Venice, Speedy Science and Growth Question:

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danaphanous

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So I've been playing a few games as venice to try out different strats. I am interested in speedy science and rapid early growth and want to play on immortal and Deity. Venice has super-potential for this the earlier you can get up food ships (quite early with them), but there seem to be some decisions early that I can't make a clear call on:

Some Facts I have decided upon playing venice:
  • Anything that yields trade routes is doubly valuable to venice for they get 2 for every tech. Get them up quickly for early gold.
  • Optics gives a free MoV which can turn one of those trade routes into food route from nearby CS (critical for early growth acceleration)
  • CS give you their military and buildings so I don't really need to build any early if I pick and choose wisely
  • Beelining the tech for markets after NC is useful as you get a 2nd MoV quickly for another food route
  • Ignore a religion unless you see a really useful early pantheon (aka 5 potential camps). It is hard to garner good faith with one city and AI love to war over venice as it's a big city. You'll have all the RB's to buy over the course of the game anyway.
  • Getting food routes up quickly and as many as possible seems to really make venice shine
  • Venice gets far more wonders for some reason even at comparable tech levels. Production is just better.

I outpace the AI in science pretty rapidly mid-game and soon get most of the wonders and venice becomes the super city. However, my finish time for science was behind other civs I've played by 15 turns! Even though having a super-city and a lot more wonders was fun. This was mainly because late-gae modern and information era techs came so slow compared to other games despite a 55-pop venice and 5 satellites. I can't make puppets run science specialists and they take a science-nerf too. Is there a way to make venice better and have a faster endgame? I'm thinking if I can grow venice earlier the end-science could beat a normal other civ. Not babylon or Korea, but maybe the other guys. However, several Venice-specific strats conflict with optimum science:


Questions:
  1. In your opinion is it better to rush straight to optics to immediately get a puppet and convert 1 of the trade ships to a food ship = venice starts rapidly growing 20-30 turns earlier OR to go straight for NC THEN get optics. I'm torn as both routes take a long time and put off the other many turns. Which pays off more in science? The extra pop from a super-early food ship or NC? NC still takes a while to build and the tech can take 20 turns if beelined. However, optics is cheaper, and the early trade route boosts science getting the tech for NC in about 1/2 the time, so NC usually follows the trade route in 15-20 turns or so. Both are quite good but NC route seems quite slow. The instant science is good, but building it takes long enough it really doesn't make up the lost time to getting that MoV.
  2. Is it worth it to build an extra warrior early and DOW an AI to steal their plentiful workers? I've had a lot of success with some civs starting like this on Deity/Immortal as the AI immediatly has a worker and I can also steal it immediately before I know anyone for no warmonger score. Most civs don't want to fight early and sue for peace leaving me with some pillage gold and a free worker or two for virtually no cost, but doing this on deity without a backup military unit (extra warrior or 2 scouts) seems to not really work due to the AI religiously guarding their territory with their 3 starting warriors, they'll often kill me with only 1 warrior before I can get away unless I get a lucky angle when I first find them. I've also noticed AI on Deity not using their workers and hiding in cities if I'm near enough to steal it even before I DOW. It's strange.
  3. As MoVs come slow to venice, is it worth it to conquer some little coastal cities early from the AI to get more food routes going or is the opportunity cost of building a medium-sized military not worth it? Usually I play peaceful with venice, but if I could get even 1 extra food route before the MoV from markets that would be so much better.
  4. I've noticed, frustratingly, scientists share the pool with MoV's so I've been wondering if using more than 2 is worth it or if I should immediately switch to yielding scientists. Usually I get the free one from optics and a 2nd one around the time universities come online. This converts 2 CS. Usually only 2 are on the coast and near enough to feed with food ships before harbors anyway, and not having GS's to plant for academies slows early science some. I've been thinking I'd get the free one and one extra then just go straight scientists. Will this turn out better than getting a 3rd or 4th merchant for more CS and buying harbors to keep feeding venice? Last game I got up to 5 food ships and it was great, however, I'm wondering if I can just conquer some AI cities and not have to sacrifice scientists for a better turnout.
  5. Is it worth it to grab any ancient wonders? I usually make my first wonder the Oracle, but can't get a scientist anyway with the point due to wanting an extra MoV from markets. The free policy is nice though I could maybe get hanging gardens but not reliably on Deity. ToA would be amazing with that 10% pre-eat boost, it would magnify all that extra food, but I'm not sure I can score it on Deity without slowing myself down some other way. Have any of you found certain wonders to be worth it with Venice? As he's a single-city player I've found many early wonders that affect the home city to be more powerful. Would they offset their vast early opportunity cost?

