Russia needs to be buffed

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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Seriously, it gets to a point where is near impossible to play Russia againts almost any other civ.

The settlers come to a rate so slow that your economy is not really an economy until 10+ minutes, musketeers are just too bad and die too easily, the cheap price does not make up for the -20% in healt and damage and nearly any kind of full cavalry strategy is enough to counter the russians.

I don’t ask for better units or so, but for God’s sake, just make the settlers spawn one by one like any other civ or give Russia a real anti-cav unit in Age 2 because now is impossible to do a succesful rush and the russian F.F. is just not an option, and I not even gonna talk about russian F.I.

The economy is just bad, the troops are bad, and cheap prices simply don’t compensate that.

Yeah, units are cheaper and that, but your economy grows so slowly that you can’t make more units than your enemy, but your units are in fact worse than enemy units. Again, russian units are just too bad and the cheap prices does not compensate for that, they need to have a better economy or better units.

All what is needed is just to make settlers spawn one by one or at least at a faster rate, I’m asking for no more than that, because now is impossible to play russia in 1vs1 supremacy and expect to win.

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Not only 1v1, Russia in team game is also too weak due to their unreasonable nerfed continuously.
Yes they can boom quicker than other civs, BUT is only under no fight like treaty before 10 mins and in fact no one will do that in a normal game.

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I think the Russians civ should rely on spamming with weak but numerous units - which would be as historically accurate as possible and would give the gameplay more depth.

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Hey,

since i got asked for sharing my opinion here is it - mhhhh im a Russian Main on 1700 around and i think you exaggerate a lot. The Civ is at least in SUP more then solid overall. Your Unit are also okay, Ruskets does the Job in Age2 and Cossack Strelet is always a solid Combination especially if you have Ruskets in it you have age2 a 3 unit type comb which is totally okay. Also the scaling of the economy is more then okay, especially if you macro early on for steal traps, which is a easy thing actually even if you rush and after spice trade arrives you are food wise more then fine. So the Eco really does not need a Nerf or a Buff, they are just fine. Also the villager train time is already pretty good. Your Vills are 30 Food cheaper and comes faster. So there is really no point to argue about.

The problem is which Russia makes so “slow” early on is the fact that you need a proper macro for getting the Units out. To be fair, it is just harder to make it possible to keep producing early on in comparison to other civs during the batch training so there you have a point. This is also a reason why the Semi FF or FF is just not working as Russia because you have to gather a lot of Wood during Transition because of needed infrastructure, you need to gather wood in age1 as well then for a TP etc etc. So all this are reasons why the most Russian Players stays longer age2. Because you need this time to create a solid Eco and you need the time to get your shipments in.

A solving for all those problems could be to allow it that Russia can train villagers and units in single batches because then it would be way easier to get the batches out or to change the starting creates. The thing is in both cases you have to change other things like if you allow single trainings then you have to increase the cost for the vills otherwise Russia would be OP and if you change the starting crates you have also to change something on Russia’s Age2 Gameplay because if you would change starting creates it mean they have a better follow up because of the scaling Economy. So this is valid for all possible changes overall. I think Russia is not that easy to balance because of their Output potencial.

About the Units idk there is not much to say. Russia got some buffs like Strelet Horde was reworked, Pjotrs Toy Soldiers are added, okay Boyars got nerfed and you feel the change (im not a fan of this i feel its undeserved among the current circumstances and balance), so especially mid game and late game wise this is for now more then fine. Not to forget Sovnja, even if i feel it was a bit over nerfed and did not effect the right units, but that’s only my taste.

So yeah for me Russia is solid civ and for sure not bad, but you can say they are not a good Quick Search civ and i would fully agree on because you have like 10 Bad Matchups while other civs just don’t have this amount of bad match ups.

In a short version you can say its needed to find a genius who let Russia the possibilities for Age2 (while not creating a OP civ) and to make it possible to play classical Semi FF, FF Strats where they not lack because of weak Units or average Shipments if it comes about age 3 strategy’s.

About the meta shipments in Age 3 - 19 Strelets is already a good one (Ress wise 21 Strelets would be the exactly amount of Units if we mention a Shipment is 1000 Ress worth), 5 cav archer is nothing since the animation is just trash. Not even comparable to 5 Goons and the shooting delay compared to a goon is just unfair. 6 Cossacks could be actually 7 Cossacks to make it a more useful shipment. 13 Muskets are okay but could be also 14 because of the weak stats and 11 Halbs are actually useless because you will never use them as Russia. Which i would really like is the 7 Boyars for 500 coin may be they could be increased in the future to an amount of 8 Boyars. Last but not least it would be also cool if Russia could get a anti Cav Shipment for 500 Coin in Age3 as well.

I hope my answer is welcomed.

