Hmm not sure where to start ...

First off, gathering 250 wood during advancing usually means sacrificing your economy for wood only, leaving you without the required food to create your initial infantry from your BH, and to at least create a batch of villagers shortly after.

Next, the polar card is a good card indeed, but it's rarely useful, only on treasure heavy maps, with treasures worth claiming. Sending 300 wood is probably your best bet, as it allows you to get you BH up before you advance, without sacrificing your wood economy. The 10% faster food gather card takes too long to make effective, and since you aren't going to have that long to take advantage of it since you are basically rushing, renders is not as useful as a military shipment or raw resource shipment.

I'm curious how well the fencing school card works, because if you do a 17 vill colonial you will probably not hit colonial until 5:00-5:30. Your already at least 15-30 seconds behind your enemy if they are FFing, which means your rush will most likely be crushed by fortress shipments, or you will be outnumbered military wise due to the fact they advanced significantly earlier. So I think the 13 strelet card or a cossack card is more important at this point in the game, especially since you are rushing.

Quote:

Wait to be crushed by fortress shipments? No thank you. Russia has the ability to have such large numbers out so early in the game, so the earlier you attack, the better.

It would also help if you were more specific about the villager distribution, throughout the entire guide that is.

Quote:

Well you will need to create a house about every 30-60 seconds, depending on your potential to keep military and villagers pumping, and because wood gathers slowly, you will unfortunetly need more villagers on wood earlier on.

Establishing a trade route is only a good idea if you get the wood from treasures or shipments, because that wood would be better of spent on a market and economical upgrades, or a second BH for map control (near huntables and mines!). If you are researching economical upgrades, shoot for hunting dogs and the lumberjack upgrade. You most likely won't be needing that much gold, if you find yourself going gold heavy later on, upgrade it but only if seriously needed. This rush doesn't sound that shipment depended. And about cossacks. You get 9 from shipments, those 9 should hold you over for a while. That 200 wood isn't the easiest thing in the world to come by, so I'd avoid a stable earlier on. So what it comes down to really is either an artillery foundry, a stable, a market, OR a TP. Getting more than one could slow down your rush.

It sounds like the main issue with this strategy is that you can't make up your mind about what to do. The most extreme AoE3 strategies work, the strategies that aren't all over the place and have you concentrate on economy or military. In order to rush, you need to sacrifice economy. In order to boom, you need to sacrifice military. Lastly, apart from the economical, TP and stable aspect, this isn't any different from a typical Russian rush, maybe except for the 17 vil colonial.

Sorry for being harsh honest.

[This message has been edited by Brtnboarder495 (edited 07-30-2006 @ 06:15 PM).]

and if he ff's he wins.

300 food is a never send, you might as well put3/4 on wood for house/strelets and rest on food for vills/strelets, or instead of wood for strelets gold for musks.

300 wood is better for the BH, though i do think PE is a very good card and can be useful on rockies, yukon, and NE especially but also on other maps.

this strat doesnt make much sense since he could just as well ff and your 23 strelets wont do a bit of harm. come with a hard rush or ff
othwerise its wasted.

Quote:

I wound up with enough food. You get enough while aging up and housing for the 13 strelets to make vills and a batch of strels.

Quote:

Yah, I rarely send it.

Quote:

I haven't tried it with 300 wood yet, I'm planning on doing it later today or tomorrow.

Quote:

I've been switching back and forth between them. I find with Renders it's easier to get faster food later in the game, but it isn't as fast initially.

Quote:

Fencing school is very good, minus 40% of train time which is very noticeable. Sometimes I send units, sometimes FS- it depends on the enemy civ and how good the enemy is.

Quote:

But you get the benefit of BH cover fire, and easy reinforcement.

Quote:

I will most certainly update the guide with this after a few more plays.
Well you will need to create a house about every 30-60 seconds, depending on your potential to keep military and villagers pumping, and because wood gathers slowly, you will unfortunetly need more villagers on wood earlier on.[/Q]
You need a lot of wood right as you hit Colonial, then if you can keep around 8 on wood at all times after that you can keep up with houses and the occasional strelet group.

