Idea to buff Russian economy

[NIborGER]

That's not the point.

The point is that Muscovy will sit around until the mid 1500s doing nothing whilst everyone else around them gets stronger. Russia is always meant to be a late-bloomer in this game but at least half the time they don't bloom at all.

Getting game balance right is very hard, I fully admit that, and all we can really go by is anecdotal evidence. However, I put more time into this game than I should, and I haven't seen a truly scary Russia since 1.30. If I do, it's because I helped them out a lot.

As a reference the gametests by the devs:

Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 18th of January 2022

Greetings, and Happy New Year to everyone! Today we’re coming back to EUIV DD’s, after taking a couple of months’ break from them (unfortunately not due to long Spanish holidays, as some on the forums have suggested :p). What we’ve been doing in...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

So you have 2 big russias, 1 failed russia and once muscovy didnt manage to form russia. Pretty decent on average if you ask me. Also consider this is sometimes a "what if" game and there were times in history that could have ended russia too (eg time of troubles). Sure sample size of 4 is pretty low but it shows that a decent russia is no unicorn.

In that light there are a number of nations that perform very ahistoric and are more likely in need of some extra guidance by the devs:

• Brandenburg forming Prussia and becoming something of a decent nation
• encouring Ottomans focusing arabia more then europe
• Persia forming and surviving
• Mughals going for india instead of persia and the stepps
• Taunguu uniting burma
• Ethiopia surviving
• the Netherlands forming a tradeempire
• ...

Furthermore i don't advice pulling the "I put more time into this game than I should" card in this forum. It is true for most that post here.

 

[Word_Smith]

The problem isn't that Russia is weak. [snip]

I think another problem with Russia's AI is that it consistently attempts to blob in Europe when it could easily grab land from much weaker countries in Asia. It'll get clobbered, lose land, and then declare a war in Europe again to begin the cycle anew.

 

[Vapiritapiri]

If you want the Baltic trade, just move your main node into the Baltic or use a second merchant. It's not a hard node to control as most people in Lubeck have their merchants inland, so all you have to do is subdue Sweden and Poland/Prussia which... is the whole goal of westward expansion.

How do you move your main trade node?

 

[Ferdinand_Bardamu]

So you have 2 big russias, 1 failed russia and once muscovy didnt manage to form russia. Pretty decent on average if you ask me. Also consider this is sometimes a "what if" game and there were times in history that could have ended russia too (eg time of troubles). Sure sample size of 4 is pretty low but it shows that a decent russia is no unicorn.

We are talking one of the greatest powers during the EU4 time period only looking decent 50% of the time, if we are going to base our arguments off of these gametests. That's a very low rate to me. I'd expect to see a nation with the importance of Russia forming at least 80% of the time and reaching their historical borders at least 50% of the time. However, I am biased towards more historical railroading for all nations.

Furthermore, those '2 big Russia's' you refer to are not actually big if compared to the actual size of the Russian Empire (which granted reached it's peak after EU4's timeframe).

 

[Koopatin]

Just to give my 2 cents, in my last games i always had them form and expand all the way to the pacific. In half the games they took a chunk of Lithuania in the others not, but they were always thousands in debt. They did not help me in wars as my ally. And they did not help AI when I was on the other side.

I did not look at it in detail, but that were my last experiences.

 

[klingonadmiral]

So you have 2 big russias, 1 failed russia and once muscovy didnt manage to form russia.

You have 1 failed Russia, 1 dead Russia, 1 game that wasn't played until 1821, and another dead Russia.

 

[leefnmajors]

How do you move your main trade node?

It's at the top left of the province view, right next to move capital. Costs 200 Dip. Requires the Wealth of Nations DLC. It's set to the same node as your starting capital by default, but it can be quite valuable to move as you conquer better land (IE France moving into the English Channel/Genoa, Austria moving into Venice).

 

[Vapiritapiri]

It's at the top left of the province view, right next to move capital. Costs 200 Dip. Requires the Wealth of Nations DLC. It's set to the same node as your starting capital by default, but it can be quite valuable to move as you conquer better land (IE France moving into the English Channel/Genoa, Austria moving into Venice).

