Russian Strategy "You're from Moscow, so why aren't you rushin?"
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Russian MP Strategy
as promised, I'm writing up some strategy for the Russians. They are one of the hardest civs to play with, and are probably the most average civ available. They require a good skill set to be able to use effectively: you have to know how to expand and tech well without the aid of tech-friendly bonuses that other civs possess.
Bonuses:
Start: knowledge of local map
Ancient: +1 food from plains
Medieval: New defensive units recieve loyalty bonus
Industrial: 1/2 cost riflemen
Modern: 1/2 cost spies.
How to start:
Starting out you have a larger map exposed, this must be exploited at the beggining to find ways to save a few turns at the beginning of the game, because they are not naturally powerful at the very beginning. The thing you have to pray for is a visible and accessible friendly hut that you can reach with your settlers. If you see this hut, go get it.
Starting with an accessible hut:
This is your chance to be powerful, maybe one of few that appear to allow you to compete in the game... So if you see a hut that your settlers can get, it is imparitive that you go get it in the least amount of turns possible. Most of the time you should receive 25 gold for the hut.
-Your next goal should be finding a place for your cap to settle. With 25 gold in hand, you have saved yourself 3 turns of production for a warrior. You should be looking for a spot with at least 2 forest, 2 grass/plains, and 2 sea tiles. Look for this spot optimally before you get to your hut.
- If you see an enemy civ, espeically an AI that you can reach with a warrior in less than five turns, move your settler closer to your enemy and take him out, even if it means settling in a spot with less than the resources that I listed above. If it is a human civ close to you, consider your realistic chance to warrior rush him against your own safety, if you can walkin to his city or get enough warriors in the first 10 turns to take him out, consider moving away from him.
- If you can't take an enemy in less than five turns, after getting your hut, try to work out the least amount of turns you can get the closest barb village. Your goal should be to get a barb village in less than 5 turns, basically before the barbs have more than one unit. Most of the time I have been able to figure out ways to get these barb villages in 4 turns without having to skimp on a good settling place for Moscow.
- If you take an enemy civ early, you should pump out a few warriors from both your cities, rushing with gold in the first 10 turns if needed and flood the map with warriors and get the barb villages. From there tech up and advance to later parts of the strategy, this should be a good enough head start to not warrent much more advise from me.
- If you don't get an enemy civ, focus on getting the barb village early and keep churning out warriors with both workers on two forest and rushing them for 12 gold or less. 5 warriors is what I usually shoot for, and this usually only takes about 7-9 turns, sometimes less depending on if I'm able to pester a civ early and pick up an enemy cap.
- get your 100 gold settler and push your map presence as much as possible, sealing off areas and occupying hills and chokepoints to block off on-coming rushers and more importantly control more of the map for settling.
- after producing enough warriors, set cap to grow to 3 pop, then set to tech (2 science, 1 food, or 3 science) and get bronze working and then refer to the tech tree that I will list below.
- Most games where I have found a hut, I have found myself either winning handedly in the first 20 turns, or keeping up with the power civs, this is actually pretty powerful, not overpowered, but a tool you must know how to exploit if you want a chance with Russia.
Starting without a hut
This isn't what you want, but can still be workable. Don't move the settler! If you don't see a hut, this means moving the settler will require too many turns to make your strategy work. You can consider moving the settler one square if you see a better spot right next to you, but this probably won't be the case.
- from here: pump out 2 warriors in 5 turns
- get to barb villages, you should be able to see a few, so you should have some turns saved from this.
- set capital on food and grow to 3 pop.
- When ever you get some gold, consider the pros and cons to switching back to 2 forest and rushing warriors at 12 gold instead of 20, sometimes it's worth it to pump out three warriors in three turns at a cost of six hammers and 36 gold.
- If there are rushers, consider getting bronze working before you grow to 3 pop in your cap, but you should know if they're coming a little earlier since you have a decent idea of the map.
