Russia

[frogbeastegg]

Russia needs to be unlocked before you can play as them. To do this you can either complete a campaign (on any difficutly, long or short setting) with one of the five starting factions, or you can edit the preferences file. To do this open your Sega/M2TW folder/data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign, find the file called "descr_strat" and open it with wordpad. Now find the section which says

campaign      imperial_campaign
playable
   england
   france
   hre
   spain
   venice
end
unlockable
   sicily
   milan
   scotland
   byzantium
   russia
   moors
   turks
   egypt
   denmark
   portugal
   poland
   hungary
end
nonplayable
   papal_states
   aztecs
   mongols
   timurids
   slave
end

Change it so it reads

campaign      imperial_campaign
playable
   england
   france
   hre
   spain
   venice
   sicily
   milan
   scotland
   byzantium
   russia
   moors
   turks
   egypt
   denmark
   portugal
   poland
   hungary
end
nonplayable
   papal_states
   aztecs
   mongols
   timurids
   slave
end

[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).

[rios]

Like Sheogorath said, Kiev is early priority, to prevent being boxed in by the Hungarians and Polish.

Once I had castles I started making boyar sons. Leave fire at will on and set their skirmish off so you could use them like heavy cavalries, that shoot... Once the boyar sons get to silver experience they were unstoppable. They are also cheap and fast to retrain, not a bad unit imo.

[Captsin]

Let me tell you, it gets friggin ridicluous. THe mongols evetually come and so do the timurids, like 10 black stacks with elephants (so stupid, never happened in history). Anyway I just quit. It's impossible to stop. I had Ryazan as a fortress knowing somethings going to come up out of the east, but it was hard enough on the western front. Just as Poland and hungary both were under control ... game over. I mean I could play, but it just doesn't seem fun anymore (and why would watching all those hours of gameplay building up settlements go up in somke to elephants shooting cannon balls). Can't grab anybody from the western front over to the east as I need them over there. Guess I'll play as England, heck can't be that hard, no elephants in scotland.

[Sheogorath]

Oh WAH, no elephant cant stand up to my mighty siege weapon

Seriously though, its just a matter of finding ways around said elephants. You are trying to fight a non-European army with European tactics.

PROTIP:
The Timurids and Mongols ARE NOT the Poles and Hungarians.

As to the massive amount of units they get, yes? The Russian states historically fell to the Mongols, youre fighting history sonny jim. Youve got the same attitude the Russians developed after some of their defeats.

Perk up. If all else fails, there is a time honoured Russian tactic that almost never fails:
Meat waves!
Build huge stacks of cheap units, as many as you can, and send those unfourtunates hurtling towards those elephants and 'unstoppable' armies of cavy. Auto-resolve said battles and those stacks will start to look smaller and smaller.

The basic idea is:
Dont try to engage them at castles or forts. The Timurids will simply destroy your walls. You can do that with the mongols though, provided you have the defensive infantry/archers to keep them from busting your gates in and flooding uber-cavy into your city.

[lalartu]

historically mongols took a huge chunk of Russia, just like it happens in the game (except mogolian AI is really dumb andI had them walk in circles for about 40 years) and Timurlane took Moscow.

ok he didn't have elephants, but you have to make it hard right...?

I think it's a good idea and by far I gotta say Russia is the hardest faction to play with. I haven't tried Turkey or Byzantine yet, but Turkey has one of the best units and Byzantine is bloody rich. Russia starts small and has crappy units.

now, I personally don't condone quitting and surrendering, so I'll provide a basic idea of how to fight both threats and what worked for me.

From the beginning, I would suggest taking every baltic city along with other cities up to armenia (but don't take armenia and georgia). turn most of them into cities except for the border ones which should be citadels.
Riga and Vilnius and Novgorod are your best income sources and riga might get attacked by poles a few times, so keep it safe.

use orthodox priests to avoid unnecessary decent, especially since all your cities are so far away from each other, so the distance from capital dissent will be there.

it's gonna be a while before mongols come, so I'd suggest doing the following:

-annex denmark or at least take scandinavia - this is your backup resost (since nobody ever goes there) in case you get overwhelmed in Russia proper and have to retreat. turn Oslo and Stockholm into cities and build ports ports ports
-get rid of poland as soon as possible to liberate one front.
i've noticed only poland attacks repeatedly and aggressively. hungary does not.
if hungary takes Iasi, they'll be happy with it.

Kiev is by far the hardest city to hold (you can turn it into citadel, but you won't get the income from black sea ports, which would be benefitial for you since you don't have much income to play with).


now as for units: most of your units suck and you really need to use brains to win battles.
I think by far the most versatile and useful unit is dismounted dvor, it's only 150/turn and is average in price to purchase. they are excellent archers and quite good in melee combat. the only thing they should avoid are polish (or anyone else's) heavy cavalry, but for that you also get your spearmen which are slightly better than those of other factions.

