Austria. Broken on higher difficulties? Or just plain broken?
- Thread starter Motrok
- Start date
HelloGoodbye123: I dont agree with them, you are limiting a bonus a individual civ has. Its like saying Egypt can only build a wonder every 30 turns because they build them so fast. That is how I am getting at this. A civ gains a city state, big woop, I dont see the Major Advantage here. I just dont see the Austrian bonus as a threat.
Im not suggesting that it be turn penalties for every marriage. I was only suggesting that it be a 10 turn penalty on re-marrying the liberated city they just had. They can still marry multiples in one turn but if some one just liberated a city the next turn they should not be able to undo that. It's fine for someone allying and you buying the ally back the next turn, but marrying a CS cant be undone short of military liberating and they shouldnt be able to undo what is likely several turns of combat with one gold action. that's why i mentioned it. i wasnt thorough enough.
(btw, yikes this thread exploded with HG123 defending the Austrians. i played for 3 hours maybe and this happened, haha.)
Im not suggesting that it be turn penalties for every marriage. I was only suggesting that it be a 10 turn penalty on re-marrying the liberated city they just had. They can still marry multiples in one turn but if some one just liberated a city the next turn they should not be able to undo that. It's fine for someone allying and you buying the ally back the next turn, but marrying a CS cant be undone short of military liberating and they shouldnt be able to undo what is likely several turns of combat with one gold action. that's why i mentioned it. i wasnt thorough enough.
(btw, yikes this thread exploded with HG123 defending the Austrians. i played for 3 hours maybe and this happened, haha.)
thadian
Kami of Awakened Dreamers
Agreed.
Agreed, i am against restrictions as well.
however an occupation occurs, there is no reason that "their new city" can never have self-rule again. This liberation is no more harmful to Austria than another civ bossing up and capturing the city - either way, the city is not yours anymore. The one problem is this city can now belong to anyone except itself, which doesn't make sense.
No it isn't. The Austrian bonus is the ability to conquer city states by peaceful means. However, it was implemented in a way that prevents that city state from being liberated. If capital and city state razing can not be allowed because it would "break the game" then this breaks the game.
This is not about restrictions or changing it's bonus or adding cooldowns - this is about what happens once the city has lost sovereignty - Why can Austria liberate city states i conquered but i am not allowed to liberate city states they married?
I can liberate city states they conquer why not ones they marry? Clearly, if austria occupying a city state were part of their UA, then conquered cities would also lose sovereignty?
I do understand that "marriage is different" than conquest, however they are not different enough as to make a pact that no matter what happens in the future, you may never rule yourself again.
Even if someone else pries you out of my hands you may serve them - you may serve others who also conquer you - but you can not serve yourself.
HelloGoodbye123
Warlord
I just dont see how liberating a city state, and even after 10 turns will solve your guys problem, its bound to go back to Austria.... not that i think its a heavy restriction, but your solution just doesnt sound like a solution.. you know what i mean?
you fight for a city state, 10 turns later its back in austrian hands.. does that sound like a good solution to you? and you say, the city state can have full access to be an ally with austria in the meantime, then why even liberate the city state in the first place if your not even going to have it as an ally during those 10 turns. you might think, "well those 10 turns could be the time i need for the diplomatic victory" .. how in the world are you going to attack 12-24 city states at once? and hold them for 10 turns? well actually not even 1 turn, since they can still be allied to austria, and you would still not win diplomatic victory.. since austria is probably heavily focused on gold.. and a good austrian player should be..
you see the logic there?
HelloGoodbye123
Warlord
thadian read my above post 
HelloGoodbye123
Warlord
I dont want to leave this behind because you make a great point, obviously you arent going to be at war with someone the entire game, but to ensure Austria doesnt grab the city state, they might have to....
in which case eliminating the Austrian bonus completely and making Austria like the worst civilization in the game :/
i actually do. keep in mind the original argument is that on Immortal/Deity this is an issue. On Emperor and under they dont have this runaway benefit because it isnt scripted that way.
very late game, Austria wont have the army to maintain defending 12+ if not all 16 CSs (i usually play standard, so 16 is always how many i see). My army can actually take 3+ in a turn and since you are liberating you are getting a huge ally bonus for a decently long time, but still not enough that they couldnt buy it back with their 100k+ gold reserves. If, say, you are 6-9 turns from the next Diplo vote, and you can liberate roughly 2-3 per turn, a 10 turn restriction on buying them back would certainly let you get your diplo victory. Not to mention you might not be the only one doing it. AI civs could also liberate (if there is such decisions coded to allow for that).
