Russia needs nerf

[lordelenath]

If you don't spend the military MP elsewhere you should be able to keep up even with 0 military skill rulers, just saying. That's 4 points / month = 48 / year, that's about one tech / decade (since most of the time you will have some -tech cost modifiers active). The Technology time table roughly lists one tech level every 15 years as "optimal" (no "ahead of time" malus). Anyway, if you're behind in military tech by two levels any major attacking would wipe the floor with you, especially if these levels consider crucial updates - that's hardly a valid argument against Russia.

Anyway, I never had a problem with Russia as of yet, although I haven't played anything in the far east - I can imagine those nations really might have issues. Russia looks very scary because of its huge amount of troops, but I don't think I've lost a single war to them as of yet. I do think the Siberia should be weakened, giving those colonies a max base tax of 1 or 2. That's only a very slight nerf which I would find acceptable.

 

[Novacat]

Anyway, I never had a problem with Russia as of yet, although I haven't played anything in the far east - I can imagine those nations really might have issues. Russia looks very scary because of its huge amount of troops, but I don't think I've lost a single war to them as of yet. I do think the Siberia should be weakened, giving those colonies a max base tax of 1 or 2. That's only a very slight nerf which I would find acceptable.

Again, speaking with someone who has a ton of experiance with Siberia, nerfing the base tax will do absolutly nothing. You can still do it but your still going to have to do other things to tame the bear as well because that alone will not be enough. Russia will still be rich because 80% of your Siberian income will be production and trade which are not affected by base tax at all.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...s-4-Empire&p=16532177&viewfull=1#post16532177

Seriously. This post has a lot of stats on a Trans-Siberian empire.

I can imagine those nations really might have issues. Russia looks very scary because of its huge amount of troops

Not only do they look very scary, they -are- very scary. Its very common for players to end up at war with Russia then find themselves having to deal with 400K deathstacks they have no chance of beating, even with western tech.

 

[lordelenath]

I haven't had that experience, maybe I'm not a common player? 400k death stacks aren't that dangerous to the player to be honest (if you've managed to grow at a reasonable rate) since you can so easily outmaneuver the AI and Russia lacks bonusses to their military punching power. In my last game (as The Knights Hospitaller) i regulary wiped Russian 40k stacks - couldn't do that with French armies. I had one 60k stack defend my eastern border, killing the entirety of the Russian armies on their own - while fielding about 200k men in Italy to beat back France.

In every game I've played the HRE becomes the endboss if I did not contain them early, most of the time sporting more men than Russia and of higher quality as well. I really don't understand all these issues. Is Russia tough if you start as one of their neighbors? Sure. Is it unbeatable? Not at all. But you'll have a big bully 'round the corner with almost every nation (if you don't play the bully yourself).

Since I don't think Russia is grossly overpowered I do think reducing the base tax in Siberia is enough - I do know it wouldn't change a lot, that's why I'm suggesting it.

Edit: The only thing I feel Russia is way stronger at than other majors is the impossibility to balkanize it. You can easily split up most majors into smaller nations (until cores disappear ofc), but since Russia does a lot of colonizing it's pretty tough to break them up, you need a lot more wars to do that than other majors.

 

[Sensational]

While I'm certainly not going to say it's your skill thats at fault, I do have to say that the peasants war is usually self-generated (you failed by holding your country together in I believe >25% manpower and a few other requirements).
But yeah, I feel your pain. I always turn lucky nations off because of it not making any sense...

A single war at the start of the game puts you at 0 manpower as basically any nation unless you're taking it really, really slow. Even if manpower is the only trigger that's up, sometimes the MTTH shits on your face and pops it anyways. EU4 is extremely RNG heavy, I've had like 8 comets while playing as Poland today, perhaps Paradox meant that Poland literally cannot into space because it's filled with passing debris.

