EUROPA UNIVERSALIS III
Muscowy/Russia FAQ
by Sephiroth Katana (http://www.rpgclassics.com)

INTRODUCTION
============

Each nation in EU3 offers a unique gameplay experience, due to their huge
differences in starting potential. If you want a relatively easy time, play as
Castille or France; if you want a near-impossible challenge, try The Knights or
Ryukyu. If you want a reasonably challenging, yet rewarding experience, you
could try starting as Muscowy in 1399. The early game is problematic and offers
quite a few obstacles, and even the mid- to late-game still requires you to
stay on your toes, but if you succeed, you can forge a mighty empire to rival
any other nation. Interestingly, playing as Muscowy can show you the logic of
real-world history -- you will experience first-hand exactly why the Russian
princes fought each other rather than their common enemy, and you'll be forced
to amass huge armies and conquer land just to stave off your hungry neighbours.
It is a fascinating experience that often requires serious thinking, but is
still quite doable even for relatively new players.

As of this writing, not many EU3 resources are available on GameFAQs. If you
have other questions, the Paradox forums and wiki boast a vibrant community.
They have a special style of FAQ-writing, which is meant to be more open-ended
than the typical walkthrough. I do not promise to follow this style; this FAQ
describes what worked for me in several Muscowy playthroughs and gives some
specific advice. It is meant to be a walkthrough of a particular campaign, not
a tutorial on game mechanics. I will point out mechanics that are particularly
important, but you should probably already be familiar with such concepts as
"sliders," "infamy," and "inflation," which are common to all nations. If you
are just starting the game, try to play through as Castille to get used to all
these things.

OUTLINE
=======

Preliminary Remarks
General Strategy
  1. Sliders
  2. National Ideas
  3. Decisions
  4. Advisors
  5. Province Improvements
  6. Economy
  7. Government Type
The Grand Campaign, 1399-1821
  1. Surviving the early game (1399-1450)
  2. The early mid-game: Muscowy vs. the Horde (1450-1525)
  3. The late mid-game: colonization, expansion, and warfare (1525-1600)
  4. The late game: basking in glory (1600-1821)
  5. Other Russian states
(Note: The date ranges are rough guidelines only.)

PRELIMINARY REMARKS
===================

As Muscowy, you start out in a pretty bad position. You have a small handful
of land-locked provinces, wedged in between several hostile nations. Your
three small neighbours, the fellow Russian principalities of Tver, Ryazan, and
Yaroslavl, are inoffensive and can even be friendly, but unfortunately, you
are going to have to conquer them to get much-needed resources to deal with
your other neighbours. To your north is Novgorod, which starts out with more
land and money, and wants to conquer you as much as you want to conquer it.
To your west is Poland/Lithuania, which can put up a nasty fight even in the
late game. To your south and east is the immense Golden Horde, which controls
half of the Eurasian continent in 1399, and is incapable of any diplomatic
relations (seriously, this is part of the game mechanics) other than conquest
and extorting tribute.

To make things worse, you have a number of additional weaknesses:

1. You start out with the Oriental technology tree. Your military units will
quickly be outmatched by Western European countries, and you are forced to wait
15% longer than those countries to research the same upgrades. Your provinces
start with no improvements other than basic forts, and you are initially unable
to build such improvements (you need to first research some upgrades). Just to
compare, Castille starts out with a free University, an advanced building that
gives you free technology investments. As Muscowy, you will probably need to
wait at least 150 years before you can build one.

2. You start out so far away from the ocean that you will most likely never
have the chance to explore the New World. If you conquer Novgorod quickly, you
might get a shot at playing Peter the Great, but chances are that Britain,
Portugal, Spain, or Sweden will beat you to the colonies.

3. Did I mention the Golden Horde? Because it is absolutely terrifying. It will
take almost a hundred in-game years before you can put up a fight, and you will
have no choice but to pay them tribute during this entire time. This will slow
down your development considerably, as it is quite difficult to build up your
economy when you have to pay this extra liability every month.

There are, however, some pros to balance the cons:

1. You start out with a reasonably large military and a modest cash reserve.
Hey, you have to be thankful for what you can get. This allows you to at least
stand up to your immediate neighbours and pay off the Horde for a little while.

2. You may never reach the New World, but you might not need to. If you survive
the early game, you can actually dismantle the Horde piece by piece and expand
onto their land. The northeast of Asia is no man's land, and if you manage to
get that far, you can quickly colonize it. Many of these areas are rich in fur
and iron, which are quite valuable. In addition, staying on land just means
that you don't need to worry about spending money on a navy. Let all those
fools putter about in their little ships -- the more money they waste on them,
the easier it will be to smash their armies!

3. The penalty for being in the Oriental tech group actually doesn't kick in
immediately. You start with Druzhina Cavalry, which will stay competitive
against European cavalry for a good century. You can also switch to the Western
tech group using the game's Westernization mechanics. This is difficult, but
doable.

4. Although the Horde is terrifying, they use the Steppe Horde form of govern-
ment, which is just about the worst government in the entire game. Specifically,
every time their ruler dies, they go into a succession crisis in which most of
their lands can be overrun by rebels. While this is going on, they can actually
fracture into multiple smaller hordes, each of which will be much easier for
Muscowy to handle.

Thus, if you can survive long enough to Westernize and expand into the Horde's
lands, you can then quickly build an enormous empire. It is quite gratifying
to be able to mobilize 150,000 troops in the span of a month late in the game.
Hopefully, this FAQ can help you get there.

One final note: I developed these strategies while playing the full version of
the game with all four expansions (through Divine Wind). In my opinion, this is
the way the game should be played; it took them a long time to really iron out
the mechanics. And, it should go without saying, but this FAQ would be most
useful to readers who are not EU3 masters. I'm sure someone somewhere was able
to Westernize within the first 20 years and conquer the world in the first 100,
but this FAQ is for normal players and their typical EU3 experience.

GENERAL STRATEGY
================

This section describes long-term strategic choices that you can make throughout
the game, such as your slider moves and national ideas. I describe the choices
that will specifically benefit Muscowy in my opinion.

