I've been reading Women in Russian History from the Tenth Century to the Twentieth, by Natalia Pushkereva out of boredom. Russian history is particularly fascinating at the moment because of a certain fictional show about Catherine the Great.
The book points out that when her husband Vasilii passed away, he didn't give full power to his wife. In fact, he prioritized the Boyars. However, she was able to sidestep them and steal the power for themselves, or more clearly according to the book:
"She arranged matters so that the members of the boyar council had to refer all questions and requests to her."
I guess I want to know this minor detail if possible. How was she able to circumvent the influential Boyars and wrap them around her fingers? What was the make-up of a Boyar council at the time? What positions did they hold?
Is there a handy guide or source that can expand more on this detail?
One of the upcoming balance changes is a buff to the Slavic unique unit, giving another +2 base melee armour, meaning a fully-upgraded Elite Boyar will have the following stats:
HP: 150
Attack: 18
Armour: 11/7
Compared to a generic FU Paladin, this is the same attack and pierce armour, 30 less HP, and 6 more melee armour. Boyars cost +5 gold and -10 food compared to Knight-line. The reload time is the same.
So 1v1 against a generic Paladin, the Boyar is doing 13 damage per hit, while the Paladin does just 7. Boyar kills Paladin in 14 hits, with 52 HP remaining.
Against a Frank Paladin, the Boyar needs 15 hits, winning with 45 HP remaining.
Against a Teuton Paladin, the Boyar needs 16 hits, winning with 38 HP remaining.
Against a Lithuanian Paladin with 4 relics, both the Boyar and the Paladin kill each other with 14 hits, so whoever attacks first wins.
Against a Leitis with 4 relics...uh, nevermind.
Obviously the Boyar is slower and has less HP, so deals with Arbalesters less well than even generic Paladins (but still better than Cavaliers by a long shot).
The Elite Boyar tanks one more hit from FU Heavy Camels than (generic) Paladins, the same number of Halberdier hits, takes 1 damage from FU Hussars (vs. 6 for Paladins) and (edit: I made a mistake here, now fixed) 6 damage from FU Champions (vs. 12 for Paladins).
In short, Elite Boyars cost similar to Paladins and are way better in melee, and still a lot better than Cavalier against ranged units. No shit.
However, there is another crucial difference which I think could make Elite Boyars a really insane unit. The upgrades from Knight to Paladin cost 1600F/1050G and take a total of 270 in-game seconds to research. The upgrade to Elite Boyar costs 1000F/600G and takes 60 in-game seconds. The early-Imp powerspike potential is ridiculous, with Slavs being able to produce a unit which is stronger than Frank/Teuton/Lithuanian Paladins just 60 seconds after reaching Imp, all powered by insane Farming eco. Since 2-Castle Boyars produce at the same speed as 4-Stable Knights, getting sufficient production isn't even too hard as compared to cheaper units which you can afford to spam from 6+ buildings even in early Imp.
Once this balance change comes out, Slavs might be pretty scary, especially to Cavalry civs. Alternatively, if you keep getting wrecked by Burgundian fast-Paladin, I've got just the civ for you.
I've seen a few comments lately about confusion over The Boyar Hermine, and wanted to make a post to clear it up.
A "Boyar" was an aristocrat of highest rank in feudal Russia (and other countries). The Boyar Hermine, if I recall correctly, was the highest rank member of her kingdom to come to the settlement, which is why she was granted a place on the council.[Edit: actually she wasn't on the council, just important to the community in other ways]
I've seen a few people express confusion about "the" in her title--why not just "Boyar Hermine," like we might say "Princess Diana." The reason, I believe, is this is a title, not a name. Just as we say "The Queen of England" and "Queen Elizabeth" to refer to the same person, "The Boyar Hermine" is a formal title used to mean "The Boyar of Hermine." From what I can tell "The Boyar (blank)" is a reasonably standard convention for using the title Boyar.
Anyway, if you've been confused I hope you enjoyed learning about this word! I personally really like Griffin's choice of using a less conventional title.
(Unless pop capped the following applies:) In castle age, if we factor the tt of Obuchs (12s) v Teutonic Knights(9s), we get 4:3 Obuchs : TK. Obuchs win that fight.
In imperial if we factor the same tt, ETK win. But food, is overly abundant, and it is more likely that the Pole can get more castles up (since it's not a drain on their eco) so if we cost Obuchs as half the price of Elite Teutonic Knights (20g vs 40g) and assume they can produce more from the ability to build more castles, as well as the ability to reinforce fights faster due to move speed, Obuchs win that fight.
Obuchs beat THE best melee infantry in the game, cost effectively, while being marginally weaker vs archers (5hp, same PA) and cheaper to tech into by 400f.
Elite Obuchs(9s) beat Elite Boyars(15s) just on tt, nevermind cost effectively.. And castle age, Obuchs win even easier. And never mind adding pikes. And are vastly cheaper to tech into (cheaper BS, cheaper UT, dont need Blood lines)
I wanted to run these tests because ive seen people say TK and Boyars are the hard counter to Obuchs, imo Boyars(unless pop capped) are not due to bottlenecking and high cost, and ETK are only a counter if you ensure you spam enough of them(which i dont think is that feasible due to poles having the vastly superior stone to gold eco).. If anything Slav and Teuton Champs perform much better considering both cost and tt
I may well have missed it as I donβt always pay attention!
I'm having some trouble understanding the relationship of the princely class "Boyars" to Ivan the Terrible and his government during the 16th century.
It seemed during Ivan's youth, the princely-class Boyars would often torment Ivan and rule the government, with enough sway within his government to get away with it. At the same time, an infamous event in history occurred in that of when the then 13 year old Ivan ordered the death of Andrey Shuysky with little to no recorded repercussions for it.
I'm sure the Boyars had the power and political sway they held through the use of private armies and wealth. Was it that no Boyar family had enough power to overthrow the other during Ivan's youth, so they kept him around as a figurehead-like buffer between eachother?
Who then advocated for Ivan during his youth to get him out of this role? With both of his parental figures dying so early in his life, and the Boyars actively limiting access to those friendly to Ivan, how did Ivan ever become powerful enough to act against them?
I tried hundreds of halberdier spam but they do barely any damage to the boyars and die to the boyers in 3 shots, they're highly resistant to castles, skirms. I haven't tried knights yet. These boyars just melt through my whole base and meat rush armies and no matter how many things I throw at them it seems likely barely any of them are dying.
Recently I've found myself doing a playthrough of Russia in Medieval 2. I love the wide variety of cavalry archers they can field, but I was finding that the lack of decent heavy infantry, especially in the early-game, made siege battles kind of a slog. That was, however, until I discovered an interesting use for the Boyar Sons. I had some woodsmen coming out of a siege tower fighting a unit of spearmen. Thinking there wouldn't be too much use for their javelins in a siege battle, I parked a unit of Boyar Sons outside the walls to do what little they could as a ranged unit in an offensive siege. I left to pay attention to another side of the battle for a minute and suddenly came back to find that the Boyar Sons had absolutely slaughtered them. Taking a closer look I noticed that they were throwing their armor-piercing javelins at a height where the tight fighting of the wall made it so that practically every javelin hit an enemy and the result was slaughter. Further battles have shown this to be reliable and extremely effective. I've found single units of woodsmen, supported by Boyar Sons behind the wall, were able to hold off multiple units of Dismounted Feudal Knights (thanks armor piercing!). I have yet to try out this with other javelin-throwing units, but this has turned Boyar Sons into a must-have unit in any siege I fight.
Done on Very Hard difficulty, using the Custom Campaign Mod 2
