Merchant of Venice genarating

Merchants of Venice, i really love those guys, but how to have them quickly (the free one from Optics is not count)? And what is the best way to use them in each period of the game? I usually use the Optics free guy to generate my gold pool rather than buy a CS. But then i need another puppet and realize i have no MoV. What building and research to increase their appeareance rate?
Btw, which SPs should I follow as Venice? I like to develop and make friend with other civs, so i think it's better for a Diplomacy or Culture Victory.

Get Venice to an extremely high population and assign specialists to MoV/Great Merchant generating buildings, finish liberty, get faith and buy them in industrial etc

Social Policies: Liberty gives you a free MoV from Collective Rule, and you can pick another MoV when you get a free Great Person from finishing the tree. Commerce is also very good for MoV generation, as Entrepreneurship increases the rate of MoV generation, and finishing the tree allows you to purchase MoV with faith. I'm not sure which Ideology is best, but Freedom has several policies to increase GP generation and reduce the food and unhappiness generated by specialists, so you can more easily fill all of your merchant specialist slots.

Buildings and Wonders: Obviously, prioritize markets, banks, and such, so you have to merchant specialist slots. Anything that boosts GP generation is good too, such as a Garden and the National Epic. If you can't spare the people to fill those specialist slots, then make sure you get food-producing buildings like the Granary and Water Mill up quickly; the Hanging Gardens are great, too, if you at least open Tradition. Try to build the Colossus - you'll get two extra trade routes as Venice, rather than just one, and it gives +1 MoV point per turn. Keep an eye out for other wonders which give you MoV points, like Big Ben, Machu Picchu, and the Eiffel Tower.

Techs: Basically, anything that gets you access to any of the above buildings or wonders should be a priority.

Hope that helps; I've only played as Venice once so far, and I only made two city-states puppets, since I decided beforehand to try for a diplomatic victory. (Twenty city-states to start, puppeted the two militaristic ones, sent trade routes to the other eighteen and used Freedom's Treaty Organization policy to rack up absurd influence levels.)

OK, so which type of CS is the best target for buying? I always look for CSs that have many lux.

The optimal target is, of course, a CS that is not currently your ally and is of a type you don't care much about. Bonus dick move points for picking someone else's ally. Take the location, luxuries etc into account, as you would when founding cities of your own.

Don't forget, the best wonder for Venice is The Leaning Tower of Pisa. Optimal CS is a mercantile one, unless I'm remembering wrong that you would have the Jewelry/Porcelain.

In my own game as Venice, I found once you buy a few city states, you don't have to worry about getting more Merchants of Venice; your puppets will do that for you. (Via the normal gold buildings ultra high priority for puppets and will be filled)

Basically all you need to do is run a merchant specialist in Venice in the Market Place & maybe the Bank. You won't need faith based ones, and in fact may later want to shut Venice off in favor of Scientists.

limluigi said:

Don't forget, the best wonder for Venice is The Leaning Tower of Pisa. Optimal CS is a mercantile one, unless I'm remembering wrong that you would have the Jewelry/Porcelain.

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Nope, the Fall G&K patch removed Austria'a ability to keep Jewelry/Porcelain upon marrying and removes it. The same removal happens for Venice.

I have yet to play Venice, but in my mind the Commerce policy tree was made for Venice. The full tree helps reduce gold purchasing cost, and Venice probably will be doing a lot of that; Great Merchants become easier to get; land trade routes get a boost (although Venice probably would have more sea routes than land routes, but it can't hurt); and you unlock Big Ben, a very nice wonder for Venice to have. When I play Venice, I'm totally going for the Commerce tree.

You'd want to buy up CS's which give you no function at all. That's military and marcentalie. Befriend culture and maritime CS's for fun!

Finish the commerce tree = 4xincome from trade missions,.
At some point happiness will limit your need to buy up stuff, after all.

Remember that getting great engineer or scientist also increase required points for great merchant. If u want a lot of mechants avoid getting others GP.

Get market asap. Specialist in market gives you +3 great person points. This means you get first merchant in 33 turns or faster if there is something like garden in city.

Circuit said:

I have yet to play Venice, but in my mind the Commerce policy tree was made for Venice. The full tree helps reduce gold purchasing cost, and Venice probably will be doing a lot of that; Great Merchants become easier to get; land trade routes get a boost (although Venice probably would have more sea routes than land routes, but it can't hurt); and you unlock Big Ben, a very nice wonder for Venice to have. When I play Venice, I'm totally going for the Commerce tree.

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My own vote would be the Exploration tree was made for Venice.
As Venice (or just about everybody else) every single one of your routes will be via cargo ships for the 2X effect. (Other than Caravan from Petra).
And Exploration increases this further.

And puppets generate Merchants of Venice fast enough without needing additional boost to them (slowing down the Great Scientists). No need for faith based Merchants of Venice either, again a faith based Great Scientist would be more useful.

Puppets actually like to build Airports. And with having puppets throughout the globe, this means you can quickly dig sites any where on the globe.

Money is not a problem as Venice; what is a problem is Science as every Great Merchant of Venice slows down Great Scientists. It's only the guilds which have independent counters.

You technically don't need the Petra trade route to be a Caravan. The bonus trade route and the Caravan itself are separate, if you want to you can delete the Caravan and make it a Cargo Ship.

joncnunn said:

Money is not a problem as Venice; what is a problem is Science as every Great Merchant of Venice slows down Great Scientists. It's only the guilds which have independent counters.

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No one's forcing you to get MoVs, though. You don't need all those puppets nor all that cash. I'd say they did a fine job making at least one type of Great Merchant actually worth trying to get at least in some instances!