Germania

[Mightypeon]

I found out that it is possible to hold the western border, expand into Behmiea, civus Gothi and Bordesholm and crush rome in the same time.
However you would have to do some "phase spear" or deploy at the end of the field abuse for it.
For those who dont know: phase spear takes advatnadge of the affect that Phalanx troops can attack through Walls. Place you Phalanx directly beihind a gate (put guard on). You should see their spears sticking out on the other side.
The approaching enemy rams will not be able to do damage because your spears are long enough to kill the first 2 soldiers who man the ram.
The other abuse invloves setting up in the edges.
4 Phalanxes can esily strecht an edge, make sure that there is no room to flank you nad have a field day.

[Jeanne d'arc]

If u dont wonna have the pleasure in dealing with those Gaul forester warbands, expand towards Alesia and dispatch an army from there east towards patavium and mediolanium.Make sure u take the road through the mountains(less chanche in getting ambushed and in my game it was unprotected) , it leads right into the area of these 2 core troop producing cities.Use a spy to scope the area first though cause they usually have a field army nearby.Then attack and pillage both cities, it will make good money.Leave the cities for the Gauls while in the meanwhile u can expand your kingdom towards these cities and by the time u get there they might be rebuild making them ideal to help forge an army for your move towards Rome.

[McDoogle]

G'day,

I am new to this. However i would like to offer my oppion on the Germans..

I have been playing Rome total war for awhile and Germania is the best Culture. Why?

because of thier spear-warbands (i put unit scale to huge, which means spear-warbands are 241men). i personally only used these at the beginning. i am a peaceful player however when i am prompted into war i am ruthless. i made an alliance with the Dacians, the sythians, the britons, the Gauls. i knew from exprience that the Gauls and the Britons attack you, sooo i exploited the idea of forts. There is a bridge near Batavodurum, i put a fort within march of the bridge and that helped stop attacks from briton getting to far. than Trier. i built one fort with a small garrision where the gap in the forest joins Belgica. i than set up i think about 5 forts in a line along the border of Central Gaul. i set 400 men in each fort than placed another fort behind the middle on with 800 men to help reinforce any attack. this stops the Gauls. well, forwhile.

i took Bordesholm, Vicus Gothi and Lovosice before the gauls broke thier allaince and attacked me. they didnt get past my forts and were soon running home with very deep wounds to lick. Briton felt over confident and attacked me. i took Samarobriva, i massacared the poplace. i than left the town for the Rebels to take and the Briton to be pre occupied while i delt with Gaul. i than took Alesia and it suffered the same fate.

Soon i the Britons attacked again so as i recruited an army to destroy them, i sent emesarries to Rome. i gained all roman factions on side and i tried to convince Julii to attack Gaul, funnliy enough they would have none of it so i went to rome and offered them 10k gold and thus the Gauls had a very distracting nieghbour to thier soul.

Now i finally took Samarobriva. the british decided to drop men off with their navy i than saw a Gaulish navy near-by. so i searched and in Armorica had a port, thus i split my forces in Samarobriva and took Armorica with little trouble thanx to the Julli. i than created my navy, i destroyed the british navy. thus like some of you have said i thought it was safe and turned all of my armies south wards. the british snuck a small army over so i pulled all forces north and dropped them in britian. i currently hold all of Britian and ireland, however i am having trouble with Rebels. so if anyone knows how to stop Rebels appearing...

i have currently destoryed Gaul...well i control all thier terrioteries. i stopped the Romans from annoying me by building forts in the mountian passes in Transalpine Gaul and Iuvaum.

now while i was worrying about Briton Thrace and Dacia went to war. i didnt care about them so i let them settle it. Dacia was almost destroyed, Thrace descieded to attack me, every turn either Lovosice or Vicus Marcomannii is under siege. i than countered this but building 500 night raiders (tough lil buggers) and i use them to weaken Thrace i have currently weakened them by taking thier cities and massacring the and than leaving a brilliant stratergy, becase you dont always have time to take and settle the settlements to destroying them and giving them back is better because they are unable to attack you.

i am focusing on taking Rome and than Spain, than the Balkans, Russian, Greece because of thier huge trade income.i than plan on moving on to old Persia thand africa than finially Egypt...

if anyone has any comments they would be gratly aprrcienated... or if you wish to contact me McDoogle@toowoomba.com just tell me your from the forums..

thanx hope this helped..

