Russia

[PuppetMaster]

I played some custom battles with Russian troops, and it seems like their infantry are pretty competent, yet no one has mentioned them once. Why is this?

[Zim]

I played some custom battles with Russian troops, and it seems like their infantry are pretty competent, yet no one has mentioned them once. Why is this?

Their infantry have trouble standing up to a lot of the other faction's later infantry, and are even worse against cavalry charges with their low defense(although they certainly do a lot of damage, especially the berdiche axemen).

People also seem to prefer to give campaign map advice in these threads than battlefield advice. If you've played a lot of battles with the Russians, maybe you could add a section on the different units and how their best used.

[Alsn]

I played some custom battles with Russian troops, and it seems like their infantry are pretty competent, yet no one has mentioned them once. Why is this?

Because playing the campaign as the russians all your provinces that you start with are really poor and low population, this means that it will takes ages to get past peasants/spearmen from your mottle & bailey(YES! many of them arent even wooden castles ) which means that while russia certainly has some capable infantry and foot archers you wont be able to get them for quite some time into the campaign.

[Silvershade]

I'm having a lot of fun as with the Russians in my current camapaign after migrating to Scotland and Ireland for a start point. I've had some good battles with the English before finally eliminating them and currently have France, Spain and Denmark at war with me. France in particular are proving great fun as they have turned into a fully fledged superpower.

Facing off against western European powers with the Russian roster is proving to be fun.

[Bernhard of Clairvaux]

I followed the advise of Agent Smith in this thread and must agree that Russia can be incredibly strong. Thanks for the guide!

Initially you risk no two front war so it is easy to expand in the baltics and move on to Oslo. After a while especially stockholm will pump out money (I have now 5000 income from Stockholm alone around 1400) and you only need small garrisons to watch the cities. I also moved south took Kaffa and captured Constantinople, Nicae, Smyrna, Rhodes and Crete and Corinth (the Byz was wiped out by the Turks and Catolics so now I am the third Rome).

The real problems began with the Mongols. After grabbing Trebizond, Tblisi and Yerevan I ran into them and got some serious beating but eventually I managed to defend Tblisi and now I destroy stack after stack there. Keeping the inner walls manned by dismounted dvors is incredibly effective. I usually also place on unit on the outer wall close to the inner fortress to fire from the side. Russian spearmen are quite good and can fend of any attacks through the gate since the dvors make most mongol units shaken as they enter. Dismounted boyar sons can help out on the walls but the dismounted dvors are so good in melee so you can really use them only. Boyar sons can be used to attack any stronger units that might get through the gates, one unit takes out anything the mongols got. Boyar sons are also good at chasing down fleeing units.

Now, the Timurids have entered the scene to which prevented me to go on a counter attack on the Mongols who hold all the holy land. The Tims took out my cities as far as Ryazan and then they attacked Kiev. I had decided to make a stand there (I underestimated the Tims, I should have fortified at least Ryazan but I was too late). I manned the walls with cossack musketeers and dismounted dvors and repelled three or four stacks from the outer walls (cannon towers). A great slaughter it was! Elephants went down all over. However, later the came with two stacks at the same time, one stack using bombards. They got through a hole and my dear Kiev army did a great job but was sadly killed off.

As for now I am awaiting the Tims in Smolensk with a city full of cossacks and dvors. That will be the test! I am also gathering troops around Rus to make a counter attack eventually. The Tims might go directly for constantinople too. Time will tell...

Oh, and everyone else want a piece of great Rus but so far without much success since defending a city or a castle is so easy with the dvors.

In the open I love dvor cavalry, great missile attack and awesome defence.

[caralampio]

I just finished a Russian campaign on M/VH. My only stat-altering mod is Lite, which is minimum. I also use other mods like blood mod and Xeno Which changes the language but nothing altering the basics.

Initially I found Russia very boring. The only reason I really dove into playing this faction is that I'm touring every faction with the objective of winning a long campaign with each. The reasons that made me hate Russia were the poor initial economy, boring and weak units (at start, this changes later) and the vast distances one has to walk (I mean that one's armies have to walk).

