German (Civ3)

Germany
Introduced in Civilization III
Leader	Bismarck
Strengths (Conquests)	Militaristic Scientific
Unique unit	Panzer
Startingadvances (Conquests)	Warrior Code Bronze Working
Aggression	5/5
Favorite government	Republic (government)
Shunned government	Communism (government)
Culture group	European
Production emphasis	Offensive land units, Science, Culture
Colors
Default
Default
Alternate
Alternate

Back to Civilizations (Civ3)

The German people represent a civilization in Civilization III. They are led by Bismarck.

The Germans are Scientific and Militaristic. They start the game with Bronze Working and Warrior Code and build Panzers instead of Tanks.

Strategy

Overview

Germans are a well rounded warmongering civilization. Despite the Panzer being a very late and relatively lackluster Unique Unit, the Militaristic trait gives them discounted barracks and more frequent unit promotions while Scientific allows them to build discounted Libraries to prevent culture-flipping in conquered cities and is overall a good snowballing trait once a large empire has been militarily secured. All these elements makes them a pretty solid contestant for a Domination Victory.

Panzer

The Panzer is an upgraded version of the tank. Like the tank, it requires oil and rubber to build, but its additional movement point makes their blitz maneuvers much more dangerous to their enemies, a power which is noted by all nations foolish enough to stand against Germany in the industrial age.

Unit	Attack	Defense	Moves	Cost	Resources	Notes
Panzer	16	8	3	100	Oil, Rubber	Has Blitz
Tank	16	8	2	100	Oil, Rubber	Has Blitz

Ancient Era

Given how late-game their unique unit is, Germans are reliant on Wonders to trigger their Golden Age at a decent timing. This is one of the reasons why, despite build a warmongering civ, they want to beeline research up to Literature during the early game. The Great Library is not only a Scientific wonder decisive to trigger your golden age, it is also an incredible source of gold to support your units (by allowing you to put the Research glider at zero until the discovery of Education) and is rarely contested by the AIs. That's why building it should be your priority once the expansion phase over and before starting the proper warmongering. Note that The Mausoleum of Mausollos is also a Scientific Wonder even it it's effect is overall much weaker.

In the meantime, you should build your half-priced barracks in every city, work on improving your tiles and securestrategic ressources if possible. Once this is done, you can start spamming offensive units to attack your neighbours:

• Swordsmen if you have Iron to attack close neighbours accessible by road
• Horsemen if you have Horses to attack further foes
• Archers if you are ressource starved.

Focus on attacking weaker foes first, ideally with strategic ressources or luxuries you are lacking, with Wonders and without 3 defense points UU (Like Hoplites or Legionary).

You can switch from Despotism as soon as you discover a new government. Monarchy is generally considered the standard choice for warmongering but Republic is also a very solid choice with its massive gold output that synergizes well with the Scientific trait later in the game.

Medieval Era

During the early medieval era, your two focuses will be triggering your golden age with a Militaristic Wonder (like Sun Tzu, Knights Templar or Leonardo's Workshop) and using that golden age to pump an important number of Knights to continue your conquests. A Military Great Leader should appear anytime and should be consumed ASAP to make a Knights Army.

Your research (at least once you resume it after Education makes the GL obsolete) should focus on the lower branch of the tech tree and beeline to Military Tradition. Cavalry will then replace Knights as the backbone of your conquest.

While pumping units should be your main focus, take the time to build an half-price University in every core city.

Industrial & Modern Era

The most common strategy as a warmonger in Industrial Era is to beeline to Flight and start spamming Bombers. Their dramatic range, damage and lethal bombardment ability with allow your Cavalry to run with their incredible 3-movement into basically empty cities, thus ending your conquest.

But as Germany, if your Golden Age still didn't occured or if you want to play a bit more thematically, beelining to Motorized Transportation and spamming Panzer is another (less efficient) possibility.

Once you have reached the wanted technology, you can either stop research and focus on achieving a Domination Victory by building always more units or try to use your huge empire (and the consequential huge science output and tech lead) to achieve a Scientific Victory by advancing through the Modern Era tech tree and building Spaceship Parts.

