How do you play Russians ?

[boudi]

Supply is not dispatched through Poland, impossible to build depot in Poland even of course in a russian controled province...

I pushed the russian army to Pomerania, no problem during few turns, and without warning all supply wagons became red, and impossible to go back to Koenigsberg, too far away : 100.000 casualties for lack of supply ! In a PBEM game !

Russian army is a joke ???

[Durk]

Maybe newer versions have changed things. I have not played the latest patches, used to be, I would build a supply chain from Russia via Warsaw to the borders of Prussia. I Wonder if some change has altered this ability to build a chain of depots.
Anyway, not really advice, just wondering at your issues.

[HHFD50]

Move like hell to Pommerania, capture a couple of cities and work on the Prussian interior from there. Playing the Russians is about speed more than skill. You have plenty of manpower to cover up your mistakes, but little time to actually keep them in the field so use what you can quickly. Do not get bogged down in meaningless sieges or chasing the lone Prussian army around the woods in Poland-get movin!!!

[boudi]

Move like hell to Pommerania, capture a couple of cities

Impossible without depot. And Russian army move in polish forest with a snail speed.

[Narwhal]

Russian cannot into Polish Forest !

[Ebbingford]

You have to hug the Baltic coast.

[Anazagar]

Move all the cossacks to the west before the first winter sets in - they are an amazing light cavalry giving the austrians an amazing advantage in the terms of ground coverage and scouting. I usually split them in half - one part to Stralsund the rest to austria.

The ones in Starslund are used to help the russian advance into pommerania while the ones in Austria i split further between austians and french.

As for the supplies it is a usefull gambit to try to build a swedish bateux unit in Lubeck (because for some reason its the only place where you can IIRC).

[boudi]

There is a big problem with these Russians. One of my friend, in an PBEM game, had his russian army totally destroyed by lack of supply in Poland, too.

The gameplay about Russians must be reworked.

[boudi]

You have to hug the Baltic coast.

In my opinion It does not solve the problem. There are some marsh near the first prussian town on the Baltic coast, and supply does not pass trough the Baltic coast.

Few columns hugged the Baltic coast, they were destroyed like the columns who had pass through the forest.

Nota : i updated my game to RC5 since few turns. Nothing was changed... Of course i'm the host.

[Baris]

I think the possible solution is to give Russians area bound trait and harsh penalty with historical basin. (0 cohesion when outside the theatre like anarchists,F&G troops in Rus game) or some discipline penalty only. And change all the coastal marsh terrain with clear terrain and major roads additionaly a depot by event.
Againt even to AI, Russians pretty tough to organize. Im also not sure how the polish supply desicion working in the game.

[Ebbingford]

Hug the coast and build depots I should have said.

A depot every 3 regions or so did the trick for me.

[boudi]

Hug the coast and build depots I should have said.

A depot every 3 regions or so did the trick for me.

Impossible. With two wagons and combat units, the option to build depot still gray in Poland or Pomerania. I tried two times, in two russian controlled provinces (not Polish). What was my mistacke ?

[Baris]

Building a depot for every 3 region is a brilliant idea but in order to get things interesting maybe Russian intervention should be handled differently in the pre design&testing beforehand. But how far Russians go with the trick I wonder maybe there should be more pbem gameplay examples about it.

Related to Russian theatre, In our game against Narwhal, Prussian were reinforcing konigsberg with naval transports were that were immune to Russian navy blocking port.

[OneArmedMexican]

There are two excellent ideas in this thread:

1) send most of the cavalry ahead on their own. The Cossacks can cross all the way to Austria or Swedish Pommern before their supplies run out. Alternatively, you can keep the cossacks with your main columns since they seem to gather (or rather plunder) supplies.

2) build a chain of depots. I haven't played the very latest patch yet. But in earlier versions it was possible to build depots on Polish soil.

I would like to add a third point:

3) don't cross the big gap between Konigsberg and Kolberg/Stettin with all your troops at once. Take all the artillery and ~60% of your infantry. Leave the rest in Russia or Königsberg until you have secured a foothold and resolved the supply crisis. It will considerably decrease your supply need.

I have played the Austrian side in a couple of PBEMs, the game doesn't need to be changed. It is historically realistic for the Russian army to run into supply shortages.
The supply situation on a Russian drive westward may be challenging to manage but not impossible. In my games, the first winter in Pommern was usually the point where things got desperate. Sometimes, I lost a few hits to starvation, but in the end I always managed to scrape by.

[Baris]

I really think the better system is to bound cossacks with area abilities that they can not roam around the map if they are fast ! . Even mongols did take heavy attrition when they are out of steppes , could not feed their horses
As for historical concerns, I think player should not experience same NM loss from Russian casualties when moving French troops, when Russians are cut of from supply and take heavy losses in case of any battle. I think area abilities is to go in terms of more interesting&plausable historical gameplay .

[boudi]

I announce a third game (on the same french wargamers webiste) where the russian army was destroyed by lack of supply, lead to in that case an early ended game.

[Mickey3D]

I'm totally new to ROP but I know there is a choice that allow the Austrian player to use Gdansk as a supply source for the Russians.

Is it a viable alternative ? Can the Prussian player prevent this event from happening ?

[barbu]

Yes, and Yes. It's a choice that appears for the Prussian player and which costs a lot of EPs.

[boudi]

The impossibilty for the Russians to build depots was a bug of the RC4 hotfix.

RC4 : you can,
RC4+hotfix, you cannot,
RC5 and next : you can.

A 100.000 casualties bug.