Germania

[Nobbystyles]

Ive had it pretty easy as germania early expansion out to domus dulcis and vicus venedae wheere i got an alliance with scythia and dacia which has held for an entire game
the scythians and dacians have been peaceful and are allies. my army consists of cavalry and thats all. flanking the AI caues them to rearrange their lines in such a haphazard way that you shoudl be able to pick off a lot of units that havent quite formed up properly. This in particular for the romans who just dont seem to know what they are doing. The gaul warbands just rout instantly when hit from the sides and the briton chariots dont do much damage when hit by 6 units of cav from all directions. so why do you even need infantry. i did have to starve out most towns which takes a while but losses are a lot less. hitting them as they come out of a gate when they sally forth is just a meat grinder for 3 units of cav. one either side of the gate and one in the front. most of my generals are 8+ stars and i keep getting new generals from captains who attack the rebel bands.
The chosen archers are amazing. excellent range, excellent accuracy and can fight if they need to.

i never had to fight the romans with the marius event in effect since i was easily able to take italy faster than i too gaul. they kept attacking my sieging army and the town garrison were reinforcements that never got to return to the town and i just strolled in. triarii were no problem as they tended to run to the site of a recent cavalry charge and if i charged on the left then the right. the triarii just ran back and forward across the battlefield then get the exhausted unit to followa cav unit while anotehr cav hits them in the back then slice down the routed unit. in my current game. julii are gone, SPQR is gone, Scipi only has thapsus and lepcis magna (both under siege from noble cavalary and ports blocaded) and the brutii hold corinth and athens. (both under siege and blockaded).

i had to move my capital down to patavium to cope with the culture penalties i was getting from the italian cities, since the barbarians dont have any benefit for being more populated than 6000 most roman cities have all the necessary building to get the highest quality troops i just exterminate them.

cav is the way to go

[Red Harvest]

I'm about to complete a "short" Germania campaign that on VH/VH that requires the conquest of Dacia and Scythia as well as 15 provinces. In order to do that I had to first eliminate the Britons, and start eliminating Gaul. This brought me alongside the Julii, who promptly attacked...they are suffering for that now. In the end I will probably conquer 40 provinces before I am done, but the outcome is now certain.

Overview: Move FAST! Briton and Gaul are horrible neighbors, they will attack even if you ally with both of them. Start building armies to eliminate them both and keep them on defense rather than offense. There are rebel provinces all around. Be very aggressive in seizing them before your neighbors, it is the only way I could keep my finances positive while playing VH. Dacia makes a good ally if you have just enough forces on your border cities with them that they don't get any "bright" ideas. Scythia will also be a good neighbor.

Your Armies: Your problem is lack of cavalry accessibility early on. You only have one province that will be able to build them for many turns...and you must build the structure first. Buy merc cav and merc cav archers wherever possible. The spearband will provide the bulk of your forces. By maintaining 4 row/rank lines of spearband you can present a very wide front that is nearly impenetrable. I march them into the enemy as a contiguous line with my few units of cav on both flanks. I switch to phalanx as they close (guard mode on or off) and give them orders to march *past/through* the enemy line. I keep my cav tucked just behind the flanks and as they engage send the cav around the flank. The enemy end units crumple before or right at the time my cav hits them. The opposing line group routs and I chase down the remainder with my cav. (Typical battle on VH/VH will give me ~1,000 kills, with 20 or 30 losses. A close battle might cost me 150 men and once I even lost 250 because I had insufficient cav.)

Early Strategy: Take Bordesholm, Vicus Gothi, and Lugdunum ASAP. This will get you a nice income. I "occupied" because the province populations were low...and some time during the game I would like them to hit the next city size. Gaul will want Lugdunum, so they are going to attack. No matter, make it their honeypot. Keep a good army there to defeat their stacks repeatedly--you might need to reinforce it periodically, particularly with any cav you can get.