1. Sliders

Don't neglect your sliders; they exert a subtle yet deep influence on how your
game plays out. You'll need to adjust them every chance you get in order to
Westernize quickly. Below, I describe the relative importance of each slider
and give advice on how to set it.

a. Centralization vs. Decentralization

Most of the sliders offer you a choice, with both sides having advantages and
disadvantages. Not this one: there is absolutely no benefit to Decentralization.
It may go against your political beliefs, but unfortunately this is how the
medieval world works according to EU3. Maximum Centralization is always
preferable. Unfortunately, Muscowy starts out with high Decentralization. Moving
to Centralization should be your first priority, especially since you'll need it
to Westernize.

b. Aristocracy vs. Plutocracy

This one depends on your play style. Full Aristocracy gives you a better land
army and more diplomats; full Plutocracy gives you more merchants, spies, and
trade efficiency. If you are planning to do a lot of trading, Plutocracy may
be helpful. But, since Muscowy is a land-based power, my personal suggestion
would be to favour Aristocracy. It is not hugely important, though, and I
usually just follow whichever direction the random events suggest. Your regular
slider moves would probably be better used for the other sliders.

c. Serfdom vs. Free Subjects

You start out with full Serfdom, which is actually not too bad. It makes it more
difficult to research technology, something that Muscowy already has a problem
with, but it also gives you cheaper military units and makes it easier to
increase your Stability. Free Subjects basically does the opposite of all these
things: it makes technology cheaper, but increases the cost of your military.
I prefer to have this somewhere in the middle, but I don't make it a priority.
If you have full Serfdom, you will experience fairly frequent random events
allowing you to move toward Free Subjects without sacrificing a slider move.

d. Innovative vs. Narrowminded

This is an interesting one. You start out Narrowminded, and you must move toward
Innovation in order to Westernize. Having successfully done that, however, you
will actually benefit more from moving back to Narrowminded, as this will reduce
the cost of Stability and give you more missionaries, which can be difficult to
get otherwise. As Muscowy, you might have to do a lot of converting on Horde
lands, so missionaries can be extremely useful. This slider also affects the
Papal Influence of Catholic countries, but Muscowy is Orthodox, so this won't
make any difference.

e. Mercantilism vs. Free Trade

Another interesting one. As you may expect, Free Trade favours your merchants
and your ability to compete in foreign centers of trade. Mercantilism improves
your performance in centers of trade that you control, but Muscowy starts out
with zero. Mercantilism also gives you extra spies, which is reasonably useful.
I suggest just making a one-time decision whether or not you are going to
incorporate trade into your play style. I usually decide not to do this, since
it is not that helpful in the crucial early game. This allows me to just focus
on Mercantilism and have one less slider to worry about. You will occasionally
get random events allowing you to move toward Free Trade.

f. Offensive vs. Defensive

Pretty self-explanatory. Offensive gives a bonus to your attacking units and
their morale, whereas Defensive improves the quality of your forts. I personally
prefer to have this exactly in the middle, but either extreme has its pluses.

g. Land vs. Naval

Again, self-explanatory: Land benefits your armies, and Naval benefits your
navies. In my opinion, Muscowy benefits the most from an all-Land play style,
so you can go all Land and have one less thing to think about. Perhaps the one
drawback is that Land penalizes the cost of colonists, which can be important
(though not hugely so) when you are conquering Horde lands.

h. Quality vs. Quantity

Both have benefits. Quality improves your battle performance, but increases the
cost of your army and reduces your manpower, which means that you will have to
wait longer to replenish your armies. Quantity does the opposite of that, giving
you more and cheaper units that don't perform as well. You start out with high
Quantity, which is actually OK for the early game. As you improve your economy,
you might consider moving toward Quality.

To summarize, your priorities in the early game are to move toward Innovative
and Centralization, with Land being a useful third option. After Westernizing,
you can actually move back toward Narrowminded.

2. National Ideas

These are various bonuses that you can adopt as your Government Technology
improves. You can switch between them (i.e. abandon one idea and replace it by
another one), but this penalizes you, so it is better to choose things that can
benefit you throughout the entire game. Below, I list a few of the most useful
ideas for Muscowy, in the order in which I recommend getting them. Since I
think that Muscowy is most successful as a land power, I do not recommend any
of the naval ideas (many of the land ideas, on the other hand, are essential).

a. Military Drill

There are a couple of good choices for a first idea, but this one can really
help you stay competitive in the early game. It gives a permanent boost to your
land armies' morale, which means that they will hold their ground and fight
longer. Thus, even if you are outnumbered, it is more likely that the enemy will
run out of morale before you, and you will win the battle even if you have taken
more casualties. Once this happens, you can chase after the retreating enemy
before they have a chance to recover their morale. If they don't have enough to
last the first few days of battle, they will just surrender and their entire
army will be removed from play. This can really help you stand up to the Golden
Horde, whose warriors are powerful, but undisciplined.

b. National Conscripts

Absolutely fantastic. This idea increases your manpower reserves by 50%, which
is particularly useful in the early game when you may have to fight multiple
wars in a row with no time to recuperate from your losses. Until you can get a
fairly large number of new provinces, manpower will be a crucial factor in all
of your military engagements. It would be a good choice for your first idea,
except that you need to spend some time to build up your Land Technology first.

c. Grand Army

Another great idea that permanently increases your land supply limit by 33%,
meaning that you can make substantially more military units. The benefits really
start to kick in during the mid-game, when your country becomes large enough
that you need multiple armies to protect all of your borders. In the early game,
you might not have enough money to use up the available supply, although it
can be quite useful if you do.

d. Church Attendance Duty

Reduces the cost of Stability by 33%. This is not that useful late in the game,
when you can restore Stability in a single month, but it can be extremely useful
when you are Westernizing and trying to recover your Stability. Also, this idea
unlocks the Gilded Iconography cultural decision, which is also very useful.

e. Colonial Ventures

You will surely choose this idea at some point -- it can be very helpful in the
mid- to late-game when you are trying to expand to the Pacific Ocean. But, in
fact, you can get value out of this idea even earlier, since there are so many
horde lands close to Muscowy. The more colonists you have, the more quickly
you can seize all of this land. The bonus from the idea is very noticeable; most
likely, it will double the rate at which you get colonists.

f. National Bank

Automatically gives you a permanent yearly inflation reduction of 0.1%. I even
used to choose this as my first or second idea, but if you're good at managing
your economy, you may not need this for a while, even while you're paying money
to the Horde. Still, this is really the only way to reduce your inflation in the
early game. You can also hire Masters of the Mint, but they need to be at least
level 4 in order to be useful. If your advisor is level 1, he will only give a
0.02% inflation reduction, which is worthless. This idea is like having a level
5 master, permanently, without using up an advisor slot.

g. Bill of Rights

Not essential, but can give you an easier time by reducing the frequency with
which those stupid rebels appear. Once you have created your vast empire, this
can really cut down on the aggravation factor. This is also very useful if you
happen to inherit a large country with provinces spread out over the world.

h. Smithian Economics

Oh yeah, baby. This will boost your production efficiency by 20%, which will
send your economy into overdrive once you have conquered those iron-producing
provinces. In the late game, this is a great idea, and you can only get it in
the late game, since you need Production Technology 30 before you can adopt it.
That's basically the only reason why it's not higher on this list.

i. Esprit de Corps

Increases your armies' damage potential by 25%, which is great. The only problem
is that you need Land Technology 53 to adopt it, and by then the game will be
nearly over anyhow.

3. Decisions

During your game, you have the chance to execute a number of "Decisions," which
can be "National," "Cultural," or "Religious." In all of these cases, a decision
is a one-time event that provides various effects (positive or negative) until
the end of the game. Below, I describe the most important decisions for Muscowy.

a. Institute Liberum Veto

You may need this in the very early game if you get attacked by a superior army.
The decision will give you 15,000 troops for free, but it will open the door to
some serious rebellions and penalties later on. Worst of all, it will give you
+1 to Decentralization, while all of your early-game efforts should be directed
toward moving in the opposite direction.

