Venice

[Atlas627]

Bleh.

I'm spitballing ideas. =) I'm not really lobbying for any of these changes. Just trying to help give the Arsenale its niche.

Same. So here goes for some new ones!

- Each conquered city makes the Arsenale permanently provide +2 culture and +2 GA points per turn. Gameplay justification is that this gives an extra non-war benefit to conducting war, thematic justification is that the more successful the Venetian fleet is, the more fame, glory, and financial support the Arsenale gets. Could bump the yields up if we removed one of the current boons.

- Internal Trade Routes produce +33% extra yields. Gameplay justification is that this takes Venice's UA into account for more synergy and also that if you go to war a lot you might use Internal Trade Routes more. Thematic justification is that the strong navy allows the trade routes within the empire to be safer from raids, producing more yields. Could bump up to +50% extra yields and drop the +15% production in Venice (or the +6 defense)

- Add +100% Admiral creation to the "Venetian Craftsmanship" upgrade. Gameplay justification is that this rewards using your navy by letting you use your navy or getting happiness from the extra GAs. Thematic justification is that by having a navy constructed of similar ships, Venetian leadership at all levels better understood what a fleet was capable of and that knowledge learned in the past was still applicable and aggregated over time, leading to better leaders.

Can still brainstorm more if we don't like any of these.

 

[SpankmyMetroid]

Surprised no one has commented since the Venice buff in the recent patch. I've played him before with CBP but gave him another whirl. It's interesting how his unique guilds help out each victory condition even though he's kind of suited to cultural IMO.

I ended up playing on a random map that turned out to be archipelago... one weird thing I noticed is no city states were building naval units, even one tile island CS's (their handful of pikemen would usually end up being on nearby landmasses, but not actually in the CS's territory). Because of the lack of units and the terrible placements of oceanic CS's, I wasn't really 'excited' any time I got a MoV.

Another problem he still has is puppeted cities being absolutely bad at micromanaging... like spending 20 something turns to build a shrine in a 8 pop city because you're literally working two hammers total. Sometimes they'll work one of the 'endless' productions (farming etc) and won't stop even if you invest in a project for them. I suppose that's the nature of how the AI picks gold management and if you could fix it I'm sure you would have (since it would much improve the AI's cities).

I don't know if this would be overpowered (and Venice seems quite fine as it is) but my suggestion would be to give Venice (and only his puppeted cities, not his capital) the ability to instabuy non-wonder buildings, same as how it was in vanilla, but at an increased cost (you're Venice, even something as high as 1.5x the usual investment cost shouldn't bother you too much). This offsets the bad production puppeted cities sometimes choose to work by using cash, something Venice is great at getting, so there's some synergy there. And with such immense wealth, you can convince your laborers to work a little harder...

To balance it, I would honestly remove the guilds... no other civ has the direct chance to tailor their win condition through their UA like Venice can and it sort of feels cheesy.

 

[Enginseer]

What I don't like is that purchasing city-states is essentially conquering it which then ends up destroying buildings.

 

[SpankmyMetroid]

What I don't like is that purchasing city-states is essentially conquering it which then ends up destroying buildings.

Oh really? That makes a ton of sense (like why I had to rebuild a monument in each of my purchased CS's, or why I get a tourism boost for "winning a war" with them when I buy them). And it almost certainly adds to your warmonger score, which again makes a ton of sense since I couldn't figure out why half the world was furious at me by the modern era when I've been relatively peaceful with major civs.

Yeah I seem to recall that purchasing or marrying city states didn't cause diplomatic tension in vanilla... that definitely needs to come back. Venice is completely screwed if he has nowhere to send his ships to...

 

[Rolepgeek]

I don't know if it was a glitch, but when I was playing Venice I was able to choose what my puppet cities were working on, so long as there was a purchased building in the queue. Like arranging the order they worked on stuff in. Might have been a glitch, but I couldn't do anything with citizen management, so I dunno.

 

[JungleBucks]

I don't know if it was a glitch, but when I was playing Venice I was able to choose what my puppet cities were working on, so long as there was a purchased building in the queue. Like arranging the order they worked on stuff in. Might have been a glitch, but I couldn't do anything with citizen management, so I dunno.

Nope. Messing with the queue has been around for a while, allowing you to better organize your cities. It's a feature, not a bug.

 

[Rolepgeek]

So, does anybody else think that purchasing a CS should keep as many of the buildings as possible, or is it justified thematically by the riots and civil unrest that funneling money into such a place to fund a regime chance would cause?

Mostly because they're already puppets, so it's not like you can focus production to rebuild or anything. :/ Maybe it's just how my experience with citizen management in said puppets has gone. :/

 

[Funak]

Venice is probably the absolute strongest civ in the game currently, they definitely don't need any more buffs.

 

[Gazebo]

Venice is probably the absolute strongest civ in the game currently, they definitely don't need any more buffs.

