Russia

[Chimpyang]

My plan for H/H which has worked so far :

Make peace with Sweden, you will have enough to deal with far south in a bit. Move the army away to the Georgia Dagestan border. Take the garrison out of Kiev and merge it with the army nearby, you will smash any Crimean forcesas they do not have arty at the start. Finally build up farming and some long term economic structures. You have no trade to boast about at the start, but it will change!

Research wise, stick the Gentleman into Nizny-Novogrod and research Canister. Ironically if you are spending most of your money on economic structures, the Russian war machine will come up against enemies superior in number.

Turn 2 is all about consolidation, spend more income maybe upgrading SAFE trappers, improving your provinces to stimulate a bit of positive growth. A couple of units of cossack line will be helpful in dissuading Dagestan and Georgia from attacking the towns, just dont spend too much money on the econ structures near your warzones. Since the canister won't be ready until turn 5, chill out a bit with the Crimean attack army, if you can draw them out ot fight, great, if not, oh well.

After peace with Sweden, do not get dragged into more wars, try and get a trade agreement with your former enemy - inm y game the Swedes were grateful cos they were ina yo-yo war over stockholm and copenhagen with the Danes.

Turn 3 and beyond

Keep spending as much as you can building up your economic structures, once you capture the crimea, you will get the option to build the 12lb foot cannons, epically useful, you cna transport your crimena army to Georgia via sea in 1 turn! So make sure the coast is clear, and when you have done replenishing your troops, send them off to sneak attack behind Georgian lines. Try to match up both assaults so the usually alllied Georgian/Dagestan cannot mutally aid. Dagestan falls VERY easily and you dont have to chase their smaller armies around so long as you keep a good garrision in the regional capital. (Usually 3 cossack line + 1 cannon).

By the end of 1707 - I managed to secure an net income of 9000 per turn, enough to keep building my provinces. Also Georgia has a college pre built, so you should be able to get some more technology under your belt. The turks have probalby blockaded your port in the crimea, but that is not important, keep building up your happiness levels within your borders and you may even be tempted to use the Georgian corridor to attack at the Ottomans, just make sure you either intend to sack and go, or bring along missionaries. Changing your mind halfway through a campaign may be too late and you get neither done. For the rest, long term targets will inevitable include Sweden, they seem to go to war with Prussia and Denmark a lot and often lose. So Abo, St Petersburg and the one above Courland may become easy pickings. Secure your eastern border with the turks, their nearest province is very poor at the start so offensively it is better to go via the west as you have armies there already.

Good luck! This is high risk, so be prepared for things to go wrong!

[vladiator]

Chimpyang, 9000 per turn is surely impressive!

I played a bit yesterday and managed to lose Sofia to Otomans, retake Sofia, and conquer Istambul. I also took over Curtland.

Now I want to slowly conquer Otoman provinces in mainland Turkey area, whilst mainly concentrating on improving my economy. It seems (not sure whether it is indeed how it works in the game) that closer you get to other countries' borders, more agitated and hostile they become. So, if I keep going west (i.e. taking Greek provinces from Otomans), I will be risking a war with Austria, France, United Provinces -- the war I cannot fund at this time.

[Chimpyang]

Try taking a quick sea journey from the crimea to northern anatolia, if you take that large province it deprives them of a major resupply point, the ottoman provinces in greece are mostly weak aprt from athens which you can fend off using a medium sized army. Dig into your income and cash reserves to build another army from the closest GOOD unit recruitment center, may well be Kiev and aim more westwards. All of the middle eastern ones are money spinners for the ottomans and you just need to go in, take it, convert to orthodox slowly, keeping peace using strelts/dragoons and laugh as the cash rolls in. Once you've declared peace with the ottoman/wiped them off the map completely, then the trades routes from the middle east will generate even more money.

[Polemists]

M/M


Not to rehash but as others have said the south is your major problem once you deal with Sweden.

You start in a war with sweden so you can either

A. Get Peace

B. take it to them

Or

C. Do what I did, and take Ingia (which you need for victory conditions anyway) then threaten for peace. This gets you a port right off the bat, and makes sweden back down. Plus Poland will still duke it out with them.


Your going to be stuck financially with everything going south for years. Do to georgia, dha, and ottomans. I guess you can take sophia, I plowed through Georgia, dag, and then took Armenia and forced peace. This can get you a nice trade route with Persia by land, and when your ready you can move straight for India.

As for ships your only decent ports are St.Petersburg (if you took it) and Crimean Khanate (if you took it). Only SP is worthwhile as I find the straights of gibraltar get way to bogged down.

You can bum rush to build navy but not much point. It takes you 3 years to get 3 indianmen tradeships, and then add in you actually building brigs and what not.

I will be taking ten years to just build, secure and research economy like crazy. As I find money solves most problems.

Your not a starting naval power, the other powers have far bigger and better trained navies starting. So if you want to actually be a naval contender I'd wait until a few more ports open up.

As even though trade is broke you still need that income until you can build everything up.

The good news is hey, this time, no mongols to worry about