The Merchant of Venice needs a limiting factor

I do wish there was ample warning though. I only noticed an MoV trying to take an allied CS of mine when I was monitoring Elizabeth's forces near it. Luckily, her units were within reach of the Venetian, and one bribe later...

The only change I'd like to see to Venice and Austria is when an opponent captures a city that was previously a CS, the option to liberate it should be there.

NukeAJS said:

The only change I'd like to see to Venice and Austria is when an opponent captures a city that was previously a CS, the option to liberate it should be there.

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People keep saying this, but I don't think it really makes much sense gameplay wise or realistically wise.

Think of it like this. Texas willingly joined the US. Now, for whatever reason, Mexico captures Texas from the US and says be free Texas, go back to being the Texas Republic.

Texas reply, "Umm yeah we are a part of the US...we will just be going back now"

Gameplay wise it doesn't make sense either. How much worse would Austria and Venice be if I could go on a "conquering spree" and "liberate" all of their cities, which they didn't take by force? So now the world sees me not as a warmonger who just destroyed nearly all of Venice, but instead as a liberator of the ones who needed no liberation?

I think Venice should earn great merchant at double the normal speed

BlackWizard said:

I think Venice should earn great merchant at double the normal speed

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Why? So you do not get more GS and GE?
In my games with Venice I rarely even produced one MOV after the free one. You simply do not even need more than 2 puppets, and you can live with one as well.

2nd just so you can reach more places for trading and to be able to send one more caravan/ship with food to venice. Otherway, these are pretty much useless.

dragonxxx said:

Why? So you do not get more GS and GE?
In my games with Venice I rarely even produced one MOV after the free one. You simply do not even need more than 2 puppets, and you can live with one as well.

2nd just so you can reach more places for trading and to be able to send one more caravan/ship with food to venice. Otherway, these are pretty much useless.

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Yes. In fact they should disable scientist and engineers from Venice and force people to play very different way

Yzman said:

People keep saying this, but I don't think it really makes much sense gameplay wise or realistically wise.

Think of it like this. Texas willingly joined the US. Now, for whatever reason, Mexico captures Texas from the US and says be free Texas, go back to being the Texas Republic.

Texas reply, "Umm yeah we are a part of the US...we will just be going back now"

Gameplay wise it doesn't make sense either. How much worse would Austria and Venice be if I could go on a "conquering spree" and "liberate" all of their cities, which they didn't take by force? So now the world sees me not as a warmonger who just destroyed nearly all of Venice, but instead as a liberator of the ones who needed no liberation?

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Well for Austria's, I Tend to agree because Austria was their Ally originally, and and Austrian CS through Marriage behaves differently than Austrian CS through Conquest (no Courthouse needed when Annexed)

However a Venice CS behaves the same whether they do it Diplomatically or through Conquest.

And as for that real life example.... if the real life Mexican Army was actually capable of defeating the real life US Army and preventing them from recapturing Texas, then I could see a real life Texas saying... the US isn't protecting us... why stay part of them.. intead we'll return to the Texas Republic and make a Treaty with the Empire of Mexico.. (they promise to allow us to stay independent, we'll do that)?

After all.. technically Texas has not voluntarily joined the US.. it joined, then left, and was then was conquered by the US

CaptainUnknown said:

That's opportunity cost though. Most of the time if Venice steals an early city-state then there's no easy way from them to defend their new investment. I can see where you're coming from, and maybe if they steal a city-state that should be an act of aggression (or possibly war) against said civ.

Overall though I haven't faced Venice enough to fully get a strong opinion on this.

