Thoughts on Venice? [BNW]

[nbaudoin]

What's everyone's thoughts on Venice?

I just won my first game as Venice and I must say it was very satisfying. Something about having massive amounts of cash at my disposal, being able to buy damn near anything I wanted was nice. In my game, I played Emperor difficulty on a standard size map with normal speed. I actually had to restart a couple times due to some really bad starts (once I actually started near a lake instead of a ocean! Talk about insta-loss).

Once I figured out the basic mechanics I was able to get off to a decent start. The early game is kinda rough. Having one city leaves you feeling very vulnerable to the other civs. I just tried to maintain good relations with everyone and it worked out. After buying a few city states I was able to get myself out of last place in the rankings and by mid-game I was the top in science and had a TON of gold, which I used to buy influence with key city states. Amazingly EVERYONE loved me. I was getting declaration of friendships right and left. I filled out Tradition then worked a combination of commerce-aesthetics-(the science one), focusing on getting the bonuses for specialists.

The endgame consisted of me jumping ahead in culture and tourism, getting even further ahead in science, staying competitive in wonder-building, and amassing a decent size army which I eventually used to take a few more puppet states for myself from a neighboring CIV. But the victory came from the World Congress which I controlled practically the whole game. This concept by far is what I like the most about the game. I won a diplomatic victory around 1970, with a vast majority of the delegates in my control (I had the world religion, world ideology, and all the city-states).

My only problem with Venice is I feel like the early game is SO critical. A bad start can be fatal. With other civs, if your capitol isn't in the best location, it's not nearly as big of a problem because you can simply build a better city elsewhere and focus more attention on that city. But with Venice, your first city is the only one you get.

I'd like to try out Venice in multiplayer, but I'm afraid I'll just get screwed in the map placement and ruin the game. Thoughts?

 

[pilot00]

I'd like to try out Venice in multiplayer, but I'm afraid I'll just get screwed in the map placement and ruin the game. Thoughts?

More likely the early lack of cities, and dependency on TRs will be identified as a weakness and a civ that is designed as a warmonger will leverage its advantage of multiple production sites and conquer Venice. After all if nobody trades with Venice its effectively stalled. CS caravans dont produce that much. It waits to be seen I guess, I admit I have no experience with them (haven't drawn them in the random selection) so what I post is what it seems on paper only

 

[Falconiano]

Venice as an enemy is pretty poor. They pose almost no threat or resistance.
You kill their mini army then you just plow through the wall, once Venice is yours the civ is doomed.
I believe Venice should at least be able to "corrupt" a puppeted CS's governor so to decide what they produce. Perhaps with GPT. Spies too.

Or maybe, just have building and unit production queues separated a la total war.

 

[joncnunn]

Under control of the human, Venice doesn't need a buff (in SP)

What I'd suggest a patch (or mod) do is teach the Venice AI how to correctly use its benefit; and it probably needs to be in more in the form of scripts and less XML flavors.
There are quite a few civs that could use this treatment.

For MP, I guess it depends upon how fast Venice can buy the city states near them vs the other humans conquering them.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

The biggest problem is the game WILL be boring if you are far away from the civs, and then I advise a restart. As other civs it's not a big problem, build a city or two in the right direction and you're in the fray. As Venice you need to depend on good city state placement or enemies expanding in your direction so you can take their stuff.

I am always very sad when I see wonders and I can't settle a city to take them, or very good city settlement possibilities which AI ignores...

 

[MerchantCo]

Nice name, Enrico Swagolo.

 

[Bagi]

Just played my first game as Venice, got put right in the middle of my continent. Made lots of trade routes, lots of friends, became world leader in both science and culture. Even when I picked freedom and everyone else on my continent was honor/autocracy, slapping them around was childs play.

Not sure if I got lucky but it was one of the easiest games I've ever played (on Emperor difficulty only though). Venice certainly seems like a powerhouse civ.

 

[Ryoga]

I think your main problem is that you ignored the benefits of the Liberty tree.
I usually take tradition only and ignore Liberty completely, but with Venice? You really don't want to do that.

My suggestion is to open tradition and then go Liberty until you get that free MoV. It should come more or less at the same time of optics which you should prioritize.

In my game I got three cities on turn 93 with already worked tiles enough population a woker each and a few military units.
I've never had such a fast development before. It really isn't that the issue with Venice.

What I was really struggling for was money and happiness. Sure Venice gets those extra routes, but you still need to build them and in the beginning that's like 8 turns each. Can you really waste 32 precious turns on that? It took me a while before I could catch up with the the max trade routes available. In Emperor difficulty you don't have the option to postpone the production of the wonders you want. And you still need to fit that National College in.

The other problem is that those city states will not be really close to each others (usually), so the other main income of money (city connections) will be harder to achieve and it will be less rewarding if you need to build long roads.
I was on a tiny island map so I had to wait until I got harbors, after that the money came raining and the game became pretty easy.

