Well, I've actually never seem Outlaws in action... I have no idea why, but I must assume that either everyone thinks they suck or they do really suck!

However, their stats seem pretty impressive, and since Germans lack Musketeers... But the real problem seems to be that no one can afford that many houses and time to get them. Maybe I should've tried them with Ports... Well, good luck with it! I guess everyone would like to see a record where you beat an Otto rusher with them tho

I've beaten an Otto rush with it once, not recorded it though.

It might be difficult, but as Germany playing Ottos is difficult under any circumstances. With pistoleros you stand a slightly larger chance.

outlaws suck for the following reasons:

1, requires a card to get the pop problem sorted, dancing hall, or 700 wood, or palatine settlement.

2, 50 second train time is twice that of pike/xbow

3, saloon cost extra 50 wood than barrack.

4, you cant have 2 saloons to accommondate the extra production that you need once your eco catches up, limiting the overall value of investments in committing outlaw strat.

5, even with hefty set up investments and all the unfriendliness, the outlaws still dont perfrom significantly better than normal units.

All of that is true, and I would certainly use their normal equivalents. The problem with Germany is that you can't. You don't have musketeers or a reasonable ranged infantry unit in age 2.

Quote:

You don't want pikes against a rush, and xbows aren't perfect either.

Quote:

Not that hard to come by, especially with the wood politician.

Quote:

That's why I use fencing school.

Quote:

If you don't look at the pop (which you don't have to after sending Palatine Settlements) Pistoleros outperform Musketeers cost-effectively.

Doesn't the saloon cost 200 wood, the same as a rax?

First of all, I like the strat quite a lot... good use of Palatine settlements. But the issue I wrestle with is general disappointment with outlaw units.

I spent a little time experimenting with a British house boom \ outlaw strategy a while back. I really enjoyed toying around with it, but in the end I wasn't pleased with the strength of the outlaws relative to normal units. In the end the build worked out very well, but outlaws didn't measure up to my military expectations. But hey, as a German you're dealing with a no-musket military, which is problematic. So you're right to look at anything you can... I hope it works!

All those outlaw problems aside (which are problems with outlaws themselves, not the way your strat works), I really like the use of Palatine Settlements here. I found that outlaws worked pretty naturally with the Brits (due to the spare pop from an aggressive house boom.) Looks like the same is true for Germany with Palatine.

Good job (and good luck with a very challenging civ at the moment!) BTW, ultimitsu, aren't saloons only 200 wood? Or have I got that wrong? (Edit: wow, you beat me to it.)

[This message has been edited by Beatnik Joe (edited 02-07-2007 @ 04:16 PM).]

I maybe wrong about the wood cost then, I was under the impression that it was 250 wood.

Quote:

many rushes involve cavalry, sioux's 4+3 axe raider, russian's 5+4 cossack, dutch french otto all have 3 hussars, aztec has 5 coyotes.

xbows are not perfect but they are cheap and easier to gain access to.

Quote:

that is ayet a nother card. which is what i mean by outlaws are unfriendly to use, you spend 2 cards just to be able to make them properly.

Quote:

1 v 1 surely all outlaws out-perform their normal equavlent a bit. but the thing is you have to take everything into account, the pop cost, the train time, the rate of depeleting mines...

Quote:

Those are limited numbers, nothing pistoleros can't handle.

Quote:

You do not need to use fencing school to use outlaws effectively. They might train twice as slow but they are about the equivalent of 2 xbows.

Very nice.....its great to know I am not the only German player still lol

Though wouldn't the 700 gold shipment be a good 3rd shipment? It would allow you to pump out some more outlaws quickly and speed your way to fortress where you can get OP German mercs.

I don't use 700 gold because it is Uhlan bugged (If you don't know what that means check out this thread.

Of course, once that bug is fixed, it would certainly be a good option.

All I need to do is get my online towns up and use this for real :P been testing something similar after a german player did something with pistols against me, but offline.

Aside from the pistol train time, it brings them into a competetive level with some other civs as far as units go (40 dmg skirmisher, 30 dmg musket at range)

Versus a euro they will just make a church and kill u with spies, if they know what they are doing. Versus a native u will be rushed too soon to get off the ground prolly(or be slammed with Iro FF). It's a good idea, but IMO you still have to be more skilled when playing an opp using any of the other 10 civs.

Nice to know that my friend and I are also not the only German players left (actually I play just about all the civs, but the Brits, Germans, Russians, Iroquois, and Ottomans are my favorites)... There is just something about the Germans that fits my general playing style (which is highly unorthodox), and I also use outlaws, in conjunction with Pikes and Xbows to counter early rushes... My cards and ageup politicians are a bit different, but my overall build sequence is similar....

I haven't played my German HC since I found out about the Uhlan bug, though... However, since it seems that it's merely a listing sequence error, it should be possible to fix it by editing the TechtreeX.xml, which I'll be doing anyways for my next mod project.

Apparantly you don't know what you're doing either, Pistolero Renegado and Comanchero aren't countered by spies. They're regular Ranged Cav, HI and LI*.