 

[TingJonKi]

If you don't spend the military MP elsewhere you should be able to keep up even with 0 military skill rulers, just saying. That's 4 points / month = 48 / year, that's about one tech / decade (since most of the time you will have some -tech cost modifiers active). The Technology time table roughly lists one tech level every 15 years as "optimal" (no "ahead of time" malus). Anyway, if you're behind in military tech by two levels any major attacking would wipe the floor with you, especially if these levels consider crucial updates - that's hardly a valid argument against Russia.

Anyway, I never had a problem with Russia as of yet, although I haven't played anything in the far east - I can imagine those nations really might have issues. Russia looks very scary because of its huge amount of troops, but I don't think I've lost a single war to them as of yet. I do think the Siberia should be weakened, giving those colonies a max base tax of 1 or 2. That's only a very slight nerf which I would find acceptable.

at the start of the crappy kings rule I built a couple of manpower buildings because I needed them, never knew he would rule so long

That does´nt invalidate anything I´ve said. If you had no allies, no Money, no army, you were "overextended".

Peasant´s War only happen in VERY specific conditions.

So as I´ve said, you did bad choices. It´s nothing to be ashamed of, EVERYONE did mistakes while learning the game, including me, but instantly jumping on the fórum to say "This and that is broken nerf plox" is wrong.

overextension was only 24% and no money/manpower, well I got done fighting a war against the emperor im not complaining about it all im complaining about the absurdity of russia being so strong every game I play

who says this is the only game ive played and fought against russia that ive come to the conclusion that its OP?

ever played the Qing/Ming? muscovy will arrive around 1580 and then DOW you around 50 years after and promptly steamroll your armies and carpet siege when they actually lost to them in their early incursions IRL

Ever play the Mameluke/Ottomans? russia puts stacks of 60k in the desert and eats attrition and unless you are a powerhouse of your own they'll beat apart your stacks

Russia shouldn't be a super tech manpower pig so early thats my problem, same tech as most HRE minors thats my problem, and them eating commonwealth/ottomans alone that is my problem

Every game I play that borders russia is ruined because they are simply OP and a nuisance to fight, they should be getting a disipline maulus if they get all those pros and no cons



EDIT: heres my last games russia, which is pretty dang common on ironman mode same military tech as France/Austria and they defeated Poland/Denmark(sweden was part of Denmark at the time) alone and carpet seiged both and forced poland to release ukraine and poltosk over 2 wars

 

[Novacat]

I haven't had that experience, maybe I'm not a common player? 400k death stacks aren't that dangerous to the player to be honest (if you've managed to grow at a reasonable rate)

It depends on who you are. For Prussia and Sweden, no, Ottoman's 500K death stacks were hardly dangerous at all because your 200K deathstack with 160%+ discipline will shit all over them, but if your an Indian country with shitty NIs whom barely manages to unite India and westernize before the Russian bear starts knocking on your doorstep, your going to have issues. Especially since your likely to be behind in technology, your going to be behind in forcelimits, and your manpower will be atrociously bad because of the wrong culture penalty (-33% manpower, -33% tax, etc) that will apply to most of India because of the mosaic of cultures there. Even Hindustan will only eliminate those penalties of roughly 25% of India, still leaving the remaining 75% as wrong-culture. That on top of having lousy discipline because, hey, you arent a European country with a pile of military bonuses like Poland, France, Sweden or Prussia.

Even Nepal will have issues (and really, chances of Nepal successfully uniting India are slim because it starts out in such a bad position) ever since it got the shit nerfed out of it by Paradox.

since you can so easily outmaneuver the AI and Russia lacks bonusses to their military punching power. In my last game (as The Knights Hospitaller) i regulary wiped Russian 40k stacks - couldn't do that with French armies. I had one 60k stack defend my eastern border, killing the entirety of the Russian armies on their own - while fielding about 200k men in Italy to beat back France.

40K? If your only dealing with 40K, then your lucky. As a country bordering Russia your likely to see one giant doomstack of 200-300K wrecking havoc.

Also, Knights NIs are not that shabby, +10% Discipline, +1 Army Tradition, and +20% Manpower Recovery is a lot better than nearly all Indian countries, aside from Nepal, but even Nepal's are not that great.

I really don't understand all these issues. Is Russia tough if you start as one of their neighbors? Sure. Is it unbeatable? Not at all. But you'll have a big bully 'round the corner with almost every nation (if you don't play the bully yourself).

The problem is if you dont start as one of its neighbors. 1444 is the only time you have any chance of defeating Russia at all, if you wait until 1600 when the Russian borders meet yours over in Asia somewhere, your fucked.

In every game I've played the HRE becomes the endboss if I did not contain them early, most of the time sporting more men than Russia and of higher quality as well.

With this, I can gather that you mainly play in Western Europe.

How do I know this?

Because Austria rarely forms the HRE if left to itself, unless your regularly attacking the HRE which gives massive IA to Austria every time it hits the 'accept' button, which allows it to accellerate reforms and form the HRE.

 

[ceteris.paribus]

Not this again....

Try working on these sections during the game to make dealing with Russia easier:

1. Early Westernization (skip if already a Western Nation)
2. Discipline
3. Army Tradition
4. Prestige

Keep these high and you will laugh at their big numbers. The fact that AI Russia never attempts to Westernize is practically a nerf in itself.

 

[Novacat]

1. Early Westernization (skip if already a Western Nation)

Again, your still going to be behind becuase the simple act of westernization puts you significantly in the hole when it comes to MP.

2. Discipline

Which you only get through Ideas, which are common across all countries with exception of NIs. Only Japan, Daimyos, and Ming have decent NIs (only 'decent', Russia still has better NIs), everyone else is screwed.

3. Army Tradition

See above.

4. Prestige

What the bloody hell is prestige going to do about 400K attrition-immune Russians rampaging across your land?

Keep these high and you will laugh at their big numbers. The fact that AI Russia never attempts to Westernize is practically a nerf in itself.

AI Russia never attempts to westernize because it would be stupid if it did. Eastern infantry are really really good, competitive with Western all the way to tech 30.

 

[lordelenath]

You're making way to many assumptions in you're arguments and it's not very consistent, no offense.

1. I already acknowledged that far eastern (or Indian) nations would have issues with Russia, but they have issues with every western major too - the difference being that Russia has a straight land connection, resulting in way more men being allocated to Asia. If you're being attacked by France, GB or Spain as an Indian or Chinese nation you wouldn't fare any better apart from the fact that the AI is amazingly bad at shipping armies. Every European and middle eastern nation should be able to stand against Russia, which fits with my experiences. I haven't played neither Prussia nor Sweden for quite some time, so I'm not talking monster discipline (although a lot of NIs contain +5/+10 discipline or morale bonuses) - the Knight's ideas aren't bad, no question, but they're not spectacular either military speaking. And since the nerf request is actually done by a Swedish player ...

Anyway, the main difference in army strength between nations, excluding the outstanding Swedish/Prussian bonuses are made by player choice - pick Innovative, Defensive, Offensive and/or Quality and every nation is quite formidable military wise, provided you don't lack behind in tech or unit type.

2. Even Russians have to split armies to siege your land - why on earth would you face a 400k stack if you don't do it deliberately, stacking odds in your favor? I really don't want to come across as feeling superior, but I just can't understand how that should happen. It's not like the AI armies run faster by default or anything. If a 400k stack is hunting you, simply run away and let them eat the 10% attrition - Russia has a huge manpower, but losing 20-40k men / month will kill even that one, not talking about WE. Once they start splitting there armies (and I haven't had a single war against any AI who wouldn't start carpet sieging sooner or later) you can chose the right circumstances for quick, decisive battles and stack wipes. If you have a nice, mountainous province and a reasonably big stack yourself you can even take up the 400k and enjoy ~40 WS from one battle. Ofc you will have serious problems as any Asian nation, but again - that's not because Russia is overpowered but because you're Asian and they are the only major who can really get some serious manpower to Asia (because they can walk there and don't have to use transports) - If 200.000 Frenchmen would come it wouldn't be any better than the 400.000 Russians (although I haven't actually ever seen Russia go to India in any game whatsoever).

