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Thread: Russia

  1. #1
    The Abominable Senior Member Hexxagon Champion Monk's Avatar
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    Default Russia

    Russia is one of the 12 playable factions available for play.

  2. #2
    the G-Diffuser Senior Member pevergreen's Avatar
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    Default Re: Russia

    INDEED THEY ARE.

    Follow the advice of the advisor. You need to take out the Crimean Khanate ASAP.

    A good idea is to torch a few fur trappers place. Get those felts expensive on the world market.

    Once you take out Crimea, go for Georgia and Sweden.

    Thats as much of an early game as i have.
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  3. #3
    Nec Pluribus Impar Member SwordsMaster's Avatar
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    Default Re: Russia

    Well, I started off with Russia on M/M, just to see how the game went. (I did try to play RTI, but it somehow wouldn't give me any more missions after I took the french fort and city... Actually if anyone has suggestions on how to go around this I'll be very glad to hear them...)

    On to Russia: You start at war with the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire, and trading and allied to Poland-Lithuania (which is just about the only land trading route you got). The advisor will remind you that getting a decent seaport will be key to any trading aspirations, and she is not wrong.

    During the very first turn, have a look at the ministers (I didn't do this until turn 4 or 5, which is silly), and make sure to sack anyone who has under 2 stars for whatever job they're doing. Rule of thumb: 3 stars means there's no bonuses nor maluses, above that is good, below that is bad.

    Then march your southern army down to the river crossing in Crimea (techically it's the Dnieper river) and park it there. Also move your preacher to Crimea to start spreading the faith. Remember for battles that at this stage your artillery cannot move after the deployment stage of the battle as you haven't research the technology yet!

    Speaking of Research, I focused on military during the first few turns, but I think a better route would have been to research Empiricism first, which would allow you to upgrade your school (you only have 1). Also move your gentlemen in to help out. They reduce research times at a rate of about 1 turn per genleman, and more once the pick up some traits, I'm getting 3 turn reductions out of 2 gentlemen who have a few military tech traits.

    Spend the rest of your first turn money on upgrading roads (specially in outlying provinces), farms, and mines. Russia's natural resources is about the only trade goods you can trade at this stage. This should also allow you a fairly decent income.

    As soon as you can afford it, make sure both your armies have 2 pieces of heavy artillery, and 2-3 additional line infantry each, plus some cossacks. Note that russian line infantry is lagging quite a bit, so they're less effective than that of other nations. On the plus side they're more resilient to routing so you can more liberal using them in melee actions. They will also be useful enough against Ottoman militia and such.

    Speaking of the Ottomans: Ask them for peace. That doesn't mean peace with Crimea though, but it'll take a big enemy off your back. They should accept, otherwise you can sweeten up that pill with some cash.

    Sweden will declare war on Denmark within the first 5-6 turns, so be ready to either give up your alliance with Denmark, or take on the Swedes. St Petersburg should be takeable if you upgraded your northern army as I explained above (although this was a touch and go battle, resolved in the end by line infantry holding out 3 cavalry charges and shooting the general).

    The turn after taking St. PEtersburg, ask for peace. The Swedes agreed to this straight away.

    So now it's time to move south. The reinforcements should have joined your southern army at this stage, so just march them town to Bakhchesaray and lay siege. It's generally populously garrisoned, but most of these units are either cavalry or militia with no firearms, so form up your firing arcs properly, sit back and let your cannon do most of the heavy work. My 2 cannon ended up with over 150 kills each.

    As soon as you take the town, Crimea is no more. Throughout all of this, you should have kept upgrading roads, farms, and fortifications in your border cities. I chose Kiev, Cherkassk and St Petersburg as my strongholds, specially seeing as Georgia and Dagestan tend to declare war early (they don't have the capability of fielding large armies straight away, so I left the roads unupgraded in Don Voisko to have them waste some turns trudging through the terrain, and then sent in the Crimean army to take them) The AI is cleverer this time though, so make sure you reinforce your troops, specially as georgian infantry outrange your own, and you'll generally take casualties from them, and as you'll be fighting a lot in forests, it can get messy.

    My Crimean army is bogged down in the forests of Georgia right now, and my second souther army is marching towards DAgestan. So I should be able to take out these within the next 5-6 turns. Although they both have sizeable garrisons in their capitals.

