Tips For Playing Venice?

[Browd]

Since Arts Funding reduces the spawn rate of Great Scientists, Great Engineers and Great Merchants by 33%, and since the latter is pretty key to Venice (and puppets pretty much only run merchant specialists as soon as they are able), I think Venice should care as much about its repeal as any other civ.

But repealing Arts Funding will probably irritate every other civ, not just the Iroquois. And you will want to run GWAM specialists as early as possible anyway (to plow more quickly through Commerce, if nothing else).

 

[budweiser]

Arts funding probably wont come up in the first round. By the second round you should have enough votes to at least block it. There will usually be one or two civs who are in favor of science funding. You can propose it on the second or third round and get it through. FP helps with that.

 

[Buccaneer]

But that's exactly what it did. Iroquois beats me to Printing Press and Arts Funding was the first one up. They had 2 delegates to everyone else's 1 and no diplomats around either yet so I couldn't do anything but assign my one delegate.

But Calouste is correct, it really doesn't matter in the end. I've finished Radio/Flight and I am running 18 specialists while still getting 40+ food/turn (only three puppets). GWAM are arriving every 3-5 turns so even with Arts Funding, I don't think it would be that much difference now. Only three techs to Atomic (that's when the UN kicks in right?) and I still have a GS and Oxford to use. Getting my culture up a bit to help slow down Iroquois but I think I better win the first vote - have 12k gold to use.

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

Venice has quickly become one of my favorite Civs.

There is no reason not to have 80% of the CS allied by turn 300 or sooner, assuming you have not won a culture vic before that. Winning the diplo victory is almost certain after that, unless there is some run-away science or domination civ. You should be able to prevent any run-aways by means of war bribery (bribe them to kill each other off / slow themselves down), and also by having a large cultural output.

You really need to get control of the WC as soon as CS votes start to add up. Its not hard if your pumping out Great Merchants.

After completing Tradition, I like to drop a policy point into Patronage, then on to either Rationalism or Exploration depending on my goals. This helps ensure I get to keep all my allies. I also Prioritize trade routes as City state quests.

 

[Buccaneer]

Allying with city-states is the easy part but their votes don't count until Modern.

 

[budweiser]

Does anyone have some good tips for playing Venice on Immortal level? I'm particularly interested in middle to late game tips. What is the best sort of win to go for with Venice? One problem I keep having is that I am often one of the first civs to choose an ideology. However, none of the other civs ever chooses the same ideology as me, and I end up with a ton of dissatisfaction eating into my happiness. How do you handle this problem?

Ah. So by mid to late game, you should have CS ally happiness to compensate. You should be making 400-500 GPT by then.

 

[superliminal]

I'm playing a Venice game on Immortal right now as well. I originally intended to do a diplomatic/cultural game, but I lost some key culture wonders, but found myself with Alhambra and Brandenburg Gate, so I started doing a mid-late game domination. It's quite fun. I lucked out early on with both Colossus and Petra, so with my massive income, I can purchase a land unit and a sea unit in my capital with four promotions pretty much every turn.

 

[budweiser]

I'm playing a Venice game on Immortal right now as well. I originally intended to do a diplomatic/cultural game, but I lost some key culture wonders, but found myself with Alhambra and Brandenburg Gate, so I started doing a mid-late game domination. It's quite fun. I lucked out early on with both Colossus and Petra, so with my massive income, I can purchase a land unit and a sea unit in my capital with four promotions pretty much every turn.

Like I keep saying, buy the Maritime civs, they are loaded with ships.

 

[Buccaneer]

Here's where I am at with all the votes needing to win wrapped up and just waiting for the leader's vote. Thanks for all of the tips.

