Russia and Rus civilizations thread: suggestions and discussion.

[AOS9001]

Having cities in Siberia and Ural (especially named like Ekaterinburg in XVIII century fashion) in 1500 is really absurd for anyone who is familiar with history of Russia, for me surely. That (unrealistic city placement in unhistorical period) is something what really should remain in the original RFC (just like Germany starting in 840 in Berlin and founding something like Brest-Litowsk), not in DoC, considering the level of historicity this mod aspires to have.

Oh, I agree completely. If I had it my way I wouldn't have settled anything east of the Urals before ~1550. Unfortunately, you cannot have 12 decent cities* in 1500 without either expanding ahistorically early in two of three possible directions:

• southwest to Kiev and Galicia
• south to the steppes
• east to Kazan and Siberia

I'd love your version of the Russian lands where it's possible to have more European cities in Muscovy's historical, pre-Tsardom domain (namely the Russian heartland and the European Arctic), but that would mean major map changes and even more balancing to do for our big guy in charge here. For the moment, I'll try to do what I can in the constraints of what we've been given to play.

*by decent, I mean capable of completing an Orthodox church within four turns of 1500 (as four turns is about how long it takes a semi-developed Moscow to make a cathedral). By the standards of any other civ these cities, like Chupa in Karelia, would be awful.

 

[banzay13]

Setteling city right on coal at Sakhalin much better choice, since this island have fewer than 5 tiles.

 

[AOS9001]

This weekend I did some Russia test games. I was able to beat the first UHV quite early (~1560) by starting as Rus, building St. Sophia, and founding some important cities with a few tile improvements. Then I got St. Basil's by doing what I describe below.

When rolling a totally random Russia start, I was only able to meet the three cathedrals deadline when I managed to snag Kiev and Minsk immediately. If Poland or the Ottomans moved in, fighting them delayed me too long to build settlers, workers, and churches.

In all attempts I was able to spam insane amounts of by beelining judiciary, I could steal my way to Firearms and Printing (Sweden and HRE are the reliable ones to steal these techs from) and then crash my economy researching Statecraft. I needed to ensure I had at least one great engineer on hand because by the time I researched Statecraft I'd only have a few turns before 1600 (in non-Rus starts).

 

[vovadk]

I've noticed a serious error in resource allocation in Russia, which has a significant impact on how Russia plays:

1) Kursk Oblast has been home to iron since the beginning of the game, but the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly was discovered only in the 18th century, and iron mining only began in the 20th century.

2) European Russia has only three horse resources: near Bashkiria, near the Volga region, and in southern Ukraine. Historically, Russia only gained control of these regions in the second half of the 16th century (and southern Ukraine only in the 18th century!). Because of this, the important process of orientalization of the Russian army in Russian history begins later than the 15th century. This forces Russia to either capture Kazan too early to obtain knights to fight the Tatars, or suffer constant attacks from the steppe without a coherent countermeasure.

By the way, orientalization is the "Easternization" of the army, increasing the importance of horse archers.

I would propose discovering an iron deposit near Kursk in the 19th century and stationing horses near Moscow. This would encourage Russia to use mounted archers until the 17th century.

Furthermore, it would encourage the capture of the Urals, as the only iron deposit near Novgorod is close to Sweden and Poland, which posed a serious threat in the 16th and 17th centuries. This would necessitate securing an iron deposit out of reach of the enemy.

 

[Dracosolon]

I figured the Horse placement was a deliberate strategic dilemma: go without cavalry or expose the necessary cities to barbarians.

 

[Temujin8k]

In all attempts I was able to spam insane amounts of by beelining judiciary

I just tried this strat. Now, my Kremlin got stolen by Ottomans who decided to convert to Orthodoxy for this run...

Well, when Ottomans finished the Kremlin (1380 - looks like they used a GE on it), I had just finished Judiciary two turns earlier. Two turns later, I was able to trade both Gunpowder and Companies from Sweden using Patronage and Education. Still sucks to have the Kremlin snatched. Can Kremlin require Fur as well?

 

[AOS9001]

2) European Russia has only three horse resources: near Bashkiria, near the Volga region, and in southern Ukraine. Historically, Russia only gained control of these regions in the second half of the 16th century (and southern Ukraine only in the 18th century!). Because of this, the important process of orientalization of the Russian army in Russian history begins later than the 15th century. This forces Russia to either capture Kazan too early to obtain knights to fight the Tatars, or suffer constant attacks from the steppe without a coherent countermeasure.

I figured the Horse placement was a deliberate strategic dilemma: go without cavalry or expose the necessary cities to barbarians.