    Other than that, upgrade your ports so you can trade asap, and I've been buiding 1 entertainment building out of every 5 buildings I order to keep the population happy with the speed of industralisation and new ideas. No problems so far.

    Good Luck!
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  4. #4
    Nec Pluribus Impar Member SwordsMaster's Avatar
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    Default Re: Russia

    Interestingly, I can't edit my previous message... Mods?

    Anyway, some more developments: Crimea makes for a great recruitment pad for your Georgian and general Black Sea armies. Get yourself a small navy (a couple of ships unless you're at war) for ferrying troops over from Crimea over to the Caucasus - it takes 1 turn to ferry, about 4-5 to walk...

    I lost most of my southern army in skirmishes with the georgians. Pity as I had some experienced units there, but I stupidly allowed them to be cut off from reinforcement and georgian numbers finally did the job.

    I had finished researching squares and ring bayonets, which helps with the eastern factions - lots of cavalry. I'm still working on my timing though, I seem to order my units to reform or fire a little late, specially when facing cavalry... Which unfortunately gets some of them killed...

    But I built a new army, more balanced, with lots of cossack infantry and line regiments, took some artillery with me, and in a short campaign took Dagestan, eliminating the faction. After this, I got trade offers from Sweden, Maratha and Spain, some asking for extra cash (Sweden) and some offering some cash (Maratha). So I'm making a couple thousand extra every month. Or I was until the brits went to war with Spain and began sitting on spanish trade routes. Since I don't have anything in terms of navy, I have to just let them be...

    I'm trying to tech up some more, researched some more agricultural stuff to promote growth and taxes, and I'm arming for a campaign in Georgia that should give me another university, making for a total of 3. I'm also hoping to develop a 4th one from the next town that springs up.

    One of my gentlemen was sent out to try and steal some tech in Saxony, but so far (12 attempts) unsuccessfully, even though the success chance was 22%.

    So next steps are: Georgia. They've bugged me for too long, and they have a university which I need. In the process fortify my souther border with the Ottomans.
    Next: Developing a good Black Sea naval base, and navy. Any leftover money will go to modernising recruiting facilities.
    Step 3: Preparing for a campaign against Sweden - the intention is to protectorise them. For this I will need a navy in the Baltic, mobile field artillery, and as many upgrades as I can get.
    Managing perceptions goes hand in hand with managing expectations - Masamune

    Pie is merely the power of the state intruding into the private lives of the working class. - Beirut

  5. #5
    The Dam Dog Senior Member Sheogorath's Avatar
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    Default Re: Russia

    Alright, the Ruskies start out with two basic infantry units you can recruit pretty much anywhere;
    Cossack musketeers and streltsy. Oddly enough CA has decided to NOT give streltsy firearms, which seems odd given that 'streltsy' is a Russianization of the Polish word for 'shooter'.

    Go figure

    Anyway, spam Cossack Musketeers. Not only do they look cool, they provide volume of fire.

    Essentially the idea here is that muskets do pretty much the same damage and have roughly the same accuracy no matter who's using them. So basically, at this low tech level, you want to get as many warm bodies on the field as possible. They may well suck at melee since they dont get bayonets, but that's fine, they're cheap.

    Make sure to grab some streltsy as well, as they're decent enough in a melee, good enough against line troops and the occasional cavalry unit.

    Development wise, as mentioned above, get a navy up and running quickly. People respect a good navy. Also try to snag the shore facilities tech so you can get some decent ships. It's depressing how terrible my brigs seem to be.


    On a side note, Russia seems to be cursed in naval battles. I engaged the Portuguese with intent to steal one of their trade zones, and, in the VERY first volley of the battle, my admiral was killed. You can well imagine what this did to my chances as I was attempting to board and steal my opponents Indiamen. I managed to fight a bloody stalemate down to two ships (both Indiamen, in fact), which ended when my ship (with 50 men) attempted to board the Portuguese ship (with 35 men). My ship routed.
    Although it seems the AI cheats a bit, as its cannons will fire in melee once the ships are docked.
    Still, raaaaaaaaaaaather annoying.
    Tallyho lads, rape the houses and burn the women! Leave not a single potted plant alive! Full speed ahead and damn the cheesemongers!

  6. #6

    Default Re: Russia

    I started as Russia on H/H. I am in 1707 now.

