Russia

[will123w]

It's been awhile since I started my campaign but I'll try and remember as much as I can.

This is on H/H

I had lots of trouble picking a nations to begin as (as I have in every total war since Rome) and played most until I settled on Prussia which I enjoyed until the 1740 time period when everyone in the world hated me and I was fighting a 4 front war and was completely landlocked.

After that I tried Russia and it was been great.

The first thing I noticed when starting as Russia is that if you can conquer the Khanate to the south and make peace with the Ottomans you may just be in one of the best starting positions in the game.

So that is exactly how I started off the game. I took the khanate and then began researching farming/manufacturing techs as Russia has MASSIVE amounts of farmland that if cultivated will drive in the early income you need as naval trade is more or less a moot point at the beginning for Russia.

Income is decent for Russia, at the beginning and I was getting around 5000 a turn, which was enough to begin building up an army for my conquest of Sweden.

One I got the second tier of farming techs researched it was like switching on a light bulb. The money really started pouring in and I was up to about 15000 a turn. At this point I struck Sweden and took St. Petersburg.

Next I bought peace and trade with the Ottomans for about 50% of the cash I had in the treasury. This would eventually blossom into an amazing thing later in the game.

Taking over sweden was slow as my port in St. Petersburg was under developed and I had to go the long journey through the large Swedish territory on land.

During this time It was my goal to keep Prussia as powerful as possible. I wanted Denmark/Poland/Austria/France as busy with Prussia as possible, so it would slow progress in all these territories. So instead of researching my own military techs I would just pay Prussia large sums of money for military techs to remain relevant in military tech and keep them powerful.

By 1715 All of Sweden's starting territory was mine. They owned Denmark's capital and since I didn't want to build a large navy to attack them, I let Sweden be for the meantime.

Now I had a large amount of territory in the Baltic and could begin building trading ports. I paid England/Spain/France for trading deals that became incredibly lucrative. I also got the mughals and marthas to trade with me as well.

By this time (1720ish) The port in the Crimean Khanate was pulling in about 25k a turn in trade.

I began getting hungry for more land again, and decided that as much as I wanted my polish allies land I would go south towards Georgia/Persia instead.

Since I had a large sum of money in the bank (90K + w/ 35k/turn) taking out this region was not difficult at all. I took most of the Persian territory, stoppping at their capital then forcing peace with them.

The next step I beleive is what made me the future dominant power in mainland Europe. I had wanted in on the Americas since the early game but it's just not an option for Russia. I decided to trade the Persian conquest territory that borded with the ottomans for the 2 Dutch provinces in South America and trade rights.

Once I upgraded these territories with my advanced farming buildings, all the trade agreements I had laid out in the early game began to really pay off.

by 1730 I was making 120k/turn and was buying up every tech from all the other nations that I could. As I had cash to burn at this point, I made a few purchases from Britain for their carribean islands area colonies and the Dutch for the island off of India.

I now controlled all of the carribean area, only Spain and england now had more territories in the Americas than me.

At this point I let my Colonies sit and soak up the cash, just building trade navies and war navies for the eventual Pirate assualts.

Back in Europe... I had now had enough of Poland. They had been great allies but they needed to become part of the Russian Empire!

Courland made things easy by declaring war on me out of nowhere and Poland sided with them (dumb dumb).

What came next was pretty epic. I had several full stacks left over from the Swedish conquests back in my main territory for when the Polish war was over. Paying 100's of thousands to the Prussian's had paid off.... all the way up to warsaw was lightly defended as Poland was busy with a richly backed Prussia.

It took just 2 turns for all of Poland/Courland to fall under Russian control. As I was now the Naval power in the Baltic I decided to finish off sweden. Buy Iceland from Denmark (which was to be my grand staging area for my assualt of North America which never came to be) , then kill Denmark by taking Norway.

The french @ this point canceld their trade aggrement with me as did the Dutch (though that didnt matter as they had lost all of their territoires except for the one in old persian land I sold traded to them. I was making about 250k per turn now but was still only at about 750k in the bank as I was constantly buying upgrades or trade aggrements, or Techs.

Around 1740 I decided to take out Prussia as I ddin't want the monster I created to get too powerful.

This actually wasn't too difficult as they were busy with Austria and only put up 3 turns of resistance. Next obviously was Austria, who again couldnt stand up to my forces who were incredibly more numerous and advanced than they were.

Next I spent close to 1 million on buying every ottoman territory not in Europe. My empire now surrounded all of the ottoman empire, the italian areas, and the mess that was the german states.

By the early 1750's all of Germany, Italy, and the Itlian states including Venice/Genoa and the Corsice/Sardinia were now under my control either through conquest or from my coin purse.

Though only England/Martha/Mughals were my trade partners I was still netting close to 500k/turn.

And this brings me up to now. I have close to 10mil in the treasury and am preparing to launch my invasion of spain from Morrocco, and dive right into Paris France from Munich.