I generally ignore making spears and simply build a huge force of dism dvor and later on (when you get them) mounted dvor and cossacks, to harass units in skirmish and lead them to my dismounted dvor traps.

cossacks are an excellent and cheap skirmishing unit. dvor is better because they're also a heavy cavalry unit, but that makes them slower.

both units can do parthian shot (i.e. shoot while moving) which makes them tremendously powerful. you can literally move in circles around the enemy and shower them with arrows while they're stupidly trying to catch you.

so skirmishing and dismounted dvor are the units I usually used for western battles.

when mongols arrive, within 20 or so years you get your other excellent unit - cossack musketeers. they are slightly worse than turk musketeers, but better than anything else anyone got.
I would suggest using tons of them (even tho they're expensive to buy) against mongols. place them in front of everyone and use your dismounted dvor behind them for artillery shower. mongols usually start showering you too, so make sure you place them all looosely. your dvor is good at avoiding arrows and your muskeets have very long reach.
also make sure to use landscape to your advantage. if you have more muskeeters, it's best to sit downhill so that you can always see your enemy, rather than sit up hill where you can only see them when they reach you (hills are round, so you can't see the enemy at the bottom of the hill if you're on top and thus can't really shoot them with a musket, but can shoo tthem with a bow).

but the best strategy against mongols is probably using your dvor and your muskets to distract, while your druzhina or other heavy horse units flank their infantry/missile units. now, since mongols pretty much have same good units you do plus they also have lancers, you are in a disadvantage, so simply try to kill them off slowly. catch their units when they're alone or with a weaker general and dessimate them slowly while they're trying to reach Kiev.

in my game they took kiev, but I sent army after army toward their positions and also used bridge that protects novgorod to trap their silly units (they're bad at bridge assaults), destroying their 10 or so armies one by one. eventually I took kiev and forced them out of my land, but there are obviously more of them in the south fighting the islam world.

as for timurids. if you do not take armenia/georgia, I think they should avoid you for a while and fight turkey/byzantine. that's what happened in my game. it's obvious that by the time they come, you might not be ready for another onslaught, but using same strategy and most importantly using your muskeeters as much as you can will work like a charm. use your cheap spear units to charge their elephants and use muskeeters to shoot at them, so that they go berserk. elephants seem to have issues with having thousands of arrows and bullets be thrown at them, so they panick and run away when musketers and dvor shower them with stuff.
the rest of the units are similar to mongols, so it's really a matter of using the elephant thing to your advantage (i,e, showering them until they panic or trying to confuse your enemy with your swift cossack units)


you also get a decent berdiche unit (halberd looking axe) with a good attack rating which can work like a charm against infantry and elephants if you increase their armor rating to plate or so.
but other than that, if you feel forced from your lands and losing all your territory - do what other did in that case, migrate west and become a nomad yourself. force the western nations out of their own lands with your retreating units.

if you took scandinavia, you can always take a refude there for a while until you rebuild your army and can try to retake your lands again.

so there you have it, russians never surrender:)


in conclusion, just a rehash of what units you might want to use:

-dismounted dvor: excellent overall unit, produced in citadel, needs last level archery range, rather than barracks. dual use, both great archer and good heavy infanty unit. I make tons of these
-mounted dvor: same unit on the horse. needs citadel. heavy cavalry with a somewhat good archery skill. there are less of them and they are more expensive than dismounted dvor. needs archery range and stables. I make a few of these, maybe two per army
-cossacks: your best skirmishers. needs citadel. fast and good shots. can perform parthian shot. I make a lot of these. 4-6 per army or they can even be their own army, just place them in opposite ends of the enemy force and make enemy run after them then charge them in the back
-cossack musketeers: very good musket unit, needs gun range in a city. use this against any armor units, elephants or mongols. very long range, very powerful, but doesn't like arrows or charging horses, so protect them. they can fight like a light infantry unit. they're expensive, but are worth it
-berdiche dudes: produced in city. unit with most attack, but only 10 or so defence. very long axes, so good against horses and armor. versatile and pretty good overall, but unfortunately die like ants if you leave them unchecked. I'd use these against anything western armies can throw at you that has a horse or even against elephants. they're shock troops, so avoid using them as guards. I tried them in birdge defence and they suck.


other citadel units that I never used:

-tsar's bodyguard - very heavy horse unit, but too expensive and too slow to be of any use. not as good as western units either, so I'd skip that one. they don't have bows etiher. mounted dvor is better overall
-druzhina - your first heavy horse unit, but should be replaced with dvor as soon as you have them. also slow and no bows
-boyar's sons - heavy unit with spears. not worth it I think because spears have very short range and they only have like two each. they're good for charging, but not excellent. pretty bad for skirmishing, so i'd skip these too
-dismounted boyar's - they have same stats as distmounted dvor less the missile attack, so I don't see any real purpose in them. they do appear earlier than dismounted dvor, but they're pretty pointless (along with other unit with same stats, forgot the name)

so there you have it
hope that helps

[Miloshus]

ooooooook...Lets make it shorter
Russians start with only one town-Novgorod
Russians have weak infantry, and strong cavalry and archers.
On the start recruit some diplomats and become ally with neighbouring factions. Start attacking rebel settelments on south and north.
When you recrut some armies destroy your allies ,
works fine 4 me.

