venice buff

[GAGA Extrem]

I don't think that Venice really needs additional range for working tiles.

However, it would be quite nice if their settler had a +2 vision bonus. I often find myself one or two tiles away from a better starting spot, which is quite frustrating and has led to several restarts when I played them.

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

As I mentioned in the other venice-rant thread, the only change I want to venice is doubled (or more) unit supply, or remove trade units from costing unit supply

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

This would be a cool feature for a wonder. If a world wonder allowed a city to work the 4th ring of tiles, it would be a very powerful wonder. Anyone could build it (or capture the city where it was built) to get the benefit. Imagine the possibilities!

But seriously, how many games have you played where a city other than your capital has utilized all 36 usable tiles leaving you wanting more, and how many of those games should have been wrapped up before reaching this point?

 

[Monado]

This would be a cool feature for a wonder. If a world wonder allowed a city to work the 4th ring of tiles, it would be a very powerful wonder. Anyone could build it (or capture the city where it was built) to get the benefit. Imagine the possibilities!

You any good at Modding Mesix? I would download this immediately!

 

[MerchantCo]

Venice is a great civ as it is. Why would it need a change?

 

[Calouste]

One of my games as Venice I decided to go for a religion when I found a nearby city state with a faith mountain 2 or 3 tiles away from it. I got my merchant of Venice to puppet the city state (hadn't expanded to the wonder yet), but then I think it had no expansion because it didn't have a monument. I rush bought a monument, and it was around 20 turns away from expanding to the faith mountain. I then researched horseback riding a few turns before expansion, and the city state changed its expansion from the mountain to some nearby stupid horses that appeared on the map suddenly. I think I even went down piety a little because I saw I was close to expansion, but in reality it was showing me the Venice stats of growth as opposed to the city state ones (a bit of lag there when I clicked on it mid turn). By the time I finally expanded to the faith mountain, all the religions were taken, I was #1 in faith generation, but did not get a religion even to enter my cities until like the industrial era...

If I could have just bought the tiles in that city state the game would have played very differently. I do think Venice is incredibly powerful, but I just don't think it makes sense that you can't do it. You can buy buildings after all, why not land?

You don't really want to puppet a city state until it has expanded to all the tiles (luxuries, Natural Wonders) you want. After you puppet it, culture in the city state gets a 25% penalty, which means that the culture from the Monument is rounded down to a whopping 1 per turn. And in the mean time the CS will build some buildings or units, so it's not like you lose out on much.

 

[redwings1340]

You don't really want to puppet a city state until it has expanded to all the tiles (luxuries, Natural Wonders) you want. After you puppet it, culture in the city state gets a 25% penalty, which means that the culture from the Monument is rounded down to a whopping 1 per turn. And in the mean time the CS will build some buildings or units, so it's not like you lose out on much.

I definitely made a lot of mistakes this game. I saw the natural wonder and jumped at it without realizing I couldn't buy tiles. I got it earlier than I would have otherwise because I wanted a fast religion. I think it's more the favoring to expand to horses over this natural wonder that annoys me the most. The exceptionally slow expansion of borders in the city state after it was a puppet didn't help either

Maybe this could be balanced a little bit by a small nerf somewhere else for Venice (idk, cost of stuff in puppet cities for Venice is 5% more expensive than normal due to bureaucratic costs of you not actually owning the city?), as I really do not think this civ is underpowered in any way, but it's a frustrating limitation that leaves you in an annoying situation when you fall in to it. Aside from going to war and praying for a fast great general, there was nothing I could do to get that tile until it was too late.

 

[joshua43214]

One of my games as Venice I decided to go for a religion when I found a nearby city state with a faith mountain 2 or 3 tiles away from it. I got my merchant of Venice to puppet the city state (hadn't expanded to the wonder yet), but then I think it had no expansion because it didn't have a monument. I rush bought a monument, and it was around 20 turns away from expanding to the faith mountain. I then researched horseback riding a few turns before expansion, and the city state changed its expansion from the mountain to some nearby stupid horses that appeared on the map suddenly. I think I even went down piety a little because I saw I was close to expansion, but in reality it was showing me the Venice stats of growth as opposed to the city state ones (a bit of lag there when I clicked on it mid turn). By the time I finally expanded to the faith mountain, all the religions were taken, I was #1 in faith generation, but did not get a religion even to enter my cities until like the industrial era...