    Like everybody else, I took out Crimea first. As I suspected that I would have to go to war with Sweden soon, I was simulateneously increasing the size of my army near St Petersbourg.

    Few turns in the game, the war with Sweden indeed started. But since I was ready, I managed to take over St Peterbourg by destroying their stacked up army in the region. Once you destroy their main army, they do not have many units left to protect the surronding provinces. So, by constantly bringing more units from Moscow, taking over Riga and Alma (spelling?) was easy. After that, since I had a war going with Otoman Empire (OE), I decided that I am not ready to spread myself too thin, and offered Sweden a peace agreement. They accepted.

    As I mentioned, at the same time you will have a war going on in the south. I made sure that I had enough troops before I besieged and took over Moldavia. Since Moldavians are quite happy to be part of Russia, I then proceeded with my whole army to take over Bulgaria. This is as far as I got to with OE. I will need much more troops to take over Istambul.

    But my real problems came from...Degestan. Degestan and Georgia, these tiny states, declared a war on me! Georgia wouldn't really do anything about it, but Degestan actually pillaged some villages and farms around Don Voisko. So, I sent my Crimean army of 1,700 soldiers and Ivan Mozepa as their general to crush them. I was met by a force of approximately 2,100. "400 less soldiers will make no difference when led by such as great fieldmarshal as me", I thought. And...my whole army vanished in that battle! Great learning experience, because things like that would never happen to me in previous TW games. Now I have nobody to protect my south-eastern border...

  7. #7
    The Dam Dog Senior Member Sheogorath's Avatar
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    Default Re: Russia

    Georgia and Dagistan are both a real pain.

    My strategy for dealing with them is thus:

    For Georgia, build a fort at the Western edge of the Caucuses where the mountains end, as close to the border as you can. The zone of control will keep the Georgians from running about in your lands at will, since you can intercept them and force them to attack your fort.

    With Georgia pinned down, build a second fort to protect your town in Dagistan, and use that as a staging point for your attack. First, wait until Dagistan fields a large army in your direction, either intercept or avoid them, and take their city right out from under them.

    Don't bother trying to get a peace deal or anything. Both Georgia and Dagistan are apparently run by the 'throwback' model AI and seem unwilling to accept peace no matter how much you thrash their armies.
    Tallyho lads, rape the houses and burn the women! Leave not a single potted plant alive! Full speed ahead and damn the cheesemongers!

  8. #8
    Protecting the border fort Member Chimpyang's Avatar
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    Default Re: Russia

    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!

  9. #9

    Default Re: Russia

    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.

  10. #10
    Protecting the border fort Member Chimpyang's Avatar
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    Default Re: Russia

    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.

  11. #11
    Member Member Polemists's Avatar
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    Default Re: Russia

    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

  12. #12

    Default Re: Russia

    By 1736 I own quite a bit. I took all their Balkan states and Anatolia from OE and sued them for peace, in exchange for them giving me Damascus and Jerusalim. They accepted.

    Then I had a few years of almost total peace. I only had a war going with Georgia and eventually took it. During that period I worked to improve my economy and now earn about $10K per turn.

    Venice unexpectedly attacked and took Athens from me. I quickly took it back, but they still refused to accept a white peace. Since Austria wouldn't give me a military access, I had to build a navy and get to Venice by sea. Now such nation does not exist.

    Finally, United Provinces declared war. Since I can't get to them by land and they can't get to me by land either, this may take a while...

  13. #13
    Member Member Polemists's Avatar
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    Default Re: Russia

    I think russia has more wars then any other nation.

    You start off in war with Sweden, Ottomans, Crimean, Georgians, and Daghistan almost with in the first five years.

    The good news is unlike other nations who need to wait for rp wars you can start the ball rolling :)

    I conquered C, G, and D and made peace with Ottomans and Sweden so I can have 20 years to build up, try to get that 20k a turn thing going.

    we will see :)

  14. #14
    Member Member MadKow's Avatar
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    Default Re: Russia

    On my russian campaign i eventually had to react to the Ottoman agression and conquered Anatolia. The odd part was discovering i could produce Colonial Line Infantry in Anatolia, and not the regular Russian units, and this line infantry is actually better (not counting the charge bonus) than Russian line. I was kinda.. "oh well... throw in a generic colonial unit when you can't think of anything else".

