How do you counter diplomatic marriage?

[DutchJob]

Declare war and pillage Vienna.

 

[Kabloosh]

You can't liberate them once they are married. The best way to deal with Austria (without simply wiping them out) is preventative measures. Sell her all your resources, embassies, open borders, etc. That way she has less money. If she allies with a city-state, spend that cash and up the ante. Out bid her for the favor of city-states. That way you can keep them out of her hands. You have to be vigilant.

Sending your armies to take her out of the game sounds easier. :/

On a side note. Does anyone get reminded of Gerbils when you see her? I mean just the way she looks and speaks just makes me imagine her as a giant furry Gerbil in a dress.

 

[MarauderCH]

I played a game as Austria once and had my highest score game with that Civ! I had four CS near me and one more close by. The Mayans attacked me early and after I bought a few CS and had a good army, I crushed the Mayans and then bought two more CS that were now in the neighborhood. That was seven CS added to my Civ. I then proceeded to steam roll anyone that looked at me funny...

 

[Barghaest]

No issues with Austria here... her annexing CS gives me impunity to take them back by force without worrying about permanent war with other CS. If I'm playing an empire who's UA/SPs are CS based, then I will eliminate her from the game ASAP (or at least keep her economy tied up rebuilding units while I make a fortune pillaging her lands).

 

[Peacemongerer]

The alternate way is to leave Austria be - that is not really a problem, since she isn't a warmonger herself.

I used to think that... I played like 4 games with her and in all of them she never expanded past 1 city and she often was the only AI to be "afraid" of me (even once when I had a smaller army). Then came this last game I just finished... she creamed like 4 civs on my continent and it was poor me (Well not too poor... I was Ethiopia and had a stack of doom in bombers, but still), China and Siam to defend against her. She didn't DoW me (I actually DoW'ed her bc I was 2 turns from a cultural victory) but she has the ability to go on a rampage when she wants to.

 

[Frosty_AUT]

You don't counter diplomatic marriage. You can only take preventative measures, like making Austria spend their money on resource trade with you, or wiping them from the map as quickly as possible. Kinda messed up if you ask me.

IMO a better way to implement the ability would be like this:

If Austria marries into a city state and you take it from them by force, you can "liberate" them just like always. Except in that case, they won't be grateful (though they won't hate you either). Now, if Austria re-takes the city (by force; another marriage is impossible), it instantly returns to being a part of Austria.

This would preserve the spirit of Austria's UA, while making it conform to the rule that city states basically can't be removed from the game (or can they be razed? not that it matters, Austria's UA is cheesy) and allowing other players to reverse the ability.

 

[Xotite potancev]

Add in an espionage mission, bunga bunga party with royal spouse.

The subsequent royal divorce makes the city a free CS again.

 

[MattHawke]

I think they should make Diplomatic Marriage an option for everyone. Maybe the costs could be lower for Austria or they get some other benefit from it (no unhappiness? first one is super cheap? In any event - it actually gives you four options when it comes to CS - ignore, gradual influence, attack, and diplomatic marriage... think it makes for a more varied and fun game.

 

[Bobafett0610]

Another thing that may not have been mentioned in this thread. Mercantile CS have their "special" lux resource on the tile the city is founded on. If you use dip marriage on a mercantile CS you get their normal lux resource (such as whales) and also the special merchant resource such as jewlery. This helps make it even more crazy early on. I when full tradition as Austria, sold all my luxs which I developed as early as possible, bought a merchant CS which gave me two more luxs that I didn't have, etc etc. Also, when you get a merchant CS, you can also sell their special lux resource, such as jewlery. So instead of getting just one lux, you get two. This can be really good if both the merchant luxury and normal luxury you don't have. (For instance, starting off with sugar and spice near vienna, and diplo marrage a CS that has gems and jewlery). Sell the new lux from the recently accuired CS and ally>diplo marrage another. I had 6 CS early on before any other civ had even gotten to middle ages. This was on immortal diff though.

