When would you go Liberty as Venice?

[joncnunn]

^^ something I've noticed playing the Venice a bit; is the Tradition opener doesn't work on the puppeted citystates. And the addition of the aqueducts and monuments is sometimes hit and miss... Anyway; I''m thinking a Piety venice start would be worthwhile too; get Tithe and spread it about for fun and game.

Venice has the same rule as Austria. (And other extremely early war monglers):

For legalism: Cities you already have at the point you get Legalism count. (Up to 4). But if you don't yet have 4 cities, you have to build a new city to get the Monument and capturing / marrying / buying will not work.

Tradition closer: Again: Cities you already have at the point you close Tradition count and get Aqueducts. But if you don't yet have 4 cities, you have to build a new city to get the aqueduct and capturing / marrying / buying will not work.

On the tradition opener: As far as city expansion goes, it's being offset by the 25% culture expansion penalty all puppets has; and it appears to truncate the culture you got down to the nearest number. (If there is a Gold resource being worked and you have religious idols, that 1 culture upon getting the 25% reduction goes away entirely.)

 

[jg4444]

Can't say I've ever disagreed more with a thread on civ fanatics. I always go liberty with Venice . Just finished a autocracy culture victory with them. I owned 90% of the land and conquered everyone that I couldn't tourism dominate with sheer numbers of troops even though I was 7 techs behind most of the game. 16 trade routes + holy warriors , you are an army buying machine. That extra 2 merchants from liberty is gold . You never hit a happiness wall with Venice because you just pick a city state with a luxury you don't have.

I love Venice they are my favorite. At one point I was making +1000 gold a turn and buying units like crazy had a standing army of 600k soldiers late game on a standard map. 12 civs and 24 city states it was crazy. Who needs to build settlers ? You let them build the city and you just take it. Gotta remember you are taking full grown cities loaded with buildings with the merchants. Not little lvl 1 cities with no buildings. Plus after you finish commerce the merchants could net 3k gold trade mission if I didn't need the city state . Tradition what? Never!

 

[Polisurgist]

You get free monuments and aqueducts in bought CS.

edit: already answered 2 times! lol.

BTW, it is hardly a waste even if it was Venice only. It is far better choice over Liberty(as first policy)

If that's so, then Tradition is great. But on my first playthrough, I thought that I wasn't seeing monuments in my bought city-states.

 

[Matthew.]

lol... no part of that block of text has anything supporting Liberty over Tradition, just reasons why you love Venice as a Civ.

Haven't tried Venice yet, but it does seem like Liberty ends up being a waste. While a strong capital is always important, it seems even more so for Venice, since you have less control over when and what supporting cities you can get.

 

[The Man Wood]

^^ something I've noticed playing the Venice a bit; is the Tradition opener doesn't work on the puppeted citystates. And the addition of the aqueducts and monuments is sometimes hit and miss... Anyway; I''m thinking a Piety venice start would be worthwhile too; get Tithe and spread it about for fun and game.

I played piety Venice in my first play through. It was very difficult to keep up with social policies. Granted it was my first time with the new mechanics, and ever other civ rushing religion didnt help either. If you go piety you need to go a strong culture tech/build. Which is difficult with Venice as I find that pushing economic structures early is best for them (great lighthouse, colossus, etc)

 

[Calouste]

I played piety Venice in my first play through. It was very difficult to keep up with social policies. Granted it was my first time with the new mechanics, and ever other civ rushing religion didnt help either. If you go piety you need to go a strong culture tech/build. Which is difficult with Venice as I find that pushing economic structures early is best for them (great lighthouse, colossus, etc)

I'm not convinced about the Great Lighthouse, because I don't think the extra movement and sight are worth the extra hammers (and waiting for the extra food and hammers from the normal Lighthouse). But the Colossus is pretty much the best wonder in the game for Venice. 5 gold, two trade routes and a Great Merchant point.

 

[Nyanko]

Venice has the same rule as Austria. (And other extremely early war monglers):

For legalism: Cities you already have at the point you get Legalism count. (Up to 4). But if you don't yet have 4 cities, you have to build a new city to get the Monument and capturing / marrying / buying will not work.

