A 4UC Vox Populi Guide: Russia

These are an updated set of guides for the Vox Populi mod meant to help players learn the details and how to play each civ in the game. Whether new to civ entirely, experienced in civ but new to Vox Populi, or even well experienced with the mod and just looking for a refresher, these guides are designed to be useful to all. These guides were inspired by Zigzagzigal's guides, as they helped me learn a lot about the game when I first started playing it over a decade ago, and I wanted to provide a similar experience for the Vox Populi mod, which has become my go to way to play civ v, and is my favorite strategy game. For those looking for the download for the mod, it can be found here[forums.civfanatics.com]

With that out of the way, onto the Russians!

Before getting into the specifics of the civ, a few terms that I may be using during this guide will be defined here

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. All Naval and Air units gaining a promotion increasing their strength as they take damage from Imperialism.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +25% GWAM generation, +10% culture generation during golden ages and +100% construction of guilds in Artistry)
Scaling with Era - Any trait scaling with era will double in the medieval era, then increase by the same amount every era afterwards (For example, a +1 bonus scaling with era would increase to +2 in the medieval, +3 in the renaissance, etc. until a max of +7 in the information era)
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each.
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UB - Unique Building - A replacement for a normal building that can only be built and used by one Civilization.
UI - Unique Improvement - A tile improvement that can be made by workers that doesn't replace any other improvement that can only be made by a single civilization
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by militaristic City-States when allied.
UGP - Unique Great Person - A replacement for a great person that only one civilization can generate
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
Wide Empire - A high number of cities with a low population each.
WLTKD - We love the king day.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.
ZOC - Stands for "Zone of Control" which is the effect that causes units to use all their movement if they move from a space adjacent to an enemy unit to another space still adjacent to that same unit

Russia has no start bias. None of their uniques interact with terrain in any way, so this is fine for them.
All strategic resource deposits provide double their normal quantity Gain 20 whenever your borders expand, scaling with era cost of claiming new tiles reduced by 33%

A siege unit

Positive One-Off Changes

• Higher ranged combat strength (45 instead of 40)
  
• Can move after attacking
  
• Obsoletes at Advanced Ballistics rather than Ballistics

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• +33% combat strength attacking melee and gunpowder units(Grapeshot)

A mounted ranged unit

Positive One-Off Changes

• Higher combat strength (44 instead of 40)
  
• Higher ranged combat strength (37 instead of 31)
  
• Obsoletes at Mobile Tactics rather than Ballistics

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• +33% combat strength attacking wounded units(Marksmanship)
  
• +50% combat strength against units that can't retreat(Withering Fire)

Positive Changes

• +2
  
• +1& to villages and towns
  
• Incoming international trade routes generate +4 for this city(up from +2)
  
• Gains +2 at banking
  
• Gains +2 at economics
  
• Gains +2& at railroad
  
• Gains +1 to every yield at industrialization

Positive Changes

• +3 & 12(up from 10)
  
• Reduces damage taken by the city by 4(up from 2)
  
• +2& to all strategic resources
  
• Non friendly land units expend all movement entering this city's borders from neutral or foreign territory

These scores are merely my personal opinions from playing and examining this Civ, you may find other uses for the Russian uniques that make you disagree with a certain ranking


Russia's UA and UUs both give them quite the strong army, and the Ostrog also gives them one of the strongest defenses in the game once they come online
While they do grow their borders quickly, they otherwise lack any actual bonuses to culture or tourism
Russia's UA gives them strong science output, and between both their UBs they have very good infrastructure starting around the mid game
Russia's extra strategics from their UA can actually be used to generate a fair amount of gold, along with their UBs giving them a solid economy. However they do lack any diplomatic bonuses
While technically the Pogost gives a small amount of faith, it isn't until quite late in the game, well past the point any religion would be founded, so Russia's pretty generic religion wise.

Every time a Russian city expands their borders naturally, they gain 20 science scaling with era. Combined with a 33% reduced culture cost of claiming tiles, this is Russia's main science engine. In general, wide empires tend to somewhat struggle with science, especially before their cities get built up properly. Russia can have their cities properly contributing to science much faster then pretty much any other civ. In fact, Russia is one of the only civs that I would recommend a truly infinite city sprawl, or ICS. Basically, if there is land to settle at all anywhere, it is worth settling for Russia, even if the city would otherwise be largely useless, the extra science will almost certainly make the city worth it. For example, lets say you have 15 cities in the industrial era, each growing their borders at an average of every 7 turns. 80 times 15 is 1200, divided over 7 turns is about 171.5 science a turn, likely making up somewhere between 15%-20% of your science output.

