Russian Units

[suvorov]

I want say something about russian units.
First sorry for my bad english.

I think that many russian units and some other things in M2TW are not correct because:


1. Spearmilitia

Why russian spearunits dont have a bonus against cavalry but "all" other nations or most of them like poland have a bonus.


Plz, read this:

After Russia had been invaded by the crusading Teutonic Knights, the Novgorod authorities sent for Alexander. In spring of 1241 he returned from his exile, gathered an army, and drove out the invaders. Alexander and his men stood up against the Teutonic cavalry led by the Magister of the Order, Hermann, brother of Albert of Buxhoeveden. Nevsky faced the enemy on the ice of the Chudskoye Lake and crushed the Teutonic Knights during the Battle on Lake Peipus on April 5, 1242. German attempts to invade Russia were effectively stopped for many centuries to come.


Monument in St. Petersburg.Alexander’s victory was a significant event in the history of the Middle Ages. Russian foot soldiers had surrounded and defeated an army of knights, mounted on horseback and clad in thick armor, long before Western Europeans learned how foot soldiers could prevail over mounted knights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Nevsky

Or here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_on_Lake_Peipus


Alexander Nevsky used Militia units (like Spearmiltia in the Game) from Novgorod and his Druzhina to beat the Teutonic Knights.

So why russian units (spearmilitia) didnt get in M2TW a bonus against cavalry but most of all other nations???



2. Druzhina and Boyars

A druzhina was paid by a knyaz, and received a share of military loot.
...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druzhina

Some of them were also bodyguards.


Why are this professional soldiers in M2TW useless, perhaps Teutonic Knights should be better because of more armour but better or same as the other knights like feudalknights.

In the game Boyars have better defence with 15 and are more useful as Druzhina (defence only 14), charge is by Druzhina a little bit better but Boyars throw missiles and druzhina not.. So you dont need Druzhinas (i think the cost also more) but they were the most professional russian units at the time!

Boyars or Boyars sons use in MTW Bows and russian but now in M2TW the throw spears or something, i have never heard something about that. I think Boyars should get their Bows back or the M2TW team should explain why now they throw spears perhaps they read that in historical books or so...

If we watch Boyars and polish knights, i ask me what did polish Cavalry does at 1080 to have so better stats, Boyars have defence 15 and polish knights (or whatever) have 17. We talk about 1080... and not about 1580 and polish Hussars!
Perhaps its o.k. to let Boyars at 15 but Drushina as shocktroop in the game should have defence of 17 too. If not, then they are useless for the russian player cause you better use Boyars with same or more success.



3. Unmounted Druzhina and Boyars.

That units have the same stats!
Unmounted Boyars dont throw anything but with horse they throw missiles why is it so?
Why russian player should need two same units?

Why western knights get better defence if unmounted and russian unmounted Druzhina and Boyars dont?

Unmounted Boyars should be something like unmounted dvor and unmounted Dvor a bit better because a later unit (unm.Dvor 11-11-17 and unm.Boyars 10-10-15 or so...). That would make sense.




4. Kazakhen

Later in the game you get Cossacks, i think its o.k., but in early game they are Kazakhen but at 1080 Kiever-Rus didnt use Kazakhen or know something about them or Kazakhstan and so on. I think its historical not correct.

Kiever-Rus did know Polovci/Cumans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumans
http://www.deremilitari.org/resource...nchronicle.htm

Most of th time the Russians fight against them but sometimes some Prince/Knjaz take them as mercenary.

So I dont understand why in M2TW the russian player get Kazakhen.

Russians didnt have light Cavalry with Bows in the time of Kievan-Rus only armoured Cavalry with Bows(in MTW they were represent as Boyars) so Russians never made raides as Mongols or Cumans or Timurids and so on.


O.K., now i use the Mongol Raids as russian player and destroy all my enemies but its historical not correct.



5. Overall-Units

M2TW give us a wrong feeling of Kiever-Rus, more as Mongols... but it should be more perhaps as slavic-varyag-byzantin feeling.

