Immortal Venice

So Venice.

I'm planning to breach Immortal with Venice since they are probably the easiest Civ to play.

So biggest questions in order:

1. Under what circumstances am I "allowed" to reroll?

Since Venice will only ever found one city that city should probably be in a petty damn good location. What do I "need" to start with (apart from a coast being an obvious necessity).

2. Should I beeline Banking before Education...or not?(awkwardness: Education is needed for banking. Just scratch this, lol)

Obviously I want Forbidden Palace above all else, since I will have a hard time taking the city in which it would be.

3. How to properly use Merchants of Venice?

When I hover over science or culture, it says every city or puppeted city increases the cost of the next policy or tech, also it decreases the number of city states that I could buddy up with. So I'm somehow tempted only to use them on trade missions, maybe 1-2 at the beginning can buy CSs, but not more.

4. What early game wonders should I aim for?

I believe Venice would massively benefit from the Colossus, the Hanging Gardens and the Oracle. Can I grab at least 2 of these on Immortal? (especially the Colossus)

5. Anything else to bear in mind?

I know it will probably be an easy game, but any advice is welcome none-the-less.

Unless you've gone into advanced settings to turn off start bias (or are playing on the built in earth map), then Venice has top dips to a coastal start, so you don't have to worry about that.

As Venice you want to ensure that both your intended luxury types are within 3 hexes of where you found.

#2 You can win diplomatic victory without FP. In fact, Banking is as well, so after finishing Education you may want to see how many AIs have sub policies into Patronage.

#3 The first few need to be used to buy city states just so you can run food cargo ships to Venice.

Obviously you want the city states you buy to be those you haven't sunk money into become allies.
Highest priority would be a Martime city state with a natural wonder already within its cultural boundary.
The never buy would be the Merchicle city states.

Every city state you buy reduces the vote count you need to win by 1 vote. (But becoming an ally gives you 2 votes once the World Council becomes the UN)

#4 On Immortal, not many. I'm thinking you're choice of Stonehenge or Oracle but NOT both in the same game. Later on, if you've gone Liberty then Statue of Liberty. Uffinzi if you go Cultural victory. Hubble if you go Science victory.

Colossus is very much off the standard science path to Education. But if half the AIs have inland city starts you may be able to still snag it after having grabbed the much more important NC + University.

Hanging Gardens is also off the standard science path to National College, which again is much more important. If you want food, just run some food cargo ships from the cities you buy. Your odds in a given game of getting in directly depend on how many AIs chose Tradition vs another starting social policy.

I ended up getting Hanging gardens and Oracle. The AI beat me to Colossus, but I wisely moved my settler one tile down to be next to a desert...so I got Petra instead

Now it's just getting those ships....I need to build so much stuff in VeniceI haven't had time to build more than a few ships yet, but they are definitely on my list!

Just build ships to get money to buy builds. Makes it easy to buy all the science buildings the same turn they are done.

On Immortal you should be more worried about keeping up population before building early wonders. Hanging Gardens is about the only one you would really want to shoot for. Other than that Pisa for the free great person or Porcelain Tower for the research agreement boost.

Oh and for #1....reroll as much as you want, it is your game. If you play for fun reroll until you get the start you want to play. If you want the challenge just roll once and just handle what you are dealt.

Okay, this is big. I'm really enjoying this game, I think the balance is ideal. I can see myself winning this game, but the AI is FINALLY putting up significant resistance.

The first 300 turns passed in the ordinary manner, apart from Askia DOWing me and looting my poor ships blind. No problem, I have him embargoed (since he exterminated Darius and a few CSs it passes quite easily).

The real difficulties start when Ideologies are taken. Apart from Askia, who picked Autocracy (surprise-surprise, eh?), and myself who took Freedom, EVERYBODY went Order, and I think the only reason why this is so to screw me over.

I mean...Order Washington? With Patronage? Also, trying to pass "Embargo city states"?

wat?
The guy seems completely random but so does everyone else. The only reason I can think of that this huge communist block formed around me is to screw me over. I cannot take touristic pressure as a reason, because when I was playing Culture Egypt, Rome would rather suck up a -20 total hapiness than to switch to Freedom.

So right now, I'm just getting gangbanged and my trade routes plundered. First Casimir and Washington attacked me together. I was able to deal with them just fine. However, now it's time for Oda Nobunaga, Ramesses and Her Majesty to take their turn in bullying the poor Venice. The Royal Navy is a nasty beast. Needless to say, my gold is not flowing in as it should be.

