you will have to face rushes, FF's, and then hopefully fight it out in lateindustrial/imperial age. Actually, it was a friend of mine who is really crazy about booming civ's now-a-days, that told me the germans might have a huge boom potential. At first, I didn't believe him, because a brit manor boomer will have a better econ than you. But, as I also found out, what if you can get past this? What if you can get past the early industrial when the brit's are strongest. I've learnt a few things lately while, ironically, FFing with germans. The first thing I noticed is that their mercs are defensive, NOT offensive. Why? Well, let's take jaegers. Poor siege, poor hp, good range, but weak against melee. But spanish, on the other hand, has highlanders. Now THAT's an offensive merc! Good hp, strong overall (beware skirms though), great attack, strong vs cav trying to raid your cannons. Bear with me, I will, eventually As ceres has more or less proved in his last games, walling of a city ain't necessarily noobish. Well, this works great with germans. If he attacks you, send culvs + jaegers. He WILL reatreat unless he has mortars (in which case you should be on your way to age4 and having factories). Well, booms, huge armies and lategame can be fun, but you will still probably be able to do a merc FF. Besides, I dare say that the germans are the strongest civ lategame. With good ol' Tilly and advanced arsenal, those doppels will slaughter EVERYTHING. Backed with fac. cannons, they are unstoppable. You just have to have the econ to be able to get them out ASAP, which requires at least 50-60 settlers. Once you get here, it's probably GG. well, I haven't tried this directly... Yet. But cards in mind would be following: adv. arsenal, unique church, 2 towers, ATP (you *REALLY* need a couple of TPosts, the amount of age3 cards you will want to send will be huge), 2 facs, 3-4 mercies, 3 wagons, 2 wagons, 700 gold, 1000 wood, 9 skirms, and germantown farmers (will enable a huge boom if you can afford the resources that late). Perhaps even advanced mill? Lastly, I want to say that I haven't been working on this, it's just a thought, and the more I think about it, the more it sounds like it's do-able in my ears. I had one game yesterday where I was WTF pwned by a spanish FF'er for 45 mins, and then I reached lategame, imp doppels + cannons = GG in 10 minutes. It was new england, and he had 75% of the map controlled. I was walled in in the lower-left corner on both sides, with him having all the TPosts and twice my econ at all times. Still, german defence mercs, basebuild (for those of you that didn't know, base build is NOT build order, but HOW and WHERE you place your buildings) and some luck eventually won me the game. If you look at the lategame stats, it's pretty amazing I won. so, I really didn't intend it, but funnily though, I did just what I had in my thoughts (going lategame IMBA germans Lastly, I'd like you to add to this, do some test games etc, if this strat is viable the germans will be a *much* better civ in my eyes, as they have a lot of flexibility. So, will you work with me on this and perhaps develop a german boom/turtle? Thanks,
Well, germans have defensive mercs, and mercs are cost-efficient. The german eco is usually quite bad when you reach early industrial, compared to brits/dutch/ports. Well, let's say you slow your FF a bit, take the time to ship 2 towers etc, making a few more vills. Instead of stressing the offence, you will be awaiting an attack, haveing a shipment of counter mercs ready (eg, if he constantly raids you with hussars or DA OP KAV you send BR)
~Olannon