In MTW the maker-crew made only a few russian units and now in m2TW they didnt really think about russian units too, more its total wrong feeling now.


6. Cities/Regions

In Kievan-Rus was Kiev a capital so why we start with Novgorod?
What search poland near Kiev if historical they didnt have Halych/Galicia, that was Russian City.
Why is Kiev so poor and in the hole ukraine is only one City (Kiev)? Historical they were more than this, please watch the map:


http://www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/kievan_rus_map2.gif


M2TW not reperesent russian cities or give some to poland or something.

They are big territories with more than only little towns.
Galicia, Volinya, Turov, Pereyaslavl, Chernigov, Novgorod Seversk.
What do Galicia (Halych) in the polakish faction?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ukraine

They only could steal Galicia after Mongol Invasion and only at 14th Century. So im sorry but wtf?


I think M2TW crew should think about that historical things, there are some russians who spend their money for the game too and perhaps you all want also real historical period and not fantasy because CA dont want look at the historical maps.


7. Castles and Cities

Kievan-Rus dont use Castles as most western factions, Kievan-Rus based on towns, people who dont live in the towns dont pay taxes, nobody ever registerd them until russians have to pay money to mongols after their invasion. Peasants were free until 1497 unlike in west, what do slavery in Kievan-Rus as ressource?

The legal code of Ivan III of Russia, Sudebnik (1497), strengthened the dependency of peasants, statewise, and restricted their mobility. The Russians persistently battled against the successor states of the Golden Horde, chiefly the Khanate of Crimea. Tens of thousand of noblemen protected the southern borderland--a heavy burden for the state--which slowed its social and economic development and expanded the taxation of peasantry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_serfdom

O.K. the game is so that ruussians have to build their units in castles as western factions but Boayrs lived in Cities/Towns and not in Castles like western nobles. So Boyars came from town and Druzhina from castle.




It would be good if people from M2TW-Crew think about that and make a patch with some corrections, in MTW they made only few russian units and corrected that a bit with viking Invasion i think...

[pat the magnificent]

personally, i think the Russians (or Rus' or whatever) got shafted unit selection wise.

fighting with them is like using a watered down version of the Byzantines.

[TheFluff]

I agree with the orignal poster. The russian unit roster is good, but i dont think its historical because the russians DIDENT fight like the mongols, but nor did they fight like the westerners as far as unit composition, training etc. The problem is the way you learn to fight with the russians isent quite how it really should be (or was). so some tweeking is in order. I only hope someone from the total realism team reads this and keeps it in mind. Also why boyers dont have bows is beyond me. mabye they wanted to make them more effective and used as a "shock" troop but wanted to include there ranged ablities also. who knows.

[Lukasa]

Points 6 and 7 seem to be unfair criticisms. If you read the description for the Russians it does justify why they begin with Novgorod and not Kiev - it seems a little weak, but at least the reasoning is there. As for the cities vs. castles, the reason for having castles is because that's the way the game has been set up, and it makes no sense to change that for a single faction.

[TheFluff]

Points 6 and 7 seem to be unfair criticisms. If you read the description for the Russians it does justify why they begin with Novgorod and not Kiev - it seems a little weak, but at least the reasoning is there. As for the cities vs. castles, the reason for having castles is because that's the way the game has been set up, and it makes no sense to change that for a single faction.

Then explain why egyptans can build mamluk cav, arab cav, there 2 handed axe men, scracens and halberders all at the large or huge city level relativly early. Clearly the OP has some valid points about being able to recruit some units at the city level.

[lars573]

1.Some spearmen units are mean't to be better than others.

2.The Druz have an AP bonus due to their axes. Which means they have more attacking power versus anything with armour. Also Boyars have javelins for varity more than anything. Instead of mailed knights the Poles Hungarians and Russians first noble unit is ranged. But only the Hungarian one is a HA (as they get no more HA after that). The Russians get 2 more, and the Poles are more western leaning.

3.The Druz AP bonus is key here too. And they are cheaper to maintain.