  15. #15

    Default Re: Russia

    I'll apologize in advance. I'm currently on year 1766 so I don't remember too many details of my beginning strategy. I started off my building roads/paved roads in all of Russia's regions. From there, I started to spam as much infantry as I could.

    Here are some screenshots. One of which shows my overall advance strategy. (you'll have to copy/paste that into your browser, I can't make a url till I have a post) (sorry in advance, i'll fix the link asap)
    img172.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=strat.png

    I remember having around 10 colleges or so crunching out most of the tech in the 1720's and 1730's. After I researched most of the tech I ended up destroying all but 4, to keep the population stupid and under control. That and I also remember not making a single alliance. At one point I was at war with 10 other nations. My first major expansion was pretty much everything around the Austrian Empire. I didn't bother to take them out until I could attack them from 3 sides. I pretty much only needed 6 fully armies of line infantry to take out most of Europe. The only real annoyance I had was England. This was due to their ridiculous navy. My strat to get to the is pretty sad, but it worked. I just built one boat and took an army over to London. Sure, my boat was was destroyed the next turn, leaving my army stuck there, but luck was in my favor and I was able to take London and establish myself there.

    Once I got all of Europe, which was around 1755 or so I beleive, I started to focus all of my attention on building up my economy. Around 1755 I was making around 20k/turn. 11 years later I am making a solid 42k/turn.

    At this point, I only need to take over Persia to win the campaign. I'm only 99% sure you can continue to play after winning, so I have 4 full armies on the Persia border, which I'll probably use in 1795. I could easily get it now, but I want to milk this campaign as much as possible. ^_^

    To entertain me I've start my conquest to get the America's. I'm currently taking over present day Canada, and am starting to sum up forces to wipe out the U.S. I foresee the battles with the pirates down in the Caribbean to be annoying. Seeing that they have seemingly unlimited navies, compared to my grand total of 7 ships (all brigs, lol)

  16. #16
    Future USMC Cobra Pilot Member Prussian to the Iron's Avatar
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    Default Re: Russia

    heres my 2-cents. i just started but i have an incredible cash flow, and a ful stack army ready to destroy georgia. heres how:

    like said before, if any of your minister candidates have more stars than any of your ministers, boot the low ministers and enjoy the bonuses. the first thing i researched was plug bayonets, followed by socket bayonets. this is probably wrong. the thigns you sould research are machinery, steam powerd, animal husbandry and fences. this allows you to upgrade nearly every town and building in your country, which, being so large and numerous, are extremely profitable.

    the first military objective is to imediately destroy crimea. the wayto do this is that there is an army in the south with 2 cavalry units, 1 cossacks unit and 2 milita-melee units. this is enough to kill them off. send them into crimean territory and the whole army should attack you. i actually beat their army and killed their general only using my 2 units of cavalry and 1 unit of milita-men. their army was 2-3 cossacks, dragoons, a general, and somemore i think. i wont describe the wholething, but remember that cavalry do great against dragoons and your melee infantry will destroy any infanty comin over walls etc, and can flank easily(mine were deployed in a 3-rank deep line. the enemy wa in a box. i completely enveloped them and routed them when abgout half their emn were dead.) with only milita defending the crimean city,(880 militia versus my 400 army), i only needed to use cavalry and they pretty much all routed. in fact, my cossacks never saw any combat the entire crimean campaign.

    now you should focus on internal. for some reason, the marathas wanted a trade deal. saying yes is earning me about 1000 dollars a turn. with all my farms and fur traders upgraded, and taxes high, i now am making about 6600 a turn(it wold be 8000, but some ottomans raided my inian trade route :( im gonna go kill them in a little while, so i should be safe again) spend all th money you have except a few hundred on internal improvement. you should get back about 8000 a turn if your doing it right. its also important to have a shitload of gentlmen in your research place. it is sooo much easier and quicker than 5 turns to find out about fences.

    well, unfortunately thats all i have right now. as soon as i get more i will update.
    Last edited by Prussian to the Iron; 03-30-2009 at 13:58.
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  17. #17

    Default Re: Russia

    Ok I'll make mine kinda short as a quick reference for starting off the Russia campaign.

