The Merchant of Venice needs a limiting factor

[Buccaneer]

You can kill, raid, plunder, work against them in WC, work diplomacy against them, play city-states off each other, set up barriers to mov missions, prevent them from buying mov in later game, etc. Sounds like a lot options and choices to me.

 

[Kwami]

MadHaxxor: Okay, let's change Venice slightly.

Remove the Merchant of Venice, add to its UA "Your Great Merchants get double returns from Trade Missions", and give it another unique.

So, instead of losing the CS permanently, Venice takes it over by gaining 60 Influence and 2k gold it can spend to gain Ally status.

That's not going to change the short-term picture of the guy relying on the Happiness of a Mercantile CS. And if you were planning long-term on relying on a CS that anyone with enough money can take away from you for positive happiness, I would respectfully suggest a different strategy.

But at least I can fight back in that situation. I can preemptively raise my influence to levels that would make it very difficult for Venice to steal my ally. I can save up some gold and buy the city-state back if Venice takes it. I can put a spy there to rig elections. I can do quests.

Do you see the difference? With the current UA, there's really nothing that I can do to prevent Venice from stealing an ally that I've put thousands of gold into. No, putting a unit in every single tile that the CS owns is not a viable strategy. Being permanently at war with Venice works, but the drawback (huge diplomacy hits from the rest of the AIs) far outweigh the benefits. It's simply not a viable strategy in most games.

The Austrian UA was infuriating and not fun for precisely the same reason and, thankfully, they fixed it. I really hope that they fix this one, too. "Only works if you've been allied for five turns or if the city-state has no ally" is easy enough to implement and entirely fixes the problem.

 

[Buccaneer]

And therefore, turned Austria into a weaker, lower tiered civ.

 

[Kwami]

And therefore, turned Austria into a weaker, lower tiered civ.

This whole "tier" thing is nonsense.

 

[IAmOzymandias]

I disagree with your assertion that City-States are a key game mechanic.

You CAN outbuild Egypt to a Wonder... if you are willing to pay the costs involved. In this case, that involves beelining to the tech (forsaking other techs), and otherwise suffering because you can't just 'pick it up as you go' because then Egypt will get it first.

Again, you're not willing to do what the game currently requires to protect your CSs from Venice.

Egypt will get to a random Wonder first unless you make it a priority of your Civ.
Venice _might_ take your CS Ally unless you make it a priority for your Civ to deny that to him.

I've quite literally littered this thread with everything from in-game ways to combat Venice beyond simply DoWing him to (yes!) ways that the devs can tone it down somewhat without breaking the actual gameplay point.

Basically, this conversation comes down to this:

You: "Venice shouldn't be able to take my CSs away from me."

Me: "I need the GL to be competitive."

You: "But that's different."

Me: "Not to me."

You are asking me to acquiesce to your vision of how to play the game while being unwilling to acquiesce to my vision of how to play the game. I don't see where to go from here.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this point because it seems like we both think we're offering logical opinions to the other person, and the other person is the one who is stubbornly refusing to listen to reason. In either case, the conversation doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

 

[EulerMcE]

Any "must be allied for x turns" restriction on the MoV would just make the entire thing too far outclassed by Austria. Generating the gold for an alliance+diplomatic marriage is much easier and quicker than generating merchants. Austria also gets the ability to annex and settle vs the ability to only buy things with the extra trade money.

 

[Buccaneer]

This whole "tier" thing is nonsense.

Not for those that want challenging and interesting opponents. Tiers, albeit relative, do show which ones need improving (cough) India (cough). The one thing that should not happen is moving a civ downwards on its own.

 

[IAmOzymandias]

You can kill, raid, plunder, work against them in WC, work diplomacy against them, play city-states off each other, set up barriers to mov missions, prevent them from buying mov in later game, etc. Sounds like a lot options and choices to me.

Kill: Going to war, taking them out of the game. Makes sense. (no sarcasm)

Raid: Requires wartime, same as Kill would.

