Silversmith as germany.

[alistairpeter]

Hi, I have been testing builds with silversmith as Germany in replace of 700 coin. The card grants 20% gather rate for mines and also makes the yield 20% higher, meaning an in base gold mine is worth 6k. I only use this if I feel like I can get away with it, it almost always pays off in terms of being worth more than the 700 coin itself, but it also can really slow down tempo if you try it in the wrong matchup or circumstance. I have tried builds where I send it second card after 3 SW and send 1k wood in age 3 for foundry followed by merc shipments. I like to go pretty heavy on uhlan and use them as my anti cav until black riders come in, which I usually send first. This has been working really well vs civs like Malta, or other cvis with tons of buildings who don't expect Germany to be slow sieging with facls. Having the foundry also gives access to culvs, which can be useful from time to time if needed for a skirm switch. Very minor change to the 3SW 7w 7c, but trying to make it work circumstantially.

[Kaiserklein]

Used it several times in tourney, can probably find it on twitch or youtube

[Synchro]

Has anyone calculated how much extra money i have to gather from a mine with silversmiths?

[alistairpeter]

Okay, will have to look for it, I haven't been watching as many tournaments since DE came out.

[alistairpeter]

Well, if you don't put any value on the coin yield, you would have to gather 701 extra coin compared to the crates. I'm not sure how many rec you lose while the vills stumble around the crates (SW pathing feels horrible in DE) but probably less than 50ish, putting it a little closer to 600. i think the yield actually does have some value for Germany, because you run out of mines all the time. The card gives you and extra 20% gather rate on 0.6 coin per second, which then makes their gather rate 0.72 before placer mines, but you should already have that. 0.12 coin per second per vill adds up a lot the longer the game goes on, 20 vills maxed out on a mine would gather 2.4 coin (144 a min) per second extra compared to not having the card. Because of the yield It also means they can sit in place on the same mine without having to walk, which also adds to more value, not even counting the actual extra physical coin you are allowed to mine because of the card. After 5 minutes of gathering with 20 vills it gives an extra 720 coin, plus the other mentioned bonuses.

[alistairpeter]

If there is an extra 1,000 coin yield on a gold mine being gathered at 0.78 per second (placer mines+ silversmith) it will take 20 villagers 1 minute and 4 seconds to gather that 1k coin, that wouldn't have existed otherwise. Without the shipment they would have to wander the map an entire minute sooner in search for a new coin mine, and gather it at a slower rate. This is on an in base gold mine (best case scenario), but these new maps have made gold mines a lot more common. It might not sound like a lot, but eventually it definitely surpasses 700 coin in physical value.

[GuiliuG]

Yeah, it’s a very useful card for germany, and can be used in quite a few matchups actually

[Synchro]

Well, if you don't put any value on the coin yield, you would have to gather 701 extra coin compared to the crates. I'm not sure how many rec you lose while the vills stumble around the crates (SW pathing feels horrible in DE) but probably less than 50ish, putting it a little closer to 600. i think the yield actually does have some value for Germany, because you run out of mines all the time. The card gives you and extra 20% gather rate on 0.6 coin per second, which then makes their gather rate 0.72 before placer mines, but you should already have that. 0.12 coin per second per vill adds up a lot the longer the game goes on, 20 vills maxed out on a mine would gather 2.4 coin (144 a min) per second extra compared to not having the card. Because of the yield It also means they can sit in place on the same mine without having to walk, which also adds to more value, not even counting the actual extra physical coin you are allowed to mine because of the card. After 5 minutes of gathering with 20 vills it gives an extra 720 coin, plus the other mentioned bonuses.

I would say just fantastic

[aaryngend]

The question is not if the card is good enough to send. It is. The question is when to send it (card order) and to know in which situations you shouldn't be using it at all. I don't think it has enough tempo to send it before 700coin.
Need some SW before it plays its strengths, but on the other hand, the later you send it, the less impact the increased yield rate has

[alistairpeter]

I use it to skip the 700 coin and age up manually, can still age up faster than a lot of semi ff times, I don't think it's ever worth sending before 3 SW, send the 3 SW first and then see if you can get away with it depending on what opponent does. In transition very easy to gather 1k coin for merc shipment or Germany can easily spend coin in other ways as well. I think it might be worth testing vs port, india (for potential falcs), maybe china because they give you the time to be greedy, usa for culvs maybe Sioux, or Italy hard to say without getting a feel for it first. One thing about the yield is that it becomes a completely irrelevant factor if the game ends before that mine would have run out.

[callentournies]

i dont even have 700c in my merc deck

[aaryngend]

I use it to skip the 700 coin and age up manually, can still age up faster than a lot of semi ff times, I don't think it's ever worth sending before 3 SW, send the 3 SW first and then see if you can get away with it depending on what opponent does. In transition very easy to gather 1k coin for merc shipment or Germany can easily spend coin in other ways as well. I think it might be worth testing vs port, india (for potential falcs), maybe china because they give you the time to be greedy, usa for culvs maybe Sioux, or Italy hard to say without getting a feel for it first.

Ye but you skip the 700c with 3 SW, not Silversmith.
What I was trying to say is that you would never send Silversmith as the 1st card in Commerce Age; 3SW or in rare cases 700c on the other hand work well (and somewhat well) as first cards respectively.