The law of conservation of mass says that matter can neither be created or destroyed. Well those stuffy scientists have clearly never met a Russian

The other, equally important part of Russia's UA is that gain double the amount of resources from strategic resource tiles (note, any other source of strategics, such as from a building like the circus maximus, are not doubled). This means that Russia can easily field their entire army of strategic resource requiring units, such as swordsman, knights, and late game siege. It also means that Russia will extremely easily gain strategic and even global monopolies over pretty much all the strategics even with a comparatively small amount of land/deposits that would normally be required to do so.

My monopolies around the turn of the modern era. Got a bit unfortunate with the oil spawns, but my other resources have gone a lot better

While using these resources for your army is highly recommend, you'll likely still have plenty of resources lying around. Don't be afraid to trade these resources, you'll get lots of money out of it, and even if that civ turns around to try and war you using units they built with your resources, they won't have the resources after declaring war, and those units can easily become a liability without the resources to support them.

My land(and other stats) in the modern era, as you can see I'm in first, probably by a solid margin given the average land.

The Pogost is a very interesting building, but its first notable bonus is quite simple, giving all villages and towns +1 gold and production. Normally villages are only really worth building on roads to give them the extra yields, but with the Pogost it is often worth building them everywhere you can.

The other main, and more interesting bonus that the Pogost has though, is that it gains extra yields through technologies, almost like a improvement. They gain bonuses every tier of the tech tree, up to Industrialization for a total of 4 boosts, giving the building 3 of every base yield. Just build up your Pogosts in every city and you'll be accumulating a lot of yields, just spread out across all your yields, so it can be hard to notice specifically all the Pogost gives, but it is a large, easy boost to your empire

Note the bank gives +3 to custom houses, and these are the yields on every Pogost upon researching industrialization

Now we're cooking with coal

The Ostrog gives all strategic resources +2 gold and production to all strategic resources. Given you've likely prioritized settling strategic resources for your UA, this should actually be quite the large bump to your infrastructure and economy.

The arguably more important part of the Ostrog however, is that it gives the effect of the great wall to the city, making it so any enemy units entering the borders of the city lose all their movement. This makes it extremely difficult to attack Russian cities from land. Make sure you build an Ostrog in any border cities as soon as possible, and combined with your powerful strategic units, it will be nigh impossible to invade you.

Our artillery stand ready to repel any invasion from the Iroquois, our mortal enemy

The Licorne can move after attacking. This is more useful on defense then it is offensively, as the Licorne does still move at half speed in enemy territory, but in a pinch on the retreat it can be nice to be able to fire off a shot and still move a tile rather then just moving away slowly.

I'm of the opinion that grapeshot, i.e a wider spread would actually be more effective on the somewhat more spread out and more mobile cavalry units rather then infantry, but I digress

Further amplifying the Licorne's defensive leaning, they deal 33% more damage to melee and gunpowder units, cancelling out the 33% penalty against all land units. Again I believe this to be more useful defensively then offensively, since on offense you want your siege attacking cities if at all possible, but it still can be used to attack units on offense to if you need to. That is the thing about Licornes though, while they are much stronger then a normal field gun defensively, given their extra general strength they are still completely capable of being used offensively, doing just as good in fact better job then a normal field gun. Don't let the value of their promotions on defense prevent you from offensive war, they are still excellent in the role of taking down cities

• +33% combat strength attacking melee and gunpowder units(Grapeshot)

The wide, disparate lands of Russia have lead to a new, powerful warrior

The Cossack deals 33% extra damage when attacking a wounded unit, bringing their ranged strength to an incredibly high 49.33, only a few points shy of the light tank it upgrades into. Cossacks can absolutely tear apart an enemy force. If they can pin a unit against mountains and other units such that it could not move, the Cossack also deals a massive additional 50% damage, assuming that unit is already damaged would give a disgusting 68 ranged strength. However, this situation is actually quite difficult to pull off, as it more or less requires the unit your attacking to be near mountains, or entirely isolated, in which case it would be easy to kill with a few mobile units like the Cossack anyways. Certainly capitalize on Withering Fire if you see an opportunity, but don't try to force it to happen, you'll most likely just end up putting your own units in a bad position and get them killed.

