The Merchant of Venice needs a limiting factor

OP should actually play as Venice...THEY CAN'T BUILD CITIES. That is there limiting factor. They will be irrelevant in most games with this limitation.

And seriously, I hope to god your strategy doesn't revolve around the alliance of one city state.

There is an easy way to stop Venice from taking multiple city states if you want to. KILL Venice.
 
Seeing a MoV approaching my allied city-state is like seeing a massive army at my border. It either goes away or I attack it. My next game I'm gonna nuke one. Hate those little men.
 
turingmachine said:
Again 2 innately free, a third free if you build a wonder, normal specialist production, and late game faith purchasing. It's not as difficult to get a large number of merchants as you want to make it sound.

On the other hand, no way to defend against despite continued investment, no diplo hit, hell, not even a notification on the ability.
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Late game faith purchasing? Does the cost of purchasing the same GP with Faith no longer go up in BNW? I must have missed that.
 
Calouste said:
Late game faith purchasing? Does the cost of purchasing the same GP with Faith no longer go up in BNW? I must have missed that.
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It does, as far as I know. To be fair, if Venice has a good religion (and I believe the AI is coded to have high Religious ratings), they can certainly have a good Faith income for about 2-3 MoV starting in the Industrial Era.

That is, of course, 2-3 GEs/GSs they chose not to buy, though.
 
Its not actually beneficial to Venice to purchase all of the city states nor are they likely to. They can purchase quite a few of them in fact and you would still be able to win diplo.

I won a diplo victory yesterday with 38 votes. I bought 2 CS the entire game, and was allied with every other one. The victory condition was 30 votes. That tells you that I could have bought a few more ( I can't remember if CS are worth 1 or 2 votes in final era, if its still 1 thats a lot of CS still available) and STILL not blocked diplo victory.

A venice merchant can not take a CS that it is at war with as far as I know. Ally with your city states, declare war on Venice, who probably isn't very threatening especially as the AI and be done with this. You just stopped them.
 
Yzman said:
OP should actually play as Venice...THEY CAN'T BUILD CITIES. That is there limiting factor. They will be irrelevant in most games with this limitation.

And seriously, I hope to god your strategy doesn't revolve around the alliance of one city state.

There is an easy way to stop Venice from taking multiple city states if you want to. KILL Venice.
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Not only that but their coastal bias, although necessary for oversea trade routes, usually means low production for their only city (even with God of the Sea); in higher difficulty levels, early wonders are almost impossible. Also, since their city is coastal, it will be prime target for a naval snipe, thus making Venice as one of the easiest capitals to conquer in the game provided that you have a decent navy.

Also, using the MoV early in the game isn't that great, as CS's don't have much in a way of significant buildings or military units by the time one rushes optics. In my game as Venice, I obtained my first two MoV's around the time of education (one from optics and the other my market specialist) and quick bought two nearby CS's. Now those CS's have a decently sized military forces and uni's! So one may have to spend a significant amount of time in an OCC-like match.
 
Ulthwithian said:
It does, as far as I know. To be fair, if Venice has a good religion (and I believe the AI is coded to have high Religious ratings), they can certainly have a good Faith income for about 2-3 MoV starting in the Industrial Era.

That is, of course, 2-3 GEs/GSs they chose not to buy, though.
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Exactly, if you waste faith purchases on MoV's you'll be hurting for science in the end, especially if you don't have the PT and/or scientific revolution. I had a choice to purchase more MoV's or become the tech leader. I obviously chose the latter.
 
Yzman said:
OP should actually play as Venice...THEY CAN'T BUILD CITIES. That is there limiting factor. They will be irrelevant in most games with this limitation.
Click to expand...

What irrelevance? I'm not saying to remove the ability from Venice, I'm saying to mitigate it. Maybe not let them use it on an allied city-state that's been allied with that player for x turns. This will mostly only happen late game, in which case you'd have to spend gold to buy the ally of the city-state and then use your MoV (i.e. it wouldn't be completely free).

Or at the very least, add a diplo hit for stealing an allied city-state from another player.

I don't know how people are trying to argue that I'm calling for removing the ability from the MoV, because I'm not. I'm not even really complaining about the early game. Let them run rampant early game; it's late game how they can completely negate another civ's investment with no effort and no way to defend against.
 
turingmachine said:
What irrelevance? I'm not saying to remove the ability from Venice, I'm saying to mitigate. Maybe not let them use it on an allied city-state that's been allied with that player for x turns. This will mostly only happen late game, in which case you'd have to spend gold to buy the ally of the city-state and then use your MoV.

Or at the very least, add a diplo hit for stealing an allied city-state from another player.

I don't know how people are trying to argue that I'm calling for removing the ability from the MoV, because I'm not.
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What about letting puppeted CS be liberated instead?
 
Or at the very least, add a diplo hit for stealing an allied city-state from another player.
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Can't you Denounce Venice for doing this? I mean, sure, the impact will depend on the diplomatic state, but if no one likes you, SHOULD they care if Venice acquired one of your allies?

