Tips with Venice

[z284pwr]

Have any of you guys fought wars with Venice yet? I just had Zulu rush my capital when my army was far, thankfully I purchased some units on sight and was able to repel him. I'm pretty sure my army is big enough to take one of his cities, should I counter attack? Turn 100 on King.


So from what I'm reading, you should be selective with the City states you take? Play tall, use the gold to get allies all around?

If you don't mind the warmonger penalty could be a good way to ensure they don't become a powerhouse?
In my last Venice game I had so many Militaristic City States allied I was getting too many units and hitting the unit limit and by the time I had 5 too many 50% production hit hurts. Just had to delete units when I received them.

 

[Noxius]

I finished the game. I made a crap ton of gold due to trade routes and just bought a huge army for conquest. Game was on king. The civ is good but if somone doesnt do anything about the trade routes, then Venice will just keep making more and more and just continue snowballing. Leading to a win for them.

 

[Noxius]

Also i find great galleaos or w/e their called very bad. They did only 30 damage to a trebuchet.

 

[Antarion]

It is vital that you use that merchant from optics to get a city state with good ocean connection. I have had games where a single tile of ice ruined everything for me - thats actually why I now run scout first as Venice. Your failure to utilize that merchant to puppet a city state is equal to an Assyria player losing his first three siege towers: a gamechanging blunder.

You have to be aware of your surroundings. You need to discover other cities to be able to trade with them. If you cannot use all your trade routes during the mid game, you will fail. Also: Remember that you can build cargo ships in venice and sent them to your puppet (or rushbuy them there).

So be careful where to use that first merchant and remember to get a harbour ASAP to boost your naval trade route length! You should make roughly 300 GPT during the late rennaisance, 500 during the industrial era and 700+ once you reach modern times.

As for being stuck on another continent: Use your second merchant (and if you dont get one don't be afraid to grab him via liberty) to puppet a city state near the other civs. Even if it takes him 15 turns to cross that ocean - these trade routes will pay off.

So, try again, pick a good city state, get a hang of setting up and protecting the trade routes. It takes a bit of time to get used to Venice, but once you figured it out it should work fine.

this part is the most importan issue. you really want to get a early food connection to venice. forget all the other trade routes normally, you civ is water based. dont grab early inland city states except you find something really really sweet like 2 luxuries (no porcelain or jewlery although) with 6 iron or something.

you should never just spamm MoV through liberty and grab every city state on sight. i rarely take liberty route, only if i see really a 3rd good city if i go for republic and the free settler (MoV ofc), but i had never yet a game where i needed to finish liberty off really early for 4 puppets, maybe this is more suited to maps like archipealago. first of all dont forget your coastal trade routes, dont forget to let the puppets develop a bit (for example they gain faster as non puppets) and let them build military for you .

sometimes its a good choice with your early MoVs to buy city states example for UU from military city states or a religion to grab via faith from a religios one, and so on.

 

[Antarion]

I never take liberty, it takes way too long and most of the tree isn't worth it.

IMO Venice works best as a "sort of OCC." Never buying in puppets and using cargo to give Venice all the food and hammers it needs to build itself into a supermegaultracity without increasing the unhappiness or social costs too much.

You can pick up more merchants just by getting market and bank reasonably early.

The +1 per 2 citizens is pretty much a requirement when your city is pushing 50 population in the late game.

u will need sometimes fresh puppets for different reasons:

more science, more gold, more culture, MoV from puppets and more rawr materials. also dont forget to abuse them as a spot to buy great galleases on a different continent to attack coastal enemies...
every puppet means one more trade route to venice which means alot of food or hammers (dont forget coastal cities PLZ).

 

[Heart Break Kid]

Being able to grab city states is pretty sweet, never played Austria so I'm not used to taking over a city and it producing so fast.

I rushed a city state since I wanted to try out how a MoV worked, but yeah, I agree, it makes sense to just let the city states develop themselves.

Btw, the first city state I took was in land, do you think it is worth it if they have a lot of resources plus a natural wonder right next to them? (forgot what wonder, think it gave science, the cs also had sugar, iron and horses).

 

[fugitiveunknown]

u will need sometimes fresh puppets for different reasons:

more science, more gold, more culture, MoV from puppets and more rawr materials. also dont forget to abuse them as a spot to buy great galleases on a different continent to attack coastal enemies...
every puppet means one more trade route to venice which means alot of food or hammers (dont forget coastal cities PLZ).