Rifleman are tough, but 2 or 3 Cossacks should be able to make easy work of them, cycling in and out safely into the well defended Russian territory

• +33% combat strength attacking wounded units(Marksmanship)
  
• +50% combat strength against units that can't retreat(Withering Fire)

Russia should start with Authority to capitalize on their border growth, and also military potential. They should then go Fealty for the general infrastructure and further border growth bonuses. Their last policy tree depends on their victory path. Imperialism is the obvious choice for a domination game, but Rationalism serves a science game better.

Opener: Culture and science from kills is real nice, Russia is sure to get into plenty of scraps throughout the game

Imperium: Some nice yields from city conquest, and more importantly a lot of yields from border growth, of which you'll be doing a lot of.

Tribute: A free Settler is nice, lets you expand while still working on your military/infrastructure to build your military

Militarism: Russia can struggle with their economy in the early game, so this is a big help

Dominance: More yields from the strategics you want to get anyways, including border growth which gets you more science

Honor: Extra strength and extra units. Everything a potential warmonger could want

Finisher: Some purchasable melee units that are good at attacking cities? Sure why not!

Opener: You aren't necessarily doing a ton with faith, might as well get a decent building from it

Nobility: Faster production towards arguably the two most important medieval buildings for a warmonger? Yes please

Serfdom: Given both your UBs improve tiles you'll probably have quite a lot of non-specialists, so this should be a decent amount of culture and faith

Divine Right: Half of the reason you're going Fealty, the extra border growth is huge

Organized Religion: If/Once you can get a religion properly set up, this will help keep it going

Fiefdoms: Russia somewhat struggles with culture, so this should actually be a good amount of unhappiness reduction

Finisher: A nice bit of yields in all your cities assuming you've got your majority religion well spread.

Opener: The extra great general movement is huge, plus you can't complain about cheaper units

Regimental System: Generals are important, and this makes them even better at boosting your army (and navy for admirals)

Civilizing Mission: You'll be doing lots of conquering, this just makes those cities you get this late actually useful.

Exploitation: You've already got some solid tile boosts, this makes them even better

Colonialism: Yields from buildings you want, and extra bonuses from monopolies you probably have. Very nice

Martial Law: Happiness could be a fairly big problem at this point in the game, and this is potentially a lot.

Finisher: While quite strong on land, your navy and air force are relatively generic, so this helps a decent bit with that.

Opener: More food to add to the pile, plus the all important scientist specialists are better to work

Employment Law: Should be a huge production boost

Liberalism: Better specialists, and more great people during golden ages. Very nice

Mass Education: Feel free to take this earlier if you have an opportunity to grab an expensive ahead of time tech and/or are ready to start building public schools en masse

Emancipation: You should have a very large population by this point, so this could be a massive amount of culture and a golden age to boot. The happiness is also extremely welcome for Russia

Secularism: Less unhappiness, more science, what's not to like?

Finisher: Makes it a bit harder for spies to steal your stuff, plus a nice aid to reduce unhappiness.

A scientific Russia is best served with a Soviet style Order, however a domination Russia does best with Autocracy

Worker's Facilities: Even with doubled resources, coal could still be an issue if you got unlucky, so 5 free factories is quite helpful, plus the 10% extra science is nice

Peace, Land, Bread: Unhappiness and building maintenance are both likely big problems for Russia, and this helps a lot

Communism: There are a few late game wonders that are very important for a science game, this makes it just that bit easier to build them.

Five Year Plan: An embarrassment of production, any civ going order would be crazy not to take this

Great Leap Forward: A nice boost to getting to your final spaceship techs

Spaceflight Pioneers: More science to get to spaceship techs, and engineers being able to build those spaceship parts once you get to them. All you should need to seal out the game
Lebensraum: Another thing to add to the border growth yield pile, plus some extra versatility out of your citadels

Military Industrial Complex: A nice bit more science, and it makes it way easier to get a new army up and running

New World Order: Unhappiness is likely a huge problem for you, this should help out a lot

Lightning Warfare: A huge boost to your army's potential.

