Venice help?

[refmon]

I'd like to try for a diplomatic victory but I don't know what the best location would be for their one city, what trees to go into, what to build, religion and more. It looks like its incredibly easy to fail with them

 

[Lrd Dread]

pick a hill next to the ocean preferably with a crab or pearls....
if you start inside the country, you limit yourself....

 

[joncnunn]

The main thing I saw in my game is how bad my science was; but this was largely self-inflected.

So don't do what I did (forget to run science slots in Venice.)

And after you buy a few city states, your puppets will generate plenty of Merchants of Venice on their own; no need for faith based ones.

 

[Sequm]

Venice gets one of the "best" starting locations. Wait for a nearby CS to become decent, puppet it, then puppet another one. I've won with puppeting only 2 CSs and by puppeting a million. Greece/Austria isn't a challenge, even on Deity. Here's what you do:

1. Settle city ASAP.
2. Get TRs (Trade Routes) up ASAP.
3. Puppet CS when it's at 7-10 pop.
4. Prioritize TRs, when you can build 10 ships, build 10 ships not a wonder/culture building. Especially on Deity.
5. Get second puppet for more money.

THEN: Either plan to use a 2-3 puppet strategy, or "puppet them all" strategy. I like puppeting 2-3.
(2-3 strategy below)
6. Buy CS allies when they are on "sale" (aka gold is more effective quest).
7. Buy more allies, until they are all allies. Use spies to rig elections.
8. If playing against Greece expect a little competition. Buy them on sale all the time.
9. If you will be short on votes, put Diplomats into friendly capitals. But their votes for world leader only.
10. If only puppeting 2-3 CSs use the rest on increasing influence on CSs. If not, be sure you can handle the happiness hit.

The AI won't buy off your allies often haha. Once you are the host, you've pretty much won. Play Venice on Archipelago, Small, quick speed, and you can beat Deity haha

 

[Hippocrates]

I play with Venice up to Immortal. Sequm's advice is great. There are 2 wonders you should make some effort to get. Neither of them is essential but both make your life considerably easier. The first is the Colossus. Because of Venice's UA it will give you and additional 2 ITRs. The second is the Forbidden Palace for the extra 2 delegates. For policies, Tradition, Patronage, 3 into Commerce, Navigation, and Rationalism. Obviously Freedom for ideology. Also I recommend using at least 3 internal trade routes (2 food, 1 production) It is fairly easy to get Venice to a population of 50+

 

[Keirador]

I love Venice. I think it's ridiculously overpowered. I agree that you should try to get Colossus, but I don't see the advantage of Forbidden Palace. 2 delegates just ain't that many when you're gonna be pulling in enough cash to hard-bribe every CS on the map by the time the UN gets established.

 

[joncnunn]

I love Venice. I think it's ridiculously overpowered. I agree that you should try to get Colossus, but I don't see the advantage of Forbidden Palace. 2 delegates just ain't that many when you're gonna be pulling in enough cash to hard-bribe every CS on the map by the time the UN gets established.

No need to spend your hard earned cash on City states; even if going Diplomatic, you don't need Diplomats until very late (something like 5 or 6 turns before the next vote after you get Globalization). Until then just have them on city states rigging elections & running coups.

And as Venice, your Great Merchants of Venice provide 60 influence as well instead of the usual 30.

In addition, if you choose Freedom, there is a policy underneath it that will give you several points of free influence per turn to every city state you are running a trade route with (as Venice, you are likely to have enough trade routes to run a trade route to every single city state that you didn't buy out. Just ensure you have enough votes to be able to kill any proposal to embargo the city states)

 

[Keirador]

No need to spend your hard earned cash on City states

Yeah but it's not hard earned. My experience with Venice (4 games on various map types between Emperor and Immortal, different VC each time) is that they're just ridiculously overpowered. On my Diety Diplo victory, by the time I won the world leader vote, I had bought off every single CS in the game (except for those I puppeted with the Merchant of Venice), and bought every building available in my Capital and five puppet cities. I still had like 20,000 gold in the bank that I just didn't know what to do with.

Am I the only one who thinks Venice is broken powerful?