Russia First Look [Peter]

[Josephias]

That said, Russia having a religious district is absolutely bizarre to me. It means Russia will be one of the main civs spamming religious buildings simply because they have places to put them. Doesn't align at all with my view of what "Russia" is, now or historically. It is true that religion has existed there. But in a game where America doesn't even get Faith bonuses, I fail to see why Russia should. I really feel Russia's unique district should be, well... anything else.

I have to say I don't find it that strange. If anyone is asked about an stereotypical "view" of Russia, I would bet one of the immediate things to come to mind are the "onion" roofs. And I may be wrong here, but I'm positive these kind of roofs are more due to ortodox church tan to commies... I see the misión of the Lavra in the game: get the right amount of "onion" roofs to any Russian city. (and besides being a quite funny tought, i'm positive to thing is partly reasonable).

Regarding the benefit Lavra provides regarding tiles, I'm more on a wait-and-see position. I tend to align with the commenters saying that, as the UA already provides you most of the second tile ring, Lavra bonus tiles will not be cheap ones, and it might be worthy (specially if there is some resource around in the third city ring).

 

[isau]

Personally haven't read a post in this thread, but I think the LUA is a little underrated. You're almost always going to be behind in tech or culture to one of your allies, you just focus on whichever routes helps you catch up the most. By the time you are ahead or not getting much benefit from international trade routes, you send internal routes to help develop all that extra land you have. And save quite a bit on buying tiles, use that savings to get ahead early on great people points.

I think the problem with this is how it compares to other leader abilities, which tend to be things like "Gets a free extra policy card" or "Gets a free religion once all the others are picked." The other leaders have absolutely huge bonuses, whereas Peter's is very sketchy.

A much more reasonable bonus for Peter that would be closer to what they were going for would be something like: "Gain 40% instead of 50% bonus from Eurekas. However, receive the Eureka automatically the moment any opponent you have met completes the tech."

This would free Peter from the normal constraints of Eureka-chasing and IMO be much more thematic and game changing while still retaining the idea of gaining an advantage from being behind. If it is possible to mod this in it may be what I do.

 

[Scaramanga]

Ok, so let's give Kongo science bonuses, Egypt medieval wonder bonuses, and Korea food bonuses. The reason why civs have bonuses is so that they can match (to some degree) what they were known for. This is why Greece gets a culture bonus, Aztecs get a unit with the ability to capture workers, and so on.

"Deal with it" is not exactly a mature counter. If anything bad happened, and someone just said "deal with it" we would trivialize everything that could be improved, should be improved, and is being improved. In the world. Not just in Civ VI.

I don't think Russia is known for its religion. And I don't think Russia should have any faith bonuses of any kind. So take your own medicine and "deal with it."

The Christianization of Russia planted it firmly in the Eastern Orthodox or Byzantine church so there's that. In the absence of a Byzantine civ this is not a bad compromise.

Faith bonuses could be interpreted cynically as "superstition" and some of the strong faith infrastructures belong to civs that might be a little bit "backwards" because they just weren't that interested in high culture or science for large periods of their history.

 

[Galbias]

They look amazing with the Pantheon that gives you Faith yields for every Tundra tile next to a Holy Site. If they have a lot of decent Tundra territory they'll have some crazy Faith generation, and even without their Tundra bonuses, Tundra and Desert in Civ6 are better than in 5 since you can place Districts on the crappy tiles to make them useful. Extra land is also very good in Civ 6 since you'll want as many options as possible to optimize your district locations.

The LUA I'm pretty iffy on though, I don't like behind behind in Culture or especially Science. Probably great if you're going for Religious victory but the way I'm generally used to using religion is as a way to assist other win conditions. Would be nice if Russia got another leader with something different.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Am I the only person bugged out by Peter looking like the Les Poissons chef from Disney's The Little Mermaid?

 

[Josephias]

Am I the only person bugged out by Peter looking like the Les Poissons chef from Disney's The Little Mermaid?

I was getting more a Captain Hook vibe... specially with these ships behind.

 

[Nightsong]

As with Kongo and a few other civilizations, I am going to hold off of final judgement until I have the game in front of me and am able to play it myself to see how each civilizations abilities work. Also, keep in mind that Firaxis still has two more weeks to make final tweaks to the numbers if they feel that something isn't working as it should or isn't holding its own.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

About Russia's faith bonuses: consider the four (!) religion-focused Civs in the game: India, Arabia, Spain, Kongo.

