AOE3 Forums

i was a vanilla player until last mounth i i do think Russians are OP in it mostly because of their rush/pressure.

i the same problem, i could beat everyone, except russians, and maybe ottos 

their rush comes very fast, as when they reach age2, they alreadt have a barracks and a tower up(for 250 wood) so after a few seconds on Age2, they already have troops, and will pressure you until you lose or until they get to age3 to make their OPrichniks

and Ottos are also a little OP because they don't need to use resources on eco, making them boom and rush at the same time...

But Russia has a slow age up time, so I usually age up at least 20 seconds before my Russian opponent. When he comes with the first wave of about 20-30 strelets and 5 cossacks, I can have 10-18 xbows and 5 pikes, with a better economy. With some micro my army with some TC fire help can own his. It's different if my opponent is significantly better than me, but between me and players of same skill, I can beat Russia most of the time (especially when I'm laming Otto FF)

what i find annoying (even though its beatable) is the fact that at age 3 they send in like 30 oprichniks at you and begin raiding. i usually manage to finish them off, but the fact that thers a bunch of cavalry that are doing crazy damage to my buildings and settlers can get annoying. plus the 5 cossack shipment can get in the way with your hunting early on xD

Lordbob13:

But Russia has a slow age up time, so I usually age up at least 20 seconds after than my Russian opponent.

you play with otto, so you always have a good age up time.

and russian age up is fast, if they do it with 14 vils 

Martin Van Buren:

After a group of early failures, I found that it was very possible to beat the Russians and that they weren't virtually unbeatable. In rushes, if you simply build a large number of outposts (I found this easiest to do as Portugal), you can generally fend off early attacks with their low hp units. I

I'm not saying they're unbeatable; they just a a good deal harder to beat then most other civs. And if the enemy makes many outposts, I would just go for Fortress age and waste him with falcs and oprichniks

Lordbob13:

But Russia has a slow age up time, so I usually age up at least 20 seconds after than my Russian opponent.

Their slow colonial is offset by their early blockhouse; not having to waste time making a barracks as soon as they hit colonial lets them makes troops just as early as any other civ (in vanilla) 

Satori_Shogun:

I already have a round 250 posts in the forums - but I am now writing under a new nick. I have been playing AOE online for 11 years exceeding 15000 online games of AOE.

I started to play AOE 3 online in the fall of 2005. Back then we only had xp-ladders and with 4 million xp a month I was ranked number one with the russian civ on the ES official ladder.

There were not many players even TRYING to play the russians. The best player might have been Blue_Gaiden at the time. He did some great work trying to advocate the russians and posting the strats which he was developing - based on hard work.

The Russians were in fact the ultimate challenge - and were pretty much seen as impossible to use. But we were a few maybe 2% at the very most - who took on the task of making sense out of the russians.

Since the russians train in batches training takes a bit more preperation and consideration than other civs. Therefore it is only fair that the units are cheaper.

Russian eco isn't really good either. The strong features of the russians are the strelets, musks set to bayonet-attack, field guns, opris ("pricks"), and the ability to mass spam infantry instantly giving them a good defence or push-ability. Also the HA's can come in handy - but they are rather expensive.

To hear that russians now are considered OP after the crap we had to go through - no-one belived in them and everyone rediculed players who tried them out. And now people are whining about that russians are OP?

Dudes - do your homework - investigate the civs - make your own strats.

If the russians sHiNe now - then let them! They earned it the HARD WAY!

Dude, first of all - no one is "whining" about the Russians being OP. We're just discussing my concerns that they might be slightly too good in vanilla (which is bad because no patches will come for vanilla)

Secondly, while I appreciate all the "crap you went through", we're talking about game balance now. It hardly matters that they kinda sucked early on; we're discussing now. 

But thanks for the input, everyone