Possible to win a war as Russia?

[unmerged(276427)]

In a MP game atm as Russia I seem to collapse after a year or two of war with peasants all over siberia, and with limitted armies to chase them down and they always ping pong a few times anyway so once a rebel group appears it takes about 6 months to deal with it (with the massive transit times too).
The war was actually going very well as well, I don't see why turks in the farthest reach of my empire care about a fairly small war in north africa just because I have attrition. And the alternative to attrition is to have your armies in 10k stacks easily eaten up by the enemy.
I seriously don't see the point of playing Russia once you get past a certain point. Oh look, war, fun times! Oh no...no...no.
Even during periods of low WE I need about 50k troops in siberia to keep things peaceful, which itself severely limits my ability to wage war.

 

[DunkFunk]

yeah in my last russia game i had 2 10k stacks on permanent rebel hunt. I just clicked the hunt rebels button and forgot about them.

 

[unmerged(276427)]

Even with 20 WE and about 40 provinces non-cored with the wrong religion? I can control the rebels but at max WE I need about 120k troops...obviously when my army is in north africa or the balkans this is impractical.

 

[Derahan]

Maybe you sohuld max out on Narrowmindedness and actully let your WE burn off tll u get 0 and your stab cost wont be high and the rebels will less likely spawn

 

[Kantall]

High maneuver generals can really help in Russia for your rebel-whacking generals, even 1-2 points tends to make the difference between making it in time and having to sit around seiging. For the "possible to win a war" aspect, I hope the following helps

Personally as Russia I've always focused on bringing my Max WE down to a low level. 9 I believe is the lowest you're able to get it through the "Third Rome" decision (Unsure on it's name, I apologise) narrowminded slider etc. If you combine this with bill of rights and -RR decisions then war exhaustion can be ignored more or less (I realise RR isn't it's only penalty, but it's the only one worth mentioning in this situation) which allows you to scorch your border provinces and, if you've maxed defensive which is especially useful for Russia, the enemy stacks will fall in numbers dramatically, skyrocketing their WE and sapping their manpower. You'll likely lose a few provinces to seiges like this, but for every province they take they're making it more and more likely that you're going to able to launch a devestating counterattack. It's wise if you do this to keep a few small armies in provinces bordering those that are being seiged, so you can scorch them as well as preventing them from assaulting.

After a year or two of the above tactic you can start sending medium-sized armies into enemy territory, though don't mop up the weakening armies in your own territory. I know this seems a little odd, but if you wipe out these armies then their manpower can start to recover which is the absolute last thing you want. It's likely rebels will be hitting them at this point too, unless you want territory theyre holding it's generally best to ignore them and if you're feeling particularly confident, try to stall for long enough for little nations to break off. It goes without saying you should try to hit high-manpower provinces, even if you have to assault as combined with the attrition they're receiving, this can cripple a nation.

To summarise, with Russia it's one big battle of attrition, at least until you've expanded far to the west. Forts, defensiveness and scorch are your friends.

 

[unmerged(371768)]

Well, in the first place - 20 WE is an extreme amount. Next, you should consider your government type. You are most likely Noble Republic (?) which is good because of the elections, but lacks the precious Legitimacy which gives up to -3 Revolt Risk and +1 Tolerance of all religions. This is extremely useful, but on the other hand it can give you equally powerful mali if on the low, and with 20 WE you're bound for trouble no matter what.

Are you in the process of westernizing? What modifiers are active? "Time of Troubles" is very nasty when it comes to RR, and you should galvanize yourself against it before expanding, westernizing or engaging in a major war (typically by not going far left on the Serfdom slider).

And it really should at the very least be your job to 1) Reach Kamchatka, 2) Conquer Kazakh - so don't expect the rebels to go any lighter unless you want to remain your current size. On the other hand, Eastern Siberia is quite a nice area goods-wise.

 

[unmerged(204522)]

if you surrender to peasant rebels, you get +1 to free subjects slider.....