The problem with this is you have to expand there early to meet the first UHV. You cannot make the cathedral goal without conquering Kazan or settling the Pontic-Caspian steppe. It's only a choice if you're not playing to the UHV.

I just tried this strat. Now, my Kremlin got stolen by Ottomans who decided to convert to Orthodoxy for this run...

Well, when Ottomans finished the Kremlin (1380 - looks like they used a GE on it), I had just finished Judiciary two turns earlier. Two turns later, I was able to trade both Gunpowder and Companies from Sweden using Patronage and Education. Still sucks to have the Kremlin snatched. Can Kremlin require Fur as well?

In my half-dozen or so Russia test games, I only saw Orthodox Ottomans once. I'm not sure it's a common enough issue.

 

[Temujin8k]

Fair enough. I guess I was just unlucky there. I'll just redo it instead; I seem to have forgotten a few key first moves earlier.

 

[Kott]

I saw orthodox Ottomans 3 times out of 4.

 

[lethrgy]

i think moscow is plenty strong as is and it's not like horse and iron aren't already super easy to come by in current russia landscape. russia currently is already pretty resource rich and not wanting for even more production; if anything i feel that current russian cities are already quite powerful enough. i'm all for historical accuracy, but keeping vital resources spread out can lead to making interesting decisions with city placement and conquest, which i feel is slightly more important than striving for the most historically accurate representation

 

[banzay13]

Setteling city right on coal at Sakhalin much better choice, since this island have fewer than 5 tiles.

Maybe it even better to settle in this way here (so you can grab all Sakhalin resources)

 

[Kott]

Maybe add east of Irkutsk cities as potential settlement targets via congresses for Russia?

 

[navivoleb]

Maybe add east of Irkutsk cities as potential settlement targets via congresses for Russia?

the Treaty of Aigun and the Convention of Peking

 

[Temujin8k]

I also like settling Nerchinsk because of its namesake treaty. Good thing Leoreth already gave it a high settler value.

 

[Valliev]

Hello everyone, I’m a new member of the forum, but an old fan of RFCDoC. I’ve been following the forum for a long time and finally decided to join — I hope you won’t judge me for that.
I wanted to ask the esteemed community, and especially @Nikas Kunitz, what you think about adding the Tatar, Novgorod, and Lithuanian civilizations to the game. As we know, Tatar states such as Crimea and Kazan played an important role in the historical development of Eastern Europe — perhaps in the form of the so-called Golden Horde, which could later transform into one of the aforementioned civilizations.
On one hand, adding such civilizations would make the game more historically accurate, but on the other hand, it would probably make playing as Russia and Poland even more challenging — which, in my humble opinion, is already quite difficult.
I’d also like to ask whether there are any plans to add the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Novgorod. As we know, the rise of Moscow took place amid a competitive struggle — a triangle of Novgorod, Lithuania, and the Horde. I’ve come across a concept of Lithuania in the RFC DoC Reborn mod by 1SDANi (small map), and also Lithuania (along with Novgorod and Crimea) in RFCE++. In the Aeons and Chross Overhaul projects, however, such civilizations are absent.
At the same time, I understand that developing and integrating all of these civilizations would be quite challenging, even for the large map (for which I’d like to express my great gratitude to everyone involved). I suppose I’m not the only one among the esteemed members of the community who has thought about such innovations.
What does the community think about this idea? Unfortunately, I haven’t yet learned modding — otherwise, I would have already presented my own project.

Best regards

 

[Kott]

Idk if we need more civs to represent the local geopolitics. Maybe make mongols to push more into southern Russia and Ukraine, make Vilnius a more viable city (if possible) and make Rus survive in Novgorod instead of collapsing.

 

[AOS9001]

Having Rus transition from Kievan Rus to the Novgorod Republic post-Mongol (either by surviving or by respawning) and moving Muscovy's start date to the late 15th century would solve a lot of "flow of history" problems in this region. I know I'm a broken record at this point but I've played quite a few Muscovy->Russia games now and I think this shakeup would really work in the favor of this region's dynamics.

 

[Dracosolon]

I think having the Rus survive a little longer as Novgorod is good but

moving Muscovy's start date to the late 15th century

We just got the tech change to make building St Basil possible.

 

[AOS9001]

We just got the tech change to make building St Basil possible.

Yeah, I know, and the now the UHV is actually possible.

But I remain convinced a different first UHV and later spawn date would work better for everything concerning Eastern Europe.

 

[Kott]

Connect 8 ports to Moscow?