[Corporate Russia Domination] The Novgorod Republic

I am posting this in a new thread here because:

(1) The game is Domination instead of UHV, so it doesn't belong entirely in the UHV thread;

(2) This post/thread will not be in the form of a full-fledged story (due to my impatience), nor is it a standard strategy guide (as I have unique constraints for this game), so it doesn't belong in other threads/sub-forums either;

(3) This is the one Civilization game I am most proud of winning, after quite some time spent planning it. Therefore I wish to share with all of you, especially Leoreth, whose outstanding work made such an exhilarating contest possible for me.

The inspiration for this game comes from my recent fascination in the Novgorod Republic, thanks to playing it in Morholt's RFCE++. Due to my previous lack of knowledge in Russian history, I marvel at the fact that a group of Russian people were once renowned traders and sailors instead of a more land-based and production-based economy that we have learned to associate with Russia/the USSR today.

Also, for gameplay reasons, I've long desired to prove that Russia can be played to its full potential without ever using State Property. Russia with Free Market is a difficult challenge due to its lack of coastal cities. Russia with Capitalism is a dangerous alternative due to its superior Production which leads to Great Depressions. As you see in the next few posts, my game treads a third path, an economy type that is neither Capitalist nor Communist, but still immensely powerful in terms of both production and tech.

Next post will be game settings and unique constraints.

Game Settings/Tweaks:

- RFC: DoC SVN Version as of March 5th 2012

- Epic/Emperor 3000 BC start Russia

- Luxury Industry spreads with Electricity (a personal mod that I use in most of my games)

- Starting stack is moved to Novgorod

- Various other leaderhead/art/text/soundtrack tweaks of my own which don't affect gameplay


Unique Constraints:

- I am not allowed to build a single Cottage. Cottages in captured cities must be replaced with other improvements

- I am not allowed to adopt Capitalism, State Property, or Supreme Council.

- I am not allowed to loose a single city throughout the game (Russian UHV condition)

- I will colonize Siberia (7 cities) by 1640 (Stricter version of a Russian UHV condition)

- I will have absolute tech lead (no other civ may have a tech that I don't have) when I win Domination

The result is a 1800/1802 Domination victory with a Hammurabi score. I could have won earlier (with higher score) with worse Stability, but the 1800 Domination comes with a Solid Stability rating.



Next posts will be strategy/replay.

1. Domination Conundrum

Russia is possibly the only civ who has more trouble with the Population requirement for Domination Victory than the Area requirement, due to Siberia's lack of food (Tundra and Swamp everywhere), and due to Russia's lack of Luxury Resources/Happiness limiting its food-rich European cities from growing sufficiently.

You will find that to win Domination as Russia, the food bonus from Communism are far from enough, and buying Culture/building Units to deal with Happiness greatly drag down your Economy and Tech. I did none of those (never turned Culture slider above 10% and never had a Unit Cost larger than 20 Gold).

2. Where's the Food?

To solve Russia's Food problem, the solution is actually quite simple. Mass Farms and fast Biology, the usual Specialist Economy route. Biology spreads Cereal Industry, which makes even your remotest Siberian Tundra cities grow like a chicken on steroids.

3. Where is Happiness and Health?

This is the standard question of a Specialist economy. With Russia it's more about Happiness, as your cities are surrounded by Forests so Health is no problem. Dynasticism/Monarchy garrisons are expensive and not very useful; and your European cities won't really start growing like crazy after Biology anyway, by which time your empire will be so large that Autocracy is a necessity.

The usual solutions are Temples, getting your precious metals/gems (+Happiness with Forge) and Fur (+Happiness with Market), and trading for as many luxuries as possible. I did all that. The 2nd most common solution is rush Notre Dame. I did that too.

The I did something not so obvious - fast Scientific Method and mass Forest Preserves. The trick is, your city doesn't have to work the Forest Reserve tile for it to provide Happiness. So a Forest on a Tundra (something Russia is full of) is actually free Happiness. Therefore be very careful with early game chopping - IMO you should never chop a Tundra Forest. This also prepares for a late game transition into Environmentalism, since you will have vast numbers of Windmills too.

4. Where's the tech?

With growth, Health and Happiness out of the way, the only problem that remains is tech. Since I am not building a single Cottage (I also believe it's optimal for Russia to not build Cottages anyway), you are pretty much left with Specialist Economy.

