Venice, few questions

Hi,

tl:dr at bottom!

so I am playing Venice and I am enjoying it far better than I expected. I have Gold floating through my empire constantly so I use it to upgrade my Military and/or purchase buildings in cities. Right now, being at 270 turn, I have +500 gold per turn and... +50 culture. I am not aiming for CV, but I do wanna increace my culture. Are there any ways to do that quickly?
I have Opera Houses, Museums, Aphitheatres etc all bought, but I still didn't produce a single GW or GA - only Merchants (which I love, honestly, they are SO FREAKING GOOD!!)

Also question about Faith - as Venice, my main source of income are Trade Routes. When I am trading, I am pressuring my Faith towards other Civ and am being pressured from other civ. Is there a way to stop it/minimalize it?
I read today that I can buy Inquistors and just put them in Cities/adjacent to Cities and then Missionaires/Great Prophets won't be able to spread their religion towards me and that solves it a bit, but not quite. Suggestions?

tl;dr:
How to spread religion efficiently through trade routes?
How to get more +culture when I already have all Operas, Museums etc.?

Did you fill the slots of Writers/Artists/Musicians of the Guilds?
And have you built any wonders with great works?
Also, If you want more culture, you could get the Aesthetics Tree and see if it helps!

Got SIstine Chapel and Great Library. Got also Archeologists wandering around so I will just send them to dig and ye, I forgot about putting specialists in Artists and Writers guilds. Thanks!

I find Faith is tricky for Venice. They are not exactly a "wide" empire It depends on how spread out your cities are. One or two are probably close but the others might be all over the place. Likely that they will get converted to whatever religion is locally dominant.

Honestly, I dont mind getting a few external religions if they allow buildings: Its nice to get Cathedrals, Mosques, Pagodas all in one city (this should increase your culture points nicely as well).

To prevent other religions, its the same as always: increase local pressure for your own (shrine, temple, *grand temple*) one or two food routes from internal cities will also help.

If you want YOUR religion to spread, you can focus your trade routes: get 4 trade routes from 4 different cities you control (all with your religion) and send them all to one city: the pressure from trade route should be huge. Add a missionary for good measure. Flip. I dont find this is a really good use of my trade routes, but its handy for CS quests. I think the same trick works internally as well with food / hammer routes.

Culture:
Get those guilds up and running! work the specialists! the earlier the better. Get some great works. Use archeologiest to get some artifacts, etc.

JeSuisNapoleon said:

To prevent other religions, its the same as always: increase local pressure for your own (shrine, temple, *grand temple*) one or two food routes from internal cities will also help.

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Do shrines and temples affect pressure? I didn't think they did. In a standard game, any city exerts 6 pressure of it's majority religion to any other city in it's range - 10 tiles (13 tiles with Itinerant Preachers). This is only ever modified by a couple things. The Grand Temple will double it for that city. Religious Texts will boost it to 9 (12 with printing press).

The internal trade routes idea, though, is a good one. The religious pressure spread between your own cities is a very good deterrent to passive religious infiltration. Should only be used, though, when pressure is going to be a real problem - otherwise you're throwing away a lot of potential trade route gold.

CraziFuzzy said:

Do shrines and temples affect pressure? I didn't think they did. In a standard game, any city exerts 6 pressure of it's majority religion to any other city in it's range - 10 tiles (13 tiles with Itinerant Preachers). This is only ever modified by a couple things. The Grand Temple will double it for that city. Religious Texts will boost it to 9 (12 with printing press).

Click to expand...

I think your right.
The capitol should always have the grand temple though (because, Venice). and that is usually good enough.

Perhaps the best thing to do is have an inquisitor waiting around in the cap.
I also sometimes place units around the capitol to ward off any roving prophets.

this wont stop trade rout pressure or course, you might need to consume the inquisitor eventually.

hultek said:

...I am not aiming for CV, but I do wanna increace my culture...

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Don't be confused here. Increasing your culture in no way helps towards a culture victory. It can prevent another civ from winning a culture victory, and can of course lead to Social Policies and Idealogical Tenents that might help with a culture victory, but it is tourism that you want if trying to win the 'hearts and minds'.

With 500 gold coming inn you should buy alliances with cultural CS. Take the policy that turns extra happiness into culture.

budweiser said:

With 500 gold coming inn you should buy alliances with cultural CS. Take the policy that turns extra happiness into culture.

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Heh, and in later eras, ALL the CS could / should be your allies. Its not hard to pump out a few extra merchants later on and use them in strategic ways to ensure all the CS belong to you. since all your puppets will run merchant specialists, its almost unavoidable.

One of my favorite Venice strategies is getting Freedom, then arsenal of democracy. Getting gifts from allied CS, re-gifting them to other CS. In one game I gifted 10 units to Ur, and bought them with a Merchant, then gifted those units again to other CS, who promptly burned down an enemy city.

Profit.

budweiser said:

With 500 gold coming inn you should buy alliances with cultural CS. Take the policy that turns extra happiness into culture.

Click to expand...

Any surplus happiness is more useful being used to puppet another CS, which will generate much more Culture per Smiley with just a few culture buildings. (As well as a lot of other resources/income)

I don't bother with Faith with Venice in general. Maybe if I can buy a city state that has a Faith mountain, but otherwise it's usually not worth the investment. Because you're typically stuck on two cities for a while, you can't generate enough faith to make it work. And there are trading partners to discover, trade units to build, that's more important.

Ye I'm about 380 turn and I had to finish because my girlfriend wanted to cuddle or something. Tried to ignore her, but you know, man can't resist for too long.

Got in war with Spain. She's a . She stole 2 City States and I couldn't let her feel good about herself so I got Vatican back. ALMOST got Antwerp back, but I did such a stupid mistake that cost me my army and Antwerp. Basically, what I did was:
I first used Infantry to lower HP of the city, then used Caitling Gun to finish it. Stupid me, I forgot that Infantry could take over the town and... ye, I didn't have a save or anything, so I just agreed to take Peace Treaty (she gave me Seville which I razed, because I didn't wanted to be surrounded by her).
And I am winning by CV, suprisingly. All started with building Eiffel Tower and Guilds, then Artists/Musicians/Writers started popup right after another and boom - I am now influential in 2 civs out of 5 or 6. Funny, cuz I didn't even want that. But well.
Oh and also I have so much gold I don't know what to do with it. I think I will bribe everyone and declare as many RA as possible and therefore I will boost myself towards Information Era which means quicker Diplo Victory.
Will finish this map today, gotta take few hours.
But yeah, I purchase all the building I can, I purchase lots of army and I still have +80 happiness and 16000 gold (600 GPT). Commerce branch ftw.

I like Venice. I really do. I will try play it again on King (right now playing on Prince, I must've missclicked it ) and on Pangea so I will have all City States on one huge continent and I will buy all City State and win through dominance!

THANKS GUYS! YOU ARE SO HELPFUL! <3

Would've not done it without you, thanks thanks thanks!!

edit: Forgot to mention - I randomly give City States thousands of gold and I allied all of them. And my Religion is THE WORLD religion, which gives me more advantages

I think you are seeing the effect of World Religion on the others. Its making your tourism more effective.

http://imgur.com/a/Ku4Fh
Here is quick summary of the game.

Thanks once more, gonna take a break from CIV for few days and then I will smash someone when going for DOMINATION VICTORY (only one I didn't get... YET!)