    - Take Crimea first, as it gives you a port to get trade agreements with countries far away. Use the army that is stationed near Crimea to do so (but be careful, you'll be outmanned). Also, to keep the Ottomans from taking over your port, keep a unit of cheap militia in it so they can't come in (though they'll still raid your shipping lanes, and since they have massive fleets, you're kinda screwed for a while).
    - Research industrial tech first. This will let you upgrade all of your farms and workshops etc, (this is your main source of income!). Plus, upgrade your roads to allow faster travel by your armies.
    - Get trade agreements with as many countries as possible fast. Note though, try and get trade from countries that are of no big threat to you (New Spain, Marathas, England, etc). This will allow you to get the long-term-trading thing up without worry. Don't bother trying to get it from Daghestan. The money you give them will go to waste when the declare war on you.
    - When Sweden declares war on your ally, deny them help. You'll break your alliance, but they were screwed from the begining. If you do help, you'll have to pay a big sum of cash to get peace from Sweden.
    - The reson you need peace from Sweden is for when Georgia and Daghestan declare war on you. Because you are protected on your border by Poland and Sweden (which is an extremely vulnerable place for you, BTW), you can focus your attention on destroying Gerogia and Daghestan.

    Once you destroy Georgia and Daghestan, you're free to either head northwest to Sweden and take them, go west and hit Poland, or head south and take out the Ottomans.

  18. #18

    Default Re: Russia

    The first step as Russia is obvious - take the Crimean Khanate. This should take no more than 3-4 turns, and gives you a port. The next problem quickly emerges - the Ottomans arent really willing to let you trade all the way through their territory. I am still pretty young in my Russian campaign and havent found a solution to this yet.

    For the next 10 years however, i focused internally - expansion could wait, my home territories were drastically underdeveloped. I took St Petersberg to the north (Sweden had declared war on me) and then worked on upgrading all my buildings and building roads to cement an income. By the time this is done you should have a nice growing population from your peasant farms, and a respectable income with which to start funding your war efforts.
    Initially, expand south, taking Georgia and any other unlucky independant provinces - dont risk any assaults on major powers just yet.
    Next, you have some choices to make - Poland, Austria and the Ottomans will all be vying for territory in east europe - best bet is to side with one of them (Poland starts as your ally, so is the obvious choice, whilst Ottomans are a natural enemy). I honoured my alliance with Poland - i left them to mostly deal with the austrians, helping them where possible, and began to concentrate on opposing the Ottoman Empire.

    As i said, my Russia campaign is still young, and this is as far as i have gotten - my main recommendation is simply to spend some time in building your internal economy, upgrade your home territories and cement a decent income, then you can focus on expansion,

  19. #19

    Default Re: Russia

    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.

  20. #20

    Default Re: Russia

    Must have been a pre-patch campaign...

  21. #21

    Default Re: Russia

    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.

  22. #22
    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
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    1,828

    Default Re: Russia

    Quote Originally Posted by Walrus View Post
    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.
    Last edited by Slaists; 05-11-2009 at 14:09.

  23. #23

    Default Re: Russia

    Quote Originally Posted by Slaists View Post
    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?

  24. #24
    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
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    Sep 2004
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    1,828

    Default Re: Russia

    Quote Originally Posted by Walrus View Post
    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.
    Last edited by Slaists; 05-18-2009 at 19:34.

  25. #25

    Default Re: Russia

    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?
    Last edited by nameless; 05-31-2009 at 01:05.

  26. #26

    Default Re: Russia

    I had little trouble in buying the Turks friendship at the begining of the campaign. They were desperate for a safe border, which suited me fine. Both annoying southerly neighbours declared war on me but to little effect. A few extra units in the nearby town were enough to stop them even approaching.
    When Sweeden decalred war, I was able to take St. Petersburg and that was pretty much the end of any credible threat from them....
    Maybe I was just extra lucky in my campaign?

  27. #27
    The Dam Dog Senior Member Sheogorath's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Posts
    1,330

    Default Re: Russia

    The latest patch seems to have improved the Ruskies line infantry a bit, making the 'Russian Rush' approach more plausible. Get into melee ASAP and you can rule pretty much any European line or light infantry. Grenadiers and guard/elite units are a bit more trouble, of course, but you should do alright.

    The Russian guards from the Elite Units of the West pack are real bruisers too. I didn't compare their stats with the British elites, but they thrashed a regular British guard unit nicely, plus their uniforms are pretty snazzy :P
    Tallyho lads, rape the houses and burn the women! Leave not a single potted plant alive! Full speed ahead and damn the cheesemongers!

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