German Deck: pro advise?

[nickiru]

Howdy,

[attachment id="1652"]

I am a very defensive player in aoe 3 TAD and am curious if I could have people's thoughts/logic/advice on card choices.

Here is some of my logic why I chose certain cards that obviously are unorthodox:

First though, my play style is very defensive' I turtle hard throwing up walls before or as soon as age 2 comes. (time: 4 min walls are complete or just about)

Advcd Market: I used it in treaty games in place of the factories (only profitable with germans due to coin income bla bla mathematically outways factories, in short) But the market allows a surplus of resources to be traded around for minimal loss which means if I need to I can gather just wood in massive quantities and do coin conversions for troops. I usually bet this card around middle or end of age 3.

Palatine houses: allows me to build very few houses. The best argument against this card I heard was that I won't get xp for building houses, however, that would would rather be spent on troops which is equivalent in xp anyways. So this solves any housing development issues and allows me to put more attension on troop micros and growth rather than worrying about housing so much.

Advcd arsenal: germans have sucky age 2 and people known that, so they rush hard preventing me from piling ernough money to age. Teh arsenal upgrades allows me to get pseudo age 3 like troops without actually aging which gives me a tech advantage (or equalizes me with the opponent). When I do hit age 3, the upgrades stack beautifully with age 3 upgrades which germs have already a strong age 3.

My favorite card is landgrab. Of course, this will reveal I am a turtler. This has much synergies. The main thing is: since i go end game I can make this beautiful transition into infinite resources while the enemy burnt up natural resources and starts suffering the great wood cost of mil/plants. Then they are weak and I can strike, or let them be weak and eco boom. a synergy is with the card that allows mills to produce sett wagons. so I end up having age 3 town centers that cost 240w and can produce powerful villies.

all this is behind an absurd amount of walls by the way...

and yes the fortress card is disgusting.... I am testing that for fun (sadly I am really liking it. yes it gets blown down by artillary but it makes the enemy commit and it stalls them longer so I can eco boom. dunno it's experimental (that's what I do))

so yah... just curious what you guys thought of my disgusting deck. What do you guys prefer, logic why these cards are bad or good etc...

thnx. I aim to improve myself.

also any decks you guys use if you can show me would be cool. What I found on the internet was a bunch of vanilla AOE 3 so that wasn't helpful.

[pounendo]

first off, you treat "rush" games as almost pseudo-treaty games. If you want to get better you have to lose ties with this. German's are always used for their ability to quickly mass up units and go on the offense. Going defensive with Germans is like taking the chisel from a sculptor.

Advcd market: It may be most cost effective, but it will take so long to pay off that for the first 20 min of the game a 1SW shipment is more worth while.

Palatine houses: German's like to mass up any harass the enemy. This card takes time to payoff and takes away momemtum away from your timing pushes etc.

Advanced Arsenal: This card is only really worth for civs that are drawn out in late colonial such as brits and maybe russians. Why not just save this card, age up and get op german uhlan shipments.

Landgrab waste of a carb. You shouldn't ever build mills plantations until all natural resources have run out, which can be upto around 25-30min into game, Again, your treating rush almost like its treaty.

Fort card is really a waste for German. You should have 7, 8 skirmishes and 8?, 9 Uhlan shipments, These shipments are extremely powerful in age 3, hence the reason most of the time Germans are used to semi-ff.

Final notes: Put 700 wood in your deck, Take out cards I have mentioned and put in the op age 3 cards. Take out the age 4 dopp upgrade and remove card that allows SW to be trained from mills. Germans are used to win with their op cards in age 3. 100 settlers are enough.

Take out cav and inf train cards. Just spend an extra 200 wood for another stable or barracks,

Take out plantation eco card.

The problem is you are pr -5. Go onto youtube and search up ESOCTV and watch the expert replays, especially the ones where there are German's playing.

[Kaiserklein]

[attachment id="1655" thumbnail="1"]

This is my main german deck. Basically you want age 3 military shipments because german like to go age 3, wood crates because wood is the slowest resource to gather so wood crates are better than other crates, and factories.

Depending on what civ you fight, you might need either dops (e.g china, spain, sometimes germany) or wws (most other civs) in age 3. You can make 2 decks, one with 5 dops, another one with 3 ww.

