First Look: Russia (unofficial Let's Play)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Is it perfect though? As others have said, this all makes Russia a beast when it comes to faith, and likely allows them one of the first prophets. When I think of strong religious civilizations... Russia doesn't exactly spring to mind.

I mean, Mechanically I agree they are very attractive, and might make my top three in terms of interest, along with Japan and Egypt, if these bonuses are correct. It's just thematically, the religion thing seems very out of place.
 
Abraxis said:
Is it perfect though? As others have said, this all makes Russia a beast when it comes to faith, and likely allows them one of the first prophets. When I think of strong religious civilizations... Russia doesn't exactly spring to mind.

I mean, Mechanically I agree they are very attractive, and might make my top three in terms of interest, along with Japan and Egypt, if these bonuses are correct. It's just thematically, the religion thing seems very out of place.
Click to expand...

Well said, except, Russia used to be a very spiritual nation, before the Reds took over that is. Read about it's history, religion played a prominent role in the lives of it's populace during the reign of the Tzars.
Firaxis developers did a great job recognizing this, I'm very impressed.
 
Denkt said:
More or less all civilizations have been deeply religious at some point.
Click to expand...

But there's a difference between being satisfied dancing around fires or wearing funny hats, and erecting life-time long monuments and spilling the blood of a nation's worth of people in observance of said religion.

daft said:
Well said, except, Russia used to be a very spiritual nation, before the Reds took over that is. Read about it's history, religion played a prominent role in the lives of it's populace during the reign of the Tzars.
Firaxis developers did a great job recognizing this, I'm very impressed.
Click to expand...

Meh, I've seen Fiddler on the Roof... maybe I'll look into it some more.

Anyways, I hope this leak does turn out to be true. The more I think about it, the more I like it.
 
Denkt said:
More or less all civilizations have been deeply religious at some point.
Click to expand...

But different civilisations have radically different ideas of what "religion" is and how does it work, so for many civs it would make no sense to give them "state religion" bonuses.
 
Abraxis said:
But there's a difference between being satisfied dancing around fires or wearing funny hats, and erecting life-time long monuments and spilling the blood of a nation's worth of people in observance of said religion.



Meh, I've seen Fiddler on the Roof... maybe I'll look into it some more.

Anyways, I hope this leak does turn out to be true. The more I think about it, the more I like it.
Click to expand...

....all I can say to this is read Russian History o.o

Ever since the Orthodox Priests of the Empire became insinuated by the Russian state through the marriage that linked the Empire with the Muscovites, the relationship between serfdom, Orthodox Christianity and the land has defined the last 1,000+ of Russian History.
 
vra379971 said:
....all I can say to this is read Russian History o.o

Ever since the Orthodox Priests of the Empire became insinuated by the Russian state through the marriage that linked the Empire with the Muscovites, the relationship between serfdom, Orthodox Christianity and the land has defined the last 1,000+ of Russian History.
Click to expand...

Sounds consistent with the themes in Fiddler on the Roof.
I totally agree though, Russia is likely one of the largest oversights in my understanding world regional history. I'll get around to studying them obsessively as some point down the line though I'm sure.
 
Pretty much every civ in the game have some sort of indirect bonus that can help religion and about half have some sort of direct faith production boost.
 
Abraxis said:
But there's a difference between being satisfied dancing around fires or wearing funny hats, and erecting life-time long monuments and spilling the blood of a nation's worth of people in observance of said religion.



Meh, I've seen Fiddler on the Roof... maybe I'll look into it some more.

Anyways, I hope this leak does turn out to be true. The more I think about it, the more I like it.
Click to expand...

Fiddler on the Roof is about Jewish minority in Russia, what you want to research is the religion/religiousness of the Russian (majority) people during the reign of the Tzars. Orthodox Christianity is very strict, yet peaceful. However, the Tzars decided to go the less peaceful route, aggressive expansion that is, while they demanded the peasants treat them as half-divine. In the end, the Russian people revolted, and what a revolt it was! Communists took over and ruled the lands for more than half a century. New Russia is different, not spiritual anymore, not sure where it's headed (glory or fall).

Research Russian history of the Tzars, over a thousand years in the making. If you do, you will understand that giving this Civ a spiritual advantage in the game makes perfect sense, historically.
 
Coming back to Civ, from the historical perspective I totally expected Cossacks to be maintenance-free and require no resources, in which case +5 home bonus might be quite good.
 
Feeling conflicted about this...On the one hand, everything is fitting thematically. On the other, to me it seems like a mishmash of stuff without cohesion.

LUA is hard to evaluate atm, but the 1/3 ratio feels too clunky, at least on paper. Deity players will love it, though.

UU is okay....ish. Nothing outstanding, especially when Teddy is standing nearby flexing his LUA muscles.

UA+UD is what really bugs me. Firstly, when will we finally move away from the "Russia = tundra" bias? None of Russia's key cities are settled on permafrost. It's a crippling terrain no matter how you look at it, and we end up with a civ bonus to offset something that is predetermined by a flawed start bias. If Norway didn't get the tundra bias, neither should Russia. I have similar feelings toward desert terrains, but at least you can encounter oasises and flood plains there. Secondly, the expansion overkill. You have the Civ5-Shoshone-like expansion in UA, why stuff even more into UD, and in such a lackluster way? The only real value seems to be UD's cheapness, and that comes from the game's general mechanic rather than the civ's unique bonus. To me this seems like a weird design.