Part of the reason I start in Novgorod is because the city is a great GP farm, one of the best in the game on par with New York, Chicago, London, Luoyang, and Kyouto. It covers 1 Cow, 1 Wheat, 1 Pig, and 1 Fresh Water Lake. Moskva/Kiev are not far behind in that.

Therefore do the usual Specialist Economy thing with tech set to Meditation, Engineering then Education. Don't even bother with Civil Service, as you have enough River tiles to begin with. Build Research, Production, and Happiness buildings. And trade for everything else.

5. Trade

People say that trading is less profitable on Emperor. Many don't even bother with it. I however firmly believe that you can trade on equal or even advantageous terms on Emperor provided that you are cunning enough and careful enough.

Russia is uniquely located with contacts in both Europe and the Far East, which provides many lucrative trading opportunities. Especially on 3000BC with a strong China, you will have such profitable Trade Routes (due to China's large population) that maritime civs such as Vikings, English and Spanish will be envious.

Here's a montage of most of my trade deals before Scientific Method (after which I gained absolute tech lead).



EDIT: Updated Trade montage for the 1.9 version.

Chandragupta takes over the role of Taizong somewhat. I was able to get Aesthetics, Drama, Music, Guilds, and Gunpowder from him in a single game.

As Russia, your mission is to get everything you can from China and India before 1200. After 1200, China and India will cease to be, and the world will be yours.

This is a particular start for Russia. Several things are of note:

(1) China is really advanced with Paper in 850 CE and Gunpowder not long after. However they do not have Compass or Feudalism. They would destroy the Mongols and be the first to Constitution and Military Tradition. They collapsed long after taking over Mongolia (some time in the 1400s or 1500s), but before that they provided Russia with invaluable trade (see above post).

(2) Constantinople was razed by barbs. This means the Turks will be a complete non factor.

(3) No Greek/Roman supercities with tons of Wonders. The Wonders are spread out, with Oracle in Rome and Greece not having Priesthood tech on Russian start. Hagia Sophia was razed, and Apostolic Palace/Church of Nativity were not built yet.

Taking (3) into regard the first thing I did was to settle Kiev (because I can't afford the units to take it) and build the Apostolic Palace there. I faced zero competition in this - Byzantium is very weak and unstable and Spain/France did not even bother with the wonder. Then it's merely a matter of spawning a Great Prophet.

I did not settle a single city east of Moscow before Astronomy. Instead, I focused on working the Culture in my first 5 cities as high as possible to maximize the impact of the UP. Also rush teched Engineering for Notre Dame and Pikes - turns out the dozen or so Pikes I built were completely unnecessary, as the Mongols never found me until I found them after Astronomy (and they died abjectly soon after).

When one Shrine is not enough, you simply get another:



I never got voted into the Apostolic Palace because of the HRE and their UP. Nobody declared on me except HRE around 1660, which I responded promptly by taking Budapest (again, on the Oil) and they collapsed soon after the Prussian spawn.

Meanwhile, Lobachevsky uses non-Euclidean geometry to bend light:



And this facilitated my long-planned Liberalism slingshot to Astronomy. I sent a lone Caravel (upgraded from the Tireme used to contact Mali earlier) and went for the New World. Disbanded most of my Conquerors, looted Mexico a bit, then made peace. Inca peace vassalized and Aztec collapsed, the usual.

Then I moped up the Mongols after contacting them (they lost all their initial stacks to China's Bombards & Cuirassiers and their Central Asian conquerors died to Independents) and started settling Siberia, picking spots near the numerous Gems and Gold in Siberia knowing that they will be useful Corporate resources later. There is also an Oil in west Siberia. I also settled Fort Ross (Seattle) and Recife (Brazil Oil) before England and Portugal made there. I would exhaust the 2,500 or so gold in my treasury throughout a period of 250 years of settling Siberia, but I managed to tech close to Scientific Method before my economy when to a halt largely by selling techs (see previous post).

Somewhere along the way I got a random event which really helped Russia:



This made my mass Cuirassiers/Cossacks very effective against Independent Middle Eastern cities later.

I tried to cultivate England as my major ally, but Alfred's tech still really sucked and at a time England, Portugal, and Byzantium were all vassalized to Spain. Fortunately they all broke free later.

