Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
Discussions Rules and Guidelines
Report this post
-Vassal feed tactics-
There are multiple reasons you would want to use vassals instead of owning all the land directly. At the start of the game each 1-province vassal can maintain larger army you could single-handedly by owning their land. This makes Muscovy very strong at the start of the game as they own many small vassals.
As the game advances these small vassals become less important, so I would definitely integrate most of them as soon as possible. Perhaps leave 2 vassals to feed new land to. Best type of vassal has either strong Military ideas and can be turned into March for extra troops, or has permanent cores on many enemy lands allowing to use Reconquest CB for much lower warscore cost. After you conquered all their cores, integrate to save admin points.
Now when you conquer more land, you usually run into "not enough states" problem:
https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Territories_and_states
When you get ownership of new province, it starts as Territory, and all territories have minimum autonomy of 75% which means you can only ever earn 25% of their potential money and manpower. To lower autonomy further, they need to be assigned to State and then pay another 50% of admin points. After that the province can slowly reduce autonomy toward 0 and give you full benefit.
Now each country starts with base 10 states. This number raises while you advance admin tech, some ideas and such. But usually if you like to expand fast, you run out of states and newly conquered land will remain as territories. Not only are you unable to lower autonomy properly, but you will also start to get corruption modifier from "too many territories". Once you reach this point, you should consider only assigning states to provinces with high development, and dumping all those useless 1-1-1 land into vassal - you will never integrate this vassal, they exist only to hold your extra low development land.
Specially Russia can easily expand into low development areas with only 1-1-1 lands, these will not give you much income even at 0 autonomy, they only use up valuable state slots and if left as territories, will increase corruption.
Influence idea group is usually taken because you are nearly always lacking Admin points from coring all those new lands and increasing Stability. Same time, you have usually enough Diplo points to spend them on idea group. Personally, I prefer Espionage (reduced Advisor costs, reduced aggressive expansion impact, may fabricate claims for subjects, reduced yearly corruption). If you plan to use vassals, Influence is not that bad either.
If you want to use vassals, consider having one on each side you want to expand into (scandinavia, baltic, crimea, asia), or you may block your path with your vassal. You could have one sunni vassal to avoid converting all their lands before you raise your missionary strength high enough. Or if you want to use one as territory dump, give one of them those bad siberian lands to hold.
There are 6 more Institutions after Feudalism:
https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Institutions
Most of them will ALWAYS spawn in western europe, from the initial spawn province they start to crawl slowly into neighbouring provinces. This can take literally centuries to reach furthest countries like Japan.
The best way to gain every institution early is to own land near western europe. For Muscovy this means expanding into Asia will be easier as the countries east from you will be usually even more behind in tech. But you actually want to own province toward western europe to get institutions spread into your land faster. One good spot is Baltic, since Institutions can spread over the Baltic Sea from Germany. Another area is Crimea as Ottomans usually get all the institutions early too.
Now that is how institutions spread normally, from one province to neighbouring province and once neighbour reaches 100% to all of the neighbours again. However, you can also get them anywhere in the world by manually developing a province. This is speacially useful for rich countries far away from Europe, like India and China.
So, to start manually spawning institution, you want to pick province in the middle of your country with lowest development cost
https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Development#Stacking_development_cost_modifiers
Does not have to be capital, any province you own will work. Use Production >> development tab to find lowest cost province. Next you start to Develop this one province over and over, spend any monarch point type you have, all will advance toward institution same way. Once the Institution in this one province reaches 100% it will start to spread into neighbouring provinces too. And you will have very high development province as bonus. There is no point to develop more provinces once you already have institution in your country.
I don't bother manually spawning institution unless I am starting to reach 50% tech penalty from it and it is nowhere nearby ready to spread into my lands. As Muscovy/Russia you are not too far from western europe but you are also not close enough to simply wait it spread normally. Depending on your situation you may want to manually spawn some and wait out others. Again, best way to reach institutions early is to own land in western europe.
