Austria starting tips

[Sape]

I have played civ v for some time now (got the BNW and gold edition from steam sale) and I got to ask that have you guys any tips for Austria? I am thinking about to start a long domination game whit Austria but I have few questions releted to it.
1 Wich are the best starting policys? Patronage and commerance are obvious choice for later but I am asking that should I pick up tradition and tall ( build 4 citys and start to buy CS) or liberty and wide (build lots of citys and buy CS) play style? Or mix them like some from the tradition and some from the liberty?
2 When should I start to buying CS? Should I just start to saving up the money or wait for later that CS have more buildings, units etc?
3 Should I pick up religion and if so what to in it? (beliefes from pantheon to religion)
4 What ideology should I choose? The Autocracy looks really good for the military bonuses but the Freedom has lot of tents for CS. Wich is the best?
5 Can you tell me some pitfalls to avoid?

 

[joncnunn]

1. If you want to use your UA; full patronage doesn't really help Austria. Best time to marry a city state is when it has 61 to 65 influence. The only thing it has worthwhile is Consulates. (Being at higher base influence making it more likely a quest will bring you to ally status for a few turns)

Commerce has a useless policy (the one increasing carvan gold; cargo ships provide 2X the gold as caravans) Even worse it has a counter productive policy (the one increasing Great Merchant spawn rate, which due to shared increased threshold with GS and GE slows down Great Scientists.

Best is standard Tradition + Rationalism. Tradition's 50% unhappiness reduction in the capital with dwarf Liberty's 1 per city even if you marry a lot of city states and conquer a lot of cities. Going domination, use science to get more advanced troops faster. (Liberty is for self founding a lot of cities wide; not conquering wide nor marrying wide)

Some great filler policies for Austria is Exploration opener + the first right side one (Happiness in sea buildings; most city states are coastal)

2. By far, the most cost effective way to marry city states is pledge to protect them to fufill a quest that brings you to 65 influence. That is going to be game specific. Sometimes you can get them early (quest to take out a barb camp from your closest city state and the barbs have also stolen that city state's worker.)
Note that Austria can annex former city states on turn 1 if you want to. (No resistance)

3. Either conquering wide or marrying wide makes founding a religion very beneficial for happiness. Doing both it makes one needed. Best pantheon belief is usually one that provides a lot of early faith to speed up founding a religion. And the best happiness belief from religion is the one providing 2 happiness in every city with your religion (& Temples). Note though that if you have overseas cities a long way from your core empire, that you may have difficulty both getting them to follow your religion and defending the religion from the AI.

4. Going for domination would also tend to lead to Autocracy as the ideology.
On tenets from city states; When you marry a city state; it's no longer considered a city state. Freedom only has one anyway (it's great for diplomatic victory; not so good otherwise)

5. Don't neglect science; science is king and needed for all forms of victory, including Domination.
AI founds a lot of junk cities; raze the ones that are useless instead of keeping them.

 

[sendos]

1. As Jon stated, only get the first 1-2 policies in patronage and forget the rest of patronage. You could open commerce to get the discount policy, along with caravan policy to halve road maintenance costs, which grows rapidly as you annex new cities. As for starting policy, it all depends on available room. You'll have to follow liberty to meritocracy eventually if you're going for domination because the happiness bonus from city connections and -5% unhappiness reduction really helps later in game.

2. Preferably later in game so that you don't have to waste gold upgrading their obsolete units. Only exception I can think of is natural wonders within their land, especially Fountain of Youth. It's best to save up the money. Once you have piled up lots of gold late in game, provided you have enough happiness, you could buy out multiple allied CS' at once which effectively gives you a free army along with those cities.

3. If you're going to pick up a religion, get tithe, pagodas, bonus happiness from temples and just war. You could mix around a bit though. It's up to you. However, if you are definitely aiming for religion, they usually are all taken by turn 150, so you might have to get stonehenge.

4. In the case of domination, autocracy is very much ideal. Save the attack bonus later in game, especially when you encounter tough resistance. Get gunboat diplomacy ASAP and bully CS' into allying with you. Use spies + industrial espionage to steal techs rapidly, but it's best to put them in your opponent's 2nd or 3rd best cities, as the AI does use counter-spies a lot. For T2 tenets, make sure 2 of them are police state and the +2 happiness from military buildings to insure you against excess unhappiness.

5. As well as focusing on science, do not neglect tourism. AI does tend to choose order and if you lack the cultural pressure, you won't be able to maintain your ideology. In turn, you'd be forced to adopt Order, which boosts internal development of cities and enables you to get free courthouses when capturing cities but not your military units. You must also remember that buying CS' with diplomatic marriage will reduce your WC votes when you need them the most.

 

[WideCoast]

Hey!

Pls, don't smack me, but I have no clue yet how I'm going to win Playing Austria and I went Trad for a start and shooted for that +gold -unhappiness policy and got sailing&animalhusbandry pretty quickly and got two ships to trade (which I usually lack tbh) then I founded a second city near river for guilds+garden+coffee house, good or bad idea? Then I noticed that I could marry a CS, which I did and took the ones with Luxuries I didn't have. I found myself with a lot of troops so I went and took Harald's capitol with Colossus+other WW's and other city with great barrier reef and then I married a few more CS with a lux I didn't have and one in between my current cities to "connect" my empire.

The thing is after I finished the Tradition I have no idea what to shoot for? Maybe patronage for easier marrying? Open Commerce for that +25% gold bonus and -road maintenance after it? and then Explo till I can put opener and 2policies to rat before ideologies?

