avl8
Prince
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2010
- Messages
- 364
Hi, guys! Id like to share with you a detailed guide to Germany on Immortal and below difficulties.
I've fallen in love with Bismarck Vox Populi gameplay and I hope you'll have fun playing with it.
Germany is a very strong and versatile civilization. Its also a rather difficult nation to master in Vox Populi. Bismarck have decent bonuses to play a game of diplomacy, economical and cultural strength. He also has best late game option to deal with runaway civs in the game.
You shall definetely enjoy playing Bismarck if you like big empires, influential politics and managing really big things. Also you may find useful my Tips & Tricks section, especially if you are new to Vox Populi mod.
Germany civ analysis
Realpolitik is a signature ability of Bismarck. Berlin gets +3 culture, + 3 science, + 3 golden age points per allied city-state scaling with era. Berlin also gets +1 culture, +1 science, +1 golden age point per friendly city-state scaling with era.
This is a very strong ability with decent scaling. It provides crucial bonuses during the game, especially in Ancient and Classical era. You can quickly become a runaway civ by using Realpolitik properly. Its common to have around +50 culture/ +50 science during midgame on standart speed out of Realpolitik, which is best way to be #1 in culture and #1 in science. And these things easily transforms into runaway status and world leadership on immortal difficulty and below.
Hanse is a unique medieval era German building. Its a Customs House replacement which provides +3 culture, +5 gold, 2 (!) great merchant slots, makes every trade route from the city more efficient (+2 gold bonus), provides extra science from gold production in the city (10% of gold becomes extra science every turn) and on top of these goodies it also gives a city +5% production from each trade route your empire has with any city-state.
Hanse gives your cities decent economical and political tools through extra production, extra culture, extra science, extra gold and extra great merchant slot. This building will transform an already strong civ into a true medieval beast. With some useful tricks you can maintain #1 gold per turn status till the end of the game.
Panzer is a unique modern era German unit. It has extra movement point and extra combat strength comparing to regular Tank, and it comes 1 tech earlier than Tank.
You can build it with oil and production when you reach Ballistics technology. You can also get your Panzers with Landship upgrade. Or you can build some Horseman during Ancient/Classical Era and upgrade them through the game into Knightes, Lancers, Landships and finally Panzers.
Panzer comes very late in the game. It gives Germany a unique ability to secure lategame wins or to steal a win from a runaway civilization. This unit is great to raid enemy lands, kill their forces, disrupt infrastructure and capture stuff. My strategy will make using Panzer a good late game option, though most of the time by this time you should already won the game or be very close to.
The combination of Realpolitik and Hanse defines a strong and versatile German gameplan described in this guide. With decent bonuses to science and culture Germany is well suited to any kind of victory, though Diplomatic victory will be our primary target.
Unstoppable German gameplan
Its plain and simple. Build large empire, make and maintain city-state alliances, maintain useful relations with others, grow and prosper, enjoy big empire, runaway and win.
Unstoppable German Plan B
Its even simplier. If somehow some AI will runaway, we make sure it will suffer and get punished for it.
Now lets get into details.
Diplomacy
Its core part for our gameplan.
We need to maximize city-state alliances to snowball via Realpolitik. We shall earn influence via unit gifts during early game, then we must establish a continous flow of emissaries/envoys to maintain very high levels of influence till the end of the game. We also need to monitor city-state quests and ensure we have resources to fulfil their requests, by both military and economical means.
We need room to expansion during every era. We need many cities, decent yields, decent production and ok army to maintain our alliences. Thats why we need to expand fast and never stop expanding. Each city will get us more economical power, more yields, more means to maintain city-state alliances. So we need to a) secure good city spots and b) ensure others won't declare wars on us.
We need to maintain useful relations with our neighbours to ensure no one will impede our gameplan. Best way to start a snowball in ancient era is trading luxuries and strategic resources. It also helps building useful relations since most of the time we offer AI a favorable deals. During early game its useful to make trade deals with the closest AIs, even if the deal value for us is not the best. That is why we really care about our neighbours being friendly and satisfied with our peaceful co-existance. Later on a combination of active trading, religious expansion and peaceful behavior will get us a couple of DoFs which transform into alliances, research agreements and favorable deals for us.
Still we can encounter an early warmonger nearby. Below I will share some useful tips on how to deal with such situation.
Religion
Its a cornerstone of our strategy, a #2 priority after diplomacy.