Basically, try to avoid this decision. But, if you're up against the wall, it
will most likely save you. In the first 10-20 in-game years, 15,000 troops is
usually enough to turn a war around.

b. Make St. Petersburg the capital

If you own the Neva province and have formed Russia, your capital moves to St.
Petersburg and you gain +3 Stability. Wait until just after you've Westernized:
it will reduce Stability by 5, but this decision will give you +3 back.

c. Go east into Siberia!

This decision is unlocked once you reach western Siberia. For a negligible cost,
you will get a Conquistador unit, allowing you to uncover unexplored land. If
you don't get the Quest For The New World national idea (and I suggest that you
don't), this will be your only Conquistador for the entire game. Thus, you
should definitely execute this decision and then make the most of your explorer
before he dies.

d. Gilded Iconography

Unlocked once you adopt the Church Attendance Duty idea. This cultural decision
requires a large one-time payment, but after that, you'll get an annual bonus to
your cultural tradition, every year until the end of the game. This is great,
since it frees up all of those magistrates that you use for tapestries, national
epics, and paintings. The earlier you can implement this decision, the more
valuable it will be.

e. Formalize Scales, Weights and Measures

This decision becomes available at your capital after you have reached Govern-
ment Tech 10. You also need to put your national focus near your capital. The
decision will use up five magistrates, but will provide permanent bonuses to
tax, revolt risk, and production efficiency.

f. Pass Militia Act

If you ever get a ruler with a Military skill of 7, make him a general and pass
this act for +1 to Centralization. Obviously this is only beneficial if you
haven't Westernized yet -- it will just help you get there faster.

g. Pass Recruiting Act

Pass this act while you're at war for +1 to Innovative, one of the requirements
for Westernization.

h. Implement the Gold Standard

Unlocked once you get Government Tech 30 and have a high-level Master of Mint.
It permanently decreases inflation by 0.04/year, which should be a no-brainer.

i. Establish Russian Patriarchate

You can do this after you've formed Russia, if the Ottomans have taken over
Constantinople. Your maximum war exhaustion is reduced.

j. Act of Uniformity

If you can get Government Tech 15 before you get Church Attendance Duty, you
can implement this for more and cheaper missionaries. Definitely helpful, since
religious conversion is very useful for stability.

k. Pass Suffragan Bishop Act

Reduces Stability cost, but also reduces taxes. Probably worth it on the whole.
You really don't want to spend your money stabilizing instead of researching
technology. Plus, most of your income will come from production rather than
taxes, anyway.

l. Pass Anti-Piracy Act

This improves your Infamy reduction rate, but slightly penalizes the maximum
Infamy allowed. Probably worth it -- you'll be doing some conquering, so it's
good to burn off the Infamy faster.

4. Advisors

Advisors can be very helpful for achieving your goals. The best advisors to
choose vary depending on which stage your game is in.

In the early game, you get the most value out of advisors who give bonuses to
your technology investments. This is particularly important since Muscowy's
research is penalized until you Westernize. Also, at this early stage, your
economy is so poor that even a level 1-2 advisor can significantly improve your
research speed, at a fairly low cost. Thus, you will be looking for the
following:

- Artist (Stability investment bonus; you start with a decent one)
- Army Reformer (Land investment bonus)
- Natural Scientist (Production investment bonus)
- Statesman (Government investment bonus)

Since I recommend staying away from trade and naval combat as Muscowy, I suggest
focusing on the above and ignoring Treasurers and Naval Reformers. Keeping an
Artist on hand will be useful for a very long time, since you can expect
frequent stability drops from random events. Westernizing also carries a huge
stability penalty.

Aside from these guys, a Master of the Mint (inflation reduction) can be a life-
saver in the early game. If you ever let your inflation go above zero, this and
the National Bank idea will be your only means of reducing it. However, the
advisor really needs to be level 4 or higher to be useful, since any inflation
reduction below 0.08% per year is far too slow to help you. Make sure to keep
up your Cultural Tradition.

In the mid-game, these advisors will still be useful, but you can also get more
value out of specialists like the following:

- Banker (reduces interest on loans; try not to borrow money though)
- Fortification Expert (improved fort defense)
- Grand Captain (improved morale for land armies)
- Theologian (improved conversion chance for missionaries)
- Spymaster (improved chances of spy success; situationally useful)

In the late game, you can rely on more subtle economic and diplomatic advisors:

- Alderman (improved production efficiency; hire once you have iron production)
- Diplomat (yearly Infamy reduction; quite helpful in between wars)
- Grand Marshal (yearly Legitimacy bonus; situationally helpful)
- Philosopher (yearly Prestige bonus; quite helpful in between wars)

I rarely use the other advisors, as I feel that the bonuses they offer are
either too small or not very relevant to Muscowy's situation.

5. Province Improvements

You have to think hard about which province improvements to build. Not only is
your money limited, but the buildings have all kinds of secondary effects aside
from the ones shown on the selection screen. If you want to benefit from your
buildings as quickly as possible, the production buildings (Constable, Workshop,
etc.) increase your tax base and production efficiency. The bonuses stack: a
Constable gives you a 25% tax bonus, and a Workshop gives +1 to tax, so with
the Constable you'll actually get +1.25.

However, you get the most far-reaching effects from manpower buildings (Armory
and so on). Obviously they will improve your manpower, which is helpful in the
early game when you have to fight numerous wars with limited resources. The
Conscription Center, if you get that far, gives a huge bonus to manpower and
even increases your supply limit (which stacks with the Grand Army idea),
allowing you to train even more units. But, in the long term, the manpower
buildings also improve your ability to make money from commodity production.
In the late game, production will account for a larger proportion of your income
than taxes.

You can click on a province to see which commodity is produced there. Your main
goods as Russia will be grain, wool, fur, copper, and iron. The money that you
get from producing these goods, however, depends on their market price, which
is determined using a fairly complicated mechanism. Essentially the game keeps
track of "supply" and "demand" for each good. Your income goes up when demand
goes up and supply goes down. As I understand it, you can influence the supply
of a good by building certain things in provinces where that good is made. You
can influence the demand for a good by building certain things anywhere.

As it turns out, the manpower buildings boost demand for grain, copper, and
iron, three of your most common resources. The metals are especially valuable,
since you can also build Weapons Manufactories in provinces that produce iron
and copper for additional production bonuses. Moreover, the cost of each manu-
factory is tied to your manpower, so building lots of Conscription Centers will
actually allow you to build even more manufactories. This will supercharge
your economy once you colonize the far east, where copper and iron appear quite
often. I typically make 20-30 Weapons Manufactories in the course of a single
game.

In light of this, it would seem that manpower buildings are actually the most
useful. The production buildings do help out in provinces with high tax rates,
such as your capital or cities with trade centers. Furthermore, Workshops do
improve the demand for fur, which is another very common Russian resource. If
you are able to grab any provinces that make exotic goods, such as chinaware,
tea, or spices, Constables and Treasuries will also increase the demand for
these goods. However, you are unlikely to get more than a handful of these
provinces in a typical game.

