Tips and Tricks? Playing Germany

[Trefold]

So I'm fairly new to civ. I haven't played any of the other games in the series, but did play alpha centuri. I've had the game for awhile but have only been playing multiplayer with friends. I win most of the multiplayer games we play, but we openly admit we're all noobs to the game X-D

So recently I decided to sit down and start cracking on single player, start getting the achievements and all that fun stuff. Started doing the win as X civ one's, lining them up with the map types I needed achievements for and such. Was doing fine, won my first three playthroughs, 2 dominations 1 cultural. Then I got to germany....... Not sure if I'm having trouble because I suck at germany, or because I'm playing on king when I'm use to prince. But the first attempt was King, lrage map, Arciopolo type...... was a complete failure. ditched the map type and tried pangea, tried that 3 times and horribly lost them all, then set up earth and well..... The game's still going on, it's going better but I'm 340 turns in and only working on my second capital, feel like I'm running out of time and moving too slow.

I read some germany guides before attempting this and during my earlier playthroughs did what they advised, went through honor first to get the added benefits against barbarians. But it went horrid. I expand too slow and just fell behind every other civ. The moment I get into the first conflict with another civ they obliterate me. So in my current game I did my usual thing for domination victories, I went liberty for the quick early game expansion. I did better, but still seem slow.

Anyone have any pointers?

[zxcvbob]

Try Honor just for the opener, then switch to Liberty or Tradition. Select "Raging Barbarians" :-) Clean up the camps around your city and you'll get free units for the effort. Then keep the area clean by using some of those units as sentries. The barbs will keep the other civs too busy to bother with you.

I haven't tried this, but the one time I played Germany and ran the Honor policy tree (and not raging B's), I ended up with so many units I had to get rid of some of them. That was in Civ Vanilla, it might be different now in BNW.

[daniel]

King? I've probably been playing the game longer than you, and I play on prince! (King being harder than prince) If you're on your 4th or 5th game, play on the 2nd easiest difficulty. This is just for purposes of learning, because If you've just started, unless you're really hardcore, you should be getting bonuses, not the AI, so play on any difficulty below prince.

[Matthew]

Honor just isn't a good starting policy. It can work but it is like playing the game on a higher difficulty. Play Germany like you'd play any other Civ, but instead of spending hammers or gold on military, convert a few camps instead.

I prefer to play a wider game with Liberty with them. Even crappier converts, like brutes, are still useful for scouts and keeping your wider borders protected from barbarians. Meanwhile you are pumping out settlers and beefing up infrastructure in ~6-8 cities.

It may be tempting to try and dominate right away with converted barbs, but not really that useful. Just use them as protection for your wider empire. Then when you hit a key tech, like crossbows or artillery, convert everything over to war-machine mode and start churning out military units from all your cities every few turns.

For BNW the same idea still applies. You just get the juicy Hanse to supplement. It is also important to focus on culture for the first half of the game so when you do convert over to war-machine mode, you have the policies and ideology protection to support domination.

[RedRaccoonDog]

Is it just me when you select a barbarian-bonus-heavy civ like Germany or Aztecs you get raging barbarians anyway? I always leave it off but i just played as these two civs and was swarmed with barbarians left and right the whole game.

[daniel]

That happens occasasionally. Once I got no barbarians and in another game I couldn't keep a worker alive without it get assassinated.

[RedRaccoonDog]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=225146636

I had to wait to till i had tanks to be able to send an expeditionary force into the cold barbarian controlled north. It was insane. Just so you know, my tank didnt make it out of there.

[daniel]

Originally posted by RedRaccoonDog:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=225146636

I had to wait to till i had tanks to be able to send an expeditionary force into the cold barbarian controlled north. It was insane. Just so you know, my tank didnt make it out of there.

That's not a tank, it's a landship.

[NanoWire]

If you're playing Germany, try to don't start a war or you will automatically loose. Na, just kidding. Try to make profit out of the fact, that your land units costs 25% less maintenance. By builing tons of Panzers for example.

[MuckingAbout]

My gameplay with Germany usually revolves around maximizing my production mid- to late-game using the amazing Hanse building (replaces Bank). Getting Colossus and/or Petra is a huge boon for germany in the long run (extra trade route each). Keep your trade routes safe and consider planting down Great Engineers early on for even more production.

The barbarian thing is nice to get a few free units, but if you don't play with Raging Barbarians on, I'd usually forgoe the Honor opener in favor of Tradition or Liberty. If you have a large hinterland where barb camp can frolic and spawn plentifully the UA is great, but with the rebalanced Germany it is not really necessary to gimp yourself by early warmongering.

Germany can support any playstyle you like, basically. Any Ideology can work out for you, though the Tier 3 Freedom tenet "Treaty Organization" (4 influence/turn with CS you have a trade route with) synergizes extremely well with the Hanse.

[mergele]

With germany I suggest you go for domination victory. Go for expansion and once you got the Landsknecht spawm them infinitly and go at war with the biggest thread you can reach. Mass production of Landsknechts will give you the edge to conquer him (or her) and then snowball the rest of the game. At least that is what I usually do.

[Ghostlight]

Originally posted by Legend of Doge!:

King? I've probably been playing the game longer than you, and I play on prince! (King being harder than prince) If you're on your 4th or 5th game, play on the 2nd easiest difficulty. This is just for purposes of learning, because If you've just started, unless you're really hardcore, you should be getting bonuses, not the AI, so play on any difficulty below prince.

Just look out for the bad habits you will pick up playing on those low difficulties. I regret not starting at Prince.

[Tibbles]

Originally posted by Trefold:

Snip snip

OK, basically, you will have to do what Germany's AI would do. Friend the civs you meet, then randomly demote them after around 20-30 turns. Repeat. And if you lose, well what can I tell you? I have never finished any of the games I've started. What did you expect?

[Trefold]

Originally posted by zxcvbob:

Try Honor just for the opener, then switch to Liberty or Tradition. Select "Raging Barbarians" :-) Clean up the camps around your city and you'll get free units for the effort. Then keep the area clean by using some of those units as sentries. The barbs will keep the other civs too busy to bother with you.

I haven't tried this, but the one time I played Germany and ran the Honor policy tree (and not raging B's), I ended up with so many units I had to get rid of some of them. That was in Civ Vanilla, it might be different now in BNW.

That's what I was doing, taking the first level of honor and then doing liberty for the free settler and worker. However by time I was settling my second city my neighbors were settling their third/fourth. Do most people build their own settlers? I normally never waste production (and food since your city stops growing while making settlers), my first settler and worker usually come from the liberty tree, from there I buy a settler every 500 gold I get until I have no room to expand, then normally leave my millitary handle expansion. Is this a good strategy? Or should I focus on producing my own settlers?

also good idea about raging barbarians, that never occured to me

[Trefold]

Originally posted by Legend of Doge!:

King? I've probably been playing the game longer than you, and I play on prince! (King being harder than prince) If you're on your 4th or 5th game, play on the 2nd easiest difficulty. This is just for purposes of learning, because If you've just started, unless you're really hardcore, you should be getting bonuses, not the AI, so play on any difficulty below prince.

eh? this is my 5th game as germany, not my 5th game total. I normally play on prince and win effortlessly, which is why I stepped it up to king.

[Trefold]

Originally posted by mergele:

With germany I suggest you go for domination victory. Go for expansion and once you got the Landsknecht spawm them infinitly and go at war with the biggest thread you can reach. Mass production of Landsknechts will give you the edge to conquer him (or her) and then snowball the rest of the game. At least that is what I usually do.

Is this for BNW? I honestly have never used landsknechts. What do they do?