1) Table of Contents
2) Overview
3) Deck Recommendations
4) Basic Outline
5) Disclaimer
6) Variations
Germans can be fun to play, as I have recently learned. I’m still irritated about the lack of Muskets, but I’ve almost gotten over it (almost). Anyway, most people expect some form of an FF from Germany or an Xbow rush. The ridiculously powerful 9 Xbow + 2 Uhlan card can combine with locally produced Xbows to destroy any HI army early on.
Alternatively, you could send 5 Uhlans, making for a somewhat earlier attack, as the 9 Xbows take their time getting from your TC if you don’t make an Outpost. So you could ship 5 Uhlans and produce 5 Xbows locally.
But this strategy is not doing that.
Instead, I’ve constructed a somewhat unconventional strategy, where you take advantage of the huge power contained within the German unit rarely used in early A2. The one that is so powerful that it requires two population. It gets me housed often.
This is a pretty basic strategy and probably doesn’t have much viability at high levels. Still, it’s a decent option if you want to confuse your opponent. However, any mistakes you make can kill you.
And remember, this is a vanilla strategy.
-2 Settler Wagons
-5 Uhlans
-9 Crossbows + 2 Uhlans
-700 Wood + 2 Uhlans
-3 Settler Wagons + 2 Uhlans
-3 Doppelsöldners + 2 Uhlans
-700 Gold + 2 Uhlans
-Advanced Arsenal + 2 Uhlans
-Fortress + 3 Uhlans
-3 War Wagons + 3 Uhlans
-9 Uhlans
-7 Black Riders
-Idk, more cards you’d use in a German FF (+ 3 Uhlans)
-Factories + 4 Uhlans
-Unique Church Card + 2 Uhlans
-4 Landsknechts
1) Send 2 SW to gather food crates and one to hunt. Spam that villager button, and once you have a villager queued, send another SW to hunt.
2) Once you have all of your food, gather a crate of wood, build a house, and proceed to gather food.
3) 17 villager population Colonial. This will mean 5 SW and 7 regular villagers.
4) Gather treasures, prioritizing wood. Food, gold, and xp work too, however.
5) Your first card is
6) Shift 8 villagers (I usually go with 4 SW) to gold, send 2 forward, shift 3 to wood, and keep the rest on food. Once you have enough wood for a second house, move those 3 back to food. If you started with 200 wood, though, this is not necessary. Gather wood for a house only if you do not expect to be losing many soldiers.
7) Have those forward villagers gather food and lure a hunt away from your opponent.
8) Scout. If your opponent enters Colonial, check and see what he is gathering. If you see gold being gathered, his army will probably be HI- or Cav-based. If you see wood, the army will probably be LI-based. Also, look for a Barracks or a Stable.
9) Send 2 SW from your mine to gather your age-up wood. Once you have 200, immediately build a Barracks with your forward villagers.
10) Were you scouting? If you expect HI, ship
11) With the other 200 wood, build 2 houses. Quickly.
12) Once you Rax is done, have your forward villagers gather food. Queue up Doppelsöldners until you have 5. Know that you probably won’t have those resources on hand immediately, but you will be able to get the resources before the production cycle ends.
13) You’ve been making villagers, right? Send new villagers to food and gold. To keep villager and Doppelsöldner production constant, you will need roughly equal amounts on food and gold. However, don’t assume that you will be making more Dopps. That was never part of the plan.
14) When your shipment arrives, send it to your opponent’s base or somewhere. Idk, go for whatever you need to take out. Send your Dopps there to, but delay your Dopps so that they come in stealthily, not first.
15) Your Dopps have ridiculously good siege damage (60), meaning that you will take things down very quickly. Try to house him or take down a production building.
16) Your second card in Colonial is
17) By now, the game is usually decided. If you have stemmed his production with a house, you can take the Rax down and set him back while continuing production. If you did so with a Rax, then the same endpoint will occur. However, if your opponent defeats your Uhlans/9 Xbows + 2 Uhlans and your Dopps can’t take down a Rax in time, you can often end up in a bad position.