You think? I'm glad if so.

 

[Funak]

You think? I'm glad if so.

I haven't tried them since the last version, but they made the absolute easiest tourism-victory in the older version, and then you gave them heavy buffs on top of that.

 

[Stalker0]

So tried out Venice for the first time in a long time.

Culture Victory on turn 280, King, Small Map, Standard Speed, Ancient Start.

Honestly it was a piece of cake, probably the easiest victory I've had in a while. I only a little in the mid game at the point where I don't have quite enough gold to buy things every turn, and I have so many things to build.

But as you come out of that it was no problem. Bought the military units I needed to hold, GP Improvements turned my capital into amazoland, and then I got massive tourism through trade.

I didn't even use Musicians that much, I think 2 concerts and 3 great works of music (of course in hindsight probably should have done 3 concerts and 2 GWM.

Diplomatic and Science weren't even close, a complete trounce.


So I can say that at least culturally, Venice is just fine

 

[tompliss]

What date is turn 280 in standard speed, basically ?

 

[ilshur]

A couple of thoughts on Venice:

-They do seem overpowered for the tourism victory
-Depending on AI opponent/player density, it can be a cakewalk to conquer everyone or very, very challenging (if none of your opponents build all that close to you, or in ideal spots where you'd want their cities).
-Double trade routes is overpowered for gold, but doesnt accommodate sufficiently for the science deficit that one develops from only having one (or a small handful) of cities, early on.


A couple questions:

Why couldn't Venice just use settlers to build 'colonies' - puppet cities that function like purchased AI cities (can buy buildings and units) but that grow at the puppet'd rate (and are hamstrung for science, culture, and unpromped defense)???

I think this would be an elegant solution. Merchants of Venice can buy bigger proper city states to account for the expansion deficit of only building puppet cities.

Recommendations:
Double the factors that generate the Science Delta on trade routes, for Venice. One technology delta means two science, not one.

Allow settlers to be produced and cities to be founded - they'd only be puppets.

It'd make doing 1v1's with Venice actually tenable

 

[Txurce]

Why couldn't Venice just use settlers to build 'colonies' - puppet cities that function like purchased AI cities (can buy buildings and units) but that grow at the puppet'd rate (and are hamstrung for science, culture, and unpromped defense)???

I think this would be an elegant solution. Merchants of Venice can buy bigger proper city states to account for the expansion deficit of only building puppet cities.

This is out of the box and interesting, but I'm not sure what problem it solves -- stabilizing performance?

More apropos would be something like Portugal's colonias, but... Portugal.

 

[Funak]

Why couldn't Venice just use settlers to build 'colonies' - puppet cities that function like purchased AI cities (can buy buildings and units) but that grow at the puppet'd rate (and are hamstrung for science, culture, and unpromped defense)???

Yes, this is what I've been suggesting for the past 2 years, people don't seem interested however.

 

[ilshur]

Yes, this is what I've been suggesting for the past 2 years, people don't seem interested however.

Venice had colonies, too, they were just existing peoples known to the latin world, not indigenous folks in the new world.

And I think it solves a critical deficiency in that Venice cannot expand AT_ALL except through conquest of other opponent civs or with the presence of city states.

Portugal's flavor would still be intact given their interaction with CS and their special units.

 

[tu_79]

Settling puppet cities directly? Sounds like my go to civ.

 

[pandasnail]

Y'all want to fix Venice, because they, to some extent, have to take what the map gives? What? Why? Why is that bad? They're very well suited to tall Tradition as well if that's what there. If you're absolutely fixated on conquest, you can always try to find a weak spot, even if its farther from than you'd like. There's always someone struggling. Or just reroll. I mean, The Huns, for instance, are way more screwed up by a map that has no empty space for barbs to spawn and lots of hills and rivers than Venice is by any kind of map.

 

[tu_79]

Y'all want to fix Venice, because they, to some extent, have to take what the map gives? What? Why? Why is that bad? They're very well suited to tall Tradition as well if that's what there. If you're absolutely fixated on conquest, you can always try to find a weak spot, even if its farther from than you'd like. There's always someone struggling. Or just reroll. I mean, The Huns, for instance, are way more screwed up by a map that has no empty space for barbs to spawn and lots of hills and rivers than Venice is by any kind of map.

I wouldn't mind if it's another civ who can give me this functionality.

 

[Enginseer]

A couple questions:

Why couldn't Venice just use settlers to build 'colonies' - puppet cities that function like purchased AI cities (can buy buildings and units) but that grow at the puppet'd rate (and are hamstrung for science, culture, and unpromped defense)???

I think this would be an elegant solution. Merchants of Venice can buy bigger proper city states to account for the expansion deficit of only building puppet cities.

Because then Authority Venice would snowball out of this game so hard there would be no return.