Then the Turks collapsed with the Iranians following not long after because the really powerful Mughals were pounding them. With my new Cuirassiers I switched to Occupation and quickly mopped up the lightly defended Middle Eastern Indies including Babylon (with La Mezquita and Ishtar Gate inside) along with Budapest.

Then the Russians faced some real dangers with giant Mughal stacks perched near our newly acquired Middle Eastern assets, and a materially exhausting war against Austria in the west. However, in a stroke of inspiration, I traded Economics (which I beelined for the Great Merchant needed to stop my economy from collapsing) to France and England for a total of some 2,000 Gold, and sure enough:





Diplomacy at its very finest, my friends. "Breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting" indeed.

Then the Prussian power ended the Austrian thread once and for all and I get to keep a happy and resource-laden Budapest all to myself. I teched to Constitution not long after Babylon went into full gear, and promptly built the Taj Mahal there, facilitating a switch into Representation (Hell yeah), Egalitarianism (Hell yeah), Free Market (Hell yeah), Secularism (Hell yeah), Urbanization (I miss Agrarianism, but I have to), Autocracy (just for the cost), and Imperialism (after a brief period of Resettlement during which I scrambled for even more American cities). Russia is now full steam ahead.

Now it's a glorious dash towards Scientific Method (made much easier by the Astronomy slingshot earlier) and Electricity. Americans spawned right when I was building Research Institutes everywhere. I studied the situation in North America and quickly made an alliance with England (who had become really strong by settling Canada & Australia, whereas Netherlands settled South Africa and Portugal the rest of Brazil). At this time, I already have enough land for Domination - what I need is population. I had two alternatives:

(1) Conquer more cites. I killed America (Washington and New York, for a total of 20 pop) and won Domination, but for some reason my Expansion Stability plummeted from -25 to -95 and my overall Stability from +30 (Solid) to -40 (Collapsing) due to this single act of aggression. I guess killing newly spawned civs gives you much worse stability hits? Or maybe my expansion had already hit some invisible barrier?



(2) Wait patiently for Cereal Industry to spread. After taking control of the American Great Plains it gives +6/+7 food, which really helps growth (Novgorod reached 31 pop at end game).

I reloaded my Collapsing Domination and waited for (2) while teching towards Assembly Line/Industrialism. It's surprising how long it takes for your population to increase from 30% in the world to 31%. Fortunately, the spawning of America, an extra civ, seemed to have lowered this required threshold from 32% down to 31%.

Finally I won in 1800. America demanded Fort Ross/Seattle in a Congress and naturally war were declared. However the Anglo-Russian alliance really paid off there and only America and Thailand (pfft who cares) declared on us. I also bribed Spain (who hates my guts as usual) to declare on Netherlands earlier, which kept them busy.

The core of Mother Russia:



And her unquestionable dominance over the world:



With her legendary cities:



And her gargantuan economy:



I hadn't planned on winning this early, so I only got Combustion a few turns after winning. But I do have a total of 14 Oil inside my Cultural borders, which would translate into a +35 Oil Industry and a +41 Computer Industry respectively.

I don't have time to tech to Environmentalism either, but you see the number of Forest Preserves and Windmills. If you play this Russia till end game of course you'll win UHV & Space Race blind-folded.

1. I massed Watermills even though I will not adopt Communism, because I need to beeline Electricity anyways. Suppose one Cottage up Russia, then all those Rivers will be wasted, and your cities will not be so Plague resistant. America's case may be similar, but I have not explored it yet.

2. Communism as it currently is is perfectly designed. I can see how it could be just as effective as an economic strategy, especially after Industrialism. Even without Industrialism I see how my most Productive cities could benefit more from Communism than Corporations.

The +50% Commerce conversion also heavily favors Communism for China, since all China's infrastructure will be in place and they will be building Commerce anyway. This also dissuades America and the European colonials from Communism as they will have many under-developed cities with (initially) weak Production.

However, to win Domination, State Property will surely be lacking in terms of food (because you need to build Workshops instead of the mass Farms that you see me build), and actually you will have less Specialists due to the lower pop, which balances out their effect of enhanced Specialists.

In conclusion, State Property does not equal Specialist Economy. It just provides a different type of Specialist Economy. My personal favorite style of Specialist Economy is still based on Environmentalism and Cereal Industry.

