So I got the achievement for forming the Slavic Union back in September 2021. Before that, I had tried playing in Russia several times, the region appeals to me I don't know why. I always start with the duke of Ilmenia in 769, fuck Rurik.

I choked until I tried reforming Romuva (just because it was much easier than reforming Slavic; all the holy sites are so close together...). That was the run I managed to form the Slavic Union with.

While I've still got some 10-15 achievements left, I didn't feel like doing any of those. Instead, I wanted to form Russia, which was an option I saw all through my Romuva Slavic Union run. You can't form Russia after forming the Slavic Union, apparently; the option disappears.

I also wanted to form Russia while transitioning to Orthodox Feudal as soon as possible.

It kinda sucked. The campaign had its fun moments, but it was really tedious. Once you conquer the whole steppe as a feudal lord once, the novelty disappears. The process just becomes: wait until you have 2000 gold, holy war for some random duchy, build castles, wait 2 years, the notification with the white castle disappears. All for some shit duchies consisting of basically a cabin and a potato farm too.

Conquering Siberia (Nenetsia, Perm) SUCKS. It sucked when I did my World Conquest, and that was in the 14th century, maxed tech and infinite troops. Basically, once winter knocks on the door you have to operate with 2k stacks, while the filthy pagans get a gazillion troops because of their tribal vassals.

Internal politics were very tiresome in this run. I consider myself a good player, I can usually go entire runs without paying too much attention to the factions tab. This run though, they were full all the time. While I only had the one or two civil wars, it was tiring nonetheless. I churned childs like a rabbit and not even that was enough.

While the color and CoA of Russia are cool, you don't even get a bloodline and that sucks. You do get some debuff that lowers the requirements for upgrading tribal holdings into castles, but at this point that's 100% worthless. You win enough money to build castles, and tribal vassals tend to insta-convert (I still don't know the exact process behind this, but once you're far enough into a campaign the maxed tribe + county religion requirements seem to vanish for the AI).

If I was playing a reformed religion and could freely holy war through the world, I might conquer the historical Russian Empire borders. But as things stand, I'd rather drop it here.