pre-release info New Civ Game Guide: Russia

[Eagle Pursuit]

I don't think cavalry is going to be replacing tanks period.

Unique units persist for the whole Age. So, if the Cossack were replacement for cavalry, then it would be the only cavalry unit for the whole Age and Russia wouldn't have tanks, which are also cavalry.

 

[Seek]

@FXS_Sar Does the Obshchina unique improvement have a base yield?

 

[queenpea]

Big ugh from me. Was really hoping to skip Russia in this iteration.

Also, I will use this opportunity again to complain that we can only fill museums with artifacts. I will miss the cultural great works mini game terribly.

On the flipside, I absolutely adore Catherine's little fascinator.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Boris is correct here, Wide means many mid-sized cities, and Tall is 3 or fewer large cities fed by many towns - there are a number of Attribute perks that cut off at 3 cities.

At a certain point, Firaxis is going to receive my thoughts as chyrons of their screens Dragon Age style: "Lord Lakely DISAPPROVES."

That is NOT what wide is. Wide = more Settlements. DO NOT INVENT NEW MEANING TO ESTABLISHED META TERMINOLOGY, *FIRAXIS.*

 

[stealth_nsk]

At a certain point, Firaxis is going to receive my thoughts as chyrons of their screens Dragon Age style: "Lord Lakely DISAPPROVES."

That is NOT what wide is. Wide = more Settlements. DO NOT INVENT NEW MEANING TO ESTABLISHED META TERMINOLOGY, *FIRAXIS.*

Well, terminology could be controversial, but I believe the idea itself is beautiful. The game has more or less similar expansion rate, which allows managing game pace. But at the same time, you could have different civilization structure (wide/tall or whatever it should be called) within the same territory.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Eh, it matters less to me as I'll always be expanding over the limit anyway if I can afford to. But I am generally pleased by this "Reward City Spamming" design of Russia, and they'll be my capstone Civ in many games;

Maybe even the first, as I plan to play my first game with Charlemagne.

 

[Siptah]

Eh, it matters less to me as I'll always be expanding over the limit anyway if I can afford to. But I am generally pleased by this "Reward City Spamming" design of Russia, and they'll be my capstone Civ in many games;

Maybe even the first, as I plan to play my first game with Charlemagne.

I‘m not sure if Charlemagne and Russia is that special. If the Cossack doesn‘t replace other cavalry, all your old cavalry units from celebrations (or conquering if you also were Mongolia) might not upgrade to Cossacks, which could be a shame.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

Big ugh from me. Was really hoping to skip Russia in this iteration.

Nah, it's always nice to have someone to conquer

 

[Wohlauf]

I‘m not sure if Charlemagne and Russia is that special. If the Cossack doesn‘t replace other cavalry, all your old cavalry units from celebrations (or conquering if you also were Mongolia) might not upgrade to Cossacks, which could be a shame.

I think you're right; doesn't seem like cavalry can upgrade into Cossacks if they're seperate.

My question is: when you do have Cossacks unlocked, will Charlemagne's create Cossacks or the standard cavarly unit?

 

[queenpea]

I‘m not sure if Charlemagne and Russia is that special. If the Cossack doesn‘t replace other cavalry, all your old cavalry units from celebrations (or conquering if you also were Mongolia) might not upgrade to Cossacks, which could be a shame.

A mistake, or a gloriously painful "learning moment"?

 

[chaosprophet]

At a certain point, Firaxis is going to receive my thoughts as chyrons of their screens Dragon Age style: "Lord Lakely DISAPPROVES."

That is NOT what wide is. Wide = more Settlements. DO NOT INVENT NEW MEANING TO ESTABLISHED META TERMINOLOGY, *FIRAXIS.*

The idea of wide was that you end up having more cities, but generally smaller as you end up expending time on the bigger cities producing settlers. Then Tall is having less but bigger cities.

But that dichotomy always ended with some problems, in particular that having more cities always is better as it means more yields overall. Especially if you do it very early on, you can then end up with lots of tall cities a bit later. The games tried with different ways to limit how wide you can go as otherwise players would always be as wide as space on the map allows them to do or when you just got tired of having too many cities to manage.

In that way civ 7, like others, does address the problem of allowing as much expansion as one wants by having the settlement cap which grows slowly with some techs and through ages, and the trade off by happiness that would mean less celebrations for more settlements when you go over the cap.

But the new way to look at wide and tall with cities and towns, seems to me (gotta have the game to actually know how it will actually play out) is a much more interesting and possible real thing to take in consideration when deciding to go one way or the others. Because the towns feed the cities, than going with more towns actually makes the cities you have bigger which doesn't actually happen with having less settlements in the older model. And then it also makes so managing lots of settlements is less of a hassle with towns being simpler in that regard.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I‘m not sure if Charlemagne and Russia is that special. If the Cossack doesn‘t replace other cavalry, all your old cavalry units from celebrations (or conquering if you also were Mongolia) might not upgrade to Cossacks, which could be a shame.

