Use of German civ ability

[slobberinbear]

"Teutonic Furor" (or whatever its Latin name is) seems difficult to put into action. I admit I may be missing something here.

Here's what I have tried:

1. Build a few warriors
2. Take Honor policy tree for bonus vs. barbs and flanking bonus (and other Honor tree benefits)
3. Take out barb encampments that pop up with 2-3 warrior army.
4. Get free warrior/brute about 50% of time

I see a few benefits here:

* you have an incentive to take out barbs. The cash is good.
* unit training without barracks
* your city is free to build other stuff than military
* possible city state favor for attacking barbs
* acquisition of warrior posse (say 6-7) after taking out about 6 encampments
* large military means AI leaves you alone more

What am I missing? Is the point of this to get free warriors for use as garrison forces for Honor SP +Happy face and Oligarchy free maintenance and bonus ranged attack? Or is the thought here to save up 440 or 660 gold, get Iron Working + Iron hookup, and do a massive upgrade of 4-6 semi-trained Brutes up to Swordsmen and go squash someone?

It just seems like a lot of effort for not much payoff unless you can stockpile the gold, keep the warriors alive, hook up 4-6 iron, and do the massive upgrade. Not to mention the unit maintenance costs.

 

[Tabarnak]

His UU is more powerful(read useful) than his UA.

 

[joncnunn]

I suspect OP would have better results choosing social policies in tradition or liberty instead of Honor.

You don't really need Honor to tell you where nearby camps are. There's plenty of other ways:
Scouts / Warriors used as Scouts; and the city states themselves will give messages first about barbs near them, and eventually where the encampments are.

 

[slobberinbear]

My thinking re: Honor was to prevent early warrior death and on the theory that I'd be warmongering after upgrading my warrior posse to Swordsmen.

I admit it is not optimal. I am just trying to get some mileage here out of the civilization/leader trait, which may be hard to leverage. I suppose I could just look at it as an incentive to take out encampments with the odd chance of a bonus unit for Power Level/AI deterrent purposes and for eventual garrison duty.

 

[Rittmeyer]

if it could at least be used in an efficient way to somewhat guarantee you will not be attacked early in high levels, the ability would have some use. but I'm not convinced yet, especially because all those warriors will cost a lot of mantainance and gpt is way too low post-patch.

so, if you are not going to use them in war, and it's hard to be sure you will, especially in high levels and/or when you have no iron, they would have to be a sure way to keep the AI peacefull in order to be worth it.

 

[Guardian_PL]

Woooow, slobberingbear, long time no see!

Yeah, Civ5 after last patch is still not great, but decent enough to give it a spin on Immortal/Deity.

Good to see you still hanging on these forums

 

[Pac-Dragon]

I had a great one-city domination game with Germany recently. I was originally planning to annex capitals for military production, but with Germany's UA it was totally unnecessary. I rushed my continent with a handful of swords & horses in the early game while taking Honor policies (I ignored the UU, since landsknechts kind of suck at taking cities). Between rushing before my opponents had many cities, and razing every city without a unique resource, I was left with a TON of empty land all over the continent.

By mid-game, I had a great recruitment system going. Barb camps would spawn in mostly predictable locations, then my knight-recruiters would ride out to see if any brutes wanted to join us, bringing captured units back to the nearest city for upgrades. With the Professional Army policy, upgrading was relatively cheap. I'd then walk the new recruits to one of my many fronts, usually getting some XP by detouring to raze an optimistic civ's fresh city in the middle of my barbarian farm.

It could take over 20 turns for a barb to go from captured to fully upgraded and fighting on one of my fronts, but the supply chain was nearly always full. My army was so large, I ended up having three battlefronts at once with replacement troops showing up every few turns. Paying for the army was almost completely funded via conquest gold (and unintentionally losing wonder races). It was just amazing to have such a large force despite only ever building a small handful of units in my capital.

I love Germany's UA now, but maintaining barbarian farms is the only way to make it remotely useful.

 

[Guardian_PL]

I had a great one-city domination game with Germany recently. I was originally planning to annex capitals for military production, but with Germany's UA it was totally unnecessary. I rushed my continent with a handful of swords & horses in the early game while taking Honor policies (I ignored the UU, since landsknechts kind of suck at taking cities). Between rushing before my opponents had many cities, and razing every city without a unique resource, I was left with a TON of empty land all over the continent.

