Zigzagzigal’s Guides – Russia (Vanilla)

Overview

Russia is spectacular at religious victory and can score an early victory without ever having to start a war. Here, I detail Russian strategies and counter-strategies.

Legacy Guide

If you have the Rise and Fall expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Rise and Fall expansion.

Introduction

Note: This guide only covers content released prior to the Rise and Fall expansion. Content from any DLC pack released between the base game and Rise and Fall is marked as such.

There are hidden riches in the vast and often cold lands of Russia. From the land, rich in minerals and dense forests, to the people, rich in faith and determination. Chart your own course in this uncertain world, but do not be afraid to learn from the expertise of others. Bring them guidance in all things spiritual, and be rewarded with guidance in all things temporal. It is then Russia can rise to be the superpower of the world.

This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization’s unique features work and what their start bias is (assuming they have one at all).
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) are inclined towards particular victory routes.
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, civic cards, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ’s uniques are mentioned – these should be given more consideration than they would be for other civs but are not necessarily the “best” choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, culture, gold, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

• Online: Divide by 2
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) – Describes bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories and Stadiums (which by default offer production and happiness respectively to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they’re within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining – The strategy of obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that deviation (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost.

CA (Civ Ability) – The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders. Unlike unique units, buildings, districts and improvements, civ abilites do not have to be built.

Civic cards – Another name for policy cards; you fill up your government with these for additional bonuses and can switch them for free every time you unlock a civic.

Compact empires – Civs with cities close together. This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, maximise the number of copies of the same district in the same area, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires – Civs with cities that are spread out. This is useful if you want to ensure cities have plenty of room for both districts and tile improvements. Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

GWAM – Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.

LA (Leader Ability) – The unique ability of a specific leader, which like civ abilities do not have to be built. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit on top of the standard one every civ has.

Start bias – The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.

Complete information on start biases within the game can be found in the Civilizations.xml file (find the Civ 6 folder in Steam’s program files, then go through the Base, Assets, Gameplay and Data folders to find the file). If a civilization is not listed as having a start bias there, it does not have one, even if you feel like you keep spawning in the same terrain when playing as that civ.

Tall empires – Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.

Uniques – Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.

UA (Unique Ability) – A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

UB (Unique Building) – A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.

UD (Unique District) – A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district and offers some unique advantages on top. In some cases, there may be minor disadvantages as well, but these are always outweighed by the positive features. All unique districts cost half as much to construct relative to the regular districts they replace.

UI (Unique Improvement) – A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. Unlike unique buildings or districts, these do not replace a regular improvement. Some require a technology to unlock, and many have their yields improved with later technologies. “UI” always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to “user interface” or “unique infrastructure”.

UU (Unique Unit) – A special unit that may only be built by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader. These usually replace an existing unit and offer extra advantages (and occasionally minor disadvantages as well in exchange for bigger advantages).

Wide empires – Empires that emphasise expansion over city development, usually resulting in more, but smaller, cities.

Outline (Part 1/2)

Russia has a tier 3 start bias towards tundra and tundra hills tiles. Russia receives +1 production and +1 faith for all tundra tiles, making them better than plains! Being pushed closer to the poles makes Russia less prone to being attacked early in the game, but it makes it take longer to send religious units to other nations.

• Founded cities receive 8 additional tiles.
  • These tiles are typically those which would have been favoured by the city gaining those tiles via culture (strategic resources are strongly favoured)
  • These tiles do not increase the culture or gold cost of future tiles.
• All tundra tiles provide +1 production and +1 faith on top of their normal yields.

• All trade routes sent by Russia to another civ grant Russia +1 science for every three technologies the other civ is ahead by overall, and +1 culture for every three civics they are ahead by overall.
  • This does not affect trade routes from other civs to Russia.

Outline (Part 2/2)

An industrial-era light cavalry unit which replaces the Cavalry

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Theocracy government, which in turn requires the renaissance-era Reformed Church civic. This number does not take into account Theocracy’s 15% discount on faith purchases.

Negative changes

• Costs 340 production, 1360 gold or 680 faith, up from 330, 1320 and 660 respectively (+3%)
• Slightly more expensive to upgrade to from a Horseman

Positive changes

• Does not require horse resources
• 67 strength, up from 62
• +5 strength in or adjacent to friendly lands
  • This bonus is based on where the Cossack is at the start of the fight.
• May move after attacking
  • This also allows use of pillaging and applying promotions.
• Slightly cheaper to upgrade

An ancient-era speciality district which replaces the Holy Site

*All districts increase in production cost over the course of the game. If you have fewer copies of a district in total than the average among all players, it will be 40% cheaper to construct.

