Tips For Playing Venice?

I think deity culture would be very tough for Venice, outside a warmongering approach. It's really hard to generate enough science to get to the key wonders before the AI, with only 1 city plus puppets (which suck at science). Immortal would probably even be pretty difficult. I've done it on emperor.

diplo on the other hand, piece of cake.

I just finished Culture on Immortal the other day. Granted, I was on a coast next to a mountain so Science was less of a problem. Venice's positioning was such that I couldn't get a cargo ship in it from my puppet without Astronomy so I beelined that. And I was still the first to Printing Press. It's just Culture Steam Roller after that point. My only weakness is that I cannot win any International Projects.

Deity I haven't tried though, but depends on the AI civ, you can get away with just one Culture Wonder, I think.

On Deity, if no AI open exploration, it will be possible. You can forget Uffizi, or you're lucky.
With Louvre, Sistine, Ermitage, it will be enough after Internet. You'll need airport and hotel.

When I'm playing as Venice the three most important things for me are: 1)Coastal start - Disabling start bias can put you way inland. 2) Left side of Commerce to at least the cheaper purchases. 3) Big Ben again for cheaper purchases, but this can be captured.

Ideology choice really depends on what VC you're going for. Keep in mind Freedom has the tier 3 tenet for +4 influence with a city state you have a trade route to. Since you have double the trade routes you can get the CS's to allied status fairly easily, while making a lot of gold.

As far as combating the other civs going for different ideologies, get your culture per turn up quickly to defend against their tourism. Get your tourism up so you can start putting pressure on them instead.

When any of the world projects get voted in, if you want to get first place, buy whatever your puppets are building unless it only has a turn or two to complete to get them to work on the project.

When going for Diplo victory on Immortal, I built these world wonders: Colossus, Porcelain Tower, Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, Sydney (to prevent the cultural runaway form getting it). The rest of the time was spent building national wonders. However, transposing that to the cultural wonders, I would have built Oracle but I don't think I would have been able to successfully build any wonders until late Renaissance and early Industrial as I got beaten to Notre Dame and Pisa. The Acoustics/Architecture wonders would start being do-able and easily anything after that.

InDubioProReo said:

How does Venice do in Deity in terms of Cultural Victory?

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One try, one fail T323, Catherine send her spaceship.

I was 9 turns from this last musicians I need to dominate last AI, France.

My real mistake were to not go to Satellites to deny Hubble to AI. I let it to Catherine, so I think I lost for two scientists. I prefer to save an engineer for Sydney. Useless in fact.

With Louvre + Ermitage + Oxford. I reach 450 tpt after Internet with Hotel and Airport. I need 3 musicians to win. I built Broadway. Another mistake.

Definitely an easy game (and boring). You'll have so many cash. It's easy to send AI against each other. You'll be late in science, but with so many cash RA's are useful.

First culture game with order. I was 5th to pick an ideology, with all AI picking Order. So, to don't be crush by my neighbors, I took order. Good surprise. Cultural revolution and Dictatorship of Proletariat are useful, it's +68% easy (only 2 civs went for autocracy and freedom).

End game (after Archaeology) is simply a «click next turn game».

Despite this, cultural victory on Deity stay an interesting challenge. My mistakes send me to a loose not to a later victory. It's fun.

During the game, I could win a diplomatic victory during 3 world election leader (first T280). I ended with around 10k gold despite I need to pay 350 gpt for an open border to William the Autocracy addicted.

Memoryjar hit upon something that should be a key strategy - denying late game wonders. I did the same thing in my Venice game: while patiently waiting for the first leader vote (24 turns away), I needed to do some things to slow down a cultural runaway (he already had 4 of 7 Influential). With nothing else I could be doing, I built cultural wonders (like Sydney) myself - not only increase my culture but to deny it to them. I sometimes do that with the early Modern wonders. But I don't know if any of that made much of a difference, still don't see the AI ever winning cultural. Space, yes, and I think deny wonders is a great strategy.

Buccaneer said:

Memoryjar hit upon something that should be a key strategy - denying late game wonders.

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It's an advice in Deau's Cutural victory guide on Deity.

For Hubble, it was a gamble. I reached Radar and asked myself if I need to go to satellites and after Intenet or directly to Internet. I was 20 turns from satellites, and 2 AI in Information Era. I learned AIs don't prioritize Hubble. It falls around 30 to 40 turns after I decided to skip Sats.

One key wonder I think I'm unable to deny to AI in a cultural game is Great Firewall. I had two notifications from my diplomats. William and Napoleon are currently building Great Firewall. Gloups ! The two cultural runaway. I breathed again two turns later when it fall in Moscou.

After that. I wonder how is it possible to win against a cultural leader who have great firewall with Venice.

Heh, most of my late game victories with Venice come from a combined culture / Domination or Science / Domination play style. I think if you focused on domination, it could be faster than the combined approach I use. I just dont like being warlike as Venice, until I can afford it

I lean towards getting Hubble asap, those egg-heads are super important for Venice.

