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Faction Overview CtW Information
Unique Units National Bonuses
Stadt-5279496

By far and large, Germany is the most vibrant and powerful economy in Central Europe, but it has been down on its luck ever since the Great War ended. An increasingly crowded nation with fewer jobs means that conflict, social disorder and anarchy are much the norm in many German cities these days — inviting interference by the abhorred Jewish plutocrats of America and the other petty nations, while an increasingly restive Russia threatens to spread the contagion of Bolshevism abroad into Europe. Even so, with great adversity comes great opportunity: perhaps, if all undesirables and Communists were neutralised, can the wilderness of Central Europe then be recast as a new Reich? will German glory be renewed for another thousand years, or are the German people doomed to endless night, fog and despair?

Gameplay

The German army is known for one thing: quality at any cost. Thus, all of Germany's units have better hitpoints, armour and firepower, but suffer from having successively high factor costs. The German army is one that is not easily produced, but when properly played can easily rout all other factions to the N-th degree. German armour and aircraft are especially vulnerable to this problem: each age's units are fundamentally better than other factions' own, but also compound in cost.

For this reason, Germany, although armed with the best weapon systems, is actually rather weak if the right approaches are used. Powerful it may be, yet the German war machine is heavily dependent on a good economy. If you use a good early rush faction, such as a minor power with early armour capabilty like Poland or even another major power like France or Russia, then hamstringing the German war economy is of importance. Fewer resources means fewer tanks, and a harder ride to obtain Germany's top-tier tanks. Failing that, use your navy to contain Germany, or ensure that you have a numerically superior airforce — again, most major powers, particularly the USA, Britain, Russia and Italy, should be able to muster sufficient airplanes to outnumber if not outgun the Luftwaffe before it can become a serious menace. Because German units are meant to outperform units of a similar capacity, the objective is to never face Germany down with the same kind of units it has (unless you are Russia), but to always ensure that you have the right units to exploit them (ie tank destroyers versus tanks, submarines versus battleships, fighters versus bombers).

Thus a German commander needs to be vigilant over how resources are spent. While the resources of Germany, obtainable through building new structures, will be able to soften the resource blow from creating armies, it will be time that will be extremely important as regards to how this army can be created. Once the initial boom from construction eases off, a player will have to obtain as much resources as possible to keep his or her war machine working at all costs. Allies and trade partners are always important, while the foe must be lured into combat every so often. In all, however, Germany is a very powerful faction if used against factions that do not have good naval supremacy on water maps, or do not have anything that can counter its units from the Mechanisation Era onward.

Strengths Weaknesses
  • Most powerful land and air units game-wide, period.
  • Wide selection of infantry
  • Good for booming
  • Very predictable gameplay.
  • Low cost-effectiveness for air force
  • Naval strength highly dependent on costly yet powerful battleships, or cheaper but weaker units like U-boats and E-boats.
  • Best units are more expensive than others, and difficult to replace
  • Difficult startup — very dependent on early economic rushing. Blink once as Germany and you are dead.

Unique buildings

  • R1 Launcher - upgrade of Anti-Aircraft Guns, but is costly to create.

Unique units

Infantry

  • Rifle infantry: (Rifle infantry, shared with Argentina, China and Austria) [1] => Foot PzG, Waffen-SS
  • Anti-armour infantry: Tankgewehr [1-2] => Solothurn S-18/100 [3] => Panzerschreck# [4-6], Panzerfaust# [6] (Germany receives AT infantry first before anyone else)
  • Mounted infantry: Uhlans^ (not as hardy as average cavalry but with a much more destructive attack) => Motorised PzG
  • Machine gun: MG 42 [4]
  • SMG: Shock Troopers [1-2, consumed by Brandenburgers], Volksgrenadiers (from Bunker)
  • Special Forces: Brandenburgers [3] => Fallschirmjäger [4-6]
  • Peasant levy: Freikorps => eventually absorbed by Brandenburgers; Volkssturm (a conscript unit which trains more slowly than normal Conscripts but has more HP)

Tanks

  • Light tanks: Strv m/21-29# [1] => Panzer I => Panzer II [3] 
  • Medium tanks: Panzer III# [3] => Panzer IV# [4]
  • Heavy tanks: A7V [1, consumed by Panzer III], Panther [4] => Tiger I (requires Panzer IV) [5] => King Tiger [6]

Artillery

  • Tank destroyer: Panzerjäger (Marder) [3] => Panzer StuG III [4] => Nashorn
  • Hetzer (not sure where to build them) - counts as a cheaper tank destroyer.
  • Foot Artillery: 7.7 cm Feldkanone 96 neuer Art# => 15 cm schwere Feldhaubitze 18 [3-6]
  • Antitank: PaK 36 [3-4 => PaK 40 [5-6]

Other vehicles

  • Nebelwerfer 41 [5]
  • Hanomags (SPAD, support, replaces all supply trucks and such)
  • Panzer II Flamingo [3] => Pz IIIf [4]
  • Goliath (a costly but very powerful suicide unit, buildable from a Fort)
  • Erhardt E4/7 [1] => Sd.Kfz.222 [4]# => Sd.Kfz.234 "Puma" [5]
  • Flakpanzer I [4] => Flakpanzer IV "Ostwind" [6]
  • Elefant (this monstrosity is available only from the National Redoubt Complex)

Aircraft

  • Fighters: Biplane [1-2] => Me109 [3-5] => Messerschmitt Me 262 [6]
  • Special: Junkers JU88 [3], replaced by Me262
  • Bomber: GIV [1-2] => Heinkel HE 177 [3-6]
  • V-1 flying bomb: replaces the Balloon.

Navy

  • U-boat - a superior submarine
  • S-boat [3]: Faster, tougher and deadlier than Coastal Motor Boat.
  • Bismarck-class super battleship

National bonuses

Dominion:

  • Granary, Lumber Mill, Smelter available at start and research available sooner
  • Granary, Lumber Mill, Smelter production upgrades 50% cheaper
  • Building completion bonuses +50%
  • Cities gather extra +5 food, timber, metal
  • Submarines and fireships cost 25% less, built 33% faster (?)
  • Build air units 33% faster
  • Receive two fighters free everytime a new airbase is built

Unit bonuses

  • Costly but powerful air force, infantry and vehicles - all have better tactical effectiveness for higher cost
  • Counter-infantry tactics for unique infantry
  • Vehicles get a +1 LOS bonus, and planes and surface ships +2.
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