Russia Campaign

[PaulTa]

Ok Doug, I think this is a good spot to start.

I split my starting armies up rather than merging them, and sent one towards Riga and the other towards Smolensk. After getting a council mission to take smolensk, I decided to not wait it out and actually assault, which wasn't much of a problem given my archer superiority. Riga, on the other hand, had a group of peasants that were kicking my militia spearmen around, and my general decided to lead the charge when I tried to flank the spearmen held by another group of militia, which resulted in a funeral ceremony.

After taking Riga and Smolensk, I got another council mission to head north towards helsinki, so I accepted a marriage proposal and marched off with two units of militia spearmen, two units of peasant archers, and one fresh general. The crossbowmen weren't as much of a hassle as the armor piercing viking raiders, who tore through my general's bodyguard pretty fast. In the end, it was a crossbow bolt that did him in though.

The real key, as far as I see it, to early economy with Russia is following those missions given by the council. I have a few cavalry units running back and forth between settlements for the missions that require bolstering defenses, and I haven't failed yet to take a settlement that was recommended by the council. It seems that if you wait to take a rebel settlement for a bit, but keep it in your line of sight, the council is more likely to give you said missions.

Moscow is about to be assaulted, and I'm working on establishing myself as a trading power in the baltic. My next goal is to take the scandanavian region before the danes do, and then hopefully the danes themselves, allowing me to sandwhich poland. I've been avoiding traditional plans of action that require taking Kiev, because it leaves my borders wide for polish incursion and pits me up against the turks/byzantines and hungarians. The turks or byzantines traditionally take the Kazak region two regions above armenia, and the hungarians/poles seem to have designs for the area around Kiev.

In contrast to your probable plan of action, I haven't been using a lot of horse archers. Most of my armies are cheap infantry and peasant archer support with a mix of mercenaries. I'm waiting to take a fortress big enough to support the development of Dvors, which will probably be Thorn.

[Edit] Oh yeah, I'm pulling in around 1500 florins even with a few units of mercenaries. The trick seems to be basic farms and a trading system (land based for now).


A few closing notes for this installment, or rather key points:

-Make sure to grab settlements offered by the council.

-Establish yourself as a trading power in either the baltic or the black sea, as trade is the most lucrative business to get into.

-Try not to over extend your provinces to the point that you have to travel five turns to relieve a siege.

[Doug-Thompson]

Very similar in my opening moves, except that I went for Kiev instead of Helsinki.

I'm 30 turns in, and blew entirely too much money on mercs.

Anyway, here's what's happened so far. Exactly like you, I opened with Smolesk and Riga. For Riga, I used skirmishing archers to lure out some woodsmen which I then shot to pieces. After that, I marched up toward the center of town, lured him out to a "Y" in two roads, then attacked him with spears while the bodyguard charged up the other leg of of the "Y" and wiped them out.

Using spears as an anvil and woodsmen as a hammer worked very well in sieges.

I beat the Poles to Kiev by a half-step, and took that town. I've received some cossaks, Druz and Boyar sons from the nobles during all this. Finally, it was time to take Vilius (sp?) after a siege by the Poles failed. The Poles got jealous and attacked me. They lived to regret that.

I've got to go. Thanksgiving guests are waiting. However, there's some tactical lessons learned I'd like to tell.

[Basileus]

Sounds like a lot of fun, tough but thats how i like it..im going to try one campaign with the russians aswell and see how it goes. I am eager to see how it turns out for you guys aswell further into the campaign.

[Doug-Thompson]

This campaign has been a blast, despite several severe blunders I made.

The Mongols have arrived, but they're going South, apparently. I've read elsewhere on the forum that the horde tends to go where you're not.

Sixty-four battles in 73 turns, thanks to non-stop war with the Poles, and then the Danes, HRK and Hungary. That includes very few sieges. I've been outnumbered so often, the AI attempts siege relief so even the sieges turn into good field battles.

Less than a dozen of those battles have been sea battles or routine, outnumbered bandit stompings. Even some of the bandit battles have been decent.

Yeah, I've only lost six, inculding the sea battles. However, I've also been playing MTW for years, and I have control back. It's no longer the "fire and forget" of RTW.

I look back on all those battles and tell myself that there are some attacks by the AI that I would not have made. However, once on the battlefield, I cannot point out a single instance of idiotic AI behavior. I did find the "I'm stuck on the ladder" problem in one siege, while being attacked by the HRE. I took the gate back, let the castle fire at the one unit of HRE dismounted knights, and tripled the game speed. When the 60-man unit was whittled down to less than 10 survivors, they paniced and my cavalry ran them down.

As for the Russians, I love Boyar Sons, the javelin-armed unit. Predictably, I'm playing an HA-cavalry game.

There's never enough money. Agents are a luxury hard to afford. The Baltic is infested with pirates, who have become veterans by the time you can afford a navy. The Black Sea is much safer, for now.

Lessons from the school of hard knocks:

You'll be tempted to hire mercs in the opening moves. The distances are vast and the big temptation is to move with a cavalry army, then hire mercs for siege and garrison duty. Resist the urge as much as possible. You don't have the money.

There's no use building a navy in the Baltic until you can build a big one.

Pay attention to your mission assignments. You need the money.

[lalartu]

Russia was by far the most difficult campaign for me.