If I could have just bought the tiles in that city state the game would have played very differently. I do think Venice is incredibly powerful, but I just don't think it makes sense that you can't do it. You can buy buildings after all, why not land?

You should have gotten the free monument from tradition. If you went liberty for the free merchant you are gimping Venice in a major way. Just run the market specialist and your should get your second merchant about the time you are ready to handle it.

 

[Bagi]

This would be a cool feature for a wonder. If a world wonder allowed a city to work the 4th ring of tiles, it would be a very powerful wonder. Anyone could build it (or capture the city where it was built) to get the benefit. Imagine the possibilities!

If Angkor Wat did this, it might no longer be the worst wonder in the game by a landslide.

 

[EK834]

But Venice is already a powerhouse for just about any VC. Why remove one of the few constraints it has?

I agree, and as I love playing them as they are now I wouldn't want those little constraints removed.

It's part of the fun of that civ in the late game. If you've taken the Tall peaceful path with just a few puppets, the odds the very limited land you control will provide the rarer resources like coal and uranium are not good. It's part of the fun to come up with strategies to acquire them (obviously when CS don't have them either, which often happens in my games) or go around that and build a strategy to win, or protect yourself without the resource. I can decide to attack a weaker civ to gain a city with uranium in time to build nukes as deterrent against an ultra-wide aggressive neighbor, before I passed a ban on nukes, or attack one to gain coal and build 3 factories and get an ideology first.

I might beeline Radio (or use my Oxford free tech for that) if acquiring coal won't work, come too late or don't fit my strategy. I can also decide to wage war against a weaker neighbor, stick to only killing units, long enough to get another GG to use to grab a few tiles with the resource I need. I might have to plan to protect myself if my GG will steal land that could bring a DoW from a stronger neighbor on me. Sometimes it's about keeping a MoV ready to go buy a CS with a resource as it's allied with Alex who has such great influence on it it would be costly to steal his alliance even for Venice. In one game my only playable chance for uranium was to buy a CS that had it two tiles away, buy it all the culture buildings to expand its borders and produce a GG to grab the second tile. It's funnier than just buy the tile...

Things like that make Venice games a bit more interesting/lively and it's a kind of benefit of not being able to build a settler and go found that tundra city late game for a key resource.

 

[Txurce]

I agree, and as I love playing them as they are now I wouldn't want those little constraints removed.

It's part of the fun of that civ in the late game. If you've taken the Tall peaceful path with just a few puppets, the odds the very limited land you control will provide the rarer resources like coal and uranium are not good. It's part of the fun to come up with strategies to acquire them (obviously when CS don't have them either, which often happens in my games) or go around that and build a strategy to win, or protect yourself without the resource. I can decide to attack a weaker civ to gain a city with uranium in time to build nukes as deterrent against an ultra-wide aggressive neighbor, before I passed a ban on nukes, or attack one to gain coal and build 3 factories and get an ideology first.

I might beeline Radio (or use my Oxford free tech for that) if acquiring coal won't work, come too late or don't fit my strategy. I can also decide to wage war against a weaker neighbor, stick to only killing units, long enough to get another GG to use to grab a few tiles with the resource I need. I might have to plan to protect myself if my GG will steal land that could bring a DoW from a stronger neighbor on me. Sometimes it's about keeping a MoV ready to go buy a CS with a resource as it's allied with Alex who has such great influence on it it would be costly to steal his alliance even for Venice. In one game my only playable chance for uranium was to buy a CS that had it two tiles away, buy it all the culture buildings to expand its borders and produce a GG to grab the second tile. It's funnier than just buy the tile...

Things like that make Venice games a bit more interesting/lively and it's a kind of benefit of not being able to build a settler and go found that tundra city late game for a key resource.

I couldn't agree more. The reserve-MOV gambit is a keeper. I like playing them for a SV, since that's trickier with Venice.

 

[EK834]

I couldn't agree more. The reserve-MOV gambit is a keeper.

It's proven very useful. In the late game if I've finished Commerce I might even have a few in reserve - the TR already giving me enough gold. It's saved my game a time or two. If I have to fall back on a diplomatic victory (when that last civ you need to influence goes and build the Great Firewall and is on its way to finish a spaceship...), I like to station my reserve GMoV in CS lands in advance in case I'll need the extra thousands of gold in the last turns before the vote to re ally lost CS. I've started doing that after a game in which my MoV got blocked from entering the territory in time by a damn CS worker.

