VENICE vs AUSTRIA: Battle of the City-State Acquisition Civs

Just read an earlier post debating the pros and cons between Siam and Greece in regard to them both being diplomatic CIVS. I have never really enjoyed Venice or Austria, as flat out acquiring CS is a bit counter productive in my opinion, but which one would you say is better/worse and why?

Austria has to become the city state's ally and then pay the city state more money. Venice doesn't need to pay anything, and can take the city states they aren't allies with. Venice is awesome.

It seems these threads are the new elimination threads

Anyway, I voted Austria, personal taste. Just don't like Venice that much

How long will it take till there's a Shaka vs Atilla thread?

I'll try to answer this:

Austria.

Good: Can both expand and take city-states, viable as long as your economy and happiness are good, can utilise this to create large armies and take cities, combined with production for units from other cities.

Bad: Takes a whole lot of gold, normally better for Austria just to keep the city-state as an ally, doesn't synergise well with the rest of the civ.

Venice.

Good: Fits in well with the Venetian strategy, makes up well for Venice not being able to expand in the early game, can create a larger range for the trade routes.

Bad: Needs a Great Merchant to work, forces Venice to stay small for a lot of the game, can give you locations that aren't great.

Overall, I'd say that Venice is better.

Well, both have to spend something.

Venice has to spend a GP. I believe the one from Optics is totally free, but all others are the psudo-free variety, even if they say "free" or just have to be grown with GPP.

Austria has to spend gold. Gold to become an ally. Maybe gold to stay an ally. Gold to buy the CS after a few turns.

It's easy to see that Austria wins, as a pure "I want to grab all the CS's" civ, and the reason is simple. You can always get more gold. Gold is also made to be spent. Austria has to spend a lot, but it's just gold. You'll get more every turn.

Venice has to use a GMoV which, again, outside of that one truly free one, increases the cost of GS's and GE's. Great people don't come in like cash, and using one can be a huge difference though the course of the rest of the game.

That being said, Mongolia can eat up all the CS's faster and for less cost than either one of these civs, but, again, that can give a little edge to Austria.

Austria can more easily conquer CS's, if not as well as Mongolia. Venice can't afford the hate from conquering a CS, due to the number of trade routes. Austria is more likely to be ok if a few neighbors declare war. Venice needs that gold and may not have enough cities to make use of all of their trade routes.

Venice is the stronger overall civ, I would say, but they are certainly not better at getting CS's. In fact, they aren't made to be better, either. They are meant to get a few nearby CS's. Austria is made to be able to buy them all up.

Venice on the whole is better, I think. It's easier to use a Merchant of Venice to buy out a city-state (even if it's allied with someone else) than it is to save up a lot of money, ally up a CS, and then buy it out.

I will say Austria only because you have the option to Annex and are not FORCED to only have as a puppet.

Voted Venice as you can take someone's longtime ally by force if you feel the need to. Austria isn't going to buy out an ally from, say, Greece.

Mongolia, hehe. They can acquire any CSs the traditional way with a powerful bonus, regardless of any requirement other than combat units.

bonus: got this funny screenie the other day. i appreciate her honesty.

In terms of acquiring City States, Venice wins. They don't need to be allies, they just need to send over a Merchant of Venice and buy it. Austria has to ally the City State (Money spent or quests done), and then buy it (More money spend). While Austria has less risk in the acquisition, due to not needing to send a fragile unit there, they're vulnerable in that someone can coup or buy ally the city City State away from you before you can marry it. So in terms of buying City States, Venice is better.

However, in terms of just about everything else, Austria wins. Austria has less restrictions, a good Unique Building, and a good Unique Unit. Austria can build as many cities as it wants, and wherever it wants. Austria can actually fully control all of it's cities. Austria has many more paths to choose in the game, whereas Venice is rather limited. Furthermore, in multiplayer Venice is not going to last long, whereas Austria actually has a good chance of surviving past the classical era.

I don't really know, I want to say Austria because of their flexibility but Venice can rush buy all the things with all those trade routes.

I'll forgo voting and just look at the responses

Austria.

If your starting position with Venice is "only decent" you will have a bad game, without enough growth and production in capital to buy the stuff you need whilst building national wonders, world wonders and gold producing stuff (caravans and gold buildings). And if some grandiose AI decides to attack you (because you can't buy enough troops and be therefore weak) and plunders your traderouts you're fckd.

With Austria you can snatch good sites with your own settlers and buy the CS you really need (e.g. overseas or near an enemy for your army and your bombers) instead of being forced to take over 3 cities in the middle of nowhere with barely some ressources just so you have enough cities to get into the mid-late game.

Another thing I observed is, that you lack the critical early game inter-city trade routes and therefore your entire empire is gimped if you don't have 1 or 2 decent city states nearby you can take over with GMoV early.

-> Venice is too situational and if you don't pay attention to your relationships, kiss your behind goodby. Late game is very nice but you have to reach it which is tedious as Venice
-> Austria allows standart strategies and you can totally dominate the late game on Immo/Diety if you buy those beautiful CS with twelften units and go ruin someones day with a cheap army and you can do it as often as you have the cash for it, instead of waiting for the next GMoV

Actually, the cost of taking over a CS is bigger for Venice than Austria.

