Germany - China matchup

[wicked_uhlan]

I always struggle with this matchup as the Germans, especially after they buffed China lately..
It feels almost impossible for me to match their post ff tempo since their units are too cheap and they can mass so quickly and since Germans have no access to the 2 falc shipment (which is often really good against China). Im stuck with Uhlans,skirms,ww,dops combo doesn't feel as effective vs China's insane mass.
What would be the cookie-cutter build to follow so I can manage to compete with China mains? Should I try fast IV and just ship heavies ? should I rush age 2 with xbows and pikes?

[helln00]

I always lose to a dopp + falc mass as china vs germany, dopps can clear away masses of chinese units and also defend against cav pushes while the cannons clear the skirms.

I think just keeping ur own mass of dopps uhlans and cannons alive until critical should be enough.

[Squamiger]

I always lose to a dopp + falc mass as china vs germany, dopps can clear away masses of chinese units and also defend against cav pushes while the cannons clear the skirms.

I think just keeping ur own mass of dopps uhlans and cannons alive until critical should be enough.

i see you've been battling greatscythe

[Kawapasaka]

easiest vs a naked ff is train 5 pikes siege the tp and follow up so just 2sw 3sw 700c then you can usually go 1000w 1000c into whichever mercs you need
try to force a fight right after cav combat because your army starts dropping off a bit after that

[alistairpeter]

you used to be able to just spam uhlan

[Guigs]

I always struggle with this matchup as the Germans, especially after they buffed China lately..
It feels almost impossible for me to match their post ff tempo since their units are too cheap and they can mass so quickly and since Germans have no access to the 2 falc shipment (which is often really good against China). Im stuck with Uhlans,skirms,ww combo doesn't feel as effective vs China's insane mass.
What would be the cookie-cutter build to follow so I can manage to compete with China mains? Should I try fast IV and just ship heavies ? should I rush age 2 with xbows and pikes?

Ngl this feels really china favored. I like to constantly trade early age 3 to keep the china mass low and try to outmicro but it's often a rock paper scissors regarding your first age 3 shipments and you can't always do it.
Ideally skirms uhlans black riders is what you want, training ww is just auto lose

[helln00]

I always struggle with this matchup as the Germans, especially after they buffed China lately..
It feels almost impossible for me to match their post ff tempo since their units are too cheap and they can mass so quickly and since Germans have no access to the 2 falc shipment (which is often really good against China). Im stuck with Uhlans,skirms,ww combo doesn't feel as effective vs China's insane mass.
What would be the cookie-cutter build to follow so I can manage to compete with China mains? Should I try fast IV and just ship heavies ? should I rush age 2 with xbows and pikes?

Ngl this feels really china favored. I like to constantly trade early age 3 to keep the china mass low and try to outmicro but it's often a rock paper scissors regarding your first age 3 shipments and you can't always do it.
Ideally skirms uhlans black riders is what you want, training ww is just auto lose

Is BR good against china? I feel like they perform about as well as ww. The harquabusier merc might be better now since they path behind uhlans and deal tonnes of aoe damage

[fei123456]

Notice that more and more Chinese are playing Mongol army in colonial. Barrack start is a better choice in current patch: you can easily hold steppe+keshik raiding without too much investment, and if China is doing straight FF you can harass a bit with xbow and pike.
In fortress you can consider training mercs on certain maps. If not, Ulan skirm and dopple is the better combo. WW are bad cuz they can't maneuver, while china always has many melee infantry such as swordsmen.

[Guigs]

I always struggle with this matchup as the Germans, especially after they buffed China lately..
It feels almost impossible for me to match their post ff tempo since their units are too cheap and they can mass so quickly and since Germans have no access to the 2 falc shipment (which is often really good against China). Im stuck with Uhlans,skirms,ww combo doesn't feel as effective vs China's insane mass.
What would be the cookie-cutter build to follow so I can manage to compete with China mains? Should I try fast IV and just ship heavies ? should I rush age 2 with xbows and pikes?

Ngl this feels really china favored. I like to constantly trade early age 3 to keep the china mass low and try to outmicro but it's often a rock paper scissors regarding your first age 3 shipments and you can't always do it.
Ideally skirms uhlans black riders is what you want, training ww is just auto lose

Is BR good against china? I feel like they perform about as well as ww. The harquabusier merc might be better now since they path behind uhlans and deal tonnes of aoe damage

Goon types are much better than ww vs china. Easier to move/control and less overkill

[Garja]

I don't expect Germans to be very competitive in this MU on DE but best shot imo is just FF and dopps+ulhan+skirm. WW are bad and br aren't great either because they're not enough anticav especially after the armor card for china cav.
Dopp+ulhan mix does well vs all China units and with 15-20 skirms in the back snipe off Manchu or pikes manually.
Probably stagecoach is better.

