Austria Review - Unique Abillity, highly exploitable?

[Adder]

Bella gerant aliī, tū fēlix Austria nūbe/ Nam quae Mars aliīs, dat tibi regna Venus

"Let others wage war, but thou, O happy Austria, marry; for those kingdoms which Mars gives to others, Venus gives to thee."

I still think Maximilian I should've been the austrian leader.

 

[Bad Wolf]

Perhaps every civ should have the ability to do a diplomatic marriage for a large amount of gold, but Austria gets -50% on the cost?

 

[chazzycat]

i suppose the upside is you can invade the cities they take without suffering CS warmonger hate.

 

[Cicero63]

Ok I have been trying to play as Austria lately, but every time I try I get horrible starting locations-I mean horrible. Every terrain doesn't make sense, most of the time its either in a desert or a jungle.
Has anyone else got this?

 

[Bad Wolf]

Instead of increasing cost they should nerf it another way.

I think you should be allied for X turns before you could use the ability. This would give other civs a chance to counter it as well.

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This.

 

[Txurce]

I'm not sure why I see a lot people saying how great this UA is and already talking about nerfing. Did you forget you can very, very easily just conquer city states? This is like the economic version of the Mongolia UA, which is probably more useful than the Mongolia one because CS are so easy to kill.

There are also a few posts from people saying Austria didn't kick butt in their games. But because it has done well in some games, people who have yet to see Austria in action 4-5 times already think a complex trait (this is not the battering ram) needs nerfing. I would suggest doing the opposite of Randall Flagg and playing with it over an extended period before jumping to the easy conclusion.

 

[Veneke]

Another question - has anyone experienced Austria buying up a City State out from under another Civ and marrying into it on the same turn, or is that even possible?

 

[Colonel Travis]

I would suggest doing the opposite of Randall Flagg and playing with it over an extended period before jumping to the easy conclusion.

I'd agree with you on this point about most things in life. But in the case of this particular leader, zan_laurin said he used the exploit six times in a 700ish-turn game, which is a tad less than 1 per 100 turns. To me, that sounds incredibly powerful not necessarily because of how many CSs you can get but because:

1.) You can do it anywhere on the map
2.) You don't suffer the takeover penalties (except when I did it and I still can't figure out how I got stuck with a bunch of unhappiness)
3.) You don't suffer army damage
4.) You get all the crap in the city

Probably other reasons I can't think of as I'm typing this, but the only thing standing in your way is money. Conversely, if Austria is AI it can totally ruin the revamped CS concept. Guess you could say you yourself can ruin the revamped CS concept by playing as Austria, but you're getting a ton more benefits than if you relied on CSs to reward you intermittently, so unless you're a purist to the Nth degree about not ruining revamped concepts in general, you'd overlook that. All these reasons are evident after playing once with Austria, you don't need to play it any more than that to see if it doesn't hold true.

I don't allow Austria in the game unless I'm playing Austria. In fact, I'm tempted to do what Randall Flagg did and remove it completely because it is genuinely lopsided.

 

[King Kalmah]

I was landlocked and I used it to acquire a port city. It's pretty nice for overcoming starting bias handicaps.

Thats amazingly close to what they did in RL....or tried to do...

 

[Txurce]

But in the case of this particular leader, zan_laurin said he used the exploit six times in a 700ish-turn game, which is a tad less than 1 per 100 turns. To me, that sounds incredibly powerful not necessarily because of how many CSs you can get but because...

It's powerful, but picking up six cities over the course of a game that aren't partly pillaged and don't need a courthouse (but did cost a lot of gold)is similar to conquering those cities, pillaging them for gold, and buying courthouses plus key buildings with the gold you saved not marrying them. The difference is waiting for resistance to die down. I see that as a very powerful UA, but not one that makes the entire civ OP.

Probably other reasons I can't think of as I'm typing this, but the only thing standing in your way is money.

That's a big one, and they probably won't have the gold early in the game. Throw in that Austria is not expansionary and has no early UUs or UBs, and it may explain why neither of the next two statements is conclusively true:

Conversely, if Austria is AI it can totally ruin the revamped CS concept.

All these reasons are evident after playing once with Austria, you don't need to play it any more than that to see if it doesn't hold true.

As you may have noticed in the posts above, the UA has not been a patch-worthy problem for the players who say AI Austria did not dominate their games.

I could add that the revamped CS concept would still work even in a game with a strong Austria, although it would become increasingly more limited. Certainly a diplomatic victory would be just as possible - there would just be fewer votes.

Of course, I could be wrong about a lot of this, and after playing in games with Austria maybe half a dozen times, I may wind up agreeing with the need for a nerf. But the idea of ruling a civ out of the game because I think it's OP in theory? Let's just say we have different philosophies about game-playing!

