The Merchant of Venice needs a limiting factor

MadDjinn said:

and the same thing has always been said when Monte, Alex, Attila and co are your direct neighbour.

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but they can't stealth a unit into city state that's providing me a key resource (lux or strat) and capture it in a single turn. With any of the more agressive civs (assuming you're playing SP, of course. Online is a crapshoot.) It's a fair fight between two competing civs. Like I said before, Venice is Checkers to Chess.

Bottom line is online you can expect, but don't know for sure, that any of the "warlike" civs may or may not have a warlike player. Venice is going to be, inherently, an annoyance and a definitive threat in the way that they WILL, at some point, steal your allied city states, and will need to be dealt with.

I think stealing city-states is just a bad design. Not bad by itself, but conflicting with core principles of the game. In Vanilla there's no way to remove CS from the game, so you could build your Patronage strategy around. And Greece, which is designed for this strategy is quite good at liberating.

With Austria and Venice, Greece becomes very dependent on who your opponents are and any other civilization needs to check the opponents before investing in Patronage strategy.

I see 2 options to improve this:
1. Change Austria ability completely and make Venice CS liberatable.
2. Make some option to bring CS back to the table. Probably after taking Venice/Austria capitals. But there are things to work with in this approach.

Unfortunately, looks like developers don't see any problem in eating up city-states.

stealth: They did at least make it so that there's no way to completely remove a Diplomatic Victory from the game. In this regard, Venice and Austria are the best ways to delay a Diplomatic Victory in the game.

While I would rather there be a way to liberate the CSs, I personally view it as bad strategy to 'well, of course you use it to acquire' with MoV. As such, I think that the AI hamstrings itself this way. Of course, with the AI and its bonuses, maybe it's not...

After thinking about it, I think this is my opinionated stance on Venice.

I like city states. I like making friends with them and getting the good stuff they give me. I build tall, peaceful (when possible) empires, and shoot for peaceful victories. I rely on city states for resources, both Lux and strat, as well as the inherent bonuses provided by the Patronage tree (extra science, great people, what have you.)

I can't forsee any situation where a game with venice wouldn't screw with this. I was in a team game with a guy playing venice, and the whole game all he did was puppet city states. I was literally ready to go to war with my own teammate because he kept stealing my allied city states, and I had no way to stop him. That does not make sense. That is not fun. That is a broken game mechanic.

Assuming, of course, one is in any game where somebody is playing Venice, and assuming one relies upon city states for any of the above, or any other, mentionables, Venice throws a total wrench in the works. It's not by malicious intent of either party, but by the actual design of the civ, that he will inevitably piss off any other human player and have to go to war. I see no way around this. You can play a peaceful game as montezuma if you really want to. You cannot play a peaceful game as venice, unless nobody else on the map cares about city states, or venice takes great care to only puppet unallied city states (which is impossible after mid-game. This is completely counter intuitive to venice's real-world history (I never heard of "Venice the warlike" in history class), and makes no sense to me as a game mechanic.

For those reasons, I don't see why Venice was given this ability, I don't see the though process behind the whole point of this civ, and I don't like it. In my opinion, I don't want to play a match with anybody playing as venice (and to a lesser extent, austria) which can be impossible in online games, especially if somebody randoms it.

That's my two cents, you can argue against it, but I've got my feet pretty firmly planted on the fact that Venice was not properly thought out, and doesn't need a simple patch, but a complete rework without the current mechanic (which of course will never happen as it has a UU dedicated to that specific purpose.) In my opinion this isn't a "learn to deal with it" scenario where you can formulate a plan to counter Venice. There's only two options, kill venice or have city states stolen. I don't like either of those options. That's why I don't like Venice.

I see pointless whining in this thread. Guy probably got steamrolled by Venice in a save and came to the forums to complain. Sigh.

Mongolia gobbles City-States WAY faster than Venice will ever possibly can, and no one has ever complained. Merchants of Venice are just a lot less stylish than Keshiks, it seems.

MoVs are relatively slow to acquire, and even though you can in fact buy almost half of the CSs in a Standard map given enough time, you don't even have much incentive to do so. I'm on my second Deity save with Venice and didn't go over 3 CS puppets - Venice strongly incentivizes Diplo play (even if you're not going for that VC) and you'd rather have lots of votes than not.

Seriously, less QQ, more pew pew. Venice isn't even hard to beat, they don't have any military bonus if you attack them outside of Medieval, and Enrico's AI doesn't seem to be one of the most efficient around (he's no Alex or anything).

