Faction Preview on IGN - The Russians!!

[Hochmeister]

Heres the link:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/731/731089p1.html

Enjoy

[highlanddave]

that was an interesting read, mincemeat, thanks for the link. i am going to look forward to ign doing more faction guides. it is interesting that the russians have jerusalem as a required objective as they are orthodox.

[lars573]

My guess, probably so they'd have more than one. The only other possibility would be in the Balkans.

But it looks like Russian units are made up of spears and axes, both on horse and on foot. Plus they get Cossacks Although I'm not sure that Cossacks fort/settlements exist before 1530. They also seem to have a generous amount of missile cavalry, 4 by my count. Plus they have war wagons.

[Ignoramus]

Tsar's Guard? That is suprising. Especially considering Novgorod was a republic...

[lars573]

1.Your assuming that Tsars guard are availble from turn 1.
2.This faction isn't just Novgorod, it's the Russians as an ethnic group.

[Dr_Who_Regen#4]

Thanks for the link...

I think this makes it pretty easy to see that each faction will have its own set of about 5 to 8 "unique" units and then will probably share things like Crossbow militia, peasants and the type...I just hope that the unique units are actually unique and not just different renederings of units that are statistically identical (for example hopefully the Zweihanders and Berdiche Axemen are not really the same guys).

Anyways it is looking pretty fun as there will be lots of different troops stroming across our screens.

[Darth Nihilus]

Thats one thing that I'm really going to like about this TW game as compared to others. I hope every faction has at least 5 units exclusive to that faction. In Rome, or the original medieval I always played as factions that had several exclusive units. I'm glad to see that (at least I would assume with there being 200 units) factions will be more unique this time around.

[Furious Mental]

War wagons? Awesome!

[Randarkmaan]

Hmm... since they've included warwagons then the Hungarians and Ottomans should also have them as both used them...

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

War Wagons is an unbelievably good shout, and I like the way in the video the Berdiche REALLY made sure the guy was dead. Just a shame you can't hack off limbs for extra realism.

[ElectricEel]

The initial target for the Russian kingdom should be expansion through the occupation of nearby rebel settlements such as Smolensk and Helsinki.

Helsinki did not exist during the time period of the game. It was founded in 1550, the game ends in 1530.

[L'Impresario]

Yes, that's a quite obvious blunder, but, hey, we 're talking about a "russian" faction since the 11th century, so this helps put things in perspective heh
Ofcourse with one era and a limited number of factions it'll be hard to get all things done in an acceptable way.

[Orda Khan]

They also seem to have a generous amount of missile cavalry

No surprise there then

.......Orda

[Solon of Athens]

Oh very nice...*can't wait any longer*

[Cousin Zoidfarb]

they should change the name of the Kazak unit to Black Hoods ( chernye klobuki) or karakalpak in turkish. these being the steppe auxilliaries used by the Rus. Kazak refers to mongol adventurer from which we get the word cossack. otherwise looks great.

[Mount Suribachi]

Helsinki did not exist during the time period of the game. It was founded in 1550, the game ends in 1530.

Maybe you should tell CA Will be very easy to mod it to something else anyway.

[Silver Rusher]

1.Your assuming that Tsars guard are availble from turn 1.
2.This faction isn't just Novgorod, it's the Russians as an ethnic group.

1. Actually, I'm guessing they probably will be, not that it matters anyway (see below).
2. Precisely. The Feudal Republic of Novgorod, I believe, only official political independance in 1136, 66 years after the start of the campaign. Although, even at this time they were very eager for independance from Kiev, so they should have quite high unrest.

So basically, Novgorod wasn't independant, but the Russian's shouldn't have Tsar's bodyguards (at all) because up until 1547 most Russian states (save for the Republics) were ruled by the Veliky Kniaz (Grand Prince). Muscovy was the first state to gain a Tsar and even they only had one after 1480.

But hey, I am always open for changing history and so maybe if a player were to 'become' Tsar somehow, maybe then they could have them, but even then I am doubtful CA would implement something. Now Bulgaria, on the other hand, did have Tsars at the times when they were independant from the Byzantines and before Ottoman rule.

I hope you have enjoyed this history lesson.

[lars573]

Kiev is rebel at the start. Novgorod is the only starting province the Russians have.

Why is it that elective monarchies are always called Republics.

[IrishArmenian]

Looks fun. I am happy they showed this because that is the faction I want to play the most at the moment.