Personally, I mostly ignore estates. Normally I only use 2 interactions when they are available - free money from Traders and free general from Nobles.
When you start, much of your land is owned by Nobles and any interaction will push their influence over 100% and start Disaster. You also can not simply take away their land because they will become angry and may spawn rebels. Easiest way is to expand your country, once your overall development increase, the influence of each estate will lower to the point where taking away their land does not make them angry enough. Then you can also use those gimme-money and general interactions whenever possible. If you expand even more, their influence goes too low and you no longer have access to their interactions.
If you want to assign more land to Estate for better prizes, remember that each Estate is best used with specific province. Nobility is best to use with high manpower province 1-1-6 for example so you will not lose too much from new 25% autonomy limit on tax and production. Burghers only want Trade Centers, so 1-6-1. And Clergy gets the high Tax lands like 6-1-1.
I think Cossacks estate is also available to Muscovy. These special Estates are almost always worth the trouble as they give better bonuses.
-Patriarch authority-
I do not own Third Rome myself but I played with it when it was free for a week. I never used the Icons, and simply left Authority at 100% for the +2% Missionary strength, −3 Local unrest and +33% Local manpower modifier bonuses.
I did use Russian government interactions every time they became available as these are amazing:
Reform Sudebnik: −10% Local autonomy in all provinces
Support Oprichnina: −30% progress for all rebel factions
That, and once you open your first idea group at admin 5, you are two admin techs from 7 - meaning you will open your second idea group at admin 7 much faster if you are spending diplo points for your first ideas, as opposed to admin. I find it's easier to get ahead of time on tech between 7-10, to dump points on ideas.
There are circumstances where I wont take a diplo idea first, but I've found when I open with an admin idea, it's much easier for my game to sort of stall and not go the way I planned.
I have recently finished another Orthodox game (as Orthodox Hungary).
I nearly always had an Icon.
They all can be very useful that their effects can easily offset the 10 PA cost:
- St. Michael (+Mapower Recovery, +Discipline): The reason why Orthodoxy is one of the strongest Religions in the game military-wise.
- Eleusa (-Unrest, -Harsch Treatment cost): Helpful to get Absolutism high in 1710, especially when combined with the Generic Missions reward.
- Christ Pantocrator (-Dev Cost, -Construction Cost): Very useful when you want to develop an Institution or when you reach a new tech level and want to mass-build Manufactories
- St. Nicholas (+Improve Relations, -AE): Very helpful to avoid coalition early game
- St. John Climacus (+Institution Spread, -Institution Cost): You developed an Institution in a province, now it spreads to others until it is present in 10%. Speed this up with this Icon (and combine with the State Edict). Also useful to get some Institutions faster without developing them
Remember that you can Consecrate Metropolitans in States (fulfilling some conditions) which gives +5 PA.
This increases State Maintenance by 10% and decreases Devastation.
I found the increased maintenance negligible and the Devastation Reduction helpful against Berber Raids.
1. Regarding comments on vassals.
Thanks for mentioning this "Not enough states" issue. It appears that i can rich state limit with Muscovy very fast. I recently played and it goes with the following scenraio:
- Declare Novgorod which is allied with Ryazan -> Full Annex Ryazan and take all western bordered terrytories from Novgorod.
- Fabricate on Tver which is allied with Odoev -> Declare war -> Full Annex both
So by this point I already have states count cap - i can't create more and some of my provinces are alrready treated as territories with 75% authonomy.
My next steps were to declare Kazan to take trade center (and only it) + declare Golden Horde so it won't eat Kazan (took 2 provinces from it).
So what could I do better? Is it efficient to feed Beloozero/Pskov/Perm Novgorod's territory and integrate it later when I get more states available? I think i should take Trade Centers to myself though anyway. I could also feed Tver to Rostov and again - not sure if it is efficient still. What i forced to annex -> Odoev and Ryazan since i don't have any vassals bordering them and Horde + Lithuania want this lands too.