Best way to start our snowball is getting a strong and early pantheon. Extra yields is ok, but extra culture, gold and production early is essential for us. A good pantheon for us is also a scaling one. Heres a short list of pantheons I would like to get for Unstoppable Germany:
Then comes religion. We need an early one since a) it helps diplomacy, b) it offers extra votes for World Congress, c) it will provide decent bonuses for our economical snowball.
That means we need to prioritize shrines high enough to get #1 or #2 religion in the game.
Heres a short overview of a desired religion for our strategy:
Founder belief: Theocratic Rule
We need bonuses for every city from WLTKD. We shall get many great merchants and found many cities during the game. Extra yields will be crucial for our success.
First follower belief: Cathedrals
We need a best scaling religious building for our large empire. We also need one that suppliments our golden ages from Realpolitik. We also need extra gold to snowball and runaway.
Plan B: Synagogues
Second follower belief: Thrift
We need every gold we can get from a scaling ability. It has decent synergy with our trade routes, Theocratic Rule, Hanse and our social policies.
Enhancer belief: Pacifism
We shall settle many cities, we shall grow them into high population, we shall trade our luxuries to maximize income. So we need the best methods to maintain +10 happiness level through the game. We also need to spam missionaries to ensure we'll get early reformation belief out of early national religious wonder. And we also play peacefully most of the game
World Congress
We shall dominate World Congress from the very first session. It requires some preparation and proper priorities during early game. We'll need to a) discover other civs, b) build Scriviners Office early c) prioritize scientists and civil servants early over other types of specialists. Our science must be good enough to reach Printing Press tech before others get it.
We shall use World Congress as a powerful tool to our winning strategy. First, we'll secure peaceful environment with Global Peace Accords resolution. Second, we'll bring proposal that will boost our relations with our neighbours. Each proposal they'll like greatly reduces chances any of them will declare war on us. Third, we ensure that crucial proposals like World Ideology, United Nations project and World Religion will pass to our glory.
Now, lets dive deeper into early game decisions.
Scouting priorities
On most game settings building at least one scout is a "must have" option. On immortal difficulty pangaea maps I recommend to build one scout and another once we settle a first city. On lower difficulties building 2 scouts first is a nice strategy.
First, we'll need to search for expansion targets. Second, we'll need to uncover our neighbours before first expansion: both city-states and other civs. Third, we shall discover every other civ as soon as possible to get World Congress' host status.
Building priorities
On immortal settings Id recommend this kind of start:
Building order in second city will be like this:
1. monument
2. shrine
3. granary
This way you'll setup your first caravan into capital which is crucial for early game science and growth.
And these are my building priorities per era:
Ancient era: well >> council >> herbalist/granary
Classical era: Scriviner's Office >> library >> Writer's Guild/School of Philosophy
Medieval era: Univercity >> Oxford >> Grand Temple >> Chancery>> Artist guild >>Hanse
Renaissance era: Printing press >> Bank >> Observatory >> Windmill
Industrial era: Public school >> Train station >> Factory
As you may see I prioritize science, cultural and diplomacy buildings over others during early eras. Its because its very important to get a cultural and science leadership as soon as possible. And thats because we shall settle many cities early so we'll get pretty meaningful penalties to science and culture out of our expansion.
Policy choice
Its plain and simple: Progress >> Statecraft >> Industry >> Freedom
I recommend these policy setup for early game:
Progress
Liberty
Equality
Organization
Fraternity
Expertise
During medieval, Informants and Scholasticism will be huge buffers for out strategy.
Once we uncover Industry, Division of Labor and Mercantilism will bring us the most.
Tech priorities
Heres a simple list of recommended priorities:
Trapping >> Trade >> Writing >> Sailing >> Drama and poetry/Philosophy >> Education >> Guilds >> Printing Press >> Banking >> Scientific Theory
During first eras we should keep up with other civs in science. By the end of medieval era we should get #1-#2 spots and reach Printing Press before others. Next big thing will be Scientific Theory. Then you aim for Radio to unlock World Ideology resolution, then you go to Atomic Theory to unlock United Nations project.
Expansion and city development
On Immortal difficulty I recommend settling capital and 2 more cities before you setup libraries.
Then settle one city ahead of average AI. 5 cities when they have 4, 6 when they have 5 etc.
