[AAR] Isnochys Plays EU4: Muscovy/Russia #1

I did not write any reports in the last weeks.
This is due to my Hearts of Iron 4 plays, those are fun to stream, but a bit dull to read.
Tanks moving here, infantry going there. Not much action to describe.
But these days I am playing Europa Universalis 4!
Time to get out pen and paper and make some history!

My approach this time may be a bit different.
After action reports (AAR) will not be published after every stream.
Instead, I will post them, after 2 or 3 plays.

This time I am playing as Muscovy!
My goals are.

• Form Russia
• Crush enemies
• Colonize Siberia

Muscovy is the perfect start for those goals.
It has Perm as vassal, expansion to the east is secured.
Novgorod can easily be defeated, by alliance with Poland
All other surrounding nations are not a threat, Lithuania will soon be in personal union with Poland.
Though this is a problem for later gameplay.

We start with our first war, against mentioned Novgorod.

It took us 1 year to achieve this victory.
Our peace term are critical.
Most important one is to avoid a Danish/Swedish invasion in the now weakened Novgorod

That is the reason for this weirdly looking border that we established with Sweden.
Now we can start chewing up bits an pieces from Novgorod.

We interfere again with Denmark and support the independence of Sweden.

And get called into their war for it.
England is on our side, but they fight a war against Scotland, this is going to be heavy for them.

On the other side, our troops are not that busy, so we have the chance to get some more provinces.
Tver and Ryazan do not have any friends to support them, so they are easy targets.

First on to fall is Ryazan.
We take all their land.

Next one is Tver.
Also, we take everything from them.

Meanwhile in the war for Swedish Independence, England has chickened out.
Pressure onto them was to hard, Scotland took half their land later, they are pretty beaten up, we will see, if they regain anything later in game.
So they are an easy victim for Denmark, who just takes some war costs.

It is time for us, too, to move on.
Denmark accepts our terms, we gain some gold from them, that is enough.
Before we move onto targets in the west, I want to establish a secure base in the east.

That's why Poland is a crucial partner for us in this early game.
We would face otherwise constant wars with western nations. Later we need different partners, Austria or France. But for the time, we stick to Poland

Meanwhile, our truce with Novgorod ended, so it is time to push again north.

First victim is their ally Odoyev. I am not sure, why they didn't go for another alliance, but this is pretty weak. We just march in and take all land.

And from Novgorod we take all coastal provinces.

They are no completely surrounded, landlocked and at our mercy.
At this stage they will have a hard time finding willing allies.

To secure our southern borders, we took one nation as ally.
Of course they will draw us into wars.
But here we are lucky, Mamluks do not have access to any of our land, so we can sit this one out.

And even start another war close by.
Great Horde and Uzbek joined forces, but still, we have the upper hand here, if we crush them one by one.

Despite the fact, that our manpower is 0, we did win another war and gained some provinces.

Our friend and ally, Poland, is waging war, too. Expanding their borders towards us.
We are helping out in their conflicts only because we gain also some prestige.

This war agains Kazan was so small, I forgot to take some screenshots.
But our neighbours to the East are at this point pretty weak and not worth mentioning.
Their cause for revolt is a bigger danger towards our realm.

Kazan and Novgorod surrounded
Sweden is back as lesser partner in a union with Denmark.
Lithuania and Poland also forming a union.
Great Horde, Nogai and Uzbek are our next door enemies, to be conquered.

It is time to change our approach.
We are now strong enough, to threaten our neighbours and win their provinces.
Step by step, we gain more and more land.
There is no need for any resource wasting war effort, they just give it to us freely.
More or less.

Because sometimes, we need more pressure, to relieve the other party from their land.
Novgorod, without allies, is an easy target these days.

Big changes on the horizon.
The Protestant Reformation started.
We have to keep this in our mind, when expanding westwards.

This is the end for Novgorod.
Full annexation.
We take all their land.

Now it we would be ready to form the nation of Russia.
But we lack technology.
Administration level 10 is needed for this one, we have 5 or 6 at this point.
Now we have to wait to upgrade our technology.
But we also need admin power, to core provinces, that we win by threatening or warmongering against our neighbours.

This war for example.
Neither Great Horde nor Nogai are willing to give us their land.
Such is the decision, we need to go to war against them.

We take strategic provinces from their border to Lithuania.
This way, their expansion towards the east will be stopped.

And Nogai gives us pieces of their land.
Now we are bordering the Timurids.
This is a strong nation, we have to be careful with our expansion south east.

Poland claims Ösel.
We are currently improving relations with Austria.
They are Emperor and have a union with Bohemia and Hungary.
Their alliance with us against Poland might be vital for the upcoming future.

A war in the west is inevitable.
Sweden and Lithuania have provinces, that are ours.
Circassia is our new vassal. Blocking the way for Lithuania towards further east.
Transoxiana, yes, it did exist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transoxiana, is a vassal of Timurids. We need to wait for a good opportunity there.
Uzbek is ripe to be plugged at any time.

There are so many options. We will at least fail at one!
:))

If you are interested in playing the game, get it here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/236850/Europa_Universalis_IV/

If you play the game, are a newbie, have further questions, join the discord:
https://discord.gg/zuzsDAE

My stream is here:
http://www.vimm.tv/@isnochys
Sadly, it does not always display it.
But I record everything, so maybe I will upload some of my plays at a later time.