Civ 5 Austrian Civilization
Civ Bonuses, AI Info, Strategies, Unique Units and Buildings
Updated for Gods and Kings and Brave New World DLCs
Civilization's Leader: Maria Theresa
Civ Bonus: Diplomatic Marriage
City-States that have been Allied for 5 consecutive Turns can be bought for 500-1200 Gold (Era-Dependent), instantly adding them to your Empire. You can choose to Puppet or Annex, and may Puppet then later Annex without the need to ever build a Courthouse. All Units owned by the CS become yours, along with their land.
Unique Unit: Hussar
Requires Military Science, replaces Cavalry
The Hussar gets +1 Sight and +50% more Flank Attack bonuses than the regular Cavalry. Use the sight to help set up flank attacks and enjoy the extra damage dealt by these Cavalry replacements. The sight is lost on upgrade, but Flank Attack Bonuses are kept all the way from Landships to Tanks and Modern Armor.
Unique Building: Coffee House
Requires Economics, replaces Windmill
Unlike the Windmill, Coffee Houses do not have a flat terrain requirement. Despite having a lower Production % - 5% vs 10% for a Windmill, the Coffee House gives its bonus to ALL construction projects, including the training of Units. This is not its primary role however: Coffee Houses give a City 25% Great Person Point Generation, which is huge and will offset the possibility you utilize Great Merchants some instead of continually seeking Great Scientists.
| Warmonger Hatred | Wonder Compete | Offense Build | Defense Build | City Defense | DoF | Friendly to Civs | Denounce Civs | War w/Civs | Deception Likelihood | CS Comp | CS War | |
| 7 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 8 | 3 | |
| Other Info | Playing high difficulty, where the AI gets Gold bonuses, Maria Theresa can be a beast - or at least a major frustration. You cannot 'Liberate' CS from her Diplomatic Marriage, and she's likely to be able to use it liberally to great effect. | |||||||||||
Strategies/Ideas for playing Maria Theresa:
Don't confuse Austria's CS-focused ability to mean they are good for Diplomatic Victory - to the contrary, you make Diplomatic Victory harder by removing City-States from the game. While the number of votes required for World Leader do scale, it's easier to win an election with more intact. Instead, plan to use them for one of the others. Scientific Victory immediately comes to mind, but when you are given the ability to buy a City-State on another Continent and instantly have a huge, modern Military there, you must consider Domination! Additionally, Cultural Victory - those extra Cities and Austria's Great Person Generation bonus via the Coffee House, means you can make use of the extra Great Works slots afforded by having more Cities.
Key to using her Diplomatic Marriage ability is to make Maria Theresa's Austria capable of generating lots of Gold and Happiness. While you can debate whether it's better to go with Liberty or Tradition to start, Commerce is a key Policy Tree for Austria. While other Civs are better off avoiding the generation of Great Merchants, Austria can make great use of them via their Trade Missions (or, early on, using them to make Customs Houses). With Coffee Houses throughout your Empire, you can generate lots of gold and plenty of Great Merchants to enable you to get Gold needed to buy out City-States. Commerce gives an increase in gold gained from Trade Missions, increased GM Generation, +Gold for Land Trade Routes, and reduced purchasing costs in Cities. However, the best perk of this tree is the +2 Happiness per Unique Luxury you have access to. This means you get 6 Happiness per Luxury, whether it's coming from a City-State Ally, Trade Deal, or your own lands. The reduced costs for road/rail in your Empire will also help with distant City Connections' profitability.
Unlike the Wikia says, Patronage is a Policy Tree to be avoided for the most part. The opener and Gold-gift influence boost are good, but you will not get as much use out of this as another Civ that retains Alliances with numerous City-States. Those bonuses deplete when you use her UA. Order is a very useful Ideology for Maria T - her tendency to seek Gold will make excellent use of Skyscrapers (33% reduction in purchasing costs) and the Science bonus from Factories is good as well. This all depends how wide you go, of course, but you can't go wrong with Order, and you're likely to find the AI selecting it as well, so thus avoid Unhappiness from different Ideologies.
The best type of City-State to Marry are Militaristic. They give more Units and can significantly increase the size of your Military instantly, while denying units to other Civs that are friends.. Mercantile, Maritime, Cultural, and Religious carry an extra burden in that you will lose the bonuses they offer, but are still viable for Marriage if you're going for a massive empire or the CS's placement is important. By Marrying City-States, you are denying others their benefits but yourself as well. However, this ability is very unique in allowing you to expand into the Renaissance-Information Era when Cities are more rarely settled.
As I said before, having lots of Happiness is important. You must know the math on how a new City will impact your Global Happiness score. If you have 9 and the CS is size 15, it will put you in the negative. A City generates 3 + the number of Population, so do the math and be sure you can handle that. You will see Unit Upkeep costs go up as well, so may want to sell off some obsolete Military Units when you make the Marriage - unless you can foot the bill.
