Venice

[stii]

I agree. The trick is Venice is the most unique civ in the game, it requires a completely different mindset to play than normal. And yes if you are not working to its strengths, its a horrific civ, but if you play them properly they can be a lot of fun.

Fun and bad is fine but it is still important to be aware that is there is a huge gap between the good civs and the bad ones. And I think Venice is so bad a blank civ would be better, their abilities do not make up for their drawbacks.

I have played and won games with Venice but it is far harder than any other civ.

 

[Ranslee]

I think you're really downplaying just how many yields you can get from TRs. They are so good that you should be capped on them in other civs and you get twice as many with Venice, funneling the production that would go towards settlers instead and at no pop loss.

Having 8-10 TRs by medieval? Easy and enough to run 3 ITRs and keep up in tech. 20+ in the mid-late game? Trivial, enough to get +200% growth speed in the capitol, a ton of influence with City-States and mad yields with a corporation.

It is by no means a broken or even a very powerful civ, but the toolkit it has is good and very interesting compared to other civilizations. It's not everyone's flavor, but I for sure am happy that Venice is as unique as it is.

 

[stii]

I mean I have said a bunch of times that I don't think Venice should be changed......


Just that they are very weak compared to everything else. TR are nice but 20+ science is nothing compared to 3-4 other functional cities.

 

[Thibix Magnus]

Beside my concerns about what Venice's puppets do/don't build, as a player you can make Venice quite strong in the right conditions. Unfortunately, this is much more of a problem for AI. As player the most important thing I do is to ensure the 3 Colonia Puppet cities are up & running as soon as possible, as if not you can be struggling. So, I build Pyramids for free settler, then go authority for another free one, as well as Trade to get the free one there. By doing that you should be able to get all three up & running up the time AD comes around if not before. The AI though is extremely unlikley to do this, as building the Pyramids & going Authority is not something Venice goes for, which I understand, as a Tradition sort of civ. So, to obtain the three puppet cities the AI has to hone in on to trade orientated techs to enable itself to obtain the GM to build these. By the time they have done this it is likely to be the Medieval age or further, with all prime sites gone, & putting Venice in trouble, if they haven't already been put under.

I am not sure what is the answer to this, but there does need to be a way for Venice AI to get their puppets up quicker to give them a better chance of surviving then prospering.

just curious, do you go full authority after imperium, or do you go tradition?

 

[youngsteve]

just curious, do you go full authority after imperium, or do you go tradition?

Full authority. Never really like picking & mixing. Also doing that you are really delayed getting idiology. Not sure whether this is most efficient path though.

 

[Thibix Magnus]

Full authority. Never really like picking & mixing. Also doing that you are really delayed getting idiology. Not sure whether this is most efficient path though.

I've only played tradition with venice, most of the time I don't find having that third colony so fast is needed (you can still get a regular merchant quite fast with specialsts and all % GP generation), though I think full authority is indeed viable depending on the map. But I'm also wondering about taking both tradition and authority, and skipping medieval trees entirely (thus theoretically not delaying ideology).

 

[youngsteve]

I've only played tradition with venice, most of the time I don't find having that third colony so fast is needed (you can still get a regular merchant quite fast with specialsts and all % GP generation), though I think full authority is indeed viable depending on the map. But I'm also wondering about taking both tradition and authority, and skipping medieval trees entirely (thus theoretically not delaying ideology).

I saw the AI do that once, this being progress & authority, & was really strange, but didn't seem to harm the Mongols who were the leading nation, & were probably going to win when game crashed into the modern era. I have never seen why you automatically feel obliged to always take a medieval policy tree.

 

[pineappledan]

@Hinin and I were just talking about how Basilica of St. Mark used to totally disable all spy actions in the city, and how none of those abilities exist anymore. So St. Mark's is way weaker than it used to be.

So, first off I think St. Mark's should probably be given some anti-spy defense, but what if St. Mark's gave Venice also gave the ability to steal GWs? That ties in really well with the history of the building:

• The remains of St. Mark's were stolen by Venetian Merchants from Muslim-controlled Alexandria by hiding the box of relics under pork.
• the Venetians stole St. Philip's bronze horse statues from Byzantium during the Third Crusade, and put them on top of St. Mark's (Napoleon stole them later, but had to give them back)

 

[youngsteve]

Does anyone else find founding a religion as Venice quite hard due to only having one city that has full yields. When playing them, religions are obviously way down the list of priorities as having to build everything through Venice. I know Venice was not known for its religion but the way the mod is set up, it puts any player/AI at a disadvantage not having one.

 

[Diomedes_]

When I play venice I usually try to get stonehenge, go tradition, god of commerce, and rush trade/caravans/petra. I've gotten religion each time I've done that while playing emperor (I think 3 games), and also in the 1 game I played as them at Immortal. You are definitely right that Venice's design does make tile yield pantheons pretty suboptimal, but it conversely also makes the capital-focused pantheons (thinking goddess of beauty in particular) even better, and their UA opens up God of Commerce as a very strong, very synergizing option. Also, God of All Creation is really good as Venice if you don't think you'll be able to get a religion.