[Silvershade]

The Russian problem seems really to exist early in the game as you have no economy to speak of and weak infantry options. I play VH battle/H campaign and decided to 'turtle' initially. This meant I took neither Kiev ( a trouble magnet in my first attempt as Russia ) nor Stockholm ( in order not to have a land front against the Danes), I also avoided the eastern extreme of the map, Moscow and Ryazan mark my eastern extremities. My focus has been largely in kick starting the Russian economy whilst obtaining an alliance with HRE to sandwich Poland.

Militarily I have so far focussed on Kazaks and Boyars sons for almost the entirety of my field armies, this has allowed me mobility to deal with rebels hindering trade and threatening cities and also Polish incursions whilst retraining at my twin castles of Smolensk and Ryazan can be established quickly because of the mobility of the units.

I have avoided war with all but the Poles so far and that war has really been little more than an a series of extremely one sided border skirmishes. This has allowed me to negotiate a ceasefire with the Poles after a series of crushing victories which cost them 12000 florins plus 1000 a year tribute for 5 years ( funding a fortress upgrade amongst others that I could not afford otherwise ). I fully expect a major offensive towards Vilnius sometime soon as Polish armies are beginning to appear South of that location but am happy as I can now afford a larger military, meaning an infantry force to assault and garrison newly taken territory. The plan now is to wait on the Polish offense, fight their armies in the open using horse archers then move on their fortresses at Halech and Thorn initially seiging with cavalry but adding infantry in to allow me to assault if necessary. With a half stack garrison in each plus missile cavalry forces outside I believe I should be able to hold these new positions which will also likely allow me the jump in technology to allow me a military to compete.

[SwordsMaster]

Well, my russian campaign seems to be progressing slowly bu surely. After over turns years of war against Poland and Danemark, Poland has been finally destroyed, and Denmark reduced to Brugge, and the two northernmost settlements in scandinavia. I am now at war with Byzantium and skirmishing on and off war with Hungary. I have to say I have been lucky enough to have not been hit by neither the Mongols or the Timurids - BOth went to Byzantium and the Turks. Which makes my life easier.

If it weren't the huge spawn rates for rebel armies and the trouble of having to conver every single one of the provinces taken, it would have been even easier.

Right now I am consolidating. Cossack musketeers have become available and they are fantastic. If you mix them together with some Boyar sons, and a lot of cossacks and mounted dvors, you will destroy nearly every enemy before the reach your end of the map.

[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.

[katank]

Druzhina are pathetic heavy cavalry. Build Boyar's Sons instead. Their javs can shred enemy heavy cav units. They can then charge in to finish the rest off. A combination of BG units and Boyar's Sons should be your shock and awe wing. Kazaks are unfortunately the best you have for a while in terms of missile cav. Their melee power is severely lacking. Spear miltia and archer militia are both fairly weak but you have to live with.

Once you get to a fortress though, you can get dismounted dvors which are awesome (one of the contenders for king of archers title). A citadel gets you cossacks and dvor cavalry which are far better. One is fast moving, the other more powerful in melee.

After gunpowder, you get to build cossack musketeers out of every huge city and they are completely devastating in their ranged attack and aren't too shabby in melee either.

Thus, you largely sacrifice early game power for a huge late game with Russia.

[IvarrWolfsong]

Early on, Russia is challenging, but by mid game, I found them to be incredibly strong.

First off, almost all your heavy troops use axes for the "effective against armor" bonus. You main infantry units, dismounted Druz and Boyars Sons have axes (don't recall if dismounted Dvor did or not). My Dvor Horse Archers could slaughter most knights without breaking a sweat... pepper them with arrows, tire them out by skirmishing/kiting them and then meleeing with a "can opener" axe.

I found Druzhina cavalry to be much stronger than their mediocre stats would indicate. They were more than a match for the most early cavalry. They have the bonus of having a lance for the initial charge and then following up with a good "effective against armor" melee axe. By mid game, they were still very good because, being available from very early on, I had 10+ gold chevron veteran units.

Your dismounted Dvor are great archers... long range, great armor, good morale and great melee. They also use armor piecing axes.

Boyar's Sons are similar to Polish Nobles: medium cav with javelins. They do a great job "assassinating" generals and peppering enemy heavy cav to weaken them so your axes can smooosh their heads.

Khazaks are good cavalry archers with light armor and fast movement. While not elite quality, they do good service until your Cossack Cavalry comes along. Aside form disrupting and killing enemies with their arrows, I love to use their very fast movement to dash in and kill siege/cannon crews, charge archers in the rear and chase down routing units (they will easily catch fleeing generals).

Cossack cavalry are like Khazaks Deluxe. They are stronger and tougher but I use them the same way.

Tsars guard are nice heavy cav, BUT they don't have a good charge (5). They are more like heavy infantry that moves really fast. They use swords and don't get the effective vs armor trait. They are expensive and, although viable as a small heavy strike force of 1 or two units, I wouldn't try to use them as massed European style heavy cav. On the other hand they are very well armored and so are their horses. They also have a kick@$$ armored mask after you upgrade their armor.

