playing german barbarians

[Jeruzalem]

what is better to built, round shield swordsmen or bloodsworn, for the standard tactic? i noticed that the round shield swordman wasnt performing that good, but i know they arnt romans so maybe thats standard on how they performed. so are the bloodsworn any better?

[Shadow of the SPQR]

I would prefer using bloodsworn+, round shield are only good very early game.

[Jeruzalem]

i think im doing something very wrong. doesnt matter if i have swordsmen or bloodsworn, they seem to perform equally bad. unless im doing something totally wrong, i always try to outflank the enemy, but that hardly seems to do the trick, i keep losing tons of swordsmen/bloodsworn. i miss the romans, they seem to have the only good soldiers :( i simply cant work with these barbarian troops.

[kinkerbel]

Originally posted by 3rc Jeruzalem:

i think im doing something very wrong. doesnt matter if i have swordsmen or bloodsworn, they seem to perform equally bad. unless im doing something totally wrong, i always try to outflank the enemy, but that hardly seems to do the trick, i keep losing tons of swordsmen/bloodsworn. i miss the romans, they seem to have the only good soldiers :( i simply cant work with these barbarian troops.

Barbarians actually worked pretty well for me. Generally you want a front line of heavy tanks (their attack value doesnt matter, you just want max armor and max melee defence). On the side, but behind your troops you want Germanic youths. And behind your tank troops you want your reserve troops which should be stuff like swordsman and bloodsworn.


Tactic:
1. Bait enemy into your wall of tanks.
2. Once they are well engaged flank with your germanic youths(either by attacking them from the side or back)
3. Enemy will start aggroing your Germanic youth> pull them back > Flank the chasers with your swordsman+Bloodsworn.
4. repeat 2
5. repeat 3.
etc.


Why does this tactic work so well:

+ Germanic youth might have low damage and low range, but their armor penetration is really high. Flanking or attacking your enemy in the back gets you a huge damage bonus, which will completely rip trough enemy troops. Also i found their attack triggers instantly making them great for kiting enemies.(compared to slingers) I strongly prefer them over germanic slingers eventhough stat wise you might think it would be different.

+ Your tanks are just there to hold the line, German tank troops have pretty awfull damage, but with this tactic that doesnt matter.

+ Swordsman for germanic tribes have pretty awfull armor stats , but pretty decent attack stats. By not exposing them to the front line they will perform a lot better.


Difference with romans:

Roman troops kinda get it all. Most of their troops have high armor and melee defence stats, even offensive troops like swordsman. To me playing the romans is the most boring faction . It really doesnt matter where you put your troops with the romans, except for maybe slinger, most of their troops can perform pretty much every role and will pretty much beat every other civilization in a 1v1 engagement. Germanics challenge you to think about your tactics.

[Jeruzalem]

true, as romans you win every battle against barbarians by default. the only real problem were the macedonians with pikes. germans are good at fighting other german tribes, but you have trouble defeating anything else. i will try your tactic and see how it goes.

also another question, im going through the units that the germans have. for the 'tank' units, the wodanaz spears seem to be the best, but at the same time, these also seem to be the best early attack units. could you advice this? because of the romans, i always came to believe that swords were best to attack with, but until i get sword masters, it seems that the best i got are spears.