Positive changes

• -50% production cost
• 2 Great Prophet Points per turn, up from 1
• +1 Great Writer Point
• +1 Great Artist Point
• +1 Great Musician Point
• Expending a Great Person in this city adds a free tile
  • This will give you the tile which would have been the next to be acquired by culture.
  • This does not work if all tiles within a five-tile radius of the city centre are already owned by you.
  • Great People with multiple charges add one tile per charge

Victory Skew

In this section, the civ is graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type – not how powerful it is. Any score of 3 or above means the civ or leader has some kind of advantage to the victory route above a hypothetical civ with no unique features. A score of less than 2 means some kind of aspect of the civ actively discourages a particular victory route. All values are subjective and may be edited in future.

Culture is an effective victory route for Russia. Lavras offer a strong source of GWAM points and some elements of the religious game can feed into culture well (relics, patronage of GWAMs with faith and the need for faith to purchase Naturalists with).

Domination victories as Russia have two main methods: the powerful Warrior Monks via their associated belief, or Cossacks, which are relatively strong for their time. Parallel beelining in both the technology and civics tree can get you both Military Science for Cossacks and Nationalism for corps, allowing you to create units with 15 more strength than normal Cavalry. Use of the Crusade belief in your religion, and spreading it to enemy cities before you start a war, adds another +10 to that. You can also use the Theocracy government to purchase Cossacks with faith.

Religion is by far the best victory route for Russia, and Russia is one of the game’s best civs at it. Lavra can be built very early very cheaply, and offer double the normal Great Prophet points helping you get to a religion quickly. Use of the Dance of the Aurora pantheon in conjunction with Russia’s civ ability and start bias can give you immense amounts of faith ready to convert the world with. If that’s not enough, Peter the Great can offer you bonus culture and science if you like to use international trade routes to help spread your religion.

Science is the weakest route for Russia to take. Although Peter’s leader ability offers a source of science, it requires you to be behind in technology for it to take effect. There is the advantage that cities starting with more tiles helps you get better ones sooner, and the ability to use faith for Great Person patronage, but that doesn’t help science any more than it helps any other victory route.

Civ Ability: Mother Russia

Russia handles the map rather differently to most civs. With your cities starting with more tiles, you can settle cities with more distant resources in mind, and with tundra tiles becoming significantly more lucrative, a whole portion of the map goes from being marginal to very much viable to expand into.

When founding a city, Russia gets more than double the normal number of tiles for free. This increases the odds of them getting the best tiles in range sooner, which can provide you an advantage even on the very first turn of the game. As future tile accumulation isn’t any more expensive than it would be for a different civ that doesn’t start with so many tiles, you can easily afford to buy your way to the remaining spots with good yields.

Getting more resources in your land at the start of the game means your first couple of Builders can earn you more Eurekas. Here are all of the pre-medieval boosts dependent on particular improvements:

• Celestial Navigation – Improve two sea resources (crabs, fish, pearls, whales)
• Irrigation – Farm a resource (rice or wheat)
• Masonry – Build a quarry (stone, marble or gypsum)
• Wheel – Mine a resource (typically diamonds, iron, jade, mercury, salt or silver)
• Iron Working – Build an iron mine

To make the most out of the ability for cities to start with many tiles, it’s a good idea to build Settlers early so you can grab lots of good land before anyone else can. You may need to manually set your capital to work a high-food tile so it can handle the population loss from building a Settler, as Russian cities have a tendency to automatically work tundra tiles (which are usually food-poor).

The usual route of expansion as Russia should be into areas reasonably near tundra. Try to ensure that within three tiles of the city there’s a tile surrounded by as much tundra, mountains and/or forests as possible. This will be important when maximising Lavra faith yields later.

Alternatively, you can settle cities close to other civs to choke off their expansion. You may have to forgo some good tundra tiles, put up with worse Lavra yields and deal with angered civs, but it’ll limit the potential of the other civs, giving you an advantage.

A 5-yield tile on turn 1. Not bad!

