Has Russia been nerf'ed with the latest patch?

[byebytoad]

Russia used to come up pretty strong in all my games.
Unstoppable , by the 1550 usually the wiped all the direct competition (Danish, Lithuania ,Transoxiana)
and neither the Ottomans could really do anything against them.

In my first game with the latest patch 1.24, year 1575 Muscovy didn't form Russia yet and it's been tore apart by Lithuanian Danish Uzbek Great Hordes ..they're totally unable to oppose anyone who attacks them. The weird part is that they started well in the first 50 years or so as usual, but after 1500 they started to decline for some reason.
I don't think they'll last much longer..Were they nerf'ed in some way?

 

[Ironside121]

They're as strong as ever. You've only played one game. It's not really enough to assume that they're weaker.

Russia still forms commonly in my game, 90% of the time, Eastern Europe's power balance is determinted by Polands decision to make Lithuania a PU Junior or not.

 

[Coffer]

The only time I've seen them struggle was when Novgorod allied the Ottomans, and even then they just looked elsewhere for their conquests. You probably got one of those rare situations where Muscovy's AI mismanaged its armies in a war against one of the hordes, since that sort of mismanagement is a heavy factor in all of Europe right now.

Outside of player interference, AI Muscovy has a lot of room for error, which isn't the kind of luxury, say, Poland can afford. I've seen them get into almost 10k debt and still survive and become one of the top 3 great powers.

 

[Khar221]

In my last game, Russia formed pretty early and with the help of Bohemia completely annexed Lithuania and Poland.

 

[byebytoad]

Thanks guys for the replies. I was just surprised.
I decided to give them some subsidy and see if that help them to get out the hole they dug themselves into as I want a strong Russia in the last part of the game as adversary.

 

[otaats]

Russia forms in every game of mine, although they are much less successful in Crimea & Caucasus.

 

[Tarkilth]

A few patches ago they *fixed* muscovy and it started formign Russia again. Basically since the Russia patch and DLC it's as strong as ever. As always, since there are many RNG decided things in the game every now and then you'll see unusual thigns like AI Prussian Emperor dominating Europe, England beating France, Russia beating Ottomans and just about anything short of Ryukyu conquering the world.

In fairness, Russia struggles with the Crimea area often because of the event that Ottomans get to get them into the area sooner than they'd normally conquer their way to it. Then Russia wisely stays away from a confrontation with Ottomans over it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

They were needlessly buffed, not nerfed.

 

[otaats]

Not that needlessly IMO.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Not that needlessly IMO.

Muscovy was, at their very worst in EU 4's patch history, still stronger than its real life version by a margin in 1444.

AI choke jobs are no reason to overstack a starting position; if you did that every nation would be stacked and it's back to square one.

 

[otaats]

I don't know. For gameplay purposes, i like all that's been done with Third Rome; Muscovy might be quite formidable on paper, but when you take into account their potential (and historic) rivals, and that they have no natural allies/historic friends to turn to, i think the changes served gameplay quite well to be frank. Before Third Rome one of the most annoying things i found is the PLC, Ottoman, and Danish Russia. Russia literally formed every 5th game, which was far from what a player who takes interest in the region, wants to see. On another note, there is no reason to think that Muscovy's rivals that are hit by the update - the PLC, won't get buffed at some time (IMO Poland needs a rework). Before TR Muscovy was quite a pushover, to be frank.

 

[Ironside121]

They were needlessly buffed, not nerfed.

Only buffed to give them flavour- which one could argue isn't exactly needlessly- you just need that depth and flavour to the surrounding nations like the PLC to balance it out again. Currently the PLC gets eaten in most of my games, partially due to the Muscovy buff.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't know. For gameplay purposes, i like all that's been done with Third Rome; Muscovy might be quite formidable on paper, but when you take into account their potential (and historic) rivals, and that they have no natural allies/historic friends to turn to, i think the changes served gameplay quite well to be frank. Before Third Rome one of the most annoying things i found is the PLC, Ottoman, and Danish Russia. Russia literally formed every 5th game, which was far from what a player who takes interest in the region, wants to see. On another note, there is no reason to think that Muscovy's rivals that are hit by the update - the PLC, won't get buffed at some time (IMO Poland needs a rework). Before TR Muscovy was quite a pushover, to be frank.

That's like saying Taungu and Aq Qoyunlu are pushovers and has similar usefulness.

