Guys, a question about Bismarck

Hello everyone

Bismarck is amazingly strong on a pangea map. Now I've been playing online on multiplayer in a team vs teamed ais, so admittedly my research is being buffetted while I abuse the **** out of Furor Tectonicus.

How abusive can this UA get on solo maps? I seem to be popping units near non-stop, and on top of that they're always better equipped then the previous generation of troops I use to take them.

By solo maps, do you mean isolated starts or single-player?

I find he's a monster in single player as well. Presumaby most of us on the forums are playing higher difficulties, which means that barbs are getting more advanced units quicker, and as Bismarck I've often captured units that I don't have the tech for yet.

He's often not considered a god-tier civ, that designation is reserved for just Babylon, Korea, Poland and maybe Maya. But I think Bismarck (along with Aztecs, Inca, England, Austria, and maybe Arabia) belong there as well. Especially after the switch from UU-landskechts to UB-hanse, now he has a bunch of free units, a substantial gold bonus, and the best production bonus in the game - certainly deserves consideration for top-tier.

I remember thinking he was in the bottom tier but decided to play him since it had been a while. I was shocked how good he is. The gold as you said from lower maintenance is substantial and the Hanse is top tier. The only problem is he isn't geared towards an early win which I think a lot of the ranking extends from.

My first attempt at Immortal, I randomly rolled Germany. Luckily, I was recording, so you can see how out of control it got here.

It can be pretty horrific. Basically you should think of any land not settled by you as your fields. And AI settlements as weeds. Regular clearance will ensure a healthy crop of up to date soldiers whilst you garrison the old lot and focus on the top of the tech tree. If you're on a continent with only a couple of neighbours, just roll over them and keep farming units whilst neglecting military research for stuff that'll yield beakers and culture.

You're going to take Honor for barb hunting, so take a free GG and tax a CS's luxury and have your archers rotate in the citadel until you've got a bunch of range logistics. Three of them can easily take cities that have next gen weaponry, and the SP costs are going to be justified through not have to spend resources on a state of the art army and by capturing something like Stonehenge.

Germany is frequently undervalued, but he's no where near top tier with Babylon, Poland and friends. Also on deity, if the map isn't an isolated start, you'll not get many camps at all, therefore the UA is situational. It can snowball, but just not always. Honor is good start for them.

Sclb said:

Also on deity, if the map isn't an isolated start, you'll not get many camps at all, therefore the UA is situational.

Click to expand...

You can still get a lot of units on deity, just stop doing the barb defense (fog-busting) that's common practice. Have your first 3 cities cut off a section of the map so you can place your 4th city at leisure. Usually, you'd want to leave one unit on a hill there (or hopping back and forth) to prevent encampment spawns. With Bismark, just don't do this. Every time you see a barb approaching your lands, it signals you can pick up your encampment gold, UA gold, and a free unit (and, as you mentioned, possibly some honor culture as well.)

More difficult if you start smack-dab in the middle of the map, but everything's more difficult in this case.

ShakaKhan said:

You can still get a lot of units on deity, just stop doing the barb defense (fog-busting) that's common practice. Have your first 3 cities cut off a section of the map so you can place your 4th city at leisure. Usually, you'd want to leave one unit on a hill there (or hopping back and forth) to prevent encampment spawns. With Bismark, just don't do this. Every time you see a barb approaching your lands, it signals you can pick up your encampment gold, UA gold, and a free unit (and, as you mentioned, possibly some honor culture as well.)

More difficult if you start smack-dab in the middle of the map, but everything's more difficult in this case.

Click to expand...

Also realize that on deity, if there is a large spot, expansionist AI WILL settle it sooner or later, so it's not gonna work like that. The other problem with not clearing camps is that the barbs that spawn out of the camp is dependent on the general AI tech level. On a decent enough map, AI will reach medieval very quickly and sometimes renaissance quickly. At that time, your units won't even be able to clear camps if they tech that quick. Usually it's trouble if they start spawning horsemans, swordmans and CB and above.

Sclb said:

Also realize that on deity, if there is a large spot, expansionist AI WILL settle it sooner or later, so it's not gonna work like that. The other problem with not clearing camps is that the barbs that spawn out of the camp is dependent on the general AI tech level.

Click to expand...

They WON'T settle it if you cut if off with your borders and don't have open borders, that was the whole point. Without open borders, if there's a section that can be cut off, they can't get there unless they declare war, which they may, but doubtfully for this reason. Also barbs spawning advanced units works to your favor as you'd capture more powerful units. Yes, it's harder to kill, but using game exploits, like ranged units, means you can take them down, and if this is too hard, the honor opener is +30% to do it.

Sclb said:

The other problem with not clearing camps...

Click to expand...

Just one nit to pick: The German UA is all about clearing camps. But ShakaKhan is talking about leaving tiles in dark so that camps will respawn. And your comment was really about the danger of leaving tiles in the dark to respawn. But wouldn't camps spawning tougher units only be good for Germany? By the time camps are spawning with tougher units, should not Germany be able to spare 2-3 units for each dark patch?

Mind you, I have not had much luck barb farming with Germany. But that was before I understood that ranging barbarians was not a boon...

Raging barbarians = faster barbarian spawns = more culture from honor and overall chaos.

It doesn't affect encampment spawn rate.