How to play Germany

[tempshemps]

Playing Germany, should I not go liberty at all? I read the Dictators and Despots section on Germany, and I noticed that when i played Germany this last game I was in, I had filled out the liberty policy track so that I could expand a bit faster and get some more resources, but then I noticed later in the game that social policies were costing a lot, and I managed to fill out the honor policy track and rationalism, but autocracy was almost entirely unfilled. I think I only got 1-2 policies from autocracy, and I got them so late in the game they probably didn't amount to much benefit anyway.

So is the main problem that I went liberty instead of honor in the beginning? It feels like it's so much harder to get policies when I am playing a game with autocracy because I don't get that +2 culture per wonder bonus from Freedom's Constitution policy.

The thought crossed my mind: maybe I should dig into tradition just to get oligarchy so I could put garissons in all my cities free, then get that +1 happiness and +2 culture from each city, sort of like France's bonus, but without all the added unit costs... The 3 additional culture per turn from the start seems like, for a long game, would really help accrue more policies too. Then again, if I'm playing Germany with low unit-cost to begin with, and then I go autocracy and get the 33% cost reduction from that, maybe it wouldn't be too expensive anyway to do that, and the social policies might be better spent on honor, autocracy, and rationalism policies. Does unit cost depend on the TYPE of unit? Like would it be pretty cheap to garisson cities with scouts or something as opposed to artillery if I wanted the culture/happiness bonus?

I also think my problem that game was that I focused too much on getting wonders maybe. I had like 28 wonders or something toward the end... it's so hard to resist wanting to make them because I just love watching the wonder videos... wonders of course it seems like would add to culture, but I think one major problem I had was that I didn't exploit Germany's more militaristic-oriented benefits because I kept focusing on domestic things like wonder and building construction. I still managed to conquer my half of the continent, but later had difficulty with the other AI superpowers that came about, and I think it was because I just didn't conquer my neighbors quickly enough maybe.

So maybe next game I play, I'll be a bit more selective about the wonders I go for, buildings I make (at least at first), play more aggressively, and go straight into honor. One side note, by the way, is that I usually prefer games without barbarians in them. Is Germany's barbarian-bonus really that important to winning with them, or is the -25% military cost most of the benefit they get? Maybe I should turn on barbarians to play with Germany but they're a bit annoying in the mid-game. It'd be nice if barbarians would just stop appearing after the ancient era or something.

edit: oh by the way, the game was King difficulty. And should I be trying to get the Great Library, and do a lot of teching, especially as Germany? Seems like a lot of Germany's general strategy revolves around getting autocracy, panzers, etc - all industrial era things. Should I be teching so I can get to these things faster, or just focus on early-game aggression with honor and conquering neighbors?

[twersx]

In the early game, you can get an army from encampments. Taking honour just makes their UA even easier to use. Especially in longer length games where building units takes longer than destroying them

[Gooner]

Germany is all about combat, particularly early.

The Landsknecht is very cheap and doesn't require resources so you can pump out heaps of them and try to take some cities early on. This, combined with the chance of capturing units from encampments means you can get a large army up reasonably quickly.

I'd go expansion and combat if you're playing Germany.

[the man of doom]

b-line to civil service

spam LKs and flood ur neighbors

[VicRatlhead51]

Put the barbarians on raging and go honor all the way. You'll build such a large army from the encampents and honor makes barbarians so easy there's little to no annoyance factor. I've played Germany before and only built a few units on my own the entire game. Even on raging I'm usually waiting for new encampents to spawn rather than the other way around. Having them turned off cripples the honor skill tree since so much of your early culture is from killing barbs and also makes Germany only 75% as effective. The reason Germany is such a badass civ is 1. a free army and bonus gold from barbarians in the ancient era. 2. "carpet of doom" landsknect rush in the mideval. 3. lower troop maintenance so "carpets of doom" can be kept up. 4. if you haven't won a dom victory by the modern era the panzer will lay waste to your enemies (sad thing is I rarely ever get to use the panzer). Turning off the barbs wipes out what I'd really consider an unfair advantage that Germany has over other civs.

[Hunter XLR8]

Honor first, Liberty later. For me the only reason I get Autocracy is for Police State as by the Industrial era, my people get tired of war until Police State comes in and I deport all foreign spies and traitors