Zigzagzigal's Guides - Germany (R&F)

Germany is amazing for those who like to emphasise city development above all else, and can take that strength to space or into war. Here, I detail German strategies and counter-strategies.

Legacy Guide

If you have the Gathering Storm expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Gathering Storm expansion.

Introduction

Note: This guide requires the Rise and Fall expansion.

Content from DLC packs (Poland, Vikings, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia) is marked as such.

The legacy of the Holy Roman Empire left our new nation with an array of former city-states and ex-capital cities, providing Germany with a decentralised structure. With no one city being dominant, we can allow for them all to be productive and well-developed. Germany's productivity shall be the envy of the world, and soon the world shall attempt to curtail our growing influence. Thankfully, the development of the Unterseeboot provides us with a powerful means of intercepting forces by the sea while our strong production can keep us secure on the land. From there, nothing seems impossible - even the prospect of exploring worlds beyond our own.

How to use this guide

This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is (assuming they have one at all).
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) are inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but rather a general indicator of the most appropriate route to victory.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, government buildings, policy cards, age bonuses, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ's uniques are mentioned - these should be given more consideration than they would be for other civs but are not necessarily the "best" choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
  
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, culture, gold, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

• Online: Divide by 2
  
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
  
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
  
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Glossary

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) - Describes bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories and Stadiums (which by default offer production and happiness respectively to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they're within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining - The strategy of obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that deviation (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost.

CA (Civ Ability) - The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders. Unlike unique units, buildings, districts and improvements, civ abilites do not have to be built.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together. This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, maximise the number of copies of the same district in the same area, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out. This is useful if you want to ensure cities have plenty of room for both districts and tile improvements. Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

GWAM - Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.

LA (Leader Ability) - The unique ability of a specific leader, which like civ abilities do not have to be built. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit on top of the standard one every civ has.

Prebuilding - Training a unit with the intention of upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is unlocked.

Start bias - The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.

Complete information on start biases within the game can be found in the Civilizations.xml file (find the Civ 6 folder in Steam's program files, then go through the Base, Assets, Gameplay and Data folders to find the file). DLC and Expansion civs have a similarly-named file in their corresponding folders. If a civilization is not listed as having a start bias there, it does not have one, even if you feel like you keep spawning in the same terrain when playing as that civ.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others, and are hence particularly unique. Examples include India's Varu and Mongolia's Keshigs.

Tall empires - Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.

Uniques - Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.

UA (Unique Ability) - A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

UB (Unique Building) - A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.

UD (Unique District) - A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district and offers some unique advantages on top. In some cases, there may be minor disadvantages as well, but these are always outweighed by the positive features. All unique districts cost half as much to construct relative to the regular districts they replace.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. Unlike unique buildings or districts, these do not replace a regular improvement. Some require a technology to unlock, and many have their yields improved with later technologies. "UI" always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to "user interface" or "unique infrastructure".

UU (Unique Unit) - A special unit that may only be built by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader. These usually replace an existing unit and offer extra advantages (and occasionally minor disadvantages as well in exchange for bigger advantages).

Wide empires - Empires that emphasise expansion over city development, usually resulting in more, but smaller, cities.

Outline

Start Bias

Germany has no start bias.

Civilization Ability: Free Imperial Cities

• The district limit in all cities is increased by 1.

Frederick Barbarossa's Leader Ability: Holy Roman Emperor

• All governments receive an extra military policy card slot.
  
• All military units have a +7 strength bonus against city-states and their units.

Unique Unit: U-Boat

A modern-era naval raider unit which replaces the Submarine

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Maintenance	Resource needed
Electricity Technology Modern era	Telecommunications * Technology Information era	Privateer (??? )	Nuclear Submarine (380 )	430 or 1720	6	None

*If you have no access to uranium, you may continue to build U-Boats even after researching Telecommunications.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
65	75	3	2	3	Unable to capture cities Does not exert zone of control	Ignores zone of control Invisible to enemy units unless adjacent to them May coastal raid, pillaging an adjacent land tile or capturing an unescorted civilian unit +10 and when fighting in ocean tiles Reveals other naval raider units within the sight radius

Negative changes

• More expensive to upgrade

Positive changes

• Costs 430 production or 1720 gold, down from 480 production or 1920 gold.
  
• Cheaper to upgrade to from a Privateer
  
• 3 sight, up from 2.
  
• +10 strength and ranged strength when fighting in ocean tiles
  
  • This is based on where the defending unit is located.

Unique District: Hansa

A medieval-era speciality district which replaces the Industrial Zone

Research	Terrain required	Required to build	Base production cost	Maintenance	Pillage yield
Apprenticeship Technology Medieval era	Any passable land tile within your territory	Workshop Factory Power Plant	27 * or 108 **	1	25

*All districts increase in production cost over the course of the game. If you have fewer copies of a district in total than the average among all players, it will be 40% cheaper to construct.