Martial Spirit: Time this carefully, and the extra combat strength from this can easily win you the game

Now why don't I think that Third Alternative is a top choice for Russia, given its synergy with the Russian UA? Simply put, I don't think you need it. If you're already on track to conquer the world, the UA should be enough to give you all the strategics you need, Third Alternative is just complete overkill

Air Supremacy: Russia can field a better air force then most given their double strategics, this just makes sure their air dominance is assured

Terrain/resource specific pantheons are not listed here unless they have some other synergy with a civ's uniques, however they can often be a great choice if the terrain/resources you start with favors them

God of the Expanse: A massive boon to Russia. Do whatever you can to rush an early pantheon to get this, it'll be a huge boost to your entire game

God of War: If you're pretty confident you want to go for a more aggressive game, this is a decent backup if you fail to get Expanse

Goddess of Festivals: Given you're going to be settling very wide very early, you'll likely have a wide variety of luxuries, so this could grant a good amount of faith as a backup to Expanse

Council of Elders: Given how many of your own cities you'll have and should hopefully be able to convert, this could be quite the good amount of science

Hero Worship: Gives a ton of bonuses if you plan to be doing lots of conquest.

Cathedral: A great boost to your income

Creativity: More culture for more border growth for more science

Orders: Great choice if you plan to go domination

Teocallis: For a more offensive game this can give you a stupid amount of faith

Zealotry: Lets you're faith really contribute to the war machine, plus if you weren't getting the strategic monopolies, you sure will be now

Mendicancy: A nice bit of culture and faith, plus makes it a fair bit easier to spread your religion

Orthodoxy: If you really want to ensure your religion spreads, this is the belief for you, as your wide spread cities will be able to contribute pressure from much farther away

Defender of the Faith: A good middle ground to making sure you're nigh impossible to invade, while not having to full commit to domination

Crusader Spirit: A huge boost to your army strength, an ideal choice for any warmonger

Divine Teachings: The best reformation belief for any science civ

Stonehenge: If you can nab this it should all but guarantee you get God of the Expanse

Statue of Zeus: Any early conquests will thank you for nabbing this wonder

Hagia Sofia: HIGHEST PRIORITY for Russia to nab this, it makes an absolutely massive boost to their science

Terracotta Army(Domination): If you're committed to war, this will net you a stupid amount of culture

Great Library: A free tech to hopefully get you to currency first for the Hagia Sofia

Oracle: A bit out of the way for your preferred tech path (i.e Hagia Sofia) but if you can nab this it's almost a free tech and policy, can't turn that down

Alhambra(Authority Only): Will make your horde of mounted units an absolute menace to deal with
Himeji Castle: Ostrogs make Russia near uninvadable, this assures no one is taking Russia over.

Red Fort(Fealty Only): May be a touch overkill, but slapping this in a border city will make it an absolute nightmare for anyone to be near

Sistine Chapel: A nice boost to your culture, and therefore a good boost to your border growth

Porcelain Tower(Science): Russia's science is much more spread out then the average science civ, but they still likely have one city producing more then the rest that can benefit a fair bit from 10% more science

Neuschwanstein: An absolutely massive boost to your happiness, makes a huge difference for Russia

Eiffel Tower: Gaining social policies is often a problem for Russia, this should help make it a bit easier

Brandenburg Gate(Domination): Makes your already solid army even stronger, right around the time your UUs are relevant too.

Kremlin(Order Only): The bonus production to armor is whatever, you're here for the free policy

Prora(Autocracy Only): The happiness is certainly welcome, but the free policy is the star

Bletchley Park(Rationalism Only): Makes it way harder for spies to steal from you, assuring you the tech lead

Pentagon(Imperialism Only): Makes sure your air force is indisputably the master of the skies

Hubble Space Telescope(Science): A huge boost to building your spaceship parts, a no brainer for a science game

Great Firewall(Science): Combined with Bletchley, spies are truly no threat

CERN: Two free techs to finish out the tech tree, great for any civ

Russia plays a wide, defensive playstyle, which is fairly unlike any other civ in the game, so mistakes are certainly possible