Sure, I could build a fleet and take the fight to them, but it would take AGES, and Askia has already completed the Apollo program (I have no idea where he gets all this science from). So I'm going to suck up the -2 policies and the fact that Order is completely useless for Venice and...go Order. I will profit from this by getting Order as world ideology passed and getting 2 extra delegates.

What would you guys do in this situation? Should I have switched pre-emptively to avoid the whole problem altogether?

If you were far enough in the tech pace, then you should be hitting ideologies way earlier than AIs unless they beelined industrialization and bought factories. If you're doing ok on the cultural front, you can probably get treaty org tenet by 230 latest. By that time when you reach 300 in that situation you should have the majority of votes to vote for freedom ideology to offset the pressure or even hit it before AIs get ideologies.

Usually the AIs don't decide to all go order though...maybe you need to pay a bit more attention to the diplo game. IMO Venice is pretty easy for a diplo game if you can stick with freedom treaty org.

do you have at least some AI friends?

I had Freedom way before everyone else had an Ideology, except for Askia, the guy had very serious science and with only 1 cities I was unable to keep up (he had his own continent after killing Darius).

Unhappiness wasn't an issue, or pressure. It's the way every single AI civ turned against me, and I'm not over exaggerating. Apart from me and Askia, everybody was order and you know what differing ideologies do...age-old friends turn on you.

I didn't have a single ally. I felt like the ugly kid in the classroom and everyone was bullying me.

Btw I did win that game....I switched to order, which was a pain as I was basically playing without an Ideology, but screw it, I had patronage and...something else .

So I did win, but I needed world peace to achieve it.

Also, first immortal victory that was.

Topic right up my alley:

settings: Venice, Deity, Quick, Frontier map (!?)

anyway, I start getting stuff up, the usual, luxuries, NC, beeline to Education and Guilds. I was nearly 200 bpt on turn 110ish. Trade routes all over the place, one puppet to feed me.

Around time industrial revolution kicked in, AIs overshot me in tech, and while I was busy finishing Patronage, I kind of should have opened Rationalism for a science boost.

Now comes the fun part: I paid everyone to go to war with everyone, and I stockpiled gold for CSs. Once Congress rolled in, I started with a very dirty game that eventually backfired instead of working for the common good, I picked resolutions that would gimp as much people as much as possible, so I passed Army Tax easily with my CS influence.

Around that time I made probably the one big mistake, I passed Freedom as World Ideology. And with everyone else being on Order and Lizzy on auto, that made everyone mad. I figured passing Freedom would cause unrest everywhere else forcing them to flip. The next session, Lizzy tried to repeal it, while I passed Embargo to Dido, who started backstabby nuts in the meantime. She was in a war with Siam for as long as I can remember, and I only paid Siam to hit her so she can get off my back, so I got more than I bargained for Lizzy repealed Freedom by 3 votes, which I miscalculated, Dido would have been embargoed anyway and my extra votes against repealing would make Lizzy fail. The propaganda did its work though, as Haile went Freedom but was later forced to go Order, it was a revolution or something

At one point Dido and Sejong double DoW me because they're obviously fed up. By the time Sejong got to my shores (Dido was whipped btw) I had subs rolling. Eventually they backed down but I got locked in a perma-war with Siam and Incas. Problem was, they had just enough CSs peace blocked so I couldn't do anything. I derped at one moment and had a Merchant killed when I tried to buy an ally of Siam. Neither of them backed down even though I wasn't in any danger. I should have bought 2 more CSs and went Order with everyone else. Lizzy was busy fighting Incas and Dido was slowly being brushed aside (her cap was sieged at one point, even). I was wheeling and dealing like crazy, I don't think there was ever a blind man with more foresight than Enrico, if you read anything about him, you'd be astonished.

in the end, Sejong ran away with this all the way to Alpha Centauri and that's how the story ends. I might have won with enough gold in the back and with Order in my cities.

IMO there's basically two ways to go with Venice, freedom diplo or autocracy dom. The pain with playing dandolo is that his merchants are too useful to pass up, and so you won't have any scientists spawning, which is a huge blow to the tech pace. That's where you can play peacefully with treaty org and try winning all the CS, or the autocracy double steal rate comes into play.

