Venice and Supply

Please correct me if I am wrong but I am playing as Venice on a huge map Emperor difficulty. My military consists of one crossbow, one warrior, a khan, worker and 5 caravels. I have 7 trade routes. I have maxed out my supply. This leads me to believe that caravans and cargo ships count against supply which creates a bit of an issue for Venice. I have virtually no military and am unable to build or buy one unless I want to suffer the production penalty. Now I understand that with Venice I am gold buying most everything anyways but the point still stands. Has the supply mechanic ever been more useful than just the regular unit maintenance?

Every unit, including civilian units and Great Persons, counts against your supply limit. Go to Military OVerview to see how it is computed.

I noticed that, my issue is that with Venice you can run into some real supply issues because of it even though the infrastructure exists if you do want to field an army.

Are you puppeting any city states? I usually go with 2 CS puppets, and I've never had any problems with hitting the unit limit.

I actually started off completely isolated except for two city-states and since the gold, faith and culture were more beneficial I didn't puppet them. Now that I'm in the Renaissance I'm starting to regret it a little bit.

McSaucy4418 said:

I actually started off completely isolated except for two city-states and since the gold, faith and culture were more beneficial I didn't puppet them. Now that I'm in the Renaissance I'm starting to regret it a little bit.

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Yeah, puppeting the least profitable and using it to grow Venice would likely have solved your supply problem (I play Venice mostly on King, but I never ran into that issue with it, and I keep an army comparable to yours.. less caravels but 2 more crossbows).

As Venice in the two city states nearby one Cultural & the other Religious and no others around, I would buy out the Cultural state first & the Religious one second.

(If allies with the faith one, I would wait to no longer be allies or otherwise until I have enhanced my religion to buy them out.)

I would actually have my first four city states bought running food cargo ships to Venice initially to get it to grow super big. (Be sure to at some point complete Tradition to get the 50% happiness reduction in Venice.) Late in the game I may switch them to hammer cargo ships.

Surprisingly enough I have actually only generated one great merchant and its roughly turn 700 (marathon, equivalent to late Renaissance on standard). I thought about grabbing the cultural city state but the huge gold bump and instant ally status was just too tempting. I also didn't foresee the supply issue since I normally don't have a problem.

Caravan or cargo should not count towards supply.

McSaucy4418 said:

Surprisingly enough I have actually only generated one great merchant and its roughly turn 700 (marathon, equivalent to late Renaissance on standard). I thought about grabbing the cultural city state but the huge gold bump and instant ally status was just too tempting. I also didn't foresee the supply issue since I normally don't have a problem.

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After a few games trying options, I normally use the first GMV (from Optics) to buy a "granary" colony - generally the closest CS to Venice, or the less beneficial as ally if there's more than one in range. There's always a loss, but in the long run the extra/faster growth pays off and that and the puppet itself will make it unlikely to run into a supply problem. I don't or rarely beeline Optics, I prefer to let the CS grow and produce buildings first, but I still prioritize it.

A second merchant I expend later, after Astronomy and getting a better picture of the map, and I carefully pick the CS so it gives me "early" access to too distant but lucrative cities for trade. If it's still in range to feed Venice as well, all the better.

From there it depends on the game. If there are enough CS in reach I might buy 1 to 3 more to grow even more or for specialists, in others I stick to two and go with the trade missions. Often my trade network is lucrative enough that I make getting more merchants a low priority and focus on GS until I have extra specialists. In the late game I often use GMV more aggressively/strategically.. buying the CS within reach of a too strong buylly using gunboat diplomacy, or sometimes station GMV in advance in key locations, ready to give me an extra ally, or the gold for emergency purchases, and I like to have a GMV ready to use in a CS in bomber reach of a distant strong rival and that I can buy if I need to launch an attack.

Yeah. The stupidest thing to do as Venice is rushing optics if the intention is to rush taking a CS. If the intention is to build the Great Lighthouse at a fish heavy start; OK then.

Better get the National College first, or even the Circus Maximus. Venice is also nice to get some early wonders with, while the other players are rushing out workers and settlers. Great Library, Colossus, Oracle, Hanging Gardens, Panthenon..... Yummy, yummy, and none of those need optics first!

The CS's can wait abit, and meanwhile they grow, build buildings and units anyways, that later will be yours.

Luckystrike77 said:

Yeah. The stupidest thing to do as Venice is rushing optics if the intention is to rush taking a CS. If the intention is to build the Great Lighthouse at a fish heavy start; OK then.

