N3O Age Of Empires and Starcraft 2 Clan

After watching some replays lately of civilizations like spain, germany, sioux, and russia -- I've come to conclude that a lot of these civs are actually quite underrated. Sure they have their shortcomings when it comes to standing up to some civs, but I've found lately that they can be a lot more competitive than people give them credit for.

I think that if people invested a little more time on them and just tweaked some older build orders that they might be suprised at what they can accomplish with them.

Anyone else finding this?

Well speaking for germans you are right. Since i invested time and kept playing them i kinda improved alot. I created some new strats (maybe you can see 1 or 2 in the N3O Tournament ) and at the moment i have no big problems to beat most majors i face (even bet a India Lieut Colonel on RE patch). The Civ i still have trouble with is China. Don't know what to do (Yeah Uhlans and Xbows, but this doesnt work for me).

About spain and Sioux i can't say much. Russia is very map dependet. They can be decent on water maps, but on maps like Siberia they have big problems. Also it's always more or less the same when you play them. One strat i liked was the FF for Manchus or in team games the semi FF for Suvorov Reforms. Don't know if its still viable.

I think if you really stick to a civ you can create alot of different strats and you will become better, because you know what to do in any situation or on any map.

germany is strong and actually very easy to play...

uhlan attack is something what can be abused...

I'm druling for germany!

I don't think Germany is underrated at all. They have been moderately OP since TAD 1.1 (March 2008). The FP doesn't really nerf them all that much; free uhlans are still free uhlans, and they can really change games fast. Germany has solid military shipments and can boom with the best of 'em.

They might not be that great against lame native rushes and Jap/India, but they can handle just about any other civ without trouble.

@ Huggy: China is tricky. Personally I like going 10 pike/8 xbow to start, then kind of play it by ear from there. If I don't expect pressure, I boom with colonial 2nd market upgrades, get 41 xbows/7 pike/6 free uhlan by 8:30 and just overwhelm them. But normally there's pressure, so that's not realistic... works really well against the Brits, though!

I think Spain is underrated. Just a few games with Dan convince me that Spain can do a fearsome HI early shipment rush. The rods, pikes and some built muskets can overwhelm their counters, especially if a few go into cover mode while the muskets shoot. It takes a lot of xbows to make an impression, and if you spam xbows only, he has a hussar econ ready.

problem with spain is that all their age 2 army ships are melee so vs. other civs spain is needed to be played in such a different way that they will always have a disadvantage. wardog and faster ship xp makes up for this to an extent , just that spain requires alot of practice and very good timing of shipments in order

I do agree spain is underated, I basically never use them in 1v1s since I have a hard time early game with them. Though late game, they just start to dominate after you get the unction shipment sent and get 10 missionaries out. Only civ I really fear with spain late game is the dutch, and ocassionally russia and thier evil oprichs.
Though for germany, I don't feel they are underated, I still consider them one of my favorite civs, even though I am starting to get rusty with them while trying to work on my not so good civs.
I also don't think souix and russia are underated, I still hate souix and russia has started to become one of my top civs.

in my books, there are no underrated civs^^

Spain aint underrated, more like underpowered. I can't think of a civ worse than Spain atm.

spain is the most basic of civs , they have everything but lack in soo many areas that it is really a handicap to play them. they really have only one abusable thing and that costs a card and 2k resources

French was the most basic civ and guess what they got? Extra 5% shipment rate. Even old french were better than this spain.

i meant basic as in spain has everything a euro civ should , alot like france, what makes france so much better is that they have good skirms OP cav due to cards and villies with gathering bonus that can fight back if needed


france is justa tougher version of spain , with way better units and cards playable backed by a far superior eco


edit: yeah that shipment boost wasn't even needed , idk what the fp team was thinking there

[quote=""Kaiser_von_Nuben""]I don't think Germany is underrated at all. They have been moderately OP since TAD 1.1 [/quote]

agreed, close to be OP imo

otto might be underrated and underused, but as long as it will have the 'noob'-label, I doubt it will change.

spain on fp is playable, but every match-up is an uphill battle.
Kudos to DHDan to stick to them :!:

The french boost was needed, what was needed too was better boosts for spain.

Otto atm are weird but they're fine. I'll still avoid getting abus at all costs.


Germans are good indeed.

Is anyone else amused that Russia sucks on Siberia?