By mid-game, I had a great recruitment system going. Barb camps would spawn in mostly predictable locations, then my knight-recruiters would ride out to see if any brutes wanted to join us, bringing captured units back to the nearest city for upgrades. With the Professional Army policy, upgrading was relatively cheap. I'd then walk the new recruits to one of my many fronts, usually getting some XP by detouring to raze an optimistic civ's fresh city in the middle of my barbarian farm.

It could take over 20 turns for a barb to go from captured to fully upgraded and fighting on one of my fronts, but the supply chain was nearly always full. My army was so large, I ended up having three battlefronts at once with replacement troops showing up every few turns. Paying for the army was almost completely funded via conquest gold (and unintentionally losing wonder races). It was just amazing to have such a large force despite only ever building a small handful of units in my capital.

I love Germany's UA now, but maintaining barbarian farms is the only way to make it remotely useful.

Cool story, changes my opinion about German civ a bit. What were your settings (difficulty, map size, game speed)? Raging barbs on or off?

 

[Pac-Dragon]

It was on king, standard size continents, standard speed. Raging barbs were off. I don't think raging barbs actually creates more encampments, just a faster spawn rate from encampments. The biggest challenge was getting enough gold to support the army, especially since I was at war with nearly every civ (due to having to raze every city that popped up in my barb farm). I was running negative GPT most of the time, but gold from conquering cities helped keep everything going.

 

[glaivemaster]

I found the same as Pac-Dragon back when I played Germany (though that was early days, so slightly different). It's an odd advantage that looks like it's for use in the Ancient Era but is really better a little after that (in the Dark Ages perhaps?)

Interesting when you start getting Spearmen as well, and upgrade them to Landsknech for 5gp. Landsknecht aren't great but at a 5gp cost and no hammers they still make good spam

 

[Zachriel]

Build a few warriors and spawn a few brutes. This allows quick exploration, important for strategic planning. Steal a couple of workers.

On King or Emperor level, you sometimes then have an opportunity for a Brute Rush against a militarily weak wonder-builder, such as Egypt. Be sure to have all forces available. You might be able to capture the capital, if its population is no more than five or six or so. If you do, the game is usually won. Otherwise, you might pillage a bit, retreat, and upgrade to sword.

 

[Rittmeyer]

I`m trying a Deity game in which I opened with two warriors instead of the usual two scouts in order to use the German ability.

I liked it. You still get huts, you have an easier time taking workers from barbarian camps (it happens a lot now) and you get some nice additional money from destroying the camps. Also, it should help with staying clear of a DOW due to a better number of soldiers.

In this particular game, things are a bit messed up due to the diplo situation being kinda hard to manage. So I`m not sure I`ll win. But it was a nice and fun open for a German game, and a made some use of his ability.

 

[slobberinbear]

Woooow, slobberingbear, long time no see!

Yeah, Civ5 after last patch is still not great, but decent enough to give it a spin on Immortal/Deity.

Good to see you still hanging on these forums

I was gone for a bit. Civ V was initially a major downer for me. I came back to it, saw the patch, and I'm back. The patch resolves most of my issues with the initial release. I have some catching up to do, it seems.

As far as difficulty goes, I'm struggling on King. It seems tech slingshotting is the way to go, as is stockpiling money.

 

[slobberinbear]

I had a great one-city domination game with Germany recently. I was originally planning to annex capitals for military production, but with Germany's UA it was totally unnecessary. I rushed my continent with a handful of swords & horses in the early game while taking Honor policies (I ignored the UU, since landsknechts kind of suck at taking cities). Between rushing before my opponents had many cities, and razing every city without a unique resource, I was left with a TON of empty land all over the continent.

By mid-game, I had a great recruitment system going. Barb camps would spawn in mostly predictable locations, then my knight-recruiters would ride out to see if any brutes wanted to join us, bringing captured units back to the nearest city for upgrades. With the Professional Army policy, upgrading was relatively cheap. I'd then walk the new recruits to one of my many fronts, usually getting some XP by detouring to raze an optimistic civ's fresh city in the middle of my barbarian farm.

