Maria Theresa

[Carl5872]

Any thoughts on social policies for playing as Austria?

I thought of using Patronage to leverage her by going heavily into city states then marrying them. Also going into Commerce to help fund the city state friendships/marriages.

I also thought possibly Freedom to leverage her GP bonus from the coffee house, but I have my doubts that the synergy may be too small.

I can't decide between tradition or liberty as the starting policies though.

Thoughts?

 

[Browd]

If you are going to marry CSs, why found many cities? With the exception of Reformation and Meritocracy, I don't see much in Liberty that will help you. Tradition seems more useful, based on what you describe.

 

[Novalia]

ive played austria a couple of times and found that the way to success is a very strong economy..

you're not going to be marrying the CS's all that often so i wouldnt plan THAT as a beginning strategy.. the CS typically has the worst plot of land... you marry them strategically.. like near a distant enemy.. gift some troops so they dont have to slog it.. wait for them to arrive.. then marry...

the key is that you have to be a continuous ally for 5 turns... and you have to have the cash... strong economy to fund marriages and building/unit buying and funding keeping up alliances... strong culture so you can win all the CS culture contests (saves $)..

definitely you want to fill in patronage... but not at the expense of rationalism (at least the left side)... opening policy is generally based on your plans for initial expansion..

the whole point is dont go into an austria game expecting to marry all the CS's..
but prepare youself to do so. =)

 

[budweiser]

No no. You can marry as many as you want, but I suspect there is a practical limit before you run out of cash. The key is dont marry them until you get into late medieval/early renaissance. Thats when you will have enough cash to pay for it. I the mean time, fill out the space you are given and build your economy.

Tradition Piety, etc. Probably Order. You want to get really big at the end.

 

[Novalia]

another crucial consideration is happiness management.. suddenly dropping a 10+ pop city into your civilization has its price.. i've found its like a decision to raze or puppet a conquered city.. does it have a unique luxury?

 

[Gort]

I'd definitely go Tradition - found only a few cities yourself, then buy city states and puppet them. Make sure you get a coastal city, though, so you can build fishing boats!

 

[n00bxqb]

Honestly, you only really need the first 2 steps into Patronage (Aesthetics and Philanthropy)

Make sure you concentrate heavily on , so you can get Papal Primacy (+15 :c5Influence: Resting Point) as when you combine that with Aesthetics (+20 :c5Influence: Resting Point) and Pledge to Protect (+10 Resting Point), that's a combined 45 Resting Point. Also, if your religion is the majority religion in the , it decreases the rate at which degrades by 25%, which stacks with the 25% from the Patronage opener for 50%. That will make it extremely easy to gain and maintain allies. In many cases, you won't even need to spend to gain Ally status.

For this reason, I'd advise concentrating on the religious technologies, which should be fairly easy with a single-city start.

Pottery (build Shrine) > Writing (build Great Library) > Calendar > Philosophy (build National College, Temple) > Drama and Poetry > Theology (Build Hagia Sophia, Great Mosque, Great Temple)

This should allow you to have the dominant religion while being able to keep pace (or pull ahead, depending on your starting location) technologically. I always focus right off the bat.

The Social Policy trees would be:

Tradition (OCC)
Piety c5faith:, , and )
Patronage
Commerce c5gold: )
Order c5happy: )

 

[Dentalfury]

Oddly enough I just started a game as Austria and was wondering about this as well. I played a game as her a while back on a lower difficulty level just to test out her UA from a mechanics perspective and of course it works wonders if your the clear runaway with more gold than you can shake a stick at.

However, the more I think about it, the less actual sense it makes to invest that much into Patronage. I'm pretty sure i'd take the opener (obviously), Aesthetics, and Philanthropy. Essentially, just enough to easy build up my rep with them as allies for 5 turns then buy them out. Wouldn't investing any more into patronage just be wasted since all married CS's become yours and all those extra social policies you've been investing in now are worthless?

The same argument applies Papal Primacy or Religious Unity insofar as their ability to give you a leg up on the competition for influence on CS's.

In my game so far, King/Standard/Epic/Pangaea, I started on the eastern end of the continent, I think, and was able to quickly get my 2nd city up and running with a 3rd coming as soon as I get Collective Rule. I'm thinking I'll set up maybe 4-6 cities depending on how much resistance my neighbors put up (Mongols/Iroquois) and start to build up my infrastructure or military depending on environment. I was able to snag Stonehenge early, so I was 2nd to a religion and made sure to take Tithe to get that ball rolling on all that Marriage money i'm going to need.

