Does Russia lacks creativity? Weak Late game?

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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I play russia since the disc era of AOE3, im somewhat experienced, but never shined against expert players.

What i believe is that the only viable strategy for russians is rushing, i can 1 vs 1 against people of my same level, but get easily crushed by high level players.
also, when rushing is not posible or in team games, i counter attack enemy units swiftly, and pierce enemy lines, but the weakness of russian troops makes them fall when focused by the enemy team.

Oprichniks armies are great for disabling other players economies, but i dont know what should i do in late games, treaties, 4vs4 battles

the new grenadiers are good enough?
im experimenting with the new revolutions, and the infinite forts-blockhouses spam seems good, but the experience points cost is too high.
i like the crabats, you can upgrade them to like 600 hitpoints, but i dont know if they viable.
is the russian 100 cap fair?

all advice is welcome.

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First I dont see anywhere stated why lack of creativity, Russia is one of the more uniquer European gameplay style in my opinion.

Late game, Russians have quantity over quality like you said, Opprichs are still good late game, you need to keep going into their eco, because if they have no eco there is no way to stop your unit spam.

You also have the card which allows you to build forts up to like 3, its a great way for pushing and keeping presure on the enemy even late game.

They also have 1 pop cav, so I think they are totally fine as how they are.

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u can spawn all infantry instant even grenadiers

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All Russian units are very weak, if you continue to produce instant infantry they are easily killed, and your resources run out quickly. As for grenadiers, I don’t know if they are worth it, as the grenade launcher card nullifies the effect of the ransack card. Russia is possibly one of the weakest civilizations in the game, at least for treaty.(Sorry for my bad english)

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Well if you play as Russians keep in mind they are designed to be aggresive early game with overwhelming Strellet hordes, but with a coost of weak late game, think like the Malays or Goths of AOE3

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its easy to kill rusia, ive played a lot of FFA, and worst russian enemies is (not on importance order)(check that im writing on my complete colecction experience mostly and not on DE):

  1. any siege that has long range (portugal mortars)<— its imposible to win versus a portuguese on treaty (unless player is really bad) and elephant indian siege destroy blocaos (this could be less efective than port mortars, ive not played verus indians, ive only have used indians to kill russia easily.
  2. (on complete colection ive not tested them on DE) spain misionares boosting units (they are super fast, and they can garrison on an outpost), so you cant beat those uits boosted, and they advance and advance building barracks and stables until reach to your town center and destroy your eco.
  3. (on complete collection) (maybe not anymore on DE) curiasers can destroy all walls and all except when using seminolas tech that increase attack of cavalry archer
  4. (on complete coleccion)(ive not tested on DE) Daimio its very difficult to kill 3 daimios and they come back to life (not sure if all of them come to life again)
    Versus all other civs except incas and sweden, because ive not tested, i can win easily usin russia. Maybe not versus germany it depends on the walls and many things.
    But versus 1,2,3 there were nothing to do just watch russian empire die, im not sure if 4 too.
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russia has nothing to do in treaty games, basically their only advantage is ripped because, enemy can just send fully upgraded late game overpowered units, your only chance is to give a fast, first and final blow to the enemy economy, or depend on team mates.

i dint see any new mechanic or improve to the russian civ, only the new grenade launchers card, also the team dueling school is not a team card anymore, i know it used to break team games.

im worried russia only works on 1 vs 1 rush land maps.

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Well, I think Russia needs some improvement from the developers.

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Russia treaty works in team. You can focus in one task (like destroying enemy fb) while your team push somewhere. I agree that you can’t face any army so you have to work around. In late game, wood can be a problem so destroying the enemy building cost them a lot. (Without even mentionning the time your opponent has to give to rebuild walls, barracks, move the army from one side to the other…

Also, you can play end game with forts, mortars and instant musk + cav archer. It’s the most efficient way to face an opponent imho (three 12k hp fort is not easy to break)

Something more that has been remove from the game in DE is the team infantry card. It s not a team card anymore

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I’ve been playing Russia in treaty for as long I remember, especially against lieutenants back in old AOE:

Late-game, you can’t win face-to-face against civs with stronger units. At least, without a good horse cannon spam. 100 strelet will lose to 100 longbowmen, skirmishers, cassadors, etc. It’s just not good.

What I do is I always build at least 2-3 artillery ranges behind the front lines, and I always have at least 1 of them producing a horse cannon. And if they start coming in hard, I turn that 1 horse cannon into 5 and have another one being created.

