The Merchant of Venice needs a limiting factor

turingmachine: Yes, you are asking for immunity from the Merchant of Venice, because ANY suggestion that I have made you basically shrug off and say 'not good enough'.

Let's say they take a diplo hit. You just intimated that the diplomacy system doesn't work, so why should this assuage you?

You want immunity from the Merchant of Venice, because you want to keep your CSs. You also don't want to pay the price. No lower price that you don't suggest is good enough for you. This is tantamount to saying that the game should be designed the way you want it to be designed.

So I suggest you write a mod to change the MoV to something that appeals to you.

What you see as aggression is very clearly not seen as aggression by the game. I would highly suggest that you either try to tackle that issue with the developers, or simply give up.

Either way, I am done with trying to discuss this issue with you. I for one hope that Venice is not changed, because no one who is arguing for a nerf to Venice has the experience to really know how bad the issue is. The only person that regularly posts on these forums who does (MadDjinn) you completely ignored because he did not agree with you.

Ekmek said:

if your CS ally is that critical you might be doing something wrong. If its that critical you should conquer them.

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so in the late game, you've allied a CS with access to 6 oil. You're running a major war with Tanks, Planes, what have you, all requiring this oil. Venice bounces along and steals the city state in one turn with no repercussions (whether or not they're involved in the war and whether or not they did so knowing they were screwing with you) and now all your oil-based units are locked at half strength.

Of course, substitute oil with any good strategic resource at any point in the game, because if your units outnumber the amount of any resource you have, they ALL fight at half strength, meaning that if that unit is the keystone of your army, you are at a major disadvantage.

This would work, of course, if it's a merchantile civ, giving you jewellery and a lux. There are situations that this could put you deep into unhappiness, to the point that it would take quite a while to recover.

This is supposed to be considered a well thought out and balanced civ?

Ozymandias: Again, just Declare War on Venice.

If you don't want to pay that price, whine to the developers that the game doesn't play the way you want it to play to see if they'll get it changed.

well, believe me, I'll be declaring war on Venice whenever I see it, but a game where I don't have the choice of whether or not I can play a certain way to a certain end is a poorly designed game. In this case it's a game mechanic in a game that otherwise offers a plethora of choices and workarounds for most any situation.

as i've said multiple times before, and you've ignored apparently, it's not actually dealing with venice i'm worried about, that's easy as all you have to do is take out their CC, which is probably coastal and doesn't have much in the way of hammers anyways. It's that the whole civ itself is poorly thought out and designed. I am complaining that the devs seemed to carelessly slip this civ into the update and expect us to be peaches and cream with what is simply a half-assed game mechanic.

EDIT: Consider this, it's no different than a civ that cannot build war units, but is also locked in permanent peace with all civs. You are altering a key and base game mechanic and balancing it with an asinine counterweight (no settlers but you can instacapture city states regardless of relations. . . lol) it makes no sense and should never have made the cut.

IAmOzymandias said:

so in the late game, you've allied a CS with access to 6 oil. You're running a major war with Tanks, Planes, what have you, all requiring this oil. Venice bounces along and steals the city state in one turn with no repercussions (whether or not they're involved in the war and whether or not they did so knowing they were screwing with you) and now all your oil-based units are locked at half strength.

Of course, substitute oil with any good strategic resource at any point in the game, because if your units outnumber the amount of any resource you have, they ALL fight at half strength, meaning that if that unit is the keystone of your army, you are at a major disadvantage.

This would work, of course, if it's a merchantile civ, giving you jewellery and a lux. There are situations that this could put you deep into unhappiness, to the point that it would take quite a while to recover.

This is supposed to be considered a well thought out and balanced civ?

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Would you rather have someone dump more gold into them putting you out of reach on getting them back? If you have all your eggs in the same boat and it isn't even a boat you actually on but your the current highest contributer then you have a problem. Once wc comes around those CSs will be flying off the self for delegates and taking your oil with them.

Ulthwithian, you make entirely too much sense. I look forward to reading more strategy posts from you.

Ozymandias, you are the one who insists that everyone must play the same way when it comes to CSs, and no one is allowed to have any unique-in-kind advantages or abilities with respect to them.

I feel that I HAVE to get the GL to be competitive in CiV. Do you consider that a poorly designed game? Or do you think that I simply need to learn to play the game better?

You have choices. You simply do not choose to exercise them. ANd one of those choices is to accept that a Venetian presence in the game means that you cannot rely on CS alliances. That is what you seem to be unwilling to do.

Ulthwithian said:

turingmachine: Yes, you are asking for immunity from the Merchant of Venice, because ANY suggestion that I have made you basically shrug off and say 'not good enough'.

Let's say they take a diplo hit. You just intimated that the diplomacy system doesn't work, so why should this assuage you?

