A Simple Italian Question

[Locutus_Morti]

Whenever I play as the Italians, I never found Florence, and take Rome as soon as possible, making that my capital. Is this a bad idea? Is Florence really that important as a city? Is there some advantage over using it instead of Venice?

 

[iOnlySignIn]

Is this a bad idea? Is Florence really that important as a city? Is there some advantage over using it instead of Venice?

No, no, and no.

But you do need to get 3 decent cities up and running asap for the UHV. As long as you can find a 3rd one apart from Rome and Venice you'll be perfectly fine.

The lack of Florence will be even more beneficial if you plan to take Marseilles later.

 

[youtien]

In last SVN where you can get food bonus founding on food resource, I settled Verona on wheat, 1w from Venice, that's a good spot.

 

[Kraizer]

In last SVN where you can get food bonus founding on food resource, I settled Verona on wheat, 1w from Venice, that's a good spot.

In the latest SVN, you no longer gain the bonus if the resource you're settling on is a production or commerce resource (not food.)

 

[Locutus_Morti]

As long as you can find a 3rd one apart from Rome and Venice you'll be perfectly fine.

About that... I take it Naples or Vibo Valentia (The city on the dye, don't know Italian name) would not cut it? What would make a better city?

 

[BenZL43]

In the latest SVN, you no longer gain the bonus if the resource you're settling on is a production or commerce resource (not food.)

Eh? Since when? Then how about the Sri Lanka? Does Leoreth flip the Spice and Iron position or should we encourage to settle on the Spice now? #OOT

 

[artyom]

i think one should found florence when playing with italy. reasoning is that with italy's UP combined with city states, your cities will have much more food than you could supply happiness for them. you could get venice, rome, and florence above population 16 at around 1500 AD. and much more than that by 1600 AD.

with italy, there is not much point in trying to get cities with as many tiles as possible because
1) city states allows only 7 land tiles and
2)why work tiles when you should be working specialists
3)italian cities can get very big, the only problem is happiness

so, with my logic, why have Rome and Venice at size 16 when you can have Rome, venice, and florence all at size 16? even if you dont allow Florences's working tiles to be anywhere in the sphere of venice and rome, florence would still be a huge city.

having Rome as capitol might be better though, not because it is a better location than florance, but simply because you will suffer slightly less distance maintanance costs for the cities you capture/settle in africa.

 

[Leoreth]

Eh? Since when? Then how about the Sri Lanka? Does Leoreth flip the Spice and Iron position or should we encourage to settle on the Spice now? #OOT

There are no food resources on Sri Lanka.

 

[BenZL43]

Spice?

Is spice considered food resource?

 

[Sarius1997]

No, it´s a happiness resource.

 

[Leoreth]

And it's not really relevant what type of resource it is. Food yields are simply not added to city tile yields, but production and commerce are.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

About that... I take it Naples or Vibo Valentia (The city on the dye, don't know Italian name) would not cut it? What would make a better city?

Why not? Napoli has 1 Sheep, 1 Clam, and 1 Dye. That's more than decent enough for a city. A more ideal option would be Tarento (covers more of the Balkan Hills) or, most fortunately, Messina with Great Cothon on 3000 BC starts.

In some cases (3000 BC mostly) the other European powers (especially France - you want weak France, as you can pacify HRE as much as you want since they'll die to Prussia later) will be weak. Then you can take a Greek supercity right away. Like Venice and Genoa did historically.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

i think one should found florence when playing with italy. reasoning is that with italy's UP combined with city states, your cities will have much more food than you could supply happiness for them. you could get venice, rome, and florence above population 16 at around 1500 AD. and much more than that by 1600 AD.

with italy, there is not much point in trying to get cities with as many tiles as possible because
1) city states allows only 7 land tiles and
2)why work tiles when you should be working specialists
3)italian cities can get very big, the only problem is happiness

so, with my logic, why have Rome and Venice at size 16 when you can have Rome, venice, and florence all at size 16? even if you dont allow Florences's working tiles to be anywhere in the sphere of venice and rome, florence would still be a huge city.

having Rome as capitol might be better though, not because it is a better location than florance, but simply because you will suffer slightly less distance maintanance costs for the cities you capture/settle in africa.

Both the UP and City States

(A) Expire before Italy can achieve UHV (you can stay in City States of course, but that will really hurt your Stability when going for the Mare Nostrum UHV);

(B) Do not require closely packed cities to work.

It used to be that your cities have to be packed close together to benefit from City States. But that is no longer the case. You can spread you cities out as much as you want. Just manage your Specialists manually.

Another example of this is if you play as Russia. Your cities should all be 3~4 tiles away from each other. In early game, none of them would work even 1/2 of the tiles they are able to work (regardless of whether you run City States or not), as they are busy farming Specialists. Late game, with Biology + Cereal Industry + (perhaps) State Property they will be able to grow into supercities that work all their tiles.

Tl;DR unless you plan to run City States till end game (e.g. as India), do NOT settle your cities close together if possible.

 

[artyom]

i find city states as one of the most fun and beneficial civics.
I switch to city states with
- japan and malaysia at around 1700,
- prussia at around 1830 after i had built the statue of liberty,
- the dutch obviously
- i have tried it with russia and it works (switch to city states like at 1900 when you have met your UHV goal and immediately settle like 20 cities)
-and obviously, italy

I dont see any good reason why you would not want to run city states when playing italy, prussia or japan unless your going for domination victory in which you make one city for half a continent. and stability has never been a problem.
city states allows you to have many immensely sized cities with a ton of specialists. lubyanka and statue of liberty make city states arguably a bigger economical advantage than free market and capitalism combined

moreover, i find that city states provide better historically accurate gameplay and so more fun. for example, with city states, one playing prussia could add several additional cities in your core area besides the ones you spawn and capture and they all would still turn into megacities despite working just a few tiles, just as is historically there werent just a few cities: there were many.
late game, other civics dont seem to pose any competitive advantage compared to city states. city state's +100% maintanance costs has diminishing penalty because who cares that your cities have 20 upkeep costs when they have like 15 specialists working and due to their size all the trade routes provide 10+ commerce?
any closely packed civ should switch to city states later on in the game, I prefer after I build the statue of liberty.
with italy being as the most technologically advanced civ in the game if you manage to finish both UHV's, i'd recommend going for radio's cristo redentor then democracy and switch to republic for statue of liberty then switch back to city states. this is easily doable on 600 AD emperor difficulty like before 1800 AD because, again, italy is the most scientifically advanced civ if you get it up and running

 

[Hippo8085]

City States is a lot like the plague. It kills your stability when you have it and it reduces your city size when it is out. I will usually run city states as a civ that starts with it until I start expanding. Otherwise, it isn't worth when you are forced to switch out of it.

 

[Sarius1997]

In my dutch UHV game, i used it till the end, my stability was bad at the end, but even stability wise it was ok until around 1750s. It´s just too useful to not use it.

 

[Caesar Augustus]

You know you're doing something right with design when some players consider an option to be clearly superior while others are comparing it to the plague

 

[Leoreth]

You know you're doing something right with design when some players consider an option to be clearly superior while others are comparing it to the plague

I think the stability hit could still be a little more severe.

 

[Jusos2108]

I think the stability hit could still be a little more severe.

Or if it is possible to implement, running City States would increase the likeliness of cities declaring independence. Iirc this can now happen if stability is below -20, running city states could move the cap to 0. Basically it would be like the opposite of Impearilism. That would be extremely logical as well.

 

[Leoreth]

That's a really good idea.