Charlemagne can start as Rome and become Normans, both of which play well into Russia. I'm likely going random for my Civ though, so i'll see where I end up. Russia is my favourite design of the Modern Age civs so far. It might very well be a Russian endgame even without synergies.

I'm not a warmonger, so the Cavalry transitions and the like are meaningless to me. If I want to warmonger, I'll rely on Artillery (also a Russian UU). Charlie's science and happiness adjacencies from Military buildings are good for expanding over the cap, and play well into Russia's science and culture.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Cossacks. Yawn. Catherine. Yawn. Tundra terrain bonuses. Yawn.

Playing this civ at first glance is going to seem like a replay of Civ V and VI.

Extremely disappointing. With all the potential of the last two centuries of the Russian Empire, all they could do was go back to their tired old uniques and leaders?

Especially with the mass of 18th - 19th century Russian cultural icons, not having ANY unique civilian units is a major missed opportunity: Tolstoy, Turgenev, Tschaikovsky - and that's just the 'Ts'!

As for the BM-13 Guards Mortar (that's "Little Kate" or Katyusha, also known to the Germans as the 'Stalin Organ' or 'Lenin Organ') they nailed it, because it was an extremely inaccurate and relatively short-ranged weapon, but could also saturate a wide area and was always mounted on a vehicle, ranging from ZIS-5 medium trucks to T-40 and T-60 light tank chassis.

On the other hand, they could have given the same characteristics to the regular Russian artillery built around the M1902 76.2mm cannon and M1902/30 122mm howitzer, which relied in both world wars on mass fires with less emphasis on accuracy than saturation.

Also note that given the specific Modern Age placement of this civ, they could have been given a Unique Dive Bomber, the IL-2M3 Shturmovik, with at least as much recognition (at least among the gaming fraternity) as the Cossacks.

 

[Sagax]

By the way, isn't the "Ageless" tag on the unique improvement another hint towards a 4th Age?

Sar confirmed on Reddit that this is just the uniform way to tag Unique Infrastructures/Buildings of all civs. If any previous UIs don’t mention it in their guides, then those are typoes (Han Great Wall mentioned as an example and will be fixed).

So no, modern UIs being Ageless is not a proof of future ages, but neither is it a rebuttal. One can still speculate.

 

[Wohlauf]

Also note that given the specific Modern Age placement of this civ, they could have been given a Unique Dive Bomber, the IL-2M3 Shturmovik, with at least as much recognition (at least among the gaming fraternity) as the Cossacks.

I wonder if we'll even see an aerial UU with any of the base game civs. Since they are unlocked more than a third of the way into the modern tech tree, maybe Firaxis has opted not to for balance reasons.

As for the BM-13 Guards Mortar (that's "Little Kate" or Katyusha, also known to the Germans as the 'Stalin Organ' or 'Lenin Organ') they nailed it

Likewise, I think that Katyusha is a great inclusion. My only hope is that we get the sound of the screaming rockets to accompany.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I wonder if we'll even see an aerial UU with any of the base game civs. Since they are unlocked more than a third of the way into the modern tech tree, maybe Firaxis has opted not to for balance reasons.


Likewise, I think that Katyusha is a great inclusion. My only hope is that we get the sound of the screaming rockets to accompany.

Germany could get the Eindecker as a biplane fighter replacement at about half way through the techs.

Also, the WW2 era aircraft is the last tech. We will almost certainly not get a unique WW2 era aircraft.

 

[AriochIV]

Yeah, the Soviet era unit is sorta allaying my fears about a fourth age, much as I hate to be a broken record on that topic.

The katyusha was a WWII unit, despite still being used in later eras. Its inclusion doesn't affect the issue of a fourth Age.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

The katyusha was a WWII unit, despite still being used in later eras. Its inclusion doesn't affect the issue of a fourth Age.

It affects the possibility of a Soviet civ popping up in a hypothetical 4th age, I think. Everything else about the civ revolves around Imperial Russia which lasted until 1917.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The katyusha was a WWII unit, despite still being used in later eras. Its inclusion doesn't affect the issue of a fourth Age.

Exactly. In fact, the development of the Multiple Rocket system the Katyusha represents happened at the same time (1937 - 1940) that the medium tanks represented by the M4 Sherman, PzKpfw IV and T-34 already seen were being developed, so the Katyusha is perfectly contemporary with the armor that are (apparently) the last 'cavalry' units.

 

[Xyael]

"does not replace other Cavalry Units"

I see some people here have been heard