The tricks are a) never stop expanding, b) keep up in science and culture c) develop highly specialized cities.
Heres a setup I find very useful for Immortal difficulty:
Capital: focus on growth buildings, early scientist, diplomacy/civil servants later. Capital will provide early science boost from Progress opener. During mid-game it will produce great scientist and great diplomat while pumping national wonders. Our capital will have maximum growth most of the game, it will be our growth source for other cities via caravans before medieval era. Its also a nice idea to build National monument and Garden in the capital since it will have maximum civil servant slots and will provide great diplomats.
Factory: focus on production buildings and buildings that buff military units. This city is usually a city with many workable hills or pastures. Main focus here is production with every building that buffs it, especially Ironworks. Settlers early, warriors and horsemen later. If the city has stone/marble, it can send hammers to other cities. And if you can manage a coastal factory, it should develop everything for your naval adventures. Factory can be our main source of great engineers, but most of the time they come from cities that lacks production
Holy city. A frontline city with minimal distance to neighbours and city-states. Id recommend moving your first prophet before founding your religion. This city must build temple and Grand Temple as soon as possible.
Commerce hub. A city with the biggest luxury diversity. Its purpose is to setup every building that buffs caravans pre-medieval. It will build first Hanse following by East India company and work merchant specialists. The goal is to maximize gold output of this city so your caravans will provide maximum value. I've find out that setting up additional commerce hub during renaissance is very handy for a steady flow of great merchants. And with Theocratic Rule belief you definetely need a steady flow of great merchants
Science hub. A city with maximum workable forests and jungle tiles. Its purpose to setup every science building available and develop scientists. Additional science hubs are good but not mandatory in my opinion. With Realpolitik huge bonuses you soon will be swimming in beakers
Guild city. As a rule each of your cities (expect capital!) should maintain one guild and support a constant flow of its specialists. Additional buildings to enhance it is nice to have, but not required: amphitheaters, baths, gardens. By the time you research Sailing (Currency later) you should send caravans into your first 3 guild cities in such manner that each of them will be at least 7 pop when you get writers guild up and running.
Of course your cities can mix these archetypes. Holy city can be a commercial or science hub.
Great people
During early game the goal is to settle as many academies as we can. By researching Philosophy every city must have a scientist specialist working. It will boost both culture and science.
The second goal is long term: to settle as many embassies as possible. We'll need to work civil servants in capital constantly and increase their generation by national monument and garden as soon as possible.
Great engineers and great merchants are handy and we should organize their constant generation during medieval era.
And every musician, writer and artist should be spend for immediate bonus. Extra culture is what makes Germany an unstoppable force, extra happiness in capital is handy and extra golden ages are very good for the nation.
Managing armies
During early game we'll need a small army of archers to clear barbarian camps. 1-2 archers is more than enough for standart pangaea games.
Next goal is to develop garrison troops for every city. Warriors is fine and provide decent amount of defense against crime in our cities. During ancient and classical era a garrisoned warrior provide around +1 local happiness while archers provide less defense/happiness.
Next milestone is developing a mobile strikeforce to fulfil city-state quests faster and defend our allies during barbarian invasions. For Germany its all about producing or buying horsemen. Remember, these guys will eventually become Panzers later in the game.
With proper AI care, trading and bribing you won't need more units till the end game. Unless some crazy warmonger somehow declares war on you. Below Ill provide useful tips how to counter early and mid-game aggression.
Wonder overview
Wonders on immortal difficulty are unreliable high risk-high reward options. I won't recommend getting any wonders before you become a cultural runaway. Settling and developing many cities is simply more stable and efficient for our strategy than persuing wonders.
Still, by medieval or renaissance you should get cultural superiority via Real Politik, guilds and a special German event. So, if you like building wonders, you can spam them hard in Renaissance
German events
I have to spoil two unique events for Germany.
First is free person of your choice. It comes around turn 100-120 on standart speed. Usually its a good time to grab Great Prophet and enhance our religion.
Second event comes around turn 160-180 and provide +1 culture from every workable forest as well as woodsman promotion to our units. This one is why we must preserve forests and settle cities where they grow.
Tips & Tricks
1. Ignore Bronze working! Best and the most consistant way to build city-state relations during early game is gifting them units. Thats why I recommend ignoring Bronze working and Steel technologies for as long as you can.
