The Merchant of Venice needs a limiting factor

[Spiri2al]

From my experience with Venice so far, this would pretty much destroy the Civ. I've played a few games as Venice, and what really makes it work is the fact that you can send food/hammers to your capital from your puppets (which is a huge boost to your city, I ended my last game with something like 40 pop in Venice), and the fact that taking a CS will give you some early units to avoid those turn 50-75 dows for having no army.

This. I usually need one or 2 puppets so i can establish a production and food trade route.

 

[jfoytek]

The OP's crazy issue with Venice is unfounded and shows he doesn't understand Venice at all...

The limiting factor as has been said is Great Merchants which you don't get till late game so you have to make due with 1 or 2 maybe 3 cities till then....

Now that you have made it to late game the EASIEST WAY to get a victory with Venice is a Diplomatic Victory

BUT if you buy all the damn city states your actually making your easiest way to win harder as your taking away votes.... Those Merchants you so scared are going to buy your City state should be uses to get the 60 Influence and Gold so that you Lock up a City state as an ally for voting purposes!!!

So yes complaign that these Venice players are making it harder for them to win a diplomatic victory beat your chest about how over powered a civilization with 1 town is.....

Instead of simply using your brain and figuring out a strategy to beat them, maybe for once you should build a military instead of allying with every city state you see......

Its obvious you are a 1 trick pony bye your silly temper tantrum your tossing in this thread!

 

[mrwho]

Don't really know why you're reviving a thread that's been dead for well over a month, but welcome to the forums I guess...

 

[jfoytek]

Because I did a google search and stumbled upon this thread and started to read it and was shocked at how clueless this guy was about Venice....

He is acting like Venice Is so overpowered and needs to be nerfed which is so far from the actuality and its obvious he has never played as Venice.... I just want to slap this guy with a wet dead fish.... Infact I registered just so I could respond to this silly thread!!!!

 

[Chemical Toilet]

That's not a strategy, that's relying entirely on random factors. What exactly should be done if you don't start next to Venice, instead they are on the other side of the map and there's no way to attack them early?

And "not rely so much on a city-states strategy" means not using your UA at all for certain civs.

But that is almost the very definition of strategy. A major part of strategy is adjusting to random or changing factors. If you just use the same old strategy every time with very little change going on, that would be boring.

Venice shouldn't be the absolute bane of civs like Greece anyway. I have never had a game with Venice where the AI every buys more than half of the CSs (and 80% of the time never gets even that close). Greece can be played many different ways, and there are many situations with many other civs where their UAs can be completely nullified, but that doesn't make it impossible to win and honestly has never made it that less fun for me personally. It's a challenge. If Venice starts on the other side of the map, then that only means you'll go to war with them later, or when they start threatening your chosen CSs. If you're playing on a standard or larger map then it really shouldn't ever be that big of an issue.

 

[Yzman]

In the 3 games I have played where Venice was an AI, they were wiped out every time by someone. They never took more than 3 CS either. And like others have pointed out, the vote total for diplo victory goes down when they purchase a CS.

Venice literally made it easier for me to win my last game by lowering the voting threshold. I don't see the issue of dealing with them.

*shrugs*

 

[dexters]

Limiting factor is random CS placement. There's no point buying a CS you can't defend. More profitable to use Trade Mission then roll the extra gold from MoV into something else, like buying even more influence.

I made a point to play venice as my first BNW only Civ and I am well aware of its limitations. In my first game the city states were spread so far apart I made an early game decision to be friend to America, who started near me. The alliance endured until the end.

I had no choice as America eventually setted on the southern part of my empire, requiring open roads to gain access and Venice was surrounded on 2 sides by America.

On my 2nd game, I had a closer CS, but again, the remainder were further away, easily cut off by AI settlements. I also played a cautious early game.

 

[kingofsealand]

I just played my first game as venice and i dont see it as OP at all. Honestly whats so different about this and some other player declaring war and snatching a CS as ghengis khan? You still have to move your units over to the CS to attack it but once they are there you can "snatch" it in one turn if you have enough units. The only difference between these two is the conquest option bringing you a diplomatic penalty. I dont think its a bad idea to implement a diplomatic penalty against that city states current ally only when venice swipes a CS.

The only other comment I have is that it is somewhat self-defeating for the venice AI to buy as many CS'es as it does. Honestly does it think its going to win some other way? It should do a logic check whenever its about to puppet another CS of {does current diplomatic victory vote count = current # of available votes +-X} where X is a variable representing votes obtained through membership or wonders. If those two numbers calculate out to be even then venice should not be using its merchant to puppet. Honestly in the late game the great merchants trade mission is such a boon anyways the AI needs to learn that stealing a city in 1900 is not going to do nearly as much for them as the heap of gold and influence the merchant could have bought them

 

[AgentTBC]

I want to reiterate a point made above: If you buy too many City States with your MoV you are crippling your easiest route to victory. I almost screwed myself in my current game by buying too many CS such that there weren't enough votes to win a diplomatic victory even with... uh... that tech that gives you +1 vote per diplomat.

Even if you could spam out 8 or 10 MoVs you can't use them to buy CS or you've made it HARDER to win, not easier.

 

[dexters]

Venice AI will puppet cities near it so it forms a contiguous land empire. They will also sometimes grab a coastal/island CS if its close enough to them. So it doesn't matter if they are 'buying' a mercantile CS and lsoing the rare lux, Venice benefits from having more cities. City states further out are left alone.

