Would you classify Russia as a pretty weak civ in this game?

[Jaeger5]

In my last game on Shiggs Earth, I was playing Arabia. Cathy AI had all of Asia, northern Europe, and just started to go into Africa starting with Ramses. It looked scary when her troops pass by. We've been trading for some time, so we were on good terms (saving me for last I guess).

She's always gives a good showing. When I play Russia, 4 gangs up on me.

Arabia is ing on Shiggs - 26 oil, 15,000 +250ish gold per turn, 6 bought & paid for CSs, 15 or so wonders, 120ish happys.

 

[Bamboocha]

I've never played Russia, but it looks decent enough to me.
Their UA means that you can build a lot more of certain units than your foes. Sure, everybody gets at least one horse in their vicinity, but iron is pretty scarce in my experience. IMHO this ability doesn't really become useful until the discovery of coal, which I can almost never find. Then oil, aluminium and of course uranium. In the late game Russia can become a nuclear superpower (debatably much like in real life). Even if you're not at war you can still profit from extra production and you can sell the resources to the highest bidder (except for uranium. I'm not experienced with late game wars but selling uranium to others seems to be something you only do when you have a deathwish or the profit you can make from it is simply outrageous).

The Krepost is pretty okay. It's one of the first buildings and functions like a normal barracks (which you want to build anyway if you're even a bit focused on military) and gives you a free expansion bonus. IMHO this makes half of America's UA obsolete.

The Cossacks... *sigh*. I love these guys in real life, but I believe that industrial cavalry is just so weak in Civ V that I doubt these guys are of any use. I think their ability fits them though, it encourages picking off isolated units, pillaging and getting out before they even know what hit them.

As for Catherine herself, I'm a bit in dubio about her. On one hand she was a very competent Russian ruler, responsible for a lot of Russia's expansion and bringing Russia closer to Europe in both geography (she conquered Poland) and culture (she brought the enlightenment to Russia). However, part of me believes she was merely put in the game because of her ... "interesting" personal life. What also bothers me is that she was pretty much turned into Civ V's eyecandy.
Seriously compare this:

Spoiler :

to this:

Spoiler :

Well, at least she looks respectable, unlike Catherine in some other Civ versions, because I can imagine that the real Russian noblewomen probably wore clothes not too different from her dress. I guess we can justify this by saying it's a younger Catherine that had just ascended the throne (I think she was in her 30's when she got her husband killed).

As for Russia as an AI player: HURGHH! I always see her on the other side of the continent as a stable but non-treathening civ. I always try to keep her on my good side and doubleteam another civ. She always backstabs me. Was Catherine this treacherous in real life?

EDIT: Damn, I got so carried away I forgot my conclusion.
Anyway, I wouldn't call Russia one of the stronger civs, but certainly not one of the weaker either. I'd put it on the higher half of the middle tier (though perhaps my opinion will change after giving Cathy a try).

 

[Silverfuturist]

In a team game, Russia is very nice. Essentially unlimited iron and horses for the team, unless "tough luck" settings are enacted. If your iron is about to get pillaged, Russia just sends you the amount of iron you are about to lose. But what if Russia's iron is going to get pillaged? Settle on a 6 iron solves that.

The extra hammers Russia gets is strong also, especially when combined with stables/forges.

 

[Rex_Mundi]

The Cossack is a very strong defensive unit, once your city has injured the enemy, he get a whopping 50% attack bonus, and can move away afterwards.

They even keep this bonus when upgraded to tanks!

 

[MadDjinn]

the only thing that keeps the Cossack from being a power unit is the stupid -50% vs. mounted penalty. Otherwise, they mop up battlefields quite nicely. Given the AIs need to mass spam units, that's a good thing.

just remember to use a single ranged attack on every unit that you're about to attack. Get surrounds if needed (rarely) and then cleanse the battlefield.

 

[Keejus]

For your information, Stalin was available as a leader in Civ4, so its not controversial at all.