Warriors are very cheap to produce and each provide +15 influence points. So by completing a single quest and investing 6-7 turns into warrior spam you can get your first alliance online. And that will get you +3 culture, +3 science and +3 golden age points in ancient era on top of alliance bonuses, which is HUGE!
2. Get your people happy! As you might know in Vox Populi your nation get +1% to every yield except production for each +1 happiness you got, capped at +10 happiness.
Getting +10 happiness while expanding is a tough early challenge on Immortal difficulty. Still there are some ways to get there. First is connecting luxuries. Second is buying luxuries from AIs, second copy is always cheaper! Third is getting a warrior garrisoned in every city. Fourth is connecting cities with roads or trade routes from capital. And ultimately - by growing your population. There are several population caps where each luxury you own starts to provide extra happiness to empire. Ah, and religion is also a great way to boost happiness, especially a Pacifism belief.
3. Get a trireme or two! By medieval era some city-quests will bring for a circumnavigate quest. The easiest way to get it is to rushbuy a trireme or two before you research Compass. Then you upgrade your ships into Caravels and get the quest done! Later you can gift your ships to city-states or build more to protect your expansion.
4. Turn on Transparent diplomacy! Its the best way to learn what AI thinks. Its also a good way to setup favorable deals for your neighbours. Usually if you sell items that benefit AI more than 40 points, they will be very satisfied ("we are trade partners") and less likely declare war on us.
Thats why gifting AI 1 gpt is a nice way to build useful relations
5. Archers behind walls are good! The best early war for us is that is never started.
But If some early warmonger manages do declare on you its time to switch production immediately. During ancient and classical era archers behind walls are the best defense against agression. That is why developing some archers early and garrisoned warriors is worth it. Such a mediocre force can hold your frontline cities before you get reinforcements. And the best reinforcement for Germany is, of course, Horsemen, each is potential Panzer, you know
6. Develop many workers early! Ive found that my magical number of workers is (number of cities +2). First comes from Liberty policy, second is usually stolen from a hostile city-state, others usually recruited with gold. Their main purpose is setting up everything you can trade as soon as possible. Their second goal is to set up city connections for Fraternity policy bonuses. Fraternity early provide huge science bonuses out of connected cities, you know for sure
I've fallen in love with Bismarck Vox Populi gameplay and I hope you'll have fun playing with it.
Germany is a very strong and versatile civilization. Its also a rather difficult nation to master in Vox Populi. Bismarck have decent bonuses to play a game of diplomacy, economical and cultural strength. He also has best late game option to deal with runaway civs in the game.
You shall definetely enjoy playing Bismarck if you like big empires, influential politics and managing really big things. Also you may find useful my Tips & Tricks section, especially if you are new to Vox Populi mod.
Germany civ analysis
Realpolitik is a signature ability of Bismarck. Berlin gets +3 culture, + 3 science, + 3 golden age points per allied city-state scaling with era. Berlin also gets +1 culture, +1 science, +1 golden age point per friendly city-state scaling with era.
This is a very strong ability with decent scaling. It provides crucial bonuses during the game, especially in Ancient and Classical era. You can quickly become a runaway civ by using Realpolitik properly. Its common to have around +50 culture/ +50 science during midgame on standart speed out of Realpolitik, which is best way to be #1 in culture and #1 in science. And these things easily transforms into runaway status and world leadership on immortal difficulty and below.
Hanse is a unique medieval era German building. Its a Customs House replacement which provides +3 culture, +5 gold, 2 (!) great merchant slots, makes every trade route from the city more efficient (+2 gold bonus), provides extra science from gold production in the city (10% of gold becomes extra science every turn) and on top of these goodies it also gives a city +5% production from each trade route your empire has with any city-state.
Hanse gives your cities decent economical and political tools through extra production, extra culture, extra science, extra gold and extra great merchant slot. This building will transform an already strong civ into a true medieval beast. With some useful tricks you can maintain #1 gold per turn status till the end of the game.
Panzer is a unique modern era German unit. It has extra movement point and extra combat strength comparing to regular Tank, and it comes 1 tech earlier than Tank.
You can build it with oil and production when you reach Ballistics technology. You can also get your Panzers with Landship upgrade. Or you can build some Horseman during Ancient/Classical Era and upgrade them through the game into Knightes, Lancers, Landships and finally Panzers.