Also keep in mind Venice puppet cities are not like your normal puppets, you can go into the city and rush buy units/builds and even religious buildings and Great people with faith.

This also applies to non city-states you take over.

As for Venice AI performance, In my Last game Venice actually did reasonably well eating up about 1/2 of the Spanish empire. If it wasn't for my intervention bribing Mongolia to go to war with the Venice AI I think it would have been a powerhouse.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Simplest would be to have Venice not use the Austria code, and instead have the CS still be a CS, and liberatable.

 

[dexters]

Simplest would be to have Venice not use the Austria code, and instead have the CS still be a CS, and liberatable.

That assumes there's a problem with Venice mov puppet decisions.

I don't think there is, and no, bought CS by Venice should not be liberatable, that's a bad idea, might as well paint an even larger target on Venice Ai that says attack me for free un votes. It's not like we need to make diplo VC any easier

 

[steveg700]

I just played my first game as venice and i dont see it as OP at all. Honestly whats so different about this and some other player declaring war and snatching a CS as ghengis khan? You still have to move your units over to the CS to attack it but once they are there you can "snatch" it in one turn if you have enough units.

The difference between "challenging" and "frustrating" is that a challenge allows you to push back against it. Snatching a city in one turn doesn't happen often (certainly not at the AI's hands), while the MoV is a lock. Even if someone does capture a CS before you can do something about it, you can liberate it. No such possibility with Venice or Austria.

My preference would be that if the MoV can generate sufficient influence (let's say, 150 or so), the CS can be flipped. Then again, I think flipping CS's should be possible for any civ with sufficiently high influence; Venice and Austria should just be better at it.

 

[eldiablonoche]

Then again, I think flipping CS's should be possible for any civ with sufficiently high influence; Venice and Austria should just be better at it.

Max Patronage. While not a guarantee, I have been lucky enough to get at least one MoV as free GP in every game I've maxed out Patronage. Now a good question is what do non-Ventian AI do with their MoVs? Can anyone confirm if they'll puppet CS with them? I know I did!

I honestly see the double trade routes (assuming Venice goes Freedom) as a bigger threat to winning Diplomatic. They get steady influence with a theoretically infinite cap with every CS that isn't landlocked n another landmass. They get money to use in a CS bidding war against anyone trying to steal it. AND trading with CS instead of Civs limits how much gold you're giving to your opponents. Maybe only a little bit but it all stacks up.

As for the somewhat dated OP, suck it up and kill the MoV. If you built your game around religion, you'd kill an incoming Prophet, right? And besides all of which, if the loss of one CS is a game-ender, you weren't having a very good game.

 

[dexters]

As for the somewhat dated OP, suck it up and kill the MoV. If you built your game around religion, you'd kill an incoming Prophet, right? And besides all of which, if the loss of one CS is a game-ender, you weren't having a very good game.

Yep thank you. Neither Venice nor MoV needs a nerf.

If and when city states gets ideologies and or a big change like that, we can revisist Venice.

 

[Autoclave]

The irony that I see with every civ that can take over city states easily like mongols, austria and Venice, is that they are often cutting the branch of the tree they are sitting on. Every captured city state is one less potentially friendly state giving you all sorts of bonuses and delegates.

Of course it's unpleasant when Venice is grabbing your alied CS with a merchant. My plan is never to make friends with Venice, and leave the war option available just in case i need to intercept one of those MoV. Besides, they never actually escort them )

 

[dexters]

The irony that I see with every civ that can take over city states easily like mongols, austria and Venice, is that they are often cutting the branch of the tree they are sitting on. Every captured city state is one less potentially friendly state giving you all sorts of bonuses and delegates.

Of course it's unpleasant when Venice is grabbing your alied CS with a merchant. My plan is never to make friends with Venice, and leave the war option available just in case i need to intercept one of those MoV. Besides, they never actually escort them )

Venice doesn't puppet enough CS for it to matter. Since they can't settle their own cities, the arithmetic isn't even in doubt. If there's a CS near Venice you puppet it.

As a human player I may strategically decide not to puppet a CS with buffs I need but the AI seems to do the same. I've seen a Venice Ai leave a religious CS alone while it puppeted nearby CS

 

[Socratatus]

Where I think it`s overpowered is where as a non-Venice player it can be gifted to you. As well as highly illogical (why give away the guy who could net you an entire city?) it`s just too easy to grab a good CS with.

I think some of these `special` units really should just stay to the Civ it was made for or weakened because they`re not with their default Civ. But I guess that`s a slightly different point.

 

[Spiral]

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't a spy's coup nullify investment in a city state almost as much?

I certainly know I've dumped several thousand on CS to get like 250/60 only to have a coup happen right after and drop to nearly nothing. I've learned to be a bit more careful dumping money into them.

 

[dexters]

Where I think it`s overpowered is where as a non-Venice player it can be gifted to you. As well as highly illogical (why give away the guy who could net you an entire city?) it`s just too easy to grab a good CS with.

I think some of these `special` units really should just stay to the Civ it was made for or weakened because they`re not with their default Civ. But I guess that`s a slightly different point.

Fair point, they can reduce its frequency and or take it out completely if that's an issue for people.

I believe this is from the patronage finisher; but I usually it hit up as my 4th tree after Rationalism so I rarely even get to see many GPs.