Austria atrocious, Greece great

[tb3]

Going from G&K to BNW Greeces city state advantage becomes far more useful thanks to the World Congress, and Austrias is obviously far less helpful as they lose the city state votes.

Surely they should each be tweaked slightly in BNW games?

I'm sure some will argue that Austria are great because of X,Y,Z. But surely even those people would agree that they would rather be Austria in a G&K game rather than BNW.

 

[Alziel]

You could say the same about Venice - and they were introduced with BNW!

However, I am pretty sure that the number of votes needed to get a Diplomatic Victory scales based on the number of available delegates worldwide.

Somebody else will surely know for certain or have the formula that is used but recently I won a Diplomatic Victory as Venice after claiming 8 City States and I'm pretty sure that the number of votes required to win was a lot lower than it usually is.

Besides, Austria is a strong contender for any of the other victory conditions - particularly Domination. I certainly wouldn't call them atrocious.

Just my two cents!

 

[Rohili]

You could say the same about Venice - and they were introduced with BNW!

The difference is that Venice can puppet any CS it wants, including the allies of other civs, whereas Austria can only puppet CSes that it is allied with. So when Austria exercises it UA, it is directly reducing its number of CS allies, and with it any votes and bonuses granted by that CS.

 

[cajypart]

Diplomatic victory is not a great choice with Austria.
Annex military CS and go for domination with the free units!

 

[isau]

Diplomatic victory is not a great choice with Austria.
Annex military CS and go for domination with the free units!

This.

Austria can be a terror. It's not that great at Diplo Victory, or at least no better than any other civ. But you do not want to be the rival of a runaway Maria Teresa.

 

[Cicerosaurus]

I've started playing as Greece and it is incredibly powerful with patronage.

 

[NyQuil]

I had a great time with Austria in a past game.

What's nice about Austria is that CSs are usually in strategic locations that can make your overall empire much more secure.

I only married two CSes, but they were supremely well located and buffered my capital against the Huns who were next door.

My typical strategy is to go hard for allies with City States anyway (open Patronage after Tradition - get as far as I can, then finish after Rationalism).

Granted, I've only been playing Prince but I've won quite a few games in a row so I'm probably going to move up to King next.

CSes provide (a) Culture; (b) Happiness; (c) Gold which are pretty much the more important things in the game. The free units are just a bonus but they can keep your capital building wonders.

I've disabled diplomatic victory because it's too easy at this level, so I usually end up with a cultural or scientific.

I'm honestly not sure how to play without using the overwhelming Luxury bonus that allied CSs give you - that you can use for happiness (expand empire, grow populations, wage war) or gold (sell to other CIVs).

 

[Alziel]

The difference is that Venice can puppet any CS it wants, including the allies of other civs, whereas Austria can only puppet CSes that it is allied with. So when Austria exercises it UA, it is directly reducing its number of CS allies, and with it any votes and bonuses granted by that CS.

Well - there are limits on Venice as well. It all comes down to play style. Firstly, beyond the first free Merchant of Venice you will have to work at getting further ones and there's only so much you can do to speed things along. Also bear in mind that you might be skewing your GP generation towards merchants rather than GS', GEs, GWAMs etc.

On top of this, even when you do get your Merchant of Venice it might not always be easy to get it to the City State that you might like to claim (particularly if you're at war or there are Barbarians still knocking around) - and even if it is, it still may take a while.

True, Austria have to be Allied and Venice doesn't but all this means is that as Austria you need to work at getting alliances with the City States that you want to buy (which isn't too difficult most of the time) and you also have to work at building your treasury to pay for the marriage. You can also buy that City State wherever it is in the world and even if you are at war.

So I can see your point but I don't believe that Venice have it much easier than Austria - they just go about things differently. I think it's easier to plan your CS strategy with Austria than it is with Venice (at least with regards to timing and placement).

Anyway, this is just my opinion of course - we all have different styles of play.

 

[householder]

Going from G&K to BNW Greeces city state advantage becomes far more useful thanks to the World Congress, and Austrias is obviously far less helpful as they lose the city state votes.

Surely they should each be tweaked slightly in BNW games?

I think many people would like to see Alexander's DV advantage nerfed. Personally, I just try to hamstring his empire, the earlier the better. Of course, that isn''t easy if he is on the far side of the world.

As for Austria, they have to be allied with a CS and also pay a sizable sum in order to puppet that ally. I suppose one way to give Austria a boost would be to grant Austria all of the CS treasury after it is puppeted. This would allow Maria Theresa to recoup some of her investment, so she could go on to gobble up another CS.

Would that be overpowered?

 

[NyQuil]

In general, I don't find it that hard in practice.

1. You typically want to puppet a city that is close to your empire for defensive purposes. In which case, you may have already succeeded in one or two of the CS quests anyway.