[Rurik the Chieftain]

I love the Germans, in fact they're my favorite faction (would've never guessed, huh?)But...a serious issue with the Germans is their lack of siege weapons. They don't even get a single onager. Nuthin! But fear not, for most of the time this allows you to make more men than would be usually made due to the fact that you don't have to worry about siege equipment. Go out there and use those siege ladders!

[LestaT]

Just a question. When I played as Germania, after I sacked Roman cities which by the time they are very advanced and have buldings that produced seige/artilleries , why can't I use them ? I don't expect to produce German Legions but it would be nice to throw in some heavy artilleries once in a while. MAkes the sieges quicker.

[Maltz]

Hello: I think this is because Germania is a barbarian tribe, so you are not allowed to build such advanced units. You can check which units you can use by a unit guide (you can find the link in SP forum's index), or just go to a custom battle and see which units are available.

[Slon]

Germania is probably the best barbarian faction in the long run. However, they start out very poor, their settlements are small and their population growth is extremely slow. Your main unit of choice in the beginning will be the spear warband. Send a few units to Alesia as soon as possible to get some income. Once this is done, take some important gallic settlements (such as longdunum) and 1-2 Dacian settlements to cripple both factions. They will almost certainly stop attacking then. After that, make sure you take the British foothold and expand into Britannia, taking all of their provinces (even Tara). The british have fairly weak units in the beginning. From there it will be easy for a while. Your army should consist of lots of spear warbands, a few units of night raiders (the only large axe unit worth getting) and some berserkers. Then, Gothic Cavalry and chosen archers will greatly help, too. The key thing to remember as this faction is to avoid pulling punches with the Romans early on. They will destroy you. Once you take patavium and everything north of the Julii settlements, stop there. Place 3-4 units of spear warbands (and archers once you get them) on each of the 2 bridges to keep the julii from attacking once they declare war. The spear warbands will almost always hold bridges. The only time you might have trouble is when the enemy uses archers. To deal with this, bring some chosen archers. The Brutii will eventually attack from the east (if they already took those settlements) and might really mess up your plans. Hopefully you have enough of an army by now to attack the Julii's relentless attacks. Take their big settlements first and make sure you still have an army north of there to guard patavium! Also, don't launch an attack on rome across the bridges until you have a very good income. In my game, my faction basically became bankrupt while fielding a few units against the Julii. Expanding just isn't worth the risk of losing Patavium. If you aren't ready, just hold the bridges with spearmen while you expand farther into Gaul and Spain to take their settlements (and their money).

The key thing to remember is to take Patavium and those bridges as soon as possible. Once the Julii start their expansion, they will become truly unstoppable. Actually, they are already fairly difficult to stop even with their first 4 settlements under their control. I guess taking those might help with stopping them. In my game, I had a fairly sizeable army and I had to fight against a battle against the julii, brutii and the SPQR. ALL IN ONE BATTLE! I found a nice hilltop and just pelted them with arrows and flanked them. I lost about 90 units and they collectively lost around 1600. The next few turns, I became bankrupt and they beseiged 3 of my settlements in the same turn. I just gave up at this point.

[Mightypeon]

Well, it is true that the roman legions can get pretty nasty, however people are forgetting two things:
A) You tend to get your chosen Axes before they get their legions
B) If you have chosen Axes, you dont have to worry about legions that much.
C) However, if they get legionarys, they happen to produce hem faster than you can pump out your elites.

As the Germans you have 2 windows of opportunity to sack rome.
1: Right at the start: Take your spears, go south and show the romans the real meaning of Phalanx warfare, clever positioning can easily beat the senate army
2: If youre good with cavalry: As soon as you rpduce walour 2 weapon one Barb Light Cav from Damme and Montigiacum (+Aleisa if you took it)
This Cav is lightears ahead of anyhing mounted the romans can build, but it tends to be used against the pesky Britons, Gauls whatsorver.
3: If you have just enslaved Gaul (you have to, they will attack you and they wont make peace) grab some chosen archers get you vet spears and smack the romans.