Your deck looks almost like a treaty deck, against decent rush players that won't work. If you turtle like this, your opponent might simply win because he has a boom civ, or because he has map control, and you need that or you will soon run out of mines.

Some civs can turtle really hard (japs, ports/brits with enough food, china for example), but it isn't the case for germany. They need to be more aggressive, because they get extra army from shipments, and they don't really have a way to boom so camping isn't very interesting.

[nickiru]

Interesting.

@ kaiserklein: Your deck gives me some info, but why don't you have the card that allows set wagon production at mills? I would hae considered an essential even if one was to do pure rush. Need some sort of eco boom to step out of your opponents reach economically. I am liking the 3WW card idea, with my walls they act as a nice calv response. Usually i am cutting it close with teh time It takes to build a stable and produce expensive WWs. while my layered walls burn. instant WW would help speedwise.

Yes I agree that germans are built well for offense, which is why I thought that perhaps turtling would be good. All those troops, imagine if they were behind a wall and aggressively walling up resources rather than trying to kill the enemy by rushing.

The deck definitely looks treaty like, but that's due to my turtling. I am liking the idea of wood crates. I am debating though about the house upgrade because at the rate I can build troops I need to have rapid house development. Rather than double teaming villagers to keep up with uhlan/dop double racks production, I can just get a card and boom got almost 200pop (usually 150 which is 5 houses). This saves me about 4 houses worth of wood (400w) and is then rerouted to making more troops. Because of this, I always by default have a slightly larger army (only slightly cause then I spend a chunk of wood walling like nutz).

the calv inf train rate cards? interesting, I would have thought those to be default. even if I had 30 berracks, I need response time and having train cards allows almost insatnt replacement of troops. But if I were trying to kill in age 3 then that would make sense to replace them. But honestly I kill age 5 with everything maxed out and got myself way out of reach of the enemy (economically)

So it seems like resource/troops cards are preferred. hmmm.

even if I weren't turtling, I just have this tendency to prefer investment over onetime benefit. Thus the deck looks treaty like. some troops/resources as emergency survival and the rest is for booming.

I did some resource calculations and yes the age 3 german cards are strong. I think I'll use the 9 uhlan card since I tend to build a stable upon entry of age 3 rather than age 2 and would need calv for my crossbow/skirm mass with some dopp/pikeman mixture.

____
theories:

Yes I do treat SUP as treaty. The theory (which has been working) is to hybrid all the benefits of rushing (large army and temporary eco booms) to wall up and have defensive advantages to benefit what would have been a large rushing army to wipe out or repel the enemy's equivalently sized army. which then forces age 3 so they get cannon. I get the power of the germans age 3 which is even more to my advantage. than with walls I can survive and have my treaty cards start paying off and then I eco boom far beyond what the enemy is capable of due to their pure rush deck. I reach age 5 and there is 'no' way for me to lose. This tactic works 9/10 times which is why I came here for any ideas/logics cause I want to make this 100% perfect strategy that counters the typical strategies. (I think though I just need to get more micromanaging, I have impressive macro which is what's keeping me alive.) what gets me is army confrontation when I don't have walls mid/early game which is why I don't rush. I am too weak.

anyways, you guys gave me some insight on what people think, any other thoughts? Sorry I am wordy, I like to chuck my thoughts out there.

[_tank]

I think that the full army/crate deck is a bit silly because at some point the unit and crate shipments are much worse than eco and army upgrades. If a game goes long enough you want to replace army with eco not neglect eco and pray that you can spam unit shipments and overpower the enemy.

That being said your deck is missing some things like factories and 700/1000 wood. you can replace land grab adv market and house card because wood crates will give a better advantage. you also probably want more than 1 unit shipment for ff/semiff

[edehollandsbrother]

Treaty deck without factories made me laugh.

[Kaiserklein]

Well the problem is you consider you will go late game, because you turtle. But my games mostly last less than 15 min, so military shipments/crates/vils are most important. Maybe I could replace the shitty 5 uhlans card with some upgrade or sth, but I've never missed it so I don't. Btw a factory is worth about a dozen vils (depends on upgrades), so with 6 sw it makes a 35-40 vils boom with only 3 industrial shipments. Of course i rarely go industrial, but when I do these cards are more important than any upgrade

[nickiru]

Factories are one time build where market is forever. It helped me beat so many people in treaty when mortors start bombing my base. Also land grab makes me not care so much about lost plantations, which factories/plantations are like the two only precious things in the game that can turn the tide of war. If I have alternatives to those than I am a tough dog even if it means I am a sliver behind economically (which I am not cause I am german with 140 pop on villagers). any other civ I would use factories' its just the germans i don't.

here is a new deck I am experimenting with. [attachment id="1659"]

I am thinking of adding factories... they seem more effective in SUP rather than treaty in my opinion. (isn't that backwards? lols) since they count as 10+ villies working. its like a 10villy card that would help me surpass my enemy quicker.