Send diplomats far afield. I sent one toward Dacia, then Scythia to secure alliances. I picked up alliances with Thracia and Macedon along the way. I also sent one on a long tour of Gaul and the Iberian peninsula. I managed to get alliances with all of Rome and trade with Spain and Carthage. The alliances with Rome unravelled when they attacked Macedon. But I was able to keep trade rights with some of their factions (although I don't know that I had much external trade.)

Midgame Strategy: Plan to take Samarobriva from the Britons ASAP. This will be their "honeypot" while you try to get a port so that you can invade and finish them. With the Gauls occupied in Lugdunum and Britons in Samarobriva, you can build a third army to take Alesia from the Gauls. It has lots of upgrades and population and will start producing some tough "chosen" archers and swordsmen if you don't. When you take it, "enslave" is a good idea: it sends population to your many small cities. Gaul will be on the ropes after this. Take Condate Redonum and you will have a port...this is how you invade Brittania without waiting for a port of your own. The hop to London is short, and the Britons will be busy in your neck of the woods, unable to defend their own. It will only take a few turns to finish them (exterminate or enslave as needed to balance money/population needs.)

Also, during the early midgame, you need to take Domus Dulcis Domus ("Home Sweet Home") and Vidus Venedae from the rebels. This will keep money flowing, and it will keep the Dacians in check since they run out of money with nothing to conquer. At some point in the midgame I had the money to build a small army to take Lovosice. I think it was in Dacian hands. After that Dacia was on the ropes. I quickly took Aquincom, and then sent some exploration to Iuvavum which was rebel so I took it as well. Dacia was wiped out by Thracia before I had a chance to finish them. Note: Dacia has falxmen, and when mixed with archers I've found them a bit tougher to beat on VH with spearband and cav. (Do not let Dacia hit you first! I got triple teamed by Dacia, the Britons, and Gaul in my first attempt at Germania. I could never get financial traction to finish any one of the three, and the Dacian falxmen eventually attrited my army away.)

Lategame: Take the rest of the Gaul provinces in France. You might want to exterminate to get some money from the larger population centers. Although enslave works better on some areas and especially if you need to rebuild stacks/build new armies with all those nice upgrades. Take a hop from the UK to take Hibernia. Take Cisalpine Gaul, Transalpine Gaul and Patavium. This will bring the Julii down on you. They hit me with three full stacks in Cisalpine Gaul, one for each of three turns. I had a powerful 1/2 stack army. After that I had finished the Gauls in Italy and turned my attention to the Julii. I hit them both in Italy and Iberia simultaneously.

Endgame. With all effective opposition silenced, turn on your Scythian allies. This will mean long marches. I am ready to start this phase.

[Spartakus]

Germania is great battlewise. Once you have managed to build a nice army, that is. Losses do not have to be heavy, just avoid autoresolve most of the time, as already pointed out by Magraev.

The key to victory, in my opinion, is spearmen and chosen archers. Form a solid wall of phalanxes, position some units of chosen archers behind these, and some cavalry on the sides to make sure they don't get any nasty surprises. The spearmen can be reinforced with night raiders and berserkers, great units for making the enemy rout. This makes them particularly useful against your neighbours the Gauls and the Britons, as these guys rout at the drop of a hat. I have yet to see this strategy fail.

Where to go? In my opinion every Germania-player's duty is to plunder Rome before Alaric. Which gives you hundreds of years, so no need to hurry, conquer Britannia and Gaul first.

[Mightypeon]

Well, I have something to add to the German Phalanx:
Add one unit of Axes or Barb Merc and one unit of screaming Women.
Let both use their abilites when the enemy gets close.
The combined effect of the scremaing + the warshout is almost enough to "shake" some units, and certainly enough to make the pesky romans run earlier.
It also gives you the edge in Phalanx vs. Phalanx as their Phalanx will run before yours does.
Always keep 2 units of Cavalry, the other germans arent that good in chasing routers and german cavalry is good in protecting flanks.
Oh, I noticed that some well defendet border forts can occupy the Dacian/Thracian/Skythian mongrels with very little troops while your guys spank rome.
Does anyone have some tips on Naval warfare?
I am unable to put any kind of dent into the roman navys, which is quite pesky, I cant even get a diplomant to africa for getting an Alliance with Cartage/Egypt...