What is the frontier map like? I still like commerce with mobilization and big ben, then just wreck the continent with flight.

it's actually a mildly gimped Continents with no significant differences. I think it's supposed to be harsher, lots of unknown hostile environment but it ended up being one big continent where most of us picked each other apart and a smaller isolated continent where Sejong took out Becca and then ran away etc etc

Jinavajra said:

I'm planning to breach Immortal with Venice since they are probably the easiest Civ to play.

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I struggle with Venice so I would like to know why folks characterized them as EZ mode. I hate having only one city to build units, compete on WC projects, and SS parts. I think my problem is that I rarely rush buy, and of course, Venice rush buys lots and lots. I try and play each civ to their strengths, but Venice was very frustrating for me.

Jinavajra said:

Btw I did win that game....I switched to order, which was a pain as I was basically playing without an Ideology, but screw it, I had patronage and...something else. So I did win, but I needed world peace to achieve it. Also, first immortal victory that was.

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So, was that a diplo VC then or what? And what was the something else? Why did world peace help?

Sessy said:

IMO there's basically two ways to go with Venice, freedom diplo or autocracy dom.

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Diplo feels cheesy with any civ, and I am bad at domination, so that certainly helps explain my frustration with Venice. Venice is bad for peaceful CV and terrible for SV. Even with domination, all those units you get from CS are 0 xp, so that takes much of the fun out of it. Usually, one of the nice perks from Autocracy is all your units starting at level 3. I think the only tree that is particularly nice for Venice is commerce. Freedom, Liberty, Piety, Aesthetics, and all three ideologies have tenants which Venice (and only Venice) cannot fully exploit.

I struggle with Venice so I would like to know why folks characterized them as EZ mode. I hate having only one city to build units, compete on WC projects, and SS parts. I think my problem is that I rarely rush buy, and of course, Venice rush buys lots and lots. I try and play each civ to their strengths, but Venice was very frustrating for me.

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venice is not easy for most people who are not used to OCC. you can't really expand and make good use of citizens, which is a big part of playing well. I think it's only easy when you have Glighthouse or colossus, both give merchant points. Please don't go SV as Venice, the tech pace is almost never fast enough, although it is powerful to go freedom space procurement, spend a merchant and just buy 3 parts.

Of course, commerce is the way to go with venice. the main issue for me is that the civ needs merchants early or goes to war early enough to get enough land that a normally tall empire would have. if their merchants are on a separate counter, and then GS GE are pooled, it would be much more reasonable. otherwise tech is a serious flaw with this civ if you don't steal fast (double rate autocracy).

I always use Legendary Start as I love seeing an abundance of resources near each capital. I think it is a great setting for Venice.

For some reason I manage to snag a lot of wonders as Venice on Immortal which I usually miss playing other Civs. I'm guessing that the extra science penalty introduced for each additional city allows me to maintain good Bpt having only one city.

Sessy said:

Venice is not easy for most people who are not used to OCC.

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Yes, I think this is it. There is a reason for the second C in OCC!

Venice isn't always an occ since you can buy city states that are often much larger particularly in the higher difficulties.

Yeah, about that. You really should choose what CSs you should buy, as some are more useful as CSs than others, especially early on.

Some aspects of it are definitely easier, you can grab stuff like NC, NE, HE fairly easily. With plenty of CSs you will hardly ever need CM and stuff like Ox and Herm are always good to have regardless of victory type you're gunning for

reddishrecue said:

Venice isn't always an occ since you can buy city states that are often much larger particularly in the higher difficulties.

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Right, compared to a real OCC, Venice is EZ. Almost of trees being compromised applies to any OCC, not just Venice. Not being able to queue units in expos is a drag.

stormtrooper412 said:

Yeah, about that. You really should choose what CSs you should buy, as some are more useful as CSs than others, especially early on.

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I struggle with that too, as I value CS more as allies. I try to buy out the allies of competitors, and look for CS on NW and off the mainland.

Some aspects of it are definitely easier, you can grab stuff like NC, NE, HE fairly easily.

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Sure, but I find that small consolation.

With plenty of CSs you will hardly ever need CM and stuff like Ox and Herm are always good to have regardless of victory type you're gunning for

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What is CM?

beetle said:

I struggle with that too, as I value CS more as allies. I try to buy out the allies of competitors, and look for CS on NW and off the mainland.

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Does "off the mainland" here mean CS on a different continent/landmass from your capital?

CS near me are prolly allies. Venice can buy out allies of others, but I don’t want to pick one geographically close to a competitor. So I would generally be looking for a CS on it’s own island.

What is CM?

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Circus Maximus, I believe.