4.Your putting way way way too much stock in the name alone. I larned with TW to never put much stock in names. Light raider HA are common for eastern factions. The name doesn't matter overmuch. For paly ballance the Russians need them. They probably chose Kazakh cause it was eastern sounding and easy to say. Cuman is almost dirty sounding (sounds strange ut it's a concern for rating purposes) and the Russian form of Cuman is too hard to pronounce.

5.And you've just made your biggest mistake right here. This isn't Kiev Rus your playing. Or Novgorod for that matter. It's the Russians, as a cultural/ethnic group. Not 1 Russian princely domain but all that existed between 1080 and 1530. Look at it as if your playing Kiev, Novgord, Muskovy, Smolensk, etc at once. CA has always done this made factions out of a cultural groups (this was much more common in RTW with the barbarian factions) when you have a cloud of small states with more or less the same military and culture. And there is no point (game play wise) in splitting them up.

6.Again not Kievan Rus your playing. Also the Provinces are almost exactly like MTW. And there is a set limit to how many you can have. So areas that had more fighting over them have more provinces. Like the Levant, Iberia, France, and Northern Italy. The steppes in M2TW are a lot better than in RTW. More provinces and they are easier to get to.

7.The tech tree is fairly standarized it would be very unballanced for the Russians to not have castles. Hell the Milanese and Venecians need to use castles when historically they never would have.

[dopp]

Do the Polish nobles have shields and the Boyars not? That might explain why they have higher total defense. My Gendarmes in advanced plate have defense 15 compared to upgraded Chivalrics with defense 18 due to their +4 for shield and slightly higher defense value. This is also why Gothic Knights are a little underpowered as well, I believe. The improved armor does not offset the loss of the shield. In MTW shield bonuses got progressively lower the more armor the unit had. In MTW you always get the full bonus for your type of shield.

[slav frunze]

IMO, the game balancing in eastern europe is flawed.
In the first medieval, CA made Poland a rather weak faction. It seems taht this time around, they wanted to beef them up somewhat and successfuly accopmlished that. However, they did not take into account the Russians (and the fact that Poland and Russia are the major players in the game's eastern regions untill the Mongols arrive) and did not make the Russians as strong as the poles. In every campaign, Poland (because of its unrealistically strong position = 2 starting provinces to the russians' 1) steamrolls the rebels to its east and continues to capture Kiev, the Crimea and Kazar every time. This would be most certainly OK of it happened occasionally, but not EVERY TIME. Kievan Rus (or any other Rus for that matter) was never weak enough for the Poles to just walk over them, besides the Poles had more pressing concerns in the west and weren't interested in eastwards expansion until after M2. Lars, lets assume you're right and the Russians in M2 are all the people of the Rus culture - would it not make sense to shift the starting postion somewhat then - say Kiev (which was the major administrative, military and cultural centre at the game's start).

Unit wise, I also feel the Russians have been neglected somewhat. Poland and Hungary get a much better selection of more powerful cavalry - fine IF the spear infantry can realistically hold up against them. As the OP mentions, the Russian militia spearmen don't even have a lsight anti-cavalry bonus! That is neither historically accurate or good well balanced!

Generally, the feeling I get from the game is that the Russians are portrayed as weaker than Poland, Hungary and Denmark. In every campaign, Poland becomes a super power that is equal to or greater in strength than Russia - this is simply not true! (like I said, I don't mind if that happens once in a while, but not EVERY time).

pheew, I think I'll stop ranting for a minute now. I stand by the above, but having said that, this is still a great game and immensely enjoyable - well done CA, despite the Russians its still a good game!

[suvorov]

1.Some spearmen units are mean't to be better than others.

Have you read about the battle against Teutonic Knights i posted?
Why shoud russian spearmen be worst if militia from Novgorod hold the Knights. And some other Faction had never did the same but have such a bonus?

2.The Druz have an AP bonus due to their axes. Which means they have more attacking power versus anything with armour. Also Boyars have javelins for varity more than anything. Instead of mailed knights the Poles Hungarians and Russians first noble unit is ranged. But only the Hungarian one is a HA (as they get no more HA after that). The Russians get 2 more, and the Poles are more western leaning.