Land acquisition through war is a legitimate, and longstanding way of playing civ. Getting cities essentially for free with no resistance through use of a great person is a stupid concept. Worst case scenario you outtech mongolia and liberate the city states. can't do that when venice magically puppets them.

And incidentally I did win a diplo victory in the game I mentioned above, because Venice breaks that too. In a game where not one city state was contested by war, they had 9/12 CSes in their pocket and that split the remaining diplo votes between the 3 remaining city states, 4 remaining civs,

2 civs alone, with no help from anybody else voting for them, had the required amount of votes and forced a diplo victory one way or another.

Venice is an illogical civ, and by it's own nature it breaks core gameplay elements. Stop defending it.

_megafone_ said:

I see pointless whining in this thread. Guy probably got steamrolled by Venice in a save and came to the forums to complain. Sigh.

Mongolia gobbles City-States WAY faster than Venice will ever possibly can, and no one has ever complained. Merchants of Venice are just a lot less stylish than Keshiks, it seems.

MoVs are relatively slow to acquire, and even though you can in fact buy almost half of the CSs in a Standard map given enough time, you don't even have much incentive to do so. I'm on my second Deity save with Venice and didn't go over 3 CS puppets - Venice strongly incentivizes Diplo play (even if you're not going for that VC) and you'd rather have lots of votes than not.

Seriously, less QQ, more pew pew. Venice isn't even hard to beat, they don't have any military bonus if you attack them outside of Medieval, and Enrico's AI doesn't seem to be one of the most efficient around (he's no Alex or anything).

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Because combat take-over actually requires effort AND you can always liberate City-States conquered by Mongolia. You can't liberate MoV acquired City-States. You mention Austria, but that was my point, they added the limiting factor to Austria of needing to be an ally for 5 turns, Venice has no limiting factor.

The incentive is not necessarily about your welfare, the incentive can simply be to completely screw over another civ by stealing a key city-state by using a method that the other civ has no legitimate way to defend against.

And don't give bad AI as an excuse. The game shouldn't be balanced around bad AI and its not relevant if its a MP game. And no, I didn't get steamrolled by Venice in a game and came here to complain. It's a poorly designed mechanic, plain and simple.

IAmOzymandias said:

After thinking about it, I think this is my opinionated stance on Venice.

I like city states. I like making friends with them and getting the good stuff they give me. I build tall, peaceful (when possible) empires, and shoot for peaceful victories. I rely on city states for resources, both Lux and strat, as well as the inherent bonuses provided by the Patronage tree (extra science, great people, what have you.)

I can't forsee any situation where a game with venice wouldn't screw with this. I was in a team game with a guy playing venice, and the whole game all he did was puppet city states. I was literally ready to go to war with my own teammate because he kept stealing my allied city states, and I had no way to stop him. That does not make sense. That is not fun. That is a broken game mechanic.

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Um, why would you play in this way, and then choose to ally with Venice? This is like saying, "I like playing a game where I am the Ally of all/most of the CSs, but my ally was Greece and he can do that better than I can."

And you can certainly play as peaceful with Venice. You simply can't do it while relying on CSs. That's like complaining that people are blaming your peaceful empire for being the ally of Japan or Germany or the Zulu.

Why is the complaint, 'This Civ's UA is broken/not fun,' valid when discussing Venice's UA, but not other UAs that necessitate playing a certain way to make use of them?

Incidentally, I think that the AI should NOT acquire CSs, and simply ally with all of them. I have a feeling most players would have just as much problem with that as with this mechanic.

For those reasons, I don't see why Venice was given this ability,

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Because not everyone plays the way you do.

will never happen as it has a UU dedicated to that specific purpose.) In my opinion this isn't a "learn to deal with it" scenario where you can formulate a plan to counter Venice. There's only two options, kill venice or have city states stolen. I don't like either of those options. That's why I don't like Venice.

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Can you explain more why you feel that CSs are a necessary and integral part of the game itself, and not just your playstyle, so that you can further articulate exactly why this issue is so fundamental for you?

And don't give bad AI as an excuse. The game shouldn't be balanced around bad AI and its not relevant if its a MP game.

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In a MP game, you can perma-DoW the Venetian player to stop him from stealing your CS allies without any penalties, correct? And the Venetian player shouldn't get any sympathy from the other players since you, naturally, will explain why you did this?

This, of course, assumes that the Human Player is actually dumb enough to acquire the CS rather than take it out from under you with a Trade Mission and be 1k ahead on the deal.


I assume you would prefer this option?