However once I got into it I really loved the Rus. The middle and late game unit mix is very nice. Some have said that dismounted Boyar sons/dismounted Druzhima are not very useful. I found them quite tough (and like how they look on the battle map too!). Their stats of 11 attack and 17 defense don't seem too impressive when measured against a typical western opponent, the dismounted feudal knight (13/21). However they have an armor-piercing axe which halves the feudal's armor to 11. 11/17 vs 13/11 looks better, nyet? In fact I found they performed quite well against feudal and other western heavy infantry. They also have a shield which makes them better than other axe-bearing units. (I don't know if it's the lack of shield or the unwieldly 2H axe but even with the 2H-bug fixed long axe units seems to perform poorly even if they have the same or better stats than other units). My only complaint is, both are identical so why bother with two unit types? True one comes from barracks and the other from a wall upgrade, but easily one could have a single unit type spawning from both structures, like town militia. I like to build both types just for variety, however if you are a strict perfectionist who wants to use the very last advantage in a game, build only dis boyar sons because they are an earlier-appearing unit and it is more likely that you can find a settlement that can replenish them.

Now about the dismounted dvor, an excellent unit, however I don't think you can use them to entirely substitute your line infantry. They have the same stats as dis boyar sons/druzhima, they have the same axe and shield and look the same on the field when using the axe, however I found that they are a bit more brittle than the pure infantry. There seem to be factors in this game beyond what dry stats indicate. I do place them in the line in case of need but otherwise I use them as missile units, i.e. protected in the rear. Their missile power and range is impressive, they are better in that role and it is best to protect them.

Berdiche axemen, a nice heavy unit that comes out of cities instead of castles, which can be a lifesaver in certain situations (i.e. when you don't have a castle near and need an army). They can take on infantry and cavalry, but tend to suffer heavy casualties in any battle (because of the lack of shield or the slow axe, as mentioned above).

Spearmen (the ones that come out of castles) in case you hadn't noticed, are the exact equivalent of the vaunted Italian Spear militia, and in the same category of armoured sergeants and other European strong spears.

As for the earlier light infantry, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread and pointed out by the game itself as Russia's weakness, they suck. EE Spear militia can only take two armor upgrades instead of three, AND very important, they have short spears (only +4 vs cavalry instead of +8). In fact, EE spear militia is equal to western town militias. Unfortunately, they and the also weak archer and crossbow militias are your only choice if you want to take advantage of free upkeep garrisons, so if you are thinking defense, you need to bring castle units into the city.

Speaking of garrisons, your basic castle unit is woodsmen instead of the western choice, peasants. They are actually a bit cheaper to upkeep and fight a little better in a pinch. They are good for little else though except in the early game, when they enjoy a very short time of being the tough kids in the neighborhood

I won't comment on cavalry as that has already been covered very well by others. Moving on to strategy and politics. I had a huge advantage in that the Mongols and Timurids arrived at Baghdad and never bothered me. Some people hope that the barbarians will arrive in their territory to prove their mettle, other hope they go south. I'm in the latter category.

Russia's problem in Europe is that everyone hates you. Every neighbor will declare war on you sooner or later. I never declared war on any factions, and still I conquered all of Europe except Iberia and southern Italy, just through the need of eliminating these pestering neighbors who would never call it quits. I even conquered Cuba and Amerika before I finally got bored and swooped down on Jerusalem for victory. Dreams of the Soviet Union

[Laman]

Recently started a game with the Rus. Getting close to the time when the mongols come, and is not terrible teched up, can get dismounted Dvor from just recently captured Sofia only, but there are still turns left and I might get lucky (if I have understood everything correctly the Mongols may appear more or less everywhere on the eastern edge, so if they may not necessarily go after me, though I shouldn't count on that happening).

First I did was rushing towards Kiev, which I made my capital, taking Smolensk on the way. IMO Kiev is necessary, atleast if one has any interest of even the smallest amount of roleplaying (one part of my roleplaying is basing the faction leader in Kiev, while the heir is in Novgorod, so when I get new leader, he rides to Kiev while his heir rides to Novgorod), provides fairly nice income as well. Then mostly captured the remaining Rus cities (Ryazan and Moscow, Halich would go into this if it weren't held by the Polish) as well as Helsinki (mission), Caffa (nice potential trading port and only lightly defended) and Iasi (mission, starts as (poorly upgrade) castle and in good position to be Kievs first line of defense). Sent a diplomat and allied with Denmark, Poland and the Byzantines.

The only ally to backstab me was the Byzantines, they appearantly decided that despite amiable relations and the fact they already was fighting the Turks and Hungary (the Magyars however had failed to expand, so only the Turks where really any sort of problem, after the Byzantine backstab I accepted an alliance offer from their diplomat) they really wanted Iasi. They have refused peace this far, but recently I smashed one of their big armies and captured Sofia, so they may start to listen. Just before they backstabbed me I had sent armies towards Riga and Vilnius (both still rebel-held) who promptly fell. Sarkel and Bulgar are still rebels, though the Turks made one failed attempt to assault Sarkel (the entire Turkish army involved was wiped out).