 

[unmerged(276427)]

High maneuver generals can really help in Russia for your rebel-whacking generals, even 1-2 points tends to make the difference between making it in time and having to sit around seiging. For the "possible to win a war" aspect, I hope the following helps

Personally as Russia I've always focused on bringing my Max WE down to a low level. 9 I believe is the lowest you're able to get it through the "Third Rome" decision (Unsure on it's name, I apologise) narrowminded slider etc. If you combine this with bill of rights and -RR decisions then war exhaustion can be ignored more or less (I realise RR isn't it's only penalty, but it's the only one worth mentioning in this situation) which allows you to scorch your border provinces and, if you've maxed defensive which is especially useful for Russia, the enemy stacks will fall in numbers dramatically, skyrocketing their WE and sapping their manpower. You'll likely lose a few provinces to seiges like this, but for every province they take they're making it more and more likely that you're going to able to launch a devestating counterattack. It's wise if you do this to keep a few small armies in provinces bordering those that are being seiged, so you can scorch them as well as preventing them from assaulting.

How do I get my max WE down then? I don't really have a problem beating my enemy (unless my troops decide to retreat into an enemy province rather than a friendly province with troops...gah!) it's just the massive Revolt Risk caused by WE. But I suppose I have been neglecting RR modifiers, may have to grab Bill of Rights.

Well, in the first place - 20 WE is an extreme amount. Next, you should consider your government type. You are most likely Noble Republic (?) which is good because of the elections, but lacks the precious Legitimacy which gives up to -3 Revolt Risk and +1 Tolerance of all religions. This is extremely useful, but on the other hand it can give you equally powerful mali if on the low, and with 20 WE you're bound for trouble no matter what.

Are you in the process of westernizing? What modifiers are active? "Time of Troubles" is very nasty when it comes to RR, and you should galvanize yourself against it before expanding, westernizing or engaging in a major war (typically by not going far left on the Serfdom slider).

And it really should at the very least be your job to 1) Reach Kamchatka, 2) Conquer Kazakh - so don't expect the rebels to go any lighter unless you want to remain your current size. On the other hand, Eastern Siberia is quite a nice area goods-wise.

I'm administrative republic, 110% trade efficiency
I'm torn between continuing expansion and consolidating. On the one hand, I have the money and the manpower (I will once WE goes away, anyway). On the other hand, it's an even bigger frontier.

if you surrender to peasant rebels, you get +1 to free subjects slider.....

I may consider that. Currently going towards Free Subjects via slider moves anyway.
I also have Church Attendance Duty for -25% stab costs, also going for narrowminded, having completed westernisation (though not military).

 

[unmerged(204522)]

monarchies get up to -3 RR from legitimacy. judicial advisor gives up to -6 RR afaik.

 

[MiracleTortoise]

-1.2% at -0.2%/rank.

I wish I could contribute more, I've been in a similar position, except as Manchu, so my forcelimits were through the roof. One army in eastern Siberia, one in western Siberia, one in Northern China around Beijing, and one in the south near Indochina. Those 4 armies served all the rebel whacking purposes I ever needed.

 

[Lord Curlyton]

Convert as quickly as possible, I'm guessing a lot of those provinces are Tartar, so they should start flipping culture naturally in 50-100 years (given roughly 250-275 yrs, >90% of the Tartar provinces converted for me), and if you stay Narrowminded (or Westernize quickly then flip back Narrow) then you can churn out the missionaries. Also, Defensive is a good call if you expect a lot of war against the West. Me, I like to eat Asia and/or India, something you can do easily if the other MP players are ignoring/don't care about that area. In SP, well its even more ridiculously easy.
As far as WE: Even as a republic, you should be able to get WE to max at 14-15 easy, esp with the decision to create a separate orthodox patriarchy once Thrace is no longer owned by BYZ. Attrition is easily managed and you should be able to minimize it by keeping stacks under the attrition limit and combining as necessary.

 

[Extreme Unction]

I've done just fine as Russia. I don't have any stacks larger than 10k, so I don't get much WE from attrition. If I need more concentrated firepower, I can move two or three 10k stacks together.

I've also completely ignored Europe for the most part and have concentrated on expanding east. I'm now the undisputed tech leader, and the gap between me and the rest of the world just keeps getting bigger.

 

[Lord Curlyton]

Also, I looked at the picture again and saw it was 1605 and there is still a horde left. Must be taking it easy. For me, the steppe hordes is all about "All belongs to Mother Russia". Sweep south and east, my friend, none can oppose you.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

I think you got things wrong from the start.

First off, which country you took at the beggining?

Novgorod? Ur... in bad position...

Moscow - Then how fast did you formed russia? You can for Russia in about 20 years or less - as moscow only - giving you like 80 years to kill off hordes, defeat PLU/Lithuania, Teutons, Sweden/Denmark/Scandinavia. If you manage to kill hordes in first 40 years, you can easily go colonize siberia, and have it colonized by 1500. Then, you rule, own, and kill.