For anyone else, a flat empty tundra tile only offers 1 food, making it not particularly worth working. Russia adds production and faith, making such tiles better in raw yields than plains. Tundra tiles without hills, resources or forests cannot be improved (although you can still build districts there), so avoid settling cities too far north or south.

Tundra hills and forests are a little better, as they can be improved. A tundra hill with a mine is like a plains hill with a mine, while a tundra forest with a lumber mill is like a plains forest with a lumber mill, but both also have +1 faith on top. With the modern-era Conservation civic, your Builders can plant woods on tundra and tundra hills, helping you bring otherwise weak tiles up to par.

Tundra-heavy areas are fine for production but food is scarce. That’s okay, though – small cities will be less of a strain on amenities and decent production means you can build and improve Lavras easily enough.

Finally, tundra resources get the biggest yields. Again, you won’t be getting any better food or production than you would do on plains tiles, but being able to use a part of the map most civs can’t get much out of in addition to the faith bonus is still nice to have around.

All that faith has to go somewhere, and religious victory is the best means to make use of it. Russia’s unique Lavra district can be built extremely cheaply early in the game, and when combined with the Dance of the Aurora pantheon, you can get absurd faith yields. That combination of Lavra faith and tundra faith is what makes Russia so good at early religious victory.

Peter’s Leader Ability: The Grand Embassy

The +1 culture from “other bonuses” is the leader ability taking effect.

Peter’s ability might seem awful if you’re used to having lots of science and internal trade routes, but in the context of Russia’s other uniques, it can be rather helpful. The Lavra UD encourages you to delay building Campus and Theatre Square districts which means falling behind in science and culture is pretty common.

Furthermore, because a religious playstyle doesn’t need much production, and tundra regions provide decent amounts of production for Russia, the loss of some from not trading internally isn’t the problem it can be for other civs. On the other hand, tundra regions aren’t exactly rich in food and not using trade routes internally can make that worse. Be prepared to build a lot of farms and to manually set your cities to get as much food as possible. Very tundra/plains-heavy cities might still need to use internal trading.

Some civs like Kongo can very easily end up greatly ahead in culture. Sending a few trade routes their way can do wonders for your civic accumulation.

But what really ties this ability to Russia’s other bonuses is the fact external trade routes are a decent way of spreading your religion to other civs. If you send a lot of trade routes to the same civ, you might get a lot of culture and science. Send them to the same city, and you should be able to convert them fairly rapidly.

Unique District: Lavra

The Lavra is the reason why Russia is one of the best civs in the game for religious victory, and not just merely good at it. With half the price of normal Holy Sites, you can build your first one extremely early in the game, and with double the usual number of Great Prophet points on offer, you’ll be among the first to found a religion.

The Dance of the Aurora pantheon is extremely powerful for Russia and is rarely taken by other civs. It adds +1 faith to Lavras for every adjacent tundra tile (except tundra mountains, which just offer the normal +1 yield). For that reason, try always to build your Lavras in places where they will be surrounded by as many such tiles as possible, especially forested tundra or tundra tiles that contain a district, which add even more faith.

Tundra and unimproved forest together offers a massive +8 adjacency bonus for one potential Lavra spot. With the Scripture civic card (unlocked with Theology) that’s doubled to 16.

Kazan was deliberately founded on a spot where it could access this good potential Lavra tile while still having access to relatively good food and resource tiles futher north. Eventually, as spots on the border with tundra regions get filled, you may need to build tundra-only cities like Moscow.

Russia’s civ ability encourages you to build a wide, dispersed empire, and having lots of cities will give you masses of Lavra faith. Once you’ve earned a Great Prophet and founded your religion, it’s time to bring the faith to the rest of the world. Few civs can match Russia on sheer faith output, but you may need to be aware of warmongers who may declare war on you and pillage your religious units. Cossacks later in the game will offer a good disincentive for other civs to invade you but until then make sure you’re fairly well defended to help avoid facing any surprise attacks.

An alternative use of your faith is the Warrior Monk unit, requiring the corresponding follower belief. These units are purchased with faith and have really strong promotions which can help you spread your religion or simply just take a lot of cities.

With all the Dance of the Aurora faith, it’s easy to forget Lavras can do other things as well. One of their benefits is that when you use a Great Person within the city limits of a city containing a Lavra (you can check what city a tile belongs to by hovering over it with your cursor) the city instantly gains the next tile it was attempting to gain via culture. Considering Russia’s civ ability already gives you eight free tiles per city, this may not sound very useful, but it does have a niche.

