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Just watched Kaiser vs Hazza in the ESOC winter championship, Russia vs Otto. And it made me think: why do people claim that Otto FF wins this MU so easily? I'm not saying Russia is definitely better or anything. But it does seem fairly close, maybe even Russia favored, depending on the map.

In the game, Kaiser's Russia won vs Hazza's otto. Sure, the gameplay wasn't perfect from either player, but Kaiser lost like a gazillion vills and arguably played worse (for his standards) than Hazza (no offense). Hazza just did all the standard otto FF stuff: send 2 falcs, gold, mams etc.

Sure he didn't protect his 2 falcs perfectly, but how can you do that with <20 jans vs 13+ cossacks? Ofc Otto can wait a bit and mass more jans, but then the eco difference becomes even bigger, Russia can raid with coss etc. Jans are just pretty shit anticav.

All in all, I just feel Otto have a hard time if Russia has enough cossacks, then you can hardly protect your falcs, especially on open maps. Otto tends to win this MU mostly when Russia throws away all of its army underneath the otto TC or just makes a lot of infantry and gets rekt by 2 falcs. Maybe otto also wins if they mass falc/jan, but if Russia scouts it they can prolly adapt/age etc. Also, that's not the classic "otto FF" that people talk about (2 falc mams).

As Russia you just cannot deal with the falcs, that's the big issue.
If you kill the falcs easily, then you have a better eco and since strels>>Jans, you just need enough musks to kill the mams and your vill count is irrelevant.

I guess that's the reason why it looks close but it isn't if the Otto protects his falcs.

I disagree. I think russia does just fine doing something like 5 coss semi FF base and then camp there, taking falcs down with own falcs. Just camping base and waiting to outscale.

However, in this case botto can also do revolution which is completely another story.

AWWW you Diarouga, you are the best!

I like how somali pulls off revolution, against high level too.

i deleted falcs before my critical mass that was kinda gameover

on EP it's closer

what do you think of a calmuk? (certainly if you know that the enemy does ff).

Not good with the goon nerf.

Hazza54321 wrote:i deleted falcs before my critical mass that was kinda gameover

Yeah, but when does otto push then? In this game, you already got like dozens of vills and 2 BH for free.

If otto waits longer to attack, Russia masses more. 5 more jans is nice, but that also means 5 more coss and 5 more musks or so. Plus, boyars come eventually. Also, Russia can raid.

I can see that otto might win with perfect timing and great 2 falc positioning+protection. But depending on the map Russia can even afford to lose one big fight, as long as both falcs and many jans die. We've seen that in many games of Russia vs Spain: Spain wins many fights, but Russia just runs around the map with 2x the eco and wins eventually.

All in all I just feel the MU is closer than it is made out to be. Mass inf only obviously loses vs jan/2 falc, but I feel cossacks are hard to counter for the standard otto FF.

The mams are kind of a trump card vs ruskets, which is kind of where the myth comes from imo. Cossacks do pretty well vs mams too which is often forgotten, this is honestly a matchup where i might consider manchu the better merc shipment

I shoulda killed bhs then went back for mams, seems obvious now but i didnt want him to age/mass too much but tbh the mam falc jan combo should be unbeatable. Kaiser did a very good job of making the right unit at the right time and using it effectively.
Strel rushed to idle out of range of tower.
Followed up by musks to siege tp and to fend off age up huss. Then coss to surround falcs before jan mass got too big, then mass rusket for the spahi/ mam timing. So despite being very sloppy with vills and eco he played it much better militarily.

Astaroth wrote:Just watched Kaiser vs Hazza in the ESOC winter championship, Russia vs Otto. And it made me think: why do people claim that Otto FF wins this MU so easily? I'm not saying Russia is definitely better or anything. But it does seem fairly close, maybe even Russia favored, depending on the map.

In the game, Kaiser's Russia won vs Hazza's otto. Sure, the gameplay wasn't perfect from either player, but Kaiser lost like a gazillion vills and arguably played worse (for his standards) than Hazza (no offense). Hazza just did all the standard otto FF stuff: send 2 falcs, gold, mams etc.

Sure he didn't protect his 2 falcs perfectly, but how can you do that with <20 jans vs 13+ cossacks? Ofc Otto can wait a bit and mass more jans, but then the eco difference becomes even bigger, Russia can raid with coss etc. Jans are just pretty shit anticav.

All in all, I just feel Otto have a hard time if Russia has enough cossacks, then you can hardly protect your falcs, especially on open maps. Otto tends to win this MU mostly when Russia throws away all of its army underneath the otto TC or just makes a lot of infantry and gets rekt by 2 falcs. Maybe otto also wins if they mass falc/jan, but if Russia scouts it they can prolly adapt/age etc. Also, that's not the classic "otto FF" that people talk about (2 falc mams).