Or I might use them more "aggressively" at times, to buy a Mercantile CS that will deprive an already pressured Autocrat of enough happiness to lose cities or go into Revolution, or to deprive an AI Civ of extra delegates before an important WC vote. The ability is also very useful militarily as it lets you build a "military base" on a foreign continent from which to launch a campaign, without having incurred any warmonger reputation for conquering that military base.

I like playing them for a SV, since that's trickier with Venice.

I've yet to master a proper strategy for that. I got it once with Venice on King and I was lucky as an Autocrat seized half the tech leader's cities late game. Lately I get stuck with one or two civs (it's either autocrat Poland or Order Germany) that become huge in the very late game (by conquest), catch up tp my previously very comfortable tech lead and run for a SV, having huge means of production. They've learned to beeline and build the Great Firewall if my tourism is a threat, and often manage it before I get to the Internet. Those games force me to fall back on diplo, and it's often a bit of a race then, which is cool.

Otherwise my main difficulty with the SV is preventing my Culture Victory from happening first.

 

[redwings1340]

I've yet to master a proper strategy for that. I got it once with Venice on King and I was lucky as an Autocrat seized half the tech leader's cities late game. Lately I get stuck with one or two civs (it's either autocrat Poland or Order Germany) that become huge in the very late game (by conquest), catch up tp my previously very comfortable tech lead and run for a SV, having huge means of production. They've learned to beeline and build the Great Firewall if my tourism is a threat, and often manage it before I get to the Internet. Those games force me to fall back on diplo, and it's often a bit of a race then, which is cool.

Otherwise my main difficulty with the SV is preventing my Culture Victory from happening first.

As Venice I like beelining certain techs, and leaving a lot of simple techs unresearched. That will make your extra trade routes really scientifically profitable even if you are in the tech lead. Always make sure to send a couple of food trade routes to Venice, but Venice's true power comes in the renaissance, where you can have a massive city of science and gold. Buy scientific buildings in Venice as soon as they are available, and take patronage/scholasticism and ally all the city states for a lot of science. If you don't have very many cities that will give you a ton of additional science. Lastly, use your money to get a ton of research agreements to make sure you stay ahead of the pack in the late game, when they might start coming back due to having more cities and more science than you.

Venice is pretty good at scientific victories, and I came very close to getting one on deity with them. The commerce opener and Big Ben is nice, but beyond that, the standard full tradition and full rationalism with patronage to scholasticism will work very well with Venice.

If Diplo victory is on, you'll still get that first. Venice definitely can into space though.

 

[EK834]

As Venice I like beelining certain techs, and leaving a lot of simple techs unresearched. That will make your extra trade routes really scientifically profitable even if you are in the tech lead.

That's interesting, and new to me. I frequently leave a lot of simple techs alone for long time (I don
't care to be the "tech leader" in # of techs discovered, I care more to grab key techs early) but I never really considered this could be strategically optimized to get a SV. I never really thought of the extra benefits from neglecting enough simple techs to increase the science from TR...

I'll try that in a next game.

The rest I already do, pretty much. When I play Venice I finish Tradition and Rationalism, and get Scholasticism. I've usually only open Honor, and make sure to kill enough barbarians to make up for the delay to the tradition finisher. Commerce I also most often open only, though in the late game I might pick a few more things in it if I've got all I want as tenets already. I get my NC very early, start focusing for Education and neglect the bottom techs if my defense situation allows it. Venice gets a shiny new science building on the turn it becomes available, normally - the joy of the wealthy. Then the biggest puppet gets it next, all the way to the smallest. I rarely leave them build those.

My "mistake" I think is often to also go heavily with Aesthetics and tourism, instead of playing a more defensive than offensive cultural game. This means I should probably have bought a few more GS instead of GE for late Wonders (I leave the ancient ones pretty much alone, or get GL for Philo since as Venice the "you can build 3 settlers in that time" excuse doesn't exist. But I got screwed once, letting go the Cultural Wonders to focus elsewhere and telling myself they would be split between the AI civs anyway.. and they did, but Casimir went on a rampage and conquered them all, with all the GW and artefacts, and before I knew it he was dangerously close to a CV.