3. I believe with this game there arises a Third Way, a third kind of economy that is neither State Property nor Capitalist, but relies on Environmentalism.

The shortcoming of this strategy is that it only works with civs which has a lots of Forests (which rules out most European Colonials, all Middle Eastern civs, and maritime civs such as Japan or Indonesia) AND a fast access towards Scientific Method (which kind of rules out China, as you really need the chopping and cottaging with your fast access towards Printing Press).

The only civs I see to be powerful with this strategy are Russia and (to a lesser extent) America. As I just finished a standard Capitalistic America earlier, I don't intend to do it soon, but you are all welcome to try. And I will be playing Mass Effect 3 mostly for the next few weeks anyways. So, have fun! This will be my last game here for a while.

Very nice! And this on Emperor! Novgorod's size is indeed insane.
Congratulations on the domination win!

strijder20 said:

Very nice! And this on Emperor!
Congratulations on the domination win!

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Thanks! Hope you enjoyed this recount/guide.

strijder20 said:

Novgorod's size is indeed insane.

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Of course! He is "Lord Novgorod the Great" (Gospodin Velikij Novgorod) after all.

Awesome story, great premise and some valuable insights. Many thanks

Leoreth said:

Awesome story, great premise and some valuable insights. Many thanks

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Thank YOU! You made this possible. I think the most valuable insights from this game are:

(1) China is the best trading partner ever, even on Emperor. You can trade with the Arabs and Turks fine even if you're Catholic (and not France).

(2) Conquer the American core and you will suffer a -70 Stability hit (I still think this is a bug of some sort - are you sure it's meant to be like this?).

(3) If the Mughals/Indians bother you, simply gift Economics to France and England. "Breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting" at its finest.

iOnlySignIn said:

(1) China is the best trading partner ever, even on Emperor. You can trade with the Arabs and Turks fine even if you're Catholic (and not France).

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I've already set the Chinese leaders to be more reluctant to share techs

(2) Conquer the American core and you will suffer a -70 Stability hit (I still think this is a bug of some sort - are you sure it's meant to be like this?).

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I doubt that's related to the American core especially, maybe you just passed a threshold and things quickly went downhill from there?

(3) If the Mughals/Indians bother you, simply gift Economics to France and England. "Breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting" at its finest.

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Leoreth said:

I've already set the Chinese leaders to be more reluctant to share techs

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No, please don't make them even more reluctant because of this game I played - in this game I already had to wait some 250 years because "we fear you're becoming too advanced" between the Aesthetics trade and the Music trade. I was able to get Gunpowder from them only because several other European civs have already researched it. If you make them even more reluctant, it would have been hilariously unrealistic.

Another reason is that China is exceptionally advanced in this game, which I admit is partly because I gave them very good trade in return.

I also think you did the right thing by making the Chinese leaders less hostile (-2 to -4 Religious penalty) against foreign religions. As far as I know for the past 3000 years China never had a leader who cared enough about religion to let it influence policies. We are simply a not very religious people by nature.

I doubt that's related to the American core especially, maybe you just passed a threshold and things quickly went downhill from there?

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There does seem to be some kind of hard ceiling around 25~30 cities. I noticed that once before with England - but that was long ago back when Confucian Academy was still the Chinese UB.

Is such a hard ceiling on the number of cities purposefully implemented in Stability.py to your knowledge? I know there are many hard cutoff values for various Stability calculations (e.g. Representation boost/penalty threshold in terms of city numbers, bonus in terms of city numbers under Totalitarianism) but none should be so severe as to give an instant -70 hit.

iOnlySignIn said:

No, please don't make them even more reluctant because of this game I played - in this game I already had to wait some 250 years because "we fear you're becoming too advanced" between the Aesthetics trade and the Music trade. I was able to get Gunpowder from them only because several other European civs have already researched it. If you make them even more reluctant, it would have been hilariously unrealistic.

Another reason is that China is exceptionally advanced in this game, which I admit is partly because I gave them very good trade in return.

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There are two AI modifiers related to techs, one is how long they keep techs that only a few know yet and the other controls "we fear you are becoming too advanced". I've only increased the former. I think this is consistent with how long it took for several Chinese inventions to spread abroad.