Quote:

After I got the Market upgrades there was 2 TP sites right near my base, and I had some spare wood so I built on it. There are natural lulls in the battle where you can stockpile wood for something like a TP. A second BH is good too, but you have to be able to defend it as well.

Quote:

I found I needed gold for Vet upgrades (in Fort) as well as cossacks. However, it is true that it is a secondary resource.

Quote:

ATM I only have the 5 card in my deck. I'll try it with the 4 card in addition.

Quote:

I actually didn't build a Foundry till late, and got my 2 falcs from a shipment. I think it's better to go for a stable, then add a market as things progress. It's hard to predict how much wood you have to use on strelets and houses. Sometimes I can fit in a market, sometimes not. Usually I get enough wood eventually.

Quote:

Yeah, I tried to go for basically a weakened but prolonged rush, and it doesn't work as well as I hoped. I'm going to try and see if it's worth it to keep using it, as it does have a little leeway if the rush fails.

Quote:

They aren't really meant to do any serious damage, they are there to scout and to weaken up the enemy's first army.

I'd like to add I would not use this if I suspected a FF was coming. It's a bit slow for that.

I used to do similar things...that is, until i discovered Arrow's 17 vil strelet rush at agesanctuary. It accomplishes everything you accomplish here, only better: map control with the blockhouse, economic pressure, vil production at home. Musks and cossacks make an appearance, as well. It kills FFs too, which is something this strat here will never do (don't try it against Otto FF though, it was a nasty surprise the first time those 5 Spahi popped out).

Also check out Syncope's Strelet Strangle here in the strategy reference. It's similar to Arrow's only with more consistant villie production. The recorded games are better too, imo, more entertaining.

Good job, I love reading Russian strats, and can't wait to see what new flexibility Russia has in 1.08!

Quote:

I find that hard to believe that you had your BH up, with 17 villagers, a house, and 385 food and 100 wood by 5:15ish.

Quote:

You'd be suprised how much more effective it is.

Quote:

Well the goal of your strat should either be to get them to resign by killing villagers and/or housing them or not rushing at all. Late game it's really not that strong as it only boosts berry bushes and hunting gather rates, which are usually exhausted or not easy to access after age 4.

Quote:

My point is that there is no way you could constantly produce strelets back to back while keeping up villager production at that fast of a speed that early in the game. If you sacrifice villager production, you will lose. So I'd advise keeping it in your deck, but I wouldn't send it as a primary rushing card.

Quote:

Lol, a BH and maybe 10-20 strelets wouldn't cover you from lancers/hussars/cuirs and 2 falcs. If they make it to fortress, 90% of the time, you will lose.

Quote:

That early in the game, one TP will suffice. A second BH doesn't normally need to be defended if you are continously applying pressure. It's just to contain your enemies economy and being able to get an LOS of what's going on in the area.

Quote:

Market>Stable. Do NOT neglect your economy, as it will already be behind due to pooring resources into strelet and musket production, along with the fact you most likely sacrificed your economy at least slightly to rush.

Stables only grant you cossacks in age2. What are they good for? If you play properly, 9 cossacks will last you plenty long enough. Muskets+Strelets should be able to handle anything your enemy throws at you. The only thing you would be screwed against is falcs, but like I said if your enemy gets access to age3 shipments and falcs, you basically lose.

Quote:

Newsflash. Everyone but Ottomans and Russians will FF.

[This message has been edited by Brtnboarder495 (edited 07-30-2006 @ 08:19 PM).]

Quote:

More like 5:45 or so.

Quote:

Not really constant strelet production, more like make a set, queue more vills, wait for vills, make set.

Quote:

As I discovered last game

Quote:

Oh, I thought it was supposed to be another troop source.

Quote:

OK, stable can wait.