[Mightypeon]

Well, I have saved the problem with the roman navy, by killing them all.
their navy is nto that scary if they dont carry any troops because soemone just spanked italy.
On hindisght, it was significantly more easier than anticipated.
The Julii armies were unxeperienced, my tpyical 4 Spears, 2 chosen Archer 1 general one gothic 2 Light Cav on Axemen on one screamer armies beat them up pretty well.
5 Star Spearman can still hold up Legions, mainly because they posses a bigger size and get a morale advantadge (well, you did use the scremaing women eh?)
I have engaged the Dacian/Thracian (the latter have absorbed Macedon), the Falxmen are somehow Cannon fodder (my Cav runs through them, they dont even get close to my spears and my Archers are shooting them up anyway.)
however the Thracian Pikes are pretty nasty, alas their small front size will mean their doom, in addition the AI cannot really use its Phalanxes.
I am doign a "Sitzkrieg" with the Skythians, pretty small garrisons (one General + 2 Spears +1 chosen Archers) are sitting in some border forts and protect the irver corssings, the Sykths dont even try to siege.
My Spy recently found out why the Skythies are so boring, the Scythies lost their leader + main army against the Amazons, however I dont have enough troops to garrsion the land which would be ripe for taking.

I have to confess that I dont like Berserkers, the require that you build a temple to Donar, however, Donar is inferior to Wotan in most respects (Wotan get more units and a better bonus) in addition, the priests of Donar help you helaing your wounded which I think is one of the best skills ever, the +2 command while using infantry is even better.

I can only recommend chosen Axemen coming from a level 3 Wotan temple city with a nice armour smith. Want to go toe to toe with the urban cohorts? Well, chosen Axes can do the trick, in additoon they are propably one of the best one turn units.

[Spartakus]

I have to confess that I dont like Berserkers, the require that you build a temple to Donar, however, Donar is inferior to Wotan in most respects (Wotan get more units and a better bonus) in addition, the priests of Donar help you helaing your wounded which I think is one of the best skills ever, the +2 command while using infantry is even better.

But they look SO cool!

Seriously, Donar may be inferior to Wotan, but the berserkers do cream enemies in battle. I have seen these guys chase away Roman units many times their size. With the hitpoints, they don't go down as easily as you might expect either.

On the side, it's worth noting that the germanic god Wotan and the norse god Odin are one and the same, just a variation in the spelling from old norse to saxon. Same with Donar/Thor. So these fellas are actually the predecessors of the berserkers in Viking Invasion.

[The_Emperor]

Ok I started off a game as the Germans last night to have a bash at them.

Theya re hard on the battlefield with those spear warbands... To be honest I thought they would have been higher upt he tech tree than they are. I was really amazed that while the Britons and Gauls get the default "Warband" the Germans got a Phalanx... Still they do need it more than the Britons and Gauls do, their lands are so dirt poor you have to Blitz the map to avoid early game stagnation. Especially with the Britons and Gauls.

For my part I ended up at war with both of these factions very early on. I got agressive and took Alesia from the Gauls (it is their Capital after all)... Then the Britons joined in sending an army to try to besiege Alesia from me right afterwards.

So I scraped an army together and attacked their Gallic foothold. Fortunately the moment my army got close to their city, the Big Briton army lifted the siege to rush back to defend. It was a big mistake and I took the town while they were stuck on the road... That army was later destroyed in a heroic victory near the town.

My eastern flank though is extremely weak due to the dirt poor nature of Germanic towns, fortunately I am allied with Dacia and am pursuing an alliance with Scythia, to hold them at bay.