Unfortunately constant ctd's and slowdowns have plagued my game and severly slowed my progress. I can't really click on my large navies w/o crashing (I hear I need to add sloops to them). I'll post some screenshots later when I get home from work.

[loony]

Must have been a pre-patch campaign...

[Walrus]

I started a new campaign with Russia post-patch, and thought i would share my experiences.


When starting with Russia, you are faced with an interesting situation; a huge (comparatively), but backwards empire in eastern europe and asia, no ports, poor relations with most other nations, a poor government type, and a very unpopular religion.
The immediate goal is, as always, the crimean khanate, which is easily captured in 3-4 turns by your nearby forces. At this point, things get interesting; in my game, Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, Prussia, Daghestan and Georgia all declared war on me, leaving me with a bit of an issue. Initially there is only one way to expand - west, which is a pretty good choice anyway. Central europe is divided, and profitable. Also, set your school to research the farming technologies - you have a lot of farmland in your provinces and they can be a good source of income.

Over the next 5-10 years i tried to make peace with the Ottomans, to enable me to trade. I must have splashed well over 10k (quite a lot in the starting period) on state gifts, but to no avail. The rest of my money was spent on consolidation - building up my internal infrastructure and towns (roads really helps get the troops moving across your vast lands as Russia), defending myself from attacks and generally triyng to get my income up. Once satisfied with my income levels, it was time to go on the offensive. First, I went south to take Daghestan, a nice easy target. I also acquired St Petersburg along the way, and pushed an army north into the undefended Finland. Meanwhile, i used every port available to establish trade routs with as many western european powers as possible, even if it was costly. I kept chipping away at Poland-Lithuania's lands when satisfied that Sweden were no longer going to be a major threat to me (i had taken both their nearby cities to my lands). In 1720, the United States emerged and i immediately established trade and an alliance with them, and gifted them a lot of technologies to get them started; i figured that if the states could flourish over in America, it would stranglehold a lot of the western european powers like Britain, France and Spain - making them easier to take in the long run. Seeings as Russia has no holdings anywhere near America, and the US has no holdings in Europe, i figured it was a pretty low risk alliance, and our conflicts would remain pretty separated.
Now, i was trying to expand west in earnest, taking a number of provinces and playing a very aggressive way. Meanwhile, i decided it was time for a change of government, and instigated a revolution, converting Russia to a republic (i know i know, a Russian republic allied with the states...pretty far removed from how it really happened), to help please the lower classes and keep public order up, as i had decided to leave my inner provinces pretty much undefended. My smash-n-grab tactics (i couldnt afford to keep defending forces in all the new takings) meant i was quite exposed defensively. Poland-Lithuania for some reason moved all of their forces from their capital (their last province) to reclaim a few other nearby ones which i had left undefended. I moved in on the capital, and then quickly reclaimed the rest of them to eliminate them completely.
Next up was Prussia, who were pretty small and feeble, as i had been feeding Saxony some free technologies so that they could pose a thorn in Prussia's. Prussia fell pretty quickly to a couple of well timed attacks on their cities, which left me in control of about half of Europe.

I decided to turn my attentions south at this point, and after taking Georgia, i pushed and took some of the Ottoman territories, after which i (finally) managed to persuade them that peace was the best idea. With peace declared, i could finally trade through the black sea and mediterranean, i then wanted my northern trade routes opened, so i worked on building up a navy to keep the swedes at bay.

At this point, i controlled a huge empire extending over europe. Austria is the only other power that is anything like a threat, and i am at peace with them. My income is at around 16-18k, and i am now working on upgrading the infrastructure again.

[Slaists]

I started a new campaign with Russia post-patch, and thought i would share my experiences.


When starting with Russia, you are faced with an interesting situation; a huge (comparatively), but backwards empire in eastern europe and asia, no ports, poor relations with most other nations, a poor government type, and a very unpopular religion.
The immediate goal is, as always, the crimean khanate, which is easily captured in 3-4 turns by your nearby forces. At this point, things get interesting; in my game, Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, Prussia, Daghestan and Georgia all declared war on me, leaving me with a bit of an issue. Initially there is only one way to expand - west, which is a pretty good choice anyway. Central europe is divided, and profitable. Also, set your school to research the farming technologies - you have a lot of farmland in your provinces and they can be a good source of income.