What I have noticed about the Rus.
One thing towers on the border is a good idea, so when/if the Poles or other come, you can actually have enough time to prepare and gather your forces, your settlements are so far away from eachother that one really needs more time then many other factions. The idea I have, is basing a bunch of cavalry in my castles, ready to rush towards any city that is threatened, while all infantry is to be provided locally. Due to the peaceful Poles in my game it hasn't really been tested.

Another thing, while they have some decent infantry, it isn't that easilly available, it takes lot of time even to get the standard spearmen (the castle types, I haven't had time to use any, recently got able to train them in Smolensk and can train them in recently captured Sofia but that's it), on the plus side ones cities provides archers very quickly. As far as cavalry goes, Kazaks are good dependable horse archer that should avoid hth combat. Boyar Sons are competent medium cavalry, one should use their javelins to their full advantage before going to hth. Druzhina is the first heavy cavalry one get, not that bad, but very vulnerable if bogged down.

And as far as economy goes, not that good, but it is manageable.

And when it comes to capital i can see two choices to begin with, Novgorod or Kiev. The difference is mostly where one wants to have ones focus. Regardless of which one chooses Poland will always be a reasonable area to expand when the oppurtunity arises, but other then that;

Novgorod: If one wants to focus on the baltics, conquer Scandinavia and generally fight in the northern part of Europe. Good thing, not that many threats to your horse archers here, but there are problems for your armies, like Polish Nobles to name one, but they may always be a problem. Bad thing, will have to fight catholics and only catholics, Pope may become antagonistic, and crusades against you may happen if youre unlucky.

Kiev: For the southern route. Bad thing first here, those you will mostly fight, Byzantines, Hungarians and Turks, all have horse archers of their own. Good thing, only Hungarians (and the ever existing foe, the Poles) are catholic, so Pope may not potentially become as hostile, but do not count on it. Possibly greater wealth around here, but I'm not experienced enough to really judge that.

[TheLastPrivate]

I don't think crusades are possible on Orthodox factions. I have never seen it happen or appear on the "request crusade" listing. Ever.

[nafod]

Crusades definitely can be called on Orthodox factions. Constantinople and Novgorod are common options in my games, and the computer has called them on both cities while they were held by the Rus and the Byzantines.

[rvg]

Crusades definitely can be called on Orthodox factions. Constantinople and Novgorod are common options in my games, and the computer has called them on both cities while they were held by the Rus and the Byzantines.

I disagree. I know for a fact that unlike MTW1, in MTW2 it is impossible to crusade against Orthodox factions.

[PerfectOne]

I'm pretty sure I called a crusade against Constantinople while playing as Milan...and it was held by the Byzantines...

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[RollingWave]

Here's a question.

IIRC correctly in RTW when you make units it takes away from the population and when you disband units it adds to it right? does this still apply to MTW2? if that's the case then wouldn't going for a mostly mercenary army early on make more sense?

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[grapedog]

Hmm, I'm playing as Russia and just witnessed a crusade against Constantinople get cancelled when the Byzantines took it back from the Moors.

I don't think you can crusade against Orthodox factions, but you can crusade against Constantinople and the like when they are controlled by Islamic factions.

[WarMachine187]

Ive just started my first russian campain on vh/vh,and its lots of fun! I like the fact that theres lots of rebel settlements and a great selection of calvary units.When i started out,i went in three directions.First i sent one stack towards moscow,then the other toward kiev taking the rebel settlement between kiev and novgorod.I sent my faction leader to helsinki and to it with just a unit of horse archers and archers.I find thats what they got going for em most.As far as battlefield advice for fighting the mongols.You have to play it smart and get them on ground that favors you.A bridge is the best option,espicially if theyr on the offensive.I havnt faced them with the russians but drawing from my experience with the byzantines,it should be a breeze.Just dont let your guard down

[Eduin]

I've found Russia to be one of the most enjoyable factions in the game. Always on VH/VH.

Firstly, there seems to be a misconception that Russia should take Kiev. This isn't a good idea. For Russia, you will end up in all sorts of trouble if you take anything East or South of Moscow because that puts you slap bang in the way of the eastern invaders. You want to avoid this because, well, its more expensive than the Russian economy can support.