The government buildings (Church and so on) are a bit less important in my view.
Churches are helpful early on, and Courthouses can be useful in those high-risk
provinces with a different culture and religion from the state-adopted ones.
The Town Hall, if you get that far, gives a tax bonus, and the Cathedral, if
you get even farther, gives nice bonuses to all your missionaries. These last
two buildings also improve the demand for exotic goods, but this is unlikely to
play a big role in your game. Overall, I do not prioritize these buildings as
highly as the others.

The trade buildings are helpful for provinces that have trade centers. If you
get up to Post Offices, they increase your global trade efficiency, which will
improve the performance of all your trade centers. I generally feel that Muscowy
gets relatively little value out of these. Among the naval buildings, a Dock
will give you a production bonus, if you happen to have an iron-producing
province on the Pacific coast.

Among the unique buildings, pretty much all are useful, possibly except for the
Admiralty. If you do build one, try to do it in a province that produces Naval
Supplies, as this will greatly increase demand. Among the manufactories, the
Weapons Manufactory should be your top priority, since you'll be making the
most money from copper and iron production. The Textile Manufactory can help
in a province that produces wool, but you'll probably get more value out of the
weapons. The University and Fine Arts Academy are reasonable options for places
that don't make any of these products, but the Weapons Manufactory should really
be the top priority.

6. Economy

One of the hints on the game's loading screen says, "Did you know inflation is
bad?" This is the best advice a new player can possibly receive. Do not drive
your inflation up. It can take 30-50 years to bring it back down, which is
devastating in the early game. Any inflation is too much.

To avoid inflation, never use your monthly income on anything other than tech
research. This means that you will lose money during the year; hopefully your
annual income on January 1st will give you enough to last until December 31st.
Don't spend all of your starting money, as you might need it to last through
the first few years.

Likewise, do not borrow money. Not only will you have to pay monthly interest,
thus slashing your income even more, but you will have to repay the principal
after five years.

Of course, occasionally you will face desperate times. The only occasion when
you should ever consider borrowing money is right before starting a war with
the Golden Horde. This will let you hire a general (they don't come cheap in
the early game), train some extra troops, and maintain those troops during
the war if they go over your supply limit. Once you finally commit to a war
with the Horde, the idea is that you will save money from not paying tribute,
and that you will seize new land that will generate new income. Within five
years, you should have enough money to pay back the loan. If not, you'll likely
just lose the game anyway. There is no other time during the game when you
should ever consider borrowing money.

Similarly, you may occasionally mint money, thus driving up inflation. You
should never do this before you have the National Bank idea. Once you adopt that
idea, you will have a permanent 0.1% annual inflation reduction. If you then
hire a decent Master of the Mint and improve your Centralization, you can get
this up to about 0.2%. Even with this, it will take five years to reduce one
single percentage point of inflation, so be very careful. Really the only time
you should ever consider minting money is if it is close to the end of the year
and you are about to receive your annual income. Minting for 1-2 months will not
hurt you too badly, and you can reduce the inflation over the next 10-12 months
while surviving on your annual income.

Lastly, it is worth pointing out a few additional obscure ways to improve the
supply or demand for your top products:

Grain: Station at least one regiment in the province to set the supply equal to
  zero. (Remember, you want less supply and more demand.) The supply is also
  reduced if you lean toward Free Subjects or Free Trade. Having +3 stability
  will also give a small bonus to demand.
Wool: Supply is improved (lowered) if you lean toward Aristocracy.
Fur: If your sliders show high Quality, the demand for fur will increase.
  However, it will plummet while you are at war.
Salt: Demand is improved if you lean toward Free Subjects.
Copper: Supply is improved if you lean toward Free Subjects. Also, if your
  army contains at least one artillery regiment anywhere on the map, demand
  for copper will improve. Demand also goes up significantly when you are at
  war.
Iron: Having a large army and leaning toward Land will improve demand. It will
  also go up significantly when you are at war.

7. Government Type

Muscowy starts as a Despotic Monarchy, which is actually pretty good early on.
Most notably, you get a big boost to your Infamy limit, so you can misbehave a
lot more, which can be helpful early on when you need to fight a large number of
opponents and build up your income and land base quickly. But this government
won't give you a lot of magistrates, so you'll need to switch out as soon as
you can.

The best plan is probably to create an Empire as soon as you control thirty
provinces. You won't have the Infamy limit bonus, but your land armies will get
a bonus to morale, and you'll at least get more magistrates. Better yet, an
Empire is able to use the Holy War Casus Belli against any "infidel" country
up to the year 1650. Remember, Muscowy is Orthodox Christian, so you cannot
use this CB against Catholics or Protestants, but you can use it against anyone
else. If you do, your Infamy cost is reduced by 75% for any province that you
steal from your opponent, which allows you to devour conquered nations very
quickly.

This isn't quite as game-breaking as it may seem: early on, most infidels that
you will be facing are hordes, and horde provinces can only be seized through
colonization, which cannot benefit from the Holy War mechanic. But, if you are
able to break through the hordes to Persia or the Ottoman Empire, this is how
you can destroy them. If you are able to win a single war, you can easily grab
10-12 provinces at a time, utterly decimating your opponent. If you want to
play an expansionist game, this CB is for you, but make sure that you get your
conquering done before 1650 -- there is no way to use Holy War after this time.

After Empire, you can choose between two paths. The first path is to switch to
an Administrative Monarchy, which suits a more peaceful, economy-oriented
approach. You will get a lot more magistrates, plus a bonus to your production
efficiency, which will help out your economy quite a lot once you start con-
quering lands where copper and iron are produced. From there, you can move to a
Constitutional Monarchy, which removes the production bonus, but gives even more
magistrates.

The other path is to stay as an Empire until you can switch to an Absolute
Monarchy. This means that you'll have to live with fewer magistrates for some
time, but once you make the switch, you get even more magistrates than the
Administrative Monarchy, plus a bonus to your armies' discipline. You will also
get the Imperialism Casus Belli against pretty much everyone, allowing you to
declare war with impunity. You can then upgrade to an Enlightened Despotism,
which gives you an Infamy reduction bonus.

It is possible to abandon one path for the other (e.g. form an Administrative
Monarchy and switch to Absolute Monarchy), but this will carry very heavy
stability penalties. It is better to just pick one path and stick with it. Both
have advantages: the Administrative Monarchy will let you improve your infra-
structure sooner, while the Absolute Monarchy is better for a more aggressive
and expansionist play style.

THE GRAND CAMPAIGN, 1399-1821
=============================

1. Surviving the early game (1399-1450)

Biggest threat: Novgorod

All right, then! You've started the Grand Campaign, and you're looking at your
six starting provinces on the map. Before you even unpause, there are already
quite a few things for you to do.

First, the Horde starts out at war with you. You have no hope of defeating them
with your starting army. My best advice is to immediately offer them tribute
(click on any Horde province, choose "Sue for Peace" and go from there). The
exact amount of tribute they demand depends on your economy, so it's better to
pay it now rather than later. If you offer tribute on day one, they will
typically ask for 0.9 ducats per month. This is actually horrible, but you
have no choice. At least you start with 77 ducats in your treasury!

