Check out ultimitsu's russian FF strat. I might post my own one soon as I've been having a lot of success with it (beating players ranked 6-10 power rating above me regularly)
I would recommend doing an FF over a rush any day. People are all too eager to simply assume a russian will rush you so doing an FF often catches them off guard. The basic principle behing the russian FF is 20 vil discovery, age up with 500 food and mine 1000 gold using 13 vils during advance. Once you collect the food you should be good to advance. This lets you get to fort at ~7:40 with 3 shipments spare.
It's true that 400 wood is generally better than 500 food but not when speed is concerned. The 500 food is essential for a competetive fort time.
Once you're in fort there are several things you can do. Just now I generally send UC in age2 then 1000 wood and 2 falcs in age 3 aging up with 17 strelets. Build a church and send for kalmucks. I often get another shipment by the time they come and you can send for anything you like. So by around 9:30 you can have an army that looks something like this:
17 strelets + 9 kalmucks + 2 falconets + 6 oprichniks (for raiding during your attack)
As you can imagine, it's pretty powerful and if you get to this point then it's often game over for your opponent.
- - ESO Name: poita - -
- - ELO Rating: 2120 - -
- - Civ: Russia + Dutch - -
My Aztec Unit Guide (Updated!)