Civ Discussion - Prussia

bengalryan9

Emperor
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Nov 13, 2018
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1,193
Our next modern age civilization up for discussion is Prussia. Prussia is a diplomatic and militaristic civilization with a starting bias towards Niter. Their associated wonder is the Brandenburg Gate, which gives a base +6 production, +1 war support on all wars, and +1 settlement limit. Prussia can unlocked by choosing Rome earlier in the game, by playing as either Frederich, Augustus, Catherine, Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, or either Napoleon, by having 3 army commanders, or by improving 3 niter resources.

Their unique ability is Blood and Iron, which gives all units +1 CS for every unfriendly or worse relationship with other leaders.
They don’t have a true unique civilian unit… instead they have two military units. The Hussar is a special cavalry unit that gets +1 CS for every movement point it has remaining. The Stuka is a trench fighter replacement that gets an additional +3 CS against land units.
Their unique infrastructure is the Staatseisenbahn, which is automatically built via normal railroad rules when two Prussian cities each have a Rail Station and gives rural tiles with a Staatseisenbahn in your territory +2 gold and production.

Prussian Civics:
Ruhr – gives all buildings +1 production adjacency from navigable rivers, and at mastery gives +2 science to resource tiles and unlocks the Coking tradition
Zollverein – allows you to establish and keep trade routes with cities you are at war with, gives +1 settlement limit, and at mastery unlocks the Mediatization tradition and +25% trade yields in cities connected with the Staatseisenbahn
Ems Dispatch – unlocks the Brandenburg Gate, the Realpolitick tradition, and gives +25% relationship changes from diplomatic actions
Bewegungskrieg – unlocks the Iron Cross tradition and gives cavalry units the Skirmish ability (+50% CS from flanking bonuses)

Prussian Traditions:
Coking - +1 production in cities for every resource assigned to them
Mediatization - +10% culture in cities not founded by you
Realpolitick - +10% production in cities while at war
Iron Cross - +3 CS for units with the command radius of a commander with a commendation

What are your thoughts on the Prussians? Are they strong, weak, or just right? Any strategies in particular you like to employ as them, or any areas you find that they struggle in? What leaders and other civs pair well with them? How many posts will it take for someone to bring up the whole “Prussia vs Germany” thing? Did I get through this entire post without any spelling errors? Let’s discuss.

***Note: I’m on vacation next week so there will be a delay between this post and our next civ discussion. Expect the next thread to go up on 10/20.***
 
As someone who plays almost entirely peacefully Prussia is not really the best match for me, but I did play them once in the one game I decided to complete the Military Victory path. They're good at what they do, and their unique ability makes it pretty easy to get a strong CS boost to all your units since if you're fighting a bunch of wars you're not likely to be super popular. They get some nice bonuses to resource tiles, some strong traditions (if you're playing aggressively), and I think being able to trade with players you're at war with is a neat little trick. Brandenburg Gate is also nice and likely to be useful.

Their UI is odd and I'm still not really sure how it actually works... the game instructions aren't really clear and I only played them the one time (and I'm not even sure I built many railroads when I did, TBH).

They are also a very easy unlock that is pretty much always going to be available to me, though if I were going down any path other than military I'd probably choose someone else every time.
 
I went from Mayan, to Hawaiian , to Prussia with Ada Lovelace two games ago. I won a science victory on immortal. I find that picking civilization doesn't seem to be quite as important in the exploration or modern age as the antiquity age feels.
 
I played a few games with Prussia. They are good at what they are supposed to do: ideological warfare. Yet, they are the most boring civ in the entire game (yes, even more so than Britain). Two military UUs, one of which a plane (which I rarely use) the other a cavalry (that feels fighting in the late game, despite this being historical) are not my liking. And worst: a UI that you don't even build yourself.
 
They are the navigable river civ of the Modern age. If you have navigable rivers snaking through your main cities, the Ruhr civic is amazing. If there is no navigable river in sight, probably don't bother picking them. My guess is that Friedrich loves Egypt so much (despite not really synergizing with their bonuses), because he wants the navigable river bias for his beloved Prussia.

If you have the right setup for them, you will get maximum benefit for minimum investment. Their ability works from the start and unless you have managed a Himiko-induced love fest, you tend to have enough enemies for it to work (might be just me being a warmonger, though...). Then you just need to research one civic and you have unlocked most of their power. And Although Staatseisenbahn is not that powerful and kind of fickle, at least you get it for free while doing something you likely want to do anyway.

Their unique units are not good, though. The Hussar is puzzling: Why would you ever build it when you can build a tank? The Stuka is nice in theory, but not really useful in practice, because you usually just build bombers (I would call the bomber strength compared to the trench fighter a bug, but it has not been addressed in anyway so I am getting less sure).
 