Counter-Strategy

When playing against Germans, the two main weaknesses to focus on are their difficulty to get a Golden Age & the fact the Scientific trait only hits hard once a huge gold output is secured (meaning -with the Militaristic trait- by conquering a lot of cities). That's why you should try as much as possible to deny them The Great Library and The Mausoleum of Mausollos and to be prepared to defend against early and mid game aggressions.

Civilopedia entry

Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars brought the Germanic tribes into the spotlight of history. Although Roman efforts to establish hegemony across the Rhine continued for decades, the frontier eventually stabilized along the Rhine and Danube rivers. At that time, Germanic culture extended from Scandinavia as far south as the Carpathians. Although it was heavily fortified, the frontier was never a barrier to trade or culture. Germanic fear of the Huns meant that the Roman Empire could, in moments of crisis, mobilize at least the Goths, Burgundians, and Franks for mutual defense. Soon after Attila's death in 453, however, the Hun empire collapsed, and Rome lost this hold over the Germans.

The Merovigian kings and their Carolingian successors eventually brought much of what would later constitute Germany under Frankish control, but the ceaseless blows from Danes, Saracens and Magyars in the later 9th and 10th centuries weakened the kingdom's cohesion. Because the Carolingians themselves were unable to provide effective defense for the empire, there arose in nearly all the German lands powerful lines of margraves, counts and hereditary rulers, their intrigues and wars against each other interrupted only briefly by the rise of strong electors such as Frederick Barbarossa (1155-1190). The subsequent history of Germany is, despite the role of the central rule of the Holy Roman Empire, one of the rise and fall of feuding principalities.

It would be a thousand years before Germany was again unified under a single ruler. Troubled by the mass insurrections and diplomatic defeats that had followed the Napoleonic Wars, William I of Prussia (1861-1888) considered abdicating in favor of his son, who was believed to have political views close to those of the liberal opposition. He was persuaded, however, to consider forming a new government led by Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian ambassador to Paris.

In September 1862, Europe was startled by the news that a statesman with a reputation for conservatism, nationalism and realpolitik had become the prime minister of Prussia. The new German Empire was proclaimed in January 1871, in the aftermath of three short and decisive wars against Denmark, Austria and France by coalitions of German states. Bismarck had unified Germany.

The same nationalism that brought unity would bring disaster. Already staggering under a vengeful peace imposed by the Western Allies following World War I, the worldwide economic collapse that began in 1929 proved the catalyst for political extremism. Although bitterly opposed to each other, the Nazis and Communists during the next decade succeeded in mobilizing the political and economic resentments generated by defeat and depression. When Hitler finally became chancellor in January 1933, it was not on the crest of a wave of popular support but as the result of ruthless political intrigue.

World War II is appropriately called "Hitler's War." Spearheaded by Panzer formations using revolutionary new tactics, Hitler came close to realizing his aim of establishing German hegemony in Europe. But the turning point of the war came with his decision to send his Panzers into Soviet Russia. Though at the end of 1942 an ultimate German victory still seemed possible, by spring 1945 the Third Reich was prostrate. As a legacy of surrender and the ensuing Cold War, a truncated Germany was divided into two zones of military occupation. While under Soviet rule East Germany suffered and stagnated, West Germany's recovery from total economic and political prostration at the end of World War II was of such dramatic proportions as to become a modern legend.

The swift and unexpected downfall of the Soviet order in Europe led to a unification treaty, ratified by the West German Bundestag and the East German People's Chamber in September 1990. After 45 years of division, Germany was once again a united nation.

Cities

Main article: German cities (Civ3)

Great Leaders

Main article: List of historical figures in Civ3 § German

Military	Scientific
Barbarossa	Copernicus
Richtofen	Gutenberg
Hengest	Max Planck
Horsa	Heinrich Hertz
Rommel (Added in Conquests)	Johannes Kepler
	Hans Geiger
	Fritz Haber
	Wilhelm Röntgen
	Gerardus Mercator
	Albertus Magnus

See also

• Anglo-Saxon (Civ3)
• Gothic (Civ3)
• German in other games