Second, you get a slider move. Although your first priority should be to move
toward Centralization as quickly as possible, this is a bit dangerous in 1399.
This move will either spark a revolt on your territory or decrease your
Stability, both of which are perilous in the early game. Since you need to
Westernize as soon as possible, the best option is probably to defer the move
by a couple of years, until you can train a few more regiments and reliably
defeat a rebellion.

Third, you need to set your research priorities. Initially, put all of your
monthly income into Stability, as you need to get it to +3 in order to really
do anything in this game. After that, it's a bit more open. Take a look to see
which advisors are available (this is all before you unpause). You start with
a decent Artist advisor, whom you should keep for the time being, and if you
see a good advisor in one of the main research areas (say, Land Technology),
you may wish to hire him before someone else does.

Fourth, use your remaining diplomats to arrange some royal marriages and/or
alliances. The Teutonic Order is usually willing to ally with you on day one.
You start with reasonably good relations with most European countries (this
will soon change), so use this time to build up your diplomacy. I usually try
for a royal marriage with France, who is sufficiently far away from you to
not be a threat, but is sufficiently powerful to be useful. Other good choices
are Castille, Portugal, or Hungary.

In the beginning, you do not own any trade centers, and the only one you can
access is Novgorod. Needless to say, they are not too keen on helping you make
money. If the starting advisor pool has a reasonably high-level Trader, you can
hire him and give it a shot; otherwise, your merchants will probably fail to
place, wasting your money. My preference is to just give up on trading as
Muscowy, which allows me to focus on Mercantilism and ignore Trade Technology
in favour of other, more useful areas.

Finally, you will be assigned a mission before unpausing. Nine times out of
ten, you'll be asked to conquer one of your small neighbours. If you complete
the mission, you will get a bonus in the form of "cores" on the conquered lands.
A core on a province means that it is considered part of your heartland, and you
always have an excuse to go to war with any country that holds one of your
cores. This is actually very important -- core provinces produce 10 times more
income than non-cores, and have much lower revolt risk. It is very important
to follow these missions, since otherwise you'll need to hold on to a province
for 50 years in a row before it becomes a core.

The best scenario is when your first mission is to conquer Yaroslavl, then
Tver, then Ryazan, and finally Novgorod. Yaroslavl is usually completely help-
less at the beginning. If your first mission to annex them, you can declare war
before unpausing and send your starting army directly from Moskva to Yaroslavl.
Usually Novgorod will not bother to defend them, and you can get a new territory
in your first year. If you don't get the mission to annex them, chances are that
Tver or Novgorod itself will.

The next weakest opponent is Tver. You can also take them down with your star-
ting army, and Novgorod is unlikely to defend them. However, Ryazan will always
ally with Novgorod. Even if you declare war on them in your first turn, most
likely Novgorod will jump in shortly afterward. Hopefully they stay out, or
you at least get a chance to conquer Tver and Yaroslavl first. The mission does
not let you annex Tver immediately, but you can vassalize them and annex them
diplomatically ten years later.

If you do end up in a war with both Ryazan and Novgorod, you have a one-time
panic button: it's called Liberum Veto. You will get the option to institute
it once you start losing the war. If you take this option, you will instantly
receive an army of 15,000 troops for free, which should be enough to crush the
enemy when combined with your starting army. However, this should be a last
resort, since it will increase your Decentralization, the exact opposite of your
most important objective in the first 100 years. It will also set you up for
some pretty bad rebellions later on.

When you do fight Novgorod, make sure to make your starting king into a general.
He has decent military skill, so this will greatly improve your chances. Before
launching into war with them, try to recruit a few new regiments and send them
out in groups of 2-3 thousand men to siege Novgorod's provinces while your main
army engages their main army. You want to run up your war score as quickly as
you can. If Ryazan is the alliance leader, let Novgorod siege you and try to
occupy Ryazan first. If you annex them, it will automatically end the war with
Novgorod and give you 10 years to recover.

You should not launch your main conquest of Novgorod until you get the mission
to "Subjugate" them. Completing this mission will force them to become your
vassals, instead of annexing them. However, this particular mission greatly
reduces the conditions for victory. Novgorod is so huge that vassalizing them
typically costs over 100% war score, which is impossible to get even if you
win a total victory. However, the Subjugation mission will cut this cost in
half and give you cores on their territory. You need a core on Novgorod in
order to form Russia, so this is your best bet unless you want to wait 50 years.

In between wars with Novgorod, you can consider fighting Poland/Lithuania. They
start out very powerful, but their union is doomed to dissolve sooner or later,
and they start with a big rebellion close to your border. In fact, the rebels
are guaranteed to spill onto your territory, and you may not be able to defeat
them with your starting army. A safe option would be to let them occupy Vyazma
and move on, letting you step back in and retake the province. You can fight
your neighbours in the meantime.

In fact, Lithuania might actually be an easier target than the Russians in the
early game. You have to be a bit careful about it, though. Don't declare war,
but rather wait for the rebels to overrun the provinces at your border. Quite
often, they will declare independence and form new principalities such as
Polotsk or Smolensk. At that point, you can attack them (hopefully you get a
random excuse like Border Friction) before they have a chance to build up an
army. You can get quite a few important provinces in this way, like Bryansk
and Smolensk.

In terms of potential allies, I find that the best choices are countries that
are nearby, but do not share a border with you. The other Russians will be glad
to ally with you, but since you want to conquer them, there isn't much of a
point. The Horde (and all nomad tribes in EU3) is unable to form alliances with
anyone -- they recognize "only gold or steel" as the game puts it. Poland and
Lithuania are way too close for comfort. However, the Teutonic Order is a decent
choice (contrary to historical fact), since they regularly fight Novgorod and
may help you in a war against your neighbours. Hungary is also a reasonable
pick; they might not come to your aid, but at least they will act as a deterrent
against potential attackers. You can form Royal Marriages with other Orthodox
countries like Serbia or Georgia. I also like to develop good relations with
really distant countries, like Portugal -- again, they won't help you fight,
but people will think twice about picking on you with them on your side.

So, in the first decade or so, you should aim to conquer Yaroslavl, Tver, and
Ryazan, then wait, either until rebels break away from Lithuania, or until
Novgorod is busy fighting the Teutonic Order. Only attack Novgorod once you
get the Subjugation mission. Don't take too long -- the Casus Belli you get
from this mission will expire a few months after you get it.

After your Stability reaches +3, you can invest all your money into a single
area of your choice. Any one of your three main focus areas will provide a major
benefit:

- Government: get a national idea and build Churches (reduce Stability cost)
- Production: build Constables (boost tax income)
- Land: build Armories (boost manpower)

I suggest Government, since this will let you get the Military Drill idea, which
will greatly help your armies to hold their own in battle. After that, switch
to researching Land. Wars in the early game will leave you under-manned, which
means no way to defend if the Horde suddenly decides to break their truce with
you. You can double your manpower by choosing National Conscripts as your
national idea, but Military Drill will give you more staying power.

You can consider yourself to be out of the early game once you've conquered
Yaroslavl, Tver, and Ryazan, hopefully grabbed some land from Novgorod or
Lithuania, and started to build some Armories. But there is one last mission
that you can get early on, and it's called "Conquer Finland." This will
probably only happen after you have vassalized Novgorod, and you may even need
to diplomatically annex them first.