Overall, not sure what Russia's game plan will be. "Play to not lose" in a game that is all about getting ahead of your opponents and racing towards a victory condition? It feels like UA is the only bonus you can reliably count on, maybe with help from early religion. With that being said, maaaaybe this is the reason why Firaxis left Russia for the last First Look - they might still be tweaking the numbers for the civ, so the end result may be more promising. They already did this with Gilgamesh, after all.
 
Thundra is not as bad as it was in civilization V. The thundra pathernon give faith adjancey bonus for all holy districts so you do not need to work the thundra so thundra is now really great for religious play. Later in the game you can plant forest and I think all thundra tiles can support forest and a forest with a lumbermill + Russia bonus is a very good tile in the late game given that food should not be much of a problem with mechanized agriculture.

Cities themself no longer hurt your long term economy which again help Russia a bit as it can found cities near thundra and build its unique district for extra faith. They do not need to be all super cities now.

The game is about getting ahead economically which is not the same thing as getting ahead in science or getting ahead in culture and Peters ability is very good for that purpose as it encourage you to build up your trade without spending resources on campuses and theater squares.

In the long run the most important resources may be gold and production because these are what develop your economy so the more you have of these the quicker you can build up your economy. Russia have bonuses towards both which is very nice.
 
Last edited:
Wasn't Peter the Great really not interested in religion? The question arises, then, as to why Russia's unique building/improvement is essentially an isolated cluster of Orthodox monasteries.

Surely the AI Peter the Great will build lavras. Which makes little sense. They really could have used a building that was less about religion (notably many civs, Vikings and Scythia among them, have faith buildings where the civ wasn't known for it).
 
Denkt said:
The game is about getting ahead economically which is not the same thing as getting ahead in science or getting ahead in culture and Peters ability is very good for that purpose as it encourage you to build up your trade without spending resources on campuses and theater squares.
Click to expand...
Does LUA with its current numbers really offset lack of campuses and theater districts? I have no doubt this will work wonders on higher difficulties, but on Prince +/-1 levels (let's be honest, the game most likely isn't balanced with Deity in mind) I don't think it will allow you to neglect investment into the two.

Morningcalm said:
Wasn't Peter the Great really not interested in religion? The question arises, then, as to why Russia's unique building/improvement is essentially an isolated cluster of Orthodox monasteries.

Surely the AI Peter the Great will build lavras. Which makes little sense. They really could have used a building that was less about religion (notably many civs, Vikings and Scythia among them, have faith buildings where the civ wasn't known for it).
Click to expand...
While Peter building lavras will be weird, UD overall makes sense for Russia as a civ. Immersion will be restored the moment they introduce an alternative pre-revolution Russian leader.
 
Mustakrakish said:
No no no, the guy said you get +1 science per 1 technology Russia is behind, not every 3 technologies. 3 technologies was an example. He said if you're 3 tech behind, you get +3 science. Same with culture and policies. Though that doesn't change the fact that it's garbage.
Click to expand...

It may actually be +1 for each tech/civic behind. I don't think it is garbage because trade is so powerful in civilization VI and this just make it so much easier to build up a trade empire.

We are not talking about 1-2 trade route in the early-mid game, we are talking about getting 10 or more.

With the triangular trade card you get +4 gold and +1 faith per trade route (no matter which type) so that card by itself could be worth over 100 gold per turn. And think how much you must be getting in base yield from trade and if you are behind in any tree you get alot of culture and science.

The end game card Ecommerce is just ridiculous, +5 production +10 gold for international trade routes.
 
Last edited:
Denkt said:
It may actually be +1 for each tech/civic behind. I don't think it is garbage because trade is so powerful in civilization VI and this just make it so much easier to build up a trade empire.

We are not talking about 1-2 trade route in the early-mid game, we are talking about getting 10 or more.
Click to expand...
As a fluent Russian speaker, I can confirm that the video creator said "+1 science/culture for each 3 missing techs/policies". If this was "+1 for 1", this discussion wouldn't have taken place:)

And how soon can one get 10+ foreign trade routes in Civ6 without crippling overall development?
 
I don't think trade routes will cripple internal development that much because they bring in gold which you then reinvest into your economy. In comparison to campuses that production is just gone, maybe forever depending if you have the economy to take advantage of the technologies as soon as they come avaliable.

You can get currency rather quickly as its only prerequisite is writing and its eurka is to send a trade route.

I do not know how the district cost increase work, Im not sure if cities do increase district cost or not but that is something to keep in mind if it does.

A campus in the early game is maybe around 5 science per turn + great people point.
 
daft said:
Excellent job by Firaxis on Russia. Love the Tzirilitza in the original post!
LUA makes very good historical sense, a perfect reason for others to trade/be on friendly terms with Russia.
UA is right on too, Russians were very expansive, well thought out by the devs.
UU - Cossacks again? Was really hoping for T-34, Katyusha, Migs, Strelets(Streltsy).
UD - well done again, Y2K/Firaxis(Mr. Beech)! Russia was a very religious/spiritual nation, and the originality of it's religion (carrying over the Byzantine/Orthodox Christian Religion after the fall of Constantinople) was very dear/fanatical to it's populace.

Overall, Russia might not be as powerful as it might have been(made), but it's U's are very well defined (historically) and I will be proud to play CivVI games as Peter (Petr I) and try to bring glory to this great and fascinating culture.
Click to expand...

And what perfect sense does others have to trade/be on friendly terms with Russia? To give them pathetic +1 or +2 science if they are horribly behind? What is this, charity? Not very charitable, but still...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom