I saw another thread about tweaking Russians and I'll elaborate on the issue in a different way:
I got involved in a few battles with Muscovy with 20 military tech as Ottomans and I noticed something while fighting in Anatolia: relative strength of troops were pretty ahistorical.
Historically, Russia heavily depended on conscripts, mostly peasants, as soldiers and they lacked proper training for obvious reasons. Also, their equipment was not that good as well for a long time - they mostly used poor rifles and poor uniforms, made by blacksmiths and even themselves, which they brought to battles themselves.
Ottomans, on the other hand, relied on both elite soldiers trained since childhood, Janissaries, and properly trained volunteers - Azabs, but mostly on Janissaries as the core infantry units along with cavalry from vassals and stuff. Their equipment was also pretty good- they had their own headquarters where they would distribute the uniforms and mostly standardized rifles, since 1400s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissary#Equipment). So they should have better morale and way better fire than Eastern units and relatively better firepower than Western troops until late periods, right? They don't though and infantry doesn't even have fire until a bit later than 1500s whereas in real life, they all had standardized rifles. But that's a different issue and I may open a new thread about why Ottoman tech tree is all wrong but I'll discuss Russian troops now.
Russians have a neat bonus for manpower and they can combine this with quantity for the renowned bearstacks of around 30, which come in bundles of 5 or 6 and gets replenished nonstop without running out of fuel. That's ok, that's what Russians did throughout the history, right? But they also have proper units and that's where the problem begins. They have full discipline and they can use offensive to get even more discipline. So, they don't have just bearstacks but rather elite doomstacks, and they can squish every single army on the world after they annex the hordes and stuff.
My opinion is: Russia needs a penalty to unit discipline. Russian soldiers were not bears and they would most certainly not be equals of Reformed Janissaries with 150% discipline. They were mostly some peasants with hunting rifles and would get devastated even with 2 times the numbers in an offensive war against Ottomans until late 1700s.
I got involved in a few battles with Muscovy with 20 military tech as Ottomans and I noticed something while fighting in Anatolia: relative strength of troops were pretty ahistorical.
Historically, Russia heavily depended on conscripts, mostly peasants, as soldiers and they lacked proper training for obvious reasons. Also, their equipment was not that good as well for a long time - they mostly used poor rifles and poor uniforms, made by blacksmiths and even themselves, which they brought to battles themselves.
Ottomans, on the other hand, relied on both elite soldiers trained since childhood, Janissaries, and properly trained volunteers - Azabs, but mostly on Janissaries as the core infantry units along with cavalry from vassals and stuff. Their equipment was also pretty good- they had their own headquarters where they would distribute the uniforms and mostly standardized rifles, since 1400s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janissary#Equipment). So they should have better morale and way better fire than Eastern units and relatively better firepower than Western troops until late periods, right? They don't though and infantry doesn't even have fire until a bit later than 1500s whereas in real life, they all had standardized rifles. But that's a different issue and I may open a new thread about why Ottoman tech tree is all wrong but I'll discuss Russian troops now.
Russians have a neat bonus for manpower and they can combine this with quantity for the renowned bearstacks of around 30, which come in bundles of 5 or 6 and gets replenished nonstop without running out of fuel. That's ok, that's what Russians did throughout the history, right? But they also have proper units and that's where the problem begins. They have full discipline and they can use offensive to get even more discipline. So, they don't have just bearstacks but rather elite doomstacks, and they can squish every single army on the world after they annex the hordes and stuff.
My opinion is: Russia needs a penalty to unit discipline. Russian soldiers were not bears and they would most certainly not be equals of Reformed Janissaries with 150% discipline. They were mostly some peasants with hunting rifles and would get devastated even with 2 times the numbers in an offensive war against Ottomans until late 1700s.
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