Starting with Russia?

[Enclave_Agent]

So here is what bothering me: Is it a valid strategy to start with Russia and then take "Go Russia" tech and take all east and west of Eurasia and try to make it a democracy? Or it's just doesn't worth it and China will be more profitable with India?

[martyr]

To be honest, I'm more and more thinking it's just not worth it. I took Russian and federated every state into the Eurasian Union I had claims on. Returned Crimea and ended the war, then Unified with Ukraine and every other Eurasian Union claim.

Government score takes so long to build. Just isn't worth it.

[Kuattro]

China and India will always be more profitable, individually, nevermind together. Massive population, so massive potential for GDP and Education growth.

Russia is kind of a backwater hole, to be quite honest, other than getting some boost from Kazakhstan, and you're better off occupying KZ and getting them out of the federation if you want that boost.

Control Russia, disarm the nukes, abandon and move on to greener pastures. You can come back when you have more important parts of the world.

[markelphoenix]

Research is way too low in Russia

[Seva]

Russia is only good for early boost rush to space.

[Enclave_Agent]

Damn, so no for mega-giga big country then =( well ok, tnx for info.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by Mormon Jesus:

Russia is only good for early boost rush to space.

And even then you can expect your near Earth hubs to be stolen. It's simply easier to play as the US since your tech and boost can more or less keep pace with each other.

[Lovecraft]

Originally posted by Kwinsi:

Damn, so no for mega-giga big country then =( well ok, tnx for info.

If you could only have one country, Russia would be a good choice. Restored Warsaw Pact is an early tech that claims Eastern Europe and all of Germany, and Forward Russia in the midgame claims all of Europe.

After uniting those regions and investing in knowledge for years, the Eurasian Union would be the #1 superpower by far, so much bigger than Europe Ascendant or united North America.

But that's not a good strategy because you can just control multiple countries.

[martyr]

Originally posted by Lovecraft:

Originally posted by Kwinsi:

Damn, so no for mega-giga big country then =( well ok, tnx for info.

If you could only have one country, Russia would be a good choice. Restored Warsaw Pact is an early tech that claims Eastern Europe and all of Germany, and Forward Russia in the midgame claims all of Europe.

After uniting those regions and investing in knowledge for years, the Eurasian Union would be the #1 superpower by far, so much bigger than Europe Ascendant or united North America.

But that's not a good strategy because you can just control multiple countries.

I'd still take the Pan-Asian Union with Chinese Hegemony any day.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by martyr:

I'd still take the Pan-Asian Union with Chinese Hegemony any day.

To be honest, there are only so many starting plays you can make. The US is the easiest followed by Russia, then France as the "piece your country together" hard mode followed by India in order of popularity. The rest simply are too much effort to assembly into a functional union in the early game. Africa and Asia simply are too fragmented and corrupt to use right out of the box without 1-2 decades of work.

[VoiD]

Russia is a good military state, and a nuke reserve.

If anything I'd be more inclined to tear it apart with tech while holding the main russian state and it's 30 nukes for a cheaper admin cost.

In my game since I went for the EU and will eventually eat up the eurasian union too I ended up doing this to the US instead, so instead of paying 60 admin just to hold the legislature and the exec branches away from AI hands I'm paying like half that much while the AI is fighting over the scraps.

[Toblm]

Russia isnt a bad start.
How good of a start it is depends what faction you are and what your goals are.
From a EAU spring board you can try to play for China or India. Or EU, which compliments quite well. Or a unified ME. Russia seems and ideal start for something like Exodus where you'll want to be on the moon and mars asap.

And something you can always do if the need arises is dump Russia. If you get into China and need the CP. Disarm and denuke Russia and abandon it.

[DJTarjan]

Here is a play not many do , play as the initative , take over the nordic countrys , alaska with russia then plunge the world into global warming while u spoil everything but the safe from climate change zones . check the nordic countrys and u will see a small green sphere that tells u the country is immune to climate change. So thats ur powerbase while the rest of the world can be sploited until u make a theempark attraction of the aliens . Good luck and happy spoiling...

[ulzgoroth]

I got Russia first because I didn't have the conviction to go for the US in the face of the high resistance vs. weak early council and limited influence.

At this point, my Russia is pretty darn powerful and probably the biggest supplier of boost in the world, though the US (which I also control) has it badly beat for research.

Russia hasn't got the best armies but it has a bunch of armies. But I can't say I'm properly using that.

By sitting on the US plus Russia I think I've probably got like 90% of all nukes worldwide? That's pretty good though I imagine I really don't need quite so many.

[RandyNewman]

I've been playing with them a lot, but mostly for the sake of boost and nukes. They're quick to consolidate down. I wait until I slap Germany on that badboy and then I go after another powerhouse country.
I think I'd rather start with a research powerhouse when I'm playing as the Academy, but I always try to be first to all the planets. That's why I never tried going for India again even though it's actually a diamond in the rough

[76561198859928956]

Basically any country can be viable, it depends on the strategy you're using.

Russia doesn't have the development potential of China or India or the early game research potential of the USA or the EU, but that doesn't really matter because that just means you can control more countries.

There are advantages to controlling one giant superpower that blows out your entire control point cap. You're reasonably safe from being taken over most of the time so you can develop in peace. But you lose some pretty insane utility in terms of specialization.

Like, here's an extreme example. Manual development in China costs 3.1k cash and 25.2 influence at the start of the game. Manual development in Botswana costs 750 cash and 2.5 influence. The Botswanan space program can be insane.