Venice is probably the most fun I've had in a while...

Just got the BNW a few days ago when it was on sale on Newegg, and I decided to try Venice out after watching a Lets Play on Youtube.

I've always been a big fan of small, Tall empire, and Venice is basically the definition of that with a few satellite cities for feeding your capital with food and hammer caravans. While you're slow to start due to having to build all your Guilds and National Wonders very slowly, you ramp up so fast it's kind of ridiculous. After I get the Big Ben and the % purchase reduction from Commerce (and % reduction for Units in Autocracy, or % reduction for Buildings in Order), the amount of units I can pump out is ridiculous. I can go close to 600g a turn (if I'm not in a war so no pillaging!), and close to 300~400g a turn even if I'm at a war so random caravels like to steal my cargoes. Merchant Trade Missions at 3000+ gold a pop and 60 influence is fantastic, and no civ can stand against you when you're popping out Bombers with 3 promotions out of the gate at 430g a pop.

Do you guys pick tradition or liberty with Venice? Those 2 extra early great merchants with liberty sounds nice, but so does fast capital growht with tradition.

JiiPee said:

Do you guys pick tradition or liberty with Venice? Those 2 extra early great merchants with liberty sounds nice, but so does fast capital growht with tradition.

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This is the problem I have had when playing Venice. First I tried Liberty, but found that I got the GM too early (if that makes sense). After a little bit of experimentation, I have been playing Venice with a Hybrid Tradition/Liberty Start. Probably not the BEST strategy, but I have had the most success when playing like this. [Emperor]

JiiPee said:

Do you guys pick tradition or liberty with Venice? Those 2 extra early great merchants with liberty sounds nice, but so does fast capital growht with tradition.

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I tried Liberty but that didn't work so well (though I sometimes open it later and get the first GM, but that's rare).

Tradition, with early Granaryand if possible the HG. As you can't expand with Venice it's difficult to catch up on science going with Liberty as opener. The GM that comes with Optics usually provides the first puppet city that will be used to grow Venice even faster (or to let it work more production tiles instead). I often end up with a Venice 50% to 100% bigger than the rival caps by the start of the Renaissance.

You don't necessarily want puppets too early. The CS aren't advanced enough to have built many buildings and units, and early game they can be costly in happiness and gold as they make buildings you wouldn't necessarily wish to have but now must pay maintenance for. I prefer to wait until they're larger and can build an harbor, unless terrain sucks too much for food production that Venice grows too slowly. I can also choose the puppets better if I wait, early on you haven't found enough CS to be too picky.

You also have so much to build in Venice itself early on that getting the trade routes up is in itself challenging, especially that you will lose some to barbarians, so having puppets isn't that helpful at first. Once the Beakers are taken care of and I get the sea trade running, Venice becomes a mighty civ very fast.

In most Venice games so far I've puppeted only 2 city-states. One is nearby and sends food to Venice. The second one is strategically picked to provide access to lucrative trade routes. Sometimes I buy a third and fourth in the late game, but the decision is fairly situational. The rest of the GM are used for gold and influence.

I'll no doubt try a wider approach by the renaissance at some point, as the 2x trade routes really lets you buy and maintain a huge army, beside allying several mercantile civs, and I'm quite sure Venice could make an excellent warmonger civ.

Tradition is much better early game for Venice, Liberty is just a bad idea then I think, especially because one of its' policies is almost useless for you (-33% policy cost increase penalty from next city? Too bad you only have one non-puppeted city, so it does nothing! I think it also gave a Golden Age though, but it's too early and GA is almost worthless at this point).

Liberty is a good ultra late game tier for Venice, by which I mean after Tradition and Commerce (and maybe after taking 2-3 policies from Patronage) are completed and you took whatever you needed from your ideology.

At this point (very late game) Great People are acquired so slow getting another one instantly will be more than worth it. Dat MoV will give you a lot of influence and gold thanks to finishing Commerce, and if you manage to actually finish Liberty - that's even sweeter, second MoV. And a Golden Age ultra late actually gives a lot of dosh too.

one of its' policies is almost useless for you (-33% policy cost increase penalty from next city? Too bad you only have one non-puppeted city, so it does nothing!

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And Meritocracy isn't much better, +1 happiness per city you own connected to Venice and a useless -5% unhappiness in cities that aren't annexed or puppeted...

I go full Tradition. After getting puppets, I send apples to Venice by trade routes to make the most of the capital bonuses.

I am in a game with Venice as my neighbor. I forgot about their UA of buying City States.Where I see them gobbling up my City State Allies. I have a good bit of my Continent on lock down. Nice little sphere of influence. Number 1 in Science most of the time number 2 the rest of the time. Number 3 or 4 in military so not worried about my neighbors. Only pesky little Venice getting bigger and becoming a threat is stopping my easy sailing plans to victory. I don t want to go to war so I pay Japan to go to war with her. Great thing is my CS Ally Geneva is was I am sure Venice next target to gobble up. Japan allied Geneva right after going to war with Venice. Actually thats why I had to do something quick. All that work I put into my CS Allies going to waste. Now they are my enemies...... Not going to happen. Venice is cool. Just in the way right now.

liberty and Venice are a bad mix, do not get sucked in by the dubious benefits of liberty.