I, for one, applaud Firaxis for getting rid of Stalin and Mao, and I hope they never show up in another Civ game. Not that the Civ V list is perfect, but it's a vast improvement.

 

[woodshadows]

I, for one, applaud Firaxis for getting rid of Stalin and Mao, and I hope they never show up in another Civ game. Not that the Civ V list is perfect, but it's a vast improvement.

Stalin's leadership was probably the deciding factor in Hitler failing. This is all speculation of course but had Trotsky won the leadership over Stalin Russia would very likely not have been prepared militarily for Hitler. Stalin weakened Russia in many ways, don't get me wrong, he was also indifferent to the suffering and death he caused, singlemindedly pursuing his objectives regardless of cost. On the other hand, he rapidly industrialised a mostly backwards country and positioned them as #2 superpower in the world. I'd say that was quite an accomplishment for a leader.

 

[Tabarnak]

A 4 horse tile improvement gives more than a single lux

What is weak in that?

 

[Bamboocha]

I, for one, applaud Firaxis for getting rid of Stalin and Mao, and I hope they never show up in another Civ game. Not that the Civ V list is perfect, but it's a vast improvement.

I'm walking on thin ice here, but I see no qualms with including Stalin, Mao or even Hitler in a game. Yes, they all did horrible things. Yes, I'm more than grateful that I don't live in a country where either of them is in charge, but it is a thing of the past. Their time has gone and is now nothing but a memory, and their people (and humanity as a whole) should move on. If we remain PC then we should exclude people like Napoléon, Montezuma, Bismarck and Caligula from games such as these as well, and they're people who did things that are comparible with the earlier two when you take the technology they had at their disposal in their time into consideration. The people who leave their mark on history are generally not known to have good manners, save for a handful (Saints, Martin Luther King, Ghandi and a few others). More importantly, it's but a game, it's not as if it's promoting the communist or nazi ideology.

 

[_Calyx]

I'm walking on thin ice here, but I see no qualms with including Stalin, Mao or even Hitler in a game. Yes, they all did horrible things. Yes, I'm more than grateful that I don't live in a country where either of them is in charge, but it is a thing of the past. Their time has gone and is now nothing but a memory, and their people (and humanity as a whole) should move on. If we remain PC then we should exclude people like Napoléon, Montezuma, Bismarck and Caligula from games such as these as well, and they're people who did things that are comparible with the earlier two when you take the technology they had at their disposal in their time into consideration. The people who leave their mark on history are generally not known to have good manners, save for a handful (Saints, Martin Luther King, Ghandi and a few others). More importantly, it's but a game, it's not as if it's promoting the communist or nazi ideology.

I don't think you can really compare Napoleon and Bismark to Hitler and Stalin. Napoleon and Bismark were at least excellent rulers from their own people's perspective.

For example, Napoleon vastly improved social equality - promoting people almost solely based on merit (except for his own incompetent family), establishing a modern code of laws (large parts still used today), and vastly expanding the French education system.

Bismark fought some hyper aggressive but very limited wars to create a sense of national pride in the brand new country he had just created. There weren't atrocities (ie. Concentration camps) associated with either ruler.

 

[qemist]

I don't think you can really compare Napoleon and Bismark to Hitler and Stalin. Napoleon and Bismark were at least excellent rulers from their own people's perspective.

For example, Napoleon vastly improved social equality - promoting people almost solely based on merit (except for his own incompetent family),

He does seem to have had a large blindspot regarding his own family so far as égalité went. He had seven siblings and he made each king or queen of somewhere.

Stalin's leadership was probably the deciding factor in Hitler failing. ...

Hitler, Stalin, who cares? A post-Nazi superpower might not have been any worse than the Soviet Union.

 

[woodshadows]

He does seem to have had a large blindspot regarding his own family so far as égalité went. He had seven siblings and he made each king or queen of somewhere.



Hitler, Stalin, who cares? A post-Nazi superpower might not have been any worse than the Soviet Union.

says you.