Cossack Musketeers are a lot of fun. I haven't invested all that much into them and I only kept 2 in my main stacks. They did a very good jobengaging from afar, and were VERY good defending walls. I am finding that when using more than 1 or 2 in the field, their long range flat trajectory missles end up killing a lot of my horse archers who dance around the battle field. I tend to use a lot of horse archers though, and if I cut down on them I could probably have a great army based on a Cossack Musketeer "fire base."

Spearmen... uhmmm ... uh... yeah. This is your greatest weakness. You never get pikes, but you do get a vanilla spearman that is blah. I almost never used them as I found my other favorite units to do better service in most types of battles (spears being worth taking only at rivers or castles I expected Mongol house guests). Against enemy cavalry charges, I rely on intercepting the cavalry with my own. This is painfull if done from the front, but great if you catch them in the side where they lose their advantage of high charge stats and your Armor Piercing axes rule the melee.

Against the Mongols, you should face them at bridges or in your cities. I prefer the cities where my missle troops can kill them from the walls and then defeat their infantry on the ramparts. Your lack of spears makes fighting them at bottle necks a bit more costly than when using other factions. I would increase by half the nuber of infantry you usually but at a river crossing.. ie if you normally use 4 spears, use 6 russian heavy infantry units.. if you use 6 spears, use 9 russian infantry, etc. Of course you could just bring some vanilla spears along, but I almost never recruited them so I used what I had. I had very good results with 6 infantry (dismounted druz/Boyars), 4 dismounted Dvor, 4 Dvor Cav, 4 Druz, a general and a catapult when defending river crossings. This gives you 8 great archer units that will slaughter the enemies as they get jammed up at the crossing. Should you infantry falter, you can rush the very melee-capable Druz up to help. I never had any Mongol army get past that, but should that not work, you always have your 4 dismounted Dvor and 4 Dvor Cav rush in because they are pretty impressive in melee. The catapult is really fun at the river, because with the enemies all packed together, you kill HUGE quantities when you get a solid hit.

Anyway the point here is that although Russia may seem weak at first, they are very, very strong by mid game. Personally, I would say they have one of the BEST rosters available.

[dismal]

Have now just finished my VH/VH Russia campaign, and will add my 2 cents.

I will try and build upon what others have said instead of starting from scratch.

Initial Moves: Some have said it's critical to head south west for Kiev/Caffa. I did not. I focused all my effort on grabbing as many baltic ports as I could before Denmark got them. I got Riga, Helsinki, Stockholm, and even Oslo. I eventually picked up some of the eastern provinces too, giving me a 9 or so province start before the war mongering began. Poland ended up with Kiev, the Turks got Caffa and Sarkel.

The benefits this strategy include:

- The early neutering of Denmark. They never had more than 2 provinces. When my watched towers detected their main force on a 3 turn march toward Stockholm, I sent my main army across from Oslo and took Arhus before they got they even made it.

- Limited contact with the Turks or Byzantines. The Byz allied with me and I never fought them until I had 50 provinces. The Turks did attack me eventually, but it was a low intensity war over remote low value provinces until I got around to turning my attention East.

- The ability to focus on Poland almost exclusively. My western border was basically a line of Polish provinces. When they (inevitably) attacked me, I was able to focus all my attacking might on them. Furthermore, once I was done with Poland, I had a similar war with Hungary, who controlled the next line of provinces. Once I was done with Poland and Hungary, I had a nice 25 province or so empire. I probably would have been content to focus on the East at this point, but my neighbors in the West kept attacking me so I felt compelled to keep taking their lands.

Units:

Early: The backbone of my early army was the cheap but not-so dependable Kazak. I'd supplement these with a few Boyar Sons and Generals, whose main job was dealing with the enemy heavy/light cavalry. The problem with this army is obviously conducting sieges. Against a weak force, you can get by with bum rushing the gate. Against a stronger force, you have to wait them out. One of the benefits of Kazaks is the AI seems to give them a very low weight compared to their true value en masse, so the AI armies often sally when they really shouldn't. This brought me more than a few Heroic victories and conquered cities wihout the wait.

Mid: Mid game you start to get the Dismounted Dvor. I do not have such a high opinion of the unit as some here. I'd prefer to trade it for a better single purpose heavy infantry unit, like a DFK, that didn't require so many building upgrades. That said, I made a number of these and made virtually none of the other infantry except militia and spearmen. The DD's are a below average heavy infantry unit, but they help get more missiles in the air. My mid game armies started to feature 4-5 DDs. They are a good option for pushing siege equipment, and versatile wall defenders. But, throughout the game, my armies remained Horse Archer dominated.

Late: As they become available, the mounted cossacks and dvors are a nice upgrade to the kazaks. They are just more versatile, and have less tendency to rout. I could afford them, so I made them when I could. The cossack musketeer is an excellent defensive unit that causes units to rout like crazy, and requires no special buildings. A few of these guys can sometimes turn a battle, and they gave the Mongols fits from the city walls. I tried to mix a few in where I can in place of the Dismounted Dvors. I also rested easier about leaving minimal garrisons in my huge cities knowing I could order up 3 of these in a turn if I saw trouble on the way. In general, though, the trick to winning with horse archers is to have lots of horse archers. As nice as the cossacks are in some situations, you don't want to get carried away with them.

