New Beta Version (3-20b)
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how exactly does one play venice? which baseline AI behaviors are failing with them? which special strategies would be needed?
ashendashin
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Venice is probably the most basic warmonger to play, but is dependent on initial success. You build a few warriors and archers yourself, buy a city-state or two to bulk up, and then DoW your most vulnerable neighbors and never stop getting new cities after. It gets even easier to spam more units with landsknechts since you can batter cities with abandon as you rake in the gold. Should be easier to do now since you don't have to look at your puppets what with happiness not being an issue.
Not exactly, i used to play Tourism Venice with great success, having only 6 or 7 cities on Standard size. So you do not need to be Hitler really. At least not every time.
First of all Progrees for Venice is totally useless, should not be taken at all. Most of times it should be Authority (free Settler first!), but Tradition -> Tourism is okay.
Authority play:
1) Venice should probably take some military tech like Horseman, than rush into Trade (taking Trade asap works, but my experience says that it should not be taken as 3rd tech cause you need time for City-States to get more units)
2) Take Trade as your 4th/5th tech, at the same time get a free Settler from Authority and buy two City-States with their army. Better to buy closest ones, but depends on what resources and army they have, 2 additional free Spearmen worth buying a more distant City-State
3) While waiting for City-States - build army (Horsemen+Archers)
4) Once free units are taken (or even few turns before it) declare a war on your neighbour. Better to DOW the neighbour that settles between your City-States and you
5) Capture him and go for the next one if necessary
6) Vinice Merchants are good for diplo victory, so you actually do not need to buy all possible City-States. Also generic Science play is also good.
Tradition-->Tourism play:
1) Rush Pyramids asap (very high priority!)
2) Get free Settler from Pyramids+free Settler from Trade
3) Capture your neighbour (3-4 cities)
4) Stop and play Tourism as usual
5) Dont forget to build the building that gives +2 tourism from villages and prioritise them.
6) Might be worth to take 1-2 more City-States to get more Great Merchants in future, they give a lot of tourism (plant them in your capital, culture converts into tourism in future)
One thing that is right for sure is that Venice should take advantage of free units and that it does not need to build Settlers (others can build those cities for you!). Even human on Deity can easily get largest army on the world early on.
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Moi Magnus
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I will say that the main behavior Venice is failing with is how to deal with its neighbourg. Since you can't settle, our neighbourg will overexpand in your direction.
If you don't do anything against that, you will just have the a civ with double territory (or two civs with 1.5 territory) near to you. It will be the leader (or the two leaders), and you will be crushed by them.
Thus, you need to play at least aggresively enough to make sure your neighbourg don't runaway.
I've not play enough with Venice to have winning strategies, but I know that not doing anyhting against your neighbourg is a losing one.
For the first 2 City-States i'd say:
1) No Tundra/Ice/Desert (unless a very good city with lots of resources ofcourse, but thats really rare)
2) Amount of units and their power (2 Spearmen > 3 Warriors)
3) Resources and distance from Venice (but not very far away, yes, i know very is transparent but that depends on a situation really, usually i'd say 10 tiles is okay, 15 is too much)
When i play i typically have warriors/scouts near 3 or 4 nearest City-States so that i can see which one is better
For the rest of them - depends on how far away are them and how god are them in a general sense (resources+land+population+how to defend if enemy is near. Not sure how to formalize it). Also Venice should have at least several cities, i constantly see Venice having 2 or 3 cities and 5 Colonias in random places
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bigcat88
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If for AI then first criteria is distance. Max 12-13 tiles. Can be 15 if it can be connected by coast(so no need road)
Second criteria is horses(if there are no horses in capital)
If there are no CS with horses in 13 tiles from capital then just as usual city.
Prefer CS if they are on hill ofc.
ashendashin
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Wait, so, if they have four cities -regardless of how they were obtained- they stop buying CSs? Seriously? Could there be anything else preventing them from looking to expand?
If there has to be some sort of limit I'd say keeping a certain ratio near Venice based on their city count and total CSs, but I'm not sure exactly how to go about it.
Edit:
Oh and it is always worth keeping some CSs nearby if you can.
ElliotS
Warmonger
Wow this is exciting. I can't wait to see smarter Venice. You're a god!
As for a limit, I don't think so. The only time not to take more cities would be if you're going for tourism victory (Venice is an odd choice then) or a tourism victory that's taking advantage of "less cities" modifier. (Even then, sparingly)
One if venice's strongest features is a lot of control with how DV functions. The ability to make it extremely hard means that Venice can pay less attention to it.
Another factor for which CS to eat is if an enemy has an ally/embassy there, with more weight given their friendlyness and overall diplomatic power. IE An enemy who's a total jerk that has a CS with 900 influence lead and an embassy that's near you. That seems like a GREAT cs to grab, certainly over a unique improvement and/or a non-buying use.
Definetely not, if Venice plays Science it should take as much as possible, cause they do not increase tech costs. But it should not eat all City-States on the map
tu_79
Deity
Why not? Are city states better for Venice than for any other civ? If not so, then the fewer city states, the better for Venice.
There's a hardcoded limit because otherwise Venice will just buy every city-state making you mad and never putting them in the game again.
However the limit should be random like 4+(10%-50% of the total number of city-states), so people don't just say oh Venice only buys this number of city-states so no worries.
Cause it will not be able to defend it. Otherwise its okay, but sometimes having them as allies are better
The limit is only for purchasing CSS, not conquest. IIRC the hardcoded limit is tied to whether or not Venice is pursuing a diplo victory.
G
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BiteInTheMark
Deity
Do you really think, hard coding is the best solution? What if checking always, if venice wants to go for diplomatic victory / have statecraft picked, if a great merchant is spawned?
Arent you always against hard coding something?
Considering that I didn't write the code, and that it is original to Firaxis's design, I'd say that the decision to hardcode it was not mine.
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Moi Magnus
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@Venice players:
Is it even reasonable to win diplomatic victory with Venice ?
Is it even reasonable to win diplomatic victory with Venice ?
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