Germans Strategy

A couple things you could do a little differently from Morte:

One is that I do not think you need ten armies, especially if you are going to promote them to Knight armies before you attack. Even more so if you are making each of your armies out of three elite warriors. Two or three Ninja/Lightning/Immortal armies can do the job, especially with replacements on the way.

Another is that you do not have to be married to the idea of making armies with three special abilities each. Under that idea, you just need just one elite warrior army to form the 'kernel' of each of your armies. Go ahead and get iron working. You can finish your armies with regular/veteran Legions. If you do this, you will need a few more armies, but I still think 10 is more than really necessary.
 
I think three cities would probably make it kind of slow. It's hard to get enough science with just three. Really you want to be making just under or about 30 science (so you don't accidentally backfill Iron Working). It's not easy for Germany to get that much science with three cities, especially when 1-2 of them are dedicated to pumping out warriors.

The way I'd start out is consider moving my settler a bit to be closer to the action. See if there are any close AI capitals. Your vet warriors can often take a capital if you can reach it with an army in the first 10 turns. Starting with two capitals is a really good head start.

In any case, you try to get your 100 gold as normal and hopefully promote a warrior or three (don't army them unless you are going to attack a city). If the opportunity presents itself, you may want to try to expand a little now or you can wait. You want to tech up to Code of Laws (Alphabet, Writing, Code of Laws). You do not need Literacy. You won't be building courthouses. If you can get Literacy first, the +1 science per city is nice, but it's not really a big deal as you won't have all that many cities at the start and later when you start conquering it still doesn't matter much because you already have what you need.

When you're making your run to a tech, make sure you pay attention to that tech's cost so you can get there efficiently. Alphabet is 20 beakers, Writing is 40 and Code of Laws is 60. If you're doing 10 per turn, you get all that in 12 turns. If you're doing 8 per turn, it'll take you 16 turns. It's also not a bad idea to get Bronze Working and maybe another 20 beaker tech at some point so you'll be in medieval and have +1 forest production. That should let you pump out a couple more settlers and set up a couple of barracks cities quickly. Your barracks cities should be settled in medieval so they'll be 3 population. Settle on 3 trees and don't worry about any other resources. That will give you 9 production per turn, which is fine.

So the goal is to have 5 techs (medieval), Republic government (Code of Laws), two (or so) production cities and enough science cities so you're doing somewhere in the 20-30 beaker range. That should be around five science cities for a total of seven cities, give or take. If you've gotten a decent start, you should be able to be in this position in the 1000BC-500BC range. If you're closer to 0-500 AD, your rush will probably still work, but it won't be a total walk.

Now set your science to Monarchy. You should have it in 7-8 turns. Tech Feudalism all but the last turn. That's another 7 or so turns. Now you grab Iron Working (warriors become legions) and finish Feudalism (legions become knights). So that's 14+ turns of making warriors, which should be plenty since your production cities do 9 production and warriors cost 10. You'll have something like 20 warriors, which will become 6 or 7 legion armies and then 6 or 7 knight armies very quickly. Now go kill!

Note that food and growth resources really aren't very important to this strategy. Your science cities serve only one purpose: get you Feudalism. If you can put them on fish, great. If not, who cares? They don't need to grow. Likewise with your production cities. You will soon enough have plenty of enemy cities and can expand more if you choose. The point of this strategy is to have several elite knight armies around 0 AD, which will let you stomp all over even Deity-level AI (or most players online). With those armies you will either win outright gain enough of an advantage that your lack of long-term planning for your initial cities won't hurt you a bit.
 
A couple things you could do a little differently from Morte:

One is that I do not think you need ten armies, especially if you are going to promote them to Knight armies before you attack. Even more so if you are making each of your armies out of three elite warriors. Two or three Ninja/Lightning/Immortal armies can do the job, especially with replacements on the way.

Another is that you do not have to be married to the idea of making armies with three special abilities each. Under that idea, you just need just one elite warrior army to form the 'kernel' of each of your armies. Go ahead and get iron working. You can finish your armies with regular/veteran Legions. If you do this, you will need a few more armies, but I still think 10 is more than really necessary.