[nickiru]

Well the problem is you consider you will go late game, because you turtle. But my games mostly last less than 15 min, so military shipments/crates/vils are most important. Maybe I could replace the shitty 5 uhlans card with some upgrade or sth, but I''ve never missed it so I don''t. Btw a factory is worth about a dozen vils (depends on upgrades), so with 6 sw it makes a 35-40 vils boom with only 3 industrial shipments. Of course i rarely go industrial, but when I do these cards are more important than any upgrade

Well, I do go late game. all the time. that''s my plan. You perhaps play only around 15 minutes due to your non turtling like most people which is why troop shipments/crates/vils are important. I use a minimum amount of these for survival and then go late game all the time.

I am agreeing with the factories. That is a nice boom in SUP to get me even farther ahead quicker. The enemy doesn''t have the eco to support precision mortor/calv strikes to eliminate my factories anyways so they are very safe. I ''always'' go industrial. about 1/2 time I go imperial depending on if they surrender.

[momuuu]

Imo as germany, you need at least 4 age 3 unit shipments (excluding jaegers). Two skirm shipments, an uhlan shipment and a ww/dopp shipment. Also, if you want an eco heavy deck you just have to include the factories, those things are the best eco shipments in the game. Id consider taking out adv. market and landgrab for them really. In age 3 Id definitely take out the plantation card for a unit shipment tbh. You could change 5 uhlan for a plantation card then if you'd really want to.

[Goodspeed]

theories:

Yes I do treat SUP as treaty. The theory (which has been working) is to hybrid all the benefits of rushing (large army and temporary eco booms) to wall up and have defensive advantages to benefit what would have been a large rushing army to wipe out or repel the enemy''s equivalently sized army. which then forces age 3 so they get cannon. I get the power of the germans age 3 which is even more to my advantage. than with walls I can survive and have my treaty cards start paying off and then I eco boom far beyond what the enemy is capable of due to their pure rush deck. I reach age 5 and there is ''no'' way for me to lose. This tactic works 9/10 times which is why I came here for any ideas/logics cause I want to make this 100% perfect strategy that counters the typical strategies. (I think though I just need to get more micromanaging, I have impressive macro which is what''s keeping me alive.) what gets me is army confrontation when I don''t have walls mid/early game which is why I don''t rush. I am too weak.

anyways, you guys gave me some insight on what people think, any other thoughts? Sorry I am wordy, I like to chuck my thoughts out there.

The reason this doesn''t work is very simple: you need coin mines.

It may be working on your level (which I don''t know what it is but it can''t be high if this is winning 9/10 games) but at some point you''re going to run into people who know how to counter it. On every map, from 12 to 20 min, it''s all about map control and if you turtle that means you''re giving up map control and with it all natural resources. For Germans, who need a lot of gold and don''t have any resources being gathered from thin air like Japan or Dutch, strategies like these aren''t viable. With Japan something like this can work (check out some of Kynesie''s tournament games on land maps), but even then it''s counterable.

[nickiru]

Imo as germany, you need at least 4 age 3 unit shipments (excluding jaegers). Two skirm shipments, an uhlan shipment and a ww/dopp shipment. Also, if you want an eco heavy deck you just have to include the factories, those things are the best eco shipments in the game. Id consider taking out adv. market and landgrab for them really. In age 3 Id definitely take out the plantation card for a unit shipment tbh. You could change 5 uhlan for a plantation card then if you''d really want to.

I''ll experiment with this. though I am truly stubborn about landgrab but I perhaps might trade the market upgrade for something else. I would keep the plantation upgrade, only cause I am turtling and need to have good coin production from plantations.