[anders]

excuse me for posting this as a reply, didnt know how to do it properly;

since reading the IGN prewiev of the russians Ive been reading up on medeieval russian arms and armor around the net, and it seems to me that both the rus(scandinavian heritage) infantry and the indigenious slavic infantry were pretty much all bow-armed, both with selfbows(longbow) and composite bows. not to say that they were exclusively archers, but they all carried bows.

why then, is there no regular bow-armed infantry for the russians?

[Laman]

...

Why is it that elective monarchies are always called Republics.

Actually they aren't.

Some elective monarchies not called republics:
Sweden
Hungary
Bohemia
German Kingdom

Elective monarchies called republics:
None that I actually can think of.

[Ignoramus]

Venice was one.

[Vladimir]

Venice was one.

The Dodge a monarch? Wasn't he more like the most popular merchant who had to fight to maintain his title?

[Dracula(Romanian Vlad Tepes)]

The russians are so boooring.

[batu khan]

they are not boring.i am gonna enjoy killing Russians.(berdische axemen)

[DukeofSerbia]

they should change the name of the Kazak unit to Black Hoods ( chernye klobuki) or karakalpak in turkish. these being the steppe auxilliaries used by the Rus. Kazak refers to mongol adventurer from which we get the word cossack. otherwise looks great.

Agree. Kazaks didn't exist in medieval as tribes. They were later formed.

[Captsin]

I was looking forward to playing them and now I think I'll play the Byzantines.

First of all, the Russians weren't even known as Russians back then. The latin "ia" was added to "Russ" by Tsar Peter the Great in the early 18th century as part of his move to westernize the country (ever wonder why Russia and Iberia have the same latin endings while Russia is in the east?). The Russians were a slavic tribe known as the Rus back then. There were no Ukranians or Belorussians or Russians proper just a very large tribe called the Russ. So why not call them the Russ in the game?

The medieval period, in which the game starts, before the Mongols invaded was known as Kievan Rus. It wasn't called Novgorodian Rus because Kiev was the the more important centre. Novgorod was a city state and never came to prominence until after the Mongol invasion simply for the fact that it was the only city left standing! You should start as Kiev as that was where the grand prince resided and all the other princes nominally pledged their allegiance to him - including the prince of Novgorod. Kiev was also the centre of Orthodoxy and the city from which the religion spread.

The Rus did fight amognst themselves and didn't unite even in the face of the Mongols. But why not start the game as The Kievan Grand prince and unite the Rus in time to fight the Mongols? it's kind of like playing the Byzantines and stopping the Turks. Now if you are to start a game in the late medieval period (as in MTW) then you should play as the Prince of Novgorod and have to deal with the Mongol Horde (which conquered all the Rus' lands to the east) and the Tuetons and Catholic Poles from the west (sounds hard but fun!).

Now some of you will think I'm nitpicking, but I have a hard time getting into a "historical" game that seems to have Russian history as an afterthought. It makes more sense to start as Kiev, consolidate your power over the Russian lands (ie war with rebellious princes) , deal with or fight Constantinople, the Poles and raiders from the steppes, then to start as Novgorod and conquer Kiev. Novgorod never invaded Kiev and could not have pulled that off, ever.

The military units available to the Russians also seem to be way off. I don't know a great deal about specific unit types in medieval Russian history but I know that Cossack regulars never made it into the Russian military until the 17th 18th century. I also know that Russians didn't have heraldry and I see chevrons on the boyars sons. The cavalry looked decidedly western circa the 9th century minus the long shields. I also wasn;t aware that "axemen wearing greek deathmasks" is a historically accurate unit. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyway, sorry to ramble on, I just had to get that off my chest because I love Total War and was hoping for something more for the Russians.

[Captsin]

I forgot to add that every single medieval Russian should have a beard! No clean shaven men!

[lars573]

Actually they aren't.

Some elective monarchies not called republics:
Sweden
Hungary
Bohemia
German Kingdom

Elective monarchies called republics:
None that I actually can think of.

You forgot Denmark. I can think of three.

The Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth (where the king was elected by the nobles)
Venice (doge is a derivative of dux, IE duke, and he was elected for life)
Novgorod (the leaders were called kniaz, which means prince)

So why is it that Bohemia is called a kingdom and Poland-Lithuania is called a republic? They were both ruled by kings who were elected by the nobles from their numbers to rule for their life time?

[DisruptorX]

I forgot to add that every single medieval Russian should have a beard! No clean shaven men!

In response to your above post: remember the Egyptians in RTW? yea....