You want immunity from the Merchant of Venice, because you want to keep your CSs. You also don't want to pay the price. No lower price that you don't suggest is good enough for you. This is tantamount to saying that the game should be designed the way you want it to be designed.

So I suggest you write a mod to change the MoV to something that appeals to you.

What you see as aggression is very clearly not seen as aggression by the game. I would highly suggest that you either try to tackle that issue with the developers, or simply give up.

Either way, I am done with trying to discuss this issue with you. I for one hope that Venice is not changed, because no one who is arguing for a nerf to Venice has the experience to really know how bad the issue is. The only person that regularly posts on these forums who does (MadDjinn) you completely ignored because he did not agree with you.

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I didn't ignore him, I responded to him.

Secondly, it's not something that can be modded because how the ability works is hardcoded.

Thirdly, you haven't really offered suggestions. You offered one suggestion, declare war. Meanwhile, I proposed several, none of which grants immunity to Venice's ability. How is asking they take a diplo hit for stealing an allied city state negating their ability, or making them pay some gold? it isn't. They can still take the city-state in both instances.

Fourthly, I didn't say the diplo system is broken, I said it was tenuous and its known its difficult to keep longtime allies. What I brought up is that there is no reason for the game to outright punish you for doing nothing aggressive and add more weight to this tenuous system.

Frankly, I'm tired of arguing with you because you just repeat yourself and don't respond to any of my points except, I already said declare war, while outright skewing my argument by claiming I want to negate Venice's ability.

Ulthwithian said:

Ozymandias: Again, just Declare War on Venice.

If you don't want to pay that price, whine to the developers that the game doesn't play the way you want it to play to see if they'll get it changed.

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Aw, don't make that suggestion please. I think they have listened to some of those in the past. Just tell such people to request/build a mod instead.

Ulthwithian said:

I feel that I HAVE to get the GL to be competitive in CiV. Do you consider that a poorly designed game? Or do you think that I simply need to learn to play the game better?

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except that that isn't the case. While you're scrambling to build the GL (which in the long term amounts to one great works slot, +3 science and a short term bonus of a free tech) i'm getting a second city set up, and building a granary and some archers/workers. By no means are you shoehorned into building any one wonder (although some are very helpful for certain victory conditions).

True, I used to think that beelining GL->NC was the ONLY way to play, but it's not. Very easily will a second city and 2 granaries and/or libraries will make up for the "loss" of GL. Shooting for the GL and missing by a turn is a much much bigger loss than if you hadn't even chanced it in the first place.

As far as you being a "good" or "bad" player for building the GL, It's neither, it's a choice. If you said "I feel i need twenty scouts to be competative" then yes, that's a stupid choice. The choice to build the GL when you believe you have the tactical advantage and will most likely get it is not a poor choice. If you feel you need to build it every game without comprimise, and reset if you don't get it, then that is very close-minded.

When playing as or against venice you are more or less forced to take a certain course of action, (capture city states or die, and kill venice or have your city states captured, respectively) brought forth by the limitations placed upon Venice by it's design. In a game that's all about choices, I simply don't see how this made the cut.

turingmachine: Then you haven't listened to me.

I have suggested:

1) Declaring War - This is 100% effective and already implemented.
Your response: "I don't want to pay that cost."/"I shouldn't have to pay that cost."
My counter: "I shouldn't have to build a military to protect myself against Warmongers."
Your return: "That's different."
My final word: "Not to me."

2) Eviscerating Venice in the WC - This is also implemented, but requires thought.
Your response: "It's too difficult."

3) Using the Denounce system/Don't Settle Near Me to get Venice to back off. - Somewhat implemented.
Your response: "It doesn't work."

4) Make it so that the Acquisition creates the 'You're fighting me for this CS" penalty permanently with any Civ that applies to.
Your response: Nothing, from what I've seen.

That's at least 4 suggestions I've made before this post, which is IMO 3 more than your deserve.

So complain to the developers if you want. I can tell you that our voices will cancel out in that regard.

Edit: Oh, and regards to the mod, you can simply remove the MoV entirely and give Venice a different UU or UB (most likely the Arsenal). If modders can create an entirely new Civ, I'm sure they can work around a single unique great person.

Part of the thing that makes Civ fun is that there's generally room for argument about the game. What some people call OP others find incredibly weak. Usually that's a comment on the individual's playstyle.

I think the OP raises some good points, it is frustrating to lose an ally you've pumped a lot of money into because Venice just walks an MoV up to it and takes it. But I also think that's okay, because frustrating things give you incentive to deal with it and try to do better.

IAmOzymandias said:

except that that isn't the case.

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And this is my EXACT response to you regarding Venice. All because you don't LIKE the alternatives doesn't mean that they don't exist.

True, I used to think that beelining GL->NC was the ONLY way to play, but it's not. Very easily will a second city and 2 granaries and/or libraries will make up for the "loss" of GL.

