Just beat Immortal ahead of AI by more than an entire age?

[danaphanous]

I usually play immortal.

I thought it would be a fun challenge to play as random map venice and go for SV since they get a science output nerf from puppets and you can't control them as well.

Standard game. Rushed trade routes puppeted with first 3 GM's and sent food routes back home to Venice. Trade routes caught me up on science very quickly and I passed all the AI in the medieval. From there it just snowballed as I was buying all the science buildings. By around 1870 I had nothing left to build in any city and it was just a waiting game on the last tech. Only thing the game was missing was uranium which I could not connect because I had none and everyone else was so far behind and I mistimed the IS so it could not be started before I won. So no nuke plants or boost from that. Launched the ship in 1915.

My question is, is this typical to get so far ahead with Venice? Immortal games usually the AI does better at keeping up and in the past I've struggled to get ahead with Venice in particular. I can do it easily with every other civ but not them due to the nerfs which makes science cap out and be quite slow in the info era. However this game has made me think maybe they aren't disadvantaged at all. I even wandered around the tech tree quite a bit because it looked like I might get attacked and it wasn't that great of a start with very poor production and no mountain. I was slow sending food routes back too and didn't even prioritize my GMs. I could of done it way faster but what's the point when the best AI is 14 techs behind? The main difference this game is I managed to open far more policies, prioritized science better, and cash-bought a lot more in the puppets to keep them competitive.

 

[Sclb]

Venice has huge bonus due to number of trade routes especially if you managed to puppet several coastal CS. As long as you can get a huge capital, your science will be huge. Beating Immortal AI doesn't say much as AI are horrible at teching past industrial era. Venice is severely handicapped if there aren't any close coastal CS due to the fact of no settlers. Also you can't choose where to plant cities so some of the positions aren't good at all.

 

[durron597]

My question is, is this typical to get so far ahead with Venice?

AI is really, really bad at small continents / archipelago, too.

 

[danaphanous]

yeah I did notice they failed to colonize completely. There were really nice city spots all game that no one took. I usually play immortal on continents and they tech better though with the exception of Sejong usually still a ways behind me. This was ridiculous though. They were about an age and a half to two ages behind me. My question was whether Venice was actually good at science. I realized my initial assumption may have been wrong seeing them do so well on tech even without AI to trade with. I guess their low amount of cities made the tech cheaper to research and so the capital's science made a bigger difference. The last information era techs still took 9 turns even full science production and working science in cities though. I relied mostly on a string of scientists at the end, whereas on a normal game with more cities I can control I usually see them much lower in cost.

 

[Volcanon]

Well the game punishes colonies pretty harshly. Takes you 10 turns to get your army or navy there, and by that time your colony is razed to the ground.

Sure it's realistic, I guess, but still.

Also the AI looooves to pinpoint focus colonies, usually their first sneak attack with a carpet of units goes after your 2 population colony on a jungle island for gems and citrus.

 

[MechMedic130]

Venice is a great Civ on watery maps as people have already said. Those internal trade routes can get out of control, and if you choose your puppets wisely you can get some really good resources. The AI is terrible as Venice but a player can really maximize his abilities.

A water map is especially good for Venice because it limits the amount of room other civs have to really expand out of control, but you're Venice so you only really need one good plot of and and you're golden. I like to play Venice on a Small Continents map because I feel like it creates a better balance of land and water, much less land and you're gimping the AI, much more and you're gimping yourself.

 

[danaphanous]

well I played random map for Venice so it isn't like I purposely stacked the deck (look at my city spot, it's pretty production awful hence why I needed to use 3 GE's to improve it ). I agree with you though the AI really seemed to suck at expanding even though there was free islands all game. I wonder why they stopped at so low of expansion on immortal even though they were so happy. Any insights?

 

[Primacide]

If you want a really fun map with Venice, you must try the DCL April fools map. I won't spoil it, but you will have a great time. You will have a hard time losing, but the twists make winning incredibly interesting.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=545521

 

[phillipwyllie]

Try the The Enlightenment Era mod if you haven't already which gives boosts to culture or science(but not really both). Since the AI tends to lean towards culture you might beat them by 2 eras.

 

[beetle]

My question is, is this typical to get so far ahead with Venice? ... However this game has made me think maybe they aren't disadvantaged at all.

This describes my experience with Venice (at Deity) once I stopped playing Liberty (for the free MoV) and just tried four-city Tradition with them. For Diplo or SV (w/ Freedom SS Procurements), I would characterize them as EZ mode.

Venice is a great Civ on watery maps as people have already said. Those internal trade routes can get out of control, and if you choose your puppets wisely you can get some really good resources. The AI is terrible as Venice but a player can really maximize his abilities.

This. I don't think you even need a particularly watery map as Pangaea should be fine. Venice can get nerfed hard by the map (ice locked cap, or zero CS in cargo ship range) but they do not need an above average start -- just one that is not terrible.