Any other tips would be good too. I'm looking to succeed in a strat that combines some early worker stealing and possibly minor conquest of weak coastal AI cities using the military of CS I take over, with running some extra food routes super-early game. I expect this to make Venice grow far past 55-pop by end-game and solve my slowdown problem. It would also be nice to get a mountain for the observatory but this seems rare with venice starts and I've never had this happen. Without moving 2 turns at least. Any advice? :)

I'm using Venice starts as practice for improving my early-game acceleration and growth and teaching myself to be more competitive on Deity. I've played wide for too long and am rusty on tall games. I can usually beat Deity, but am behind until at least mid-industrial and I'm trying to narrow the gap.

In summary:
I think if I can successfully steal some of those free AI workers and settlers I can do better and set the AI back, but the only game this has worked out has been with jags and the Aztecs so I'm sure I'll need at least an extra military unit or too to combat them unless I only intend to snatch 1 worker and run like hell. I'm wondering if it will even help venice or just make him a target and delay some critical early buildings. On the other hand, If I get a free worker or two the benefits to venice will be enormous and the warmonger hit is negligible bc you know no-one by turn 10 or so when I'd make the DOW.

I'm also debating not building more than 2 MoVs then switching to scientists immediately and using mid-game conquest to get the puppets I need for my 3rd, 4th, and 5th food routes. (5 is my minimum goal) This still gives me the puppet I need but will yield 2 extra early scientists that I can plant which will help science. Last game I got pretty much no scientists until late-game where I got a swarm of them in venice (4) and bulbed them all. Only reason I got through information era at a decent speed as techs took 10 turns apiece. I'm used to them being down to 6 turns on a decently-playing wide-tall game (my old way of playing) As I have several cities over 25 population all running scientists specialists and at least some of them have jungle or mountains or both. Venice usually has neither frustratingly.
 
Far from pro, but I'll take a swing. I enjoy Venice and have played them quite a bit, though not competitively.

1) Haven't run the numbers, but I think NC, then Optics. A really early MoV isn't all that useful. Puppet tile acquisition is much, much slower than CS border growth, and happiness is always an issue in the very early game. Over the course of a SV game, I think annexing a better city is going to pay off.
2) Can't say.
3) I can conceive of instances it would work, but in general I'd say it's not worth it.
4) The one specialist you can count of your puppets running is Merchants. I'll usually get 1-3 MoV just from my puppets. Run a food ship back to a puppet so they'll grow enough to use their slots, and leave those empty in Venice itself. Building up puppets will also help you win World Projects - they start on those after the current building is done.
5) Since you aren't building settlers, you've got some extra hammers to play with. You've identified the Colossus already, Hanging Gardens is a good pickup (out does ToA until you hit 60 food)

I find that Venice starts strong due to no settler hammers and easy diplomacy, keeps going with MoV annexing built up cities and military, and runs out of steam around the time ideologies come around. At that point one monster city + incompetent puppets just can't keep up with a wide empire or three city tall. Falling back to Freedom/Trade Organization/Cruise to DV works, but isn't your goal. Since each citizen takes more and more food to produce, and works a crappier and crappier tile, I don't think you're going to reliably grow your way out of Venice's problems. Good luck to you, I'd love to hear how you solve it.
 
reposted in strategies & tips as I realized it was a more appropriate location for this kind of talk.

If a Mod wants to close this one that's fine, otherwise I'll check both in the meantime. :)

Moderator Action: This thread is closed. Further replies should be posted in this S&T thread.
 
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