And when they see that you’re going heavy on using heavy artillery, just insta-spam halberdiers to block them from reaching your cannons and station some cav archers to discourage cav, and to contribute to the DPS.

Then anticipate culverins and make 2-3 of your own with an unused artillery range. Use pop-effective cossacks to flank their artillery and force goons (which strelet and cav archers can fight against). Play rock-paper-scissors faster than them, and keep your DPS high with 4+ horse cannons always going. Having better artillery control is a consistent way I’ve found to stand face-to-face, since you can’t rely on OP units like with other civs. I usually keep my KD/R even at the least doing this (which is impressive, because it still means you put out more DPS than your enemy to take down their stronger units).

Otherwise, you can play bully games and abuse Russia’s insta-spam to catch their armies by surprise. Scout a lot, have villagers scattered around the map, and see what units they’re making. Build an FB and insta-spam counter units to fk them up.
Like Sun Tzu said in his Art of War, “If he is in superior strength, evade him… If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.” Just pick good fights and abuse insta-spam with the right units.

And cossacks are EXTREMELY pop-efficient. For 6 pop, you can have 6 cossacks (decent atk and decent hp). Other civs get 3 hussars for 6 pop. France gets 2 gendarmes for 6 pop. 6 cossacks can beat them all. Hilarious when you send 60 cossacks into their base while a little army is still pounding the wall outside. There’s just so many freakin’ horses, lol.

And take note: people react to YOU as Russia - when you send in a group of opris, everybody takes a dump in their pants and wants to spam anti-cav.

I love taking advantage of this. I prepare a horde of 40 halberdiers and 3 horse cannons, then send a 5-10 opris to raid as enemy walls get opened. They ■■■■ their paints and make 20-30 goons to counter opris (“OMG opris incoming”). Then I close in on their goons with my halberdiers inside their base, or at least push them back. They try to train skirmishers, but my horse cannons lock on them as they are created slowly (no insta-spam for you). And the game is more fair against skirmishers if you’re meleeing them. In the end, I use my boosted halberdiers (with the Arson card, +50% infantry seige damage) and horse cannons to destroy the enemy buildings. And while they are so busy worrying about those units, I used my fallen population to make quick mortars and follow up (using the Age 4 mortar card) and insta-spamming any needed counter units to keep the pressure going. Just play with their minds. I think Russia still kicks ■■■.

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You made me create an account just because of this.

As a very experienced treaty player, Russia is one of the most Overpowered civilizations on Treaty40.

Good economy + very cost effective units.
Instant army, good siege, on of the best macro map control.
Yes, their units lose 100pop vs 100pop, but 10k resources vs 10k resources Russia wins

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True, if Russians remain unchecked early on and allowed to build a strong economy they can just build unstoppable hordes of army. You will feel like they are everywhere.

Also don’t forget, you can instantly turn all strelets into musketeers with just one card!

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Russian is forced to do only 2age rush, and after that, it can only win or lose. It is not easy to use more diverse units or boom settlers in the 3age because of weaker units than other civ.

Just because the initial rush is strong, It can’t think of Russian has a well balance.

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I’ve been playing Russia since 2005 and I even wrote a post of what I think russia, currently is lacking on. Strelets, Not dealing well vs what they counter?

Supremacy. Russia only option is to rush and if you fail you lose game as they have no come back options. You lose all Fortress fights as strelets have only 14 range. If you try to take map vs better players they just kite you with better range units. If you go in the open with falconets. That doesn’t seem like a good idea as current canon pathing is very bad [ Canons are mostly good to defend or to use as surprise ]

Despite Russia only option being Rushing. Most good players will defend properly and you are left with nothing as current maps have enough food for the other player for them to stay in base and age up and get a better army to fight vs you. Which is something you can’t really stop

When you face good opponents Russia has very low chances at wining any matchup as of right now.

Treaty wise: I’ve played a lot of treaty and face to face like you all state. Russia lose so hard not even to the point of 10k on each side if opponent lost that then russia wins. That is somewhat not true. Strelet is the most inneficient unit the longer the game goes. And spaming cossack vs lots of anti cav is not that smart either.

Also good treaty players won’t allow you to get away with oprichs then you’re just down to facing him and probably losing.

  • Russia is the only civ out of all civs which gets dumbstered by what their only unit[ strelet ] is suppoused to counter.

