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