Proper way to play Venice

[Lrd Dread]

I have read a lot of interesting things about Venice. What is the best way to play them?
Best strategy?

 

[Randall_Flagg]

I can tell you how not to play as them. Do not skip buying a few CS's. I had thought trade could help close the gap. I was so very wrong, Monty taught me the error of my ways.

Now, I am loving them, so have been trying a few things. Do not even think going peity 1st, it also ends bad with someone wiping you out.

Here is what Is working for me. Open liberty, grab the worker, republic, MoV. Tradition full tree and form there whatever you want. I use the 1st mov for either 2 Cargo ships if I have a clean safe route. If not buy 2 carvans and a building, stone works if you have stone is best imho.

I have gave up trying for wonders in 1st age, to many missed it by 1-2 turns. I put everything in growth to gain science. Getting a GS is very needed for me, that extra science is needed. After that it is just a matter of buying 2-3 CS's and building your awesome trade network.

 

[Lrd Dread]

everyone tells me that buying the CS is a bug... even though there is a feature on the Merchant control...

 

[Randall_Flagg]

everyone tells me that buying the CS is a bug... even though there is a feature on the Merchant control...

I am not talking about the cheat. I am talking about walking your mov to a CS and pupeting. That is the way it works.

 

[OmniPotent42]

Open Liberty - you'll get a free Merchant of Venice instead of a free settler, and finishing the tree will give you another chance to get a Merchant of Venice. If you beeline for Optics, that's 3 MoV's before the Renaissance Era. Don't feel like you have to use all of them to puppet; the double and influence of normal Great Merchants is very useful in the early game.

You will obviously want as many trading partners as possible to maximize your double trade routes, so make sure to stay friendly with most of your opponents. However if you do feel like you must do a bit of conquest, you can buy a militaristic City-State with a MoV which will either double or sometimes triple your military, and you can conquer some nearby civs with that.

If you are going for a diplomatic victory (which is what Venice is great for) be careful of how many CS's you puppet - if you take too many you could lost that victory condition for a long time.

Also don't be afraid to restart if your starting location sucks - your capital is everything as Venice, and there's no point trying to play it out with a sucky city that you're stuck with.

This strategy worked for me on Immortal, but I had to restart quite a bit to find a start with nearby City-States.

 

[Lrd Dread]

oh crap - i see I was talking puppeting as well, but thinking annex....

 

[Lrd Dread]

I see people talking about making massive amounts of gold using venice.... how are they doing this? I cannot get much above 200 gpt in later stages

 

[budweiser]

Get Venice up to size 35+ and MoV 5 or 6 CS.

 

[Exterminas]

I played venice pretty straightforwards as a warmonger-civ.

Start by going tall and consider building the hanging gardens, to transform the city of venice into a production-power-house. Then Build and army and crush/puppet the nearest neighbour. Ignore trade-routes until this point. Once you got the first few puppets running, purchase granaries and workshops in them. Use as much trade routes to send production and food to Venice.

Enjoy your Size-30-Troop-Factory.

I used the Merchants of Venice only to conduct trade missions, since they get double the amount of money and I enjoy city-state boni more than mere puppets.

Why puppet the CS if they can be your allies in diplomacy and with their usual boni?

 

[Randall_Flagg]

oh crap - i see I was talking puppeting as well, but thinking annex....

You should have 10 routes by the Renaissance ERA. That is massive ammount of dosh. You want to be trading with other civs by this time. You gain Science this way, and as Venice you need all you can get.


Build all of your income buildings. Trading partners you want them to have good luxury resourses. Also Capitols are your best partners imho, they have the most pop.

 

[Civmike]

I see people talking about making massive amounts of gold using venice.... how are they doing this? I cannot get much above 200 gpt in later stages

Not sure what we are doing differently, but I was pulling in over 1k by the end of a recent prince game. Population approached 40 (and would have gone much higher, with 72 food from cargo), all production into wonders, since I could buy anything else.

 

[telekinetic136]

Get the colossus!

 

[Merciorum]

Buy a 2/3 CSs, then go hyper-trade/commerce and use the MoV's other power (double gold+influence from trade missions) to win a diplo victory.

That's how I'm planning on doing my 1st Venetian game, anyway I really don't know what I'm talking about.

 

[joncnunn]

Myself: (On the how not to play them). Just because you can buy every city state doesn't mean you should. A new city needs to bring in 5% of your empire's science rate to avoid slowing it down.

Also, for Venice, remember to run Scientists (along with those guilds) to get some Academies even if this slows down Great Merchant production rate; your puppet cities will build plenty enough. And there's no real need to invest at all in Liberty; you'll get enough Merchants of Venice the usual way and any free ones are just going to (marginally) slow down Academies.

(I still won that game; but it wasn't until around 2019.)

 

[Heart Break Kid]

How much more money and influence do MOVs give than normal GMs? Is it double like someone else said?

They're pretty awesome, puppeteer is ok, but being able to just get auto rich and steal an ally is awesome. They're how great merchants should be imo (i hate using normal GMs).

 

[homegrown]

I know it's 60 influence. I don't know how much better the gold is, it feels like 50% more maybe. And then I finished Commerce which doubled it again. The gold from that was 2400 iirc.

 

[Jesterozan]

it may be a very noob question but how will we grow without any settlers? only with one city with Venice?

 

[StrideColossus]

it may be a very noob question but how will we grow without any settlers? only with one city with Venice?

The Merchant of Venice (MoV) which replaces the normal Great Merchant can annex city-states. They can also be used for a the normal trade mission but get higher influence with the CS and more gold.

As an aside: the tooltip/civopedia entry for MoV does not mention that they get more influence/gold when conducting trade missions? or have I missed it? Ditto the fact that they can move 4 tiles in water (found that out myself by accident!)

 

[Jesterozan]

The Merchant of Venice (MoV) which replaces the normal Great Merchant can annex city-states. They can also be used for a the normal trade mission but get higher influence with the CS and more gold.

As an aside: the tooltip/civopedia entry for MoV does not mention that they get more influence/gold when conducting trade missions? or have I missed it? Ditto the fact that they can move 4 tiles in water (found that out myself by accident!)

you can only puppet them, not annex, right? so they produce what they want?

 

[Taolan]

you can only puppet them, not annex, right? so they produce what they want?

Yes, however another part of Venice's UA is that they can purchase in puppeted CS's. Also, puppeted cities/CS's will work on joint projects voted in by the World Congress (Worlds Fair, International Games etc)