Russia is a very diverse civ with huge amounts of potential but a few things make Russia less favorable compared to other civs. 1st thing, block training, vils train very fast and cheaper but only in blocks of 3, this could have a very profound effect on your age times as well as all future production. If you want to get to colonial age fast you'll pull a 14 vil build with a food crate for faster aging. If you want a FF you may choose 17 vils in discovery age to get enough coin/food prepared for your faster age time to Fortress age.

Russian units are weaker, but cheaper and train faster, Strelets are paper but when mixed with musketeers and grenadiers become a huge attack boost at very cheap cost.

Cossacks make for an awesome cav force... 100 cossacks will put up a damn good fight no matter what they are up against, there is power in numbers

Cav archers are just simply the best anticav unit in the game IMO, they pwn cav like nothing else and only lose to doppels, dragoons, and skirmishers. Great unit

Opris obliterate anything that makes resources, from the vils that gather to the mills that produce this is the best raiding unit in the game.

Russia has a lot of potential, it just needs a little nudge to unlock that potential, I will try to give it the nudge it needs (with the help from my clanmate WhiteCrow), here goes...

The first strat I wanted to test is a Team Strat for a FF with cav only... it's a pretty good strat for team games with 6-8 players not so much for 2v2. I call it "The Russian Stampede"

Basically you want to start with a basic Russian FF build, that's 17 vils, 1 300 food crate for your first shipment, age with the 500 wood politician (level 10+), once you age ship 700 coin. while aging you want to take 4 vils and put them on a mine, you will have about 300 coin almost exactly when your shipment is ready send your miners to collect it, while waiting on your shipment to arrive queue 1 batch of 3 vils to go on coin you can then almost immediately advance after only 50-60 seconds in colonial (once Russia hits level 50 they get the faster age time politician which is extremely helpful for this strat), choose the cossack politician for less population usage and it also fits into the strategy of a cav army. While aging start building your stable and your houses with the wood from your politician, the 3-4 vils you have building houses/stable should go to chopping wood right after. Once you hit fort you should have enough wood to build at least 1 more house, queue 10 Opris and ship 6 more from your home city. you will be ready for extremely heavy raiding by about 8-8:30. Have your team mates start attacking at about that time and you start raiding. Once you start raiding and your allies start attacking you will be able to see which Cav you will have to start training next. If they go heavy Skirms then you go Heavy Cossacks, if they go Heavy cav you go HEav Cav archers. Your role will not be to win the game but will instead be an extremely mobile reactionary force. You will be the team mate that no matter where the fight is you will liekly be there to help before the battle if over. You will lose a lot of units but you will also only be there to help your team to victory so don't expect much glory out of this strat.

Cards that will help you.
Advance Arsenal- pillage is a tech that is a must for your cav army, try to build your arsenal asap without interfering with the normal build, like if you get 250 wood from a treasure.

300 food card - a MUST for a good Russian FF

700 coin card - Also a MUST for a good Russian FF

Cavalry HP and attack card - Good to have to boost your Russian cav

Boyars - Nice Cossack HP/Att card

Faster cav training - a MUST have for this build, or else you will be training cav extremely slowly...

Natives that will help you out
Lakota - faster training cav is a must
Commanche - the cav bonuses are just something you can't pass up.

This build will work against every opponent civ, because Russian cav are for the most part very cheap and in team games you are usually afforded more time to boom this build can be effective against all other civs. THOUGH you may have a slight problem against French (of course), Ottoman(duh) and Spain(where rodeleros really shine is vs an all cav army :P). Try it out.