[Herakleitos]

I took them on right after Gaul. The Gauls developed Mediolanum really well and have a +2 missile weapons temple there so I am just churning out chosen archers there. As far as I'm concerned those legionairs don't function all that well with lots of arrows sticking out of them...

Only thing I wasn't aware of is the fact that Germans don't sap... I was besieging Arretium and built two sap points but couldn't get anyone to dig some tunnels! Fortunately my spy opened the gate for me (lost over 500 men though, most of them on the bbq).

[Maltz]

I just had some experience of Germania (Vh/Vh/Huge/patch1.1). I followed the advice of taking Rome very early on. Now it is 262BC and I have 21 settlements - Germania is invincible. I blieve with some practice, everybody can easily take out an little-missle enemy that is 3 times as large on an open field - or definitely more than that in a city as long as time is enough, and yes, on VH. The key is simple:

- Spear Warband is GOD!

Seriously I think spear warband should belong to at least the 2000 level town barrack, or even 6000. They are just way too powerful. It is the only melee unit that I could win, 1 vs. 1, in a 10 to 1 kill ratio in VH. In fact, I just routed 3 units of rebels (naked fanatics + 2 bar. warband) with 1 unit of spearwarband. All I did was camping them at the corner.

These phalanx are supposely to be the crap, but they turn out to be the best. They never switch to that f* little knife whenever an enemy comes close, and they come in great numbers. I defeated the Senate army with 7 units of spear warband holding everything - Roman generals, trarii, everything.

Against regular infantry on the field, you only need 3 rank deep of spears for them to become invincible, since only the first three rows will ever touch the enemy. The trick, as many others have pointed out, is to form a LONG, THING WALL OF SPEARS, and let them "walk to a distant point beyond the enemy in phalanx mode". Always works, always invincible. This way, the formation is not disrupted as they would when you order them to simply attack (annoying). To keep the wall continuous, you need to stop the advance of all other units when any one is engaged. This way, you have no weakness exposed. The AI is pretty smart somtimes, that it will try to flank your phalanx. So you really don't want to disrupt your wall or things will turn out to be very ugly.

Formation also tends to screw up when the engaged enemy routs. You might think "guard mode" will help - NO! When you leave the guade mode on you will see your spearmen do all the funny things, sometimes rotate 180 degres to show their back to the second wave of charge. They way I do it is to hit "stop" when the enemy routs, and point to their new movement destination. Just keep them occupied.

The greatest weakness of phalanx is missle - but you don't have to worry, you have chosen archer warbands - long ranged! If you take Rome early on, you can mass produce them off the bat. Barbarian cav. is good enough for all kinds of flanking and chasing purpose.

Germania does not have any weakness - just full of strength. With that only working RTW phalanx you only need to worry about "other phalanx", but you have long range weapons and cavalry - no worry at all.

[tnt_73]

Yeah, the german phalanx is good. But i used them only 4 the beginning. Now i'm a german cavalery man. I use horses in masses, and some night raiders and berserkers to climb up the walls :D. And of course elite bow men :D 4 support.

[afrit]

I found Germania pretty easy on Medium/Medium

My experience has been a long blitz. Here's what I found useful:

TACTICS

- Spear warbands rule. In fact, they are overpowered. As other posters said, stretch them out a bit, then advance them to march beyond the enemy line. Their one downside is their lack of speed and maneuvrability. Try turning off phalanx to run, and then turning it back on just before engaging enemy. Even then they are still cumbersome. This lack of maneuvrability is compensated by Barbarian cavalry, one of the speediest units in the game. Barbarian cav is key to totally annihilating your enemies by chasing all routers. My armies consisted mainly of center line of 2-3 spears and the rest is flanking cavalry.

- I did not see the need to produce any missile units (in fact I hate them because of the friendly fire which causes more causalties than the enemy). A combo of spears and barabarian cav could annihilate anything. Most of your early enemies (Gauls/Britons/Early romans) do not deploy much long range missiles, so you can handle them with spears and horses. Avoiding the missile line of development saves money on the range buildings.

STRATEGY

- Early eastward expansion into Lovosice and Iuvavum will deprive Dacia of "lebensraum" while giving you extra money/land and potentially a way into Italy (via Iuvavum). I thought it was worth sparing some troops from the Briton/Gallic front.