 

[Yzman]

Deleting her is ridiculous to me... especially so soon after the game came out but I guess whatever is fun for you. Just learn to work around it. It doesn't necessarily get her any closer to any particular victory conditions, except maybe score. In fact, I found it in my last game to be the best way to counter the CS whores like Greece and Siam. Siam was going to win the game diplomatically...so I slowly kept buying their CS. Eventually I was able to squeak out a science win, just barely.

 

[dexters]

As noted earlier, have Austria pay off the 2nd highest player inline. The gold payment is 1/2 of the influence that player has accured.

So cost will be 500 base + price of influence accured by the other player in gold.

Then slowly ramp up cost of the base. It can be linear of exponential.

 

[Sherlock]

Diplomatic marriage is insanely over powered.

I'm playing as the Austrians now. I've 'married' four city-states, all the ones on the continent I share with the Maya. So the Maya are outa luck - no CS bonuses for them.

Meanwhile, I'm crazy powerful. This is fun, but I'm leaning towards the 'delete the Austrians' folder solution for future games.

 

[GlobularFoody]

Diplomatic marriage is insanely over powered.

I'm playing as the Austrians now. I've 'married' four city-states, all the ones on the continent I share with the Maya. So the Maya are outa luck - no CS bonuses for them.

Meanwhile, I'm crazy powerful. This is fun, but I'm leaning towards the 'delete the Austrians' folder solution for future games.

Except CS are pathetically weak and easy to conquer. The marriage UA is just a non-war alternative to capturing them. Every game I've ever played where Mongolia is the dominant AI civ, they wipe out every CS in the game, I've never seen anyone whining about them. Greece has always done the same thing, buy out every CS they can and leave you with nothing. Austria isn't one bit different than these other civs, deleting the Civ is probably the most pathetic thing I've read on these forums. I hate starting next to the Aztecs because they always attack me, doesn't mean I'm going to delete the Civ...

 

[machival]

Austria is ridiculously over powered with the ability to grab CS's.
Any suggestions?

Wait for the patch or delete Austria.

Austria UA is fundamentally wrong as it stands right now. If there's any sense out there, this will be changed, and by changed I don't mean increase by 250 gold with each buy. Because 250 gold or even 500 and even 1000 is meaningless compared to what you're getting.

Completely change the UA, that's my vote.

 

[Barghaest]

Except CS are pathetically weak and easy to conquer. The marriage UA is just a non-war alternative to capturing them. Every game I've ever played where Mongolia is the dominant AI civ, they wipe out every CS in the game, I've never seen anyone whining about them. Greece has always done the same thing, buy out every CS they can and leave you with nothing. Austria isn't one bit different than these other civs, deleting the Civ is probably the most pathetic thing I've read on these forums. I hate starting next to the Aztecs because they always attack me, doesn't mean I'm going to delete the Civ...

Yeah, I'm with you on this. Austria's UA isn't OP, it's easy to counter. I have more issues with the rabid Celts and Huns (they're more aggressive than Aztecs) early in my games. Austria isn't a threat and so what if they buy a CS... I could easily capture them myself. The one issue is that you can't liberate it and return it to CS, so if you're playing a Civ with CS-based UAs, deal with Austria quickly.

 

[AbenHumeya]

I don't think they are OP, especially not so much that you should delete them, that's just overboard. I see absolutely no problem in their UA itself, it's no different from Siam or the Greeks who build towards a diplomatic victory, or the Mongols, who move towards conquest via just killing CS's. The only problem I see is that you can't liberate them, which probably should be addressed. Still, it's an entirely valid move which allows them to have a CS, no different from them conquering it (and they are Austria, so you know to expect it), you just have to plan around it like you plan against a Hun or Aztec AI attempting to knock you out early. How you work around it can vary by game to game, but I have successfully pulled off alliances with city states as the Greeks and had a bunch of city states declare war on Austria, which really forced their money into defense and low relations with a sizable amount of future potential allies.