Russia

[rios]

everybody hates the russians, on VH campaign it's virtually impossible to establish any alliance, so handling the hordes will be a solo mission.

all the dismounted russian 'knights' are virtually the same, moral difference but not noticiable IMO. Only advantage of russian during late period is its musketeers, with stats of handgunners and long range weapons.

On my VH/VH campaign, after taking out poland and hungry I had to hold out for 17 turns to prepare for mongols. Going west at that point meaning getting tangled into serie of little regions and 4 factions to deal with...

[Sheogorath]

Getting alliances with Russia requires moving fast. You need to snag a bunch of cities quickly, then make an alliance with whoever seems weakest (and isnt at war with anybody you want to ally to). Then you can climb the ladder, so to speak, until you have some decent alliances.
Not that they'll help you that much, since your only neighbors dislike you.
However, you can cow the Turks by smashing anything they send your way and maybe grabbing a few of their far-north cities if you go that far east, theyve generally left me alone after a sound beating.

[IRPhydeaux]

I have seem to take a very different take with my Russian campaign. Playing on H/H.

I have moved south into Kiev for the money, but otherwise I am a naval power. My empire is built along the Baltic Coast. I had some early run ins with Poland as I took Kiev and kept them out of Ryazan and Moscow to my back. Then as retribution for the attacks I took Thorn before calling a ceasefire. I loaded up with cheap units in Kiev and Thorn then sent my armies north into Scandanavia. I built a second army at Thorn and sailed into Magdeburg. I am currently at war with HRE (an ally of the Danes) and besieging Stettin to complete my Baltic circle. Once I take Stettin, I think we will have a ceasefire while I build up and wait for the Mongols. If there is enough time I might take out Scotland to have a few more ports and a base for expansion into England later. I really only have two large armies in this region but I control the waters and can have my army anywhere its needed. One thing that was vital to this process was blocking the land bridge from Denmark to Sweden. It took awhile to get the Stockholm under control and I needed some time to stay garrisoned there. I just kept the Danes locked up on the continent against the English and built up. Then when I was ready I actually skipped straigt to the fortress at Magdeburg then backtracked to Denmark.

As for battle strategy I seem VERY different. I avoid fighting in settlements at all costs. I use two seperate armies, one made up of cheap infantry, bowmen and seige equipment and one made up of cavalry. When defending, I hole up my infantry and send my cavarly out to make several attacks on any invading army. I do as much damage as I can before running out of arrows or getting pinned in somewhere - then I run like hell. I can usually get in two or three of these attacks before an army reaches my settlements. Its a long way to anywhere in Russia.

When attacking I use a similar strategy. I move to the emptiest settlement I can find, often behind the lines, and lay seige with my infantry. Then when they sally from another settlement to defend, I attack with my cavalry in the open. Usually this wipes them out.

The key to this strategy is to accept retreat over a body count with your cavalry. You win more than you lose, but you still retreat a lot. Its great for your units since you rack up experience, but bad for your generals since you rack up losses. I have two armies of about 3 each Boyar sons, Khazaks, Druhzinas. Nearly all of the units are up in the silver in experience. I usually keep my best generals out of the harrying attacks and let lower level generals take the command hit and then use their bodygaurd recklessly.

When the Mongols show up I plan to use lots of cheap infantry and seige equipment at all the fordes around Kiev and a lot of woodmen and crossbows in the forests up around Moscow. All pretty cheap. If they get through i'll just pull back both armies toward Smolensk and hug the coast, hoping they spread south against the Turks and thin out.

[Bijo]

Man, you guys are right in saying Russia can be pretty damn hard to play. Those Polish just keep on coming and then those Danish. Ugh: it's going slowly. But I've pushed them back and have taken two new fresh towns from them :)

The bottleneck is the weak infantry, so you should mostly rely on a woman's stratagem of throwing things at them :P (I love that line of those general speeches, lol). They make me think of Scythia from Rome... with their horse archers. Well, it's basically the same area anyway :)

In all the factions I've checked out, playing as Russia, Poland is by far the worst early enemy I've ever encountered. Their Polish Nobles missile cavalry is annoying to take care of, just like most missile cavalry anyway.