- German towns are poor and low population. Trade income is meager. Since your main income is taxes, which depend on population, you must watch your population closely. I therefore used barbarian mercs liberally to avoid draining my population. Build all farms levels in Germany.

-Trier works as a great focus for conducting the war against Britain and Gaul. A single army there can threaten Samarobriva or Alesia while defending your hinterlands. I managed to pick off Gallic and Briton stacks one by one using one large army based around Trier . The spy you get early is key to keeping an eye on them.

-It is possible to blitz across Gaul quickly once you take Alesia. I took Alesia in 262 BC. 6 years later (256 BC) all Gaul, including Massilia was German. You incur no cultural penalty in Gallic lands, and their low population means you can garrison with one or two units and move on to the next town.

-Moving against Rome early is better than late. I captured Rome in 252 BC (and almost got it in 253 , having captured the town square 30 seconds before the darn timer expired). I did this with mostly barbarian cavalry and spears. The Julii and Brutii were still fielding Hastati and Velites mostly. Pretty easy targets.

I am now poised to strike at the heart of the Brutii and Scipii lands. I may run into trouble, but it is starting to have that inevitable win feeling.

[tnt_73]

Yeah, a little update. 2 huge armies are sitting in 2 forts in front of rome (at the bridges in front of the italian homeland). But i have time :D. First i conquer the world and than i destroy rome. The romans can't left their homeland *lol*. So i enjoy the harmless attacks with my german super men.

[Tyrac]

These spear phalanx are rediculously over powered.

[cunobelinus]

i found germina a lot of fun they are the strongest babrian faction but i had a problem to begin with money they are a great team and bersekers are an amazing unit .i did some reasearch on these and apparently they use to get so anrgy they found sheilds with bits of them chewed off and they found heads with huge holes in from a blow to the head with an axe or other weapon they were extronary warriors.gettin back to the game to take areas around u it is easy u have the best troops around so u should take places easyly briton i found harder than the gauls because they have armies full of warband(crap units)so germinia are my favourite babrian faction.

[Craterus]

Good research on the beserkers Well done Littlegannon!

[cunobelinus]

the germans killed a quater of a million leginories .the german even put julius ceasear himself into a hard battle at Vosges in 58 BC but were evntually beaten but did alot of damage to ceasears army.axmen were a strong part of there force they found hundreds of skuls shatered completely .

[Craterus]

the germans killed a quater of a million leginories .the german even put julius ceasear himself into a hard battle at Vosges in 58 BC but were evntually beaten but did alot of damage to ceasears army.axmen were a strong part of there force they found hundreds of skuls shatered completely .

When you say "they found hundreds of skuls shatered completely"
who's they? the skull-finders? or do you mean archaeologists?

[Franconicus]

Just a short comment:

The warriors of Germanis were very successful against the Romans as long as it was cold. If you look at Cimbern and Teutons they beated the Romans even when they were outnumbered and circled. Note that they were one head larger than the Romans. So the bonus fighting in snow is historically correct.

When they managed to leave the Alps and entered Italy they had to fight in the sun and were beaten by the Romans. Note that they were strong and wild but due to malnutrition they had bad condition.

German cavalry seems to be more wellknown than the spearbands. Julius Cesar had mercenaries from Germania, when he attacked Gaul. The riders from Germania defeated the outnumbering Gaulish cavalry several times. So they guaranted the success of JC's campaign. After that Cesar always had cavalry from Germania in his army and so did other Roman emperors.

[Andy Shadows]

As it has been told, get rich or die trying. My personal opinion is that kill both britons and gauls as fast as possible. Then attack against rome and from there to macedonia and you are unstoppable. Don't bother to attack to russia area since the crappy cities cost you more than not having them at all. Dacia won't be problem either.

[WildBoar ^^]

Gothic Cavalry & Chosen Axeman

Hi gents

Me new to the forum and absolutely love RTW! Its awesome.

Gothic cavalry - do they suffer from only having 1 attack? Their only attack is the spear does it mean that they are not as good as other cavalry (say sacred band) in term of non charging combat with infantry?

Chosen Axeman - I wish to know who really use them?
Looks cool but poor defense, charge fast with similar use as cavalry. But Germania already have spearman to hold the line and gothic cavalry to smash the flanks, do we still use these axeman?

