Most Recent Nerf
In the last patch, they attempted to rework and “buff” Russia but this completely fell flat. The cheaper, faster training vills is in theory a good buff for mid-game but in practice, its effects are not felt until very very late. With 100f taken away and faster villager training, you just end up idled for a very long time if you want a reasonable age up time. Since you can’t train villagers while aging up, you don’t start seeing any benefit until well into the second age.
The reversion of extra blockhouse population is a good step to making Russia a bit more flexible and less infantry focused but it aggravates Russia’s weakness to getting housed. Since nearly everything comes in big batches, there’s always 3-6 population tied up in villagers and infantry requires at least 5-10 free population space to even start training. This effectively makes it so that every infantry batch costs an extra 100w in the early and mid-game and losing houses is crippling.
Solutions to Latest Nerfs
- Add 50-100g to staring resources
- Discount houses 10-20%
- Discount villagers by 5f
Replacing the removed 100f with even 50g would stop Russia from lagging as far behind while still delaying super fast rushes. It would also incentivize a more economic focus as it would help with going for hunting dogs early to get back that food that was removed.
Reducing the cost of houses by 10-20% would go a long way to stopping you from getting housed in the mid-game and make up for the blockhouse nerf. If 50g is also added it would synergize with going for a market start. Overall this would only save about 200-400w over the game but would be a huge help in mitigating the downsides of mandatory batch training in the mid-game (China is the only other civ with this drawback but cheaper villages and extra incentives to make them eliminate the issue for them). Indians already have 30% discounted houses so there’s already a precedent for doing this.
Discounting villagers by 5f would ever so slightly reduce the time to queue the first villager, the idle time to age up, and would reduce resources tied up in villager production. It would also bring the discount in line with that of the medicine card (it would still be worse than a generic civ sending medicine since the villagers are batch trained).
Other Buffs
- Buff grenadiers
- Increase blockhouse limit
Grenadiers being Russia’s imperial unit is completely useless since it is not at all viable. At the very least, the grenade launchers card should be rolled into the arsenal or advanced arsenal techs. Even with that they still aren’t viable and either need a boost to their strength or reduction in cost.
In the mid to late game, it becomes hard to push up the front since blockhouses have a relatively low built limit. Cards like Sevastopol and frontier defenses should increase the maximum number of these that can be built.
3 Likes
I agree. Removing the heavy infantry tag and reverting siege rate of fire back to 3 would probably be all it takes to make them viable again.
3 Likes
with the 40rr (from 50rr) and 0.3x vs cav (from 0.5) I agree that “skirm classed” grens should be perfectly fine now. they were a bit nuts with launchers before the massive nerf hammer, but i agree its extremely counter-productive to have them classed as anticav when they are, quite obviously, not anticavalry
6 Likes
I’ve already given up hope for any improvement for Russia.
1 Like
Russia is in a good place now. I think grenadiers do need a buff though.
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I think strelets need more range too.
Grenadiers need a buff in general, I never see them being used and when I use them myself they feel very underwhelming.
Let’s not even get started about the arsonist…
Russia is not bad, I played Russia a lot at the beginning and every time I played it less so I know its evolution during the start of the “DE” Currently I have it level 100, What they did with Russia was a good change, Those 100 of food that They took away from you, they feel as if they had taken 40-60 of food from you, not 100, because already in case you save 30 of food when passing with 14 villagers + it in collecting food before by the buff that is created more 2 seconds faster,
You will only go a little slower later, it will make you more comfortable the rest of the game, The blockhouse was a bit annoying that nerf, but as it was a great buff, the villagers must also be nerfed on the other hand. Reducing the price of the houses does not seem adequate to me, what if I agree are in the real units, the grenadier is very bad within this goal, the tartaros are also not of this goal they are only used because it is the only one way to counter subtract the cav from a distance, They could remove the real tartar to make the Cossack and oprichnik real, Polish more the cards of Russia and change some politicians…
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They only discounted the villagers by 10f so if you go up with 14 villagers they’ve taken 80f. They train 2 seconds faster but since you also age up ~10 seconds later it takes 5 batches into age 2 before you get that time back. If you took 80f from the starting resources of any civ it would be a pretty significant nerf.
1 Like
If you pass with 14, you are discounted 30 not 20 because you create 3 batches of 3 villagers, Consider that 9 villagers also assign 2 seconds before to food that is, if 0.84 / S is collected then you win 9 x 2 x 0 .84 food = 15.12 /
So it could be to say that Russia only lost 100-45.12 of food that is 54.88. Do you still think that she was a great nerf? for me she was a light nerf
Ah fair, I always queue up that first batch immediately so I was thinking it was only 2. That would make it a reduction of 70f then which is still very steep in age 1. You are getting 2 seconds of gather time per batch but you’re also idling about 10 seconds more with the slower age up time so that more than cancels out that extra 15f. Even if you consider it to only be a slight nerf, they still should not be nerfing one of the weakest civs in the game. I do like the idea of making them less reliant on a fast infantry rush but they need to give them something to compensate for that food reduction such as cheaper houses and villagers and a little extra starting gold to push for making a market.
but why nerf russia?
they nerf russian’s starting and make a better medium game, not late game, because blochouses have a limit of 7 which is a pain in defending and advancing on 3vs3, practically is destroying a blockouse and build another and it takaes 40 secs. Also strelet take 10 population which is really bad, practically i must suicide them to create other troops. If enemy is atacking from all sides, one blochouse on each side is not sufficient… because creating 10 strelets is creating nothing, and population limit doesnt let create more units. So a russian being atacked from different directions is one of the weakness of russia.
but i started with a question… why nerf russian starting?
1 Like
These are definitely good ideas that would smoothen out Russia’s early and mid game without tipping the scales too far.
It always sucks starting off with 200W and no gold for Hunting Dogs. Hopefully you get lucky and get some easy gold treasures, but Hunting Dogs tech always feels so a little out of reach in Age 1 lol.
If you do manage to get it at like 2:30ish and get to Age 2 with 14 villagers at like 4:50ish, that’s another ~160 food (if your hunts are nearby) to help train that first Strelet batch, or to reduce that awkward villager queue gap in early Age 2. Absolutely would love to get consistent Hunting Dogs in Age 1.
The slightly cheaper and faster training settlers is nice, but I personally don’t feel like it impacts much until mid-late game. I feel like I have 8-10 villagers more at like mid-late Age 4, but the mid game in Age 3 doesn’t feel really impacted much. Russia’s weak unit composition still feels like the bane in Age 3 while others power spike.
If the game does go to Age 3, I’ve tried the strat to build a church and use the Westernization card, but it definitely feels like I still have have to put in more work with Russia to get a sub-par Age 3 unit comp than someone who can simply pump out veteran skirms and goons in the same age. I think if I could somehow get a cheaper/free/faster built church, it would feel a little smoother trying to get all my units upgraded to survive Age 3 onslaughts.