Austria Wide or ultra wide

[andersw]

I've played this twice on different patches with huge success on emperor epic speed standard size no venice and wanted to share.
The idea is to gradually control more and more city states and at the same time have a warmachine that rolls over AI after AI.
The machine if fuelled by citystates alliances, extreme religious pressure/domination and later industry, all the while drowning in gold.
I can see this be even stronger on large/huge maps as my power on ALL fronts, science, faith, gold etc skyrocketed with empire growth.

Policys
Authority - > Statecraft -> Industry.
Statecraft provides a lot of extra happiness, strategic resources and even monopolies from citystates and important extra yields from quests.
The right path on industry (Division of labor and mercantilism) provides insane yields in late game for a wide empire, with a lot of conqered cities buildings alone can provide more science than the empire base yields/turn.
You may need to go for early Archeology before Rifling depending on how fast your wars go, very wide empires tend to need that happiness from digs, that helps you to go right side of industry.

Religion
I like to open Stonehenge, this is probably optional.
God of commerce -> Council of elders + Cathedrals, thrift is an option but you ideally want the building for early pressure, and you need gold for city state marriages.
Enhance with Orthodoxy and optional (synagoges or thrift are excellent options).
Reform crusader spirit (you want a warmachine going).
Orthodoxy works in tandem with Council of elders and statecraft (trade routes to city states).

Council of elders provide a lot of science and is a HUGE hammer pump for wonders, emissaries and other things needed in capital. While it caps at 20 cities and is strongest in medieval it keeps giving yields that are valuable for a long time after that.
You want to get marriages going as soon as possible.
The Austrian +50% yields from city quests are VERY big and works in tandem with Statecraft "Foreign Service", this includes unit exp from city capture quests.
With religious power and city state control you will have enough votes to easily stop any proposals that could hurt you, you will sooner or later even be able to vote in your religion after spreading to vassals (if you have any) in the late game.

Problems
If you choose to have venice (I don't because of him not claiming any land and the balance issues this cause) that can easily mess up the game.
A snowball Mongol can remove citystates and make your game be a lot harder.
Greece and Germany on the other hand, while strong statecraft civs can in the end be entirely removed if needed but as direct neighbours especially greece can be an issue.
(There are of course other problems like someone stealing your optimal religious beliefs, getting early ganked by Persia and stuff like that.)

 

[Omen of Peace]

Do you know that Venice now can settle 3 additional puppet cities? Though I suspect on playing on Large or larger, in which case perhaps it's not enough.
I can confirm they can be a (good/challenging) pain: they were my main rival in my last Austria game! I had to grow my army to liberate the CS they were puppeting.

Your combos are very different from how I play, so it's quite interesting:
- Authority + Stonehenge: I go for early unit production with Authority
- God of commerce for Authority Austria: I would take Commerce mostly with Progress, and with civ with easily established connections (Carthage, Iroquois)

 

[andersw]

Do you know that Venice now can settle 3 additional puppet cities? Though I suspect on playing on Large or larger, in which case perhaps it's not enough.
I can confirm they can be a (good/challenging) pain: they were my main rival in my last Austria game! I had to grow my army to liberate the CS they were puppeting.

Your combos are very different from how I play, so it's quite interesting:
- Authority + Stonehenge: I go for early unit production with Authority
- God of commerce for Authority Austria: I would take Commerce mostly with Progress, and with civ with easily established connections (Carthage, Iroquois)

I wont say this is the best setup possible but my reasoning...
Authority allows for purchase of landsknechts at steel and well a lot of warmongering is intended and the yields from unit kills and city captures are far better than alternatives when playing agressive.
Stonehenge, well its a very good wonder, early engineer points (which are few as authority), instant pantheon with prebuilt council.
I purchase all early units as authority (build max 1) but there is a delicate balance here as Austria depending on city state relations as I always prio the first marriages.
Alternatively you can build one early units in satellite cities after shrine (religion is key).
Commerce because of gold value, it provides yields in capital at first settle before roads are done and the long term scaling is very nice.

The difference in what early quests and what type of city states are close can make the early game vary a bit.

 

[MarvelOfRain]

Very interesting strategy. I am not convinced personally about choosing Authority as Austria since you don't take full advantage of the extra gp generation rate. That said you probably need to go wide and play a bit aggressively when focusing on city-states and Tradition does not help much there.

I am currently trying out really similar strategy on Immortal as Germany - go wide, same social policies and use the city-state yields + Hansa to roll over ai's.