how do you like the sound of this, HelloGoodbye?
The only way to liberate a married CS is through a spy action. The Spy action is similar to rigging a vote, taking 10 or 15 turns (but not on an automated schedule but from when you give the spy the order), called "Public Scandal" (logically reflecting something like an infidelity or mis-truth spread about Austria's princess--enough of an embarrassment to justify the separation) and only possible after the Printing Press was teched by the owner of the spy to further illustrate the logic of how the world would find out. It would renew their CS status and set them 30 into the negative following all normal CS relation rules after that. It would not make you any more favorable with them and would set you back with Austria. If they can buy them again that's fine. And if Austria needs to prevent you from doing that they would have to place their own spy there to try and kill them.
So you are saying that after I have successfully married a city by paying gold, and its not always the set 500g, remember we have to be allies, and sometimes enemy have higher influence, so after all that, that as easy as a spy can take away an entire city and liberate it? I could have my own spy sure, but it would simply restrict my austrian spy from performing anything else, it would leave my real cities vulnerable to spies, and the cs im trying to coup would be less effective since I wouldnt be trying to coup, I'd be trying to save the one city i spend lots on resources for to not completely get converted back to a city state...
I dont see that as a solution, If i was playing Austria, I would never want to even buy a city state ever again, or i would place a bunch of military units by it to reconquer it super fast..
Every game I've ever played that has had the Iroquis, they are the runaway. Always. I've kept track ever since I started to notice this pattern. It even happens post G&K, yet I don't complain about their swordsmen not requiring Iron or any of their other features. Austria being able to buy City-States is strong, sure. But she's really no stronger than any of the other Civs. This is Emperor/Immortal.
In the OP's case, he's playing as Siam vs Austria. This is like the worst case scenario for him. It gets even worse because he had no City-States spawn near him nor did he even scout most of the map. That's just bad after bad.
I've never had trouble playing against Austria in any of my games and she has been in plenty.
I always thought the iroqouis were a bit cheap in vanilla, because in MP I always appeared next to them, so I rushed to iron working, and in the meantime built around 4-6 jaguars(as aztecs) and once i got iron working, i needed to go mine the iron, he didnt, he just had to upgrade his warriors, and then he came with full force.. but I never complained, because it is their unique ability, sets them apart from other civs. and can be stopped.
Sure, why not. They can perfectly think of adopting Freedom while torturing captives and drinking their guts and whatever, why not that.
OK, sarcastic jabs aside.
There really should be an option to liberate a married CS. The main problem with Austria's UA is that the CSes they marry is lost FOREVER (they can never be CSes again, just a normal city). The description is that they can "annex or puppet" and we can all do that with other civs but every other civ in the game can liberate them back.
The reason I dont want liberation is beacause Austria can buy it once more, and that would just do nothing...
no other civ has a UA that can completely remove a victory condition from the game.
Not completely true, in my experience, buying cs isnt an easy process, by the end of the game i buy around 50% of the city states. by the end I mean like the whole tech tree completed.
There is still city states left, and as Austria i focus heavily on gold, creating merchants etc, if you were to actually go for a diplomacy victory, it would backfire on you, simply because diplomatic tends to really be an economic victory, and as Austria I could just Ally every single city state with my economic power, not even marrying them, that would be a cheaper process.
An AI Austrian player yes, it might gobble up maybe all the city states, but has it conquered them all in your games? Also, it is a harder level, it is suppose to be challenging, even if greeks were in such level, they wouldnt "destroy" a victory condition, but for them getting those city states would be a LOT easier, and in a way full proof eliminating the diplomacy condition.. ever thought about that?
Question about Austria, too lazy to read back.
Do you get all their units and buildings with the marriage? I remember one time I got like 2 horseman from the annexation. Needless to say 2 horseman alone was more than 500 gold, and to get a 8 populated city with market and library was probably the most broken thing I've abused with a UA.
Yes, they get the whole deal, but if you think about it, its not broken because it is an "advantage" .. if it were say a free settler, for 500g, that wouldnt be a bonus.. and also, in this case you are forgetting Austria has to be allied with the cs first, even when allied you might not want to join a city with 10 pop, to your already -2 happiness level.. so there is balancing going on right there.. also, adding buildings/units maintenance cost greatly decreases the amount of gold you are making excess. And people arent complaining about that feature, they are talking about liberation..
