Suggestion: The German Question

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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I find it quite amusing that a political question of the 19th century can be so mirrored in discussion about a video game that captures the same time period partly.

The Germans have been a hot topic on the forums and elsewhere for quite a while. With some people asking for a Prussian civ, others for Austrians and others for the Germans to be just left alone. But no matter if you think the Germans are basically Prussia or if you think it’s obviously Austria or the Holy Roman Empire. If we’re honest with ourselves it’s kind of all of these things in one big umbrella civilization. You might ask for a split of this civ, but realistically speaking you know as well as I that that is not in the cards in the foreseeable future.

How then to solve this German question?

Here come the knights of the Mediterranean with a slew of German royal houses, with brand new native German soldiers. And thanks to a certain Inca card, we now have a plausible solution for the problem (at least I think so?). Best of all, it leaves the rest of the Germans entirely intact. Not a single change needed in them for this idea. What’s the idea? A single card:

Age III or IV card:

Imperial Election, cast the deciding vote in which House gains control over the German lands.

Ships an embassy wagon (+1build limit optional) and allows you to ally with one of the following:

House of Habsburg
House of Wittelsbach
House of Hannover
House of Wettin
House of Hohenzollern (see below)

This allows the building of the associated units in the embassy and allows for the research of 2 of their techs (not the big button ofc). Flag change optional but would be sweet eye candy.

Hohenzollern is sadly missing from the expansion, but can be easily implemented. I had a quick idea but there are probably others and mayhaps better ideas:

House of Hohenzollern:

Unlocks Prussian Musketeers(RG musk) and Giant Grenadiers in the embassy. Unlike the other 4 options these are not natives but take population as normal, but in return have no build limit.

Comes with 2 techs that are basically just +15atk/+15hp techs for these 2 units (I’m boring sorry).

What do you think? Im sorry if it’s a bad idea but these new natives got me really excited.

Also Wallenstein’s contracts needs a rework…

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It would be much easier to have a game that spans like one century. From HRE to the Wilhelminian Era it’s a massive tangled political mess that is challenging to be smoothly translated into a civilization.
It’s hard to even pick a direction.

So as long as civs ought to be named after one dominant ethnic group and we’re left with plain ‘Germany’, the first things that comes to my mind are other countries. If we do not have HRE, where does it leave Austrians, or the Swiss Confederacy?

I always felt Austrians were missing, but back in the day it was maybe more justified. But now there’s a lot less restriction when it comes to the inclusion of new civilizations. And for example, Austria, unlike the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with a lot of internal and external diversity, was pretty much on its own and didn’t come to be Austria-Hungary till very late (1867) into AoE3’s time frame.

Even when we leave (arch)duchy stuff aside, the Austrian Empire might fit nice and satisfy a lot of people that just want to have these cultures and places be more represented.

I know ‘Austria’ is not the best answer for the ‘German question’, but honestly, that is the first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about what could be done about that part of Europe.

About changes to Germany itself- I’m not really qualified enough to stir that nest of bees. I think the name itself should stay, and it shouldn’t be just remodeled after Prussia or whatever else. From Magna Germania to the Federal Republic of Germany, few other civs need less justification for existing than they do.

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Uh… that sure is a way to name a thread…

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I can’t tell if it’s worse if he understood what he was doing or if it’s worse if he didn’t.

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We do have the HRE and Austria and Prussia, its just that they are all rolled into one “Germans” civ. The naming is important here. Its not Germany, but rather all the German people. Austrians considered themselves German throughout the games time period and we see multiple references to the Habsburg in the German civ.
Austrians as a civ has been refered to by a dev as one of the weirdest suggestions he has read and I think its save to say that means they are never coming.
I always said Prussians were an easier split off due to the lack of Prussian references in the Germans, or at least ease of changing the ones they had. But the recent change of a House of Hohenzollern card indicates to me that Prussians are not an option for the devs either.

But with the addition of new German natives we have a good way to allow German players a way to be the German state they wish to represent. They just need a proper way to acces these natives.

