You're not in Krasnodar any more Dorothy...

[Lord Roanino]

Signing defensive pacts helps as well

 

[Caesar Augustus]

What about getting 5 vassals? You can force to surrender required quantity civs.

A forced vassal is unlikely to go above pleased without spending a Great Statesman. Which is a way of saying, try to snag a couple of Great Statesmen, and don't waste them on anything silly. Make sure to break trade agreements with your target's enemies, and check up on who they hate regularly. One thing that can help is convincing them to adopt your state religion, or at least Secularism. And the Mutual Military Struggle is a nice benefit that can get you the last couple of points in a pinch. But really there aren't a lot of tricks and it can be a frustrating nut to crack. It's definitely the hardest part of their UHV, at least on lower difficulties where the AI shouldn't realistically be beating you to the moon or the bomb.

 

[attemptwasmade]

Been trying to get a win on Emperor. 1912 comes around, all is dandy, had two statesmen stashed, 4 pleased/friendly vassals (Prussia, Mali, Turkey, Netherlands), then Prussia and Mali collapse, and the entire Eurasia declares war on me. Guess it's time for another attempt.

 

[attemptwasmade]

Thoughts on ignoring Kiev/Ukraine in the beginning? I find that if I leave that area alone for a while, most of the barbs suicide on indy Kiev, and Samara has 2 iron. I think I ended up having to fight only two stacks of barbs that way.

 

[troubleshooting]

Anybody try this now that most player Europeans start with archers instead of cbows?

 

[Dannimal]

Anybody try this now that most player Europeans start with archers instead of cbows?

The start is trickier. With only the two archers it punishes overambitious expansion.
I recommend settling Moskow (spawn), Kiev (West of the wheat), Saint Petersburg (southwest of the lake) and Sverdlovsk (atop the hill by the sheep).
A walled Kiev and Sverdlovsk's hill defense will divert barbarian horse archers.
With the new free civic change, I suggest adapting despotism, citizenship, redistribution, clergy, and conquest.

Good luck!

 

[troubleshooting]

I’m halfway through my first (hopeful) success, I survived the difficult start by cranking archers, using the beg-10-gold exploit to keep the Vikings & holy rome/Poland off my back. Absolutely would not have survived the mongols, but they collapsed quicker than usual. I’m lagging in science right now, but I’m about to get observatories so I’m not worried yet.

 

[Dracosolon]

Russia should be stronger with the improved Espionage mechanics, you can actually get Great Spies now!

I'm trying out different openings to see which one is more reliable against the Barbarian waves. You need iron to prepare for the Mongols, but your two sources are right in the middle of the spawn zones. My current strategy is to send as much of my army to protect Kherson and its workers while they mine the southwest iron, then whip Crossbows. Problem is I'm unsure what I have time to build/whip in the meantime besides more workers.

I also like to try to get Catholicism early for its wonders (Santa Maria, Versailles, then Protestant Bourse for a GP farm - doable with Great Engineers) and its better relations with European civs. You can do it by settling Tallin in the Baltics, or sometimes by taking a defenseless Viking city. In either case the Vikings will likely attack later so that's another thing to worry about though.

One earlier save had me get to the 18th century as tech leader (you can have a high tech rate through funding Protestantism, Espionage and Great Merchants), at which point I'm wondering which techs should be priorities. Chemistry for farms, Railroad for the UHV, Labor Unions for Laborers and Central Planning are obvious. Anything else?

 

[Lzz]

Russia should be stronger with the improved Espionage mechanics, you can actually get Great Spies now!

I'm trying out different openings to see which one is more reliable against the Barbarian waves. You need iron to prepare for the Mongols, but your two sources are right in the middle of the spawn zones. My current strategy is to send as much of my army to protect Kherson and its workers while they mine the southwest iron, then whip Crossbows. Problem is I'm unsure what I have time to build/whip in the meantime besides more workers.

I also like to try to get Catholicism early for its wonders (Santa Maria, Versailles, then Protestant Bourse for a GP farm - doable with Great Engineers) and its better relations with European civs. You can do it by settling Tallin in the Baltics, or sometimes by taking a defenseless Viking city. In either case the Vikings will likely attack later so that's another thing to worry about though.

One earlier save had me get to the 18th century as tech leader (you can have a high tech rate through funding Protestantism, Espionage and Great Merchants), at which point I'm wondering which techs should be priorities. Chemistry for farms, Railroad for the UHV, Labor Unions for Laborers and Central Planning are obvious. Anything else?

I have only completed the Russian UHV once but I've played many games with Russia because I love its endgame potential and it's fun to play from start to finish.

