Germany UA [Poll - Multi vote]

[pineappledan]

-as many as you want if the units are already in CS borders, as long as there is space.

CS do have a max unit cap, beyond which you cannot gift them any more units. In practice, this isn't much of a constraint, because you can usually gift them 4-5 units without issue, and then you'd be better off gifting a different CS instead of continuing to pile into the same 1

 

[SolutionIt]

I'm glad most of the votes are Blood and Iron right now. Keeps Germany as a Diplomatic Victory Civ and reflects their ability for war and production by having to produce units to gift to City-States. Also keeps that original flavor of the current UA in place.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I'm glad most of the votes are Blood and Iron right now. Keeps Germany as a Diplomatic Victory Civ and reflects their ability for war and production by having to produce units to gift to City-States. Also keeps that original flavor of the current UA in place.

Its a bit sad, that a lot of people want Germany to stay diplomatic, cause people think, there are too few diplo civs in the game. That feels like the Germany civ have to pay for a flaw of the current overal civ constellation.

 

[Zuizgond]

Not a fan of civs having to rely on city-states to thrive. That's why I'd also prefer Germany not to be a diplomatic civ and I think there already are enough of them.

 

[SolutionIt]

Its a bit sad, that a lot of people want Germany to stay diplomatic, cause people think, there are too few diplo civs in the game. That feels like the Germany civ have to pay for a flaw of the current overal civ constellation.

True but at least they have a better warfare angle now. It is also just an ugly reflection of the real world since peace is the much harder option and just taking things is usually the easier way out for providing your people with the things necessary to improve their way of life.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

True but at least they have a better warfare angle now. It is also just an ugly reflection of the real world since peace is the much harder option and just taking things is usually the easier way out for providing your people with the things necessary to improve their way of life.

I dont see any new "warfare angle" in blood and iron. And as pineappledan atleast 2 times said, he is getting much more from bullying CS than from allying them. If this is true for my suggestion of Realpolitik, then its also true for pineappledans realpolitik. If you can get more yields from getting tributes with the help of 6 more units, why then allying them with gifting 6 of your units? As you said, the truth is, taking things is easier than making peace.

 

[pineappledan]

Uhhh no. I never said anything of the sort.

you don’t have to pay the maintenance and supply for units you have gifted.

 

[SolutionIt]

I dont see any new "warfare angle" in blood and iron. And as pineappledan atleast 2 times said, he is getting much more from bullying CS than from allying them. If this is true for my suggestion of Realpolitik, then its also true for pineappledans realpolitik. If you can get more yields from getting tributes with the help of 6 more units, why then allying them with gifting 6 of your units? As you said, the truth is, taking things is easier than making peace.

If you're trying to keep them allied then getting free influence each turn from gifting them units should make keeping that vote easier since you're inflating their military until you hit the cap. As Pdan also said that is maintenance for units you don't have to maintain either so realistically if the cap is 5 units which I believe it is you're getting +5 gold for created units, 10 if it is the landsknechts. It could probably be up for debate without 4UC anyway if he needs something else but I doubt it. Tributes also have a cooldown as well so there is that as well on top of keeping city-state quests.

 

[Laz0r]

Realpolitik (new) seems like the best replacement for the old in the context of having the old hanse in that it rewards making friends with every city state and thereby making smart diplomatic choices pertaining to wars and peace with the CS' allied nation(s), similar to how Bismarck is purported to had laboured for peace in an intelligent way within Europe. Providing influence by unit proximity is good too, and synergizes with the hanse in turning production bonuses and gold into a diplo victory, although it should be buffed in some manner as it seems pretty useless beyond earlygame. The last part of the UA is also very interesting as it, much like the first, encourages intelligent uses of war and diplomacy in order to secure a diplo victory, and would be very useful for troop and diplomat movement.

