What to do with Germany from 1890 to 1900?

[Ksanto]

Against whom do I fight with Germany "very small / I am a noob" in 1890+?
Russia, France and GB are too powerful and Austria-Hungary, USA and Japan are far away ...
Is Spain my enemy?
I have 1 pre dreadnought with 14 speed, shortrange and cramped accomodation, lol xD

[Silamon]

France and Russia are going to be your typical opponents early on. You could try against Italy too if you get a possession in the Mediterranean.

Basically you should be trying to avoid war if you can help it in 1890. On my first campaign as Germany on rtw3 I had the "assassinated leader" event on literally turn one that is almost gaurenteed war so... We fought very defensively and ultimately lost the war anyway but not badly.

By 1897 or so we got in another war and this one went better as by that point Germany gets more resources and has had time to build a better fleet.

[SirChaos77]

As Germany in 1890, your best bet (your only bet really) is to try and delay war for as long as possible, while frantically building up your fleet, especially your battleships.

[Andrew Cree]

In many ways, consider an 1890 start to be a 'enhanced fleet designer' for a 1900 start.

So as the others say, try to avoid any choices that raise tensions - but also watch your prestige.

[MAD-3R_Marauder]

As others have said, avoid war at all cost for the first couple of years.
Personally, I go like this:
Design a 12k ton CA, 21 knots, 6 x 8", 24 4", 8 or 10 3"
Your 8" guns are the largest quality -1 guns, your 4" guns are your largest quality 0 guns and your 3" guns are quality +1.
In the early game, armor is quite superior to gun-power, but the auto-generated ships of 1890 most often lack extended belt/deck and upper belt, so a "hail of shells" approach works surprisingly well.
Also, switch to almost exclusively HE ammo (Doctrine screen)

A few years later (dock-size around 15k tons), I build a B with similar armament and speed (yes, I go for 21 knots but often have to settle for 20)

Once you have a few of these you can risk a war with France.
Put your original CA, especially the slow, 18 knot ones, on TP and have the few _good_ CA fight every battle you can.

Oh, almost forgot, I scrap every CL that can't make 21 knots and put the remaining ones on TP as well.

[Ksanto]

Thx a lot for the answers and help :)

[John the Gamer]

I was lucky once and managed to get a 12 year naval treaty starting in 1891-92 or so. I got a really small displacement allotment out of it (something like 140.000t), but at least all other nations were now limited to 12.000t ships with 8" guns.

Suckers had to scrap their entire navy. I spend the next 8 years or so building 10 really nice CA's and a bunch of corvettes.