By Phil Bates.

Introduction

To date I have been on the winning side twice as Russia. Due to the speed of the troops and the fact that Russia only has one ore mine to begin the game you must have patience when playing Russia.

Diplomacy

Russia is enormous compared to other countries and has the potential to be even larger in a year. This is a double-edged sword. Your army cannot be everywhere so you must make alliances. But these also telegraph to the world what your intentions are.

You should come to an arrangement with Sweden about their expansion into the neutral territory at the north of the map via the 59/2 link with 60/1. You should also come to an agreement about how far north Turkey will be allowed to expand. If Turkey goes further north than row 35 he has hostile intent in mind.

Economy

I have one piece of valuable advice. Please look to see what goods are already in your European warehouse and use them to make your economic builds more effective. Please do not follow the advice to the word outlined in the rules as this shows the other players in the game that you are “The New Guy”.

There is no need to build estates before May. Your construction should be focused on Economic Point production in the first few months.

Moscow and St Petersburg start the game with a trade rate of 2. You must decide whether you want to empty the trade cities of important trade goods to help your army production.

Examples:

February: 2 Factories, 1 Mine, 1 Weaving Mill, 2 Sheep Farms, 4 Lumber Camps

March: 1 Weaving Mill, 8 Sheep Farms, 1 Quarry

Cavalry is expensive to build and train. Do not waste time building lots of horse breeding farms until you go to war to replace your losses. Cossacks are very useful for capturing neutral co-ordinates. Once you have a large army then you can build a cavalry corps to give your army more options in simulated battles. Do not build Vineyards until September to save maintenance costs. If you have destroyed your navy you will find wine is a good trading commodity when dealing with Turkey or Sweden.

Brigades

I personally, like to build battalions in groups of 4. For example 28 battalions of Riflemen and 28 battalions of Grenadiers. This will maximise your effectiveness of your troops in large simulated battles. If you had 5 battalions of Musketeers and three battalions of Grenadiers your Sim report will show you having 2 federations of Musketeers available for deployment. The rules will always favour the weaker troop type. Your Grenadiers do not loose their higher training. But they will adopt all the formations available to Musketeers in the coming battle.

In the first turn I will build quality troops where possible in multiples of 4. Please do not build quality every turn as you will run out of EcPts and money very quickly. I try and build Farmer Militia for garrison troops and for use as flying columns to capture ground and to give the enemy something to chase while my main army is hunting out his main army.

Try and build 8 brigades of Riflemen in turn 3 or 4, followed by 8 brigades of Grenadiers in turn 5 or 6 with Farmer Militia in between. Do not bother training brigades of Farmer Militia unless you are flush with money and EcPts. Farmer Militia battalions are expendable.

Ships

You have no colonial position, which means you will be using your fleet for trade or moving troops. Your Baltic Fleet is large enough to worry your immediate neighbours. You cannot say the same thing for the Turkish navy. A word of warning, The Large Corsair (Type 9) has the same amount of Marines on board as a Type 15 Frigate. This means that your more expensive navy could be lost to a cheaper Turkish navy consisting of Large Corsairs and Type19-21 warships.

If you decide to join your navies together for local defence it will take around four turns to do so.

Your fleets cost you 907500L in maintenance each month. In comparison a brigade of 5 Grenadier battalions will cost 600000L to build. If you want to focus on land based invasions, scuttling your ships or selling your fleet to GB for example gives you an enormous advantage over your immediate neighbours.

Colonies

You have no need to start up a colonial position. It will be a drain on your resources to maintain it and a challenge to keep it. If you have the guts to build the Suez Canal you can expect GB to be in contact with you about your intentions almost immediately

Strategies

In the games I played Russia I invaded Warsaw as soon as possible. In Au 69 I did this by myself. In Au 180 I invaded Warsaw with Prussia, dividing it up by the political map. This gives you your third ore mine. It will take a very competent Warsaw player to defend against an attack from two directions.

It is important to get your diplomacy right early in the game because if you add up all the population on neutral co-ordinates, this will give you an extra 1 million Louisdore as income each month.

On capturing neutral co-ordinates, please do not use your start up brigades (or your best officers). It is well worth waiting a month and sending Farmer Militia or Cossacks to do this task. Your line troops will have more important things to do later in the game.

It is vital to your survival that you capture the ore mine in 79/2. If you want to do this really quickly, send an officer and a brigade of Cossacks unfederated to the co-ordinate. This way they are not restricted to moving three co-ordinates at a time.

You may also want to build a barracks at 73/30 to defend and capture the territory next to Turkey.

Due to the speed of your line troops you will eventually have a network of barracks to train your troops on the march throughout your country.

It is a big mistake to invade Austria unless you have first conquered (or they are as close to you as family members) Turkey, Warsaw and Sweden. Please take the hint !