How to win with Austria?

I tried Austria and so far I'm having quite a good run it seems. Im on a long islan/continend with polinesia and we are buddys he tried to kill the citystates we had there but i married them instead and since then he was very peacefull. the geology there is perfect for my defence and my part of the island is nice.

I am earning a little over 100 cash a turn now and my caravels are exploring the world. finaly I get to know and trade with everyone. I could start buying up CSs like mad now.

But what I dont get is: How is that supposed to help me win the game?
I just dont get it, someone enlight me please!

Buy a city state next to your enemy, and use your new army to attack them.
Better yet, buy two adjacent city states, and use 2 armies to attack someone.

Austria gets better the harder the difficulty is. City states will have more units on higher levels.

need to remember that although u lose the bonus/food/faith/culture etc when u marry them you do keep there full standing army and all the buildings they have built, as opposed to conq them and having to rebuild, also cs will always have at least 1 lux. so the way i see it is
buy the cs surrounding ur neighbour and annex them giving u all there military units, proceed to conquer said neighbour with cs army.
or
puppet cs and use them to produce large amounts of culture,gold, faith etc

So youre saying its only usefull for war?

Im more the type of peacefull player, smile your way to happyplace... science win, culture win, diplo

I think wars are boring, if I wanted that I'd be playing panzer general ;-)

Here's my guide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

My mommy said not to youtube with strangers

It is certainly NOT meant for Diplomatic advantage, that much is certain.

Honestly, it is probably bad (or at least meh) for a cultural victory as well, as your policy costs will increase and your culture may or may not increase depending on what the CS had already built.

War is a good choice, as you can annex the city without occupational unhappiness, giving you an excellent (and not decimated) city to build units from and station units at.

Science is a good choice as well, as you receive a well developed city with presumably a good spot and lots of population, as again you do not conquer it. I think this is your best option.


On the other hand, you could also NOT buy up the CS. Yeah I know it sounds like a waste, but if you were going cultural it may actually be bad (and if you were going diplomatic...poor decisions were made when you saw you were Austria). You still have the Hussar and the Coffee House, you can make some good great people.