I deal with culture runaways by destroying them or bribing someone else to. I win Space races with the Freedom tenet to buy SS components. I tend to get more cities compared to most people (had 10 puppets at the end of my last game). The puppets with large populations and loads of trade posts tend to generate enough science to compete with the AI nicely. Sometimes these are CS buy outs, and sometimes AI cities I get in peace trade deals. I *Never* want to capture a city as Venice until the modern age. You need to know which cities are the good ones to get.

I tend to play on Continents or archipelago, so I have as many submarines as possible early on. This allows me to keep control through ruthless wolf-pack / sight+1 promos. In my last game I had over 20 submarines and I sank 4 different nukes on carriers headed my way in the last 60 turns. I was at war with 3 civs at one point, it was desperate. I "built" 5 SS components in 6 turns. Win on turn 335. A culture win was also "imminent" but I didn't feel like waiting.

Yes, that is a late win. But when there are wars going on during the last 150 turns, the game can go longer than usual.

Inspired by the thread, I tried a culture game on immortal pangea. Unfortunately I only used 2 cities and science took forever. To compound the problem, Maria, the culture leader was out of trade route range for much of the game. I finally had to add a second puppet. Victory came at t351 after I had to fight a double declaration. In the end, they all revolted and converted to freedom.

I played on and hit Washington with four nukes, just because.

Oh, and Alex spawned next to me. I bought every single CS and he had none. Suck it, Alex.

Large islands is a good map for Venice. Plenty of land to improve and usually a CS on the same island. The best part is all the nice sea trade routes bonuses. I started a marathon game on this map so the great galleass would be good for a lot longer.

Most folks tend to use the first two trade routes (animal husbandry and sailing) as internal trade routes first to get your cities growing. However, since Venice gets double the trade routes, it might be better to send the first two to whatever civ or CS is nearby to get the money (and some science maybe) flowing in first. Then use the 2 extra trade routes for food.

The extra science from trade routes to other civs can let Venice beeline to compass for the great galleass, 2 more trade routes and harbor to extend trade route range while other civs are hitting the bottom of the tech tree.

If you hit optics early, it might be better to use the free MoV as a regular merchant instead of buying a puppet, because on standard speed that's about 1000 gold and 60 influence with the CS you use it at. So if you've pledged to protect at least 5 turns before that will put you at ally status with 65 influence. That money can go a long way towards building up the capital. The down side is it'll be a while before you can generate another one with running merchant specialists. However, you can get 2 more out of the liberty tree if you complete the tree.

Monthar said:

Large islands is a good map for Venice. Plenty of land to improve and usually a CS on the same island. The best part is all the nice sea trade routes bonuses. I started a marathon game on this map so the great galleass would be good for a lot longer.

Most folks tend to use the first two trade routes (animal husbandry and sailing) as internal trade routes first to get your cities growing. However, since Venice gets double the trade routes, it might be better to send the first two to whatever civ or CS is nearby to get the money (and some science maybe) flowing in first. Then use the 2 extra trade routes for food.

The extra science from trade routes to other civs can let Venice beeline to compass for the great galleass, 2 more trade routes and harbor to extend trade route range while other civs are hitting the bottom of the tech tree.

If you hit optics early, it might be better to use the free MoV as a regular merchant instead of buying a puppet, because on standard speed that's about 1000 gold and 60 influence with the CS you use it at. So if you've pledged to protect at least 5 turns before that will put you at ally status with 65 influence. That money can go a long way towards building up the capital. The down side is it'll be a while before you can generate another one with running merchant specialists. However, you can get 2 more out of the liberty tree if you complete the tree.

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You can use your first MoV as a regular Merchant (you'll get 800 gold from the mission on standard in Classical), but it needs a few specific circumstances to be effective. First, you need a Cultural CS, or maybe a Religious one, the others aren't worth it. Second, you need something to do with that cash. Ideally you have a number of sea resources so you can buy a Lighthouse.

As Venice you would also want to hit a bit of the bottom of the tech tree. The Colossus is probably the best wonder available for Venice, and Currency, Guilds and Engineering are also very useful.

I like to let 70 or 80 turns go by before I get Optics. This gives my first puppet a chance to grow and build some units while I acquire the happiness needed to add them to the empire.

budweiser said:

I like to let 70 or 80 turns go by before I get Optics. This gives my first puppet a chance to grow and build some units while I acquire the happiness needed to add them to the empire.

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Definitely before puppeting you need the techs for both your own and the puppet's luxuries, and preferably Monarchy as well. You also want the puppet to have acquired all the tiles you are interested in (luxuries and Natural Wonders), because it's not going to happen with the 1 culture/turn they generate after puppeting. At that time they'll usually have the other thing you want, a Granary.

Calouste said:

preferably Monarchy as well.

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I had a flashback to Civ2 when you said that, then another flashback to a Monarchy tech until I realized you were talking about a policy.

budweiser said:

I played on and hit Washington with four nukes, just because.

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