I do wonder if Austria's UA will have changed, though. It seems too similar to Venice's.
Anyway, the ability looks very useful, but the Merchant of venice is a disappointment. It's like a toned down version of Austria's ability, and I hate Austria's ability. There can be no peace with Maria Theresa. Everytime I see her I know I'll have to go to war to keep her busy and too poor to destroy a City State. I'll probably need to do the same to Venice when I see them in a game.
I'm pretty sure that I will be withholding an opinion until I try it. There is simply no way to judge Venice based on current experience.
Something that strikes me as odd is the presentation of the civ, which seems a bit unprofessional. The Civ V Civilopedia isn't exactly a Great Work, but still... it almost looks like they just read Dandolo's Wikipedia page and copied it over while paraphrasing slightly. The phrase where it says Dandolo "took the cross" is almost directly plagiarized from the Wikipedia entry.
That and we have the great person "Merchant of Venice" and the "Great Galleass". Must be a really great civ. Honestly, if I didn't know better I'd say something is rotten in Denmark...
As for the proposed mechanics, I still have doubts about a civ that only puppets other cities and can only buy things in order to shape city growth. What about control over the populace of puppet cities? The AI governor is rather incompetent, and if all your cities but the capital are set to gold focus and no tiles can be bought, there might be some frustrating difficulties increasing population size or acquiring new resources. Another problem there: if an existing city doesn't have a resource you need (say Iron, or Uranium), I guess you just have to trade with an opponent for it and hope they don't DoW you or break the deal later? Resource security seems to be an issue here.
I'm not going to guess whether only buying things in noncapital cities will prove practical, because the gold-earning mechanics of BNW are very different from those of G&K. I am going to say that I hope Venice pulls in tons and tons of gold, otherwise city improvements and defensive units will come very, very slowly.
Overall, somewhat intrigued and rather nonplussed. I can't quite picture how this will work as a civ, but that should make it interesting to try.
Sooooo... Why, exactly, is Venice Cream on Purple?
I toyed with the idea of having their most obvious color (Gold on Light Blue, since anything red and gold is already taken) already taken by the other unrevealed civ, but that is not case...
It couldn't be because it was too close to France, because this current choice is too close to Rome...
Why this color scheme? What sense does it make?
But they can puppet CS not allied to them, which can be extremely annoying playing against them.There is a difference between Venice and Austria. Austria can grab a city-state anytime they have enough cash. Venice has to wait for a MoV to spawn in order to grab a city-state.
Even with slotting every gold building, having gardens, and DoFing Sweden, they won't be able to beat Austria in a race to snatch up all the city-states.
Nope. You get free buildings to cities you own. And free aqueducts from tradition finisher even works with puppets. (doesn't work retroactively with puppets though. Legalism don't work with puppets.)Is anyone aware that you get a free Great Person finishing Liberty? That could be used to get another puppet city.
Don't you need to found or annex your first four cities to get the monuments and aqueducts from Tradition? Neither tree seems better than the other for Venice.
There is a difference between Venice and Austria. Austria can grab a city-state anytime they have enough cash. Venice has to wait for a MoV to spawn in order to grab a city-state.
Even with slotting every gold building, having gardens, and DoFing Sweden, they won't be able to beat Austria in a race to snatch up all the city-states.
Is anyone aware that you get a free Great Person finishing Liberty? That could be used to get another puppet city.
Don't you need to found or annex your first four cities to get the monuments and aqueducts from Tradition? Neither tree seems better than the other for Venice.