Quote:

*dies* I was hoping this will work better with the increase in age up time.

Yea don't worry, just try to take some of the advice myself and many others have posted into consideration. As you said, 1.08 will encourage colonial fighting, but won't really boost the Russians directly.

Good luck

I've been working a similar start. But my online HC is not even high enough to get the 400 wood politician for colonial.

What I do is get 300 wood or arctic explorer first. Whatever you get its important to get a TP down ASAP. You will get one more shipment before you age, get 300 wood again if you have to. Build a close Blockhouse to secure wood/gold, then after you age up you will have a third shipment almost right away, get 4-5 cossacks to raid with.

During transition I put 10 on food, 2 wood, 5 on coin. That gives me between 600-750 food (berries vs. hunt), 90 wood and 270 coin by the end of aging. Plus whatever you were able to get with treasures.

Not sure about the timing if it works online or not, I fear the cossacks will come too late to effectively raid, but if you get 300 wood twice and age with the 400 wood politician thats 1000 wood you didnt have to cut.

Pump out as many strelets/muskets/vills/cossacks as you can, and just defend with numbers. If you can beat your opponents initial fortress merc/shipment army, you are looking real good, age up, ship church tech and research westernization (if you have lots of troops left), or ship the kalmucks if you dont. Keep lots of wood shipments in your deck and your golden.

At least thats the theory!

Quote:

A wood based economy isnt that bad. U Shipp in ur strells. You annoy his eco While imprisoning him with Blockhouse. To do this your not going to kill him only to starve him of resource. Which works well. Make A couple of tp Send in 700 food upgrade the tp make it produce food. BUt A WOOD BASE ECO isnt that bad. If you wanna rush Tho I agree with you UNLESS you have Herdables cause then I know you can get enough food.

Quote:

I find it hard to believe that you can say that without actually playing Russians. No offense.

17 vil age up, blockhouse, and enough food/wood for a batch of strelets by 5:15 is quite possible.

Oh and BTW, 10 strelets cost 375 food, not 385.

Quote:

No, its not.

The goal of any Russian rush is to cripple your opponent enough so that he is overwhelmed by fresh shipments in Fortress.

You just need to kill a few vils, to get your economy to surpass his. Why? Because your shipments are worse than his, you need an economic advantage to win. So, you rush to kill vils. If you can catch a house without losing strelets, go for it.

So, a pressure rush with the goal of killing 3-4 vils while losing few strelets, then killing shipments one by one, and finally aging up to fort around 10 minutes is a good idea. Then, you simply cut off his map control and use blockhouses as anti-cav-use strelets to overwhelm, send ransack, pump out several batches of halbs, and take out his buildings.

In 1.08, if your opponent stays in colonial, you should too. But, always try to hit fort first.

Quote:

Says who? 5 cossacks, 1 BH and 25 strelets will most definitely kill 9 lancers.

The key here is not losing too many strelets, and also engaging him one shipment at a time. A good way to do this is to let your explorer die next to his TC.

Send 5+4 cossacks for anti-cav, get a second blockhouse up (possibly on the other side of his town) and as you age up to fort yourself, make some muskets. Use the cossack age-up politician.

I've been trying this with the 300 wood first card, and it works a lot better.

THE strat I use is send 300 wood beginning after that get polar explorer. Then find a settler treasure on the opponents side of map, then i build a bh off in some corner of the map while I adnvence with 15 villes.after that send 700 food and wood when in colonial and ilet the rushing begin. then if that dosent work i start leaning towards cav in the later game.

15 vill discovery???

Quote:

Spoken like a newb....
It would be faster to ship strells and make 10 more to get that fast 23 strells and attack him since they practically one shot any setler

Quote:

Also Cossacks own Cuirraser AS LONG AS they out number them 2 to 1 and they are the same statud(veteran/guard/etc).

[This message has been edited by Frstyle77 (edited 08-04-2006 @ 12:36 PM).]