Of course it requires a DLC... Fucks sake paradox

 

[Barbu]

Russia isn't super rich - but it isn't because of the trade node configuration. Even in player hands, it will take a while for money to be plentiful, even if you expand east and south and steer everything to Novgorod, which is actually a pretty good end trade node. Fact is, Russian land and the neighboring areas just aren't rich. and until you get hold of Persian lands, you'll be relatively poor. In a player's hands though it's perfectly manageable.

The problem with expanding downstream not being worth it is a good point - but it pretty much applies to most countries in the game and there are far better examples than Russia. Even the Ottomans, who can reach their historical zenith much more reliably than most major powers, have this issue once they are done with conquering the anatolia node. A significant portion of their mission tree directs them to conquer land that just won't benefit them that much.

It's a rework of the trade system you want, not of a specific configuration intended for russia

 

[Stratagyfan101]

I'm coming back here with my recent experience with Russia. Letting Muscovy form Russia is the worst thing that can happen to Muscovy. I've twice now had to dig Muscovy out of 6000+ debt. Even in its 8000 ducat debt, it still insists on attacking Uzbek, Timurids, Yeren, etc.
Muscovy prior to that was doing perfectly fine, because it had a narrow corridor to fight.

 

[Saelon121]

Some things that feel like they could help AI Russia:
It should take quantity and trade more often. Muscovy -> Russia has a lot of fighting to do early, and your starting land is actually quite poor, so extra manpower from quantity would be really useful. Trade ideas (at say, tech 10 or 14) are helpful for getting Russia to channel trade value into Novgorod. The combination of the two gives a +20% goods produced policy that makes Russia's economy just explode. Also, I observe that AI Ottomans regularly take quantity ideas, and as a result are always the scariest AI on the map, and they often take trade ideas as well.

The tartars have a tendency to hugbox, which is a big issue for Muscovy that really needs to own the Kazan trade node. I'm not sure if the 4 tartar hordes should be historical rivals of each other, but it would be good if they didn't always ally each other. (This would also be nice if you're playing as one of those hordes)

The Ottoman's crimea event is always an issue for Russia/Muscovy, them keeping it as a buffer state would be fine, but the Ottomans always annex Crimea and then desire all of the land in the Pontic Steppe. If they limited their interests more to the Crimea node, and/or didn't always annex their Crimean subject, that would be helpful.

The mission tree is very aged at this point, and probably could stand to be revised, though I don't know to what extent the AI actually tries to complete missions.

 

[Stratagyfan101]

Some things that feel like they could help AI Russia:
It should take quantity and trade more often. Muscovy -> Russia has a lot of fighting to do early, and your starting land is actually quite poor, so extra manpower from quantity would be really useful. Trade ideas (at say, tech 10 or 14) are helpful for getting Russia to channel trade value into Novgorod. The combination of the two gives a +20% goods produced policy that makes Russia's economy just explode. Also, I observe that AI Ottomans regularly take quantity ideas, and as a result are always the scariest AI on the map, and they often take trade ideas as well.

The tartars have a tendency to hugbox, which is a big issue for Muscovy that really needs to own the Kazan trade node. I'm not sure if the 4 tartar hordes should be historical rivals of each other, but it would be good if they didn't always ally each other. (This would also be nice if you're playing as one of those hordes)

The Ottoman's crimea event is always an issue for Russia/Muscovy, them keeping it as a buffer state would be fine, but the Ottomans always annex Crimea and then desire all of the land in the Pontic Steppe. If they limited their interests more to the Crimea node, and/or didn't always annex their Crimean subject, that would be helpful.

The mission tree is very aged at this point, and probably could stand to be revised, though I don't know to what extent the AI actually tries to complete missions.

Crimea should be locked as a march for a set period of time. Its baffling how that event fires, specifically making them a march, and then the AI just undoes that. Muscovy seems to do well getting out of the hugbox though. The problem, as I stated above, is its army management is terrible, leading to needless losses, and it insists of 100% warscore for Uzbek, leading to even more unnecessary losses of manpower and ducats.

 

[Damedius]

I think one of the bigger problems is the new changes to tech. It falls behind because it doesn't get the institutions till later so it is paying huge tech penalties. A human player will just force spawn the institutions but AI Russia eats the tech penalties forever.

The new system has hammered a lot of countries that aren't near the earlier institutions spawn points.

