Russians

[Bobolini]

I'm playing as the Russians and I am finding it quite a challenge.
First off, I'm Orthodox and so it seems the Catholic factions are
not too thrilled with me. Poland is constantly harassing me.
Hungary just plain thinks I'm untrustworthy. My growth is extremely
slow. I'm in the years of 1200 or so and still most of my cities/ Castles
can only produce peasants and peasant archers. Some can
produce Kazaks but no where can I build any kind of cavalry
knights. Is this intentional for Russia? The Mongols have just
been announced and I know they will be coming my way and I
am doomed. I have nine cities/castles but money is low and
therefore upgrading is a painfully slow process. The Poles are
constantly attacking from the west and now Byzantine has just
declared war on me.

Is Russia a bad faction to start with becasue of it's Orthodox religion?

[Lusted]

The Russians are tough, when i play as them i try to capture Helsinki, Riga and Moscow as soon as i can, then i focus on making money so i can build up my cities before expanding and taking Smolensk and making it my troop producing center.

[Bobolini]

Ah, I did take Moscow, Smolensk, Helsinki, and Kiev but Poland got Riga and I took Vilinius. Do you leave Moscow as a Castle? It's my best producing military city/castle. Guess I should have left Kiev for later and concentrated on Riga.

[Lord Cunami]

Moscow is a city as default and not a castle.
When I play russians I convert helsinki to city and make sure I have captured moscow and riga. This way you have four cities that you should develop as much as possible economically to keep you financially stable. Smolensk and Vilnus should be your main troop producing units. After all that concentrate to capture Kiev and Jaffa and all other provinces to the east.
At this point defend yourself and try to make profit to expand Smolensk and/or Vilnus for high level troops.
Make sure you keep good relations to two of the four, Byzantines, denmark, hungary and Poland. You can do this with this mod because it has ultimate mod included but you have to be very thorough and calculated.
good luck
nazdrovlje

[Brenil]

I noticed this playing as the Byzantines (also Orthodox). It seems to me Orthodox factions have it the roughest in LtC, due to the increase in religious unrest and the fact the AI actually pays attention to reputation (more) and keeps to their own religions.

As such you end up feeling alone in the world. I finally gave up on my Byzantine campaign due to lone Imams or Priests with 2-3 piety converting my population (and creating enormous religious unrest) while I have a Bishop and 2-3 more priests surrounding the uber priest/imam, yet still losing out on religious converasion. Then trying to train assassins (very time consuming) to pop off these never-ending traveling priest/imams and it becomes a chore of it's own right and all the while your population is starting trouble.

Then couple the BS of uber converting crap priests on not one but two fronts (Turkey), with unreliable catholic and Islamic allies (Hungry backstabbed me when I had very good relations with them with very reliable reputation...), you're more or less up ***** creek without a paddle.

I too would be interested in knowing the success to Russia and Byzantium in LtC. Because right now it seems like a huge hill to climb while being smacked around the whole way.

My advice with Russia is to do everything in your power to make amends with Byzantium and solify an alliance. Orthodox factions should stick together in a world gone religiously mad...

[Becephalus]

With Novgorod my game is going as following: VH/H, autocalc all battles, no pillaging cities unless I feel it is realistic (which means almost never), no alliances, no capital switching without it being reasonable

By say turn 35 or so I had:
Riga
Helsinki
Vilnius (Castle)
Novgorod (Capital)
Smolensk
Moscow
Ryazan (Castle)
Bulgar (Castle)

So 8 cities 3 castles. I was making a ton of money and had 22000 in bank while building constantly. I then built up two full armies of "level 1" troops and started a war with Poland. I took Kiev and the Crimea from the Poles, but then they took Kiev back. I had to build two additional stacks and took Kiev back.

Now I was able to start making "level 2" troops: so I started collecting up all the lvl 1s and send them into the poles. Lost of lost battles. Eventually I got everything but Stetin and Krakow from them (so 3 additional provinces all castles) with follow up level 2 stacks.

So now I have 13 provinces, 6 castles. I also just moved my capital to Kiev (I felt 30 turns was long enough for it to be realistic). I make 6000 or so profit a turn but I have lots of problems with heretic outbreaks (possibly because my leader has 1 piety????). Finally I am getting some trained up priests who can kill heretics instead of becoming them.

I suppose I will finish off the poles sooner or later, then I could try for denmark or hungary, or Turkish Sarkel. Or I could just build up for mongols which shouldn't be too many turns away.

[notger]

In my previous game as HRE, Byzanz has pushed Venice back to to Venice and Zagreb without being harrassed by Jihads (which normally seal the end of Konstantinople). They have even taken the eastern territories from the Hungarians, so it seems quite balanced. Russia is alive and kickin' too.