**Purchasing districts with gold requires the governor Reyna (the Financier) with the Contractor promotion to be present in the city. It always costs four times as much gold as it does production, before modifiers to purchasing costs are applied.

Adjacency bonuses	Other yields	Great Person points	Other effects
2 per adjacent Commercial Hub 1 per adjacent bonus, luxury or strategic resource, or antiquity site 1 per two adjacent districts (including Commercial Hubs)	None	1	Enables the Industrial Zone Logistics city project Domestic trade routes to this city provide +1 International trade routes to this city provide +1 Adjacent tiles suffer -1 appeal.

Negative changes

• Does not provide a production bonus from adjacent mines and quarries

Positive changes

• -50% production cost
  
• +2 production per adjacent Commercial Hub district
  
• +1 production per adjacent bonus, luxury or strategic resource, or antiquity site
  
  • This includes resources in adjacent coastal tiles

Victory Skew

In this section, the civ is subjectively graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Scores of 3 or more mean the civ has at least a minor advantage towards the victory route.

Leader	Culture	Domination	Religion	Science
Frederick Barbarossa	7/10 (Good)	8/10 (Good)	4/10 (Acceptable)	8/10 (Good)

Germany certainly isn't bad at cultural victories. Strong production helps with building wonders, while an increased district limit means you can construct plenty of Holy Sites late in the game to help set up National Parks with.

Domination works even better. Strong production means you can outpace most other civs in sheer quantities of units, while the extra military card slot allows you to make use of a bigger variety of bonuses. U-Boats can also help with late-game naval supremacy at a low cost, freeing up more production to use on land or air units.

Religion isn't really a great path for Germany; the main benefit here is the fact you can build Holy Sites and still have a high enough district capacity left for things like Campuses. High production might help you set up Temples faster, but beyond that point, strong production does fairly little for religious victories aside from the odd wonder.

Science is a reliably effective route for Germany. Building a large array of districts and being able to construct things faster make it much easier to pick up eureka boosts, as well as to build Spaceports and space project parts.

Civilization Ability: Free Imperial Cities

Three speciality districts with just a population of 5. The civ ability increases the potential of what I can do with my cities, while the Hansa district will later help with reaching that potential.

Germany's civ ability is a very simple one: you can build one more speciality district in every city. The maximum number of districts you can build in a city is tied to your population:

Population	Limit (Other civs)	Limit (Germany)
1	1	2
4	2	3
7	3	4
10	4	5
13	5	6
16	6	7
19	7	8
22	8	All
25	All	All

Note: City Centres, Aqueducts, Neighbourhoods and Spaceports do not contribute to the limit.

An extra district per city is mostly useful for new, smaller cities. At just size four, you can have a Commercial Hub, Hansa and Campus in a city; a combination that offers strong production, gold and science. As your cities don't have to be as large to get the benefit large cities of other civs have, this means you don't need to emphasis food or housing as much as other civs do. Smaller cities also are less of a drain on amenities. Nonetheless, it is still useful to have at least a couple of larger cities to handle wonder construction and eventually Spaceport construction.

When you found cities, keep them close together. Less room for farms isn't a problem when you can have powerful cities with fewer citizens, and proximity will help you make the most of Hansa districts later.

Having a bigger variety of districts in each city will boost the yields of trade routes sent to them. Campuses, Commercial Hubs, Entertainment Complexes, Holy Sites, Theatre Squares and Water Parks add 1 food each to internal trade routes to a city that contains them, while Encampments, Harbours and Industrial Zones add 1 production each. Government Plazas add both 1 food and 1 production. Considering your incentive to build a lot of Commercial Hubs to go with your Hansas, you shouldn't have trouble building lots of Markets for trade route capacity.

Increasing the district capacity is also useful for any city-states or other cities you might capture with awkward district choices. While cities lose population when you capture them, the increased district cap means you don't have to wait as long until you can build more useful districts there.

Ultimately, this ability is helpful no matter your eventual goals for the game and is particularly easy to use. It's in Germany's other uniques where the real in-depth strategies can be found.

Frederick Barbarossa's Leader Ability: Holy Roman Emperor

Who needs choice when you can take both cards?

Frederick Barbarossa's Leader Ability carries with it a pair of bonuses which are war-focused, but not necessarily just for those after a domination victory. Through careful use of the extra policy card and strength bonus against city-states, you can make a good start that will aid you no matter your eventual path.

Additional Military Policy Card Slot

Early on, having two military policy cards available instead of one allows you to use combinations such as Agoge (+50% production towards melee infantry and ranged units) and Discipline (+5 strength vs. Barbarians), which can be helpful for staying defended. Where this bonus really comes into its own, however, is once you reach the Political Philosophy civic and can start choosing between government types.