And no, I didn't get steamrolled by Venice in a game and came here to complain. It's a poorly designed mechanic, plain and simple.

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While you say 'poorly designed', I think that this is more a mechanic that disturbs your sense of play sufficiently that you don't want to deal with it. 'Poorly designed' is a completely subjective term at the level of discussion this is occurring at.

Because it was 10 minutes after BNW was released and my friend wanted to try out venice. I hadn't realized the UA was so poorly thought out, we were just trying the expansion out for fun and it turned into a decidedly un-fun experience.

Ulthwithian said:

This, of course, assumes that the Human Player is actually dumb enough to acquire the CS rather than take it out from under you with a Trade Mission and be 1k ahead on the deal.

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except that since venice can't build cities, it's shoehorned into this poorly designed tactic for expansion to get units and wonders. Unless you're playing to lose, you're not going anywhere with 1 tall city vs everybody else with half a dozen or more. Again, i'm going back to saying that venice is playing checkers while the rest of the game is chess. It makes no sense.

IAmOzymandias said:

Because it was 10 minutes after BNW was released and my friend wanted to try out venice. I hadn't realized the UA was so poorly thought out, we were just trying the expansion out for fun and it turned into a decidedly un-fun experience.

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I am guessing you had no clue what the Venetian UA and UGP were at this point?

Rather than chalking it up to, 'Lesson Learned: Don't try to use CSs with a Venetian partner', you decide that this is a fundamentally broken mechanic and must be done away with. I'm trying to figure out why you feel that CSs are so fundamental to the game experience that you feel any permanent change in their status should be verboten?

Also, I assume you would have a similar reaction to playing G&K for the first time if your friend decided to, oh, play Austria?

except that since venice can't build cities, it's shoehorned into this poorly designed tactic for expansion to get units and wonders. Unless you're playing to lose, you're not going anywhere with 1 tall city vs everybody else with half a dozen or more.

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And why cannot Venice use its Galleass to take over enemy Civs and use CSs for its trading partners? Venice has many more ways to win than 'take over CSs and... take over CSs'.

Once again I think what we have here is a desire to as Madjinn said, "be alone and untouchable". I for one see someone complaining that the Great Expanse is to OP and should be nerfed. I am playing a game with Venice and only have been able to get two CS purchased. I am literally running 3 cities mind you 2 of which I have to pay for direct buying of buildings and units. I have beaten to wonders because of my location and the low production in Venice even with a pop of 15 in beginning Renaissance. I will be lucky if Egypt or the Ottomans don't pop the merchant wonder before I do.

As for the legitimacy of whether the purchasing is fair when the CS are allied with you think of it this way; ITS A PURCHASE. Money is being used to buy the leaders of a CS out. It is to say that if you buy out CS ally of mine as a reg civ, I as a non-venice civ could and should be justified in saying that this action should be limited because I was beaten out of the ally position. The limit is the speed at which you create GMoV, which is very very slow. Try playing as them and you will see.

Just because one feels there is an issue, try the other side of the coin because in the end the human choice to play as Venice should not be so impacted as to make the civ useless which in the end you are trying to do. Treat Venice like a cancer when you find them in game, if they start taking too many CS in your opinion, remove them by war, don't DoF them just Denounce them then take them out, the penalty for doing that should be relatively small early on.

Lastly you have to know that since Venice is a trade powerhouse, they can buy votes like mad, so maybe just maybe embargoing them in the WC early on might help. I'm sure if you can get the other Civs pissed at them and a few allies of your own you could limit their money. Although if I were losing that bad diplomatically to Venice I would use diplomacy by other means.

Ulthwithian said:

Can you explain more why you feel that CSs are a necessary and integral part of the game itself, and not just your playstyle, so that you can further articulate exactly why this issue is so fundamental for you?

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Because some civs are entirely designed around City-States. It's one thing to have a civ which can counter another, it's a different matter when there's a civ which can completely nullify your UA with no penalty.

Ulthwithian said:

In a MP game, you can perma-DoW the Venetian player to stop him from stealing your CS allies without any penalties, correct? And the Venetian player shouldn't get any sympathy from the other players since you, naturally, will explain why you did this?

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Except, there's such a thing as mixed MP games which include both human and AI players. Also, in reality, in all human MP games every player should immediately declare war on Venice and keep it permanent war for the whole game to lock out his trade routes and completely cripple him. This doesn't exactly happen.

Ulthwithian said:

While you say 'poorly designed', I think that this is more a mechanic that disturbs your sense of play sufficiently that you don't want to deal with it. 'Poorly designed' is a completely subjective term at the level of discussion this is occurring at.

