How to start as Muscovy

[Dragonstrike]

Ive been trying to get a Muscovy run off the ground and I just cant. From manpower issues to Literally being robbed of all my money every few months, several disasters that can fire. I try to break free of the tartar yoke and I run out of manpower and my units are destroyed, than i get invaded on top of that. It seems like an insurmountable hill to climb. What are some good opening moves to get beyond all of this?

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

First move should be to recruit a merc company to reach force limit, take your first mission for your claims, then invade Novgorod on Dec. 12th. Use your mercs as well as your vassals' manpower to siege their forts, then take all their provinces that border any nation other than yourself, along with plenty of money to keep you afloat for a while longer. If Odoyev joins the war on their side, just annex them in a separate peace deal, literally nobody will care.

Only after this first war should you care about the hordes. Pick your targets carefully and go after the weakest one. Avoid battles whenever possible - their early-game units are significantly better than yours, and Steppe Nomads get a massive +25% Shock damage boost on all "flat" terrain types. Only fight them if you're able to bait them into a defensive battle in a Woods province somewhere, so they get both the -1 dice roll from attacking on bad terrain and the -25% Shock damage for fighting in non-flat terrain. Focus on peacing out allies first, then siege down the primary target. Once you beat one Horde, the others they're not allied to will likely dogpile on them, so plan ahead with what provinces you take.

Disabling the Tatar Yoke requires you annex the province of Sarai, or complete a certain mission that requires you to occupy it. The money you get from your early wars should be more than enough for you to tank their demands for a while, but eventually you'll have to fight the Great Horde, or whoever has stolen Sarai from them otherwise, to put an end to it. Between you and your mini vassal swarm, you should have more than enough troops to push south as long as you move smartly and don't take pointless battles, unless you get very unlucky with your targets' alliance webs. You should be able to tech up faster than the hordes, so make sure to take advantage of massive military quality differences like tech 4 or 6 while you can - in those cases you can usually stack-wipe the Hordes even on flat terrain, if you have the tech and they don't.

[Medicles]

Still the same as it was before.

1. Get mercenaries.
2. Attack Novgorod and take all provinces bordering Scandinavia and the Baltics.
3. Attack Tver and Ryazan for complete annexation.
4. Attack Great Horde to get rid of the Tartar Yoke and beeline to Circassia for an easy diplo-vassalisation.

If you cant attack the Great Horde directly because they have too many allies or just annoying allies, then it can be worthwhile to attack Ryazan when they are a tributary of the Great Horde.

Mercenaries can deal with your manpower problems early on, but you should still learn how to use your armies properly so they wont lose so many men. Especially in the russian area we have several low dev provinces and the supply limit is rather low, my armies in the early game rarely go over 13k, so i can somewhat move freely without losing stuff to attrition. Look at your provinces to see the supply limit and move your armies appropriately.

Muscovy is only "tough" at the very beginning of the game, after point 4 of my list you shouldnt have any problems and that list is done super early. Like you are attacking Novgorod in the very first months and then immediately attack Tver after and then immeidately go for the Great Horde. All of that stuff should be done before 1460.

Just try it out yourself and dont be afraid to restart as often as you need to understand how to start with Muscovy properly everytime.

[red1]

These are pretty much the strategy I follow. I would suggest two other things to do. First, set emphasis to admin, you will need admin points early when you conquer Novgorod. Second, consecrate all the provinces you can to get enough Religious points to take the icon that reduces war score. As pointed out above, you especially want to take the Novgorod provinces to block Denmark or anyone else.