If you see Austria

[Hambil]

Just quit and restart. Diplomatic Marriage is so OP as to be not worth playing against at any difficulty level IMHO. It's far too cheap, used far too often, and generates no anger. The other AI players are happy as can be that Austria has swallowed all the city states.

I may have to start custom picking my civs semi-randomly just to avoid wasted starts where I find Austria.

Another option is wipe them out fast. Playing against them, not an option as far as I can tell. If you let them live they will win, pretty much every time.

 

[Vordeo]

Alternatively, just make sure they never have cash by selling them things like resources, open borders, etc. They'll still randomly absorb CSes, but it can be mitigated somewhat.

Granted, it's not always an option, and I really hope they nerf the UA at some point (increasing cost per use and enable liberating annexed CSes), but it's not impossible.

 

[dthompson32]

Sounds like they are going to be my top target for bombers.

 

[Grendeldef]

I had a game where Austria married 5 times in 8 turns few moments after they send out the 1st caravel. The 6th marriage happened few turns later and that game is on hold atm while I'm thinking to play or not to play.
In case Austria is nearby one has options but if she's on another continent means are limited. In my case she had 18k gold & 600+ gpt so there really wasn't anything to prevent marriages happening apart from DoW which might be considered overkill in most cases.
There should be an increase in payment depending on era and x turn minimum being ally before a marriage can take place. Especially on deity the 500g is ridiculous. It's just one of those things on the list of things needing tuning G&K.

G

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I find the ai so bad that nothing is OP if they use it. I could win a war 3 vs me on immortal, early game very easy.

 

[IgnatiusTBarfat]

It's far too cheap, ..., and generates no anger.

I agree it is too cheap. I'd like to see it increase in price for each time used.

As for anger, it can generate a response by the other AI: don't settle new cities near me, etc.

Have you tried playing as Austria? Super fun when you hobble Greece, Siam, or Darius by buying up all their allies.

 

[notadummy]

based on my experiences, the Austria AI doesn't really know how to use diplomatic marriage. In my last game, Austria married only one time in 300 turns...

 

[MadDjinn]

As for anger, it can generate a response by the other AI: don't settle new cities near me, etc.

Yup. The other AIs count it as 'settling' (though a text change there would be nice) and will get cranky if the CSs on their borders start converting to Austrian cities.

 

[Hambil]

They should count it the same as if I took a CS over by force, or at least if I stole a CS from them they where allied with. I think when I played Austria I didn't even take a hit for that.

 

[Hambil]

The taking I did - you have to make them an ally first, but not the marriage. After that it was like the CS never existed as a CS before. When I've taken over a CS by force I've had the AI hold it against me an entire game and even liberate the CS by force.

 

[Hambil]

Obviously I posted the original op after a rage-quit involving abuse of this tactic by the Austria AI, but, I stand by it just the same.

 

[Artingel78]

Just make sure they don't have enough gold to annex/puppet a city-state.

A few ways to do that:

-Sell them Luxuries.OB,embasy...
-Wipe them out as fast as you can.

They are not a big problem, because they can be wiped out very easy.
They are very peacefully oriented, they don't have such a big army so often.

 

[Hambil]

If you get them quick. After a couple of CS buys their army is just fine. But yes, trying to keep them broke is a good plan. However, on Immortal and Deity I'm not sure it's possible.

 

[Xile]

I usually just quit the game as I see her, unless she's near me.

I don't understand what the devs were thinking when implementing that UA. The cost should be higher in the first place. Each building the city has should add a percentage of the buildings value to the cost, as should the units.

Also, her UA is the only thing that can block a victory condition, which is quite dumb.

Just make sure they don't have enough gold to annex/puppet a city-state.

Well, as Hambil said, that doesn't work on immortal or deity.

 

[MarauderCH]

I haven't had a game yet where I've seen Austria do a marriage or at least do many of them. One game, they spawned near Mongolia so that may have helped. One game, I was hoping Austria would do some marriages because Greece was allied to almost all of the CSs and I was at war with Greece...

 

[puyo]

In my last game she conquested her whole continent while using her UA to annex all the CS in the game except the 2 on my continent (I had all my continent too).

 

[Esperr]

Austria is the new "Greece", if you dont deal with them early enough they will just steamroll everybody mid to late game in like two seconds flat.

 

[Callonia]

lol, this is funny xD

Atm, I'm hoping austria is stupid enough to set up a diplomatic marriage to the whole bunch of city states around me which's all hostile and therefore useless to me lol.

So i could declare war and take a hostile city state which got married into austria mainly to curb the religious war from celts.

 

[Horbgorbler]

Austria isn't OP by a long shot imo. In all honesty, I think they can be a very poor civ. Your happiness drops an extreme amount by buying city-states due to number of cities and population. Not to mention, the AI actually DOES get ticked off when you do that.

Example: I played as Austria, farmed up gold for a while, bought about 3 city-states in a couple turns, and the entire map went to war with me within the next 10-15 turns, saying: "building cities too aggressively", "covet lands they own", etc...list goes on.

Best part about Austria = the Coffee House.

 

[Grendeldef]

Austria isn't OP by a long shot imo. In all honesty, I think they can be a very poor civ. Your happiness drops an extreme amount by buying city-states due to number of cities and population. Not to mention, the AI actually DOES get ticked off when you do that.

I think the point was that when AI plays Austria it's UA becomes OP in some circumstances especially on higher levels. Unless it's beaten down early AI prolly has tons of cash, almost unlimited happiness and 'settling' new cities isn't that much of an issue between AIs.
When played by a human Austria's UA is prolly working as intended but again, on some occasions it can make a huge difference. It seems like a binary UA in it's current form.

G