Hey everyone,
after a long time I decided to try out AOE3 DE and I am having a blast. It has become quite complex compared to vanilla and it’s fun to figure out the various civs and tactics.
And I like Germany. But there are some things that I don’t like or that don’t feel good or rewarding and I think they should be subject to a change in order to offer more playstyles and variations.
First off:
I don’t like War Wagons. They are clunky, ugly, don’t move like Jagger at all, overkill often and are not pop efficient. It’s probably not smart to always go for the Prinz Chevaulegers, since I feel like they are not good enough in their role to be a satisfying choice (their anti cav dmg seems lacking with the lower base dmg and the worse multiplier vs cav. And why would you use them in melee, when you have Uhlans that have better ranged defense anyway)? But I still always go for them, because I can’t stand WWs.
Doppelsöldner seem very underwhelming. You have a lot of cards for them, but they only benefit DS and Pikemen, so you actually never want these cards, because DS are just too expensive and too easy to counter to fully upgrade them. There is no point in upgrading them, because they never seem to be cost efficient. It’s a very disappointing unique unit in my opinion. Worst thing is the Solingen Steel card. It makes them completely useless, since they become so sluggish and thus worse than without that card. Cards shouldn’t suck that hard and make units generally worse.
And that’s the other thing. Many cards are just bad and outright pathetic when compared to other civs. Some cards are just frustrating, because you want their effect, but don’t want to put them in your deck regardless, since they are not good enough for that.
This indirectly leads to my final complaint with Germany: Their skirmisher is a royal guard unit and it’s one of the worst skirms in the game due to a lack of cards and synergies. Something that is also lacking for German natives that are a really nice addition, but you need so many cards for a good native play and still none of the cards actually help German natives at all in terms of their performance. The way Swede cards work for example should be also the way German cards work: Have them be more versatile instead of just buffing certain units.
Here are my suggestions on how to improve certain cards that I feel like don’t give you much or should benefit more units and thus are hard to justify as a part of your deck. The goal is to make the choice what cards to use more difficult, because some cards just don’t suck anymore:
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The cards “Hand infantry attack”, “Hand infantry hitpoints” and “Hand infantry combat” only apply to Pikemen and DS and thus are useless in my book. They should count for all Hand infantry units Germany can get, so that they also apply to melee infantry Natives and Mercenaries. That would open up Germany for more melee versatility.
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The same treatment should apply to the majority of the cavalry cards: Allow “Cavalry hitpoints” and “Cavalry combat” to buff all available cavalry units (German natives and mercs). Allow “Lippizaner Cavalry” to also apply the stat buffs to German Natives (but not mercs) that can be sent via cards or built in the embassy after “Prince-Electors” was sent. I think it’s more than reasonable that German Natives also benefit from this, since their build limit is set. It would give Germany much more incentive to diversify the army.
The card could also include Prinz Chevaulegers (since it would apply to Wittelsbach Chevaulegers anyway), but not War Wagons (Lippizaner is a breed that was ridden and not pulling wagons, so it would make sense. The issue with WW is not that they have too little hp or dmg, fixing them is not a matter of stat boosts via cards imo). Instead of applying 15% dmg and hp to Prinz and Wittelsbach Chevaulegers this card could also just buff their anti heavy cav multiplier by 0.35, so it ends up being 3.1 instead of 2.75 (2.35 vs hand shock and 2 (1.95) instead of 1.6 in melee and 1.55 vs hand shock instead of 1.2). Max stat with all cards Prinz Chevaulegers end up with 46 dmg. That’s lower than other fully upgraded Dragoons that get up to something around 52 dmg with a multiplier of 3. 52 x 3 = 156 and 46 x 3.1 = 142,6 instead of 46 x 2.75 = 126,5. They’d still have a worse ranged dmg output than other premium dragoons, but the trade off would be the higher melee dmg and slightly more hp. With that change you don’t feel like gimping your potential against tanky cav too hard like Gendarms when sending this card. They’d still be different, but not that much worse at countering cav from range than other Goons. If the dmg buff of the Lippizaner card would apply to them, their dmg would end up being ~49, which times 2.75 is 134,75. So by buffing their multiplier they become better at their role without being stronger against anything else. I think I prefer the multiplier buff over the 15% HP and dmg buff. -
The “Scharnhorst Reform” card also feels underwhelming, since all it does is enable the Landwehr. That’s a bit weak to sacrifice a deck slot for that. Additionally to enabling Landwehr this card could also increase the range of Needle Gunners (age IV royal guard upgrade, not the age III skirm) by 1 and their ranged armor by 5% to 35% up from 30%. Needle gunners were the shit back in the day, they dominated, and yet they are so much inferior to the vast majority of other civ skirms in the game. It just doesn’t feel right since it’s supposed to be a special unit for Germany.
