Austria is damn strong

Harv72b said:

That was an excellent post, seriously so, but I think you're missing the point that I (and others I think) were making in this thread: that Austria's UA is overpowered when the AI is in control of Austria, at least on higher difficulties where it enjoys practically unlimited gold and happiness. In single player mode while playing as Austria, you can certainly screw it up the same as you can with any civ. In MP you can either rule out Austria as a playable civ or, if someone starts to run away as Austria, gang up on him with other human players.

Even if you don't like the term "overpowered", it's annoying at the very least and can indeed be game-breaking.

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Ok, I agree !
I had never done a deity game, did 3 runs, and now I see that deity civs get such an incredible boost !

And can certainly see Austria as problematic, though I still robbed 2 neighboring civs from their money, giving me 500-600g and about 4-6 gpt from each civ by selling off my luxuries, so maybe keeping the AI poor could still be a good tactic in such levels.

Also, on higher difficulties, yes the city states grant larger armies, but MP games are mostly prince games, so Austrian players wouldnt be getting the large armies ppl have been talking about...and its not very easy to be a runaway civ on mp, its actually pretty tough..

anywaysssss, I agree more now with the Austrian AI .. on higher levels (above prince), that it might need some fixing.
just dont touch human stuff

whyidie said:

Believe it or not, yes! I think the key is giving them (not just land) space to mature.

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This made me giggle because for some reason it looks like a guide to growing a plant.

HelloGoodbye123 said:

Ok, I agree !
I had never done a deity game, did 3 runs, and now I see that deity civs get such an incredible boost !

And can certainly see Austria as problematic, though I still robbed 2 neighboring civs from their money, giving me 500-600g and about 4-6 gpt from each civ by selling off my luxuries, so maybe keeping the AI poor could still be a good tactic in such levels.

Also, on higher difficulties, yes the city states grant larger armies, but MP games are mostly prince games, so Austrian players wouldnt be getting the large armies ppl have been talking about...and its not very easy to be a runaway civ on mp, its actually pretty tough..

anywaysssss, I agree more now with the Austrian AI .. on higher levels (above prince), that it might need some fixing.
just dont touch human stuff

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THANK YOU! We're FINALLY on the same page. I've been talking about single-player this whole time. I'm not sure what it took so long, but hey, the important thing is we got there.

I'll freely admit I don't know a thing about multiplayer(most of my friends don't play Civ V ) and I'm sure Austria is just fine there. I figured any nerf to Austria would have input from people who DO know and would be crafted in such a way as to not really impact multiplayer; this is also my concern about any changes to Swordsmen. My concerns lie solely with AI Austria on Deity(and to an extent Immortal) getting way out of hand and breaking the game.

HelloGoodbye123 said:

Here is why Austria is not overpowering:

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You make valid points about how Austria 'should' be played. But that isn't how it often is played. You also went out of your way to mention a bunch of mitigating circumstances that could hamper an OP Austria. That's fine and dandy and legit, but you are missing the part I've said about Austria becoming OP in certain circumstances. There are many ways to get around the limitations you have discussed, and since you do seem to know what you're talking about (when you aren't too busy calling everyone whiners) I won't go into details on each point as many are self evident honestly.

Also, as others have noted, the AI doesn't suffer many of those mitigating problems (happiness, gpt limits, etc). And in any case, a crafty player or the AI might not care about the problems that come with buying an excess of CS's. When they weigh the pluses and minuses, taking a CS away from another player forever, even if you can't defend it, could be worth any tradeoff.

For another thing, a player or AI doesn't have to spend a ton of gold buying of allegiances. Coups can do that for you for free - particularly with the AI's supernatural ability to coup every single turn.

Light Cleric said:

My concerns lie solely with AI Austria on Deity(and to an extent Immortal) getting way out of hand and breaking the game.

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I play on lower difficulties and Austria can still get out of hand. I wouldn't say it's game breaking at these levels but when coupled with the endless coup murder spam sprees the AI goes on - often followed immediately by a DM - things get frustrating. It's not even that it's impossible to win when Austria gobbles up all the CS's, it's just that the game has lost an entire aspect (City States) for good from that point on.

I imagine that I wouldn't have nearly as much problems with Austria's UA if it wasn't for the coup problems I've outlined. I also imagine that if I were playing at higher levels like you the pain levels cause by the UA would be extreme....

Edit: Yeah after reading the above post, I have to say I've also been talking about single player. I've never played multiplayer.

Heh yeah, I was mostly talking multiplayer, dont.really play single player, and ive had enemy austrian players leave a few times with the austrian ai doing nothing... never seen it buy a city state at prince level on mp at least

I was thinking it was a similar case on single player games, I also thought deity would be a joke since I mean its an ai .. Lol

HelloGoodbye123 said:

Heh yeah, I was mostly talking multiplayer, dont.really play single player, and ive had enemy austrian players leave a few times with the austrian ai doing nothing... never seen it buy a city state at prince level on mp at least
I was thinking it was a similar case on single player games, I also thought deity would be a joke since I mean its an ai .. Lol

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Whoa...seriously? Never seen it buy a CS at prince? Really?