Although it might be tempting to pick Autocracy and have three military policy cards at once, there's generally not much need for that many. Instead, you can combine the combat bonuses of Oligarchy with as many military cards as other civs have for Autocracy, or have the peaceful bonuses of Classical Republic while still having a military card slot available just in case. Typically, Oligarchy will be your best choice as it complements the strength bonus against city-states.

Later in the game, the free card fades somewhat in effectiveness, but it's still nice to have your options open. You might be able to take both cards that reduce war weariness by a quarter (Propaganda and Total War) rather than one, for example. For more information on good choices of military policy cards, go to the Administration section of this guide.

Bonus Against City-States

Introduction


I'm taking you down and everyone else's science output along with it!

Germany can develop strong cities thanks to the Hansa and the civ ability, but that's not all. By capturing city-states early on, Germany can make their start even stronger while setting back any civ too invested in them. Just a few early Archers and a couple of Warriors can be enough to take out a nearby city-state, giving you a reasonably-developed city without the need to found one yourself or risk a war with a full civ. Even if you don't want to take city-states over, the bonus means their units will be much less of a problem if you're at war with their suzerain.

There are a few negative conquences from taking over city-states, but also plenty of opportunities as well. Consider all of these, and plan accordingly...

Warmonger Penalties

Declaring war on a city-state and taking it over comes with warmonger penalties in a singleplayer game, which hurts your relations with other civs. The later the era you do this, the bigger the penalties you'll suffer. As such, you may want to avoid conquering city-states beyond the medieval era if you're not aiming for a domination victory so you have time for relations to improve.

Though diplomatic penalties from warmongering are meaningless against human players in multiplayer games, you might still want to take city-states sooner rather than later to avoid them retaliating, as they won't have as large an envoy investment at that point. Alternatively, quickly capturing a city-state that a lot of civs rely on can be useful for setting them back - though beware the consequences of a city-state emergency.

If a civ with the Diplomatic Service civic is suzerain over a city-state, declaring war on it will allow the full civ to use the Protectorate casus belli against you. This notably has no warmonger penalties associated with declaring it, which means they'll suffer very little war weariness in a war against you.

Loss of Bonuses

Captured city-states no longer have envoy or suzerain bonuses unless they become liberated again. As such, you should take into consideration which city-states you attack before you do so. A city-state is a better target if:

• It is of a less useful type (typically religious city-states aren't very helpful for Germany, so are more useful captured, while industrial city-states should usually be kept alive)
  
• It's close to your existing territory
  
• You don't have envoys invested there already (you may want to hold onto envoys rather than spend them at first for this reason)
  
• Its suzerain bonus isn't particularly relevant to you

City-State Emergencies

Taking over a city-state may trigger a city-state emergency against you. This allows other civs which are not friends or allies with you, and have at least one envoy present in the city-state in question, to band together in a war against you.

If at least one other civ joins the coalition, the emergency takes effect until either they liberate the captured city (meaning the coalition wins) or 30 turns pass (meaning you win).

If the coalition wins, they'll each receive a lump sum of gold, and permanently gain 1 gold per turn for every envoy they have present in a city-state.

If you win, you'll receive +2 gold for all the trade routes you have with city-states, in addition to a lump sum of gold. As such, taking a city-state over can create quite a nice opportunity for economic development if you can hold on to it!

Conquering a Foothold

If you're after a domination victory, capturing city-states can be an easy way of providing a foothold onto new continents later in the game - assuming you can take enough loyalty bonuses to prevent it flipping out of your control (your extra military policy card slot will really help). From there, you can build up your army ready to invade civs near the city-state. The U-Boat will help you secure the seas if the war goes badly, so it will be difficult for the other civ to successfully retaliate.

Summary

• Use the extra military policy card to improve governments that have them in low number
  
• Use the bonuses against city-states to help expand your empire early on
  
• Later in the game, the bonus against city-states can help you gain a foothold on new continents - assuming you have enough loyalty boosts.

Unique District: Hansa

The Hansa is the most important of Germany's uniques, offering a huge boost to production most civs can only dream of. Even better, the district (like all unique districts) costs only half as much, so even new cities can quickly receive a good production boost.

The Research Path

As Hansas are particularly powerful, it's worthwhile to beeline towards Apprenticeship (or at least make as few detours from that technology path as possible). Considering Commercial Hubs are necessary to produce the best yields out of Hansas, it may be helpful to favour researching Currency before Horseback Riding (both technologies being prerequisites of Apprenticeship).

Here's everything needed for Commercial Hubs:

• Pottery
  
• Writing (Eureka: Meet another civ - If this doesn't happen, than that means you've got a nice relaxed early-game where you can freely expand without the risk of war. So either way it's good).
  
• Currency (Eureka: Make a trade route - You'll need the Foreign Trade civic for this; it's not too hard to get this eureka in time though.)

And here's everything else needed for Apprenticeship:

• Animal Husbandry
  
• Archery (Eureka: Kill a unit with a Slinger - Building a Slinger first is a good idea to keep Barbarians at bay anyway).
  
