what short of being Prussia can stop the russians

[treb]

So I have a good Byzantium game, its before 1600 and ive retaken Anatolia and Syria from the Ottomons, have an iron grip on the Balkans south of Hungary, and Italy south of Rome is all reclaimed and a not to shabby colonial Caribbean I nabbed from Castille in a peace deal, and France is under a PU with me.

Then 30 years war rolls round Protestants curb-stomp the Catholics and Austria loses its GP status and my long term ally Russia decides I'm next on the chopping block and rivals me. Its been a few decades bit i'm paranoid when the time comes the bear will come knocking and maul the purple phoenix.

So far i have an ad hoc alliance of powerful states that border Russia but barring Prussian space marines is there any viable military tactics/combos to at least hold Russia to a stalemate long enough to white peace?

 

[creativitypersonified]

Russia honestly shouldnt be too much trouble. Its powerfull but considering your size allies and france you could probably take them and their land. Just a question though: how big did you allow them to get?

 

[treb]

They just bisected Bukhara in the east and they took as far as the Livonian order in the west with Poland Lithuania beaning ate by the Teutonic order. In the south they share a 1 province wide border with me at Georgia with the rest belonging to a pitifully weak Ottoman rump state in Armenia and a sizable free Georgia where Azerbaijan is. They practically control the eastern Caspian coastline and encircle the entire Aral sea except for a tiny part still owned by Bukhara.

 

[creativitypersonified]

Alright they are well fed. How are the scandinavian borders looking like? Sweden/ denmark could help if they havent been devoured and dont hate you. What you could do is get a couple strong asian nations helping you to split their armies. Shouldnt be too hard considering how much they have expanded there

 

[schondetta]

They dont sound that bad to be honest. If your just looking at troop count than its a bit of a paper tiger situation. Aa long as you have some mil idea groups under your belt you should melt them in battle with a pinch of micro. Of course being ahead in tech helps a lot too.

 

[pedrito_elcabra]

and France is under a PU with me.

Stopped reading here.

 

[treb]

Sweden is already my ally

 

[GChapman]

Sweden as Ally, France as PU. Easy war against Russia.

 

[Horn and Ivory]

I'd advise planning a pre-emptive attack, if doing so is practicable. As other poeple have said, if you've got France and Sweden on side you probably won't die if attacked anyway, but I'm very aware of how much the combination of attrition and manpower can easily make wars against Russia into a deathfest you don't want to deal with, and you really don't want that deathfest to begin while you are already embroiled in a war with some other major power, which is going to happen sooner or later, or otherwise while your country is weak and not battle-ready. On this basis I'd say try to grab whatever advantages you can and pick your own time for the war to happn; tell Sweden to prepare for war, build up your legions, launch on the day you get a new level of mil tech - you know the kind of thing.

Edit: Also, if you have any policies or anything that help manage attrition, turning them on will probably save you a lot of time and money, if nothing else.

 

[I_am_Nemo]

Yeah, even with new Russian ideas they're still long on quantity, short on quality. Late game, the 10% ACA, -10% fire damage will be a bigger factor, but 1600s they shouldn't be too much trouble. France, for instance, should out quality them easily. And honestly, with the dev in Italy and the trade income from Constantinople node, you can probably get close to matching their numbers. Might have to loan up some, but it's doable. With Sweden in the picture as well, assuming it hasn't been completely destroyed or something, I doubt they'll even declare.

Really, Russia isn't that scary, especially if they haven't gotten all the way to Pacific. If you don't have DLC, they don't have Streltsy or anything, and I think they don't have the Orthodox mechancis either, so no 5% disc off Michael.

 

[Rainbow Mirage]

You don't even need any specific mil ideas to beat Russia. I beat a blobbed Ottoman-Russia alliance in my trade focused Portugal game. I only had discipline from max absolutism, quality ideas and advisor. The rest was superior numbers/mercs and sieging up the enemy with doomstacks standing around forts to reinforce any attacks.

(I did have a France/Spain/Austria alliance too but i had 900+ FL alone from trade companies )

 

[OnyxShadow]

One thing I have to remember about Russia is that especially early their armies usually don't fight all that well. If you can at least match their numbers through your own nation, alliances, and subjects Russia will probably lose just based on everyone else having better combat modifiers. To me the big threat with Russia is ever having them form strong alliances of their own. In my last game as the Mamluks, Russia allied Ottomans and BIG Milan. That was a stalemate for half a century until eventually Russia lost an alliance and the other big dog was at war and wouldn't honor CTA.

