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


Quote Originally Posted by suvorov
1. Spearmilitia

Why russian spearunits dont have a bonus against cavalry but "all" other nations or most of them like poland have a bonus.
That much is a pet peeve of mine, and not only regarding the Rus. Basic urban and spear militias have the anti cav trait or not, almost randomly, across the board. It's not even a cutlure thing, because even among western factions, some spear militias have it and some don't.


2. Druzhina and Boyars


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

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

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

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

If we watch Boyars and polish knights, i ask me what did polish Cavalry does at 1080 to have so better stats, Boyars have defence 15 and polish knights (or whatever) have 17. We talk about 1080... and not about 1580 and polish Hussars!
I guess it's all a game balance/diversity thing. I assume boyars don't cost as much as Polish nobles in either buying price or upkeep to compensate for their inferior stats. Also, bow-wielding Boyars would probably be redundant with Khazars and Cossacks, so giving javelins to Boyars was probably a gamey, if not historical, move from CA to give the Russian player more tactical options.

3. Unmounted Druzhina and Boyars.

That units have the same stats!
Unmounted Boyars dont throw anything but with horse they throw missiles why is it so?
Why russian player should need two same units?
Dismounted Druzhina are armor-piercing. That's a huge, huge huge huge bonus, as mentionned earlier. Boyars can shoot, Druzhina are better at melee. Once again, maybe not true to history, but as far as the game is concerned, it gives more options to the player.

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

4. Kazakhen

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

Russians didnt have light Cavalry with Bows in the time of Kievan-Rus only armoured Cavalry with Bows(in MTW they were represent as Boyars) so Russians never made raides as Mongols or Cumans or Timurids and so on.
Again, that's game logic taking over history. Having only one type of horse-archers (heavily armoured Boyars) wouldn't be fun for the player, and besides, they needed *some* units to fill the gap between Motte and Stone Castle. They chose the Khazaks over, say, light spear cav, because it was culturally relevant and interesting. CA has always chosen fun over pure history.

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


6. Cities/Regions

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


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


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

They are big territories with more than only little towns.
Galicia, Volinya, Turov, Pereyaslavl, Chernigov, Novgorod Seversk.
What do Galicia (Halych) in the polakish faction?
Again, I believe that's a game > history thing. They wanted to give western factions a hard time in conquering Russia, because historically western powers have always failed in that regard (Napoleon, Hitler, and whoever was unlucky enough to awaken Alexander Nevsky ;) ). Since western armies rely as much on infantry as they do on cavalry, and since russian armies as they are in the game are mostly cav heavy, leaving much empty space between Russian settlements gave the native Rus the advantage.

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

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

7. Castles and Cities

Kievan-Rus dont use Castles as most western factions, Kievan-Rus based on towns, people who dont live in the towns dont pay taxes, nobody ever registerd them until russians have to pay money to mongols after their invasion. Peasants were free until 1497 unlike in west, what do slavery in Kievan-Rus as ressource?
Again, it's just the closest thing. You have to understand MTW and M2TW are mostly ethno-centric games. Their focus is on western history, occidental cultures, and how *they* behaved. That's why the western factions were more powerfull than the Muslims were across the board in MTW, and that is also why western factions' technology goes further than orthodox and muslim ones do in M2TW.

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

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

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