2. First idea to pick.
If i will almost not annexing anything by feeding already existing vassals I will have much more admin points which would allow me to get Religius idea first which in return would simplify further conversion of Hordes and Catholics/Protestants. I still not sure about Influence idea since I still think that by the time it start giving me necessary bonuses all my vassals should be already integrated but it worth it to consider.
Since it was mentioned that the second idea should be picked at 7 tech which is pretty fast from the first - I wonder which idea it should be. If i picked Religius first than it could be either Deffensive, Influence or Admin. If i picked Influence first - it could be either Religious (still need to convert hordes), Deffensive or Admin?
What are your suggestions here? I saw very different opinions on that.
3. Patriarch authority and Icons
I was not asking if it is viable to use icons or not - i think it is. But I am not sure if it is viable in the very beggining of the game? In the very beggining you can Concentrate Metropolicy 3 times to get 15% authority. You can also ask Clergy for support which will give you another 5% and total 20% authority. In this case we can either continue to wait for Patriarch authority events or pick our first icon? So the question - which one might be viable at this point? It seems only 2 icons might be valuable in the very beggining: - St. Michael (+Manpower Recovery, +Discipline) and - St. Nicholas (+Improve Relations, -AE). We might switch to institutions icon when it is time to embrace institution. Right?
4. Defender of the Faith
This question still not answered. But in general, i think it is viable to pick it when there are no minor Orthodox nations which you can't protect. Is it correct?
You have couple workarounds for the state limit:
- you almost always want to own every province in the State. If some are owned by other countries, only the provinces you own directly (subjects do not count) will get lower autonomy
- there is a button to remove State and turn provinces back to territories. Use this to abandon low development provinces and lands in States you only own 1 provinces from. Once State is freed you can use it on more developed provinces
- it is not end of the world if you run out of States and have to rely on territories, just try to put low development areas into territories so it does not matter much
- eventually, if you conquer really a lot of land, for example:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1793574884
your corruption starts to grow, you need to spend enough money to keep it under control
- to convert you want to lower autonomy first or you will pay too much for the missionary maintenance, as the cost is directly related to autonomy in province. If you are having trouble with state limit, consider turning some of the Orthodox lands in the middle of country back to territories so you can assign the states to newly conquered lands, and convert these more easily
Defender of the Faith has not changed. If you have free 500 gold and can live with extra 5% tech penalty and there are no minor Orthodox nations being threathened by very strong neighbours... Sure, go for it. The bonuses of +5% Morale of armies, +1 Yearly prestige and extra missionary may be worth it.
Then again, bonuses are not high enough to say you must always be Defender. 500 gold could be used to construct buildings instead.
It depends stats of your ruler and some other randomness. At the start you want to keep your Military Tech high enough but if you are stuck with 0-0-6 ruler for 50 years, taking Military ideas first could be better. If you need to core loads of land and your Admin Tech is already 2 levels behind others, pushing Admin Ideas too may not be smart.
Not only idea groups itself but Policies between them also matter. You can have free policy of each type, and extra ones if you want. Which ones are "best" kind of depend on your situation in the game:
https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Policies
Morale is great at the start but for lategame you want combat ability and Discipline, so perhaps Offensive or Quality instead of Defensive. If you are running out of money, Trade and Economics will help.
Influence idea group is good if you plan to play with vassals for longer and increase their strength. Feeding them land and increasing their force limit will increase their Liberty Desire and you need modifiers to keep it below 50%. If you just want to sometimes take few vassals to save admin points and quickly integrate them when possible, it does not help much.
The idea groups have been balanced multiple times, and I do not think there are super-useful-must-ones or totally-dumb-never-touch-this left anymore. Each of them can be useful in certain situation, and many can be swapped based on your own feel.