Workshop of the world seems like a pretty cool replacement for the hanse/UA and makes Germany still very much a late game production king. My only issue is that the golden age/wltkd bonuses pretty much guarantee that Germany has to pick Artistry/Industry in order to get the maximum out of the UA, which I find ruins the idea of making Germany a more flexible civ. Such a thing should be replaced by something along the lines of certain late game industrial buildings providing boons to the UA thereby cementing lategame industrial power without forcing certain policy trees upon the nation. Again, only an issue if the intent was not to make Germany an Artistry/Industry exclusive civ.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Realpolitik (new) seems like the best replacement for the old in the context of having the old hanse in that it rewards making friends with every city state and thereby making smart diplomatic choices pertaining to wars and peace with the CS' allied nation(s), similar to how Bismarck is purported to had laboured for peace in an intelligent way within Europe. Providing influence by unit proximity is good too, and synergizes with the hanse in turning production bonuses and gold into a diplo victory, although it should be buffed in some manner as it seems pretty useless beyond earlygame. The last part of the UA is also very interesting as it, much like the first, encourages intelligent uses of war and diplomacy in order to secure a diplo victory, and would be very useful for troop and diplomat movement.

Realpolitik (new) is better combined with the "old" Hanse, that's right. Intention was to create a more frontloaded ability, which cover the time till the Hanse start its works. You will produce some units anyway for your protection and instead placing them useless in your cities, you can move them to the closest CS at your borders and ally those CS. Historically, Germany or the Third Reich influenced greatly small states around them, but never reached such a world wide alliance system like the Entente or "the Allies" in the world wars. I think its not that bad reflected by this ability.
If it looks too weak, the numbers could be tweaked like:
"If you have atleast 4 units in a 3 tile range of a CS, gain +3 influence per turn for that CS, +1 for each additional unit"

Workshop of the world seems like a pretty cool replacement for the hanse/UA and makes Germany still very much a late game production king. My only issue is that the golden age/wltkd bonuses pretty much guarantee that Germany has to pick Artistry/Industry in order to get the maximum out of the UA, which I find ruins the idea of making Germany a more flexible civ. Such a thing should be replaced by something along the lines of certain late game industrial buildings providing boons to the UA thereby cementing lategame industrial power without forcing certain policy trees upon the nation. Again, only an issue if the intent was not to make Germany an Artistry/Industry exclusive civ.

Tradition might be a bit better in getting higher bonuses by population, but the benefit for having 2 or 3 more cities and going progress is much higher than forcefully limit your expansion to go for a tall empire. I dont think any of the ancient policy trees is superior over the others, if you take the combination (Workbench + new Hanse). "Industry" may sound superior for that, and it would be much more historically linked to Germany than statecraft which is core now. But you might already have high production in your cities, making more of it not really necessary, so going for rationalism which has also a growth bonus and helps unlocking things faster is probably a better pick. There is also the option to play till industrial age peacefully and then go rampage with Imperialism, which should work very well cause of your superior production through more population and the modifiers.

 

[dostillevi]

I'm quite a bit late to this conversation, but for the era of Germany in game, I see Germany as a state dominated by Industrial Diplomacy. The key components of Germany in this era are significant gains to production and scientific advancement through a combination of scientific specialists and industrial efficiency, and Germany alternated between using that output as a means to influence the political community or to fuel war. Consequently, I think Germany could straddle militarism and diplomacy, with something like the following:

Industrial Diplomacy
A bonus to scientist specialist output and/or
A bonus to hammer output as a portion of scientist specialist output in each city.
Combined with: A unique repeatable building that creates an additional vote in the World Congress each time Germany builds it.

Edit: And if that feels too non-interactive, a riff on Pineapple Dan's Blood and Iron: Instead of benefiting from city state relationships, keep the science to hammer bonuses of the above, and then reverse the current tribute mechanic. Instead of constant influence, get a one time influence gain with unit gifting, but have that bonus scale the same way tribute scales with army proximity to the city state.

Thematically, this is Germany using its military might to get the political outcome it wants, and it's more interactive. It gives Germany a reason to build a strong standing army and a political outlet for that army if actual warfare isn't needed/desired. But if diplomacy fails, you still have the industrial and scientific output to warmonger effectively, but probably not effectively enough to win a domination victory unless you focus on that strategy exclusively.

 

[Ulcsa]

Coming in late to the discussion, but I'll try my best to give my ideas. Ultimately, one of the core problems of Germany's toolkit right now is how anachronic it is (Hanse from HRE, Realpolitik from Bismarck, Panzer from Third Reich), with the additional problem of "Realpolitik" not quite reflecting how Bismarck established his foreign policy. Lastly, Germany's toolkit is very one-dimensional, which makes it quite boring from a gameplay perspective.

While I quite like Pineappledan's Blood and Iron proposal from a gameplay perspective, this vision of German diplomacy would represent more what Prussia (before unification) or Germany (under Wilhelm II, who dismissed Bismarck right away) would do - something reminiscent of "Gunboat Diplomacy", which is already an Autocracy trait.

