What qualifies as control/occupation of Russia? I've pushed all the way to Samara and Vjakta at this point - am i far enough? I can almost see the Ural Mountains.

Do i need x number of cities here? Do i need all of european russia in my cultural borders? (Russia just collapsed, so i don't need to worry about that). I'm just worried about giga-empire problems. That and building enough workers to improve all this land - 12 was plenty before with incremental conquest and the relatively small sizes of France, Italy, and the Balkans. Russia is *huge*. (I think i've almost doubled my size)

Also - by 1940? Snicker. Its like 1750 and i've had Rome/France/Greece for a couple hundred years (1870 deadline), and after i finish mopping up russia its the vikings turn. Then i can concentrate on the Battle of Britain, which will hopefully be suitably epic as England is right behind me in tech. I imagine i'll control all of Europe excluding the Iberian peninsula by 1850. So much production - General Winter was only a mild annoyance.

To get enough Lebensraum to win the UHV, you need to grab all of the main Russian area. This includes about 2 squares past the Ural mountains, the area at the northern black sea, aral sea, and caspian sea, as well as the north, as far as from the copper source to the gems by the arctic ocean. So it is a pretty huge area to control. I believe you need to control it totally--meaning nobody else, including independents and barbarians, has a city or culture there--and have the majority of the vast space filled with culture.

To get enough Lebensraum to win the UHV, you need to grab all of the main Russian area. This includes about 2 squares past the Ural mountains, the area at the northern black sea, aral sea, and caspian sea, as well as the north, as far as from the copper source to the gems by the arctic ocean. So it is a pretty huge area to control. I believe you need to control it totally--meaning nobody else, including independents and barbarians, has a city or culture there--and have the majority of the vast space filled with culture.

Oh joy is me. Wait, i have to control down into the caspian too... sigh, even Russia doesn't have cities there. I guess i can stop making riflemen for a few moments to make some settlers... Hmm... i might need to slap down the turks too...

Its a good thing a lot of that territory makes for great cottaging, otherwise i'd never get enough research done.

I just took the the cities that where inside the borders of what the atlas show, it was basically 7-8 cities iirc.

you just need 3 cities and more cities than russia to get the objective

yup, if the russians collapse and you have lets say petrograd, moskva and wolgograd (not sure what exactly is the russian heartland) you're on the safe side...

safe side? How could you say that?

you need 3 cities in the russian mainland and more than russia (and the three i mentioned are 100% russian mainland, while russia has already collapsed, thus has no cities at all...)

I did it with only 3 cities. I don't recommend having many more as you start running into problems once you control Scandinavia and England due to having so many cities. I had Paris become independant on me for a while as I struggled to keep everything together long enough to finish out the tech tree.

Only 3 cities, right.

You only need to control them in 1940ad after that you could declare their independence and go for the tech win.

One Question: What do future tech do?

Future Tech adds to your score.

they also (each) add +1 happy and +1 health to your cities, not bad uh ?

From what I understand, Germany's "control" condition do not depend on any number of cities, but simply that the Germans have cultural control over more plots in the given area than the original civilization. Thus, it would seem to follow that if the original civ collapsed, one city should suffice.

I have been wanting to play Germans, but this has really turned me against all the map related UHVs. I think requirements need to me more clear in game and even have the Atlas included (heck, loading the Altas online takes 5 minutes for me, so I try to avoid that). If I play any of those civs, I am always paranoid that I will be done in by being one square off, or (in the case of the English) settling on a square that isn't even part of a continent.

Now I look at a thread trying to clarify one, and there are how many different opinions on the subject?

IMO this is THE biggest problem with RFC, along with other unclear UHV conditions.

My end conclusion was you wanted to take all the reasonably productive cities in russia (+ something near the gems up north) - while you'll suffer giga-empire research penalties, you're going to cottage most of that land since you don't need production cities, which means it'll be a net-positive for you on research. (Large cottage cities >> research penalty for extra cities). And Russia actually spreads its cities out sufficiently to let them grow. Also, more cities = more courthouse/jail/security bureau/Intelligence Agency, which is more free espionage points, which -> more tech stealing. Why bother trading for tech, or researching something someone else discovered. I was generating >1000 espionage points/turn with no commerce investment in it.

I had virtually no problems with stability. I was running occupation until i finished my conquest of england, and switched to Viceroyalty (with the Cristo Redemptor) afterwards as i had 3 or 4 vassals by that point. In fact, I was solid or very solid virtually the entire time. I controlled all of France, Amsterdam, Rome, Milan (Mailand?), Athens, ~8 russian cities, 3-4 viking cities, all the english cities, Mainz, + cities i founded: Reval, Landau, Posen, Lemberg, Budapest, and Essen. Posen, Mainz, Landau, and Rom were my major production centers, though Magnitogorsk, Moskau, and one other russian city were also pretty decent (Magnitogorsk doesn't have good land for cottaging).

Basically, you're depending on a strong economy to kick up your stability, and can often achieve a pretty good Foreign stability score too. In fact, I had awesome everything except expansion, and expansion only tanked as I was conquering Britain. Germany is meant to expand, so don't be afraid to do so. Burn cities that can't use at least 14 or more tiles (spread out cities = good), and burn cities on bad land, but keep everything else.

If it wasn't for the cultural victory (gah!), i would have finished the tech tree about 10-15 turns after the 1940 victory condition. (I achieved a cultural victory in 1920 by accident... sigh). On Monarch. I've only seen America achieve similar research prowess in modern techs as the player civ.

don't worry, the low cultural victory threshold will be addressed