Conquering Finland usually means that you have to declare war on Sweden, a tough
Western power. This is difficult, but if you're going to try it, the best time
is now. Sweden has better infantry than you, but your Druzhina Cavalry actually
beats their knights for now. If you are able to send two cavalry-heavy armies
into Sweden and wipe out the first army they send, you can siege and occupy the
provinces bordering former Novgorod territory.

The main reason to do this is that you instantly get cores on _any_ Finnish
provinces that you are able to annex. This is a huge windfall, and can really
ramp up your early-game economy. If you go for this mission, you will benefit
more by annexing more provinces, so grab as many as possible. It doesn't matter
if your Infamy goes up, since your government (Despotic Monarchy) lets you
avoid some of the severe penalties you would usually get for driving up your
Infamy.

If you followed the missions, you should now have free cores on quite a lot
of land. Your economy will be in much better shape, and you will be ready to
take on the Golden Horde. If you didn't get the cores, you might need to wait.
Non-cored provinces are more likely to rebel, have higher stability costs,
and produce much less income.

2. The early mid-game: Muscowy vs. the Horde (1450-1525)

Biggest threat: Golden Horde

By now, you've got to be chafing at having to pay that tribute every month.
You need that money to build province improvements! You can't build them if
your annual income is eaten up by your monthly expenses, but you can't increase
your income until you build more Constables!

Unfortunately, the Horde is an enemy unlike any you've faced up to now. You
could take on Novgorod with two big armies, but the Horde will just keep coming
forever. You will face multiple armies with 12-14K troops, and their Steppe
Cavalry is actually pretty good in the early game, certainly a match for your
forces. And you cannot even call your allies into battle against nomadic tribes,
so your buddies in the Teutonic Order are not going to help you. You can't raise
war taxes either (as the game says, "to the Horde, all taxes are war taxes").

Sometimes the Horde will break their truce with you even if you haven't done
anything. All you can do in this situation is die (or reset the game). However,
if they are OK with your tribute, you can be smart about when to attack. There
are two factors to consider:

a. The Horde has the single worst form of government in the game. Every time
their ruler dies, they enter a succession crisis in which large stretches of
land are seized by rebels. If you're lucky, the rebels can actually splinter off
into other, smaller hordes, like Crimea. This is not always good, since the new
hordes will come after you for tribute just as much as the old horde did, but at
least you might be able to fight them one at a time. They might even fight each
other even while they're fighting you.

b. The Horde also attacks other countries, not just you. They like to harass
Poland/Lithuania, which is another reason why this country won't cause you a
lot of grief in the early game. Their success at this can be quite random. I
have seen them conquer their way into Poland and even parts of Austria, but
this usually doesn't last, and the other Europeans retake the land as soon as
the next succession crisis starts. Other times, Poland will push back pretty
hard, and can actually conquer large pieces of the Horde if you're not careful
(you want that land for yourself). The Horde can even attack the Ottoman
Empire, which means that their armies will be tied up far away from your
border.

When you attack, you need to bring your A-game. Get at least two of the most
powerful armies you can, headed by generals (your king can be a general, as long
as he's not too skillful -- if he has 6 or more Administration, you need him for
Westernizing). Also make sure to have a cash reserve of 50-100 ducats, as you
will need this in order to seize Horde lands. If you don't have the income,
bite the bullet and take out a loan. If you succeed, you can use the spoils of
war to repay the debt, and if you fail, you'll be dead. Sounds like a clear
choice to me.

Now it's time to attack. You want to target wealthy provinces with a lot of
economic potential, so that the Horde will be greatly weakened at the end of
the war. A good target is Kazan, directly east of your starting province of
Nizhny Novgorod. If the enemy armies are centered around there, then hit their
southern regions, like Saratow or Tambow.

If you're starting the war, you have no choice but to take a stability hit. It's
so unfair, since they're extorting you, but you have no choice. Sometimes you
can get a mission to conquer one of their provinces, which gives you an excuse.
Either way, once you've made the decision to attack, send your armies to two
different provinces (hopefully adjacent ones, so they can reinforce each other)
and hope that you can take control of them before the really huge Horde armies
show up. You can use your spies to Bribe Defenders and speed the process along;
usually Horde provinces can be bribed fairly cheaply (like 10-20 ducats) and
bribery has a high success rate (75-90%).

Once you've taken control of some territory, pick the province that looks like
the most valuable and send colonists to it. The complete version of EU3 has a
unique mechanic for fighting nomads: instead of annexing their territory through
diplomacy, you can only do this by sending colonists to individual provinces.
Colonists are not cheap -- each one costs about 20-30 ducats at this stage of
the game. Usually a successful colonist will create a settlement of 100 people,
but if you're colonizing a Horde territory, this amount is doubled, the success
rate is increased, and the time needed for the colonist to arrive is reduced.
All told, you will need to wait about 30 in-game days to add 200 people to your
settlement.

Once the settlement is created, it will grow automatically every month by a
small amount, even if you don't send new colonists. Usually you add about five</pre><pre id="faqspan-2">
people per month, but with Horde lands, it's more like 15-20. And the punchline
is that, once your settlement grows to 1000 people, the province defects to your
complete control without any need for negotiation. So you can permanently
remove territory from their grasp without even ending the war.

Of course, five colonists are very costly, so I usually send about 2-3 to a
province and let the natural growth fill in the rest. You can also get free
colonists in the following way. Once you have successfully occupied a few Horde
provinces, go to your missions window and cancel whatever is currently there.
Hopefully it's something useless like "Naval race against Sweden." You'll take
a small prestige loss when you cancel it, but there is a good chance that the
next mission will be to colonize one of the occupied territories. Do this and
you'll get two free colonists for the next province at no extra cost, which
makes the process go much faster. Hopefully you can survive long enough for the
colonists to do their work, and get more than one province in this way. Do not
end the war until the provinces have defected, or the Horde will just kill all
of your colonists, wiping out your work.

When it looks like you might start losing the war, try to sue for peace. You
will probably not be able to force the Horde to pay tribute, as much as you
might like, but you may be able to get them to accept defeat. You may even
offer to admit your own defeat, and they might accept without forcing you to
pay tribute. Either way, they'll be back in five years, but you will have some
time to recover without having to pay tribute. You will stop paying tribute as
soon as the war starts, which is one plus at least. If you were able to acquire
a few provinces, they'll usually be agreeable.

This is basically the blueprint for dismantling the Horde piece by piece, and it
is probably the single most satisfying thing you can do in EU3. Go to war,
colonize a few provinces, make them admit defeat, wait five years, repeat the
process. The more times you do this, the easier it will get. Their most valuable
provinces are Kazan, Perm (which has iron), Samara (which has gold), Sarai,
and Astrakhan (which has a trade center). Once you've grabbed at least 2-3 of
these, you will quickly find that their war machine isn't quite what it used to
be. Then they're doomed, and will probably splinter into Crimea, Nogai, Kazan,
Sibir, Oirat, Qasim, Qara Koyunlu, and other mini-hordes, each of which can be
dealt with in the exact same way. Use the free colonist missions to make things
go faster.

