peace was eventually signed with us gaining 3 northern provinces and Suzdal gaining two, but unfortunately Samara remained under Mongol control. Peace was also made with the Golden Horde’s two allies. The war failed to achieve its original objective as Suzdal now had 4 provinces and felt that they should remain independent. Several years later this would change, after rebels in a Suzdal province defected to our nation and the Suzdal king decided that they would follow the rebels and join our nation.

Soon after Pskar shocked the Muscovian people by declaring war, they had annexed Novgorad but were still only a two province nation, perhaps they thought they could defeat the mighty Muscovian armies? New armies were trained whilst the Pskar army besieged Ingermanland. The first battle ended in defeat when 25000 Muscovian troops met a18000 strong Pskov army. However 6 months later, with Ingermanland 3 months from falling, 35000 Muscovy troops moved south to attack 31000 Pskov troops. Before winter once again claimed the land, we achieved a glorious victory as 5000 troops were lost whilst Pskov lost over 20000. Winter was about to come but the Russian generals pressed their advantage and by the end of winter there were no Pskov armies left to fight and in the new year both provinces had been captured. Peace was signed and we gained the trade centre in Novgorad.

 

[Dell19]

In the same year, 1448, Ryazan the only other Russian nation left aside from Pskov and our mighty nation, accepted to become our vassals. Tver had long ago been annexed by Lithuania. The Muscovian armies desperately wished to fight the Mongol armies once again, their brutal victories years ago were still strong in the minds of the Russian populace. However the Muscovian king resisted these calls as rebels controlled much of the Golden Hordes territory and he hoped Samara would defect to us. This was not to be as the rebels formed two new nations, Cuman and Astrakan, but Samara remained in the Golden Horde’s hands.

In 1457 Cuman diplomats insulted the Muscovian king and a righteous war was declared against them in response. In a year the 4 Cuman provinces had been captured and they had no choice but to accept to become our vassals and hand over all their other provinces.

1459 saw a reformation as the nation of Moscovy moved closer to becoming Russia. The trade centre was relocated to Moscow, centralisation increased and 20000 cavalry gained. An army was already being built before the new troops arrived, which made up the king’s mind to finally allow the Muscovian generals the chance to fight the Golden Horde once again. As soon as winter receded war was declared, little resistance was met and by the following winter only Samara still remained outside of our control. After Samara fell the Muscovian king found to his embarrassment that the Golden Horde also owned Azjerbaijan and we had no way of reaching it. However it is believed that rebels won a siege in the province and as the Golden Horde government collapsed, the provinces we had captured joined the nation of Muscovy, including the gold mine in Samara. In the 1461 the nation of Russia still has not been created but it is certain that Muscovy will gain the title.

 

[Dell19]

The map of current territory:

 

[Dell19]

The Lithuania war:

The king of Muscovy had always tried to ignore the empires to the west, he was either too busy fighting his Russian neighbours or trying to capture provinces from the Golden Horde before someone else did. Admittedly one king or another had considered fighting Sweden early on to grab their colonies and Finland and there was a vague consideration that at some point in the future Lithuania would have to be fought as they owned two provinces that the nation of Muscovy had rightful claims to. However Lithuania was not ignoring their northern neighbour who was rapidly increasing in size and power.

A little after 1462, the king and his generals were informed that Lithuania had decided to try and defeat Muscovy before it became too powerful. The Muscovian armies would fight the war on two fronts. One to the north, to defend Moscow and with the eventual aim of taking the provinces that we had claims on, whilst to the south another army would be used to defend the border south of our allies, Ryazan who had joined the war on our side. Both armies would wait for Lithuania to make the first move and the waiting paid off as we were soon informed that Sweden and Prussia had also joined the war, this would be messy.

The first battles did not play out in our favour. A Lithuanian and Prussian force defeated our army in Moscow, a recently created army may have been to blame for the defeat. An army with twice as many troops as the Lithuanian army laid siege to Ingermanland. Would history be repeated? The northern army regrouped and with extra troops moved west to break the Swedish siege. Once again a crucial battle in Ingermanland would play out in our favour with massive Swedish loses and limited casualties for our own army. Soon the siege in Moscow was broken and it seemed that Muscovy might win the war. However before our forces began to siege Lithuanian provinces, the king ordered the northern army, further enlarged, to move south into Ryazan and to break the siege that Lithuanian and Prussian armies had begun in our ally’s capital. The siege was broken and soon after Sweden signed peace.