Im eagerly awaiting what the devs have in store for an eventual German rework.

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Here are my suggestions for the German civ case:

  • For civ Germans I think they should get a lot of new Home City Cards that would send us more German units (which would come from German Royal Houses) e.g. Bavarian Card, Austro-Hungarian Card etc. Additionally, Germans civ should be able to train these units in their military buildings . In this way, civ Germans would truly become civ Germans (+ nations under the rule of the Habsburgs).

  • Another Home City Card could give us a Royal Embassy wagon with any German Royal House.

  • Three more German Royal Houses to deepen the immersion of the new European maps and to better present the richness and diversity of Germany:

  1. House of Ascania - Anhalt, Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony-Lauenburg, Lüneburg
  2. House of Nassau - Netherlands, England, Scotland, Luxembourg, Orania, Nassau
  3. House of Luxembourg - Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia, France, Luxembourg
  • Brand new Prussians civ (Austro-Hungary civ is no longer required, thanks to the Habsburg Royal House.). Prussians civ would give us the contents of the Teutonic Order, the Kingdom of Prussia and the reunification of Germany. Prussia was definitely different from the rest of the German states due to the absence from the Holy Roman Empire. Prussian civ would fit perfectly as a standard European civ with strong infantry and strong industrialization (unique economic buildings). Prussians civ could appear together with the Danes civ in a joint DLC.

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Prussians

Home City

  • Capital - Berlin (Germans civ would get new Capital - Vienna)
  • Personality - Frederick the Great (Germans civ would get new Personality - Maximilian I von Habsburg)

Units

Barracks

  • Pikeman
  • Landwehr - weak infantry armed with muskets. Uses bayonet in hand-to-hand combat
  • Potsdam Giants
  • Musketeer (Royal Guard - Prussian Needle Gunner)

Stable

  • Uhlan (Royal Guard - Totenkopf)
  • Dragoon

Artillery Foundry

  • Grenadier
  • Culverin
  • Falconet
  • Mortar
  • Howitzer - large ranged artillery

Church

  • Order Knight
  • Teutonic Knight - Archaic heavy cavalry armed with a lance. Modeled on the Knights of the Order (Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order). This unit would be the equivalent of the Elmeti.

Grube

  • Miner - A unit that produces coins from Mines and Grube more efficiently. He cannot build buildings - he can only build Grube. The model of this unit is based on the Silesian Miner. This unit speaks Silesian.
  • Silesian Schuetzen - Elite rifle-armed troops. They shoot from a long distance and deal massive damage at the cost of a very low rate of fire and training limit (only 10 such units at the same time). This unit speaks Silesian.

Unique Features

  • Offizier is a Prussian civ hero. It has a Big Button “Prussian Discipline”. This ability increases the rate of fire and durability of ranged infantry units. He can build Forts

  • They can train Landwehr in Outpost

  • They have a new unique building Grube (This Building is being built on a mine. Increases the mine’s capacity by 50%) In this building, you can train Miners (a unit present in the campaign but with the model of a Silesian miner), who obtain coins from mines and from Grube more efficiently. Following the example of Mountain Monastery (a unique civ Ethiopian building), it would generate Coins or XP. This building would have improvements such as: increasing the Coin abundance in Grube and increasing the number of trainable Miners. This building would contain a distinctive Headframe.

  • They have the possibility of the reunification of Germany (a revolution-like option). This makes it possible to train 19th century German units. Adds Pickelhaube to Prussian units.

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I applaud your enthusiasm but I do think that Prussians like the Austrians are just not gonna happen anymore.

The Germans got an old card renamed to house of Hohenzollern, this indicates to me that the devs are not considering seperate Prussians. Or else they wouldnt have added the reference.

House of Nasau is a dutch card and the houses of Bonaparte, Tudor and Bernadotte are also present in their civs.

Any change to the Germans or other old civs is unlikely to be found outside of the cards when their updates do come around.