When you start, the first thing you do is reduce your forces to affordable levels, your three generals can more or less take the surrounding rebel towns on their own by forcing Sallies and mopping up the weak troops that can't take a cavalry charge, keep a couple of archers and spears and use them as garrisons as you leave the newly aquired settlements.

With your three starting commanders/armies, send one to Helsinki, one to Moskow and one to Riga.

After taking those three you are going east, Poland is your target and you need to wipe them out if you want any chance to build. Your Moskow Army heads to Smolensk and you start aquiring Merc Spears and Xbow. Your Riga force also heads south to Vilnius aquiring Mercs en route. After taking Helsinki your spare army is moving south to join with the others. Take all generals offered, regardless of stats.

By now you have six additional settlements, 4 to 5 generals. Before joining your forces, its worth sending a force south to take Halych which is likely being threatened by the Poles with a small force, take them out, take the castle. Meanwhile join your other two forces and head straight to Thorn, once you lay siege, you'll get a strong Polish attack which you can succeed in beating by using generals to keep their cavalry off your main army. This is the key battle, lose it and you'll be on a back foot but as Poland won't be strong by then, you should manage it with all those Mercs.

Once you have Thorn, Poland should be finished. Keep attacking their towns till you have them all, most likely they will have Breslau, Krakoc, possibly Magdeburg, possibly Prague. They are stonewalled by Denmark and the HRE with Hungary to the south so its easy to take them out.

Don't retrain your merc units. When you get Thorn you should be able to make Dismounted Dvor. Start that and this will be the bulk of your Army till the objective (or the map) is yours. Forge decent relations with the Byzantines and they will cover your flank, depending on how well they have started, it may also be relatively simple to take out Hungary. Doing that takes out the two factions most likely to cause you pain.

That should set you up for the rest of the game. Personally I love stacking those Dismounted Dvor and placing them with some basic Spear units to protect from Cavalry charges which is the only pre-cannon weakness they have. Using two generals and a couple of other Horse per army till you can get the Dvor Cavalry, charge any enemy artillery by flanking them with your cavalry, much easier once you get the Mounted Dvor but more than possible with Generals/regular Cavalry.

You can now lay waste to everything to the west, you should be able to get a sizable chunk of Europe before any other faction has decent cannon, as they do develop cannon and start using them, build 2 then 4 Dvor Cavalry into your full stack armies. Personally, I don't see much need for more than 4 troops.

By the time you need to turn your attention to the east and face those Elephants, you are rich enough for half a dozen full stack armies which even the Timurids can't survive.

Regards,
Eduin

[Voltigers]

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

Excellent man, i had not captured Armenia or Georgia and i think that is why the Mongols are still wandering but i think i can apply your strategy, seemed pretty fascianting

[Mangudai]

I had a very different approach than most people on this thread.


Cheapskate
Russia has a few cities worth developing, the black sea ports and Novogrod are good trade cities. The rest of the territory is not worth developing into cities, the future income is too low to justify the expenses. Besides, you can't afford to build in all your cities simultaneously, unless you relocate. Castles are easy to keep happy and you don't need any buildings to produce your primary unit Kazakhs.


Meat Waves
Kazakhs are almost as cheap to recruit as they are to maintain. I use 'em up and throw them away. I don't garrison anything beyond a minimum. Polish and Danish invaders should be fought in the field. The Danes are helpless, the Poles tougher. If you lose a field battle, retreat, reinforce, and fight again.
Russia can invade Hungary or Turkey with just Kazakhs, the attrition is high, but on a cost basis Russia does well.

With late game units steamrolling is easy.

[HopAlongBunny]

I love AgentSmith's expansion plan. It works very well, but it also places Russia at war with just about everyone.

It is safer to do the northern expansion: Sweden/Norway; Inverness; this sets up the real plan. Annex Denmark and England. With Nov/Vil/Hel/Smolensk/Mos you have a good foothold in your homelands and pretty easy to defend; once Denmark and England are out of the way the trade revenue should be huge.

You will need that revenue. Poland will attack sooner or later and that campaign can be extremely long. Most games they go east: Kiev, Iasia, Sofia; all w/o getting in conflict with Hungary Once the Polish campaign starts, plan on at least 3 battles a turn_more if the AI calls a dogpile on Russia.