Yeah, this is fine to do. I'd want more than 2-3 armies if possible because you could get unlucky and lose one in a 18-12 battle or something stupid like that, but 2-3 can certainly work if you're fast enough.

Finishing your armies with non-elites is also a good strategy if you don't have time to set up multiple barracks or if you accidentally get Iron Working too soon. Some players will tech Iron Working halfway early (your tech progress never decays in this game) so they can finish it in a single turn if need be. In general, you can defend pretty well with elite warriors while setting all this up. You can build a couple of archers if you think you need them, but don't go building archer armies. They are a waste. You are the aggressor. You don't need to defend.
 
Yeah, my two suggestions really work best in concert. By not waiting to make so many warriors, you can go to IW earlier and start pushing toward Feudalism. Since your Germans will actually have their Knights as soon as you tech up, you can reasonably hope to get them going very early. One thing I try to do is acquire one or two scientists. I hold them in reserve to insta-learn Feudalism and, if I have two, Monarchy.
 
I was testing this strategy on the iPad version of CivRev, and when I got ready to tech Monarchy, it wasn't on the list. I had to tech Ceremonial Burial first, then things went as expected.

Also, my upgrades seemed to happen on the turn where the tech was discovered - there was not a delay of a turn.

It's a cool feature. And I'm curious about a second related question. If you're getting too far behind the others, why not build the wonder that gives you techs that others have?
 
As the Germans, I could upgrade Legion Armies to knights only with Leonardo's Workshop. Can any other units be upgraded?
 
As the Germans, I could upgrade Legion Armies to knights only with Leonardo's Workshop. Can any other units be upgraded?

It works with every unit. One thing first, were your units elite? Veteran units won't upgrade automatically.
 
They weren't all elite. I didn't know that each city that produces a unit has to have a barracks. I also didn't know that technologies have to be acquired in order, I.e.:

Warriors, Iron Working 4 Legions or Horseback Riding 4 Horsemen), Feudalism 4 Knights, Combustion 4 Tanks

Bronze Working 4 Archers, Democracy 4 Pikemen, Gunpowder 4 Riflemen, Mass Production 4 Modern Infantry
 
They weren't all elite. I didn't know that each city that produces a unit has to have a barracks. I also didn't know that technologies have to be acquired in order, I.e.:

Warriors, Iron Working 4 Legions or Horseback Riding 4 Horsemen), Feudalism 4 Knights, Combustion 4 Tanks

Bronze Working 4 Archers, Democracy 4 Pikemen, Gunpowder 4 Riflemen, Mass Production 4 Modern Infantry

You only need a barracks to produce elite units as germans. And you only need 1 out of 3 units to be elite to build an elite army (which will upgrade).

So you can buy a barracks every 3 military cities (that's common sense). That's the best to optimize it. If you skip one step you'll miss the entire upgrade. If you take feudalism before HBR or IW, you won't get the upgrade from legions/horsemen.
 
Can barracks' automatically make elite units higher than Legions?

Barracks make units veteran.

Germans have veteran warriors.

If you buy barracks, you'll have elite warriors.

There's nothing else you can. You will have to stack elite warriors (so don't research Iron Working), then you upgrade them whenever you need.

The only other way is having a great leader, not worth it.
 
Barracks make units veteran.
My problem is that the highest upgrades I'm getting with the Germans are Elite Legions. I might even get barracks for all of my cites. I figure that I'm not researching technologies in the correct order (I was getting Bronze, Iron, and Fuedalism. Here's my new plan in order to get combustion (Please review):

  1. Alphabet
  2. Bronze Working
  3. Pottery
  4. Writing
  5. Masonry
  6. Ceremonial Burial
  7. Mathematics
  8. Code of Laws
  9. Monarchy
  10. Engineering
  11. Invention
  12. University
  13. Feudalism
  14. Steam Power
  15. Metallurgy
  16. Gunpowder

Here are the requirements:

Gunpowder < Feudalism + Invention
Metallurgy < Engineering, Iron Working, + University
Steam Power < Engineering, Invention, + Iron Working
Feudalism < Horseback Riding + Monarchy
Invention < Engineering + Literacy
Engineering < Construction + Mathematics
Construction < Iron Working + Masonry
University < Democracy, Literacy, + Mathematics
Democracy < Code of Laws + Literacy
Literacy < Alphabet + Writing
Monarchy < Ceremonial Burial, Code of Laws, + Writing
Code of Laws < Alphabet + Writing
Mathematics < Masonry + Writing
Iron Working < Bronze Working
Masonry < Pottery
Ceremonial Burial < Pottery
Writing < Alphabet
Iron Working < Bronze Working
Masonry < Pottery
 
My problem is that the highest upgrades I'm getting with the Germans are Elite Legions. I might even get barracks for all of my cites. I figure that I'm not researching technologies in the correct order (I was getting Bronze, Iron, and Fuedalism. Here's my new plan in order to get combustion (Please review):

  1. Alphabet
  2. Bronze Working
  3. Pottery
  4. Writing
  5. Masonry
  6. Ceremonial Burial
  7. Mathematics
  8. Code of Laws
  9. Monarchy
  10. Engineering
  11. Invention
  12. University
  13. Feudalism
  14. Steam Power
  15. Metallurgy
  16. Gunpowder

Here are the requirements:

Gunpowder < Feudalism + Invention
Metallurgy < Engineering, Iron Working, + University
Steam Power < Engineering, Invention, + Iron Working
Feudalism < Horseback Riding + Monarchy
Invention < Engineering + Literacy
Engineering < Construction + Mathematics
Construction < Iron Working + Masonry
University < Democracy, Literacy, + Mathematics
Democracy < Code of Laws + Literacy
Literacy < Alphabet + Writing
Monarchy < Ceremonial Burial, Code of Laws, + Writing
Code of Laws < Alphabet + Writing
Mathematics < Masonry + Writing
Iron Working < Bronze Working
Masonry < Pottery
Ceremonial Burial < Pottery
Writing < Alphabet
Iron Working < Bronze Working
Masonry < Pottery

I can't find your problem. Maybe you are going straight for feudalism without researching iron working. What will happen probably is : you backfill Iron Working, elite warriors upgrade to legions, but legions won't upgrade to knights cause you can't autoupgrade twice at the same time (not at the same turn).

So you must go in this order :

Elite warriors -> Research Iron Working -> Elite legions -> Research Feudalism -> Elite knights -> Research Combustion -> Elite tanks.

What can fail :

1) Your units are not elite
2) You are not following the right order
3) You aren't letting units upgrade time by time (upgrades won't stack, they must happen at different times).

The plan on the tech order can work for your objective but is totally uneffective.

You should go read some strategies out there.

The most important technologies early game are Code of Laws, Irrigation, Literacy. One to expand, one to get free population, one to get +1 science per city (forever).

Going straight for your objective is usually the slowest strategies. Absurd example: If you go straight for feudalism just by putting your capital on science will take probably like 200 turns.

As the germans 7-8 cities are usually fine.

2 barracks are fine.
 
Can barracks' automatically make elite units higher than Legions?
Only if you also settle a Great Leader in the same city. The only reason the Germans can produce Elite Warriors (6 exp) with just a Barracks (+3 exp) is because their Warriors, and only their Warriors, start as Veterans (3 exp). Settling a Great Leader (+3 exp) in the same city as a Barracks (+3 exp) will let you do this with any unit except boat/planes/settlers/spies/caravan, for any civ. This is why Morte calls attention to stacking up a bunch of surplus Elite Warriors by building an early Barracks with the Germans, as a Great Leader is hard to come by and unreliable.

So you must go in this order :

Elite warriors -> Research Iron Working -> Elite legions -> Research Feudalism -> Elite knights -> Research Combustion -> Elite tanks.

What can fail :

1) Your units are not elite
2) You are not following the right order
3) You aren't letting units upgrade time by time (upgrades won't stack, they must happen at different times).
Morte has limited your problem to within these bounds. Review each of these points. The units must be Elite (not simply Veteran), you must upgrade the techs in proper order and hold all the previous techs of the tier in order to upgrade to the next tier, and the unit cannot have upgraded on the same turn (which can be hard to control with backfilling being a thing, as Morte also pointed out.)

Also, just asking because I didn't see it spelled out in exact language: you are aware that the German upgrade is a one time deal right? It only activates for units that are eligible at the moment you get the proper tech.
 
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