Over the next 5-10 years i tried to make peace with the Ottomans, to enable me to trade. I must have splashed well over 10k (quite a lot in the starting period) on state gifts, but to no avail. The rest of my money was spent on consolidation - building up my internal infrastructure and towns (roads really helps get the troops moving across your vast lands as Russia), defending myself from attacks and generally triyng to get my income up. Once satisfied with my income levels, it was time to go on the offensive. First, I went south to take Daghestan, a nice easy target. I also acquired St Petersburg along the way, and pushed an army north into the undefended Finland. Meanwhile, i used every port available to establish trade routs with as many western european powers as possible, even if it was costly. I kept chipping away at Poland-Lithuania's lands when satisfied that Sweden were no longer going to be a major threat to me (i had taken both their nearby cities to my lands). In 1720, the United States emerged and i immediately established trade and an alliance with them, and gifted them a lot of technologies to get them started; i figured that if the states could flourish over in America, it would stranglehold a lot of the western european powers like Britain, France and Spain - making them easier to take in the long run. Seeings as Russia has no holdings anywhere near America, and the US has no holdings in Europe, i figured it was a pretty low risk alliance, and our conflicts would remain pretty separated.
Now, i was trying to expand west in earnest, taking a number of provinces and playing a very aggressive way. Meanwhile, i decided it was time for a change of government, and instigated a revolution, converting Russia to a republic (i know i know, a Russian republic allied with the states...pretty far removed from how it really happened), to help please the lower classes and keep public order up, as i had decided to leave my inner provinces pretty much undefended. My smash-n-grab tactics (i couldnt afford to keep defending forces in all the new takings) meant i was quite exposed defensively. Poland-Lithuania for some reason moved all of their forces from their capital (their last province) to reclaim a few other nearby ones which i had left undefended. I moved in on the capital, and then quickly reclaimed the rest of them to eliminate them completely.
Next up was Prussia, who were pretty small and feeble, as i had been feeding Saxony some free technologies so that they could pose a thorn in Prussia's. Prussia fell pretty quickly to a couple of well timed attacks on their cities, which left me in control of about half of Europe.

I decided to turn my attentions south at this point, and after taking Georgia, i pushed and took some of the Ottoman territories, after which i (finally) managed to persuade them that peace was the best idea. With peace declared, i could finally trade through the black sea and mediterranean, i then wanted my northern trade routes opened, so i worked on building up a navy to keep the swedes at bay.

At this point, i controlled a huge empire extending over europe. Austria is the only other power that is anything like a threat, and i am at peace with them. My income is at around 16-18k, and i am now working on upgrading the infrastructure again.

Note that consecutive state gifts are just a waste of money. The first state gift (2500) gives a boost of +100 points with the target country. This boost decays over time. For example, on the next turn, there would be only +98 of the boost remaining. So, if, on that turn you make another gift (2500), your end-turn relationship with that country (discounting all other factors) would be +100... So, effectively, you just wasted 2500 for boosting the relationship for 2 points.

Also, gifts of all levels +2500, +5000, +10,000 all take the player to the same relationship boost level: +100.

[Walrus]

Note that consecutive state gifts are just a waste of money. The first state gift (2500) gives a boost of +100 points with the target country. This boost decays over time. For example, on the next turn, there would be only +98 of the boost remaining. So, if, on that turn you make another gift (2500), your end-turn relationship with that country (discounting all other factors) would be +100... So, effectively, you just wasted 2500 for boosting the relationship for 2 points.

Also, gifts of all levels +2500, +5000, +10,000 all take the player to the same relationship boost level: +100.

after the 3rd gift or so i realised that it wasnt increasing the boost really - but is it really the case that all the levels of gift give the same (maximum) boost of 100? is there any benefit to using a more expensive gift then?

[Slaists]

after the 3rd gift or so i realised that it wasnt increasing the boost really - but is it really the case that all the levels of gift give the same (maximum) boost of 100? is there any benefit to using a more expensive gift then?

Not really, it's bugged for now (or a stupid feature). All gifts give +100 (you can test it: just save your game before the test and see what each level gives to your relationship when you give it to a nation that has not received any gift from you earlier). So, unless you have a good reason for wanting to waste some ducats: just stick with 2500.

Unrelated: some posts here suggests that the Russian starting Cossack infantry cannot use later infantry drills. They actually can. They can use square fomations and can learn fire by rank. They do not get bayonets though.

[nameless]

Looking for some help here.

Playing as the Russians on the up-do-date patch I'm finding it rather difficult to do.

No matter what, on the second turn Sweden declares war on me and starts sending in wave after wave of stacks at me through st. petersburg. Well actually they conquer the province that's east of petersburg and go from there.

At the same time Georgia and that other province declares war on me in the south. Then right after that the Turks declare war on me.

I was successful in taking down Georgia and started building up forces to take out the other province but because I had focused all my funds in the south the north wasn't strong enough to hold off the swedish. I eventually took out Riga and Petersburg (I actually gave Riga to the Turks to prevent Courtland from declaring war on me and asked for peace) but the Swedish already had full stacks running around so it was difficult to fight them off. Eventually they broke through and had stacks running around moscow.

I find this difficult because even as Prussia I never had each and every single neighbour declare war on me right at the start.

If I focus on the north I end up losing the south, if I focus on the south I end up losing the north.

Or should I just sacrifice the south and defend southern Moscow?