At Epic (I don't play other speeds anymore) with Commerce's double gold, the MoV generates up to 6000 (!!) gold in the final era on top of the 60 influence. Hell - even early on if you don't want until Commerce, it'll give you a lot of gold and insta ally. Compare that to the silly 500+ gold Austria pays... They both lose an ally, but Venice loses whatever influence it had on the CS, much more gold, and a great person (- science per turn from academy, -instawonder/manufactory).

But I still voted Venice because it's awesome and unique. MoV's are great too. Too bad the Great Galeass is actually a Mediocre Very Situational Rapeass instead of being actually great.

I voted for Venice. It's geared up with the tall bias and the merchant of Venice is a simple mechanism to buy the CS. However, it does force Venice to get great merchant wonders or to add merchant specialists to make this worthwhile. Also, you can take away allies from other civs regardless of status with the CS and you can't do that with Austria unless you are already allies with the CS for 5 turns to persuade the CS to sacrifice its sovereignty. Also, the Venetian UA, if used effectively in getting gpt, can negate the Austrian UA by bribing the CS every time Austria is close to buying them out.

I've got one game going as Austria and I think its UA is more prominent later in game as soon as your gpt is growing. Having a religion as Austria also helps.

This is a trickier one than the last.

Superficially, the answer is "Venice, obviously" - it doesn't need to be allies, and Austria often has a tricky decision to make: because you need alliance, marrying a CS sacrifices CS benefits you're already getting, which are often more valuable. This makes Austria far more interesting than Venice to play, but potentially somewhat less powerful.

Then again, Austria can annex CSes - Venice can't, and so will never gain the happiness advantages of courthouses or the flexibility of manual production (though since many players never annex, they won't notice this advantage). Gold in quantity is easier and quicker to come by than Great Merchants, while Venice is reliant on key Wonders (most of which are however not hard to get, except Colossus). Austria also isn't restricted to only CSes - it can expand normally as well as selecting key CSes (but since so many players favour playing tall, this is also less of an advantage than it looks). Plus, due to the Patronage finisher, Austria can get MoVs - Venice can never get diplomatic marriage.

On paper, Austria looks as though it should be stronger. In practice I find Venice so powerful that it's very boring to play - I was running ahead so fast that I didn't bother to complete my first couple of games with the civ. However, that's due mostly to its doubled trade routes, not CSes.

Venice is the stronger overall civ, I would say, but they are certainly not better at getting CS's. In fact, they aren't made to be better, either. They are meant to get a few nearby CS's. Austria is made to be able to buy them all up.

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I actually voted Venice overall, considering the civ as a whole, but the above sums it up exactly - if just considering "which is better for playing with CSes", it's Austria.

Normally better for Venice. But Austria does have the ability to annex city states which also also paying cash to acquire that natural wonder one tile outside the city states cultural boundary that your governor refuses to expand into.

sendos said:

I voted for Venice. It's geared up with the tall bias and the merchant of Venice is a simple mechanism to buy the CS. However, it does force Venice to get great merchant wonders or to add merchant specialists to make this worthwhile. Also, you can take away allies from other civs regardless of status with the CS and you can't do that with Austria unless you are already allies with the CS for 5 turns to persuade the CS to sacrifice its sovereignty. Also, the Venetian UA, if used effectively in getting gpt, can negate the Austrian UA by bribing the CS every time Austria is close to buying them out.

I've got one game going as Austria and I think its UA is more prominent later in game as soon as your gpt is growing. Having a religion as Austria also helps.

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For many reasons stated above, and with the high levels of gpt as Venice, you can use that income to throw your influence around faster in my opinion.

This is a pretty small thing, but Austria does get a hills start bias which usually makes for a pretty solid start. You'll get good luxuries out of it like gold and silver.

Definitely Austria.. Venice is very limited. Besides Austria can always get a merchant , trade mission, then marriage.. same thing but more flexible. On top of aquiring cs, everything else Austria does is better. Coffee house is awesome. Hussar is better than great galleas.

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Austria can annex via marriage every city state if it has enough gold. Venice needs to use a MoV.

How many MoV can Venice get? One free one and then every one after that one is in place of a great scientist or engineer, at least before faith buying. To faith buy Venice would need to finish commerce. Getting Big Ben, the landsknecht and the reduced cost rush buy is great, but the other three policy picks are not. Better land caravans - water is twice as good, more great merchants - scientists for academy or bulbing after labs is stronger, extra two happy from luxuries is great if you have enough of them but Venice will not own enough area to get great use from this.

With faith buying you get better people from tradition or rationalism. A GE gets you Broadway or Eifel tower or both for a mere 1000 + 1500 faith. Another 2500 gets you Hubble. For a stockpile of 7500 faith you can get three GE for Broadway, Eifel and Hubble and get 5 GS to bulb (you get two free from Hubble).

Bottom line is Austria can choose to annex any CS that it wants and can do well without annexing any due to the strength of its UU and UB. Venice has to annex or else it is a OCC.

Another malus to Venice is that they have to puppet which is inferior in every way to annexing.-