Does A.I Venice purchase City States?

[Rumpelforeskin]

Or is A.I Venice not programmed well, does it the A.I handle it's unique playstyle in a good fashion?

[RJJameson]

A.I. Venice will puppet city states. The ones you are/want to ally with, usually.

[lukebaird84]

Yes, Venice AI is excellent at puppetting city-states. IMO it's the best-working AI function in the game.

[Damsteri]

Venice AI is able to purchase city states, but it's not good at it. It usually always purchases the closest city state to it's capital first regardless of city state's resources, units, etc. AI's don't have specializes scripts based on their uniques, there is just one common AI which uses some civ based parameters to guide it. Venice AI tends to underperform in my games. Human player can play many times more efficiently with Venice.

Most likely Venice AI just "sees" Great Merchant (not their special) and wants to move it to a city state lands like any other AI with a Great Merchant. Then on the city state's lands they look the option available and use their Great Merchant of Venice to purchase the city state, just because that option is available. I'm almost certain that there is no special script for Venice AI to select which city states to purchase, but I might be wrong. It's same for all AI civs, without special scripts they are little bit bland, like Spain's AI don't know the importance of natural wonders.

[cerberusiv]

Venice AI is pretty hopeless. It can't handle gold and purchasing units properly. Crucially if it loses its capital it can't/won't annex its new capital which remains a puppet.

In my games Venice simply means one less AI spamming poorly placed cities.

[lukebaird84]

Originally posted by cerberusiv:

Venice AI is pretty hopeless. It can't handle gold and purchasing units properly. Crucially if it loses its capital it can't/won't annex its new capital which remains a puppet.

In my games Venice simply means one less AI spamming poorly placed cities.

Agreed, I was talking soley about the puppetting system. I've seen them use their great merchants for both puppetting and loads of gold. They seem to be very good at puppetting city-states in such a way that it hurts at least one other Civ.