Druzhina have only unmounted these bonus but boyars have it too. On horse here no bonus for Druzhina, i checked it, perhaps in ur game its other as in my...
Are you really sure about it?

Russians are not ranged as Druzhina only as Boyars and polish nobles are much better. Druzhina have nothing its only the first step of knights. After that there are no more modern shockunits until the Zar...

3.The Druz AP bonus is key here too. And they are cheaper to maintain.

Only unmounted have they ap-bonus. On horse nothing.

4.Your putting way way way too much stock in the name alone. I larned with TW to never put much stock in names. Light raider HA are common for eastern factions. The name doesn't matter overmuch. For paly ballance the Russians need them. They probably chose Kazakh cause it was eastern sounding and easy to say. Cuman is almost dirty sounding (sounds strange ut it's a concern for rating purposes) and the Russian form of Cuman is too hard to pronounce.

But there were no Kazakhs, there are people from Kazakhstan watch on the map, Kievan Rus never see them.
And Russians from Kievan Rus (its the name of the state not only people from Kiev...) dont use light cavalry with bows as regular troops only sometimes 1 or 2 as mecenary the Cumans( most of the time they were the enemy), never made mongol-raids. Russian Faction could need tanks und bombers too but would historical wrong. Perhaps english would need Horsearchers too, so we give them Indians...

5.And you've just made your biggest mistake right here. This isn't Kiev Rus your playing. Or Novgorod for that matter. It's the Russians, as a cultural/ethnic group. Not 1 Russian princely domain but all that existed between 1080 and 1530. Look at it as if your playing Kiev, Novgord, Muskovy, Smolensk, etc at once. CA has always done this made factions out of a cultural groups (this was much more common in RTW with the barbarian factions) when you have a cloud of small states with more or less the same military and culture. And there is no point (game play wise) in splitting them up..

Its not mistake, the land is named Kievan Rus, there not only people from Kiev, there also people from Novgorod and Moscow and so on. Kievan cause the capital was in Kiev not more. I hope that you understand now.

6.Again not Kievan Rus your playing. Also the Provinces are almost exactly like MTW. And there is a set limit to how many you can have. So areas that had more fighting over them have more provinces. Like the Levant, Iberia, France, and Northern Italy. The steppes in M2TW are a lot better than in RTW. More provinces and they are easier to get to.

Again:
There were only that Kievan Rus no other, its the name of the land and not mean only the people from Kiev.
Call it Russia if it helps to understand what im talkig about, but at 1080+... Kiev was the Capital, it was not polish or rebelled or something. Perhaps in M3TW London became rebelled city and the AI always give it to french or scotish faction then you would understand what im saying.

Other thing, Halych is in the game a polish castle with catholian population but it was russian city with orthodox russians and belongs to Kievan Rus(Russia) at these time never to poland. So if we give New Castle or whatever to Turks and make the population to muslims it would be historical wrong in the same way.

About more provinces, if not, then russian cities must be richer because they represent more than one...But now there are less provinces/cities and they are poor.

7.The tech tree is fairly standarized it would be very unballanced for the Russians to not have castles. Hell the Milanese and Venecians need to use castles when historically they never would have.

Again, Boyars lived in towns not in castles.
In Italy were enough castles so what are you talking about?
http://www.travelwriter.at/about/cas...ly/index.shtml

Egypt produce arabian cavalry in town for example, so why shouldnt russians be able produce Boyars in town too? I dont see standarized or unballance or as you said.

[lars573]

Have you read about the battle against Teutonic Knights i posted?
Why shoud russian spearmen be worst if militia from Novgorod hold the Knights. And some other Faction had never did the same but have such a bonus?

Yes. And Russian spears aren't that sucky. If I had to guess Russian spears lack the anti-cavalry bonus because unlike other factions they get lots of decent infantry early on. Plus CA designed their army to be cavalry based.

Druzhina have only unmounted these bonus but boyars have it too. On horse here no bonus for Druzhina, i checked it, perhaps in ur game its other as in my...
Are you really sure about it?

