standard russian army

[Brogie]

just wonder what standard army you put together as rusians, how may spears, scatapults horse etc

[Bernhard of Clairvaux]

Early on I try to add 4 boyar sons, 2-4 dismounted boyar sons, 3-4 druzina (spelling?) and the rest spear and HA (kazaks) of various kind. Usually I don´t add too many spear.

Later depending on money I replace druzina with Tsar Guards, add dvor cavalry (4), add dismounted dvor (at least 4).

Overall I try to use the strength of missile troops. For defending cities I add even more dismounted dvor since they are good at melee too.

[Flavius Gonzo]

Here's my prefered setup:

2 basilisks
4 cossack musketeers
2 Dismounted Druzina
1 General
2 Tsar's Guard
5 Cossack Cav
4 Dvor Cav

Generally, the russians have a pretty good cav advantage, especially when fighting to the west. So, I use the Druzina, General & Tsar's guard to defend the musketeers & artillary while lining half the missle cav up on the left flank and half on the right.

You can use a similar strategy early on in the game subbing in Kazaks for the Cossaks, Boyar sons for Dvors, Druzhina for Tsar's guard, dismounted dvor for the musketeers, and Catapults for the Basilisks.

Fighting against an eastern army with more missle cav, I'll use more musketeers and less Dvor cav. Wear down the enemy missle cav with your own missle troops and then chase them down with the Cossack musketeers.

Generally, I don't see a need for spearmen -- your biggest worry in a setup above is an enemy heavy cav hitting your missle units head on. Both the dismounted dvors and musketeers can hang on for a little while in this situation, long enough hopefully for you to hammer them back with your own heavy cav.

[Sheogorath]

Generally early on my Russian army consists of whatever I can scrape together at the time, y'know?

Later on, I tend to specialize. My field armies are generally cavy-heavy (mostly HA's, preferably Dvor's), with my siege/city-taking armies consisting of plenty of cannon-fodder (Spear milita and so forth) backed up with a solid core of axes, musketeers and cavy.
Nothin' like the ol' 'UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURAH!' to make my day.

[Caliburn]

Early on something like 8 Kazaks, 4 Cossack Cavalry and 2-4 Boyar Sons, plus a general and maybe a coupla Druzhina. Then Dvor and more Cossacks as money and technology allows it. Never bothered with Tsars guard. In the end, most field armies were still maybe half Kazaks, but then again, early armies were 2/3 stacks at most anyway.

I used infantry only pretty late (I'm too cheap to field a Dvor army), and then it was an axe line (dismounted Druzhina and/or Boyars, maybe 7-8) with maybe 4 Dismounted Dvor, 2 Cossack Musketeers, 2 Dvor, 3 Cossacks and a General. Sometimes I cycled through old (golden) Boyar Sons and Druzhina, and sometimes it was Basilisks (very seldom in field battles). In any case, missiles did the most part, Dismounted Dvor and Musketeers from the front and Missile Cavalry from the behind. Too much for most enemies' morale to actually engage with the axes... And Dvor can take on almost anyone.

[Czar Alexsandr]

Early a "Army" if I have one consists of the general's unit. 2 Druzhina, 2 Boyar Sons, 4 Kazaks, 3 Spearmen, 2 Woodsmen, and 3 Peasant or Militia archers. If the general's lucky a balista or two. Maybe even a catapult too if he's very lucky.

Later I try field more Tsar's guard, Dismounted Boyar Son's, Cossack Cavalry, Dismounted Dvor, Cossack Musketeers, cannon-Basiliac, and whatever high level troops I can field. However the ones I bothered to name see a lot more use. Dvor are great but I can only build so many. Berdiache see limited use since most of my armies come from castles, Vilnius, Iasi, Ryazan, Smolensk, Thorn, Halych, since my armies are far from cites I use very few. Woodsmen are more common as my two handed flankers due to availability. Druzhina and Kazacks are in odd numbers and act as reserves. I use the Russian Spearmen in all of my armies due to it's defensive staying power.