When I was trying to unlock momentos Prussia became my go to civ when I'd play modern.. Their kit works ok-ish most of the time. And I kind of find economic to be the least bad VC so the ability to trade with war prevents random disruption. I wouldn't go as far as saying I like them. More it's the least bad option for me if Nepal won't work.
 
They are the navigable river civ of the Modern age. If you have navigable rivers snaking through your main cities, the Ruhr civic is amazing. If there is no navigable river in sight, probably don't bother picking them. My guess is that Friedrich loves Egypt so much (despite not really synergizing with their bonuses), because he wants the navigable river bias for his beloved Prussia.
If I had a bunch of navigable rivers I'd pick Siam every time, personally.
 
If I had a bunch of navigable rivers I'd pick Siam every time, personally.

The only Siam bonus for navigable rivers is the mediocre Bang unique improvement. That does not come even close to the Ruhr civic. Siam is good, of course (though massively nerfed in 1.2.5), but I would never choose them based on the availability of navigable rivers.
 
The only Siam bonus for navigable rivers is the mediocre Bang unique improvement. That does not come even close to the Ruhr civic. Siam is good, of course (though massively nerfed in 1.2.5), but I would never choose them based on the availability of navigable rivers.
I dunno man... +6 culture every Bang outside of the capital and +9 in the capital strikes me as a lot. I get that production has always been king but I'll just buy most of what I want.

I do think we play a lot differently, though... my empire size is almost certainly a lot smaller than yours.
 
I still don't understand how Staateisenbahn generation works btw.

I like this Civ, even though it doesn't quite gel with me. I tend to avoid war if I can, especially in Modern, due to the scale of the armies the AI commands. But you can't always do that, and because of this, I find Prussia useful. If I'm attacked, I'd rather have the combat bonuses go to me instead of the opponent. Plus, Production bonuses means I complete my buildings faster. So I research more quickly and pivot into building units sooner.
 
Trading while at war is crazy good if you dive into ideological wars in modern. The rest supports this playstyle well.

But I'm mostly a peaceful player, who usually avoids ideologies, so I don't have much experience.
 
I dunno man... +6 culture every Bang outside of the capital and +9 in the capital strikes me as a lot. I get that production has always been king but I'll just buy most of what I want.

I do think we play a lot differently, though... my empire size is almost certainly a lot smaller than yours.

The yields are good, but I don't need culture that much in Modern. Production is vital though. Buildings are so expensive that I cannot just buy them all and you cannot buy victory projects. I am often waiting for the victory projects to finish for one third of the turns of the age, so anything which can shorten that is welcome.

But, yeah, different playstyle may lead to different experiences
 
A lot has already been covered in this thread, but I do just want to highlight how powerful getting to Ruhr's mastery feels. The additional production from the tradition is quite nice, but one thing that I think people sleep on is the Science bonus from that mastery. +2 Science from each resource is very strong. If you assume 20 settlements and an average of 4 resources in each settlement (I realize this is a rough estimate), then you are talking about a boost of 160 Science per turn. This does in my opinion make them the 2nd best generic Science civ in Modern (obviously depending on your build other civs may be better for the situation like Siam, Nepal, or Russia). They are nearly always going to be a worse Science pick than Meiji Japan though.
 
Yeah. I think I have them as my default if I play modern because a lot of what they do is just passively useful and good... While also giving you a good out if someone does apply millitary pressure.
 
I've said previously that GB, USA, and Japan have been my go-to generalist picks for modern age games where I try to hit all legacy paths, but when I said that I think I forgot Prussia existed. I like them a lot. They're not a busted civ, but they're good at generating money and carrying out conquest, which are both surefire ways to grow strength you can channel into anything else you choose. Stukas are one of my favourite UUs - I kind of feel like their strength is where the baseline trench fighters should be, to be honest. An anti-ground aircraft option actually feeling solid into ground units shouldn't be a novelty as part of a civ's kit.
 
I just finished a game with Emperor Napoleon, I went from Greece to Mongolia, then finished with Prussia. This pair is something else, THE beast of the Modern Age. I kept alive 6 other civs (standard, Deity), had them sanctioned always, everyone was constantly unfriendly or worse, and eventually they did coordinated attacks (you can really piss the AI off with the sanctions). With Prussia, this meant +12 combat strength off the bat, and every other combat bonus came after. I swapped out the +2 war support memento when attacked, only the +1 on all wars was slotted in for Modern, but this already was too much for the AI to handle. The production and science bonus at the start of their civic tree is a real help at the beginning of the era, and with some reconciliation and trade route shenanigans, I had all the resources and happiness to keep the empire happy, well fed and productive. Them declaring wars wasn't an issue trade route wise. I leave some pics from the final turn before the culture win, they are very fun to play in this combo :)

Spoiler Pics :
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