Thanks guys

Boar

[Andy Shadows]

I use chosen axemen since they are effective against armored units. They lack some scaryness (that I like to use against enemy) but yes, they are quite useful.

[saxon_maik]

Andy Shadows, here's your actual reply:

I use chosen axemen since they are effective against armored units. They lack some scaryness (that I like to use against enemy) but yes, they are quite useful.

Below is my post on the question by WildBoar ^^:

As the Germans you will eventually clash with the Julii and other Roman factions. At that point chosen axemen are absolutely essential in dealing with the heavily armored Roman infantry. Properly upgraded at the weaponsmith and temple of Wotan, chosen axemen can smash even through the post-Marian reform troops. Give it a try in custom battles. Make sure to use the warcry, then enjoy the show.

To which you replied:

Yeah, exactly what I said. Thanks for repeating

I felt it was useful to point out that they can be specifically used to counter the Roman units. This is especially true when dealing with their heavily armored post-reform infantry and siege battles. While barbarian chosen swords have decent defense stats, using chosen axemen against them is overkill in my opinion.

I also thought it would be helpful to point out that the potential usefulness of such specialty units can be investigated in custom battles.

Your post didn't mention either, so I'm not merely 'repeating' what you said.

Cheers,

S_M

[Grand Duke Vytautas]

Hi there fierce Germanic warriors wahaa *goes berserk*!

I found many good strategies in this thread I'm too playing as Germania on h/h v1.5 at the moment in DarthMod 7.0.3 and also would like to share my short experience fighting as arguably best barbarian faction (imo among Britons and Scythians)

CAMPAIGN

Germania start with crapy economy so this is what I did:
1) conquer as much rebel regions as you can without overstreching too much
2) get money into your treasury via diplomacy: swap trade rights, map information, get aliances with first Dacia and Scythia (cuz I didn't want to wage war east) to secure peace on eastern front (ww2 hey? ). Send your diplomat wandering across the known world then and get as much denarii as you can.
3) aim for economy not military buildings first: build roads, farms, ports, mines, basic traders first.
4) Specialize your cities according to military units: germania is heavy inf faction so build few stables that cover some provinces, aim for barracks and archery buildings more.
5) Specialize your settlements according to temples: germans have
freyja (increase pop growth) - build it in low basic farming region
donar (grants chevrons and berserkers) - specialize according to situation
woden (grants exp and allows naked fanatics and later gothic cav) - my fav and most popular temple.
6) Aim your war machine west: the britons will be a real thorn in your side so make sure you take care of them first. I tried to make them my protectorate after taking Londinium but when they disagreed I completely crushed them muhahaha After britons its gauls time to be anihilated haha, then comes julii.

BATTLEFIELD

EARLY GERMAN BALANCED ARMY (untill you reached 6000 pop)

Center inf:
Spear phalanx warband: these guys totally rock! they can hold units with their phalanx ability at a distance for your flanking forces to attack, plus they have bonus against cav, they are defencive unit (like greeks phalanxes). Usually I have 4-8 of these units in stack according to offensive or defensive situation
Missile inf:
Skirmisher warband: place them behind your spear center or on the flanks as if you wish. I have mostly 2-4 of these in my army.
Flanking fanatical inf forces: now we are talking about real germanic killers wahhaaa
Axemen warband basic flanking force use this when you have no better flanking units. 4-6 units in stack
Berserker gang : 2 units in army, they are totally crazy make sure you unleash them when center is engaged and watch the fun lol They are vulnerable to cav and archers though, but in melee they can rout just about anything.
Naked fanatics - a substitute for berserkers, larger numbers can have almost the same effect as berserkers They go crazy too lol
Cavalry: you only have Barbarian light cavalry in early army so have 2-4 units per army and use them to kill enemy skirmishers, routing enemies or for rear charges but be careful of prolonged melee, cuz they are light cav:)

GERMAN LATE/ELITE ARMY (when 3rd class buildings are available)

