Venice AI is your best friend

Currently playing a game (Marathon, Immortal) as Poland. Only Venice was on the same island as me (no CS). The result was several years of profitable trading, with no hint of war and definitely no worries about expansion.

In short, having Venice nearby is a good thing as long as there are no CS around. However, the AI is having a bit of trouble actively finding CS to buy off with the MOV. Almaty is close by on another island, accessible by coast, but the AI has no idea how to send their MOV there (even though they've had OPTICS for quite some time).

In short, having Venice close by is perhaps better than having a CS close by, with easy trade for all, though I'm afraid if they don't expand, they'll get wiped out by an enemy pretty soon.

Protect them It really sounds like a nice arrangement: Protection for money.

I have had a different experience with Venice as my neighbor. Conditions were standard Pangaea map on Emperor difficulty. I was playing as Morocco and my capital was on the SW coast. Venice was to the far NW but was my only neighbor on the west side. I settled my second city to my north, 8 tiles from Venice. They immediately started to covet my lands and were neutral. I then settled my third city to the northeast of city 2, still 8 tiles from Venice and behind a mountain range from them. This effectively blocked the other AI from all of the land to my west (land south of Venice). However, Venice then asked me to not settle near them, even though they are incapable of settling that land anyway! I told them I would settle where I please since I wanted all of the western land (land that Venice was not able to settle even if they wanted to).

The strange thing is that with city 3 I had settled toward both of my closest neighbors to the E and NE (Austria and Babylon) yet they remained friendly and I was able to get DoFs with both. For my fourth city I settled west of my capital on the far SW coast (at least 15-20 tiles from Venice) and they asked me not to settle near them again! They never DoWed me but remained cranky as I eventually filled up the space to their south (although I did not overlap their workable tiles). I was still able to get decent trade routes with them but it is just seemed very strange considering their UA. I guess they just have land envy.

Cultural borders, strategic resource probability and taking their tiles are all causes for concern