So I have to ask, what good reason, now that the Zulu are in the game, does someone have to play as Germany, who is now basically inferior in every way?
They both get the reduced land unit maintenance for UAs, the difference being that Zulu units get promoted easier and the Germans can sometimes get free barbarians from camps, which is hardly a selling point. Even more, the Zulu pay 50% less maintenance, while the Germans pay only 25%. Is the chance of having barbarians join you really worth and extra -25% cost for land units, and faster promotions? This is just a bunch of extra brutes and spearmen, not exactly useful.
They both have pikeman UUs, except the Landsknecht is just a pikeman that you can build quicker. That's it. No bonuses, no advantages, nothing. Quality over quantity is key in Civ V compared to the other civ games because of UPT. Only so many units can attack a city at a time, so it's generally better to have fewer units with better promotions(ZULU), rather than hordes of bad ones. In comparison, the Zulu Impi actually has something going for it, with the ability to preform spear throws.
The German Panzer isn't necessarily bad per say, but it comes it at a point where the game should already be resolved, especially since conquest is all that either of these civs can really do, and that should end a game before Bismark even gets to use Panzers.
Compare that to the amazement that is the Inkanda and Germany is just the wrong civ to pick. With a great improvement on an already key building that is necessary for the Zulu path to victory, the Inkanda leaves the Germans in the dust.
As far as I can tell, the Germans are a lower tier civ in BNW that no one should really opt for over the far superior Zulu.
Caught me with the title, which I enjoyed quite a bit
I agree, there is a bit of power creep going on in this game. A cheap way to ensure people buy their DLC/expansions with new civilizations is to impress people with powerful UA/UUs, in case the historical flavor or the type of gameplay advantages aren't appealing to people. Everyone likes to win. But then it breaks the game. Because old civs like bismarck end up marginalized, which then means the old civs need a rework at the higher power level to level the playing field, which may then disrupt other systems within the game, and in many games these fixes come late or never. Just one more reason passion-based unmonetized DLC is better, sorry, but I'll get off my soapbox.
As for germany, I agree with you about the power level being too low. However, I like their Panzer, the UA is alright though a bit weak and bland, and I dislike the Landsneckt UU. Strangely enough the best thing the UA is does is leads to favorable peace deals, since your standing army can be so much larger & the AI calculates peace deals by military size differential. One of the most annoying things in this game is winning a war and being in shambles economically, preventing further progression, which this UA addresses. But I feel the UA should directly impact the war itself.
Beyond the overpowered new civs, they've been hurting since G&K changed the tech tree. The pike to lancer to anti-tank gun path marginalizes your spam unit, as lancers are relatively weak and require horses, which you may not have. The anti-tank gun comes much later, leaving you with lancers for a long time after they're of dubious quality, and the anti-tank guns themselves may be the worst unit in game, which leaves you with the worst thing you can have in this game, a large useless military. With the high accessibility of
Flight being on their way to
Plastics, a key science tech for any warmonger, and the need to double back for railroads and what not generally lessens the initiative you would have with the
Panzer, which was their ace in the hole. Normally a tank could blitzkrieg forward and munch on back-line artillery forcing their infantry back to defend, which allows you to advance. But with
Flight centralized and accessable air forces are already proliferated so a few WW1 bomber corp can take care of the disruption. Futhermore, while using the Panzers, you have to either suicide all your Landsneckt turned anti-tank guns, which die rapidly in modern combat to artillery, air power, and standard infantry, or sit on all the lancers while waiting for helicopters, at which point your timing window for a
Panzer-based attack has likely closed. Fix the anti-tank gun, and you fix Germany, at least somewhat.
I have not tried the Lightning War autocracy upgrade with Germany yet though, and that may help a lot, I'll have to give it a try. But again, that tenet is available to everyone. So yeah, agreed, Germany isn't doing so well