Wow. I just feel like we had this whole huge multi-page multi-day debate for nothing.

Austria buys City States on prince....always. She will take them all if given half a chance. Sometimes it feels like you have to devote more resources/time/attention to dealing with that one little aspect of the game than you actually do just playing it and having fun when she gets on a roll. Which is most games.

hobbsyoyo said:

Whoa...seriously? Never seen it buy a CS at prince? Really?

Wow. I just feel like we had this whole huge multi-page multi-day debate for nothing.

Austria buys City States on prince....always. She will take them all if given half a chance. Sometimes it feels like you have to devote more resources/time/attention to dealing with that one little aspect of the game than you actually do just playing it and having fun when she gets on a roll. Which is most games.

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one time when someone decided to double up on austria only to leave on turn 15, the austrian AI did ally itself to a city state i had allied to, but did not purchase it ...

thats as close as ive seen it happen...

oh wait, yes one time, i did see austria buy one city state, when Austrian guy left turn 50 ish.. but it wasnt really a bad deal. apart from that occasion, even austrian players dont buy city states... never seen one guy do it.. sometimes I do feel bad for them because "its like they have no bonuses" why pick austria is my real question with all these austrian players..

I'm sitting here at work thinking that I could buy a CS for 500 gold and then turn around and sell it to the AI for 10 times that much.

Has anyone tried this approach?

budweiser said:

I'm sitting here at work thinking that I could buy a CS for 500 gold and then turn around and sell it to the AI for 10 times that much.

Has anyone tried this approach?

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I would except that rarely do the AI's accumulate 5000+ gold on prince. At least in my experience

budweiser said:

I'm sitting here at work thinking that I could buy a CS for 500 gold and then turn around and sell it to the AI for 10 times that much.

Has anyone tried this approach?

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I recall selling cities (playing as William) when going for Diplo win on Deity. They gave me between 200 - 1k gold for each one though. Depending on size, if i remember right.

Moriarte said:

I recall selling cities (playing as William) when going for Diplo win on Deity. They gave me between 200 - 1k gold for each one though. Depending on size, if i remember right.

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Hmm, well if it tops out at 1K it might not be worth it. I thought the AIs would pay serious cash and resources.

They would use loads of cash if the CS is neighbouring them. If it's like on another continent there's little reason they'd want it.

In many of my G&K Immortal games Austria had never become a run away civ. She always like to go tall for some reason and hog up wonders, only to get behind in science either because there are other better taller civs or ridiculously expansive civs like Greece and Russia, or just get run over by neighbour warmonger civs. I was near them once and wiped them off the floor before they can become an issue.

She would be a problem if she's isolated somewhere and have no competing civs for CS, but it seems many civs now are pretty aggressive to ally CS than ever before, so Austria often have a problem to have many allies in the first place. I've no doubt she is a problem if you were careless. But if your neighbour is Austria and there are a bunch of CS on your continent, wipe her off so she becomes consequential. Better yet, bribe a warmonger civ to do the job for you.

budweiser said:

Hmm, well if it tops out at 1K it might not be worth it. I thought the AIs would pay serious cash and resources.

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I believe the amount they'll pay is related to the distance to their borders.

I've posted these before but this is why I don't sell cities to the AI anymore, it makes things a joke.

No wonders in either of these captured AI cities on Deity near their borders(yes rammy was a runaway ):

Looks good to me !

I will incorporate these to my new Austrian Strategy ! muhahah

get thousands of gold and luxury for city state, to buy another 2 city states! and will have enough happiness from the lux the AI gave me

i think the ösis are overpowered only on higher diff level (playing on deity):
as my capital had size of 4, the first married state had size of ten --> trippling gold and science

I think Austria is my second favorite G&K civ, after Carthage.

I'm almost done my first game with them and am loving how powerful they can be.
I think it'd be even better on a land map, as i'm playing them on what turned out to be an islands map of some kind.

Pretty much every city state is on their own little (mostly crappy tiny) island with almost no actually land tiles, so buying them out actually doesn't get me all that many useable tiles in most cases. I can only imagine how insane it'd be on a land-based map where you actually have good tiles to work.

But it's still incredible to get an established city with good buildings inside already, and usually with a lux you don't have, meaning a lot less of a happiness hit than most captured cities it seems (Mercantiles ones ftw!).

Coffee Houses are fantastic for making tall production monster cities!
You can run lots of specialists if wanted with crazy production when you get the workshop/Coffee House/Factory combination going.

Played a King game recently as Ramesses and Austria was a bear even with Archipelago. She was also a total douche but I sure showed her! (with my culture)

I just finished an immortal game, and Austria was picked off before the Renaissance, so I guess she doesn't do too well in other aspects. But once you let her get her way...boy that's a problem.