Money: Money always seems to be a problem for Russia. You have very small poulations at the beginning, and even when the empire gets big, it doesn't seem to generate as much money as other territories. The things you do to make money are the same things you do with any other faction, but you have to be more disciplined about doing them. Err on the side of making castles into cities. Garrison internal cities with free militia only. Moving your capital can be an enormous gain.

The Mongols: Due to my initial focus on the West, I didn't deal with the Mongols as a horde, but as an empire of 10 or so provinces in the Middle East. I had more than 45 provinces at the time, but decided to conquer my way to Jerusalem instead of just drop a stack on it by water. I had plenty of troops just north of the Middle East from my conquest of the Turks, and launched a more-or-less simultaneous assault on the Mongol border cities of Antioch, Aleppo, Mosul and Baghdad taking all four.

The Mongols launched several stacks to try and take these cities back, providing for some of the more challenging battles of the campaign. Defending walls with horse archer armies is tough, but fortunately the Mongols don't have much infantry themselves. And only a few units (Dismounted Dvors, Cossacks or Spearmen) can hold the walls rather well against siege towers and ladders. The threat is rams and artillery breaches. The best tactic against these is to try and eliminate their siege units by running your Kazaks out a side door and behind the enemy formation. You can often do some serious damage to the enemy artillery units. If nothing else, you will get some use out of your kazaks as they engage the enemy's missile units. Kazaks tend to be relatively worthless inside the walls. You need to be careful not to let them rout and open your gates for the enemy.

If there was a breach, I usually defended it with my generals and boyar sons, leaving my dvors up on the walls to rain arrows down and ensure the towers keep shooting. If you have a non-commanding general to spare, use them to hold and create a pocket with a few units of boyars launching javelins. risking your commander in this way is relatively dangerous as you risk a chain rout.

In summary, the Russians are quite a lot if fun to play. They face a variety of opponents, and don't generally have the abiliity to steamroll their enemies with heavy troops so you have to be a bit more creative.

[dzzirt]

Any1 have tried to get horsebreeder's guild (info - https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=75649)? +2 valour to all mounted troops seems 2 be nice to me. Currently im trying to get it in smolensk but dunno how to :( Building all of mine cav units only there and when ill reach amount of about 50 ill convert it to city, but dunno whether it will work cause dunno what buildings ill loose after ill convert my castle and dunno whether ill get guild HQ (seems that ive already got 500 points required) after ill convert castle to city.

Any1 ve tried to get horse breeder's guild HQ?? If yes - any succes with it?

[AlphaDelta1]

As the Russians you are wise torelocate. Russia is poor and the poles have better early units. In my current campaign I decided to get out of poor Russia, and out of the Poles way by taking my entire starting force and heading south east to the Crimea. I took Caffa (the Crimean province) then sailed over to Trezibond. By the time I got there (turn 12 or so) the Turks had already taken Trezibond so I had no choice but to fight from the time I landed. Once I took Trebizond I sent forces east towards Tiblsi, and south towards Caesarea. Once I took Caesarea I had taken the heart out of the Turks.

Once I had cleaned up the Turks I was then left fighting an aggressive Byzantine force who had made some quick progress into the area. The Egyptians in the south were passive for the time being.

I managed to knock back the Byzantines in a few key battles and went onto take Constantinople. Later I blitzed south and took out the Egyptians. Their infantry just couldn't compete (peasant archers vs dismounted dvor, spearman vs dismounted boyars sons) and it was a fairly easy victory.

Once I had the middle east in my hands money was plentiful and enemies far and few. To the north west of Constantinople lay the Hungarians who attacked a few times but were easily beaten back and agreed to ceasefires. The poles spread east right to the edge of the map, and would often attack Caffa, but never managed to take it.

I beat the Mongols without much of a sweat by teching up my Eastern cities to allow me to produce mounted and dismounted archer units. I set Mosul and Tiblsi as Castles, Baghdad and Yerevan as cities, this allowed me to create the full range of troops in both areas of possible Mongol invasion. As soon as the Mongol invasion warning message appeared (A new threat) I fielded two stacks in each invasion region and sat them on the bridges and fords. I tried to field stacks consisting of 50% dismounted dvor, 30% mounted dvor/cossacks and 20% general/tsars/druzhina. A treb or catapult would of been useful but I had neglected to tech up artillery in those eastern settlements.

Once the Mongols invaded (they came in around Tibsli) I moved my two southern stacks north, blocked in the Mongols and waited for them to attack. With a full stack waiting on a ford I could take out 4 stacks of Mongols (in 4 seperate battles). They invaded 3 times, each time with 4 stacks.

I'm unsure at present how to destroy the Timurids when they arrive. At the moment I'm drifting between the idea of either:

1) A full stack of mounted boyar sons - Jav cav works great against elephants.

or

2) A stack of 30% dismounted dvor, 30% cossack musks and 40% artillery (mixed trebs and basilisk).