 

[Calouste]

Commerce has a useless policy (the one increasing carvan gold; cargo ships provide 2X the gold as caravans) Even worse it has a counter productive policy (the one increasing Great Merchant spawn rate, which due to shared increased threshold with GS and GE slows down Great Scientists.

Not every game starts with your capital on the coast, or has a secondary city on the coast that can grow large and has a lot of resources.

Great Merchants are pretty useful for Austria, marrying a city state generates a lot more science than an Academy.

 

[joncnunn]

Not every game starts with your capital on the coast, or has a secondary city on the coast that can grow large and has a lot of resources.

Great Merchants are pretty useful for Austria, marrying a city state generates a lot more science than an Academy.

Venice is the civ that needs Great Merchants to buy city states; not Austria.
Austria typically needs between 600 & 800 gold. (City states costing less than 600 don't have much military present; I've seen higher counts than 800 for city states with a lot of military units but it's uncommon)
Fulfill city state quests to get to allied (combined with the base of 25 from Consulates + pledge to protect) to save the cash for marriage.
Using a spy to become allied just long enough to marry them also works great.

 

[KmDubya]

With Austria I'd look to start with either tradition or liberty based on number of nearby luxuries. Expand normally, if I found a good faith generating religion look to take full piety. If coastal then the top two exploration policies are good picks for the hammers and the happy. The top of commerce left side and then down to the cheaper buy policy combined with big ben. Then on to Autocracy for cash rush super units, massive happy and gunboat diplomacy.

Basically I seek to maximize my gold and happy so that in the mid to late game I can marry any or all the city states that I want. Let the city states build most of the infrastructure and military that you need, no reason to marry one super early unless Venice is in the game, or the location is unbeatable.

Patronage helps when you want to have allies, as Austria you want to marry. Better to put your picks in policies that give you happy or gold to facilitate your marrying.

 

[Calouste]

Venice is the civ that needs Great Merchants to buy city states; not Austria.
Austria typically needs between 600 & 800 gold. (City states costing less than 600 don't have much military present; I've seen higher counts than 800 for city states with a lot of military units but it's uncommon)
Fulfill city state quests to get to allied (combined with the base of 25 from Consulates + pledge to protect) to save the cash for marriage.
Using a spy to become allied just long enough to marry them also works great.

I didn't say Austria needs Great Merchants, I said they were pretty useful. 30 influence plus a pile of gold is quite handy, as you won't always get quests that you can fulfill with the city states you want.

 

[joncnunn]

I didn't say Austria needs Great Merchants, I said they were pretty useful. 30 influence plus a pile of gold is quite handy, as you won't always get quests that you can fulfill with the city states you want.

I'd just use spies. It's fairly easy to get 85% odds of a successful coup after one of your spies has been promoted to secret agent.

 

[Calouste]

I'd just use spies. It's fairly easy to get 85% odds of a successful coup after one of your spies has been promoted to secret agent.

You can get a GM a lot earlier than you can get a spy.

 

[paralistalon]

Ive done a domination victory with Austria before. I think diplomatic marriage really shines on a continents map. You can buy a base of operations on the other continent late game, and the free troops help to establish your presence.

 

[SULOMON]

Ive done a domination victory with Austria before. I think diplomatic marriage really shines on a continents map. You can buy a base of operations on the other continent late game, and the free troops help to establish your presence.

Quite useful on continents as you said but it is awesome on terra. Austria can take over the other continent on terra quite easily compared to other civs.

As for Austria strategy, no one seems to be mentioning the Hussar and Coffee house. Hussar is quite mobile and nice for flanking. Hussar+Artillery=Win. The Coffeee House increases GP points which mostly comes from specialists which favors a tall empire.
Austria favors a tradition tall empire with lots of puppets but it is easily possible to go wide if one desires.
As for Patronage just get consulates. As for religion founding do so if you like, will help getting city states depending on what beliefs you pick and just in general.

 

[tat501]

Yeah Austria is best played tall with a real focus on getting your GPT up and running. Get rich and marry your way to victory.

Last victory I had with them was a cultural victory actually. I married big CS's and filled their musesums etc with works of art generated by my coffee house fuelled artists and writers - I used the Hussars to simply keep anyone from getting to jealous. The key to getting a lot of GP obviously is to go tall so you can work those specialist slots for as long as possible, as early as possible. Working banks etc also makes you wealthy and then lets you get Great Merchants which are very good for Austria for either planting down into a customs house for the GPT so you can buy some friends later - or for getting a nice lump sum and some influence instantly to let you marry them 5 turns later.

 

[joncnunn]

You can get a GM a lot earlier than you can get a spy.

You get your first spy simply from anyone entering the reanance era (doesn't even have to be you). Since the AI loves to spy against you so much; chances are it will be promoted to secret agent before the industrial era.
You really only need 1 secret agent to max out your chances of successful coups; especially as Austria where you just marry any ally your at risk of losing and so don't need to leave a spy to defend against AI attempting to bribe them.

 

[Calouste]

You get your first spy simply from anyone entering the reanance era (doesn't even have to be you). Since the AI loves to spy against you so much; chances are it will be promoted to secret agent before the industrial era.
You really only need 1 secret agent to max out your chances of successful coups; especially as Austria where you just marry any ally your at risk of losing and so don't need to leave a spy to defend against AI attempting to bribe them.

Yes, but you can get your first Great Merchant about 40 turns after you research a Classical era tech. Which is before the Renaissance. And you can actually do both.