Question though: do the Russians also get gunpowder cavalry? Never tried them out yet, but I do know HRE has them.

[Rothe]

I started a H/VH game as Russia. Timescale is 0.5 (nothing else modded).

I quickly allied with the Danes and also the Polish. I guess the Polish will attack you no matter what and this is because they are at peace with the other factions. The game is coded so that AI factions always go to war if they are at peace with all their neighbours and I think this is the case. The player is the preferred target...

So, if you want a break from the polish invasions, ally with them and try to gift them up. Then try to get them to attack some other faction (byzantium or hungary would be prime targets).

My first invasion was Helsinki and then I went for Riga and Vilnius. Later I took the first line of provinces up to Ryazan.

So far I seem to be unbeatable on the field since I only bring kazaks and boyar sons to engagements in the field - maybe a few druzina as well (the lance cav).

I would not disregard the "weaker" russian cav too much. Of course later you get the better versions, but for the start the basic units should do. Maybe it is a bit harder than the other factions...

The diplomacy part with the polish seems to be weird. I suppose their attacks are forced (as I describe earlier) and once they lose one big battle they are quickly ready for ceasefire. The fun part is that they pay 15000 florins for the privilege. Also, after ceasefire you can sell them trade rights for some florins too (unless they used all of their treasury).

It seems that once they pay up, it takes a while for them to make up good armies to assault again.

So, overall, the polish are easy to beat. You can basically upkeep a big enough stack of cavalry to repel them with the money you get when you beat their army when they attack. Then sue for ceasefire and repeat this...

I have allied with HRE, English and Danish now that the game has gone some 100 turns forward. Polish are either neutral or at war. To keep relations up, I would recommend gifting the AI factions regularly with 300-400 florins. Also, I tend to pay them tribute 100/turn.

I also have tried to keep away from having a land border with other factions than the Polish to avoid the forced AI attacks... I try to upgrade my settlements first to huge size before trying to take out the polish entirely.

This is merely a weird preference against blizing. I also tend to press the End turn button a lot but this is because of the 0.5 timescale.

As for developing the economy, it seems that Helsinki, Riga and novgorod are good places for cities and sea trade is a good focus. I got a master merchant's guild to Novgorod.

Merchants seem to be amazing for Russians. A good way to level them up is to take them into sweden to sit on the iron (2 of them) - try to monopolize the iron at all times. A 5 finance merchant can make some 100 florins per turn off the iron and even levels up nicely (they start at 2-4).

Once I get to about 6-7 finance I use ships to take them to Flanders or denmark. Just recently I found that sitting a 8 finance merchant on the textiles in netherlands area (sout of england) can make me over 400 florins per turn off the single merchant! amazing! Just be sure to take a spy along to avoid other high level merchants and to make quick acquisitions of low level merchants in the area.

I calculated that I can make up to 800-900 florins/turn off the four mid to high level merchants that I have currently. This is a good bunch of money compared to my total income and I get more when I can take out enemy merchants too. and there is little reason to go beyond the textiles in northern France.

[bukharajones]

I find that charging toward Kiev and snatching up every city along the way works fine. I allied with the Poles and Hungarians early on, expecting to be at war with them. While holding them at Vilnius and Kiev, I prepared a counter strike of druzhina and mounted boyars and moved to take the borders of Iasti and whatever else while another force, relying on mercs, consolidated Ryazan, Moscow, Sarkel, Bulgar, etc. Helsinki, Riga, so forth, were wrapped up in short order.

I let the Poles and Hungarians exhaust themselves on the fortresses I took from them, using a field army between the two fortresses to relieve them as needed, then moved from Vilnius to campaign against Thorn. Seizing it, I leveled up and proceeded to choke the Poles, clashing in time with the Danes. The Poles went down relatively easy. I ignored the armies, crushed the cities, figuring I could always build more if I needed. Then I closed on Hungary. By the end of it all, I destroyhed Hungary and held large chunks of Germany, but held to begin pushing toward the Byzantines. However, the Mongols are in the Balkans, and they are a headache, but not unmanageable... the Timurids, too....