- Get those warriors out to the barb villages and get your 100 gold asap. Again, I like to have about 5 warriors, maybe 2 roaming and 1 army to try to take control of as much of the map as possible early on, and to ward off rushers.
- once you get to 100 gold, rush a settler in Moscow for 40 gold. Save 40 gold hopefully to rush another settler in your next city with 3 pop ASAP.
- now you should be focusing on balancing expanding with tech, which should take some discipline, but you want the loyalty bonus that will ensure your safety and claim more of the map for you.
tech order
Bronze working
Alphabet
Writing
Literacy
Code of laws
Currency
Math
Navigation
Monarcy
Feudalism
Gunpowder
You should be teching towards Code of Laws. You probably wont get Irrigation. If you think you can get it, then considering adding in pottery, masonary, irrigation before you get alphabet, with the option of tech jumping masonary. Currency should only be sought after if you can get the free market from the bonus, if not, skip it. Iron Working should be considered at any point of the game where you think legions will be needed either for protection (probably before you get those loyalty archers), or for an all out legion spam rush.
The important part is getting to Code of Laws. After that Navigation can be very helpful. Monarchy and Feudalism are important to ensure late game viability from your cheap riflemen. Before getting gunpowder, of course you need to consider techs like Democracy, Invention, Engineering, etc. I more or less posted milestone techs that I seek out with the Russians as a way of gauging where I am in tech, and ones that are needed specifically for the Russians.
expansion
-From here you need to be getting to Republic and start spamming cities as much as possible.
-Look for settler farm sites, these can commonly be found next to whales, fish, wheat, or in landlocked plain-heavy areas. Since plains produce 2 food, you have much more of the map at your disposal.
-Just as important as a settler farm is a city that you can contain high production. This will help you out in the later phases of the game. All my successful games that have advanced to the later eras, I have had a massive production city with the Russians. Think of it this way: which other tech-happy power civs, lots of times players will start settling along any old coastline for the fact that theyve run out of land and they want a little more science. With the Russians you dont have to stoop to that until later. Once you have youre a secure defense and some cities to produce settlers, move a settler deep into your territory and look for the highest production value spot you can have and still grow. From this city, youll be producing units early on, then maybe a granary and then workshops, factories and iron mines, a temple maybe, and useful wonders. Barracks early in a production city can be very useful, and will allow you to spam defenders for your border cities.
-You need to have some well defended border towns. Your loyalty archers should have 18 defense, 21 if they are vets. This should even keep you safe from knights. But as an added precaution I like to have loyalty archer army and a legion army for counter attack in my most threatened border cities. Having 2 archer armies is a good idea, especially for the expansion of your empire.
-After you have established your border towns, build a settler in them, advance with an archer army and settler a few squares further. Keep doing this as long as culture flips dont become an issue. Repeat the process over and over again. New border towns will become more about the production of units for defense, while older border towns will be focused on trade and producing settlers. This is actually extremely powerful and can warrant losing a few turns in the tech race, because eventually this will lead to more of whatever you want. Its a slow process at times, but they will have a hard time breaking through this. Again, dont start a border town chain in the direction of a civ thats high in culture. Consider building a temple or looking for other culture measures if this is an issue. I had a game a few days ago where I had a border town chain about 5 cities deep that started to be threatened by culture flips. Instead of countering with more culture or other measures, I rushed settlers in all my towns in that chain till they were all down to 3 population or less and loaded them on a galleon and got those settlers on islands and other parts of the mainland. You dont always have the opportunity to make this kind of settling strategy, but cities on top of each other is one thing that you should always consider.
-If you are behind in tech and dont think you can reach get back into the race, before they get pikemen consider setting all your cities to production and spam legions, it usually takes about 5-6 turns to get an army in every city without gold rushing. Then set all your cities to research religion, get fundamentalism and try to take out your closest opponent. This works for all civs, but is more important to keep in mind for the Russians since their late game bonuses wont get you caught up in tech.