@ good speed:

I''m a mere pr17 fighting pr 22+. usually fighting majors on up. I am a lot better than my rank says (I only recently started caring about rank so it''s low)

I have studied Kynesie and I play a bit more defensively then him and also I hoard map with walls moreso than him. Natural resources aren''t an issue. Usually I run out the same time as the enemy, I just use land grab to help the transfer into farm/plants better than the opponent which makes them weaker than me. If I don''t take about 1/2 the map, than yes I am in trouble but not nearly as bad as you would think (cause of market and landgrab). dunno I am quarky.

I ain''t arguing to be a turd I am absorbing all your thoughts' I am just giving you mine too.

What counters this by the way? the best I have seen is artillery bombardment but I can get culverins. its merely a counter battle and I just keep surviving. Mind you that I never try to kill until age 5, only survive so I am only matching their unit sizes and countering' equilibrating in combat.

(errm yes the mines runnig short is brutal. I think that''s also why I am a bit clingy to teh advned market card so wood can act as coin for a while until I make plantations.)

I have already been contacting kynesie so we can do battle xD which he wants too.

which means he will either hand my ass to me or visa versa. That will be a good test for me. (he has a freaky pr)

[gibson]

After playing you I think that you could be a pretty decent player, but your play style is just inferior. At one point you had literally double my vils (due to him raiding, having 2 tc and that mill card that let's you make settler wagon from mill) but I was still gathering about the same amount of resources as you due to me being on mines and hunts and you being on Mills and plantations and such. Your play style just has no answer to heavy cannon + uhlan spam and since your enemy will always have a better eco then you he can afford to just trade units til he has a much bigger mass and just wins.

[_tank]

If you have map control and he is walling up and shipping land grab/adv market, you should be able to outboom him with better cards + real res + trade posts for more shipments. you could also wall outside his base if he doesn't want to leave.

Keep in mind the unit shipments are only useful if you fight soon after sending them, and they won't have value if you sit on your army.

Factories can also be put on coin.

You also seem to think it is normal to lose many plantations in a game, which is probably because you are playing at a disadvantage the whole game and waiting for a full economy before doing anything (in current terms this is like 30 min timing). Most people will aim for quicker timings which is why unit/crate shipments are useful.

If you share a rec we can also provide better advise on how to do the same thing better. I am also a fan of doing non-meta builds

[yurashic]

Cards you 100% need in a German deck:

Age 1: 2 sw.
Age 2: 3 sw, 2 sw, 700 wood, 700 gold, 3 dopp, 5 uhlan, 8 crossbowmen.
Age 3: 1000 wood, 1000 gold, 8 skirmishers, 7 skirmishers, 8 uhlans, 9 uhlans, cavalry combat, 9 black riders.
Age 4: Factory, second factory.

The thing with your strategy is that turtle is not viable at high level, it is good only with Japanese and may be Dutch. A smart player won't push into walls, he will go back, send 1000 wood, build 2 tcs and overpower you easily. You spend a lot of wood on a slow place to gather, while your enemy enjoys natural resources and market upgrades. In this game there is a rule that a player who mills first usually loses. Especially this is not viable with Germany, your civ bonus is free cavalry with shipments and you should use it to overpower your enemy early on because later in the game your bonus is irrelevant and you run out of gold which is huge for Germany.

Settler wagon card is useless. You spend 800 wood on 2 mills + send a card in age 3 which is 1800 res total while you could spend 1200 res on 2 tcs and be fine. You do not need more than 99 vills late game because if it is 200/200 situation you will just have less army, especially considering how much pop German units take.

I dont get why you dont like factories. They are like 14 vills each if set on wood that do not take population space and, the most important factor, generate resources out of nowhere. Also they can produce heavy cannons which are very very cost and pop efficient.

[yurashic]

This is my deck. As you see, the only upgrade card is cavalry combat. I have many age 4 cards because you are not going to play age 2 anyway and age 4 Germany is very strong. I dont have any age 1 shipments besides from 2 settler wagons because you dont get free cavalry for them.

10 polish hussars are one of the best shipments in the game. It is like 15 hussars while normal shipment for other civs is 8.

2 heavy cannons are like 5 falconets in strength.

[gibson]

This is my deck. As you see, the only upgrade card is cavalry combat. I have many age 4 cards because you are not going to play age 2 anyway and age 4 Germany is very strong. I dont have any age 1 shipments besides from 2 settler wagons because you dont get free cavalry for them.

10 polish hussars are one of the best shipments in the game. It is like 15 hussars while normal shipment for other civs is 8.

