AAR RUSSIA 1492-1510
A whole new unknown territory lies to the East of Russia. There are several hurdles to overcome. Number one is that the 4-province nation of Kazan blocks the passage to the TI in the East. Kazan in in alliance with GH, Crimea and Astrakhan. Quite formidable. Add to that, some devious constructor has put a 35 all cavalry army in the most northern plains province of the GH, adjacent to us. And a schejk Ahmed as an able leader – no doubt imported from more Southern latitudes. How to approach this force? We must get through since we get a conquistador in 1495, three years after start.
After having incurred 10% inflation in the first session of the Wednesday game as Lithuania fighting winter wars vs more or less the same enemies a new tactic was decided upon. Instead of as DOWing in March and attacking over the border, the usual procedure, we instead DOWed in October and then did nothing.
We let them attack empty provinces. They choose to put most of their armies in the plains province of Ryazan, the only province of my vassal Ryazan that I had called to my side. That suited me perfectly. My 84k waited on the side line for the Winter which saw some 50k enemy die from hunger and cold. Then in Summer , when the defence bar of Ryazan had turned orange, my 35k all cavalry army attacked the 32k that was left. All enemies were killed and I lost only half my relieve force. After that peaceful sieging on 50% maintenance could start. Heavy losses from attrition still took place but the starting money 1000d were very useful. Thus we could take 2 provinces from Kazan, one ortho and then Perm which was the on blocking the passage to the East. After that GH, the alliance leader, offered us three ortho provinces we had captured and we took them to end the war quickly which had dragged on some years.
Our conq now explored into the emtpyness to the East. But lo and behold. Just three provinces in it ended when we detected a new nation, the muslim nation Sibir. But before we attacked them Lithuania by mistake attacked the GH and took Donetsk (port province in the Black Sea) which was in our sphere of interest. Thus they agreed to sell it to us together with Pskov, a former vassal of us that AI Lithuania annexed early on.
While the first war had been tough with no CRT advantage we had now reached LT9 (all investments into LT since start) and we captured all Siberian provinces in 5 months. But we only took the two most Northern because that was enough to gain access to what turned out to be the real great emptiness. The bad news was that we had to DOW without a CB thus getting some nasty BB points.
Besides our scripted conquistador we got two more which I believe were random, if so I quite lucky.
They have been very busy and thus we have explored most of the East already in 1510 and reached the border of China and just at the end of hte session we reached Tchumkan at the East coast of Eurasia. Some gold provinces were explored one of which is now a city. How many gold provinces we have found will not be told.
At the end of the session the king of Lithuania called for help vs the infidel. Thus we are now at our support limit ready to strike for the liberation of the nation of Astrakhan. Although our stab costs really mean we should wait some years until the present three conversions are finished. Not more than three wrong religion provinces this early is recommended. But we are always willing to support those who are dear to our heart.
Both DP slider moves were centra +1. We also got an inno+1 from event.
------------------
For future need the following dates are relevant
1496 Jun 22: Perm, Samara - no gold in Samara in this scenario
– (Kazan)
1496 Jul 8: Burtasia, Mordva, Voronezh (GH)
1501 Mar 15: Donetsk (Lithuania)
1503 Nov 12 Koda, Khanty (Sibir)
----------
For the next session I request a core on the province of Astrakhan.