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I’m currently within the range of 2k - 1900 ELO as RUS, I don’t think rus has an issue against CAV, Their issue lies more in the having to get the eco to be able to spam too many cheap units given current state of the game. And these cheap units not trading effectively against other infantry

I could make rus work vs most civs if some of the changes I had suggested are implemented. The only thing I struggle with as rus is not really their eco or the units in age 2. It is the kiting from opponents and the having to chase to be able to do anything at which point you’re not really trading effectively thus losing more than needed and to lose this much you do need good economy which they don’t really have unless you set it up which leads to being slow and thus other civs going ahead and getting even better units/tech and then they get equal number of units or more than you and since yours are weaker it really doesn’t work.

With current shipment of 11 pandour that counter skirms. I’ve found success on most matches RU used to struggle very hard due to skirm war They are a good unit I would only suggest they be trainable after the card is sent [ This unit does its only job perfect which is countering skirm, the rest is bad and that’s a good trade ] Truly appreciate whoever came up with this idea it does alleviate rus issue vs skirm even at this cost

What I’ve been able to see is that after the pandour as I’m now able to kite my resources fly meaning I don’t have to spend a lot to spam weak units. But would be nice to have pandours trainable after the card Though this only helps in skirm wars and then leaves a hole at facing Mass musk

which comes to the point of strelets which is what they’re good at, however due to strelets having 14 range even in Fortress It becomes sort of a pain or a nightmore to try and kite most civs that have very strong musks. Like india has almost 300 HP musk in Fortress with not much effort. Mexico with soldados are insane and they don’t care they just go in and some civs even have 13 range musk or 14 range musk which is kinda sad

Then strelet having to go too close even in fortress which ain’t really that great. So these fights like vs india and many other example leaves you now with a hole in having no way to truly counter what strelets counter You have to lose too much for it to be viable but to lose too much you have to skip doing eco. Rus is too food heavy.

My suggestion for strelets is to have scaling Range NOT WITH CARDS but through age up tech. I’m ok with the current 18 Range they got but it is too late to take its advantage. please move it to Fortress and Industrial that way they get 16 in Fortress and 18 in Industrial

I would also go as far as saying If a nerf is needed in exchange of this. Remove Boyars I don’t really use the card anymore and this card makes no difference in strelet wining right now it gives little to no stat
For team games replace the team CAV HP and just merge this card into the age 3 CARD, Developers find a way to not nerf current rus eco which is ok if you don’t have to lose army consistently but to exchange anything they currently have for that 16 range and 18 ranger earlier and as I had suggested a possible 20 range in imperial which if demeed too strong could just leave them at 18 but Do test it out 1st. Let’s see how russia does in quicksearch with that.

Here is my post

Would like to remind that USA skirm which is very close to Strelet in term of trash unit. Does have 17 range by Fortress They do get this range since age 2 though
image
Please just something similar to this range by fortress, which would be 16

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Too many people are playing Russia for me to believe it’s weak. It is probably more a matter of some specific civ matchups affecting the numbers slightly in one direction.

Overall the civ seems very capable in the right hands.

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I agree that Russia is weak and probably needs a buff, however you are blowing the thing way out of proportion so it is hard to take your post for something else than a rant.

We shouldnt take away the weak cheap units and the settler batch training, it is the identity of the civ. Removing them woukd be like removing banks to durch and giving them 99 settler limit.

The balance often comes from “minor differences”. I am pretty sure that people would complain about Russia being OP if they were to get +100 starting food.

If you hate that much the options of Russia, play another civ and let people who actually like the civ play it. It has a pretty decent player base (4.5% to 5%), so the developers probably do not feel they “have to” do something about Russia.

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no this is actually quite easy to answer why Russia is especially on lower Elos so successfully. You need to create timings against Russia because mostly Russia can out mass his opponents. So if you cant really create a good Timing or defense in addition to a proper base building then you will lose against Russia. That’s why especially on lower Elo Russia is accused as an good and strong civ while it has actually clearly weaknesses

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Here is I video where I explain the 2 things that could be worked on and russia be in a better position

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Well, my post is in fact a rant, but that does not take away the fact that russian early game really needs a buff.

And no, 4.5/5% is not a decent player base, even in stadistics you can see that Russia have A LOT of bad matchs.

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I agree they may need a buff, I disagree about throwing their core identity through the window.

4.5% is an average player base when there are 22 civs. If you want to see a low player base, have a look at the pick rates of the native american civs.

That is correct, that is why they may need a buff. But this has not much to do with whether ot not 5% is a decent player base.

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I always used the Economic Theory card, but it’s no longer available for Russians since this Patch:

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it’s been reintroduced, you can find it in the mother city and I think they won’t take it down again

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Ohhh, cool. :blush:
https://www.ageofempires.com/news/age-of-empires-iii-update-13-38085/

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Russia needs more buffs military wise. Maybe replace the Ruskets with the native Northern Musketeers.
I would also increase the range of Strelets as Khorix mentioned

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I think reversing the boyar nerf would be a good start

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