For the glory of Russia! A Muscow AAR.

[Heresson]

Serb, playing this game is dangerous for You.

[Nikolai]

Which patch are you playing, Serb? I was steadily getting better untill 1.06 and after, when I have been a moderate disaster...

[Dale]

I find the best thing to do as a Russian minor to catch the Latin tech group is to concentrate solely on infrastructure/trade techs, going 1 for 1 with them till about 1500. Because you're fairly small up to that stage, and still inside your religious/culture provs, the actual cost of upgrading those two techs is pretty low. I try to get both to level 4 before 1500 (should be able to get infra4 by 1480), and then you go nuts on land tech. Because you've got awesome trade levels no one can kick you out of the CoTs, and your infra tech jumps your production revenue up, which is important if you stay on the serf side of that slider.

In the game above, in 1545 I had like infra/trade 5, land 18 and naval 11 (for shipyards). I was the clear leader in Europe. All because I totally ignored land/naval till 1500. Your natural growth in these areas (neighbour/monarch bonuses) is enough to keep up with the likes of Sweden, Lithuania and Poland.

[Nikolai]

An intersting approach... Got to try it!

[Serb]

Originally posted by Heresson
Serb, playing this game is dangerous for You.

Nope, at least not for me. If I'm playing EU2, say 'good bye' to Poland.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Which patch are you playing, Serb? I was steadily getting better untill 1.06 and after, when I have been a moderate disaster...

1.07

[Serb]

Originally posted by Dale
In the game above, in 1545 I had like infra/trade 5, land 18 and naval 11 (for shipyards). I was the clear leader in Europe. All because I totally ignored land/naval till 1500. Your natural growth in these areas (neighbour/monarch bonuses) is enough to keep up with the likes of Sweden, Lithuania and Poland.

I used the same startegy in my first game in 1.07 version. Aproximately at the midddle of XVI century I quickly removed my backwardness in military, because tech. cost depends on time. (the later, the less tech. cost) and those neighbor bonuses helps a lot too. But, in my second game I was unable to reach the same military level as other major powers (13-14lvl, iirc) so qickly. I'm still lvl6 and progress goes MUCH slower than in my previous game. Two major reasons I guess: different income (only 1TC instead of 3), my inovativness (sp?) and other settings are different a bit. But the thing that I still do not understand is why in the hell my merchants almost don't generate income? In some TC they generate 0, while foreign traders generate 10+? Perhaps it's some how related to temporal insanity of Ivan the Terrible? I never saw such situation before. At the beggining of the game they worked just fine, then some kind of sh!t happen and I almost lost my trade income.
Btw, I have 5 traders almost in all known TC (except the most expensive Asian- India, etc) and no one kicks me out of them too despite that my trade level is lower (3 iirc, while majority of others have 4). I just signed trade agreements with a lot of countries while I already had 5 traders in foreign TC. I mean when I have 5 traders in TC, I sign a trade agreement with major powers who have their traders in the same TC, then wait untill I gain a lot of traders and diplomats again and go to conquer another market. It's my standart tactics. All I have to do now is to kick-out traders of minor countries if they somehow took my place on those markets.

[Nikolai]

Tell me Dale, how did you manage to get all that land in America by 1544? You are not a country of naval explorers to say so, and you are a long way from America by sea! And, do you think you'd get so good tech levels that fast without your possesions in America?

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Serb

Nope, at least not for me. If I'm playing EU2, say 'good bye' to Poland.

Knowing You, it'd rather be "Goodbye to Russia"

[Dale]

Nikolai:

How'd I get all that land in NA? Well I'm glad you asked.

In the 1460's I DoWed Norway (who by luck had dropped out of the Dane-Swede-Norway alliance). Captured their two colonies in the north quickly, sacked Oslo for their maps (they know the NE coast of Canada you know ), captured the Greenland provinces from Norway and peaced out with Finmark and Greenland. Now since they're colonies/TP's I got 0BB and Norway's maps.

In 1495 I got a conquistador and it was a matter of ship him across to America and explore. I bee-lined directly for the rich Manhattan area till I came up against natives. As Russia, I was getting 3 colonists a year (2 + 1 for Finmark still being a colony making me a colonial nation) I popped a TP onto every square as I explored/de-natived them (except for very low/low aggressive ones). I worked on two cities in America and in the early 1520's built an army. The native tribes were in alliance with each other, so I only suffered -2 stab for DoWing effectively 4 tribes. Annexed the tribes, got their maps, and kept TP popping. Like I said above, almost every province in NA is a TP, except for a couple of good cities (like Manhattan for the CoT) and the native provs.

Hope that helps.

[Nikolai]

Holy ghost! Very impressive! I've never thought about that! BTW, I'm playing Muscowy myself now, but I am around 1470 and still I have only tech 3 in infra and researching tech 3 i trade...