[kevinitalien]

I don't expect Germans to be very competitive in this MU on DE but best shot imo is just FF and dopps+ulhan+skirm. WW are bad and br aren't great either because they're not enough anticav especially after the armor card for china cav.
Dopp+ulhan mix does well vs all China units and with 15-20 skirms in the back snipe off Manchu or pikes manually.
Probably stagecoach is better.

this totally sucks, your comp would get outmassed by china after 10min or 11min and i'm not even talking about crazy amount of ress you would need to watch your dopps die against pike musk skirm ( and monk ofc ) lol
the only way to play the mu (if china ff) is to send the BR first and to train uhlan skirms and outmicro your opponent and poke constantly to keep the chinese army weak, it's the only way from my experience where i had a chance to win the mu

[Miyawaki Sakura]

I think tower rush or water boom is better than semi FF

[007Salt]

I remember a time when going pure ulhan would simply win games lol

Those were the days

[Garja]

I don't expect Germans to be very competitive in this MU on DE but best shot imo is just FF and dopps+ulhan+skirm. WW are bad and br aren't great either because they're not enough anticav especially after the armor card for china cav.
Dopp+ulhan mix does well vs all China units and with 15-20 skirms in the back snipe off Manchu or pikes manually.
Probably stagecoach is better.

this totally sucks, your comp would get outmassed by china after 10min or 11min and i'm not even talking about crazy amount of ress you would need to watch your dopps die against pike musk skirm ( and monk ofc ) lol
the only way to play the mu (if china ff) is to send the BR first and to train uhlan skirms and outmicro your opponent and poke constantly to keep the chinese army weak, it's the only way from my experience where i had a chance to win the mu

It does not suck, in fact it makes perfect sense in theory, and there examples of high level games where it worked. I don't see how you get outmassed with that specific combo and not with anything else, considering that you're using the rax for dopps instead of skirms and you get ulhans for free with any card. Also if you start dopps you can contest the TP line and stagecoach. And because your army is well rounded you're not on a clock to do something, you can just sit back and mass units. 9 BR don't do shit vs a decent amount of China cav, and even many ulhans alone don't help body blocking because of changdao etc.
You are right that in theory you should play it aggressively with skirm-cav and try to keep China army small, exploiting the fact that China can't mass only one unit type. However that's not always possible even for other civs like French or Iro, because China tempo isn't that bad after all the buffs. And Germans don't even have a starting TP anymore, so it's even worse.
Dopp/ulhan + few skirms is just the most solid long term combo. If you take a good battle then you can rebalance your army differently.

[Kaiserklein]

I've pretty much always hated this MU yeah. The main problem is that China can go for basically any unit composition vs Germany.
- Pure skirm / changdao works because germany will always need at least some WWs or something in case china adds cav, but these are useless vs skirm / pike. Plus uhlans being low hp means trying to bait the pikes forward to snipe them with skirms isn't as efficient because your uhlans drop quickly too.
- Pure cav + some unit shipments also works because WWs are trash, dops aren't a realistic option unless you're sure he will full cav, and BR are nice but risky to get and it's just the 9 of them.
- A more well rounded 3 ish unit composition also works just fine, and both iron troops (because they dps low hp uhlans pretty hard too) and obviously manchus are great vs Germany.

Btw, if you play more passively like some suggested in this thread (e.g training falcs which is slow, or shipping 1000 crates etc) China can totally just go industrial, and there's no way you beat that as fortress Germany without dealing early damage. In fact even if you play more aggressively as Germany, it's not granted you beat a (semi-)FI.

Then there are many other problems
- it's obviously very hard to micro against the chinese army when you have paper cav and awkward WWs
- you're on a timer because eventually China just outscales
- you just can't really raid china because of all the villages, while Germany usually has the raiding advantage
- whenever you try to push you're sweating your balls off because anything might pop out of a village. Which is a problem for other civs too, but it's more awkward when you don't have musks or real goons, because it's much easier for them to catch you


I'm not saying it's unwinnable for Germany, but it's definitely quite China favoured, and more demanding mechanically from the German side as well. I haven't found a go-to build, it's a lot about trying to figure out their unit composition, microing a lot, and trying to gain small advantages here and there until you can finally really get ahead.
But generally speaking, if they go for the old ff without a TP, you can cav semi because they won't be able to ship pikes while aging. If they have a TP, try to age earlier I guess.

[callentournies]

Go mercs

[Kaiserklein]

I think tower rush or water boom is better than semi FF

Tower rush is pretty bad tbh, unless you age 16 and they age late, or if they don't adapt maybe. China can totally hold it in colo and age, or possibly clean your army up in colo.
Adding a small 1 dock boom works rather well vs the standard FF, but again the problem is they can just go FI if they scout it, and industrial China definitely beats fortress Germany even if you have an eco boost.

