Muscowy: early steps in the path to an empire
The Muscowian grand duke Vasily II sat on his throne, pretending to listen to his advisors. His thoughts wandered off, pondering about the situation of his nation. Muscowy was a vassal of the Golden Horde, and with it's five provinces not something you would call a major power. Vasily looked at the pathetic bunch of nobles trying to get his attention, and decided it could go on like this no longer. Muscowy would become a great nation, and the sole power in eastern europe!
Vasily stood and the advisors and nobles quieted. He spoke: "I have decided Muscowy should become the greatest nation in Eastern Europe. Here's how:
- First, we shall cancel our vassallige with the Golden Horde ASAP.
- Then we shall promote tax collectors throughout our entire realm
- We shall research infrastructure only, to increase production efficiency and income
- Intelligence on the other aspiring European kingdoms should be gathered, but we shall not became mingled in their affairs. Our business lies in the East.
- Sweden is the only possible threat nearby and should be treated with utmost caution.
- Domestic Policies should promote land warfare, increased PE and decreased research costs.
Those projects under way, our army is too large and costs too much to maintain. However, disbanding them would deny our fellow Muscowians the glory they deserve, so instead we shall just let them die from winter attrition is some kind of war to gain more territory.
Our wealthy neighbour of Novgorod should be our first target, they have much provinces that belong to the Muscowian Empire!"
Vasily's advisors were shockened by all these orders, but carried them out nonetheless for fear of having their testicles fed to Vasily's pigs.
War was swiftly declared upon Novgorod and their provinces were sieged. The tiny nation of Pskov dared to dishonor our military alliance, but we will deal with them later.
Novgorod's provinces were captured and a 80% warscore was achieved (since capture of Karelia and Kola was impossible due to the magical barrier preventing our troops from moving there), giving Muscowy all of Novgorod's provinces and a crapload of money. Only the capital remained of the once great white blob.
After this, Sweden declared war upon us! We decided to cave in to their demands and surrender Ingermanland, as a full scale war with Sweden was undesirable at this point.
In the meantime, pskov had captured and annexed Tver! This was most fortunate indeed, as a war could now add Tver to our kingdom without upsetting the rest of the world too much (no BB).
What was said was done, and Tver belonged to Muscowy now. Pskov became a vassal and entered our alliance once more, beside the nation of Smolensk who just liked us very much.
A new monarch arrived, Ivan III. He decided to pursue an even more agressive strategy than his predecessor, and attacked Novgorod once more. It was annexed quickly, and reforms in our economic structure were made! The trade center of Novgorod was burned and a new one opened in our glorious nation's capital of Moscow.
More money was needed, so we attacked Ryazan and slurped up their money. They were then annexed in a next attack.
With all other nations either annexed or vassalized, time had come to eye for other conquests. The mongols who had opressed us for all these years will pay! In a war with Kazan we took Tambow and some more money (using Golden Horde's troops who were also at war with them

).
The time has come for Ivan to look carefully at the situation of his grown Empire now.
We now have 14 provinces instead of 5.
Our infrastructure research is 4/5 completed.
Stability is high.
We have over 800 ducats in the treasury (which were all stolen

)
We are at peace.
All in all, Ivan was satisfied with the results of 16 years of conquest.