Cities prioritise strategic resources when automatically gaining tiles via culture. Most strategic resources aren’t revealed until you’ve unlocked a corresponding technology:

• Iron – Bronze Working (ancient era)
• Nitre – Military Engineering (medieval era)
• Coal – Industrialisation (industrial era)
• Oil – Combustion (modern era) OR James Young (industrial-era Great Scientist)
• Aluminium – Radio (modern era)
• Uranium – Combined Arms (atomic era)

If you have a Great Person unlocked around the time you’re researching one of these technologies, consider delaying activating them until the technology is complete. Then, if one of the strategic resources revealed is just outside the borders of one of your cities, you can activate them there. This saves a bit of time or money relative to accumulating the tile normally, and can also be a way to obtain tiles beyond the purchase radius of three tiles (tiles may be acquired by culture up to five tiles away from the city).

On the whole, though, this is a minor bonus and not one you necessarily need to play around.

If everything else wasn’t enough, Lavras offer one Great Person point each for Writers, Artists and Musicians. This is the same bonus offered by newly-constructed Theatre Squares. If you build lots of Lavras, you might find yourself with a few GWAMs but nowhere to put their Great Works, so you may need to keep them safe until you can get some Amphitheatres, Art Museums and Broadcast Centres built.

Getting more Great Works gives Russia a greater potential tourism output. If religious victory doesn’t seem possible, combine this and the ability to use your faith for patronage of more GWAMs to help towards a cultural victory. You can also use your faith to buy Naturalists to create National Parks; you’ll have so much land thanks to Russia’s civ ability that you can usually find a few good spots for them.

Unique Unit: Cossack

Having trouble spreading your faith and need an alternative means of persuasion? Warmongers threatening your lands? Need to stop a runaway rival from getting too powerful? Cossacks arrive at a nice time to solve such problems. Not too early that building them distracts from religious aims, but not too late that they don’t have any impact.

Once you’re done with useful relatively early technologies such as Apprenticeship, Military Science makes a good goal to head for next. You don’t have to beeline it, but as with any unique unit, the sooner you get it the stronger it will be. Meanwhile, you can head towards Nationalism on the civics tree so you can make your Cossacks into corps as soon as possible. Corps have +10 strength relative to the normal unit making them brutally effective against the unprepared.

How can you afford to build all these Cossack corps? There’s three good ways. One, you can build some Horsemen earlier in the game ready for upgrading into Cossacks later. Two, you can make use of the Chivalry policy card which adds a 50% production bonus when building Cossacks. Three, you can use the Theocracy government to spend faith to purchase them. The latter option is best-used when you have a strong religious rival who you can’t defeat through religious units alone. Oh, and don’t worry about the fact Cossacks are mildly more expensive than regular Cavalry. The difference is so low you’ll never notice.

When you’re making over 140 faith per turn, the cost is nothing.

A Cossack corps has 77 strength, or 82 in or adjacent to home territory. 82 is equal to a Helicopter’s base strength – the unit Cossacks upgrade into! As a result, Cossacks can hold their own in a defensive role even if you’re facing an enemy with considerably more advanced units. If you’re the one ahead in technology, that amount of strength will wipe the floor with those who are yet to reach the industrial era. Relative to non-corps Musketmen, that’s a strength advantage of 27, which allows your Cossacks to take off nearly all their health in a single attack.

If you’re on equal footing with another civ, Cossacks should be used as part of a reasonably diverse army. Light cavalry units aren’t really designed for capturing cities by themselves, although Cossacks will be good at defending newly-captured ones. That gives you time to convert them to your faith, ready for you to hand some back in a peace deal, forcing religious dominance upon them.

Aside from having a good combat ability, Cossacks can move after attacking. This allows you to attack something and get out of the way. The high movement speed of Cossacks (5, and potentially 6 with the Pursuit promotion) means slower units like Field Cannons will struggle to retaliate. This isn’t a bad way of attacking cities, assuming they have reasonably open surroundings. In addition to moving, Cossacks can also pillage and even promote themselves after attacking. Both are a great help in keeping the units alive, and the latter also saves precious turns during warfare. On the defensive, Cossacks can hit an attacking unit and retreat back to the safety of a city centre or Encampment district.

I just captured a city with this unit, and it’s on low health. Thankfully, it still has some movement points left and a pending promotion. I can grab it now rather than having to wait another turn, giving it enough health to get it ready for more combat.

