Russian Hilarity

[Hamilton321]

Hello, I don't know if this is the right place to do this, but I am starting a new thread to discuss times in various games where something amusing involving Russia happened.

First of all: Civilization IV, in Civilization IV I once had a game where I was on continents, standard speed and size and I was living on a continent alone with Catherine. Catherine and I had very good relations for the first half of the game, she was actually friendly with me. Then out of nowhere she declares war on me, wtf? I thought that friendly civs never declared war and this is the only time I ever witnessed it. All she really did was send a lot of horse archers and trebuchets at me. She captured a city right away then it was stalemate, war dragged on for about twenty turns and then we signed a peace deal. I researched military tradition, then got a force of cuirassiers, declared war and captured the city I lost to her and another lightly defended city. She was then willing to capitulate. I don't know why Catherine behaved this way, very unusual even for an AI.

Second: Empire/ Napoleon Total War, in these games, particularly Empire there are a lot of questionable things surrounding Russia. In Empire total war Russia has as their militia unit, the streltsy, which don't have muskets, and are mainly just cannon fodder. I am going to load Empire Total War to see some stats, then I will be back.

 

[Hamilton321]

Hi, I am back after looking up some statistics and eating I am ready to continue. So Empire Total War: after looking the stats of Russia's units and starting position, I have to say Russia's Streltsy infantry and cavalry are more terrible than I remember, they are absolutely pathetic at fighting, but there are three upsides to them, first they are cheaper even than most other nations militia/provincial cavalry, second, you can recruit them in every region which is important for Russia because it takes so long to travel you have to recruit some troops in non-ideal circumstances, and third they have a garrison policing bonus. These make them marginally useful. Also the Russians for some reason have hand mortars in the eighteenth century which is funny to see. Hand mortar companies are surprisingly effective against line infantry, A long time ago I created an army of funny Russian units, it was just streltsy infantry and cavalry, hand mortars and big cannons. I then just grouped the cannons together in the back and used the rest to charge the enemy. This "crazy Ivan" army was surprisingly effective. Often enemies just would rout before my hordes of crazed Russians with heavy artillery support. With a good general this is actually a very effective siege army, just use the cannons to blow a hole in the walls then charge in the streltsy horde. The other hilarious thing is how bad your economy is at the start. I had forgotten because I had not played Empire in awhile but I looked at it and it was so bad. At the start in 1700 you have no ports, no line infantry, and tons of villages which have not grown into towns. If you look in the far east you will see a particularly hilarious region ah, Komi is its name and it has no roads, no natural resources, no farms, no towns, no wealth, no people, does it have anything? It has snow and trees, why did we decide to include this in our empire?

Okay that took awhile so on to a game that is actually made in Russia, World of Warships and a historical reenactment of the death of Admiral Isoruko Yamamoto. I will tell the story from both sides. The story goes like this: Isoruko Yamamoto was not feeling particularly good one day so he decided to take a destroyer to flank the enemy fleet, lay a smoke screen and harass their battleships. However, the rest of the fleet ran away instead of spotting targets for him so he didn't realize that there was an imaginary bottom-tier Soviet cruiser captained by a Roman Emperor within torpedo range. The torpedoes came at 70 knots, too fast for Isoruko Yamamoto to respond, and thus the most brilliant admiral of the IJN sank beneath the waves on the deck of a flooding imaginary destroyer and with it sank his victory in the random battle and his dignity. Isoruko Yamamoto pondered how such a strange fate happened to him.

Now from the opposite perspective: Emperor Aurelian was having an ordinary day in his Shchors, he spamming/fleeing from battleships at very long range, as he disengaged he looked to the right, and lo and behold there was a smoke screen isolated from the enemy fleet, out of which flowed 6-8 orange shells with red trails every 3 seconds, a clear sign of a Kitakaze or Akizuki commanded by dread admiral Isoruko Yamamoto. The emperor was hesitant to approach the smoke screen, but his first mate Ivan entreated him, a Akizuki or Kitakaze commanded by Isoruku Yamamoto could ravage an entire fleet if it was ignored. At Ivan's pleadings, Aurelian sailed straight toward the smoke screen. As he closed within 4 kilometers he turned broadside to the smoke screen and launched torpedoes. The Kitakaze had no time to respond, it was hit, its guns were silenced, and it slid beneath the waves. Aurelian's team would go on to win the random battle due to the high speed of the ship and its torpedoes.

If you don't think that I saved my team a royal pain by torpedoing the Kitakaze then watch this video:

 

[coanda]

Catherine and I had very good relations for the first half of the game, she was actually friendly with me. Then out of nowhere she declares war on me, wtf? I thought that friendly civs never declared war and this is the only time I ever witnessed it.

Any civ can declare war on you at any relation if they started planning that war a while ago while relations were worse. If an AI starts planning to attack you on turn 40, then you hit Friendly with them on turn 50, they might still DoW you on turn 60. Once they go into dagger mode, they stay there until they feel ready to attack or something forces them out of that mode. That can sometimes be a large gap, 50+ turns.

If you have a vassal (or permanent alliance), her attitude for war decisions is based on your team rather than you personally - so if she's +10 with you, -6 with one of your vassals, and -1 with another vassal, that's like a (10 - 6 - 1)/3 = +1 overall.

Finally, Catherine is the one and only AI in the game who can be bribed to declare war on someone she is Friendly with. Won't start planning it independently at Friendly, but if a third player is prepared to pay up she's willing to attack.