Strategy: Make Them Sich of You

Early in the game, the Hetmans will like lean towards a wide game, but not by nature a warmongering one. In fact, escaping notice is preferred, since your best unit is a late game combat unit. Sticking to burning City States on weekends should be the best course. If you lose a city or two to early game warmongers, grin and bear it. You'll be the one laughing in the end. Of course, seeking out Horse resources is crucial, since your UU relies on them. Funnily enough, getting the Pyramids might not be a bad idea. Late game, most of the land you conquer will be burnt to hell by your own men, so getting it back in shape will need to happen quickly.Mid-game gets a bit more interesting. With the prospect of upcoming war, you should begin tooling up for the day when you figure out how to make horses fight other horses better. AN opportunistic war or two might be good, since you can get a Hetman or two out of it. By this point, you should own plenty of land, due in part to your expansion and the rest to citadel spams. Due to the amount of free citadels, you won't have much to fear in terms of an enemy attack so long as you keep vigilant. The Hetmanate is like a tank. Slow to start, but defensible.Late game is where things start getting fun. Your opponents will be left to wonder what happened as you retake your lost cities and burn swathes of the countryside in search of your national unity. Your Cossacks will ruin all their tile improvements, making war something they have to win in a timely fashion before all their cities start starving, or just stop working. Once you get Lightning Warfare, nothing will stop you from destroying the entirety of the enemies homelands. Soon, the world will be burning blaze, and you'll be the only one left to rule it.