This is about responding to the field of play at the hardest difficulties. Maybe you set out to get a culture victory but after seeing who the randomized civs were you have to fully shift gears to slow down a hugely advantaged Austria, well that gives you a plausible but still very challenging way to do it. Ive watched plenty of Let's Plays at deity level and I've never seen one human player get 100k+ gold reserves like some of the AI civs can. If you can do that, then props to your skills because this overpowering Austria is much easier for you to deal with.
Much of this conversation has been about how the AI handles it. It did turn into restrictions that you maybe projected onto what players deal with and thus the restrictions make it seem like they wouldn't be fun play AS but this is largely about them being no fun to play AGAINST as an AI. The coded advantages that they get at Immortal/Deity combined with their UA has created an exploit that I'm sure the developers didnt intend. That's why many here want them nerfed. What's funny is that a simple menu option to exclude certain AI civs but still keep the rest random would solve just about every complaint lodged in here.
EDIT: there is a massive storm in my area right now and power outtage/explosion is a liklihood so im gonna power down my comp and unplug til either later tonight or tomorrow. i await your response, haha. have a good day/evening til then.
very late game, Austria wont have the army to maintain defending 12+ if not all 16 CSs (i usually play standard, so 16 is always how many i see). My army can actually take 3+ in a turn and since you are liberating you are getting a huge ally bonus for a decently long time, but still not enough that they couldnt buy it back with their 100k+ gold reserves. If, say, you are 6-9 turns from the next Diplo vote, and you can liberate roughly 2-3 per turn, a 10 turn restriction on buying them back would certainly let you get your diplo victory. Not to mention you might not be the only one doing it. AI civs could also liberate (if there is such decisions coded to allow for that).
This is about responding to the field of play at the hardest difficulties. Maybe you set out to get a culture victory but after seeing who the randomized civs were you have to fully shift gears to slow down a hugely advantaged Austria, well that gives you a plausible but still very challenging way to do it. Ive watched plenty of Let's Plays at deity level and I've never seen one human player get 100k+ gold reserves like some of the AI civs can. If you can do that, then props to your skills because this overpowering Austria is much easier for you to deal with.
Much of this conversation has been about how the AI handles it. It did turn into restrictions that you maybe projected onto what players deal with and thus the restrictions make it seem like they wouldn't be fun play AS but this is largely about them being no fun to play AGAINST as an AI. The coded advantages that they get at Immortal/Deity combined with their UA has created an exploit that I'm sure the developers didnt intend. That's why many here want them nerfed. What's funny is that a simple menu option to exclude certain AI civs but still keep the rest random would solve just about every complaint lodged in here.
EDIT: there is a massive storm in my area right now and power outtage/explosion is a liklihood so im gonna power down my comp and unplug til either later tonight or tomorrow. i await your response, haha. have a good day/evening til then.
thadian
Kami of Awakened Dreamers
+10. this.
/end
elprofesor
Pluri-editing poster
The problem with Austria's UA is that it takes something from the other players in a deterministic, non-avoidable way.
Mayan's UA doesn't deprive you from something.
Egypt's UA might deprive you from a wonder, but that's something that is already built into the game, whether Egypt is in it or not, and you have ways to "fight" for wonders (beeline the tech, get a GE, chop down forests, etc.).
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other UA that both deprives you of something and that can't be avoided nor mended.
Ottomans' UA doesn't deprive you of something either, since any ship they gain is a ship that you would have lost anyway.
Songhaï's UA deprives you of gold if you lose one of your cities, and then again it's only gold, you can earn it back.
If you have an example, please share it.
While with Austria, you can lose permanently access to a strategic CS on which you had heavily invested, and you can't do anything to prevent it nor to mend it.
Erm, no. You can already declare war on Austria to prevent it from taking your CSs, and that's the only real possible defense against its UA. But it will only last as long as you are able to hold your own against Austrian army AND keep your allied CS allied to you, since as soon as they become only friends, Austria can sign peace with them, dump their treasury on them, then marry them, all in one turn.
You can do that, yet nobody is saying that Austria UA is pointless, "making Austria like the worst civilization in the game".
You wouldn't need to have any kind of cooldown on liberation of the CS to prevent Austria from claiming the CS back. If you liberated it, it means that you are at war with Austria, plus you have +200 influence with the CS, so it would be really unlikely that the liberator weren't allied to the CS afterwards for a long while, effectively denying Austria from claiming it back.