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Yes, you learned this over time, and probably not in the space of a week.

Why do you, then, refuse to take a similar approach to Venice's MoV?

When playing as or against venice you are more or less forced to take a certain course of action, (capture city states or die, and kill venice or have your city states captured, respectively) brought forth by the limitations placed upon Venice by it's design. In a game that's all about choices, I simply don't see how this made the cut.

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Or, simply, make the choice to not interact with City-States. Again, you are the one who insists on being able to interact with them.

The onyl problem I see with the Merchant is that it can just take away your ally instantly. Out of nowhere, just instantly you lose everything and then cannot liberate it back. Now, THAT is a problem as some empires may be dependent on a mercantile city state when they're just bordering on happiness

MadHaxxor: Okay, let's change Venice slightly.

Remove the Merchant of Venice, add to its UA "Your Great Merchants get double returns from Trade Missions", and give it another unique.

So, instead of losing the CS permanently, Venice takes it over by gaining 60 Influence and 2k gold it can spend to gain Ally status.

That's not going to change the short-term picture of the guy relying on the Happiness of a Mercantile CS. And if you were planning long-term on relying on a CS that anyone with enough money can take away from you for positive happiness, I would respectfully suggest a different strategy.

turingmachine said:

I didn't ignore him, I responded to him.
Thirdly, you haven't really offered suggestions. You offered one suggestion, declare war. Meanwhile, I proposed several, none of which grants immunity to Venice's ability. How is asking they take a diplo hit for stealing an allied city state negating their ability, or making them pay some gold? it isn't. They can still take the city-state in both instances.

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It does cost gold. At least 800 gold, plus a boatload of influence with that city-state. Opportunity cost is no less a cost.

I personally think it is frustrating to have Greece as my neighbor but I have made that learning experience and have improved in how I deal with them. We'll see what it's like in BNW, at least I'll have some more options at my disposal.

the_jeff said:

It does cost gold. At least 800 gold, plus a boatload of influence with that city-state. Opportunity cost is no less a cost.

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Already pointed out to him more than once, and the response is, 'Yeah, and?'

Seriously, don't know what to do.

Now, something that WOULD work as a balance is to make the cost of Acquiring the CS the amount of money you would normally get from a Trade Mission. But then immediately have the Trade Mission go off.

So, in Classical Era, it would work like

As long as you have 800g in your treasury, you can take a CS and then immediately get that 800g back.

However, this should not scale with the Commerce finisher, which would mean that late game the Acquisition would give you BOTH gold AND the CS, if you have the requisite amount of money.

That's suggestion #5 I've made that I'm sure will be insufficient.

Ulthwithian said:

And this is my EXACT response to you regarding Venice. All because you don't LIKE the alternatives doesn't mean that they don't exist.

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You're playing VS. Egypt. "Well don't build wonders, They'll just get them anyways"
You're playing VS. Aztecs "Just let them cap your cities, They're too strong"
You're playing VS. Polynesia "Don't bother culture, they'll just win anyways"

It would be asinine to present any of these options as a valid choice, and the fact that you offer rolling over as a valid option in this situation proves how broken Venice is.

Basically the options you present are
A. Kill Venice
B. Abandoning a key game mechanic (city states) because there is an essentially uncounterable mechanic now available for a city to take them out of the game as they see fit, and ignore Venice.

No other civilization has this stranglehold on any key game mechanic.

You CAN outbuild Egypt, you may just need a small head start and/or better production You CAN outfight the Aztec, you just need a superior military force/tactics. If you have a defensive force ready they may not even chance to attack you in the first place.
You CAN produce superior culture to Polynesia through the use of specialists and concentrating on culture buildings.

However, you are forced to accept that "Venice is going to capture city states. If you don't like it, kill them."

I disagree with your assertion that City-States are a key game mechanic.

You CAN outbuild Egypt to a Wonder... if you are willing to pay the costs involved. In this case, that involves beelining to the tech (forsaking other techs), and otherwise suffering because you can't just 'pick it up as you go' because then Egypt will get it first.

Again, you're not willing to do what the game currently requires to protect your CSs from Venice.

Egypt will get to a random Wonder first unless you make it a priority of your Civ.
Venice _might_ take your CS Ally unless you make it a priority for your Civ to deny that to him.

I've quite literally littered this thread with everything from in-game ways to combat Venice beyond simply DoWing him to (yes!) ways that the devs can tone it down somewhat without breaking the actual gameplay point.

Basically, this conversation comes down to this:

You: "Venice shouldn't be able to take my CSs away from me."

Me: "I need the GL to be competitive."

You: "But that's different."

Me: "Not to me."

You are asking me to acquiesce to your vision of how to play the game while being unwilling to acquiesce to my vision of how to play the game. I don't see where to go from here.