Austria

[Owlbebach]

Would you rate them top 10? I wouldn't. I didn't claim they sucked or even were below average, only that they're balanced correctly as-is.

Well Austria is definitely in a good spot

 

[Stalker0]

I'm not hearing a strong call out for change on Austria. I think we still with the F rule, if it ain't F, lets not change it.

 

[Paramecium]

I don't even understand how some people can complain about Austria which is balanced around the fact that she starts with litteraly no bonus. Everything need to be strong, UB is renaissance, UU is renaissance. the UA is ultra random, early on (hard sometimes to reach the barbarian camp or build a wonder with no early bonus ). And if you play at the right level, you will have to wait in order to get any benefit from it because you won't be able to get free influence from early wonder or early gp.

I am really really against any nerf against austria. We are talking about balancing the game around the one game experience in king Epic.

What will it be next time ? we will nerf celt because in settler marathon, you are able to win domination in ancient era ?

Excuse me? I never said that Austria is OP and needs instant nerfing. I said, that the UA is very luck luster. To get 10 alliances all over the world on higher difficulties is highly AI depending, the less AI focusing City States, the easier it is. And yeah, I wanted to have an easy game and yes, Austria is very good for a DV. But if you can manage to get 10 marriages on what difficulty ever, your tradition capital is just exploding in GP. It can come quite late, but I wouldnt say that ALL boni of Austria are THAT late. Like tu-79 mentioned, your first marriages are quite cheap. And it gets your ball rolling. Babylon gets what? 60% in all city, but just for scientists? But in most cases, the great people of that game are born in tradition capitals. And you just need 4 marriages to get the same boost just in your capital, but for ALL great persons.

Sure, Austria is very luck luster, it can get a good boost in the early game, if you are lucky with the city state quest and your surroundings (terrain + neighbours). But I never said it is top 10. Im actually quite tempted to try it on higher difficulties, because that needs more focus, but I just wanted to have an easy game, but I didnt expect those results...

... so I indirectly asked other peoples about there experiences with Austria and yes, Austria AI is not that often the runaway...

 

[tu_79]

Excuse me? I never said that Austria is OP and needs instant nerfing. I said, that the UA is very luck luster. To get 10 alliances all over the world on higher difficulties is highly AI depending, the less AI focusing City States, the easier it is. And yeah, I wanted to have an easy game and yes, Austria is very good for a DV. But if you can manage to get 10 marriages on what difficulty ever, your tradition capital is just exploding in GP. It can come quite late, but I wouldnt say that ALL boni of Austria are THAT late. Like tu-79 mentioned, your first marriages are quite cheap. And it gets your ball rolling. Babylon gets what? 60% in all city, but just for scientists? But in most cases, the great people of that game are born in tradition capitals. And you just need 4 marriages to get the same boost just in your capital, but for ALL great persons.

Sure, Austria is very luck luster, it can get a good boost in the early game, if you are lucky with the city state quest and your surroundings (terrain + neighbours). But I never said it is top 10. Im actually quite tempted to try it on higher difficulties, because that needs more focus, but I just wanted to have an easy game, but I didnt expect those results...

... so I indirectly asked other peoples about there experiences with Austria and yes, Austria AI is not that often the runaway...

Funny that you mention it. Austria is the current runaway in my game. And I'm playing Babylon, btw. Babylon other strength is the bonus for investing in buildings, not negligible. Someone claimed that Tradition Babylon no longer works and I wanted to see it by myself.

Gengis is in the game, so some CS have been already lost to Austria, but she's absolutely dominating the world congress, leading in everything but tourism (that's me). Austria has a medium sized continent for herself, so it's not that easy to go and cripple her.

 

[chicorbeef]

I think Austria is crazy strong, you just need to use it right. In particular Austria is the only unique civ that plays Tourism starting with Authority instead of Tradition.

Authority? I always assumed that they're better off with Tradition-Statecraft-Industry.

 

[CrazyG]

Authority? I always assumed that they're better off with Tradition-Statecraft-Industry.

Tradition isn't wrong but authority is a great option. The challenge with Austria is not dieing early game, followed by being able to win city states and spend gold on the marriage. Authority's produciton and aggressive tools make these good options. Authority can be nice so you can do things like fight the Mongols or Venice to liberate city states.

In the end of the game if you have +300% great people in your capital, you will probably win a tourism victory regardless of tradition or authority. Provided you don't win via diplomacy first.

 

[Owlbebach]

Authority? I always assumed that they're better off with Tradition-Statecraft-Industry.

Yeah, as CrazyG said Austria has such a massive boost to Great People generation that you don't need Tradition. What you need is to survive until Renaissance and this is why you take Authority.

 

[hr_oskar]

Good points about not necessarily needing to take tradition as Austria. I'd prefer progress over authority though, unless my starting location really favors the latter. I find that tradition Austria's problem is that it is weak during the T50 - T150 period and then is too gold starved to get the marriages going fast. I don't need authority to "survive" - I can survive with any choice of policies - but I want to enter the renaissance in good shape and so far I've been finding that quite hard with tradition. I haven't tried progress yet but it holds the promise of a better gold income and more early tech to have a chance at nice things like the Roman Forum.

 

[pza]

Good points about not necessarily needing to take tradition as Austria. I'd prefer progress over authority though, unless my starting location really favors the latter. I find that tradition Austria's problem is that it is weak during the T50 - T150 period and then is too gold starved to get the marriages going fast. I don't need authority to "survive" - I can survive with any choice of policies - but I want to enter the renaissance in good shape and so far I've been finding that quite hard with tradition. I haven't tried progress yet but it holds the promise of a better gold income and more early tech to have a chance at nice things like the Roman Forum.

