Around the early 1500 Smolensk was beginning to exercise independence from the Mongols, namely by attacking them. Tsar Mstislav figured there was no way the Mongols could kill all the Russians, but with Mamlukian help they were more than capable. One silver lining was that although this war ended inconclusively, it did demonstrate the Smolenskian immune system of over 100k Russian patriots who swarmed over and beyond territorial boundaries to recapture any Russian lands taken by the enemy. The Mamluke's intervention in Russia and their constant desire to send spies and saboteurs to Moskvau pissed off four generations of Tsar Mstislavs to the point where the Smolenskians made it their mission to capture Jerusalem. 85 years of war with the Mamlukes.
The biggest issue was that resupplying my armies over the Georgian mountains was too slow, so I could send hundreds of thousands south to capture some land, the Mamlukes could keep attacking until my armies had to withdraw and resupply and then just recapture everything. Fortunately I still made some headway into Anatolia in those 85 years, returning Byzantine lands to Byzantium and expanding the reach of my vassal Georgia to provide a comfortable buffer for the Mamlukes to cry over whilst I gradually destroyed their Mongol ally in the North. Towards the end of the 85 years war the Smolenskians had reached such a critical mass of cannons and Russians that the Mongol hordes were not only overthrown, but they were usurped.
Kazakhs were the next to go.
The success of the war was compounded by the Russian patriot blob. Any land the Kazakhs took from me were very quickly swarmed by the patriots, it was quite horrifying really. When I tried moving my capital to Siberia I found they counted as rebels and so did not let me, so I accepted their demand to turn Smolensk over to Smolensk...
They all joined my army O_O
I felt such happiness, the war for Jerusalem was to end quite decisively. All I needed was to outfit my patriots with some artillery and that'd be that. And then the war for the Protestant League started. 500,000 men on one side, 400,000 on the other. Russia, France, Bohemia, Hungary, Bulgaria, all the Protestant Princes and Sicilian-England versus the three Catholic princes, the Papacy, the Teutonic Knights, Poland, Scandinavia, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Byzantium, Holland and Switzerland. The French and Iberian forces were locked in a stalemate whilst in the East the Austro-German-Greek troops just tore through everything the Balkan forces had. I realized grudgingly that the Russians were not even close to being their match so just engaged in hit and run combat, knowing the German forces could scarcely afford their casualties and the Byzantines would succumb to my marches' sieging. Any undefended columns were assaulted by Russians en masse and as soon as the uberstormtoopers arrived, a retreat was ordered back to Kiev. The worst casualties suffered in any one battle for an army of over 100,000 Russians was 3,000 troops. Most pleasing.
Very much the turning point of the war, the Austrians could scarcely afford to keep winning, let alone fight the might of Smolensk, the entire Balkans and northern Germany at once.
After that it was simply a matter of keeping the Greeks and Austrians divided whilst Smolensk's artillery laid siege to the walls everyone else failed to breach. Shame it brought an end to my 85 years war when I was so close to taking Jerusalem. You win this round Mamlukes... But be wary, my Smolenskians are now battle hardened elite veterans.
I'd have an AAR map of the aftermath but it's too large for imgur to handle
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Topic: Europa Universalis IV (Read 464971 times)