Missions and Decisions...
The Russian missions are still mostly geared towards expanding and forming a Russia with historical borders, and we have kept the Russian decisions from EU3, including the possibility to form Russia itself if it doesn't exist and you are a strong nation with Russian culture controlling the important cities in the region.
Russian National Ideas.
The Russian idea set is common to all countries that have Russian as their primary culture, as our major goal is to get one united Russia – the state that forms it is not as important. We are still debating whether Novgorod should be unique or not; it is a major player in the Russian theater, but also has many attributes that distinguish it from principalities like Muscovy and Kiev.
The Russians start with two traditions that should feel rather natural to anyone who played them in the previous versions of the game. They get 25% extra manpower and 20% cheaper infantry.
The 7 National Ideas for Russia are:
Subednik: 10% more tax income.
The Streltsy: 50% higher land force limit.
Opprichina: 30% cheaper infantry, and 10% faster manpower recovery.
Abolishment of Mestnichestvo: 10% more production efficiency.
Siberian Frontier: +1 colonist, and auto-exploration of all territory adjacent to owned home territory.
Table of Ranks: +1% army tradition/year.
Curriculum of the Cadet Corps: 10% cheaper technology.
The reward for gaining all seven is +100% on manpower.
With these ideas, a Russian nation will be a country relying on a large number of infantry, and can easily afford them. The Siberian Frontier Idea allows them to colonise towards Siberia without being forced to take the exploration ideas that drive expansion for other potential colonial powers.
Bonus details: Army & Navy Tradition changes.
As a little bonus today, I'm going to talk about the changes we did to the army and navy traditions for EU4. First of all, recruiting a leader does not reduce the military tradition, as you usually can only afford a few leaders at a time. You use Military Power accrued by the monarch and his advisors to hire them instead. It is also slightly harder to maintain a high tradition, especially in peace time
Secondly, military tradition now also gives a bonus depending on its strength. Army tradition gives you higher morale and quicker manpower recovery, and naval tradition gives you higher morale and better trade steering.
Thirdly, you can now also increase naval tradition by having trading missions going with your fleets (scaled by your naval force limits) so that if your entire fleet is out doing trade missions, you get an extra +1% naval tradition per year.
Finally, tradition is now changed each month instead of just at the end of the year.