• Horseback Riding (Eureka: Construct a pasture - Easy enough; if your capital lacks pasture resources, your second city will usually have some)
  
• Apprenticeship (Eureka: Construct three mines - If you aren't close to achieving that already, train a Builder and send them to some hills to dig mines. Remember that you need the Mining technology for that.)

It's usually not a good idea to research in that specific order, considering you may need certain Builder technologies such as Mining or Irrigation sooner than that. A good order could be:

• Animal Husbandry/Mining/other needed Builder technologies
  
• Writing (and prerequisites)
  
• Currency
  
• Apprenticeship (and remaining prerequisites)

Picking up Writing early on means you can get Campuses up faster - the science boost will be helpful for cleaning up the rest of the technologies.

Placement

How you position your Hansas is key to making the most of them. There's three things that offer adjacency bonuses to them:

• Other Districts: +1 per two adjacent districts of any type
  
• Resources: +1 per adjacent resource
  
• Commercial Hubs: +2 per adjacent Commerical Hub, in addition to the bonus for being a district.

The last of these is the most important, and key to maximising Hansa yields. If you plan the placement of Commercial Hubs and Hansas carefully, you can produce much better yields than you might get for merely looking for resource-heavy spots. Here's an example.


Placing Commerical Hubs in a zigzagging line like this allows Hansa A and Hansa D to receive production boosts of +7, and that's before taking into account any other boosts!


That ideal isn't always possible in-game. Instead, look for combinations that maximise your Hansa adjacency while still scraping some Commerical Hub adjacency bonuses where possible.

For the best yields, it's a good idea to make sure your cities are kept close together to make district adjacency easier. Germany's increased district limit from population means you can cope with fewer farms than most civs, so keeping a compact empire is easier than it is for others. More dispersed cities can't as easily make these powerful Hansa/Commercial Hub formations. If you find yourself having to keep cities apart, then that's where paying attention to resource locations for the production adjacency bonus they offer becomes more important.

Keeping cities close together will also be useful later with Governor Magnus (the Industrialist)'s Vertical Integration promotion, which allows one city to benefit from multiple Factories and Power Plants. This will result in an extremely productive city that will be able to manage pretty much anything you want to build there.

Output

Hansas produce masses of production, but that can be increased further with the Craftsmen economic policy card at the Guilds civic, or the Five-Year Plan policy card at Class Struggle. This production can be put to good use in a variety of ways such as working towards eurekas, building an army or getting wonders constructed.

There's one little problem, however. Hansas, being Industrial Zone replacements, may be pillaged by enemy Spies even when you're not at war with any civ. Make sure you train plenty of Spies and consider using policy cards such as Cryptography (available at the atomic-era Cold War civic) to help defend against enemy Spies.

Summary

• Aside from detours for Mining and other Builder technologies, beelining Apprenticeship is worthwhile.
  
• Place your cities close together so you can produce a powerful Commercial Hub/Hansa combination.
  
• Make a zigzag of Commercial Hubs with Hansas either side of the zigzag for the best yields.
  
• Ensure you have good defence against enemy Spies to keep your Hansas safe from pillagers.

Unique Unit: U-Boat

The U-Boat is a bit of an oddity among the German uniques, but can complement both peaceful and domination-focused games. Arriving at the Electricity technology, which you need anyway for Power Plants (the last of the three buildings which can be built in Hansa districts) and is an easy technology to beeline, you can end up with a strong naval advantage for quite some time. To make that advantage even better, build some Privateers (available at the Mercantilism civic) beforehand ready for upgrading. The eureka boost for Electricity requires you to train Privateers anyway, so it all fits together rather well.

U-Boats are cheaper to build than regular Submarines, which also reduces the cost to upgrade Privateers to them. Because of their high strength in ocean tiles, you may want to keep them as individual units at first rather than forming fleets or armadas.

The best use of U-Boats is to intercept enemies who are attempting to cross the seas towards your lands. U-Boats can't move particularly quickly, but their high amount of sight and invisibility to most other units means you can make a line of them ready to intercept anything that might try and pass by. This tactic is known as creating a "sentinel net".


I can see the enemy unit, but they definitely can't see me.

The high sight of U-Boats has a few helpful applications, especially with the Observation promotion. You can spy on the coasts of other civs even without an open borders arrangement, and unlike other units that can do something similar, (such as a Carrier with some aircraft stationed on it), U-Boats are invisible unless other Submarines, Destroyers or their upgraded equivalents are nearby. That means you can reveal quite a lot of coast without the other civ becoming paranoid about you having lots of units on their border.

Another thing U-Boats are fairly good for is hit-and-run attacks. Like all naval raider units, U-Boats have the ability to carry out a coastal raid, pillaging an adjacent land tile. They also have a ranged attack that can be rather helpful against land units (use Battleships if you want to deal with city defences). If any enemy forces start looking for your units, retreat them to nearby ocean lands so you have a strength advantage.