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No. Poorly designed as in they implemented a way to attack another player in which that other player has no way to defend or counter against, and in which Venice receives no penalty for that attack. That is poorly designed.

Ulthwithian said:

Also, I assume you would have a similar reaction to playing G&K for the first time if your friend decided to, oh, play Austria?

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That's a very poor counter example considering they actually did nerf Austria's ability by adding a limiting factor which is exactly what I'm suggesting in this thread.

Battlehelm043 said:

Once again I think what we have here is a desire to as Madjinn said, "be alone and untouchable".

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No. It's a desire just to implement some minor way to actually counter an ability.

Battlehelm043 said:

ITS A PURCHASE. Money is being used to buy the leaders of a CS out.

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No, it's not a purchase, despite what the description says, because no money is actually being spent or subtracted from your treasury. It's just an instant I own you button.

I would be fine if the city-state could still be liberated, but other than that I think it's fine. It's all Venice really gets, anyways.

I played a game as America in immortal one time where I got a fair isolated corner of Pangaea. I fully intended to win diplomacy until I saw my neighbors were Greece and Austria. I abandoned my play and dealt with them before they could cause me problems down the line. I couldn't significantly weaken them but just enough so i could focus on science and growth (since I had the space). They went after city-states, I allied with a couple for a while and won science. Being Adaptable is the key to success and personal growth, not blaming others if things don't go as planned.

turingmachine said:

Because some civs are entirely designed around City-States. It's one thing to have a civ which can counter another, it's a different matter when there's a civ which can completely nullify your UA with no penalty.

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No, Venice can't, because you don't like the controls that the developers gave you.

To be fair, you're asking to void Venice's entire UA by preventing the taking over of CSs.

The price for doing that is to suffer the diplomatic penalty of a permanent war with Venice. If you want a way of dealing with Venice's UA that has a lower penalty, please suggest something. Clearly, both the developers and expert players believe that this is a fair cost.

Let's put it this way. Venice DOES revolve around CSs far more than ANY other Civ, no matter if you Acquire them or Ally with them. Take a map, and set the number of CS to 0. Which Civ in the game is hurt the most by this change? Venice.

Except, there's such a thing as mixed MP games which include both human and AI players. Also, in reality, in all human MP games every player should immediately declare war on Venice and keep it permanent war for the whole game to lock out his trade routes and completely cripple him. This doesn't exactly happen.

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In which case, Venice uses his MoV to ally with CSs before you can and attacks you for declaring war on you. Civs are not the only people you can trade with.

No. Poorly designed as in they implemented a way to attack another player in which that other player has no way to defend or counter against, and in which Venice receives no penalty for that attack. That is poorly designed.

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That is a subjective definition. And, again, there are ways to deal with Venice's UA. You simply don't like the price tag associated with it. Your continued insistence that there is 'no way to defend or counter against' it shows how subjective your definition is. Instead of discussing those options, you simply dismiss them as 'not good enough'. That is a subjective view.

That's a very poor counter example considering they actually did nerf Austria's ability by adding a limiting factor which is exactly what I'm suggesting in this thread.

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If you had actually paid attention to the conversation, it was regarding '10 minutes after the expansion was launched', which is certainly before any nerf to Austria.

I don't mind the mechanic around MoVs myself, people should expect Venice to be the archthief of city states. It's not that much different from how spy perma election rigging works, where if you camp a spy out in a CS, as long as you don't move it elsewhere you will never be displaced as an ally there, save maybe someone else's great amounts of gold and an instant DoW to prevent your election rig taking it back the next turn.

The only issue I see with Venice's ability is the fact that nobody can liberate the CS once it's been taken. It would be perfectly acceptable if civs who rely on CS allying could simply go and take the CS back and liberate it, I don't understand why the CS status is forever lost on the city. Is there any specific reason why it is better to change CS's to normal cities on buyout, or is it just an oversight?

turingmachine said:

No, it's not a purchase, despite what the description says, because no money is actually being spent or subtracted from your treasury. It's just an instant I own you button.

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Again, you willfully misrepresent the situation.

In ANY situation that I can hit the 'Acquire the CS' option of a MoV, I can choose to INSTEAD hit the 'Trade Mission' option and gain 800+ gold.

So yes, there is most definitely a cost to take this option.

Merchant of Venice has to travel sometimes really dangerous terrain to arrive to the city-state physically, and then have to forego 1600/3200 gold in order to buy the city-state, it doesn't need any nerf.