India was the birthplace of four important world religions.

Arabia was the birthplace of the world's second-largest religion.

Spain was not the birthplace of any religion. But Spain is very well known historically--indeed, perhaps best known historically--for the ruthless imposition of Christianity via the inquisition, and also for the successful Christianization of the New World. Hundreds of millions of people today all around the world are Catholic because of Spain.

As for Kongo, their leader Mvemba Nzinga is best known for spearheading the religious conversion of his country.

Compared with that, I think the rationale for making Russia a religious civ--which it certainly is, with a faith bonus in the civ UA and a unique holy site--is pretty weak. Russia was very religious before the twentieth century, but so was literally every other human culture. Religion is a human universal. Russia didn't found any major religions, nor is it famous for launching holy wars. Peter himself was not very interested in religion at all. And Russia was avidly anti-religious for parts of the 20th century.

Besides, as I've shown, we already have tons of civs focused on the religious game. You can play peacefully religious with India. You can play militantly religious with Spain. You can play the religious convert with Kongo. You can get a guaranteed religion with Arabia. With all that already in there, why did we also need to make Russia religious? Especially when the civ could have been built around the modernization of Peter the Great and subsequent scientific achievements (like Sputnik), or on its transformation into an industrial powerhouse in the 20th century, or on its incredible legacy of writers (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, etc), or even on espionage and the KGB. All of those would have been more interesting, I think.

 

[Abraxis]

About Russia's faith bonuses: consider the four (!) religion-focused Civs in the game: India, Arabia, Spain, Kongo.

India was the birthplace of four important world religions.

Arabia was the birthplace of the world's second-largest religion.

Spain was not the birthplace of any religion. But Spain is very well known historically--indeed, perhaps best known historically--for the ruthless imposition of Christianity via the inquisition, and also for the successful Christianization of the New World. Hundreds of millions of people today all around the world are Catholic because of Spain.

As for Kongo, their leader Mvemba Nzinga is best known for spearheading the religious conversion of his country.

Compared with that, I think the rationale for making Russia a religious civ--which it certainly is, with a faith bonus in the civ UA and a unique holy site--is pretty weak. Russia was very religious before the twentieth century, but so was literally every other human culture. Religion is a human universal. Russia didn't found any major religions, nor is it famous for launching holy wars. Peter himself was not very interested in religion at all. And Russia was avidly anti-religious for parts of the 20th century.

Besides, as I've shown, we already have tons of civs focused on the religious game. You can play peacefully religious with India. You can play militantly religious with Spain. You can play the religious convert with Kongo. You can get a guaranteed religion with Arabia. With all that already in there, why did we also need to make Russia religious? Especially when the civ could have been built around the modernization of Peter the Great and subsequent scientific achievements (like Sputnik), or on its transformation into an industrial powerhouse in the 20th century, or on its incredible legacy of writers (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, etc), or even on espionage and the KGB. All of those would have been more interesting, I think.

Maybe they're not intended to even found a religion. We keep out pantheon regardless of whatever religion is spread to us, no? Get that dance of aurora ASAP. Ignore wasting faith on the religion game and instead use your massive faith generation exclusively for great people to do focus on any of those things you mentioned.

Really though, I think their "focus" is exactly their lack of it, as I posted before in the leak thread. There are so many things one could do with Russia's design compared to others it's mind boggling. It seems to encourage tinkering around with all the different synergies you can with priority pick of religion bonuses, and a myriad of other innate traits.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Maybe they're not intended to even found a religion. We keep out pantheon regardless of whatever religion is spread to us, no? Get that dance of aurora ASAP. Ignore wasting faith on the religion game and instead use your massive faith generation exclusively for great people to do focus on any of those things you mentioned.

Really though, I think their "focus" is exactly their lack of it, as I posted before in the leak thread. There are so many things one could do with Russia's design compared to others it's mind boggling.

Hmm, you're right, I suppose you could spend all that faith on great writers and great musicians. Still, the overall flavor of this Russian civ is not doing it for me.