Also you should(and i think you didn't) made COT in moscow, and destroy all COT's that you get in your hands, so all trade go to moscow. Reason is simple - Manpower. Then if you got all siberia and missionaries thruout the horde lands - go and westernize - you may westernize your units if you want, but IMHO until late game western units are better until late game. You should allways stay serfdom - for low infantry cost and lowering max WE, plus lower stabcost. Als you should allways if it is possible, take russian patriarchate.

Here i written an article about it...

 

[Talar]

I don't understand the thing about CoT in Moscow even after reading the wiki article, how does it affect manpower?

 

[brifbates]

I don't understand the thing about CoT in Moscow even after reading the wiki article, how does it affect manpower?

The CoT value multiplies the base manpower of the province. The higher the base manpower the more you get as a result. Since Muscowy is a high manpower province, when you then multiply it by ~5x (after adding 6500 to the base through the 6 army buildings) the number gets scary big.

 

[Extreme Unction]

I'm currently playing a Russian game where I started as Novgorod, and I think you wind up with several advantages:

1) You start off with a Republican government instead of a Monarchy, so your chances of Westernizing quickly are much better.
2) You start off with more provinces than Muscovy, so it's harder to get overextended.
3) You start off paying tribute of 1.0 ducat per month to the Golden Horde. The computer determines how much tribute you have to pay to the Horde if you capitulate in a war, and it's almost always going to be more than 1.0 ducats per month (sometimes a lot more). Whereas 1.0 ducats per month is chump change. And as long as you keep paying that 1.0 ducat per month to the Horde, they will leave you alone, giving you plenty of time to develop in peace.

The biggest downside that I've found as Novgorod is that you start off with a colony, costing you 1.9 ducats a month. Between the colony and the tribute, you'll run a negative balance on your annual budget if you don't take steps to correct it. I solved it by taking National Bank as my first idea and minting some coins for the treasury, and also by turning down the colony maintenance slider until pop growth was 0 and then sending colonists to it until it became fully developed.

 

[brifbates]

1) You start off with a Republican government instead of a Monarchy, so your chances of Westernizing quickly are much better.
2) You start off with more provinces than Muscovy, so it's harder to get overextended.
3) You start off paying tribute of 1.0 ducat per month to the Golden Horde. The computer determines how much tribute you have to pay to the Horde if you capitulate in a war, and it's almost always going to be more than 1.0 ducats per month (sometimes a lot more). Whereas 1.0 ducats per month is chump change. And as long as you keep paying that 1.0 ducat per month to the Horde, they will leave you alone, giving you plenty of time to develop in peace.

The biggest downside that I've found as Novgorod is that you start off with a colony, costing you 1.9 ducats a month. Between the colony and the tribute, you'll run a negative balance on your annual budget if you don't take steps to correct it. I solved it by taking National Bank as my first idea and minting some coins for the treasury, and also by turning down the colony maintenance slider until pop growth was 0 and then sending colonists to it until it became fully developed.

1) Government type is irrelevant in determining how fast you can westernise, Nov does start out closer due to the neutral narrow/innovative slider (7 moves vs 10 for Mus). You do start with a western neighbor so you can buy yourself to the western arms trade modifier if you want though.
2) If Muscowy follows their missions their early expansion is almost all cores so overextension is not an issue, Nov on the other hand doesn't seem to get near as many cores
3) It is possible to avoid paying tribute at all with some luck, granted it isn't a sure thing. Also, day 1 tribute offer for Mus is .9g/month with "would accept" so if you want you can go that way with Mus as well

The bigger problem for Nov in my experience is their poor position to fight any sort of war early on-plutocratic means your cav costs more and is less effective and cav owns the early warscape. Add that to 1/3 of their provinces being unfortified and a couple thousand less manpower at start than Muscovy has and an early war can be really bad for them. If you can get some bigger nations in your league so the CoT doesn't tank you can throw money at some of the problems pretty easily but if you can't it can get ugly pretty quickly.

 

[Extreme Unction]

1) Government type is irrelevant in determining how fast you can westernise

How fast you can westernize depends a great deal on how fast you can get a ruler with an ADM of 6 or better.