3. You have an interesting approach to your conclusions. My last two games were Granada and The Knights Hospitaller, both of which saw a huge HRE form by 1600-1650. In the first I did not fight Austria at all, apart from them joining Castille's wars as an alliance partner (which does not grant them IA), in the second I attacked them only after the HRE was formed. Fun fact: in my very own Russia game (which I abandoned by ~1600s for several reasons) the HRE formed in 1560! without me ever interfering at all. Basicly, the HRE tends to form in almost all of my games, doesn't matter who I play (although I tend to not play far eastern and Indian nations, as stated before).

4. It's relatively easy to do the catch up game if you westernize early, since you will have some nice neighbor bonus stacked up. I did not find that to be a problem most of the time, at least not for everything down to Muslim tech group (haven't played worse).

Apart from that this argument is probably for nothing since you obviously can't be convinced and neither can we. I don't think Russia is stronger than the other majors, you do otherwise - that's just to bad. Most of the time a read posts about militarily overpowered nations it seems to be mostly an issue of understanding how to win wars and battles and how to optimize your army. If you pick the right ideas, get a good army composition and know how to outmaneuver the AI, most wars become manageable. I'm afraid this might sound like bragging and if so, please accept my apologies, but with careful planning it is almost impossible to lose against the AI even it they outnumber you badly. The exception are the first 50ish years, were manpower can be precious and you don't yet have had the time to stack up the right ideas to wipe the floor with your enemies - but you rarely face worse than 2-1 odds by then anyway, if you don't play reckless, which should still be manageable.

PS. I would like to know how a 400k stack is supposed to take no attrition. That really sounds like a lot of bias. And btw., Prestige increases your max morale.

 

[Dr. B]

A player can deal with Russia early on if he/she is a decently strong nation nearby.

The AI cant, they have no way of even competing with Russia from game start.

It should be totally clear that Russia needs to be seriously slowed down.

 

[Novacat]

1. I already acknowledged that far eastern (or Indian) nations would have issues with Russia, but they have issues with every western major too - the difference being that Russia has a straight land connection, resulting in way more men being allocated to Asia. If you're being attacked by France, GB or Spain as an Indian or Chinese nation you wouldn't fare any better apart from the fact that the AI is amazingly bad at shipping armies. Every European and middle eastern nation should be able to stand against Russia, which fits with my experiences. I haven't played neither Prussia nor Sweden for quite some time, so I'm not talking monster discipline (although a lot of NIs contain +5/+10 discipline or morale bonuses) - the Knight's ideas aren't bad, no question, but they're not spectacular either military speaking. And since the nerf request is actually done by a Swedish player ...

Russia not only has a direct land connection to Asia, but they also tend to become huge, which compounds with their obscenely powerful NIs to allow them to field truly massive armies. The other European majors will not come even close to fielding 400-500K that Russia fields on a regular basis. They also wont have the manpower to support that 400-500K wheras Russia will because of the additional manpower and manpower recovery, which is what allows Russia to ignore attrition more than other countries. As for being a Swedish player. Hardly. Before 1.3 I played Steppe Hordes and Ming, and I much preferred those countries. I only jumped ship because Paradox nerfed them and Nepal to shit, and I couldnt play Ming anymore because I did not want to reveal the horrible exploits I could pull off with them, lest Ming get nerfed too.

Nevermind that, for a long time, I have said over and over that the Swedes were overpowered and needed a nerf.

Beyond that, I already said that the problem was not with Russia, the problem is that the Steppe Hordes and Asians in general are horrible pushovers. Unfortunately, Paradox has already given some sign that they have no intention of addressing or fixing Steppe Hordes or Asians until they can cover them with a DLC.

If a 400k stack is hunting you, simply run away and let them eat the 10% attrition - Russia has a huge manpower, but losing 20-40k men / month will kill even that one, not talking about WE.

Max attrition in normal enviornments is only 5%, and Russia can very easily eat 5% attrition/month, while simply making War Exhaustion dissapear through the reduce WE action.