18) Make sure that your Dopps are helping your Uhlans or Xbows and Uhlans in whatever way they can. Prioritize getting a building down, but if you need to, do a bit of fighting.
19) If your force is destroyed, but the Rax is almost down, keep at it. You might lose a Dopp or two, but the situation will still be favorable.
20) Once something happens, retreat back to your FB. With that 700 wood that you’ve been gathering from (right?), build more houses and possibly a Stable. After this, you can ship things based on your needs. You might want to go for Fortress with all of those nice Fortress cards, or stay in Colonial and spam Xbows or Dopps.
21) Has your FB been making units? I prefer to reinforce my Doppelsöldners further with another cycle of them, and then follow-up with either more Dopps or Xbows. You need to shift villagers to wood to begin an Xbow army.
22) Although the game was decided in step 17, there are still things for you to do. Go for houses that are undefended. Even if they do have a TC or Outpost defending them, you can take them down efficiently and with minimal losses.
23) The high speed and siege of Doppelsöldners allows you move in and out quickly on undefended points. Units that can arrive quickly are easily destroyed by a 3x bonus vs. Cavalry. Keep your opponent guessing as to where you’ll attack next.
24) If you haven’t already, keep a constant stream of Xbows and Uhlans coming out, but aim to go to Fortress soon. Mix in the occasional batch of Doppelsöldners, but do not overuse them.
25) Some time later, you’ll be in Fortress. Do whatever is necessary to win from here. An Xbow production should probably be replaced with Skirms to reduce the need for wood.
I’m
If you were to check my deck for this strat (ESO duolckrad, HC Berlin, deck Octave II), you would see a Fast Fortress. The placement of SW on gold strengthens this, as one does not need gold for Xbows. As such, the sudden attack of 5 Uhlans and 5 Doppelsöldners can come as a very big surprise, especially since a Doppelsöldner start is unexpected on its own.
This strategy is very unforgiving of mistakes. What you do in the timeframe of your initial attack can decide the game. So far, I’ve decided that this strategy is weak against three civs:
-British
-Portuguese
-Ottomans (when rushing)
This seems to work relatively well against LI-heavy civs that can easily be beaten by the 5 Uhlan card. Additionally, it can fight well against an FF (excluding the Portugeuse and possibly Spanish FFs), as you can house your opponent quickly. Doppelsöldners right next to a TC also destroy Cavalry and cannons. Still, be careful when fighting cannons. They can one-shot kill Dopps, meaning that every shot takes down over 300 villager-seconds of work. Once you get in close, the cannons will be decimated.
I find that there are a lot of options for you to take with this strategy. If you want, you can make 5 Dopps and then immediately cut off production by switching all gold villagers to wood, backing your army with a Crossbow spam. You can potentially get 2 Raxes spamming Xbows while your Dopps wreak havoc on houses and production buildings.
If not, you can continue producing Dopps, eventually granting you a very strong force of 12-15. This force can take down virtually any building and any Cavalry force in the early- to mid-game.
Note: Credit for this goes to Lord_Sami
Instead of shipping 700 wood + 2 Uhlans as your second Colonial card, ship 3 SW for a stronger economy and chop wood manually to get yourself unhoused. It will take slightly longer to get a Stable up and a Crossbow spam going, but the long-term benefits are usually high.
A much more siege-based variation that works if your opponent is going with Cav or doing an FF. 2 Uhlans that come with the 3 Doppelsöldner shipment allow for light raiding while you do 160 siege damage per second.
Instead of pushing forward after your initial attack, gather the resources to get to Fortress as quickly as possible. Ideally, your opponent will be set back too far to attack you until you've hit Fortress, or he will be playing defensively and not realize that you're clicking up.
Not really a variation of the Doppelsöldner rush, but it follows the same basic outline with only a few differences.
Upon hitting Colonial, ship 5 Uhlans and build a Stable (or ship 3 Dopps + 2 Uhlans). Suddenly, you will be hitting your enemy with 10 Uhlans or 7 Uhlans + 3 Dopps. Instead of 8 villagers on gold for this, place 6-7 on and have the remaining 1-2 gather food.
[This message has been edited by DuolcKrad (edited 02-01-2009 @ 04:11 PM).]