 

[schondetta]

You don't even need any specific mil ideas to beat Russia. I beat a blobbed Ottoman-Russia alliance in my trade focused Portugal game. I only had discipline from max absolutism, quality ideas and advisor. The rest was superior numbers/mercs and sieging up the enemy with doomstacks standing around forts to reinforce any attacks.

(I did have a France/Spain/Austria alliance too but i had 900+ FL alone from trade companies )

Most of us lesser humans can't be as God tier as you. So having a couple mil ideas helps

 

[Badesumofu]

The obscene amount of money and FL you can get from Trade Companies is available to all Europeans, more or less.

And that's before you get a France PU and Sweden ally to help.

 

[TenshiN]

Honestly, Russia is much more trouble when it is still Muscovy, because of its military quality ideas in traditions. As I_am_Nemo have said, formed Russia with Russian, nut Muscovian ideas only gets scary lategame, when it unlocks its Artillery idea.

 

[abedfo]

They just bisected Bukhara in the east and they took as far as the Livonian order in the west with Poland Lithuania beaning ate by the Teutonic order. In the south they share a 1 province wide border with me at Georgia with the rest belonging to a pitifully weak Ottoman rump state in Armenia and a sizable free Georgia where Azerbaijan is. They practically control the eastern Caspian coastline and encircle the entire Aral sea except for a tiny part still owned by Bukhara.

Get a strong Fort on that Georgian province, is it Abkahzia ?? If they siege that you can attack and get the defenders bonus for fighting in the mountains. Can they get access through Balkans? You just need to slow them down really with forts so you can concentrate your power and bait them into battles they can't win.

Make sure don't have military access through georgia etc. Im sure they are a paper tiger and will fall apart to rebellions if you get their war exhaustion up (though ive only just dipped into this patch with Circassia so limited experience).

 

[Rainbow Mirage]

Most of us lesser humans can't be as God tier as you. So having a couple mil ideas helps

Not really that good. I'm pretty average. Trade companies are just that OP and freely available for any europeans. The trick is to know how the AI react. If you're the strongest nation in the war they will run off to siege up the weakest enemy in the war if you take 4 to 6 stacks of 20-30k and siege up their forts. Then you just march towards their capital and reinforce if their try attack the sieging army.

With the breach fort button you can siege up forts quickly.

 

[Ricox]

What's the Russian forcelimits compared vs your combined forcelimits? Because if yours are anything close to theirs - you should not have any trouble at the very least defending your territories against their attacks and maybe making some inlands somewhere when they're tunnel-visioning on sieging another part of your empire. You're the player, Russia is still AI, you could probably defeat an army twice the size of yours if you play carefully enough and know the basics. And you have France in a PU... doesn't seem like you're in any trouble at all.

Hell, the AI is so incompetent that when fighting Ming as Italy I managed to sneak just 2-3 stacks onto their coast and cause massive damage while my allies in the east diverted attention, eventually managed to ferry most of my army across half the map and wiped the floor with them. Just an example of how incompetent the AI is (just to note - my 2 stacks were still safe as I occupied the island in south-western area and held the strait so I would have a route of retreat & they would be blocked due to no longer controlling both sides & naval blockade, but the Chinese AI never got me that far). Initially the disadvantage was them having like 5-8 times more local forces (about 2-3 times more if my nearby allies were included).

Also, make sure to welcome the Russians with a fort hell so it takes them awhile to pierce through. The AI sometimes gets this weird idea where it will attack one part of your empire and spend the next year sieging it all down while you do whatever - wipe out all their allies, siege their capital, just whatever, it won't care.

 

[Oldpara]

In my latest games Russia tends to have strangely uneffective army composition consist of like 90% of Infantry. Maybe it's coz of new Streltsy mechanism. It's easy to stackwipe them with proper units with back row filled with artillery.

 

[CoolSpin]

The AI change fronts based on number of enemies, and goes to the least defended front. So when you are done on your front, you move to where they are, now the AI will switch front again. I see this best during religious wars.