The "Russian Shock Assault" a 1v1 strat

The Shock assault is an all out rush (this is the build that is also applied to the Double Edge Sword) that is meant to cut the legs out from under and lop off the head. It's a 14 vil to age build (with the 300 food card), once you hit 14 vils you need to age and move 5 vils to coin and 2 vils to wood (age with the wood politician) this is a forward build so you need to move your 2 wood vils up front and to the side of the other player. You want to send a 300 wood card with your second shipment so you can start a a blockhouse early and instantly start cranking out muskets once you hit colonial. After you have that built queue a batch of vils so they can start training right after you hit colonial. the idea behind this rush is houses+troops=shipments, you will get an extra 2 shipments fast with this particular build because you will use the 500 wood from aging+the 100-200 wood you already have to plop down houses. This will go to your XP, but what also will go to your xp is the training of the 30 muskets you will use to kill your enemy. before you get out your 3rd batch of muskets you should have a shipment, send faster inf training it will help you more than you could imagine. You will get about 2 more shipments before you are ready to atatck, send the 5 cossacks card next and then the 13 strelets. You don't need the 13 strelets, they are there to add effect to your rush i.e. make your enemy crap himself from the sheer volume of troops you are sending at him. After you have about 25-30 muskets send in your troops and use all future food for vils to boom with incase you fail.

This build is a very effective rush, of course this is the basic strat and is basically a strelet rush but is WAY better than a strelet rush it's also faster than a strelet rush due to not having to spend wood on houses/strelets you get a lot of houses and a lot of infantry without much conflicting resource usage.

Watch out for early skirm civs, early natives, and counter rushes. If you land this on a boomer there is a HUGE chance you will score a knockout blow, in many cases I hit with this build before the enemy even had troops trained. Attack the barracks first! always in a rush attack the barracks first if not then you give the enemy a gateway to whoop yo arse! Cards needed are listed after the next strat which is this strat x2 with some timing considerations.

The "Russian Double Edge Sword" a 2v2 strat
The double edge is a VERY powerful infantry swarm rush that takes place at about the 7 minute mark. In 7 minutes you and your team mate will need to each muster up 25-30 musketeers, 13-23 strelets, and 5 cossacks a piece.

What the Double Edge is meant to be is a duel rush, but there is a timing that needs to be taken into account. The build is very simple so I'll get to that soon but the timing is hugely important. For the double edge to really work well you need to have 1 player build a blockhouse/galleon near the enemy base (forward build) while you build yours closer to your base. This will give even the best scouts the thought that you are going to boom while your mate rushes. This is where things go horribly wrong for the other team.

You want to have your ally start cranking out muskets asap he needs to send 13 strelets and 5 cossacks, this force will be the main attacking force. YOU will be doing the exact same thing on your end, BUT because the enemy is looking at the rusher who forward built they will be less likely to see that you are rushing too once your armies are both trained and ready have your ally go in and try to rush the guy he built closest to, at the same time he sends his troops you send yours at the other guy. thinking that the rush is one pronged they will both likely have their armies defending the initial attack and you will have freedom to really pillage the guy you hit. Attack the barracks first then outposts, then houses, then TCs. once the one guy realizes he is being bum rushed he will either panic and run his troops back home giving your ally a better chance to do damage there or he will try to make another defence force i.e. another barracks, more houses, but above all he will have vils out of his garrison for you to kill. Since you are Russia you will be able to reinforce yourself much faster than other civs and since most players can't afford a large enough force to deal with this type of onslaught without really sacrificing economy or having an ally help them you will likely beat the snot out of them.

Cards that are needed

300 food card - faster aging

300 wood card - you will send this for your second shipment and use it to build your blockhouse.

faster infantry training - will be the first card you send in colonial (you'll be amazed at how fast this card will pay for itself)

13 strelets - needed for effect

4-5 cossacks - depending on what level you are these cav will be needed to take out xbows/age 2 skirms (if you are facing dutch/french then you should have your ally send his cossacks to help you fight off the early skirms)

700 food card - if your rush fails at least you have enough food to get back to booming.

I hope this goes a good way into helping people figure out more strats with Russia, I will post more when I have the time as for now though I am pressed and need to get back to work. I have at least 3 other strats to post once I get a better idea of what build to use for best results.

Any questions just ask, I am pretty tired writing these strats and probably left a thing or 2 out so ask away

Enjoy!

Coming soon "Russian Thunder wave" featuring a grenadier rush and the "Russian Swarm" featuring a FF infantry horde
TGE

[This message has been edited by TheGoodEvil (edited 01-03-2006 @ 12:04 PM).]