Personally, I believe that as long as we aren't able to raze CS (and that means reworking the diplomatic victory, at the very least), Austria's married CS should be able to be liberated. Basically, as long as Austria's UA is reversible, I'm OK with it.
HelloGoodbye123
Warlord
Two main problems exist then, "spam ability" on higher levels with AI and an irreversible process...
solution: balance the AI, not the human player
solution: What if we change how diplomatic victory works OR completely wipe out the diplomatic victory from the game, since it is the only victory that is quite easy to win, in its place we could replace it with a economic victory condition, which is what it really... is....THAT WAY, city states arent as important to actually "have" them in a game...
solution: balance the AI, not the human player
solution: What if we change how diplomatic victory works OR completely wipe out the diplomatic victory from the game, since it is the only victory that is quite easy to win, in its place we could replace it with a economic victory condition, which is what it really... is....THAT WAY, city states arent as important to actually "have" them in a game...
thadian
Kami of Awakened Dreamers
I like the above system of Egypts UA example.
What if when you captured an Egyptian city, all of the wonders were deleted and removed from the game instead of remaining in the city for the new owner? The UA would then assure:
a. You have better chance to get the wonder
b. Nobody else will ever own any wonder you build, no matter what.
This is a similar effect to current Austria - that the process:
1. can not be responded to by any means
2. can not be reversed by any means
This changes the game-state because every time they use their UA, it is not that they obtain a city without war - it's that when they lose that cityt, the conqueror can not choose to liberate.
Again - think if you conquered an egyptian wonder city and all the wonders exploded. This is not about a runaway AI - and i agree about "don't balance the player". This is about "Why can i liberate a city state conquered by Mongol but i can not liberate one married to austria?"
Why am i able to conquer the city at all? Doesn't my ability to conquer the city ruin austria UA? no? well, it doesn't ruin it for me to have a liberate option either.
What if when you captured an Egyptian city, all of the wonders were deleted and removed from the game instead of remaining in the city for the new owner? The UA would then assure:
a. You have better chance to get the wonder
b. Nobody else will ever own any wonder you build, no matter what.
This is a similar effect to current Austria - that the process:
1. can not be responded to by any means
2. can not be reversed by any means
This changes the game-state because every time they use their UA, it is not that they obtain a city without war - it's that when they lose that cityt, the conqueror can not choose to liberate.
Again - think if you conquered an egyptian wonder city and all the wonders exploded. This is not about a runaway AI - and i agree about "don't balance the player". This is about "Why can i liberate a city state conquered by Mongol but i can not liberate one married to austria?"
Why am i able to conquer the city at all? Doesn't my ability to conquer the city ruin austria UA? no? well, it doesn't ruin it for me to have a liberate option either.
I think a more practical solution than changing gold costs or adding a cooldown between marriages, is to make it so it takes more than just 60 influence and no one else having that. Make it so you have to have 100 influence more than anyone else, or something. That way, you could combat it by simply focusing on keeping influence up with all the city states you care about. It'd be much easier to keep within 100 influence of Austria, than to have to always be above them. It's just not plausible to always be ahead in influence with the nature of spy coups and city state quests.
It wouldn't fix the problem at higher difficulties. Have you seen what the AI does with its spies? It cheats so much that usually civs that go after city-states have 150+ influence than you on them. It is an elegant solution for human players abusing the system (which is frankly quite easy to do, even on Immortal) but not for the AI.
HelloGoodbye123
Warlord
you guys are talking about AI right?
apart from the liberation.. which could effect human players....
apart from the liberation.. which could effect human players....
They'd have to have 100+ on all AIs and you, not just on you. Unless they were the only AI going for the city state, it'd still slow them down. Obviously, you wouldn't be stopping them from getting any CSs at all, the goal is to make it so they can't get basically all of them if others chose to fight for it.
Mango Elephant
Deity
Does anyone know where I could recreate this scenario playing as Austria? I usually play King and I always win. I just think having all those cities around the globe makes for a cool looking map.
you could recreate this by marrying all the CSs, but in most of my games at least one get taken by war. youd then have to liberate it then marry it. probably not to the abusive pace/gold reserves they have but you can do it. i know i couldnt at immortal or deity but id love to see a lets play where someone did.
ggmoyang
Emperor
Time for give birth and grow princes/princesses?
prince_caspian
Prince
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2012
- Messages
- 452
Could be, the freaking spam, I mean notification(s) gives you the impression that every single man in Austria is worth a girl dying for. But I digress, there are indeed many beautiful
