Played a mission where I had to defend moscow vs overwhelming mongolian army while my villagers retreated. Next mission Im still rus and I kill a few militia and the narrator says moscow now have almost full power or something like that? What? Maybe I missed something, am I a vassal of mongols again or something?
I think this was about when they Mongols were fractured and infighting, so Moscow was able to gain dominance in the region, while still technically a vassal. There are gaps between each mission tho
The Mongol army that destroyed Moscow in 1382 was led by Tokhtamysh, it was somewhat of a punishment move against the Muscovites for defeating Mamai at Kulikovo, despite Mamai and Tokhtamysh being enemies. My guess is it was also to shatter the Muscovite hopes of throwing off the Tatar yoke. The Rus were tributaries to one khan or another right up until the stand on the Ugra river, which unlike the game suggests, there wasnt actually a battle. Basically the Muscovites just got over it and rebuilt their city again, the Golden Horde was quite fractured at this stage so they were never able to restablish the same level of control over the Rus they used to have.