1) If you give too much land to the early vassals especially you can run into situations where you can't keep their liberty desire below 50% because their combined strength is too high. This can be very problematic if the "support independence" diplomatic interaction is available as your rivals will happily ally all of them and trigger a major independence revolt. It is a balancing act between the differing priorities that you will have to maintain for a while.
As for starting options, personally I take the dip relation hit and have one of Odoyev/Ryazan as a vassal that ate the other (except the provinces that start the game in existing states), later on you can feed them part of Lith or the horde lands. In the first Kazan war I generally feed Perm all the provinces of their culture (for easier conversion); hopefully before they get sunni-fied. The gold province is also a higher priority than the CoT IMO. Agreed on taking any part of Nov with a border to anyone else.
You want to annex the vassals that hold provinces in your states ASAP and feed stuff that would be territories to the others. Just be mindful of the total vassal power as mentioned above.
2) It depends almost entirely on ruler stats and your mp situation at the time. If you somehow get a ruler with high enough admin points that you are actually able to core everything without lagging in admin tech then one of the admin groups may be a good option. That requires both your starting ruler and your pretty decent starting heir to be dead fairly quickly though. Normally it will be a choice between dip or mil, or influence/defensive IMO. As Russia you are likely to do a lot of vassal/integrate and the -25% cost is very noticeable. Influence also has some other ideas that are pretty useful when using that approach. Defensive is a no-brainer choice for you as you will spend a lot of the game fighting in areas where the -attrition idea will matter even in your own lands. In about 90% of my Muscovy games influence and defensive are the first two idea groups I take.
3) The very beginning is when it is most viable as you won't be dealing with converting a lot of muslim land yet. The later in the game you get the more you need the high PA bonus to convert stuff.
4) I'm not a huge fan of DotF even as the only Orthodox nation due to the +tech cost penalty. It is not easy to stay on time in tech as Russia because of the institutions (that system was 100% a direct nerf to Russia). You have almost 0% chance to spawn most of them which means either spending thousands of mp to force spawn them (if doing then so the Yaroslav area with multiple adjacent grassland provinces is the best location) or waiting decades for them to spread to you from the likes of Italy, Iberia, or England. Choosing to voluntarily add another 10% penalty is not something I'm personally in favor of doing.
As for making Ryazan or Odoev a vassal - i don't see how it is possible early since you already have dip relations cap (5/5). You have to annex one of your vassals first before you'll be able to vassalize anyone else without dip points penalty.
I have another question though regrading feeding vassals - I feeded some northern novorodian provinces to Beloozero but took Novgorod to myself. It appeas that Beloozero's new lands does not have shared border with initial Beloozero's lands. They can be reached thru Muscovy's lands though so i didn't sought that it could be an issue. But it appears that Beloozero never cored these provinces. Why that didn't happened? Is it required to have shared border with new provinces for vassal to be able to core it?
Another question regrading starting moves as Muscovy. There is a mission to invade Novgorod available from the very beggining. In order to complete it you need to fill your army limit. As a result you'll have permanent claims on all Novgorodian lands. It seems to be viable and easy thing to do but consiquences might be tough. First of all - there is not enough man power in the pool to be able to hire all necessary regiments in the very beggining. And it will take all your initial gold to do this. Second thing - it doesn't seems that our econmy can support full limit as for now. And also by having 0 manpower after hiring army it seems that we have to delay our war with Novgorod before will have some manpower available for us. If i delay completing this mission to later stages i almost always find that I can do this only before final annexation of Novgorodian lands so I am not sure if compliting this mission is really worth it. Can you guys give me some advice here?
2) To core a province it must be adjacent to a province owned by you or, if it's on the same continent as your capital, your subject. Belo Ozero doesn't have any subjects so it would have to be adjacent to their land for them to core it. You can core off their lands, the reverse is not true.