Plunder: same as kill, and wouldn't stop them from acquiring GM except possibly passively by stalling their growth and forcing them to reprioritize

Work against them in WC: You can cut their trade routes and try to cut off their gold supply, i'll give you that, but if you run the vote to increase the cost of MoV (and decrease the cost of artists/writers/musicians iirc) then that's worldwide and decreases the production speed of ALL civs GP. Technically works but that's a high price to pay.

Work diplomacy against them: I assume you mean standard playing the AI off the AI as you would any other civ? I don't see how this is a counter to MoV.

Play city states off each other: This one is over my head, how is that supposed to stop him from stealing city states with Mov?

Set up barriers: So i have to have a multitude of standing units guarding all my allied city states and then, what, kill the MoV if he comes too close? Same as the first option, war.

Seems like all those options amount to basically "War" with the exception of the World Congress which can hurt your civ too, depending on victory types.

The bottom line is this. Venice has a MoV and wants a city state you value for whatever reason. Assuming you know where it is (which in a lot of cases the city states would just randomly "belong" to venice on a certain turn because he sailed over the ocean and landed in their territory) Short of killing the MoV (inciting war) or taking 6 units and literally surrounding it so it cannot move, what do you do to prevent this? What are my options?

 

[Kwami]

Not for those that want challenging and interesting opponents. Tiers, albeit relative, do show which ones need improving (cough) India (cough). The one thing that should not happen is moving a civ downwards on its own.

I strongly disagree. It's much, much easier to nerf one civilization that it is to buff every other civilization to be as strong as <insert best civ here>. Also, variety is good. I don't want every civilization to be equally strong. That's boring.

Besides, it's not like Austria is weak, now. It's still very strong.

 

[IAmOzymandias]

Civs are strong or weak with certain playstyles. although Ghandi is a strong contender for a civ that needs retweaking (seriously? his UA has a negative aspect?) None are legitimately "strong" or "weak" for every playstyle

Example. I hate germany. A lot. Landschnekt aren't that great and obsolete quickly next to proper longswords/muskets. Their UA is completely chance-based and In some games never bears any fruit regardless of how many camps I disband. Panzers are better but generally come too late in the game to matter, when much of the real fighting is done and you're going through the motions for a victory or another. . . But I met some guy online who said he loves Germany and wouldn't play any other civ, Germany was his favorite. I didn't get it but he swore up and down that Germany was the best civ. It's all personal opinion.

Somebody who doesn't care about city states will think Greece is useless
Somebody who doesn't care about religion will think Byzantine is useless
Somebody who doesn't care about using war as a land acquisition will think about half the civs in the game are useless.

It's all about how you choose to play, that's why civ is so great.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Wait wait wait... Off topic, but... many have said that when you catch an enemy spy you can DoW without penalty. But that's not true, is it? It is certainly not true in my experience. Does anyone have proof?

 

[IAmOzymandias]

I think he is mistaken, but I've been surprised by equally puzzling facts in the past. (Never knew that citadels produced freindly territory because I never used them, had a "holy crap" moment there)

 

[Ekmek]

so in the late game, you've allied a CS with access to 6 oil. You're running a major war with Tanks, Planes, what have you, all requiring this oil. Venice bounces along and steals the city state in one turn with no repercussions (whether or not they're involved in the war and whether or not they did so knowing they were screwing with you) and now all your oil-based units are locked at half strength.

Of course, substitute oil with any good strategic resource at any point in the game, because if your units outnumber the amount of any resource you have, they ALL fight at half strength, meaning that if that unit is the keystone of your army, you are at a major disadvantage.

This would work, of course, if it's a merchantile civ, giving you jewellery and a lux. There are situations that this could put you deep into unhappiness, to the point that it would take quite a while to recover.

This is supposed to be considered a well thought out and balanced civ?

actually that sounds like fun gameplay. World Affairs are messy like that. what do want a cake walk?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Simplest method to resolve it would be to allow MoV acquired CS to be liberated if you conquer them. (after all they are puppets, and Venice won't have high influence with them.)

 

[Gucumatz]

In MP other players will abuse the DoW on CS, attack, sign peace before the CS can attack back, repeat till the CS is conquered strategy, which works with every civ. So getting them with a Great Merchant is not OP.