As soon as spring arrived our southern army moved west to besiege first one and then two provinces, whilst in the north an army was sent to Tula, whilst another was sent to defeat rebels in Kazan to the east. Little opposition was met as Lithuanian armies preferred to watch our sieges rather than attacking. As winter returned a province had been taken but it became clear the siege for Tula and Poltava would run into the winter. Before the new year both provinces were captured and our armies retreated for a new offensive in spring.

As spring arrived Tvar, Kursk and Belgorad were sieged. It was at this time that Sweden betrayed us and rejoined the war against us. This time the focus would be on taking Lithuanian provinces before marching north once more and attempting to repel the Swedes who once again besieged Ingermanland. As the 3 target provinces were captured and a Muscovian army clashed with Swedish troops before reinforcements could arrive a diplomat was received. Before he could be sent back like the previous diplomats who had “offered” peace, it became clear that this time Lithuania was serious. They would give up Tula and Tvar for peace. Such an offer had to be accepted as it was still unclear whether the Swedish army would be defeated. So the peace was signed and the battle in Ingermanland called off.

The following year, Ryazan accepted to become part of our nation, it was believed that that had been impressed by our armies, specifically the army that had liberated their capital during the war. The Muscovian people would never forget the betrayal of Lithuania and Sweden and it would be forever the wish of the people to seek revenge by utterly defeating these two nations who had threatened at one point to crush Muscovy.

 

[Dell19]

The years of war:

The king was restless, the Lithuanian war had shown that the neighbours of Muscowy still felt they were strong enough to threaten the emergence of a unified Russia. This must be changed if Muscowy was to prevent further surprise attacks. Nogai would provide the first step towards creating a stronger united Russia after a border dispute escalated.

War was soon declared but in secret it was revealed to the Muscowy generals that the real objective of the war would be to attack and annex the ally of Nogai, Astrakan, who held an extremely rich province with a trade centre. The secondary objective would be to capture several Nogai provinces. Astrakhan had an army of 30000 troops at the beginning of the war however they soon split this army to besiege a Muscowian province, however both armies were soon crushed and a year later Astrakhan had joined the emerging Russian empire. The war against Nogai was far less successful as their lands had been overrun by rebels who our generals were unwilling to fight as they were seen to be fighting our mutual enemy. The appearance of a Nogai army finally convinced the King to accept peace for gold rather than the province that we had captured as the lands were seen to be too worthless to fight over them.

5 years had passed by and the peace treaty that we had signed with Lithuania, Sweden and Prussia had expired. The King and his generals all wished revenge for the previous war and the moment seemed right to seek this revenge as the Lithuanian alliance (Lithuania, Sweden and Prussia) were already at war with several western nations including Poland and we had claims on Swedish land which would give us the necessary excuse for war.

This time the Russian armies would be prepared for battle, the main force was assembled to the north and the original task was to invade the Swedish provinces often referred to as Finland. The first battle in Nyland did not go in our favour as the Muscowian army was pushed back, defeated but with similar numbers of casualties as inflicted on the Swedish defending army. Perhaps it had been an unwise decision to split the army and besiege Savolaks as well. A further defeat occurred as a new army was caught by surprise by a numerically superior Swedish army, the battle was soon called off with the Muscowian army retreating to fight another day.

Once again a Swedish army besieged Ingermanland and once again a united Muscowian army was sent to attack, producing the same result, a resounding defeat for the Swedish army as in the first Lithuania war. The next years would be spent besieging Lithuanian and Swedish provinces with few battles. The attack on Lithuania had originally been delayed to give Lithuania a chance to show their strength however it never materialized. It would be several years later in the war that a reason for this would be found. Poland had captured Lithuania’s capital. The only significant battles for the remainder of the war, was an unsuccessful attack on the Lithuanian capital, after their army had recaptured the province and two attacks against a Swedish army, with the second battle resulting in success.

