Can someone explain how Austria is good? I mean I see them on a tier list pretty high but I just don't get how they are that good. I would much prefer to ally a city state rather than annex it.
So can someone explain how annexing city-states is good?
Well, I heard someone who had a tricky strategy, where he would gift units to a CS next to the city he wished to conquer, and finally, he would annex the CS and lauch his attack.
Besides, there's not only the UA : The hussards are kinda good with their +1 move, sight, and 50% more on flank attacks. But the main reason I believe is the coffee house : a windmill combined with a garden which can be built in every city and, beyond the regular +2 of production, instead of adding +10% of production on buildings, it's a beutiful +5% on everything the city produces ! Isn't that dreamy ?
Based start with hills and mountain. A city with buildings and army for only 1000 gold (500 for annex and 500 for courthouse). Powerful horse unit and a nice UB.
So yes, Austria is good.
One of the nice things about the UA is that the city-states' populations and science buildings stay intact when you absorb them into your empire. So acquiring them provides a nice science boost. It's definitely bigger than the city science penalty since the population is usually decent and they at least have libraries built.
I find Austria "good" on higher difficulties, but not great or top-tier like they are on lower difficulties. I will usually play Immortal and keeping up with military, science, culture, and happiness is always tough. The UA lets you jump up in 3 of those, but go WAY down in the fourth. The UB is a mixed bag. It definitely encourages Tall play and helps with culture wins.
I've played Austria on King though, and damn, they're a top-tier domination candidate. Hussar/Artillery rushes are devastating.
I will add that I don't believe they have a hill/mountain start bias. I've never seen that script before.
Austria is an okay civ, with a nice hill starting bias, and ok UA, although the UA is significantly worse in BNW than in GK, overall austria is probably worse than average imo.
Has anyone posting in this thread actually played with Austria? They're not only good, they are easily within the top 5 on any difficulty.
Just look at it this way. For another civ at around Turn 30-40, you'll be looking at paying 500g to buy a Settler. At that same window, it costs between 500g and 600g to use Diplomatic Marriage, getting a 7-8 pop city with Colosseums, Libraries and Granaries already pre-built. And every single CS on the map is asking you to kill barbarians at that point in the game, so you should have no problem getting to 65 influence. 10'ish for pledge, 40 for the quest, worst case 250 more gold to get you there.
A lot of these perceived drawbacks are imaginary, also. You'd rather have a CS for the ally bonus? Well keep them as an ally until influence drops to 60, then buy them. You want the votes? Well, it's not as if you're buying every CS on the entire map (at least without winning in short order), so just get another ally. And the old "all this free population growth makes my empire unhappy" canard? No empire conquers or expands without the Happiness to do so. And if anything it's easier when each CS has at least one luxury, has Colosseums pre-built, and is located on the Coast for better internal Trade Routes.
More than that, this Civ has actually improved a ton going into BNW as a result of Gold being much more available. You actually do have the means now to absorb any CS you want on the map, where before you needed TP's and a specific plan. Early on, I will play this civ a lot like Venice. I build a really nice Capital, no Settlers, maybe a Wonder or two, with a particular focus on Gold and getting Great Merchants. First CS marriage goes down at about Turn 40-50. Second soon to follow. I don't have to worry about the NC not getting built because all these cities have Libraries. Then, I'll use the bought CS's to build Cargo Ships, which get Gold for the next buy. After that, the City States will start producing my Settlers, rather than Capital. After all, they don't need to produce anything else because their infrastructure is all complete, and they don't need growth because they're already working most all the tiles. The first great merchant from Mausoleum/Colossus/Market is good too because trade missions give both of the things you need for DM - Influence and Gold. They're at least as good as Merchants of Venice, unlike Venice though, you aren't bottlenecked by the amount of Merchants you can generate, and you can put out Scientists instead. Trade nearby AI's for their luxuries, and maybe keep a Mercantile unmarried for the Happy. Doing that, you've got 6-7 population-capped coastal cities by Turn 150, none of which need Courthouses. It's just really hard to beat that set up with any civ.