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On top of that the Needle Gunner upgrade should increase the attack speed by reducing the time between attacks from 2.75 to 2.5. That’s distinctive and gives them a more refined strength. 2.75 just feels irrelevant. It’s so much worse than the dmg buff Voltigeurs get with their royal guard upgrade for example.
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The “Long range infantry hitpoints” card should be changed to “Long range infantry combat”. It should buff HP and dmg by 15% for Landwehr and Needle Gunners and also apply to German Natives that can be sent or built via “Prince-Electors” → German native skirms and musketeers. Fully upgraded Needle gunners with all cards would end up with 34-35 dmg with 2.5 attack speed, 21 range and 282 hp. For a royal guard unit that feels like good stats. Right now they have 32 dmg, 2.75 attack speed, 20 range and 282 and that just sucks. Especially since “Long range infantry hitpoints” only gives 15% hp to skirms and Landwehr, which is pathetic for an age IV card and thus not really worth the slot.
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The “Solingen Steel” card. This card is terrible and should be completely changed. Instead of its current effect, let it buff dmg and hp for hand infantry (not just DS) by 10% and give them .2 melee resistance on top (40% instead of 20% melee resistance for DS), which changes to .2 ranged resistance when in stagger mode → 70% ranged def in stagger instead of 50% for DS, 20% melee and 50% siege. That way they can eat a lot of shots when being out of position making them more micro intense and ultimately more rewarding. Even if they don’t connect they could be a very helpful front line that can sponge up dmg instead of being an expensive mistake.
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Last but not least improve the “Improved Mercenaries” card to 20% dmg and hp up from 15%. It feels so weird that the Swedes get 20% with the “German Mercenary Contracts” card. It just feels off. You still need two cards for Germany to get more or less the same effect that Swedes get with one card, namely “Improved Mercaries” and “Mercenary Camps”. The 5% buff could also be applied to the “Mercenary Camps” card. So that if you send both cards, you get 20% altogether instead of 20% with one card in age III. I think that’d be fine balance wise, because you can’t get all cards anyway and probably need to accept a trade-off somewhere when going this route.
The choice of cards should be tougher and I think with my suggestions you really need to think in depth on how to build your deck instead of just ignoring some cards because they are not good enough.
Now I don’t know if anything is considered vastly overpowered with Germany. If that is the case, nerf them accordingly in order to be able to apply these broad buffs to certain cards. I just feel like their unit improvement cards need a bit more flavor, because I notice way too often that the German cards are just outright worse than the cards of other civs in terms of versatility and effect. And I really want to make German Native play a powerful thing to go for instead of just being a nice addition. I really like the Prince-Electors play for Germany, but I don’t like that you cannot boost these units in any way.
I also like the general idea of civs getting bonuses when using their native units on their native regional maps in general. Just look at how crazy the stat boosts for outright all natives in the game are for the French. French should have bonuses for Bourbons and native Americans, but seeing them fielding potentially better natives than the parent civs of said natives that are not of American origin feels weird.
What do you guys think? Am I wrong in thinking that some cards are just very bad and I simply don’t know enough about the game or do I have a point and these cards could see some more wider effects to make the civ more fun and interesting to play, put more emphasis on the civ’s strengths and unique units and allow for more theory crafting when it comes to building various decks for different occasions and maps? And maybe I am wrong about DS and Needle gunners being bad, but I don’t see anything that makes them good compared to other civs, their role or their costs. For me these two distinct civ units are just terrible and I find myself always ignoring their cards, which I really don’t like.
Thank you for reading. 