Russia is quite a bit of fun and not so hard. Generally I ignore rebels...

[glasket]

I am having a ball with Russia.
The tactics are well discussed above so I will not elaborate on which settlements to take.

My army looks like this (I am only 100 years or so into the long campaign).
The Russians have an advantage in that they can build archer militia (Egypt is the only other faction I think with this ability). I build these units as they have no upkeep and are great for wall defences in settlements.

Unfortunately the Russian heavy cavalry is not strong (the Druzhina are extremely weak I find against infantry and other cavalry). I only have a few of these maily used as skirmishers and to chase down routing enemies.

I use the Kazaks to weaken and lure the enemy quite a bit.

You should always have a few spear militia or spearmen to fight of the enemy cavalry/infnatry

My other unit and by far the best Russian unit so far is the dismounted dvor the super archers who double as as heavy cavalry. Build a considerable amount of these and you should be fine.

This is my very very basic summary of the early Russian units which are worthwhile to build.

[Alexander: The hellenic empire]

[QUOTE=rios;1332459]everybody hates the russians, on VH campaign it's virtually impossible to establish any alliance, so handling the hordes will be a solo mission.

JUST ALLY WITH THE HORDES AND DESTROY EUROPE!

[oz_wwjd]

I've found it almost impossible to ally with the hordes. In my most recent game I expanded to Ryazan and had to deal with repeated attacks by the Mongols at Ryazan and the timurid hordes attacking Kiev. Every attempt I made at diplo with them was rejected,hell it was hard enough keeping those damn elephants out of my cities, I only survived due to the fact that I had crushed poland earlier and my Cossack musket spam at all my cities that would be threatened by the hordes,and had alliances with most of the surrounding nations,so I could concentrate at the threat at hand.

[Calgacus]

In common with pretty much everyone else here, starting as Russia I proceeded with a mixture of caution and tempered expansionism, and soon found myself being handed my little furry Cossack hat on a plate by Poland, Hungary, and Denmark to the point where my economy rapidly spiralled into terminal decline. So, I re-started, but this time I made international diplomacy the centre of my approach. I launched an all-out charm offensive from turn one. While the standing armies were sent off to secure rebel-held Iasi, Vilnius and Riga, I started building diplomats, and sent them off as soon as possible to make contact with three key powers: Poland, the Pope, and the Byzantines.

This strategy (such as it is) is based on the notion that as Russia's early period armies are a bit, well, naff, and the economy is fragile, it would be better to avoid war for as long as possible, while teching up the country's economy and military establishment furiously behind the scenes.

The first state to establish friendly relations with is Poland. Initially, they don't like you, they will attack you, and they're right next to you. If you can get a diplomat to them and start giving them trade rights and map information, followed by a hefty chunk of your starting money (around 5,000 florins should do it) you can get an alliance. This slowly begins to improve your international reputation. Once your diplomat reaches the Papal States, go through the same procedure, and secure the Pope's allegiance: this (I think) makes it less likely that Catholic factions will go to town on you. Certainly this has worked for me. Finally, the Byzantines seemed like appropriate alliance material for several reasons. They are the only other Orthodox faction in the game, so I assumed that they might be stauncher allies than the Catholic factions. More importantly, they were near my south-western frontier, and might help me out if the Poles or Hungarians kicked off. I sent a diplomat and a princess to Constantinople, and, after a ridiculous amount of bribery, secured an alliance and a royal marriage. I rejected Hungary as allies, again for several reasons: the Hungarians are weaker than the Poles, and therefore less of a threat to Russia. They also have contiguous borders with Poland and the Byzantines, meaning that sooner or later you are going to have to break the alliance, with possible penalties for your international reputation.

After this point I secured my Scandanavian holdings through an alliance with Denmark. The more alliances, the better your reputation, and so the easier it is to get further allies. It is vital to keep your relations with these key allies up to the 'Outstanding' or 'Perfect' level with regular, small gifts of money, administered every couple of turns by diplomats stationed in their territory.