If the unit uses and axe it has the bonus. But since mounted Druzhina use a lance as a primary they AP bonus isn't listed.

Russians are not ranged as Druzhina only as Boyars and polish nobles are much better. Druzhina have nothing its only the first step of knights. After that there are no more modern shockunits until the Zar...

Don't just go by the stats you see on the unit card. Morale is just as important armour and attack rating. And the card only speaks of it if it's over a certain amount. So who has more morale, Boyars or Polish nobles? (I already know the answer, you don't know). The only way to see which is better is to use both.

Only unmounted have they ap-bonus. On horse nothing.

Axes and polearms always have some kind of AP bonus. It only gets listed in the abilities section if it's the primary weapon.

But there were no Kazakhs, there are people from Kazakhstan watch on the map, Kievan Rus never see them.
And Russians from Kievan Rus (its the name of the state not only people from Kiev...) dont use light cavalry with bows as regular troops only sometimes 1 or 2 as mecenary the Cumans( most of the time they were the enemy), never made mongol-raids. Russian Faction could need tanks und bombers too but would historical wrong. Perhaps english would need Horsearchers too, so we give them Indians...

Kazak's are there for game ballance. Light and fast raider HA like them are nearly imposible to run down without your own. Most of the near by enemies that the Russians face have them, so the Russians need them. CA also loves to stretch things. If it happened once on a real battlefield and was of marginal use but really neat sounding they will put it in the game and give it to a faction. Hence in RTW you could recruit burning pigs.

Its not mistake, the land is named Kievan Rus, there not only people from Kiev, there also people from Novgorod and Moscow and so on. Kievan cause the capital was in Kiev not more. I hope that you understand now.

No it is a mistake. The M2TW Russian faction is every Rus state. Kiev was the main city but they were the Rus. Kievan-Rus is like Byzantine empire. Used by scholars to denote Russia before the Mongols and the medieval Eastern Roman empire respectively. Irregardless of whether the actual people at the used that name or not. The Russians aren't the only faction like this. The Egyptians cover 3 seperate dynasties that were almost seperate kingdoms. The Turks are the Seljuks and Ottomans. Both Turkish tribes but who fought in very different fashions.

Again:
There were only that Kievan Rus no other, its the name of the land and not mean only the people from Kiev.
Call it Russia if it helps to understand what im talkig about, but at 1080+... Kiev was the Capital, it was not polish or rebelled or something. Perhaps in M3TW London became rebelled city and the AI always give it to french or scotish faction then you would understand what im saying.

No it's the name of the period. And the land around Kiev.

Other thing, Halych is in the game a polish castle with catholian population but it was russian city with orthodox russians and belongs to Kievan Rus(Russia) at these time never to poland. So if we give New Castle or whatever to Turks and make the population to muslims it would be historical wrong in the same way.

So? Venice starts ruling Dalmatia and Crete. Dalamtia was ruled by Hungary at the time and Crete wasn't captured by the Venecians until after 1204. France stars off without Aquitane or Brittany. Portugal is ruling Navarre.

About more provinces, if not, then russian cities must be richer because they represent more than one...But now there are less provinces/cities and they are poor.

No. Russian cities can be rich if you manage them effectively.

Again, Boyars lived in towns not in castles.
In Italy were enough castles so what are you talking about?
http://www.travelwriter.at/about/cas...ly/index.shtml

No there are exactly 0 castles on main land Italy. Milan, Genoa, Venice, Florence, Bologna, Rome, and Naples (all the settlements on the main land) are all cities. The only castles are on the islands, Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica.

Egypt produce arabian cavalry in town for example, so why shouldnt russians be able produce Boyars in town too? I dont see standarized or unballance or as you said.

Egypt and Spain/Portugal get cultural buildings that let them build light cavalry in cities. Plaza del Toro and Horse racing tracks. The Russians get an Iconigraphers studio. And the game is ballanced that cities only recruit militia's and some late period professional units. If it's professional (for the most part), feudal, or aristocratic you train it in a castle.


