Russia

[Sheogorath]

Your first action as Russia should be to run as fast as you can to Kiev and Caffa, taking everything on the way. Its very important that the Byzantines/Poles NOT surround you. You do NOT want them coming at you from more than one direction. Initially, income will be an issue. I suggest building some merchants to help suppliment it a bit, send them to the silver sources in the HRE, the silk in Baghdad and maybe the spices/other resources in the middle east. This can take a while, but it is well worth it.
War with the Poles is pretty much inevitable. You are far weaker than the HRE and the Poles are predisposed by the code to hate you :P
The best way to deal with them at the start is to force them to assault your castles, since their cavalry is better than yours and Polish Nobles firing range is outside the 'run away' range of your HA's.
If the Byzantines attack, HA's are your best bet. That and getting the Turks to attack them.
Also, I suggest converting ALL of your 'frontline' cities (with borders to the Poles) into castles. They WILL be attacked and you are going to need the units to defend them. Russia's rouster of city-build units is composed of suck and crap, especially since its difficult to initially get anything past those horrible peasant archers.

In sieges, it is VITAL that you destroy the enemy ram. I find that most Russian units are pretty decent defending against Infantry on walls, but put them in the streets fighting cavalry and they lose all composure and die quite quickly. You can take siege towers and ladders initially, provided you have some guys to help you.
My suggestion is that, if a vital city looks like it wont stand a siege, have a general (if you have one in/near the city) recruit all the Merc's he can. Sometimes sheer mass can substitute for quality. Your finances will take a hit, but I suggest you keep a bit of savings for such an event.

[Sheogorath]

After a few battles I think I have this to say:

Russia initially has access to some pretty decent mercenaries, the Slavic Spearmen are decent enough and quite good at holding walls. They do better than your typical Spear Militia in combat with cavy as well.
Alan light cavy is okay, but you can get better units cheaper in your cities. Only use them if you have to, mostly to bulk up prior to a siege.
Cuman HA's are definitly okay units, theyre essentially Kazakh's which cost twice as much, but can be recruited anywhere, I dont think their upkeep is any higher than regular Kazakh's either.

Druzhina (sp?) are good initially, but I find that they are rapidly outclassed by mainstream European cavalry, you need to build a lot of them if you want to have any hope against the Poles once they get FK's, and even initially they can have trouble against the faster Polish Mounted Nobles. Theyre good for chasing down routers though. Their main disadvantage is their upkeep, which is something like 250 per unit.
Boyar Son's are kinda meh, to me. The main advantage of javaline cavy is for use against non-javaline cavalry and infantry.
But what is the Polish army's cavalry mostly made up of when these guys are still useful?
Javaline cavalry.
Since the Turks and Byzantines both have javy cavy/archer cavy as well, these guys arent much use unless you plan on sailing to France for some land. They have decent mellee stats, so I guess you can use them as bulk-troops. I also note that they seem a bit slower than Polish Nobles.

Kazakhs are, most likely, your most useful initial cavy. Theyre basic HA's, but the key point is that the Poles DONT have them. The disadvantage is that their skirmish range is short of the Polish spear-chucking range. Still, theyre good for harrassmen and even the occasional peasant-slaughter.
A good strategy is to lure the main force of an enemy army away, and then use the Kazakhs to charge in and wipe out any siege weaponry they leave behind them. You'll take some casualties, but siege crews arent set up to fight cavalry.
One or two stacks of 3-4 Kazakhs can put a SERIOUS dent in any invasion, used properly.


I havent had a chance to do much with them, but dismounted Boyar Sons seem like fairly basic dismounted knights.

Woodsmen seem almost totaly useless. Even against already-engaged enemies they die like flies. Good cannon fodder though and not expensive, so if your into that kamikazi thing, go for it.



My advice during sieges depends on who you are facing. If its the Poles or any cavy-heavy army, stick tight, put your archers on the walls and pepper those ram opereators with arrows. Your goal should be to keep the enemy cavalry OUT of the city. Infantry you can deal with, but for me it seems like the enemy always has a larger amount of guys on horses.
A good tactic is to send a unit or two of light cavy and/or horse archers to the other gate(s, if its a city) and flank the enemy army. That way you can catch any siege weapons they leave behind AND put some extra arrows into the enemy flanks.