You want full tradition with no detours. Full commerce, consulates and free thought. I usually go freedom, but the other ideologies are also fine.

A 10 year old can win a deity DV with Venice. It was my favorite civ for about 2 days...

I have tried Venice but I don't like it, since I find it moves too far away from the standard civs. Civ is an empire building game, and Venice doesn't really allow you to do that (at least for a good while, I understand that you can probably start conquering with them once you have some infrastructure and cash, but getting there is FAR too slow and boring for my taste).

Maybe I'm just missing a good starting strategy for Venice, but so far they are on my (otherwise very short) "avoid playing" list.

Aldor said:

I have tried Venice but I don't like it, since I find it moves too far away from the standard civs. Civ is an empire building game, and Venice doesn't really allow you to do that (at least for a good while, I understand that you can probably start conquering with them once you have some infrastructure and cash, but getting there is FAR too slow and boring for my taste).

Maybe I'm just missing a good starting strategy for Venice, but so far they are on my (otherwise very short) "avoid playing" list.

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I quit when I got around 900 gold per turn and bought every useful building in my puppets. On top of all that gold, I had like 30 units from city states. Too easy.

And yes, Tradition and Commerce are priority, imo.

I play on huge maps, and I have found that Venice itself is hardly ever located close enough to another civ to trade with them right off the bat. I can only trade with nearby city-states for a long time. So I end up with several trade routes being unused until the other civs start to expand. If I buy up the city-states adjacent to Venice, I lose my trade partners. So it is critical to choose a city-state to buy that is close to other civs. It is good to be all spread out like that rather than clumped together in the beginning like other civs.

In my experience, Tradition is a strong one for Venice, but Liberty is an OK choice, you just have to be very selective about what city-states you buy up with you first 3 MoVs. Don't buy up your own trade partners until you have neighboring civs to trade with. That's shooting yourself in the foot.

Is Venice good in MP? My guess is no but I would love to hear.

joshua43214 said:

You want full tradition with no detours. Full commerce, consulates and free thought. I usually go freedom, but the other ideologies are also fine.

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Either Commerce or Exploration. The 25% less cost one in Commerce is a big one though.

A 10 year old can win a deity DV with Venice. It was my favorite civ for about 2 days...

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I think the most logical direction for a nerf would be to lower the trade route multiplier. Another idea would be to greatly reduce GP points in puppets for all civs, which would hurt Venice the most since their puppets make MoVs.

Now then again, Venice works better with the AI handicaps than most civs, so its gap between winning on, say, Prince and on Deity isn't as wide as most. The biggest reason is that hostile CSs make a lot of units on Deity.

I've only had one game, but I went tradition while getting only the policies in liberty which allowed me to get the MoV. Make sure you don't get a CS too early, though.

I find it slightly ironic that Venice was pitched to us as the "pro" civilization in the run-up to BNW. Then they end up being the easiest civ in the game. I felt dirty after I got my deity win...it should not be that easy. I am pretty certain, naval trade routes are going to be nerfed a bit in the fall patch.

The only thing I hate about Venice is they can't win a Diety game for the life of them. With only one city producing army it gets really ridiculous really fast how much larger the enemies armies will be at all times.

really? you should be able to rush buy all the units you want though...their economy is ridiculous. I guess if you were landlocked it would be tough but otherwise your economy should be in the 500-1000 GPT range no problem.

Ya. I just puppet 2 well placed CS's, then start saving GMV's. Arround late modern I let them sit around in far away CS's, and then once I hit info era I just pop them all off for maximal gold. Combined with 500+gpt, I end up with >20k gold. Finishing the DV at that point is a slam dunk.

I had the same experience when Babylon came out. I steamrolled a science victory so fast I never bother to play the civ again. Venice in BNW is like Babs in vanilla, it is a civ for children

RealHuhn said:

I quit when I got around 900 gold per turn and bought every useful building in my puppets. On top of all that gold, I had like 30 units from city states. Too easy.

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This was the same thing I was seeing. I was making so much cash from trade routes I didn't have a reason to build anything any more. I just purchased it. I love playing OCC, but Venice just seemed way too easy IMO.

Yeah...Venice is kind of fun...my second game at the emperor level.... I'm just working my way through "Fertilizer"... I've kind of neglected the military side a bit...but it looks like I'm going to start becoming very annoying to the AI soon...so I'm trying to get that up to speed. My gold flow is is 250+...around 7000 in cash reserves, which I should have spent prior to the last Congress allying CS's, but ...well...I forgot until it was too late.

I've just finished "Commerce" and am working my way through "Exploration".... Three city states puppeted....

Also I had no trouble at all trouncing the AI on the World's Fair scenario....with two puppets....one immediately switched to "World's Fair" and the other within one turn after finishing "Seaport", I think it was....

Venice is fun...but then I guess you don't know until you've played it a few times whether it was you being good at the game or just a lucky good start...