I see these topics and get all hopeful that I'm going to see a good argument from some of the hall of fame players but, nope it's always the n00bs that make these.

Austria is a great country for winning games because they are so close to the classic stalemate lines.

I like solos. Soloing with Austria I find considerably easier than with England or Turkey, which are my least preferred powers. You do get eliminated far more often though. As Austria I think Turkey is your arch-enemy and primary concern, take him out and you are suddenly a powerhouse.
France is best though.

JMO1221109
Thank you for your less than useful comment. Next time, please provide an arguement to support your derogatory and patronising thoughts.

austria is great provided a reasonable italy, imho. can manhandle turkey in the balkans if left to its own devices and can actually stall a jugger quite effectively, too.

Thank you undercover. I agree with you. My point of concern is that Austria potentially has three fronts to fight from the very begining. Russia, Turkey and Italy.

Austria is a high risk-high reward country, but it really requires great diplomacy to win.

In Gunboat this is indeed a concern, but otherwise you should be able to at least ally with one of these powers, and try work things out. As mentioned the reinforce centers are great and mostly I guess you end up taking out Turkey so you have a reasonably save back centers.

I did have 2 recently very successful blue water lepanto openings with Italy in cooperation with Austria that worked out great for both of us.
I ended up with Turkey and Austria with the Balkans. From there I go west and Austria can take Russia and Germany with quite some ease.

Lol, I wouldn't call that great for me in this afternoon's game :p

Well I mean, it was ALMOST great ;p

Another of these topics... Austria's just a country that puts your diplomacy skills to the test. If you screw up every time, don't whine about the country but improve your strategy.

Personally I think Russia is the worst country. You're too big and eventually everyone wants a slice of the cake.

I think Italy, there are little good options to go with it seems.

Italy's fine, you can take on Austria with the help of Turkey and the going after Turkey with Russia, or do a Lepanto...

You can be a pretty good diplomacy player and still fall flat on your face as Austria. Getting through the first few years is more about luck than judgement. Assuming you do, though, Austria suddenly becomes a lot of fun.

Italy rarely holds onto more then Trieste if it works with Russia or Turkey and a Lepanto is always far from certain.

Austria is the hardest power at the start, but if it can survive to mid-game it is easier.
I must admit, after joining, before powers have been assigned, my mantra is "Please not Austria".

Austria is far and away my favorite country to play as. You have the most interesting options in the first year and have to really work hard with all those neighbors. You can try crazy openings and strategies, and if you can make it past the first couple years and find yourself with 7 or 8 centers, you are an absolute powerhouse. With all those armies its hard to stop Austria and as Lando says, you chancing of soloing are good as you are close to the important stalemate SCs.

Tom. Great reply. Thanks.

But to be fair, Austria can get destroyed early. But thats why you need to have excellent diplomacy as Austria!

gameID=66233 austira doing well in gunboat
its possible

The reason Austria seems so weak, in my opinion, has to do with fleets being so strong and Austria having an extremely difficult time putting fleets into the water.
Austria is the only country 1 with "port" home center. Every other power can build fleets from at least 2 places, and 3 powers can build fleets in 3 places.

if an Austria player decides that he needs fleets, for whatever purposes, he can only possibly build 1 fleet per turn, regardless of the situation on the board. He can be up a couple of centers and still only be able to build 1 fleet because of the inherently limitation.

On top of that, the fleet is produced in a really terrible location and it is extremely difficult to get multiple fleets into position, because austria's fleets have to pass through the ionian bottleneck.

On top of that, it's not really VIABLE for Austria to build fleets. Honestly, a lot of the time as Austria you wish you had 3 armies instead of 2 and a fleet, because of the country being so nested in between 5 other powers and all of them connected by land. Thus, Austria has to have a secure position before it's viable to build fleets.

No other power has that huge strategic limitation. If you're England, France, Germany, Russia, Turkey and even Italy, the type of build you make leaves you with options. Yeah, usually England and Italy build fleets for their first builds, but after that, like the rest of the powers, both armies and fleets are viable depending on the situation.

It's extremely rare for Austria to build a fleet at all within the first few years, and that's a huge strategic limitation, because armies and fleets both have different strategic uses.

Nice opening, though that's why Italy usually opens with Tyrolia.

"No other power has that huge strategic limitation. If you're England, France, Germany, Russia, Turkey and even Italy, the type of build you make leaves you with options. Yeah, usually England and Italy build fleets for their first builds, but after that, like the rest of the powers, both armies and fleets are viable depending on the situation."

I don't agree with this. While it is true that Austria doesn't (and shouldn't really) build fleets, it doesn't mean he has less options. Think about how many different routes Austria's army has. Each home center borders 6 other territories. I find it difficult to say that that doesn't leave the Austrian player with options.