In fact, you can exploit the Horde mechanics to steal provinces from Poland,
Lithuania, or the Ottomans without ever having to fight them. Just wait until
the Horde grabs their land, then step in and colonize it. The other country will
still have a Casus Belli on you, but they probably won't use it immediately.
In between wars with the Horde, look for other targets close by. For example,
when the Poland/Lithuania union goes sour, it is possible for new countries
like Polotsk to break away from their erstwhile masters.

Something to watch out for is that the conquered Horde lands are going to have
a different culture (Tartar) and religion (Sunni) from your own. This generally
increases the risk of revolt in these provinces, and you really don't want to
have to hunt down large rebel forces in between major wars. There are a couple
of ways to deal with this. If you have made progress toward Innovative, you
generally become more tolerant (there are some national ideas that help with
this as well) and the risk of rebellion is reduced somewhat. Your other option
is to pursue a policy of total assimilation. You can't do much to change the
culture in a province; that happens by itself given enough time. However, you
can convert them to Orthodoxy by sending missionaries. Each missionary requires
a one-time investment of about 30 ducats, and then has a small chance every
year of converting the province. Don't let the province fall back into enemy
hands, or the missionary will be killed and you will have to invest in another
one. In the long term, using missionaries will make your lands much more stable,
but in the short term, the missionary will actually slightly increase the revolt
risk. The best way is to proceed cautiously and only have a couple missionaries
working at a time (probably this will be all you can afford anyway) in the most
high-value provinces (like Kazan or Perm). Hiring a Theologian can be quite
helpful for increasing your conversion chances.

Overall, the only real threat in this stage comes from the Golden Horde. Europe
is still comfortably far away, and their wars don't really affect you yet. Just
make the Horde your main priority, and look for other opportunities as they
come up.

3. The late mid-game: colonization, expansion, and warfare (1525-1600)

Biggest threat: Sweden, Ottomans, Prussia

The final stage in this mid-game is to transition from Muscowy to Russia and
Westernize. If you conquered your neighbours in the order given to you by the
missions, you can fulfill the requirements for forming Russia very early, since
you'll automatically cores on the territory you need. The last component is
either Bryansk or Smolensk -- either take them from Lithuania or wait until
they break off on their own, then annex them.

The best time to form Russia is right when you've started to defeat the Horde.
You'll automatically get cores on a huge number of provinces, many of which are
under Horde control. However, if you've just broken the Horde, this simply
means that your newly acquired territories will be running at full economic
capacity as soon as you get them. It will also reduce the revolt risk in these
territories.

When you do form Russia, you automatically move two steps toward Centralization,
which is also very helpful for Westernizing. You can consider the mid-game
finished once Westernization is complete. Hopefully you have diligently used
every slider move up to this point to improve your Centralization, as well as
move toward Innovative. I find that random events boosting your Innovative
score happen more frequently, so I suggest prioritizing Centralization in your
moves. To Westernize, you also need a king with an Administrative score of 6
or higher, so keep an eye on your king and heir to make sure you don't miss
the time. Fight the nomads while you wait for a better king!

Once you click the button for the Westernize event, you will need to go easy on
the wars for a while. First, you will take a huge Stability penalty of -5, which
is horrible. Fortunately, if you own the Neva province, you can immediately move
your capital there to create St. Petersburg, which gives you +3 back. This is
important, since Westernizing will increase your Stability cost significantly.

Now, you will enter a period of transition that will end once you complete the
Military Modernization event. To do this, you need a ruler with at least 7
Administrative, so if you Westernized with a 6 score, you need to wait, possibly
a long time. Hopefully your heir has a 7. You need even more Centralization,
and you can make the necessary slider moves while you're waiting. You actually
do not need Innovative any more, so feel free to move back toward Narrowminded
after your Centralization is good.

The last requirement for Military Modernization is that you are not under the
effects of the modifier called "Resisting Western Influences." This is harder to
do than it sounds. After you Westernize, but before you modernize the military,
you will regularly get very bad random events, in which your peasants revolt,
your aristocrats assassinate your advisors, or other awful things happen. You
have the option to avoid these negative events by Resisting Western Influences
for ten consecutive years. You can't complete Military Modernization until this
ten-year period expires.

Actually, this isn't too bad, since you will probably have to wait a while
anyway, either to get a new ruler, or to make the needed slider moves. Just
accept the modifier in the meantime, and complete the final event as soon as
the modifier expires. Once you finish Military Modernization, you will move
to the Western European tech group, remove the Oriental research penalty, and
never have to deal with Resisting Western Influences again. You can go and
immediately switch to Western infantry, but you may wish to keep your Eastern
cavalry for a while longer -- the Western group will not begin to outperform
it until Latin Knights.

Now, the world is yours! At this point, your former enemies will be gone (like
the Russian rivals) or incapacitated (like the Horde). Your strategy for
expansion should consist of the following two components, which you have to
accomplish simultaneously:

a. Start pushing east of Perm toward Siberia. Initially, you'll be mopping up
the remnants of the Golden Horde, as well as Kazakh and Sibir. They're exactly
like the Golden Horde, but weaker. But eventually, you'll see your first
uninhabited provinces, usually Berezov and Obdorsk in the far north. You can
send a colonist to these lands to begin a settlement -- this time, you'll
only get 100 settlers per colonist and a growth of about 5 new settlers per
month, and you'll have to pay a monthly maintenance cost. Once you get 1000
settlers, though, the colony will turn into a full-fledged province that is
automatically set to your culture and religion.

At this point, you should execute the decision called "Go east into Siberia!"
This will give you one free Conquistador (explorer unit), and if you don't
get the Quest For The New World idea, he'll be the only one you get in the
whole game. Make use of him. Put him in charge of a small army and send it
east until it finds the Pacific coast and explores all of the uninhabited
coastal territory. Now continue expanding into these lands as your old
colonies develop. You should probably have 2-3 new colonies growing at any
given time. Many of these new lands are rich in fur and iron; the latter in
particular is vital to your economy. If you focus your tech research on Land,
you can build your first Weapons Manufactory in an iron- or copper-producing
province. If you've kept up with construction of manpower buildings, this
should cost 600-700 ducats.

As you move east, you will run into still more nomads, like Chagatai and
Oirat Horde. You can conquer them, but if you leave a strip of uninhabited
land between them and your colonies as a buffer zone, they'll never attack
you. You may wish to expand peacefully first and then go back and conquer
the hordes. If you take too long, though, someone else might beat you to it.

But there's more to be done than just peaceful expansion...

b. ...and that's called the Holy War Casus Belli. By now, you should have
switched government to an Empire. This will tide you over nicely until you
can switch to Absolute Monarchy, but it also gives you the Holy War Casus
Belli, which can be used on any non-Christian, non-horde country. This is
a tremendously overpowered CB, allowing you to capture twice as many enemy
provinces at only 25% the Infamy cost.