[fei123456]

The popular Chinese meta is Russian consulate into blockhouse and Mongol army, and go semiFF or play colonial. German uhlan semiFF used to counter a naked China FF, but Mongol army can destroy that easily nowadays. (imagine you're playing against Lakota)
Start barrack for some xbow and pike can help you defend the raiding and protect your TP (it's a disaster if China burn down your TP with steppe fast). I'm not sure what's the next plan either, but adding some heavy infantry in your combo should be fine in current meta. I found it quite useful to mix 5-10 halbs in French/Dutch army in many MUs.

Well, is semi-FI a choice for German too? Just as what Kaiser played with ezad? (French vs Brit I guess). You can either train industrial war wagon and send heavy cannons, or to train free industrial xbow/pike and save coin for mercs.

[Garja]

I think China FI is also less of a problem for dopp/ulhan/skirm compared to other combos without dopps, because of how punishing is to right click with such army (siege and chance of surrounding the opponent army).

On the other hand I don't see how bow/pike play is any good. It wasn't that good when China was slow and vulnerable, surely it isn't now that they have great age2 play.

If anything, Germans could try to FI for WW and heavies trying to leverage the efficiency of the build (only one up required + heavies don't have a direct counter early on) while scaling from there with strong industrial cards.

[wicked_uhlan]

Show hidden quotes

I always struggle with this matchup as the Germans, especially after they buffed China lately..
It feels almost impossible for me to match their post ff tempo since their units are too cheap and they can mass so quickly and since Germans have no access to the 2 falc shipment (which is often really good against China). Im stuck with Uhlans,skirms,ww combo doesn't feel as effective vs China's insane mass.
What would be the cookie-cutter build to follow so I can manage to compete with China mains? Should I try fast IV and just ship heavies ? should I rush age 2 with xbows and pikes?

Ngl this feels really china favored. I like to constantly trade early age 3 to keep the china mass low and try to outmicro but it's often a rock paper scissors regarding your first age 3 shipments and you can't always do it.
Ideally skirms uhlans black riders is what you want, training ww is just auto lose

Is BR good against china? I feel like they perform about as well as ww. The harquabusier merc might be better now since they path behind uhlans and deal tonnes of aoe damage

Goon types are much better than ww vs china. Easier to move/control and less overkill

I'm a huge fan of BR, But 1000c for 9 BR is still a huge investment and I do need to know for sure that they'e going cav.. But yeah so you're saying that BR better than dops in this matchup? But aren't dops the only way to hold back the Changdao ? If im only making around 20 skirms, Im just gonna get overwhelmed by the Changdao cause my Uhlans die so fast anyways, Basically the only way for me to kill their skirms is with uhlans and that's risking the fact that i will lose at least half of them midfight..So wouldn't dops help with that matter ?

[Garja]

Dopps just do fine vs everything but skirms, and ulhans make sure that the China player can't snipe them off easily. Basically dopp/ulhan is the reversed deathball. 15-20 skirms in the back balance your army (pure melee is bad) and it is the perfect amount to one shot Manchu or snipe off Changdao in the key spots.

[wicked_uhlan]

Dopps just do fine vs everything but skirms, and ulhans make sure that the China player can't snipe them off easily. Basically dopp/ulhan is the reversed deathball. 15-20 skirms in the back balance your army (pure melee is bad) and it is the perfect amount to one shot Manchu or snipe off Changdao in the key spots.

Yes honestly whenever I play vs China i try to get as much Dops as I need, once they lock a target in melee range they completely melt everything, usually I want the dops to hold down the Changdaos (if they have no cav), but they just get melted so fast because of theur 40-50 skirm mass lol. basically micromanaging uhlans and dops perfectly gets the job done (assuming my skirmishers are in a good spot and free hitting that is)

[wicked_uhlan]

I always lose to a dopp + falc mass as china vs germany, dopps can clear away masses of chinese units and also defend against cav pushes while the cannons clear the skirms.

I think just keeping ur own mass of dopps uhlans and cannons alive until critical should be enough.

That is definitely not the way to go assuming that China player knows what he's doing, training falcs and dops eats up soooo much coin so it basically needs time, by the time I'd have 3 falcs and a handful of dops, he'd be already max pop lol.. or he could also FI which is gg at that point

[Garja]

basically micromanaging uhlans and dops perfectly gets the job done (assuming my skirmishers are in a good spot and free hitting that is)

Yes, but tbf all you need is to make sure dopp and ulhans have decent pathing and are reasonably mixed together when they connect. They deal insane damage to anything, while China units have to hit precisely their supposed countered unit or they don't do much.

[kevinitalien]

we just need a garja stream and all his strat