[Bobolini]

Ok, I have some good advice and I'm going to restart my campaign again as the Russians. I will try the startegy of obtaining the cities of Helsinki, Riga, Smolensk, and Moscow. From here I will try to build my infastructure and defend as I wish to build a couple of sizable armies from Smolensk and Riga. I will allied with Byzantine and hopefully maintain a "workable" relationship with Poland. I realize Poland will be my biggest problem and will concentrate on reducing their expansion East. I do agree the Orthodox have a "religious" disadvantage and will have to load the priests up to maintain the unrest. Is their anything I maybe missing?

Oh, one other thing, Merchants. It seems no matter what my merchant is trading another merchant will always come after him. There could 5 other resources not be utilized in the area but they will always go after my merchant and my assets are always seized. Anyone else notice this?

Thanks for any advice.

[Lusted]

Oh, one other thing, Merchants. It seems no matter what my merchant is trading another merchant will always come after him. There could 5 other resources not be utilized in the area but they will always go after my merchant and my assets are always seized. Anyone else notice this?

Its so the other merchant doesn't have to deal with competition in the area if it takes your merchant out. If i see an enemy merchant in my territroy, i tend to move my merchant ff of his resource, let the enemy merchant sit on it, then i seize his assets.

[Bobolini]

Its so the other merchant doesn't have to deal with competition in the area if it takes your merchant out. If i see an enemy merchant in my territroy, i tend to move my merchant ff of his resource, let the enemy merchant sit on it, then i seize his assets.

Understand, but it seems my chance for siezure is usually very low (around 22%). It seems the other factions develop more quickly.

[Lord Cunami]

Ok now since I'm playing Byzantines at the moment and might I add very successfully I'd like to share some things
Diplomacy:
Plying Byzantines you must develop good relations to either hungary or turks at the beginning meaning allying with one of them. Also your natural allies are egypt, milan and russia of course. Wait for Venice to attack you and trust me they will. Hungary and turks have some rebel provinces in the russian steppes to take first before they turn on you. Keep an eye on sicily as well.
Cities and Economy:
At the beginning you want to concentrate on four cities to develop first, your capital, Nicea, Thessaloniki and Corinth. Thats three cities and one castle. Nicosia and Smyrna are secondary in priority. When you take Rhodes convert it to city..you dont need another castle there. I also convert Nicosia to city but its not critical. Remember no money=no army
Expansion:
Make sure you get Sophia, Rhodes and Trebizond first. Then concentrate on Durazzo if it isnt taken by Venice already. By this time you will be at war with Venice. Durazzo, Iraklion, Ragusa and Zagreb are your next military Campaigns. While at war with Venice it is quite possible that Sicily or Hungary or Turks could declare war on you...make sure you are ready. Note: If you keep decent militia armies in Nicaea, Konstantinople and decent armies in Trebizond and Smyrna then Turks might be refrained from attacking you while you deal with your western front.
Spying, religion, merchants:
One way to use your assasins doesnt have to involve killing immams or catholic priest but rather sabotage. Use your spies to infiltarte cities and then your assasins to sabotage Mosques and catholic churches. This way you can convert their pop quickly to orthodox and power up your priests to counter their in your provinces. Remember priest with high piety convert faster and better.
Merchants should be sent to Dongola province in Egypt to trade that ivory. Alternate locations are spices and sugar in Antioch, Alexandria and Aleppo.
Regarding religion. Its true there are only two orthodox factions but since a lot of regions around you have low orthodox pop your priest will power up fast by converting these regions. Convert regions where there are no opposing priests or immams. So make sure you build churches in your cities to have good number of priest at the beginning
Hope this helps
good luck

[Brenil]

Remember priest with high piety convert faster and better.
Merchants should be sent to Dongola province in Egypt to trade that ivory. Alternate locations are spices and sugar in Antioch, Alexandria and Aleppo.
Regarding religion. Its true there are only two orthodox factions but since a lot of regions around you have low orthodox pop your priest will power up fast by converting these regions. Convert regions where there are no opposing priests or immams. So make sure you build churches in your cities to have good number of priest at the beginning

I'm going to have to disagree you with greatly.

I played Byzantium very successfully as well until I ran into a religious war with Catholic and Islamic nations. Not an all out war, but a war between my priests and theirs. This is a losing war everytime because of something that really needs to be addressed I think.

Here's an example:

One Turkish Imam walks into my terroritory with a piety of 2. I see him and surround him with two priests with a piety of 3 and 4. Region during the first turn (with a castle chapel) is 90% Orthodox.

Few turns later...