Yeah, on the higher difficulties also, you always have space. It's a lot less annoying when some powerhouse AI civ forward settles you, because you know you've got a prime city location just down the coastline waiting for you to buy it. It even gives you the units you need to defend it. But yeah, the UA is mainly at its best early game. If you play Austria as you would any other civ as far as settling plans, it's not the best use of the UA. It was even better for early use in G&K where you could trade luxuries to the AI for lump sum, but it's still good now because the coastal sites the CS's usually take up are better for trading and feeding each other with Cargo Ships.
Austria is a very good civ in the hands of the human; not so good in hands of the AI.
UB: The best part of this is you can plant a city on a hill and still get it; unlike the base building. In addition, the ones in you core cities will increase Great Scientist & guild spawn rates.
UA: Best use is on a city in which you are currently allied but have less than 65 points of influence with (about to fall out of ally status anyway); in later game this can be a city that you used a coup to get that pre coup was around 10 points higher in influence. (Big risk of losing ally status so may as well lock in the luxuries by marrying.)
Note that merchicle city states are very poor marriage candidates given their happiness bonuses. By contrast, a hostile military city state is an excellent candidate for marriage.
The other advantage of the UA is that city states can and often do spawn two / three tiles away from natural wonders. With the Austrain UA, you can marry the city state and annex it to lock it to working the natural wonder. (And if the natural wonder was just outside the cultural boundary, buy the tile as well) This is better than Venice which is locked to puppets.
Are you sure? For me Maria Theresa is usually one of the mega-expansionists that gobbles up other civs and is a legitimate threat in the end game. For a while the AI's use of the UA was broken but I'm pretty sure they fixed that.
This is the only part I quoted because I agree with everything else, Austria is crazy good.
Yeah, Austria has been a runaway AI for me more often than not as well. Playing an Immortal game as Maya, and I saw her buy 3 CS's before about Turn 120. Then she started gobbling up Persia and Polynesia, the only 2 other civs on my continent. I had to beeline Machinery and DOW pretty abruptly, and she just had an enormous density of units to chew through before I could set up anywhere near one of her cities. She used some really nice defensive tactics as well that had me pillaging her roads in a few spots to keep her from overcrowding the good Ranged Unit tiles. In another game I played, she sat with one or two cities for most of the game, but I am assuming that had something to do with the randomized element of the AI personality. Whether I got the more typical Maria Theresa in the one game or the other, I don't know.
Austria is extremely powerful for reasons others have already stated. They're not the absolute best AI opponent, but they can still be quite fearsome.
That said, who remembers the old days of pre-Fall Patch G&K when the Deity Austrian AI ran away EVERY SINGLE TIME? People started deleting the civ from the game
Pre Fall G&K patch: Austria was indeed handled very well by the AI.
But ever since that patch; it's rare for the Austrian AI to actually use its UA; either it has an ally but not the gold needed or else has plenty of gold but no allies.
I always have the game pick my civ randomly, so I just got Austria for the first time recently. What I thought about the UA is that it's one that is particularly helpful on higher levels. I was playing on Deity, where you always feel behind the AI in the number and size of your cities, because they get so many advantages to making good cities. Well, the CSs get all of those advantages too, so when you buy the city, you get the results of the AIs' advantage over you in the game. The CSs I bought had higher population than my own cities, more buildings. One of them came with a fleet of five galleons when the navy I'd been able to build up to that point was two triremes.
Now, you get the results of the AI's stupidity, too. These two CSs were on the north and south ends of a narrow island, 9 tiles away from one another and with nothing else on the island. They'd both build caravansaries, extending the range of caravans they would never build to more hexes than the entire length of the island!
But still, I really liked the UA at that level. Around turn 80-110, when you get the quests done, the money together and the happiness in place, it dramatically levels the playing field on diety.
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