German unique ability is overpowered and crazy

[Realyn]

It's worth trying especially if you get marble and/or pop growth from a hut.

Right, lets recap:

Stonehenge is built at around turn ~40-50 at deity with epic speed.

Pottery takes about 10 turns, calendar about 20 with size 3.
Mining the same 10 and masorny another 15-20.

That allone makes roughly 60, but THEN you even hook up the marble which adds another 10 turns.


Sorry, just another dumbass Deity is too easy thread. Even if you kill off your continent before 0 bc ... You will never, ever win the game, because YOU KILLED YOUR TRADING PARTNERS! (Well - we could play a duel sized map )

Edit:about the ability - like i said, you can go to war early, but it will result in -5 to +5 GPT, no money income from trading partners, no CC, no growth, no happiness and i could go on and on.

 

[Lyoncet]

It's completely fair. It's hard to see the complete absurdity in the Germans because it's a cool sounding ability, I mean, you're taking barbarians over, it's kinda cool. But it shares the same problems as my extreme example.

No; condensing a series of 50% chances down to one 50% chance for either extreme is completely ridiculous. Say you find 10 huts (low estimate for most games). Odds of you getting nothing from your ability are .5*.5*.5*.5*.5*.5*.5*.5*.5*.5. That's less than a .01% chance of never getting a barbarian recruit. So less than a .01% chance of being accurately described by your scenario.

Like I said, I understand where you're coming from; having a 50% chance to have it dud any given attempt is a bummer. Plus, being one of the many abilities that can end up being poor to unnoticeable due to the map/rules is a bummer (along with about a third of the other civs). I just happen to disagree with your reasoning, and thereby your conclusion.

Edit:about the ability - like i said, you can go to war early, but it will result in -5 to +5 GPT, no money income from trading partners, no CC, no growth, no happiness and i could go on and on.

That's true. It's also true that since that happens regardless of who you're playing as, and that domination is the easiest victory condition, so I don't really see why it's an issue.

 

[Jediron]

This is not the point.

I could make a civ that has a special ability "At the beginning of the game, flip a coin, on heads you win, and on tails you play with no unique ability". It only occurs at the start, it either works or it doesn't, and half the time you feel like a gimped other civ. It's not fun. With Germany I feel the same way, with sometimes not seeing enough encampments to actually warrant the ability. Other times even if I have a good supply, Deity civs make short work of them.

If you have an opinion, explain it. Expressing it is worthless.

The point is: the gamedevelopers made it possible to you to do exactly that what he is doing.
a)Can you blame him for using it ?
b) Why should we figure out what is dumb or what is cool ?
c) is it too much to ask for, the game developers balanced the game better for us, so that we don't have to make silly discussions like this ?
d) in my mind every nation should be interresting and cool to play, if it does not, who's to blame ?
(i say the game developers)

 

[Realyn]

Looks like you got my point, then please answer this:

I assume you play on a random map or fractal with 8 Civs.


How are you going to win ?

 

[Jediron]

I don't care, honestly. The AI is so stupid, that it's hardly worth the effort to try things like that.
The game setup makes it possible for you to make very unbalanced and silly scenarios. That's a basic design fault, to begin with. Add up the Ai battle stupidity, the 1 UPT stupidity, etc.etc.etc.

I wonder, why are you so thrilled to come up with all those conditions; while at them moment so many things are basicly flawed ?

It lacks momentum on Marathon speed (turtle game play?) and is way too fast on speedy gameplays (unit become obsolete while your even building them) and the list goes on and on.

 

[scytheavatar]

With so many broken unique abilities it's laughable to suggest that German's unique ability is any more overpowered than those of China, Greece, Persia, Siam, India, etc.... add to the fact that the German's unique units are extremely weak and I think most people would agree that German doesn't suck as much as America but is far from a top tier civilization in this game.

 

[Feanor73]

German unique ability is very situational.

On the whole, Germany is an average civ at best.

 

[Roxlimn]

Germany's UU isn't extremely weak. Not at all. I always look forward to using Landknecht when using Germany.

 

[Celevin]

No; condensing a series of 50% chances down to one 50% chance for either extreme is completely ridiculous. Say you find 10 huts (low estimate for most games). Odds of you getting nothing from your ability are .5*.5*.5*.5*.5*.5*.5*.5*.5*.5. That's less than a .01% chance of never getting a barbarian recruit. So less than a .01% chance of being accurately described by your scenario.

Like I said, I understand where you're coming from; having a 50% chance to have it dud any given attempt is a bummer. Plus, being one of the many abilities that can end up being poor to unnoticeable due to the map/rules is a bummer (along with about a third of the other civs). I just happen to disagree with your reasoning, and thereby your conclusion.

It's not just about the 50% chance. On some maps I don't see more than 3 encampments, with regular settings. The ability has just a chance to flop, and never ever give you a chance to use it.

My point is an ability could be perfectly fair and win you games a fair percent of the time, but it won't be fun, because you don't even use it. Try playing on Deity, and over half of the games you'll reload a new map within the first 50 turns.

I also have something strongly against weighted abilities time-wise, but nobody else seems to have a problem with the Germans having no UA after the first 1.5 eras. What do you do in the Medieval or Renaissance, swim to another unsettled continent, kill barbarians, swim the brutes back, and upgrade them?