You may think that since Russia doubles strategic resources, you don't need to settle as many, but in fact I would argue it's the opposite. The more resources you get, the bigger advantage you get over your opponent, not to mention the bonuses from strategic and global monopolies.
Russia's UUs and the Ostrog give them one of the strongest defenses in the game, but before they come online Russia is actually fairly vulnerable. Make sure you keep up on units, even if you aren't planning conquest. Swordsman and then later knights are your best options given your glut of strategics you should have.
Licornes may be more mobile and hit some units harder then typical siege, but they are still pretty frail on the defense. One mounted or even melee unit breaking through your lines can easily spell an end to your siege units. Treat them like siege, not ranged units.
While you shouldn't purposefully delay them or anything, the renaissance and industrial era have several important techs for Russia to grab. In particular I would grab navigation for Ostrogs before I worry about grabbing economics. Banking is still worth nabbing just for pioneers however
A 50% combat boost is incredibly tempting to try and make work, but the conditions to trigger it are fairly difficult to achieve, especially against units that aren't isolated away from their territory. If it happens great, but trying to force it will cause the death of your units, not the enemy's

Russia claims tons of land, has an almost unbreakable late game defense, and has the science to back it up. However, most of this doesn't get online until pretty late in the game, giving Russia an obvious weakpoint in the early game.

Russia wants to expand really wide, both for the border growth science and to claim strategic resources. However, their early infrastructure is almost completely generic, so their rate of expansion won't be that fast early on. If you can steal the good spots near Russia, especially those with strategic resources, you can stifle their early growth. If you are going to attempt to forward settle Russia do make sure to buy out any tiles you want that they can reach, as they are likely to get to it faster then you through natural border growth.
Pogosts give a solid spread of every yield in the game... eventually. Despite unlocking in the medieval they don't reach their potential until late industrial. While they provide a great boost, they don't do much to help out Russia's lackluster early game. If you can stifle Russia before their other uniques get going, Pogosts won't save them. Thwarting the French, Germans and more since at least the early 19th century

The Ostrog is where Russia really starts to get scary. If you want to invade Russia, do so before these can get built. If they do manage to get this up before you can do anything, things might not be entirely lost, as while the Ostrog makes Russia a nightmare to invade on land, it does little to help them on the water. Russia still isn't a total pushover on the water thanks to the extra strategics, but if they have settled a lot of cities coastal, that's the best avenue to push them from. If you absolutely have to do a land invasion with these up, just do your best to not have a unit leave Russian territory once it enters it, as then they'll have to suffer the movement penalty all over again.

Licornes are more mobile, and hit harder then your typical field gun, however that doesn't entirely get rid of their main weakness, how frail they are. If Licornes are proving an issue, push them with mounted units and they'll likely crumble. Try not to rely too much on melee/gunpowder units if you can. Dang, that's a little messed up. Just kill them no need to go that far

Cossacks are a deceptively powerful unit, hitting almost an era stronger assuming you can't keep your units at full health, which is pretty much an impossible task, especially against ranged units. Mounted units of your own are going to be essential to both chase and pin down Cossacks. Be especially careful fighting Cossacks around mountains and other tight bits of terrain. If they can trigger Withering Fire your units are going to completely crumble.

Early Game Warmongers: The best time to take on Russia. Despite having the iron for it Russia will likely like the production to field an army of mostly swordsman, so they should prove no real problem.

Mid Game Warmongers: Russian knights could prove a problem, and if they can get their Ostrogs up Russia is almost impossible to conquer. Get to them before Ostrogs, or attack from the sea

Late Game Warmongers: Russia is at the height of their power, with all their defensive and infrastructure bonuses in play. You will need fully committed, overwhelming force to beat Russia.

Scientific Players: If you can block off Russia's early expansion, they should be unable to compete, but even a fully powered Russia can be beaten in terms of raw science, just be prepared for a potential invasion

Diplomatic Players: Russia has a somewhat weak economy, so a sanction can hurt them quite a lot.

Cultural Players: There are a couple key wonders Russia absolutely would love to have. If you can nab them you can hamper Russia's potential a lot, just be prepared for a potential invasion.

• Arabia (Culture/Science)
  
• The Huns (Domination)
  
• The Inca (Science/Domination)
  
• Korea (Science)
  
• The Netherlands (Diplomacy/Domination/Culture)
  
• Portugal (Science/Diplomacy)
  
• Siam (Diplomacy/Science/Culture)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Sweden (Domination/Diplomacy)