Eh. I had 5 cities by the end of my game running tradition, and the vast, overwhelming ridiculous majority of my science and culture came from Venice anyway with its billion and a half wonder bonuses and specialists. You can pick up a fair amount of MoV's using specialists or commerce path if its really vital.

Raw materials were irrelevant. My army was basically a few submarines and super leet naval units with place holder ranged attackers and city walls to stop the riff raff. If I needed anything else, by end game I was making 500GP per turn, and had a ton of hammers on my cap, so I could pop out almost anything I wanted from my existing cities anyway.

Culture? Not a problem. My costs per raise were low because I didn't have many cities. I had tradition maxed, rationalism maxed, freedom maxed, and one of each of a couple other ideologies to grab wonders.

 

[vanzlmalc]

On deity you can try to delay optics just long enough for CSs to make markets, you can get some faster MoV points that way. I don't recommend this with low food starts when you need that first food shipment asap.

 

[_invy_]

I think Tradition is way better then Liberty for Venice, unless you want to go conquer the world.

Tip0. Restart game few times untill you get very nice starting location.

Tip1.
I think its best to take first city state on coast with Optics MoV - you will want to send one food route to capital. Venice MUST be very big to work specialist.

Tip2. You don't need more then 3-4 cities really, so there's no need to hurry with MoV. Its better to let city states grow, on higher difficulties they become big and have all buildings built quite fast. Use Market and Bank specialist to produce more MoV - use them for gold missions. Later on gettting some Great Scientists is a good idea.

Tip3. Try to get Great Lighthouse or Colossus if possible - Venice starts on coast.

Tip4. Hanging Gardens is very nice wonder for Venice, I managed to beeline for it and built it in 3 starts I tried with Venice.

Tip5. Later on you will want to have one city states halfway on the other side of the world - good for trade routes, and helps to move trade routes during wars.

 

[Calouste]

What to do with the MoV from Optics is a matter of circumstance. In one game I had a city state nearby with a new luxury and one of the Faith Natural Wonders within it's borders, I peppered that. In the next game I had a food rich but hammer poor start and already had influence with a cultural city state due to a quest. So instead of puppeting, I did the trade mission, got extra culture for 60 turns, and bought a Lighthouse for my 4 sea resources and another Workboat.

 

[Noxius]

I think Tradition is way better then Liberty for Venice, unless you want to go conquer the world.

Tip0. Restart game few times untill you get very nice starting location.

Tip1.
I think its best to take first city state on coast with Optics MoV - you will want to send one food route to capital. Venice MUST be very big to work specialist.

Tip2. You don't need more then 3-4 cities really, so there's no need to hurry with MoV. Its better to let city states grow, on higher difficulties they become big and have all buildings built quite fast. Use Market and Bank specialist to produce more MoV - use them for gold missions. Later on gettting some Great Scientists is a good idea.

Tip3. Try to get Great Lighthouse or Colossus if possible - Venice starts on coast.

Tip4. Hanging Gardens is very nice wonder for Venice, I managed to beeline for it and built it in 3 starts I tried with Venice.

Tip5. Later on you will want to have one city states halfway on the other side of the world - good for trade routes, and helps to move trade routes during wars.

Temple of artemis is good too?

 

[Nyanko]

Temple of artemis is good too?

I'd say if you can get it; But it'd be lower on your priority list than say, the hanging gardens. The only time I've ever gotten both was as a Egypt Prince start with the ancient wonders pantheon

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

so you're just staying with Venice and not puppeting any CS's?

How to keep up scientifically?

and re: AlazkanAssassin: you don't want to puppet close CS because you're losing early trading partners for gold, correct?

Patronage...gain a portion of your allied CS. You should have enough cash and influence to gain pretty much all the CS's.

 

[Calouste]

I'd say if you can get it; But it'd be lower on your priority list than say, the hanging gardens. The only time I've ever gotten both was as a Egypt Prince start with the ancient wonders pantheon

The Colossus and the Hanging Gardens are more or less must-have for Venice (and Petra if the location allows), which doesn't leave much room to build other Ancient or Classical wonders at higher levels.

 

[Heart Break Kid]

Can Venice raze a city? I puppeteered one, but I don't see an option to raze Q.Q. Is it because you'd have to annex it first?