Bismarck as Chancellor of Wilhelm I was ultimately a master of maintaining peace within Europe, despite building his reputation in times of war and his "Blood and Iron" speech as Pineappledan pointed out earlier in this thread (note: this speech was uttered before the German unification in 1871). He was also disinterested in building German power away from Europe, being pressured into colonialism by other parties within the German Empire. I believe that thematically this would call for a proximity-based diplomatic civilization, with heavy focus on maintaining peace with your surroundings. Now, in Civ 5 CPB and especially in higher levels of difficulty, one of the main concerns of diplomatic civs (which pretty much every one agrees Germany should stay) is to maintain their relations with City-States and trade with major civilizations without causing wars/discontent over city-state influence - which is why I propose the idea of Germany being the only civ that gains diplomatic power without being actually allied with city-states themselves.

Economy-wise, Bismarck was heavily protectionist as displayed by his tariffs on foreign exports such as Russian grain. His "reign" was also the period where German cartels were created, such as the Steel cartel, which would argue for a mercantile economic approach, much opposed to what the Hanse currently offers.

Lastly, as pointed earlier in the thread, Germany was one of the industrial and scientific leaders of the time, with many of the world's most prominent scientists and engineers at the time being German. I believe this should be reflected in Germany's toolkit.

UA: Realpolitik
City-states you have a Trade Route with grant you ally benefits and cannot declare war on you. When you broker peace between two other major civilizations, gain 1 extra Trade Route slot.

UB: Industrial Confederation
Replaces the Workshop.
Shares its common traits.
+1 Great Engineer and Great Scientist points in the Capital, scaling with Era.
+2% production and gold in the city for every Internal Trade Route.

UU: ??
I'm a bit short of ideas on this one, as long as it is not anachronic (e.g., Panzer)

Overall, this version of Germany would give the player and AI significant flexibility with trade route usage: either to gain diplomatic benefits without the downsides of increasing tensions with other civilizations, or to power the German Industry. It also makes Germany the only civilization in the game that actually benefits from peace (as opposed to the Aztec).
It also powers up Germany's generation of Great Scientists and Great Engineers, a feature I believe would be far more thematic than converting 10% of gold to science every turn (like the Hanse currently does).
I am not informed enough on how the German military worked at the time so I'll leave this to you guys.

 

[Laz0r]

Realpolitik (new) is better combined with the "old" Hanse, that's right. Intention was to create a more frontloaded ability, which cover the time till the Hanse start its works. You will produce some units anyway for your protection and instead placing them useless in your cities, you can move them to the closest CS at your borders and ally those CS. Historically, Germany or the Third Reich influenced greatly small states around them, but never reached such a world wide alliance system like the Entente or "the Allies" in the world wars. I think its not that bad reflected by this ability.
If it looks too weak, the numbers could be tweaked like:
"If you have atleast 4 units in a 3 tile range of a CS, gain +3 influence per turn for that CS, +1 for each additional unit"

I think a suiting and easier to implement option would be to add policy or era scaling. Something like +2 influence per 2 units every era (assuming scaling starts in medieval), or +3 every 6 policies. Mandating 4 units be next to a CS earlygame makes it too expensive to be worth it when one can tribute a CS, gain better yields overall, and continue to use the units for warring.

Tradition might be a bit better in getting higher bonuses by population, but the benefit for having 2 or 3 more cities and going progress is much higher than forcefully limit your expansion to go for a tall empire. I dont think any of the ancient policy trees is superior over the others, if you take the combination (Workbench + new Hanse). "Industry" may sound superior for that, and it would be much more historically linked to Germany than statecraft which is core now. But you might already have high production in your cities, making more of it not really necessary, so going for rationalism which has also a growth bonus and helps unlocking things faster is probably a better pick. There is also the option to play till industrial age peacefully and then go rampage with Imperialism, which should work very well cause of your superior production through more population and the modifiers.

I agree that the ancient trees are not particularly better than one another in the context of enabling this ability (besides the nature of wide gameplay just being better in terms of ability scaling in most cases.) My point however was that by nature of golden ages and great merchants being in higher quantity with both artistry and industry (due to GM faith buying) respectively, that one would be hard pressed not to automatically plan for those trees given how insanely good GA's and WLTKD's synergize with the UA by stacking both food and production bonuses from all three factors.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I think a suiting and easier to implement option would be to add policy or era scaling. Something like +2 influence per 2 units every era (assuming scaling starts in medieval), or +3 every 6 policies. Mandating 4 units be next to a CS earlygame makes it too expensive to be worth it when one can tribute a CS, gain better yields overall, and continue to use the units for warring.