The real problem with the Russian roster is that there is no decent spears or any pikes. This means you can be rushed by cav/elephant heavy forces and decimated (even on a bridge).

Cheers

[Atalus]

I found the biggest boon to playing the Rus is to grab Olso and Stock. with those two in your control you are able to cripple the poles and the Denmark. Plus not dealing with the pope is so worthwhile

[Agent Smith]

THE RUSSIAN MOLNYA-VOINA (BLITZKRIEG)

Although it seems to the contrary, the Russians actually start off in a very good position. With their standing army, location, and the existence of only one true border enemy, the Russians can take a very early lead and gain power quickly.

Here is the strategy.

The Russians start with two main armies (one led by Mikhail and one led by the Grand Duke Ysevolod) and one garrison army (led by Prince Vladimir). The key is to rush out of Novgorod immediately. There are four separate paths to take at once for the strategy to be effective.

1.) The First Turn. On the first turn, take Mikhail's army due west to Riga and lay siege (it should take a few turns to reach Riga). Ne mercenaries are needed. The village is lightly defended and has no wall defenses, so it is easy to take. You can wait the two turns of siege to force the Livonians to come to you, which makes the battle easier and allows you to suffer fewer casualties (particularly because they have a tendency to sen their unit of crossbows around the flank, which is easy pickings for Mikhail and his bodyguard).

While Mikhail is heading for Riga, send the Grand Duke due south to Smolensk. On the way, hire every mercenary available in preparation for the siege of Kiev (usually that is two Mercenary Spearmen and one to two Mercenary Crossbowmen). Lay siege to Smolensk and assault it ASAP. The quicker the assault, the less of a chance that the Polish will reach Kiev first. Also, leave Smolensk a castle. It will be your main region for "homeland defense."

Prince Vladimir should take a contingent of 2 Spear Militia and 2 Archer Militia east and immediately head for Moscow.

At Novgorod, begin training enough troops for a minimal garrison and begin training a small army of 3 Spear Militia and 3 Archer Militia. This army will eventually take Helsinki, which isn't of immediate need. Also, concentrate heavily on upgrading Novgorod's economic potential. I usually try to get a Port and a Merchant's Wharf ASAP to begin an economic base. With trade established with the Danes, it should be a good start. On a side note, I usually sail my starting princess ASAP to the Danish capital at Arhus before their faction heir has the chance to marry. By gaining trade rights, exchanging/giving map information, and asking for an alliance, she will most likely have enough charm to ask to marry the faction heir in the same diplomatic exchange in the same turn. This gives you a powerful marriage alliance very early in the game.

2.) The Second Wave. Once Riga has fallen, take Mikhail's army and head immediately southeast to Vilnius, leaving a minimal garrison at Riga. At this point there should be a few more mercenaries for hire, and you'll need them to effectively battle the Lithuanians. There is really not too much of a rush in assaulting the Lithuanians because you have most likely reached it in such a short amount of time. Lay siege and, like Riga, wait it out and force the Lithuanians to sally. Once captured, IMMEDIATELY changed Vilnius to a village. There is no need for another castle and it is essential for getting Russia's economy off the ground.

Almost simultaneously the Grand Duke's army should have conquered Smolensk and be heading south for Kiev. Leave a minimal garrison at Smolensk (it takes little for Smolensk to keep it in the green). The battle was most likely easy and you probably took few casualties, so the assault on Kiev should be easy. One of two things could happen when you reach Kiev: either there are no Polish in sight or they have already sent an army/laid siege to Kiev. It has been my experience that the Polish usually do not send an adequate force, and if you let them assault they will most likely fail and leave it an even easier target. If they do end up taking it, attack immediately. The Polish won't waste any time attacking you soon anyway.

By this time, Prince Vladimir should be assaulting Moscow. Simply wait the siege out and force a sally. There is absolutely no rush away from the Western front.

Build minimum garrisons in all of your towns and concentrate on economic building.

3.) The True Beginning of an Empire. With both Kiev and Vilnius under your control, the Western front is all but secure. However, at this point, you can pretty much expect an assault from the expansive Polish in a few turns (if a war hasn't already begun). I have found it most common that the Polish's main force has been used to capture Thorn, and they will usually continue marching straight for Riga. This isn't entirely a problem. If this occurs, Mikhail's main force will most likely still be in Vilnius and Riga's defense will be limited. Simply take Mikhail's army, leave minimum defense in Vilnius (the Polish don't have enough forces to lead a two pronged attack this early) and march for the Polish army. They may see you coming and assault Riga, in which case you will most likely lose. However, Mikhail will be there in a turn or two, and you can simply lay siege to Riga and take it right back. THIS BATTLE IS A KEY BATTLE. In the alternative, the Polish may attack Kiev or Vilnius, but you already have the majority of your forces there and should be able to slug it out.

With the battle won, the Polish have most likely lost the majority of their forces. Leave a minimal garrison and march straight for Thorn on a counter attack. Take it, and let Mikhail rest. This is a great defensive spot, and due to its proximity to the rest of Poland, they will most likely send assaults to Thorn or try to pass it up to go to Riga and Vilnius, in which case you can head them off at the pass.

