posted 04-18-07 07:00 PM EDT (US)
This strategy was originally done after TWC 1.03 fixed some german bugs. Today german is top tier so few are looking at alternatives to the normal xbow rush or semi-ff. with FP balancing things a bit, this strategy will beome more useful.
So here I present you a German Saloon Merc based strategy – Guns and Biers.
Mercenary Combat card boosts a huge 20% to all mercenaries. Most don’t realise how powerful it is, if you consider mercenaries are equivalent of FU imperial units, this 20% is added to their fullest current stats, that is equivalent of +25% of normal unit’s stats.
On top of that, German has more mercenaries in shipments than anyone else, allowing them to make the most use of their mercs.
How you play out this strategy, greatly depends on which merc you get. Best case scenario is getting 2 decent mercs of different type. Worst case is getting 2 useless ones. In between there are many possible combinations, sometimes you may get 2 mercs of the same type thus one will become redundant.
Standard age1 with 17~18 vils, age up to 400w. Chop wood for a TP in transition. Build a saloon + 2 houses with 400 age up wood, ship 3 SW. Fixed BO stops here.
You now check out the saloon mercs, and you will have to make some decisions, because the mercs you get will affect whether you should get merc combat card and whether you should take on this strategy, you also have to adjust your card order accordingly.
Anyway, the ideal situation is reaching fortress reasonably fast, at around 7:00 using Exile prince, or 8:20 using Marksman, with 100 pop provided by 3 houses (with palatine settlement as 3rd card), a good economy of 8 SW + 12~14 villager, and a shipment ready.
Your fortress game depends on what your opponent does. Your goals are:
1, send merc combat card to boost your mercs as soon as you get a breath, usually first or second fortress card, kill his army cost effectively.
2, establish map control because you need mines, possible put down another TC and boom away.
I often get a market in transition to age3, research gold mining and 2 wood chopping, then build outposts around mines. Another way is ship 1000wood early on and build TC + tower with them, this way it saves a lot of the research cost early on, allows you to get a few more units. Or you can keep heavy pressure on him by put every shipment and resource into units, attack him constantly so he can not afford to raid you back.
you will have to make barrack or stable to produce units that saloon did not provide. in most cases it is skirmishers, uhlans, or WW.
With good judgement and combat skills, helped by a bit of luck, you will win the game before both side get to late industrial – that’s where mercs lose their edge.
1, whether to commit to this strat--
the best way is to first rank mercs from most useful to least useful (from a german's point of view):
(unfortunatelu Elmiti and Mamelukes are no longer available in age3)
Highlander, 10, not only the undisputed best HI in the game, it makes up for german's lack of muskteer type unit.
Jaeger, 9, german dont get skirm upgrade cards, so 20% boosted jaeger is definitely worth getting
Swiss pike, 8, one of the most cost effect mercs, cheaper and better than dopp.
Li’l Bombard, 6, you save 300w for not having to make a foundry, they also kill cavalry well, very multi-purpose.
Hackapell, 5, not normally my perfered merc cav, but with merc combat they kill skirmishers, Wakina, FP, yumi, gurhka, arq, ckn and unupgraded pikeman in 1 hit, this is very significant when these are amongst the most common unit you will be facing.
Stradiot, 4, although normally slightly better than hackapell, i rank it lower because it donesnt standard out, and can easily be substituted by upgraded uhlans, 2 vet uhlans is quite similar 1 stradiot in over all effectiveness.
Landsknecht, 3, too slow to be useful.
Black rider, Manchu, 2, as good as they are in general, they are not useful to germans, WW is just as good as them and gone cost pure gold.
Corsair, 2, these guys should really be considered as cavalry - fast, good melee damage, low siege, only difference is they are countered by different type of units. most of their jobs can be handled by the free uhlans. and they are not good enough unless you get the merc combat boost.
Ninja, 1, completely worthless on the battle field, maybe good for raiding due to good siege.
Fusilier, 0, the only use for this unit is raiding, but when loaded with free uhlans, i dont think you will lack raiding forces.
you add the value of the 2 mercs you get and go from there.