Ultimately, Cossacks work much like Peter’s leader ability in that they help cover a shortcoming of having a very religion-centric strategy (in this case, neglecting armies). Still, they can make decent offensive units if need be.

Administration – Government and Religion

The administration section covers the governments, policy cards, pantheons, religions, wonders, city-states and Great People which have particularly good synergy with Russian uniques. Be aware that these are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options that you should consider more than usual if playing as Russia relative to other Civs.

Classical Era Governments

Classical Republic works well. Faster Great Person generation allows you to get more GWAMs out of your Lavras, but more importantly it has a good number of economic policy slots you can fill with cards such as Scripture.

Medieval/Renaissance Era Governments

Theocracy is the obvious choice. Aside from making religious units and buildings cheaper to purchase with faith, and making your religious units stronger in theological combat, it also allows you to buy units such as Cossacks with faith.

Modern Era Governments

Democracy works very well. By increasing your yield from district projects, it allows you to more effectively convert production into faith via the Holy Site Prayers project. It also has a good arrangement of policy card slots for religious or cultural victory.

Ancient Era

Manoeuvre (Military, requires Military Tradition) – If you want plenty of Horsemen ready for upgrading into Cossacks later in the game, this policy card will help you build them faster. Be aware that Horsemen require 2 horse resources to build, or 1 if you have an Encampment.

Classical Era

Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) – A crucial policy card to pick up especially in conjunction with the Dance of the Aurora pantheon. By doubling adjacency bonuses from Lavra districts, you can make an already-impressive faith output into something amazing.

Medieval Era

Chivalry (Military, requires Divine Right) – Although this policy arrives in the medieval era, hold off from using it until Cossacks become available. By boosting the production of Cossacks, building them becomes much more manageable even if you’re not buying them with faith.

Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) – If you’re building Horsemen for upgrade later, this saves a lot of money.

Trade Confederation (Economic, requires Mercenaries) – If you’re trading extensively with other civs already to catch up with science and culture, this policy card makes that even better. If you’re not, don’t bother – there’s a lot of good economic policy cards out there which are worth putting to use.

Renaissance Era

Wars of Religion (Military, requires Reformed Church) – A good reason for using Cossacks is to fight religious rivals. This policy card makes that strategy even more effective. Cossack corps now have a massive 86 strength when fighting religious rivals in or next to home territory, or 81 when fighting them outside of your own lands.

Modern Era

Arsenal of Democracy (Economic, requires Suffrage) – Allows you to use international trade routes while still getting much of the benefit for internal trade.

Market Economy (Economic, requires Capitalism) – An improved version of Trade Confederation.

Dance of the Aurora – Russia does well in tundra-heavy areas. Russia has a unique Holy Site district. Put the two together, and Dance of the Aurora is the obvious choice of pantheon. Note that it doesn’t affect the adjacency bonus of tundra mountains.

Earth Goddess – A decent backup if Dance of the Aurora is taken. Tundra regions are often reasonably well forested, which creates a lot of tiles with a good level of appeal. Having lots of tiles early on offering +2 faith is rather effective.

Goddess of the Hunt – A possible backup pantheon if Dance of the Aurora is already taken. Camp resources such as deer are relatively common in tundra-heavy regions, and boosting their food output will help your cities grow in these generally food-scarce regions.

You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief.

Burial Grounds (Enhancer) – Combined with Russia’s already-strong land-grabbing abilities, this can be a great way to restrict other civs’ expansion potential.

(Cultural) Cathedrals (Worship) – Russia often ends up with more Great Works than can be stored, but this worship building can help with that.

Dar-e Mehr (Worship) – As Russia develops a religion quickly and has a strong faith output, it’s easier for them than it is for most civs to maximise the faith output of this building. Just make sure they don’t get pillaged, or the faith output will be back to +3 again.

Feed the World (Follower) – Tundra regions are usually food-poor, but this belief helps make up for that.

(Cultural) Jesuit Education (Follower) – Gives a good alternative use for your faith if you need it. Combined with the bonus to GWAMs Lavras offer, you have a good shot at cultural victory.

Holy Order (Enhancer) – Helps substantially in making your faith go further.

Religious Colonisation (Enhancer) – Founding a religion when you’re still trying to found new cities can be a pain as you’ll end up having to spend time converting your own cities. This belief saves a lot of that trouble.