  • Having nothing past 14 range but canons when you need to be mobile in supremacy. Really shrinks russia’s possibility at winning.

possible ways of allowing russia to be somewhat playable mid to late game is:

  • Giving strelet scaling range until they get to 18 or 20 by imperial.
  • Strelets should cost Half pop instead of 1 pop to be truly efficient. So for 10 strelets it should be 5 pop instead of 10 pop
  • Giving Russia the ability to train skirms by Fortress. [ Or apply the same method Weaker skirms just like the musketeer ]
  • Russia was the civ known for the usage of Forts. That is no longer the case. They require way too many cards to make forts a good usage And they get no bonus out of that. As INCA was released they gave Forts bonus to them which is ok. But in return russia should receive something different or better? Basically all euro civs can build Forts with their Hero now. so the unique ability of russia being able to rebuilt forts is no longer there.
  • I understand that blockhouses is a combination of barrack + outpost, However as russia was meant to build Block houses and Forts They had very limited numbers of these. Working a way for russia to have more Block houses or reducing the amount of cards needed for russia to have better usage in their Fort ability?
  • The Commerce age up Logistician Gives 1 blockhouse and allows all blockhouse to give 10 pop instead of 5. For starters [ We have repeat many times that russia is a rushing civ. Playing defensively or for long term is not a good option. Reworking the logistician to give a better buff should be a thought. As aging up with this logistician is not worthy.

I honestly think the best way is giving russia skirms by Fortress as this is their main weakness. And this should allow for Fast fortress plays or early fortress plays as russia is very weak in that right now. Or changing strelets range and pop cost.

In aoe3 The longer the game goes the more important population becomes. Resource is of less important as they are infinite where as pop is limited. Russia having everything weak at the cost of same pop as other civs leaves you at small chances at winning.

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This is totally wrong.

Russia is one of the main used civ in team for 15 years, you can choose to rush or to boom, with 3 vills spawn at a time and 3 tc u usually vill faster than porto and brit if u are good.

In late game, your eco will be incredible + u will instant spawn army on ur casemates. That makes russia a very strong civ for late game, but of course you need to learn how tu play it. If u want to rush all in, u need assume it.

In high lvl players (pr25+ i’d say) there’s a lot of people using russia to boom.

Taking map with russia while booming is just the easiest thing to do, u make casemate on every goldmine, and u spawn troops on it if someone come to siege.

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I was so happy reading this ! TY, it feels good thinking of my opponent shitting their pants bc of 10 opri lmao. Mother Russia I love it :smiley:

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In AoE3, France, Japan and Russia were the banned civilizations because they were too strong for treaty40 (I am not talking about boom on normal supremacy). In AoE3 DE, Russia is almost unchanged, it kept is strong. Usually the fight is about artilhary micro, the strelet range does not matter that much, they are super cheap, fast to train. Also they have not that bad musketeers that are also cheaper making them perfect meatshield

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Seriously, those 3 civs are no longer Strong [ Maybe except france still usable ]. You should go and ask floko he streams daily treaty games. What his thoughts are on TOP civs for treaty. At high level people play the canon micro + units in front. What happens with strelet being 14 range. Is that you are forced to lose half strelets before going close or having to go musk and lose more than opponent loses and they will always have the advantage of range whenever you have to rebuilt canons. That is we talking treaty wise. Because supremacy wise I can tell you. Russia is next to aztec at the bottom of the tier list as of right now

To my understanding. Strong civs in treaty are: Spain, Ports, Sweden, Germany, Those are much more stable civs and very strong in treaty Spain alone can take on all civs ^.^

Russia loses against those matchups very hard. And I’m one to say that Aztec depiste being very bad in treaty. Is probably the only civ that can put a hard time on Russia and probably win vs them

Here I did that for you: Twitch

I personally would say that All of Russia army should cost half pop compared to their counter part for the weak concept to be usable in the late game. Because only Cossack can have it applied but Cossack isn’t that great in the late game due to Pathing being bad and most civs having very good anti cav

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A much appreciated russian buff would be to place either Fencing or Dueling School in Age 1 or Age 3. Having to slot age 2 cards for that is tough, but they are really important cards for russia.

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That is a good buff, Or maybe even going further and merging both card into 1. In the end isn’t instant army what russia is all about? Right now russia has way too many combat cards to use [ Merging some cards ] would allow for more space

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