Germania

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

I was playing Germania, and they have some nice heavy infantry and heavy troops, being immensely superior to all other barbarians in the military field, except maybe the Scythians (IMHO). Fine, but now I'm disappointed with them.

First of all, Germania is an isolated and very poor place to start. There's almost no trade and farming income is meagre. Once your cities grow, you can and most certainly will build roads, ports and farms to increase your income. But then, the limited infrastructure available to barbarian factions can make cash scarce and armies smaller.

And as a final note, Germania and most Northern European provinces are full of brigands, who seem to spawn there much more frequently than around the Mediterranean even with all my efforts to suppress them. Piracy is also frequent on the Baltic and Northern seas and my fleets get easily overwhelmed the time I can build them.

Any of you has a good strategy to build a solid economy as Germania?

[Paul d]

add_money 20000

thats mine... but its cheat

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

add_money 20000

thats mine... but its cheat

Well I coudl resort to cheating, but only as a last resource once all strategy fails .

[Paul d]

set all taxes to veryhigh?

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

Your best bet is to expand south-wards towards the Roman cities. Exterminating Roman settlements also gives a good boost.

I'd recommend keeping very small garrisons and using all your Generals and Family Members in your armies since they're generally incompetent when it comes to Management and you can always use them to give your armed forces some muscle.

Timing can be crucial here as well. Attack Gallic and British settlements when they're both at war with each other. It's relatively easy to pick out the less-heavily defended spots. Avoid going to war with your Eastern neighbors.

[unfortunate crow]

It seems like when I litter my lands wit watchtowers I get fewer brigands...

[Paul d]

when i do that, the brigands take over the watchtower

[Severous]

Hi

The German homelands will not support big stacks of troops.

Expand. Anywhere. The more lands you own the greater the income.

Germany is the faction Ive played the longest. On vh/vh difficulty just the 5 starting regions were held the whole length of the Imperial campaign...over 200 years. Farming and tax were the best money earners. Trade brings in little unless you can secure peace with neighbours.

Rebels are drawn to watchtowers. If you build them on your lands you will see rebels park on towers.

[Domitius]

Expanding towards Greece and Italy would be a good idea. There you can secure trade and get all of these nice Greek cities with their high income. You have to keep moving, just like NUmidia has to.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Thanks for the tips. As for watchtowers, no matter how many I build to have a good view on more distant areas they don't seem to stop brigands from spawning. I've tried everything, from watchtowers to heavy garrisons, to stop them, but they do spawn frequently and stay in forests, frequently ambushing me in my own lands. They also besiege me when most of my troops are busy fighting external enemies.

Maybe forts will solve the issue. One fort per province, garrisoned by a single spear or skirmisher warband, would that reduce brigand spawn? What's interesting is that the brigand spawn rate in the descr_strat file is set to 6, and even then Northern Europe and barbarian lands in general tend to get a lot more brigands (IMO) that Italy and Greece. Is that due to some game mechanics, or because they're supposedly more "civilized"?

Talking about economics, maybe if I can fully develop the infrastructure of Germania these lands can get enough wealth, but even so they might not be a rival to Eastern trade and economy.

But Germania has a lot of resources to trade. If I can build ports and secure deals, then maybe there will be some good income from trade afterall.

[Severous]

Hi

I dont rate watchtowers as having anything to do with rebel spawn rate. Just as an attractor for any rebels nearby. Forts..ive seen a comment along the lines you think but dont know either way if they have any effect. I dont bother with them for defense. Id rather fight rebels for the experience.

German ports are poor. The income from a sea route is affected by the population at each end and by length of the sea lane. German sea lanes are long unlike the london<>belgium route. If trade can go by land it will ...many German cities earn nothing to speak of via sea trade. German lands never rival the richer med and eastern lands. Its resources fetch little. Dont develop trade.

If you dont want rebels there are foolproof ways to mod them out of your campaign. Ive never done it myself. A search should turn up a thread or two with the best way to do it.

[Octavium]

You could migrate to Briton and destroy them immidietly, that would give you Londinium and maybe a better starting base.

[Jake.Q]

no go down south mecenarys are key

[Domitius]

I've never seen rebels as such a big problem, sure, they cause some devastation and has to be repelled, but the armies are often small and are easy to beat. I've played a bit with Schythia, but I never saw extra much rebels... Maybe it is because of the fact that many of the lands to the north are bigger. I don't know.

Best regards, Domitius.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

I've never seen rebels as such a big problem, sure, they cause some devastation and has to be repelled, but the armies are often small and are easy to beat. I've played a bit with Schythia, but I never saw extra much rebels... Maybe it is because of the fact that many of the lands to the north are bigger. I don't know.

Best regards, Domitius.

I should say that brigands can be very annoying. In Medium difficulty, they usually don't bother you, but on hard they spawn stronger and even lay siege to your cities. One of them spawned near Bordesholm and took it while it was ungarrisoned and I was in the middle of a war against Britannia... That sucks. And devastation too.

[Domitius]

Strange, I always play on VH difficoulty, it must've been that I hadn't downloaded the newest patch until recently. As I said I've never seen such a thing as you describe it. Taking a town and everything! I've never seen them attacking, and I've played the campaign a lot (on VH/VH difficoulty). I've never been so keen trying out Germania, though. I have played with them, but not very much...

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

I'm using RTW 1.5, and I noticed they got more aggressive than usual. They would never attack anything prior to the latest patch, but now the AI got smarter and harder to face. If you want more difficulty, then download the patch.

[Domitius]

I've downloaded it but can't get the campaign to work now! It's really annoying!

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

I've downloaded it but can't get the campaign to work now! It's really annoying!

Well, are you trying to load a campaign game or start another one? Anyway, you can always read posts in the Technical forums, or reinstall RTW from scratch. That solved all my issues 'till now.

The patch also fixes the memory leak problem with 1.3, thus I recommend you to use it unless you're full of memory.

[espadadono]

Hey guys i was just wondering, when is it possible to recruit berserkers?
All my cities have reached their biggest form and i have all the barracks..
By the way i got a good and steady income by taking 3 rebel settlements to the east and defeating the britons.
Also i have trade rights with almost every faction.