Inflating a nation past its historical position without a consistently applied reason to other positions is arbitrary. Using the same logic you could drop 1200 development on just the Manchurian region, complete with the same "I'm interested in that region" line of reasoning + citing frequency of seeing Qing.

Or we can just roll with historical 1444 positions and not force comparatively difficult things historically to happen routinely arbitrarily.

Only buffed to give them flavour- which one could argue isn't exactly needlessly- you just need that depth and flavour to the surrounding nations like the PLC to balance it out again. Currently the PLC gets eaten in most of my games, partially due to the Muscovy buff.

Flavor =/= buff necessarily. Look how hard they gutted the new world after that supposed flavor was added. Meaningful choices can come without overstacking a nation beyond its historical capabilities, and if you need the AI to be threatening they can start by making all AIs try, not just the mission-script ones.

 

[TenshiN]

AI Russia is a paper tiger more than ever before.
Before, they relied heavily on a large amount of rather poor land. This worked great before the states were introduced and after they got introduced, but not heavily reduced in numbers to ones that we have now. Now Russia always lack states and the ones it has in its immediate vicinity are mostly crap, besides a few really good ones (like Novgorod).

Also, for some reason, AI Russia favors some terrible army compositions. Even though it now gets a good bonus to artillery, it doesn't use it too much. Last time i fought them, they only had about 30k artillery for their pretty large 300k army, so i encountered stacks like 42/0/6 and the like. I wonder if i am the only one with the problem.

 

[Onoma94]

Even with Third Rome, in the newest patches Russia seems slightly weaker than several patches before. Nowadays I see huge Danish Russia very often, and Muscovy doesn't get to conquer most of Novgorod's land until late 16th century (although Russia eventually still forms so it's not so bad), which I never seen in 1.18/1.19. Though even then PLC is still fucked because of huge rebels, Lithuania often left alone and Ottoman Crimea.

It might have something to do with states rework in 1.19 and 1.20 indeed, as at no point ranklocked Muscovy is able to full core all its provinces.

 

[dynalon]

Also, for some reason, AI Russia favors some terrible army compositions. Even though it now gets a good bonus to artillery, it doesn't use it too much. Last time i fought them, they only had about 30k artillery for their pretty large 300k army, so i encountered stacks like 42/0/6 and the like. I wonder if i am the only one with the problem.

I can confirm that - in my current run, they even went completely without artillery for a while (I checked first around tech 15, iirc, without any wars or desasters happening on Russia's side), and even with a pure infantry army. As a result, while they haven't been attacked until now, they underperformed in the two offensive wars that I kept track of.

Maybe the AI has trouble dealing with the Streltsy? Pure speculation on my part, of course, but it might raise them and then value them higher than cav and arty, so it'll delete those to get below force limit.

 

[Mortheim]

you'll see unusual thigns...Russia beating Ottomans

Yeah xD Thou faunny fact: from 8 wars between Russia and Ottomans during EU4 time period Russia won 5.


Thou in my games Muscovy/Russia is stable and has 3-4 place in Great Powers (below me, Ottomans and Ming, mostly).

 

[ETAIPOS]

I my current game (as BYZ) Russia formed but all wars with steppe countries costed them massive manpower. They were loosing entire pool each time, though they were winning. In 1560 they took part in League War in HRE on the side of Protestants (together with Spain and GB, both catholic) and they lost, with Russia being the one who suffered the most of big powers - all MP, more than 2k debt and in result disbanding of remaining army (to 11k troops), loosing few provinces to Lithuania and having Perm successfully rebel.

 

[Isildur9526]

Russia's ideas are far less practical than Muscovite ones, and the AI Muscovy will always replace their old idea group.
Muscovy's ideas are insanely useful though; -20% Stab cost to basically mitigate the negative effects of a stack of Streltsy units, and +10% shock damage to make them even more powerful? Yes please. Meanwhile Russia gets a meager 10% off their artillery and some institution spread.

 

[TenshiN]

Russia's ideas are far less practical than Muscovite ones, and the AI Muscovy will always replace their old idea group.
Muscovy's ideas are insanely useful though; -20% Stab cost to basically mitigate the negative effects of a stack of Streltsy units, and +10% shock damage to make them even more powerful? Yes please. Meanwhile Russia gets a meager 10% off their artillery and some institution spread.

Russia gets all that forcelimit, artillery power is also better than shockdamage, also OP Siberian Frontier. Much better IMO