The problem is that all of your non-Christian enemies thus far have been
hordes, and you can't use the benefits of Holy War on hordes since the only
way to conquer them is to colonize their land. Once you clear out the hordes,
the first organized non-Christian states you'll run into will probably be the
Ottoman Empire and Persia. Both are very strong, and usually ally with each
other. The Ottomans in particular have high manpower and Military Drill, so
you won't have a big advantage.

It's not impossible to win, though. First, it sometimes happens that the
Timurid hordes make a lot of headway against the Ottomans, which weakens the
latter considerably. You can colonize the Timurids first, and then finish
off the Ottomans. Some of the provinces around the southern shore of the
Caspian Sea produce Spices, a valuable commodity which should work wonders
for your income. The Anatolian peninsula has plenty of iron and other goods.

If you're going to attack the Ottomans, make sure you max out your supply
limit with troops and mass them along the border (the Caucasus, and possibly
the Moldavia/Romania region on the northwest shore of the Black Sea, if the
Ottomans have expanded up to there). Make sure that each army has a general
and 20-30 thousand troops. You want to keep your armies close together so
they can reinforce each other if need be, and you need to outnumber the enemy
in every battle that you fight. If you win, you can easily seize 10 or more
provinces at a time.

Expanding eastward will put you in a much better position to deal with the
West. Around this time, the Teutons will form Prussia around your borders,
and Sweden may also be looking to carve off a piece in the north. If you took
Finland earlier, this won't be as big a deal, but you need to make sure that
you are always increasing your manpower and maxing out your supply limit. The
Europeans take this into consideration when deciding whether to attack you.
You need to Westernize as quickly as possible to maintain parity with their
armies.

If you do get attacked (e.g. by Sweden), you need several large armies with
25K troops and enough generals to go around. I usually put about 60% infantry
and 40% cavalry in each army, which gives you a bonus for mixed composition.
Artillery is not that useful in my opinion, as it is more important to defeat
the enemy armies than to win sieges quickly. After a rather bloody fight in the
beginning, you can set up a few sieges on their border provinces and use your
armies to hunt down reinforcements before they are able to gather together.

Other Europeans are usually not that dangerous. Often, Prussia will call you
into battle against random German duchies. You can just accept the call to arms
to preserve your alliance, and then do nothing. The enemy will offer ridiculous
peace terms for a while, but just keep ignoring them until they suggest a White
Peace. You should avoid wars with Austria and France if you can, but otherwise
you are unlikely to be in any real danger.

Sometimes, Europeans will establish isolated holdings in places that you might
want to control. For instance, the Crimean peninsula often ends up being taken
by an Italian state like Venice or Genoa. If you don't want to start a war with
them, one option is to fund patriots in these remote places, which have a chance
of taking them over and forming a new horde or minor principality, both of which
are far easier to deal with.

Overall, your main task in this part is to successfully Westernize and expand.

4. The late game: basking in glory (1600-1821)

Biggest threat: Austria

You could probably just safely do nothing for the remaining 200 years, but where
is the fun in that when you can keep expanding? For the most part, you can keep
doing what you did before -- finish colonizing all the uninhabited land in
Siberia until you reach the Pacific, mop up the hordes, and exploit Holy War to
the fullest. For example, if you break into Persia, you can then keep going into
India and acquire valuable cotton- and spice-producing provinces. Alternately,
if you manage to reach China, Holy War will let you make significant inroads
into their land (you'll have to cut through Manchu and Mongol Khanate on their
northern border, though). Remember, Holy War expires in 1650, so make it count.

In terms of technology, I strongly recommend going Narrowminded at this point,
and maybe even investing in the Divine Supremacy idea to get more missionaries.
All these new territories are home to many different religions, and converting
them will make your country much more stable. It is also very important to
always maintain military production (which means keep building those manpower
buildings and Weapons Manufactories). If you don't have enough large armies on
your borders, all of your neighbours (particularly the Western Europeans) will
see this as a sign of weakness and attack, sometimes all at the same time.
Just make sure that your supply limits are maxed out. You can have smaller
armies in the east (perhaps 4-5 20K armies on the Chinese border), but for the
west, you really need numerous massive (30-40K) armies right next to your
potential opponents.

The most dangerous late-game opponent is usually Austria. They're often the
Holy Roman Emperor, and will call every other German country into battle
against you. You will probably have to fight one major European war where
you will have to break them. Repeat the strategy that you used on the Ottomans,
just with larger armies. If you kept up the manpower buildings and Weapons
Manufactories, your income should be skyrocketing, allowing you to keep up
with Austria in Land and Government technology. Focus on Land and you may even
break ahead of them, giving you an advantage.

(One important note -- if you conquer any province that belongs to the Holy
Roman Empire, remember to go to that province and select the "Leave Holy Roman
Empire" decision! Otherwise, the Emperor can demand the province from you,
and you suffer various penalties if you refuse.)

Once you switch to an Absolute Monarchy, you can use the Imperialism Casus
Belli, which is not as good as Holy War, but still cuts the infamy cost of new
acquisitions in half. With this in hand, you can advance westward into Europe.
It is quite doable to expand into Poland and Hungary, and possibly cut a piece
out of Bohemia. You probably won't be able to annex much Austrian heartland,
but you can beat them and force them to convert to Orthodoxy, which will lead
to some interesting changes in the Holy Roman Empire. You can also force them
to roll back Imperial reforms, which is very important if it looks like they
are able to pass many of them. I have seen Austria restore the HRE in one
game -- that's probably an unbeatable opponent, even with your resources.

I don't recommend bothering with any overseas colonies. However, you may
inherit some through a Royal Marriage. Honestly, this is more of a nuisance
than anything else, since then you'll have to run around the globe putting
down revolts for 50 years while you wait for the provinces to core. If you
want to expand, I suggest sticking to continuous land borders.

5. Other Russian states

Of course, you can play as any of the other Russian states as well. Just choose
Tver, Ryazan, Yaroslavl, or Novgorod at the starting screen. All of them face
the same issues that Muscowy does in the early game, except things are more
difficult, since they have less land and fewer troops, and they also have to
deal with Muscowy. Novgorod has the easiest time, and probably can be a bit
easier than Muscowy, since they start with a trade center and are farther away
from the Golden Horde.

Tver and Ryazan are in a difficult position. Your best bet is to ally with
Novgorod to avoid Muscowy. You'll survive, but it won't be clear what to do
next. Try to follow the same basic strategy, using Muscowy as a distraction
against the Horde, or grabbing splinter lands from Lithuania if there are any.
Yaroslavl is in a nearly unwinnable situation, since their only starting
province just does not give them enough to muster up an army. Try to ally with
anyone who will listen, to give Muscowy a deterrent. I don't have much advice
beyond that -- there's a reason why Muscowy formed Russia in real life, and
not the other guys.

Once you survive the early game, the rest plays out much like Muscowy's game.
Any of the Russian principalities can form the Russian nation, and you can
then Westernize and continue on as normal, except that it will probably happen
much later than for Muscowy.

THE END
=======

Europa Universalis III is a copyright of Paradox Interactive, 2007-2011.
This FAQ is a copyright of Sephiroth Katana, 2013.

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