 

[calad]

Hi. I am having a mp game as Venice. You may want to follow it from here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=523779

 

[Buccaneer]

Looking back, I was wondering if picking Freedom was a mistake. It wasn't because nearly everyone else picked order (I had plenty of happiness to absorb it) but that I couldn't find any level 2 or 3 tenets worth picking outside of Universal Suffrage. I didn't have happiness issues, I didn't need a volunteer army, I only had a couple trade routes with city-states, had no issues with allying with all city-states and had about 30k more gold than I needed. Was there something in level 3 Order or Autocracy that would have been good to pick (despite really not needing any policies or tenets beyond what I already had)?

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

You can pick any Ideology and it will work out in the end, there is no reason venice should go with one or the other.

they are one of the few CIV's that I ever take freedom with, because.... one city with maxed out specialists. It just screams Freedom to me.

But, if you have lots of puppets, Order works out great too.

Autocracy has its merits as well, but I tend to play peaceful with Venice (dont have too!). Gunboat diplomacy and cultural policies will work well I am sure.

you cant buy courthouses in puppets can you? so dont pick that policy with venice.

 

[Buccaneer]

I ran 17 specialists in Venice and I think there was a level 1 freedom that halved something about them? Was that all freedom could be used for?

 

[Browd]

Freedom's level 1 tenet Civil Society cuts specialist food consumption in half. Another must-have level 1 Freedom tenet is Avant Garde - +25% to generation rate for all Great Persons.

The rest provide OK bonuses, but are not as critical -- e.g., I would probably return to complete Rationalism, or Commerce, before worrying overmuch about other Freedom tenets, unless happiness was a problem, in which case Universal Suffrage (specialists generate -50% unhappiness and Golden Ages are +50% longer) and Capitalism might be useful.

 

[Buccaneer]

Which begs the further question of what would even be the point of Civil Society if you are already running all the specialists and are working every production tiles? I think it reached a point long before Globalization of why grow anymore (tenets, food ships)? I don't know going from pop 33 to 34 (for example) would add that much science which seems to be the only point of growing after working all specialists?

 

[Browd]

In most games, you should be picking an Ideology well before you have a 33 pop capital and certainly before are in a position to work all specialist slots -- you won't have Plastics yet, so max. 3 scientist slots and (usually) and usually 4 guild slots (often saving Musician's Guild until after you've entered the Modern Era).

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

well,
population is part of you science output, so keep on growing ! Venice is not the strongest science civ out there, so every bit helps. Browd Is correct about switching back to Rationalism afterwards to fill it out. Science is king. In the games where I did exploration or something else first I was not the tech lead anymore.

However, I usually stop shipping food to Venice (sometimes switch to hammers) once the pop is ~33 or so. Depends on the dirt. Civil Society help this happen if the local food in the cap is less than perfect.

Like I said before, any Ideology will work, just keep in mind that some policies are not a good fit for Venice. I would still think Freedom is best most of the time.

One thing to consider: If you can get an early Ideology and control the WC, make you ideology the world ideology. makes the rest of the game a cake walk! (less hate, easier trade deals, faster culture wins). I am sure this was already mentioned in this thread.

 

[InDubioProReo]

How does Venice do in Deity in terms of Cultural Victory?

 

[JeSuisNapoleon]

I cant speak specifically for Diety. I play mostly emperor. The strength of Venice if really diplomatic victories.

There is no direct culture benefit for venice. Everything comes from leveraging trade routes. My strategy is to send a trade route to every AI and get the +25% influence from a trade route. Getting your Ideology passed as the World ideology might be a little easier as Venice since you should have many votes, so that help the culture win as well. Similarly passing other WC laws to help culture.

Venice might be able to focus more hammer routes back to the capitol to build two or three key culture wonders faster, and actually get them which is quite difficult in some cases playing at higher levels. This works for International games as well. I have sent 2 ships back and still lost wonders by one turn, so 4 hammer routes is probably best.

 

[Memoryjar]

How does Venice do in Deity in terms of Cultural Victory?

I don't know. I think, a little bit slow and maybe hard to have crucial wonders.

You gave me an idea for a game this week-end. Thanks.