[alistairpeter]

What I was trying to say is that you would never send Silversmith as the 1st card in Commerce Age; 3SW or in rare cases 700c on the other hand work well (and somewhat well) as first cards respectively.
[/quote]

yeah sending silversmith first defeats the purpose, half of the reason it works out is because of the 4 and 6 vil shipment you send. I like trying 700 coin first card sometimes because it completely changes the feel of the civ, can be very fun to play aggressive that way, but not sending 6 vills feels a little funny. When do you think 700 coin first card age 2 is warranted? Would you just naked ff and play it almost Spain style or is it for massing uhlan?

[aaryngend]

yeah sending silversmith first defeats the purpose, half of the reason it works out is because of the 4 and 6 vil shipment you send. I like trying 700 coin first card sometimes because it completely changes the feel of the civ, can be very fun to play aggressive that way, but not sending 6 vills feels a little funny. When do you think 700 coin first card age 2 is warranted? Would you just naked ff and play it almost Spain style or is it for massing uhlan?

700c first is actually a safe way for newbies to FF as Germany (yes, Spain style). Otherwise it isn't too good, but still better than Silversmith as 1st card.

3SW or 4 CDB (for french) are just such amazing settler shipments that you would be hard-pressed to not send them first.
About massing Uhlan: in the past, 700c was used in late colonial to fuel the immense coin cost that Uhlans (and sometimes Dopps) have. Especially in team games.

Back then no card for Germany made mines last longer, so you were happy about any extra coin you could get.

[duckzilla]

3 SW (+2 Uhlan) is hands down the best shipment in the game, directly followed by 2 SW. Can't imagine a situation where you wouldn't send these two as first cards. However, I'm not totally sold on silversmith yet. Assuming that you put all your SW on coin and placer mines (+ amalgamation) is already researched, the shipment's gathering bonus boils down to 18% (15%) or roughly 3 unupgraded villagers. This is quite far away from your 6 vill shipment that you sent right beforehand. The second bonus can make up for it in certain matchups, I guess.

[alistairpeter]

I like to semi when I play french, but hussars or musk both feel like more useful units than uhlan. I find I struggle most with Germany vs civs like Brit, Japan, and Sweden who make my free Uhlan feel like a joke and have an entire eco set up before I can get anything done in either age. I have not had much success rushing brit with Germ, but it works sometimes. Pushing to age 3 seems to be free win for brit age 2. I have heard FI works, but don't see how I get there if Brit always plays age 2. I understand that it's just safer overall (to semi), the 700 wood gives some nice xp from buildings to speed it up a little or make a batch of crossbow or pike. My problem when I've been trying this is I never seem to have a shipment when I reach age 3, or I end up getting popped after a shipment + colonial units. It's been hit or miss, when I have a good xp treasure I am fine, or if it isn't a garbage tp line and I get first pass.

[alistairpeter]

Yeah, I agree on the 3SW I can't think of many builds I would skip that unless they just end up being belled in tc. I have been sending 3SW first pretty much every game, sometimes I just switch the order of wood or coin. The idea behind the card is to be able to hold off long enough with the minor handicaps until it pays off and you're glad you sent it. With 6 settler wagons it becomes an extra 1.44 coin a second. It scales much better than that, but even at that rate after 8 minutes it will have given you more than 700 coin. Usually the second age 2 shipment is sent around 6 or 7 minutes, so I don't think it's unrealistic to expect a 15 minute German game. Of course it pays off much better if you have all the food gathered to age and then switch vills to coin after the card arrives, or a little before. If you have more than just 6SW on coin, which I always do when doing this build, it pays off way before 15 minute mark. Very easy to work around high coin composition armies or just spam merc shipments if you put enough vills on to take advantage of the card. Not suggesting it is standard, but I feel like there are times it is optimal.

[Kaiserklein]

I don't think it has enough tempo to send it before 700coin.

You usually send it instead of 700g. Shipping 700g after silversmith is suboptimal as your coin gather rate is so fast, and shipping silversmith after 700g is usually nonsense as you're going age 3.
So you usually don't end up shipping both cards in a same game, unless it's a prolonged age 2 game (quite rare as germany anyway) where you run out of available shipments.

What I was trying to say is that you would never send Silversmith as the 1st card in Commerce Age; 3SW or in rare cases 700c on the other hand work well (and somewhat well) as first cards respectively.

Yeah you always ship 3 SW before silversmith. Silversmith usually comes in as the second or third card (after 700w).
700g first card is pretty much never a thing on DE.

a gold mine being gathered at 0.78 per second (placer mines+ silversmith)

If you sent silversmith, you kind of always want to have amalgamation too, not just placer mines. Amalgamation is 20% (doesn't have the yield, but still) like silversmith but it's much cheaper than sending a shipment. So if you reckon you can afford silversmith but can't afford amalgamation, there's got to be something wrong.

[GuiliuG]

The only siuation I can think of where 700c is okayish as a first card is if you wanna ff with a slow age (tc for instance), but then you have to send 3SW as you second card.

[fei123456]

Silversmith is used in merc builds. 700 coin for regular FF/semiFF. It seems that no one is playing "regular" German now, as if uhlan skirm wagon become mercenaries.

[callentournies]

Mercs is in a sad spot. Ger mercs is massively buffed with new cards, but if your opponent ships agents you have zero hope.

So you crush civs without MOBA agents, and get crushed by civs with MOBA agents. Rly sad