CivilizedPlayer
Warlord
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2012
- Messages
- 222
I could see the factories approach being problematic for Venice. He can't buy a City State until his first Gt Merchant of Venice from researching Optics. Thereafter, it takes a llllloooooonnnnnnggggg time to get that second CS purchase (to allow for the possibility of building three factories). I recently played an Emperor game and gaining Great Prophets and Gt Scientists kept driving up the Gt Merchant price just before a GM would have triggered. If I recall correctly, I didn't get that 2nd Gt Merchant until just prior to the Industrial era. Allowing for the additional time to research Industrialization, building up the newly acquired CS (which always seem to be about an era behind in city development when purchased), Venice will be waaaaayyyyy behind nearly every other civ in acquiring its first Ideology.
I'm currently playing as Venice right now, and you're dead on. Although I have 4 cities right now, thanks to a Merchant of Venice and a war with Poland
The problem is that puppeted cities prioritize gold, so they pretty much won't build a factory. Rush-buying them is too expensive, and besides, factories are pretty useless in a puppeted city anyway. So I'm currently in the process of teching to the modern era, but unfortunately that's putting me way behind ideologically. The good news is I can see what other civs are adopting, and factor that into my decision.