Red Death in the 1840's D:

[Seris]

Maybe I'm just crazy, but it seems to me that Russia is just insane.

[IGNORE]It could be that Sid is really a commie wanting to express the pride of the motherland[IGNORE]*, but I think that maybe no one has noticed it?

The other night, me and a few friends from the penny arcade forums were playing Civ4 online. I was India and france killed me D: Luckily for me, my friend who was playing russia had to leave. So I log off and so does he, and I hop on his Russia. His civilization is in bad shape. His army consists of some archers, and two Cossacks. To the north, germany is gearing for invasion.

So germany rolls in with a massive stack of some 15 musketmen and grenadeers. So, I do what I can and send in one of the Cossacks and I slaughter, instantly and hardly taking damage, one of the musketmen. I pull the Cossack back, realizing the gem I have in these units. Using these two Cossacks (and me nifty mammal brain) I am able to completely pick apart and destroy the entire army. At the end of it germany was begging for a peace treaty (he finally managed to kill one of them by sendind like five guys in a row into battle with it, the fifth guy was barely alive).

I remarked jokingly (though unknown to myself, accurately) that with ten cossacks I could probably conquer (or at least raize) the world.

Hearing this, france who killed my india came in and killed me while my cossacks where in germany D:

Anyway, we joke all the next day about how insane cossacks are, and start to wonder "Hey, Russia gets this awesome unit, that can travel multiple tiles, and that slaughters nearly every gunpowder unit but tanks... what negatives do they have?" And we looked, Catherine is financial and creative... so they have good culture and money too? Today we had a game and played through it. The guy who was russia was able to keep up with everyone in Tech and was at #1 for most of the game. Then around the mid 1800's he got cossacks, and steamrolled us.

So maybe we're missing something like all russian civilizations explode in the year 1940, but really what is there to counter-balance this massive unit? It's also exceptionally bad because it comes it at a transition period where militaries go from 6-8 str armies to 12-14 str armies.

*Text [IGNORED] due to excessive confusion that the first sentance that was completely unrelated to the rest of the topic gave.

 

[Daarkseid]

If theres a political statement about Russia to be made by the game, its not in favor of communism.

Catherine and Peter, both Tsars of pre-soviet Imperialist Russia, and then during the civil war between the communist Red Army and the Imperialist White Army, the Cossacks fought for the whites.

I'd say the game glorifies Tsarist Russia more than Communist Russia.

 

[Seris]

Yeah, I know that. I see that my cold war jokes aren't appreciated

Anyway, the point is cossacks are insanely powerful, and I'm really wanting to know what counteracts the Russian ability to win every game around 1840.

 

[Duke Allan]

Daarkseid, if you read the statements more closely, the game is fine with communism per se, just not what certain nations have tried to call communism. Its like a man who has just bought so many weapons his budget would make the US Army weep in jealousy then declaring himself a pacifist.

 

[Seris]

I'm really not sure how thats responsive. What I'm wanting to know is what makes the Russians not rock so insanely hard, like what do they have that counter-acts the greatness of the cossacks?

 

[Daarkseid]

Daarkseid, if you read the statements more closely, the game is fine with communism per se, just not what certain nations have tried to call communism. Its like a man who has just bought so many weapons his budget would make the US Army weep in jealousy then declaring himself a pacifist.

I really don't think CivIV favors any system or ideology above others. I guess I felt inclined to pick apart the connection in CivIV between Russia and its communist ties. However, I took that a little too seriously, and to the topic poster above, I apologize.

For the record, I don't feel the Civilization series has ever directly advocated one ideology over another, and in some cases, Communism as a government type was more powerful than other types. The earlier Civs tended to describe Communism as a Marxist-Leninist or Maoist system. With the civics choices in CivIV, you could have something more closely resembling an anarchist-syndicalist system by using all the liberal minded civics with State Property.

EDIT: Sorry, I can't adequately respond to the issue of Russia and Cossacks, since I don't play MP, and I've never played as the Russians. I'll exit this topic now, sorry.

 

[Seris]

I love how two people can completely miss the point of my topic XD

In short terms - Cossack = STRONG! Why Cossack so Strong? Strong Cossack make Seris lose all games despite stacks of riflemen!

 

[Duke Allan]

Heh sorry, I suppose we're just not good at game balance issues.

I suppose though that every civ's unique unit has to stomp at something. The English Redcoat for instance also slaughters all its contemporaries, with the exception of the Cossack of course.

And I suppose that's historically correct, British Empire and all that, controling the 300 Million Indians with 300,000 soldiers. And Russia stuffed france when Napoleon invaded. It took the UK + France + the Ottomans to beat them in the Crimean.

 

[xonixs]

pikemen. not 1 but 3. 3 pikemen to kill 1 cossack. Anyway invade Russia and find their horse. Destroy it and they cant built cossacks.

warelephant with 8 in strength gets 16 in strength vs mounted units.

Use pikemen, warelephants and catapults to kill a large coloum of cossacks.

Talk with other AI's will they help you with defeating/helping you through your war against Russia?

 

[Rad Chris]

Well Cossacks are a UU, they are supposed to be powerful. Riflemen are a good counter, their 25% bonus vs mounted units makes them almost as powerful and they are also cheaper. But if you are just comparing UU's then Redcoats dominate Cossacks.