Rhye's and Fall of Civilization - Russian strategy
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The Russians (Generic)
by Gunner
Overview
So you want to rule the vast land of Russia – to follow in the footsteps of, and possibly even surpass, the likes of Ivan, Peter, Catherine, and Stalin? It will not be an easy task to guide Russia to greatness, and certainly not one for the weak. The rewards for your diligence and leadership will, however, be considerable. Russia has huge amounts of potential, and it should easy be able to ascend to supremacy if led correctly.
Land
The first thing you must learn is that the strength of your country lays in its land, the earth it will be built upon and achieve greatness on. It contains abundant resources which will allow your nation to grow, prosper, and eventually turn into an unstoppable war machine. For this reason it is key that you take an aggressive expansion policy early on to ensure that the Germans and others do not claim the land that is right fully yours. Send at least two, preferably three, of your starting settlers west to take that land before it is taken by another. You can worry about expanding to the east later, but since you will not have any real competitor for that land it will not need to be with nearly as much urgency.
The only luxury resources available to you will be furs and then later on gems (there are some gems on the coast northwest of Moscow, its a good idea to build a city there just to get them.) To compensate for the relative lack of happiness that your cities will probably be experiencing because of this its a good idea to stay with Hereditary Rule for a while and use large numbers of cheap troops to garrison your big cities and keep them happy. Also don't forget that the market provides +1 happiness with furs and the forge provides +1 happiness with gems.
Barbarians
Another thing to keep in mind in the early game is that you will probably be receiving a visit from a group of barbarian horse archers from the east at some point, so be sure to keep a few troops in that area (preferably spearmen) to defend. You will also throughout the entire game need to be ready to deal with attacks made against you by the AI, especially since the AI in RFC is more aggressive. Obviously the Germans will be a threat due to their inherent aggressiveness and their close proximity to your borders. Be vigilant against the threats which are not quite as obvious also, such as the Mongols and the Arabians. In one of my games I had the Arabians attack me with hordes of camel archers, taking 3 cities from me and nearly taking Moscow. Things would have been much easier if I had positioned a few troops on my southern border.
Commerce
While Russia is blessed with great levels of production and growth, it main weakness lays in its poor capacity for commerce and trade. If you do not adopt the proper measures to counter this then you will find yourself falling behind in the technological race and with empty coffers, regardless of what type of strategy you pursue to victory. To that end, it is essential that you develop your county’s infrastructure with an emphasis on commerce and research. Do this by building cottages frequently and early, as they will be your tool to reach commercial parity with others. You must also focus on building libraries in all of your cities both for the technological benefits as well as the culture they provide. Finally, and most importantly, be very aggressive and active in the game of tech trading.
Tech Trading
Tech trading is an important element for any civ in Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization, but for Russia it is absolutely essential. No matter what you do, your country will not be able to compete technologically in the early game if you primarily rely on your own research and engage in only the occasional tech trade. Once you fall out of the technological race it is very difficult to catch up, so it is essential that you make an effort to not fall behind early on. Make it a habit to check your foreign advisor’s technologies screen every turn or two to spot a potential trade. Sell techs for gold to civs that are far behind you, and try to buy, trade, and research techs that some of the top techers do not have. It will be difficult to keep up, but remember that if you have been properly developing your infrastructure (with many cottages and libraries) then things should gradually become easier.
Peace
Once your economy is in decent shape then you are presented with 2 main options. The first is to continue peacefully developing your nation. You can also start sending settlers out east to colonize the vast stretches of open land there. Try to build enough courthouses for the Forbidden Palace quickly since you will start paying extravagant maintenance fees once you start expanding. Given time you should come to dominate due to your sheer size.
War
The other option is to go on the warpath. Russia’s excellent production abilities make it very suited for building and maintaining a large army. You should be able to out produce any opponent you face and win in a war of attrition if necessary. Try and choose a weak country as your first victim, who this will be depends on each game’s situation. The wealth and resources provided by the conquest of another county’s heartland should add to your strength allowing you to take on a tougher opponent next time.
Unique Unit
One final thing I would like to mention is Russia’s excellent unique unit, the Cossack. It is substantially more powerful than the default cavalry unit, with 3 extra strength points and a +50% bonus versus other mounted units. If you had already been following a military strategy it should give your efforts a great boost and maybe allow you to take a crack at that other superpower that you had been weary of facing before. If not, then the arrival of the Cossack would mark a great time for you to start some aggressive expansion. It would simply be a shame to waste such a great unit by not conquering someone with it. Additionally, if your game has not turned out as well as you had hoped and you find yourself lagging behind, then the Cossack is the opportunity you need to catch up.