Also be aware of the other penalties for having extra Cities. If you Annex too many City-States, your Social Policy Costs are going to skyrocket. It's far better to Puppet, at least until you're done with Commerce. Only Annex when you really need control, for each City will raise Policy costs 10%. Science costs increase as well, but you easily offset that simply by ensuring the City-State has all appropriate Scientific buildings (Library, University, School, Research Lab).
Use of Trade Routes is very important to making all of this happen. You need the most lucrative routes possible, so having a Coastal City is important. Send a Food Trade Route to Vienna to help it grow while working Specialists, but have the rest of your Routes go out after profit.
As for Religion, go with Beliefs that increase Happiness, along with Tithe as a Founder Belief to aid in GPT. If there are City-States nearby with Natural Wonders, and you have a strong gold start, you may consider the One With Nature Pantheon to let you get +4 Faith for working the Wonder after Marrying them, so long as you can get Shrines and Temples in your own Cities to ensure your Religion is founded in time. This is very difficulty-dependent, but being able to go wide in the mid-game makes it easier to ensure your Religion spreads, as you can use Inquisitors on your own Cities and send Food routes from others to help with Pressure.
The Hussar will help should it come to War. They are excellent in combination with Artillery for Domination, and will see you into the era of Flight and Battleships for fighting distant battles effectively. This is a Civ whose UA is very fun to try and specialize in, as grabbing a foothold on another Continent can have a massive impact on how easy it is to dominate there. What is better, is that Civs will not get angry with you for Marrying City-States, but may covet your lands should you Marry one whose borders are surrounded by that of another Civ.
Here's a fun game idea to try with Austria, using Continents, Fractal or an Earth-based map: Focus on a strong economy at start and do City-State quests, helping to clear out Barbarians. Start with just a few Cities of your own, but buy out City-States toward your neighbors - particularly those with plenty of Units. Begin a process of taking Capitals, razing most Cities to the ground to allow for your newly-acquired Cities' borders to expand. When you reach Artillery or Battleships, start on another Continent and enjoy the ability to buy Cities right next to your Opponents' key Cities, dominating the entire world.
You may also enjoy a peaceful Scientific Victory with Austria, sending Food Trade Routes to newly-acquired City-States and boosting their Science output. Do remember however, that a Puppet will focus its Citizen Management on Gold, so you must get Rationalism to get +Science from Merchants and Trading Posts, or Annex in order to micromanage Citizens yourself. Regardless, you will want at least Rationalism's Science from Specialists and increased Science from Universities, no matter what style of game you play. Finishing Commerce is top priority, however.
| Sid Meier's Civ 5 is a deep strategy game. I created these individual Civilization Guides to highlight the strengths of their specials and unique units. If you have an opener or tip for playing this Civ that you would like to share with other readers, please use the comments form below. Some Guides are in need of update and will be improved to a new standard of quality or altered to reflect gameplay changes in G&K and Brave New World. | ||||||
| America | Arabia | Assyria | Austria | Aztec | Babylon | Brazil |
| Celts | China | Dutch | Egypt | England | France | Germany |
| Greece | The Huns | Inca | India | Indonesia | Iroquois | Japan |
| Korea | Maya | Mongolia | Morocco | Ottoman | Persia | Poland |
| Polynesia | Portugal | Rome | Russia | Shoshone | Siam | Songhai |
| Venice | Zulu | |||||
Share Tips and FAQs (12)
Our Sims Forum is the place to go for faster answers to questions and discussions about the game. Use the form below to share your own experiences and provide helpful tips to other readers.
Reply
Flag
7I like going Liberty when doing a Domination Victory. The fast expansion in the beginning helps forward setling, in my opinion.
Later, Commerce if you need the last policy happiness after your Berserker wars, or Exploration, since their ability encourages staying near the coast.
When you enter the Renaissance, at least open Rationalism, preferably get the whole tree. Unless in very low difficulties, you need more advanced troops than Berserkers to finish the game. Also, you can't really go wrong with Rationalism.-Ideology: Autocracy suits best Domination, though if there's still a tough cultural player, or you need a better infrastructure, go Order (in this case, remember to get Worker's Faculties, probably the best Order tenet).- Religion: Not really necessary. If you want to found one, pantheon belief Earth Mother goes well with Iron, Tithe gives you plenty of gold and Pagodas keep your empire happy.- Wonders: Best to capture all of them from other Civs. Possible exceptions might be the Alhambra + Brandeburg combo (you might consider pumping out more Berserkers instead of Alhambra, though), or late-game wonders such as Neuschwanstein and Prora/Kremlin
This mechanism makes Austria probably the most powerful civ when pursing fast domination victory.