This isn't allowed in any competitive Multiplayer match and only happens in Public games... [AKA not real Multiplayer]

Edit: Oops didn't realize this was as long a thread as it was

 

[Morthis]

so in the late game, you've allied a CS with access to 6 oil. You're running a major war with Tanks, Planes, what have you, all requiring this oil. Venice bounces along and steals the city state in one turn with no repercussions (whether or not they're involved in the war and whether or not they did so knowing they were screwing with you) and now all your oil-based units are locked at half strength.

Of course, substitute oil with any good strategic resource at any point in the game, because if your units outnumber the amount of any resource you have, they ALL fight at half strength, meaning that if that unit is the keystone of your army, you are at a major disadvantage.

This would work, of course, if it's a merchantile civ, giving you jewellery and a lux. There are situations that this could put you deep into unhappiness, to the point that it would take quite a while to recover.

This is supposed to be considered a well thought out and balanced civ?

Wait, how is this any different from the MoV walking in and picking the trade mission and then just buying the CS out from under you? This shouldn't be too difficult with +60 influence, 1600+ gold, and them being an economic civ.

The end result is the same, you're screwed because you put all your eggs in one basket.

 

[Buccaneer]

Wait, how is this any different from the MoV walking in and picking the trade route and then just buying the CS out from under you? This shouldn't be too difficult with +60 influence, 1600+ gold, and them being an economic civ.

The end result is the same, you're screwed because you put all your eggs in one basket.

Good point. I started a game as Venice in the Information Age to mess around. I had three MoV and initially I thought I had a decision to make: buy the City-State or do a 2000g trade mission. Either way, I would own that City-State, either as an ally or puppet. One I can buy units in, the other gives me stuff without needing a trade route.

 

[Seek]

And I rarely hear people complain when they are on the 'using' side of the mechanics, at least not 'omf gawd this needs nerfing!'

Actually, that pretty much was my reaction after playing Austria when G&K came out.

However, Venice is fine imo - very powerful, but pretty much okay as it is. I found double TRs much more significant than the MoVs. (This is based on my experience playing only one peaceful game with them, admittedly, in which I didn't take Liberty. I expect Liberty will become standard play for them judging by my slowish Tradition start.)

I do agree with many posters that the cities should be liberatable though. I don't care that they were acquired peacefully (after all, who wouldn't welcome self-determination?) just don't give the huge liberation boost to influence to such CSs.

In ANY situation that I can hit the 'Acquire the CS' option of a MoV, I can choose to INSTEAD hit the 'Trade Mission' option and gain 800+ gold.

So yes, there is most definitely a cost to take this option.

Trade mission gold is practically irrelevant when the gold earned is 3-4 turns of normal gold income, which Venice can do easily in the mid/late game with it's wealth of ITRs. It's not much of an opportunity cost for most of the game to lose out on the trade mission - I think the real opportunity cost is from losing the resources the CS would provide via alliance (particularly cultural CS, since it can be tough to support running all the culture specialists in Venice while running Merchants and Scientists as well).

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

That sounds reasonable, I'm actually surprised there isn't one.

 

[OmniPotent42]

I just had 2 sucky games with Venice.

It's really hard to defend your puppeted CS's from attacks unless they are RIGHT next to you. Don't bother getting more than one puppet in the early game unless you like getting steamrolled by Shaka who shares your borders.

Plus, the City-States are always choosing the most expensive projects. Temples? I don't want a religion, I don't need temples!!
We don't need another amphitheater, we don't even have a writing guild!!

In my opinion, they actually need a buff, like being able to at least emphasize production so they aren't starving themselves by mining the desert incense tiles. They should also keep the resources from mercantile CS's.

 

[Seek]

In my opinion, they actually need a buff, like being able to at least emphasize production so they aren't starving themselves by mining the desert incense tiles.

In my game one of my puppets was indeed on production focus - I wonder if maybe it's a new (unannounced) feature? Or maybe the puppet just keeps the focus it was on when it was MoVed? There was also that late game Firaxis-released screenshot where one of Venice's puppets was producing science while most of the others were producing gold. Odd behavior in any case.