posted 12-04-05 09:36 AM EDT (US)
I've included a build order of sorts, I know, adapting is important but I would've loved one of these in my newbie days As Russians, you start off with 5 Settlers and an Explorer. Send two settlers to shoot animals towards your Town Center, while the other settlers unpack the crates. As soon as you obtain 270 food, start training settlers at the Town Center. Your other three settlers should have finished unpacking the crates by now. Have a Settler build a house, and send the others to join the settlers gathering food. Your explorer should be gathering treasures at this point. Keep on training Settlers until you have 14. A home city shipment should arrive during this, send the 300 Food card. When it arrives, get three settlers to unpack the crates. You should have 800 food by now. Advance to Age 2 with the 2 Settlers politician. (The 500 Wood one is far superior, but I'm assuming low level HCs) Once you've clicked the button to advance to Colonial Age, redistribute your villagers in this way: 4 on hunting and 10 on wood. During the transition, build a Blockhouse and another house. A home city shipment should arrive during this time, but save it for now. You'll see why later. Remember to first construct the Blockhouse, then the house. Your Explorer should start looking for the enemy's villagers. If done correctly, your blockhouse will be finished around the time you get to Colonial age. Once you get to Colonial Age, immediately queue up a squad of Strelets at your blockhouse. Now, use your home city shipment card and ship over 13 Strelets. Set your Blockhouse as the place where shipment arrives, and set the gathering point somewhere near the enemy. It's very important that you first queue the Strelets at your Blockhouse, then you send the shipment of 13 Strelets. You can go over the population limit by doing this. Keep your Explorer scouting for enemy villagers. (In this example game, I kinda forgot about the fact that I was doing a rush and went merrily collecting treasures. Don't make the same mistake as I did. Wait for your 23 Strelets to gather up. Now is where the fun begins. Send your Strelets to where the enemy villagers are (It's alright if you didn't find any with your explorer, there should be plenty at the enemy's base) If you do hit him at his main base, remember to run your Strelets away if he garrisons his villagers. In fact, you've done a good job if you made him garrison--The villagers aren't collecting resources. Also remember to avoid Outposts. Losing a Strelet here or there is okay since they're cheap, but try to keep them alive by running away from TC or outpost fire. You should be able to kill any military units the enemy might have if your rush is quick enough. Keep on constructing houses back at your own base. If you feel like you're winning the game, train more Strelets instead of villagers and send them to the enemy. Try not to let the enemy construct a Stable, as Hussars will decimate your Strelets. If they do get a Stable up or the enemy is German, train some Musketeers to mix in with your army to counter cavalry. Due to your overwhelming number of Strelets you should be able to counter anything that comes out of the enemy Barracks. Hussars are the things to worry about. If you get another shipment during this, send the 4 Cossacks to help you in your raiding. If everything worked out fine and you feel like you have the game in your hands, you should build an Artillery Foundry, send some villagers to gather gold and then train some Grenadiers to destroy buildings. Victory should be yours at this point. Well, I was originally thinking of inserting a dramatic picture of Grenadiers blowing up the enemy Town Center, but the computer resigned at this point. As for the reason why I said newbie against newbie, well, as most experienced players know the strelet rush isn't too powerful against people who know how to counter it. Newbies in general are weaker against rushes, too, in addition that I personally think the Russians require a bit less micromanagement than other civs. Any input will be appreciated. 
) Send your two villagers gained by aging to gather food. This distribution of villagers should be able to ensure you constant training of Strelets. Imagination, folks! Another thing one might notice from the screenshots is that I have idle villagers. Remember to always keep your villagers working!
I'll try adding more stuff later.
-Get better screenshots, preferably against an human opponent
-Recorded game
-Add a things to remember section
-Size down those huge pictures
-Get someone with an English version of AoE3 to do the screenshots