I was lucky enough to avoid timurids who went through anatolia and only faced them after taking constantinople which apparently they like having too.

the eastern most settlements take a long time to take (about 10 turns there alone) and provide quite a miserable profit. they're also the one to fall first to mongolians when those come, so I think it's sort of a waste to try to take them, unless you think you can afford sending a small unit there wihle fighting in the west.

scandinavia ithink is a must have because potential profits there are great and nobody except for danes EVER goes there.

I'm personally a big dvor geek, I'd produce them in dozens and send everywhere. they're very versatile and excellent archers.

I think taking polish lands early on is a bit of a mistake because all catholic nations will constantly try to take a piece of you after that and unless you're ready for a 100 year war, you'll be forced to retreat a lot and there might be huge attrition on all fronts.
even after mongolian invasion when I tried to go into poland and took everything up to HRE and danes, i constantly gor harassed by venice and milan from the south, england from the west and hungary from south east.
it took about 100 turns to eliminate most and by that time I was facing timurids as well.

so obviously it's doable, but it might not be the best and easiest thing to do

Russian advantage is their remoteness, so ithink it's possible to establish a permanent state with maximum profit from coastal cities and having minimal defence force until the arrival of hordes while making sure nobody else invades your land.

it seems that from my game i noticed that as soon as poland is somewhat taken care of (i.e. I sacked half of their cities and they were fighting HRE on the west front), hungary will leave you alone if you secure kiev with at least a few strong units. they even offered me an alliance for as long as Iasi and Sofia (both of which are crappy castles) were theirs. I didn't mind that so I was waiting for mongolians, while occasionally sacking poles and thus gathering a huge coffer in between.
unfortunately I didn't expect 3 waves of them, so they still took Kiev, but other than that, i was able to repel them without losing much.

if you're unlucky though, timurids will go your way, which means there will be some very frozen and very angry elephants to face:)

[Reapz]

I'm 92 turns into my second campaign with Russia on vh/vh. I have 36 provinces and am #1 in all the rankings in the turn report. I think it is only a matter of time now until I win. I am working my way through Anatolia killing the Byzantines and I will head for Jerusalaem after that. It has been a blast. Lots of close battles and tense moments when things were very much in the balance.

In terms of strategy I echo what Doug said. Money is really tight early. Missions are important and trying to do the most with the least number of units. I was lucky in my campaign as I was able to grab Moscow, Kiev, Ryazan, Riga and Helsinki before I got into serious war with Poland. I ultimately destroyed Poland and have HRE, Hungary down to one province a piece and Denmark to two. I have not used naval units much at all apart from a little blockade of Danish ports.

Apart from luck early I think I was succesful by capitalizing on the AI weak points. There are two things I noticed that might be improved in any patch. One is that using horse archers or Boyars (Horse units with javelins) you can fire on and really punish militia and mercenary spear units and they just kind of sit there and get decimated. Once you exhaust your missile supply a quick charge will finish off the target. They will let missile cav units flank them and rain projectiles from behind. I find this is effective with axeman or even dismounted knight units. So the suggestion is to stop these targeted units being so passive in the face of missile fire. The second thing I notice is that that AI stacks contain a fair number of militia units. You can destroy almost all militia units with cavalry charges so even bridge battles are viable. I would like to see the AI use better units when it invades. I only use militia for garrison duty in cities.

Anyways it was a great game, totally absorbing. I think I'm going to try another capmapign with Russia and see if the AI factions leave me alone early again.

[PaulTa]

Dear Doug,

I know that I agreed to play a russian campaign with you, but I have something to admit... I've started fiddling with germany as of late. I'm in love with the late game units, but I can't seem to get to the point where I can actually use them. That, and I'm trying to find a way to keep from staying in the stone age (I need money to upgrade settlements, but my war chest is bigger than my peace chest by about 110%).

If you feel that I have slighted you by agreeing to play Russia with you and have not stuck to my guns, then I will promptly return to the steppes with my Dvor. If, by chance, you can find it within yourself to forgive me and allow me to continue my tinkering with the Reich, I would be most grateful and in your debt.

Sincerely,
Paul

[Doug-Thompson]

No debt and no problem, PaulTa. I had a blast with the Russians.

I also threw in the towel last night, beaten back by an endless succession of armored spearmen and men at arms from Denmark, HRE and Hungary.

The purpose of out little experiment was to find out how Russian units interacted tactically, and to find the best strategy.

Reapz has the right idea strategically. Save money, fight on the cheap and develop your base in Russia. I let my previous MTW experience override my judgement, thinking I had to establish myself in Central Europe before the Mongols hit. The result was the destruction of the Poles -- followed by a united Catholic coalition that wore me out with attrition. Even my ally Milan got involved, making the HRE a vassal. This really worked out for the HRE. The next thing I know, huge stacks of quality infantry in black show up.

Tactically, cossacks, Boyar Sons and Druz work well in the first 60 or 70 turns. The cossacks whittle down unarmored units, and the Boyar boys take out the armored ones. However, horse archer tactics only work when the arrows kill something. The infantry definitely get better and the armor gets thicker as the AI develops trade and alliances.

Horse archers work more smoothly than ever before, but the days when you can walk over the map with an all-cavalry army may be over, for every factionl.