 

[mzprox]

I agree that making Russia one of the most religion focused civs is a little odd, but contrary that some thinks Russia is very weak I think they are very strong, even if we consider the LUA neighible.
They will get tons of fate from the begining of the game, their religious district is cheaper, I believe that a religion is guaranteed for them, then they can use the faith to buy great persons early.. they also save up gold by not needing to buy as many tiles as other civs.. so more great persons probably. Getting free tiles from them is just a little bonus. They are a bit more dependent on the starting position.. they should have at least 1-2 good tundra tiles to work on to get the most of their bonuses early, tundra deer for example. Also they should try to settle on tundra hills whenever possible.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

I agree that making Russia one of the most religion focused civs is a little odd, but contrary that some thinks Russia is very weak I think they are very strong, even if we consider the LUA neighible.
They will get tons of fate from the begining of the game, their religious district is cheaper, I believe that a religion is guaranteed for them, then they can use the faith to buy great persons early.. they also save up gold by not needing to buy as many tiles as other civs.. so more great persons probably. Getting free tiles from them is just a little bonus. They are a bit more dependent on the starting position.. they should have at least 1-2 good tundra tiles to work on to get the most of their bonuses early, tundra deer for example. Also they should try to settle on tundra hills whenever possible.

Yeah, I think the LUA is definitely bad (compare it to Barbarossa's free policy slot, Trajan's free monuments, Qin's extra builder charge and wonder rushing, or Tokimune's ability to build three districts at double speed--it's no contest), but the rest of the Civ is pretty credible, gameplay-wise. Not top tier I think, but OK.

Russia might not even have the weakest LUA. I think I might prefer Peter's very modest and situational science/culture boost to Catherine's extra espionage, Harald's naval pillaging, or Gilgamesh's assortment of worthless bonuses.

 

[Ulthwithian]

I don't know how true this is, but when I worked for Russians a couple of years ago they said that the Orthodox Church's support is one of the major underpinnings of Putin's government currently in Russia.

For those of you worried about why Russia is religion-focused.

Also, dunno who mentioned the Merchant Republic thing earlier about being one of the best governments for Russia, but doesn't that fit with the Novgorod period?

Finally, I think that Russia's primary defensive bonus is exactly what it was IRL: land. Russia, by its UA, will inherently have greater strategic depth than any other Civ with the same build structure. Whether this is effective or not is another question, but if things like forts cannot be built in enemy territory, that may very well be a fairly good advantage.

 

[Martinus]

I think Russia is almost custom-built for an ICS strategy, even more than Rome. Just build settlers and lavras everywhere, settling every available piece of land (including tundra). Grab as many great people as you can with your faith.

Then send out embassies to catch up to "taller" civs.

Then win domination victory with your cossacks or science victory while your cities grow and you build campuses everywhere.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

From what I have seen in the longplays, adjacency is huge. And tons of real estate is going to allow Peter to place his districts much more optimally. Granted guys like Marbozir and quill18 are very good players, and they are learning/checking things out but I saw them spending absurd amounts of gold on purchasing tiles. I'm not going to get into whether Russia is historically accurate as a "religion" civ, I think the thing to remember is that faith is almost as important currency as gold in this game, whether you choose to use that faith in the ideological game or not. And Russia is going to have a lot of both.
I should also say that i'm almsost strictly a singleplayer, so the criticisms of Russia in MP maybe valid.

 

[Abraxis]

....They will get tons of fate from the begining of the game, their religious district is cheaper....

I know this is a typo, but I can't help but wonder if it isn't a more appropriate term for this mechanic than faith is.

 

[isau]

My real criticism of the Russian unique district isn't that it gives lots of Faith, it's that Russia will spend a lot of its playtime constructing religious buildings everywhere. It feels absurd and wrong to me.

A few people mentioned Russia not needing its own religion, but to not found a religion with these bonuses (and a holy district that builds cheaply) seems like a major mistake. So to me early game Russia will want to rush for Astrology to build its religious district everywhere and then fill the landscape with them and spend a great deal of the game building temples and so on everywhere.

Of the various districts, the religious one feels the least Russian to me. There are a dozen other civs I think should have a special religious district. Russia wouldn't be on that list.