I cherish Austria, especially in gunboats. The important thing is to secure Munich and Berlin ASAP since getting beyond Italy over sea requires a true genius, extraordinary circumstances or shameful opposition. The situation at land compensates for the abhorrence of naval matters though, Austria has so many opportunities with its armies and everything is just so close it's wonderful.

What do you do when Italy moves in on you, which happens almost every game I see, and Russia is eager to bounce on Galicia and eventually move in, then Turkey sees his chance and you're gone..

I actually see much more Lepantos than attacks on Austria among gunboat Italies. Of course if Italy attacks you're in big trouble but it's often fun and part of the high risk/high reward nature of Austria. The nature of the attack is also important, especially in wider context like possible bounce in Galicia and such. If army from Venice is not followed with the one from Rome, which might happen if Italy plays it safe and is content with being uncomitted if the move fails, you can repel it but you need a build for that so don't mind Trieste being green (if the army follows to Budapest, you can even stage a little celebration) and get Serbia and Turkey.

It is way better to attack Austria in 1902 than in 1901 since then you know who to trust, you can build up some trust and you can move in from two places at once. I see no reason ever to move to Tyrolia and I don't see it in games too often.

As Germany I will move to Tyrolia in S01 most times just to prevent Austria from being attacked (gunboat only, really applies to this).

I don't think AH has too much to worry about normally from an experienced Italy.

Well perhaps not an experienced Italy, guess I've been just unlucky because it happened in the 10 or so last gunboats I played

I think the bottom line is that everyone has a different playing style, and that style matches better or worse with one country or another. These discussions about which country is the worst (or the best) seem to uncover the fact that there's a pretty good spread of likes and dislikes. The only countries I've never personally heard referred to as "the worst" are France and Germany. France is often cited as the best, but Germany just sort of cruises in the middle.

For myself, my least favourite is actually England. I just don't like the slow-starting strategy and the fact that to have any real hope of soloing, you need to get fleets into the med relatively quickly, but it's also not that hard for France or Italy to stop you from doing that.

My personal favourite is Germany, because it's a tank. All of it's hone supply centres border each other, it's central without the inherent danger associated with Austria, it's powerful in alliance with virtually any country, and it's easy to expand in pretty much any direction. Also, just geometrically speaking it tends to be quite defensible, providing that it has at least one ally.

I agree that Austria's inability to build more then one fleet really doesn't impact it much. Simply because Austria doesn't need many fleets, at max it really can control the Med area with 3 or 4 fleets. Like Tom mentioned Austria's armies have an easy route into almost every area of the map and it's armies can break a stalemate line easier then any other country besides maybe Germany. No, if you survive the first few years, which requires diplomacy, then you will find you have a much wider spread of options then any of your neighbors. I will also throw in that our math happy members have run the stats and shown that Italy has the statistically worse win/draw rates of any country.
@tricky, my comment was not derogatory, it was merely truthful and more aimed at the lack of participation of the more skilled members in these conversations then it was at you. I am thrilled to see the participation this thread generated.

I love playing Austria because it looks like you're rolling the dice and making genius move after genius move. In truth, though, it's pretty easy to decipher what I and R are up to, and both I and T know that if you fall apart, R's going to profit the most.

The moment R ends up in Gal, you should know where it's going (usually Bud). Italy will go for Trieste over Vienna almost every time he goes to the Tyrol. So defend the places that are going to be attacked and still pick up Serbia. You're in fine shape.

I usually like playing Austria, simply because there are so many different things you can do. Sadly, most of the time even though you're willing to try interesting things, your neighbors aren't, which is the #1 thing that screws me when I play it. That said, I prefer Italy.

Why prefer Italy?

Because it's awesome and challenging, that's why :P

Italy is lucky in that it is hard to attack initially. It can't really be ganged up on in the first year the way Austria is particularly vulnerable to. The hard part for Italy is growing. Mid-game is often the end of the road for Italy. BUT if Italy manages to become a fairly strong power, then it is a great End Game power, with mastery of the med it is almost untouchable. Contrast this with Russia - in many games I have seen Russia become the power to beat with 9 or more supply centers, only to have all the other powers turn on it and then go on to be eliminated altogether.

I prefer Italy because you can experiment more and take less of a risk. There are many different openings you can do, while assuming smaller risk than with Austria. There's the Obriani and all of its variations, and the Lepanto with all of its variations, and then the Balkan gambit. You can do any of those and have friends waiting. As Austria, you're a bit more constrained.

I haven't soloed as either of them, but I've come close as Austria, and Italy I've had worse luck with, but its more fun imo

For openings: www.diplom.org

I hear you G1, playing as England is a pain for me as well. I'm from a landlocked country for God's sake, don't force me to use so many fleets!

It's games like these that make me like Austria gameID=52411