In the end TW is a game not a sim. Gameplay trumps historical-ness. CA plays fast and loose with historical fact a good deal of the time. In the end it's really fun to play. If the changes bother you that much unistal the game and don't play it until one of the waste of time accuracy mods come along. CA is never going be overly loyal to history. It wuld kill the games fun totally and completely. They know it and I know it. If you cna't accept it, your loss.

[Kobal2fr]

Bear in mind as you're reading this that I know absolutely nothing about Russian history or culture whatsoever.

1. Spearmilitia

Why russian spearunits dont have a bonus against cavalry but "all" other nations or most of them like poland have a bonus.

That much is a pet peeve of mine, and not only regarding the Rus. Basic urban and spear militias have the anti cav trait or not, almost randomly, across the board. It's not even a cutlure thing, because even among western factions, some spear militias have it and some don't.


2. Druzhina and Boyars


Why are this professional soldiers in M2TW useless, perhaps Teutonic Knights should be better because of more armour but better or same as the other knights like feudalknights.

In the game Boyars have better defence with 15 and are more useful as Druzhina (defence only 14), charge is by Druzhina a little bit better but Boyars throw missiles and druzhina not.. So you dont need Druzhinas (i think the cost also more) but they were the most professional russian units at the time!

Do not let yourself be fooled by the numbers : Druzhinas are armor piercing, boyars are not. All armor-piercing units have reduced attack scores, but that's because armor-piercing actually HALVES the enemy's armor stat. So, facing Druzhina cavalry, a western knight unit is not 10/16 anymore but 10/12ish (heavy mail = 8 armor , so halving that equals -4 defense). Teutonics are 13/16 IIRC, so that's 13/12 vs 10/14, slight advantage to the Teutonics but not by much. A Nevsky-like general on your side will definitely even things out

Boyars or Boyars sons use in MTW Bows and russian but now in M2TW the throw spears or something, i have never heard something about that. I think Boyars should get their Bows back or the M2TW team should explain why now they throw spears perhaps they read that in historical books or so...

If we watch Boyars and polish knights, i ask me what did polish Cavalry does at 1080 to have so better stats, Boyars have defence 15 and polish knights (or whatever) have 17. We talk about 1080... and not about 1580 and polish Hussars!

I guess it's all a game balance/diversity thing. I assume boyars don't cost as much as Polish nobles in either buying price or upkeep to compensate for their inferior stats. Also, bow-wielding Boyars would probably be redundant with Khazars and Cossacks, so giving javelins to Boyars was probably a gamey, if not historical, move from CA to give the Russian player more tactical options.

3. Unmounted Druzhina and Boyars.

That units have the same stats!
Unmounted Boyars dont throw anything but with horse they throw missiles why is it so?
Why russian player should need two same units?

Dismounted Druzhina are armor-piercing. That's a huge, huge huge huge bonus, as mentionned earlier. Boyars can shoot, Druzhina are better at melee. Once again, maybe not true to history, but as far as the game is concerned, it gives more options to the player.

And once again, although they may be a bit inferior to the equivalent christian units, I believe the Russian ones are cheaper, so you can have more and even things out.

4. Kazakhen

Later in the game you get Cossacks, i think its o.k., but in early game they are Kazakhen but at 1080 Kiever-Rus didnt use Kazakhen or know something about them or Kazakhstan and so on.

Russians didnt have light Cavalry with Bows in the time of Kievan-Rus only armoured Cavalry with Bows(in MTW they were represent as Boyars) so Russians never made raides as Mongols or Cumans or Timurids and so on.

Again, that's game logic taking over history. Having only one type of horse-archers (heavily armoured Boyars) wouldn't be fun for the player, and besides, they needed *some* units to fill the gap between Motte and Stone Castle. They chose the Khazaks over, say, light spear cav, because it was culturally relevant and interesting. CA has always chosen fun over pure history.

Besides, while the early Russian civilization never used them in their regular army, I'm confident the early Kazakhs/Cumans did raid their neighbours on their own (even if they weren't under orders from the Rus), so using them that way is probably historical ?