I know some people are not too fond of using it, but I have personally not played a single game as Russia without running Elective.
My starting civic setup lasts me until mid-industrial era without any changes - Elective, Vassalage, Manorialism, Merchant Trade, Monasticism, Sovereignty. That's six civics with low upkeep and some very nice bonuses that synergize well with our lands and development strategy. For maximum efficiency it's certainly worth switching to Free Enterprise as soon as you can but I personally like to stick with Merchant Trade until Central Planning just because I don't want to make things too easy.

I have never tried any other religion than Orthodoxy simply because their three wonders are great and you can just gift a tech to the European nations for open borders if you need it (although quite a few will OB at cautious) and you can get good tech trades with Poland, England, Holy Rome at pleased. Also sticking with Orthodoxy and adopting Monasticism means that if Byzantium survives the Ottomans, you will have a friendly trading partner that will help you just take off in tech if you focus your research on the top half of the tech tree (as they focus more on the bottom half in my experience).

In order to avoid having too many issues with the barbarians and your western neighbours at the start, I almost always settle Moskva (on the spot), Kiev (north or iron), Novgorod (northwest of pigs) and Vologda (northeast of furs). Then I settle Caricyn (southwest of iron) around 1100AD and then nothing else until we hit the renaissance.
The logic of Novgorod over Sankt-Peterburg is that the latter will offer no real advantage until the 18th century (when the deer shows up) and it's very likely that the Vikings will declare war on you if you have it. They've never attacked me if I settled Novgorod instead. And you can always settle it later anyway.

Starting with Archers instead of Crossbowmen sucks a bit but it's not a major hindrance. Kiev builds a wall first and Novgorod and Vologda build a few Archers each to help defend Kiev. The barbarian horse archers usually prevent me from hooking up the iron until about 1050AD, but I've never found a need to have it before that date anyway. Once Kiev and Moskva have Forge, Barracks and Stables (hopefully around 1050AD), you can start churning out Lancers big time. By 1250AD (about the average time you run into the Mongols) you can have each of the two cities build 3-4 skirmish promoted Lancers, which coupled with your starting Horse Archers and random Crossbowmen (trained in Vologda and Novgorod) should wipe the floor with the Mongols unless you get really unlucky. Settling Caricyn ensures that the southern stack they spawn appears next to Caricyn instead of Kiev. Sometimes I lose Vologda in the initial attack but it's easy to retake it and you lose basically nothing anyway since it has no infrastructure.

After the Mongols are dealt with I build Churches, Monasteries and Markets in all cities plus Arenas in the big three (Moskva, Kiev, Novgorod) and then rebuild all the cities with settlers as soon as we hit the renaissance. Using this strategy I consistently hit the renaissance by researching Firearms around 1350-1400AD which is about on par with the most advanced European nations. I settle Ural'sk (north of the silk) and conquer Kazan (going to war with whoever captured it if I didn't have a chance to raze it before the Mongols showed up).

This way I am ready to start colonizing Siberia in 1450AD which gives plenty of time to get 7 cities by 1700AD. Sticking with Elective, Vassalage, Manorialism and Merchant Trade until mid-industrial era (taking the stability hits is no issue) and building markets and jails in all Siberian cities allows me to cover basically the entirety of modern Russian territory by 1800AD without tanking my economy. If you manage to build Saint Sophia's Cathedral before the Byzantines (with a great engineer from Moskva or Kiev) you can also run a bunch of merchants in your Siberian cities which coupled with Monasticism will likely net you a few great merchants which can then be used to perform trade missions to Rome to fuel a very impressive research rate basically into the global era. Then I switch to Macroeconomics, Revolutionism, Totalitarianism, Central Planning, Secularism and Nationhood. By then the game is already won and you can do whatever you want

To get 5 friendly communist nations I find the easiest is to go for a nations that share favorite civics in the end game. That way by gifting a tech and having a favorite civic you are already most of the way to friendly. But it's also easy to get a free statesman if you research the Democracy tech before America spawns and you can generate a couple of great statesmen with estates and post offices in the renaissance and industrial era if you want additional insurance.

Colombia - Revolutionism
Argentina - Nationhood, Revolutionism
Ottomans - Secularism (if you didn't piss them off too much by that point)
Germany - Nationhood
Japan - Secularism
France - Revolutionism, Nationhood
China - Macroeconomics (if they are around)

 

[DanLT3]

Don't you build a single worker early on? Or was that just left out? Workers are very important early on to develop your cities with a good economy.

 

[Lzz]

Yeah, I didn't include all the details
If I want to challenge myself I only build two more workers (so that I have one per city), otherwise I build like 7 more.

 

[DanLT3]

I think its to few workers. I can't really relate to many you need on normal gameplay speed as I myself usually play on Marathon.
But compared to other civilizations Russia needs a lot more workers. Big cities and a lot of forest which with chopping can speed up early production very much.