3) Officially completing the mission at some point is worth it if for no other reason than reducing the coring cost of the last Novgorod provinces and unlocking the other missions. You are basically correct in your analysis of the flaws of the mission as it stands though. Your economy absolutely can't support your force limit at start, I generally complete it by annexing vassals later on.
Regarding Vassalizing Odoev or Ryazan - so the penalty for dip relations lim will be -1dipPoint each month. 12 points a year. In order to make it worth it i think we should be around 5-6 years before annexing our first initial vassal to make this Vassalization positive in terms of points. Though i still think it doesn't make a lot of sense unless you are really rushing towards the first idea group. If as a result of the first Novgorodian war you going to feed your vassals instead of coring your lands - you will save a lot of admin points already which you can use to core Odoev/Ryazan. It still can be viable though to vassalize Ryazan instead of annexing to keep better religion unity because of Yelets province religion (sunni) and culture. Not sure yet about better scenario. Need to think more about it.
Summarizing this discussion I could create the follwing guideline to myself for first actions as a Muscovy:
1. Hire +1 advisors. Prefered: mil +1 morale, dip +1 reputation, adm +10% tax.
2. Concentrate Metropolicy in 3 states (gives +15% patriarch authority)
3. Request for Clergy support to get +5 Patriarch Authority and improve Clergy loyality.
4. Pick rivals: Kazan, Golden Horde, Novgorod
5. Remove investments from castles to save money
6. Remove investments from army maintenance to save money
7. Send insult to Novgorod (to get bonus to power projection)
8. Set Trade Embargo to rivals (Kazan, Golden Horde, Novgorod) (to get bonus to power projection)
9. Royal Marriage all your vassals
10. Improve Relations with Pskov (since no Royal Marriage available)
11. OPTIONAL: Get +150 admin points from Boyars (nobles) and do +15 loyality action after that (*some notes regrading this after the list)
12. OPTIONAL: Get +Ducats (or dip points but i prefer ducats here) from Burgers and do +loyality action
13. OPTIONAL: Get +100 millitary points from cossacks and do +loyality action
14. OPTIONAL: Pick St. Michael icon to get bonuses (+Manpower Recovery, +Discipline)
Please feel free to put your comments on this list if you think that something else could be done here better?
Regarding Optional items. Get admin points from Boyars is kind of risky since it will increase their already high influence from 80 to 90. Also, doing all 3 estates interactions will put your Prestige to negative value. This is not great but you are going to deal with it in upcoming war with Novgorod anyway. It is just a metter of how fast you'll get to 100 Prestige value. Get ducats or Dip points from Burgers seems to be safe move since they have no influence. Same for Cossacks.
As for picking Icon - i think it is just a metter of prefference if you would like to keep Partiarch Authority at 20% which is better long term or get so needed Recovery speed and good Discipline bonus. Recovery speed bonus will give you something like +20-30 man per month which doesn't seems to be that much but still we'll be lacking manpower and this bonus is handy because of that.
I would completely destroy both forts in Mozhaisk and Nizny Novgorod. You are not going to play defensive game anyway, and want to expand fast, paying for these forts will not help you. Your vassals will each have capital fort anyway for enemy to siege.
Later if you have expanded toward strong enemy, you only want to keep forts at the border in hill/mountain provinces.
I had a question regarding Edicts - is there any edicts which might be valuable at the beginning of the game?
Is there any other useful moves we can do to put ourselves in better position?
I need to check if we can decrease autonomy anywhere in the beginning. That might be useful to increase income while local unrest can be handled.
The lowered development cost edict. Use it on your capital after renaissance has spawned. You can get the institution quick and achieving the 30+ development milestone for the ages ability at the same time. Upgrade Moscow to 30 and change the edict to increased institution spread. When it fires you can delete your edicts.
I use edicts only to spawn institutions while playing nations outside of western europe and the increased missionary strenght edict for the hard to convert provinces. All other edicts are costing more than they can give you back most of the time.