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On Deity Venice will get first MoV around 20-30 (they seem to gun for GLH) so you watch it leave Venice, and then attack. It works the same way you deny any AI/human a new city. By the T80 mark they have completely forgotten the transgression, if there was any diplo hit at all

goodolarchie said:

On Deity Venice will get first MoV around 20-30 (they seem to gun for GLH) so you watch it leave Venice, and then attack. It works the same way you deny any AI/human a new city. By the T80 mark they have completely forgotten the transgression, if there was any diplo hit at all

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This. And to be honest, this works even better than ambushing a settler, because the AI MoV has to travel into a CS's border, which means you may know almost exactly where to set-up to ambush it should you spot it with just a scout of yours. Which is great, because with AI settlers and the AI's penchant for unusual settling choices, well, it's not always easy to determine where they'll end up.

Socratatus said:

Where I think it`s overpowered is where as a non-Venice player it can be gifted to you. As well as highly illogical (why give away the guy who could net you an entire city?) it`s just too easy to grab a good CS with.

I think some of these `special` units really should just stay to the Civ it was made for or weakened because they`re not with their default Civ. But I guess that`s a slightly different point.

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I don't agree.

First off, you need to dedicate a lot of policies to grab the finisher which enables the free great people. Second, the rate at which a city state donates a great person is so low that you won't get more than 4-5 by the end of the game. Thirdly, there are something like 9-10 different choices of great people for you to receive. This makes the chances of actually getting a MoV very low (I only got 1 in my 15+ games). It was awesome to get it, but no one would base any kind of strategy around getting a free MoV from city states.

dashwinner said:

I don't agree.

First off, you need to dedicate a lot of policies to grab the finisher which enables the free great people. Second, the rate at which a city state donates a great person is so low that you won't get more than 4-5 by the end of the game. Thirdly, there are something like 9-10 different choices of great people for you to receive. This makes the chances of actually getting a MoV very low (I only got 1 in my 15+ games). It was awesome to get it, but no one would base any kind of strategy around getting a free MoV from city states.

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4-5 in one game is WAY too much in my opinion. 1 per game maybe.

I have just received (to my amazement!) ANOTHER Merchant of Venice, and this is late game, so whoop! -another well built city is mine.Sure it`s nice to have, but I`m not the kind of guy who enjoys things that are just so easy it`s not right! I`m already kicking butt with the strongest CIv and now I can grab another just like that with an over-powered agent that no one in their right mind would give me? Yea, right.

I hope it gets nerfed for non-Venice players in the Patch.

Simple solution...

I declare war and kill off Venice on sight, if it's located close enough

Even if I'm playing peaceful game, I kill Venice off.

They are usually weak in military.

Socratatus said:

4-5 in one game is WAY too much in my opinion. 1 per game maybe.

I have just received (to my amazement!) ANOTHER Merchant of Venice, and this is late game, so whoop! -another well built city is mine.Sure it`s nice to have, but I`m not the kind of guy who enjoys things that are just so easy it`s not right! I`m already kicking butt with the strongest CIv and now I can grab another just like that with an over-powered agent that no one in their right mind would give me? Yea, right.

I hope it gets nerfed for non-Venice players in the Patch.

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Its actually perfect as a benefit of the Patronage Tree finisher.

ie a random number of CS will outright join your empire (more the longer you play and you get to select which ones)

The big problem is that the CS is removed from the game.

Re: the Patronage finisher... Are the GP being gifted from CS randomly selected each time one is generated or does the game decide which GP will be given by a CS and you always get that type of GP from that particular CS(like UUs from Military CS)? Either way it works, I have been gifted 2-3 MoV in one game and have had pretty good luck when filling Patronage.

Now a couple things... if you fill Patronage, the *potential* MoV is comparable with the finisher in other the trees (so, gold every kill, bunches of extra gold from trades, a free tech...) so quite arguably better but still a trade off AND random. Then, if you get a MoV, look at all the stuff you lose -culture per turn, free units(as good, sometimes better than those you can make yourself), unique luxes, extra growth, etc- from the CS. Add to that the Patronage stuff (extra science, double strategics, +50% happiness from luxes) that you lose if you puppet them. And since you're guaranteed to be at a minimum Friends with every CS, and can ally them cheaply, it's a bigger cost to puppet than some realize. To say nothing of maintenance and happiness requirements of taking on developed cities.