I agree. I like progress alot, but I can imagine that the downside is that progress is rather tailored towards wide empires. So is authority to a smaller degree. That's when tradition comes back to the table.

On the other hand, diplomatic victories tend to come easier with vassals, and here's where authority has its real value.

 

[hr_oskar]

I agree. I like progress alot, but I can imagine that the downside is that progress is rather tailored towards wide empires. So is authority to a smaller degree. That's when tradition comes back to the table.

On the other hand, diplomatic victories tend to come easier with vassals, and here's where authority has its real value.

The way I see it, you're likely to go wide at some point regardless of which policy tree you start with -- a lot of the wide-friendly bonuses in progress and authority don't scale with era and therefore become relatively less relevant later on. Progress is just early wide as opposed to tradition's staying tall early. Also I can do plenty of conquering and getting vassals regardless of which ancient tree I pick -- authority just rewards me more for fighting so I see choosing it as saying that I'm expecting to fight a lot (all the time ideally).

Basically I find progress the most flexible early on, which probably suits Austria's game plan well.

 

[CrazyG]

The way I see it, you're likely to go wide at some point regardless of which policy tree you start with -- a lot of the wide-friendly bonuses in progress and authority don't scale with era and therefore become relatively less relevant later on. Progress is just early wide as opposed to tradition's staying tall early. Also I can do plenty of conquering and getting vassals regardless of which ancient tree I pick -- authority just rewards me more for fighting so I see choosing it as saying that I'm expecting to fight a lot (all the time ideally).

Basically I find progress the most flexible early on, which probably suits Austria's game plan well.

10% production towards buildings isn't wide friendly? The 10 food/culture for building a building gets really gross after it scales enough times. Buildings end up being worth more food/culture than they costed hammers. The happiness is also the strongest long term for bigger empires.

If you want mid game CS allies, you generally need to be willinging to fight offensive wars. Progress or authority make that easier. I find if you do get a religion with something like tradition and freedom, eventually you will ally almost all CS (or at least friend all of them) because late game you start to complete all the quests really easily. 10 influence per great person from freedom is a very good policy, and it stacks with to the glory of god (which is amazing regardless of this synergy)

 

[chicorbeef]

The way I see it, you're likely to go wide at some point regardless of which policy tree you start with.

That isn't how I typically play Tradition.

 

[Heavy Q]

In my Austria games I find gold to be the limiting reagent to diplomarriages, since you'll get boatloads of influence from the +50% rewards. I generally prioritize not falling behind in early/mid game as Austria though, so a lot of gold goes to keeping up with the neighbours on military/infrastructure, otherwise you get a lot of unwanted aggro, at least on Immortal.

I would also add perhaps thinking about balancing Austria in comparison to similar civs like Siam. I'm probably not alone in thinking Austria blows Siam out of the water in terms of diplo victory/playstyle.

 

[peterw1987]

Austria is not progress oriented? You will never accumulate enough gold to marry CS with tradition.(unless your religion all focus on gold generating belief). In recent VP challenge, I never even think of picking tradition because of no gold benefit policy.

 

[tu_79]

Austria is not progress oriented? You will never accumulate enough gold to marry CS with tradition.(unless your religion all focus on gold generating belief). In recent VP challenge, I never even think of picking tradition because of no gold benefit policy.

On the other hand, marriages give Austria an oustanding bonus for GP generation, so going Tradition Austria, even if you don't get as many marriages as Progress Austria, you pump out great people like crazy. You can't hold alliances for long, but you don't need it. You'll be placing more embassies than any other civ.

 

[Grabbl]

On the other hand, marriages give Austria an oustanding bonus for GP generation, so going Tradition Austria, even if you don't get as many marriages as Progress Austria, you pump out great people like crazy. You can't hold alliances for long, but you don't need it. You'll be placing more embassies than any other civ.

Tradition is definitely a viable choice for Austria. Your extra GP generation comes in the capital, so less food for specialists and additional specialists has great synergy. And it is perfectly possible to gather money for CS marriages with tradition, I think (though I admit that with tradition-Austria, I usually pick at least one gold-generating belief).

 

[chicorbeef]

I've never had problems with enough gold for marriages on Austria with a Tradition-Statecraft build (Industry makes it even more awesome), even without gold beliefs. Allying the CS soon enough and maintaining them seems to me to be the bigger block.

I think it just depends on your game though, and I think Austria is a versatile civ that can probably be used with all 3 trees pretty well. I have yet to try them with anything but Tradition though.

 

[Bromar1]

Austria is not progress oriented? You will never accumulate enough gold to marry CS with tradition.(unless your religion all focus on gold generating belief). In recent VP challenge, I never even think of picking tradition because of no gold benefit policy.

Tradition gives you lots of opportunities for indirect gold. You have a better chance of getting a religion, which can make you lots of gold. You can race to get Petra or Collossus for more trade routes.

 

[Legen]

More of a question than balance itself: how is the Coffee House's +10% science from city culture actually calculated? It's always below 10%, either from base culture output, or after modifiers. I still haven't figured out what counts as the city's culture for this building.

 

[CrabHelmet]

More of a question than balance itself: how is the Coffee House's +10% science from city culture actually calculated? It's always below 10%, either from base culture output, or after modifiers. I still haven't figured out what counts as the city's culture for this building.

It rounds. From 0-9 Science, you get 0 Culture, from 10-19, you get 1, from 20-29, you get 2, etc.