An acquaintance on another forum (where we're discussing my current Novgorod game) had this to say (emphasis added by me):

"I've been inspired to start a new game myself, as Muscovy. It's now around 1550 and Russia stretches from Smolensk to the Pacific... but I'm hideously behind in tech compared to you leading the world. Most of my techs are around 9-10 while the Western Europeans are pushing 20. I can't westernise because for over half a century all my monarchs have been below 6 Admin; and so is my current heir, so that's not changing soon."

If you're playing a Republic, there's just no way you're going have to wait 50 years to get an ADM 6 ruler once you've hit all the other requirements.

2) If Muscowy follows their missions their early expansion is almost all cores so overextension is not an issue, Nov on the other hand doesn't seem to get near as many cores

Novgorod starts off with 15 cores (compared with 6 for Muscovy) and can also get more with missions.

The bigger problem for Nov in my experience is their poor position to fight any sort of war early on-plutocratic means your cav costs more and is less effective and cav owns the early warscape. Add that to 1/3 of their provinces being unfortified and a couple thousand less manpower at start than Muscovy has and an early war can be really bad for them. If you can get some bigger nations in your league so the CoT doesn't tank you can throw money at some of the problems pretty easily but if you can't it can get ugly pretty quickly.

Yep, you are correct, and that's pretty much how my game went. A war is obviously inadvisable except in small doses. Better to use your money to try and bulk up your trade league, put down some infrastructure, that sort of thing. I don't think I fought anybody at all for the first 15 years. But I got my economy going, beefed up my defenses, and made a few key allies. And when I finally did start flexing my military muscle, it was against easy targets like Tver, Muscovy (who had been softened up by Poland and the Golden Horde), and Ryaman.

And now my Russia stands astride the world like a colossus.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

How fast you can westernize depends a great deal on how fast you can get a ruler with an ADM of 6 or better.

An acquaintance on another forum (where we're discussing my current Novgorod game) had this to say (emphasis added by me):

"I've been inspired to start a new game myself, as Muscovy. It's now around 1550 and Russia stretches from Smolensk to the Pacific... but I'm hideously behind in tech compared to you leading the world. Most of my techs are around 9-10 while the Western Europeans are pushing 20. I can't westernise because for over half a century all my monarchs have been below 6 Admin; and so is my current heir, so that's not changing soon."

If you're playing a Republic, there's just no way you're going have to wait 50 years to get an ADM 6 ruler once you've hit all the other requirements.




Novgorod starts off with 15 cores (compared with 6 for Muscovy) and can also get more with missions.





Yep, you are correct, and that's pretty much how my game went. A war is obviously inadvisable except in small doses. Better to use your money to try and bulk up your trade league, put down some infrastructure, that sort of thing. I don't think I fought anybody at all for the first 15 years. But I got my economy going, beefed up my defenses, and made a few key allies. And when I finally did start flexing my military muscle, it was against easy targets like Tver, Muscovy (who had been softened up by Poland and the Golden Horde), and Ryaman.

And now my Russia stands astride the world like a colossus.

Muscowy, get 6 cores + 9 cores from mission, so its equal. Also it got almost all cores needed for russia unification and can easily get core on smolensk thru mission. It is highly unlikely thou, that novgorod will get core on musocwy, meaning that even if you conquer muscowy in 2 wars - meaning 10 years - and get all provinces needed for russian unification, it will take 50 years for those provinces to core - leading to quite big rebelions as those provinces are most, quite high on manpower, also, at best you will unify russia around 1460-70. And i think for novgorod, russia formation will be more likely to be in 1500, as lithuania tends to be pretty powerfull early on, and it is possible that it will be inherited - which means OP poland, that will got like 60k forces... or more. Even on its own, lithuania got like 30-40k, and if it manages to conquer some lands, it even sometimes goes to 50-60k. Also lithuania is both more wealthy than moscow and novgorod, but moscow missions increase wealth of muscovite provinces, meaning muscowy will got higher taxes, allowing to bring bigger forces, aspecialy as its sliders are better for army.

If someone as muscowy fare not as well as novgorod - well... i don't realt know how it would be possible. I mean i understand if weak player with muscowy don't fare as well as good player with novgorod, but same player should fare much better as muscowy than novgorod... unless he is very unlucky with the game on muscowy - get more nasty events etc.

About the heirs and election - of course, it does matter, but you can allways change the goverment as muscowy if you want... to republic... but i would not advice it, unless you realy want to westernize, and got sliders ready, but king is idiot that wouldn't even spell the word "Administration" well. Also it is not so rare to get good admin kings anyway, so it is better to keep the -4 RR reduction...