Didn't they change diplomatic to require 2/3 vote of everyone. If that's "everyone remaining," it doesn't limit them there. If not, it's no more limiting than Austria.
Why do you assume that MoV must be used to annex CS? You can boost production of MoV and use it to establish trade mission, grain IPs, and extra money for buying more IPs
It's better option than annexing CS when you consider diplo win.
An interesting thing is that Venice will be a cash machine, and thus everyone is going to try to be friend with the blind man for some lump sum trade.
But Then...
Domination is easy because you can puppet the cities. There's no limit on puppeting in the ability.
Didn't they change diplomatic to require 2/3 vote of everyone. If that's "everyone remaining," it doesn't limit them there. If not, it's no more limiting than Austria.
As for what it's good for. You can't go wrong with lots of gold.
Also, someone check my math. If you send food through a caravan, it's +2 food per turn, right? If you send both your caravan and trade ship, it would be +4. Venice will have two of each. That means you can give your capital something like 8 food per city owned if you do it right. So, for example, if you own five cities, you can give your capital 40 food per turn.
Sorry, I forgot about the Merchant of Venice's ability. However, as gold=production for Venice, their main source of gold will be from International Trade Routes, making domination victory a lot harder unless you deceive the richest civ and get a ton of money off them before backstabbing them. I'm just worried about the capital being not being coastal, as it would limit the amount of food and production. Definitely not as bad as I thought, but I would have preferred a fully-fledged empire rather than the city state. Also, I thought that the caravans and trade ships provided +4 food each (which I probably got wrong) which would make 8 food from 5 cities, totalling 40. That would require 10 trade routes, but that would be possible for Venice post-renaissance. Now that I think about it, that is insanely overpowered, but it would probably be hard for every city to have both a land and sea trade route as you can't position the cities yourself. If you took over more cities to get 10 trade routes, it would work perfectly. Definitely one of the better civs, but I would have preferred something different.
An interesting thing is that Venice will be a cash machine, and thus everyone is going to try to be friend with the blind man for some lump sum trade.
But Then...
VainApocalypse: Well, the UA is unclear, but I would argue that if you could only purchase MoV in puppetted Cities, that would be an ability of the MoV, not an ability of their UA, no?
The line in their UA is its own sentence, which would make me believe that it is separate from anything else.
Your math is a bit off. From screenshots we have seen so far it's 4 food/production for a land trade route and 9 food/production for a sea trade route. I doubt that you can have both a land and a sea route between the same two cities though. But your general idea is right, with all the extra trade routes you have, Venice could become a monster city by using internal trade routes.
Well, I guess the question of whether you can send both (or all four) routes to the same city is an open question. My math pretty much was wrong only because I underestimated it. Could you imagine if you could send 26 food per turn (4+4+9+9) from a single city? Either way, it seems likely that I'll send one route back to the capital and three abroad (which, with sea routes, would still be 9 food per city).
Why do you assume that MoV must be used to annex CS? You can boost production of MoV and use it to establish trade mission, grain IPs, and extra money for buying more IPs
Excited and disappointed at the same time.
When people stated to speculate about Venice and a 'pro' and 'hypercube' civ were mentioned I expected a city-state civ.
And a city-state civ is exactly what I wanted, but I did hope they'd at least be able to found puppets.
Anyway, the ability looks very useful, but the Merchant of venice is a disappointment. It's like a toned down version of Austria's ability, and I hate Austria's ability. There can be no peace with Maria Theresa. Everytime I see her I know I'll have to go to war to keep her busy and too poor to destroy a City State. I'll probably need to do the same to Venice when I see them in a game.
I thought they'd patched Austria's ability and made obtaining CSes more expensive? In my games AI Austria seems to puppet a lot less than she used to.
It is of course possible that the Austrian UA has been changed anyway. It wasn't popular, it was seen as too powerful, and the ability is clearly a better fit for a civ that can't found its own cities as well. If Austria hasn't been changed, games with both Venice and Austria will be ... interesting. Though unless the AI has finally learned to specialise production of Great People, Venice will underwhelm in AI hands.
The civ looks interesting, I'm just disappointed they couldn't do better for the name than "Merchant of Venice" - as an allusion to the play it's obvious, and as a name in its own right it's downright unimaginative ("what should we call a unique merchant from Venice?")
I wonder if, like the Khan, the Merchant of Venice will be available as a CS-provided GP to civs with the appropriate Patronage policy?
What would make the Merchant of Venice different from a Great Merchant in that context?
Flexibility. It can be used either as a GM (which is not a bad thing at all, it's just typically a lower priority than other uses) or as a puppeteer. If you're focusing on GM production, you aren't interested in the specific use of any given GM, any more than you specialist Great Scientist production only to research one specific tech. The fact that you have that versatility is valuable in its own right.
What would make the Merchant of Venice different from a Great Merchant in that context?
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Trade Mission Bonus dosn't give you extra gold from trade mission?
Ok i can see now. You are right. I don't know why I was convinced that MoV Trade Missions bonus is something more (extra money) than just ability to annex CS. This fact dramatically changes situation
They should call them Great Bankers. A merchant goes to a city-state and makes a tidy profit. The Merchant of Venice goes in and comes away with a mortgage for the whole city.
I have not played Civilization V in a while, but I do remember some interesting gifts coming from city-states thanks to Educated Elite since I remember receiving Khans from city states. Things could get odd if we can get Venetian Great Merchants from city states.
"Yes, send me your rich, charismatic traders who can financially take over your city state without you even realizing it. When I think of Venetian merchants, I think of only the most reputable, loyal people in the world."
I know I have been gifted a Khan before. It would be a bit silly to be gifted a merchant that is then used to buy the same city-state. That being said I have had city-states demand I find a resource or natural wonder that they had in their borders.
Really a UU that allows Venice to do city state buyouts is cool and all but doesn't reflect their historical method of expansion at all. That was the fruit of relentless warfare and skulduggery. This UU would have been better given to, for example, the Dutch.
Since Venice is going to be the only city that Venice can build wonders in, it may behoove Venetian players to move their initial Settler around until they get the perfect spot. If you don't start on the coast, you might as well resign - you're locking yourself out of a third of the wonders, and stunting your navy. Hopefully Venice has a start bias for coastline within two tiles of a mountain.
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and sea routes 8