Scripture (Enhancer) – Pressuring other civs via international trade routes? Put on even more religious pressure with this belief.

Warrior Monks (Follower) – Put your faith to good use on the battlefield with this strong special unit.

Administration – Wonders, City-States and Great People

If you can spare the production, wonders that offer Great Work slots will be helpful considering Russia’s Lavras tend to produce more GWAMs than you can handle. Still, don’t go out of your way to build them unless you’re after the other advantages as well or you’re after a cultural victory.

Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) – Cheap patronage of Great People with faith works very well if religious victory doesn’t work out. Note that the bonus Great Person Points for corresponding districts won’t give you extra GWAM points from Lavras.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Classical era, Defensive Tactics civic) – An extra charge for Great Engineers means you can grab more land via Lavras. Requires the Persia and Macedon civilization and scenario pack.

Angkor Wat (Medieval era, Medieval Faires civic) – Tundra cities can be hard to grow, so getting a point of population and housing for free in every city is welcome. Requires the Khmer and Indonesia civilization and scenario pack.

Mont St. Michel (Medieval era, Divine Right civic) – In conjunction with Cristo Redentor, a great way to turn a religious advantage into a cultural one.

Cristo Redentor (Modern era, Mass Media civic) – Mainly useful if you want to switch from a religious to cultural victory path.

Note that Stockholm (A scientific city-state that offers +1 Great Person Points of corresponding type to all appropriate districts) does not boost the Great Writer, Artist and Musician Points offered by Lavras.

Amsterdam (Trade) – Peter’s leader ability incentivises international trade. Amsterdam makes it even more lucrative by increasing the gold revenue from doing so.

Antananarivo (Cultural) – Goes nicely with all the GWAMs Lavras help you to generate. Requires the Vikings Scenario Pack.

Armagh (Religious) – This city-state lets you build Monasteries, which add +2 faith on a tile and can be built on tundra to create a tile offering 1 food, 1 production and 3 faith. It also helps religious units to heal without them needing to get to a Holy Site. Requires the Vikings Scenario Pack.

Granada (Militaristic) – The Alcázar improvement is one of the relatively few in the game that can be built on tundra. It offers +2 culture and also +4 strength for units defending on its tile. Requires the Vikings Scenario Pack.

Kumasi (Cultural) – You can gain science and culture from city-states via Peter’s leader ability, much as you can for full civs (although as city-states tend to be less advanced, the yields tend to be a little lower). Kumasi offers decent gold and good culture when you send trade routes to city-states, on top of these existing yields.

La Venta (Religious) – Colossal Heads can be built on tundra and offer +2 faith. They also offer +1 faith for every adjacent wooded tile (as well as for every two adjacent rainforests). Finally, the renaissance-era Humanism civic adds +1 culture as well.

Preslav (Militaristic) – A very niche bonus, but considering you have a cavalry UU, it’s more useful for you than it is for many other civs. +5 strength when fighting on hills helps deal with the defensive bonuses hills offer.

Remember that these are only the ones that have particular synergy with Russian uniques, not necessarily the most effective options. Obviously, all Great Generals and Admirals can be useful for domination victory, and Great Writers, Artists and Musicians are important for cultural victory, but it would be redundant to list them all.

Note that Great People with multiple charges (notably including all GWAMs), if expended in a Lavra city, will give you a tile every time you use a charge.

Classical Era

Zhang Qian (Great Merchant) – +1 trade route capacity, which could mean more science and culture via Peter’s leader ability.

Medieval Era

Bi Sheng (Great Engineer) – Religious-centric strategies often mean neglecting science and/or culture. Bi Sheng lets one of your cities build an extra district, so you don’t have to deal with that trade-off.

Hildegard of Bingen (Great Scientist) – Makes a Lavra’s adjacency bonus add to science as well. Considering how strong the adjacency bonus can be if you’re making use of the Dance of the Aurora pantheon, this is a very good Great Person to have.

Irene of Athens (Great Merchant) – +1 trade route capacity.

Marco Polo (Great Merchant) – +1 trade route capacity and a free Trader.

Renaissance Era

Giovanni de Medici (Great Merchant) – Rapidly develops a Commerical Hub, importantly giving it two Great Work slots that can hold anything. Useful if you have any excess GWAMs waiting around!

Modern Era

Ada Lovelace (Great Engineer) – Like Bi Sheng, Ada Lovelace lets you build another district in a city.