Also no bonuses to Cold War stuff seems very wrong. Funnily enough, Brazil is a more technically inclined Civ than Russia in this iteration. Shouldn't Russia have spies, missiles, space bonuses, something? It's all just very disappointing to me. I guess 17 out of 18 well designed civs is good enough, but really let down by this final reveal. This is not at all the technological superpower I thought I'd be trying to stop in the Modern era.

 

[Ovarwa]

I suspect we'll have to see how everything fits together.

8 extra tiles per city is nice. (Though I admit I'd have preferred to see something like this for the Americans as Manifest Destiny, with Russia getting a big boost to combat strength within its own borders Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia. )

Tundra bonuses can be very useful, though probably not by the AI. Not the first tiles to work, but eventual production/faith powerhouses.

The ability to move after an attack makes Cossacks great... if you're a human. So many possible ways to use this. Utterly useless for the AI. I admit I'd have preferred a different unit, but this is fine.

Unique holy site district? Eh. I suspect that any district is better than most of the UIs.

Trade routes help science and culture when you're behind? Depends on the size of the bonus. Better as game difficulty increases. And if you're already ahead in techs and civics, you probably don't *need* an ability anyway, because you're already likely to win.

It feels weird for Russia to get an early religion, but no worse than Spain or any other civ that doesn't have ancient beginnings. Certainly, I think it is reasonable to express Russia as a religious civilization, far more than a scientific civilization.

There are other ways to express Russia, perhaps better than this one, yet a Russia that is religious, freezing cold, huge, and a little backward but trying to catch up to whoever is in first place has verisimilitude, if not exactly accurate. Civ6-Russia seems far closer to the real thing than Brazil, which is not exactly known for its great people or fleet of battleships, or America, which is not exactly known for only interfering on its home continent and only to maintain the peace (Teddy Roosevelt was notorious for global adventures!) or for retaining ancient traditions of government over the millennia, or France, which is not exactly known for building world wonders and having the world's best espionage, or....

 

[Kazimierz Wielk]

I am thinking they may need to rename the Russian civ as Ukrainian. The lavra displayed appears to be the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra in Kiev. Cossacks originated in what is now Ukraine. The Zaporizhian Sich (cossacks), led by Bohdan Khmelnitsky, led a rebellion which essentially delivered the Ukrainian lands to Moscovy in the 1600's.

 

[SpaceCommunist]

Another thing that irks me about the "Russia is well represented as a religious civ" is that there is no actual representation of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Spain and India, for example, portray their history of religion well. In Spain, the nature of the infamous inquisitions is made quite clear from the combat bonuses, religious improvement, buffed Inquisitors, and so on. In India, the merging of multiple religious beliefs, as well as the early game Faith, shows two important things: the ancient origins of several major religions (Hinduism, for example), and the idea of coexistence as well as blending of beliefs (i.e. Sikhism).

In Russia, the UA alone would have been enough to demonstrate Russia's religious history in a clever way - not only would the Tundra's Faith indicate the presence of Eastern Orthodoxy, but so too would it give a nod to native Siberians whose superstitions and beliefs were incorporated into Russian society over time.

But then, the Lavra comes up...and just about ruins everything.

See, there are several different themes in Russian Orthodoxy - defending the faith, "Third Rome", connections between the Tsars and the priestdom, and so on. But where is this incorporated into Russian gameplay? There is no internal combat bonus with a religion (unless you actively choose Defender of the Faith, but you shouldn't have to do that to represent Eastern Orthodoxy properly when India and Spain represent their religious history much better and more directly) so there is no recognition of defending the faith. There is no bonus in your capital if a holy city falls elsewhere, so there is no recognition of the "Third Rome". There is no direct bonus between your established state and its religion, so that means no recognition of religious Tsardom.

The only thing the Lavra does encourage, from what the supporters gather, is fast and easy religion. But how does that align with the aims of the Russian Orthodoxy? Certainly, comparing the spread of missionaries from the Catholic and Protestant churches across the world (many, of note, were and are still from America) to the isolationism of Eastern Orthodoxy in Eastern Europe (hardly even spread out in Siberia itself!) shows that encouraging Russia to spread its religious district everywhere it possibly can is, in fact, more the opposite of how Eastern Orthodoxy has spread (if at all).

Not only is the choice to make Russia religious an odd one, it's also executed very poorly when compared to Spain and India, as Russia's own religious history is, ironically, completely ignored in the attempt to "recognize" it.