I only lost a few vils early on. I lost a ton of vils at the end when it didn't matter anyway cause I had already won.

Hazza pushed without enough jans to cover his falcs, that's about it really. Like other low eco, timing focused civs, otto can't afford to waste their army, miss their window etc. Unless you take a really great trade, if you lose your falcs you lose the game, especially vs a civ like russia that will outscale. The point is russia shouldn't be able to kill the falcs without basically deleting its army.

Ofc you protect your falcs easily with vet jans vs cossacks. You just need the minimum amount of jans to actually cover the falcs. If you have 15 jans and can't even protect every angle, obviously your falcs will get picked up easily. Add 10 jans to Hazza's army, and 10 coss (which is way more than 10 jans) to mine, and in fact you realize I'm just not gonna be able to reach the falcs, and gonna end up deleting my shit. Oh and also he lost most of his age up huss while raiding me, so that's also less shit to cover the falcs.

Otto ff just wins it

I believe this idea comes with the memory of RE otto where jan has more hp, 1k gold for 5 mame, and low resource map

why are we debating this? pls just look botto guide, it says push carefully with falcs and mams, so copy paste that and win 100%

Kaiserklein wrote:

Astaroth wrote:Just watched Kaiser vs Hazza in the ESOC winter championship, Russia vs Otto. And it made me think: why do people claim that Otto FF wins this MU so easily? I'm not saying Russia is definitely better or anything. But it does seem fairly close, maybe even Russia favored, depending on the map.

In the game, Kaiser's Russia won vs Hazza's otto. Sure, the gameplay wasn't perfect from either player, but Kaiser lost like a gazillion vills and arguably played worse (for his standards) than Hazza (no offense). Hazza just did all the standard otto FF stuff: send 2 falcs, gold, mams etc.

Sure he didn't protect his 2 falcs perfectly, but how can you do that with <20 jans vs 13+ cossacks? Ofc Otto can wait a bit and mass more jans, but then the eco difference becomes even bigger, Russia can raid with coss etc. Jans are just pretty shit anticav.

All in all, I just feel Otto have a hard time if Russia has enough cossacks, then you can hardly protect your falcs, especially on open maps. Otto tends to win this MU mostly when Russia throws away all of its army underneath the otto TC or just makes a lot of infantry and gets rekt by 2 falcs. Maybe otto also wins if they mass falc/jan, but if Russia scouts it they can prolly adapt/age etc. Also, that's not the classic "otto FF" that people talk about (2 falc mams).

I only lost a few vils early on. I lost a ton of vils at the end when it didn't matter anyway cause I had already won.

Hazza pushed without enough jans to cover his falcs, that's about it really. Like other low eco, timing focused civs, otto can't afford to waste their army, miss their window etc. Unless you take a really great trade, if you lose your falcs you lose the game, especially vs a civ like russia that will outscale. The point is russia shouldn't be able to kill the falcs without basically deleting its army.

Ofc you protect your falcs easily with vet jans vs cossacks. You just need the minimum amount of jans to actually cover the falcs. If you have 15 jans and can't even protect every angle, obviously your falcs will get picked up easily. Add 10 jans to Hazza's army, and 10 coss (which is way more than 10 jans) to mine, and in fact you realize I'm just not gonna be able to reach the falcs, and gonna end up deleting my shit. Oh and also he lost most of his age up huss while raiding me, so that's also less shit to cover the falcs.

Otto ff just wins it

15 jans are not enough to cover the falcs only because of their stupid rectangular formation. I wonder if the square formation could be any good, since 15 jans should be able to completely surround the falcs for example. Either this, or putting small groups of jans in stand ground mode or something and placing them manually around the falcs.

Despite what has been said, I do feel that Russia is still underrated by some. Everyone always says that civs like Germany or Otto or even China and Spain are free wins against Russia - yet in recent tournaments on tp maps, many top players have lost these MUs.

I would really love to see a good Russia vs Otto highlevel showmatch or games some day... Talking about pr 35 +, I don't doubt that intermediate or advanced level Russia players lose to the classic bwinner otto FF.

China and Spain don't really win (or not easily) against Russia.
Germany is favoured but it's not easy on no TP starts. Winning as Otto is fairly easy however.

[Armag] diarouga wrote:China and Spain don't really win (or not easily) against Russia.
Germany is favoured but it's not easy on no TP starts. Winning as Otto is fairly easy however.

Especialy with the new spahi.