 

[Roxlimn]

The French have no UA after Steam Power. That's a weighted ability time-wise.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

In the one game where I played the Germans, I used my city expansion to cordon off a decent chunk of land and never allowed for open borders with anyone. I left some units near my borders and whenever I got a encampment notification from this no-mans-land I send in my border guard and cleared the encampment. With Raging Barbs on and a decent chunk of land I was able to pick up an encampment from somewhere in there every ten turns or so sometimes more often.

I'm not saying it was a massive boost, but it did allow me to use my ability throughout the entire game. Also, whenever an AI got upset that there was all this unsettled land and tried to send a settler over there I had a target for my army to chew on. Also, I did have to deny myself an area where I could have settled three or four cities. Not a big deal though because they didn't have any resources or luxuries I needed, but that may not always be the case.

 

[Ceterius]

I started playing a Germany game on Deity. (Large map / epic speed / Pangea / normal barbs)

My plan was to use the Horseman rush strategy but I invaded very early as soon as I finished researching Horseback riding. China was conquered with 2 warriors, brutes, spearmen and one rush-bought horseman. China had swordsmen, and this would have been impossible to pull off with any other civilization so early.

Germany seems to be the strongest since successful early rushes are crucial, and the German UA helps in the most important part of the game.

 

[Zhahz]

I setup game conditions in my favor and won. News at 11! (not like winning is a stretch anyways but, yeah)

 

[Antarion]

barbarian camps spawn the whole game, as long as there is land OUT OF SIGHT of any civ!

repea this sentence: OUT OF SIGHT of any civ! so if ppl dont let room for barbarian you dont get any, easy as that.

on some island i got spawns directly the turn after i destroyed a camp somewhere. and also you will get better units in modern times (did u ever see a destroyer, ok not worth it for germany but ottomans will steal it)

if you play ottomans btw you will have to handle camps in another way. park a ship near the camp and try to block the land behind the camp from any other civ. dont kill the camp! get the ships or let your lower promoted ships train at the shores of barbarians, if you dont need the navy bring them home and sell the ships. this of course needs cities not far away from the pirates

 

[Lyoncet]

I setup game conditions in my favor and won. News at 11! (not like winning is a stretch anyways but, yeah)

I see... epic speed (which seems pretty much like par anyways). That's it. Pangea is a non-issue on deity since after you take down the first 1-2 civs there's no more barbs spawning because of AI spam anyways, so FT is useless after that point. Large is a non-issue because it scales up number of civs, which means more busting. I don't have any hard data on that though, so maybe they can't quite keep up at first, but with all those civs starting with 2 settlers and a boatload of warriors plus city states, I can't see the extra room making for more barbs.

So what's the issue here?

 

[hellboy909]

In the one game where I played the Germans, I used my city expansion to cordon off a decent chunk of land and never allowed for open borders with anyone. I left some units near my borders and whenever I got a encampment notification from this no-mans-land I send in my border guard and cleared the encampment. With Raging Barbs on and a decent chunk of land I was able to pick up an encampment from somewhere in there every ten turns or so sometimes more often.

Nice. Proper care & feeding of barbarians is crucial as Germany.

I, for one enjoy the change of pace (literally) playing Germany on marathon speed.

 

[Viperace]

Do not agree with the OP

In my last game I played German in Immortal. I had an obvious strategy- hit as many barb camp and get as many free units as I can, in the meantime mass units. However, ONLY ONE out of the many barb settlement attack give me the much needed unit.

It all depends on luck! At the end, I have to win the game without relying on German's special ability.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

They could have simply made it so that it's "every other barbarian camp" that gives you a unit... for more consistent and predictable UA.

 

[H4run]

this is so unreal, so game, this ability has been set as german unique ability as it not really being a fundament on German civilization, they ability to convert barbarian what a lol. And the discussion or so different in manners its more about trick then strategy.

And for Ottoman, Arab, Aztec, they also have a weak unique ability, converting a trireme? wich rarely appear on your game and it got only 50 percent? what for? and 1 gpt per trade route? isnt it too little? beside why dont take Ottoman as how they gift such unworthy ability for nation who also have big role in history of earth for hundreds year, in science, culture, military, i guess the game developer or the scenario builder are nearly simpleton and have no deep knowledge in history or have a serious lack on relating history with their unique ability in the game.

I will try to play this trick at Immortal later, this game is right, just for fun, is about tricking the fool AI and have a nice laugh moment behind your pc, anyway, i have lots of that.



cheers!

 

[vendur]

this is so unreal, so game, this ability has been set as german unique ability as it not really being a fundament on German civilization, they ability to convert barbarian what a lol. And the discussion or so different in manners its more about trick then strategy.

And for Ottoman, Arab, Aztec, they also have a weak unique ability, converting a trireme? wich rarely appear on your game and it got only 50 percent? what for? and 1 gpt per trade route? isnt it too little? beside why dont take Ottoman as how they gift such unworthy ability for nation who also have big role in history of earth for hundreds year, in science, culture, military, i guess the game developer or the scenario builder are nearly simpleton and have no deep knowledge in history or have a serious lack on relating history with their unique ability in the game.

I will try to play this trick at Immortal later, this game is right, just for fun, is about tricking the fool AI and have a nice laugh moment behind your pc, anyway, i have lots of that.



cheers!

Ottomans UA is probably the worst in the game, but it's not actually entirely useless. In fact, it can be incredibly helpful. I often see a pirate boat starting out, usually several. If you get one, then you can sail it around the map and meet everyone. It's a huge advantage if you get one. And you dont even have to destroy the ship to get it. Just get next to it and bang 50% chance its yours. IMO, ottomans have easilly the best UUs outside of greeces riders of doom.