If it looks like a vastly superior enemy force is going to breach your gate, there is a simple tactic which may save your bacon. Take a unit of cheap units, or a unit which is almost dead (but make sure theres at least 10-20 of them left!) and have them charge the enemy ram. The guys manning the ram will stop, giving your archers another one or two volleys before they can get back to the ram! This means one or two more chances that you'll light that baby up like a greased Christmas tree.



A bit of advice on the campaign map. Ive found tha the Danes are generally pretty friendly, an alliance with them will boost your 'cool' rating with the other factions and may well set you on the way to glory. Ive got alliances with just about everybody on the map now, and trade agreements with everybody except Spain and Portugal, and in that case only because my diplomat is too slow.
Russia with lots of trade agreements is an uber-economic powerhouse, those Black Sea ports pull in tons of cash. Just go and look at all the overlapping trade-routes which head out through the Straits of Marama (where Constantinople is).

[Zoroaster]

I experienced something different. I took moscow, ryazan,helsinki,riga,vilnius and smolensk which provided my with enough settlements to afford technical progress. I prevented rushing to the black sea too fast in order to avoid open war too early. It worked - the poles attacked me but there were overrun by the danes. Hungaria and the byzantine ignored me. As russian general i had the most "crossed swords" signs on the map this far. I fought battles having only 7 units against stacks a twice or third that big. (remains me on playing as scythian in rome ) All in all in the beginnig i concetrated on purely cavalry, druzhina and lots of kazhaks. Later you get "uber archers" - the dismounted dvor. Late russia doeas really well so i suggest researching as fast as possible. The later russian infantry units are nice so i did warfare in turkish stile having 3 dvor archers and the same amount of cossack infantry (really nice) supplemented by only a few guarding infantry and 4 horse archers (mounted dvors (outstanding) + cossacks) shooting the enemy to bits. The cossack infantry does really well in ranged combat, its simple to gain and has not this high upkeep as expected.
Russian has not this muliti large unit scale as other nations but its really worth playing.
^^
try it

[Debe2233]

Russia is unfortunately a fairly poor area, not totally desolate but it takes longer to make as much cash as you can further west or south.

The Poles in particular I found to be a massive problem and especially on VH/H where they can simply out produce you, but you can get around this by using your cavalry which is what Russia is best at. I used a general and 4 Boyar Sons and 10 Kazhaks and hit Polands Capital, I had to sneak through their territory to do this and ambushes are fantastic with horse archers and boyar sons and easy to set up thanks to the number of trees around Russia/Poland.

(5 horse archers and 2 Boyar Sons each side of the enemy convoy and its shooting fish in a barrel and great fun to watch as the enemy turns this way and that way trying to sort their battle line out)

Once I’d sacked their cities and run off Poland wasn’t so much of a problem, I could then build up my cities using the money I’d got from them without having to expand my already stretched forces. The next time I invaded Poland it was for keeps!.

(Also because of the vast territory rebels can be a real pain, I suggest having an army of 2 Boyar Sons and 6 Kazhaks at each castle so they can ride out to deal with any that pop up)

[lalartu]

after having played as England and the Danes I gotta say, Russia is quite more challenging and well fun.

I'm around 1300 now and I didn't find much problem until now.

I think before, Poland was constantly trying to take Vilnius and Kiev, but were unsuccessful because I put full garrisons of spear and archers (cheap and effective).

I don't think using cavalry a lot of is a good idea since they're more expensive and taking cities with them is a pain in the butt.
Dismounted dvor however is a decent all around unit and I'm trying to build up a full army of them (they're highly armored warriors with very good missile skills, probably the best Russian infantry unit).

now, the way I started the game was by taking every visible rebel town, to the South and Southwest and then advanced east, taking the rest of the rebels. since I had 1 regions under my control, I had no problem with profits and the game was quite easy until now

What happened obviously the is the Mongolian invasion and it just so happens that as soon as they come, they lay a siege on Bulgar (eastern most town). but oddly enough, they do not take it and simply continue west. I assume it was a bug. they are advancing toward Kiev, so I'm massively evacuating the city since there's 4000 of them and I have less than an eight of that within 4 year of walk distance.

so I'm praying to my orthodox gods that they will only take kiev and continue west toward byzantine and hungary because there's not a chance right now that I can resist such an onslaught.
I also started making plans and decided I'll move to scandinavia is things go bad, so my fleet is standing by with some of the reserve forces.

also while fighting Poland, I managed to sack Iasi and another fortress near it that was lightly guarded and added about 10 000 total to my funds. it so happens that while they were sending all their forces to Riga, I moved south and cost them two cities (which Hungarians swiftly took).