 

[youngsteve]

When I play venice I usually try to get stonehenge, go tradition, god of commerce, and rush trade/caravans/petra. I've gotten religion each time I've done that while playing emperor (I think 3 games), and also in the 1 game I played as them at Immortal. You are definitely right that Venice's design does make tile yield pantheons pretty suboptimal, but it conversely also makes the capital-focused pantheons (thinking goddess of beauty in particular) even better, and their UA opens up God of Commerce as a very strong, very synergizing option. Also, God of All Creation is really good as Venice if you don't think you'll be able to get a religion.

I agree with you about God of All Creation, which I usually go for if struggling with religions. Also Goddess of Beauty is good as both based in capital. Trouble is I don't play tradition, & always go for authority, starting with Pyramids for free settler, which is important for Venice. Did consider going Tradition this game, but extra pop wouldn't have given me extra production so went with Authority to ensure Pyramids. Never gone for God of Commerce, but agree that does look good for Venice.

 

[stii]

I think God of Commerce is the safest way for Venice to get a religion and does help with great merchants but I generally prefer God of All Creation because you have a lot of stuff you want to build at that time and +4 to yields helps a lot with that, both building it and teching faster to get wonders.

 

[youngsteve]

Venice puppets were at one time allowed to build wonders, but that was stopped & mostly a good thing, though in some cases certain wonders like Petra have to be built under certain conditions, so now you cannot build them. National wonders were also stopped, & although could be annoying, there should be an option to build thame like other buildings if you want. One thing I definitely don't like is I can no loger build guilds anywhere but Venice, meaning you are put into a disadvantage by only having one of each rather than in three cities.

Anyone know the reasoning for this.

 

[DeAnno]

I think guilds in particular are really harsh not to allow in other cities. Would love to see this changed back.

 

[Rekk]

Maybe we can make everything available, but the puppet will only build number-restricted buildings if they have been invested in.

 

[Rekk]

At what point do you stop making Colonia / buying City States and make a town? Currently, the AI stops settling/buying cities at # city states ever existed - 3, which means, for a standard 16 CS game, they will stop at roughly 14 puppets and create towns / cash missions from that point on.

When is a City State worth more than a Colonia?

 

[stii]

I wouldn't ever make a town but I often do the cash missions because they are so much more than normal GM. Something like make 3 Colonia, buy 2 CS then cash mission is pretty common. Puppets don't do much beyond a certain point even as Venice. It does depend a lot on what you can do with 2,000 gold vs a bunch of free, not very good units from the CS.

 

[Diomedes_]

@Rekk
I'm pretty sure I've never made a town as venice before, at least intentionally lol. Towns are inherently much weaker than academies/manufactories, and this is compounded by the limited tile space in your Capital and especially by how much less valuable gold is for Venice compared to science or production on a unit-to-unit basis. In other words, the +10 gold (or whatever it is) from the town is comparatively worth far, far less when you can easily produce 500+ GPT in the late game.

As for when a city state is worth more than a colonia, I personally only ever purchase city states that have been long-time allies with other players and have foreign embassies in them, and/or if they are in really strategic positions (like a water choke point a la IRL Gibraltar or straight of Malacca)/have absolutely awesome tiles (like a bunch of a strategic resource I don't have). Otherwise, it seems much more worth it to me to settle the colonia and try to ally that city state with me. Sure buying a city state means you'll get a larger city with more buildings and some units, but it also means you are potentially missing out on 2 world congress votes. That's why I would only buy CS that I have no chance of allying/embassying.

Also, to @stii 's point about puppets not doing much beyond a certain point, I would disagree. I think one of the most powerful ways to play venice in the late game is mixing industry with imperialism and being aggressive, which means you can get just -50% yield penalties on puppets, making them IMO just straight-up better than normal, annexed cities (half the yields but no tech/policy penalties and can still purchase in them is insane). Also, in the late game, 2000 gold can be only like 3-4 turns of gold income for Venice, which is pretty meaningless imo. The WLTKD from the trade mission is also pretty useless as you should have plenty of excess happiness as Venice to make trading 2 luxes and some GPT for a WLTKD lux well worth it.

 

[zojakownith]

Venice puppet cities should not autobuild sea minefields, they cost 1 iron and i would much rather have iron for artillery and cruisers.
as a temporary fix, was wondering if there is a mod to make them not autobuild them? or make them only built in capital cities.

 

[rkkn]

@Rekk
As for when a city state is worth more than a colonia, I personally only ever purchase city states that have been long-time allies with other players and have foreign embassies in them, and/or if they are in really strategic positions (like a water choke point a la IRL Gibraltar or straight of Malacca)/have absolutely awesome tiles (like a bunch of a strategic resource I don't have). Otherwise, it seems much more worth it to me to settle the colonia and try to ally that city state with me. Sure buying a city state means you'll get a larger city with more buildings and some units, but it also means you are potentially missing out on 2 world congress votes. That's why I would only buy CS that I have no chance of allying/embassying.

I have only played two venice games, but it seems to me that the best thing to do with your first merchant is buy the nearest city state. Since it immediately makes me the strongest military power in the world when I get all those units. And then I go conquer another city. Two cities for the price of once.