Panzer comes very late in the game. It gives Germany a unique ability to secure lategame wins or to steal a win from a runaway civilization. This unit is great to raid enemy lands, kill their forces, disrupt infrastructure and capture stuff. My strategy will make using Panzer a good late game option, though most of the time by this time you should already won the game or be very close to.
The combination of Realpolitik and Hanse defines a strong and versatile German gameplan described in this guide. With decent bonuses to science and culture Germany is well suited to any kind of victory, though Diplomatic victory will be our primary target.
Unstoppable German gameplan
Its plain and simple. Build large empire, make and maintain city-state alliances, maintain useful relations with others, grow and prosper, enjoy big empire, runaway and win.
Unstoppable German Plan B
Its even simplier. If somehow some AI will runaway, we make sure it will suffer and get punished for it.
Now lets get into details.
Diplomacy
Its core part for our gameplan.
We need to maximize city-state alliances to snowball via Realpolitik. We shall earn influence via unit gifts during early game, then we must establish a continous flow of emissaries/envoys to maintain very high levels of influence till the end of the game. We also need to monitor city-state quests and ensure we have resources to fulfil their requests, by both military and economical means.
We need room to expansion during every era. We need many cities, decent yields, decent production and ok army to maintain our alliences. Thats why we need to expand fast and never stop expanding. Each city will get us more economical power, more yields, more means to maintain city-state alliances. So we need to a) secure good city spots and b) ensure others won't declare wars on us.
We need to maintain useful relations with our neighbours to ensure no one will impede our gameplan. Best way to start a snowball in ancient era is trading luxuries and strategic resources. It also helps building useful relations since most of the time we offer AI a favorable deals. During early game its useful to make trade deals with the closest AIs, even if the deal value for us is not the best. That is why we really care about our neighbours being friendly and satisfied with our peaceful co-existance. Later on a combination of active trading, religious expansion and peaceful behavior will get us a couple of DoFs which transform into alliances, research agreements and favorable deals for us.
Still we can encounter an early warmonger nearby. Below I will share some useful tips on how to deal with such situation.
Religion
Its a cornerstone of our strategy, a #2 priority after diplomacy.
Best way to start our snowball is getting a strong and early pantheon. Extra yields is ok, but extra culture, gold and production early is essential for us. A good pantheon for us is also a scaling one. Heres a short list of pantheons I would like to get for Unstoppable Germany:
- God of the Starts and the Sky
- Goddess of Nature
- Goddess of Springtime
- Goddess of the Hunt
- Spirit of the Desert
Then comes religion. We need an early one since a) it helps diplomacy, b) it offers extra votes for World Congress, c) it will provide decent bonuses for our economical snowball.
That means we need to prioritize shrines high enough to get #1 or #2 religion in the game.
Heres a short overview of a desired religion for our strategy:
Founder belief: Theocratic Rule
We need bonuses for every city from WLTKD. We shall get many great merchants and found many cities during the game. Extra yields will be crucial for our success.
First follower belief: Cathedrals
We need a best scaling religious building for our large empire. We also need one that suppliments our golden ages from Realpolitik. We also need extra gold to snowball and runaway.
Plan B: Synagogues
Second follower belief: Thrift
We need every gold we can get from a scaling ability. It has decent synergy with our trade routes, Theocratic Rule, Hanse and our social policies.
Enhancer belief: Pacifism
We shall settle many cities, we shall grow them into high population, we shall trade our luxuries to maximize income. So we need the best methods to maintain +10 happiness level through the game. We also need to spam missionaries to ensure we'll get early reformation belief out of early national religious wonder. And we also play peacefully most of the game
World Congress
We shall dominate World Congress from the very first session. It requires some preparation and proper priorities during early game. We'll need to a) discover other civs, b) build Scriviners Office early c) prioritize scientists and civil servants early over other types of specialists. Our science must be good enough to reach Printing Press tech before others get it.
We shall use World Congress as a powerful tool to our winning strategy. First, we'll secure peaceful environment with Global Peace Accords resolution. Second, we'll bring proposal that will boost our relations with our neighbours. Each proposal they'll like greatly reduces chances any of them will declare war on us. Third, we ensure that crucial proposals like World Ideology, United Nations project and World Religion will pass to our glory.
Now, lets dive deeper into early game decisions.
Scouting priorities
On most game settings building at least one scout is a "must have" option. On immortal difficulty pangaea maps I recommend to build one scout and another once we settle a first city. On lower difficulties building 2 scouts first is a nice strategy.