Better get the National College first, or even the Circus Maximus. Venice is also nice to get some early wonders with, while the other players are rushing out workers and settlers. Great Library, Colossus, Oracle, Hanging Gardens, Panthenon..... Yummy, yummy, and none of those need optics first!

The CS's can wait abit, and meanwhile they grow, build buildings and units anyways, that later will be yours.

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I agree. It's very tempting to try to get many of the TR up very early (with ships to protect them) to try swimming in money early, and buy rather than build, and to start taking CS, but it's turned out more profitable in my games to be patient and prioritize science/growth in Venice itself over trade until the NC at least.

If the start location really sucks for food production I will consider beelining Optics if there's a CS nearby to get an internal food route to Venice as bad growth is crippling. Poor food production for Venice + no CS in range can become game breaking if not solved fast enough.

Luckystrike77 said:

Yeah. The stupidest thing to do as Venice is rushing optics if the intention is to rush taking a CS. If the intention is to build the Great Lighthouse at a fish heavy start; OK then.

Better get the National College first, or even the Circus Maximus. Venice is also nice to get some early wonders with, while the other players are rushing out workers and settlers. Great Library, Colossus, Oracle, Hanging Gardens, Panthenon..... Yummy, yummy, and none of those need optics first!

The CS's can wait abit, and meanwhile they grow, build buildings and units anyways, that later will be yours.

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One of the main problems with taking a CS early as Venice is that the CS gets the 25% culture penalty of a puppet, which means that its culture production drops from 2 cpt to 1 cpt (rounding down) and border expansion slows to glacial speed. And you can't buy tiles in a puppeted CS. So, unless you have a culture producing pantheon that also works for the CS, it's better to wait until they have expanded to that luxury or Natural Wonder you are looking for before sending the MoV over.

And of course, unless you have a pile of cash ready, you'd like the CS to have completed its Granary before you buy it. It's not really worth that much if it hasn't.

Atinuviel said:

Are you puppeting any city states? I usually go with 2 CS puppets, and I've never had any problems with hitting the unit limit.

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Hm.. I'll be a little more aggressive with this in the future but regarding the OP, I FEEL YOUR PAIN!!! I'm only 8 games into BNW, my first was a test-run with the best civ in the game, Monty, and I found that most of the basic tenets of the game hadn't changed, most importantly that a large gold surplus ensures a smoother run towards all victory conditions. But now with the early riverside economy dead, no help from water tiles either, markets reduced, all that's left is a few luxury tiles, selling the redundant luxes, and city connections, which isn't enough, but now there's the new trade route system which becomes the main focal point of your economy. So I figured, "that's this guy's specialty, should be a great civ." And I dealt with the red exclamation point for most of the game. I did puppet one, pretty early too and it had Lake Victoria, but still. Double the trade routes means double the trade route vehicle supply which ends up being most of your supply. Furthermore, one of the overlooked advantages of cities is that they bust the fog of war, and Venice not having any means that you need to have a bunch of military units to prevent barbs spawning along your trade routes, unless you want to buy a replacement cargo ship for every trade route every couple of turns. So between the trade vessels, a few efficiently positioned fog busters to guard the trade routes, and a single worker, I had enough left in supply for one or two units, not enough to defend against barbs, let alone if a neighbor wanted to DoW, and an offensive campaign was completely out of the question.
Was about to make a second run with Venice. Thanks for reminding me of the headaches it involves.

Calouste said:

One of the main problems with taking a CS early as Venice is that the CS gets the 25% culture penalty of a puppet, which means that its culture production drops from 2 cpt to 1 cpt (rounding down) and border expansion slows to glacial speed.

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They tend not to build any culture building before being bought (maybe Cultural CS do, I almost never buy one of those), so buying buildings so they start to grow their borders is pretty much your responsibility anyway. In the meantime, you get the other benefits from the puppet, like a free Hanging Gardens for Venice by having an internal TR.

CS also tend to have a granary pretty early on, or they start one as soon as you buy them if they can reach one of your city by TR. By Medieval it's not rare they have built an harbor already (or they will prioritize that once bought). Another good thing is that most often they've built a library too. They like markets too, and walls.

A downside is that sometimes the CS have many buildings you'd rather not have to pay maintenance on.

But on the whole Classical/Medieval eras, after Compass if they're coastal, are good times to buy a first CS puppet. Personally I tend to often wait Astronomy and exploring farther before getting a second, which in some games is my last (occasionally a third if I need it to reach more capitals and big cities, and for buying more I need a specific motive, like aside from conquest my only way to get 3 coals, or uranium is by buying a CS to expand its borders and get that resource. Or I may need a military base on a continent to stage an operation).