Conclusion
Now go forth and bring Mother Russia to its rightful place of greatness. Its great capacity for production and expansion along with your skillful leadership should allow you to overcome early technological and commercial challenges and carry on to victory.
How to get to America and circumnavigate first (monarch)
This is only possible if Arabia or Japan didn't go for optics first. Build Talinn (north of the cow on the west coast), Kiev and Ryazan. If Germany built a city in Poland already, go for Helsingfors or Abo (in Finland) which are less productive but at least they are more on the coast, more so than St. Petersburg. Your 4th settler you can send east or north. Send a horse archer to the east for goody huts and exchange some techs from the Chinese (who usually don't have monotheism, theology or alphabet) before switching to Christianity. Research fishing, sailing, compass, guilds, optics and NEVER trade them away.
Get open borders with all the civs you meet (including Germany), and meeting the Dutch and Portuguese later will get your trade going and lower the cost for research of guilds. Usually giving them 10 gold when you meet them will do, and you can ask for a peace treaty right away for gold. Get a trireme in Talinn to meet Mali for Divine Right and get it back to upgrade it to a caravel. You should get optics by 1350 at the latest and just sail to America! I usually capitulate the Incans and Aztecs for happiness and build some settlers from Tenochtitlan (Mexico) and/or Cuzcu before I get Astronomy.
Emperor strategy
by Pacifist
Most of the above is very true in emperor, except that tech trading will be limited to very unfavorable terms on your part. Send one of your horse archers east to pick up the 2 goody huts in central Asia, and use him to find China, Khmer and Japan early and open borders with them BEFORE you switch to Christianity. This will help your initially feeble economy.
Best starting cities to found are Ryazan (one block south of Moscow) which can get the iron in range, Kiev, Novgorod and Abo. The last one will be your port city and hopefully you'll get Christianity early from trade routes.
Since you'll be 2-3 eras behind everybody, it is essential that you play a pacifist game. Germany will have the -4 or -5 relationship with you, but if you roll over and convert to their favorite religion and tech, and try to get open borders and defensive treaty with them, they may even not declare war on you! Turkey is a tough nut. They will usually found Kilia on the horse northwest of the Black Sea, which eats into your territory. (But you can spawn a great spy and Kilia is only 2 moves away from Ryazan, making it very easy to steal techs from.) Try to appease them because you certainly do not want your Kiev or Zhitomyr to be invaded early. Most of the time you won't even be invited to conferences since with the exception of your western cities none of your cities will be demanded, and if you have everybody pleased with you, they won't sign away your cities. For your great people use them to bulb useful techs (see below) but after 1700 or so settle all of them in Moscow (all your great engineers will be too late for any world wonders and you'll soon have enough production to get the national wonders in a reasonable amount of time).
Techwise you should emphasize economy (start with civil service, guilds for grocers, engineering for castles, banking, economics and corporation) and science (paper/education/printing press/astronomy/nationalism/constitution). Try to get compass and optics from somebody else so you can get astronomy early for observatories. Everything else (liberalism, communism, fascism, biology) is not useful early (with the exception of democracy because your population will start clamoring for it). Keep some trees around so you can get lots of production with replacement parts and lumbermills. Gunpowder is useful as a deterrent but since everybody else will have infantry while you're still stuck with musketmen it's useful more for trading and getting to rifling (which is one step to rocketry).
You'll experience real Russian history in the 1850's onwards: while you're still stuck in serfdom (with lots of land to improve), tsardom and being still in the middle ages, once enough civs have researched the same techs, suddenly a lot of techs will be very, very cheap (like $1 cheap). Buying them for $5 a piece from friendly civs will save you valuable turns. You'll advance from the 16th century all the way to the 20th century in 50 short years. Aim for Physics, Electricity, Combustion, Industrialism and Rocketry and you can build the Apollo Program in the 1920's and get a Golden Age. Then it's just waiting till the end, and if you're luck nobody will build their spaceships AND reach Alpha Centauri in time. Do a last minute land grab (like founding 2-3 cities on the tundra in the north and 2-3 cities in remote Siberia) to maximize your score which will be enough for a Neville Chamberlain.