 

[zan_laurin]

[...]But in the case of this particular leader, zan_laurin said he used the exploit six times in a 700ish-turn game, which is a tad less than 1 per 100 turns. [...]

That was just the original post, 700 turns meant till ~1400 AD in my marathon game. I started buying CS maybe on turn 300-ish cant remember. Let me put it in other more relative terms:

As soon as I was generating about 10% of the cost of a settler per turn, I could afford chain buying City States. one every 15-20 turns! That's the same time frame for researching 1 tech.(marathon speed again)
The diplomatic marriage cost itself seems to be 110% the price of rushing a settler.

When i wrote the original post it was 7 bought CS, at this point I have 16 out of 20 because some had crappy terrain feature and I didn't bother. I could have easily bought one every 20 turns if I wanted to, instead i focused on rushing buildings and generally making a stronger empire. Also consider that I often delayed buying CS till the moment I considered them being sufficiently ripe.

 

[lacheyenne]

I say nerf it by increasing cost based on distance from capital.
2 birds, 1 stone. Stop them from running away and keep it historically (somewhat) accurate.

Yes, that's a good idea Heinage, but is their UA really that bad?

I mean, they still DO have consequences having that as their UA, don't they?

To actually be able to use their unique ability, they have to save up all their money and do those side quests. They cannot immediately go on a rampage and buy city-states at the start of the game as there isn't enough money yet and they have to save up thousands just to be allies, meaning their UA only gets to be in full power later on in the game.

Focusing on economy and the side quests then puts them in a vulnerable position because they have to sacrifice buying units or buildings and such, and would greatly affect them in war.

Futhermore, having to buy off city-states puts them in a very bad diplomatic position with other civs, which could incite more denouncing and wars against them. So I reckon Austria having this ability does not necessarily make them too powerful for the game.

But that's just an opinion!

 

[stealth_nsk]

I see quite different things here. Could anyone confirm what CS joined with Austria ability can't be released? If they can, Austria isn't worse for CS-lovers than Genghiz.

If they really can't be released, I think that's the only thing which needs to be fixed.

 

[smallfish]

They are extremely vulnerable in the early game to sword rushing; the problem comes when they have a whole continent to develop into mid/lategame powerhouse.

 

[SmileyMan]

How about a simple nerf - have the ability only available when you have Monarchy as an active policy, forcing Austria to rush Monarchy at the expense of other more useful policies. And have the ability disabled once any player reaches the Modern era?

So the ability is just as powerful, but only for a limited period, making playing Austria a fantastically different experience, but without breaking the whole game.

 

[Cymsdale]

How about a simple nerf - have the ability only available when you have Monarchy as an active policy, forcing Austria to rush Monarchy at the expense of other more useful policies. And have the ability disabled once any player reaches the Modern era?

So the ability is just as powerful, but only for a limited period, making playing Austria a fantastically different experience, but without breaking the whole game.

I don't like the idea of forcing a civ to choose a particular policy in order to make use of their UA (note, this is different than having to choose a policy in order to get the full potential out of your UA..)

Having it turn off at a certain technology makes sense though, and there is precedence for that with Napoleon.

I think it's too early to say if it it overpowered as it is, but I do think that civs that are brought into marriages should be able to be liberated. It's not the power of the UA that bothers me, it's the permanency.

 

[André Alfenaar]

I suppose the downside of marrying a citystate is that:
1. It counts against the progress of social policies (if annexed)
2. It's population costs global happiness.
3. One looses the benefit of the city state as an ally (extra culture, food, ...)

So probably Austria should only marry citystates that it otherwise would have conquered.

And: 1500 is a lot of money. Probably it is cheaper to keep the CS just as an ally by doing quests or maybe invest a little money every now and then.

 

[headcase]

I see quite different things here. Could anyone confirm what CS joined with Austria ability can't be released? If they can, Austria isn't worse for CS-lovers than Genghiz.

If they really can't be released, I think that's the only thing which needs to be fixed.

The city state completely ceases to exist (and thus can't be liberated).

I think that part of it makes enough sense, would rather see a 3 turn delay after allying (or at least 1 turn) before marriage becomes available.

 

[ezysquire]

I say nerf it by increasing cost based on distance from capital.
2 birds, 1 stone. Stop them from running away and keep it historically (somewhat) accurate.

agree! good work fellow kiwi

 

[Light Cleric]

Can anyone confirm how much gold it costs to get a city on Standard pace? I'm guessing the price might be different than on Marathon.

Regardless, the fact that even if you liberate the city you can't turn it back into a normal CS seems kinda dumb.