First, we'll need to search for expansion targets. Second, we'll need to uncover our neighbours before first expansion: both city-states and other civs. Third, we shall discover every other civ as soon as possible to get World Congress' host status.
Building priorities
On immortal settings Id recommend this kind of start:
- scout
- shrine (invest if you are lucky to get cash)
- monument
Building order in second city will be like this:
1. monument
2. shrine
3. granary
This way you'll setup your first caravan into capital which is crucial for early game science and growth.
And these are my building priorities per era:
Ancient era: well >> council >> herbalist/granary
Classical era: Scriviner's Office >> library >> Writer's Guild/School of Philosophy
Medieval era: Univercity >> Oxford >> Grand Temple >> Chancery>> Artist guild >>Hanse
Renaissance era: Printing press >> Bank >> Observatory >> Windmill
Industrial era: Public school >> Train station >> Factory
As you may see I prioritize science, cultural and diplomacy buildings over others during early eras. Its because its very important to get a cultural and science leadership as soon as possible. And thats because we shall settle many cities early so we'll get pretty meaningful penalties to science and culture out of our expansion.
Policy choice
Its plain and simple: Progress >> Statecraft >> Industry >> Freedom
I recommend these policy setup for early game:
Progress
Liberty
Equality
Organization
Fraternity
Expertise
During medieval, Informants and Scholasticism will be huge buffers for out strategy.
Once we uncover Industry, Division of Labor and Mercantilism will bring us the most.
Tech priorities
Heres a simple list of recommended priorities:
Trapping >> Trade >> Writing >> Sailing >> Drama and poetry/Philosophy >> Education >> Guilds >> Printing Press >> Banking >> Scientific Theory
During first eras we should keep up with other civs in science. By the end of medieval era we should get #1-#2 spots and reach Printing Press before others. Next big thing will be Scientific Theory. Then you aim for Radio to unlock World Ideology resolution, then you go to Atomic Theory to unlock United Nations project.
Expansion and city development
On Immortal difficulty I recommend settling capital and 2 more cities before you setup libraries.
Then settle one city ahead of average AI. 5 cities when they have 4, 6 when they have 5 etc.
The tricks are a) never stop expanding, b) keep up in science and culture c) develop highly specialized cities.
Heres a setup I find very useful for Immortal difficulty:
Capital: focus on growth buildings, early scientist, diplomacy/civil servants later. Capital will provide early science boost from Progress opener. During mid-game it will produce great scientist and great diplomat while pumping national wonders. Our capital will have maximum growth most of the game, it will be our growth source for other cities via caravans before medieval era. Its also a nice idea to build National monument and Garden in the capital since it will have maximum civil servant slots and will provide great diplomats.
Factory: focus on production buildings and buildings that buff military units. This city is usually a city with many workable hills or pastures. Main focus here is production with every building that buffs it, especially Ironworks. Settlers early, warriors and horsemen later. If the city has stone/marble, it can send hammers to other cities. And if you can manage a coastal factory, it should develop everything for your naval adventures. Factory can be our main source of great engineers, but most of the time they come from cities that lacks production
Holy city. A frontline city with minimal distance to neighbours and city-states. Id recommend moving your first prophet before founding your religion. This city must build temple and Grand Temple as soon as possible.
Commerce hub. A city with the biggest luxury diversity. Its purpose is to setup every building that buffs caravans pre-medieval. It will build first Hanse following by East India company and work merchant specialists. The goal is to maximize gold output of this city so your caravans will provide maximum value. I've find out that setting up additional commerce hub during renaissance is very handy for a steady flow of great merchants. And with Theocratic Rule belief you definetely need a steady flow of great merchants
Science hub. A city with maximum workable forests and jungle tiles. Its purpose to setup every science building available and develop scientists. Additional science hubs are good but not mandatory in my opinion. With Realpolitik huge bonuses you soon will be swimming in beakers
Guild city. As a rule each of your cities (expect capital!) should maintain one guild and support a constant flow of its specialists. Additional buildings to enhance it is nice to have, but not required: amphitheaters, baths, gardens. By the time you research Sailing (Currency later) you should send caravans into your first 3 guild cities in such manner that each of them will be at least 7 pop when you get writers guild up and running.
Of course your cities can mix these archetypes. Holy city can be a commercial or science hub.
