Venice and Piedmont instead of Italy?

I propose that since Venice was a powerful maritime empire in the Middle Ages, and Italy was never really "united" until Piedmont-Sardinia united Italy, Italy should be taken out and replaced with two different civs. First, there would be Venice. Here's a rough idea of what it would be.

Venice
Spawn Date: 697 AD, at Venice (w/2 settlers and a few other units)
Leader(s): Enrico Dandolo, Andrea Dandolo?
UU: Gun Galley: Replaces Caravel. Strength 5, Movement 3, Cargo Space 3, cannot enter oceans until Astronomy, CANNOT enter rival territory
UB: Arsenal: Replaces Harbor. +1 Food on water tiles, +2 Exp for Water Units.
UP: Power of the Republic: Starts the game with Republic enabled and doesn't get -10 Stability for it being in Medieval Era
UHV:
Conquer Constantinople by 1204 AD.
Have the world's most powerful navy in 1500 AD.
Have 10,000 gold in 1700
Core Area: Venice and surrounding area, Adriatic Sea area.
Historical Area: Cyprus, Crete, and some parts of Greece.
Contested Area: Constantinople and other parts of Greece
Stability hit date: 1790
An alternate UP could be the Power of Merchants: Unlimited Merchant specialists in all cities.
Two more alternate UHVs could be:
Conquer Crete, Greece, and Cyprus by 1400 AD.
In 1700 (or 1600 or 1500), make Venice the city that has the most commerce.

Then, later, modern Italy (Savoy)would spawn.

Savoy (Italy)
Spawn date: 1416 AD (can respawn after 1713 AD), at Turin, with 2 settlers and a modest stack
The spawn would be conditional, not spawning if Venice is dead and there are no independent cities in Italy.
Leader: Cavour
UU: Bersagliere
UB: Duomo (replaces Catholic Cathedral), only requires 2 temples rather than 4.
UP: Power of Nationalism: +50% when fighting in Italy after 1840
UHV:
Have 7,500 Culture in 1700 AD
Control all of Italy in 1860 AD
Control 30% of the Mediterranean in 1940 AD
Core Area: Northwest Italy
Historical Area: the rest of Italy
Contested Area: Libya, Ethiopia
Stability hit date: 2020

Some resources would need to be moved around to compliment the new cities, but otherwise, I think it would work. What do all of you think?

Italy is quite fun as it is. Both of these seem comparatively less fun.

Also Venetia is represented as inedependent first and by the city-states civic later

Europe is too crowded as it is. The last thing we need to do is increase that with a second Italian civ.

NorwegianSalmon said:

Italy is quite fun as it is. Both of these seem comparatively less fun.

Click to expand...

Savoy would basically be modern Italy that spawns 30 turns later.

Italy, both Renaissance and onwards can be represented by a single civ. We are talking about a max, 3 city penninsula. Italy as it is only serves to weaken HRE and France, gameplay wise I do enjoy how their UHV plays out, while the third goal is certainly silly in that it takes countless turns to play out, it certainly serves to show the Italy as a Nationstate side of history. Seperating that into two civs is simply silly.

I think before that we should first split Mali into 3 different civs: Ghana, Mali, and Songhai.

I thought that I was joking when I posted about including Naples...

Don't forget to split the British into England, Wales, Scotland, Ulster, Cornwall, Ireland, and Sealand.

Venice was a pretty important empire that can't just be represented by a generic Italy. Venice would only have one city in Italy, and it would make the Adriatic Sea less empty. The other Italy would be like what Prussia is to Holy Rome.

Even though Venetia was nearly as important as Spain, France or HRE (it controlled all the East coast of the Adriatic Sea up to near Greece), there is no space to add it

The adriatic is a single, maybe two cities BFCs. With overlap. It's a tiny area that is completely worthless really. The AI seems to love to plant a city there, but all it does is cramp Naples, Vienna, and Constantinople more.

In EU3 it makes sense to have Venice because even Ulm is represented, but in Civ 4 on a world map, it's simply too tiny.

If we had more space on Europe, it'd be really neat to do as you say. But Europe is cramped, and Italy would be king in crampness (just made up that word)

Sorry, but I think this won't fly.

Hello everybody, I'm new here on this forum, but I've been playing this mod for about some weeks. I have to thank Leoreth, as I enjoyed it a lot so far as I'm a history teacher and I love the idea of a more historical plausible experience in the game, something civilization always lacked. I chose this topic to post because I have to agree that Europe is indeed very small in the game what makes it hard to simulate some powerfull empires like the Austrian's Habsburgs (one example) that were one of the most important empires in modern history. Isn't there a way to make central europe a bit bigger to accomodate a powerful empire such as was the austrian's?

First off, welcome to CFC! Wilhelm, the issue with expanding Europe is that the mod already inflates the size of Europe a great deal. Were all landmasses in the game to be appropriately sized, you could probably fit about 3 cities in Europe, max.

Yeah, welcome here.

Europe is already enlarged (just compare it to Africa), and retroactively changing the map to make even minor changes is such a PITA that it's basically impossible.

For the actual proposal, Venice is present in the game. It's called Italy. Nothing stops you from ignoring the UHV and waging naval war against Byzantium and later the Ottomans.

We need to split Spain into Castille, Leon and Aragon first.

And Basque.

that Europe is indeed very small in the game what makes it hard to simulate some powerfull empires like the Austrian's Habsburgs (one example) that were one of the most important empires in modern history. Isn't there a way to make central europe a bit bigger to accomodate a powerful empire such as was the austrian's?

Click to expand...

Yeah, Rhye already enlarged Europe compared to its real proportions. Compare the RFC map and the Earth18 map that comes with basic Civ (and Earth18 map features a projection that actually slightly enlarges Europe compared to its real size).

I think that with the addition of HRE and Poland Central Europe needs 2 extra columns. But it would be a real, real PITA to change it.

Rhye's base projection of the Earth (Robinson) is already full of Northern imperialism and geographical chauvinism favorable towards Europe, too.