Imam has 4 piety. My priests have the same piety. Region has 80ish% Orthodox.

I move my Bishop to help with a piety of six.

Few turns later.

Imam has 5 piety while my priests have the same, region is 75% Orthodox.

From there it fluxes around. It takes THREE higher piety priests just to barely neutralize one bloody amauter Imam/priest.

This was just one example, it happened on a grand scale once I expanded my empire into Europe. Once I took Venice and Bolonga I had doomed myself to endless religious revolt while pouring money into churches, priests, spies, and assassins JUST to friggin combat these unbelievably powerful amauter priests that convert my population even with far superior Orthodox priests all over the place.

And that's not counting the number of my amauter priests that tried to combat others turning into damn heretics...

This was the crumbling of my empire and made me give up and start a MUCH better Holy Roman Empire campaign.

Next time I play an Orthodox faction I'm going to see about nerfing enemy priests or something, because it's just silly difficult how easy the AI can convert your population while you're stuck trying to defend your religion and expand the empire in directions that will only speed up it's demise due to religious unrest.

[Becephalus]

If you are an orthodox faction you always need a few high level assassins working and always need the maximum allowable churches and priests.

[xor0]

Same thing with moors/catholics. I think the amount converted each turn depends on the existing % - so a region with 0% will give you several % conversion in a turn while a region with 90% will only give 1% per turn. This gives invading clerics an advantage.

[Lord Cunami]

Same thing with moors/catholics. I think the amount converted each turn depends on the existing % - so a region with 0% will give you several % conversion in a turn while a region with 90% will only give 1% per turn. This gives invading clerics an advantage.

Absolutely true..
An orthodox priest with piety level 1 in a 100% catholic province will do exactly what immams and catholic priest do in your byzantine province with very high orthodox pop.
So as long as you keep your orthodox pop at around 70% level you should be fine with revolts. But keep in mind the further your provinces are from your capital you get greater unrest levels that have nothing to do religion.
Also make sure to keep a spy in your cities to prevent infiltartion by enemy spies and therefore prevent further increase in unrest

[Brenil]

Absolutely true..
An orthodox priest with piety level 1 in a 100% catholic province will do exactly what immams and catholic priest do in your byzantine province with very high orthodox pop.
So as long as you keep your orthodox pop at around 70% level you should be fine with revolts. But keep in mind the further your provinces are from your capital you get greater unrest levels that have nothing to do religion.
Also make sure to keep a spy in your cities to prevent infiltartion by enemy spies and therefore prevent further increase in unrest

Unless that 1 piety priest turns into a heretic.

Which happens quite often for me but almost never for the AI.

I know all about squalor, distance to capital, unrest, ect... I know what I mean when I'm saying that religious unrest was the undoing of my Byzantine campaign.

I just couldn't keep up the unending tide of invading priests and imams on two fronts while trying to train up assassins, upgrade churches, and get better piety on priests, all the while trying to defend against a lone amauter imam with 3x or more his number in defending orthodox priests.

In all my experiences (I've had this experience as Catholitic nations as well, especially in the holy land), the AI gets a definate advanage in converting your population, whether by luck or design... but it's definately unfair and is only compounded playing as a faction like Byzantium who is surrounded by religious enemies and has to expand into foriegn religion terroritory.

[Lord Cunami]

@Brenil

I can understand your frustration in one way but I see these things as a welcomed challenge that is sorely lacking in so many aspects in the game.
As long as AI doesnt get a game breaking advantage any challenge in this game will surely make it more fun for me.
However a skillfull use of priests (level them up in provinces that dont have your religion) and skillfull use of spies and assasins (spies and assasins to sabotage enemies religious buildings and assasind to actually kill enemies religious charchters) is quite managable for success.
good luck to you
one thing I would like to see though is an ability for priests and imama to execute other priests and imams just the way heretics are executed.

[Uandwhosearmy]

I really have to stop reading these threads. Now I'm probably going to cut my english campaign (decided to give them another go) short and start a russian one, again! I've yet to finish a single campaign!!!

[Sonny WiFiHr]

Me too!!!!

[Skaven]

I've played as the Russians once, and I found them more or less easy to play with, I started expanding as fast as possible and I tryed to keep a small garrissoned army waiting for the Polish to evade, once they did attack me I expanded towards their territory until I conquered 75% of their settlements, once I achieved that, Denmark declared war on me but I was already too strong, and they had onle 2 cities and 2 castles.

From then on I had the situation more or less under control, I was only afraid of having the HRE attacking me, but they where ocupied with the Frensh and Milan so... . Maybe I was lucky.

What I noticed was that Russia could use a couple of extra ground units.