When you get right into the game at 1444 AD, you will notice your signifigant neighbors Muscovy (Russia) and Poland (Hopefully soon to be part of the Commonwealth!). Other neighbors who are somewhat less signifigant are Crimea, The Teutonic Order and the Livonian Order. You will also notice that many of your provinces are currently following the Orthodox religion, while Lithuania is a Catholic nation. You also have 21,000 troops at your command.


Your first Ambitions should be to establish a Royal Marriage with Poland and develop your army up to it's forcelimits. Your ultimate goal in the early game playing as Lithuania should be to establish a PU with Poland to form the Commonwealth. This could just be a product of luck, or you could claim their throne. Unfortunately, Lithuania doesn't automatically gain PU with Poland through any means so obviously your only option is to claim their throne. You will also need Admin. Tech 10 and Mazdovia and Moldavia must not exist. In the first few sections I will go into detail about how to solve the problems you will begin with.

This is about what the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth will look like when you form it. Bask in it's glory! As I said, You need a PU with Poland, Admin. Tech 10 and Mazdovia and Moldavia must not exist. Here is how to play the game right in the start to get towards your goal of forming the Commonwealth!


Claim Poland's throne ASAP, as it can really help you during the awkward time when it's too early to form the Commonwealth. As you probably know, when your ruler reigns in Poland, Poland will have to accompany you in all of your wars. Thankfully, Poland is pretty good at war. Your first enemy should always be Crimea, as they are constantly weak and grow weaker by consistent rebels, whatever kind they may be. Crimea always starts out unfriendly to Lithuania and have basically the same relations with Poland, so you're not stepping on anyone plotting against them. You can sometimes gain another ally in Genoa, but it is not that big of a deal if Poland is already your ally/junior union partner. You should start fabricating a claim on Yedi San right as you start the game. Once the claim is fabricated and your army is up to your nation's forcelimits, declare war and take Zaporzhia, Yedi San, Yedi Shkul, and Kharkov. These are nice borders and can be a forefront to invading the Golden Horde lands mid-game.


Allies are a very important part of shaping Lithuania to who you want to be. These following nations are helpful and sometimes willing allies in the Early Game.

• Bohemia
  
• Austria
  
• Pomerania
  
• Genoa

Bohemia: Bohemia is an unpredictable nation relative to Lithuania. I've had playthroughs where we conquered the world together and others where we were locked in wars that never ended in anything but paying or gaining a few Ducats. Obviously, there are a lot of perks to having a western neighbor in the HRE as it can even lead to good relations with Austria, who of course is always a world power. Bohemia is also usually a leader in tech, so they are possibly a good ally when you need to fight western neighbors like the Teutonic Order and Livonian Order.

Austria: Austria, like I said, is a great world power. It may be hard to have good relations with them when you're not the Commonwealth yet as they don't see you as the large world power you long to be. You can at least butter them up while you get your Admin. Tech up!

Pomerania: Pomerania is a small nation, but luckily they have the same interests in expansion with you. They will seek a common enemy in the Teutonic Order and this can be good and bad. The good: they will pretty much join you in any war against the Teutonic Order. The bad: They also hate the Teutons and will call you to wars with them sometimes.

Genoa: Genoa can be a very questionable nation just by the way the AI plays them. If they just stay on their islands and don't make an effort to expand into eastern Europe/ western Asia, they really aren't viable allies. But for those occasions they do, they will seek the same eastern European/ western Asian enemies you will. You may also want to keep them as an ally only in the early game since they could call you to arms against some central European Nations, but it's rare.

Lithuania starts out as a broken up nation Religion-Wise. A little bit more than half of your provinces start off Orthodox and need to be Catholic. The religious unity mission is a good one to pick up early since this should be one of your goals. Your first idea you need to pick up is religious ideas. It seems counter-productive since it is an Administrative idea and, well, you need Admin. Tech! Because of this you need to focus all of your money into an Administative advisor. You should probably switch off between Admin. Tech and Religios ideas. Religion is probably going to be the central source of your rebels and rebels are always so much of a problem for Lithuania, so you can see why you want to squash these heretics. Lithuania will also be conquering lands that are primarily Sunni, which gives you even MORE rebels when annnexing provinces from the Golden Horde and Persia. Sunni is notorious for being extremely hard to convert in the early game because of the -2% Debuff to missionary strength in Sunni provinces. Use the Papal influence to control the Curia. You will notice a signifigant boost in Papal Influence when you gain piety through converting heretic religions, and it can be easy to be the controller with your influence building up. Another thing about your nations religious affairs: DO NOT CONVERT! Selecting Religious ideas can help you get through those tough times with Protestantism, converting to Protestant will basically collapse your nation.

Lithuania is primarily and Administrative and Militaristic Nation. Diplomacy is never an option! This part of the guide will guide you through the lands I reccomend to conquer. Here is a list:

• Golden Horde (Fully Annex)
  
• Nogai (Fully Annex)
  
• Persia (Depending on their strength)
  
• Teutonic Order (Fully Annex)
  
• Livonian Order/Riga (Depends on strength, take some provinces atleast)
  
• Muscovy (Avoid combat if avoidable)

Feel free to suggest more!
The Golden Horde lands are perfect borders to slip around Muscovy/Russia and the Ottomans, since those are the two nations you really don't want to piss off. Campaigning through the Middle East really is something that makes playing as Lithuania fun! Accomplishing this might even take you more than one game to fully grip the strategy to conquering these nations.

Taking out the Teutons and the Livonians can be challenging without the right allies since they are part of the western tech group. They will almost always ally with eachother too. if you plan to take them out, do it quickly with a large army with MANY (Brandenburg, Bohemia and Pomerania early game) allies, and the same Militairy Tech.

Another thing I forgot to mention in an earlier version of the guide was that Muscovy will almost always seek to expand into your lands. you also start with the largest army in the area at the beggining of the game. *this information was brought to my attention by rosstafan*

Keeping up with the technology is probably one of the biggest challenges of playing Lithuania. Lithuania is put in such a bad spot because they are put directly in between western nations on the top of technology, and hordes living in the stone age. Muscovy, the Teutons, Livonians, Bohemia and Pomerania are usually competing with you with tech (And yes, I know Muscovy is Eastern). Muscovy is important to look out for since they are infamous for insane armies and an interest in Lithuanian lands. Bohemia and the rest of the western nations may not have big armies but they stay technologically advanced and have access to western units, so they are also challenging. My best advice is to always keep advisors in Admin and Militairy tech. Taxes are high in Lithuania and can pay for a level 1 advisor in the two categories easily.

I hope my guide helped you start your new adventure playing as the glorious nation of Lithuania (and soon to be the Commonwealth!) and if you did gain some helpful pointers, please rate this Guide! I really appriciate it!