Rushed too soon? Nope, only a civ like Spain or Iro could rush hard enough to prevent the saloon from making its units and Iro FF shouldn't ever be brought up when discussing a strat because it beats everything and therefore doesn't need to be said .

actually this strat was OP for a while when twc first came out, before people realized that spanish was STILL OP.

Outlaws are micro-unfriendly. But their usage makes most sense at a time when micro is paramount and can decide the outcomes of engagements.

But I can see how Musket-less Germans might find Pistolieros a good alternative to Crossbows and Dopplesoldners.

Here's something useful, by the way. Xantelian's latest Enhanced Text Details mod. It shows what Outlaws are on the map on the loading screen. Useful if you don't want to grab the Outlaw/map list every time a game starts.

Quoted from SUX2000:

You know it helps to do a little research before posting. Spies do not counter Outlaws. Outlaws are not classified as mercs.

[This message has been edited by Ender_Ward (edited 02-07-2007 @ 08:08 PM).]

Thank you alot, i love germans but have stopped using them much scince the nerf. Ill check it out and modify

Interesting strat I will have to try it soon, after letting my German town just rot, it would be interesting to play around with. Im glad some people are still trying to come up with ideas for UP civs.

Quote:

Actually, some people do that. It seems they fight so few Outlaws they don't know how to counter it when they encounter one. While it is a bit anachronistic to see cowboys shooting at crossbowmen and men in long black coats, it is fun nevertheless.

Quote:

Thanks! I'm going to try that.

Quote:

Well, as an Iro I have been beaten myself by Germans doing this. Hiding your saloon behind your TC, using minutemen and shooting the WC first seems to handle it nice.

And when he FFs, you go FF too. You have already gathered a lot of gold in colonial, so if you ship 3 SWs instead of Palatine Settlements, you can get a nice eco rolling and fight him in Fortress where Germany is much stronger than in Colonial.

EDIT: What I just found out today (Against an Iro rusher) is that Renegados actually have a very decent siege of 24 (higher than a musketeer). This makes them very nice for a counter-offensive.

EDIT2: Recorded game available!

[This message has been edited by Mediolanus (edited 02-08-2007 @ 05:20 AM).]

Oy, someone wtf pwned me in QS today doing this.

I was laming with dutch cuz i was sick of losing

so here we go, i get a german player! i was like wow!... and he was higher PR than me... easy PR for me, me thinks!

So I go for basic Dutch 4 bank semi-FF. lots of scouting with envoy and huH? i see a couple comancheros, then they kill my envoy... i'm thinking... wierd ok... lemme ship my 8 pikes

So i did that, making some more as well; i've got 8 pikes, 10 skirms in my base when kablaam, about 20 comancheros, 5 uhlans, and 9 xbows show up... i was dead so fast...

Even the comancheros pwn. I was stunned. and I just couldn't figure out how he got so many of them, musta been maxed out at 200 pop and the game went like only 15 minutes. I HAD to get to fortress for halbs or i was toast, the pikes just weren't cutting it. Thats when the doppels started showing up, and my TC was down, then Bank 1, Bank 2... GG

Someone invented a DeDutch Strategy. And used one of the outlaws you didn't think would work either.

Here is the game:
http://www.agecommunity.com/stats/GameStats.aspx?loc=en-US&GameID=fdcf7493-d694-4f19-9b21-971732b580ef&s Flag=1&md=ZS_Supremacy

[This message has been edited by ZION_CDawg (edited 02-09-2007 @ 03:45 AM).]

Glad to see people using my strats! seems like I'll need to do some testing on the Comanchero; It seemed to me they would die to skirms.

Sure didn't die to my skirms. Problem was, he massed them way more than I could, and mixed in Xbows with them. Also, he hit & ran my pikes, i pulled them back be he still got most of them.

I think the comancheros are so good because of hit and run, and 30% ranged armor on top of good age 2 HP, and a very fast speed. Mixed with that Xbow/Uhlan shipment to take out villies and pikes, Dutch have no chance. Some other civs will have problems as well. Muskets would fair better vs Comancheros methinks, assuming he doesn't hit and run u to death .

Here's their stats, courtesy MNBob (whatever happened to him?)
SaloonOutlawRider
HP 225
Pop 7
Train 70
Speed 7.3
LOS 16
Armor 30% Ranged
Cost G-120
Type LightCavalry, GunpowderCavalry, RangedCavalry, Cavalry

BuildingAttack Damage: 12 (Siege), ROF: 3.0
RangedAttack Damage: 16 (Ranged), ROF: 3.0, Range: 0-12, Bonuses: HeavyCavalry x 3.0, xpCoyoteMan x 2.5, Villager x 0.5, Artillery x 2.0

Interesting Strat

What do you think of sending 700 coin after the 9 xbows?

I don't send 700 gold because it is Uhlan bugged (so is 600 gold, or any age 2 res card). After it gets patched it will be an interesting idea though.

I've just been waiting for a build order to get me started with Germany outlaw strats, I played them at a lan offline lvl 100 and it was a blast, then I found, well rather read this so I've been leveling a german town cause I find them rather fun even if they do have the crippling uhlan bug.

I hate having to send my factories though, thats 16 pop taken up :\