Post by {PHX} Alaron on Sept 4, 2012 8:08:22 GMT 1
First lets start with cards you should avoid, and why you should avoid them.
Palatine Settlements
This card makes every house you build worth 30 population instead of the ordinary 10 population.
Upon first glance, this card looks like it's actually pretty good. You won't need as much wood for houses, it's easy to unhouse yourself when you're maxing out... If you were under attack, it would be a breeze to maintain production.
Well, actually, there are some real flaws with this card. For one, if you're building less houses, you're not receiving the experience points for building that house, that means fewer shipments. Since Germany already gets slower shipments than other civs to make up for the free Uhlans, this could really slow you down.
Secondly, it's actually more difficult to unhouse yourself if you're under attack. One house goes down and you're stuck, try building another house and another one goes down. Before you know it your 20 population points over your maximum and fighting your opponent with a tiny army.
Lastly, shipping a card like 700/600 wood is much more flexible. Giving you the option to build a military building, repair damaged buildings, and you get experience from additional houses, giving you access to faster shipments.
Fort
Ships a Fort Wagon capable of constructing a mighty Fort.
Sure, a Fort is powerful. And it can slow down your opponent. The problem is that as Germany, if you make it to Fortress, you're most likely going to be heavily offensive and harassing your opponent or struggling to keep your opponent out of your base.
If you ship a Fort, not only are you praying that you'll have time to build it, you're also weakening your military. Germany's Fortress strength is in their powerful military shipments and upgrades, giving them a great military advantage over their opponent. Shipping a Fort is a waste of time compared to 8 Skirms + 3 Uhlans, or Cavalry Combat + 3 Uhlans.
Building a Fort takes a very defensive stance on the game, and even if you manage to get it placed aggressively, it's not too difficult to take out with cannons sitting out of range, as Germany has a hard time finding the coin to invest in culverin, due to their extremely coin heavy army.
Now this card isn't completely useless, it can be usable in certain situations I suppose. However in my opinion, I feel that the cons outweigh the pros.
Basic Deck Structure[/u]
The first thing you want to do with every deck is add essential cards that you'll likely use in almost every build. The most essential are as follows:
2 Settler Wagons (Age 1)
Economic Theory (Age 1 + TAD ONLY)
3 Settler Wagons (Age 2)
2 Settler Wagons + 2 Uhlans (Age 2)
700 Wood + 2 Uhlans (Age 2)
700 Coin + 2 Uhlans (Age 2)
8 Crossbows + 2 Uhlans (Age 2)
The reason these cards are so important is because they are the most beneficial cards to ship in most situations.
Even if you're doing something crazy like a Fast Industrial, having these basic cards in your deck would be a wise decision. Sure, your goal is to make it to the Industrial Age, but if you have these cards at least if you're forced to you can fend for yourself in age 2 or age 3 for a while. If they check your deck in this kind of situation and you decide to rush them, they'll be in for quite a surprise.
Not that that should be your strategy when picking that kind of deck, as most players tend to not check their opponents deck. Expecting a basic 1v1-style deck.
The card Germantown Farmers is also an important card to keep in mind. This card allows Germany to train Settler Wagons from mills. Now this has pros and cons to it. On one hand, Settler Wagons are more expensive than 2 villagers (200food), since they cost 100f and 100w, and wood gathers more slowly than food does. Building a mill may also be unnecessary, as you might not even need to use it just yet for anything other than training Settler Wagons. It also neglects map control.
However, one Settler Wagon trains at the same speed as one regular villager, making every mill you own equivalent to 2 TCs in terms of production. They also gather more coin from mines than regular villagers do. And mills are cheaper than a second TC, only costing 400w to the ordinary 600w. Leaving you with 200w to do what you like with. That's 2 more Settler Wagons (equivalent to 4 regular vills) that you can get for the same price as building a TC and 2 regular vills.
So ultimately, this card is a matter of preference and civ matchup.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Lastly, I have some of my own decks listed below.
This is my Vanilla deck. The most obvious thing to note here is the absence of age 4 cards such as Factories. This is a matter of preference, I don't include age 4 cards in most of my 1v1 decks in Vanilla because most games don't reach Industrial and with only 20 cards to choose from, it might be better to focus on strength earlier in the game rather than later.
I also incorporated the 1000 coin crates into this deck, this is something I normally wouldn't do in TAD. However, I feel like in Vanilla, with the maps sometimes being slightly more imbalanced and Settler Wagons gathering less coin from the mine than they do in TAD, the 1000 coin crates might be necessary to maintain production.
There are a couple things I could definitely change in this deck, like maybe switching out the 600 wood or Advanced Arsenal for some more upgrades like Cavalary Attack, a Fortress card of some kind, or even 3 Dopps. I may also choose to switch Germantown Farmers out for something different, possibly Royal Mint, or even another military shipment like 5 dopps or 3 War Wagons.
This is the deck I use for most of my TAD 1v1s as Germany. A couple things I might consider doing differently is maybe having Heavy Infantry Attack as opposed to Heavy Infantry HP, or having less Mercenary cards in favour of more military shipments and economic upgrades such as 5 dopps, 3 WWs, or Refrigeration.
It's also good to keep in mind that if you have enough Settler Wagons, the 35% increase for their gathering can be a more effective card than a factory. As a factory is only worth 5 vills unupgraded and 8 vills when upgraded. If you have 15-20 Settler Wagons, the SW upgrade will give you more vills worth and you won't need to spend the 500+ resources on upgrading your factories.
Mercenary Fast Industrial Deck
This is a little bit of an unorthodox deck. Typically an all or nothing type of strategy is incorporated for something like this, so card choice is maybe not as important and depends more on what you feel like doing.
However, notice how most of the basic cards are in there? Settler Wagons, Economic Theory, 700 wood, Crossbows... This allows me to change my strategy slightly if I need to.