It's the same problem over and over. Paradox creates new systems but never updates the AI to deal with them. As the game expands this keeps crippling the AI more and more.

Edit : I'll give you one example of the inflexible AI in my current game. Russia called me into a war for a Great Horde province. It could peace out the Great Horde's remaining ally Bukhara right now and any human player would because while it was fighting in this war it was called into a war to defend Wallachia from the Commonwealth. So instead of signing a peace with Bukhara and then annexing the rest of the Great Horde, it is instead fighting a two front war and accumulating WE and will probably ultimately lose the war against the Commonwealth.

 

[CthulhuTactical]

The Ottomans getting Crimea for free (which never happened in real history) means they'll invariably expand into areas that Russia should be expanding.

PDX could make it into decision like Maine event for France. Send the event to Poland and Russia if they want to contest the ottomans getting crimea.

 

[Saelon121]

Maybe the Succession in the Crimean Khanate event should make Crimea into a tributary of the Ottomans rather than a march. This would accomplish the main goal (presumably) of Crimea staying independant from Muscovy as it did historically, while not making Crimea be directly annexed by the Ottomans, which didn't actually happen.

 

[Koopatin]

Maybe the Succession in the Crimean Khanate event should make Crimea into a tributary of the Ottomans rather than a march. This would accomplish the main goal (presumably) of Crimea staying independant from Muscovy as it did historically, while not making Crimea be directly annexed by the Ottomans, which didn't actually happen.

i had the same idea. and i am sure it would be possible to rename the subject type to something fitting for the time (ottoman protectorate or something) without having to create a new subject type only for crimea.

 

[Saelon121]

i had the same idea. and i am sure it would be possible to rename the subject type to something fitting for the time (ottoman protectorate or something) without having to create a new subject type only for crimea.

Something pretty basic you could do to 'fix' the issue would be to have the event make Crimea a tributary, and for it to give the Ottomans a modifier similar to the Papal State's relationship with Switzerland, which creates a unique mercenary company with Crimea's tech level, with a hefty price discount. That gives Crimea protection from Muscovy/Russia, gives the Ottomans something representing Crimean military support, and keeps the Ottomans from as easily blobbing all over the Pontic Steppe.

Something that would be interesting, but would require more effort would be if the tartars got a similar ability to the Maghrebi 'slave raids' tradition where they can raid bordering provinces, causing devastation and stealing money & manpower. (Similarly to the existing raid mechanic, it wouldn't work on co-religionists, allies, etc). Provinces would be protected if they are in the zone of control of a fort. This would make it actually beneficial for the Ottomans to keep Crimea around, due to it weakening the Ottoman's enemies. A perfect addition would then be for nations with the cossack estate to have a province interaction with steppe provinces, that allows the creation of a Sich Rada Cossack Hetmanate, which would function equivalently to the tartar ability described above.

 

[Stratagyfan101]

This is the only AI in my current game that is managing its economy this poorly.

To the point of the thread, the fact that the Russian economy is supporting a debt of 35k ducats tells me its running a decent economy. The problem is that the Russian AI is running a 35k ducat debt almost exclusively from fighting in Manchuria. Its maintaining a 300k man army to fight 25k man opponents. It has no interest in Finland, and I'm its 100 trust western neighbor. In this game I've bailed Russia out of 6000 and 8000 ducat debts. Russia has gone bankrupt. I don't think the AI understands that the numbers on its balance sheet are red. There is no reason for this Russia to be this indebted when it hasn't fought a major war since my first war with the Ottomans.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

Something that would be interesting, but would require more effort would be if the tartars got a similar ability to the Maghrebi 'slave raids' tradition where they can raid bordering provinces, causing devastation and stealing money & manpower. (Similarly to the existing raid mechanic, it wouldn't work on co-religionists, allies, etc). Provinces would be protected if they are in the zone of control of a fort. This would make it actually beneficial for the Ottomans to keep Crimea around, due to it weakening the Ottoman's enemies. A perfect addition would then be for nations with the cossack estate to have a province interaction with steppe provinces, that allows the creation of a Sich Rada Cossack Hetmanate, which would function equivalently to the tartar ability described above.

This is so cool! Why is that not in the game yet.

 

[Republic of Mercury]

Of course it requires a DLC... Fucks sake paradox

Without the DLC, you can get the same effect by moving your capital.