Great people
During early game the goal is to settle as many academies as we can. By researching Philosophy every city must have a scientist specialist working. It will boost both culture and science.
The second goal is long term: to settle as many embassies as possible. We'll need to work civil servants in capital constantly and increase their generation by national monument and garden as soon as possible.
Great engineers and great merchants are handy and we should organize their constant generation during medieval era.
And every musician, writer and artist should be spend for immediate bonus. Extra culture is what makes Germany an unstoppable force, extra happiness in capital is handy and extra golden ages are very good for the nation.
Managing armies
During early game we'll need a small army of archers to clear barbarian camps. 1-2 archers is more than enough for standart pangaea games.
Next goal is to develop garrison troops for every city. Warriors is fine and provide decent amount of defense against crime in our cities. During ancient and classical era a garrisoned warrior provide around +1 local happiness while archers provide less defense/happiness.
Next milestone is developing a mobile strikeforce to fulfil city-state quests faster and defend our allies during barbarian invasions. For Germany its all about producing or buying horsemen. Remember, these guys will eventually become Panzers later in the game.
With proper AI care, trading and bribing you won't need more units till the end game. Unless some crazy warmonger somehow declares war on you. Below Ill provide useful tips how to counter early and mid-game aggression.
Wonder overview
Wonders on immortal difficulty are unreliable high risk-high reward options. I won't recommend getting any wonders before you become a cultural runaway. Settling and developing many cities is simply more stable and efficient for our strategy than persuing wonders.
Still, by medieval or renaissance you should get cultural superiority via Real Politik, guilds and a special German event. So, if you like building wonders, you can spam them hard in Renaissance
German events
I have to spoil two unique events for Germany.
First is free person of your choice. It comes around turn 100-120 on standart speed. Usually its a good time to grab Great Prophet and enhance our religion.
Second event comes around turn 160-180 and provide +1 culture from every workable forest as well as woodsman promotion to our units. This one is why we must preserve forests and settle cities where they grow.
Tips & Tricks
1. Ignore Bronze working! Best and the most consistant way to build city-state relations during early game is gifting them units. Thats why I recommend ignoring Bronze working and Steel technologies for as long as you can.
Warriors are very cheap to produce and each provide +15 influence points. So by completing a single quest and investing 6-7 turns into warrior spam you can get your first alliance online. And that will get you +3 culture, +3 science and +3 golden age points in ancient era on top of alliance bonuses, which is HUGE!
2. Get your people happy! As you might know in Vox Populi your nation get +1% to every yield except production for each +1 happiness you got, capped at +10 happiness.
Getting +10 happiness while expanding is a tough early challenge on Immortal difficulty. Still there are some ways to get there. First is connecting luxuries. Second is buying luxuries from AIs, second copy is always cheaper! Third is getting a warrior garrisoned in every city. Fourth is connecting cities with roads or trade routes from capital. And ultimately - by growing your population. There are several population caps where each luxury you own starts to provide extra happiness to empire. Ah, and religion is also a great way to boost happiness, especially a Pacifism belief.
3. Get a trireme or two! By medieval era some city-quests will bring for a circumnavigate quest. The easiest way to get it is to rushbuy a trireme or two before you research Compass. Then you upgrade your ships into Caravels and get the quest done! Later you can gift your ships to city-states or build more to protect your expansion.
4. Turn on Transparent diplomacy! Its the best way to learn what AI thinks. Its also a good way to setup favorable deals for your neighbours. Usually if you sell items that benefit AI more than 40 points, they will be very satisfied ("we are trade partners") and less likely declare war on us.
Thats why gifting AI 1 gpt is a nice way to build useful relations
5. Archers behind walls are good! The best early war for us is that is never started.
But If some early warmonger manages do declare on you its time to switch production immediately. During ancient and classical era archers behind walls are the best defense against agression. That is why developing some archers early and garrisoned warriors is worth it. Such a mediocre force can hold your frontline cities before you get reinforcements. And the best reinforcement for Germany is, of course, Horsemen, each is potential Panzer, you know
6. Develop many workers early! Ive found that my magical number of workers is (number of cities +2). First comes from Liberty policy, second is usually stolen from a hostile city-state, others usually recruited with gold. Their main purpose is setting up everything you can trade as soon as possible. Their second goal is to set up city connections for Fraternity policy bonuses. Fraternity early provide huge science bonuses out of connected cities, you know for sure
Last edited:
