Austria. Broken on higher difficulties? Or just plain broken?

[Halcyan2]

Some players like to DoW Austria ASAP and take her out of the game.

Personally, I find the frenemy approach better from my experience. Early on, you will ideally be Friendly with Austria and every luxury/strategic resource you have gets sold to Austria first. The goal is to continually deprive Austria of cash.

Also, continually bribe other AI's to DoW Austria. If necessary you can also bribe Austria to DoW others but I'd rather not give Austria any more money.

If you have a decent reserve, you can try allying with any City State that Austria tries to get (if you do this too much you will piss her off though).

It's tricky to manage her right, but if you meet her early or mid-way through, you can often keep her under control.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

bribing AIs to DoW is something I was also thinking but I have rarely done it so Im not sure how to be most effective with it. I need to try that in some games to see it though. Im still on Emperor since i havent learned all the new material yet.

 

[Peacemongerer]

They're certainly not broken down here on Prince... they've played against me 4 times. This resulted in me steamrolling them as Korea in the Industrial era and as the Huns asap (They never expanded past 1 city in either case, btw). They also spammed like 3 cities in another game before Caesar steamrolled them. The other game they were quite powerful at 4 cities before they steamrolled Spain and picked-off some Chinese and Thai cities on the continent. I was Ethiopia and didn't do much about it... I just built the Utopia Project and went on my merry way.

They also have yet to buy a CS in all the time I've been watching them. I haven't even had to take preventative measures.

 

[bryanw1995]

Austria's UA is "broken" because it provides the human with an often decisive advantage on immortal and deity, and the advantage is even greater in the hands of the AI with its runaway gold. This is balanced somewhat by the weak UB and very late hussars, but I still think that they're an A level civ.

 

[OmniPotent42]

I was once able to keep up with the AI in tech, but it took a lot of tech slingshots to do it. Just rush to Education, then to the one that gives you public school, the one that gets you research lab, etc. Great Scientists help alot too. You really can't afford not to go for Rationalism on Immortal difficulty.

 

[Karmah]

I have never been able to win an immortal+ game with austria in it. I agree 100% with the OP.
She buys ALL the city states. And it is annoying because she is not a DLC single civ , so you can not disable her , unless disabling GnK so when you like to start your games 'full random' as I do , it s an issue.If she is in the game , you MUST be her neighbour and kill her / attrition her.

The worst case is when you start your immortal game , it s tough but going ok , you do quite ok , and then after two three hours play , this unmet player turns out to be austria ...and she is already one/two ages ahead in science...you know the game is finished and you wasted your time.

I really would be partisan for a HOTFIX patch to change/remove this civ.

I also play emperor quite a lot , there austria is not THAT big a deal , since anyway emperor is fairly easy , she is just somewhat 'close' to you but never prevents you to win the game. If you only play emperor or under , you can not begin to understand the nightmare of austria + endless cash in immortal plus.


PS : Did I mention that Austria is broken in higher level ?

 

[OmniPotent42]

I agree with everything 125%. Her UA is a first of it's kind, so it doesn't really work with the current system. I'm just surprised she's actually spending her money, all the other AI's don't know how to do it unless going for a diplomatic victory.

Do you think it would be better if she could only PUPPET allied city-states? And they wouldn't act like they were always her cities, so you could liberate it if you took it over.

 

[Udey1]

I was once able to keep up with the AI in tech, but it took a lot of tech slingshots to do it. Just rush to Education, then to the one that gives you public school, the one that gets you research lab, etc. Great Scientists help alot too. You really can't afford not to go for Rationalism on Immortal difficulty.

You really can afford not to go rationalism on immortal, i would take it when going space, or in a deep rut, but conquest/culture/diplo can be served better with other sets.

 

[Buccaneer]

The key to playing against Austria is to actually beat them before they beat you. We get a good AI opponent that can use its unique strength against a human player and people still complain?!?

 

[Motrok]

The key to playing against Austria is to actually beat them before they beat you. We get a good AI opponent that can use its unique strength against a human player and people still complain?!?

It's not a "good AI player". She has unlimited gold and happiness. It breaks the game mechanics. As Austria, I can manage to ally myself with many city states and eventually start "marrying" them, but after a couple, my happiness just canoot keep up and I have to stop. If i didn't, the game would be broken. As it is when the AI spams marriages.

 

[Karmah]

The key to playing against Austria is to actually beat them before they beat you. We get a good AI opponent that can use its unique strength against a human player and people still complain?!?

Yes ! pretty much.
And you are proving that she is a problem. Beat her before she beats you. No civs should be like this.

Keep in mind that I go full random on my games . What if , I got gandhi , went for a cultural victory /turtling , and austria starts at the opposite of the world , through an ocean ...go beat her since you don t know that she s there
Happened to me twice.Now when I decide to go for a peacefull science/cultural victory , I m just afraid until I reach astronomy that this couple of unmet civs might turn out to be austria , ruining all of my game plan. And no other civ does that effect.
Austria is an annoying game breaker , a flawed concept , a broken civ .

 

[Buccaneer]

So basically you guys think any civ that becomes a runaway is broken and force you to quit because you cannot win easily or by the way you want to??? We need to have more civs use their gold to buy city-states, units, etc. instead of just hording it. We need more civs to be aggressive in taking out opponents including the human player (I'm look at you, Mongols). If you come across Austria later in the game, all that means is you have to build a bigger armed forces.

 

[Motrok]

So basically you guys think any civ that becomes a runaway is broken and force you to quit because you cannot win easily or by the way you want to??? We need to have more civs use their gold to buy city-states, units, etc. instead of just hording it. We need more civs to be aggressive in taking out opponents including the human player (I'm look at you, Mongols). If you come across Austria later in the game, all that means is you have to build a bigger armed forces.

Yes. I want it to be smart, not succesful through breaking the game rules. She could be VERY competitive by taking 3-4 city states througout the game. Very competitive. But if she takes 16, in a space of 50 turns, then the game is unplayable.

 

[That nerdy kid]

The problem with Austria is that it has a great UA, and they taught the AI how to use it.

 

[Veneke]

...
Austria is an annoying game breaker , a flawed concept , a broken civ .

I wouldn't call it a flawed concept, it actually makes a great deal of sense and is rather interesting. The problem is not really that Austria can buy up city states, not that it (like all AIs) effectively ignores happiness and has huge reserves of gold, but rather that the purchase is permanent. It's broken because there's no way to engage with it, but this is a problem of implementation, not concept.

So basically you guys think any civ that becomes a runaway is broken and force you to quit because you cannot win easily or by the way you want to??? We need to have more civs use their gold to buy city-states, units, etc. instead of just hording it. We need more civs to be aggressive in taking out opponents including the human player (I'm look at you, Mongols). If you come across Austria later in the game, all that means is you have to build a bigger armed forces.

Not quite. There are serious problems with the AI but those are beside the point. The issue here is that it's a permanent deal that cannot be undone. There's no option to liberate a City-State that Austria has married. It closes down an entire victory condition by removing City-States from the game, permanently. If you want to win diplomatically, engaging with City-States is simply not on the cards if Austria is there unless she's killed off early before her UA has had a chance to permanently and irreversible damage the flow of the game.

 

[Arimae70]

I'm learning immortal atm; 90% of the time Austria's in the game she wins. Agree with op.

 

[Buccaneer]

I wouldn't call it a flawed concept, it actually makes a great deal of sense and is rather interesting. The problem is not really that Austria can buy up city states, not that it (like all AIs) effectively ignores happiness and has huge reserves of gold, but rather that the purchase is permanent. It's broken because there's no way to engage with it, but this is a problem of implementation, not concept.



Not quite. There are serious problems with the AI but those are beside the point. The issue here is that it's a permanent deal that cannot be undone.

It is NOT a permanent deal. Have you never liberated/captured city-states before? Have you never nearly taken out a civ and their cities before? Austria is not that strong militarially, you just have more work to do after their marriages spree. Just because you may not want to or don't feel like it doesn't mean that it's not an option.

 

[Veneke]

It is NOT a permanent deal. Have you never liberated/captured city-states before? Have you never nearly taken out a civ and their cities before? Austria is not that strong militarially, you just have more work to do after their marriages spree. Just because you may not want to or don't feel like it doesn't mean that it's not an option.

You can't liberate a City-State that Austria has married. They're removed from the game, permanently.

 

[Motrok]

It is NOT a permanent deal. Have you never liberated/captured city-states before? Have you never nearly taken out a civ and their cities before? Austria is not that strong militarially, you just have more work to do after their marriages spree. Just because you may not want to or don't feel like it doesn't mean that it's not an option.

Try it. Once Austria marries a city-state, it is as if Austria had founded it from zero. It cannot be liberated. It even recalculates votes for the UN.

 

[PhilBowles]

I just resigned my first game on Emperor. I made the mistake of not DOWing Austria right away (she was on the other side of the continent and in constant war with Japan - how strong can she get?), and she pretty quickly became the runaway. The science disparity wasn't too bad (She completed the Manhattan Project around the time I got my first GW Infantry), but by then Ptolemy came out with his handy "Pointiest Sticks" report.

I'm playing a culture game, 3 cities with a reasonably sized, highly promoted and fully upgraded defensive military. I score about 2000 points; not great, but not bad.

Then I see Austria's score. 78,000.

She completed the Manhattan Project three turns later and I resigned, knowing fully what was coming next.

I'm in what I expected to be a very interesting game on Emperor, since I'm Siam and the first civ I encountered was Austria (the second was Greece...), so I readied myself for some city-state-related shenanigans. Yet Austra's bottom of the pile in both score generally and GNP specifically and hasn't made any efforts to ally any city-states by, I think, the early Renaissance. Alex is doing as well as usual; looks like he'll be my rival for CS favour rather than Maria Theresa.

Conceptually I dislike Austria's ability to completely remove any way of liberating the CS and turning it back into what it used to be - that alone would make Austria an interesting opponent when playing CS-related games. Being able to shut down one style of play seems bad design whatever the AI bonuses.

What I'd have liked to see would be a time limitation on the Austrian effect - you get to treat the CS as your city for, say, 30 turns, so get all its science benefits, production, increases in cultural progress and all the rest - but sooner or later these princesses being married off are going to die of old age and the alliance may not persist into the next generation, so when time's up it turns back into a CS.