- Making it to gunpowder should ensure your safety against most. By this time, it will take a long time for tanks to overrun your super-defending cheap riflemen armies. Keep in mind that they can be used offensively as well. Also, stake out more of the map with them, camping out in opponents production or food squares, occupy more spots for settling cities, whatever you can do to basically make them squat all over the map and be an annoyance.
-Cheap spies in the modern is a good last ditch effort to set your opponents back some turns. You probably wont be doing much more than that. Make spy rings to ensure that youll have chance to use them effectively. Stealing GPs is a priority, but next in line is demolishing buildings. Stealing gold is a good last option. Sabotaging production is last ditch type of effort.
other tips
Dont go granary happy with the Russians. This isnt a priority. Only do this when it isnt costly to do so, or if its so powerful to do so at the time. If you have 4 plains next to a city, maybe consider doing this early, especially if those plains are next to a river.
-You shoudnt have a problem defending unless they have units twice as advanced as your defenders. Your archers should have a decent chance against knights, your riflemen should have an ok shot against tanks.
- City specialization is whats gonna win you the game that drags out. Figure out shortcuts to the techs you need, or switch all cities to gold for a few turns, or produce units everywhere for a while.
closing remarks
Russia is by no means a power civ, and is still one of the worst and hardest civs to play in my book. There power isnt obvious, and doesnt always have a chance to materialize. I doubt many players will purposely choose them because they think they are their key to getting to the top of the leaderboard. Lots of us like to play random, or like a challenge, and thats why I wrote this strat. They can be viable in most games, and usually stick around for a while, but require the patience to stay in a game when losing and the skill to be disinclined to come from behind by teching, defending, and occupying the map, and rushing as soon as its available. Ive played several games with them on MP, and its easier to be successful with them in FFA (usually ensure 2nd place if you survive the early rush, and lots of people tech slower because of more threats in FFA), but also H2H. The most powerful games come when taking a cap first after getting a hut, barb village and then marching on a few early caps quickly. The more fulfilling games have been when Ive overrun the map with cities and squeezed my opponents out. Hope there is something in here that can help you get an edge in your next game with them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Russian MP Strategy
as promised, I'm writing up some strategy for the Russians. They are one of the hardest civs to play with, and are probably the most average civ available. They require a good skill set to be able to use effectively: you have to know how to expand and tech well without the aid of tech-friendly bonuses that other civs possess.
Bonuses:
Start: knowledge of local map
Ancient: +1 food from plains
Medieval: New defensive units recieve loyalty bonus
Industrial: 1/2 cost riflemen
Modern: 1/2 cost spies.
How to start:
Starting out you have a larger map exposed, this must be exploited at the beggining to find ways to save a few turns at the beginning of the game, because they are not naturally powerful at the very beginning. The thing you have to pray for is a visible and accessible friendly hut that you can reach with your settlers. If you see this hut, go get it.
Starting with an accessible hut:
This is your chance to be powerful, maybe one of few that appear to allow you to compete in the game... So if you see a hut that your settlers can get, it is imparitive that you go get it in the least amount of turns possible. Most of the time you should receive 25 gold for the hut.
-Your next goal should be finding a place for your cap to settle. With 25 gold in hand, you have saved yourself 3 turns of production for a warrior. You should be looking for a spot with at least 2 forest, 2 grass/plains, and 2 sea tiles. Look for this spot optimally before you get to your hut.
- If you see an enemy civ, espeically an AI that you can reach with a warrior in less than five turns, move your settler closer to your enemy and take him out, even if it means settling in a spot with less than the resources that I listed above. If it is a human civ close to you, consider your realistic chance to warrior rush him against your own safety, if you can walkin to his city or get enough warriors in the first 10 turns to take him out, consider moving away from him.
- If you can't take an enemy in less than five turns, after getting your hut, try to work out the least amount of turns you can get the closest barb village. Your goal should be to get a barb village in less than 5 turns, basically before the barbs have more than one unit. Most of the time I have been able to figure out ways to get these barb villages in 4 turns without having to skimp on a good settling place for Moscow.