Palatine Settlements
This card makes every house you build worth 30 population instead of the ordinary 10 population.
Upon first glance, this card looks like it's actually pretty good. You won't need as much wood for houses, it's easy to unhouse yourself when you're maxing out... If you were under attack, it would be a breeze to maintain production.
Well, actually, there are some real flaws with this card. For one, if you're building less houses, you're not receiving the experience points for building that house, that means fewer shipments. Since Germany already gets slower shipments than other civs to make up for the free Uhlans, this could really slow you down.
Secondly, it's actually more difficult to unhouse yourself if you're under attack. One house goes down and you're stuck, try building another house and another one goes down. Before you know it your 20 population points over your maximum and fighting your opponent with a tiny army.
Lastly, shipping a card like 700/600 wood is much more flexible. Giving you the option to build a military building, repair damaged buildings, and you get experience from additional houses, giving you access to faster shipments.
Fort
Ships a Fort Wagon capable of constructing a mighty Fort.
Sure, a Fort is powerful. And it can slow down your opponent. The problem is that as Germany, if you make it to Fortress, you're most likely going to be heavily offensive and harassing your opponent or struggling to keep your opponent out of your base.
If you ship a Fort, not only are you praying that you'll have time to build it, you're also weakening your military. Germany's Fortress strength is in their powerful military shipments and upgrades, giving them a great military advantage over their opponent. Shipping a Fort is a waste of time compared to 8 Skirms + 3 Uhlans, or Cavalry Combat + 3 Uhlans.
Building a Fort takes a very defensive stance on the game, and even if you manage to get it placed aggressively, it's not too difficult to take out with cannons sitting out of range, as Germany has a hard time finding the coin to invest in culverin, due to their extremely coin heavy army.
Now this card isn't completely useless, it can be usable in certain situations I suppose. However in my opinion, I feel that the cons outweigh the pros.
Basic Deck Structure[/u]
The first thing you want to do with every deck is add essential cards that you'll likely use in almost every build. The most essential are as follows:
2 Settler Wagons (Age 1)
Economic Theory (Age 1 + TAD ONLY)
3 Settler Wagons (Age 2)
2 Settler Wagons + 2 Uhlans (Age 2)
700 Wood + 2 Uhlans (Age 2)
700 Coin + 2 Uhlans (Age 2)
8 Crossbows + 2 Uhlans (Age 2)
The reason these cards are so important is because they are the most beneficial cards to ship in most situations.
Even if you're doing something crazy like a Fast Industrial, having these basic cards in your deck would be a wise decision. Sure, your goal is to make it to the Industrial Age, but if you have these cards at least if you're forced to you can fend for yourself in age 2 or age 3 for a while. If they check your deck in this kind of situation and you decide to rush them, they'll be in for quite a surprise.
Not that that should be your strategy when picking that kind of deck, as most players tend to not check their opponents deck. Expecting a basic 1v1-style deck.
The card Germantown Farmers is also an important card to keep in mind. This card allows Germany to train Settler Wagons from mills. Now this has pros and cons to it. On one hand, Settler Wagons are more expensive than 2 villagers (200food), since they cost 100f and 100w, and wood gathers more slowly than food does. Building a mill may also be unnecessary, as you might not even need to use it just yet for anything other than training Settler Wagons. It also neglects map control.
However, one Settler Wagon trains at the same speed as one regular villager, making every mill you own equivalent to 2 TCs in terms of production. They also gather more coin from mines than regular villagers do. And mills are cheaper than a second TC, only costing 400w to the ordinary 600w. Leaving you with 200w to do what you like with. That's 2 more Settler Wagons (equivalent to 4 regular vills) that you can get for the same price as building a TC and 2 regular vills.
So ultimately, this card is a matter of preference and civ matchup.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Lastly, I have some of my own decks listed below.
This is my Vanilla deck. The most obvious thing to note here is the absence of age 4 cards such as Factories. This is a matter of preference, I don't include age 4 cards in most of my 1v1 decks in Vanilla because most games don't reach Industrial and with only 20 cards to choose from, it might be better to focus on strength earlier in the game rather than later.
I also incorporated the 1000 coin crates into this deck, this is something I normally wouldn't do in TAD. However, I feel like in Vanilla, with the maps sometimes being slightly more imbalanced and Settler Wagons gathering less coin from the mine than they do in TAD, the 1000 coin crates might be necessary to maintain production.
There are a couple things I could definitely change in this deck, like maybe switching out the 600 wood or Advanced Arsenal for some more upgrades like Cavalary Attack, a Fortress card of some kind, or even 3 Dopps. I may also choose to switch Germantown Farmers out for something different, possibly Royal Mint, or even another military shipment like 5 dopps or 3 War Wagons.
This is the deck I use for most of my TAD 1v1s as Germany. A couple things I might consider doing differently is maybe having Heavy Infantry Attack as opposed to Heavy Infantry HP, or having less Mercenary cards in favour of more military shipments and economic upgrades such as 5 dopps, 3 WWs, or Refrigeration.
It's also good to keep in mind that if you have enough Settler Wagons, the 35% increase for their gathering can be a more effective card than a factory. As a factory is only worth 5 vills unupgraded and 8 vills when upgraded. If you have 15-20 Settler Wagons, the SW upgrade will give you more vills worth and you won't need to spend the 500+ resources on upgrading your factories.
Mercenary Fast Industrial Deck
This is a little bit of an unorthodox deck. Typically an all or nothing type of strategy is incorporated for something like this, so card choice is maybe not as important and depends more on what you feel like doing.
However, notice how most of the basic cards are in there? Settler Wagons, Economic Theory, 700 wood, Crossbows... This allows me to change my strategy slightly if I need to.