[attilavolciak07]

Russia is one of the factions I tend not to expand with. I mean, the Russian economy is delicate and needs improvement. So, if you conquer the whole lot of territory from Novgorod to Moscow and beyond, and further southward, you have to spend more money on each city for maintenance, improvements and military means. If the Russian acquire too much territory they get trapped, their troop numbers are spread thin between cities and some cities are neglected by the user for being too far off and unimportant. I tend to play the best with Russia when I stay in a cozy, minuscule empire, yet an empire that is economically sound, technologically advanced, and militarily-strong so I can eventually launch an attack on Poland. I would suggest using your Orthodox brothers, the Romans, to good use as well, such as setting up conflict with the Hungarians, of whom would most likely support Poland or be unstable allies at best for Russia.

As for units, one thing I noted about Russia is that their early on units contain militia, mostly, but there are some exceptions. The Kazaks are pretty good troops. They are horse archers with wicked speed, perfect for hit and run raids. They carry a small sword, so should be kept out of hand-to-hand combat but in terms of archery, they are simply wonderful.

The Boyar Sons are also worth noting. They can double as missile troops (when wielding the javelin) and hand-to-hand when they carry their axe. They are also on horse-back and are somewhat fast and have great stamina.

The Druzhina are the cream of the crop for me. I got my first recruitement of them within the first 6 or so turns; they are Russia's heavy cavalry for the early age. They are descendents of the Vikings when they settled in the area and wield the traditional heavy battle axe.

[Sebastian Seth]

I dont think the russian infantry is worth recruiting at all. I havent reached too far in my russian save but so far I havent build any infantry or archery buildings in my castles.

My armies are relatively small but they are pretty much composed of:

Mercenery Spearmen
Kazaks
Boyar Sons
General

In open field battle I try to bind the enemy spearmen and elite troops with my spearmen. Before it turns to brawl I try to thin the elite forces with Boyar Sons (Javelins) and Kazaks (Bows). Then when brawl is on going I'll usually charge the ranged units with the kazaks, the elite units with boyar sons and general (preferably from behind them).

In castle defence I usually have just militia archers or crossbow militia in addion to those. I usually try to block enemy from coming over the walls with the archers. (Never successfull but buys little time). I'll usually let them come trought the gate and put the mercenery spearmen right in front of the gate in round formation. The objective is not to stop them with the spearmen but to slow them down and let them come trought in small groups. Then when they get trought they meet arrows, javelins and repeated charges from the cavarly. (IMO game is broken when it comes to cavarly and pathfinding in cities but weak AI balances that.)

Castle attacks are bit more difficult to me. I tend to lose so much men in the attack that I lose the castle in next opposition attack. I have some success with going straight trought the main gate and then spreading kazaks & boyar sons around the city but the weakness of my infantry really shows here.

Generally I try to make use of the fact that most russian forces have ranged weapons. This is usefull when you are fighting on the narrow streets because the units behind are not just waiting their turn. Later this will be huge problem... I cant think how to get past dismounted civalric knights. But I'm looking forward on getting druszina's, dvor's and tzars guards.

My first attacks where:
Moscow, Riga and Helsinki.
Next waves:
Helsinki -> Stockholm -> Oslo -> Arhus (Lost Arhus in two turns and now back in Oslo for a regroup)
Riga -> (Castle below novgorod) -> Kiev -> Polish castle south west from Kiev
Moscow -> Ryazan -> Caffa (General died of old age)

Main key in strategic map moving is that I recruit the footmen from the destionation and travel with cavarly.

The rebel spawns are putting me of tought. Theres two rebel fleets destroying every ship that leaves port in skandinavia and large number of rebels roaming all over russia. I have 18 years old heir with 5 stars allready just by killing rebels in vicinity of novogrod. I may have to handle the files to get rid of the rebels and restart since they are actually matching me in streight in russia and that is binding too much of my attack streight. The amount of them is not that unrealistic as such but when compared to the number of settlements and population in scandinavia and russia they are too strong. (I may have tuned them up by accident. They come in stacks of 5 and about 1-2 per turn.)

But my main strategy is really: Take out danish to secure economy, Take out polish just because they will do the same for you if you dont, get constanttinopole as ally or as province, Take every little castle there is just to turn them ordodox and later slow down on mongols.

[BlackKnight1234]

I was playing with russia and i conquer too much land(holy roman, poland,hungary,denmark,some lands from turks all east-nort).But i see that mongols come in 60-65 turns I dont know why???????But it was good for me

[Barry]

I shall attempt to make sense of your post BlackKnight, did you over-expand, ie had major rebelions because you gained too many settlements too quickly? Or did you conquer so much land that you came into contact with the Mongols? You said it was good for you so I suppose that this is the case and you beat the Mongols, I can only congratulate you on this feat and wish you more luck for the harder Timurids!

[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!