At one point during the war, Lithuania was reduced to 2 provinces, however they soon liberated their capital and Poland handed back the other province they had captured for peace after seeing this. Further our ally, Pskar signed a separate peace with the Lithuania alliance and handed back the province they had captured. Facing the threat of huge revolts from troops who were horrified at the prospect of spending more years besieging these Lithuanian provinces that had been returned, the King decided to accept a reasonable peace offer which saw 4 provinces handed over to the ever growing Muscowian empire and allowed our troops to focus on the was with Sweden.

The war with Sweden would continue for another two years as we conquered several Swedish provinces. Finally after years of war Sweden finally offered 3 provinces for peace including one of the provinces that we had claims on. Peace was signed in 1475 ending the second Lithuanian war. The King would now wait before starting another war as even he had become appalled by the terrible loses that had been inflicted on our armies after too many sieges ran through winter.

An updated map:

 

[Dell19]

The most interesting thing about this game is that Tuscany ended up annexing Byzantium which has left the Ottoman empire severely weakened and Georgia has now become a 4 province country at their expense.

 

[Dell19]

The final story

After the war had ended against the Lithuanian alliance, Ak Koyunlu would become the next target for the Muscowian war machine. They held the goldmine in Armenia and Georgia and Pskar had recently become our vassals so we would have allies for the war. The war went our way although we failed in a secondary objective to take Tabriz as rebels had taken the province and they became part of a new nation, Persia. We gained Armenia, Dagestan and Afghanistan, whilst Pskar gained a province.

Several years later we would diplomatically annex Georgia and Pskar to increase our influence in the Turkish region. Relations with the rest of the world were at an all time low but when 500 men volunteered to explore new lands, war was declared on the Mongols to the east so that we could access the unexplored lands that we believed to exist to the east. Nogai would eventually give all their provinces except their capital for peace, whilst the real target the Khazak horde would give us the two provinces that we had wanted from the start of the war. This did not improve our reputation…

Colonisation and exploration began in the east and the next years would be predominately peaceful. However our reputation did not improve and so the bastards in Prussia decided to activate the Lithuanian alliance (Including the Teutonic order) and once again we were at war with the west. The first year was all about building new armies and watching the computer siege provinces. By the end of the year the counter attacks began and the sieges were broken. Steady progress was made and after years of fighting we first gained 2 provinces from Lithuania for peace, 3 from the Teutonic Order after we utterly defeated them and finally 3 provinces from Sweden before we signed a white peace with Prussia, Poland and Hungary. Poland and Hungary had joined the war later on and had never bothered to actually attack. A year later the Muscowian kingdom took the title of the Russian empire, from now on Muscowy would always be called Russia.

 

[Sarevok]

Man... your rep in this game has to really suck...

 

[Dell19]

Yeah it reached an all time low of "worse than dishonorable scum" I think but once you get a very large empire the problems of a poor reputation lessen.

 

[Aeon221]

Dude I love playin as Russia! I always end up as Hated by the Entire World (its a problem when you want to find an ally)!

Good story! I have to admit to doin the same thing when I play ;p

 

[deo]

I see that eu2 is popular here. Why dont we play Multiplayer?

 

[Dell19]

Because EU2 would take a huge amount of time to play and there is no PBEM option like in Civ to allow people who may not be online at the same times to play the game together. Would be interesting if it was possible to arrange though.

 

[Jawn Henry]

As Novgorod-Russia, i diplo-annexed Sweden as fast as i could, to avoid problems later. Georgia was an early ally, i permitted it to get pretty big, and finnally annexed it in the mid 1600s. I killed the best Ottoman leader (Suleiman) by sheer fluke: For some reason, the AI split Suleiman's army and kept the leader with a very small contingent. He was going in Bulgaria from Macedonia, i had a good army in Rumelia, so i met him there and captured and maimed him. After, he could no longer lead in battle, so he stayed on the throne untill his death. I force annexed them early in the 1600s.

I always wondered why Novgorod is put as a choice... it was nailed by the Muscovite kings... gameplay, i guess for the COT).

"EU2 would take a huge amount of time to play"
No kidding... i read in another thread of yours... i have yet to finish even one game of EU2 - i just play the GC.

JH

 

[Gelion]

Can Novgorod become Russia with Moscow as capital after Russia starts as a country (1550s smth)?

 

[Reno]

Novgorod is no more in 1550's or something times...

 

[Reno]

And i think that only Moscovy can become Russia in EU 2...