 

[Loreise]

I've tried a couple of games with Venice (both of which had about fifty resets because I was paranoid about a bad start) and I always trip over the military. Some warmonger declares war on me and I'm never able to properly respond because I've just got a reasonably small defencive army, so even if I can beat off their first attacks, by the time I've rebuilt/repaired my forces they're attacking again. I simply have trouble balancing a military with an economy with only one properly functioning city. So sadly, despite its rather beautiful theme and a love for its real-world counterpart, I won't be playing Venice too much, if at all, but I can see the potential for a fun and possibly effective alternative to 'normal' civs.

 

[Jaymax]

I've played a few games as Venice, and they're pretty good if you don't start next to a warmonger, as others have mentioned. You really have to get a second city quickly, and even then you can't directly control it. Arguably the most annoying thing with Venice is the fact that you can never get access to a fantastic city location, because the AI wont settle there.

 

[Meatlord]

hahaha just started a LAN MP game with my 2 cousins. Huge Pangaea. Random Leader. No City States.

BOOM

I get Venice.

Facepalm.

 

[nbaudoin]

I think your main problem is that you ignored the benefits of the Liberty tree.
I usually take tradition only and ignore Liberty completely, but with Venice? You really don't want to do that.

My suggestion is to open tradition and then go Liberty until you get that free MoV. It should come more or less at the same time of optics which you should prioritize.

In my game I got three cities on turn 93 with already worked tiles enough population a woker each and a few military units.
I've never had such a fast development before. It really isn't that the issue with Venice.

What I was really struggling for was money and happiness. Sure Venice gets those extra routes, but you still need to build them and in the beginning that's like 8 turns each. Can you really waste 32 precious turns on that? It took me a while before I could catch up with the the max trade routes available. In Emperor difficulty you don't have the option to postpone the production of the wonders you want. And you still need to fit that National College in.

The other problem is that those city states will not be really close to each others (usually), so the other main income of money (city connections) will be harder to achieve and it will be less rewarding if you need to build long roads.
I was on a tiny island map so I had to wait until I got harbors, after that the money came raining and the game became pretty easy.

Yes, I pretty much spend most of the early game building wonders and caravans. Don't skimp on the caravans because they make a huge difference. As long as you have caravans working for you, you will almost never need to build a normal building. What's so great about Venice is that you can build the individual wonders after only building it in your main city which is great. You get the National College and the Hero's Epic and the National Epic very quickly. Couple that with the large population and you're producing tons of great people quickly.

I wouldn't necessarily go Liberty. Not sure if you need to do that. I never felt the need to have 3 cities early on. This is on Emperor and not Immortal/Deity so maybe the higher difficulty will require you to expand more quickly. I guess it also depends on how close you are to the city states and whether you have anyone trying to destroy you. But I find it's better to milk the city states for culture and food by aligning with them (early game is usually pretty easy to do this) and grow your capital very quickly. I'm never in the top of the points or anything else really as Venice, but I never worry about that because I know that Venice is all mid to late game. The caravans are so so so good late game, boosting your GPT significantly.

In most of my games even the more warlike CIVs are amazingly friendly with me. Never have I had the entire world "friendly" with me like I have playing Venice. I'm guessing these trade routes are the root cause of this? I've had only one game against Atilla where he basically wiped off the entire continent besides me, which drastically curbed my trade early on, but I rushed Navigation so I was able to trade with the other continent which was more civil. Best thing to do against a warmongerer is to align with the CIVs being attacked and try and destroy him early. Get friendly with a couple military city states so you can get free troops while still building wonders. AGAIN don't underestimate how much of a gold advantage you can have playing as Venice. You can buy friendships!

As for hapiness, I did have a problem with it when I started to expand, but use that extra gold to buy luxuaries from everyone. You don't have the territory to have all the luxuries but you do have money! So BUY BUY BUY and profit! I spend my money as Venice like there's no tomorrow because I know I'll likely have even more later. No reason to save.

 

[Luziadus]

the first time I heard Enrico talking I thought - "hes talking portuguese?" it seems really portuguese with an italian accent

 

[Pythakoreas]

My rants are more about creativity than gameplay...

Venice as a civilization is an odd inclusion to me. There's a city-state category nicely dedicated to them, their Unique Ability is more weird than it is creative(you can't settle cities?), their Unique Units are lame(Galleass with a "Great", Merchant of Venice has Austria's UA), insane trade bonuses and occasionally spawning near a lake when it's vital to start on seas(for cargo ships and Brandenburg).
What do you think of when I say...Venice? Buildings standing on waters, famous play "Merchant of Venice", and if you're a gamer, Ezio jumping off a rooftop. Apparently developers didn't get a lot of inspiration, but hey, there are a lot of countries out there with awesome history you can put in this game. A lot of CSs don't deserve to be city-states.
They were indeed one of the largest centers of reform in the Renaissance: awesome art, rational treatment of epidemics, one of the earliest democracies in the world. It should be for this reason they were included; but what about Genoa, Florence and Milan? Give me your opinion people.

I've posted this a few days ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxoBEglTdxY

 

[dexters]

As soon as they opened up the eligible Civilizations to be included Venice is as good a choice as any.

Like the many Italian city states, Venice was instrumental in bringing Europe into the Renaissance. If anything, it's exclusion from Gods and Kings was a surprise considering that XP's focus on the Renaissance. But given the trade route system was only just added, it's not really a surprise.

 

[Tre]

When playing venice, you're aiming to go for a diplo victory right because of your massive GPT? When you guys play venice what policies do you pick up? I'm thinking about getting the middle part of tradition as well as the left side (maybe) then rushing for the merchant of venice fast in liberty and ending with commerce. Does that sound right?

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

When playing venice, you're aiming to go for a diplo victory right because of your massive GPT? When you guys play venice what policies do you pick up? I'm thinking about getting the middle part of tradition as well as the left side (maybe) then rushing for the merchant of venice fast in liberty and ending with commerce. Does that sound right?

Tradition is the biggest priority to me. Monarchy is great for everyone, but it really shines after you set 10 or 10+ food routes to your capital, turning it giant in no time. Liberty is nice... But ultra late game, by which I mean after Commerce and taking all you want from Ideology (and maybe Patronage), because the MoVs you get aren't really free, they increase your next MoV's cost. You don't benefit from less SP increase of Liberty neither, as you only have the capital. Sorta mediocre.

So I typically max out Tradition and get another free policy before Medieval. I can't put it into Commerce, so I spend it on Patronage.

Granted, Commerce has some crappy policies, but finishing it to get double gold from MoVs as well as the huge happiness boost makes it worth it.

 

[Hippocrates]

the first time I heard Enrico talking I thought - "hes talking portuguese?" it seems really portuguese with an italian accent

I'm not an expert in either language, but I know a little bit of both. Portugese sounds quite a bit like Italian with a mixture of Spanish. That might be the reason for your confusion.

 

[PhilBowles]

I'm partly through my second game as Venice - in the first I just got bored at around 1200 after being world leader in every demographic on Emperor, despite a bad start. However that was an isolated island start, where Venice shines.

In my current Immortal game, however (an oddly-shaped continents map, with very close Arabia), the trend is similar although I'm taking longer to peak mostly due to getting only a few of the Wonders I beelined - while it's true that Venice struggles a little in the early game, it's also at no particular risk in the early game and it seems rather unbalanced in that this somewhat minor early drawback is heavily overcompensated for by its later power. This is despite not settling until turn 3 or 4 because I needed a spot with river and food resources and spawned in tundra instead.

Not only does Venice expand for free, without having to devote hammers, food and/or gold to settlers, but it buys developed cities plus their pre-existing armies. A war dec just cost me most of my trade so I'm currently losing gold, but Venice can create a cargo ship every couple of turns so that's a very short-term blip.

More than that Venice is rather boring to play. You can only control production in one city, expansion is reliant on other civs and CS placement so you don't have the early game dynamic of identifying and taking key city spots, and workers quickly run out of things to do. MoVs generate automatically once you have your GM Wonders and specialists in gold buildings. There's a lot of clicking "Next Turn" and not doing a great deal else as Venice once you pass the very early game when you have to consider your priority early building choices.

Venice as a civilization is an odd inclusion to me. There's a city-state category nicely dedicated to them, their Unique Ability is more weird than it is creative(you can't settle cities?), their Unique Units are lame(Galleass with a "Great", Merchant of Venice has Austria's UA), insane trade bonuses and occasionally spawning near a lake when it's vital to start on seas(for cargo ships and Brandenburg).
What do you think of when I say...Venice? Buildings standing on waters, famous play "Merchant of Venice", and if you're a gamer, Ezio jumping off a rooftop. Apparently developers didn't get a lot of inspiration, but hey, there are a lot of countries out there with awesome history you can put in this game. A lot of CSs don't deserve to be city-states.
They were indeed one of the largest centers of reform in the Renaissance: awesome art, rational treatment of epidemics, one of the earliest democracies in the world. It should be for this reason they were included; but what about Genoa, Florence and Milan? Give me your opinion people.

This has been done to death - Venice was a regional imperial power of considerably greater significance than Genoa, Florence or Milan. As a civ it would have been a poor choice if it worked the way the other civs do (though not obviously any worse than Sweden, another regional European power of limited influence), but since it is basically a "playable city-state" it gets past that objection. The correct way to see its inclusion is not "what better civ could they have chosen?" but "they wanted a civ that played like a city-state - what are the best options?" Venice is pretty much number 1 on the latter list.

I also suspect that people equating the MoV with Austria have not played Austria in BNW. It is a very different proposition because of the great difference in context - with Austria you have the choice between settling and marrying, and you have to be allied with the CS and have spare gold. With the importance of city-states in securing World Congress votes, a civ that already has those votes (and allied CS bonuses) in hand has to make careful choices about which city-states to marry. Austria's UA is now one that promotes a very flexible playstyle, that can give Austria an extremely powerful advantage when played right (a greater one than Venice can get, since Austria gets to annex and suffers no extra unhappiness for doing so), but that does not limit it in the way Venice's UA/Merchant combination limits that civ.

Venice has to use MoVs to settle until it has enough of an army to go on the offensive, and it can use Merchants aggressively, to steal other civs' CS allies. That is very different in character from the way Austria works.