This was all done with the approach of the dread Mongols in mind; I most certainly did not want them turning up near Sarkel and traipsing through my beautifully administered state, slaughtering, pillaging and generally being ill-mannered. So, I stationed a diplomat near Tblisi to intercept them. After about 60 turns of fostering international harmony, building up my economy, and not fighting wars, my reputation was 'Very Reliable'; I was also filthy rich because I hadn't needed to build masses of troops. As soon as the Mongol Hordes arrived (east of Yerevan), I improved relations with them through the distribution of liberal donatives, and then a couple of turns later hit them with 8,000 florins and a request for alliance. They accepted and happily toddled off to sack Asia Minor, leaving the sacred soil of Russia unviolated.

Now, by the time they start threatening to break through Constantinople and approach Iasi, my Dismounted Dvor and accompanying high-calibre troops will be ready in my western fortresses (no legions of pitiful clown militia waving tiny spears for me). Also, the Mongols' war with the Byzantines (once they've polished off the Turks) will provide me with a legitimate excuse to break the alliance with them, and fight them in conjunction with the Byzantines (and possibly the Poles/Hungarians) in the West, while opening up a second front using troops at Sarkel, and moving down through Tblisi and Yerevan. Hopefully, by the time the Timurids invade I'll have thought of a way of stopping their ghastly Arakanese Zebra Gunners, or whatever other ahistorical tosh their armies are composed of this week...

[oz_wwjd]

I may be strange but I don't use dis dvor much if all all, I like relying on my cossack musketters once I get them to win battles,and for that I need decent pikes. so I usually hire some Landsknecht pikemen,as they are avaliable quite near my territory. Add some artillery to that,and against the poles/hungarians and there calv-heavy armies-I usually stand a good chance of winning battles,provided I choose my battlefield wisely and make sure they can't outflank me,or get behind my pikes,as by the time they get to my forces,there morale has been reduced by mass musketfire and artillery,to the point that they mostly rout as soon as they hit my pike-line.

[Aggressor]

100% agree with earlier comments about how the Mongol invasion is a joke. EIGHT full stacks attacked me and moved through Russia taking every city along the way. To make things worse I only had 3 full stack armies to defend them and one of those turned rebel! typical.

Its very difficult as the Russians to gain territory outside of modern day Russia, to upgrade your towns and castles AND build up enough armies to defend against the Mongols because of how tight the money situation is in Russia. I think you either have to consolidate early on and just wait for the Mongols to invade and wipe them out and then gain territory (by this time you'd have to be very fast to grab 45 regions though) as fighting the Poles for example and the Mongols on both sides of you will just turn into a disaster.

I started my campaign again and found the best thing to do is just to board everyone onto a ship at the start of the campaign and either take over the British Isles or Denmark, the latter was my initial target. I've now wiped out the Danes, have all of Scandinavia and Hamburg. The poles then attacked me at Novgorod which I found very odd considering i'd moved closer to their main cities at Arhus and were there for the taking. So I took Magdeburg, Stettin, Breslau, Thorn and Krakow whilst they themselves marched into Russia and took the rebel states there. I offered them a ceasefire and an alliance to which they accepted. Now I have a buffer between myself and the Mongols. Good times.

Since then the HRE have waged war (they were in alliance with Poland funnily enough but the Poles decided to break the alliance with the HRE) so my intended targets are now to push my empire into Germany and down towards Italy. I also sent a ship to take Inverness at the top of the British Isles as English cities have huge potential to be money makers but thats a task for later on.

In terms of military power the Russians late game are incredible. Particularily the Dismounted Dvor, Berdiche Axemen and Tsars Guard. The Dvor Cavalry also deserve a mention. Early on it can be a real struggle at times, I found the best strategy was the create plenty of woodsmen (cheap), horse archers, and Boyar Sons whilst making the numbers up with mercenaries.

I'd ask anyone to take the above advice into consideration when playing as the Russians as I was absolutely gutted when the Mongols arrived, it can be a total game killer as the Rus!