 

[Dell19]

No all the Russian states have the potential to become Russia but they have to satisfy slightly more conditions.

 

[Gelion]

I'm going to try to be Novgorod! What are the conditions?

 

[Dell19]

-=Muscovy Becomes Russia=-

Muscovy can become Russia anytime after January 1520. To be give the option it must own
Muscow (270)
and
(either Vologda (268)
or Nizhgorod (272))
and
(either Ryazan (448)
or Vladimir (271)
or Novgorod (274)
or Pskov (277)
or Tver (278)).

Also Russia must not already exist.

So if Muscovy owns Moscow, Vologda and Ryazan it can form Russia but if it owns Moscow, Ryazan and Vladimir it cannot.

-=Russian Minor (Other than Moscow) Becomes Russia=-

Russian Minors other than Moscow can become Russia after 1520. Russia cannot exist and they must own
Moscow (270) and their own capital and one of the other principalities capitals (One of
Novgorod (274), Vologda (268), Nizhgorod (272), Ryazan (448), Vladimir (271), Pskov (277) or Tver (278).)

The Nations other than Muscovy that can become Russia are Novgorod (NVG), Pskov (PSK), Ryzan (RYA), Suzdal (SUZ) and Tver (TVE).

-=Becoming France=-

Brittany (BRI), Navarre (NAV), Provence (PRO), Auvergne (AUV), Luxembourgh (LUX), Orléans (ORL) and Bourbonais (BOU) can all become France (Getting French events and leaders. To achieve this they must own the Isle De France before 1515 and France (FRA) must not exist.

Guyenne (AQU) and Flanders (FLA) have events to become France as well. Though these countries are not typically playable by humans.

-=Aragon or Castille Becomes Spain=-

If Spain (SPA) does not exist and Aragon (ARG) owns Castille (436) after June 1476 then Argagon will have the option to become Spain. This event will not fire after 1 of January 1490.

(The same conditions hold for Castille becoming Spain. Though they are rather easier for Castille to fulfil!)

-=Brandenburg Becomes Prussia=-

Two things must happen

1/Prussia (PRU) and Brandenburg (BRA) must exist at some point between 1615 and 1700 for the Prussian incorporation into Brandenburg to happen. (Prussia must choose option A here.)

2/After January the first 1701 Brandenburg will get the option to become Prussia if event one has happened and Brandenburg owns Prussia (290). The chance will end on 1 Jan 1760.

-=Becoming Byzantium=-

Trebizond (TRE) can become Byzantium (BYZ) at any point in the game if it fulfils the following conditions. It must be Orthodox, own Constantinople (357) and not be at war. Also Byzantium must not already exist.

After 1551 Hellas (GRE) can revolt in southern greece (Hellas (359) and Morea (360)). It can also become Byzantium by fulfulling the same conditions as Trebezond.

-=Becoming the Mughals=-

Start as the Timurid Empire. When May 1504 rolls you turn into the Mughals.

-=Manchu takeover of China=-

If the Manchu (MCH) control Beijing (649) after 1 jan 1683 and China (CHI) does not exist then the Manchu get the option to become China.

There are a series of events starting in 1608 that are designed to help the Manchu's achieve this.


-=Chinese becoming Manchu=-

This is slightly convoluted and carries a risk of China becoming a Manchu vassal rather than becoming Manchu.

1/ China (CHI) choses option B in "The Fall of the Ming Dynasty" on the 25th of April 1644 (event #10014).

2/ The Manchu (MCH) then get an event on "The Takeover of China" in which they have to choose option A
"We accept their offer to unite with them" (#10015).

3/ Then the Chinese will get two sequential events. The first will inherit the Manchu and the second will change them into the Manchu.

Important. If the Manchu choose option B "No, they will unite with us, not us with them" then the chinese are given the choice of being inherited (Game Over) or losing much of their territory and becoming Manchu vassals.


-=Teutonic Order becoming Courland=-

From:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=85972

This event can fire between the 1st of Jan 1560 and the 1 Jan 1562. Poland (POL), Sweden (SWE), Denmark (DAN) and Russia (RUS) must all exist and Courland (KUR) cannot already exist.
Teutonic Order (LAT) will be given the option of becoming Courland or staying as the Teutons.

 

[Gelion]

Great Info Dell thanks for all!