I am pretty sure, that this "you need only one unit to get full tribute pressure" will be gone very fast in the next version, cause its simply ridicoulous overpowered for warmongers. The mongols can squeeze 1.3 world wonders out of one CS, which is in its quantity also ridicoulous high.
I still think that Blood and Iron is overpowered, all you need is delaying the spearmen and pump out warriors to feed the CS. A library costs 150 hammer, while 4 warriors cost 160 hammer. Befriending a CS with warriors gives +3 science from the (basic) UA alone, a library gives only +2 and cost maintenance too.

I agree that the ancient trees are not particularly better than one another in the context of enabling this ability (besides the nature of wide gameplay just being better in terms of ability scaling in most cases.) My point however was that by nature of golden ages and great merchants being in higher quantity with both artistry and industry (due to GM faith buying) respectively, that one would be hard pressed not to automatically plan for those trees given how insanely good GA's and WLTKD's synergize with the UA by stacking both food and production bonuses from all three factors.

The new Hanse can get all Luxuries a CS have. This also means porcelain from mercantile CS, which give +25% GA time as monopoly. You are also free to restart the game till you have a Golden Age luxury, which would make +50% in best case, that extra length from Tradition diminish in comparison with that. And having space to place 2 more cities and go progress instead simply beats any +2 more GA turns and a bit more growth.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I have tested the Blood and Iron Ability, and have to say, it may be a bit too powerful, but isnt as much op as I thought first. Entering the medieval era, Iam are allied with 3 CS and befriended with 5 more, 3 of them would be allied to me, if not someone else would have allied them. 30% of my science comes from the befriended CS, 18% of my culture from the allied CS.
It wasnt that difficult to delay the spearman and simply spam cheap warriors to ally the maritime CS first to get a lot of food in the capital, then get culture ones.

 

[pineappledan]

Happy to hear you gave Blood and Iron a try, and that it’s not as bad as you feared it would be

My impression is also that it’s just a tad strong, but I think some of that balancing can be done just by reducing the CS friend/ally yields from 3/ to 2/

that helps differentiate Germany more from Siam as well, since there is more difference in their per turn yields from CS relative to each other.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Happy to hear you gave Blood and Iron a try, and that it’s not as bad as you feared it would be

My impression is also that it’s just a tad strong, but I think some of that balancing can be done just by reducing the CS friend/ally yields from 3/ to 2/

that helps differentiate Germany more from Siam as well, since there is more difference in their per turn yields from CS relative to each other.

No, that would be too much. I would still prefer making it 1 / for befriended and 2/ for allied.
Gifting units is still an investment and if you are left alone, its too powerful, but if your facing too many agressiv neighbors attacking you and your CS, its less than decent.

 

[pineappledan]

Bite. My dude. You have to start actually reading what people write.

@Laz0r talked about industry and you flew off into a tangent about Tradition. You repeatedly put words in my mouth and misconstrued or misrepresented what I have said to other users.

now please reread what I wrote above:

some of that balancing can be done just by reducing the CS friend or ally yields from 3 or to 2 or

I get that using a “/“ symbol can be ambiguous, but you know very well how Germany’s Ability works, so you know the context in which it is being used. The only reason that I have to repeatedly make corrective and explanatory posts is because you aren’t taking proper care or consideration of other people’s posts.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I get that using a “/“ symbol can be ambiguous, but you know very well how Germany’s Ability works, so you know the context in which it is being used. The only reason that I have to repeatedly make corrective and explanatory posts is because you aren’t taking proper care or consideration of other people’s posts.

I knew what you mean, even without the slash, but I still would prefer getting both, science AND culture, and only the amount depends on the CS status.
The target is to ally all, or atlest as much as possible CS, and then all you get is culture, while I would like to have science aswell.
There is not that much difference in friend or allied status (30 influence in early game) and forcefully only befriend CS to get the science but not ally them is throwing away great benefits for otherway a little more effort.

 

[GreekIrish]

Lightning Warfare seems really fun and unique but feels too similar to Sweden.