Once Nuclear Submarines arrive, consider keeping some U-Boats around for their high amount of sight. Forming fleets or armadas out of them should be enough to keep them safe from stronger units.

Summary

• U-Boats are mostly good at intercepting enemy naval units
  
• Position U-Boats spaced out around the sea so you can tell if anything's coming
  
• You can use their high sight to spy on other civs.

Administration - Government and Policy Cards

Note that the Administration sections strictly cover the options that have particularly good synergy with the civ's uniques. These are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options you should consider more than usual if playing this civ relative to others.

Government

Tier One

Oligarchy is an effective choice if you want to dedicate time to conquering city-states early on. Taking a few Swordsmen with Siege Towers can rapidly tear down enemy city defences. Classical Republic, on the other hand, pushes for a slightly more peaceful angle. It only offers one military policy card as Germany (plus a wildcard, which can be used as one), and doesn't offer military bonuses, but that may be unecessary considering how strong a +7 boost is when fighting city-states anyway.

Any tier one Government Plaza building can be useful for Germany. The Warlord's Throne is good if you intend to do a lot of conquest - particularly as Germany's high base production makes the +20% bonus go further. Alternatively, Germany's civ ability and Hansas together allow small cities to achieve a lot more than they would for other civs - something that goes well with the Ancestral Hall building. If your expansion is likely to be constrained, or you want to build wonders, the Audience Chamber will help you build a taller empire.

Tier Two

Merchant Republic is your best choice. Faster district construction goes well with the civ ability, while you can scrape a bit more gold out of your Hansa-adjacent Commercial Hubs. Furthermore, the government offers a high number of economic policy cards which can complement having a high number of districts in each city.

Take the Intelligence Agency as your second Government Plaza building. An extra Spy will help keep your Hansas safe from being pillaged.

Tier Three

Democracy is a good fit considering its power scales to the number of districts you have, and it comes with plenty of economic policy card slots to boost them further, as well as a discount to gold purchases helping you put Commercial Hub gold to good use. Communism does result in more production, and Fascism has bonuses particularly suited to late-game warfare, but Democracy is good as a default option if you can't decide between the three.

For a scientific victory, you'll want the Royal Society. It allows you to use Builders to partially rush space project parts, saving you a few turns off your eventual victory. For a domination victory, use the War Department for its health-on-kills bonus.

Policy Cards

Ancient Era

Limitanei (Military, requires Early Empire) - City-states aren't always in convenient locations for conquest, and once you take them over, you need to have a plan to resist the loyalty pressure of other civs. This loyalty boost will help.

Classical Era

Insulae (Economic, requires Games and Recreation) - Even new German cities can build two speciality districts, and thanks to the Hansa's low cost and production bonus, that can be achieved pretty quickly. The housing bonus is important when you're keeping cities close together and lack space for farms.

Praetorium (Diplomatic, requires Recorded History) - A small loyalty boost, and helpfully gives you an early use for a diplomatic policy card slot if you've eliminated all the nearby city-states.

Medieval Era

Craftsmen (Economic, requires Guilds) - The most important policy card here (at least, until Five-Year Plan). Doubling Hansa adjacency bonuses makes an already strong production bonus into something truly spectacular.

Medina Quarter (Economic, requires Medieval Faires) - An enhanced version of Insulae. You only need a city of size four to be able to build three speciality districts as Germany, so this policy card can go further than it does for other civs.

Renaissance Era

Colonial Offices (Economic, requires Exploration) - Expanding into new continents by taking city-states? This policy card will help you secure those cities with some extra loyalty.

Liberalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - Considering how easy it is to get two districts in a city as Germany, you can essentially think of this as +1 amenity in every city.

Logistics (Military, requires Mercantilism) - Aside from being one of the few military policy cards with peacetime applications, this helps you to be able to compensate for the low movement speed of U-Boats relative to other naval units.

Machiavellianism (Diplomatic, requires Diplomatic Service) - Hansas can be pillaged by other civs even in peacetime by them using Spies. Until the modern era, the best thing you can do is ensure you can train your own Spies quickly for use in counter-espionage.

Industrial Era

Total War (Military, requires Scorched Earth) - The coastal raiding function of U-Boats can be made twice as effective with this policy card. Look out for mines, lumber mills, Campuses, Industrial Zones and Spaceports in particular; you'll get science for pillaging them.

Modern Era

Collectivisation (Economic, requires Class Struggle) - A compact empire with a lot of land covered by districts doesn't have much room for farms. This policy card helps ensure you have enough food despite that.

Five Year Plan (Economic, requires Class Struggle) - An enhanced version of Craftsmen which also affects Campus districts.

Levee en Masse (Military, requires Mobilisation) - A U-Boat sentinel net can be pretty expensive to maintain, and while having a high number of Commercial Hubs will help offset that, it's still nice to ensure less of the gold is being lost in maintenance.

