Venetian merchant spam AAAAARGH

Had to register just for this one problem with Venetian UA,its crazy OP considering they don't have to spend any gold or don't even care about influence taking your allies just like that really buttclenching ability

Playing on King they have taken 4 City-States so far,one of my ally and now not even 10 turns has passed since they took Belgrade but they already have another merchant going for my neighbor State Ally (wtf how did they generate him already..) Considering i planned my wars on closer factions i have DoF with them,and if i declare war to take that merchant everyone will hate me(diplo penalty stays entire game right?)

So what i want to know is how do you defend against Venice crap like that?Is war the only answer?(their capital isn't really close tho) City States stolen this way can't be liberated which also sucks..

Whenever Venice buys a city state via their UA, it loses their city state status entirely. You can conquer, but you won't have a liberate option and you could even raze it if you wanted to.

If you've never DOWed anyone (NOT even a city state for worker steal) then you might be able to get away with DOWing Venice with only the AIs that liked Venice better than you complaining.

It may be better for diplomatic purposes to have a joint war declaration with one of the AIs.

Puppets love to work all merchant spots which is some of the GMOV. Another is that the AI is probably running all merchant spots in the capital when playing Venice itself.

At some point the AI will prefer using the GMOV to become allies with them (60 influence) but you've not reached it yet.

You can try one of the following :

1. Start a game without Venice.

2. Start a game as Venice.

3. If Venice is in the game, declare war and conquer Venice early before they can takeover any CS.

4. If Venice is in the game, do not DOF with Venice. Monitor Venice with units. If Venice spawns a new merchant unit, declare war, capture the merchant, wait a few turns and make peace. If you don't take any city, your warmonger penalty for DOW should be low and decrease quickly. (Works also good against unwanted settlers in your sphere of interest.)

Something to note.

Merchants of Venice are unique GREAT MERCHANT replacements.

They aren't as OP as they might seem because of the following.

1. The cities they puppet, wether by conquer, sale, or MoV, they are puppets, which will focus on making nothing but gold, which oftens makes each city less expanded than you'd think. You can't specilize this cities and the only way to have ANY power of them is through using gold.

2. Each time they get a Great Merchant, they in fact increase cost of both Engineers and Scientists. So there's a pay-off.

historix69 said:

You can try one of the following :

1. Start a game without Venice.

2. Start a game as Venice.

3. If Venice is in the game, declare war and conquer Venice early before they can takeover any CS.

4. If Venice is in the game, do not DOF with Venice. Monitor Venice with units. If Venice spawns a new merchant unit, declare war, capture the merchant, wait a few turns and make peace. If you don't take any city, your warmonger penalty for DOW should be low and decrease quickly. (Works also good against unwanted settlers in your sphere of interest.)

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Yeah i figured that might be the only way,i assume i have to let them take another City State and wait for DoF to expire then Blitz them and camp their merchants(i do have strongest military)

Thanks,such a ridiculous ability tho

Funny, I'd actually like to see a game where Venice assimilates more than just 3 or 4 CS. Dandolo is usually a joke in my games.

I also have never seen Venice conquering any city.

Anyway to answer the question:

So what i want to know is how do you defend against Venice crap like that?Is war the only answer?(their capital isn't really close tho) City States stolen this way can't be liberated which also sucks..

Click to expand...

Yes, War is the only answer. There is no other way to prevent Venice from doing that. That's their only way to expand after all, it would be like asking you to never settle a city.

Remember though that the more puppets Venice has the more likely it is to spawn MoV. Each puppet can only and will generate MoV. Also you might want to get the wonders that increase merchant points for yourself, so they don't get them.

TheKingOfBigOz said:

1. The cities they puppet, wether by conquer, sale, or MoV, they are puppets, which will focus on making nothing but gold, which oftens makes each city less expanded than you'd think. You can't specilize this cities and the only way to have ANY power of them is through using gold.

Click to expand...

That wasn't really a problem when I played Venice. The extra trade routes can be used to improve cities, and naval trade route bonuses are insane. The considerable amount of money that you will gain, then, allows you to buy the buildings that puppets will put on a low priority.
Also gold focus often overlaps with production focus, which isn't bad at all.

TheKingOfBigOz said:

2. Each time they get a Great Merchant, they in fact increase cost of both Engineers and Scientists. So there's a pay-off.

Click to expand...

This also means that if they get Engineers and Scientists they get less MoVs.
Not sure how much you can exploit that though.

Killlbray said:

Yes, War is the only answer. There is no other way to prevent Venice from doing that. That's their only way to expand after all, it would be like asking you to never settle a city.

Remember though that the more puppets Venice has the more likely it is to spawn MoV. Each puppet can only and will generate MoV. Also you might want to get the wonders that increase merchant points for yourself, so they don't get them.

.

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Yeah but they are not just making lvl 1 cities on free ground they are "stealing"your allies without much effort,any gold/influence spent or combat.

They are assimilating them and you cant even get em back,i mean you should be able to liberate/bring democracy back to those cities .I do see their weak sides tho,well i will have to bring war to them soon.

Hodor22 said:

Yeah but they are not just making lvl 1 cities on free ground they are "stealing"your allies without much effort,any gold/influence spent or combat.

They are assimilating them and you cant even get em back,i mean you should be able to liberate/bring democracy back to those cities .I do see their weak sides tho,well i will have to bring war to them soon.

Click to expand...

Austria does the same, with far less restrictions and it doesn't even need to do that to expand.

Killlbray said:

Austria does the same, with far less restrictions and it doesn't even need to do that to expand.

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Austria has to become the city state's ally and then pay the city state more money. Venice doesn't need to pay anything, and can take the city states they aren't allies with. Venice is far stronger i would say,and has way less restrictions on kidnapping City States

Btw Austria is also in my game(fun fun fun!)but they are further away and far more passive atm

Given how easy it is to generate gold in this game, I would say Austria has greater flexibility than Venice does, since Venice has to generate a Merchant of Venice and transport it to the desired CS, while Austria just needs a wad of gold (to ally the CS, if not already done via quests, and to make the buy--the economics of gold-buying a CS are far more attractive than rush-buying, e.g., a university). And Austria has the option of annexing.

Browd said:

Given how easy it is to generate gold in this game, I would say Austria has greater flexibility than Venice does, since Venice has to generate a Merchant of Venice and transport it to the desired CS, while Austria just needs a wad of gold (to ally the CS, if not already done via quests, and to make the buy--the economics of gold-buying a CS are far more attractive than rush-buying, e.g., a university). And Austria has the option of annexing.

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But i can stop Austria from taking my allies,Venice can take longtime ally by force. Austria isn't going to buy out an ally when i got 150 influence,Venice will just walk in without care in the world.

EXTERMINATE.

War is the only answer to Venice - he starts popping out a merchant or two, but later his puppets start to spawn them too. Sure, he doesn't get as many Engineers or Scientists, but the AI has no clue what to do with those anyway.

Doesn't have to be you in the war. Finding your friendly neighborhood warmonger & funding their attacks works.

When Venice is in the game, my first course of action is to kill and be done with them. Usually comes with a nice bonus of wonders since Enrico likes to build them rather than the military units that he needs.