Once they start splitting there armies (and I haven't had a single war against any AI who wouldn't start carpet sieging sooner or later) you can chose the right circumstances for quick, decisive battles and stack wipes. If you have a nice, mountainous province and a reasonably big stack yourself you can even take up the 400k and enjoy ~40 WS from one battle. Ofc you will have serious problems as any Asian nation, but again - that's not because Russia is overpowered but because you're Asian and they are the only major who can really get some serious manpower to Asia (because they can walk there and don't have to use transports) - If 200.000 Frenchmen would come it wouldn't be any better than the 400.000 Russians (although I haven't actually ever seen Russia go to India in any game whatsoever).

I can fight 200,000 Frenchmen or 200,000 Austrians. Theres a massive difference between a 200,000 deathstack and a 500,000 deathstack.

3. You have an interesting approach to your conclusions. My last two games were Granada and The Knights Hospitaller, both of which saw a huge HRE form by 1600-1650. In the first I did not fight Austria at all, apart from them joining Castille's wars as an alliance partner (which does not grant them IA), in the second I attacked them only after the HRE was formed. Fun fact: in my very own Russia game (which I abandoned by ~1600s for several reasons) the HRE formed in 1560! without me ever interfering at all. Basicly, the HRE tends to form in almost all of my games, doesn't matter who I play (although I tend to not play far eastern and Indian nations, as stated before).

In my last 10 games the HRE only formed once, and even then it was horribly misshapen and deformed due to half of the countries in the HRE saying 'No'. Given, my last Swedish game had the strongest HRE it ever had, but even then Austria only managed to push through the vassalize reform in 1810, and might have formed a big HRE blob (minus Netherlands and Prussia) had it had more time. But even then I feared the Ottoblob in that game more than I feared the prospect of a potential united HRE.

not for everything down to Muslim tech group (haven't played worse).

How can you honestly give strategy for countries that you have never played or touched?

PS. I would like to know how a 400k stack is supposed to take no attrition. That really sounds like a lot of bias. And btw., Prestige increases your max morale.

Its not so much that they take no attrition, its that Russia's manpower regeneration and their general plethora of monarch points pretty much garuntees that they wont feel any ill effects from it, they will replace attrition losses faster than the enemy could incur it.

 

[ceteris.paribus]

Hey, Novacat. No offense, bro, but you seem to spend more time responding to everyone. Where do you get the time to play the game? LOL! For someone who isn't the OP of this thread, you seem to be very passionate in defending his gripe.

I don't necessarily want to get into an exchange about what I posted, I just put a lot of time into EU4 and Musovy/Russia isn't even on my top 3 list of annoying AI opponent nations. And the first thing anyone playing a game of conquest should do is work on a plan for military defense. Otherwise nothing else matters. Sure they can be a nuisance, especially when I'm playing on the west side of Europe and they somehow ally or get involved with one of my major rivals. But not enough to lobby Johan and Paradox to NERF, NERF, NERF!

 

[Novacat]

Congrats, you just made it painfully obvious that you had not read one thing in my post and instead just made a keyboard faceroll response you thought was witty.

Beyond that, I already said that the problem was not with Russia, the problem is that the Steppe Hordes and Asians in general are horrible pushovers. Unfortunately, Paradox has already given some sign that they have no intention of addressing or fixing Steppe Hordes or Asians until they can cover them with a DLC.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...s-4-Empire&p=16532177&viewfull=1#post16532177

 

[gaius valerius]

they can basically steamroll any country in the area way too easily when historically they couldnt even beat poland-Lithuania alone, and atm they can beat sweden to a pulp and carpet seige finland or lithuania with huge stacks and their manpower shrugs it off before it even acquires the plentiful manpower of Belorussian, Ukraine, or crimea provinces


the worst part is they keep up in tech and actually can surpass western nations so good luck beating their 2x stacks unless you are a superpower yourself


Id rather fight France/Austria than Russia anyday


The National ideas of russia is the main culpret imho

I've seen them fail again and again, and I wasn't even the opponent nor often directly involved against them. Your argument? Non existant afaik I fought them once as Sweden and they were a wonderful challenge. Militarily behind me but a beast of manpower and marching for Moscow was certain suicide in terms of burning manpower, if I played my cards correctly my victory was assured each time though. They were the challenge I wanted them to be.

