Germany - The "Brute Force" Approach

[kinkosslw]

I decided to jump right in and start a marathon game on the largest map, easiest setting to start, and picked Germany for the Furor Teutonica. My plan was to start finding and converting barbarians.

The only fighting unit I have built was a single scout. It and my starting warrior ended up converting dozens of Barbarian Brutes and, so far, a few archers. I'm concentrating on Honor Policies - really handy to get a notification when a new encampment pops, and I get bonuses against the barbs as well.

Then I sent my hordes against my local rivals. I'm only up to 1500 BC, and I've already turned 3 other Civs and 3 city-states into puppet states. I spent a bunch of gold turning a couple of city states into allies, but I'm thinking it might be better to make them puppets as well. By 1000 BC it looks like I'll be the only power on the continent.

Sure they'll be bigger problems with this strategy in higher difficulty levels (unhappiness will probably be a real issue), but I think if/when I go to multiplayer, I'll be keeping a close eye on the Germans in the early game.

 

[HamTard]

Because of how long it takes to make units, converting barbs is a lot more useful than it sounded before getting used to CivV.

 

[Spark026]

On marathon games the German ability is ridiculously strong, and essentially easy mode imo. However, on standard game speed the German ability is relatively weak compared to most civilizations.

 

[King Jason]

Because of how long it takes to make units, converting barbs is a lot more useful than it sounded before getting used to CivV.

This, and the above poster is incorrect I feel. I tested out Germany on Standard speed /w prince and conquered two civs with just my starting warrior.

and by just my starting warrior I mean my starting warrior and the barbarian horde that trailed behind him.

Just puppet your conquests until you're ready to expand appropriately.

 

[Ahriman]

Because of how long it takes to make units, converting barbs is a lot more useful than it sounded before getting used to CivV.

And I'm imagining you can upgrade the brutes at reasonable cost too with your newfound gold.

 

[ShadowDrgn]

I got the "convert 10 barbarians to your side" achievement by turn 90 in single player. In a multiplayer game, I had 4 brutes and 2 archers converted by turn 60 and rolled one of my friends easily (used all the gold from the camps to purchase a few mounted units to go with them). Even on standard speed, Germany's ability is ridiculously powerful and probably should be toned down to 20-25%.

 

[cembandit]

Hehe, and all the theorist said it was worthless before the game was released.

 

[Snackwell]

I'll agree with this - my one game so far was standard speed, at Cheiftan (? 1 below Noble), as Germany on a continent with Ghandi and Suleiman. Between the barbarian conversions and the ruin upgrades, I had a bigger army than I knew what to do with in no time. Wiped out both opponents (got a nice guilt trip from Ghandi when I did, "Congratulations, you wiped out a defenseless civilization" or something) before getting swordsmen.

In fact, after I noticed that barbarian camps tend to keep sprouting in the same spots, I'd leave an archer and warrior just outside of visibility of those spots -- step into visible range and out again every few turns, just waiting for them to respawn so I could get another brute or spear.

I probably shouldn't have bothered playing on this difficulty level. I'm running away with it but it's going to take forever to either invade the other continent and take out Liz, Monty, and ... whatshisname, the Iriquois, or go for culture or whatever.

 

[alpaca]

Hehe, and all the theorist said it was worthless before the game was released.

I expected it to be one of: a) weak, or b) practically forcing you to go on an early game war spleen in order to not waste your unique ability with Germany. Seems it's b).

Anyways, the same is basically true for civilizations that have both unique units in the ancient era, like Greece or Rome. But they at least have abilities that stay useful through the most part of the game.

The Ottomans appear to be worse, though.

 

[ShadowDrgn]

Hehe, and all the theorist said it was worthless before the game was released.

No one knew that barbarian encampments were going to be so common in Civ5. The German ability is nearly worthless on a packed Pangaea or overcrowded continent, but other civs have the same issue with map-specific abilities (England, Ottomans, Songhai). Greece and Siam can get screwed too if they don't have access to good city-states.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Well here's the thing. On a crowded Pangea map, it is very true that the barbarian encampments generally start to fade around the early medieval period. Germany picks up where they left off though because they get their first UU at this period. Germany. Warmongering since 4000 BC

 

[bhavv]

Its a great UA for warmongers, you can get really powerful in the ancient era.

One thing that is overlooked is that you can completely skip building units yourself and just rely on converted barbs.

I thought it was going to be really weak too, but its not. Not only do you get lots of free units, but also lots of extra gold.

 

[dannythefool]

No one knew that barbarian encampments were going to be so common in Civ5.

Although it was on the horizon, seeing as there's about one every other tile in CivRev...

 

[MkLh]

I decided to jump right in and start a marathon game on the largest map, easiest setting to start, and picked Germany for the Furor Teutonica. My plan was to start finding and converting barbarians.

Does this mean you played on Settler level? Unfortunately, I don't think playing in that level can give any information about efficiency of a strategy.