- If you take an enemy civ early, you should pump out a few warriors from both your cities, rushing with gold in the first 10 turns if needed and flood the map with warriors and get the barb villages. From there tech up and advance to later parts of the strategy, this should be a good enough head start to not warrent much more advise from me.
- If you don't get an enemy civ, focus on getting the barb village early and keep churning out warriors with both workers on two forest and rushing them for 12 gold or less. 5 warriors is what I usually shoot for, and this usually only takes about 7-9 turns, sometimes less depending on if I'm able to pester a civ early and pick up an enemy cap.
- get your 100 gold settler and push your map presence as much as possible, sealing off areas and occupying hills and chokepoints to block off on-coming rushers and more importantly control more of the map for settling.
- after producing enough warriors, set cap to grow to 3 pop, then set to tech (2 science, 1 food, or 3 science) and get bronze working and then refer to the tech tree that I will list below.
- Most games where I have found a hut, I have found myself either winning handedly in the first 20 turns, or keeping up with the power civs, this is actually pretty powerful, not overpowered, but a tool you must know how to exploit if you want a chance with Russia.
Starting without a hut
This isn't what you want, but can still be workable. Don't move the settler! If you don't see a hut, this means moving the settler will require too many turns to make your strategy work. You can consider moving the settler one square if you see a better spot right next to you, but this probably won't be the case.
- from here: pump out 2 warriors in 5 turns
- get to barb villages, you should be able to see a few, so you should have some turns saved from this.
- set capital on food and grow to 3 pop.
- When ever you get some gold, consider the pros and cons to switching back to 2 forest and rushing warriors at 12 gold instead of 20, sometimes it's worth it to pump out three warriors in three turns at a cost of six hammers and 36 gold.
- If there are rushers, consider getting bronze working before you grow to 3 pop in your cap, but you should know if they're coming a little earlier since you have a decent idea of the map.
- Get those warriors out to the barb villages and get your 100 gold asap. Again, I like to have about 5 warriors, maybe 2 roaming and 1 army to try to take control of as much of the map as possible early on, and to ward off rushers.
- once you get to 100 gold, rush a settler in Moscow for 40 gold. Save 40 gold hopefully to rush another settler in your next city with 3 pop ASAP.
- now you should be focusing on balancing expanding with tech, which should take some discipline, but you want the loyalty bonus that will ensure your safety and claim more of the map for you.
tech order
Bronze working
Alphabet
Writing
Literacy
Code of laws
Currency
Math
Navigation
Monarcy
Feudalism
Gunpowder
You should be teching towards Code of Laws. You probably wont get Irrigation. If you think you can get it, then considering adding in pottery, masonary, irrigation before you get alphabet, with the option of tech jumping masonary. Currency should only be sought after if you can get the free market from the bonus, if not, skip it. Iron Working should be considered at any point of the game where you think legions will be needed either for protection (probably before you get those loyalty archers), or for an all out legion spam rush.
The important part is getting to Code of Laws. After that Navigation can be very helpful. Monarchy and Feudalism are important to ensure late game viability from your cheap riflemen. Before getting gunpowder, of course you need to consider techs like Democracy, Invention, Engineering, etc. I more or less posted milestone techs that I seek out with the Russians as a way of gauging where I am in tech, and ones that are needed specifically for the Russians.
expansion
-From here you need to be getting to Republic and start spamming cities as much as possible.
-Look for settler farm sites, these can commonly be found next to whales, fish, wheat, or in landlocked plain-heavy areas. Since plains produce 2 food, you have much more of the map at your disposal.
-Just as important as a settler farm is a city that you can contain high production. This will help you out in the later phases of the game. All my successful games that have advanced to the later eras, I have had a massive production city with the Russians. Think of it this way: which other tech-happy power civs, lots of times players will start settling along any old coastline for the fact that theyve run out of land and they want a little more science. With the Russians you dont have to stoop to that until later. Once you have youre a secure defense and some cities to produce settlers, move a settler deep into your territory and look for the highest production value spot you can have and still grow. From this city, youll be producing units early on, then maybe a granary and then workshops, factories and iron mines, a temple maybe, and useful wonders. Barracks early in a production city can be very useful, and will allow you to spam defenders for your border cities.
