Russia

[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.

[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.