From a practical standpoint, I don't usually stick to any VC when I start a game and shift my priorities based on how that game plays out. So, with Diplomatic/Time VC disabled, what would be the easiest VC to pull off? I am imaging that if I marry off distant CS's that they would just get conquered because their too far away from my core cities to reasonably defend. Also, when I marry off a CS, does the 'Your settling Cities too close to me' diplomatic penalty count? I'm also wondering if that scenario of me buying off distant CS's is just baiting rival civ's to try and take them by force.

 

[ense7en]

I love this civ.

Frankly though, she is still too powerful in a humans hands.

I just played through GOTM50 with her, and went a route i was very happy with, though not the best way for absolute best times.

Tradition to get your core cities nice and tall.

Patronage for the extra gold influence and higher resting point (pledge to protect every CS = all are friends), and if you don't go Rationalism, the +science from CSes is nice too.

Commerce all the way down the right side. Protectionism's happiness is extremely nice.
If you decide to finish Commerce later and puppet lots of cities and trading post them, you'll be swimming in gpt.

I also opened Freedom for the +25% great person boost which i think works well with Coffeehouses, and buying great artists with faith for golden ages.

As for marrying CSes, i actually prefer to utilize this feature sooner than later, as you get nice already established cities with good buildings already built for not much more than 500 gold, which can be saved up very early. Considering a settler costs 500g, why bother?
It's much stronger to just acquire CSes nearby to build your empire.

Just make sure the CS actually has some happiness lux along with it so it's not such a big happiness hit, and you'll have a crazy nice empire in no time.

After GOTM50, i think Austria actually works well for diplo wins too, as you don't need to marry every single CS.
You marry the good ones that have resources/luxs/locations that are ideal for you, and you keep the rest as allies to win via diplo later.

Of course you could also go the route of science, culture (only puppet the CSes, though TBH i don't think this is as optimal for Austria), or use them as launchpads to other continents, etc, for domination.
She's a very strong civ overall.

My GOTM post on her; don't read if you haven't finished or plan to play GOTM50
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12100742&postcount=27

 

[Matthew.]

No reason not to marry city-states, at least in the second half of the game. They often have unique luxuries, and more pop. = more science.

I disagree on heavy focus on patronage. Once you marry a city-state, all those bonuses are gone. Gathering up the gold needed to marry isn't difficult and I wouldn't waste 3+ policies just to reduce the cost of a few purchases.

 

[Anelyn]

I believe commerce is a must with Austria as far as diplo marriage goes.

 

[Novalia]

From a practical standpoint, I don't usually stick to any VC when I start a game and shift my priorities based on how that game plays out. So, with Diplomatic/Time VC disabled, what would be the easiest VC to pull off? I am imaging that if I marry off distant CS's that they would just get conquered because their too far away from my core cities to reasonably defend. Also, when I marry off a CS, does the 'Your settling Cities too close to me' diplomatic penalty count? I'm also wondering if that scenario of me buying off distant CS's is just baiting rival civ's to try and take them by force.

in order to counter the eventuality of them being annoyed at you for settling near them (via marriage) you need to make sure the CS has enough units.. some CS's arent very well protected and have weaker units.. gift them units and wait for them to show up.. once they show up you can marry and have a decent defense (or offense)..

i did this once to a runaway civ.. he was cleaning up the map going from east to west.. i sent some units to my CS ally all the way to his undefended east... once they arrived i married it and began my swoop from east to west against his weakly defended cities.. good fun.

 

[ense7en]

No reason not to marry city-states, at least in the second half of the game. They often have unique luxuries, and more pop. = more science.

I disagree on heavy focus on patronage. Once you marry a city-state, all those bonuses are gone. Gathering up the gold needed to marry isn't difficult and I wouldn't waste 3+ policies just to reduce the cost of a few purchases.

If you aren't going diplo, or don't care to keep CS friends/allies, then i'd agreed there's no need to bother with Patronage.

In the game i just played, it was for a diplo win, so it made sense to go that route obviously.

 

[azzaman333]

Commerce is probably better than Patronage because once you marry, they're not CS any more. Commerce helps you buy more CS too, with the extremely powerful Protectionism(?) giving +2 per luxury as well as the obvious gold assistance.