Martial Law (Military, requires Totalitarianism) - Both reduces war weariness and helps keep your cities loyal.

New Deal (Economic, requires Suffrage) - Put that Commercial Hub gold to good use! Having a high number of districts per city means pretty much your entire empire can benefit. The housing bonus helps support a more compact empire with fewer farms while the amenity bonus means you don't need to worry too much about Entertainment Complexes.

Police State (Diplomatic, requires Ideology) - Makes it considerably harder for enemy Spies to pillage your Hansas, but comes at a loyalty penalty. Generally, it's best to only take this policy card when Spies are a definite threat.

Atomic Era

Cryptography (Diplomatic, requires Cold War) - Has all the advantages of Police State with none of the drawbacks, making this policy card ideal for keeping enemy Spies at bay.

(Scientific) Integrated Space Cell (Military, requires Space Race) - A production multiplier for a civ with high base production, as well as a military policy card with a non-military application. This is great for any game as Germany where you seek a scientific victory.

International Waters (Military, requires Cold War) - Helps you to produce U-Boats even faster.

Information Era

(Domination) Communications Office (Diplomatic, requires Social Media) - A Governor with all their promotions can provide +13 loyalty per turn, making it easy to hold onto any city-state you capture late in the game, ensuring you can airlift in your army and start invading new lands.

Administration - Ages

Age Bonuses

Only bonuses with notable synergy with the civ's uniques are covered here.

Monumentality (Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Need some early era score? Your higher district limit means you can get more era score out of this dedication than most other civs.

Free Inquiry (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Got a lot of Commerical Hubs for Hansa adjacency? Enjoy a lot of science on top!

Pen, Brush and Voice (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Alternatively (or additionally if you can achieve a medieval-era Heroic Age), you can take this bonus to get lots of culture out of your many districts.

Hic Sunt Dracones (Golden Age, Renaissance to Industrial eras) - It's not hard to get U-Boats well before the modern game era starts, giving you time to make good use of the movement speed bonus on offer. U-Boats are relatively slow as naval units of its time go without a boost like this one.

Heartbeat of Steam (Golden Age, Industrial to Modern eras) - Build on your production advantages even further with this Golden Age dedication.

Collectivism (Dark Age, Modern to Information eras) - So long as you don't mind losing a few Great People, this Dark Age wildcard offers a massive production bonus by boosting your Hansa adjacency.

Administration - Religion and City-States

Pantheons

City Patron Goddess - Cities can build their first district faster, which for Germany from the medieval era onwards will usually be the Hansa. Getting to a strong production boost sooner helps to fill up Germany's expanded district capacity.

Goddess of the Hunt or Goddess of Festivals - A food bonus will be important once you start filling your lands with districts leaving relatively little room for farms.

God of the Forge - Of great help if you want to conquer some city-states early on to expand your empire.

Religious Beliefs

You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief.

Stewardship (Founder) - Although a tricky belief to get a lot out of, the bonus gold for Commercial Hubs and science for Campuses fits well with Germany's high district limit and the synergy between Commercial Hubs and Hansas.

Work Ethic (Follower) - While a bit weak at first, large cities will enjoy a handy production multiplier, which goes well with Hansa production.

Zen Meditation (Follower) - Getting two speciality districts per city is very easy as Germany, so you can consider this as basically +1 amenity in every city.

City-States

The city-states listed here should generally be spared from early conquests, in addition to industrial city-states.

Mohenjo-Daro (Cultural) - Positioning cities to maximise Hansa production can be tricky, as you also need to take into account the city's housing. The suzerain bonus on offer here makes that much easier.

Muscat (Trade) - Seeing as you need Commercial Hubs to boost Hansa production, this city-state shall be particularly good at granting you amenities. Requires the Vikings Scenario Pack.

Stockholm (Scientific) - Having lots of districts could mean a lot of Great People with Stockholm's bonus.

Administration - Wonders and Great People

Wonders

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Classical era, Defensive Tactics civic) - More effective Admirals can be nice with U-Boats, but the main advantage here is the additional charge from Great Engineers. Germany's emphasis on Hansas means you'll tend to generate a lot of Great Engineers over the course of the game. Requires the Persia and Macedon Civilization Pack.

Great Zimbabwe (Renaissance era, Banking technology) - Bonus resources can help to boost the production of Hansas (like all resources), so it's worthwhile to seek a city spot with lots of them. Great Zimbabwe makes a city with a high variety of bonus resources produce a huge amount of gold from trading.

Venetian Arsenal (Renaissance era, Mass Production technology) - Double quantities of naval units means you can get twice as many U-Boats produced in your empire. That's great for setting up a sentinel net to keep the seas visible.

Ruhr Valley (Industrial era, Industrialisation technology) - A 20% production boost to a city with already high production will make it amazing for building other wonders, spaceship parts or the like.

