Russian strategies?

happyturtle

Mrs GrumpyOldCivver
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Dec 7, 2009
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I'm going to play my first game as Catherine, since I've been wearing her as my avatar. But I'm trying to work out what sort of strategy to go with. The Siberian Riches trait seems ideal for war, but the Krepost adds culture.

Any thoughts?
 
Early culture, late domination? Or early culture, late culture win with extra resources and serious gold coming from trades. You would be able to defend yourself pretty well if you can leverage all your resources correctly.
 
Should be the same as always. Beeline the UU and conquer the world.

Originally I was debating on mastering the Jap guy, but his UU just doesn't make sense to me in cost, etc. So I'll probably master Catherine for a bit, though the Romans look very interresting for high levels as well.
 
Get strategic resources, kill nearest neighbour.
Everybody need culture, even warmongers.
 
easiest strategies i see. is to either:

Go for a cultural victory and cultural expansion, using your double units to defend your beautiful and large territory.

Or go for a straight domination victory, pressing double the amount of units into an army and wreak havoc on the world.
 
EDIT: Deleted; the culture increase is a percentage not a unit

Make sure you build the Heroic Epic ASAP.
 
Should be the same as always. Beeline the UU and conquer the world.

Originally I was debating on mastering the Jap guy, but his UU just doesn't make sense to me in cost, etc. So I'll probably master Catherine for a bit, though the Romans look very interresting for high levels as well.

you of all people should know it is very hard to predict now what is going to be good in this game for the higher levels :)
 
Russia is a pure expansion civ... it's easier to grab land with the Krepost or steal it with the Cossack later on, and you get more powerful as you get more land (more land=more resources=more production and units). Go for Angkor Wat, you should have no problem grabbing up tons of land with minimal culture, and then beeline for cossacks once you enter the renaissance and mass produce cossacks + siege, bombard people's army to soften them up and then cossack them in the face. Also, trade to get other people's extra natural resources.
 
I don't think the Krepost is very helpful for a cultural victory at all. Quoting the PDF manual
A Russian Unique Building, it increases the City’s cultural border growth by +50%. Also, the Krepost provides +15 XP for all new Land Units.
It does not appear to provide you with culture that can be spent on social policies. Monuments and Temples are just as important as they are for any leader.
 
Eh... I'd have to agree with ilikepies, Russia is a civ made for expansion. Catherine was always like that in Civ4; I'd expect a similar trait. The Krepost doesn't strike me as being that powerful on first glance.
 
What I'm interested in testing is the utilization of Russia's massive resource bonus into economic gains.

You figure, under any equal situation, you have 100% more resources than anyone else. However, why does this necessarily need to translate into a 100% larger military? You could maintain a military that is 50% larger, and instead gain what is likely to be huge profits in both gold and luxury resources (likely the more profitable trade) by trading the excess 50% resources off.

For example;

You and an opponent have 10 iron. This means your opponent can field 10 iron units, and you 20. However, you could instead choose to field 15 iron units to their 10, and sell off the 5 iron to someone else for gold or luxury resources. You still remain the more powerful nation between you and your enemy in terms of military might.

Plus, given the value of strategic resources, and the excess of luxuries (having more than one granting no benefit), you'd likely be able to get 2 or more luxury resources for the cost of one strategic. This directly equates to an increase of 10-15 happiness, which is huge.You could also choose to make negotiations for what is likely massive gold per turn gains.

Further, since Russia has the unique possibility of having "excess" strategic resources... you don't always need to trade off excess luxuries in order to acquire the luxuries you don't have. Why is the appealing? Well, simply because in a 1:1 trade of luxuries, you're gifting the A.I. 5 happiness which boosts the performance of his empire in the various ways that we're familiar with. With a 1:2 trade of one of our strategic resources for 1-3 luxuries... We're gaining 5-15 happiness for the price of their military size increasing by a single unit. A staggeringly unbalanced gain.

Unless of course the A.I. is programmed to understand that they're getting bamboozled... and the value of strategic resources aren't as high as I'm assuming. However, even if the trade is 1:1... 5 happiness for a military unit you don't really need is a great payoff. Especially when, as I said, Russia can maintain the largest military in the world while still being able to sell off excess resources for economic gains.
 
What I'm interested in testing is the utilization of Russia's massive resource bonus into economic gains.

You figure, under any equal situation, you have 100% more resources than anyone else. However, why does this necessarily need to translate into a 100% larger military? You could maintain a military that is 50% larger, and instead gain what is likely to be huge profits in both gold and luxury resources (likely the more profitable trade) by trading the excess 50% resources off.

For example;

You and an opponent have 10 iron. This means your opponent can field 10 iron units, and you 20. However, you could instead choose to field 15 iron units to their 10, and sell off the 5 iron to someone else for gold or luxury resources. You still remain the more powerful nation between you and your enemy in terms of military might.

Plus, given the value of strategic resources, and the excess of luxuries (having more than one granting no benefit), you'd likely be able to get 2 or more luxury resources for the cost of one strategic. This directly equates to an increase of 10-15 happiness, which is huge.You could also choose to make negotiations for what is likely massive gold per turn gains.

Further, since Russia has the unique possibility of having "excess" strategic resources... you don't always need to trade off excess luxuries in order to acquire the luxuries you don't have. Why is the appealing? Well, simply because in a 1:1 trade of luxuries, you're gifting the A.I. 5 happiness which boosts the performance of his empire in the various ways that we're familiar with. With a 1:2 trade of one of our strategic resources for 1-3 luxuries... We're gaining 5-15 happiness for the price of their military size increasing by a single unit. A staggeringly unbalanced gain.

Unless of course the A.I. is programmed to understand that they're getting bamboozled... and the value of strategic resources aren't as high as I'm assuming. However, even if the trade is 1:1... 5 happiness for a military unit you don't really need is a great payoff. Especially when, as I said, Russia can maintain the largest military in the world while still being able to sell off excess resources for economic gains.

Brilliant. That sounds like a plan, I've definitely just been converted! I think it'll take a few full games for me to be able to exercise this sort of thing, though. I've never been very good at the game..
 
Or you could sell off extra strategic resources, the enemy builds up a nice army, and THEN you cancel the trade agreement...watching their army fall apart (or are the units kept and they simply can't rebuild them?).
 
Apparently, they keep the units but they fight at a steep disadvantage (-50% strength, IIRC?).
 
I think Liberty might be the best Social Policy tree to start with, for early REXing. Still trying to work out what other game features will synergize well with Catherine. I think ilikepies suggestion of Angkor Wat is a good one.
 
I would build the maximum amounts of units needed, if I had the resources to manufacture them & pay for upkeep. Having superior number of units should reduce amount of casualties and make battles quicker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_concentration
 
Yeah, I think resource trade is going to be key to optimal use for Russia: be the world's Australia, mass mineral exports.

You can also use trade strategically; if you're trading lots of stuff, that enemy will be in trouble if they attack you, because the trade will end and they might have excess units, so they'll get the insufficient resources penalty.

There's not advantage for a cultural win here, but there are incentives to space your cities out more and gobble up more territory.
 
Build the Angkor Wat and see what that does to tile culture price in cities with the krepost.
You get +50% culture for tile buying with the krepost and -50% cost with Angkor Wat. I was of the same mind though when I first saw reports (that listed -50% culture per tile for the krepost) and thought...wow... instant 36 tile boom?
 
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