Tradition closer: Again: Cities you already have at the point you close Tradition count and get Aqueducts. But if you don't yet have 4 cities, you have to build a new city to get the aqueduct and capturing / marrying / buying will not work.

On the tradition opener: As far as city expansion goes, it's being offset by the 25% culture expansion penalty all puppets has; and it appears to truncate the culture you got down to the nearest number. (If there is a Gold resource being worked and you have religious idols, that 1 culture upon getting the 25% reduction goes away entirely.)

Thanks for that; I was wondering why my citystate borders weren't expanding

 

[The Man Wood]

I'm not convinced about the Great Lighthouse, because I don't think the extra movement and sight are worth the extra hammers (and waiting for the extra food and hammers from the normal Lighthouse). But the Colossus is pretty much the best wonder in the game for Venice. 5 gold, two trade routes and a Great Merchant point.

The good thing about the colossus, especially early game, is that you trireme's can protect your cargo ships alot easier against barbarians

it also helps progress towards great merchant of venice

 

[LostKnight]

The great lightouse is better then you think for Venice. Its on the path to Optic anyway, and give a very early Great merchant point(and thus a boost to your MoV generation)

 

[_hero_]

IMO you should do both. Open Tradition, Head down Liberty for your Free Merchant, Head through Tradition for a stronger capital, finish Liberty for another free Merchant and more happiness.

Venice is unique in that it can play both Tall and Wide at the same time. Having lots of Puppets as Venice means you can use half of your double trade routes as Food/Production machines for your capital. In my current Venice game, I hit 30 population in Venice in the late Medieval/early Renaissance. It's now the early industrial age, I have 42 pop and all my internal trade routes are sending hammers instead of food. I have over 200 production per turn. Wonders take about 5 turns each.

I went Tradition Opener->Liberty to Collective Rule. I now had 3 cities (Optics Merchant+Collective Rule Merchant) and 3 workers (the 2 puppets had workers and my capital built one). I then continued down Tradition to get Landed Elite. I went back to Liberty after this for the finished (another Merchant of Venice). At this point in time, I'd unlocked Commerce and filled it out (best policy tree for Venice by far IMO).

I used all my "extra" trade routes from Venice's UA as food for my Capital until my Capital hit 30 pop, then I switched them all to production. I used the excess food to allow myself to fill every Merchant slot in Venice, as well as every Writer and Artist slot (but not Musician, best to delay those). In total, I've gotten 9 Merchants of Venice (Optics, Collective Rule, Liberty Finisher, Leaning Tower, and self spawns).

IMO, yes you should use Leaning Tower/Liberty finisher on a Merchant, not a Engineer using this strategy. Your capital will be so much more productive than all the other cities in the world that getting a wonder is only about getting to the tech fast enough. Better to have more cities from which to send Production/Food to the capital, than to shave 4 turns off a wonder in the long run.

 

[Calouste]

The great lightouse is better then you think for Venice. Its on the path to Optic anyway, and give a very early Great merchant point(and thus a boost to your MoV generation)

The Great Lighthouse has it's benefits, it's just that compared to building a normal Lighthouse, it's too expensive. I have 4 sea resources in my current Venice game. That means that not only does the GL cost the normal 110 hammers extra, I also lose 4 hammers and 4 food every turn the GL isn't complete while the normal Lighthouse is. If say I have 10 hammers per turn, it takes me 11 more turns to produce the GL, which means I pay 154 hammers and 44 food (plus any extra production, food, science, gold etc. the faster growth gives me) for the extra sight/movement, 1 GM point, 1 culture and 1 less maintenance. It's not worth it.

 

[Glieze]

With liberty, you can quickly get 2 extra Merchant of Venice, but with tradition you can get 1 gpt/size in capital (which will increase your own trade route revenue, as well as other civ's trade routes, making it more appealing for them to form trade routes with you.

For those wondering, each +1 gpt each city in the trade route makes you get +1/20 gpt from the trade route (x2 if sea route of course). This means each resource diversity (+0.5) is equal to 10 gpt in a city.