Amundsen-Scott Research Station (Atomic era, Cold War civic) - Up to a 20% production multiplier in all circumstances, making your already-strong production output even better.

Great People

Remember that these are only the ones that have particular synergy with German uniques, not necessarily the most effective options.

Classical Era

Themistocles (Great Merchant) - Taking a coastal city-state early on? Use Themistocles' loyalty boost to help ensure you can actually hold onto it.

Medieval Era

Æthelflæd (Great General) - Provides extra loyalty to help you secure a city-state you may have captured.

Renaissance Era

Ferdinand Magellan (Great Admiral) - Provides bonus loyalty, helping you secure a coastal city-state you take.

Mimar Sinan (Great Engineer) - Every Hansa you create will now produce a culture bomb. This lets you take control of all tiles adjacent to the district - even those owned by other civs - so long as they are no more than three tiles from the city centre and do not contain a completed district or wonder.

Industrial Era

James Watt (Great Engineer) - Immediately get a Hansa district to a well-developed standard, as well as permanently increasing the production of all your Factories.

Simon Bolivar (Great General) - More bonus loyalty to help you secure a captured city-state.

Modern Era

Nikola Tesla (Great Engineer) - Makes one Hansa district especially strong.

(Scientific) Robert Goddard (Great Engineer) - The earliest Great Person offering a bonus to Space Race projects. The 20% production bonus will be very helpful stacked on top of your already-high production.

Togo Heihachiro (Great Admiral) - More loyalty for a captured city-state.

Atomic Era

Chester Nimitz (Great Admiral) - Retire him for a permanent production boost when building U-Boats. If you have the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus wonder, you can retire him twice for a 40% production boost!

Jane Drew (Great Engineer) - More housing and amenities without the need for land!

John Roebling (Great Engineer) - Even more housing and amenities without needing to dedicate precious space.

Sudirman (Great General) - Yet more loyalty to help with a captured city-state.

Information Era

(Scientific) Stephanie Kwolek (Great Scientist) - A +100% production boost to spaceship parts makes her a Great Scientist you certainly want on your side, especially when stacked with the high production of Hansas.

(Cultural) Masaru Ibuka (Great Merchant) - Considering the huge volume of Hansa districts you may have by the end of the game, this Great Merchant can be surprisingly powerful for cultural victories even if you weren't originally aiming in that direction.

Counter-Strategies

Germany pushes around city-states while producing like there's no tomorrow, but some sneaky tactics can be a great way of dealing with them.

Civilization Ability: Free Imperial Cities

You can't stop Germany being able to build more districts, but what you can do is turn it around into an advantage for you. More districts means more targets for pillaging - light cavalry with the Depredation promotion are particularly good in that role. It also means more targets for Spies. Targeting minor German cities can be a good way of evading their counter-Spies.

If Germany is trying to build a more compact empire to take advantage of district adjacency, it's likely to become dependent on internal trade routes as a source of food - at least until policy cards like Wisselbanken come available and trading with allies becomes an alternative. Again, pillaging can be a great way to go, without all the effort of actually taking their cities over.

Frederick Barbarossa's Leader Ability: Holy Roman Emperor

Perhaps the best way of handling the extra policy card is to pick up an extra one yourself - the Alhambra wonder available at Castles does that. However, not every civ can spare the production (not to mention the wonder being moderately competitive). Instead, just keep in mind that the bonus gives them some extra military flexibility early on, and will fade in power as the game goes on.

As for the bonus against city-states, the first important thing to remember is not to send too many envoys to city-states that border Germany in case they invade. Still, if you send at least one, and Germany takes the city, you'll be eligible to join in a city-state emergency against them. Winning a city-state emergency will grant you a lot of gold, and beng the one to liberate the city-state will immediately make you suzerain with at least three envoys (more in later game eras).

Alternatively, with the renaissance-era Diplomatic Service civic, Germany attacking a city-state you're suzerain of will allow you to use a casus belli against them with no warmonger penalties!

One possible way of circuventing Germany's bonus against city-state units is to pay some gold to levy their units. For 30 turns, they'll be considered yours, so that +7 strength bonus won't apply. The Foreign Ministry building adds +4 strength to levied units, and also to the military units of all city-states you're suzerain over - that being said, you may want the Intelligence Agency instead for one more Spy to help pillage Germany's Hansas with.

Frederick Barbarossa's Agenda: Iron Crown

A computer-controlled Frederick Barbarossa likes capturing city-states, and likes civs who invest a relatively low number of envoys into them. He dislikes other civs being suzerain over or conquering city-states.

This is a difficult agenda to meet as it essentially rewards you for being behind in something (in this case, envoy acquisition). Nonetheless, you can try sending your envoys to city-states you think Frederick Barbarossa doesn't yet know of, or favour maximising envoy bonuses over becoming suzerain of a lot of city-states.