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2, you have to decide on build order based on what mercs you get. For example if you get 2 good mercs like jaeger and swiss pike, it is very good setup, you want to ship palatine settlement and go to fortress with Exile prince, because you can make good infantry so you don’t need 6 free skirms and you wont need wood for barrack, just make them as soon as you get to fortress. If you don’t get ranged infantry merc, you may want to get those 6 free skirms, then you want to age up with marksman. If you get 2 average mercs, such as BR + Stradiot, you may still go a head but you don’t want to focus too much on the mercs. You may want to rely on normal units more, You may want to ship 700G or 700W next, go to fortress ASAP and build barrack + stable. When you get 2 crap mercs, you will want to forgo this strat altogether, switch to a conventional German FF, which is very possible as your only loss is 200 wood on the saloon and used up a card slot that you are not going to send anymore(merc ombat).
3, Theoritically the best time to send merc combat is right before the first big battle of your mercs. sending too early means you missed out on eco boost, too late means your mercs are not as effiecient.
in reality it is very difficult, you do not know when the battle will take place and when you will have next shipment.
you just have to make judgements about the situation and calculate your chances.
against aggrasive FF, send it ASAP; against boomers you can afford send it after 1000W, and maybe even 1000G; against rushers who are likely to still be in age2 ammasing an army of LI, you may want to get 9 uhlans and combined with some existing units, kill off his army before it gets too large.
4, XP treasure always comes first, 80 XP means 2 SW arrives 40 seconds faster, which gives extra 160 VS, which is over 120 food, 3 SW could arrive 40 seconds faster, that is 180 food. So pick it over 80 food next time you see them.
5, German is very rush-able, and everyone knows, you want to scare them off rushing, and should they rush, you want to be prepared. To do this you should keep cards like Teutonic TC, 2 outpost, improved buildings, 9 xbows in your deck.
6, keep 2~3 plantation upgrades in your deck, get wood chopping upgrades when you can, you have to be prepared to use plantation heavily in late fortress, because you cant always get many mines.
7, obviously it is almost impossible to do on maps without Trade Route, as you won’t get enough XP for the shipments.
8, personally I find allowing some idle time and go to colonial ASAP is a good choice at times, German colonial economy is quite good, you can afford 1 less vil, but sometimes that 20 seconds faster colonial could save you from a rush.
9, in games where you get 300 food and 200 wood start, it is possible to chop wood, build TP first, then first house and keep vil production constant, it will take a little practice to get right, but it is definitely worthwhile.
all replays were done way back and do not work anymore, so i took them off my webspace, therfore the links dont work anymore.
I was actually on the losing end, the game lagged which made it quite hard to countrol my units, first it was him stealling my 150 wood, i saw it coming but by there was a good half a second delay before my explorer moved forward; then lost 3 corsairs because I saw his 10+ skirms a tab too late to pull back, 600 gold down in the drain.
however you be amazed how powerful was the merc combat boosted hackapells, 145 dmg killing skirms in 1 hit, 3 of them wiped out a whole army. i think the lag helped me here a little bit, he was not able to micro his skirms against my hackapells to the fullest.
eitherway he realised the best unit to make against this combo, but he didnt find enough res for it...
we both tried to take map control, he massed normal army with his OP french eco and I massed my OP merc army with my OP saloon....
not the best rush, but this recording is to show you how to beat a rush with this strat. in all honesty saloon did NOT play a big part at all, partly due to the suckiness of the outlaws on this map and my mistake of sending 3 SW over palatine settlement.
interestingly he employed the same saloon merc strategy, except he did not go for the merc bombard and his corsairs were considerably weaker.
I did not go for palatine settelement, the reason for that was I needed every last XP i could find, so i opt to send 1000 wood on housing instead, which in turn gives me 200 XP.
i used this deck because it had cav HP, i thought i needed good cavalry against wakina, so i must go for uhlans.
luckily i got highlanders, they slaughtered RR and Axe.
Strategy by Ultimitsu
Guns and Biers
British Anti-FF explosion
For TWC only Ottoman FF on non-water non-TP maps
For Vanilla only Dutch Fast Colonial Uber Bank
[This message has been edited by ultimitsu (edited 04-03-2009 @ 07:55 PM).]