 

[Noatz]

Russia is at the very least an above average civ, possibly top tier. The UA is most of the reason for this, but Krepost's are handy for securing tiles if you're pursuing a domination victory, and Cossacks (and their upgrades) are a useful enough boon in lategame wars. Yes they come quite late, but not really that much later than say, Janissaries, and earlier than stuff like Panzers and Foreign Legions.

The UA is primarily useful for netting a ton of gold from selling horses and iron, but researching AH quickly can get you some extremely strong tiles early in the game that do wonders for your development. If you uncover a horse in your capital you have a 2 3/4 tile plus all the gold from it - its just huge. The tundra bias can be annoying but its rarely disastrous. Normally you get a load of forests and end up with a decent production capital.

As for leaders, I'm pretty much OK with Catherine.

History is written by the victors, and on that basis alone Stalin can be considered for representation in this type of thing wheras Hitler cannot. The two were pretty much on par when it comes to asshattery (I would probably still give the douche-crown to Hitler however - at least Stalin was unprejudiced in his mass murder). Even Mao - while terrible - at least helped educate his people. Hitler did pretty much nothing good whatsoever for Germany, he poured all its resources into genocide and indiscriminate conquest purely to spread an abhorrent ideology. If I was German I would be horrified if my country was represented by Hitler in any form.

 

[vonbach]

I think Russia is one of the better civs out there. Every time she's in the game with me she ends up
as the runaway civ. The UA is great the cossacks are good and the Krepost is just fine.

 

[Camikaze]

I don't think you can really compare Napoleon and Bismark to Hitler and Stalin. Napoleon and Bismark were at least excellent rulers from their own people's perspective.

For example, Napoleon vastly improved social equality - promoting people almost solely based on merit (except for his own incompetent family), establishing a modern code of laws (large parts still used today), and vastly expanding the French education system.

Bismark fought some hyper aggressive but very limited wars to create a sense of national pride in the brand new country he had just created. There weren't atrocities (ie. Concentration camps) associated with either ruler.

He does seem to have had a large blindspot regarding his own family so far as égalité went. He had seven siblings and he made each king or queen of somewhere.

Hitler, Stalin, who cares? A post-Nazi superpower might not have been any worse than the Soviet Union.

says you.

History is written by the victors, and on that basis alone Stalin can be considered for representation in this type of thing wheras Hitler cannot. The two were pretty much on par when it comes to asshattery (I would probably still give the douche-crown to Hitler however - at least Stalin was unprejudiced in his mass murder). Even Mao - while terrible - at least helped educate his people. Hitler did pretty much nothing good whatsoever for Germany, he poured all its resources into genocide and indiscriminate conquest purely to spread an abhorrent ideology. If I was German I would be horrified if my country was represented by Hitler in any form.

Moderator Action: Please take history discussion to the history forum, or off-topic discussion to the off-topic forum. Thanks.

 

[woodshadows]

The hammer bonus works by giving you one hammer for the strategic resource tile, regardless of how many strategic resources are on the actual tile, right? So a tile that has 6 horses gives 1 hammer as does a tile with 2 iron? Doesn't seem very significant.

 

[apocalypse105]

The hammer bonus works by giving you one hammer for the strategic resource tile, regardless of how many strategic resources are on the actual tile, right? So a tile that has 6 horses gives 1 hammer as does a tile with 2 iron? Doesn't seem very significant.

Nope it is its global wide and if you ad modifiers like stable and the forge you can have a lot of production on that tile

 

[Catastrophe90]

Their UA means that you can build a lot more of certain units than your foes. Sure, everybody gets at least one horse in their vicinity, but iron is pretty scarce in my experience. IMHO this ability doesn't really become useful until the discovery of coal, which I can almost never find. Then oil, aluminium and of course uranium. In the late game Russia can become a nuclear superpower (debatably much like in real life).

Wait, I though Siberian Riches only doubled the amount of Iron, Horses and Uranium. Does it now affect Coal and Aluminum too?

Also, the +1 hammer is really nice. An improved Plains Horse tile becomes a 1F/4P tile, which is better production tile than any Iron-less hill.