Something you might want to do is to add a request, specifically for the Venice UI, to not take your CS Allies. Then, if Venice doesn't agree, Denouncing them. (Or simply code the 'don't settle near us' option for Venice--which is useless--to instead make them target your CS allies last.)

This would certainly be an option to build in more reactive controls to the Venetian abilities.

Blodo: I certainly think that letting them be liberated is an effective counter. It still does require a war, which if you're feeling that way, you may as well use preemptively to deny Venice the CS as well.
 
turingmachine said:
What irrelevance? I'm not saying to remove the ability from Venice, I'm saying to mitigate. Maybe not let them use it on an allied city-state that's been allied with that player for x turns. This will mostly only happen late game, in which case you'd have to spend gold to buy the ally of the city-state and then use your MoV (i.e. it wouldn't be completely free).

Or at the very least, add a diplo hit for stealing an allied city-state from another player.

I don't know how people are trying to argue that I'm calling for removing the ability from the MoV, because I'm not. I'm not even really complaining about the early game. Let them run rampant early game; it's late game how they can completely negate another civ's investment with no effort and no way to defend against.
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I am saying that right now, with no nerfs at all, in the hands of the AI they will currently be irrelevant in half your games anyway. They aren't overpowered. The beginning of the game with Venice is extremely hard to get rolling. If you have let them get so many CS that you can no longer win, its your fault. Its not like they can pop MoV out of no where. Also, they are extremely easy to stop just by declaring war. No units even needed.

Sure declaring war only stops them from doing CS that you are allied with, but that is the whole point of what you are suggesting, ones you are already allied with anyway.
 
Ulthwithian said:
Can't you Denounce Venice for doing this? I mean, sure, the impact will depend on the diplomatic state, but if no one likes you, SHOULD they care if Venice acquired one of your allies?
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Who says no one likes you? If you denounce then suddenly your the aggressor for Venice's aggressive act, and anyone that was friends with Venice which you might not have had a problem with suddenly hates you when you did nothing wrong.
 
IAmOzymandias said:
Land acquisition through war is a legitimate, and longstanding way of playing civ. Getting cities essentially for free with no resistance through use of a great person is a stupid concept. Worst case scenario you outtech mongolia and liberate the city states. can't do that when venice magically puppets them.

And incidentally I did win a diplo victory in the game I mentioned above, because Venice breaks that too. In a game where not one city state was contested by war, they had 9/12 CSes in their pocket and that split the remaining diplo votes between the 3 remaining city states, 4 remaining civs,

2 civs alone, with no help from anybody else voting for them, had the required amount of votes and forced a diplo victory one way or another.

Venice is an illogical civ, and by it's own nature it breaks core gameplay elements. Stop defending it.
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Land acquisition through bribery is legitimate and longstanding way of doing business in the real world. I find the change interesting and adds a new dimension to the game. It is not a lot different than Austria taking them out of the game. It costs a great person to do this (I have much better uses for GP than merchants).
 
turingmachine said:
Who says no one likes you? If you denounce then suddenly your the aggressor for Venice's aggressive act, and anyone that was friends with Venice which you might not have had a problem with suddenly hates you when you did nothing wrong.
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I was pointing out that using the Denounce mechanic takes the current Diplomatic situation into account. If you have more/better friends than Venice does, then Denouncing them will hurt them more than you (and, unlike the Warmonger penalty, is not permanent).

And if an AI is friendly with Venice, then they clearly do not have a problem with Venice's method of expansion, and so you _should_ have a problem with them.

Really, you're asking for a diplo hit to Venice for taking over a CS by (compared to invading it) peaceful means, and I'm suggesting having a diplomatically calculated response, being Denouncing.

Apparently, you don't like much of the diplomacy system. Incidentally, I don't think that Venice should inherently get a diplo hit for acquiring a CS. It should simply trigger the 'vying for the affection of the same CSs' penalty, and presumably that should never un-trigger.

And using city-states is Greece and Siam's UA. Why should Venice's immediately trump there's with no repercussions?
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Do you have evidence that there ARE no repercussions?
 
Having played as veince for two games now. One on prince and the other on emperor. I feel that they don't need limiting with cs buying. Main reason being is they take a happiness hit for each one and these cities build random buildings that cost money, plus it stops them from using the merchant as a means of trade for money and influence. My goal with Venice is to be your friend. I will buy a cs near you but only one depending on the size of your emperor. Resorces for me take a back seat to location to other civ. If I were playing a game with you I'd try to create a positive relationship with you through trading and maybe not targeting a few cs of your choice.

I believe Venice is best played as a merchant who only wants to improve trade relations. Any upsets to that goal will and should be dealt with swift and painful action. I will go as far as paying your closest neighbors to dow against you.
 
I am convinced that TC is not reading my posts fully. I have mentioned this 3 times.

Can I please have your response as to why declaring war on Venice, preventing them from taking your allied CS is not acceptable? Its not even after so many turns, you can do it right away as soon as you ally.
 
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