6. Cities/Regions

In Kievan-Rus was Kiev a capital so why we start with Novgorod?
What search poland near Kiev if historical they didnt have Halych/Galicia, that was Russian City.
Why is Kiev so poor and in the hole ukraine is only one City (Kiev)? Historical they were more than this, please watch the map:


http://www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/kievan_rus_map2.gif


M2TW not reperesent russian cities or give some to poland or something.

They are big territories with more than only little towns.
Galicia, Volinya, Turov, Pereyaslavl, Chernigov, Novgorod Seversk.
What do Galicia (Halych) in the polakish faction?

Again, I believe that's a game > history thing. They wanted to give western factions a hard time in conquering Russia, because historically western powers have always failed in that regard (Napoleon, Hitler, and whoever was unlucky enough to awaken Alexander Nevsky ;) ). Since western armies rely as much on infantry as they do on cavalry, and since russian armies as they are in the game are mostly cav heavy, leaving much empty space between Russian settlements gave the native Rus the advantage.

Besides, what you say can also be applied to each and every region of the map. Why choose Rennes as the city representing Britanny when Brest, Quimper and St Malo were just as significant culturally and tactically ? Why only Marrakech + Algiers in North Africa when there were so many local powers back then ? Hell, why a "Moors" faction when what it portrays in game were pretty much all independant city states ?

Answer : because it's simpler to handle gamewise. They made compromises with history across the board, I can vouch for that. I'm French myself, and believe you me, 1080 France was nothing like it's portrayed in the game, but then again, Rome was never Brutii + Scipii + Julii either...

7. Castles and Cities

Kievan-Rus dont use Castles as most western factions, Kievan-Rus based on towns, people who dont live in the towns dont pay taxes, nobody ever registerd them until russians have to pay money to mongols after their invasion. Peasants were free until 1497 unlike in west, what do slavery in Kievan-Rus as ressource?

Again, it's just the closest thing. You have to understand MTW and M2TW are mostly ethno-centric games. Their focus is on western history, occidental cultures, and how *they* behaved. That's why the western factions were more powerfull than the Muslims were across the board in MTW, and that is also why western factions' technology goes further than orthodox and muslim ones do in M2TW.

If they went historic all the way, they'd have to make a different game/economy/military system for each civilization.

I myself am somewhat angry that, for example, the Muslim imams gain traits such as "enemy of the heretics" when heresy is SUCH a western concept and totally alien to the Muslim world, or get "monk" retinues when real world Muslim holy men were never conceited enough to "remove themselves from the influence of a corrupt world" ; but the game is made by and focused on occidental culture, so... just accept it's not going to be perfect ?

Or, since RTW (and M2TW when we get the unpacker) is a very very free and open game, just mod the game the way it ought to be according to you

[KARTLOS]

3. Unmounted Druzhina and Boyars.

That units have the same stats!
Unmounted Boyars dont throw anything but with horse they throw missiles why is it so?
Why russian player should need two same units?

Why western knights get better defence if unmounted and russian unmounted Druzhina and Boyars dont?

Unmounted Boyars should be something like unmounted dvor and unmounted Dvor a bit better because a later unit (unm.Dvor 11-11-17 and unm.Boyars 10-10-15 or so...). That would make sense.



.

i am playing a campaign as the russians at the moment and have some sympathy with your points.

this one in particular is just bizzare - surely an error? what is the point of having two identical units, its bloody stupid. it is also boring for the gamer as uint variety makes for a more interesting game. i hope someone will fix this with a mod.

as regards the russians starting with only one city etc i wouldnt say that the russians are too weak. i have found them to be the most difficult faction i have played with so far - but that is a good thing, as they are an enjoyable challenge. on most of my other long campaigns i have completed before the mongols even arrive.
there are two things that make the russians more challenging - no crusades (= cheap top quality mercs). and secondly the distance- it takes you a long time to spread your wings because the distances are large and there are no roads to begin with.

if you are someone who likes to do multiplayer then obvioulsy their unit roster is more of an issue.