Kiev will most likely be secure for many turns to come because of the hell Mikhail is raising with the Polish. The goal now is for the Grand Duke to amass an army (or simply take his existing one) and head east. Start building Kiev to be an economic city and build a decent garrison to fend off the stray Polish army (usually 3 or 4 each of spears and archers will do the trick, but 2 and 2 will most likely suffice). Caffa in the Crimea is a pushover and you should be able to roll right over. again, because there is little to no risk of attacks this far east, leave a minimum garrison and head for the Grand Duke's final location: Sarkel. Take it and rest. Leave Sarkel as a castle, since it will become your first bulwark against any possible Mongol invaders.

Prince Vladimir, after taking Moscow, should take whatever measures necessary (training more militia, hiring mercenaries) to head southeast and take Ryazan. Convert Ryazan to a vilalge and prepare for the final push to Vladimir's last destination: Bulgar. Take it, convert it to a village, and breathe a sigh of relief.

If you haven't yet, make sure you take Helsinki at any point along this path with a small force from Novgorod. One extra port is always nice.

4.) The Result. Because of limiting military training to small garrisons where attacks will most likely not come, the income generated later will become extremely large for the Russians. By the end of the second wave, where I usually have Novgorod, Helsinki, Riga, Vilnius, Kiev, and Moscow under my control, an income of anywhere from 3,000-5,000 florins per turn will be coming in. By the end of the blitzkrieg, you can expect between 6,000 and 8,000 florins per turn. Since most of Russia will be small villages to start, you'll often times find yourself building every building possible before the population reaches the next level. In essence, you are sitting pretty and, most likely, you may have not even hit the 25 turn mark. In the end, your empire should include: Novgorod, Kiev, Vilnius, Riga, Helsinki, Moscow, Ryazan, Bulgar, Caffa, Sarkel, and Thorn.

5.) The Future. Taking control of Thorn is usually the last thing to occur in the blitzkrieg. From this point on it will be up to the circumstances in front of you. What I usually do is begin building my standard, professional army in Thorn and try to take out Poland as quick as possible, thus expanding your realm even further. However, depending on how things turn out in the south, you may find Hungarians at your borders, although I have rarely seen that happen, especially if you leave Iasi alone. If Poland falls, you will find yourself sitting with the ability to enjoy the game since cash will be rolling in; most of Russia is protected by the "Iron Curtain" of castles in Thorn, Halych, and possibly Iasi; and the relative proximity of the cities in Poland can be easily defended with a single professional army.

Smolensk is a great area to build a second professional army and what I call a "rapid response team." By building up a decent number of Boyar's Sons (4-6), which are available early at Smolensk, you have the capability of keeping any harassing Polish armies at bay from the get-go. They are terriffic for getting to your Western Russian towns quickly (usually in 2-3 turns) on horseback and they can rip apart any army that isn't smart enough to bring missile units along. Even a few Polish Nobles can't stand a barrage of two to three loosely formed, skirmishing Boyar's Sons attacking them at once.

The Russian cities are also set up in such a way that specialization is easier. I usually make Kiev my capital once it becomes a minor city because it literally will most likely be the center of your empire for years to come (and it was historically the capital of the Rus). Also, Kiev is a great spot to build a Theologians Guild to send your Orthodox Priests out far and wide. Novgorod obviously makes a good spot for a Merchant's Guild. Meanwhile, Vilnius and Riga make good locations for Thieve's and Assassin's Guilds to send them straight into central Europe.

All that is left is to build a professional army to stand ready at Sarkel and defend your current territory. Not much will be able to stand in your way at this point.

MY PROFESSIONAL RUSSIAN ARMY

Playing EXTENSIVELY with the Greeks in RTW, I have developed an army I tend to like when I play. And with the Russians, it works out very well, is modifiable on the fly, and is easy to upgrade as time goes on.

The main backbone is, of course, infantry for me (I can't get phalanx fighting out of my head). My infantry consists of 8 Spearmen and, early, 4 Peasant Archers. For cavalry, I take 1 General, 2 units of Druzhina, and 2 units of Boyar's Sons.

The last three spots are completely customizable for the player/need. For an assaulting force, I may place in 3 units of siege weapons or 2 siege weapons and an extra heavy infantry. For open field fighting, I may throw in 3 extra units of missile cavalry.

The key to this army is it's natural flanking and defensive pinning capabilities. The beauty of the professional Spearmen is that they are relatively cheap and they do a great job of pinning an enemy in place. Also, having 8 Spear units allows for complete coverage of the four archer units without leaving an archer flanks exposed and without spreading your infantry too thin. Even if the Spearmen take heavy casulaties, they can be replaced easily at any Caste or above settlement.