-You need to have some well defended border towns. Your loyalty archers should have 18 defense, 21 if they are vets. This should even keep you safe from knights. But as an added precaution I like to have loyalty archer army and a legion army for counter attack in my most threatened border cities. Having 2 archer armies is a good idea, especially for the expansion of your empire.
-After you have established your border towns, build a settler in them, advance with an archer army and settler a few squares further. Keep doing this as long as culture flips dont become an issue. Repeat the process over and over again. New border towns will become more about the production of units for defense, while older border towns will be focused on trade and producing settlers. This is actually extremely powerful and can warrant losing a few turns in the tech race, because eventually this will lead to more of whatever you want. Its a slow process at times, but they will have a hard time breaking through this. Again, dont start a border town chain in the direction of a civ thats high in culture. Consider building a temple or looking for other culture measures if this is an issue. I had a game a few days ago where I had a border town chain about 5 cities deep that started to be threatened by culture flips. Instead of countering with more culture or other measures, I rushed settlers in all my towns in that chain till they were all down to 3 population or less and loaded them on a galleon and got those settlers on islands and other parts of the mainland. You dont always have the opportunity to make this kind of settling strategy, but cities on top of each other is one thing that you should always consider.
-If you are behind in tech and dont think you can reach get back into the race, before they get pikemen consider setting all your cities to production and spam legions, it usually takes about 5-6 turns to get an army in every city without gold rushing. Then set all your cities to research religion, get fundamentalism and try to take out your closest opponent. This works for all civs, but is more important to keep in mind for the Russians since their late game bonuses wont get you caught up in tech.
- Making it to gunpowder should ensure your safety against most. By this time, it will take a long time for tanks to overrun your super-defending cheap riflemen armies. Keep in mind that they can be used offensively as well. Also, stake out more of the map with them, camping out in opponents production or food squares, occupy more spots for settling cities, whatever you can do to basically make them squat all over the map and be an annoyance.
-Cheap spies in the modern is a good last ditch effort to set your opponents back some turns. You probably wont be doing much more than that. Make spy rings to ensure that youll have chance to use them effectively. Stealing GPs is a priority, but next in line is demolishing buildings. Stealing gold is a good last option. Sabotaging production is last ditch type of effort.
other tips
Dont go granary happy with the Russians. This isnt a priority. Only do this when it isnt costly to do so, or if its so powerful to do so at the time. If you have 4 plains next to a city, maybe consider doing this early, especially if those plains are next to a river.
-You shoudnt have a problem defending unless they have units twice as advanced as your defenders. Your archers should have a decent chance against knights, your riflemen should have an ok shot against tanks.
- City specialization is whats gonna win you the game that drags out. Figure out shortcuts to the techs you need, or switch all cities to gold for a few turns, or produce units everywhere for a while.
closing remarks
Russia is by no means a power civ, and is still one of the worst and hardest civs to play in my book. There power isnt obvious, and doesnt always have a chance to materialize. I doubt many players will purposely choose them because they think they are their key to getting to the top of the leaderboard. Lots of us like to play random, or like a challenge, and thats why I wrote this strat. They can be viable in most games, and usually stick around for a while, but require the patience to stay in a game when losing and the skill to be disinclined to come from behind by teching, defending, and occupying the map, and rushing as soon as its available. Ive played several games with them on MP, and its easier to be successful with them in FFA (usually ensure 2nd place if you survive the early rush, and lots of people tech slower because of more threats in FFA), but also H2H. The most powerful games come when taking a cap first after getting a hut, barb village and then marching on a few early caps quickly. The more fulfilling games have been when Ive overrun the map with cities and squeezed my opponents out. Hope there is something in here that can help you get an edge in your next game with them.
