Way overpowered. I agree with the fact that Venice is toast in Multiplayer but I think that's just evidence they're OP: if human players see that another player has Venice, Venice becomes Public Enemy #1.
It goes beyond double trade routes (though I'll get there). Venice basically gets to play both tall and wide. Venice, ALONE amongst Civs, can spend the first 100 or so turns completely focusing on building up the capital, snagging wonders, playing tall, and STILL gets all the advantages of going wide. Thanks to City-State placement-scripting, Venice can be 100 turns into the game and still collect a bunch of excellently-placed cities, covering all their bases with needed strategic and luxury resources. And unlike Austria, this City-State acquisition comes with absolutely no public warning, so even a human player probably can't stop it in time unless they're lucky enough to see an unguarded MoV on the move (which is just bad play).
And not only do you get these excellent city locations, but because City-States are active little builders you get a full-fledged city, with infrastructure, high population, improved tiles. . . oh, and a pre-built army.
So before we even get to the UA, Venice has the unique power to BOTH spend the first 100 turns focused on making the capital the best, and STILL have a built-up, wide, high-population empire in the mid and late game.
Double trade routes just make things stupid. Run as many as you can from City-State puppets to Venice as internal food routes and watch Venice become the largest, grandest city in the world, and the trade routes you have left over still out-number anybody else's trade routes at all. Rake in the money and pursue any strategy you want.
True, defending trade routes is problematic (though the Great Galleas helps with this) and inclines Venice toward peace, but with all that money, even on Diety you can afford to pay your neighbors to fight each other all game long. Start near Shaka? OK, pay him off. In the early game you're way less likely to be attacked because you're small and not expanding, so you're not triggering those diplo penalties. By the time you start to encroach on other people's territory via CS acquisition, you've got enough cash to ensure that everybody else is fighting each other.
Just ridiculously overpowered, in my opinion. Yeah, you'll get killed in Multiplayer, but that's because everybody knows they can't afford to let you survive.
It goes beyond double trade routes (though I'll get there). Venice basically gets to play both tall and wide. Venice, ALONE amongst Civs, can spend the first 100 or so turns completely focusing on building up the capital, snagging wonders, playing tall, and STILL gets all the advantages of going wide. Thanks to City-State placement-scripting, Venice can be 100 turns into the game and still collect a bunch of excellently-placed cities, covering all their bases with needed strategic and luxury resources. And unlike Austria, this City-State acquisition comes with absolutely no public warning, so even a human player probably can't stop it in time unless they're lucky enough to see an unguarded MoV on the move (which is just bad play).
And not only do you get these excellent city locations, but because City-States are active little builders you get a full-fledged city, with infrastructure, high population, improved tiles. . . oh, and a pre-built army.
So before we even get to the UA, Venice has the unique power to BOTH spend the first 100 turns focused on making the capital the best, and STILL have a built-up, wide, high-population empire in the mid and late game.
Double trade routes just make things stupid. Run as many as you can from City-State puppets to Venice as internal food routes and watch Venice become the largest, grandest city in the world, and the trade routes you have left over still out-number anybody else's trade routes at all. Rake in the money and pursue any strategy you want.
True, defending trade routes is problematic (though the Great Galleas helps with this) and inclines Venice toward peace, but with all that money, even on Diety you can afford to pay your neighbors to fight each other all game long. Start near Shaka? OK, pay him off. In the early game you're way less likely to be attacked because you're small and not expanding, so you're not triggering those diplo penalties. By the time you start to encroach on other people's territory via CS acquisition, you've got enough cash to ensure that everybody else is fighting each other.
Just ridiculously overpowered, in my opinion. Yeah, you'll get killed in Multiplayer, but that's because everybody knows they can't afford to let you survive.