I have as many TR sending food to Venice as I have puppets (and I also use a few to grow my puppets), this even plays a large role in choosing the CS I will puppet. But I don't know if my 3 puppets is that optimal and sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't play it a bit wider, to grow Venice even taller.

I find myself winning culturally before I get Particle Physics and Nanotech.

The diplo victory I circumscribe with ease, either by not voting for myself or by stopping to fight with the AI over just a few CS, falling a few votes short to win.

I'll pay more attention to RA. I get many, since with my play style I get tons of DoF, but I probably don't seek them proactively enough. I assume paying for both sides of the deal (ie: gift money to the AI, ask for a RA right after) still work... It's a bit an exploit, though I prefer to see it as financing completely a project and the AI providing scientists for it.

 

[redwings1340]

Ah, I've played my last several games on BNW with 0 tourism until the eiffel tower. I burn my writers for culture boosts and earlier social policies, ignore amphitheaters (and all subsequent culture), and use cultural city states to keep up in that regard. I tend not to get artists until a bit later, and use them for golden ages, and I almost completely ignore the musicians guild. Unless you're going for a cultural victory, I really don't know if it's a good investment. Especially when you're an economic civ, you can buy city states, get a tech lead, beeline radio, and get the world ideology passed before tourism pressure is an issue. After that, there's very little point to getting tourism.

The fall patch looks like it changed tourism a little, but I don't know if tourism has become important enough to make this strategy ineffective.

 

[Sturmgewher88mm]

The only new ability I would very much like to have when I play Venice is immersion-related and it's the opportunity to rename its puppets. It always annoys me a bit to puppet Kabul and Sydney and not be able to rename them to Zonta, Verona, Cyprus, Corfu or the other historical Venetian colonies (though when I can get their archenemy Genoa puppeted I find that funny). They can't be liberated or returned to CS status anyway, so it would break nothing.

Cities can only be renamed after you annex them, and since you can't annex as Venice, you can't rename cities except for Venice.

I've been confused about liberating CSs bought by Venice. Enrico bought one of my allies, so I immediately declared war and captured it, but I wasn't given the option to liberate it. I also didn't have the option to raze it, which I'd assume I would if Venetian puppets were treated as regular cities instead of as capitals. Why is it like this?

 

[Txurce]

I've yet to master a proper strategy for (SV). I got it once with Venice on King and I was lucky as an Autocrat seized half the tech leader's cities late game. Otherwise my main difficulty with the SV is preventing my Culture Victory from happening first.

As Venice I like beelining certain techs, and leaving a lot of simple techs unresearched. That will make your extra trade routes really scientifically profitable even if you are in the tech lead. Always make sure to send a couple of food trade routes to Venice, but Venice's true power comes in the renaissance, where you can have a massive city of science and gold. Buy scientific buildings in Venice as soon as they are available, and take patronage/scholasticism and ally all the city states for a lot of science. If you don't have very many cities that will give you a ton of additional science. Lastly, use your money to get a ton of research agreements to make sure you stay ahead of the pack in the late game, when they might start coming back due to having more cities and more science than you.

Venice is pretty good at scientific victories, and I came very close to getting one on deity with them. The commerce opener and Big Ben is nice, but beyond that, the standard full tradition and full rationalism with patronage to scholasticism will work very well with Venice.

Ah, I've played my last several games on BNW with 0 tourism until the eiffel tower. I burn my writers for culture boosts and earlier social policies, ignore amphitheaters (and all subsequent culture), and use cultural city states to keep up in that regard. I tend not to get artists until a bit later, and use them for golden ages, and I almost completely ignore the musicians guild. Unless you're going for a cultural victory, I really don't know if it's a good investment. Especially when you're an economic civ, you can buy city states, get a tech lead, beeline radio, and get the world ideology passed before tourism pressure is an issue. After that, there's very little point to getting tourism.

This is pretty much how I play for an SV. After several not-as-fast winning efforts on Immortal (including one landlocked!), I won on t302. This was with a start that had no river, mountain, or grass, and only one cow. In addition, I had a city converted, then unconverted, and wound up not being able to cash in on a GP. Finally, I went with Freedom but didn't get a chance to gain World Ideology, and was the only civ (except dying Japan) to choose it. I did as well as I did because I had 4-5 RA's going most of the game (with gaps when someone was broke). My conclusion is that nothing's more important than as many RA's as possible... and it's not always possible to get that many.