I also think you did the right thing by making the Chinese leaders less hostile (-2 to -4 Religious penalty) against foreign religions. As far as I know for the past 3000 years China never had a leader who cared enough about religion to let it influence policies. We are simply a not very religious people by nature.

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Good idea, religion definitely shouldn't bother them too much.

There does seem to be some kind of hard ceiling around 25~30 cities. I noticed that once before with England - but that was long ago back when Confucian Academy was still the Chinese UB.

Is such a hard ceiling on the number of cities purposefully implemented in Stability.py to your knowledge? I know there are many hard cutoff values for various Stability calculations (e.g. Representation boost/penalty threshold in terms of city numbers, bonus in terms of city numbers under Totalitarianism) but none should be so severe as to give an instant -70 hit.

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Not that I know, but I really only have had a cursory look at the parts that govern number of cities and foreign tiles.

Leoreth said:

Good idea, religion definitely shouldn't bother them too much.

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IMO, the different religion penalty ought to only apply to countries who adopt Abrahamic religions. So I'd say the modifier can still be kept if you switch to Christianity or Islam. The Sinosphere in general has been very secular and syncretic like iOnlySignIn has stated, and that's mostly because the religions that existed did not heavily impose a way of life and could co-exist with one another.

Great AAR by the way.

Sinosphere and Indosphere, generally..

Yeah.

IMO Hinduism alone can be regarded as multiple religions in acknowledgement and respect of each other, by the standards of Abrahamic religions (especially Christianity).

And Confucius was for all intents and purposes an atheist philosopher.

An interesting read, makes me wish I was better at Civ

With the change that moves Great Depression from Capitalism to Free Market, would you think of Mercantilism as a possible option for Russia? Otherwise we would need to cottage up, or go Communist.

Edit: Of course I forgot about Environmentalism. But it comes so late in game.

Fresol said:

With the change that moves Great Depression from Capitalism to Free Market, would you think of Mercantilism as a possible option for Russia? Otherwise we would need to cottage up, or go Communist.

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Not necessarily.

(1) You can run Free Market/Capitalism without Cottaging but does not risk Great Depression. Just run Merchants, build Wealth, and delay Industrialization. It would slow down your Tech, yes, but perhaps not as slow as you would be with Mercantilism.

(2) The best econ civic for Russia is still Environmentalism IMO. It remains to be seen what Leoreth decides to do with the new State Property, but for Domination (i.e. high population for Russia) Environmentalism is the natural choice. SP may be better for UHV though, if it is buffed sufficiently.

(3) For straightforward Teching, Mercantilism is actually the worst econ civic there is - based on how I play, which is to favor peace and sign almost every OB possible. If you are at war with the whole world most of the time it would be a great civic - but even if you're warmongering you should still have allies, which means foreign trade, which means Mercantilism is wasteful.

IMO Mercantilism's purposes are 3 fold:

(A) Fast early GPs for Netherlands, Prussia, America;

(B) Trading Company spread for Trading Company civs;

(C) 1 Free Engineer (via free Forge) in each of your new colonies for colonial civs (Russia included) to jump start colonial development (works wonders with Sistine Chapel).

All of these purposes are temporary. It is never a civ you should stay till end game, unless you war everyone all the time.

However, Mercantilism does allow Trade Routes with your vassals, and these Trade Routes count as foreign and benefit from Custom Houses. So if half the world are your vassals and the other half are at war with you, by all means go for Mercantilism.

iOnlySignIn said:

(1) You can run Free Market/Capitalism without Cottaging but does not risk Great Depression. Just run Merchants, build Wealth, and delay Industrialization. It would slow down your Tech, yes, but perhaps not as slow as you would be with Mercantilism.

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So does Great Depression happens when you have high production/wealth ratio? Or production/commerce ratio? I just experienced one in game and surely do not want another.

Fresol said:

So does Great Depression happens when you have high production/wealth ratio? Or production/commerce ratio? I just experienced one in game and surely do not want another.

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GNP vs. Manufactured Goods (MG). The values you see on the end game plots and the Demographics Screen.

An easy way to keep track of this is to note the ranks of your GNP vs. your MG (available without any espionage). If your MG is ranked higher than your GNP, or if your MG is say, 3 times that of Rival Best/Rival Average but your GNP is only 1.5 times that of Rival Best/Rival Average, you are in danger of Great Depression.