2. If you do want to puppet a city further away, typically it's later on in the game when more of the map is exposed and you have the coin anyway.

Considering the cost to buy a settler, and in exchange you get a fully developed city, it's a pretty significant advantage IMO.

 

[Rohili]

Well - there are limits on Venice as well. It all comes down to play style. Firstly, beyond the first free Merchant of Venice you will have to work at getting further ones and there's only so much you can do to speed things along. Also bear in mind that you might be skewing your GP generation towards merchants rather than GS', GEs, GWAMs etc.

On top of this, even when you do get your Merchant of Venice it might not always be easy to get it to the City State that you might like to claim (particularly if you're at war or there are Barbarians still knocking around) - and even if it is, it still may take a while.

True, Austria have to be Allied and Venice doesn't but all this means is that as Austria you need to work at getting alliances with the City States that you want to buy (which isn't too difficult most of the time) and you also have to work at building your treasury to pay for the marriage. You can also buy that City State wherever it is in the world and even if you are at war.

So I can see your point but I don't believe that Venice have it much easier than Austria - they just go about things differently. I think it's easier to plan your CS strategy with Austria than it is with Venice (at least with regards to timing and placement).

Anyway, this is just my opinion of course - we all have different styles of play.

I'm not saying that Venice's UA has no drawbacks of its own. I'm referring to the OP's point which is that in BNW, CS allies are much more valuable, and in this respect, Austria's UA works directly against gathering CS allies. Your response to the OP's point was that the same could be said of Venice, but my point was that the same cannot be said of Venice since, unlike Austria, they do not necessarily have to puppet their own allies.

 

[MattZed]

There is one interesting strategy with Austria, though: you can win a diplomatic victory with fewer city states. On the turn of a the World Leader vote, vote for yourself and then buy all of your city states. The vote threshold needed to win will have gone down but you still have the votes. If you have a plurality of the votes, this is generally workable.

 

[Alziel]

I'm not saying that Venice's UA has no drawbacks of its own. I'm referring to the OP's point which is that in BNW, CS allies are much more valuable, and in this respect, Austria's UA works directly against gathering CS allies. Your response to the OP's point was that the same could be said of Venice, but my point was that the same cannot be said of Venice since, unlike Austria, they do not necessarily have to puppet their own allies.

I still don't see a big difference - maybe more clarification is needed (I like to learn new stuff! )

The way I see it, the only difference between Venice and Austria in this respect is that Austria has to marry an Ally and Venice doesn't. Either way, the number of CS delegates in the game is being reduced.

Austria doesn't have to marry their CS allies if they don't want to - but they have to be allied with a CS if they do want to. They still have the option of keeping a CS as an ally if they feel that would benefit them more.

Venice can steal a CS that is allied with another player by just walking a Merchant of Venice in and snatching it - and it's gone forever. But Austria can also steal another player's CS ally - they just need to save up and pay through the nose. Then they can marry it if they want to. Sometimes they might decide to keep the CS as an Ally instead.

I may very well be missing something really obvious here but I don't see much difference between the two - the end result is the same for each of the two Civs but they just have different approaches.

I'm focusing on the point made by the OP that Austria's UA is not helpful in BNW because they lose CS votes with it - well Venice's UA loses them CS votes as well right?

Also, as pointed out by others the number of votes needed for a Diplomatic Victory will scale based on the number of delegates that are currently in the game - and other proposals require a majority vote regardless of the number of delegates in the game (even without CS votes you can still skew things in your favour with the Forbidden Palace, Techs, Diplomats and diplomacy etc).

 

[isau]

The benefit of puppeting with Austria becomes much more visible when you realize those puppets can host planes and nukes.

(Edit: Yes you can do that with Venice too, but Venice has domination disadvantages compared to Austria which are probably obvious.)

 

[fyar]

I still don't see a big difference - maybe more clarification is needed (I like to learn new stuff! )

Alziel, I don't think you're missing anything. I agree with you completely. Austria doesn't have a disadvantage compared to other civs for city-state diplomacy precisely because of what you said: they don't HAVE to marry anybody if they want to keep the votes.

Now one might argue then that Austria doesn't have a UA anymore, but I would contend that their UA is having the STRATEGIC option of keeping a CS allied vs. annexing/puppeting them. Sometimes one option is more advantageous, sometimes the other.

In fact, one way I can imagine Austria's UA is actually an advantage for World Congress voting is in sniping a CS that some other civ has spent most of the game allied with. Let's say that rival Alex, who keeps voting down your proposals, has spent most of the game allied with Milan. Whereas some other civ would have to keep investing money into Milan in order to keep Alex at bay, Maria Theresa can make a one-time investment and take away that vote from Alex forever. Oh yeah, and she'll have a brand new, well-developed city and potentially a decent army too.