I honestly don't see anything wrong with Russia.

 

[TingJonKi]

I've seen them fail again and again, and I wasn't even the opponent nor often directly involved against them. Your argument? Non existant afaik I fought them once as Sweden and they were a wonderful challenge. Militarily behind me but a beast of manpower and marching for Moscow was certain suicide in terms of burning manpower, if I played my cards correctly my victory was assured each time though. They were the challenge I wanted them to be.

I honestly don't see anything wrong with Russia.

you don't see anything wrong with Russia because you don't play enough powers in the region

Player Sweden isnt an example of "gosh russia not OP" because its NI's are OP in itself along with Player prussia if you gain enough land/money to snowball, you cant argue somethings not OP when you have a powerhouse of your own

In my Prussian game I fought off all of europe with just north germany, beating a large power with these sets of ideas isnt exactly the best example especially since you said russia was behind you in tech which only happens in like 20% of my games with lucky nations on (ironman)


most of my horde/asian/eastern europe games are ruined by russia because they are impossible to beat with stupidly large ammounts of ahistorical manpower early on

 

[Matteroflight]

Congrats, you just made it painfully obvious that you had not read one thing in my post and instead just made a keyboard faceroll response you thought was witty.

I like you.

On a more serious subject, the only bad thing I have against russia is the fact that its always muscovy... You never see any of the other factions do any of those stunts and the eastern frontier is almost always the exact same thing.
(plus the fact that asians are pretty damn fucked if they are AI or not "expert" in their country, its not fun fighting russia that literally stretches from west to east)
If I would have to nerf them I would just change their national idea that gives them a colonist / make the natives Siberia more aggressive and bigger in numbers, or something else that punishes/slows the colonization.

 

[grisamentum]

I do think that Indian and Chinese troops are far worse than they should be, particularly in comparison to Eastern. Frankly the number of pips they have is just stupidly low.

 

[Novacat]

I do think that Indian and Chinese troops are far worse than they should be, particularly in comparison to Eastern. Frankly the number of pips they have is just stupidly low.

Then you have Steppe Hordes whom dont even get upgrades, and are stuck with the same 4-pip infantry and 7-pip cavalry from 1444 to 1820 on top of having a 75% tech penalty. To add insult to injury, they are also required to reform which requires either the Innovative, Administrative, or Economic idea trees to be completed, 90 legitimacy, 3 stability, and 200 adm power and subtracts 5 stability and 200 adm, and for that you only get Chinese or Muslim tech groups.

Chinese get it pretty bad too, 60% penalty and their infantry is the third worst, only behind Sub-saharans and Steppe Hordes. Native Americans actually get better troops, and with the new DLC they will be able to get a plethora of bonuses from their native NIs including reducing their +150% Tech penalty to just +50% which is equivilant to indian tech.

But its not the bad tech that bothers me. Bad tech can be fixed with Westernization. The problem is that non-European countries have horrid NIs, so even if you do westernize your still fighting an uphill battle vs Russia simply because you dont have the NI set that Russia has.

 

[Colombo]

Unless system that would deny marching 400k russians through siberia, nerf russia.

 

[lordelenath]

I don't see anything worthwhile in pursuing this discussion. Just wanted to add that I agree with you on Steppe Hordes, they're definitely to weak in the first 50-100 years - apart from that I never found Russia to be more of a threat than any other major and they never manage to beat all the Steppe Hordes either tbh.

I won't add anything else, this is pointless. Nobody argues Russia has the biggest armies in most games, but the biggest armies don't decide who wins. But since you're ignoring any other point and keep ramming home the "MORE MANPOWER, BIGGER ARMIES" I don't think we'll get anywhere at all here.