It could take over 20 turns for a barb to go from captured to fully upgraded and fighting on one of my fronts, but the supply chain was nearly always full. My army was so large, I ended up having three battlefronts at once with replacement troops showing up every few turns. Paying for the army was almost completely funded via conquest gold (and unintentionally losing wonder races). It was just amazing to have such a large force despite only ever building a small handful of units in my capital.

I love Germany's UA now, but maintaining barbarian farms is the only way to make it remotely useful.

Love the story. I like the "knight-recruiter" name and concept.

 

[Thry]

edit: Woops, I r dumb!

 

[Guardian_PL]

I was gone for a bit. Civ V was initially a major downer for me. I came back to it, saw the patch, and I'm back. The patch resolves most of my issues with the initial release. I have some catching up to do, it seems.

As far as difficulty goes, I'm struggling on King. It seems tech slingshotting is the way to go, as is stockpiling money.

Same here, started playing around the latest patch release, before was VERY disappointed.

Yes, like you've said - micromanaging research agreements and trade deals is the way to go - sell everything you've got to everyone around every 30 turns. Luxuries 300 a piece, Open Borders for 50, strategic resources 45 each in pack of 4 or 5. Over and over and over again. While you're doing it you can also readily check whether particular AI has "enough on their hands right now", because the price they'll be giving to you will start dropping.

Also, after revamping first two SP trees are nice now - free settler for a booming rex or turtling for National College while gunning for a free Great Scientist from Meritocracy to set up Academy in NC city is very strong early on.

 

[Civ4Brains]

... While you're doing it you can also readily check whether particular AI has "enough on their hands right now", because the price they'll be giving to you will start dropping.

mmm, I always thought this was more a gauge for how that Civ considered itself in relation to your empire ie. if they were stronger militarily then they would be more demanding. I always seem to get to a point, even with Civ's that I am friendly with, where they they start asking for an additional 100 when signing RA's etc and I nearly always have smaller armies unless making a deliberate effort to put others off war (which is not all that often).

 

[kamex]

I've found the Germans to be very weak compared to other civs, possibly the worst even save Ottomans.

I find the UA way to unpredictable to be useful. Panzers are too late to be effective. Best luck I've had with germany is to GL slingshot to CS, then spam UU. Pikes are almost as strong as swords early on, so can be used to destroy a neighbor or two, giving you the game winning edge.

 

[Humdinger]

I actually find the Germans to be overpowered, at least on the level 4 and 5 difficulty levels and using Panagea map.

Get those warriors out there to recruit brutes and take out the nearest civ, razing every city possible. The razing portion is key - that way a whole new set of barb huts pop up behind your lead elements. The waves of reinforcements coming from your home nation encounters these and can double or triple in size by the time they reach the front.

After a while the map looks like a series of German islands surrounded by howling wastelands of barbarians, plus your next victim.

Not really the most fun way to play but very effective. YMMV for those of you who play at higher levels or on different maps.

 

[fromar]

I just finished my first German game. I won on domination with a standard size small continents map. I played on prince. Damn that default prince default in the advanced setup, I've been trying to play king games, and didn't realize I was on prince until well into the game.

I only had Washington on my continent. I recruited maybe 4 brutes, but there wasn't enough land to catch a bunch. I upgraded those brutes for to spearmen and was able to capture Washington's second largest city, but I didn't have enough forces to take out Washington DC.

When I got civil service, the cheap pikemen were awesome. I spammed a pile of them through city production and purchases. I was wasteful with them because I could keep building a new one every couple turns. I took the capital and a couple more cities, but I was hitting my happiness ceiling, so I called the war.

My second city had 4 gold resources, so I was generating a lot of money. Before I got to riflemen, I built and purchased as many cheap pikemen as I could. I finished the honor track early, worked on the commerce track, and build Big Ben. I was able to but the units cheap and upgrade them cheap. By the time I had infantry, I had a huge army. I was working on the autocracy track.

I built some panzers, but they didn't decide any big battles. The first civ I attacked was #1 in score, and they already had helicopter gunships. My panzers died quickly. That's been my experience in Civ 5 with tanks anyway - maybe they would be good in a great plains scenario, but on small continents, my battles are usually decided by boats and attacking cities, not by open battle.

After that, I took over the world with the help of a bunch of stealth bombers and battleships. I finished the autocracy track 15 turns before I won.

I give the civ a B-. If I play them again, I'll take advantage of a pangea map so I can find some barbarians in the early game. I like their colors.