Venice, a weak civ in Brave New World? Let´s see...

[baptismbyfire]

Venice feels to me like one of the most powerful civs. The money you earn is insane. Especially if you also build Colossus. Who cares about building anything? I just buy everything. You can puppet a CS near any foe and just start cranking out units on the same continent. You have to make those trade routes though, that's the sole strategy with Venice. As long as you do that, you should be able to win any type of victory, although cultural can be difficult since you can't buy archaeologists and its tough to devote your production in Venice to cultural wonders. But you really shouldn't be losing on Prince level difficulty with any civ. You just need some practice.

 

[George Abitbol]

I started a game with Venice (emperor). My close neighboor was Suleiman, and I expected soon or later an agression from him. I left only a Compbow and two swordmen in Venice to provoke him. he was friendly until the middle age, then DoW me. Fortunately, I was swimming in gold with my 8 trade routes, and picked the two right policies in Commerce tree.
Venice was surrounded by forests, he send his Janissaries; I purchased 6 Landschnekts (120 gold each!!) in ONE turn (I had armory in Venice), then I send few Great Galleass and Istambul became my new city-state few turns later.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'm still honing my Venice strategy. I always seem to have no neighbors close by so I have to trade with the nearby city-states and I can't buy them. And there always seems to be too few, so I have excess trade routes. I think I need to be more bold and buy city-states close enough to other civs to trade with them.