Alternatively, this can help you out if you have a low culture output and hence can't pick up so many envoy-granting civics, as you'll be less likely to have a war declaration from Germany.

Unique Unit: U-Boat

As effective as U-Boats can be in oceans, they aren't any stronger than regular Submarines in shallow water. Keep a couple of Destroyers around your coast and you should be fine.

If you need to cross oceans while at war with Germany, you might want to form some Destroyer fleets or armadas and send one ahead of your main navy to check for U-Boats. Destroyers move much faster than U-Boats and as such can usually escape an ambush if they survive the first turn.

Unique District: Hansa

Hansas are at their strongest when placed in a formation with Commercial Hubs from as many cities as possible. The more fragmented Germany's empire is, the harder it is for them to maximise the production bonus. Settling cities in awkward spots to force Germany to have a splintered empire is one possible method that would help.

Once they're built, Hansas and their buildings give you 25 science per pillage. Or, if you'd rather not fight a war, you can sabotage them using Spies! You might not get anything out of sabotage, but setting back one of the game's most powerful unique districts is certainly worthwhile.

When using Spies against Germany's Hansas, be careful about which cities you target. Go for cities that are reasonably large, but not very large, and you should be able to evade Germany's counter-spies. If Germany is particularly strong, consider using both the Police State and Cryptography policy cards at the same time so you don't need to keep Spies at home for counter-spying operations.

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Rise and Fall

These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm.

Compilation Guides

• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications
  
• Civ summaries

Individual Civilization Guides

• America (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Arabia (Religious/Scientific)
  
• Australia (Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination)
  
• Brazil (All)
  
• China (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Cree (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Egypt (Cultural/Religious)
  
• England (Cultural/Domination)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Georgia (Religious)
  
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Greece (Cultural/Domination)
  
• India (Domination/Religious)
  
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Japan (All)
  
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Kongo (Cultural)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Netherlands (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Norway (Domination)
  
• Nubia (Domination)
  
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Scotland (Scientific)
  
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
  
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Sumeria (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

Vanilla

The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated. You can find these by scrolling to the top of this page, clicking "Zigzagzigal's Guides" and looking near the end of the list of guides. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.

[amkirby]

Great. Breaks are a must. Thanks and I’ll be waiting patiently 👍

[Zigzagzigal]

I do intend to finish making Gathering Storm guide counterparts eventually! The last patch was quite intense with the sheer number of changes needed so I took a break to prevent burnout, but hopefully I should have something out in the next month or two.

[amkirby]

Yo, your guides helped me a ton on civ 5. I just got the final update for civ 6 and went straight to you to see if you made a guide on Germany. Idk if you are still making a guide for GS but I really hope you are because you easily have the best guides.

[Zigzagzigal]

I'd say Sumeria is a good fit. Their unique improvement offers science, they have some warfare advantages via the UU and half-price levying, and they have some diplomatic advantages (faster alliance points = faster diplomatic favour; incentive to ally city-states = more diplomatic favour).

[RoZeMbRiQuE]

For example, I like to play scientifically, but my plan B is the democratic path. But also, I enjoy having a good amount of soldiers in case any civ declares war on me. Which civ would you recommend? I've been playing with Brazil since it is very versatile.

[Zigzagzigal]

I will eventually make GS guides to all civs; it's just taken a while.

If you look in the "Other Guides" section of any GS guide, all civs listed in the "Rise and Fall" section have no Gathering Storm guide counterpart yet. These include Arabia, Australia, Egypt, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Kongo, Mapuche, Mongolia, Netherlands, Rome, Scotland and Spain, as well as the two meta-guides (civ summaries and tricks/secrets/clarifications).

Of the civs I haven't made GS versions of their guides yet, Australia, Egypt, Kongo, Netherlands, Rome and Spain have seen more notable changes - especially Egypt.

[RoZeMbRiQuE]

Got it! Is there any other civ you did not do a review for GS? I´m asking because I base myself a lot in your guides to select the best civ to my playstyle.

[Zigzagzigal]

I've not yet made the Gathering Storm guide to Germany. I'd assume them to be a fairly mediocre civ at the victory route given their incentive to invade city-states, though being encouraged to build Commercial Hubs makes them a bit better at aid emergencies due to the gold they'll gather.

[RoZeMbRiQuE]

No update regarding Diplomatic victory for Germany?

[Grey Lane]

Love your guides! Germany is my go to since reading your Vanilla guide. The more I play it, the more I tend to lean towards culture victories. Germany general production boost is great enough to compete with the more specific boosts to wonder construction that other civs get. The extra district lets me go for both the Theater Square and Campus in each city, where other civs would have to pick between them. This lets me get to wonders on both trees faster, and build them faster as well! The great engineer points help with this as well!

All those Theater Squares also give plenty of room for great works. I find myself playing a dual Science/Culture playstyle, with military as a backup option. Even when I focus science, I always end up having plenty of room to advance towards a culture victory!