Center inf:
Gothic infantry: same function as spear warband - holding center, but hugely stronger. Phalanx rocks! 4-8 units in stack
Missile inf:
Chosen archer warband: the 2nd best barb foot archers (after foresters) imo - long range deadly accuracy also can act as light flanking troops! have 2-4 units per stack
Flanking fanatical inf:
Night raiders better substitute for plain axemen, cuz they instill fear to enemy inf and better stats. 2 units in army
Berserker gang: good old crazy berserkers is always good to have unleash flanking hell with them muhahaha!!! Imo that's german coolest unit. 2 units
Chosen axemen oh I love this unit they are totally devastating with their 2 handed axes and effective against armour which means you can kick some roman armoured ass lol They are vulnerable to missiles and cav so be careful. 4-6 units
Cavalry
2 units of Barbarian Light Cavalry to chase routers
Barbarian Noble Cavalry standard barb heavy cav, heavy shocking charge, good melee 2-4 units
Gothic cavalry now these elite german horsemen totally owns They are probably the best barbarian heavy cavalry. Use them as a better substitute for noble cav.

Thats it! Hope I gave you quite good idea how to kick ass as Germans lol
Wahaaaa! *berserker taunt*

[Watchman]

Gothic cavalry - do they suffer from only having 1 attack? Their only attack is the spear does it mean that they are not as good as other cavalry (say sacred band) in term of non charging combat with infantry?

Given that their sole spear attack is as good as (better really, since it has the standard spear charge bonus) the Sacred Band secondary sword attack, or for that matter about anyone else's secondary attack, I'd say no. The buggers have the attack stat line of Warlord Cavalry... now that's tough.

[saxon_maik]

Gothic Cavalry & Chosen Axeman
Chosen Axeman - I wish to know who really use them?
Looks cool but poor defense, charge fast with similar use as cavalry. But Germania already have spearman to hold the line and gothic cavalry to smash the flanks, do we still use these axeman?
Boar

As the Germans you will eventually clash with the Julii and other Roman factions. At that point chosen axemen are absolutely essential in dealing with the heavily armored Roman infantry. Properly upgraded at the weaponsmith and temple of Wotan, chosen axemen can smash even through the post-Marian reform troops. Give it a try in custom battles. Make sure to use the warcry, then enjoy the show.

[WildBoar ^^]

Hi guys

Thanks for the feedback! :)

Now more question from me ^^

Germania we have

Berserker - high hp, low armour (bad against archers), few in number but scary
Nightraider - fast moving (from custom they seems faster than chosen axeman and other infantry), higher armour, also scary to enemy
Chosen axeman - low armour and AP

How do you guys combin them together?
or you like to focus on 1 over another?

Thanks!

Boar

[Watchman]

Aren't the Night Raiders essentially an overall better version of the basic Axemen ? Unless their unit size is smaller, it would seem to me they're better in every respect.

Ought to make pretty good flankers especially against infantry, methinks.

[Andy Shadows]

As the Germans you will eventually clash with the Julii and other Roman factions. At that point chosen axemen are absolutely essential in dealing with the heavily armored Roman infantry. Properly upgraded at the weaponsmith and temple of Wotan, chosen axemen can smash even through the post-Marian reform troops. Give it a try in custom battles. Make sure to use the warcry, then enjoy the show.

Yeah, exactly what I said. Thanks for repeating

[Tzar Dusan of Serbs]

in your early game you must build trader and roads in every city you have.Than build pesants for garison(one pesant is enaugh in early game for controling the city).Move your armies west to meet briton army,defet them in the open field.Gaul will soon atack you but don,t worry,arky of 5spearwarbands with good general and sreaching women behind the battle line is capable to destroy much greater army of gaul(they always try to charge in your wooden wall).After that I advise taking Samorabiva and any gaulish city you can get.Do not go in to northern italy but you must take Noricum this is key province for later invasions.With your faction heir in the east go and take all province especialy those on north sea.You will see that Gauls have great but very stupid armies and they are easilly defeted.In batles against barbarians just build about 5-6sparmens and good general(I prefer screaching women in every armie couse they couse a rout with their screaching).Later take Britania this will not be so easy,you must know that you have to be patience and that you must be realy good general.Later in my batles with Jullii family I find Axeman are much beter then spearmen,also its great if you have nifht raiders or bersekers,they are best units against romans,and I think they are strongest units in the game becouse they couse fear in the ranks of the orher armies...