AI (Venice only?) magically taking city states

[lmkn]

So I was playing on 4th difficulty and I had a sole city state on my very own continent with which I was ally (a lot of influence, something about 400) and I have protect pledge.

Then I see suddenly Cahokia ia no longer my FRIEND. WHAT? Oh I see - apparently it's Venetian city now. Venetia is friendly to me. So I load a save before and see what happens.

Basically there was a venetian great merchant going for the Cahokia and once it did its thing it has suddenly flipped Venetian.

Also, the spy was "moved from Cahokia because it was traded to Venice".

Oh and Bucharest and Sydney are also Venetian in that game. Maybe others too.

So the question is, can great merchants do that or it's a bug?

 

[Loucypher]

It's Venice's unique Great Merchant. It's a Merchant of Venice, which they get instead of a normal one, they get a free one at optics. They can puppet City States. In exchange though, Venice cannot produce settlers so it trades off. They can do this even if they have no influence at all, just walk their merchant up the CS's borders, eat it, and voila.
Austria can do a similar trick but they need to have been allies for the last 5 turns and then pay 500 gold as well.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Please also note that other civs can occasionally get Venice's unique Merchant of Venice by way of the finisher on the Patronage Social Policy tree which also allows them to absorb a city-state into their empires.

 

[lmkn]

Please also note that other civs can occasionally get Venice's unique Merchant of Venice by way of the finisher on the Patronage Social Policy tree which also allows them to absorb a city-state into their empires.

You mean if any City State gives a great merchant it's a of Venice one? Weird...

 

[reddishrecue]

You mean if any City State gives a great merchant it's a of Venice one? Weird...

CSes could gift both, and if you're lucky you can get a Merchant of Venice instead of a Merchant.

 

[PhilBowles]

Please also note that other civs can occasionally get Venice's unique Merchant of Venice by way of the finisher on the Patronage Social Policy tree which also allows them to absorb a city-state into their empires.

I'm not sure civs tend to finish Patronage any more - at least I no longer see the 'X has adopted a policy that causes your influence to decrease' messages, nor have I seen a non-Venetian MoV other than my own, or peaceful annexation of CSes by anyone other than me, Venice or Austria.

 

[Helmling]

I'm not sure civs tend to finish Patronage any more - at least I no longer see the 'X has adopted a policy that causes your influence to decrease' messages, nor have I seen a non-Venetian MoV other than my own, or peaceful annexation of CSes by anyone other than me, Venice or Austria.

That's not a policy option anymore.

 

[Browd]

In BNW, you will never see the 'X has adopted a policy that causes your influence to decrease' message. The Patronage finisher was changed to provide for "allied City-States to occasionally gift you Great People."

In the months after BNW was released, we saw a spate of threads where people (who weren't playing as Venice) marveled that they had received, or had seen non-Venice AI civs receive, Merchants of Venice and could use their MoVs to puppet CSs.

 

[sendos]

Please also note that other civs can occasionally get Venice's unique Merchant of Venice by way of the finisher on the Patronage Social Policy tree which also allows them to absorb a city-state into their empires.

This can only happen if there is no Venice in your game. The rule applies to all UU donations.

 

[redwings1340]

This can only happen if there is no Venice in your game. The rule applies to all UU donations.

CountAccountant got a Merchant of Venice as Sweden in his Giant Death Robots and Nuclear Bombs game, so I don't think that's true for these merchants.

 

[Cerilis]

This can only happen if there is no Venice in your game. The rule applies to all UU donations.

I got a Khan in my last game although Mongolia was also there.

 

[Cedbird]

Yea Venice can sneak up on you quick.All the work you built up all game out the window.They can be very powerful in this.I am in my first game as Venice but have been the AI 's neighbor with Venice as my foe.I had Built up alot of credit with our CS neighbors.I was so busy doing Civ stuff I did not notice wow Venice just ate up two of our CS neighbors.I could not let this happen for I had a few foes around me that if they teamed up with Venice I was in serious trouble.As you all know the CS act as great buffer non-allies and great allies in time of war.Venice had to go.So I launched an attack and Aced them.
This is my first game as Venice.Takes some getting use to for a guy who loves the Liberty tree to jump out and get 3 or 4 prime spots and build wonders etc.Slow going and then BOOM.I don 't know might be overpowered.I have Egypt to my left. I was able to build a nice size military because I have nothing else to spend my and on for the most part.I can 't expand with Settlers. Well how about conquest? Waited for the right time and invaded Egypt after I annexed my first CS.Too fun.I have 4 CS now in addition to my two very nice city including Thebes the capital from Egypt.My army is number 1 with the CS unit additions.The double trade routes makes my Civ a tough go for other Civs wanted to go to war furthermore.I try to keep everyone happy by sending them some caravans. .
Once you learn Venice it is too fun as a foe and playing the Civ.

 

[dexters]

The only good Venice is a dead Venice in my games unless I am the one playing Venice. ( I am exaggerating slightly )

They're far too troublesome with MoV; my recent game, Venice tried twice to sneak a MoV into a city state that's far away from his cluster of cities/former CS and he was just going to steal my CS ally just to spit me. I just DoW and killed his merchant. The 2nd time, I didn't even bother to get peace. I kept the war cold until I got around to taking a few of his cities enroute to my domination win. (Enrico lost his capital in the very early game and was sitting on his city states pumping out MoV)

The best way to deal with them, if they are not close to you is to get them to fight with their neighbours. This should keep their MoV from your circle of city states until you can deal with them.

Only once (in my games) where I played against Venice did the strategy backfire with Venice running away with it and carving out a largish empire. I had to deal with Enrico eventually.

 

[Autoclave]

I suspect AI targets cities with high influence. I once did the mistake of becoming friends with Venice, when I saw his MoV at the borders of my city-state, I DoWed him and killed his MoV. This of course backfired diplomatically because i backstabbed a "friend". Immediately i was DoWed by Shaka and Suleiman but they were too far away to threaten me.

 

[lmkn]

Yeah I wish there was an advanced option when starting a game that would disable both Venice and Austria from appearing as random AI civ... It just makes all the CS subgame pointless when they all get eaten up by those two.

 

[LoneRebel]

Well, if Greece is also in the game, you'll be glad to have Austria and Venice in it too, so they can screw each other over.

 

[apocalypse105]

Well, if Greece is also in the game, you'll be glad to have Austria and Venice in it too, so they can screw each other over.

Yes when you realise there are only 7 city states on the map and greece has all of them

and wins diplomatic

 

[reddishrecue]

This happened in a mp game to me once where the venetian player was purchasing all CSs. Greek however took the diplomatic victory which looked so easy in comparison to my science victory that was already taking way too long.