2 heavy cannons are like 5 falconets in strength.

I''m not a big fan of 12 skirms..... I''d rather go with the age 4 cav upgrade of the age 4 eco upgrade

[yurashic]

This is my deck. As you see, the only upgrade card is cavalry combat. I have many age 4 cards because you are not going to play age 2 anyway and age 4 Germany is very strong. I dont have any age 1 shipments besides from 2 settler wagons because you dont get free cavalry for them.

10 polish hussars are one of the best shipments in the game. It is like 15 hussars while normal shipment for other civs is 8.

2 heavy cannons are like 5 falconets in strength.

Im not a big fan of 12 skirms..... Id rather go with the age 4 cav upgrade of the age 4 eco upgrade

Same, but you really need that... The thing is that your composition is uhlan - heavy cannon - ww and you really need something to counter mass goons, I learned this the hard way.

[Mr_Bramboy]

This is my deck. As you see, the only upgrade card is cavalry combat. I have many age 4 cards because you are not going to play age 2 anyway and age 4 Germany is very strong. I dont have any age 1 shipments besides from 2 settler wagons because you dont get free cavalry for them.

10 polish hussars are one of the best shipments in the game. It is like 15 hussars while normal shipment for other civs is 8.

2 heavy cannons are like 5 falconets in strength.

Eco theory and Cav HP are a must imo

[momuuu]

That decklist is severely lacking in the late colonial/late fortress aspect.

[_venox_]

[img]http://s28.postimg.org/4yze2x35p/yolotrollo.png[/img]
All cav ups (3), the most important eco ups (3), all settler wagons and the factories, wood crates and a bunch of army shipments. Imo a well round deck but many have the 13 j?gers and 9 blackriders because instead of the 3 free uhlans they get 3 extra j?gers and 2 extra blackriders and in theory spending a shipment and 1000 coin will last you longer (coin wise) than training units with said coin. 1000 coin could've been 15 skirmishers + 1k coin or nearly 7 warwagons + 1k coin, but I like the eco ups because the later the game goes the rarer cards become and then you want to get the most out of it and not a silly army shipment. Also blackriders and warwagons have really different mechanics and only 9 br as anti cav won't be enough for long.


You also want to build 2 additional tcs for map control at one point.

[yurashic]

This is my deck. As you see, the only upgrade card is cavalry combat. I have many age 4 cards because you are not going to play age 2 anyway and age 4 Germany is very strong. I dont have any age 1 shipments besides from 2 settler wagons because you dont get free cavalry for them.

10 polish hussars are one of the best shipments in the game. It is like 15 hussars while normal shipment for other civs is 8.

2 heavy cannons are like 5 falconets in strength.

Eco theory and Cav HP are a must imo

Cav hp is nice I would not send eco theory, you dont get free cav for it. It is better to send something like 1000 gold + 3 uhlan.

[yurashic]

That decklist is severely lacking in the late colonial/late fortress aspect.

Who cares about late colonial as German? If you are in a position where you can be greedy and send units ups, why are you not aging?

The only exceptions are mirror and Aztec where you make dopps and Iro where you can''t age.

[momuuu]

[img]http://s28.postimg.org/4yze2x35p/yolotrollo.png[/img]
All cav ups (3), the most important eco ups (3), all settler wagons and the factories, wood crates and a bunch of army shipments. Imo a well round deck but many have the 13 j?gers and 9 blackriders because instead of the 3 free uhlans they get 3 extra j?gers and 2 extra blackriders and in theory spending a shipment and 1000 coin will last you longer (coin wise) than training units with said coin. 1000 coin could''ve been 15 skirmishers + 1k coin or nearly 7 warwagons + 1k coin, but I like the eco ups because the later the game goes the rarer cards become and then you want to get the most out of it and not a silly army shipment. Also blackriders and warwagons have really different mechanics and only 9 br as anti cav won''t be enough for long.


You also want to build 2 additional tcs for map control at one point.

Im running basically the same deck. Not sure if 5 uhlans is good.. its basically a 3 uhlan shipment, which is even worse than 3 hussars.

[_venox_]

Disclaimer: You can send your 3 cav upgrades even in the lategame just to trade your cavalry 30% more efficiently (respectively get 30% more value for their cost)
The 3 ups also affec warwagons which is could in late industrial.