How to play Venice (Emperor)

[MeowZedong]

Venice was my favorite civ in vanilla, but cant seem to get the hang of it on the community patch. I normally play on large/epic/pangaea/emperor, but instead opted for standard/standard//pangaea/emperor. My first time around i played it like i did vanilla, didnt work obviously. Learned tall civs cant really play diplomacy. Had a decent hold until the industrial era, puppeting cities on all corners of the maps, and being allies of everyone and all city states. but i couldnt keep up with the wide AIs diplo spam and quest accomplishment. Lost that and couldnt really compete elsewhere, took one angry china to smash me. My second game im still in, but im prolly done with. I had an amazing starting location, used the first MoV for a town to expland my borders (i was already being forward settled), link up marble, and give me a rad tile. My second MoV i sent out to get a puppet, because my capital, tho it has great tiles and location, doesnt have much in way of CSs nearby, (two to the north both of which are surrounded by tundra and near useless to puppet). Now i just dont know what to do, to go far and look for something on the opposite coast that i can connect with light house? do i use the MoVs to snowball my capital and puppet neighbors by force?

Also if anyone has any tips or can point to a recent post on Venice i would appreciate it. Really want to win one with Venice now especially after the last update, Venice being a bit beefier now

 

[Mad Madigan]

As I understand it, Venice cannot solely rely on puppeted CSs to expand, but must also conquer all nearby cities from other Civs (through ruthless but calculated military aggression) in order to succeed in the higher difficulties. The recent balance changes to its unique national wonders in the 10-9 patch should help with playing a wider Venice.

 

[Owlbebach]

I think Diplo Victory is a worst choice for Venice. I have some ideas about Touristic Venice, but a haven't tried it yet. But i can say fo sure that Venice is an awsome warmonger. The real power of Venice is that when you annex City-State - you get its army. You go Authority, rush Trade, boom, you have 2 Merchants of Venice. Try to control nearest City-States and see which one has more army and which one has upgraded army. Build 4 Archers in your capital, annex 2 City-States with 1-3 Spearmen each, and you have strongest army in the world, time to attack your weakest neighbour.

 

[DoctorDuke]

The real power of Venice is that when you annex City-State - you get its army. You go Authority, rush Trade, boom, you have 2 Merchants of Venice. Try to control nearest City-States and see which one has more army and which one has upgraded army. Build 4 Archers in your capital, annex 2 City-States with 1-3 Spearmen each, and you have strongest army in the world, time to attack your weakest neighbour.

The problem I have with this approach is that you can't ramp up your unit cap since the CS's and puppets can't be made to build barracks and walls

 

[Owlbebach]

The problem I have with this approach is that you can't ramp up your unit cap since the CS's and puppets can't be made to build barracks and walls

You can, When Venice invests into building - this building is added to production. This is why Venice is so strong, you do not get penalty for not-puppet cities, yet you can control what they are doing. Requires a lot of micromanagement though

 

[DoctorDuke]

You can, When Venice invests into building - this building is added to production. This is why Venice is so strong, you do not get penalty for not-puppet cities, yet you can control what they are doing. Requires a lot of micromanagement though

Thanks for that...I'm going to try it at some point.

 

[ShadedSkies]

3 choices.

1. Generate lots of money to get votes for a diplomatic victory (don't bother with Emissaries on higher difficulties, just stage coups)
2. Generate lots of great people and abuse the fact that spies can't do anything to win with culture/science
3. Build a huge navy and puppet everyone for free yields

Regardless of which you choose you're going to have a very hard time staying alive. CS are generally pretty spread out and the AI will gladly surround your cities on all sides, denying you open borders and killing your trade routes. If you don't mind restarting I'd strongly recommend doing so until you get one of those starts with a CS cluster near your capital, it will make life so much easier.

 

[Txurce]

3 choices.

1. Generate lots of money to get votes for a diplomatic victory (don't bother with Emissaries on higher difficulties, just stage coups)
2. Generate lots of great people and abuse the fact that spies can't do anything to win with culture/science
3. Build a huge navy and puppet everyone for free yields

Regardless of which you choose you're going to have a very hard time staying alive. CS are generally pretty spread out and the AI will gladly surround your cities on all sides, denying you open borders and killing your trade routes. If you don't mind restarting I'd strongly recommend doing so until you get one of those starts with a CS cluster near your capital, it will make life so much easier.

While starting near a CS cluster is undoubtedly easier, I've done very well with Venice taking AI cities that connect me to the puppeted CS. I found it more problematic if there aren't any AI close by.

 

[ShadedSkies]

While starting near a CS cluster is undoubtedly easier, I've done very well with Venice taking AI cities that connect me to the puppeted CS. I foind it more problematic if there aren't any AI close by.

Yeah, and since buying a city state generally puts you way over your force limit you'll always have a disposable army to conquer with. It can still be extremely difficult since you're the only civ in the game without a UU meant for combat, and being at war wreaks havoc on your trade routes.

 

[Favorius]

I purchased 3 Greek cities settled near me. Then game became a lot easier.