Here is my typical basic set up (excluding the 3 custom spots):

BS D   S S S S S S S S   D BS
      A    A    A    A
               G

In a typical offensive action, there are usually enough infantry to cover the entire front line of the enemy. Using loosely formed archers, begin launching arrows at the enemy while the infantry line moves forward. The Infantry's job is to pin the opposing enemy line in place while the cavalary gets set to flank it. Also, during the approach, the Boyar's Sons can be used to soften the front lines for the impending infantry charge, moving to the flank with it's accompanying Druzhina to charge together at the right time.

The result is usually devastating. The Spearmen are great at keeping the enemy i place, and the Druzhina cut through the flank like a hot knife through butter. depending on the situation, the Boyar's Sons can even wheel slightly to the rear and charge the second unit in from the flank. The General sould stay back and plug a hole in the line when necessary, rallying the troops along the way.

For defensive actions, the half hexagon is a fantastic weapon with this army:

    S S S S
  S   A A   S
S     A A     S
 BS D G D BS

All of the Spearmen should be fasing outward, with the two Spearmen units on each side facing outward to provide a straight wall of spearpoints on all sides of the half hexagon. The Boyar's Sons can be positioned outside of the hexagon on each flank to give them an easier time of marching out to harass the enemy as they approach. The rest of the cavlary should be used to plug holes.

This strategy works best on a hillside, so the archers can fire over the heads of the row in front of them without much problems. You can even lure the enemy into a defensive battle by positioning your army on the campaign map next to a mountain or hill and tempt the enemy into attacking you.

In any event, wait for the enemy to come to you and get peppered along the way. Depending on how they attack, each side of the hexagon has the ability to wheel and basically invert the original half hexagon, trapping the enemy in the middle. A swift Cavalry charge through the middle can put an end to most offensive assaults.

As the game progresses, I usually always keep the Spearmen for my infantry backbone. I later switch out the Peasant Archers for Dismoutned Dvor. The DD are fantastic, because not only do they take the place of the archers and fire long range missiles, but they are heavy infantry that can plug holes if need be thus freeing up your general and other cavalry for flanking. The Druzhina can be switched out later for Tsar's Guard and the Boyar's Sons can be switched out for Dvor Cavalry. If one really doesn't like Spearmen, they can be switched out for heavier infantry as well.



That's my Russian strategy in a nutshell. I hope you all enjoy it!

[Bongaroo]

My current campaign is Russian and I am really enjoying it. I play standard turn length, 1.1 patch, and Carls bugfixer. My early game was controlled expansion with a lot of attention paid to diplomacy. Currently I have a reliable reputation and 5 or 6 alliances with standings in all of them very good or better. My only enemy is the polish who have developed a very bad reputaion for repeatedly invading my lands. I have taken Riga, Helsinki, Smolnesk, Moscow, Ryazan, and Bulgar. Smolnesk and Bulgar are my castles with all others remaining towns. The turks took sarakel but we have yet to engage in hostilities which is fine by me. I am poised to begin a counter-offensive into Poland in retribution for their continued aggression.

My tatics have been to leave the infantry in the cities to defend my holdings and fielding all calvary fast action response armies to deal with any incursions. I have defeated many a large polish army with successful ambushes. Nothing feels better than breaking a line of unsuspecting invaders marching single file. When the ambush fails and a normal battle insues I tend to pause the game often to keep track of all the HA's. My field armies so far have consisted of a general, 2 or 3 boyar sons, 3 or 4 druza, and 4+ kazaks. The Kazaks are ineffective in melee but are otherwise fine HA's. I use them to pepper the enemy and try to get enemy units strung out for charges from the heavy cavalry. A fairly simple guerilla like strategy but effective. The large open spaces on the campaign map and ample woods to lay sieges play to the strength's of this army.

Fortunately the Mongels invaded far south and have settled around Antioch. They are now warring with the Hungarians for control of Constantanople. Since Hungry is an ally of mine I'm thinking that to help prevent the mongels from breaking out further and becoming a larger threat later, now would be a good time to send in some landing force in what used to be turky but is probably now mostly mongel. A spy is enroute to investigate the current conditions to the south.

So far a blast to play. ;)

[Unorthodox]

In my campaigns, I never ran into economic problems. I'd put it down to the following factors:

1) In the beginning, your troop choices are weak all-around. Rather than spending your money on weak cavarly that are still somewhat expensive, spend your money on weak militia that are extremely cheap. Spam your enemies and all rebel settlements with huge armies of spear militia. Low upkeep, low cost.
2) Make a determined dash to expand as far South as possible. The settlements to your East aren't going anywhere; nobody's going to take them, with the possible exception of Turkey.
3) Gamble - convert all your early settlements to cities, and fix up a specific border of castles (that will most likely be against Poland, maybe Hungary). For the majority of my early game, this was Vilnius-Halych-Iasi. Everything behind that was a city for the increased income. Before I reached those 3 settlements, I only had cities.
4) Make sure you capture as many coastal settlements, both on the Black and Baltic seas, to give you naval trade. Kiev is important.

I was consistently the richest faction in my campaign.

[IrishArmenian]

Any1 ve tried to get horse breeder's guild HQ?? If yes - any succes with it?

Yes, I have gotten it.
The key is to recruit Russian Cavalry Militia--one can recruit them without any guild.