That aside, I gave every single city a food TR right away, and expanded to three quickly with Optics and a Market specialist. (A fourth and fifth city came much later.) It made a huge difference as I ranked first or second in pop all game, and first in science by the Renaissance (or sooner, I forget - I usually top out around 1100 bpt.) I also paid for all my science buildings and built no culture ones until very, very late - just the two important guilds.

My SP route is always Tradition to Rationalism to Freedom, sometimes finishing Rat first, sometimes not, and dipping in between on Patronage, Commerce, or even Aesthetics, depending on timing. The Commerce opener gives me Big Ben which helps with Labs, and the Eiffel helps late as well, although it's not worth a major detour. I've never gone as far as Scholasticism, because I don't have enough cpt.

Even in my best game as the only Freedom civ, Happiness barely stayed positive due to hitting all the happy tenets, buying the appropriate buildings, and allying with the right CS. This is easy if you use your spies strictly for this purpose. It also helps to never give culture civs open borders, and to quit trading with them altogether in the late game.

 

[Louis XXIV]

This would be a cool feature for a wonder. If a world wonder allowed a city to work the 4th ring of tiles, it would be a very powerful wonder. Anyone could build it (or capture the city where it was built) to get the benefit. Imagine the possibilities!

I find Angkor Wat to be fairly underwhelming, so that would be a logical place to put it.

 

[EK834]

Unless you're going for a cultural victory, I really don't know if it's a good investment. Especially when you're an economic civ, you can buy city states, get a tech lead, beeline radio, and get the world ideology passed before tourism pressure is an issue. After that, there's very little point to getting tourism.

Getting WI passed I do. Even if I need to put 50-60 gpt into it (but I prefer to divert the delegates to the side they prefer on proposal #2, it's cheaper - some civs will offer something rather than ask for something - and achieve the same results. It's also fun to get Order or Autocracy civs to shoot themselves in the foot like that.).

I no doubt invest way too much in culture. That one early game in which Casimir conquered all the cultural civ and nearly won (he also nearly won a SV). To get my diplo vic, my last chance to win, I had to follow Casimir on his DoW on England and its last two cities, take Nicomedia and liberate it to resurrect Byzantium, then Casimir wiped out England and re-allied two CS, and when my one of my MoV was forced to take a 6 turns detour because a worker prevented his entering Sydney and I would be short on gold to re ally the CS I had no choice to DoW Casimir and his 6x bigger army, take the closest of his English puppets and bring back Elizabeth, in the last turns before the second WL vote. He took back Nicomedia and razed it right, took one of my puppets, but because of England's resurrection I won with the bare minimum of votes. It was my funniest BNW game so far.

Anyway after that "surprise" I've overdone the tourism/culture growth. I'll try something more like your culture strategy in future games.

Cities can only be renamed after you annex them, and since you can't annex as Venice, you can't rename cities except for Venice.

Yeah, it's what I would like them to change in Venice's case. It doesn't make a lot of sense - puppets should retain their identity and only annexed cities might be forced to adopt the Empire's culture, but I'd still like it for immersion (to rename them to historical Venetian colonies, I know, it's a bit silly/futile).

I've been confused about liberating CSs bought by Venice. Enrico bought one of my allies, so I immediately declared war and captured it, but I wasn't given the option to liberate it.

I've been confused about liberating CSs bought by Venice. Enrico bought one of my allies, so I immediately declared war and captured it, but I wasn't given the option to liberate it. I also didn't have the option to raze it, which I'd assume I would if Venetian puppets were treated as regular cities instead of as capitals. Why is it like this?

That's intended. Venice doesn't capture CS, they get CS to abandon that status to join their Empire, so the fiction behind the MoV's purchase is that it was done willingly and thus those cities can't be "liberated" (that is they can, if you capture them for a third party and liberate them back to Venice). Capturing those cities from Venice only lets you puppet or annex them.

No idea why you couldn't raze them as if they were still CS though - could be a new bug. I'm pretty sure I've read reports on the board of people saying you can raze Venetian puppets after capture, like you can do with captured Austrian married former CS. But I don't know first hand. I haven't had enough games with Venice if I wasn't playing them and only once did I capture Venice in a game, never one of its puppets.