Counter-Strategies

Russia is a religious behemoth which can easily control a lot of land, but that can come at the cost of scientific, cultural and militaristic advancement.

Russian cities do best on the border with tundra regions, not in the middle of them; such areas tend to be low on food. By ensuring you take any good tiles that are fairly close to tundra, Russia is pushed to build tundra/snow cities instead of, say, tundra/grassland.

If you’ve started fairly close to Russia, consider expanding towards them. This will push Russia to expand away from you, and grab lots of land from other civs instead. Otherwise, keep some units ready to spy on any Russian Settlers that might be nearing your lands. Be prepared to declare war and capture them, or else you might end up with a new Russian city choking off your capital’s expansion.

One of the lovely things about Russia being in your game is that if you capture their cities, you get the large borders for yourself. If Russia’s overstretched herself in terms of building new cities, you can easily sweep in and take them – though you’ll probably want to raze or give back the excessively tundra-heavy cities.

Settling in tundra encourages Russia to use the Dance of the Aurora pantheon. If you’re really desperate to set back Russia early on, you could try to take it before they do, but that means you have to give up a good pantheon of your own.

The second lovely thing about playing against Russia (the first being the ability to capture their large-border cities) is that their leader ability only works if they’re quite a bit behind. If Russia’s keeping up in the technology and civic races, this ability is useless. Furthermore, using trade routes internationally means they won’t have so many to use internally; combined with the relatively low food of tundra regions, Russian cities may struggle to grow. Unless used effectively, it’s an ability that counters itself!

Assuming Russia is using the ability effectively, you can still counter it easily enough. Pillaging a civ’s Traders while you’re at war with them is a good idea anyway, and against Russia it becomes even more effective.

The third lovely thing about playing against Russia is that Peter’s agenda can be met without you needing to play in an odd way. All you need to do is be ahead of Russia in technologies and civics, which is something you should at least have a little inclination towards doing no matter your general strategy. Of course, if you’re after a domination victory, Peter congratulating you on being ahead in technology might as well be him saying “invade me next please, my lands are ever so vulnerable”.

On the other hand, if Russia’s ahead of you in terms of technologies and civics, befriending them can be tricky. An advanced civ that hates you is something you don’t really want to face, especially when Cossacks enter the battlefield. If you find yourself trailing Russia in the technology race, make sure your defensive capabilities are up to scratch.

It might be a sensible idea to avoid attacking Russia in the industrial era (if Napoleon’s ill-fated attempt wasn’t a hint enough). Cossacks in Russian territory have +10 strength relative to the Cavalry of other civs. +10 strength makes them deal approximately 50% more damage while taking 33% less, although there is some random variance involved that can make those percentages higher or lower. Unless you have lots of good combat bonuses of your own, hold off until you have AT Crews.

Away from Russian lands, Cossacks only have a +5 strength bonus relative to the units they replace, which makes them deal about 22% more damage to other Cavalry while taking 18% less. That difference is pretty manageable. If you can surround Cossacks with Musketman corps they won’t be able to exploit hit-and-run attacks, and you can hit them from afar with Field Cannons.

Lavras can be built very early, but they can also be pillaged very early as well. Declaring war in the ancient era has no warmonger penalties, and it can be worthwhile to send in a Heavy Chariot, pillage the Lavras, and move out again. This slows down Russia’s religious development, giving time for other civs to found theirs first. Religions are stronger the sooner they can be founded, and if Russia’s is weaker, then their immense faith output will be less threatening.

Always keep in mind Russia’s huge faith output. Even if they fail to get Dance of the Aurora and don’t have that many tundra tiles, the cheap cost of the Lavra encourages Russia to have as many as possible. If they go overboard with Missionaries, Apostles and Gurus, declare war on Russia to clean them up. Yes, other civs will declare you a warmonger, but better that than having Russia win via a religious victory.

One of the advantages of Russia’s Lavras is that they get land from using Great People. As if they weren’t getting enough already from their civ ability. This usually will only be used in cities that are reasonably-well developed to begin with, so you don’t have to worry about Russia suddenly taking lots of land near your cities. As is the case with the civ ability, large borders means you can grab a lot of land from invading Russia.

Russia also gets an advantage to GWAM generation via Lavras. If you’re aiming for a cultural victory, that either makes them a good target for an invasion or to trade with. Strong culture output will encourage them to like you anyway, so you might be able to get some decent trades going.

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