[3] Priority actions

It's always difficult to plot out an order of steps in EU4, since every game is different as soon as you've hit the 'unpause' button. Therefore, I can only share with you what I thought was a good starting order of measures:Spread Royal marriages and alliances all around, last you want is Novgorod of Lithuania gobbling one of them up. Pskov and Perm are already yours; Yaroslavl is easy to diplo-vassalize; Ryazan has too high base tax at the start but becomes possible after a while. I ended up militarily annexing Tver because they hated Ryazan so much that I couldn't diplo-vassalize both. This network of alliances/marriages/vassals will heavily eat into your diplomatic relations limit, so pick Diplomacy as your first idea group and work your way to Cabinet (+2 diplomatic relations). Pump relations with the vassals to +200 to allow annexation and with the allies to allow vassalization.Most tactics advise this as your first move, and rightfully so because youdon’t want them to ally with Lithuania. I'd suggest making it your second move after you've cemented relations with the minors so you can vassalize+annex them later on. Panionius wrote up a perfect (albeit slightly gamey) opening strategy . I didn't manage to do it in one go, due to pesky hordes menacing me in the south, so I had to fight four successive wars over 25 years to eat all of Novgorod. With hindsight I could have probably better had them release Finland and then vassalize it, but I didn't know how powerful that mechanic was by then, so I did it the hard way.Diplo annex Pskov when you can, and establish a good alliance with either Denmark/Sweden, the Livonian Order, or even Hungary, whatever threatens Poland/Lithuania enough to prevent them from attacking you. Hopefully you're not going to fight them for a long time.Seriously. Backwardness is your number 1 enemy. Pump military tech to level 10 ASAP, don't digress with military ideas yet. I find level 10 to be a game-changer.Pick Religion as your second idea, before a Military one. Not only does it fit the roleplay, it's also simply awesome. The +3% conversion chance from Divine Supremacy and extra missionary are both must-haves to deal with the Sunni, but there are more goodies in there. The Deus Vult CB is godly (excuse the pun) until 1650, not only because it’s always available, but also because of its high prestige gain, low AE, and the ticking superiority warscore. The -25% stability cost from Church Attendance Duty will pay itself back quickly enough once you're in the mid-1500s and want to avoid Time of Troubles by staying at Stab +2. Tolerance and Prestige are very nice boosts, and the end bonus of +100% relations over time is the best mitigator of your aggressive expansion problem. If only it didn't cost so much AMP."Found the Streltsy" is another game-changer and Siberian Frontier should be gotten as soon as possible to begin the long trek eastwards; you want to be at the eastern coast before the Iberians get there (it does happen!). For this alone, pick Diplomacy as your first NI, because you can dump your diplomatic points in it and don't set back progress on military tech and admin tech (which you both want at level 10). If you're greedy for land, you could opt for Expansion instead of Diplomacy and start on Siberia sooner; it has some similar bonuses to Diplomacy, an extra Colonist, and a good CB for wars in Asia.Of course it depends on how things go, but once you reach the early 1500s, have integrated Novgorod and all the minors and got your economy, ideas and tech up a bit, then I'd advise choosing one of two fronts:When you hit Military 10 + "Streltsy" and Poland/Lithuania is not in good shape,. You will need to fight this western war at least once or twice anyway to build a good buffer zone, so best if you pick the timing. This became a make-or-break war for me that cost memy manpower, but I finally won it just by sheer force of numbers. After that destructive war, Lithuania and Poland were both smoking ruins without a single fighting-age man alive. I then made Lithuania release Polotsk and annexed Kursk myself, and watched gleefully as Lithuania struggled with rebels for two decades (some of which I financed). Your edge is the rapid pace of manpower recovery, so you'll be back on your feet well before they are. That keeps them off your back for long enough to move south. If you have another chance, do it again and force Lithuania to release Ukraine or nab some of the Ruthenian and Byelorussian provinces yourself. Just make sure you don’t get a coalition on your western flank against you.When you have the +conversion % and the tech edge, start eating the Hordes and. I used a mix of direct conquest and vassal-feeding of Kazan and Golden Horde, and AE was a real problem at this stage that slowed me down a lot, but I managed to avoid coalitions of more than 2 hordes through patience and active diplomacy. Crimea is a pain since it usually allies with Ottomans, but at some point you have to start taking it on too. These wars don't take much manpower so you can basically be at war about half the time, using the other half to core up and convert what you conquered.As soon as you hit the Siberian Frontier national idea, start colonizing steadily eastwards. You can take some provinces of Uzbek or Sibir if it gets you there faster. What you want to do is paint the eastern coast green before the Iberians arrive. Believe me, it does happen (I've already had Portugal appear off the Japanese coast in 1625). The inland provinces of Siberia are not a huge priority, nobody will colonize that land before you do, but just expand east "as fast as the Cossacks can ride". Send a stack of 6 with the colonizers to quell any native uprisings. I later even picked Expansion; the second colonist is a bit overkill, but I wanted the CB on powers in Asia and the strong trade + diplomacy bonuses.8. When you reach the Caucasus,if they still exist). You want to diplo-vassalize them and feed them the cores of Abkhazia, Dagestan, Imereti, Kartli etcetera, to have a nice big plug in the Caucasus mountains to stop the Ottomans. I had to go to war with Qara Qurunluy a few times and had a hard time coring up Azerbaijan and Dagestan, but it’s vital that you control thenorth and south Caucasus to avoid Ottomans from sneaking in via military access deals. Then build star forts and tenailles at the border (I even plunked March down in Armenia), and you’ll be quite comfortable defending against the Ottomans if needed.9. After the western and southern fronts are mostly secure, it’s time to. Here, religious CB + force-vassalization is the way to go, since the base tax of the provinces you are about to overrun is mostly fairly low, and there are many bite-size vassals out there. In my case, it was Sibir -> Nogai -> Kazakh -> Uzbek -> Khiva -> Chatagai. I steadily made my way to the Tian Shan mountains but stopped at the border with Khorasan (Afghanistan) and also left Persia alone – for now. At the same time, my colonists are working eastwards, but I avoid getting a border with the Oirat Horde as long as possible since that one will be long and bloody.10. From here on,, because this is how far I got until now. After 1650 I plan to begin westernizing, because then I am out of the Times of Trouble danger zone – and the nice Deus Vult religious CB is gone anyway. I westernize not because it’s so badly needed, but because Peter the Great did it and I feel it fits the RP. Then it’s on to write alternative history: teach the Ottomans a lesson, and expand into India and China (using the Expansion CB), to reap their riches and ship them back home via the Silk Road, or possibly even crossing the Pacific and planting Russian boots on American soil. At some point confrontation with the West will be unavoidable, but when it happens, my endless supply of brave Russian souls will be there to draw on.